Maine
Chemical plant owner to pay more than $180M for pollution
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The owner of a former chemical plant that dumped mercury into the Penobscot River must pay at least $187 million to remove the contamination in a resolution to a decades-long legal battle.
A federal judge on Tuesday approved the settlement calling for Mallinckrodt U.S. LLC to pay for remediation of mercury released by the now defunct HoltraChem plant in Orrington.
The plant discharged six to 12 metric tons of mercury from 1967 until the early 1970s, according to a previous court-ordered study. Environmental groups have longed pushed for the remediation of the river.
“It’s long past time for Mallinckrodt to make it right, and this ruling will go a long way toward restoring the Penobscot, so people can go back to fishing, eating lobster, and enjoying this river,” Jesse Graham, co-director of Maine People’s Alliance, said in a statement.
The plant operated until 2000 and was located about 135 miles (215 kilometers) north of Portland, just south of Bangor. Maine People’s Alliance and Natural Resources Defense Council also filed a complaint about the mercury pollution in 2000.
The company’s financial obligations under the settlement will not exceed $267 million, court papers said.
The settlement states that Mallinckrodt will pay independent trusts that will fund and implement remediation of the river and nearby communities, Maine People’s Alliance said in a statement. The plant made chlorine bleach used by paper mills.
A federal judge ruled in 2015 that Mallinckrodt was responsible for the cleanup of the river. The company owned the site from the 1960s to 1982 and is the only former plant owner that is still in business.
The settlement means the parties in the case “believe that it is in their mutual interest to resolve their differences regarding remediation issues” and “move forward cooperatively and productively with remediation actions intended to reduce mercury exposures and accelerate the recovery of the Penobscot River estuary,” court papers state.
The company has already spent millions of dollars cleaning up the 235-acre (95-hectare) facility site and paying for studies ordered by the court. Representatives for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the settlement.
Texas
Ex-cop charged for shooting teen eating hamburger
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A now-former San Antonio police officer was charged Tuesday with two counts of aggravated assault by a peace officer for shooting and gravely wounding a teen eating a hamburger in his car in a McDonald’s parking lot. The teen had begun driving away when the officer opened fire.
James Brennand, 25, was charged in the Oct. 2 shooting of Erik Cantu, 17, according to a police statement. He turned himself in to police Tuesday night and remained in custody, said Police Chief William McManus.
Cantu is still unconscious and on life support, his family said Tuesday.
“There is no improvement in his condition,” the family said in a statement delivered by their lawyer, Brian Powers. “The last two days have been difficult, and we expect more difficulty ahead, but we remain hopeful.”
Brennand, a rookie officer, reported the vehicle Cantu was sitting in had evaded him the night before during an attempted traffic stop. Brennand said he suspected the vehicle was stolen.
In body camera footage released by police, Brennand opens the car door and tells Cantu to get out. The car drives backward with the door open, and the officer fires multiple times into the vehicle. He continues to shoot as the car drives away.
Investigators quickly determined that the use of deadly force was unwarranted, and Brennand was fired. Charges against Cantu of aggravated assault and evading arrest were dropped.
A police spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether the vehicle was actually stolen.
Brennand is charged with two counts of assault because there was a passenger in the car. The passenger was unharmed.
In a press conference Tuesday evening, the police chief defended the department’s training and said the failures were those of the individual officer.
In an appearance on CNN earlier Tuesday, McManus said he expected aggravated assault charges would be filed, and murder charges in the event Cantu dies.
McManus said Brennand’s body camera video was “horrific.”
“There is no question in anybody’s mind looking at that video that the shooting is not justified,” McManus said.
Police officials and the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately return messages from The Associated Press. Brennand has no published telephone number and could not be reached for comment.
Cantu’s condition, as related in his family’s statement, is in stark contrast to what police officials said in the wake of the shooting: that Cantu was hospitalized in stable condition.
“We’d like to correct any misrepresentations that Erik is in ‘stable condition’ or he is ‘going to be fine.’ That is not true. Every breath is a struggle for Erik. We ask for everyone’s continued prayers for our son,” the family said.
Washington
Court overturns woman’s conviction for soliciting to kill ex
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) — An appeals court has overturned a Mount Vernon woman’s conviction for soliciting to kill her former husband.
The Washington Court of Appeals on Monday overturned Vanessa Valdiglesias LaValle’s conviction, The Seattle Times reported.
She had been found guilty in 2021 for trying to persuade her son to kill his father with rat poison. Valdiglesias LaValle was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the conviction, which will now be sent back to trial court.
Valdiglesias LaValle in 2020 told her then 10-year-old son that if he put rat poison in her ex-husband’s food, the boy’s dad would die, and she and the children could live together forever, according to a secretly recorded conversation mentioned in court documents.
The three Court of Appeals Division 1 judges ruled Valdiglesias LaValle’s desire to be with her two children forever doesn’t equate to a “thing of value” necessary to support a criminal solicitation conviction. In Washington, a person is guilty of criminal solicitation when the person “offers to give or gives money or other thing of value” with intent to promote or facilitate the commission of a crime.
Valdiglesias LaValle’s son testified during her trial in Skagit County Superior Court that his mother never spoke of offering to give him something.
Valdiglesias LaValle’s attorney, Suzanne Lee Elliott of the Washington Appellate Project, said she was pleased with the judges’ opinion.
Valdiglesias LaValle’s father had suggested that his son secretly record the conversation using a phone hidden under a blanket, court documents said.
Massachusetts
Ex-eBay employee gets 1 year in prison for harassment scheme
BOSTON (AP) — A former eBay Inc. employee was sentenced Tuesday to one year behind bars for her role in a harassment scheme targeting creators of an online newsletter that included the delivery of live spiders, a bloody pig mask and other disturbing items to their home.
Stephanie Popp, 34, of Louisville, Kentucky, who was eBay’s senior manager of global intelligence, was sentenced to prison in Boston federal court after pleading guilty to cyberstalking conspiracy and witness tampering conspiracy charges.
Stephanie Stockwell, 28, of Redwood City, California, former manager of eBay’s Global Intelligence Center, was also sentenced on Tuesday for her role in the scheme, but avoided prison time. She was ordered to serve two years of probation, with the first year in home confinement.
They are among seven former eBay employees who have pleaded guilty in the scheme targeting a Massachusetts couple — David and Ina Steiner — who angered eBay executives with coverage of the company in their newsletter, eCommerceBytes.
Stockwell and Popp reported to James Baugh, the former senior director of safety and security, who authorities say was the leader of the scheme.
Baugh was sentenced last month to almost five years behind bars. Another eBay executive who pleaded guilty in the case, David Harville, was sentenced to two years in prison.
Authorities say eBay employees — at Baugh’s direction — sent anonymous harassing and sometimes threatening Twitter messages criticizing the newsletter’s coverage of eBay. The couple then started getting disturbing deliveries at their home, including live insects and a funeral wreath.
At one point, Baugh recruited Harville to go with him to Massachusetts to spy on the couple, authorities say. They went to the couple’s home in the hopes of installing a GPS tracker on their car but the garage was locked, so Harville bought tools with a plan to break into it, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors called Popp one of the “most culpable participants” in the scheme. She was involved in all aspects of the harassment campaign and “knew both its full extent and the effect that it was having on its ‘rattled’ victims,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.
Prosecutors did not seek prison time for Stockwell, describing her as among the least culpable. While she was involved in the planning and sending of the packages, she had no part in the anonymous Twitter messages, prosecutors said.
Stockwell’s attorney said in court papers that Baugh manipulated, “terrorized and intimidated” her and others he supervised. Stockwell’s lawyer said all her actions were undertaken “at the direction of, or manipulation by, Baugh,” but she has “never wavered in her heartfelt remorse for having participated in this ludicrous scheme.”
“The seeds of the tragedy that unfolded at eBay causing havoc, heartache, and fear” for the victims “disseminated from Baugh’s bizarre, unorthodox and frankly, inappropriate and dangerous work environment,” Stockwell’s attorney wrote.
Popp’s attorney declined to comment on Tuesday. An email seeking comment was sent to a lawyer for Stockwell.
Oregon
Ex-mayor pleads guilty to possessing child porn
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The former mayor of Beaverton, Oregon, has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of possessing child pornography.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon said Dennis “Denny” Doyle, 74, entered the plea Tuesday as part of a plea agreement in which a sentence of one year and one day will be recommended.
Between November 2014 and December 2015, Doyle possessed digital media containing child pornography, according to court documents. Several of the images were of children under the age of 12 who had been identified as sexually exploited minors by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Doyle appeared with Assistant Federal Public Defender Elizabeth Daily before U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman in federal court in Portland, The Oregonian/ OregonLive reported. He’ll be sentenced Jan. 24 and remains out of custody.
Doyle told the judge he’s in counseling.
On his way out of the courtroom, Doyle said, “You know, we make mistakes.”
Doyle served as a Beaverton City Council for more than a decade before he was elected mayor in 2008. He lost re-election in 2020 against current Mayor Lacey Beaty.
By pleading guilty to the felony charge, Doyle won’t be allowed to have a firearm, vote or hold future public office, the judge told him.
