Kentucky
Woman sentenced to 28 months for wire fraud
COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky woman has been sentenced to more than two years in prison for wire fraud after transferring more than a half-million dollars from an employer's account to herself, a federal prosecutor's office said.
Hachelle Alsip, 42, of Independence, worked for Victory Mortgage as a loan funding representative, according to a news release Wednesday from U.S. Attorney Carlton S. Shier IV's office.
In 2021, Alsip caused two wire transfers from a Victory Mortgage business account to be made into a personal bank account belonging to her and her husband, the release said.
Alsip was sentenced Wednesday to 28 months. She pleaded guilty in June.
Alsip must serve 85% of her sentence and will be supervised on probation for three years when she is released.
Illinois
Ex-cop faces civil rights charge for sexual abuse
CHICAGO (AP) — A former Chicago police officer has been indicted on a federal civil rights charge for allegedly kidnapping and sexually abusing someone while on duty, U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday.
James Sajdak, 64, of Chicago, was charged with one count of deprivation of rights under "color of law," or government authority, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The charge is punishable by up to life in federal prison.
The abuse allegedly happened on March 5, 2019, the indictment said.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Sajdak resigned from the police department the following month after 29 years on the force, according to the department.
Sajdak's defense attorney, Timothy Grace, noted his client's decades as a police officer and told the newspaper, "We look forward to confronting the evidence."
Sajdak and the city of Chicago also faced a federal lawsuit stemming from the episode, WBBM-TV reported.
A transgender woman sued Sajdak and the city in 2019, accusing Sajdak of sexually assaulting her, the broadcaster reported. The lawsuit accused Sajdak of approaching her and demanding a sex act. The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted.
The lawsuit also claimed the city "knew or was recklessly blind to" a pattern of misconduct by Sadjak. It said he had faced at least 44 misconduct complaints by 2019.
California
Doc pleads guilty to prescribing unneeded drugs
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A physician pleaded guilty Wednesday to defrauding California's Medi-Cal system by prescribing unnecessary drugs to more than 1,000 patients, prosecutors said.
Dr. Mohammed El-Nachef entered pleas in Orange County to one count of insurance fraud and one count of aiding and abetting the unauthorized practice of medicine, according to a statement from the state attorney general's office.
He was ordered to pay $2.3 million in restitution and surrender his medical license.
Prosecutors said that for two years beginning in 2014, El-Nachef prescribed unnecessary HIV medications, anti-psychotics and opioids to patients at clinics in Anaheim and Los Angeles.
The patients were Medi-Cal recipients who were recruited with the promise of cash payments, and the recruiters then illegally sold the drugs, prosecutors said.
El-Nachef was recruited to write the unnecessary prescriptions and was paid in cash, prosecutors said.
"El-Nachef used his position as a physician to steal taxpayer money from our state programs and fuel illicit pharmaceutical sales on the streets of Southern California – all for personal gain," Attorney General Rob Bonta said in the statement. "Abuses of power – whether big or small – will never be tolerated by the California Department of Justice."
Florida
Former college accounting manager gets 10 years for stealing
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A former accounting manager for the University of South Florida has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing more than $12.8 million from the school.
Ralph Puglisi, 60, of Palm Harbor, was sentenced Monday in federal court in Tampa, according to court records. The judge also ordered that Puglisi repay the stolen money. He pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year.
According to court documents, Puglisi was employed as an accounting manager for the University of South Florida’s University Medical Services Association, where he oversaw credit cards.
From 2014 to 2019, Puglisi defrauded the university by using several of the association’s credit cards to make more than $12.8 million in unauthorized charges, prosecutors said.
The charges included rent payments, extensive home renovations, travel, chartered yachts and contributions to women affiliated with an interactive adult website, officials said.
Puglisi exploited his position as accounting manager to make false journal entries in records that created the illusion that his charges were related to association business operations, prosecutors said.
New Hampshire
Man pleads guilty to trying to get $3.5M in CARES Act funds
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A man has pleaded guilty in federal court to attempting to obtain over $3.5 million in federal CARES Act funds.
The man pleaded guilty to bank fraud and wire fraud, U.S. Attorney Jane Young said Tuesday.
According to court documents and statements made in court, between March 2020 and November 2021, the man and a co-defendant fraudulently applied for over two dozen loans under the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs during the pandemic.
The application for one company claimed that its monthly payroll was $70,000 and that there were six employees. A tax return said employees were paid over $209,000 one quarter and that the defendants payed federal income taxes of $27,000.
But that document was never filed with the IRS. The real tax filings showed the company paid over $48,000 to its employees for a year, or about $4,000 a month, prosecutors said.
The man is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 11, 2023.
Oregon 1st civil trial over Portland cops’ use of force begins
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The first civil suit alleging Portland police used excessive violence against a 2020 racial justice demonstrator opened Tuesday before a jury in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
Civil rights attorneys are paying close attention because the outcome could answer questions about the potential liability the city faces over similar cases, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
The killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by Minneapolis police officers in late May 2020, sparked protests as part of a worldwide reckoning over racial injustice. In Portland, racial justice protesters clashed nightly with police and federal law enforcement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service.
One such protester, Erin Wenzel, claims she was following police instructions on Aug. 14, 2020, when an officer “ran at her and violently slammed into her with a nightstick.”
According to her lawsuit, the force of the impact lifted her off the ground and she landed on her face. Wenzel says in her suit that she stood up and tried to keep walking but another officer struck her and a third knocked her down.
Wenzel broke her arm and suffered injuries to her wrist, face and torso, her lawsuits says. Wenzel’s complaint alleges the city’s failure to discipline Rapid Response Team officers it knew to be violent encouraged officers to continue violence against protesters.
Wenzel is asking for damages totaling $500,000. The trial is expected to run through Oct. 3.
In their response to the complaint, an attorney for the city of Portland, William Manlove, said protesters — including Wenzel were wearing protective equipment including gas masks and helmets.
In court filings, attorneys for the city say police were trying to stop protesters from reaching the headquarters of the Portland Police Association, the city’s police union, where break-ins and fire damage had happened during previous demonstrations. The police declared an unlawful assembly and used a loudspeaker to order the crowd to disperse.
The city does not say Wenzel threw anything at officers or broke any laws. But it does argue that any physical contact the police made “was justified and privileged as it was reasonable and necessary to carry out those employees’ law enforcement duties.”
From May 29 through Nov. 15 last year, during the height of the social justice protests in Portland, the city’s police used force more than 6,000 times, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report.
Colorado Clinic shooting suspect won’t be forcibly medicated for now
DENVER (AP) — A mentally ill man charged with killing three people in 2015 at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic because it offered abortion services will not be forcibly medicated as he appeals a federal judge’s order allowing the involuntary treatment.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn ruled that involuntary medication was the only realistic approach with a substantial chance of making Robert Dear, 64, competent to stand trial and was also in the best interest of his overall health, both mental and physical.
Dear’s attorneys appealed the order to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and on Monday Blackburn ruled that Dear would not be involuntarily medicated while the appeal is considered, which could take several months. Federal prosecutors did not object to the order being put on hold, according to court records.
Dear’s federal public defenders challenged the involuntary medication order in part because it allows force to also be potentially used to get Dear to take medication or undergo monitoring for any potential side effects to his physical health.
Dear’s lawyers have argued that forcing Dear to be treated for his delusional disorder could aggravate conditions including untreated high blood pressure and high cholesterol. However, in the appeal, they say that Blackburn’s decision to give prison doctors the right to force treatment or monitoring for other ailments is “miles away” from the limited uses for forced medication allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The appeal noted that the last forced medication order reviewed by the 10th Circuit took three months to resolve.
Dear’s prosecution has stalled, first in state court and then in federal court, because he has been repeatedly found mentally incompetent to stand trial since his arrest and he has refused to take medication.
During a three-day hearing this summer on whether he should be forcibly medicated, prosecutors argued that medication had a substantial likelihood, based on research and the experience of government experts, to make Dear well enough to meet the legal standard for mental competency — being able to understand proceedings and assist in his defense.
