Massachusetts
Man accused in Harvard bomb threat, Bitcoin extortion plan
BOSTON (AP) — A man is accused of phoning in bomb threats to Harvard University and demanding a large amount of Bitcoin in return, federal prosecutors said.
William Giordani, of Nashua, New Hampshire, was arrested Tuesday on charges of conspiracy and aiding and abetting extortionate threats. He has a detention hearing scheduled in federal court in Boston on Friday. It wasn’t immediately known if he had an attorney.
Harvard University’s police department received six calls regarding bombs and demand for payment on April 13, according to a campus police officer’s affidavit. The caller gave a location and a description of a device, which police found and destroyed. Police, who evacuated the area, said they found no other devices.
The device had a metal locking safe, a package of wire, a quantity of fireworks inside the safe, and a small rectangular box with wires attached to it, police said. It also had a yellow Home Depot sticker and another man’s name. A Home Depot store said someone by that name had allegedly placed an order for some of supplies found in the device.
Police said Giordani was allegedly seen on camera picking up the order at the store, and on surveillance video near where the device was found.
Giordani later told police that “all he did” was respond to a Craigslist ad and “just put some fireworks in a safe and put them at Harvard,” according to the affidavit.
He also said he spoke the person who placed the ad, who said he would be calling police to make a bomb threat to get money and would pay him, the affidavit said.
Police allege that Giordani placed a Craigslist ad posing as a parent of a Harvard student saying they needed someone to drop off supplies for their son. A contact number was the same one that Giordani allegedly used later, authorities said. He also allegedly left a receipt with the parent’s name inside the bag that police recovered.
Ohio
Penalty reduced for man who stole $500 leaf blower
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s top court has overturned the burglary conviction of a man who stole a $500 leaf blower from a resident’s garage because the man did not use “force, stealth, or deception” to commit the crime.
The unanimous decision announced Wednesday by the Ohio Supreme Court also vacated an 8- to 12-year prison sentence given to Donald Bertram. The justices instead ruled he should be convicted of the lesser offense of misdemeanor criminal trespassing, which could bring him less than a year in jail.
The case stems from a September 2020 incident in Portsmouth. According to court documents, a homeowner was working on his property when he heard the loud muffler of a passing car. He went inside the house to get his cellphone and, when he came back outside, he made eye contact with Bertram, the driver of the car.
Bertram drove past the home but then turned around and parked on the road near the driveway, then started walking up the driveway to the home’s open garage. The homeowner said Bertram was smiling, acting “very cavalier” and had “no sense of urgency” as he walked into the garage, took the leaf blower and walked back to his car.
Bertram ignored the homeowner’s demand to put down the blower and instead put it on the passenger seat of his car and attempted to drive off. When the car didn’t immediately start, the homeowner took several close-up photos of Bertram before he eventually drove away.
Bertram was soon arrested and was convicted of burglary. He appealed the jury’s verdict to the Fourth District Court of Appeals, which affirmed the decision, then appealed the case to the state supreme court.
In the decision written by Justice Michael Donnelly, the Supreme Court noted that the lower courts determined Bertram engaged in stealth and deception because he calmly and silently walked by the homeowner, giving no indication that he intended to steal anything.
Donnelly though, wrote that the evidence “utterly failed to establish” that Bertram engaged in any “secret, sly, or clandestine conduct,” which must be proven to convict someone of burglary.
Besides vacating the burglary conviction and prison term, the justices also vacated a 491-day sentence Bertram received for violating his probation in an unrelated case. They noted a prison term for violating probation can only be imposed for committing a felony, and in this case that matter was vacated.
Arizona
Convicted killer faces retrial in 2nd girl’s death
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A man already convicted of murdering a Tucson teenager in 2014 is scheduled to be retried in the kidnapping and death of a 6-year-old girl.
Pima County prosecutors said the retrial of 41-year-old Christopher Clements is scheduled to begin on Sept. 12 and last four weeks.
Clements has been charged with first-degree murder, burglary and kidnapping a minor under the age of 15 in relation to Isabel Celis’ death and disappearance.
He was tried on the same charges in February, but a mistrial was declared when jurors could not agree on the murder count.
In a separate case last year, Clements was sentenced to life in prison for the 2014 death of 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez.
A different jury heard Clements’ first murder trial involving Celis, who was reported missing from her bedroom in her parents’ Tucson home in April 2012.
Clements, a convicted sex offender with a long criminal record, was arrested in 2018 and indicted on 22 felony counts in the girls’ deaths.
Gonzalez disappeared while walking to a friend’s house in June 2014 and authorities said her body was found days later.
Celis’ remains were not recovered until 2017. Authorities said Clements was identified as a suspect in March of that year after he led federal investigators to her remains in exchange for the dropping of unrelated charges.
According to Tucson police, Clements said he had nothing to do with Celis’ death and he only knew the location of the body.
Mississippi
Teen accused of killing pregnant 16-year-old
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — A 15-year-old male from Mississippi has been arrested in the death of a 16-year-old girl and her fetus, police said. Three other teenagers were also arrested in connection with the case.
The suspected shooter faces a count of second-degree murder and one of homicide of an unborn child and is being held at the Harrison County Adult Detention Center in lieu of a $500,000 bond, Gulfport police said in a news release.
JaKamori Lake, 16, of Gulfport, was shot once in the head and died Sunday after she was taken in personal vehicle to Memorial Hospital at Gulfport in a personal vehicle, Harrison County Deputy Coroner Whitney Valles said. Police said Lake was 3 1/2 months pregnant.
The shooting occurred at an apartment where Lake lived. What led to the shooting was not immediately known.
Two other juveniles, ages 13 and 17, and Jamarrion Jackson, 19, each face one count each of hindering the prosecution of another.
Jackson is being held on a $25,000 bond, and the juveniles were taken to the Harrison County Youth Detention Center.
It was unknown if any of the suspects had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.
Lake is the third teenager to die Sunday from gun violence on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Two Hancock High School students were killed just after midnight Sunday in a shooting at an after-prom party in Bay St. Louis.
Colorado
3 teens charged with murder in rock-throwing death of woman
DENVER (AP) — Three teens accused of killing a 20-year-old woman while throwing large rocks at passing cars have been charged with murder and other crimes, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, Joseph Koenig and Zachary Kwak, all 18, each face identical charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, second-degree assault and attempted second-degree assault in the death of Alexis Bartell — and alleged attacks on six other cars in suburban Denver, First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King announced.
Two other drivers suffered minor injuries, according to investigators.
The office of Karol-Chik’s lawyer, Holly Gummerson, declined to comment. A message left for Kwak’s lawyer, Emily Boehne, who was in court, was not immediately returned. Koenig is represented by a lawyer from the public defender’s office, which does not comment to the media on cases.
According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Bartell was talking on the phone with a friend when she was hit by the rock on April 19. After the call went silent, the friend tracked Bartell’s location with a phone app and found the woman dead in her car, which had crashed into a field.
Karol-Chik told investigators that Koenig slowed down so Kwak could get a photo of Bartell’s car after it crashed into a field. He said all three got excited every time they hit a car with landscaping rocks taken from a Walmart parking lot, but acknowledged he felt “a hint of guilt” passing by her car, according to court documents.
Kwak said he took the photo because he thought that Karol-Chik or Koenig would want to have a “memento” of what had happened, according to the arrest affidavits.
Karol-Chik told investigators with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office that he and Koenig had thrown rocks and even a statue at passing cars on at least 10 other days before Bartell was killed. Kwak heard about what they had been doing and asked to join them, according to Karol-Chik’s account in the affidavits.
Karol-Chik and Kwak offered different accounts about who threw the fatal rock. Koenig did not speak to investigators after he was arrested, according to the arrest affidavits.
Connecticut
Man gets 48 years in prison for arranging family killings
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man has been sentenced to 48 years in prison for orchestrating the stabbing deaths of his stepmother and her mother in a 2020 attack that also wounded his father, in retribution for what he claimed were years of abuse.
Charles Dzurenka Jr., 20, apologized and said he deserved the sentence during a hearing in Hartford Superior Court on Tuesday, the Journal Inquirer reported. His girlfriend, Makenzie Bezio, also was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for conspiring in the attack.
Dzurenka’s stepmother, Marianne Dzurenka, 55, and her mother, Sandra Marci, 78, were stabbed multiple times in the Dzurenka’s home in Windsor on May 11, 2020. Dzurenka’s father, Charles Dzurenka Sr., also was stabbed but survived.
Prosecutors said the younger Dzurenka, who was 17 at the time of the killings, arranged to have his friend, Terry Brown Jr., kill his father and stepmother, who Dzurenka claimed abused him for years. In exchange, Brown could take anything in the house, authorities said.
Brown, who also was 17 at the time, was sentenced to 58 years in prison last year on murder and other charges. He, Dzurenka and Bezio all pleaded guilty in the case.
Marianne Dzurenka’s family disputed her stepson’s abuse allegations, saying she took care of him, drove him to appointments and helped him with his homework.
