Court Digest

Pennsylvania
Aggravated assault charges filed in case of motorcyclist seen smashing in back of woman’s car
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man accused of being the motorcyclist seen smashing in the back of a woman’s car while her two young children were inside near Philadelphia’s City Hall and then waving a gun at her after she confronted him has been charged with multiple counts of aggravated assault.

Prosecutors said 26-year-old Cody Heron is also charged with reckless endangerment and possession of an instrument of crime in connection with the incident. Officials said they were seeking high bail in the case.

There was no attorney listed for Heron yet, and the district attorney’s office said it didn’t know whether he had one. A telephone listing for him could not be found Wednesday.

A viral video from Sunday night showed a group of ATV, motorcycle and dirt bike riders surrounding 23-year-old Nikki Bullock’s sedan. A motorcyclist wearing a helmet is seen leaving his bike to jump on the back of the sedan, shattering the window. What appears to be a handgun drops from his waistband and he then appears to wave it at her as she emerges from the car, then headbutts and pushes her as she confronts him.

Interim police commissioner John Stanford called it “despicable behavior.” Officials said the suspect was tracked down with the aid of tips from the public, and the bike, clothing and a 9-millimeter handgun were seized as evidence from a home in the Frankford section of the city.

Bullock told reporters she was making deliveries for UberEats as her 5-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son rode along. She told WPVI-TV that she was first sideswiped near City Hall and argued with one of the bikers.

Bullock said she was grateful that her children weren’t hurt.

“They are OK. Not a single scratch,” Bullock said. “I have a guardian angel. Thank God.”

Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said earlier in a social media post that the arrest overnight came after “great tips from the public and some outstanding detective work.”

Councilman Mark Squilla, who represents the district where the incident occurred, said people in large groups on bikes, ATVs and other often illegal vehicles can develop a kind of “mob mentality where they believe they can do whatever they want.”

“This arrest will send a message that this will not be tolerated,” he said.

Florida
Boy, 11, accused of shooting 2 teens at football practice is denied home detention
APOPKA, Fla. (AP) — An 11-year-old who is accused of taking a gun from his mother’s vehicle and shooting two teens following an argument at football practice will remain in custody for three more weeks, a judge in Florida ruled Wednesday.

The child began sobbing after the judge ruled against a request for home detention, Orlando television stations reported. He is charged with one count of attempted second-degree murder.

The child’s attorney, Robert Mandell, told WESH-TV in Orlando that the shooting stemmed from bullying, a scenario supported by a police report.

A report from the Apopka Police Department said the child had been chased and attacked by the shooting victims, with a witness telling detectives one of the shooting victims had slapped him in the face.

The 11-year-old’s mother and grandparents attended Wednesday’s hearing, television stations reported.

The juveniles began arguing during football practice Monday night, Apopka police said. The younger child retrieved a gun from his mother’s SUV parked at the sports complex and fired a shot that struck one teen in the arm and the other in the torso.

Surveillance video showed one of the victims chasing the 11-year-old before the shooting, according to an arrest affidavit. Someone tried to break up the altercation, but the suspect grabbed the gun and ran toward the two teens, police wrote in the report.

The mother told detectives she didn’t see her son grab the gun, which she said had been stored in a gun box underneath the front passenger seat.

She may face a second-degree misdemeanor charge of leaving a gun unsecured, Police Chief Mike McKinley said during a news conference Tuesday.

The victims were taken to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando. Their injuries were not considered life-threatening. WKMG-TV reported that the teen who was shot in the torso underwent surgery and that the other teen was treated and released.

Louisiana
Judge tosses challenge to age verification law for porn websites
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An adult entertainment group’s lawsuit against a Louisiana law requiring sexually explicit websites to verify the ages of their viewers was dismissed Wednesday by a federal judge. But opponents of the law say they will likely appeal.

U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan in New Orleans ruled that the state officials named in the lawsuit — state public safety secretary James LeBlanc, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne and Attorney General Jeff Landry — cannot be sued because they don’t have a duty to enforce the act, which allows violators to be sued and face civil penalties.

Morgan said granting an injunction against the three state officials wouldn’t prevent people from suing content providers who fail to verify their viewers’ age.

Opponents of the law plan an appeal. Similar laws have been passed and are being challenged in other states. In Texas, a federal judge recently struck down such a law. A challenge to a similar law in Utah has so far failed.

“As with Utah, the Louisiana ruling is fairly limited, and only applies to whether we can bring a pre-enforcement challenge against the law, or whether we have to wait until a suit is brought. While we disagree, and will appeal, it’s not at all a ruling on the merits of the law, which are still clearly unconstitutional,” Mike Stabile, spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, said in an email. He later amended the statement to say an appeal is likely.

The law passed in 2022 subjects such websites to damage lawsuits and state civil penalties as high as $5,000 a day. if they fail to verify that users are at least 18 years old by requiring the use of digitized, state-issued driver’s licenses or other methods.

Opponents say the law could chill free speech because the terms are so vague that providers wouldn’t be able to decipher “material harmful to minors.” They say the laws can, in effect, deny access to websites by adults who don’t have state-issued ID or are reluctant to use online verification methods because of the fear of having their information hacked.

Indiana
Judge orders school shooter’s release into custody of parents
NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (AP) — A judge Wednesday approved the release of a teenager who opened fire at a central Indiana middle school in 2018, wounding another student and a teacher, a prosecutor said.

The judge approved the 18-year-old’s release from juvenile detention into the custody of his parents because he is now an adult and could no longer be legally held for crimes he committed while a minor, Hamilton County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Kocher told The Indianapolis Star.

The teenager will be on home detention with a GPS monitor and bound by restrictions including no guns or drugs, no computers unless monitored by probation officials, limited time on electronic devices, and no visits to schools or college campuses without prior approval.

Those limits are in place “to ensure the safety of the community,” Kocher said.

Kocher didn’t say when the teenager would be released from detention.

Hamilton Superior Court Judge Michael A. Casati on Aug. 14 ordered the teenager to be held in the Hamilton County Juvenile Service Center while probation officials found a suitable secure residential facility for him to ease the teenager’s return to society. However, Hamilton County authorities could not find such a facility.

The teenager, who was 13 at the time of the shooting, had been detained since shortly after he opened fire at Noblesville West Middle School in May 2018. He shot a seventh-grade science teacher and another 13-year-old student. The teacher, Jason Seaman, tackled and pinned him to the ground.

Seaman was shot three times, and the student, Ella Whistler, was shot seven times. No one was killed.

The teen was preparing to be released to his family when on March 20, prosecutors say, he assaulted a female counselor at the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility by “fist-bumping” her breast, then joking about it with other juveniles. He was 17 at the time and was charged as a juvenile with battery.

In addition to the Free Speech Coalition, the Louisiana plaintiffs include three providers of sexually explicit content, and a woman who lives in Louisiana but doesn’t have state ID and does not want to lose access to adult sites.

Illinois
Mother of woman who died in hotel freezer reaches sealed settlement
CHICAGO (AP) — The mother of a 19-year-old Chicago woman who was found dead in 2017 in a freezer at a suburban hotel where she had attended a party has reached a settlement in her lawsuit against the hotel and others.

A settlement was reached in August, Cook County court records show, but it has not been entered on the court docket because attorneys for Kenneka Jenkins’ mother have asked that the terms be sealed from the public, the Chicago Tribune reported.

A judge denied that request Tuesday but asked the mother’s attorney to resubmit the request. A status hearing is scheduled for next week in the case, which had been set for a trial starting Oct. 16, court records show.

Attorneys for Jenkins’ mother, Tereasa Martin, argued that the family’s safety and privacy trumped any reason to require that the records be publicly filed.

“The widespread publicity of this case, including uncontrolled speculation and social media commentary has resulted in various threats made against various individuals in the case,” including Martin, witnesses and the defendants, an attorney for Martin wrote in an unopposed motion to seal the settlement’s terms.

The lawsuit was filed in December 2018 against Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rosemont, its security company and a restaurant that rented the walk-in freezer in which Jenkins was found dead. It alleged the defendants were negligent because they didn’t secure the freezer or conduct a proper search following Jenkins’ disappearance. The suit initially sought more than $50 million in damages.

Jenkins was found dead inside the freezer on Sept. 10, 2017, nearly 24 hours after she disappeared from a ninth-floor room at the Crowne Plaza where she had attended a party with as many as 30 other people.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office found that she died from hypothermia and ruled her death an accident. Alcohol intoxication and the use of a drug for treating epilepsy and migraines were “significant contributing factors” in her death, the office said.

Surveillance videos released by police days later show Jenkins wandering alone through a kitchen area near the freezer not long after she disappeared.