Court Digest

Oregon
Man convicted in 3rd sex crime case sentenced to life in prison
HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) — A Hillsboro man convicted of felony sex crimes for the third time has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Justin Lugo, 37, was convicted in a bench trial in May of sexually abusing a female while she slept at their parents’ home in 2019, according to the Washington County District Attorney’s Office.

Washington County Circuit Judge Janelle Wipper convicted Lugo of first-degree sexual abuse and third-degree sexual abuse. She sentenced him Tuesday.

Lugo was also convicted of assaulting a public safety officer while in custody for this case and of fourth-degree assault of a separate victim.

Lugo was previously convicted of sexually abusing a girl he knew between 2002 and 2005 and convicted of rape and sodomy, among other charges, in a 2008 case involving a girl under age 16.

Oregon’s criminal code subjects those convicted in three separate felony sex crime cases to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Wisconsin
Man sentenced to 15 years in prison for baby’s death
OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) — A man convicted of causing the death of a 10-month-old boy he was caring for in Oshkosh has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Freddy Colon pleaded no contest to neglecting a child resulting in death as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. Court records show the charge was reduced from reckless homicide, WLUK-TV reported.

Colon was also given 10 years of extended supervision during sentencing Tuesday in Winnebago County Circuit Court.

According to a criminal complaint, Colon initially told investigators he found the child face down in vomit and called the boy’s mother. The baby was taken to the hospital and died several days later in December 2018.

The complaint said an autopsy shows the baby suffered a severe head injury, brain swelling and a skull fracture.

Colon’s 4-year-old son told police “his daddy spanked the baby because he’s always crying” and that “the baby stopped crying after his daddy went into their room and hit the baby,” according to the complaint.

Virginia
Police: Man charged in deaths of mother, sister
BURKE, Va. (AP) — A 33-year-old Virginia man is being charged in the deaths of his mother and sister at their home, Fairfax County police said Tuesday.

Bradley Lister is facing two counts of second-degree murder and weapons offences in the killings of Susan Lister, 67, and Amber Currie, 41, The Washington Post reported.

Officers sent to the home Friday for a welfare check found the women dead, Lt. Erin Weeks said at a news conference. Investigators are still looking for a motive, she said.

Bradley Lister was named as a person of interest in the case Saturday he was found in Baltimore on Monday night, Weeks said. In an interview, investigators developed enough information to charge Bradley Lister in the slayings of his mother and sister, Weeks said. Police said Lister allegedly killed the pair Aug. 17 and fled the area with five or six firearms that have yet to be found.

Lister is being held in Baltimore, pending extradition to Fairfax County. The murder case was not yet listed in court records, and it could not be determined whether he had an attorney.

Washington
Lawyer disbarred over restraining order violations
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — A personal injury lawyer who practiced in Everett has been disbarred for violating a restraining order, lying to the state bar association and other ethical violations.

Eric Hoort, 51, was disbarred last week after working as an attorney in Washington state for over 20 years, The Daily Herald reported.

In 2018 and 2019, Island County sheriff’s deputies responded to calls about fights between Hoort and the woman at their home on Camano Island.

Police incident reports show the woman reported Hoort had been using drugs and stealing her prescription medications. The state bar association says Hoort also violated a temporary protection by emailing the woman repeatedly.
The newspaper tried unsuccessfully to reach Hoort for comment.

An Island County prosecutor charged Hoort with three counts of violating a domestic violence protection order. Court records suggest the criminal case is still pending.

After the state bar notified Hoort they were conducting a disciplinary investigation, he tried to resign. According to state court rules, a lawyer who is the subject of an investigation by the state agency cannot voluntarily resign.

The state bar’s disciplinary board noted aggravating factors in the decision to disbar Hoort, including a past reprimand the lawyer had received over a decade ago.

North Carolina
2 plead guilty to taking illegal immigrants to Marine base
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — A husband and wife from North Carolina have pleaded guilty to transporting illegal immigrants onto a U.S. Marine base by boat, a federal prosecutor said.

Timothy Scott Belcher, 56, and Georgina Belcher, 63, of Jacksonville brought three foreign nationals living illegally in the U.S. onto Camp Lejeune by bypassing the base gate and taking them from Jacksonville to a boat dock on base, according to court documents.

According to a news release, the three aliens were employed by a drywall company which had a contract with the U.S. military and was owned by Georgina Belcher.

G. Norman Acker III, acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, said the Belchers pleaded guilty on Tuesday to bringing in and harboring certain aliens. They face a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years’ supervised release. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 16, the news release said.

Tennessee
Page chosen as chief justice for Supreme Court
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Roger A. Page has been elected as the chief justice for the state’s highest court.

Page was chosen by his colleagues to lead the five-member Tennessee Supreme Court, the state court system said in a news release Tuesday.

Page’s term begins Sept. 1. Page succeeds Jeff Bivins, who has served as chief justice since September 2016, the state court system said.

Page was elected circuit court judge in 1998 for the 26th Judicial District, which includes the counties of Chester, Henderson and Madison. He was appointed to the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2011 by then-Gov. Bill Haslam.

Haslam appointed Page to the state Supreme Court in 2016.

Page is scheduled to be sworn in at the Madison County Criminal Justice Complex on Sept. 1. The event will be live streamed.

California
Kanye West asks court to change his name to Ye
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kanye just wants to be Ye.

Kanye West filed court documents Tuesday to legally change his name.

The Los Angeles Superior Court filing says the 44-year-old wants to get rid of his full name — Kanye Omari West — in favor of just his longtime two-letter nickname, Ye, with no middle name or last name.

The documents, dated Aug. 11 but not sent into the court system until Tuesday, cite “personal reasons” for the change. An email seeking comment from the attorney who filed the documents was not immediately returned.

A judge must approve of the change before it becomes official.

West, who has called himself Ye on his social media pages for years, tweeted that he wanted the change in 2018, saying, “the being formally known as Kanye West. I am YE.”

The moniker was also the title of his 2018 album. He has said in interviews that, along with being a shortening of his first name he likes, that it’s a word used throughout the Bible.

West is in the middle of a divorce with Kim Kardashian West, who did not ask that her last name be changed back to just Kardashian when she filed to split from him in February. The couple’s four children also have his last name.


Missouri
Special prosecutor appointed in police shooting
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — At the request of Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, a special prosecutor has been appointed to investigate the fatal police shooting of a Kansas City man that has been criticized by some area clergy and civil rights activists.

St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell’s office announced Tuesday that Rachel Smith will be as special prosecutor to determine if the police shooting of Malcolm Johnson, 31, was justified, The Kansas City Star reported.

Peters Baker said her office’s prosecutions of Johnson in prior criminal cases could be seen as a conflict of interest during the shooting investigation. Baker’s office charged Johnson in 2014 in a fatal shooting, and he later pleaded to reduced charges of involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.

Johnson was shot and killed by police on March 25 inside a Kansas City convenience store.

Police had identified him as a suspect in a non-fatal shooting when they approached him in the store. Police said Johnson shot an officer during an altercation while he was being arrested.

But videos of the shooting raised questions about the police version, and the leader of a group of clergy who questioned the circumstances called Johnson’s death “an execution.”


New York
Magistrate judge rules Phillies can use redesigned Phanatic mascot
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal magistrate judge has decided that changes by the Philadelphia Phillies to the Phillie Phanatic mascot last year were sufficient to allow its continued use by the club.

In a 91-page decision on Aug. 10, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan decided that creators of the Phillie Phanatic had demonstrated the mascot had been registered as an artistic sculpture under copyright law.

Netburn recommended that Harrison/Erickson, the New York company that created the Phanatic, be credited as sole authors of the Phanatic and said the company had the right to terminate the Phillies’ 1984 agreement to acquire rights to the fuzzy creature, which H/E did on June 15, 2020.

The Phillies unveiled the redesign of the green mascot in February 2020, a new look featuring flightless feathers rather than fur-colored arms, stars outlining the eyes, a larger posterior and a powder blue tail, blue socks with red shoes, plus a set of scales under the arms.

“H/E argue that P2 is not original because it is the ‘same old Phanatic’ or a ‘slavish copy’ of P1,” Netburn wrote. “If the Phillies had designed something so dissimilar from the Phanatic that it would no longer be recognizable as the Phanatic, then, by extension, it would not be a derivative of the Phanatic, and instead would be a completely different mascot.”

Netburn cited a 1991 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Feist Publications Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Company Inc.

“To be sure, the changes to the structural shape of the Phanatic are no great strokes of brilliance,” she wrote, “but as the Supreme Court has already noted, a compilation of minimally creative elements, ‘no matter how crude, humble or obvious,’ can render a work a derivative.”

Lawyers for Wayde Harrison and Bonnie Erickson said in a statement “if left uncorrected this low bar for a derivative work will thwart the very purpose and intent of the copyright termination provisions established by Congress to fairly compensate original creators for their works 35 years after they have licensed or granted rights in their creations, as Bonnie and Wayde did in 1984. The fight of the original creators for their just due will continue.”

The Phillies declined comment, citing the ongoing litigation, spokeswoman Bonnie Clark said.


South Carolina
Ex-officer gets 6 months; hit handcuffed man with flashlight
FLORENCE, S.C. (AP) — A former police officer in South Carolina has been ordered to spend six months in prison for hitting a man under arrest and in handcuffs with his flashlight.

Ex-Florence County deputy Brian Proffitt also left information about the beating out of his initial report in February 2019 and again in a follow up report after being given a chance to change his story, authorities said.

Proffitt pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree assault and battery and misconduct in office just before a jury was picked for his trial, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office said  in a statement.

Proffitt was sentenced to the maximum of three years on the assault charge and eight years on the misconduct charge, but Judge William L. Seals suspended the sentences to six months in prison as long as he successfully completes four years of probation.