Virginia
Salon owner pleads guilty to defrauding government
ABINGDON, Va. (AP) — A Virginia hair and nail salon operator has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a scheme in which she filed for pandemic unemployment assistance despite reopening her shop after an executive order was lifted, a federal prosecutor said.
Mandi Dawn Hammond, 36, waived her right to be indicted and pleaded guilty this week to fraud in connection with a major disaster or emergency benefits program and mail fraud, said U.S. Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh in a news release.
After an executive order signed by the governor of Virginia in March 2020 closed all close-contact salons, Hammond closed her business in Richlands for about six weeks, court documents showed. Hammond filed for pandemic unemployment assistance the next month and was approved.
The executive order was lifted the next month and while Hammond reopened her business, prosecutors said she continued filing weekly certifications to receive pandemic unemployment benefits from May 2020 through August 2021. Court records indicate Hammond received at least $29,154 which she wasn’t entitled to.
Hammond is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 15. The charges carry a maximum of 30 years in prison.
Massachusetts
Man gets more than 3 years in prison for $13M COVID-19 fraud
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts businessman convicted of fraudulently seeking more than $13 million in federal coronavirus pandemic relief loans has been sentenced to more than three years in prison.
Elijah Majak Buoi, 40, of Winchester, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $2 million and forfeiture of $2 million by a Boston federal court judge Thursday.
Buoi was convicted by a jury of four counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution in February.
Prosecutors said Buoi submitted six loan applications through the Paycheck Protection Program but misrepresented the number of employees and payroll expenses for his startup company, Sosuda Tech.
He also submitted fraudulent IRS tax forms to support his applications and was able to obtain a $2 million loan before he was arrested in June 2020.
Buoi’s lawyer didn’t respond to an email seeking comment Friday but said after the February trial that his client had been misled by a bank loan officer and made a “good faith mistake” in completing the tax forms.
The loan program was part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act that allowed qualifying small businesses and other organizations to receive forgivable loans to cover payroll, mortgages, rent and utilities.
Washington
Ex-Trump aide Navarro pleads not guilty to contempt charges
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro pleaded not guilty Friday to contempt of Congress charges after refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Navarro, 72, appeared in federal court in Washington to be arraigned on the two-count indictment.
He was charged with one contempt count for failing to appear for a deposition before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack and a second charge for failing to produce documents the committee requested.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta scheduled a trial for November. Navarro’s lawyers asked for the trial to be held next year, saying the case presented constitutional and legal questions that need to be litigated.
Navarro has argued that the select committee investigating the attack is unlawful and therefore a subpoena it issued to him in February is unenforceable under law.
Florida
Judge strikes down law limiting ballot initiative donations
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge has struck down a Florida law limiting contributions to people or political committees championing ballot initiatives, ruling it violates the First Amendment.
U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor in Tallahassee on Wednesday issued a permanent injunction against the law which limited to $3,000 contributions made to people and political committees sponsoring or opposing ballot initiatives. The measure passed last year and was revised this year by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature. It would have made it more cumbersome to pass ballot initiatives that amend the Florida Constitution.
The Florida Elections Commission had argued that the law limited the potential for fraud and corruption.
“But those concerns don’t legally justify the restriction at issue,” the judge said.
New Mexico
Life prison term upheld for man who killed family
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday has upheld the life prison sentence of a man who was convicted of fatally shooting his parents and three younger siblings when he was a teenager.
In a dispositional order Thursday, the state’s high court rejected arguments by Nehemiah Griego that his sentence was unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment because it denied him an opportunity for treatment and rehabilitation.
Griego was 15 at the time of the 2013 killings at his family’s home in Albuquerque.
He was convicted of intentional child abuse resulting in death and two concurrent seven-year sentences for second-degree murder for his parent’s deaths.
Griego was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences with the possibility of parole after serving 30 years.
A district court judge found Griego not amendable to treatment as a juvenile and in 2019 sentenced him as an adult to the state prison system.
Now 25, Griego will be eligible for parole when he’s 52.
In his appeal, Griego also argued his convictions should be overturned because his trial attorney was ineffective.
The court order said Griego “merely surmises his treatment will be inadequate” in prison and he “failed to establish that he does not have a ‘meaningful opportunity for release’ after serving” his sentence.
Griego’s legal team is meeting to determine the most appropriate next step in his case.
“It is easy to give up on children who commit terrible crimes and write them off as hopeless. But the truth is that these crimes are rooted in trauma and mental illness and many of the children involved can and will eventually be rehabilitated,” said Allison Jaramillo, Griego’s attorney.
“Instead of offering this chance for Nehemiah by finding his three life sentences to be cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court’s decision means that he will spend his life in prison for crimes he committed as a child. New Mexico should protect children from the cruel fate Nehemiah is now facing, not give up on them,” Jaramillo added.
Nebraska
Man pleads guilty to threatening election official
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man pleaded guilty Thursday to posting several threats on an Instagram page associated with an election official in Colorado.
Travis Ford, 42, of Lincoln, posted the threats in August 2021. The official was not identified but U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan for the District of Colorado said in a news release the official was from that state.
The threats included one that said “Your security detail is far too thin and incompetent to protect you. This world is unpredictable these days… anything can happen to anyone.”
“Threats of violence against election officials are dangerous for people’s safety and dangerous for our democracy, and we will use every resource at our disposal to disrupt and investigate those threats and hold perpetrators accountable,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a news release.
Prosecutors said Ford posted similar messages on Instagram pages associated with President Joe Biden and another public figure, who was not identified.
Ford is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 6. He faces up to two years in prison.
FBI Denver is investigating the case, with the assistance of FBI Omaha.
Pennsylvania
Prosecutors accuse workers of COVID-19 jobless fraud
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Eight Philadelphia government employees lied that they were unemployed in order to receive pandemic jobless benefits, prosecutors said in announcing criminal charges Thursday.
The attorney general’s office said the city workers collectively were paid more than $300,000 in pandemic unemployment assistance in 2020. Individuals collected between $17,000 and $63,000, prosecutors said.
They were accused of theft, receiving stolen property and tampering with public records in charges filed Wednesday in a Harrisburg district court.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro said prosecutors do not believe the eight defendants are connected. They worked for the city as asphalt rakers, roadwork laborers, social work services managers and for the parks and recreation department.
A city spokesperson said seven of them are currently employed but the process of firing them is underway.
“These individuals didn’t just apply for (the) assistance once and got the money,” Shapiro said at a Philadelphia news conference Thursday. “Instead they had to go online, week after week, and reaffirm that they were unemployed due to COVID-19.”
Only two of the defendants answered calls to phone numbers listed in court records — one denied the allegations and the other declined to comment. Messages were left for three and the other three numbers were not working.
State prosecutors have so far charged 63 people in Pennsylvania with pandemic unemployment fraud worth about $3.1 million.
The attorney general’s office received a referral to investigate the allegations from the city’s inspector general in October 2021.
Missouri
Man pleads guilty in catalytic converter thefts
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a scheme that transported tens of thousands of stolen catalytic converters across state lines as part of a multi-million business.
Federal prosecutors said Evan Marshall, 24, of Rogersville, pleaded guilty to transporting stolen property across state lines.
Marshall becomes the sixth of seven people indicted in the conspiracy to plead guilty. The five others who have pleaded from Springfield or Rogersville.
Theft of the emission control devices has skyrocketed across the country because they contain valuable precious metals.
Marshall admitted that he sold stolen catalytic converters, valued at $1 million or more, to a business in Mountain Home, Arkansas, from December 2019 to October 2021.
Federal prosecutors said the Arkansas company provided Marshall with hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, which he used to recruit his co-defendants to buy or steal catalytic converters.
He also purchased some of the devices directly from thieves, prosecutors said.
Under federal statutes, Marshall faces a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison without parole. Each of the other defendants is subject to a sentence of up to five years in federal prison without parole.
