Alabama
Man admits faking death to avoid charges of sexual abuse
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A military veteran pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to faking his own death off the Alabama coast to try to avoid sexual abuse charges in Mississippi.
Jacob Blair Scott pleaded guilty to charges of sending a false distress call that led to a Coast Guard search; illegally shipping weapons across state lines and giving false information, according to court records.
A federal judge will sentence Scott in November. He was already sentenced to serve 85 years in prison in Mississippi after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a girl and impregnating her when he was 40 and she was 14.
Scott was facing charges of assaulting the girl when he faked his death in July 2018. The Orange Beach Police Department responded to a call for assistance and found a small boat in the Gulf of Mexico, about a mile away from shore, with a gun tied to it. The dinghy was empty except for a suicide note.
Authorities searched for a body for more than a week in the Gulf of Mexico.
Scott was captured in early 2020 at an RV park in Oklahoma, where he was living under another name.
A Mississippi jury in June convicted him of multiple sexual battery and child abuse charges.
According to the Sun Herald, the victim tearfully testified at the trial about how Scott had sexually assaulted her at least 30 times over several months beginning in 2016 and ending in 2017 when she learned she was pregnant.
Scott is a military veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart in 2011 for injuries he received while deployed in Iraq, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, which had once listed him as one of its 15 most-wanted fugitives.
California
Man guilty in $340K, 7-state credit card plot
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A California man has pleaded guilty in a seven-state plot to buy $340,000 worth of gift cards and goods at The Home Depot using other people’s credit card numbers, U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans said Monday in a news release.
Jonathan Orpilla Sinlao, 37, of San Jose, pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy, and prosecutors agreed to drop seven counts of access device fraud when he pleaded guilty, the statement said.
Investigators looked into more than 100 unauthorized purchases between February of 2019 and July of 2019 at Home Depot stores in Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, New York, and Oklahoma, according to the news release.
Sinlao would pay with “a temporary charge pass containing his name and 16-digit credit card numbers,” according to a sworn statement. The credit card numbers were not issued to Sinlao.
At least seven such purchases, in April 2019, were in the New Orleans area.
Sinlao was caught after a Home Depot employee in Oklahoma City checked on two numbers on July 4, 2019, and learned they weren’t Sinlao’s, the sworn statement said.
She called city police, who searched a rented vehicle and found boxes of Home Depot merchandise, receipts for fraudulent purchases, temporary charge passes with Sinlao’s name and credit card numbers that weren’t his. They also found some of Sinlao’s belongings including his Social Security card, according to the sworn statement.
It said surveillance cameras showed Sinlao involved in about 78 unauthorized transactions, and receipts and other records show that he gave his driver’s license number in 88 transactions.
The statement also describes some actions allegedly taken by two co-conspirators whom it did not name.
U.S. District Judge Barry W. Ashe scheduled sentencing Nov. 10. The maximum sentence would be 7.5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and supervised release of up to three years.
Maine
Clinic’s failure to note child abuse leads to $8M settlement
BANGOR, Maine (AP) — The federal government will pay $8 million to settle a claim that a federally funded clinic failed to alert a mother or authorities of signs of abuse of a 6-month-old boy.
Alexandria Orduna, of Brewer, contended medical professionals failed to recognize or report abuse inflicted on her son by a man who was living with her in 2019.
The abuse wasn’t noted and reported until her son was taken to a hospital emergency room in Bangor.
The boy is now almost entirely blind, and his brain stopped growing at the time of his attack, the Bangor Daily News reported.
“This little boy couldn’t talk, but his body could and his health care practitioners didn’t listen to what it was saying,” Terry Garmey, one of the mother’s attorneys, told the newspaper.
Orduna sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which funds Medicaid, which paid for the boy’s care.
The settlement sets aside $17,000 a month in a trust account for the rest of the boy’s life to contribute to the cost of his long-term medical needs and accommodations.
The man who inflicted the injuries pleaded guilty last year to aggravated assault and other charges. He was ordered to serve four years in prison.
Virginia
Man pleads guilty in shooting deaths of mother and brother, 6
WARRENTON, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man pleaded guilty Monday to shooting and killing his mother and 6-year-old brother at their home in 2020.
Levi Norwood, now 19, pleaded guilty in Fauquier County Circuit Court to first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Jennifer, and second-degree murder in the death of his brother, Wyatt, news outlets reported.
Other charges, including charges related to the wounding of Norwood’s father, were dropped. Attorney Ryan Ruzic said that the second-degree murder charge had initially been first-degree, but was amended down.
“I think that Levi is someone who, at the time this incident happened, had severe mental issues which were not being treated,” Ruzic said. “I’m hoping that when that evidence is reviewed, the court’s able to make a just decision for what should happen next.”
Judge James Fisher ordered a presentence investigation and set a status hearing for Nov. 3. A sentencing date has not been set.
