Iowa
Court upholds ‘terrorism’ sentencing of pipeline saboteur
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A federal appeals court on Monday upheld an eight-year prison sentence for an environmental activist who tried to sabotage the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Jessica Reznicek pleaded guilty in June 2021 to a charge of conspiracy to damage an energy facility for vandalizing construction sites on the 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) pipeline in 2016 and 2017.
Iowa U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger included a terrorism-related enhancement in her sentencing, finding that the crime was “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government.” Reznicek appealed that enhancement, arguing that she was acting against a private company.
But the appeals court found that “any error was harmless” in Ebinger’s sentencing because the judge had noted she would have imposed the eight-year sentence regardless of the terrorism enhancement, the Des Moines Register reported.
An attorney for Reznicek declined to comment on the court’s decision.
Ruby Montoya, another activist who acted with Reznicek, has pleaded guilty to a charge in the incident. But she has attempted to withdraw that plea, arguing she was unfairly pressured into entering it.
Pennsylvania
Ex-congressman Myers pleads guilty in ballot stuffing case
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A former congressman from Philadelphia pleaded guilty Monday to charges related to fraudulently stuffing ballot boxes for Democratic candidates between 2014 and 2018.
Federal prosecutors said former Democratic U.S. Rep. Michael J. “Ozzie” Myers pleaded guilty to violations of election law, conspiracy, bribery and obstruction.
Messages seeking comment were left for his defense lawyers listed on the online docket.
In a sentencing memo dated Friday, federal prosecutors said his “criminal efforts were generally, although not exclusively, directed at securing election victories for local judicial candidates running for Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas or Municipal Court who had employed Myers as a ‘political consultant.’”
Myers was expelled from Congress in 1980 after being caught taking bribes in the Abscam sting investigation.
Prosecutors said Myers, 79, admitted he bribed a judge of elections to add votes for his chosen candidates, including clients who were running for judicial offices. The bribes were hundreds or thousands of dollars.
He also conspired with another elections judge to tell voters on election days which candidates they should vote for, candidates that Myers had selected, and the now former judge cast fraudulent votes for people who did not appear at the polls.
“Votes are not things to be purchased and democracy is not for sale,” U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said in a news release.
In the Abscam sting, Myers was convicted of bribery and conspiracy for taking money from FBI agents who posed as Arab sheiks. He served more than a year in prison.
Myers also served six years in the Pennsylvania House before his 1976 election to Congress.
Wisconsin
State Supreme Court says COVID records can be released
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday said the state health department can release data on coronavirus outbreak cases, information sought two years ago near the beginning of the pandemic.
The court ruled 4-3 against Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business lobbying group, which had sought to block release of the records requested in June 2020 by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other news outlets.
The state health department in the early months of the pandemic in 2020 had planned to release the names of more than 1,000 businesses with more than 25 employees where at least two workers have tested positive for COVID-19.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, along with the Muskego Area Chamber of Commerce and the New Berlin Chamber of Commerce, sued to block the release of the records, saying it would “irreparably harm” the reputations of their members. It argued that the information being sought is derived from diagnostic test results and the records of contact tracers, and that such information constitutes private medical records that can’t be released without the consent of each individual.
Attorneys for the state argued that the information contained aggregate numbers only, not personal information, and could be released.
A Waukesha County circuit judge sided with the business group and blocked release of the records. A state appeals court in 2021 reversed the lower court’s ruling and ordered the case dismissed, saying WMC failed to show a justifiable reason for concealing the records.
WMC appealed to the state Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court’s ruling.
A spokesman for the business lobbying group did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.
The ruling was written by Justice Rebecca Dallet, who was joined in the majority by two other liberal justices and conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn, who is often a swing vote. The other three conservative justices dissented.
Ohio
Justices decline to take up ex-campus bookstore worker case
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to take up a fired college bookstore employee’s battle for his job, appearing to end the Ohioan’s yearslong saga.
Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor signed the single-sentence entry declining Andre Brady’s appeal without elaboration.
Brady had turned to the high court after a lower court determined in February that it lacked the jurisdiction to review core legal claims surrounding the elimination of his union job as a sales manager at the Youngstown State University bookstore.
Brady lost his job of 19 years in 2016, as his employer and other public universities were being pressured by then-Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich to reduce costs and pass the savings along to students. Brady has been fighting the layoff ever since.
His lawyer told the appellate court during oral arguments in August that his client only wanted the opportunity to make his case that Youngstown State lacked legitimate “reasons of economy” when it closed its bookstore. Lacking verifiable economic reasons violated his union contract, Brady argued.
But both the appellate and high courts have now ended their involvement on technical grounds, so that Brady never had a chance to make his case.
Washington
High court won’t hear appeal over McCloskeys’ law licenses
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the husband-and-wife attorneys whose law licenses were placed on probation for pointing guns at racial injustice protesters outside their St. Louis mansion in 2020.
Mark McCloskey, who is seeking the Republican nomination for one of Missouri’s U.S. Senate seats in the August primary, said he wasn’t surprised by the high court’s decision since it takes up relatively few cases.
“I was a little disappointed because I thought that the concept of a lawyer being sanctioned for doing no more than just defending himself and exercising his Second Amendment rights would be an issue that the Supreme Court might find significant,” McCloskey said.
The Missouri Supreme Court in February placed the couple’s licenses on probation for one year, allowing them to continue to practice law. They must also provide 100 hours of free legal service. The appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court sought to end the probation.
Last month, the state’s high court denied the McCloskeys’ request to provide free legal service to the conservative activist group Project Veritas to meet the pro bono requirement. The organization is known for hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians.
Mark McCloskey has said he and his wife felt threatened in June 2020 when demonstrators walked onto their private street during global protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Mark McCloskey emerged from his home with an AR-15-style rifle, and Patricia McCloskey waved a semi-automatic pistol. No shots were fired.
The pair received national attention, including from then-President Donald Trump, and spoke via video at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
They pleaded guilty to misdemeanors for the gun-waving incident and were fined. Republican Gov. Mike Parsons pardoned them in August.
Virginia
U.S. woman to plead guilty to leading Islamic State battalion
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — An American woman was set to plead guilty Tuesday to leading an all-female battalion of Islamic State militants in Syria, court records show.
A plea hearing for Allison Fluke-Ekren was to take place in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, according to a court notation. Her lawyer did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Fluke-Ekren, who once lived in Kansas, was brought to the U.S. in January to face a criminal charge of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. She moved to Egypt in 2008 and starting in late 2016, according to prosecutors, she led an all-female Islamic State unit in the Syrian city of Raqqa that was trained in the use of AK-47 rifles, grenades and suicide belts.
A detention memo filed by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Raj Parekh says she trained children how to use assault rifles and at least one witness saw one of her children — approximately 6 or 7 years old — holding a machine gun in the family’s home in Syria.
Prosecutors have also said Fluke-Ekren wanted to recruit operatives to attack a college campus in the U.S. and discussed a terrorist attack on a shopping mall. She told one witness that “she considered any attack that did not kill a large number of individuals to be a waste of resources,” according to an FBI affidavit.
A criminal complaint against Fluke-Ekren was filed under seal in 2019 but not made public until she was brought back to the U.S. to face charges.
Washington
Couple sentenced after fraud convictions
SEATTLE (AP) — An Auburn couple that defrauded thousands of people of more than $30 million was sentenced to prison on Monday.
Bernard Ross Hansen was sentenced to 11 years and Diane Renee Erdman received 5 years. A judge ordered them both to pay more than $30 million in restitution, KING5 reported.
Hansen, the former president and CEO of Northwest Territorial Mint, was convicted of 14 federal felonies, including wire fraud and mail fraud. Erdmann was convicted of 13 counts of wire fraud and mail fraud.
Prosecutors increased sentencing recommendations for Hansen and Erdmann to reflect an 11-day manhunt after they failed to appear at their original sentencing hearing.
When the couple was arrested on the Olympic Peninsula at the end of the search, they had three loaded guns in their vehicle, court records said.
The couple defrauded about 3,000 of their customers while running a bullion business, Northwest Territorial Mint, with offices in Auburn and Federal Way.
The two used customer money to expand the business and pay for personal expenses, prosecutors said. New customer money was used to pay off older customers. More than 2,500 paid for orders or made bullion sales or exchanges that were either never fulfilled or never refunded, resulting in a total loss of more than $25 million.
