Kentucky
Man charged in officers’ deaths found dead in cell
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky man charged in the deaths of three law enforcement officers during an ambush in a small Appalachian town has been found dead in his jail cell.
Lance Storz, 50, was found dead of an apparent suicide Tuesday morning at the Pike County Detention Center, where he was being held on three murder charges, Floyd County Sheriff John Hunt said Tuesday.
The sheriff’s office said Storz opened fire on officers with a high-powered rifle on June 30 when they arrived at his home to serve a protective order. Hunt described the scene as a “war zone” during an hours-long standoff before Storz surrendered.
The shooting was one of the deadliest for law enforcement officers in Kentucky’s history. Officials said it was the most law enforcement deaths in a single incident since a 1923 prison riot left three officers dead.
Hunt said police in Pike County are investigating Storz’s cause of death.
One of Hunt’s deputies, William Petry, was killed when Storz opened fire on officers without warning. Prestonsburg Police Capt. Ralph Frasure was also killed, and Prestonsburg officer Jacob Chaffins died the next day of gunshot wounds. Four other officers were wounded.
Hunt said one of his deputies injured in the shooting would never get to see Storz face justice.
“I have a deputy who’s wounded for life, and I’m sure he wanted the chance to look this guy in the eye in court, and he’s been cheated of that,” Hunt said.
Police went to the house in the community of Allen after a family member said Storz’s wife was being abused and held in the home against her will, according to the sheriff’s office. The wife was waiting for officers when they arrived, telling the officers Storz was asleep, so she was able to get outside. Four officers, including Petry, returned to serve a protective order against Storz. Hunt said Storz watched them approach from a window and began shooting.
New York
Lawyer: Cuba Gooding Jr.’s sex with accuser was consensual
NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. had consensual sex with a woman who has accused him of raping her in a New York City hotel a decade ago, a lawyer told a federal judge Monday as a trial on her civil claim was scheduled for June.
Attorney Gary Becker made the assertion in Manhattan federal court as Judge Paul A. Crotty said a trial on the claims of a woman identified only as Jane Doe can start the first week of June, though an exact date was not finalized.
The Oscar-winning actor once burnished a reputation as a good guy in movies including “Jerry Maguire” and “As Good As It Gets.”
But a slew of harassment claims against Gooding have turned him into a #MeToo defendant in multiple courts.
In a criminal case in state court in Manhattan last fall, Gooding pleaded guilty to a non-criminal harassment violation in a deal that spared him from jail time.
Authorities say claims of groping, unwanted kissing and other inappropriate behavior by Gooding have been made by at least 30 women, frequently after encounters with him at New York City nightspots.
The introduction to Jane Doe occurred in August 2013 when she met the actor in the VIP lounge of a restaurant in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan and agreed to join him with a friend of hers at a nearby hotel bar, according to court papers.
But, once at the hotel, and before her friend arrived, Jane Doe was encouraged to proceed to Gooding’s hotel room so the actor could change his clothing and they could return downstairs to meet her friend, the court papers said.
The lawsuit alleged Gooding got violent in the room, pushing the woman onto the bed and forcibly raping her while ignoring her pleas for him to stop.
The woman’s lawyers did not immediately comment.
On Monday, Gooding’s lawyer said the defense at trial would assert that sex was consensual, relying in part on testimony by two former owners of the restaurant where she met Gooding who will say she returned late that evening to boast that she’d had sex with a celebrity.
Outside court, Becker and another defense attorney, Edward Vincent Sapone, said that a third witness, a former female bartender at the restaurant, could also testify about the woman’s return to the restaurant and what she said.
In court papers, lawyers for the woman have said she is entitled to $2 million in compensatory damages and $4 million in punitive damages for the “significant emotional distress” she suffered after meeting Gooding.
The lawyers wrote that she began binge eating after the attack, has felt suicidal at times and has faced flashbacks that make her very anxious, along with feelings of worthlessness, distrust and low self esteem.
Tennessee
$1M settlement in lawsuit over federal immigration raid
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal judge has approved a settlement of more than $1 million in a class action lawsuit that challenged a federal immigration raid at an eastern Tennessee meatpacking plant where about 100 people were arrested.
The settlement approved by U.S. District Judge Travis McDonough on Monday calls for the U.S. government to pay $475,000 to six individual plaintiffs and an additional $550,000 to a class settlement fund for nearly 100 workers detained almost five years ago, news outlets reported.
The lawsuit claimed the Southeastern Provision workers’ 4th and 5th Amendment constitutional rights were violated in April 2018 when armed officers raided the Bean Station plant, using racial slurs, shoving guns in their faces and punching one worker in the face. It also alleged that officers didn’t know workers’ identities or immigration statuses, only that many were Hispanic.
White workers at the plant, meanwhile, were not accosted, detained, searched or arrested, and many stood outside smoking during the raid, the lawsuit said.
During the raid, officers were helping to execute an Internal Revenue Service search warrant for financial documents related to James Brantley, the plant’s owner. Agents did not have warrants for the arrest of any of the workers — only to search the business for tax violations, according to the lawsuit.
Brantley later pleaded guilty to federal charges of employing unauthorized immigrants, tax evasion and wire fraud.
“Today, justice was served to the Latinx workers, and their community, who took a stand against federal agents targeting them because of their ethnicity,” said Meredith Stewart, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project. “The unprecedented, court-approved settlement demonstrates that we, as a nation, will not tolerate racial profiling.”
