Texas
Woman pleads guilty to role in $2.6M romance scam
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Texas woman who played a role in internet romance scams that cheated victims out of a total of about $2.6 million pleaded guilty Thursday to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud, federal prosecutors in Rhode Island said.
Dominique Golden, 31, of Houston, personally collected nearly $1.3 million in cash, checks, money orders, and wire transfers from people across the U.S. that was deposited into bank accounts opened under the names of fake people and businesses that she controlled, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha.
Golden’s alleged accomplices contacted victims via the internet and app-based communication platforms, cultivated the relationships, and convinced the victims that they needed money, prosecutors said.
Golden was aware that other members of the conspiracy contacted the victims for the sole purpose of perpetrating the scam, prosecutors said.
Under a plea agreement, Golden will forfeit assets derived from her criminal conduct, including two luxury cars, three handguns, three Rolex watches, and a 24-inch (61-centimeter) gold chain, prosecutors said.
In exchange, prosecutors said they would recommend a sentence at the low end of sentencing guidelines.
An email seeking comment was left with her attorney.
Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 6.
Arkansas
Man accused of sexually assaulting 31 children
ARKADELPHIA, Ark. (AP) — Prosecutors have charged a southwest Arkansas man with 132 counts accusing him of sexually assaulting 31 children over 25 years.
Court records show Barry Walker, 58, of Glenwood, is charged with rape, engaging a child in sexually explicit conduct, computer exploitation of a child, producing or directing a sexual performance by a child and distributing or possessing material depicting child sex.
Prosecuting Attorney Dan Turner said Thursday that all of the victims were girls who were younger than 14.
“Initially, it was reported by a victim, which led to the defendant’s residence” and discovery of the other victims, Turner said.
Affidavits filed in the case say victims told investigators that Walker raped them. Authorities found videos of the rapes taking place, including with other children present, the documents say.
A woman who answered a phone call to public defender Winston Mathis, who was appointed to represent Walker, declined to identify herself and said that Mathis is prohibited by public defender rules from commenting.
Walker has pleaded not guilty to many of the charges and awaits arraignment next week on the remaining counts, according to Turner.
The crimes occurred from 1997 until earlier this year, according to court documents.
Florida
Drug company CEO pleads guilty to selling tainted medicine
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A former owner and CEO of a South Florida drug manufacturing company has been sentenced to three years and one month in federal prison for lying to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and allowing contaminated medicine to go to pediatric hospitals.
Raidel Figueroa was sentenced Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale federal court, records show. He pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to defraud the FDA, falsifying records in an FDA investigation, obstructing proceedings before the FDA and distributing adulterated drugs.
Figueroa had previously been a co-owner of PharmaTech LLC, which manufactured and distributed the laxative Diocto Liquid from 2016 to 2017, according to court records.
The FDA inspected the company’s operations in July 2016 as part of a larger investigation into an outbreak of infections linked to bacteria known as Burkholderia cepacia. The bacteria is typically found in water and soil and can lead to respiratory and other infections for people with weak immune systems, chronic lung disease and other conditions.
The FDA notified Figueroa in August 2016 that a sample taken from Pharmatech’s water system had tested positive for the bacteria. Investigators said Figueroa assured the FDA that Pharmatech would re-engineer its purified water system to prevent future contaminations.
During a March 2017 inspection, Figueroa lied to FDA investigators by knowingly excluding Diocto Liquid from its products distribution list, despite shipping over 7,000 units of the drug earlier that month, and by telling the FDA that Pharmatech’s new water system had met “acceptance criteria,” which was not true, prosecutors said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified the FDA in July 2017 of bacterial infections in pediatric patients at Stanford Children’s Health Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, California, and Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Bottles of Diocto Liquid collected from the hospitals contained unacceptable amounts of bacteria, yeast and mold, officials said. Some bottles tested positive for Burkholderia cepacia. FDA investigators determined the bottles had come from Pharmatech in March 2017, which Figueroa knowingly failed to disclose.
Alabama
State opposes lawsuit to block execution of inmate
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The state asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by an Alabama inmate who is trying to halt his lethal injection later this month by arguing officials lost paperwork in which he selected an alternate execution method.
The lawsuit by Alan Eugene Miller, who was convicted of killing three men in a workplace shooting in 1999, does not state a claim a judge could use to block the execution, set for Sept. 22, Attorney General Steve Marshall argued in a request filed Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Austin Huffaker, in an order Thursday, gave the inmate until Monday to explain why Marshall’s motion shouldn’t be granted. In the meantime, the defense asked for an preliminary court order blocking Miller’s execution by lethal injection.
Miller, a delivery truck driver, was convicted in a rampage that killed Lee Holdbrooks, Scott Yancy and Terry Jarvis in Shelby County, south of Birmingham. Testimony indicated Miller was delusional and believed the men were spreading rumors about him, including that he was gay.
While lethal injection is Alabama’s primary execution method, the state in 2018 approved an untried method, nitrogen hypoxia, as an alternative amid mounting questions over lethal injection. State law gave inmates a brief window of time in which to designate hypoxia it as their preferred execution method.
Miller signed a sworn statement saying he gave a form selecting nitrogen hypoxia to a corrections officer at Holman Prison, where the main death row is located, in mid-2018. But the state said it does not have such a document and plans to put the man to death by lethal injection.
While Miller’s lawsuit names Marshall, Prison Commissioner John Hamm and Holman Warden Terry Raybon as defendants, the attorney general’s office argued the suit treats all three as “interchangeable cogs in the machinery of government” and should be dismissed.
Miller also cited alleged problems with past lethal injections including that of Joe Nathan James Jr., who was put to death in July in a procedure that was delayed for hours. Death penalty opponents contend the execution was botched.
“The information that is publicly available to date shows that Mr. James’s body was in ‘great distress’ during the execution as executioners sliced into his skin several times to find a vein, and that he suffered many ‘unusual punctures’ that do not normally appear on an executed body,” Miller’s lawyers wrote in a request filed Thursday seeking a preliminary injunction against a lethal injection.
The state has acknowledged that James’ execution was delayed because of difficulties establishing an intravenous line, but has not specified how long it took. James was pronounced dead hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request for a stay.
Wisconsin
Boy waives hearing in 10-year-old girl’s death
CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. (AP) — A lawyer for a 14-year-old Wisconsin boy accused of killing a 10-year-old girl after luring her into the woods said Thursday that he will seek to have the case moved from adult to juvenile court.
During a brief Zoom appearance in Chippewa County Circuit Court, attorney Michael Cohen said he planned to file the request in the coming weeks. Judge Benjamin Lane found probable cause during the hearing to proceed to trial after the teen waived his right to a preliminary hearing.
The boy, identified in court documents only as C.T.P.-B, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of sexual assault. He is accused of killing Iliana Peters, known as Lily, the night of April 24 after persuading her to leave a trail and explore the surrounding woods as she was riding her bike home from her aunt’s house in Chippewa Falls. Searchers found her body the next morning.
The boy appeared with Cohen from the juvenile detention center where he is being held on $1 million cash bond. Anyone who is at least 10 years old and is accused of first- or second-degree homicide is considered an adult in Wisconsin’s court system.
The boy told investigators that he was riding his hoverboard alongside Lily and he intended to sexually assault and kill her, according to the criminal complaint. He told investigators that after they left the trail, he punched her, hit her with a heavy stick and strangled her until she died, then sexually assaulted her body, according to the complaint.
Lane set a status conference for Sept. 29 to set a schedule for the hearing that will determine whether the case is moved to juvenile court.
California
2 charged with killing homeless double-amputee
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two people were charged with shooting and killing a homeless double amputee as he slept in a wheelchair in South Los Angeles, authorities said Thursday.
Rubi Anguiano Salazar, 37, and Raymundo Hernandez, 34, were charged with murder for the death of 69-year-old Gerold Lipeles on May 17, authorities said.
Lipeles was sleeping outside of a McDonald’s restaurant when Salazar walked up and shot him in the head, prosecutors alleged. He died five days later at a hospital.
The killing “is disturbingly brutal and callous,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement.
Hernandez and another man were arrested Tuesday but the other man hasn’t been charged with a crime pending further investigation, authorities said.
Salazar already was in custody on an unrelated charge, police said.
Salazar also is charged with attempted murder and possession of a firearm by a felon. Prosecutors allege that four days after Lipeles was shot, Salazar shot a 67-year-old woman in the back at a bus stop.
Authorities didn’t release a possible motive for the shootings.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Salazar and Martinez had lawyers who could speak on their behalf.
