California
$1M settlement in suit accusing officer of rape
BRAWLEY, Calif. (AP) — The Southern California city of Brawley will pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit by a woman who accused a police officer of rape after he arrested her on suspicion of driving under the influence, her attorneys said Wednesday.
The civil lawsuit filed in 2021 alleged former Brawley police Officer Ricardo Gabriel Valdez drove the woman back to her home in a patrol car, where she woke up to him having sex with her. Valdez left the DUI citation on her bedside when he left, according to the woman’s complaint.
“This horrible incident has changed my life, and I am glad I can begin to put it behind me,” the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, said in a statement obtained by the Los Angeles Times. “I am discouraged and upset that a police officer took advantage of his badge.”
Attorneys for the woman called the officer’s actions “brazen, malicious, sadistic, offensive to human dignity and cruel.”
The officer’s sperm was found in the woman’s home, according to the lawsuit. Valdez admitted to having sex with the woman but claimed it had been consensual, the court filing said.
Valdez was criminally charged in 2020 with multiple felonies including sexual battery, rape and burglary. The charges were dropped the following year.
Court records don’t explain why the case was dismissed, but the Times cites local media reports that said prosecutors told a judge investigators had found “exculpatory information” that “question gravely the credibility of the complaining witness.”
Valdez was placed on administrative leave during the investigation. He later resigned from the force.
Brawley officials, and attorneys representing the city in the lawsuit, did not respond to a request for comment about the settlement. Attorneys representing Valdez also did not respond.
Brawley, a city with more than 26,000 residents, is about 30 miles (48 km) north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Washington
Harassment case dropped after judge finds no probable cause
SEATTLE (AP) — Prosecutors in Washington state have dropped a long-running harassment case against a man who had been accused of making threats to kill four women and a judge involved in a prior cyberstalking case against him.
The man, Sloan Stanley, was released from custody after a Mason County Superior Court judge ruled in February that prosecutors had not established probable cause to support the charges because the jailhouse informant they built their case on lacked credibility.
The state dismissed the matter last month. Stanley, 47, has moved to the Boise, Idaho, area, said his attorney, Craig Suffian.
Stanley was given a two-year sentence after being convicted of cyberstalking in 2015. In that case, he met a woman and some of her friends at a Seattle pub, then found her online and began sending her, two friends and a bartender from the pub increasingly obscene and threatening messages.
Two of the victims were so frightened that they moved out of state, police said.
A jailhouse informant told police that while he and Stanley were both housed at the state prison in Shelton, Stanley made threats about the women he had stalked as well as a judge and others who handled his case.
Because the alleged threats had been made a year before the informant reported them, police inserted a second informant into the prison, to see if Stanley would repeat them. The second informant did not report hearing explicit threats, and a listening device hidden in Stanley’s cell also failed to capture any incriminating recordings.
King County prosecutors charged Stanley with felony harassment and intimidating a judge, based mostly on the evidence from the first informant, Randy Burleson.
Stanley denied making the threats but was convicted during a 2018 trial and sentenced to more than three decades in prison. However, the state Court of Appeals unanimously overturned his conviction in 2021, finding that the trial court denied him the right to present a defense when it declined to let him question the second informant at trial.
King County prosecutors sought to try him a second time for felony harassment and intimidating a judge. This time the case was assigned to a Superior Court Judge Monty Cobb in Mason County, where the prison is.
Prosecutors said that while Burleson had a long criminal history, he was credible and had not sought anything in exchange for his testimony. However, Suffian argued that Burleson was in fact hoping for leniency on pending felony charges and had lied under oath during Stanley’s first harassment trial when he claimed to have spent time behind bars with serial killer Gary Ridgway.
Cobb agreed, saying during a hearing in February that Burleson’s claim about Ridgway “so undermines his credibility that .... the Court is not finding that probable cause exists.”
Rhode Island
NP gets 7 years for cheating insurers out of almost $12M
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A nurse practitioner who defrauded health insurers and Medicare out of nearly $12 million by seeking payments for patient services that were never performed has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Alexander Istomin, 57, submitted fraudulent claims for in-person patient services that he falsely claimed to have performed at offices in Rhode Island, New York and Florida, the U.S. attorney’s office in Rhode Island said in a statement Wednesday.
In some cases, patients that Istomin claimed to have met in person were in another country at the time. Some visits took place at a ghost office in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, that Istomin claimed was part of his medical practice when it was used solely for the purpose of receiving mail, prosecutors said.
He also used patient names and other information to get prescriptions filled, which he would keep and then distribute to others, prosecutors said.
He also waived copayments for some Medicare patients, which is prohibited, and in return the patients would not report the fraudulent billing, prosecutors said.
Eight insurers were affected, prosecutors said.
He pleaded guilty in October to health care fraud, mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, and causing the introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce.
Colorado
Stepmom in murder trial over boy’s death says ‘I don’t kill’
DENVER (AP) — The father of an 11-year-old Colorado boy missing for nearly three weeks, called his then-wife and wished her a happy Valentine’s Day. Then, as law enforcement listened in, Albert Stauch pressed Letecia Stauch, who is now on trial for killing the boy, for details about what happened to his son, Gannon.
During the February 2020 call, Letecia Stauch repeatedly told her husband she wanted immunity before she would help. At one point, she blurted out, “I don’t kill people.”
The call was one of several played in court Wednesday, during the second day of testimony in Letecia Stauch’s trial in Colorado Springs. In another call, Albert Stauch asked his now ex-wife if she had killed Gannon and she denied it.
Gannon’s remains were found by bridge inspectors in March 2020, in a suitcase under a bridge on the Florida Panhandle. One of them, Macon Ponder, testified Wednesday that, after unzipping it, he found a body in a fetal position, partially wrapped in blankets.
Prosecutors said Letecia Stauch stabbed Gannon 18 times, shot him and then drove across the country with his body, dumping the suitcase over the side of the bridge.
Albert Stauch agreed to cooperate with law enforcement after, he said, he became suspicious of his ex-wife while his son was missing. He testified that he played along with a variety of accounts his wife offered about what happened to Gannon to try to find out the truth. But he grew increasingly frustrated with her after she claimed a man named Quincy Jones had taken Gannon. The individual, according to Albert Stauch, was someone whose mugshot was easily found on a website of booking photos.
Letecia Stauch had previously said that Gannon had not returned from playing with a friend, but she did not provide the names of any friends he may have been with or their parents. She later claimed that another man had raped her and then abducted Gannon, according to investigators.
“I’m done. Don’t email me, don’t call me until you tell me where my son is,” Stauch told his wife.
Stauch was charged with first-degree murder, tampering with a deceased human body and tampering with physical evidence. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in Gannon’s death.
The defense claimed she suffered a “major psychotic crack” as a result of childhood trauma when she killed Gannon. Her lawyers have suggested she developed dissociative identify disorder as a result of being physically, emotionally and sexually abused by her absent mother’s string of partners during her childhood.
But District Attorney Michael Allen has repeatedly stressed that Stauch knew right from wrong, a key element he must show to disprove the insanity claim.
In response to questions from Allen, Albert Stauch said that everything, from his ex-wife’s ability to coach softball, to her reluctance to talk to investigators about Gannon’s disappearance, proved she knew right from wrong.
In questioning Stauch, defense attorney Josh Tolini pointed out that Letecia Stauch had been seeing a psychologist in the months before Gannon was killed and had been prescribed medication that is used to treat anxiety. He also said that Stauch sometimes referred to herself as “Taylor.” Albert Stauch said that was a name she liked, and had once used it as her middle name on her Facebook profile.
Vermont
Police: Homeless woman killed shelter coordinator with ax and knife
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) — A judge has ordered a mental evaluation for a homeless shelter resident accused of using an ax and knife to kill the shelter’s coordinator in front of horrified workers.
Zaaina Mahvish-Jammeh, 38, purchased the ax from a hardware store before requesting a meeting with the shelter coordinator, and used the ax to strike the victim multiple times in the shelter’s living room, police said.
She pleaded not guilty to murder on Tuesday, a day after the attack, and remains jailed.
Leah Rosin-Pritchard, 36, suffered injuries to her face, neck and torso and was pronounced dead at the scene at Morningside House, a shelter operated by Groundworks Collaborative, police said. Police said Mahvish-Jammeh used an ax with an 18-inch handle and a knife in the attack.
Groundworks Collaborative described Rosin-Pritchard as “a wonderfully strong, positive, beautiful and compassionate person.” She was a volleyball coach, a culinary instructor and social worker in Rhode Island before moving to Vermont to become the coordinator at Morningside House, officials said.
Mahvish-Jammeh had been living at the house for months, and the attack was captured on security video. “There are no words to express the depth of loss felt by her Groundworks teammates and residents,” Groundworks said in a statement.
David Sleigh, attorney for Mahvish-Jammeh, declined comment on Thursday.
