Virginia
Man convicted in police killing could get more prison time
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A man who was sentenced to serve 36 years in prison for the murder of a Virginia State Police special agent could get additional time in prison after being convicted in two prison assaults.
Travis Aaron Ball was convicted in the 2017 killing of special agent Michael Walter in Richmond’s Mosby Court public housing complex.
Ball’s convictions for the prison attacks have drawn the attention of Richmond prosecutors, who have filed a motion seeking to revoke the suspended life sentence Ball received in Walter’s murder, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. A hearing is scheduled for March 10.
When Ball was sentenced in 2018 for Walter’s killing, a judge imposed a life sentence, but suspended all but 36 years of that time.
Prosecutors had sought a 60-year term, the maximum allowed under a plea deal that guaranteed that Ball would be convicted of a capital crime, which is typically punishable by death or life in prison.
As a condition of his suspended life sentence, Ball, now 33, was ordered to “keep the peace and be of good behavior” and not violate any other state laws.
About 12 months into his sentence, Ball stabbed and seriously injured another inmate with a shank. Then in April 2022, Ball joined another inmate at the Rappahannock Regional Jail in beating and choking a third inmate over an insult about a gang affiliation.
The five-year sentence Ball received for the first attack will be served concurrently with the sentence he received for killing Walter. In the second attack, prosecutors succeeded in adding 15 years to Ball’s existing term.
In addition, a federal judge in 2020 sentenced Ball to a 10-year consecutive sentence on his conviction for possessing the .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol he used to fatally shoot Walter.
Louisiana
Facial recognition tool led to mistaken arrest, lawyer says
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana authorities’ use of facial recognition technology led to the mistaken-identity arrest of a Georgia man on a fugitive warrant, an attorney said in a case that renews attention to racial disparities in the use of the digital tool.
Randall Reid, 28, was jailed in late November in DeKalb County, Georgia, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.
His attorney, Tommy Calogero, said authorities erroneously linked Reid to purse thefts in Jefferson Parish and Baton Rouge. Reid, arrested on Nov. 25, was released Dec. 1.
Reid is Black, and his arrest brings new attention to the use of a technology critics say results in a higher rate of misidentification of people of color than of white people.
“They told me I had a warrant out of Jefferson Parish. I said, ‘What is Jefferson Parish?’” Reid said. “I have never been to Louisiana a day in my life. Then they told me it was for theft. So not only have I not been to Louisiana, I also don’t steal.”
Calogero said Reid was falsely linked to the June theft of luxury purses from a consignment shop in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb in Jefferson Parish.
A Baton Rouge Police Department detective then adopted the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office’s identification of Reid to secure an arrest warrant alleging he was among three men involved in another luxury purse theft the same week, court records show, according to the newspaper.
Differences, such as a mole on Reid’s face, prompted the Jefferson sheriff to rescind the warrant, said Calogero, who estimated a 40-pound difference between Reid and the purse thief in surveillance footage.
Jefferson Sheriff Joe Lopinto’s office did not respond to several requests for information from The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate on Reid’s arrest and release, the agency’s use of facial recognition or any safeguards around it.
The agency did not immediately respond to a request, emailed Monday by The Associated Press, for comment on the story and information on the use of the technology.
Reid’s case brings renewed attention to the use of facial recognition tools in Louisiana and elsewhere.
Facial recognition systems have faced criticism because of their mass surveillance capabilities, which raise privacy concerns, and because some studies have shown that the technology is far more likely to misidentify Black and other people of color than white people, which has resulted in mistaken arrests.
Police in New Orleans say facial recognition can be used only to generate leads and that officers must get approval from department officials before lodging a request through the Louisiana State Analytic and Fusion Exchange in Baton Rouge. Under the latest city rules, all possible matches must undergo a peer review by other facial recognition investigators.
Legislation to restrict the use of facial recognition statewide died in a 2021 legislative session.
Indiana
Man charged in 2017 stabbing deaths of couple
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — A cellphone analysis and partial fingerprint on a cellphone have led to the arrest of a Fort Wayne man on murder and other charges in the fatal stabbings of a couple in 2017.
Dustin Neal, 35, was charged Friday with two counts each of murder, felony murder and robbery resulting in serious bodily injury in the June 2017 slayings of 25 year-old Noele Trice and 29-year-old Bryan Lash.
The couple was found dead the morning after hosting a party that Neal attended, court documents said.
Police and an FBI agent conducted an analysis of Neal’s cellphone in October that showed it pinged off a cell site near the victims’ home on the morning of the slayings despite his contention he had not returned to the home after leaving the party, documents said.
A partial print found on Trice’s cellphone also led investigators to Neal, documents said.
A new witness told police in October that Neal was bragging about committing the murders, saying he had broke into the couple’s home to steal marijuana but Lash had woke up during the burglary.
Court documents don’t show an attorney for Neal who might comment on the allegations against him.
Nebraska
Ex-boyfriend charged in death of woman
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A man has been charged with murder in the death of a Nebraska woman whose body was found last month in Kansas.
Aldrick Scott, 47, has previously been charged with kidnapping Cari Allen, of Omaha, who disappeared in November.
Prosecutors said during a previous court hearing that Scott and Allen dated before she broke up with him about two weeks before she was reported missing on Nov. 20.
Officers searched Scott’s home in Topeka Nov. 21. He was arrested Dec. 7 in Belize. Allen’s body was found in a shallow grave Dec. 21 near Topeka.
Officials have not said how she died.
The Douglas County Attorney’s Office announced Friday that Scott was charged with murder, use of a firearm to commit a felony and tampering with evidence. He faces earlier charges of kidnapping and accessory to a felony.
Maryland
Man sentenced in West Virginia resort theft case
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A Maryland man who admitted stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a southern West Virginia resort where he was the maintenance director has been sentenced to two years and three months in federal prison.
Dhanraj Singh, 62, of Bowie, Maryland, also paid back more than $382,000 that he admitted to embezzling from the resort, U.S. Attorney Will Thompson said in a news release. The statement did not name the resort.
From 2017 until July 2020, Singh submitted fake invoices that either requested reimbursement for maintenance work that never occurred or inflated the cost of work performed, according to court records.
Singh also admitted to stealing up to $2,500 in cash from the resort each week, routinely taking the money to Maryland where it was deposited in his bank accounts, the statement said. He was sentenced for interstate transportation of stolen property.
Pennsylvania
DA: Police justified in killing driver after chase, gunfire
GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A western Pennsylvania prosecutor has ruled that state troopers were justified in shooting and killing a driver after a high-speed pursuit through three counties ended in an exchange of gunfire last month.
Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli said she reviewed videos, reports, witness interviews and evidence gathered from the scene before making her determination in the Nov. 3 death of 35-year-old Krysten Pretlor of Johnstown.
Authorities said Pretlor was wanted in a domestic violence case but fled when police in Cambria County’s Richland Township tried to serve a warrant. Ziccarelli said he led them on a 45-mile chase in Cambria, Indiana and Westmoreland counties that reached speeds in excess of 100 mph.
State troopers joined the chase on Route 22 near Blairsville and eventually used a maneuver to slow Pretlor down and he rammed a trooper’s car. Officials said Pretlor got out of his car and died after an exchange of gunfire with law enforcement officers.
Ziccarelli said witness statements and video from the police cars and body cameras showed that Pretlor pointed a gun at troopers, and evidence at the scene indicated that he fired numerous rounds at police from inside and outside of the car he was driving. A stolen handgun and ammunition were found in his possession, she said.
Missouri
Judge overturns man’s conviction in 2011 killing
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A judge overturned a Missouri man’s murder conviction in a case in which investigators failed to reveal that a witness was in a romantic relationship with the lead detective.
Judge Timothy Boyer on Friday overturned Lamont Cambell’s conviction in the death of Lenny Gregory III, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Gregory, the son of a retired St. Louis police officer, was found shot in an SUV in south St. Louis in July 2011.
Cambell was 17 when the shooting happened. A jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict after a 2013 trial. Prosecutors tried him again in 2016 and this time won a conviction. Cambell was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Cambell, now 28, subsequently argued that his attorney was ineffective.
A witness identification expert, Jennifer Dysart, testified to Boyer in spring 2022 that the witness’ accounts were unreliable due to poor lighting the night of the shooting. Two witnesses were married, allowing them to compare their stories, and descriptions of the shooter’s height varied, Dysart said.
The ex-wife of lead detective Jeff Hyatt testified that she learned in 2017 her husband was having an affair with one witness. Text messages showed the affair had been going on since at least July 2016, before Cambell’s trial. Boyer wrote that the relationship should have been disclosed to the defense.
Mary Fox, who represented Cambell at trial and now leads the state public defender’s office, told the judge that she could have done more to investigate the possibility of another perpetrator. She said she learned after the trial that a neighbor saw multiple people fighting with Gregory the night he was killed.
