Court Digest

Ohio
Court upholds 65-year prison term in thefts from nursing homes, assisted living facilities
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld a 65-year prison term imposed on a central Ohio woman who pleaded guilty to stealing jewelry and other valuables from several dozen elderly residents at nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Former nurse’s aide Susan Gwynne pleaded guilty in 2016 to 46 of 101 charges, including burglary, theft and receiving stolen property. As part of a plea deal, she acknowledged stealing jewelry, watches and other items from residents of senior living facilities.

Gwynne told the judge she began stealing items from patients’ rooms to support her cocaine habit while working as a nurse at an assisted living facility in 2004. She said she was later fired but kept going to facilities in Delaware County and Franklin County in her uniform and stealing from rooms. Investigators found more than 3,000 items at her home.

The high court’s decision Wednesday follows a tangled history of appeals.

The trial court imposed consecutive sentences, saying “no single prison term” would be adequate given the serious offenses. In 2017, the Fifth District Court of Appeals overturned the sentence, citing Gwynne’s age and status as a nonviolent first-time offender. It said a 15-year prison term was appropriate.

The high court reversed that decision in 2019 and told the appeals court to reconsider. The lower court then upheld the 65-year term, saying it had no authority to modify the consecutive sentences.

The state Supreme Court voted 4-3 in December to send the case back for reconsideration again. But in January — after control of the high court shifted parties — it voted 4-3 to reconsider its own decision.

Last week, a divided high court ruled that the consecutive terms were properly imposed.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that Gwynne, now 62 and incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, isn’t scheduled for release until 2081.

New York
Abercrombie & Fitch slapped with lawsuit alleging sexual abuse of its male models under former CEO
NEW YORK (AP) — A former model for Abercrombie & Fitch on Friday sued the fashion retailer, alleging it allowed its former CEO Mike Jeffries to run a sex-trafficking organization during his 22-year tenure.

Jeffries, who left Abercrombie in 2014, converted the chain from an struggling retailer of hunting apparel to a seller of must-have teen clothing. But he faced criticism for the company’s sexualized marketing, including billboards and beefy models that alienated potential customers who didn’t fit into its image.

The lawsuit comes after a BBC report earlier this month raised similar allegations against Jeffries and his partner Matthew Smith.

The lawsuit, filed by David Bradberry in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges Jeffries had modeling scouts scouring the internet and elsewhere to identify attractive young men seeking to be the next face of Abercrombie. Often these prospective models became sex-trafficking victims, sent to New York and abroad and abused by Jeffries and other men, all under the guise that they were being recruited to become the next Abercrombie model, the lawsuit contends.

“Jeffries was so important to the profitability of the brand that he was given complete autonomy to perform his role as CEO however he saw fit, including through the use of blatant international sex-trafficking and abuse of prospective Abercrombie models,” the suit alleges.

The lawsuit names Jeffries, Smith, and the Jeffries Family Office LLC. It seeks class-action status and estimates that over a hundred young models, in addition to Bradberry, were victims.

A&F, based in New Albany, Ohio, declined to comment Friday. Earlier this month, the retailer said that it had hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation into the issues raised by the BBC. It said the company’s current leaders and board of directors were not aware of the allegations of Jeffries’ sexual misconduct.

“For close to a decade, a new executive leadership team and refreshed board of directors have successfully transformed our brands and culture into the values-driven organization we are today,” the company said. “We have zero tolerance for abuse, harassment or discrimination of any kind.”

Jeffries’ attorney, Brian Bieber, said in a statement that Jeffries “will not comment in the press on this new lawsuit, as he has likewise chosen not to regarding litigation in the past. “

“The courtroom is where we will deal with this matter,” Bieber added.

West Virginia
School mandates religious training following revival assembly lawsuit
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia school district has passed a policy mandating annual religious freedom training as part of a lawsuit settlement after an evangelical preacher held a revival assembly during the school day in 2022 that some students were required to attend.

As part of a settlement finalized Thursday, Cabell County’s Board of Education’s policy makes clear that it is “not the province of a public school to either inhibit, or advance, religious beliefs or practices,” board lawyer Brian D. Morrison said in a statement to The Associated Press.

“Students must remain free to voluntarily express their individual religious beliefs, or lack thereof, as each student sees fit,” Morrison said.

Four families in West Virginia’s second-largest city of Huntington sued the district in February 2022, accusing the school system in the southwestern part of the state of having a systematic history of disregarding the religious freedom of its students and instituting Christian religious practices.

The lawsuit said two Huntington High School teachers escorted their entire homeroom classes to an assembly hosted by evangelical preacher Nik Walker, who had been leading revivals in the Huntington area in recent weeks.

Students, including a Jewish student who asked to leave but was not permitted to do so, were instructed to close their eyes and raise their arms in prayer, according to the lawsuit. The teens were asked to give their lives over to Jesus to find purpose and salvation. Students said they were told that those who did not follow the Bible would “face eternal torment.”

During the assemblies, students and their families were encouraged to join evening services at a nearby church, where they could be baptized. The lawsuit followed a walkout at Huntington High School where more than 100 students left their classrooms chanting, “Separate the church and state” and “My faith, my choice.”

Morrison said the event was publicized in school announcements as a voluntary event hosted by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a student organization. The two teachers who brought their entire homeroom “were either confused or misunderstood,” he said.

He said the board already had a policy in place on religious freedom in school, but that it now includes more strongly worded language, a training requirement and other additions as a “safeguard against the occurrence of similar instances in the future.”

Morrison said the matter has been resolved and that the board has “no further comment on this issue at this time.”

The policy requires the district superintendent and principals “to attempt in good faith” to monitor school-sponsored activities to ensure policy compliance. Principals must report potential violations to the superintendent within seven days of discovering them. The superintendent is “authorized to investigate and take remedial action,” according to the policy.

As part of the settlement, the families will also receive up to $1 each from the district, and each student plaintiff will receive a $2,000 scholarship from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nonprofit that represented them in court. Nearly $175,000 in attorney fees were paid for by the board’s insurer.

Herman Mays, the father of one student forced to attend the revival, said the settlement brought about “meaningful policy changes and enforcement and training for staff and teachers on their constitutional responsibilities to ensure that what happened in Cabell public schools in February 2022 will not occur again.”

New York
Former NYC jail guards avoid prison time for delay in helping inmate who attempted suicide
NEW YORK (AP) — Two former New York City jail guards have avoided prison time for what authorities called their failure to intervene in a teenage inmate’s suicide attempt for nearly eight minutes until it was too late to save him from serious brain damage in 2019.

Daniel Fullerton and Mark Wilson received conditional discharges after pleading guilty to misdemeanor official misconduct in May and September, respectively, the Daily News reported Friday. They will not serve any time in jail if they stay out of trouble for a year.

Fullerton, Wilson and two other officers were charged in connection with 18-year-old Nicholas Feliciano’s suicide attempt at the Rikers Island jail complex on Nov. 27, 2019. The other officers’ cases remain pending. Feliciano suffered permanent brain damage and needs long-term medical care.

Prosecutors said jail guards were seen on surveillance video walking past Feliciano and taking no action for seven minutes and 51 seconds. An investigation report by the city Board of Correction later found that the officers believed Feliciano was faking a suicide attempt.

The report also says Feliciano had a history of depression and previously had tried to harm himself in jail on multiple occasions. He was at Rikers on a parole violation connected to robbery cases. It recommended several actions, including a system to immediately identify people with prior histories of self-harm while in jail and a reevaluation of mental health training for guards.

The Bronx district attorney’s office issued a statement when the guards were indicted but did not publicly announce Fullerton and Wilson’s guilty pleas and sentences, the Daily News reported. All the guards were initially charged with misdemeanor official misconduct and felony reckless endangerment, which can carry up to seven years in prison.

David Rankin, a lawyer for Feliciano’s family, said they are “gratified” that the two guards took responsibility in pleading guilty. But he added, “It is shocking you can just let someone almost die and you don’t get so much as community service.”

The Bronx district attorney’s office declined to comment.

Contact information for Fullerton and Wilson could not be immediately found in public records Saturday.

Fullerton’s lawyer, Kenneth Montgomery, said Fullerton took immediate action when he saw Feliciano in distress and called the prosecution “heavy-handed.”

“I just thought it was political and overkill,” he said in a phone interview Saturday with The Associated Press.

Information about Wilson’s case and his lawyer was not listed in online court records. Fullerton quit the Correction Department and Wilson was fired, the Daily News reported.

The Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association also has called the officers’ indictments politically motivated and called on prosecutors to charge inmates who assault guards.

The Rikers Island complex has been criticized in multiple reports for inmate deaths, violence, mold and other problems. In August, a federal judge agreed to begin a process that could wrest control of the city’s troubled jail system from Mayor Eric Adams and place a court-appointed outside authority in charge of Rikers Island.