Massachusetts
Man convicted of killing 2 at Boston housing complex
BOSTON (AP) — A man who prosecutors say killed two men and injured a child when he opened fire on a group of people at a Boston public housing development four years ago has been found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.
Wilvin Guity-Beckels was convicted Thursday and faces sentencing on July 12, according to the Suffolk district attorney’s office.
Guity-Beckels got out of a car just before 10 p.m. on May 4, 2018, walked into the complex in the city’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, and fired on a group of about 15 people in an outdoor park, prosecutors said.
Christopher Joyce, 23, and Clayborn Blair, 58, were killed and a bullet grazed the ear of a 4-year-old boy. The men were the innocent victims of gang violence, police said. Joyce was killed just before his college graduation, and Blair was a father of three.
Guity-Beckels was linked to the shooting through surveillance video.
“These verdicts can never provide what the victims’ loved ones want and truly deserve — to have their loved ones back in their arms — but they help ensure that the individual who took their lives will not have the opportunity to inflict harm in the community again,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said.
New Jersey
Man sentenced for killing family members on New Year’s Eve
FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) — A man convicted of gunning down his parents, sister and a family friend with a high-powered rifle when he was a teenager on New Year’s Eve in 2017 has been sentenced to 150 years in state prison.
Scott Kologi, 20, was found guilty of murder and a weapons offense in February. His sentence was handed down Thursday.
Kologi was 16 when police were called to his family’s Long Branch home just before midnight on New Year’s Eve in 2017 and found four people shot at various locations inside the home. They were his 42-year-old father, Steven Kologi; his 44-year-old mother, Linda; his 18-year-old sister, Brittany; and his grandfather’s companion, 70-year-old Mary Schultz of Ocean Township.
His grandfather, brother and another family friend had escaped unharmed.
Kologi’s lawyers had pursued an insanity defense. at trial, but Monmouth County prosecutors said he was acting deliberately and knew his actions were wrong. They said Kologi had researched whether the weapon he used would be effective against responding police wearing bulletproof vests.
North Carolina
Nurse practitioner pleads guilty in $15 million equipment scheme
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina nurse has pleaded guilty to his role in a scheme to defraud Medicare of nearly $15 million by filing claims for medically unnecessary orthopedic braces and other medical equipment, a prosecutor said.
Justin Segrest, 44, of Mount Airy pleaded guilty on Thursday to a conspiracy charge, said Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, in a news release.
During 2018 and 2019, Segrest was a nurse practitioner and was working for a Delaware telemedicine company. Filed plea documents and information presented at a plea hearing showed Segrest was responsible for thousands of claims to be submitted for the medical equipment.
Segrest admitted in court to signing false medical records describing “assessments” of Medicare beneficiaries and certifying that he had performed medical examinations when he actually had no contact with beneficiaries and made no determination as to whether the devices were medically necessary or the beneficiaries needed them.
Also, prosecutors said Segrest received unsigned orders for orthopedic braces for the beneficiaries, which he signed and returned to his company in exchange for $15 for per fraudulent assessment.
Segrest, who’s free on bond, faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. No sentencing date has been scheduled.
Maryland
Man indicted for multiple fake loan applications
A federal grand jury has indicted a Baltimore man for submitting several fraudulent loan applications as well as stealing the identity of a tax preparer, according to a federal prosecutor.
Dana Lamar Antonio Hayes Jr., 37, on federal charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft, said U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron.
According to the six-count indictment, between March 2020 and October 2021, Hayes submitted fraudulent applications for loans from Economic Injury Disaster Relief, the Paycheck Protection Plan, the Small Business Administration and two banks.
The indictment also says Hayes used the name of a tax preparer and their identification number to submit a fraudulent Form 941 to a bank without the victim’s knowledge or consent. The preparer previously had been hired by Hayes and a company he revived to prepare his personal returns as well as those of the company. Federal records indicate no such form was ever filed.
If convicted, Hayes faces a maximum sentence of 20 years for wire fraud, 10 years for money laundering, and a mandatory two years in federal prison followed by any other sentenced imposed for aggravated identity theft.
California
DUI driver sentenced for killing 4
VISTA, Calif. (AP) — A driver who ran onto a Southern California sidewalk and killed four people, including two young children, was sentenced Thursday to 25 years to life in prison.
Prosecutors say Ashley Williams, 30, was under the influence of difluoroethane, a gas used in aerosol products, and had marijuana and methamphetamine in her system when the crash occurred in May 2020 in Escondido.
Williams also was driving on a suspended license from a previous DUI drug conviction, prosecutors said.
Killed were Carmela Comacho, 50; her boyfriend, Abel Valdez, 33, and her two grandsons Emmanuel Rivas, 11, and Yovanny Felix, 10.
Williams was sentenced in Vista Superior Court after pleading guilty in April to second-degree murder and gross vehicular manslaughter.
She cried during the sentencing hearing, which included a victim impact statement from Norma Espinoza, whose mother and two sons died.
“Nobody knows how many times I cry myself to sleep, and think that this is just a nightmare wishing I could just wake up and see them in our home again,” Espinoza said.
“I think one day I might forgive her, but I don’t think I’m ready to do that now. It still hurts,” she said.
New York
MS-13 member pleads guilty to luring 15-year-old to killers in 2019
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — A teenage member of the MS-13 gang pleaded guilty Thursday to charges she lured a 15-year-old boy to his death in 2019 on Long Island.
Lidia DelCarmen-Rodriguez, 19, pleaded guilty in federal court to a single count of aiding and abetting the murder of 15-year-old Jasson Medrano-Molina in Central Islip.
DelCarmen-Rodriguez, who was 16 at the time of Medrano-Molina’s death and was initially charged as a juvenile, is scheduled to be sentenced in January and could face decades in prison.
A message seeking comment was left with DelCarmen-Rodriguez’s lawyer.
According to prosecutors, DelCarmen-Rodriguez lured Medrano-Molina and two other people she and other MS-13 members believed to be rival gang members to a secluded wooded area in Central Islip.
There, prosecutors said, two other MS-13 members were waiting with a .40 caliber handgun and a baseball bat. Medrano-Molina and the others who were lured to the woods tried to run away, but Medrano-Molina couldn’t escape and was shot multiple times, prosecutors said.
U.S. Attorney Breon Peace called it a “despicable crime” and said it is his “sincere hope that the family of this young victim can find some solace in knowing that the individuals responsible for this crime have been brought to justice.”
An alleged co-conspirator, Jose Omar Sorto Portillo, pleaded guilty last October to murder in aid of racketeering for his participation in Medrano-Molina’s killing and is awaiting sentencing.
MS-13, also known as La Mara Salvatrucha, recruits young teenagers from El Salvador and Honduras, though many gang members were born in the U.S. The gang has been blamed for dozens of killings since January 2016 across a wide swath of Long Island.
The gang’s influence and violence on Long Island has waned in recent years amid a federal crackdown.
Former President Donald Trump made rooting out MS-13 a focus of his administration and visited Long Island several times to meet with law enforcement officials and the families of the gang’s victims.
Hawaii
Teacher pleads not guilty to distributing child porn
HONOLULU (AP) — A Hawaii public school teacher pleaded not guilty Thursday to distributing child pornography, which prosecutors say included videos of him having sex with a 13-year-old student.
Alden Bunag participated in his arraignment by phone from the Honolulu Federal Detention Center, where he is being held.
Assistant Federal Defender Jacquelyn Esser entered the not guilty plea on behalf of Bunag.
According to a criminal complaint, Bunag, 33 worked as a substitute teacher at multiple schools and sent videos of himself having sex with a boy during school lunch breaks to a teacher in Philadelphia. He distributed child pornography between November 2019 and October 2021, prosecutors said.
According to the complaint, FBI agents said Bunag told them he had sex multiple times with a then-13-year-old boy who was his student and sent a video recording to the Philadelphia teacher and others.
Authorities asked that any other possible victims contact the FBI in Honolulu.
Bunag’s trial is scheduled for August.
Massachusetts
Man to plead guilty to pandemic relief fraud
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man has agreed to plead guilty to fraudulently obtaining about $1.2 million in federal loans intended to help businesses struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
James Joseph Cohen, 59, of Wenham, between April 2020 and September 2021 submitted six false applications in which he overstated the earnings, the number of employees, and the payroll for two companies he controlled, according to federal prosecutors.
In one case, he said a company had $2.8 million in annual revenues, when it no revenues at all, according to court documents.
He used the money to pay personal and business loans, including for a mortgage, car payments, tuition, and to a Maine resort, according to law enforcement, which were not allowed under loan rules.
A date at which he will plead guilty to bank fraud has not yet been scheduled.
Cohen’s federal public defender said he had no comment.
Although he could face a sentence of up to 30 years in prison on a bank fraud charge, the defense and prosecution has agreed to a sentence of 12 months of probation and full restitution of nearly $1.2 million, according to court documents.
