Indiana
Woman surrenders to face Capitol riot charges
NEW ALBANY, Ind. (AP) — A southeastern Indiana woman surrendered Tuesday to face federal charges in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Nancy Barron, 46, of Patriot faces charges including of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said.
She turned herself in at the federal courthouse in New Albany, the FBI said.
Investigators say Barron contacted them on Jan. 7, 2021, to say she had been inside the Capitol.
The FBI says it found multiple photos and videos of Barron inside and outside the building, asking where to find House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
An FBI agent claims Barron lied during her official interview, claiming she was pushed into the building and that she tried to find an exit as soon as she was inside.
Barron’s surrender comes after three Indianapolis-area men were arrested Thursday on charges in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Nine other people with Indiana ties have been arrested and charged in connection with the riot.
Missouri
Man charged with kidnapping, murder in 2021 homicide
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Prosecutors have charged a Kansas City man with kidnapping, murder and other counts in the stabbing death last spring of another man whose body was found wrapped in a blue tarp days after he had been reported missing.
Ahmad Herring, 31, has been charged with second-degree felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, robbery, abandonment of a corpse and four counts of armed criminal action, the Kansas City Star reported.
Police have said Gutierrez’s body was found May 17, 2021, nearly a week after he had been reported missing, and that he had suffered several stab wounds. A person who had a brief phone conversation with Gutierrez the day of his disappearance later received a call from a man using Gutierrez’s phone demanding $100,000 ransom, police said.
An investigation led to Herring, and after a short car chase, police arrested Herring and said they found jugs of bleach, vinegar and ammonia in Herring’s trunk — as well as receipt for a blue tarp similar to the one Gutierrez’s body was wrapped in. Investigators say they also found Herring’s DNA on a zip tie found inside a shed where police believe Gutierrez had been held before his killing.
At the time of Gutierrez’s death, Herring was on parole for first-degree manslaughter for the fatal drive-by shooting of another man.
Massachusetts
Man pleads guilty in slaying of food delivery driver
BOSTON (AP) — One of three people charged in connection with the fatal shooting of a Boston food delivery driver has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
Tyler Sales, 26, also pleaded guilty on Tuesday to possession of a firearm and armed assault with an intent to rob in the October 2018 death of Raymond Holloway-Creighton, according to the office of Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden.
Sales was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison, a term he will start serving once he has completed a current period of incarceration expected to end in September 2023.
Holloway-Creighton, 26, was delivering for DoorDash and Grubhub on his motorized scooter in the early morning hours of Oct. 5, 2018, prosecutors said.
Sales and his alleged accomplices had been out on their motorized scooters looking for other scooters to steal, prosecutors said. Sales pulled up behind the victim at about 3:30 a.m. and shot him once in the back, authorities said.
“The cold bloodedness of this crime is shocking,” Hayden said in a statement. “The victim, a hard worker and new father, was trying to provide for his family and his life was cut short simply out of desire to steal his scooter.”
The other defendants face trial on April 6.
Missouri
Fourth officer sentenced in attack on undercover colleague
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A former St. Louis police officer was sentenced Tuesday to one year of probation for his role in an attack by officers on a Black, colleague during a 2017 protest.
Christopher Myers, 30, was the last of four former officers accused in the case. He pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to deprivation of rights, admitting he damaged the cell phone of former undercover officer Luther Hall.
Protesters took to the streets in September 2017 after the acquittal of Jason Stockley, a white former officer who had been accused of killing a Black suspect. Prosecutors said the four officers mistakenly believed that Hall was participating in the protest.
Two of the other former officers pleaded guilty. Randy Hays was sentenced to more than four years in prison for beating Hall. Bailey Colletta was sentenced to probation for making false statements.
Dustin Boone was found guilty of aiding and abetting the deprivation of civil rights under color of law and sentenced to one year and one day behind bars.
California
Ex-biotech executives sentenced for trade theft
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (AP) — Two co-founders of a Taiwan biotechnology company were sentenced Tuesday for plotting to steal trade secrets from Genentech in a $101 million scheme, prosecutors said.
Racho Jordanov, former CEO of JHL Biotech Inc., and former chief operating officer Rose Lin were sentenced in San Francisco federal court to a year and a day each in federal prison, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
They pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit trade secret theft and wire fraud.
JHL Biotech, now known as Eden Biologics, Inc., is a biopharmaceutical startup based in Taiwan. According to plea agreements, between 2011 and 2019, Jordanov used confidential Genentech information from ex-Genentech workers he hired to speed up and reduce costs for producing generic versions of products made by the South San Francisco-based company.
The thousands of documents allowed the company “to cheat, cut corners, solve problems, provide examples, avoid further experimentation, eliminate costs, lend scientific assurance, and otherwise help JHL Biotech,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.
Between 2014 and 2018, Jordanov used or told others to use Genentech information to help in the construction of JHL Biotech facilities, including a factory in China, prosecutors said.
In 2014, Lam helped Xanthe Lam, a principal scientist at Genentech, to secretly work as head of formulation for JHL Biotech and concealed payments to him, according to the plea agreements.
Lam and her husband, Allen Lam, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets.
In 2016, Jordanov and Lin agreed to a $101 million partnership with Sanofi S.A., a French pharmaceutical company, by concealing the role of the stolen Genentech documents and trade secrets, prosecutors said.
New York
Fake heiress Anna Sorokin makes new bid to fight deportation
NEW YORK (AP) — Anna Sorokin, the convicted swindler who claimed to be a German heiress to finance a posh lifestyle in New York, is making a new bid to fight deportation, a lawyer said Tuesday.
Sorokin, whose scheme inspired the recent Netflix series “Inventing Anna,” was taken into U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement custody nearly a year ago. She remained jailed in New York’s Hudson Valley on Tuesday, attorney Manny Arora said.
He said she filed papers Monday seeking to hold off being ejected from the country.
ICE on Tuesday said only that she remains in the agency’s custody.
Sorokin, who was convicted in 2019 and spent more than three years behind bars, has since been challenging deportation. An appellate immigration judge last month declined to stop the 31-year-old German citizen from being removed.
Using the name Anna Delvey, Sorokin maneuvered her way into elite New York social circles by passing herself off as a socialite with a $67 million (61 million euros) fortune overseas, according to prosecutors. She falsely claimed to be the daughter of a diplomat or an oil baron.
Prosecutors said Sorokin falsified records and lied to get banks to lend, luxury hotels to let her stay and well-heeled Manhattanites to cover plane tickets and other expenses for her, stealing $275,000 in all.
Her trial lawyer cast her as an ambitious entrepreneur who got in over her head financially and was simply buying time to pay her debts.
Minnesota
Ex-boyfriend of woman set on fire arrested in her death
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The former boyfriend of a woman who died after she was set on fire at a St. Paul shipping warehouse has been arrested in the case, according to police.
Authorities said 44-year-old Kelli Ranning Goodermont was killed at her workplace Tuesday. Her former boyfriend was arrested near his Bloomington home that had been set on fire.
In a protection petition filed last June by Goodermont, she stated the 47-year-old man had held a loaded gun to her head. Court records also show the man was civilly committed and hospitalized for psychosis, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.
The victim’s former husband, Tyler Goodermont, says his ex-wife was a wonderful mother and loving woman. He says she had expressed concern about her safety and that of her children.
Family members said Goodermont worked as a dispatcher at the warehouse business where the suspect was a truck driver and that they had known each other for years.
Bloomington Deputy Police Chief Kimberly Clauson said the man is suspected of starting the fire at his house. He was booked into the Ramsey County Jail on suspicion of murder.
California
LA County to pay $3.8M in death of man hit with stun gun
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to pay $3.8 million to the family of a man who died after a sheriff’s deputy shocked him with stun gun seven years ago.
Relatives of Brian Pickett alleged in a lawsuit that deputies used excessive force during the 2015 incident in Willowbrook.
In a memo recommending supervisors settle the case, county lawyers said while the deputies claimed their actions were reasonable, the payout was needed because of the “risks and uncertainties of litigation,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Deputies responded to a disturbance call at the home of Pickett’s mother, who told authorities he was threatening her after taking drugs, according to an incident summary attached to the memo obtained by the Times.
Pickett refused commands to place his hands behind his back and step out of a bathroom and grew increasingly agitated, the summary said. That’s when a deputy fired his stun gun, shocking him for 29 seconds, nearly six of the device’s 5-second activation cycles, according to the Times.
After Pickett was handcuffed, he went into cardiac arrest. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Prosecutors concluded that deputies used lawful force and declined to file criminal charges. Sheriff’s officials found the use of force was within department policy, the Times said.
