Indiana
Man charged after son in diaper points gun at people
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The father of diaper-clad 4-year-old boy seen last weekend pointing a loaded handgun at people outside their Indiana apartment now faces felony charges.
The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office said Wednesday that the 45-year-old man was charged Tuesday with two counts of neglect of a dependent and one count of dangerous control of a firearm. He was scheduled to appear in court Thursday for an initial hearing.
Online court records do not list an attorney who could speak on behalf of the man, whom The Associated Press is not naming to protect the privacy of the child. Michael Leffler, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, confirmed Wednesday that the charged man is the boy’s father.
Court documents say the man, a convicted felon out on bail in a pending domestic battery case, “had an unsecured and loaded firearm in his residence.” The documents add that he “poses a direct threat to the welfare of his child, and his neighbors and their children, through his neglectful and careless actions.”
According to a probable cause affidavit filed with the charges, the boy was in his father’s care while the mother was sick and living elsewhere. Officers were called Saturday evening to an apartment complex in the Indianapolis suburb of Beech Grove about a young boy wearing only a diaper who “had a chrome handgun and was pointing it at people.”
Officers went to an apartment and a 4-year-old boy opened the door for officers, with no adult visible. After an officer called out repeatedly to anyone inside, the officers entered and saw the man, who was wearing only underwear, at the end of a hallway, apparently having just been awakened by the officers, authorities said.
The man told officers he had been ill and did not know that his son had left the apartment. He also said there was no firearm in the apartment and his son did not have a toy gun. The man helped officers with a “cursory search” of the apartment and no firearm was found, authorities said.
As officers were leaving the apartment, a neighbor played them security camera video that showed the boy walking around the apartment building’s upstairs landing “with a silver and black handgun,” the affidavit said.
When the officers told the man about the video, he told them that while he did not have a gun, “a relative may have left one in the apartment.” Authorities did not find the gun until an officer “asked the child where he put his toy while displaying his hand in the form of a gun,” the affidavit said.
The child then walked to a roll-top desk in the living room and motioned toward it. The officer opened the desk’s roll-top “exposing a silver and black handgun lying on the desk” that appeared to be the one officers had seen in the video, according to the affidavit.
The weapon was determined to be a Smith & Wesson 9 mm handgun, and though no rounds were in the gun’s chamber, it contained “15 live rounds in the magazine,” the affidavit said.
The man then told officers the gun belonged to a cousin “who sometimes left the handgun at the apartment when he felt mentally unstable,” according to the affidavit. The man said he did not know his cousin’s address or phone number.
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said Wednesday in a statement that “the alleged conduct is an egregious example of the importance of practicing safe storage” of guns.
“Too many children in our community are placed at risk as a result of irresponsible gun ownership,” he added.
Arizona
Appeals court: Early voting system is constitutional
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled that the state’s early voting system is constitutional.
In an 11-page ruling Tuesday, the three-judge panel rejected the Arizona Republican Party’s argument that mail-in voting violates the secrecy clause in the state Constitution.
The clause requires that voters must have a way to conceal their choices on the ballot.
More than 80% of Arizona voters use the early voting system that was created by lawmakers in 1991.
It allowed any voter to vote by mail and removed the requirement that voters fill out and seal their ballots in the presence of an officer authorized to administer oaths, the appeals court noted.
The appeals court’s ruling said Arizona’s early voting system provides secrecy “by requiring voters to ensure that they fill out their ballot in secret and seal the ballot in an envelope that does not disclose the voters’ choices.”
It was unclear Wednesday if the state Republican Party will now take the case to the Arizona Supreme Court.
The GOP party filed a similar lawsuit in February 2022 seeking to eliminate early voting before that year’s elections, arguing that “in-person voting at the polls on a fixed date is the only constitutionally permissible manner of voting.”
The state Supreme Court declined to hear that suit, saying it didn’t have original jurisdiction in the case.
Washington
Man accused of killing cop asks to move trial
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — A man accused of killing a police officer in Washington state is asking a judge to move his trial out of county where the officer worked and was fatally shot last year.
In a motion filed last week in Snohomish County Superior Court, Richard Rotter’s public defender argued an outpouring of support at a memorial for Everett Police Officer Dan Rocha and the large amount of news coverage surrounding the case could prejudice jurors in the county, The Daily Herald reported.
“Mr. Rotter cannot receive a fair and impartial jury in this county given the inflammatory pretrial publicity this case has received,” the defendant’s attorney, Daniel Snyder, wrote in court documents.
State court rules allow for trials to be moved when a defendant “believes he cannot receive a fair trial in the county where the action is pending.”
Prosecutor Craig Matheson declined to comment to the newspaper on the motion. Prosecutors plan to file a response in the next couple weeks.
Rotter, 51, has pleaded not guilty to murder, unlawful possession of a firearm and possession of a controlled substance with intent to manufacture or deliver in connection with Rocha’s death.
The motion doesn’t say where the defense would like the trial moved. Snyder couldn’t be reached for comment by the newspaper.
Authorities said Rocha was shot in the head after he and Rotter got into an altercation in the parking lot of a Starbucks in Everett on March 25, 2022. The shooter fled in a car. Police arrested Rotter, of Kennewick, following a three-vehicle crash nearby.
Prosecutors alleged Rotter appeared to be moving guns between two cars in the parking lot before Rocha confronted him.
Rotter’s trial is set for mid-March.
A hearing is set for Feb. 17 to discuss the issue. Rotter remains in the Snohomish County Jail on a no bail hold.
Pennsylvania
Settlement reached for oldest U.S. reform school abuse claims
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A $3 million settlement will establish a fund for former students as part of a lawsuit alleging abuse and deprivation of education at a now-shuttered Pennsylvania juvenile justice facility.
Former Glen Mills Schools students could receive both cash payments for those who experienced or witnessed abuse, and funds to pay for or reimburse educational expenses after a settlement with Chester County Intermediate Unit Wednesday as part of an ongoing federal class action lawsuit.
Formerly the nation’s oldest reform school, Glen Mills Schools had its licenses revoked in 2019 after the state ordered the removal of all children following the Philadelphia Inquirer’s investigation detailing the alleged abuse.
The complaint — filed by Education Law Center, Juvenile Law Center and Dechert LLP — asserts that CCIU failed in its oversight responsibilities and duties with students with disabilities.
In a statement, CCIU said it disagrees with the depiction of its role over Glen Mills, but “protracted litigation will not benefit the young adults who contend they received an inferior education while at the Glen Mills Schools.”
Lawyers said 1,600 students who meet certain age limitations are eligible to file for the fund. The distribution of awards is slated to begin next year.
“We do believe that this is an important starting point to support these students to remedy the deep harm that they have experienced,” said Maura McInerney, legal director at the Education Law Center. “And it’s important that it’s happening at this time when the students can use it to really change the trajectory of their futures.”
Other named defendants in the ongoing lawsuit are Glen Mills Schools and former Glen Mills Schools staff, plus officials at Pennsylvania Department of Human Services and Pennsylvania Department of Education. Court proceedings continue this month. A trial date is still to be determined.
The lawsuit is among other legal filings against Glen Mills School by former students.
Hawaii
Two-year sentence for woman’s Trump lobbying scheme
HONOLULU (AP) — An American consultant was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for an illicit lobbying effort to get the former Trump administration to drop an investigation into the multibillion-dollar looting of a Malaysian state investment fund, and to arrange for the return of a Chinese dissident living in the U.S.
Nickie Mali Lum Davis, of Honolulu, pleaded guilty in 2020 to one count of aiding and abetting in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
U.S. prosecutors say Davis failed to disclose to the federal government that the lobbying effort was done on behalf of a fugitive Malaysian financier who has been charged in the U.S. with conspiring to launder billions of dollars from the fund.
In exchange for millions of dollars, Davis and others tried to use back channels to influence officials at the highest levels of the U.S. government and sell connections to the “highest foreign bidder,” said John Keller, of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, speaking at Davis’ sentencing in Honolulu.
The charge stemmed from the complicated saga of 1MDB, a Malaysian wealth fund that was established more than a decade ago to accelerate the country’s economic development. Prosecutors said, however, that the fund was actually treated as a piggy bank by associates of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
U.S. prosecutors alleged that at least $4.5 billion was stolen from the fund and laundered by Najib’s associates to finance Hollywood films and buy hotels, a luxury yacht, artwork, jewelry and other extravagances. Najib was sentenced in Malaysia to 12 years in prison.
Najib had set up the 1MDB fund shortly after taking power in 2009. He was found guilty in 2020 of seven charges of corruption.
The effort to wipe away legal troubles for the Malaysian financier who prosecutors say helped orchestrate the pilfering was ultimately unsuccessful. Also unsuccessful was an effort to arrange meetings with the Justice Department to lobby for the return to China a dissident living in the U.S. on a temporary visa, authorities said.
Davis has agreed to a payment schedule to repay $3 million, her attorneys said.
David Minkin, one of her attorneys, said she only relayed messages back and forth.
“I never had the government connections,” Davis told the judge, calling her the “middle person.”
U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi said Davis hasn’t shown remorse, noting that she previously tried to withdraw her guilty plea.
Kobayashi ordered her to report to the Bureau of Prisons on April 14.
Davis’ attorneys declined to comment on the sentence.
