New York
Man convicted of murdering woman who wound up in his backcountry driveway after wrong turn
FORT EDWARD, N.Y. (AP) — A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove into his rural driveway in upstate New York.
After deliberating for less than an hour, a jury found Kevin Monahan, 66, guilty for shooting 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis on a Saturday night last April after she and her friends pulled into his long, curving driveway near the Vermont border while they were trying to find another house. Monahan was also convicted of reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.
Donald Boyajian, an attorney and spokesperson for the Gillis family, said they were thankful for the trial’s outcome.
“Obviously it’s a just result, but a very sad time for the family,” he said. “It doesn’t change what is going to be forever, which is the loss of their beautiful daughter.”
The murder conviction carries a maximum sentence of 25 years to life, which Washington County District Attorney J. Anthony Jordan said prosecutors would be seeking at Monahan’s sentencing, scheduled for March 1.
Gillis was killed days after the shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl in Kansas City. Yarl, who is Black, was wounded by an 84-year-old white man after he went to the wrong door while trying to pick up his younger brothers.
On the night of Gillis’ death, the group of friends was traveling in a caravan of two cars and a motorcycle looking for another person’s house party, when they mistakenly turned into Monahan’s driveway in the rural town of Hebron, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Albany. They began leaving once they realized their mistake, but Monahan came out to his porch and fired twice from his shotgun, with the second shot hitting Gillis in the neck as she sat in the front passenger seat of an SUV driven by her boyfriend, authorities said.
During closing arguments earlier Tuesday, the prosecution told jurors Monahan was motivated by irrational rage toward trespassers.
“He acted out of anger. That’s the only thing that can be inferred from shooting at people within 90 seconds of being on his property,” said Assistant District Attorney Christian Morris. “He grabbed his shotgun and intended to make them leave as fast as possible and he didn’t care if they were hurt or killed.”
Monahan and his attorney maintained the shooting was an accident involving a defective gun.
Monahan himself took the stand in his own defense, saying he believed the house he shared with his wife was “under siege” by intruders when he saw the vehicles approach. He said he first fired a warning shot to scare the group away.
He said he then tripped over nails sticking up from the porch, lost his balance and the shotgun struck the deck. That, he said, accidentally caused his gun to fire at the Ford Explorer carrying Gillis.
“I didn’t mean to shoot the second shot,” Monahan testified last week. “The gun went off.”
Prosecutors also presented evidence during the trial that Monahan claimed to have been sound asleep when police showed up at his house later that night.
Gillis’ father, Andrew Gillis, has described his daughter as someone who loved animals and had dreams of becoming a marine biologist or a veterinarian.
California
County to pay $5M settlement over arrest of company founder
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County on Tuesday agreed to pay $5 million to the founder and CEO of a software company who was briefly accused of stealing data on county poll workers in a case he said was pushed by conspiracy theorists.
The Board of Supervisors voted without public discussion to approve the settlement of a lawsuit filed by Eugene Yu of Michigan-based Konnech Corp. over his 2022 arrest and prosecution, KNBC-TV reported.
County lawyers had urged approval of the settlement in a letter to the board, the station said.
Konnech is a small company based in East Lansing, Michigan. In 2020, it won a five-year, $2.9 million contract with LA County for software to track election worker schedules, training, payroll and communications.
Yu was arrested in Michigan in October 2022 and computer hard drives were seized. The LA County District Attorney’s Office alleged that Konnech had violated its contract requirement to keep data in the United States and improperly used servers in China to store information on hundreds of county poll workers.
Yu and his company were charged with conspiracy to embezzle public funds and grand theft by embezzlement of public funds. The case was dropped 37 days later.
Yu sued the county, alleging that District Attorney George Gascón had targeted him based on allegations of conspiracy theorists and election deniers.
“Plaintiffs alleged Mr. Yu’s arrest and the seizure of Konnech’s property was without probable cause and a violation of Mr. Yu’s civil rights causing damage to Konnech’s business and Mr. Yu’s reputation,” according to the letter by the county lawyers.
An after-hours email from The Associated Press to the District Attorney’s Office seeking comment wasn’t immediately returned.
Yu’s attorney, Dean Z. Pamphilis, told KNBC-TV that “utterly false charges” and resulting publicity “cost Mr. Yu his life savings and Konnech over 50% of its customers.”
“Mr. Yu is extremely pleased that his innocence has now been publicly confirmed, and he and Konnech look forward to start to recover from the significant losses which they suffered,” the attorney said.
The lawsuit alleged that the prosecution of the company and Yu, who was born in China, was based on debunked conspiracy theories that the company secretly had ties to the Chinese Communist Party and supplied information as part of a Chinese campaign to manipulate votes.
At one point Yu received threats and went into hiding, The New York Times reported.
After his arrest, which came about a month before the November 2022 general elections, the LA District Attorney’s Office said the allegations only involved poll workers, not voting machines or vote counts and didn’t alter election results.
However, the office told NPR following Yu’s arrest that the investigation began after a tip from Gregg Phillips, an election denier associated with the controversial group True the Vote.
In legal filings for the lawsuit, Yu noted that Los Angeles County continues to use Konnech’s services and is, in fact, its largest customer.
On its website, Konnech said it currently has 32 clients in North America.
Man convicted of murdering woman who wound up in his backcountry driveway after wrong turn
FORT EDWARD, N.Y. (AP) — A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove into his rural driveway in upstate New York.
After deliberating for less than an hour, a jury found Kevin Monahan, 66, guilty for shooting 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis on a Saturday night last April after she and her friends pulled into his long, curving driveway near the Vermont border while they were trying to find another house. Monahan was also convicted of reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.
Donald Boyajian, an attorney and spokesperson for the Gillis family, said they were thankful for the trial’s outcome.
“Obviously it’s a just result, but a very sad time for the family,” he said. “It doesn’t change what is going to be forever, which is the loss of their beautiful daughter.”
The murder conviction carries a maximum sentence of 25 years to life, which Washington County District Attorney J. Anthony Jordan said prosecutors would be seeking at Monahan’s sentencing, scheduled for March 1.
Gillis was killed days after the shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl in Kansas City. Yarl, who is Black, was wounded by an 84-year-old white man after he went to the wrong door while trying to pick up his younger brothers.
On the night of Gillis’ death, the group of friends was traveling in a caravan of two cars and a motorcycle looking for another person’s house party, when they mistakenly turned into Monahan’s driveway in the rural town of Hebron, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Albany. They began leaving once they realized their mistake, but Monahan came out to his porch and fired twice from his shotgun, with the second shot hitting Gillis in the neck as she sat in the front passenger seat of an SUV driven by her boyfriend, authorities said.
During closing arguments earlier Tuesday, the prosecution told jurors Monahan was motivated by irrational rage toward trespassers.
“He acted out of anger. That’s the only thing that can be inferred from shooting at people within 90 seconds of being on his property,” said Assistant District Attorney Christian Morris. “He grabbed his shotgun and intended to make them leave as fast as possible and he didn’t care if they were hurt or killed.”
Monahan and his attorney maintained the shooting was an accident involving a defective gun.
Monahan himself took the stand in his own defense, saying he believed the house he shared with his wife was “under siege” by intruders when he saw the vehicles approach. He said he first fired a warning shot to scare the group away.
He said he then tripped over nails sticking up from the porch, lost his balance and the shotgun struck the deck. That, he said, accidentally caused his gun to fire at the Ford Explorer carrying Gillis.
“I didn’t mean to shoot the second shot,” Monahan testified last week. “The gun went off.”
Prosecutors also presented evidence during the trial that Monahan claimed to have been sound asleep when police showed up at his house later that night.
Gillis’ father, Andrew Gillis, has described his daughter as someone who loved animals and had dreams of becoming a marine biologist or a veterinarian.
California
County to pay $5M settlement over arrest of company founder
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County on Tuesday agreed to pay $5 million to the founder and CEO of a software company who was briefly accused of stealing data on county poll workers in a case he said was pushed by conspiracy theorists.
The Board of Supervisors voted without public discussion to approve the settlement of a lawsuit filed by Eugene Yu of Michigan-based Konnech Corp. over his 2022 arrest and prosecution, KNBC-TV reported.
County lawyers had urged approval of the settlement in a letter to the board, the station said.
Konnech is a small company based in East Lansing, Michigan. In 2020, it won a five-year, $2.9 million contract with LA County for software to track election worker schedules, training, payroll and communications.
Yu was arrested in Michigan in October 2022 and computer hard drives were seized. The LA County District Attorney’s Office alleged that Konnech had violated its contract requirement to keep data in the United States and improperly used servers in China to store information on hundreds of county poll workers.
Yu and his company were charged with conspiracy to embezzle public funds and grand theft by embezzlement of public funds. The case was dropped 37 days later.
Yu sued the county, alleging that District Attorney George Gascón had targeted him based on allegations of conspiracy theorists and election deniers.
“Plaintiffs alleged Mr. Yu’s arrest and the seizure of Konnech’s property was without probable cause and a violation of Mr. Yu’s civil rights causing damage to Konnech’s business and Mr. Yu’s reputation,” according to the letter by the county lawyers.
An after-hours email from The Associated Press to the District Attorney’s Office seeking comment wasn’t immediately returned.
Yu’s attorney, Dean Z. Pamphilis, told KNBC-TV that “utterly false charges” and resulting publicity “cost Mr. Yu his life savings and Konnech over 50% of its customers.”
“Mr. Yu is extremely pleased that his innocence has now been publicly confirmed, and he and Konnech look forward to start to recover from the significant losses which they suffered,” the attorney said.
The lawsuit alleged that the prosecution of the company and Yu, who was born in China, was based on debunked conspiracy theories that the company secretly had ties to the Chinese Communist Party and supplied information as part of a Chinese campaign to manipulate votes.
At one point Yu received threats and went into hiding, The New York Times reported.
After his arrest, which came about a month before the November 2022 general elections, the LA District Attorney’s Office said the allegations only involved poll workers, not voting machines or vote counts and didn’t alter election results.
However, the office told NPR following Yu’s arrest that the investigation began after a tip from Gregg Phillips, an election denier associated with the controversial group True the Vote.
In legal filings for the lawsuit, Yu noted that Los Angeles County continues to use Konnech’s services and is, in fact, its largest customer.
On its website, Konnech said it currently has 32 clients in North America.
