California
Man accused of sending his 17-year-old son to rob and kill rapper found guilty of murder
COMPTON, Calif. (AP) — A Los Angeles County jury on Wednesday found a man guilty of sending his 17-year-old son to kill rapper PnB Rock.
After deliberating for about four hours, jurors convicted Freddie Trone, 42, of one count of murder, two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery.
Both sides at the two-week trial agreed that the teen walked into Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in South Los Angeles in September of 2022 and shot the Philadelphia hip-hop star while robbing him of his jewelry as he ate with the mother of his 4-year-old daughter.
The prosecution said he was acting on his father’s orders while the defense said Trone was only an accessory after the fact.
The now-19-year-old was charged with murder but is in the custody of the juvenile system and a judge has found that he is not currently competent to stand trial.
The Associated Press does not typically name minors who are accused of crimes.
Another man, Tremont Jones, was found guilty Wednesday of two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy. Jones was not charged with murder.
David Haas, Jones’ lawyer, said he plans to appeal, while Trone’s lawyer, Winston McKesson, said he plans to file a motion for a new trial.
“There was no evidence produced that he conspired to commit murder,” McKesson told The Associated Press after the verdict. “There’s no evidence there was a conversation about murder, no evidence there was a conversation about a gun.”
He added, “There is no evidence he gave his son a gun, and no evidence he told him to shoot the guy. The only evidence the jury found is that he dropped him off and picked him up.”
PnB Rock, the Philadelphia rapper whose legal name is Rakim Allen, was best known for his 2016 hit “Selfish” and for guest appearances on other artists’ songs such as YFN Lucci’s “Everyday We Lit” and Ed Sheeran’s “Cross Me” with Chance the Rapper. He was 30.
The defense made the rare and risky move of putting Trone on the stand, where he vehemently denied any part in prompting the killing.
“I never had nothing to do with it,” Trone testified Monday. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t tell nobody to do nothing. I didn’t hand nobody no gun.”
Trone acknowledged on the stand that the crimes were “heinous” and that his son was “dangerous.”
Deputy District Attorney Timothy Richardson seized on both during his closing argument, saying, “But you send your 17-year-old son with knowledge of the problems he possesses to do this?”
Richardson emphasized to jurors that a non-shooter can be guilty of felony murder when they are a “major participant” who acted with “reckless indifference to human life.”
Video showed Trone in the parking lot of the restaurant about 30 minutes before the killing. Trone testified that he had reason to be there because he was drumming up business for his nearby beauty shop.
Richardson showed a surveillance image of Jones fist-bumping Allen, whose arm had valuable pieces of jewelry on it. Prosecutors said Jones then tipped Trone off to the rapper’s presence, and his jewelry.
Louisiana
Mayor’s ex-bodyguard pleads not guilty to charges of fraud
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former police bodyguard for New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges that he filed fraudulent payroll documents and made false statements about an alleged romantic relationship with Cantrell.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Currault allowed Jeffrey Vappie to remain free without bail. She ordered Vappie not to discuss his case with Cantrell. But she stopped short of granting a request from Assistant U.S. Attorney Jordan Ginsburg that Vappie have no contact with Cantrell while the case is pending.
Defense attorney Shaun Clarke had objected strenuously to the prosecution motion, repeatedly referring to Vappie and Cantrell as friends.
“He’s standing here, indicted, because the government has criminalized his friendship with Ms. Cantrell,” Clarke told Currault.
Currault didn’t rule out further restrictions on Vappie’s contact with the mayor but delayed a final decision pending further court arguments.
Charges against Vappie include seven counts of wire fraud. The July 19 indictment cites a series of payroll deposits into Vappie’s bank account for time he claimed to be working as a member of the police department’s “executive protection unit” when, prosecutors allege, he was off duty.
There is also a single count of making false statements, alleging he lied to the FBI about his “romantic and physical” relationship with Cantrell. Such a relationship would have violated police department policy.
Cantrell, New Orleans’ first female mayor, has declined to comment on the case but has in the past denied a romantic relationship with Vappie. The Democratic mayor is identified in the indictment only as Public Official 1 who was elected mayor in November 2017 and again four years later — coinciding with dates Cantrell was elected.
No charges have been filed against Cantrell, but she faces related litigation in an unfolding scandal that has dogged her for much of her second term, which began in January 2022.
A woman who photographed Cantrell and Vappie together at a French Quarter restaurant in April has sued Cantrell for defamation. Cantrell had accused the woman, a Quarter resident who photographed the two from her apartment balcony, of stalking her.
A state judge threw out the stalking lawsuit and the woman filed a lawsuit against Cantrell and several police officers alleging that they improperly accessed state and federal databases seeking information on the woman.
Colorado
Former college baseball player sues, says NCAA, conferences fixed wages with scholarship limits
A former college baseball player is suing the NCAA and power conferences, accusing the leagues of wage fixing through scholarship limits.
The federal antitrust cases was filed in Colorado this week by former TCU baseball player Riley Cornelio and seeks class-action status for college baseball and hockey players.
“Defendant and its members operate as a cartel, and the capping of scholarship money at artificially low levels in these sports results in wage fixing amongst horizontal competitors in a market for services,” the complaint says. “The anticompetitive effects are as clear as with any other wage fix, and it is an unlawful restraint under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.”
The NCAA, Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference have an agreement in place to settle three antitrust lawsuits that challenged compensation rules for $2.78 billion in damages to former and current college athletes.
The settlement, which still needs to be approved by a judge, also includes a plan to allow schools to implement a revenue-sharing system with athletes and increase the number of scholarship schools would be permitted — though not required — to hand out in most Division I sports. Scholarship limits would be replaced by roster caps.
“Even if the rule is finally repealed, there will still be a need to make whole the athletes who suffered,” the lawsuit says.
The scholarship limit for baseball has been 11.7 per team. Most teams break those scholarships into pieces, leaving players with partial scholarships. Under the new proposed system, baseball rosters will be capped at 34 players and schools can choose to fund them all with full scholarships.
The NCAA and conferences are hoping the settlement helps put an end to the constant legal battles that have chipped away at the foundation of college sports over the last decade.
But the enterprise is still ripe for challenges.
The Cornelio lawsuit was filed by the same attorneys who are leading an antitrust case against the NCAA that has similarities to those that are part of the settlement. In that case, former Colorado football player Alex Fontenot filed his lawsuit last November, claiming NCAA rules have illegally prevented college athletes from earning their fair share of the millions of dollars in revenue schools bring in.
The plaintffs’ attorneys in the House case requested that Fontenot be joined with another lawsuit that is part of the settlement, but a Colorado judge denied the request.
Minnesota
State Supreme Court upholds law restoring right to vote to people with felony convictions
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a 2023 state law that restores voting rights for felons once they have completed their prison sentences.
The new law was popular with Democrats in the state, including Gov. Tim Walz, who signed it and who is Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the presidential race. The timing of the decision is important because early voting for next week’s primary election is already underway. Voting for the Nov. 5 general election begins Sept. 20.
The court rejected a challenge from the conservative Minnesota Voters Alliance. A lower court judge had previously thrown out the group’s lawsuit after deciding it lacked the legal standing to sue and failed to prove that the Legislature overstepped its authority when it voted to expand voting rights for people who were formerly incarcerated for a felony. The high court agreed.
Before the new law, felons had to complete their probation before they could regain their eligibility to vote. An estimated 55,000 people with felony records gained the right to vote as a result.
Minnesota Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison had been pushing for the change since he was in the Legislature.
“Democracy is not guaranteed — it is earned by protecting and expanding it,” Ellison said in a statement. “I’m proud restore the vote is definitively the law of the land today more than 20 years after I first proposed it as a state legislator. I encourage all Minnesotans who are eligible to vote to do so and to take full part in our democracy.”
Minnesota was among more than a dozen states that considered restoring voting rights for felons in recent years. Advocates for the change argued that disenfranchising them disproportionately affects people of color because of biases in the legal system. An estimated 55,000 Minnesota residents regained the right to vote because of the change.
Nebraska officials went the other way and decided last month that residents with felony convictions could still be denied voting rights despite a law passed this year to immediately restore the voting rights of people who have finished serving their felony convictions. That decision by Nebraska’s attorney general and secretary of state, both of whom are Republicans, has been challenged in a lawsuit.
Man accused of sending his 17-year-old son to rob and kill rapper found guilty of murder
COMPTON, Calif. (AP) — A Los Angeles County jury on Wednesday found a man guilty of sending his 17-year-old son to kill rapper PnB Rock.
After deliberating for about four hours, jurors convicted Freddie Trone, 42, of one count of murder, two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery.
Both sides at the two-week trial agreed that the teen walked into Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in South Los Angeles in September of 2022 and shot the Philadelphia hip-hop star while robbing him of his jewelry as he ate with the mother of his 4-year-old daughter.
The prosecution said he was acting on his father’s orders while the defense said Trone was only an accessory after the fact.
The now-19-year-old was charged with murder but is in the custody of the juvenile system and a judge has found that he is not currently competent to stand trial.
The Associated Press does not typically name minors who are accused of crimes.
Another man, Tremont Jones, was found guilty Wednesday of two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy. Jones was not charged with murder.
David Haas, Jones’ lawyer, said he plans to appeal, while Trone’s lawyer, Winston McKesson, said he plans to file a motion for a new trial.
“There was no evidence produced that he conspired to commit murder,” McKesson told The Associated Press after the verdict. “There’s no evidence there was a conversation about murder, no evidence there was a conversation about a gun.”
He added, “There is no evidence he gave his son a gun, and no evidence he told him to shoot the guy. The only evidence the jury found is that he dropped him off and picked him up.”
PnB Rock, the Philadelphia rapper whose legal name is Rakim Allen, was best known for his 2016 hit “Selfish” and for guest appearances on other artists’ songs such as YFN Lucci’s “Everyday We Lit” and Ed Sheeran’s “Cross Me” with Chance the Rapper. He was 30.
The defense made the rare and risky move of putting Trone on the stand, where he vehemently denied any part in prompting the killing.
“I never had nothing to do with it,” Trone testified Monday. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t tell nobody to do nothing. I didn’t hand nobody no gun.”
Trone acknowledged on the stand that the crimes were “heinous” and that his son was “dangerous.”
Deputy District Attorney Timothy Richardson seized on both during his closing argument, saying, “But you send your 17-year-old son with knowledge of the problems he possesses to do this?”
Richardson emphasized to jurors that a non-shooter can be guilty of felony murder when they are a “major participant” who acted with “reckless indifference to human life.”
Video showed Trone in the parking lot of the restaurant about 30 minutes before the killing. Trone testified that he had reason to be there because he was drumming up business for his nearby beauty shop.
Richardson showed a surveillance image of Jones fist-bumping Allen, whose arm had valuable pieces of jewelry on it. Prosecutors said Jones then tipped Trone off to the rapper’s presence, and his jewelry.
Louisiana
Mayor’s ex-bodyguard pleads not guilty to charges of fraud
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former police bodyguard for New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges that he filed fraudulent payroll documents and made false statements about an alleged romantic relationship with Cantrell.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Currault allowed Jeffrey Vappie to remain free without bail. She ordered Vappie not to discuss his case with Cantrell. But she stopped short of granting a request from Assistant U.S. Attorney Jordan Ginsburg that Vappie have no contact with Cantrell while the case is pending.
Defense attorney Shaun Clarke had objected strenuously to the prosecution motion, repeatedly referring to Vappie and Cantrell as friends.
“He’s standing here, indicted, because the government has criminalized his friendship with Ms. Cantrell,” Clarke told Currault.
Currault didn’t rule out further restrictions on Vappie’s contact with the mayor but delayed a final decision pending further court arguments.
Charges against Vappie include seven counts of wire fraud. The July 19 indictment cites a series of payroll deposits into Vappie’s bank account for time he claimed to be working as a member of the police department’s “executive protection unit” when, prosecutors allege, he was off duty.
There is also a single count of making false statements, alleging he lied to the FBI about his “romantic and physical” relationship with Cantrell. Such a relationship would have violated police department policy.
Cantrell, New Orleans’ first female mayor, has declined to comment on the case but has in the past denied a romantic relationship with Vappie. The Democratic mayor is identified in the indictment only as Public Official 1 who was elected mayor in November 2017 and again four years later — coinciding with dates Cantrell was elected.
No charges have been filed against Cantrell, but she faces related litigation in an unfolding scandal that has dogged her for much of her second term, which began in January 2022.
A woman who photographed Cantrell and Vappie together at a French Quarter restaurant in April has sued Cantrell for defamation. Cantrell had accused the woman, a Quarter resident who photographed the two from her apartment balcony, of stalking her.
A state judge threw out the stalking lawsuit and the woman filed a lawsuit against Cantrell and several police officers alleging that they improperly accessed state and federal databases seeking information on the woman.
Colorado
Former college baseball player sues, says NCAA, conferences fixed wages with scholarship limits
A former college baseball player is suing the NCAA and power conferences, accusing the leagues of wage fixing through scholarship limits.
The federal antitrust cases was filed in Colorado this week by former TCU baseball player Riley Cornelio and seeks class-action status for college baseball and hockey players.
“Defendant and its members operate as a cartel, and the capping of scholarship money at artificially low levels in these sports results in wage fixing amongst horizontal competitors in a market for services,” the complaint says. “The anticompetitive effects are as clear as with any other wage fix, and it is an unlawful restraint under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.”
The NCAA, Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference have an agreement in place to settle three antitrust lawsuits that challenged compensation rules for $2.78 billion in damages to former and current college athletes.
The settlement, which still needs to be approved by a judge, also includes a plan to allow schools to implement a revenue-sharing system with athletes and increase the number of scholarship schools would be permitted — though not required — to hand out in most Division I sports. Scholarship limits would be replaced by roster caps.
“Even if the rule is finally repealed, there will still be a need to make whole the athletes who suffered,” the lawsuit says.
The scholarship limit for baseball has been 11.7 per team. Most teams break those scholarships into pieces, leaving players with partial scholarships. Under the new proposed system, baseball rosters will be capped at 34 players and schools can choose to fund them all with full scholarships.
The NCAA and conferences are hoping the settlement helps put an end to the constant legal battles that have chipped away at the foundation of college sports over the last decade.
But the enterprise is still ripe for challenges.
The Cornelio lawsuit was filed by the same attorneys who are leading an antitrust case against the NCAA that has similarities to those that are part of the settlement. In that case, former Colorado football player Alex Fontenot filed his lawsuit last November, claiming NCAA rules have illegally prevented college athletes from earning their fair share of the millions of dollars in revenue schools bring in.
The plaintffs’ attorneys in the House case requested that Fontenot be joined with another lawsuit that is part of the settlement, but a Colorado judge denied the request.
Minnesota
State Supreme Court upholds law restoring right to vote to people with felony convictions
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a 2023 state law that restores voting rights for felons once they have completed their prison sentences.
The new law was popular with Democrats in the state, including Gov. Tim Walz, who signed it and who is Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the presidential race. The timing of the decision is important because early voting for next week’s primary election is already underway. Voting for the Nov. 5 general election begins Sept. 20.
The court rejected a challenge from the conservative Minnesota Voters Alliance. A lower court judge had previously thrown out the group’s lawsuit after deciding it lacked the legal standing to sue and failed to prove that the Legislature overstepped its authority when it voted to expand voting rights for people who were formerly incarcerated for a felony. The high court agreed.
Before the new law, felons had to complete their probation before they could regain their eligibility to vote. An estimated 55,000 people with felony records gained the right to vote as a result.
Minnesota Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison had been pushing for the change since he was in the Legislature.
“Democracy is not guaranteed — it is earned by protecting and expanding it,” Ellison said in a statement. “I’m proud restore the vote is definitively the law of the land today more than 20 years after I first proposed it as a state legislator. I encourage all Minnesotans who are eligible to vote to do so and to take full part in our democracy.”
Minnesota was among more than a dozen states that considered restoring voting rights for felons in recent years. Advocates for the change argued that disenfranchising them disproportionately affects people of color because of biases in the legal system. An estimated 55,000 Minnesota residents regained the right to vote because of the change.
Nebraska officials went the other way and decided last month that residents with felony convictions could still be denied voting rights despite a law passed this year to immediately restore the voting rights of people who have finished serving their felony convictions. That decision by Nebraska’s attorney general and secretary of state, both of whom are Republicans, has been challenged in a lawsuit.
