Louisiana
Advocates: Conviction in 1997 death vacated; prisoner freed
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A man convicted and imprisoned for more than 20 years for the 1997 shooting death of another man in New Orleans was freed Monday after prosecutors agreed that his conviction should be vacated.
Court records show a motion to vacate the conviction of Cedric L. Dent, 47, in the shooting death of Anthony Milton was granted by a judge Monday and the district attorney’s office agreed not to continue prosecuting the case.
The shooting happened outside a New Orleans supermarket, court records show.
The Innocence Project New Orleans organization said its investigation determined that prosecutors in the 1990s withheld documents that showed a witness to the shooting gave a description that didn’t match Dent, and that a key witness’s story changed multiple times before he testified at the trial.
“Cedric Dent is a victim of the failures of every system that was put in place to protect his rights as a person accused of a crime — a police department that did the bare minimum to investigate a serious crime; lawyers that didn’t have the resources or the wherewithal to investigate his case; and a district attorney’s office that concealed evidence that should have been turned over and would have helped Mr. Dent get the not guilty verdict he deserved at trial,” Meredith Angelson, one of Mr. Dent’s lawyers, said in a statement released by the organization.
A statement from District Attorney Jason Williams’ office noted that Dent had been convicted by a non-unanimous jury — a verdict that would not now be accepted under Louisiana law or U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
“After a thorough review of Mr. Dent’s case, our office concluded that — like many convictions decided by non-unanimous jury — his guilty verdict stemmed from a trial that was unfair precisely because one of the twelve jurors had voted to acquit and because of constitutionally ineffective assistance from his defense attorney,” the statement said. “The legal system failed Mr. Dent, and just as significantly, failed the victim of this crime and his family.”
Innocence Project New Orleans said Dent was released Monday from the state penitentiary.
The organization said Dent is a nephew of another of its clients, Elvis Brooks. Brooks was freed in 2019 after serving 42 years for a killing connected to an armed robbery. Brooks was 62 at the time of his release. He always said he was not involved in the robbery. After IPNO found evidence that was withheld during his trial, prosecutors agreed to a deal that would free him if he pleaded guilty to the lesser crime of manslaughter. When he was released, Brooks said he pleaded to the charge to earn his freedom.
California
Driver in crash that killed 5 charged with murder
GELES (AP) — The driver suspected of causing a fiery crash that killed five people, including a pregnant woman, was charged Monday with murder.
Nicole Lorraine Linton was charged with six counts of murder and five counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. One murder charge was filed for the pregnant woman’s unborn child.
She could face 90 years to life in prison if convicted of all charges.
Linton, a 37-year-old traveling nurse from Houston, Texas, made her first court appearance Monday after being released from a hospital over the weekend. Linton, who appeared in a wheelchair, didn’t enter a plea and her arraignment was continued to October. She was ordered held without bail pending a bail hearing next week.
Prosecutors said Linton’s Mercedes-Benz was doing 90 mph (144 kph) last Thursday when it ran a red light and smashed into cars in a crowded intersection in unincorporated Windsor Hills about 10 miles (16 km) southwest of downtown Los Angeles. Several victims were thrown from the cars and several vehicles caught fire.
The crash killed 23-year-old Asherey Ryan, her 11-month-old son Alonzo Quintero and her boyfriend, Reynold Lester, Sha’seana Kerr said in a GoFundMe posting.
Lester’s family told KABC-TV that the 24-year-old security guard was the father of Ryan’s 8 1/2-month-old unborn child. The family has said Ryan was on the way to a doctor’s appointment for a prenatal checkup when she was killed.
One murder charge — but not an additional charge of vehicular manslaughter — was filed for the fetus, who was identified by the coroner’s office as Armani Lester and listed as born on the same day he died.
“A young family was destroyed in the blink of an eye,” District Attorney George Gascón said at a news conference.
Two other women were also killed but their names weren’t made public as of Monday.
“While the wreckage of this fiery crash at this intersection was removed and traffic eventually resumed, there is catastrophic damage to the families and friends of those killed and injured,” Gascón said. “It is not only a tremendous loss to the families but our entire community who learned of this incredible tragedy or have watched the now viral video of the collision,” he said.
In court, Linton’s lawyer, Halim Dhanidina, said his client has an out-of-state history of “profound mental health issues” that might be linked to the crash but didn’t specify, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Authorities said they haven’t found any evidence that Linton was under the influence of alcohol but prosecutors said she had at least 13 previous crashes — including a 2020 injury accident that totaled two cars — and knew the threat posed by her driving behavior, the Times said.
Texas
Man on trial says he did not kill 2 teen daughters
DALLAS (AP) — A man accused of fatally shooting his two teenage daughters in a taxi in the Dallas area in 2008 told jurors in his capital murder trial on Monday that he fled the vehicle before they were killed because he thought someone wanted to kill him.
“Definitely not, I did not kill my daughters,” said Yaser Said, whose testimony in Arabic was translated to English.
Said evaded arrest for over 12 years following the slayings of his daughters, 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said. Yaser Said, who faces an automatic life sentence if convicted, said he did not turn himself in because he didn’t think he would get a fair trial.
The prosecution and defense both rested their cases Monday afternoon. Jurors are set to hear closing arguments Tuesday morning.
Said, 65, worked as a taxi driver, and a former police detective has testified that the taxi the sisters’ bodies were found in on New Year’s Day in 2008 near a hotel in had been lent to Said.
Sarah Said was shot nine times and Amina Said was shot twice.
In a letter written to the judge overseeing the case, Said had said he was not happy with his kids’ “dating activity” but denied killing his daughters.
Said told jurors that the evening the sisters’ were killed, he was taking them to dinner because he wanted to “solve the problem” after they had left home a week earlier, going to Oklahoma with their mother and their boyfriends.
“I was upset because in my culture it’s something to get upset about,” said Said, who testified that he was born in Egypt, came to the U.S. in 1983 and later became a U.S. citizen.
Prosecutor Lauren Black said during opening statements that the sisters had become “very scared for their lives,” and the decision to leave was made after Said “put a gun to Amina’s head and threatened to kill her.” Black told jurors that Said was “obsessed with possession and control.”
Said’s former wife, Patricia Owens, has testified that Said eventually had convinced her to return to Texas from Oklahoma.
Said testified that as he was driving to dinner with his daughters on the evening they were killed, he thought someone was following the taxi. He said he did not know who it might be but assumed it might be friends of his daughters. He testified that he was fearful someone would harm him, so he left his daughters in the taxi and ran into nearby woods.
“I did not expect anyone would harm them,” Said testified.
Jurors heard a 911 call Sarah Said made by cell phone, telling the operator that her father shot her and that she was dying.
Defense attorney Joseph Patton said in opening statements that the evidence would not support a conviction and that police were too quick to focus on Said. He also said that in moments of extreme trauma, like being shot multiple times, people can have hallucinations.
Amina Said’s boyfriend has testified that the evening she and her sister were killed, he and his father saw them riding in the taxi with their father.
Yaser Said, who had been sought on a capital murder warrant since the slayings, was placed on the FBI’s most-wanted list. He was finally arrested in August 2020 in Justin, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) northwest of Dallas. His son, Islam Said, and his brother, Yassim Said, were subsequently convicted of helping him evade arrest.
Massachusetts
Man charged with impersonating officer and attempted rape
BOSTON (AP) — Boston police arrested a man they say posed as a police officer and attempted to kidnap and rape a woman over the weekend.
Charles Singleton, 51, of Boston, claimed to be a police officer when he offered a ride to a woman he’d met at a social gathering during the early morning hours on Saturday, according to police.
Instead, he drove the woman a short distance, pulled out a gun and ordered her to walk out into a dark field where he groped her and threatened to kill her if she didn’t comply with his instructions, police said.
When the woman began to scream, Singleton assaulted her, took her purse and cell phone and fled.
Officers arriving say they located Singleton near his vehicle and recovered the woman’s personal items as well as a gun equipped with a laser sight that had been discarded nearby.
Singleton was arraigned Monday in Dorchester District Court on a range of charges, including assault with a dangerous weapon, larceny, kidnapping and indecent assault and battery, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.
Bail was set at $50,000 and he was also ordered to have no contact with the victim, prosecutors said.
Singleton’s lawyer declined to comment.
Michigan
Woman sentenced as teen to life in prison set to be paroled
MUSKEGON, Mich. (AP) — A western Michigan woman sentenced to life in prison as a 16-year-old is scheduled to be released from prison next month, a corrections spokesman said Monday.
Amy Lee Black, convicted of killing a Muskegon County man in 1990, is set to be paroled from the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility the week of Sept. 4-10, Chris Gautz of the Michigan Department of Corrections, told The Muskegon Chronicle in an email.
Black, now 48, received a sentence reduction after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that life sentences for juveniles were cruel and unusual punishment. She received a sentence of 35 to 60 years in August 2021.
The Michigan Parole Board recently approved her release after denying it once, Gautz said.
Black and her boyfriend, Jeffrey Abrahamson, then 19, killed 34-year-old Dave VanBogelen in 1990. She was tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder.
VanBogelen was bludgeoned, repeatedly stabbed, and left on a rural road in Fruitport Township. Black and Abrahamson also stole $1,500 from the man, court records show.
Muskegon County Circuit Judge William Marietti on July 2 ordered Black to pay $1.87 million in restitution to VanBogelen’s estate.
Barb VanBogelen, the victim’s wife, said she was “livid at this whole justice system. It has failed my family miserably.”
