West Virginia
3 convicted of neglect resulting in death of 8-year-old girl
FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia man and two women have been convicted of neglect resulting in the death of an 8-year-old girl.
Jurors in Fayette County returned the verdict Monday afternoon for the girl’s father, Marty Browning Jr., his wife, Julie Titchenell Browning, and her sister, Sherie Titchenell, news outlets reported.
The three were arrested in December 2019 and charged with abuse and neglect resulting in the death of Raylee Browning. The jury acquitted them of the abuse charge.
Raylee died Dec. 26, 2018, while living with the defendants and three other children. Expert witnesses for the defense testified that Raylee died of sepsis because of a severe bacterial pneumonia infection.
Defense attorneys said Raylee’s illness happened quickly and gave them little time to react. They said their clients made the wrong “judgment call” on when to seek help.
Prosecutor Brian Parsons said another child in the home recognized that Raylee needed medical attention and argued that the defendants not only ignored her symptoms but made her illness worse by denying her food and water as a punishment.
Defense attorneys said there was no evidence of abuse, citing records from Child Protective Services that found such claims unsubstantiated.
Sentencing was set for Aug. 8. The defendants face between three and 15 years in prison.
New Jersey
30 years for man who killed ex, drove son with body in trunk
ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man who killed his ex-girlfriend and drove their toddler son to Tennessee with her body in the trunk last July was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday.
Tyler Rios pleaded guilty in April to aggravated manslaughter and desecrating human remains in the death of 24-year-old Yasemin Uyar.
According to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey, Rios killed Uyar in her Rahway home on July 8 and then fled with their 2-year-old son. The incident triggered an Amber Alert and a multistate investigation after the boy didn’t show up for day care and Uyar didn’t arrive for a work shift on July 9.
The boy was eventually found unharmed at a hotel in Monterey, Tennessee, on July 10. Uyar’s body was found nearby in a wooded area off Interstate 40.
Under terms of his sentencing, the 28-year-old Rios, of East Orange, will have to serve 85% of his 25-year term on the manslaughter count, then serve an additional five-year term for the second count before being eligible for release.
The prosecutor’s office credited the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI’s Memphis field office in Tennessee, along with state and local police in New Jersey, for helping solve the case.
Pennsylvania
Man gets 15 years in ATM blast during civil unrest
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in one of dozens of explosions of automated teller machines in Philadelphia during civil unrest following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis two years ago.
Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that 26-year-old David Elmakayes of Philadelphia was sentenced for using an explosive device to damage an ATM and for illegal possession of a firearm.
Authorities said the defendant was carrying three additional explosive devices and other weapons when he was arrested shortly after a cash machine in North Philadelphia was damaged on the night of June 3, 2020.
Philadelphia police said at the time that 50 cash machines were hit by explosives in the same week amid civil unrest across the nation after Floyd died in Minneapolis in May 2020 after a police officer pressed his knee into his neck as he pleaded for air.
U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said Tuesday the defendant “took advantage of a volatile situation” and could have injured many people, and she vowed to “aggressively prosecute” similar crimes. Former U.S. Attorney William McSwain said when the charges were filed that blowing up an ATM and illegal weapons possession weren’t “acts of protest against perceived injustice.”
In Floyd’s killing, a former Minneapolis officer was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison on murder and manslaughter convictions and also pleaded guilty to a federal count of violating Floyd’s rights. Three other officers were convicted of federal civil rights violations; one has pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge and two await trial.
Rhode Island
Man convicted in traffic confrontation gets life sentence
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island man convicted of fatally shooting another man during a traffic confrontation on Halloween night in 2020 has been sentenced to life in prison, prosecutors said.
Jairo Esdel Galva, 23, of Central Falls, was sentenced last week to consecutive life sentences for second-degree murder and discharge of a firearm resulting in death in connection with the death of Joel Rosario, according to a statement Tuesday from the office of Attorney General Peter Neronha.
Galva was convicted last November.
Rosario had been celebrating his 22nd birthday with friends on the night of Oct. 31, 2020 when they got into several cars to travel to another location for a party, prosecutors said.
Galva, driving behind them, flashed his high beams several times.
At an intersection in pawtucket, Rosario got out of a vehicle and walked to the front passenger side of Galva’s vehicle, prosecutors said. Galva fired one shot with a .38 caliber revolver he did not legally own into Rosario’s chest before driving away, prosecutors said.
Rosario’s friends took him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
During the trial, the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense, prosecutors said.
Kentucky
Ex-prison officer sentenced for sexual abuse of inmates
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — A former correctional officer at the Federal Medical Center in Kentucky has been sentenced to more than 11 years after pleading guilty to sexual abuse of inmates.
Christopher Brian Goodwin, 46, pleaded guilty in March to deprivation of rights under color of law and three counts of sexual abuse of a ward, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release.
Goodwin admitted touching three inmates on multiple occasions in 2019 and sexually abusing them, the release said. In his plea agreement, Goodwin also admitted depriving another inmate of her constitutional rights and his actions also resulted in injury to the inmate, the release said.
He was sentenced Friday to 135 months in prison. He is required to serve 85% of the sentence.
California
26 indicted, half-million pills seized in drug probe
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Federal authorities have indicted 26 people and seized nearly 500,000 counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl during a two-year investigation into an international drug smuggling operation, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Charges of conspiracy to traffic drugs and possessing drugs with intent to distribute were filed against 26 people. Seventeen defendants, most of them from San Diego and surrounding areas, have been arrested and the others are being sought, the U.S. attorney’s office announced.
If convicted, they face 10 years to life in prison and up to a $10 million fine each, prosecutors said.
The drug trafficking operation, based in Sinaloa, Mexico, shipped counterfeit pharmaceutical pills laced with fentanyl, powder fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine to the United States, prosecutors said.
The investigation involved various federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
“As fentanyl continues to fuel the ongoing opioid epidemic and claim ever more lives, we will use every available resource to find, apprehend, and hold accountable those who seek to profit from it, no matter where they are.” Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, said in a statement.
California
Energy exec pleads guilty in $15M Ponzi scheme
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former energy company executive from Los Angeles pleaded guilty Tuesday in a $15 million scheme to defraud investors in phony business arrangements for services to oil and gas companies in North Dakota, federal prosecutors said.
Joey Stanton Dodson was chairman of Citadel Energy Partners when he began raising money from more than 50 investors he said would fund three limited partnerships, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
“After inducing investors to deposit their funds, Dodson pooled the funds from the limited partnerships and conducted multiple transfers between Citadel-related accounts that helped him divert investor funds for his own benefit and conceal his actions,” the statement said.
Dodson misappropriated the money as part of the Ponzi scheme, and then used it to repay investors in an unrelated investment he operated separately, prosecutors said.
The three limited partnerships were placed into bankruptcy “and the investors suffered a total loss of their investments,” the statement said.
Dodson, 58, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced Oct. 25.
California
Man pleads not guilty to kidnap, torture of woman
CHINO HILLS, Calif. (AP) — A man accused of torturing, raping and disfiguring a woman who was held captive in his Southern California home for six months pleaded not guilty to 10 charges, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Peter McGuire, 59, of Chino Hills entered pleas Monday to charges including kidnapping, mayhem and sodomy by use of force, the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Five of the counts include special allegations that the crimes involved infliction of great bodily injury and administering a controlled substance during a sex crime, prosecutors said.
The victim had reportedly moved into McGuire’s home before the kidnapping but when she decided to move out, he refused to let her leave, Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Mara Rodriguez told the Los Angeles Times.
The 22-year-old woman was spotted at a park near the Chino Hills home last Thursday and told deputies that she had managed to escape just minutes earlier, the DA’s office and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in statements.
The woman told investigators she had been tortured, physically assaulted and raped, sheriff’s officials said.
“The victim had visible injuries consistent with the allegations made,” a Sheriff’s Department statement said.
A search warrant was served at the home and evidence was recovered, but the suspect had fled.
He was located Saturday morning at a home in Placentia, in neighboring Orange County, and surrendered after an hours-long standoff with SWAT officers, according to officials.
