Utah
Fugitive accused of faking his death to avoid rape charges denies he is suspect
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A man accused of faking his death and fleeing the U.S. to avoid rape charges in Utah denied at a court appearance Tuesday that he is the suspect and, in an apparent British accent, called allegations that he wasn’t giving his true name “complete hearsay.”
Nicholas Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, is charged with the rape of a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, in 2008, prosecutors said. He wasn’t identified as a suspect until about a decade later due to a backlog of DNA test kits at the Utah State Crime Lab.
Rossi, 36, was extradited from Scotland earlier this month. He identified himself Tuesday as Arthur Knight Brown and gave a birthdate in British English — listing the day first, followed by the month and year — that is different from Rossi’s, KSTU-TV reported.
He appeared from jail via video wearing an oxygen mask and did not enter a plea at the initial court appearance. He was difficult to understand at times and had to lift up the mask to be heard.
Deputy Salt Lake County attorney Tamara Basuez said Rossi has not admitted his name or birthdate since he returned to Utah.
“Objection, my lady, that is complete hearsay,” Rossi told the judge.
Rossi is jailed without the possibility of posting bail in the Orem case. The judge set a detention hearing for Jan. 26.
The judge said a lawyer would be appointed for Rossi. He said he has one, but that the attorney did not receive notice of Tuesday’s hearing.
Rossi, who grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island, made a name for himself there as a vocal critic of the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families.
Four years ago, he told media in Rhode Island that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had weeks to live. An obituary published online claimed he died Feb. 29, 2020.
He used at least 10 different aliases over the years, prosecutors said.
Authorities said his run from the law ended when he was arrested in December 2021 after being recognized by someone at a Glasgow, Scotland, hospital while he was being treated for COVID-19. He insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight and had never set foot on American soil.
The man had said he was framed by authorities who took his fingerprints while he was in a coma so they could connect him to Rossi. He has repeatedly appeared in court in a wheelchair, using an oxygen mask and speaking with the apparent British accent.
After a protracted court battle, Judge Norman McFadyen of Edinburgh Sheriff Court ruled in August that the extradition could move forward. The judge called Rossi “as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative.”
Mississippi
Court affirms conviction in the killing of a man whose body was found in a freezer
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Court of Appeals has affirmed a woman’s conviction in the death of a man whose body was found stuffed into a freezer at his home.
In a unanimous decision Tuesday, the 10-member court also affirmed the sentences received by Samantha Simmons — life in prison for conviction on the murder charge in the killing of 54-year-old Thomas Burns, plus 20 years for conviction on a charge of receiving stolen property.
A Lamar County jury convicted Simmons in August 2022.
Burns’ body was found in a freezer in his home in Purvis in May 2018. Court records show Simmons had started dating Burns early that year, and she was living with him in his home.
The state medical examiner found zip ties around Burns’ neck, wrists and ankles, a belt around his legs and a trash bag over his head. An autopsy showed Burns died from either strangulation from the zip tie around his neck or “environmental/positional asphyxia” from being put in a freezer with a bag over his head.
According to court records, investigators found that Simmons had a key to a padlock that was on the freezer where Burns’ body was discovered by neighbors and his brother who checked his house after not seeing him for months. Court records also showed that tests run by the Mississippi crime laboratory found Simmons’ DNA on the zip ties.
Simmons argued that the DNA on the zip ties did not prove she killed Burns. But an analyst testified that the amount of DNA on the zip ties would be unusual for someone who just handled the items.
“This testimony, coupled with the DNA evidence, could lead a reasonable juror to conclude that Simmons killed (Burns),” the Court of Appeals wrote.
A witness testified that Simmons had contacted his wife about trying to sell some of Burns’ belongings.
Washington
Trump White House official Peter Navarro loses his bid for a new contempt of Congress trial
A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a bid for a new trial for Peter Navarro, a Trump White House official convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack.
Navarro, who served as a White House trade adviser under President Donald Trump, was found guilty by a jury in Washington’s federal court for defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House Jan. 6 committee. He’s scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
Navarro’s lawyers argued he was entitled to a new trial, alleging that jurors may have been improperly influenced by political protesters when they took a break outside the courthouse before announcing a verdict in September.
But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said in his ruling that Navarro has not shown that “any prejudice resulted from the jury’s eight-minute break outside the courthouse.” Jurors only interacted with one another and the court officer who accompanied them, no one approached the jurors and “there were no activities resembling a ‘protest,’” the judge wrote.
“Defendant not only fails to demonstrate prejudice, he has not shown that any juror was actually exposed to any improper external influence,” Mehta wrote.
An attorney for Navarro declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling.
Navarro was the second Trump aide to face contempt of Congress charges after former White House adviser Steve Bannon. Bannon was convicted of two counts and was sentenced to four months behind bars, though he has been free pending appeal.
Navarro has vowed to appeal the verdict, saying the “die was cast” after a judge ruled that he couldn’t fight the charges by arguing he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump, a Republican, had invoked executive privilege. Barred from relying on the executive privilege argument at trial, the defense argued that Navarro had not acted “willfully” in his failure to comply.
Navarro’s sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 25 in Washington’s federal court. He was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress, both punishable by up to a year behind bars.
California
Emergency services official sued for sexual harassment, retaliation
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A lawsuit filed Tuesday accused a deputy director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services of sexual harassment and retaliation against a senior employee while the agency did nothing to stop it.
Ryan Buras, an appointee of Gov. Gavin Newsom, harassed Kendra Bowyer for a year beginning in 2020 despite the agency’s knowledge of similar previous allegations made by other women employees, the lawsuit contends. Newsom named Buras in 2019 as deputy director of recovery operations, a role that includes wildfire and other disaster response. Bowyer was a senior emergency services coordinator.
“This administration swept a predator’s campaign of sexual and psychological abuse under the rug,” Bowyer said in a statement released by her lawyers. “A workplace that centers around supporting disaster survivors became a terrifying and nightmarish disaster zone in and of itself because they enabled his disgusting behavior.”
An email seeking comment from Buras wasn’t immediately returned.
Buras’s alleged harassment included crawling into bed with Bowyer while she was asleep during a gathering at his home, “touching her nonconsensually, attempting to get her alone in hotel rooms, grabbing her hand in public, calling and texting her nearly every night and more,” according to the release from her lawyer.
Bowyer “believed her career would be over the moment she told Buras to stop his advances, so she tried to come up with the politest way to stop his behavior,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Superior Court in Sacramento County.
But eventually, after rebuffing his advances, Bowyer faced retaliation from Buras that included restricting her access to resources needed to do her job, the suit contends.
His alleged behavior kept Bowyer from providing essential services to disaster survivors and caused her so much stress, anxiety and depression that in 2021 a doctor determined she was “totally disabled,” according to the lawsuit.
While Cal OES launched an investigation, Bowyer received a letter later that year stating that Buras didn’t act inappropriately, the lawsuit said.
“This man is untouchable,” Bowyer told The Associated Press in an interview.
In an emailed statement, Cal OES said it hired an outside law firm to investigate harassment allegations and “took appropriate action” after the investigation determined that “no policy was violated.”
The statement didn’t provide other details.
In an earlier statement, the agency said that “sexual harassment in the workplace is an affront to our values as an organization. It has no place in Cal OES and it will not be tolerated in any form.”
Pennsylvania
Former high-ranking police commander to be reinstated after arbitrator’s ruling
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia police say a former high-ranking commander fired after he was charged with sexual assault will be reinstated following an arbitrator’s ruling in the wake of the dismissal of the cases against him.
Carl Holmes “will return to his previous rank of chief inspector” following an arbitrator’s ruling in his favor, Sgt. Eric Gripp, a spokesperson for the department, said in an email, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Holmes, who spent nearly three decades on the force and was also a lawyer, was fired in 2019 after he was accused of having sexually assaulted three women at work. The criminal cases involving two of the women were withdrawn in early 2021 and prosecutors dropped the last case in January 2023 after the accuser failed to appear in court.
Roosevelt Poplar, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5, said in a statement Friday that the union and the city had presented their respective cases to an arbitrator “as part of this officer’s due process rights” and the arbitrator “ruled in favor of the officer’s re-instatement.”
Gripp said the reinstatement process was “still underway” and he could not say when Holmes would return to the department.
Holmes was charged after a grand jury probe concluded that he abused his power after mentoring female officers at the police academy and in other roles. The charges came two years after the city settled a female detective’s sexual harassment lawsuit involving him for $1.25 million. Holmes denied the allegations.
Fugitive accused of faking his death to avoid rape charges denies he is suspect
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A man accused of faking his death and fleeing the U.S. to avoid rape charges in Utah denied at a court appearance Tuesday that he is the suspect and, in an apparent British accent, called allegations that he wasn’t giving his true name “complete hearsay.”
Nicholas Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, is charged with the rape of a 21-year-old woman in Orem, Utah, in 2008, prosecutors said. He wasn’t identified as a suspect until about a decade later due to a backlog of DNA test kits at the Utah State Crime Lab.
Rossi, 36, was extradited from Scotland earlier this month. He identified himself Tuesday as Arthur Knight Brown and gave a birthdate in British English — listing the day first, followed by the month and year — that is different from Rossi’s, KSTU-TV reported.
He appeared from jail via video wearing an oxygen mask and did not enter a plea at the initial court appearance. He was difficult to understand at times and had to lift up the mask to be heard.
Deputy Salt Lake County attorney Tamara Basuez said Rossi has not admitted his name or birthdate since he returned to Utah.
“Objection, my lady, that is complete hearsay,” Rossi told the judge.
Rossi is jailed without the possibility of posting bail in the Orem case. The judge set a detention hearing for Jan. 26.
The judge said a lawyer would be appointed for Rossi. He said he has one, but that the attorney did not receive notice of Tuesday’s hearing.
Rossi, who grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island, made a name for himself there as a vocal critic of the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families.
Four years ago, he told media in Rhode Island that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had weeks to live. An obituary published online claimed he died Feb. 29, 2020.
He used at least 10 different aliases over the years, prosecutors said.
Authorities said his run from the law ended when he was arrested in December 2021 after being recognized by someone at a Glasgow, Scotland, hospital while he was being treated for COVID-19. He insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight and had never set foot on American soil.
The man had said he was framed by authorities who took his fingerprints while he was in a coma so they could connect him to Rossi. He has repeatedly appeared in court in a wheelchair, using an oxygen mask and speaking with the apparent British accent.
After a protracted court battle, Judge Norman McFadyen of Edinburgh Sheriff Court ruled in August that the extradition could move forward. The judge called Rossi “as dishonest and deceitful as he is evasive and manipulative.”
Mississippi
Court affirms conviction in the killing of a man whose body was found in a freezer
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Court of Appeals has affirmed a woman’s conviction in the death of a man whose body was found stuffed into a freezer at his home.
In a unanimous decision Tuesday, the 10-member court also affirmed the sentences received by Samantha Simmons — life in prison for conviction on the murder charge in the killing of 54-year-old Thomas Burns, plus 20 years for conviction on a charge of receiving stolen property.
A Lamar County jury convicted Simmons in August 2022.
Burns’ body was found in a freezer in his home in Purvis in May 2018. Court records show Simmons had started dating Burns early that year, and she was living with him in his home.
The state medical examiner found zip ties around Burns’ neck, wrists and ankles, a belt around his legs and a trash bag over his head. An autopsy showed Burns died from either strangulation from the zip tie around his neck or “environmental/positional asphyxia” from being put in a freezer with a bag over his head.
According to court records, investigators found that Simmons had a key to a padlock that was on the freezer where Burns’ body was discovered by neighbors and his brother who checked his house after not seeing him for months. Court records also showed that tests run by the Mississippi crime laboratory found Simmons’ DNA on the zip ties.
Simmons argued that the DNA on the zip ties did not prove she killed Burns. But an analyst testified that the amount of DNA on the zip ties would be unusual for someone who just handled the items.
“This testimony, coupled with the DNA evidence, could lead a reasonable juror to conclude that Simmons killed (Burns),” the Court of Appeals wrote.
A witness testified that Simmons had contacted his wife about trying to sell some of Burns’ belongings.
Washington
Trump White House official Peter Navarro loses his bid for a new contempt of Congress trial
A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a bid for a new trial for Peter Navarro, a Trump White House official convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack.
Navarro, who served as a White House trade adviser under President Donald Trump, was found guilty by a jury in Washington’s federal court for defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House Jan. 6 committee. He’s scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
Navarro’s lawyers argued he was entitled to a new trial, alleging that jurors may have been improperly influenced by political protesters when they took a break outside the courthouse before announcing a verdict in September.
But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said in his ruling that Navarro has not shown that “any prejudice resulted from the jury’s eight-minute break outside the courthouse.” Jurors only interacted with one another and the court officer who accompanied them, no one approached the jurors and “there were no activities resembling a ‘protest,’” the judge wrote.
“Defendant not only fails to demonstrate prejudice, he has not shown that any juror was actually exposed to any improper external influence,” Mehta wrote.
An attorney for Navarro declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling.
Navarro was the second Trump aide to face contempt of Congress charges after former White House adviser Steve Bannon. Bannon was convicted of two counts and was sentenced to four months behind bars, though he has been free pending appeal.
Navarro has vowed to appeal the verdict, saying the “die was cast” after a judge ruled that he couldn’t fight the charges by arguing he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump, a Republican, had invoked executive privilege. Barred from relying on the executive privilege argument at trial, the defense argued that Navarro had not acted “willfully” in his failure to comply.
Navarro’s sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 25 in Washington’s federal court. He was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress, both punishable by up to a year behind bars.
California
Emergency services official sued for sexual harassment, retaliation
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A lawsuit filed Tuesday accused a deputy director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services of sexual harassment and retaliation against a senior employee while the agency did nothing to stop it.
Ryan Buras, an appointee of Gov. Gavin Newsom, harassed Kendra Bowyer for a year beginning in 2020 despite the agency’s knowledge of similar previous allegations made by other women employees, the lawsuit contends. Newsom named Buras in 2019 as deputy director of recovery operations, a role that includes wildfire and other disaster response. Bowyer was a senior emergency services coordinator.
“This administration swept a predator’s campaign of sexual and psychological abuse under the rug,” Bowyer said in a statement released by her lawyers. “A workplace that centers around supporting disaster survivors became a terrifying and nightmarish disaster zone in and of itself because they enabled his disgusting behavior.”
An email seeking comment from Buras wasn’t immediately returned.
Buras’s alleged harassment included crawling into bed with Bowyer while she was asleep during a gathering at his home, “touching her nonconsensually, attempting to get her alone in hotel rooms, grabbing her hand in public, calling and texting her nearly every night and more,” according to the release from her lawyer.
Bowyer “believed her career would be over the moment she told Buras to stop his advances, so she tried to come up with the politest way to stop his behavior,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Superior Court in Sacramento County.
But eventually, after rebuffing his advances, Bowyer faced retaliation from Buras that included restricting her access to resources needed to do her job, the suit contends.
His alleged behavior kept Bowyer from providing essential services to disaster survivors and caused her so much stress, anxiety and depression that in 2021 a doctor determined she was “totally disabled,” according to the lawsuit.
While Cal OES launched an investigation, Bowyer received a letter later that year stating that Buras didn’t act inappropriately, the lawsuit said.
“This man is untouchable,” Bowyer told The Associated Press in an interview.
In an emailed statement, Cal OES said it hired an outside law firm to investigate harassment allegations and “took appropriate action” after the investigation determined that “no policy was violated.”
The statement didn’t provide other details.
In an earlier statement, the agency said that “sexual harassment in the workplace is an affront to our values as an organization. It has no place in Cal OES and it will not be tolerated in any form.”
Pennsylvania
Former high-ranking police commander to be reinstated after arbitrator’s ruling
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia police say a former high-ranking commander fired after he was charged with sexual assault will be reinstated following an arbitrator’s ruling in the wake of the dismissal of the cases against him.
Carl Holmes “will return to his previous rank of chief inspector” following an arbitrator’s ruling in his favor, Sgt. Eric Gripp, a spokesperson for the department, said in an email, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Holmes, who spent nearly three decades on the force and was also a lawyer, was fired in 2019 after he was accused of having sexually assaulted three women at work. The criminal cases involving two of the women were withdrawn in early 2021 and prosecutors dropped the last case in January 2023 after the accuser failed to appear in court.
Roosevelt Poplar, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5, said in a statement Friday that the union and the city had presented their respective cases to an arbitrator “as part of this officer’s due process rights” and the arbitrator “ruled in favor of the officer’s re-instatement.”
Gripp said the reinstatement process was “still underway” and he could not say when Holmes would return to the department.
Holmes was charged after a grand jury probe concluded that he abused his power after mentoring female officers at the police academy and in other roles. The charges came two years after the city settled a female detective’s sexual harassment lawsuit involving him for $1.25 million. Holmes denied the allegations.
