Arizona
Suspect indicted in fatal shooting of professor
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A former University of Arizona graduate student accused of fatally shooting a professor on campus earlier this month has been indicted on seven felony charges including first-degree murder, authorities said.
Pima County prosecutors said a grand jury on Tuesday also charged 46-year-old Murad Dervish with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a deadly weapon by a prohibited possessor, endangerment and burglary.
Dervish is scheduled to be arraigned Monday. He remains held without bond pending a court hearing Thursday.
It was still unclear Wednesday if Dervish has been assigned a public defender for his case.
Dervish is accused of killing Thomas Meixner, who headed the school’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences and was an expert on desert water issues.
Campus police said the Oct. 5 shooting occurred inside the Harshbarger Building, which houses the hydrology department.
The relationship between Dervish and Meixner remains unclear, but a criminal complaint said a flyer with a photograph of Dervish had been circulated to university staff in February with instructions to call 911 if he ever entered the building.
The complaint also said Dervish was “expelled” and “barred from being on University of Arizona property” and he had been the subject of several reports of harassment and threats to staff members working at Harshbarger.
In a letter to students and colleagues Monday, university President Robert C. Robbins said campus police tried to get Dervish charged two separate times before the shooting and took the complaints to the county prosecutors but were told there wasn’t enough evidence.
“In neither instance did the facts of the complaint meet the evidentiary requirements for charging (Dervish) with the crime of threats and intimidation at that time,” County Attorney Laura Conover said in a statement.
New York
Jury finds son guilty of hiring hitman to kill father in NYC
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York man was convicted Wednesday of orchestrating the murder of his father in what prosecutors said was a plot to take over the older man’s lucrative real estate empire.
A federal jury found Anthony Zottola Sr. and an associate guilty of conspiracy and murder-for-hire in the October 2018 killing of 71-year-old Sylvester Zottola, who was shot was he waited to pick up a cup of coffee at a McDonald’s drive-thru in the Bronx. Anthony Zottola also tried unsuccessfully to have his brother, Salvatore Zottola, killed, according to prosecutors.
Both men face mandatory life terms after the guilty verdict in the six-week trial.
The killing of Sylvester Zottola culminated what prosecutors said was a yearlong series of bungled attempts by hired killers to rub out both him and Salvatore Zottola, at the behest of Anthony Zottola.
Sylvester Zottola was threatened by a masked gunman in late 2017 and later survived being stabbed and having his throat slashed. Salvatore Zottola was shot in the head, chest and hand in front of his residence but survived, according to prosecutors.
Himen Ross, who was convicted Wednesday on the same counts as Anthony Zottola, tailed the elder Zottola to the McDonald’s with the help of a tracking device placed in his car and shot him multiple times, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Five other defendants have pleaded guilty, including Bushawn Shelton, who prosecutors alleged was hired by Anthony Zottola and then engaged Ross to carry out the hit. Another man, Alfred Lopez, was acquitted on all counts Wednesday.
Anthony Zottola, 44, of Larchmont, helped manage properties for his father’s real estate business, which consisted of multi-family rental properties valued in the tens of millions of dollars. Prosecutors alleged the business was built on illegal gambling proceeds connected to the mob.
“Over the course of more than a year, the elderly victim, Sylvester Zottola, was stalked, beaten, and stabbed, never knowing who orchestrated the attacks,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Wednesday. “It was his own son, who was so determined to control the family’s lucrative real estate business that he hired a gang of hit men to murder his father.”
Louisiana
3 murder verdicts vacated in case investigated by killer cop
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Three men imprisoned since the 1990s for a fatal New Orleans drive-by shooting were ordered freed on Wednesday, their convictions vacated by a judge after prosecutors cited the involvement of two notoriously corrupt police officers in their case.
Kunta Gable and Leroy Nelson were 17 when they were arrested shortly after the Aug. 22, 1994, shooting death of Rondell Santinac at the Desire housing development in the south Louisiana city. Also arrested with them was Bernell Juluke, then 18.
The men were ordered released on Wednesday by a state judge who vacated their convictions, acting upon a joint motion by defense lawyers and District Attorney Jason Williams’ Civil Rights Division.
The motion described numerous problems with the original case. Among them, it said, the state failed to disclose evidence undermining the case against the men.
The motion also said the jury didn’t know that officers Len Davis and Sammie Williams — the first officers on the scene — were known to cover up the identity of perpetrators and manipulate evidence at murder scenes at the housing project to cover up for drug dealers they protected.
Davis was later convicted for arranging the death of a woman who filed a complaint against him in an unrelated matter and is facing a federal death sentence.
The motion also said the only witness to the shooting, Samuel Raiford, did not initially describe three suspects, adding, “the first time three perpetrators were mentioned by anyone is by Len Davis after the three defendants were pulled over.”
The teens were arrested a short time after the shooting but there were no signs of guns or shell casings in their car, according to the 24-page motion.
The prosecutor Williams said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon that there was extensive documented evidence of Davis’ illegal misconduct while operating “under color of law.”
“He engaged in illegal drug trafficking, framed individuals who got in his way, and even went so far as to order the murder of a private citizen who dared to report his systematic abuses,” Williams added.
Juluke’s attorney, Michael Admirand, said in an emailed statement after the release that they were grateful to the court, the prosecutor and others for their work “in correcting this grave injustice.”
“I am relieved that he has finally been vindicated, if disheartened that it took so long,” Admirand said of his client’s newfound freedom.
The attorney added that Juluke had maintained his innocence from the moment of his wrongful arrest.
California
Woman charged with benefits scam using Scott Peterson’s name
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California woman was charged with using the names of convicted killers, including Scott Peterson, to collect more than $145,000 in fraudulent unemployment benefits — a small but headline-grabbing part of more than $20 billion stolen in similar scams during the coronavirus pandemic, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Brandy Iglesias made her initial court appearance Wednesday on 10 charges including grand theft, forgery, identity theft and making false statements, the California attorney general’s office announced.
Iglesias didn’t enter a plea. She was ordered held on $20,000 bail pending an Oct. 26 court date.
An email seeking comment from her attorney, Ariana Alejandre, wasn’t immediately returned.
One set of charges was for using Peterson’s name to claim $18,562 from the state Employment Development Department in June 2020. Peterson was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and unborn child and dumping their bodies into San Francisco Bay on Christmas Eve 2002. But a judge is deciding whether Peterson must have a new trial because of juror misconduct.
Iglesias is also charged with filing for unemployment in the name of Cary Stayner in 2020, collecting $20,194. Stayner confessed to killing three women who were sightseeing in Yosemite National Park in 1999.
Peterson and Stayner were among numerous inmates who had claims filed in their names, prosecutors said in 2020.
Iglesias was employed by a private company that contracted with San Quentin State Prison, where Peterson and Stayner are housed, and may have used her job to get access to prisoners’ personal information, prosecutors said.
Iglesias allegedly collected the fraudulent benefits from April 2020 to September 2021.
She was arrested Saturday in Contra Costa County by a team of agents from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“Don’t let the infamous names distract you from who this crime really hurt — the most vulnerable in our society,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in announcing the charges.
Such thefts also harm “families in need, parents left without jobs during a pandemic, and Californians struggling to get by,” he said.
Iglesias also filed for jobless benefits under her own name, Bonta said.
She had a previous conviction for robbery in Contra Costa County in 2005, his office said.
California has one of the nation’s largest public benefit systems. More than 20 million people filed more than 60 million claims for unemployment, disability insurance and paid family leave over the past decade.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — when many people were unable to continue working because of business lockdowns, it was sending out more than 600,000 application documents daily.
The California Employment Development Department has said the state stopped $120 billion worth of fraud attempts in 2020 and 2021 but failed to stop $20 billion in fraud.
That included $810 million paid in the names of roughly 45,000 prison inmates who weren’t eligible.
California
Woman blinded in jail settles with county for $4M
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A woman who blinded herself in jail while under the influence of drugs as a deputy watched will receive $4.35 million in a settlement with San Diego County, her lawyer said.
Tanya Suarez had sued the county alleging jail staff failed to protect her from harming herself after she was arrested in 2019, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported late Wednesday.
Suarez was arrested after police found her wandering outside a San Ysidro motel where she had used drugs. When she was taken into custody at the Las Colinas women’s jail in Santee, she was acting oddly and clawing at her eyes, according to jail paperwork, and staff placed her in a cell by herself.
Suarez said in her lawsuit that a deputy was watching as she tried to remove her eyeball and failed to intervene after she succeeded.
Suarez says the money will help her work toward living more independently. Danielle Pena, her lawyer, said she hopes to see more accountability.
A Sheriff’s Department spokesperson says the settlement can’t erase the pain and extended its sympathy to Suarez and her family.
Inmate deaths in San Diego County jails have ranked among the highest in California for the past 15 years and according to an independent review released by the state auditor earlier this year, authorities have consistently failed to address the problem.
