Alabama
2 charged with murder in death of infant in 2000
OPELIKA, Ala. (AP) — A woman and her former boyfriend were charged with murder in the death of the woman’s 4-month-old son in east Alabama more than two decades ago, authorities said Tuesday.
Tomeika Hughley, 43, and Bobby Beaty, 42, were indicted in the death of Jarquavious Hughley, Opelika police said in a statement.
Emergency workers found the boy dead when they were called to a home on April 23, 2000, police said. The two adults had been caring for the baby and an autopsy determined that he died from a homicide.
No charges were filed for decades, but grand jurors indicted Hughley and Beaty on murder charges in April after authorities reviewed the evidence, the statement said. Investigators routinely look at old cases, police said, and prosecutors decided there was enough evidence for a grand jury after a review.
Beaty was arrested in Opelika earlier this month, and Hughley was returned to Alabama on Saturday following her arrest in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Police did not say how the child died or give any possible motive and court records did not provide details.
Attorneys for Hughley and Beaty did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
Hughley already was charged with chemical endangerment of a child from a case in 2020 when she gave birth to a boy who was determined to have cocaine in his system, court records show.
West Virginia
Father sentenced to prison in death of infant son
SBURG, W. Va. (AP) — A West Virginia man has been sentenced to not less than 15 years in prison and not more than life in the death of his infant son.
Harrison County Circuit Judge Thomas A. Bedell handed down the sentence Wednesday for Lucian Alexander Grayson, 19, who was charged last year in the death of one-month-old Rowan Cooper Grayson-Seech, The Exponent-Telegram reported.
The sentence was wanted by the child’s mother, grandmothers and Harrison Prosecutor Rachel Romano for Grayson’s plea to death of a child by parent by child abuse, according to the newspaper.
At his plea hearing, Grayson said the boy wouldn’t stop crying and “something inside me snapped, and I shook him.”
He accepted the consequences for his actions during the sentencing hearing, saying he “made the worst possible mistake I could have made” and that he understood the severity of the sentence he received.
Arizona
Women want sentencing in ballot fraud case delayed
YUMA, Ariz. (AP) — Two women from southwestern Arizona who pleaded guilty to illegally collecting voted early ballots in the 2020 primary election are seeking a delay in their scheduled sentencing in Yuma on Thursday because one of their lawyers had a death in the family.
Prosecutors are seeking a one-year prison sentence for one of the women, Guillermina Fuentes, a school board member and former mayor in the border city of San Luis. Fuentes pleaded guilty to a felony violation of Arizona’s “ballot harvesting” law, which bars anyone but a person’s relative, housemate or caregiver from returning ballots for them.
Alma Juarez pleaded guilty to the same charge, but it was designated as a misdemeanor after she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. She carried ballots Fuentes gave her into a polling place and dropped them off. Her agreement calls for a sentence of probation.
The probation department is recommending that Fuentes also be sentenced to probation.
Both were set to appear before Yuma County Superior Court Judge Roger Nelson on Thursday. Nelson’s assistant has told attorneys in the case that he intends to sentence “them” to 30 days in jail.
Lawyers for Fuentes had previously sought a delay because two witnesses she wanted to call during a pre-sentencing mitigation hearing were unavailable and one of her attorneys was unavailable, but Nelson refused. That decision was appealed, but the Arizona Court of Appeals declined to consider the case.
This week, a family member of Fuentes’ Yuma attorney died and funeral services are set for Thursday and Friday, prompting a new request to delay sentencing. Nelson will formally consider that request at Thursday’s hearing.
Since the plea Juarez entered required her to cooperate in the state prosecution of Fuentes, she is asking for her sentencing to be also delayed.
Prosecutors with the Arizona Attorney General’s office allege in court papers that Fuentes ran a sophisticated operation using her status in Democratic politics in San Luis to persuade voters to let her gather and, in some cases, fill out their ballots. But the crime she admitted in court last month does not involve filling out ballots or any broader efforts.
Missouri
Prosecutor again seeks to clear convicted killer
St. Louis’ top prosecutor on Wednesday filed a motion asking a judge to vacate the conviction that sent a man to prison nearly 30 years ago for a murder he has long claimed he didn’t commit.
Lamar Johnson was convicted in the 1994 killing of 25-year-old Marcus Boyd in an alleged drug dispute. Johnson’s claims of innocence and other new evidence in recent years convinced St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner that he was wrongfully convicted.
In fact, his case was compelling enough to spur a new Missouri law that makes it easier for prosecutors to get new hearings in cases like Johnson’s.
Citing the new law, Gardner’s office filed a motion to vacate or set aside the judgment in Johnson’s case. The office’s statement released Wednesday evening did not provide any other details.
“We are hopeful that the court will hear our motion and correct this manifest injustice on behalf of Mr. Johnson to strengthen the integrity of our criminal justice system,” Gardner’s office said in the statement.
It’s not the first time that Gardner, a Democrat, has sought to clear Johnson. In 2019, she asked for a new trial in a case that ended up before the Missouri Supreme Court. Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office argued that Gardner lacked authority to make the request so many years after the case was adjudicated. The March 2021 ruling sided with Schmitt.
Lindsay Runnels, an attorney for Johnson, at the time called it “sad that rules and technicalities matter more than someone’s innocence.”
A new state law effective August 2021 gave prosecutors the authority to seek a hearing if they have new evidence of a wrongful conviction. State Sen. John Rizzo, a Kansas City Democrat, said the Johnson case pushed him and other lawmakers to write the law with input from prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement officers and representatives from groups that work to free prisoners.
Johnson was convicted of killing Boyd over a $40 drug debt and received a life sentence while another suspect, Phil Campbell, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in exchange for a seven-year prison term.
Johnson claimed he was with his girlfriend miles away when Boyd was killed. Meanwhile, years after the killing, the state’s only witness recanted his identification of Johnson and Campbell as the shooters. Two other men have confessed to Boyd’s killing and said Johnson was not involved.
Gardner launched an investigation in collaboration with lawyers at the Midwest Innocence Project. She said the investigation found misconduct by one of her office’s former prosecutors, that secret payments were made to the witness, that police reports were falsified and testimony perjured.
The former prosecutor and the detective who investigated the case rejected Gardner’s allegations.
The new law spurred by Johnson’s case freed another longtime inmate last year.
Kevin Strickland of Kansas City, Missouri, was freed from prison at age 62 in November after spending more than 40 years behind bars for a triple murder. He maintained that he wasn’t he wasn’t at the crime scene, and Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced said her review convinced her that Strickland was telling the truth.
After the Missouri Supreme Court in June 2021 declined to hear Strickland’s petition for release, Peters Baker used the new state law to seek a hearing. In that hearing, a judge ordered Strickland freed.
Puerto Rico
Banker in bribe scandal pleads not guilty
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An international banker accused of bribing Puerto Rico’s then-governor to undermine an investigation into his institution turned himself in on Wednesday, almost a month after he was charged in federal court.
Julio Herrera Velutini, who is a citizen of Venezuela and Italy and who was thought to be living in the United Kingdom, pleaded not guilty hours after he was arrested in Puerto Rico and was ordered held on a $1 million secured bond.
Herrera faces several charges, including bribery and honest services wire fraud — which implies a third party being harmed by the bribery or kickbacks.
Federal authorities said the Puerto Rico-based Bancredito International Bank & Trust that Herrera owned came under scrutiny in 2019 when Puerto Rico’s Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions began probing suspicious transactions that the bank did not report.
Officials alleged that Herrera and a former FBI agent who served as his consultant promised to financially support former Gov. Wanda Vázquez’s 2020 campaign for governor if she dismissed the commissioner and appointed a new one of Herrera’s choosing.
Authorities said Vázquez accepted the bribe, demanded the commissioner’s resignation and appointed a former consultant for Herrera’s bank as the new commissioner in May 2020.
Officials said Herrera and Mark Rossini, the ex-FBI agent, then paid more than $300,000 to political consultants to support Vázquez’s campaign.
Rossini, who was in Spain and turned himself in days after he was accused, has pleaded not guilty. Vázquez was arrested in Puerto Rico and was released on a $50,000 unsecured bond after pleading not guilty.
The judge, Giselle López-Soler, allowed Herrera to live in New York ahead of the trial, adding that he must surrender his passport once he arrives. His bank is in the process of being liquidated.
Washington
Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier guilty of child sex crimes
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A former staff sergeant stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Tuesday pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Washington, to charges related to traveling to a foreign country with the intent to engage in child sex crimes.
Moeun Yoeun, of Steilacoom, Washington, pleaded guilty Tuesday to sex trafficking children, production of child pornography, and engaging in illicit sexual activity in a foreign place, the U.S. Department of Justice — Western District of Washington said in a statement.
Yoeun, 37, admitted to using adult and child residents of the Philippines to recruit over a dozen other children to produce pornography over the course of several years, prosecutors said.
Yoeun also admitted to travelling to the Philippines and engaging in sexual acts with at least six children in exchange for nominal amounts of money.
As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed not to charge additional offenses and moved to dismiss the remaining counts in the indictment.
Yoeun faces from 15 years to life in prison at his sentencing set for December.
Yoeun will be required to register as a sex offender after he is released from prison and could face federal supervision for the rest of his life.
