California
School, staff charged
in autistic
child’s death
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A private school in Northern California and three of its staffers have been charged for involuntary manslaughter in the 2018 death of a 13-year-old autistic student, who died after being restrained for almost two hours for allegedly spitting at a classmate.
A recently convened special criminal grand jury indicted Guiding Hands, a now-closed school for students with special needs in the Sacramento suburb of El Dorado Hills, its former principal Starrane Meyers, teacher Kimberly Wohlwend and site administrator Cindy Keller, the Sacramento Bee reported Thursday.
Each was indicted on a charge of involuntary manslaughter, El Dorado County District Attorney Office spokeswoman Savannah Broddrick said.
The indictments, which remain sealed, come almost three years after county prosecutors filed manslaughter charges against the defendants in November 2019. The three educators each entered a not guilty plea at an initial arraignment that month, and then the case dragged on in court as the two sides discussed a plea deal and the defendants changed attorneys, according to the Bee and prosecutors.
“If a case isn’t moving, we can do a criminal grand jury to move it along,” said Broddrick.
Wohlwend is accused of holding 13-year-old Max Benson in a restraint position for more than one hour and 45-minutes, as other staffers allegedly helped carry out a “take down maneuver” and held down his legs, according to a separate civil lawsuit filed by the boy’s family.
Attorneys for the school and staff did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Max was restrained for allegedly spitting at a classmate. According to court documents, he was unconscious when an ambulance arrived, after having vomited and urinated on himself while being held face-down on the floor. He died a day later at UC Davis Medical Center.
The family’s civil suit said that Max lost consciousness 25 minutes before paramedics arrived. The lawsuit alleges that school staff took no action to check on Max’s medical condition or ensure that he was released from the hold.
In statements a few months after the child’s death, attorneys for the school said the de-escalation techniques were sometimes necessary to ensure the safety of students, staff and teachers.
In 2018, the California Department of Education wrote that school staff used “an amount of force which is not reasonable and necessary under the circumstances” while holding him down for 105 minutes.
Guiding Hands closed after the deadly incident and was replaced in 2019 by a different special education school, Point Quest Education.
North Carolina
Pizza delivery
box leads to prison for man
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — An accused methamphetamine dealer in North Carolina has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after federal prosecutors say investigators used a pizza delivery box with his address on it to track him down.
Jerrell Taylor, 36, of Kinston was sentenced on Wednesday following an investigation tying him to meth trafficking, said U.S. Attorney Michael Easley in a news release.
Court documents and evidence presented in court showed that on July 24, 2019, Onslow County sheriff’s detectives arranged a purchase of 449 grams of meth for $6,500, the news release said. A so-called “middleman” arrived on a motorcycle carrying a pizza box which contained the meth and listed Taylor’s address on the box.
After the deal, the middleman met with Taylor as law enforcement watched. Both people were stopped, and prosecutors said Taylor was found with money from the purchase.
The investigation also showed that from December 2018 until his arrest, Taylor was involved in the receipt and distribution of more than 18 kilograms of methamphetamine, according to the news release. Taylor was supplied methamphetamine from California, and he and others would have packages sent to addresses in Kinston and New Bern. Taylor also had various people wire drug proceeds back to California, prosecutors said.
Tennessee
Man who hid guns in unfinished jail convicted of vandalism
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee jury found a prominent prison reform advocate guilty of vandalism Thursday after he disguised himself as a construction worker to hide guns, handcuff keys and hacksaw blades inside the walls of a Nashville jail under construction.
Alex Friedmann was found guilty of vandalism over $250,000 in a case that a prosecutor likened to something out of a Hollywood movie. Much of it was caught on surveillance video and went undisputed. The prosecutor also said the case ends on a cliffhanger, leaving it anyone’s guess as to what Friedmann planned to do. He did not testify at trial.
“We don’t know: Who were those bullets intended for? Who was going to be stuck with that knife?” Deputy District Attorney Amy Hunter said during closing arguments Thursday. “Who was going to try to get something from the other side of the visitation booth, and what were they going to do with it? And why?”
Ben Raybin, an attorney for Friedmann, argued that the state was overcharging his client through its calculation of damages. He urged the jury to look to the law and only hold Friedmann responsible for the actual physical damages to the jail.
To arrive at a charge of vandalism over $250,000, prosecutors said the entire facility had to be rekeyed at a cost of just over $291,000.
Fellow defense attorney David Raybin noted that an early news release from the sheriff’s office said that between 85 to 100 locks would need replacement, while the final total included rekeying 1,800 locks.
The government also argued that Friedmann’s vandalism includes more than $300,000 in personnel costs incurred when sheriff’s officers reviewed thousands of hours of surveillance video.
Nashville’s sheriff, Daron Hall, has suggested Friedmann was planning a massive jailbreak. The theft of the keys was discovered just weeks before the facility was scheduled to open. Speaking to reporters after his testimony Tuesday, Hall said they were just “two weeks away from a massive loss of life.”
Prosecutors said Friedmann had already been going in the building for several months when a sheriff’s office official first noticed in December 2019 that two keys were missing from a set of keys at the new $150 million Downtown Detention Center.
Surveillance video showed the same person who took the keys entering the jail numerous times and doing some type of work on the walls. When he entered again on Jan. 4, 2020, Friedmann was stopped in a secure area while police were called. During the wait, Friedmann took jail schematics out of his pocket, ripped them up and ate them, Hunter said.
As an activist against prison privatization, Friedmann had worked with Hall on the future of another Nashville jail — one that had been privatized but was returning to the control of the sheriff’s office. That is why Hall said he knew the security breach was serious when he learned the intruder was Friedmann.
New York
Man convicted in cryptocurrency fraud scheme
BOSTON (AP) — The founder of a cryptocurrency and virtual payment services company has been convicted by a federal jury of defrauding investors out of $6 million and spending some of the money on antiques, artwork and jewelry.
Randall Crater, 51, of East Hampton, New York, was convicted in federal court in Boston on Thursday of wire fraud, unlawful monetary transactions, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston said.
Crater founded Las Vegas-based My Big Coin Pay Inc. in 2013, offering virtual payment services through the digital currency, “My Big Coins,” which he marketed to investors between 2014 and 2017, prosecutors said.
Crater and his associates said the coins were a fully functioning cryptocurrency backed by $300 million in gold, oil and other valuable assets, said the company had a partnership with MasterCard, and said the currency could readily be exchanged for government-backed paper currency or other virtual currencies, when in reality, none of that was true, prosecutors said.
Crater misappropriated more than $6 million of investor funds, authorities said.
“Mr. Crater saw the burgeoning popularity of crypto as a chance to get rich quick through an unscrupulous fraud scheme cloaked by flashy marketing tactics and outright lies,” U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said.
Sentencing was scheduled for Oct. 27.
Florida
Officials: Sergeant charged with grabbing officer by throat
SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — A South Florida police sergeant who was recorded grabbing a colleague by the neck when she tried to deescalate a situation involving a suspect is facing four criminal charges, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Sunrise police Sgt. Christopher Pullease was charged Wednesday with battery on a law enforcement officer, tampering with evidence, assault on a law enforcement officer and assault on a civilian, according to a Broward State Attorney’s Office news release. Pullease was previously placed on paid administrative leave.
The 21-year veteran of the department had been placed on desk duty last November, five days after the altercation with the other officer. The suspect had been handcuffed and placed into a cruiser when Pullease pointed pepper spray at him, officials said.
The unidentified female officer ran to Pullease and pulled him by the belt away from the suspect, the video showed. Pullease turned and put his left hand on her throat before pushing her back toward another police cruiser.
The investigation was conducted by Sunrise Police Department and the Broward State Attorney’s Office.
Online court records didn’t immediately list an attorney for Pullease.
Pennsylvania
More charged after 911 operator accused of not sending help
WAYNESBURG, Pa. (AP) — Authorities have filed charges against three more people in the case of a Pennsylvania 911 operator accused of failing to send an ambulance to the rural home of a woman who died of internal bleeding about a day later.
According to a criminal complaint, the three men were charged Monday with tampering with public records, tampering with or fabricating evidence and obstruction.
They are or were managers for Greene County’s emergency management. Prosecutors allege they failed to provide policy memo binders that detail standard operating procedures.
According to the criminal complaint, the three conspired to “knowingly and purposefully conceal, withhold, omit, obstruct or pervert the release of documents” to investigators.
Earlier this month, authorities charged 911 operator Leon “Lee” Price, 50, of Waynesburg, with involuntary manslaughter in the July 2020 death of Diania Kronk, 54, based on Price’s reluctance to dispatch help without getting more assurance that Kronk would actually go to the hospital.
“I believe she would be alive today if they would have sent an ambulance,” said Kronk’s daughter Kelly Titchenell, 38.
Price, who also was charged with reckless endangerment, official oppression and obstruction, questioned Titchenell repeatedly during the four-minute call about whether Kronk would agree to be taken for treatment.
