New York
Man pleads guilty to mailing threats to LGBTQ groups
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — A retired teacher who threatened violence against the New York City LGBTQ pride march and numerous other LGBTQ-friendly groups and businesses pleaded guilty to mailing threatening communications through the postal service, federal prosecutors in New York announced.
Robert Fehring, 74, a former teacher at Bellport High School on Long Island, pleaded guilty in federal court in Central Islip on Wednesday to sending the threatening letters between June 2013 and September 2021.
“In pleading guilty today, the defendant admits that he sent hate-filled communications that threatened mass shootings, bombings and other fatal attacks, to members of the LGBTQ+ community,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a news release. Peace added, “We will not tolerate hateful threats intended to invoke fear and division, and we will hold accountable those who make or act on such threats.”
Prosecutors said Fehring warned in one letter that explosive devices would be placed at the 2021 New York City pride march that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk,” referring to the 2016 attack in which 49 people were killed and dozens wounded at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
A 2019 letter warned a Patchogue Chamber of Commerce member that ambulances would be needed if the organization allowed an LGBTQ event to proceed, prosecutors said.
Fehring threatened in a June 2021 letter to use a high-powered rifle if David Klimnick, president of the LGBT Center in Hauppauge, New York, showed up at a Long Island Pride Festival, prosecutors said.
“You think twice about starting your car,” Klimnick, who received at least a dozen menacing letters from Fehring, told Newsday. “You think twice about getting the mail. You think twice about putting out the garbage. And this should not be taken lightly.”
Fehring was arrested last November after officers from the FBI’s Civil Rights Squad and the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force executed a search warrant at his home in Bayport and seized threatening letters as well as two loaded shotguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, prosecutors said.
Fehring faces up to five years in prison at his sentencing on June 17. His attorney, Glenn Obedin, told Newsday that Fehring “is relieved to have completed this phase of the process and will now prepare himself for the final stage.”
Missouri
City settles with Black man wrongly jailed for three weeks
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Black man who was arrested when he was 15 and held for three weeks for a crime he did not commit reached a $900,000 settlement with the Kansas City Police Department.
The settlement announced by attorneys for both sides Tuesday comes in a civil rights lawsuit filed by the family of Tyree Bell over his June 8, 2016, arrest. As part of the agreement, the Police Department said it would apologize to Bell. A federal judge must still approve the settlement, KCUR reported.
Officers Peter Neukrich and Jonathan Munyan said they arrested Bell because he looked like another teen who ran from them earlier in the day and threw away a gun as he fled.
Police video showed Bell was taller, had a different hairstyle and was wearing different clothing than the original suspect. He also cooperated with police and was breathing normally, unlike someone who had just run from police.
An appeals court said in an October 2020 ruling that allowed the lawsuit to go forward that Bell’s only resemblance to the suspect was that he was Black, juvenile and male.
Kansas City lawyer Arthur Benson, who represented Bell, said the case was not just one of mistaken identity or “walking while Black.” He said it was part of a longtime “national disgrace” of white officers wrongly identifying Black suspects.
“And they are often wrong because too many police departments do not train their officers that all Blacks do not look alike and how to make an eyewitness identification that is not tainted by racial stereotypes,” Benson said.
Kansas City police officers Peter Neukrich and Jonathan Munyan were looking for a suspect who fled from an earlier confrontation when another policeman saw Bell walking and talking on his cellphone and detained him.
The officers said they identified Bell as the suspect and arrested him after watching dashcam video of the original event several times.
Bell was placed on a 24-hour “investigative hold” but was not released until June 29, 2016, after a detective watched the video and determined Bell was not the suspect.
Bell originally sued Neukrich and Munyan as well as the officer who detained him, along with several police officials. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit after finding the officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
An appeals court reinstated the lawsuit in October 2020 after finding the officers did not have probable cause to arrest Bell. The first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
The case had been set to go to trial again on Feb. 28, but that was canceled when the pending settlement was announced.
New York
Judge: Sarah Palin seeks new trial in defamation lawsuit
NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan judge said Wednesday that lawyers for Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are seeking a new trial on her defamation claims against The New York Times, along with his removal from the case.
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff made the disclosure during a brief telephone conference with lawyers.
Rakoff said in an order last week that jurors knew before delivering their verdict against Palin earlier this month that he had ruled against her as a matter of law the previous day.
Rakoff said the jurors repeatedly assured his law clerk that pop-up news notifications on their phones about the judge’s ruling did not affect their deliberations.
After lawyers for Palin asked to make their requests in a 50-page written submission, the judge said each side could file papers of the same length after he issues a written opinion next week explaining why he decided he was tossing out the case regardless of the verdict returned by the jury.
Palin, a former Republican vice-presidential candidate, claimed in her 2017 lawsuit that the newspaper libeled her the same year with an editorial about gun control.
The Times maintained that it quickly corrected any errors in the editorial and had made an “honest mistake” that was never meant to harm Palin.
