Court Digest

North Carolina
Feds accuse woman of peddling fake COVID-19 cure
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina woman has been accused of peddling a fake COVID-19 cure during the height of the pandemic and continuing to offer it despite warnings to stop.

Diana Daffin, 68, the owner of a holistic health business, was arrested outside her Charlotte home in May after she shipped the supposed coronavirus remedy to an undercover agent in New Hampshire, according to a Food and Drug Administration news release.

In March 2020, the FDA learned that Daffin was selling an unapproved drug on her website with the brand name HAMPL. She claimed it was a COVID-19 remedy and treatment. The next month, the FDA sent Daffin and the Australian drug manufacturer a warning letter explaining that the HAMPL COVID-19 drug Daffin was selling was “an adulterated, misbranded, and unapproved drug” and she should correct the violation. Daffin told the agency that she removed the product from her website.

That August of 2020, the FDA sent Daffin a second warning letter, to which she replied that she would shut down her website while working to replace her product line. The complaint alleges that Daffin continued to sell unapproved HAMPL brand drugs by moving them to a password protected website.

According to the complaint, an undercover agent later contacted Daffin by email, and she provided the password to the website. The undercover agent purchased several unapproved HAMPL brand drugs listed in the August 2020 warning letter. The labels promised “immunity” from the coronavirus.

Last week, a magistrate judge in U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire, ruled that Daffin could remain free on charges of violating the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act until another hearing in August, according to court records reviewed by The Charlotte Observer.

Washington
County settles lawsuit for $2.2M in jogger death
BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) — Kitsap County has settled a lawsuit for $2.2 million over the death of a jogger who was struck and killed in the crosswalk of a Silverdale intersection in 2017.

The family of Central Kitsap School District teacher Amy Higgins, 50, and a friend with whom she regularly took morning runs and witnessed the crash, Debra Campbell, sued the county in Pierce County Superior Court in 2019, the Kitsap Sun reported.

The suit claimed the crosswalk was inadequately designed to keep pedestrians safe, especially in low light.

As part of the agreement, the county did not admit fault for the design at the Greaves Way crosswalk at Old Frontier Road where Higgins was killed, but since her death, it installed stop signs at the three-way intersection and plans to install a roundabout in 2023.

The driver who hit Higgins pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in 2018 and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Scott Brian Rehmus was driving with a suspended license and speeding, the sheriff’s office said.

Oregon
Suspect arrested in 1980 cold case homicide of teen
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Gresham police identified a Troutdale man this week as the suspect in an 80s cold case homicide.

Police used DNA technology to identify 58-year-old Robert Plympton as a suspect in the killing of 19-year-old Barbara Mae Tucker, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

Gresham police on Tuesday arrested Plympton. He’s charged with murder, rape and sex abuse and is being held on $500,00 bail.

Tucker was expected at a night class at Mt. Hood Community College on Jan. 15, 1980. A student found Tucker’s body the next day.

The medical examiner determined Tucker had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death.

The instructor of the class Tucker was walking to the night she was killed told an Oregonian reporter in 1980 that she was a “dedicated student who rarely missed class.” The teacher said she was outgoing, intelligent and had many friends on campus.

Police had been unable to clearly identify a suspect or make an arrest for decades.

Based on physical evidence from the crime scene, modern advances in DNA technology, DNA ancestry databases and research and analysis by Parabon NanoLabs LLC, police said they recently made a DNA profile match that furthered the case and led to Plympton’s arrest.

Lisa Plympton, Robert Plympton’s wife, said the arrest is “a shock” and that her husband denies the accusation he killed Tucker.

Maureen Quinn, a Portland native and childhood friend of Tucker, said after reading the news of Plympton’s arrest that she is thankful investigators continued to pursue the case.

Vermont
Woman pleads guilty to manslaughter in 2016 death
NEWPORT, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont woman has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2016 stabbing death of her boyfriend in the town of Brownington.

Jennifer Simard, 49, who appeared by video from the woman’s prison in South Burlington, entered the plea Wednesday in the death of Kevin Smith, 38, in court in Newport.

“I recklessly caused the unlawful death of Kevin Smith ... when I brandished a knife, a lethal weapon, during a physical altercation with Kevin Smith,” Simard said in a statement read into the record by Judge Gregory Rainville.

The Caledonian-Record reports  it took two years from Smith’s death and a rare grand jury indictment before Simard was taken into custody in March 2018.

Simard was initially charged with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. The plea agreement resulted in the dismissal of the second-degree murder charge.

A pre-sentence investigation will be held. A manslaughter conviction carries a sentence of between one and 15 years in prison.

Court records said Smith was trying to leave Simard the day he died.

Washington
Prosecutors: Teacher sent sexual messages to fictitious teen
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — A teacher at a suburban Seattle private school has been criminally charged with four counts of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, prosecutors said.

Nathan Williams of Kirkland is accused of engaging in online sexual conversations with an undercover Seattle police officer he thought was a 13-year-old girl, The Seattle Times reported.

Charges filed Friday say as of May 26, Williams was on staff at the Brighton Academy in Redmond and taught on site.

Jail and court records show Williams was arrested June 2 and posted $70,000 bail the next day. According to the Brighton Academy’s website, the school offers one-on-one instruction and tutoring.
A voicemail left for the academy wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday.

Williams is being represented by Kent attorneys Brad Barshis and Charlie Varni.

“We’ll work toward showing my client didn’t do the things that he’s been alleged to have done,” Barshis told the newspaper.

Williams began communicating with a fictitious girl he knew as “Carli” in April after “matching” with her profile on the dating site OKCupid, charges say. His messages to an undercover Seattle police officer assigned to the FBI’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force included acknowledgments of “Carli’s” purported age, according to the charges.

Per his jail release conditions, Williams was ordered by the court not to have contact with minors without exception, the charges say.

Minnesota
Judge sends man to prison for beheading bear on reservation
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A federal judge has sentenced a Brainerd man to 15 months in prison for killing and then beheading a 700-pound black bear on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.

U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson sentenced 39-year-old James Stimac on Wednesday.

According to prosecutors, Stimac isn’t a Red Lake tribal member but entered the reservation without permission in September 2019. He used a compound bow to shoot and kill the bear near the reservation’s garbage dump.

He returned to the dump the next day and posed for photographs with the bear’s carcass. He later posted the photos on social media. The bear was too big to move so he sawed its head off and took it to a taxidermist in Ironton to make it into a trophy. He left the remainder of the carcass to rot.

The bear is one of seven clan animals of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. The tribe doesn’t allow non-Indians to hunt bear on its reservation.


Massachusetts
Lawyers seek dismissal of evidence in case of slain runner
WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — Lawyers for the man charged with killing a Google employee from New York who went missing while out for a run in Massachusetts in 2016 questioned the competency of police investigating the case during a hearing to get DNA evidence thrown out.

Angelo Colon-Ortiz has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in the death of Vanessa Marcotte, 27, in the town of Princeton.

Colon-Ortiz’s lawyers in a hearing Wednesday said DNA samples collected by state police in March 2017 were obtained illegally and their client didn’t fully understand their questions because he only speaks Spanish and believed he had no choice but to provide his DNA sample, The Telegram & Gazette reported.

They also allege his rights were not properly explained to him.

The state police testified that they explained to Colon-Ortiz what they wanted and that he read and signed a consent form that was in Spanish.

The judge did not rule Wednesay and proceedings are scheduled to continue Thursday.

Marcotte was visiting her mother in 2016 when she failed to return from a run. Her body was found hours later in the nearby woods.

Alabama
City, officer convicted of murder seek lawsuit delay
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — The city of Huntsville is again siding with a police officer convicted of murder and asking a federal court to delay action on a wrongful death lawsuit filed by relatives of the victim.

The city and officer William Darby, who has been on leave since being convicted last month of killing a mentally disturbed man while on duty in 2018, asked a judge to keep the lawsuit on hold until after Darby’s sentencing, set for Aug. 20, news outlets reported.

Relatives of Jeffrey Parker, who Darby shot to death while the man was holding a gun to his own head, contend it is time for the lawsuit, which was filed last year and delayed at Darby’s request, to move ahead.

The city and Darby argue the criminal case won’t be over until the sentencing hearing, and Darby is busy helping with a pre-sentencing investigation, which a judge will review to help determine his penalty. The city, in papers filed Wednesday, said it needs to know the final outcome of the criminal case to properly defend itself in the civil suit.

A hearing is set for June 21 on whether the case should go ahead.

The city initially cleared Darby of wrongdoing and then helped fund his defense after grand jurors indicted him on a murder charge. Both Mayor Tommy Battle and Police Chief Mark McMurray publicly criticized the verdict after jurors convicted Darby.

The city has started personnel hearings that could lead to the firing of Darby, who is free on bond and not working while using leave time. Darby was stripped of his police certification because of the murder conviction.

Two officers went to Parker’s home in 2018 after he called 911 saying he was suicidal and had a gun. The officers found Parker seated on a couch and holding a gun to his own head when they arrived, evidence showed.

One of the officers told jurors she was talking to Parker, 49, when Darby entered the house, ordered Parker to drop his weapon and shot him with a shotgun within seconds. Prosecutors argued that Darby had no justifiable reason to open fire.

Darby faces a prison sentence of 20 years to life, prosecutors have said.