Court Digest

Indiana
Boy, 16, gets 65-year sentence in man’s 2022 slaying

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — A 16-year-old northeastern Indiana boy has been sentenced to 65 years in prison for fatally shooting a man during a robbery outside a Fort Wayne church.

An Allen County judge sentenced Aung San Oo on Monday to the maximum prison sentence under the Fort Wayne teen’s plea agreement in the slaying of Luke Borror, 21.

Oo, who was 15 at the time of Borror’s killing, was charged as an adult. He pleaded guilty in February to felony murder in exchange for prosecutors dismissing other charges he faced, The Journal Gazette reported.

Borror was slain in April 2022, in the parking lot of the New Covenant Worship Center as the congregation was attending services inside. Police said Borror met Oo and another teen, Swar Hit, outside the church to deal in one-use vaping devices known as puff bars.

According to court documents, church video showed Borror and Oo struggling over a backpack shortly before Oo fatally shot Borror.

Hit, who was 16 at the time of the killing, was also charged as an adult. He pleaded guilty to robbery in October and faces up to 30 years in prison. His sentencing is set for April 24.

 

Wisconsin
Man sentenced to 10 years in 1986 slaying of woman

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A Racine man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday for the 1986 killing of a young woman whose body was found in a swamp at a Green Bay nature area.

Lou A. Griffin, 67, pleaded no contest Jan. 27 in Brown County Circuit Court to a charge of homicide by reckless conduct, and a judge found him guilty.

Griffin originally was charged in October 2020 with first-degree intentional homicide in Lisa Holstead’s killing. Her body was found in August 1986.

Holstead’s slaying had been Brown County’s oldest unsolved murder case.

Investigators said that at the time of her killing Griffin lived within a few miles of where her body was found.

Griffin was identified as a suspect in Holstead’s slaying after Green Bay police sent DNA evidence found on her body to a company that performs forensic genetic genealogy testing. That testing provided information on the suspect’s heritage and possible relatives.

Griffin was eventually placed under police surveillance and DNA that was collected from cigarettes and beer cans he had discarded matched the DNA collected in the murder case, police said.

Griffin told investigators he might have had sex with Holstead but denied killing her, police said.

 

New Mexico
Judge: District attorney can’t be co-counsel in Baldwin case

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico judge said Santa Fe’s district attorney shouldn’t serve as co-counsel in the manslaughter case against actor Alec Baldwin and a weapons supervisor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer during a 2021 movie rehearsal. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer on Monday said the district attorney should either lead the case on her own or turn it over entirely to another prosecutor.

Baldwin and movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed have pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison and fines.

Hutchins died shortly after being wounded Oct. 21, 2021, during rehearsals at a ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe. Baldwin was pointing a pistol at Hutchins when the gun went off, killing her and wounding the director, Joel Souza, on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”

District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies is regrouping after the resignation of special prosecutor Andrea Reeb in the wake of missteps in the filing of initial charges against Baldwin and objections that Reeb’s role as a state legislator created conflicting responsibilities.

Carmack-Altwies has been preparing to appoint a new special prosecutor and also guide the complex case as co-counsel. But a defense attorney for Gutierrez-Reed objected to the arrangement, arguing it would be illegal under New Mexico law and fundamentally unfair to a 25-year-old defendant with limited financial resources.

Marlowe Sommer, the judge, said Monday during a court hearing by videoconference that the district attorney had misread key provisions of state law in assembling a team to prosecute the case.

“Basically, what I’m ruling, Ms. Carmack-Altwies, is that you are going to use (the law) in the way I’ve interpreted it, which means that you may not co-counsel, or you stay the course and not use a special prosecutor and prosecute it on your own,” Marlowe Sommer said.

Baldwin’s attorneys did not intervene in Monday’s arguments. A weekslong preliminary hearing in May will decide whether evidence against Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed is sufficient to proceed to trial.

Carmack-Altwies has several days to respond to the judge’s ruling.

The district attorney said her agency is contending with a shortage of staff attorneys and that a new special prosecutor will need her help in getting up to speed on the case quickly. She also said her continued involvement as co-counsel would provide an extra measure of accountability as an elected prosecutor to political constituents.

Defense Attorney Jason Bowles said the district attorney was unfairly exceeding her authority.

“We are representing Hannah Gutierrez-Reed — she is a 25-year-old female who does not have all of those resources and does not have a war chest,” Bowles said. “And the state is essentially saying we get to put all this money together, a special taxpayer appropriation, to go after not only Mr. Baldwin, but also Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. That’s not what the statute was designed to do.”

 

Massachusetts
2 juveniles charged with cruiser break-in and rifle theft

MALDEN, Mass. (AP) — Two juveniles have been charged with breaking into a Massachusetts State Police cruiser and stealing a rifle and ammunition, a prosecutor said.

The 14- and 15-year-old male youths were charged with breaking and entering, larceny and conspiracy, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said Monday. The 14-year-old also was charged with possession of a firearm.

The two are accused of breaking into the police cruiser, parked in an apartment complex garage in Malden, during the overnight hours of March 23, Ryan said.

Ryan said the firearm and other stolen items were later recovered in a Malden home connected to the 15-year-old.

The juveniles are scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday. It wasn’t immediately known if they had lawyers.

 

Ohio
2 fishermen caught cheating at tournament plead guilty

CLEVELAND (AP) — Two men accused of stuffing fish with lead weights and fish fillets in an attempt to win thousands of dollars in an Ohio fishing tournament last fall pleaded guilty Monday to charges including cheating.

The cheating allegations surfaced in September when Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament Director Jason Fischer became suspicious when the fish turned in by Jacob Runyan, of Broadview Heights, Ohio, and Chase Cominsky, of Hermitage, Pennsylvania, were significantly heavier than typical walleye.

A crowd of people at Gordon Park in Cleveland watched as Fischer cut the walleye open and found weights and walleye fillets stuffed inside.

As part of a plea deal, Runyan and Cominsky pleaded guilty to cheating and unlawful ownership of wild animals and agreed to three-year suspensions of their fishing licenses. Cominsky also agreed to give up his bass boat worth $100,000.

Prosecutors agreed to drop attempted grand theft and possessing criminal tools charges.

Both men are scheduled to be sentenced May 11. Prosecutors plan to recommend a sentence of six months’ probation and later ask for an expungement of their convictions if they successfully complete their probation, said James Gallagher, an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor.

The plea is Cominsky’s first step toward moving on with his life and taking full responsibility, said his attorney, Kevin Spellacy. A message seeking comment was left with Runyan’s attorney.

According to search warrant affidavits, five walleye contained lead weights and fillets. Officers from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources confiscated the fish as evidence.

They would have received a little over $28,000 in prizes for winning the tournament.

Court records also said that Runyan and Cominsky were investigated near Toledo in the spring of 2022 after being accused of cheating in a different walleye tournament. According to a police report, a prosecutor concluded that although the men may have cheated, there was not enough evidence to charge them.


London
Prince Harry returns to court in tabloid phone hacking case

LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry returned to a London court Tuesday for a second day of hearings to see if the phone hacking lawsuit he brought with Elton John and other celebrities can withstand a challenge from the publisher of The Daily Mail.

The case is one of several brought by the Duke of Sussex in his battle with the press and alleges the publisher hired private investigators to illegally bug homes and cars and to record phone conversations.

Associated Newspapers Ltd. denies the allegations and is seeking to throw out the case, arguing that the claims are too old and rely on information they turned over in confidentiality for a 2012 probe into media law breaking.

Actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, and John’s husband, David Furnish, are also parties to the case.

The lawsuit alleges Associated Newspapers, which publishes The Daily Mail and The Mail On Sunday, commissioned the “breaking and entry into private property,” and engaged in other unlawful acts that invaded the privacy of the famous plaintiffs.

Attorney David Sherborne, who represents the prince and others, said the intrusions were “habitual and widespread” and later “concealed or covered up.”

Articles were falsely attributed to “friends,” a family source, palace sources, royal insider, or similar unnamed individuals to throw subjects “off the scent” of the true origin, Sherborne said.

Among the allegations in court papers were that Associated Newspapers unlawfully obtained the birth certificate of John and Furnish’s child before they saw the document and illegally gleaned information on Harry’s previous relationship with Chelsy Davy, a jewelry designer from Zimbabwe.

The publisher is also alleged to have hired a private investigator to hack Hurley’s phone, stuck a mini-microphone on a window outside her home and bugged ex-boyfriend Hugh Grant’s car to gather financial information, travel plans and medical information during her pregnancy.

The case is to some extent a replay of a British phone-hacking scandal that was front page news a decade ago and eventually brought down another tabloid and ended with the conviction of the former spokesperson for then-Prime Minister David Cameron.

The allegations date primarily from 1993 to 2011 but also stretch beyond 2018, Sherborne said.

Associated Newspapers claims the information about the scandal was so widely known the subjects could have sued years ago.

“It would be surprising indeed for any reasonably informed member of the public, let alone a figure in the public eye, to have been unaware of these matters,” attorney Adrian Beltrami said in writing.