Massachusetts
Town’s police chief faces insider trading charges
DIGHTON, Mass. (AP) — The police chief of a town in southeastern Massachusetts is among a handful of individuals facing insider trading charges in a scheme that allegedly netted the men more than $2.2 million in illegal profits, according to federal investigators.
Dighton Police Chief Shawn Cronin is among five men charged in the insider trading scheme. The men traded in stocks and options based on confidential information about one pharmaceutical company’s acquisition of another company, according to the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.
Cronin was placed on administrative leave Thursday.
According to investigators, Dighton reserve officer Joseph Dupont, a friend of Cronin, was vice president of Boston-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. when he learned that the firm was going to purchase another company, Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Dupont allegedly told Cronin about the deal in April 2020, before it was made public.
Alexion’s acquisition of Portola, which is based in South San Francisco, California, was publicly announced on the morning of May 5, 2020. Portola’s stock jumped in value. Cronin and others named in the complaint sold their shares of Portola and options for Portola stock, reaping more than $2.2 million in illegally obtained profits, prosecutors said.
Cronin, who was named police chief last year, allegedly received $72,000 from the scheme. An effort to reach Cronin for comment Friday was unsuccessful. It wasn’t immediately known if he has an attorney.
Cronin has been charged with three counts each of securities fraud and tender offer fraud under Title 15, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; one count of securities fraud under Title 18, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison; and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and tender offer fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Cronin and Dupont appeared in federal court in Boston Thursday. Cronin was released on $250,000 bond, and Dupont was released on $200,000 bond.
Dupont also was suspended.
Their next court dates will be held in New York.
Kansas
Man charged in daughter’s death has previous child abuse conviction
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita man charged in the death of his 8-year-old daughter has a history of domestic violence-related cases and one child abuse conviction in Oklahoma, according to court records. He also was investigated — but not charged — in a child’s death in Minneapolis.
Thomas Ross Gatewood, 51, has been charged with 11 counts, including first-degree murder, in the May 8 death of his daughter, Jeanetta Y. Gatewood. Court records show some of the counts involve a 9-year-old victim, The Wichita Eagle reported.
Gatewood and his wife also were investigated in the June 2006 death of an infant in Minneapolis but no charges were filed, according to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
Wichita police have released few details about his daughter’s death in May. Court records allege Gatewood tortured, beat and kicked the young girl.
He is charged with first-degree murder in the commission of a felony, four counts of aggravated kidnapping, three counts of abuse of a child, two counts of aggravated endangering of a child and one count of aggravated intimidation of a witness/victim.
Gatewood had a first appearance Wednesday and remains jailed in lieu of a $250,000 bond. It was not immediately clear if he has retained an attorney.
In 2006, a detective in Minneapolis investigated the Gatewoods after a child who died of meningitis was found to have bruises, skull fractures and rib injuries, according to a court affidavit. The child was not taken to the hospital.
John Holthusen, a Minneapolis homicide sergeant, said he asked the Hennepin County attorney to charge Gatewood and his wife with medical neglect.
The office declined to file charges because of insufficient evidence to achieve a conviction, including a lack of conclusive medical evidence that can be used to show what he knew about the child’s condition and when he knew it, Nicholas Kimball, a spokesman for the office, said in an email to The Associated Press Friday.
And in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in 2009, officials removed a newborn baby and a 19-month-old girl from the Gatewoods’ home after finding the older girl was unable to walk and talk and had bruises all over her body, according to a court affidavit.
That child was also not taken to the hospital.
Gatewood was sentenced to a year in jail, probation and court costs in the Bartlesville case, court records show. His wife was convicted of enabling child abuse by injury and sentenced to 180 days in jail, probation and court costs, records show.
Court documents also list seven criminal cases against Gatewood in the 1990s involving aggravated battery, aggravated assault and battery in Wichita or Riley counties.
He also has several cases of domestic violence, battery, sexual battery and unlawful touching in Wichita municipal courts. Most of the cases were dismissed but he was found guilty of two incidents of domestic violence battery.
Washington
High court won’t hear challenge to bans blocking some felons from voting
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday that it will not stop Mississippi from removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies — a practice that originated in the Jim Crow era with the intent of stopping Black men from influencing elections.
The court declined to reconsider a 2022 decision by the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said Mississippi had remedied the discriminatory intent of the original provisions in the state constitution by altering the list of disenfranchising crimes.
In a dissent Friday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the authors of the Mississippi Constitution in 1890 made clear that they intended to exclude Black people by removing voting rights for felony convictions in crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit, including forgery, arson and bigamy.
The list of disenfranchising crimes was “adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose,” Brown Jackson wrote in the dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Mississippi’s felony disenfranchisement provisions 125 years ago, and “this Court blinks again today,” Brown Jackson wrote.
“Constitutional wrongs do not right themselves,” she wrote. “With its failure to take action, the Court has missed yet another opportunity to learn from its mistakes.”
In 1950, Mississippi dropped burglary from the list of disenfranchising crimes. Murder and rape were added to the list in 1968. Attorneys representing the state argued that those changes “cured any discriminatory taint on the original provision,” and the appeals court agreed.
The Mississippi attorney general issued an opinion in 2009 that expanded the list to 22 crimes, including timber larceny, carjacking, felony-level shoplifting and felony-level bad check writing.
Attorneys from the Mississippi Center for Justice filed a lawsuit in 2017 to challenge the disenfranchising provisions, arguing that authors of the state’s constitution showed racist intent when they chose which felonies would cause people to lose their voting rights. The lawsuit did not challenge the disenfranchisement for conviction of murder or rape.
To regain voting rights in Mississippi now, a person convicted of a disenfranchising crime must receive a governor’s pardon or must win permission from two-thirds of the state House and Senate. Legislators in recent years have restored voting rights for only a few people.
New Mexico
Ex-priest charged with sexual coercion of minor in text messages
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A former Catholic priest with a lengthy career at parishes across New Mexico has been arrested on criminal charges of coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity through text messages, federal law enforcement authorities announced Thursday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI field office in Albuquerque said that Daniel Balizan of Springer, New Mexico, was arrested in connection with a grand jury indictment.
A redacted copy of the indictment accuses 61-year-old Balizan of knowingly attempting to coerce an unnamed minor into sexual activity in August and September 2012 in Santa Fe County.
The charges carry a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison upon conviction and up to a lifetime behind bars.
It was unclear whether Balizan had a legal representative. An initial court appearance was scheduled for Friday.
A timeline of Balizan’s church assignments from investigators show that he served at Santa Maria de la Paz Parish, starting in June 2012. Previous assignments include parishes in Raton, Albuquerque, Clovis, Chama and Socorro.
In a statement, the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe said it received abuse allegations against Balizan in 2022 and promptly reported the information to authorities, leading to Balizan’s removal from service.
The diocese last year reached a $121.5 million agreement to settle nearly 400 claims made by people who say they were abused by Roman Catholic clergy.
In New Mexico, about 74 priests have been deemed “credibly accused” of sexually assaulting children while assigned to parishes and schools by the archdiocese, which covers central and northern New Mexico.
Florida
Fugitive suspect in 1984 killing returned to face murder charge
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A man arrested earlier this month in California has been returned to Florida to face charges in the 1984 killing of a woman, authorities said.
Donald Santini, 65, was booked into a Florida jail early Wednesday morning on a charge of first-degree murder, according to a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office statement. Florida detectives had traveled to San Diego, California, following Santini’s June 7 arrest, and he was later extradited to Tampa, Florida.
Santini had been on the run since June 1984, when Florida authorities obtained an arrest warrant linking him to the strangling death of Wood, a 33-year-old Bradenton woman.
Wood’s body was found in a watery ditch three days after she went missing on June 6 of that year. Santini was the last person seen with Wood. The arrest warrant said a medical examiner determined she had been strangled, and Santini’s fingerprints were found on her body.
Santini appeared several times on the television show “America’s Most Wanted” in 1990, 2005 and 2013. Over the years, officials said Florida detectives sent lead requests to Texas, California and even as far as Thailand, but Santini was never located. He used at least 13 aliases while on the run, according to an arrest warrant from the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office cited by USA Today.
Santini was arrested while living for years under the name of Wellman Simmonds in San Diego County, where he was president of a local water board in Campo, a tiny suburb of San Diego. He regularly appeared at public board meetings.
Santini previously served time in prison for raping a woman while stationed in Germany, officials said. He was also wanted in Texas for aggravated robbery.
Santini was being represented by the public defender’s office, which didn’t immediately respond to a call seeking comment.
