Kentucky
2 year sentence for ex-officer who struck kneeling protester
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A former Louisville police officer has been sentenced in federal court to two years in prison for striking a kneeling protester in the back of the head with a riot stick during protests over the death of Breonna Taylor, authorities said.
U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings handed down the sentence Tuesday for Cory P. Evans, 34, who will also have two years of supervised release, a statement from the Justice Department said.
Evans pleaded guilty last year to using unreasonable force on a detainee. Evans struck the protester, who was identified as “M.C.,” while the person was kneeling with hands in the air, according to the Department of Justice.
The incident occurred during the early nights of protests in Louisville on May 31, 2020, a few days after Taylor’s boyfriend’s 911 call was released. Evans was downtown that night on curfew duty.
The Department of Justice said Evans admitted in court to striking the protester. The victim suffered a head gash and fell forward after they were struck, the release said. Evans resigned from the force in June.
Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was shot to death in her apartment by officers serving a narcotics warrant. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, told investigators he thought an intruder was breaking in and fired his gun. No drugs were found.
“Former officer Evans abused his authority by violently retaliating against a surrendering arrestee who had been exercising his First Amendment rights during a demonstration in Louisville, during the racial justice demonstrations in the Spring of 2020,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said. “The Justice Department will continue to hold accountable officers who violate their oath and the Constitution.”
Evans told WAVE-TV in an interview that he didn’t hit the protester with malice but to prevent him from reaching for a potential weapon.
“Even if they are in the act of surrendering, they might not be surrendering,” he said. “Especially after these people, they shot at us, they threw Molotov cocktails at us, they threw bricks at us, they chanted ‘death to pigs, death to cops, kill LMPD,’ all kinds of stuff,” he said. “So why would I trust somebody to suddenly do the right thing? I don’t trust these people at this point so I want to do what I have to do to go home to my little boys.”
Missouri
Execution set for man whose sentence was overturned 3 times
A Missouri man whose death sentence was overturned three times before being reinstated is now scheduled to die in May for killing a small-town couple nearly 26 years ago.
The Missouri Supreme Court on Monday set a May 3 execution date for Carman Deck. Executions in Missouri are carried out at the prison in Bonne Terre.
James and Zelma Long were fatally shot during a robbery inside their home in De Soto, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) southwest of St. Louis, in July 1996. Deck confessed to the killings and was sentenced to death in 1998. The Missouri Supreme Court threw out the sentence due to errors by Deck’s trial lawyer.
After he was sentenced a second time, the U.S. Supreme Court tossed that sentence in 2005, citing the prejudice caused by Deck being shackled in front of the sentencing jury.
He was sentenced to death for a third time in 2008. In 2017, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry determined that “substantial” evidence arguing against the death penalty in Deck’s first two penalty phases was unavailable for the third because witnesses had died, couldn’t be found or declined to cooperate.
In October 2020, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the death penalty, ruling that Deck should have raised his concern first in state court, not federal court.
Court records said Deck and his sister went to the Long home under the guise of asking for directions, but with the intent to rob them. Deck pulled a pistol from his waistband and ordered them to lie facedown on their bed. He shot them in the head.
Prosecutors said Deck later gave a full account of the killings in oral, written and audio taped statements.
Only 11 people were executed in the U.S. last year, the fewest since 1988. Among them was Ernest Lee Johnson, who was put to death in Missouri in October for killing three Columbia convenience store workers in 1994.
California
Man pleads guilty to fatally shooting officer in 2015
HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) — A San Francisco Bay Area man charged in the fatal shooting of a police officer during a traffic stop pleaded guilty Tuesday, a week before his trial was set to start, prosecutors announced.
Mark Estrada also admitted to using the firearm that killed Hayward Police Sgt. Scott Lunger on July 22, 2015, as part of a plea agreement, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
Lunger was on patrol when he saw a pickup truck swerving and driving erratically and decided to stop the driver. Before Lunger approached the truck, Estrada fired three shots, striking him in the head and leg, prosecutors said.
Another officer who had arrived as backup returned fire as Estrada fled in the truck, prosecutors said. Estrada was arrested later that day.
Lunger was a 15-year veteran and father of two daughters.
“We hope that this conviction and his sentencing will bring a sense of closure and justice for Sergeant Lunger’s family, friends, his law enforcement colleagues and the community,” Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said in a statement.
Estrada faces 50 years to life in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on March 18.
California
Man who led luxury goods fraud ring gets federal prison
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The head of a credit card fraud ring that bought more than a half-million dollars in bags, shoes, jewelry, and other goods from luxury stores in Southern California has been sentenced to four years in federal prison.
Trace Jones, 33, of Los Angeles, was sentenced Monday. He pleaded guilty in 2020 to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.
Prosecutors said that from 2016 to 2018, Jones and others used stolen identification information from American Express cardholders and ordered replacement cards that they used to buy goods at Gucci, Barneys and other luxury stores in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Costa Mesa.
Jones was described as a transient living in Los Angeles when he was arrested in 2019, authorities said. In addition to his sentence, he was ordered to pay $521,128 in restitution to American Express.
Four other people previously were sentenced in the case. One man is awaiting sentencing.
Montana
Woman admits distributing drugs leading to death
GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — A Great Falls woman has pleaded guilty to a federal charge saying she distributed methamphetamine and fentanyl resulting in a man’s death, U.S. Attorney Leif M. Johnson said Tuesday.
Brandie Rae Fulbright, 40, entered her plea Monday in U.S. District Court in Great Falls. She faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million.
Chief U.S. District Judge Brian M. Morris scheduled sentencing for May 5. Fulbright was detained.
Fulbright’s co-defendant, Kent Fox, pleaded guilty to the same charge last October and faces the same punishment when he is sentenced later this month.
In court documents, the government said that on Aug. 23, 2020, Great Falls police officers were called to a camper trailer where they found a man, identified in court records as John Doe, deceased on a bed.
Fox told investigators he picked up Doe two days earlier and took him to his house so Doe could buy methamphetamine from Fulbright. Doe traded an AR-15 rifle to Fulbright in exchange for the meth and two blue pills, court records said.
Fox then returned Doe to his camper, prosecutors said.
Investigators learned that a witness saw Doe inject himself with the meth and then slump over on his bed. An autopsy determined that Doe died from an overdose of a combination of methamphetamine and fentanyl, court records said.
Indiana
Judge rejects blocking state’s online school fraud lawsuit
NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (AP) — A judge is allowing state officials to continue with a lawsuit against several people and companies linked with two now-closed Indiana online charter schools facing allegations of a fraud scheme that cost the state more than $150 million.
A Hamilton County judge issued an order Monday rejecting arguments from those connected with Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy that the lawsuit was not specific enough about how they violated state law, WFYI-FM of Indianapolis reported.
The lawsuit filed by the state attorney general’s office in July accused the two online schools of padding their student enrollments and inappropriately paying money to a web of related businesses before they were shut down in 2019.
The schools closed amid a state investigation that found they improperly claimed about 14,000 students as enrolled even though they had no online course activity. A state audit linked much of the misspending to Thomas Stoughton, who headed the schools until 2017.
Judge Michael Casati ruled that the lawsuit against Stoughton could proceed, writing that its allegations provided sufficient detail.
Casati also denied requests for delays from two defendants who said they might be under an ongoing federal criminal investigation.
The FBI and federal prosecutors have declined to comment on the status of any investigation.
Indiana
Teen sentenced to 100 years for killing 2 siblings
VERSAILLES, Ind. (AP) — A southeastern Indiana teenager has been sentenced to 100 years in prison for the suffocation deaths of his two young siblings months apart in 2017, when he was 13 years old.
A Ripley County judge ordered the sentence Tuesday for Nickalas Kedrowitz. Jurors convicted him in August on two counts of murder for the killings of his 23-month-old half-sister, Desiree McCartney, and his 11-month-old stepbrother, Nathaniel Ritz.
Kedrowitz was arrested in August 2018 in the May 2017 killing of Desiree and the July 2017 killing of Nathaniel, both of whom were found unresponsive at the family’s home in Osgood, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) southeast of Indianapolis.
The judge ordered 50-year prison terms for each death to be served one after the other.
Ripley County Prosecutor Richard Hertel said Kedrowitz told detectives that he was “freeing his siblings from hell.”
“This wasn’t some sort of heat of passion, one killing and then minutes or hours or even days later, we’re talking months here, so we think that the consecutive part of the sentence was warranted and appropriate in this circumstance,” Hertel told reporters after the sentencing hearing.
The judge ordered that Kedrowitz’s case be handled in adult court despite his attorney’s arguments that the teen has untreated mental health problems.
