Alabama: Three men facing securities fraud charges for scam
BAY MINETTE, Ala. (AP) — Authorities say three men are facing securities fraud charges involving what officials call a multimillion-dollar investment scam.
Jail records show 37-year-old Paul Liggett of Fenton, Mo., was booked into the Baldwin County Corrections Center on Thursday and was released on $35,000 bail. On Jan. 28, 33-year-old Michael David Judd of Studio City, Calif., was booked and later released on $100,000 bail.
Both men are scheduled to be arraigned March 18 in Baldwin County Circuit Court.
Charges for both men stem from an alleged scheme involving 38-year-old Richard Tucker of Robertsdale, and his company, Synergy Finance Group. Tucker is due in court next week.
Officials say agents persuaded investors to wire money to Synergy accounts with the promise of multimillion-dollar returns.
California: Judge who halted state executions tours death room
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge who shut down the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison five years ago returns there Tuesday to tour a new facility.
With nearly 720 inmates on Death Row, a decision by Judge Jeremy Fogel that the chamber is adequate could be a step toward California resuming executions.
The San Jose judge halted executions in 2006, ruling that the gas chamber was inhumane because of poor training and antiquated facilities. The state switched to lethal injection and spent nearly $900,000 on a new death chamber.
But the San Jose Mercury News says problems remain. California had to postpone an execution last fall when it ran out of one of the three drugs needed for executions. However, the state now has the drug in stock.
Georgia: State high court confirms charges of molestation
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Supreme Court has reinstated aggravated child molestation charges against a man that were dismissed in Fulton County on grounds that his right to a speedy trial had been violated.
The unanimous decision released Monday reversed a Georgia Court of Appeals judgment. The court, in a ruling written by Justice David Nahmias, says the courts failed to conduct proper legal analysis in the case involving Stanley Porter.
The trial court in 2009 dismissed a charge that dated back to 2000.
The Supreme Court said the lower courts’ errors include the failure to evaluate Porter’s delay in asserting his right to a speedy trial.
The Supreme Court urged speedy action on the charges, pointing out they had been pending for more than a decade.
Massachusetts: Defense lawyers call trial in absentia illegal
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) — Bristol District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter has launched a pilot program to try criminal defendants even when they don’t show up for court, a practice defense lawyers are calling unconstitutional.
Sutter says the program is meant to discourage defendants from missing court dates. The program is under way in Fall River, where defendants sign waivers allowing prosecutors to move forward with their cases even if they are not in court.
He says defaults are a big problem across the state.
Peter Elikann, a Boston defense attorney speaking on behalf of the Massachusetts Bar Association, tells The Standard-Times of New Bedford that the program is unconstitutional because the 6th Amendment guarantees someone the right to confront their accusers at trial.
He says convictions under the program would be reversed on appeal.
Texas: Ex-Texas prison official on trial for pupil sex
LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — After a six-year journey to court, jury selection started Monday in the trial of a man accused of sexually molesting boys in his charge at a West Texas youth prison.
Now, after years of court motions and alleged inaction by a local district attorney, John Paul Hernandez is the lone target left for state officials prosecuting jail administrators in a sex scandal that embroiled the Texas Youth Commission and its West Texas State School in Pyote.
The 45-year-old former principal of the school has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts stemming from allegations that he had oral sex with his teenage inmates in 2004 and 2005.
The case, which was first investigated by Texas Rangers, has prompted the resignations or firings over the past six years of several top state officials responsible for jailing Texas’ juvenile criminals and sent another former jail administrator to prison.
Ex-assistant Superintendent Ray Edward Brookins, the only other official at the youth prison charged in the scheme, was sentenced last April to 10 years in prison.
Hernandez’s trial was moved to Lubbock out of Monahans in Ward County at the defense’s request. It is perhaps the last criminal aspect to a scandal that prosecutors say scarred more than a dozen youth abused by jail administrators.
The Texas attorney general’s office took over the prosecution of both former officials after the Ward County district attorney was accused of not acting quickly.
Authorities believe at least 13 boys were sexually abused at the school, which closed last summer. The case upended the Texas Youth Commission and led to accusations of a cover-up, reports exposing lax medical care, beatings, and a culture of retaliation against whistle-blowers. Lawmakers eventually ordered an overhaul of the system.
A report from Texas Rangers investigators in 2005 said Brookins and Hernandez summoned young male inmates from their dorms late at night. The report stated that for at least two years the teens went with the men to ball fields, darkened conference rooms and offices for sex.
Maine: Maine man faces sentencing for double murder
ALFRED, Maine (AP) — Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence when a 56-year-old Maine man is sentenced for fatally shooting two brothers during a late-night confrontation in front of his house in Biddeford.
Rory Holland’s sentencing Monday will take place in York County Superior Court in Biddeford. He faces 25 years to life in prison.
Holland was convicted of two counts of murder in November in the deaths of 19-year-old Gage Green and his 21-year-old brother, Derek.
Holland claimed that he feared for his life and shot the brothers in self-defense, but prosecutors said he had no justification in pulling a handgun from his waistband and gunning down his victims.
