Massachusetts
Driver who crashed into Apple store charged with murder
HINGHAM, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts man whose SUV crashed through the glass storefront of an Apple store, killing one man and injuring nearly two dozen other people, has been charged with murder, prosecutors said.
Bradley Rein, 53, was indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday on charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle homicide by reckless operation and 22 counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in connection with the Nov. 21 crash at a Hingham shopping plaza, Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz’s office said in a statement.
Rein was behind the wheel of his 2019 Toyota 4Runner when it crashed through the store, killing Kevin Bradley, 65, of Wayne, New Jersey, who was doing construction at the site, and injuring 22 others.
First responders found workers and bystanders administering first aid to the victims, several of whom were badly injured, authorities said. Bradley was pronounced dead at the scene.
Rein was previously arraigned in district court on charges related to the crash, which his lawyer at the time called an accident. Not guilty pleas were entered on his behalf and he was released on $100,000 bail.
The new murder charge moves the case to Brockton Superior Court, where he will be arraigned at a later date, prosecutors said. The district attorney’s office did not explain why Rein was charged with murder.
“I was astounded by the charge,” Rein’s attorney, Joan Fund, said Wednesday. “My client has fully cooperated with the investigation and I look forward to answering all other questions about this case in court.”
Rein told police he was looking for an eyeglasses store at the shopping center when his right foot became stuck on the accelerator, according to court documents. He said he used his left foot to try to brake but couldn’t stop.
Rein told police he had no medical issues that would impair his ability to drive and had not consumed alcohol or drugs. A breath test showed he had no alcohol in his system, authorities said.
Several victims have filed lawsuits against the owner of the property, the developer, the management of the property, Apple and Rein, alleging negligence.
Wisconsin
Man charged with firebombing anti-abortion office
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — After nearly a year of searching, investigators used DNA pulled from a half-eaten burrito to capture the man they believe firebombed a prominent Wisconsin anti-abortion lobbying group’s office.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Madison announced that police arrested 29-year-old Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Tuesday. He was charged via the complaint with one count of attempting to cause damage by means of fire or an explosive.
He made an initial appearance in federal court in Boston on Tuesday. U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald L. Cabell set a detention hearing for Thursday. Roychowdhury’s attorney, Brendan O. Kelley, who is listed in online court records as a federal public defender, declined comment when reached by phone after Tuesday’s hearing.
Federal agents have been searching for almost a year for whoever tossed a pair of Molotov cocktails into the Wisconsin Family Action office in Madison on May 6. One of the firebombs failed to ignite; the other set a bookcase on fire. The message “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either” was spray-painted on the building’s exterior. No one was in the office at the time.
The attack came about a week after a draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion, leaked. The release sparked abortion rights supporters to mount protests across the country. Two Catholic churches in Colorado were vandalized in the days leading up to the Madison firebombing. And someone threw Molotov cocktails into an anti-abortion organization’s office in a suburb of Salem, Oregon, several days later.
The court officially overturned Roe v. Wade in June, putting Wisconsin’s 1849 ban on abortion back into play.
According to the criminal complaint against Roychowdury, investigators pulled DNA samples from three individuals from evidence at the scene of the Wisconsin attack. But the samples didn’t match any profiles in the U.S. Department of Justice’s DNA database.
As time went on, Wisconsin Family Action President Julaine Appling offered a $5,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest. She accused Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes of being more interested in empathizing with abortion rights activists than bringing any suspects to justice.
This past January, police assigned to protecting the state Capitol building in Madison reviewed surveillance video of a protest against police brutality. The footage showed several people spray-painting graffiti on Capitol grounds. The graffiti resembled the graffiti at the Wisconsin Family Action office.
The footage showed two people leaving the area in a white pickup truck, which investigators tracked to Roychowdhury’s residence in Madison, according to the complaint. Police began following him.
On March 1, he pulled into a Madison park-and-ride and threw away a bag of fast food. After he left, police retrieved the bag from the trash can. DNA on a burrito in the bag matched DNA taken from the Wisconsin Family Action office, according to the complaint.
The U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement that Roychowdhury traveled from Madison this month to Portland, Maine. He had a one-way ticket for a flight from Boston to Guatemala City, Guatemala, that was scheduled to depart Tuesday morning when he was arrested, the office said.
Investigators have been unable to match the other two DNA profiles from the scene to anyone, the complaint said.
Appling had no comment Tuesday on Roychowdhury’s arrest.
“I’m very proud of the tireless and determined efforts the combined federal, state and local team put in to identify and arrest this individual,” said William McCrary, the special agent in charge of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives’ St. Paul Field Division, which handles crimes in Wisconsin. “It is very satisfying to me to see that this alleged perpetrator has been placed in custody.”
California
Man sentenced for child mutilation-sex scheme
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former Southern California man who convinced troubled girls as young as 12 to perform masochistic acts and urged one to become his sex slave was sentenced Tuesday to 27 years in federal prison.
Matthew Christian Locher was “a parent’s worst nightmare,” U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee said during his sentencing in Los Angeles, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.
Locher pleaded guilty last August to one count of sexual exploitation of a child for the purpose of producing a sexually explicit visual depiction.
In his plea agreement, prosecutors said Locher, 32, acknowledged that while living in Redondo Beach in 2020 and 2021, Locher got into online conversations targeting girls suffering from mental health issues such as depression, schizophrenia, anorexia and suicidal thoughts.
“Locher groomed his victims to engage in self-mutilation and instructed a victim struggling with an eating disorder to starve herself, ordering her to film herself cutting her body when she disobeyed him,” the U.S. attorney’s office statement said.
Two girls sent him images and videos of self-harm that included cutting their breasts with razor blades, prosecutors said.
He convinced a third victim, who was 12, to run away from her Ohio home and attempt to reach California to have sex with him, prosecutors alleged.
Encouraged by Locher, the girl first set fire to her home in a failed bid to kill her parents, prosecutors alleged.
Locher had promised he would pick her up, “bring her to California, and make her his ‘slave,’” the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Locher moved to Indiana in 2021 after authorities searched his home. He was arrested in January 2022 in Indianapolis and sent back to California.
California
6-year-old boy dies from stolen car crash injuries
HERCULES, Calif. (AP) — A 6-year-old boy who was injured when a suspect in a stolen SUV crashed into his family’s car during a police pursuit in the San Francisco Bay Area died of his injuries, authorities said Tuesday.
The boy’s mother was killed in the crash last week in the unincorporated community of Rodeo. The boy’s twin brother had non-life-threatening injuries, said Hercules Police Chief Joseph Vasquez.
Ralph E. White III, of Vallejo, was arrested shortly after the crash and booked on one count of vehicular manslaughter, three counts of evading a police officer and causing death or great bodily injury, and possession of a stolen vehicle, Vasquez said. He was being held in lieu of $375,000 bail. Prosecutors have not yet charged White and it was not immediately known if he has an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
Vasquez said officers received information from the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office about a stolen 2021 Mazda SUV heading toward Hercules on eastbound Interstate Highway 80. A Hercules police officer saw the vehicle exit the highway and began a pursuit after the driver of the Mazda accelerated, he said.
The SUV then crashed into the woman’s car in the unincorporated community of Rodeo. The 31-year-old mother died at the scene.
The woman and her dead son’s names have not been released pending an autopsy, Vasquez said.
Maine
Tuition lawsuit targets religious school restrictions
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A new lawsuit over Maine’s tuition reimbursement program for private schools contends an antidiscrimination law unfairly targets religious schools to prevent their participation.
The law requiring all schools to follow state antidiscrimination laws, including protections for LGBTQ students and faculty, to receive reimbursements went into effect before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Maine can’t exclude religious schools from its program that offers tuition aid for private education.
The lawsuit, filed Monday, contends the law discriminates against religious schools by imposing restrictions that specifically aim to keep them out of the program.
“Maine lost at the U.S. Supreme Court just last year but is not getting the message that religious discrimination is illegal,” Lea Patterson, attorney for Texas-based First Liberty Institute, one of two law firms representing Bangor Christian School, said Tuesday in a statement.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said the Maine Human Rights Act protects all residents from discrimination and he said he’s “steadfast” in upholding the law. “If abiding by this state law is unacceptable to the plaintiffs, they are free to forego taxpayer funding,” Frey said Tuesday.
There were several lawsuits over the years over Maine’s program that provides tuition reimbursements for private schools for students who live in communities that don’t have a public school.
The state program excluded religious schools from participation before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling, which was hailed as a victory for school choice proponents.
In the Maine case, parents sued to be able to use state aid to send their children to Bangor Christian School and Temple Academy in Waterville. Both of those schools have policies that discriminate on a basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, the attorney general said previously.
The Maine Human Rights Act was amended by state legislators with regards to its application to schools just before the Supreme Court agreed to hear that lawsuit.
In the end, neither Bangor Christian School nor Temple Academy in Waterville applied to participate last fall. Only one religious school, Cheverus High School, a Jesuit college preparatory school in Portland, submitted an application for tuition reimbursement and was approved by the state.
