National Roundup

California
Mother arrested in her baby’s 1988 killing thanks to DNA
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A California woman has been arrested in the death of her newborn baby boy in the San Francisco Bay Area 32 years ago in a case that was solved decades later because of genetic genealogy, authorities said Monday.

Lesa Lopez, 52, admitted to investigators she was the mother of the baby and implicated herself in the killing, Alameda County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said in a statement.

“Lopez, who was 20 years old at the time of the incident, told investigators she hid the pregnancy from her family and friends and provided details of what happened,” he said.

Lopez, of Salida, was arrested on July 23 and charged with murder. She is being held on $2 million bail. It wasn’t immediately known if she has an attorney who can speak on her behalf.

Two children playing found the baby’s body on May 15, 1988, inside a paper bag left among trees and bushes on the bank of a creek in Castro Valley. An autopsy revealed the baby was alive at birth and was killed, Kelly said.

The boy, identified by investigators as Baby Joe Doe, was given a funeral at St. Leanders Church in San Leandro attended by more than 200 people. A priest posthumously named him Richard Jayson Terrance Rein after the church’s vicars and priests.

With DNA investigative technology much more advanced, the DNA of a woman was found in 2005 in evidence collected from the crime scene. Investigators believed it belonged to the baby’s mother, who was considered a suspect, but she couldn’t be identified.

Multiple investigators with the sheriff’s office tried to solve the case over the past 32 years “for a baby boy who never had a voice and never had the chance of living a full life,” Kelly said.

Last year, investigators again took up the case with the help of experts in forensic genetic genealogy from the FBI, and private labs, including Oklahoma-based DNA solutions and Gene-by-Gene’, which owns the genealogy website FamilyTreeDNA.

After extensive genealogy research, surveillance and DNA collected from Lopez’s discarded trash, cold case investigators linked Lopez to the crime scene, Kelly said.

They used the same advanced DNA testing that helped crack the decades-old Golden State Killer case.

In 2018, police investigators identified Joseph DeAngelo, a former police officer, after using DNA from crime scenes to find relatives of their suspect through a popular genealogy website database. They tailed DeAngelo and secretly collected DNA from his car door and a discarded tissue to get an arrest warrant.

DeAngelo, who terrorized California as a serial burglar and rapist and went on to kill more than a dozen people while evading capture for decades, pleaded guilty last month.

Alabama
Man charged with defrauding fund for slain Alabama officer
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A man is charged with stealing from a memorial fund that was established to help the family of an Alabama police officer who was killed last year, authorities said Tuesday.

Devonte Lemond Hammonds, 27, of Birmingham was charged with multiple counts of fraud, federal prosecutors said in a news release. He was charged with taking money from a fund set help to aid relatives of Huntsville police officer Billy Clardy, who was shot to death in the line of duty in December.

Hammonds allegedly used the identity of another person to open a bank account and transfer funds from the Billy Clardy Memorial Fund for his own use, authorities said.

The man also used the U.S. Postal Service website to reroute mail to addresses and used personal information from senders to pay bills, buy items and open accounts, the statement said.

An attorney representing Hammonds did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

New York
Court: New policy on immigrants does harm
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge correctly struck down a new Department of Homeland Security rule that went into effect earlier this year denying green cards to legal immigrants who use Medicaid, food stamps and other forms of public assistance, an appeals court said Tuesday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an October ruling by Judge George B. Daniels but only let it apply to New York, Vermont and Connecticut, conforming with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that let the rule take effect in February.

The appeals court said the rule has already had an irreparable chilling effect on non-citizen use of public benefits.

The Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that the rule will likely result in worse health outcomes, including increased obesity and malnutrition, the spread of communicable diseases and increased rates of poverty and housing instability, the court noted.

“To say the least, the public interest does not favor the immediate implementation of the Rule,” it said.

The rule to deny permanent residency to those receiving various forms of public assistance has been successfully challenged by five lawsuits nationwide.

The 2nd Circuit said the Department of Homeland Security failed to provide a reasoned explanation for significantly expanding what constitutes a “public charge” or someone destined to rely on public assistance.

Under old rules, people who used non-cash benefits, including food stamps and Medicaid, were not penalized.

The three-judge panel said the states of New York, Connecticut, Vermont and New York City, along with five non-profit organizations that provide legal and social services to non-citizens, were likely to prove the new rule was “arbitrary and capricious.”

A message for comment was left with the Justice Department.

In a ruling written by Circuit Judge Gerard E. Lynch, the 2nd Circuit said the Department of Homeland Security and Congress have “dramatically different notions” of what it means to be a “public charge.”

Congress, it said, believes the term applies to a non-citizen who cannot earn a livelihood and lacks sufficient funds or anyone willing to assure that public support would not be needed.

The Department of Homeland Security believes it applies to anyone likely to access any quantity of benefits for a limited number of months, even if the benefits have relatively generous eligibility criteria meant to assist those living well above the poverty level, the 2nd Circuit said.

The appeals court said the definition of a “public charge” was well-defined by 1996 to exclude benefits designed to supplement an individual’s or family’s efforts to support themselves rather than to deal with their likely permanent inability to do so. It noted that 60% of Medicaid recipients who are not children, older adults or people with disabilities are employed.