Massachusetts
Prosecutor says husband of missing wife bought $450 in cleaning supplies
QUINCY, Mass. (AP) — The husband of a Massachusetts woman missing since New Year’s Day was seen on surveillance video buying $450 worth of cleaning supplies at a home improvement store the day after his wife was last seen, a prosecutor said Monday at his arraignment on a charge of misleading investigators.
Police also found a broken knife and blood in the basement of the couple’s Cohasset home, the prosecutor said, although she did not say whose blood it was.
Brian Walshe, 46, was held on $500,000 bond on a charge of misleading investigators in connection with the disappearance of Ana Walshe. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf.
Brian Walshe did not tell police he had been to the home improvement store, where he bought mops, buckets, tarps, tape and other items on Jan. 2, Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Lynn Beland said at the hearing in Quincy District Court. Walshe did tell police that he had been to a supermarket and a pharmacy when there is no evidence he had been to either store, she said. He misled investigators so he could either clean up or dispose of evidence, she said.
Brian Walshe’s attorney, Tracy Miner, asked for low or no bail, saying her client has voluntarily talked to police and consented to searches of his home, property and cellphone.
“He has been incredibly cooperative,” Miner said.
Ana Walshe, 39, a mother of three, was reported missing Wednesday by her employer in Washington, where the couple has a home and to which she often commutes during the week for work at a real estate company, authorities said.
She was last seen leaving her home in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, purportedly to take a ride-hailing vehicle to Logan International Airport for a flight to Washington, police and prosecutors said. But police have found no indication that she either took a vehicle or boarded any flight out of Logan recently.
Her cellphone has not been used and there has been no activity on her credit or debit cards, Cohasset police Chief William Quigley said at a news conference last week.
Authorities searched a wooded area near the family’s home on Friday and Saturday and then spent Sunday at the home.
Brian Walshe had been on home confinement while awaiting sentencing in a fraud case involving the sale of fake Andy Warhol paintings, according to federal court records. Cohasset police said Ana Walshe’s disappearance and her husband’s case appear to be unrelated.
South Carolina
Priest charged with federal sex crimes
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina priest who served in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston has been charged with federal sex crimes stemming from allegations that he abused an 11-year-old child.
Jaime Adolfo Gonzalez-Farias, known in church as “Father Gonzalez,” was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in Miami on Nov. 29, according to court records. A recently unsealed indictment shows Gonzalez-Farias, 68, was charged with aggravated sexual abuse of children, coercion of a minor and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
Between Nov. 8 and Nov. 12, 2020, Gonzalez-Farias is accused of taking an 11-year-old child to Florida and engaging in the “intentional touching, not through the clothing, of (the victim’s) genitalia,” according to the indictment.
In a statement provided to The State, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston said they first became aware of an allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor involving Gonzalez-Farias in Dec. 2020 after he had left the country for his home in Chile. The diocese said it notified his parishioners about the abuse allegation in Jan. 2021.
Gonzalez-Farias, was ordained as priest in September 1990. On April 20, 2015, he was transferred to South Carolina as a visiting priest. While in South Carolina, Gonzalez-Farias served in “various parishes and ministries,” according to the indictment. The diocese said his record did not raise any red flags before he was transferred.
“At that time, diocesan officials received a clear background check on him. (Gonzalez-Farias) then completed the Diocese’s Safe Environment training. In accordance with diocesan policy, he was rescreened in July 2020; no criminal activity was noted on that report,” the diocese said in its statement.
In August 2021, Gonzalez-Farias was included on the diocese’s list of “Visiting Priests with a Credible Allegations of Child Sexual Misconduct or Abuse within the Diocese of Charleston,” The State reported. At the time, the diocese said it believed he had returned to Chile.
The diocese said the list was based on “allegations received by the Diocese and a review of priest personnel files.”
Gonzalez-Farias is being returned to South Carolina to face the federal charges. Court records did not indicate whether he has been assigned an attorney in the state.
Ohio
Law firm for Democrats files lawsuit against new election law
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A Democratic law firm has filed suit against Ohio’s new election law, claiming on behalf of groups representing military veterans, teachers, retirees and the homeless that it “imposes needless and discriminatory burdens” on the right to vote.
Elias Law Group brought the suit in federal court in Cleveland on Friday, the same day Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed the legislation over the objections of voting-rights, labor, environmental and civil-rights groups that had been pleading for a veto.
The litigation notes that Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, the defendant, and state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, who oversaw insertion of the most stringent provisions into the bill, both have lauded Ohio’s exemplary administration of the 2020 election.
Yet, it alleges, lawmakers “leveraged false allegations of widespread election fraud” to justify the bill, making it “significantly harder for lawful voters — particularly young, elderly, and Black Ohioans, as well as military servicemembers and other Ohioans living abroad — to exercise their fundamental right to participate in the state’s elections.”
The lawsuit takes particular aim at three provisions: a strict photo ID requirement; the shrunken window for curing a provisionally-cast ballot; and tightened deadlines for applying for and returning mail-in ballots.
“If the challenged provisions accomplish anything, it will be to diminish confidence in an electoral system that those in office have co-opted to entrench their positions of power at the expense of voters’ rights,” the lawsuit states.
In signing the bill Friday, DeWine said his administration had worked to prevent the most severe restrictions under consideration from being included in the legislation. He said the final version will protect election integrity.
LaRose said in a statement after the signing that the public strongly supports requiring a photo ID to vote and that the bill found a “common-sense” way to accomplish that.
New York
Con artist pleads guilty in phishing plot that duped authors
NEW YORK (AP) — A yearslong saga that ensnared the publishing world culminated in a New York courtroom Friday when a con artist pleaded guilty to a plot that defrauded scores of authors by duping them into handing over hundreds of unpublished manuscripts.
Filippo Bernardini, an Italian citizen who had been working in publishing in London, pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud in connection with a phishing scheme that baffled the book world for years.
The announcement was made by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, who said Bernardini is set to be sentenced April 5 before U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon.
“Filippo Bernardini used his insider knowledge of the publishing industry to create a scheme that stole precious works from authors and menaced the publishing industry,” Williams said in a statement.
Authorities say Bernardini, 30, used email accounts to impersonate literary agents and editors to con authors out of their manuscripts.
“Through impersonation and phishing schemes, Bernardini was able to obtain more than a thousand manuscripts fraudulently,” Williams said.
Bernardini, who hasn’t publicly explained his motives, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. As part of his guilty plea, he agreed to pay restitution of $88,000.
Authorities say the scheme began sometime around August of 2016 and continued until last January, when he was arrested.
Bernardini created fake email accounts by registering more than 160 internet domains that, prosecutors said, “were confusingly similar to the real entities that they were impersonating, including only minor typographical errors that would be difficult for the average recipient to identify during a cursory review.”
He impersonated hundreds of people over the course of the scheme, obtaining more than a thousand manuscripts through his deceit.
Works by Margaret Atwood and Ethan Hawke were among those targeted.
What made the plot more mystifying was that no attempts were apparently made to sell the stolen manuscripts.
In the indictment, Bernardini was described as working in London for a “major, international, US-based publishing house.” A LinkedIn profile for a Filippo B. said he worked for Simon & Schuster, which had said that it was “shocked and horrified” by the fraud.
Oregon
3 ex-state workers sentenced in $6M theft scheme
OREGON CITY, Ore. (AP) — Three former Oregon Department of Transportation workers have been sentenced for a long-running theft and reselling scheme estimated to have cost taxpayers about $6 million.
Ex-employees John Tipton, Frank Smead Jr. and Autumn Arndt, as well as Smead’s wife, Marta Smead, were sentenced to prison time Friday. Tipton received the longest sentence, 12 years, the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office said.
The three worked at the Lawnfield ODOT Maintenance Station in Clackamas.
In 2004, Tipton, a assistant manager, began a business of repairing chainsaws using parts stolen from ODOT, according to the district attorney’s office.
Eventually, all four were involved, buying equipment using ODOT vendor accounts, creating fraudulent invoices, then later selling the items for personal profit. Smead, who was Tipton’s supervisor, and Arndt helped sell items online, the prosecutor’s office said.
All pleaded guilty to various charges including aggravated theft and computer crime. Frank Smead was sentenced to seven years, Arndt to five, and Marta Smead to three years and six months.
The scheme ran until 2020. Transportation officials discovered it during an unrelated investigation.
The court will hold a restitution hearing in the spring for all four defendants, the prosecutor’s office said.
