New Mexico
Rape victim sues city over rape kit backlog
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A rape survivor is suing the city of Albuquerque over its backlog of untested rape kits, alleging a nearly decade-long delay allowed her rapist to freely attack other women.
The Albuquerque Journal reported Sunday that the victim is asking for unspecified damages in the lawsuit, which was filed in 2nd Judicial District Court.
In the suit, the victim says Albuquerque police discriminated against women and girls by treating violent rapes as a low priority.
When asked to comment on the suit, police spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins pointed to Mayor Tim Keller signing an executive order in 2018 ordering police to make a plan for clearing the backlog.
“Today, every kit submitted for testing has been returned to the crime lab and the police department” and prosecutors, Atkins said in a written statement.
The victim gave a rape kit in 2010 after reporting being kidnapped, bound and raped at knifepoint. Her kit was not tested until 2018. The evidence linked her rape to Victor Gonzales, 44.
Gonzales was arrested in 2020 on kidnapping and two counts of criminal sexual penetration. He is scheduled to go on trial in June. He was previously charged with multiple attacks on women that occurred between 2010 and 2012.
Raymond Maestas and Sean Beherec, who are representing Gonzales, said there are discrepancies in the lawsuit.
“In this lawsuit, we see big differences in the accuser’s story from what she reported to police initially, and the jury needs to hear this change in story,” the attorneys said in a written statement.
Indiana
Man sentenced to 22 years in death of infant girl
CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana judge sentenced a man to 22 years in prison on Friday, accepting the terms of a plea agreement in the death of a five-month-old girl.
The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported that 26-year-old Efrain Gonzalez pleaded guilty in October to one count of battery resulting in death of a person less than 14 years old.
The child’s mother has said she put her daughter, Anayelli Avina, down for a nap and was in the shower when Gonzalez injured the baby on Sept. 29, 2020. The child died at a hospital on Oct. 5, 2020.
Yecenia Del Real testified that Gonzalez told her and her family that the injuries were an accident. Prosecutors said investigators have not learned exactly what happened to the baby but know she suffered severe blunt force trauma.
“Never in my life did I think that anybody would kill my baby intentionally,” Del Real said. “I’m sorry to my family for thinking there was no such thing as monsters.”
Judge Natalie Bokota accepted the plea agreement.
“To lead her to believe that it was an accident is truly one of the most selfish things I have ever heard of in my life,” Bokota said.
Gonzalez apologized to Del Real and other family members of the infant girl, saying he was using drugs and wasn’t in his “right mind.”
Minnesota
Man accused of killing wife wants confession thrown out
STILLWATER, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota man accused of stabbing his wife to death while six children were upstairs watching TV asked a judge Friday to throw out a confession he made after his arrest in Wisconsin.
McKinley Phillips, 40, was indicted in November on a charge of first-degree murder for allegedly stabbing his 42-year-old wife multiple times in the basement of their Woodbury home in June 2021. Six children, ranging in age from 5 to 15, were in the house at the time, investigators said.
Phillips took a Greyhound bus headed for Chicago after the fatal stabbing. Officers found him on the bus around 3 a.m. the next day near Tomah, Wisconsin, where he was arrested and jailed, according to the complaint.
On the way to jail, Phillips allegedly told Woodbury police detectives he had gotten into an argument with his wife after “he found a letter to her from an old boyfriend who was currently in jail.” He went on to describe stabbing her several times in the back with a folding pocket knife, the complaint said.
Defense attorney Mac Guptil said his client’s right to have an attorney present while he spoke with police was violated because he was not properly advised that a lawyer who was licensed in Minnesota would immediately be available to him, the Pioneer Press reported.
Prosecutors have until April 1 to respond to the challenge.
The hearing was held by videoconference so that relatives of the victim could watch. Phillips participated from jail in Stillwater.
Iowa
Man gets life sentences for killing woman, 2 children
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Des Moines man has been sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison for killing a woman and her two children.
Prosecutor Kevin Hathaway told a Polk County district judge Friday that the murder of Rosibeth Flores-Rodriguez was “horrific,” but the murders of her two children were worse, the Des Moines Register reported.
Judge David Porter sentenced Marvin Esquivel Lopez, 34, to consecutive life sentences in the 2019 deaths of the 29-year-old mother and 11-year-old Grecia Daniela Alvarado-Flores and 5-year-old Ever Jose Mejia-Flores.
Esquivel Lopez was convicted in January of shooting Flores Rodriguez during an argument in his Des Moines home, then killing her children.
“To go into that basement and end the lives of two innocent children, who had never done anything wrong, cutting their lives so short, it’s unthinkable, your Honor,” Hathaway said.
Flores-Rodriguez and her children had arrived in Iowa from Honduras about five months before their deaths and lived with Esquivel Lopez and his family.
Betty Rodriguez, the mother and grandmother of the victims, traveled from Honduras for Friday’s sentencing.
“My heart is missing three pieces,” she said in a prepared statement ready by a court attendant. “My life is not the same any more.”
Nevada
Mother of ‘Pawn Stars’ celebrity sues over ownership, assets
LAS VEGAS (AP) — “Pawn Stars” celebrity Rick Harrison is being sued by his mother in a dispute over family assets and ownership of the Las Vegas business featured on the long-running reality TV show, according to court records.
The civil lawsuit was filed Thursday in Nevada state court by attorneys for Harrison’s mother, Joanne Harrison, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
It names Rick Harrison, the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, business entities Harrison Properties, JoRich Properties and others as defendants.
“The allegations are false and I think that my 81-year old mother is being manipulated by others for their personal gain,” Rick Harrison told the newspaper.
The breach-of-contract complaint says Joanne Harrison was married for 58 years to the late Richard Harrison, who was known on the show as “The Old Man.”
It alleges that while she was hospitalized in 2000 or 2001, Rick Harrison, one of the couple’s three sons, had her sign over to him her 51% ownership interest in the pawn shop.
In 2009, the business became the setting for ‘ History Channel show that also features grandson Richard Corey Harrison and family friend Austin “Chumlee” Russell.
The lawsuit says that when Richard Harrison died in 2018, Joanne Harrison inherited his 49% share of the pawn shop but Rick Harrison has failed to provide her with complete documentation of its finances.
Joanne Harrison also alleges she has been unable to get a proper accounting of more than $500,000 worth of cash and silver she believes her husband accumulated before his death.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, an accounting of assets, a court order banning Rick Harrison from using funds belonging to Joanne Harrison and “a constructive trust” over property that belongs to her.
Pennsylvania
Man freed after nearly 14 years in triple-fatal fire sues
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A Pennsylvania man who spent nearly 14 years in prison in a deadly 1993 fire before winning a new trial and having the charges against him dropped has filed a federal lawsuit against a prosecutor and two former police officers involved in his case.
Daniel Carnevale, 58, alleges malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence and civil conspiracy on the part of a deputy Allegheny County district attorney and the former Pittsburgh homicide detectives who now work as investigators for the DA’s office. The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court alleges fabrication and withholding of evidence and accuses the defendants of “orchestrating the use of false testimony.”
“Mr. Carnevale’s conviction was part of the disturbing resurrection of a tragic fire that occurred some 13 years prior, where there was no reliable evidence that the fire was caused by arson, let alone that it was intentionally set by Mr. Carnevale,” the suit said.
Mike Manko, a spokesperson for the office, declined comment on the pending litigation, which he said was under review.
Carnevale has maintained his innocence since he was incarcerated in 2006, accused of setting a January 1993 fire at two apartment buildings that left three people dead. He won a new trial after prosecutors said some evidence had never been turned over to the defense, but before that trial prosecutors withdrew the charges in 2020.
The case stems from the January 1993 fire at the Columbia House and Regal Apartments in the Bloomfield neighborhood that killed Anita Emery, 31, Florence Lyczko, 63, and Chris Stahlman, 22. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the blaze had been intentionally set using lacquer thinner from a five-gallon drum recovered at the scene.
No arrest was made until 13 years later, when two cold-case officers said a new witness had come forward. Carnevale was convicted of three counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life.
The Pennsylvania Innocence Project said federal agents didn’t follow proper scientific procedures for determining whether the cause was arson. An investigator testified at trial that the fire had to be arson because a natural or accidental cause had been eliminated.
Maryland
Man pleads guilty to bribing Army researcher
BALTIMORE (AP) — A Maryland man has pleaded guilty to charges that he bribed an Army research biologist in exchange for projects being awarded to his company, a federal prosecutor said.
John R. Conigliaro, 60, of Kingsville pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to bribe a public official, according to U.S. Attorney for Maryland Erek Barron.
Conigliaro owns a company that provides general construction services, including fixed and portable biochemical laboratories. From 2012 to 2019, he bribed a research biologist at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, according to the guilty plea. APG is the nation’s principal research and development center for non-medical chemical and biological weapons defense.
Prosecutors said Conigliaro bribed the biologist with cash loans, payments for renovations to rental properties and other things in exchange for directing the center’s projects to his company. According to the guilty plea, Conigliaro paid more than $95,000 in bribes, and the biologist directed more than $1 million in contracts to the company.
Conigliaro is scheduled for sentencing in May. He faces up to five years in prison.
