Louisiana
Ex-sheriff bribery gets 10 years; already has life for rape
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former Louisiana sheriff was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for a federal bribery conviction, to be served at the same as his four life sentences for earlier convictions for raping boys.
U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo also ordered Rodney J. “Jack” Strain to pay a $10,000 fine, federal prosecutors said in a news release Wednesday.
Strain pleaded guilty to one of 16 federal charges against him on Dec. 1, 2021, and prosecutors dropped the others.
The plea came weeks after a St. Tammany Parish jury convicted Strain on eight charges including four counts of aggravated rape against children less than 13 years old — a crime which carries an automatic life sentence.
Strain, who served five terms before losing the 2015 election, admitted using his authority as sheriff to steer profits from a $1 million work-release contract to himself, his family and two of his top deputies.
His sworn statement in federal court said he hid the deputies’ involvement in the scheme.
One man who pleaded guilty in the federal case told the state court jury that Strain molested him when he was a child, gave him a job when he was deeply in debt and later pressured him to join the work-release scheme.
Strain was sentenced in February on the state charges. Judge Bruce A. Simpson added 30 years for crimes against two of Strain’s relatives and ordered him to pay $30,000 in fines and nearly $28,000 for the costs of his prosecution, news agencies reported.
Maryland
Man gets 80 years in prison in mom’s stabbing death
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — A 24-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to 80 years in prison in the 2018 stabbing death of his mother outside a Maryland church, prosecutors said.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge Harry Storm sentenced Kevin McGuigan of Rockville to life in prison with all but 80 years suspended, according to the state’s attorney’s office. Last fall, Storm found McGuigan was competent to stand trial. McGuigan pleaded guilty in December to first-degree murder in the death of his 49-year-old mother, Jaclyn McGuigan, outside St. Raphael Catholic Church in Potomac.
On Dec. 28, 2018, people working at the church told police that they found Jaclyn McGuigan on the ground and a man they saw standing over her fled in a car, prosecutors said in a document detailing the case. Jaclyn McGuigan, who suffered a stab wound to the neck, died on the scene, prosecutors said.
Kevin McGuigan was arrested the next day after he called his sister from a gas station and said he planned to surrender. Months later, Kevin McGuigan confessed to killing his mother and revealed the location of the knife he used, prosecutors said.
New Hampshire
Caregiver gets prison time for ID fraud, theft, forgery
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A former caregiver at a long-term care facility in New Hampshire has been sentenced to 7 1/2 to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of identity and credit card fraud, forgery, and theft.
Prosecutors said the crimes committed by Christina Lariviere, 37, resulted in the loss of over $11,000 to people she had taken advantage of.
She was accused of getting personal identification information for four elderly people without their permission and posing as at least two of them to open financial accounts in 2019.
Lariviere, who was sentenced Tuesday in Rockingham County Superior Court, also was accused of taking cash from an elderly person she was caring for as an in-home caregiver, and using debit card information from another client to buy things for herself. She also was charged with forging checks belonging to others and using another person’s identity to open bank accounts to deposit the checks.
She also was accused of stealing a customer’s debit card information while working in a restaurant r in 2018 and using similar information from her landlord to forge a check in 2019.
In addition to her sentence, she was given a suspended sentence of 71/2 to 15 years after she is released from jail that prohibits her from caring for elderly, disabled or impaired adults.
Police departments in Pelham, Manchester, Londonderry, Derry and Salem assisted with the investigation.
California
Naturopathic doctor admits selling fake COVID-19 vaccine cards
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A naturopathic doctor in Northern California on Wednesday pleaded guilty to selling fake COVID-19 immunization treatments and hundreds of fraudulent vaccination cards that made it seem like customers received Moderna vaccines, federal prosecutors said.
Juli A. Mazi, 41, of Napa, plead guilty in federal court in San Francisco to one count of wire fraud and one count of false statements related to health care matters, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
The case was the first federal criminal fraud prosecution related to fraudulent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards for COVID-19, the department said.
Mazi provided fake CDC vaccination cards for COVID-19 to at least 200 people with instructions on how to complete the cards to make them look like they had received a Moderna vaccine, federal prosecutors said.
She also sold homeopathic pellets she fraudulently claimed would provide “lifelong immunity to COVID-19.” She told customers the pellets contained small amounts of the virus and would create an antibody response, they said.
“This doctor violated the public’s trust and reliance on health care professionals — during a time when integrity was needed most,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. “Instead of providing sage information and guidance, Mazi profited from peddling unapproved remedies, stirring up false fears, and generating fake proof of vaccinations.”
Mazi also offered the pellets in place of childhood vaccinations required for attendance at school and sold at least 100 fake immunization cards that said the children had been vaccinated, knowing the documents would be submitted to schools, officials said.
Federal officials opened an investigation against Mazi after receiving a complaint in April 2021 to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General hotline.
Mazi is scheduled to be sentenced on July 29.
Minnesota
Feds: Medical device CEO owes more than $6 million in taxes
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A CEO of a suburban Minneapolis medical device company is accused of failing to pay more than $6 million in payroll taxes, interest and penalties to the Internal Revenue Service.
Larry Lindberg was charged Monday in federal court with one count of tax evasion. His lawyer said the former pharmacist and owner of Midwest Medical Holdings in Mounds View plans to plead guilty later this month.
“Larry felt bad about it,” defense attorney Tom Brever said Wednesday. “He knew he screwed up. ... He knew he had to make peace.”
The IRS opened its case against Lindberg in 2011, prosecutors said. Lindberg, 68, agreed to several payment plans over the years but ultimately defaulted on all of them. Authorities said he spent the money on real estate, personal travel and other non-business spending, the Star Tribune reported.
Brever said federal sentencing guidelines call for a prison term in the range of 21/2 years in prison. The plea agreement calls for Lindberg to pay back all of the money to the IRS.
Washington
U.S.: 2 posed as agents, gave gifts to Secret Service officers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged two men they say were posing as federal agents, giving free apartments and other gifts to U.S. Secret Service agents, including one who worked on the first lady’s security detail.
The two men — Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36 — were taken into custody as more than a dozen FBI agents charged into a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington on Wednesday evening.
Prosecutors allege Taherzadeh and Ali had falsely claimed to work for the Department of Homeland Security and work on a special task force investigating gang and violence connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. They allege the two posed as law enforcement officers to integrate with actual federal agents.
Taherzadeh is accused of providing Secret Service officers and agents with rent-free apartments — including a penthouse worth over $40,000 a year — along with iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, flat screen television, a generator, gun case and other policing tools, according to court documents.
He also offered to let them use a black GMC SUV that he identified as an “official government vehicle,” prosecutors say. In one instance, Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect the first lady.
Prosecutors said four Secret Service employees were placed on leave earlier this week as part of the investigation.
The plot unraveled when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service began investigating an assault involving a mail carrier at the apartment building and the men identified themselves as being part of a phony Homeland Security unit they called the U.S. Special Police Investigation Unit.
Prosecutors say the men had also set up surveillance in the building and had been telling residents there that they could access any of their cellphones at any time. The residents also told investigators they believed the men had access to their personal information.
Taherzadeh and Ali are scheduled to appear in court on Thursday. It was not immediately clear if they had lawyers who could comment on the allegations.
Authorities did not detail what, if anything, the men were aiming to accomplish by posing as law enforcement officers or by providing the gifts. Prosecutors said the investigation remains ongoing.
New York
Kidd Creole convicted of manslaughter in 2017 stabbing
NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan jury found rapper Kidd Creole guilty of manslaughter Wednesday in connection with the 2017 fatal stabbing of a homeless man on the street.
The rapper, whose real name is Nathaniel Glover, had gone on trial last month for the death of John Jolly, who was stabbed twice in the chest with a steak knife in midtown Manhattan in August 2017.
Prosecutors accused Glover, a founding member of Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, of stabbing the other man after becoming enraged because he thought Jolly was gay and hitting on him.
Glover’s attorney said it was out of self-defense. An email seeking comment was sent to the rapper’s attorney.
Glover, who had faced a murder charge, is scheduled to be sentenced on May 4.
Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five formed in the late 1970s in the Bronx. The group’s most well-known song is “The Message” from 1982. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, the first rap group to be included.
