Texas
New indictments returned against convicted murderer
MCKINNEY, Texas (AP) — Four new capital murder indictments were returned Tuesday against a convicted murderer from the Dallas-area, with authorities now having brought charges against him in the deaths of 22 older women in Collin and adjoining Dallas County.
A Collin County grand jury indicted Billy Chemirmir, 50, on single capital murder counts in each of the 2017 deaths of Marilyn Bixler, 90; Diane Delahunty, 79; Helen Lee, 82; and Mamie Miya, 93.
Chemirmir already has been convicted in Dallas County of capital murder in the 2018 death of 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris. Prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty, so Chemirmir was sentenced automatically to life in prison without parole.
“These indictments should serve as a reminder that every victim of a violent crime deserves to have their case investigated and prosecuted, and Collin County law enforcement and prosecutors will work every day to hold violent offenders accountable,” said Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis in a statement.
Chemirmir remained Tuesday in the Dallas County jail awaiting a trial scheduled for October. Court documents listed no attorney for the defendant.
Indiana
Woman gets 55 years in 3-year-old’s beating death
LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — A northwestern Indiana woman convicted of murder in the beating death of her 3-year-old son was sentenced Tuesday to 55 years in prison.
A judge also sentenced 31-year-old Crystal Cox to two years of probation for the July 5, 2021, death of her son Zeus.
A jury in May found the Lafayette woman guilty of murder and neglect.
Her boyfriend, Jermaine Garnes, is scheduled to be tried on murder and neglect on charges in October.
“What happened to Zeus, the abuse he endured at 3 years old, is unfathomable,” Deputy Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Elyse Madigan said.
Authorities said Cox allowed Garnes to punch Zeus in the chest several times, rupturing Zeus’ intestines in four places, breaking his ribs and rupturing his kidneys. Additionally, Zeus had bruises and cuts from head to toe, forensic pathologist Dr. Darin Wolfe testified.
Garnes is scheduled to stand trial in October for murder and neglect.
Cox plans to appeal her conviction and sentence, the Journal and Courier reported.
Florida
Lawsuit filed by family of woman killed while parasailing
MIAMI (AP) — The family of a 33-year-old Illinois woman who was killed while parasailing in the Florida Keys last month has filed a wrongful death and personal injury lawsuit against the boat company, attorneys said.
Supraja Alaparthi was killed, her 9-year-old nephew was seriously injured and her 10-year-old son suffered minor injuries when the boat captain cut loose the parasail as a storm approached Marathon in the Florida Keys on May 30, attorney Michael Haggard said in a news conference Tuesday.
Eleven family members, including Alaparthi’s 6-year-old daughter, were on the boat that afternoon. The family was visiting the Keys from Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and told the captain they could return the next day if the weather was too bad to go up in the parasail. But the captain said it would be OK, Haggard said.
Soon after the parasail was airborne, the captain began losing control of the boat because of “pegging” which causes the parasail to be filled with so much air that it drags the boat. Once the parasail line was cut, the mother and two children were dragged untethered across the water and crashed into a bridge.
A man on a nearby boat brought the trio to shore in Marathon. Alaparthi was dead at the scene, officials said. The boys were taken to a hospital.
While her son was not seriously injured he remains in shock and will likely suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, Haggard said.
The younger boy spent a week at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital being treated for injuries to his eyes, face and other parts of his body, Haggard said. He’s now in Illinois where he will need additional surgeries.
The lawsuit claims the company failed to properly train the captain and first mate, did not equip the boat with proper safety and parasailing equipment and operated the boat in unsafe weather conditions.
The lawyer for the boat company did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Virginia
American who joined Islamic State gets prison term reduced
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The first American to be convicted in a U.S. jury trial of joining the Islamic State had his prison term reduced Tuesday from 20 years to 14 years after an appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing.
Mohamad Khweis was convicted back in 2017 of providing material support to terrorists, as well as a weapons charge. He traveled to Islamic State-controlled territory in Iraq and Syria in December 2015, even obtaining an official IS membership card. But he left after a few months and surrendered in northern Iraq to Kurdish forces.
In 2020, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the weapons charge — many defendants had similar charges tossed out in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling — and ordered a new sentencing hearing.
Prosecutors urged Judge Liam O’Grady at Tuesday’s hearing to again sentence Khweis to 20 years. They cited the need for deterrence in a high-profile terrorism case and reminded O’Grady of the significance of Khweis’ conduct.
While there is no evidence that he fought for the Islamic State, there was evidence at his trial that he volunteered to be a suicide bomber and that he cared for injured fighters at safe houses.
He also admitted at trial that he burned his laptop and multiple phones, and deleted contact info from another, before he fled the Islamic State. He testified at trial that he was worried the laptop contained financial data like his credit score, which the judge said was implausible.
Khweis, 32, has been in custody in one form or another since March 2016, and on Tuesday again renounced his allegiance to the Islamic State and apologized for his conduct.
“It’s still mid-boggling to me that I made this terrible decision,” said Khweis, who grew up in northern Virginia and had worked as a Metro Access bus driver for disabled passengers before departing to the Islamic State.
Khweis’ attorney, Jessica Carmichael, highlighted his exemplary behavior in the Bureau of Prisons after his conviction and said he’s done all he can to show he’s matured.
“We do want to send a message” with this sentence, she told the judge. And she said the audience paying the most attention is “the people he left behind in prison. We want to encourage others to engage in this type of rehabilitation, to not wallow in self-pity.”
In a statement after Tuesday’s hearing, Carmichael said, “Mohamad worked exceptionally hard for years while incarcerated to show that he was taking this seriously ... and was more than the poor decisions he made six-and-a-half years ago. I am proud of him for that, and hope that others in custody can receive an opportunity to show the same.”
Still, while the reduction to 14 years is significant, it is far less than Khweis’ request that he be released with time served.
O’Grady said Tuesday that Khweis deserved credit for his good conduct in custody, but that he struggled with how to evaluate Khweis, given how quickly he became radicalized and how easily he lied about his actions on the witness stand at his 2017 trial.
“I don’t know what your inner thoughts are,” O’Grady said.
Louisiana
Football hero’s killer can’t be re-tried for murder
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The man who killed a former NFL player in a New Orleans area road rage incident in 2016 cannot be tried again for murder after his conviction on a lesser charge was overturned, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
Authorities in the New Orleans suburb of Jefferson Parish originally charged Ronald Gasser with second-degree murder in the shooting of Joe McKnight. Gasser pleaded not guilty and claimed self-defense.
The jury convicted Gasser on the lesser charge of manslaughter. But that verdict was later overturned because it came from a non-unanimous jury. Such verdicts were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in an unrelated case.
The Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office said the non-unanimous decision for manslaughter should not be treated as an acquittal on the second-degree murder charge. Prosecutors wanted another chance to try Gasser for murder.
But the seven-member Supreme Court agreed with lower court rulings that trying Gasser again on the murder charge would violate his constitutional protection against double jeopardy.
Writing for the court, Justice Jay McCallum said state and federal double jeopardy protection “bars the reinstatement and retrial of a defendant on a higher charge when he has been lawfully convicted of a lesser included offense, even though the conviction is later vacated.”
In Gasser’s case, McCallum added, the conviction on the lesser manslaughter charge was “an implied acquittal” on the second-degree murder charge.
A high school football hero at Louisiana’s John Curtis Christian School, McKnight went on to play three seasons for the New York Jets and one with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Police said McKnight’s death followed a 5-mile (8-kilometer) rolling confrontation that began with dangerously aggressive driving on a New Orleans bridge and ended with McKnight being shot as he stood outside Gasser’s car at a suburban intersection.
Witnesses at Gasser’s 2018 trial said McKnight had been weaving in and out of traffic at high speed before the shooting. But prosecutors argued that Gasser escalated the conflict, following McKnight down an exit that he would not ordinarily have taken.
Indiana
Judge refuses to block tighter Indiana bail restrictions
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge has refused to block an Indiana law that will impose strict limits on charitable groups that pay the bail money needed to get people released from jail.
The ruling issued Wednesday will allow the law to take effect as scheduled on Friday. The national nonprofit group The Bail Project and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging the law, arguing it violated the group’s First Amendment and equal protection rights for its advocacy work.
Judge James Patrick Hanlon in Indianapolis denied a requested injunction blocking the law, ruling that the group hadn’t shown a likelihood that it would succeed in proving the law unconstitutional.
The Bail Project has said it has helped about 1,000 people awaiting trials in Marion and Lake counties post bail they could otherwise not afford for release from jail. The group, however, has faced criticism for some of those people later being arrested in connection with violent crimes.
Under the new law, charitable bail organizations can only assist people charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies as long as the person hasn’t been previously convicted of a violent felony.
ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Ken Falk said the organization would continue pursuing its challenge to the law.
