Montana
Man faces pipe bomb charges in 2022 school threat
GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana man arrested last year for alleged threats against a high school was charged in federal court Wednesday with possession of pipe bombs, possession of an unregistered silencer and attempted property damage.
Logan Sea Pallister, 24, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Great Falls before federal Magistrate Judge John Johnston.
Pallister was arrested at his home in May 2022, a day after allegedly telling a witness he was going to make bombs to use in a school and showing the witness explosive devices.
Federal prosecutors said he intended to “maliciously damage” public school buildings and took a “substantial step” toward that goal prior to his arrest. Court documents did not provide further details on the alleged plans.
Pallister’s federal defender did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.
Pallister, who remains in custody, also faces state charges including possession of explosives and intimidation, according to court records. He is scheduled to go on trial in state district court in Lewis and Clark County on Feb. 27.
Wisconsin
Woman faces charge in stolen car crash that killed toddler
MILWAUKEE, Wis. (AP) — Authorities said a Milwaukee woman did not have a valid license when she was driving a stolen car that crashed, killing a 13-month-old boy who was in the rear seat.
The 31-year-old woman faces a charge of knowingly operating a motor vehicle without a valid license, causing death. It was not clear Wednesday if she had yet appeared before a judge.
Zarion Robinson’s mother told police her son was in the unlocked car late Friday when she went back inside her home to get something. While she was inside, someone drove away in the car with the boy still in the rear seat, according to a medical examiner’s report.
A few minutes later the car struck a minivan.
Paramedics found Zarion crying and still partly strapped in his car seat which had overturned and was facing down on the rear seat’s floor, the report said.
The boy later was pronounced dead at a hospital. The woman driving the stolen car also was injured and hospitalized.
The occupants of the minivan ran away after the crash.
California
Prosecutors: 2 moved into ailing man’s home, stole millions
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two people have been charged with stealing nearly $3 million from a wealthy ailing investor, moving into his Malibu beach house, claiming to befriend him and giving him drugs, before attempting to steal another $20 million after his death, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
Anthony Flores, 46, of Fresno, was arrested last week and pleaded not guilty to felony charges, while Anna Moore, 39, who lives in Monterrey, Mexico, was arrested Tuesday in Houston after a plane flight, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California. She appeared in a Texas court but didn’t enter a plea.
Both will be extradited to California.
They were indicted by a grand jury on Dec. 15. It wasn’t immediately clear whether they had attorneys to speak for them.
Beginning in 2017, Flores, a hairstylist who owned a window cleaning business in Fresno, and Moore, a former yoga studio owner, met an ophthalmologist who was a successful investor but suffered from a mental illness that had gradually left him unable to care for himself, according to prosecutors.
“Within days of meeting the victim, Flores and Moore moved into the victim’s beachfront Malibu home – rent free – and slowly took control of his life by pretending to be his new ‘best friends’ and caregivers,” the statement said.
Flores told the victim’s elderly mother, who lived in Florida, that they were caring for him and “had the victim’s best interests in mind,” according to the indictment, which didn’t identify the victim by name.
Flores later got the victim to sign over power of attorney and opened bank accounts in the victim’s name, according to prosecutors.
For months, Flores and Moore diverted the victim’s money into their own bank accounts, “isolated the victim from his family and longtime friends and provided the victim with drugs, including marijuana and LSD,” the U.S. attorney’s office statement said.
In the final days of his life, the two allegedly gave the physician LSD that caused his mental condition to deteriorate, prosecutors said.
Flores also allegedly changed the phone number and security settings on the physician’s $60-million online brokerage account to access it and wired $2 million to his own bank account.
By this time, the victim had evicted the pair from his home, but they had installed cameras in the beach house and watched his deteriorating condition from a luxury hotel, prosecutors said.
After the victim died in May 2018 at age 57, Flores and Moore moved back into his home and began taking out large amounts of money from his account, prosecutors said.
The indictment didn’t indicate how he died.
Flores and Moore are each charged with felonies, including conspiracy, identity theft, mail fraud and money laundering.
They could face decades in prison if convicted on all counts.
Wisconsin
Second jury finds man guilty in wife’s slaying
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A jury found a Wisconsin man guilty Wednesday in a second trial for killing his wife with antifreeze and by suffocation in 1998.
The verdict of first-degree intentional homicide against Mark Jensen was announced in a Kenosha County courtroom.
Jensen, 63, first was convicted in 2008 in the slaying of Julie Jensen inside their Pleasant Prairie home.
Prosecutors alleged he began poisoning her with antifreeze in December 1998, drugged her with a sleeping medication and later suffocated her to death over a three-day period.
Jensen had maintained his innocence, with his attorneys arguing that Julie Jensen was depressed and killed herself after framing her husband.
He was sentenced then to life without parole, but a Kenosha County judge vacated Jensen’s first conviction in April 2021 after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled he deserved a new trial. The court found that a letter his wife wrote incriminating him in the event something should happen to her could not be used by the prosecution.
Jensen is scheduled to be sentenced on April 14.
Virginia
Man gets life sentence in shooting deaths of mother, brother
WARRENTON, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison plus 40 years in the shooting deaths of his mother and 6-year-old brother at their home in 2020.
In August, Levi Norwood pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Jennifer, and second-degree murder in the death of his brother, Wyatt, at their Midland, Virginia, home. Other charges, including charges related to the wounding of Norwood’s father, were dropped.
Authorities said Norwood’s father found his wife and younger son dead from gunshot wounds when he returned home on Feb. 14, 2020, and Norwood then shot and wounded his father, who escaped. Norwood was arrested the next day in North Carolina.
Judge James Fisher sentenced Norwood above the 32-year guideline recommendation, saying he believed Norwood “is a danger to himself, others, and society, and that would continue,” WTOP-FM reported.
Under Virginia law, Norwood, who was 17 at the time of the crimes, will be eligible for parole after 20 years.
Attorney Ryan Ruzic told Fisher that Norwood had been physically abused by his father. But Fauquier County Commonwealth’s Attorney Scott Hook told the judge that the abuse claim only surfaced after Norwood’s arrest.
Asked if he wanted to say anything before sentencing, Norwood declined.
New Jersey
Man charged with throwing Molotov cocktail at synagogue
BLOOMFIELD, N.J. (AP) — A man suspected of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the front door of a synagogue in northern New Jersey last weekend is now in custody.
Nicholas Malindretos, 26, of Clifton, is charged with attempted use of fire to damage and destroy a building. He was due to make his initial appearance Thursday in federal court in Newark, and it wasn’t known if he has an attorney.
Police responded at around 9:30 a.m. Sunday to a report of property damage at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield. Surveillance video showed that a man had approached the synagogue hours earlier with a Molotov cocktail, which he lit and threw at the door. Police said the glass bottle broke but didn’t cause any damage to the temple, and the suspect fled down the driveway.
A license plate reading device located nearby captured a vehicle passing by shortly before and shortly after the incident, according to federal prosecutors. Authorities found the vehicle in nearby Clifton and saw several items consistent with the video of the incident plainly visible inside.
Authorities obtained a search warrant for the vehicle, which they said belongs to Malindretos. Video cameras in the area where it was parked captured footage of the vehicle parking and a man with the same physical characteristics as Malindretos getting out and entering a nearby building.
If convicted of the count he’s facing, Malindretos could face five to 20 years in federal prison.
The synagogue is part of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest New Jersey.
New York
Man pleads guilty to threatening Rep. Greene of Georgia
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — A New York man has pleaded guilty to making threatening phone calls to Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, federal prosecutors announced.
Joseph Morelli, 51, admitted to threatening to harm Greene in several March 2022 calls to her Washington, D.C., office, the U.S. attorney’s office in Syracuse said in a news release Wednesday.
In one voicemail message, according to prosecutors, Morelli said, “I’m gonna hurt you. Physically, I’m gonna harm you.” In another, prosecutors said, he threatened to “pay someone 500 bucks to take a baseball bat and crack your skull.” In a third call, Morelli said he would “make sure that, even if they lock me up, someone’s gonna get you ‘cause I’ll pay them to,” prosecutors said.
Morelli, of Endicott, New York, was indicted in April 2022 on three counts of transmitting interstate threatening communications. Endicott is a village located about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of the city of Binghamton.
Morelli pleaded guilty on Wednesday and faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when he is sentenced on June 1, prosecutors said.
A message seeking comment was left with Morelli’s attorney at the federal public defender’s office.
Greene, who was first elected to Congress in 2020, has been criticized for embracing conspiracy theories and suggesting that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be executed for treason.
A phone message seeking comment on Morelli’s guilty plea was left with Greene’s office.
