National Roundup

New York
Man who served 37 years in prison for killing 2 men released after conviction overturned
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A New York man who served 37 years in prison for the shooting deaths of two people in the 1980s has been released from prison after his conviction was overturned.

The Democrat and Chronicle reports Michael Rhynes left the Attica Correctional Facility on Tuesday afternoon following a court appearance in Rochester.

His daughter, Michelle Miller, who was born three months after Rhynes was arrested, told the newspaper she’d never seen her father outside the confines of prison.

“This will be my first birthday, my first Christmas, my first New Year’s with my father on the outside,” she said. “I think today is the first day I’ve experienced joy. I mean, ever. It’s like a dream.”

Acting state Supreme Court Justice Stephen Miller tossed Rhynes’ 1986 murder conviction last week after two key witnesses, who previously had been in jail with Rhynes, recanted their testimony.

The now-62-year-old was charged in connection with the killing of two people during a botched robbery in 1984 at Rico’s Restaurant in Rochester.

Police had said Rhynes was one of three masked gunmen who entered the restaurant demanding money from the safe. A scuffle ensued, and the owner and a customer were shot and killed before the suspects fled empty-handed.

But the evidence against Rhynes was slim: no DNA, fingerprints or witnesses ever placed him at the scene, the newspaper reported. Prosecutors at the time were prepared to drop the charges before the trial judge urged them to forge ahead.

Kansas
U.S. technology sales to Russia lead to man’s conspiracy plea
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas businessman pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal criminal charges stemming from what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to illegally export aviation-related technology to Russia, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiring to commit crimes against the U.S. and a single count of conspiring to illegally launder money internationally, court records show. His sentencing is set for March 21 and he could face up to 25 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Buyanovsky also agreed to allow the U.S. government to seize $450,000 in equipment and $50,000 in personal assets. The equipment was a pallet of aviation-related devices blocked from export the day before Buyanovsky was arrested in March along with business partner Douglas Edward Robertson.

Their arrests came as the U.S. ramped up sanctions and financial penalties on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Along with thousands of sanctions on people and companies, export controls were meant to limit Russia’s access to computer chips and other products needed to equip a modern military.

A Washington attorney representing Buyanovsky, Aitan D. Goelman, declined comment when reached by phone following Tuesday’s hearing before U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree in Kansas City, Kansas.

Buyanovsky, 60, and Robertson, 56, operated the KanRus Trading Co. together. Prosecutors said the company supplied aircraft electronics to Russian companies and offered repair services for equipment used in Russian-manufactured aircraft.

Kate Brubacher, the U.S. attorney for Kansas, said in a statement that Buyanovsky and Robertson showed they “value greed and profit over freedom and justice.”

Buyanovsky is from Law­rence, Kansas, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Kansas City and home to the main University of Kansas campus. Robertson, the company’s vice president, is from the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, Kansas.

A federal grand jury indictment charged the two men with 26 criminal counts, including conspiracy, exporting controlled goods without a license, falsifying and failing to file electronic export information, and smuggling goods in violation of U.S. law. The indictment alleges that since 2020, the business partners conspired to evade U.S. export laws by concealing and misstating the true end users and destinations of their exports and by shipping equipment through third-party countries.

Robertson was scheduled to appear Wednesday morning before a different judge in Kansas City, Kansas, to enter a plea to the charges against him.

Prosecutors said he, Buyan­ovsky and other conspirators lied to U.S. suppliers; shipped goods through intermediary companies in Armenia, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates; filed false export forms with the U.S. government; and used foreign bank accounts outside Russia to funnel money from Russian customers to KanRus in the U.S.

“Today’s guilty plea demonstrates the Justice Department’s commitment to cut off Moscow from the means to fuel its military and hold those enabling it accountable in a court of law,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement.

Alabama
Ex-correctional officer sentenced for assaulting restrained inmate and cover-up
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A former correctional officer in Alabama was sentenced Tuesday to more than seven years in prison for using excessive force on an inmate and lying on a report in an attempt to cover it up, federal prosecutors said.

Mohammad Shahid Jenkins, 52, a former lieutenant and shift commander at the William E. Donaldson correctional facility in Bessemer, Alabama, “willfully deprived inmate V.R. of his right to be free from excessive force by kicking him, hitting him, spraying him with chemical spray, striking him with a can of chemical spray and striking him with a shoe while (he) was restrained inside a holding cell and not posing a threat,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.

Jenkins pleaded guilty to the offenses on Sept. 12 and was sentenced to 87 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, the department said.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said Jenkins was “supposed to set an example of what proper law enforcement looks like for the less experienced officers he oversaw. Instead, the defendant abused his position of power to repeatedly and viciously assault a restrained inmate, returning to the inmate’s cell several times to renew the assault.”

The inmate involved in the incident died Feb. 25, 2022, nine days after the alleged assault but authorities have not yet labeled his death a homicide.