Louisiana
Trial delayed, plea pursued in grisly 2020 attack on gay man
LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — A federal hate crime trial was delayed Thursday for a suspect accused of trying to kill and dismember a gay man he met using social media and a dating app.
Chase Seneca had been scheduled for trial March 14 in connection with the bloody 2020 attack at a Lafayette home. U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays on Thursday granted a defense request for a delay.
Two days earlier, a court status report said attorneys are pursuing a plea agreement.
Seneca, who was 19 at the time of his federal indictment, is accused of strangling and severely cutting Holden White in June 2020. White recovered from severe injuries, including punctures to the neck and wrists sliced nearly to the bone.
Seneca has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges.
Authorities said Seneca met White using the gay dating app Grindr, developed an online relationship with him, and eventually lured him to a Lafayette home, intending to kill and dismember him. An FBI affidavit states that Seneca called police “in a self-described effort to be put into a mental institution” after ending the attack.
Seneca faces multiple federal charges including kidnapping and “hate crime with intent to kill.”
New Jersey
Man convicted of killing family members on New Year’s Eve
FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) — Juors convicted a New Jersey man of gunning down three family members and a family friend with a high-powered rifle when he was a teenager on New Year’s Eve in 2017.
The panel in Monmouth County on Thursday found Scott Kologi, 20, guilty of murder and a weapons offense.
Kologi was 16 when police were called to his family’s Long Branch home just before midnight on New Year’s Eve in 2017 and found four people shot at various locations inside the home. They were his 42-year-old father, Steven Kologi; his 44-year-old mother, Linda; his 18-year-old sister, Brittany; and his grandfather’s companion, 70-year-old Mary Schultz of Ocean Township.
His grandfather, brother and another family friend had escaped unharmed.
His lawyers had pursued an insanity defense.
“This trial hinged on issues of mental health and the responsibility of this defendant,” acting Prosecutor Lori Linskey said in a statement. “It is clear that the jury considered all of the evidence, including testimony of expert witnesses, as well as the applicable law, in rendering its verdict.”
Kologi faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced in June.
