Ohio
2 officers charged with reckless homicide in death of man in custody after crash arrest
CANTON, Ohio (AP) — Prosecutors in Ohio have announced reckless homicide charges against two police officers in the death of a man who was handcuffed and left face down on the floor of a social club in Canton while telling officers he couldn’t breathe.
Stark County prosecutor Kyle Stone told reporters Saturday that the charges against Canton officers Beau Schoenegge and Camden Burch were brought by a grand jury in the April 18 death of Frank Tyson, a 53-year-old East Canton resident taken into custody shortly after a vehicle crash that had severed a utility pole.
Police body-camera footage showed Tyson, who was Black, resisting and saying repeatedly, “They’re trying to kill me” and “Call the sheriff” as he was taken to the floor, and he told officers he could not breathe.
Officers told Tyson he was fine, to calm down and to stop fighting as he was handcuffed face down, and officers joked with bystanders and leafed through Tyson’s wallet before realizing he was in a medical crisis.
The county coroner’s office ruled Tyson’s death a homicide in August, also listing as contributing factors a heart condition and cocaine and alcohol intoxication.
Stone said the charges were third-degree felonies punishable by a maximum term of 36 months in prison and a $10,000 fine. He said in response to a question Saturday that there was no evidence to support charges against any bystander.
The Stark County sheriff’s office confirmed Saturday that Schoenegge and Burch had been booked into the county jail. An official said there was no information available about who might be representing them. The Canton police department earlier said the two had been placed on paid administrative leave per department policy.
Tyson family attorney Bobby DiCello said in a statement that the arrests came as a relief because the officers involved in what he called Tyson’s “inhumane and brutal death will not escape prosecution.” But he called it
“bittersweet because it makes official what they have long known: Frank is a victim of homicide.”
The president of the county’s NAACP chapter, Hector McDaniel, called the charges “consistent with the behavior we saw.”
“We believe that we’re moving in the right direction towards transparency and accountability and truth,” McDaniel said, according to the Canton Repository.
Tyson had been released from state prison on April 6 after serving 24 years on a kidnapping and theft case and was almost immediately declared a post-release control supervision violator for failing to report to a parole officer, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Pennsylvania
Man who fled prison after being charged with 4 murders pleads guilty to slayings, other crimes
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man who escaped from prison last year after being charged with four murders and then spent a week and a half on the run before he was recaptured has pleaded guilty to the slayings and other crimes.
Ameen Hurst, 20, shackled to a wooden chair, entered the plea Friday to 28 counts — including four counts of third-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder as well as escape, conspiracy and firearms crimes, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Hurst was arrested at age 16 in 2021 and charged in four killings and two armed robberies. Law enforcement authorities said he was affiliated with two allied Philadelphia gangs responsible for a wave of violence.
Hurst and another inmate, Nasir Grant, escaped in May of last year from the Philadelphia Industrial Correction Center in northeast Philadelphia. Grant was taken into custody four days later and Hurst was on the run for 10 days before he was rearrested.
Prosecutors said the two cut a hole in a fence surrounding a recreation yard at the prison and were gone for nearly 19 hours before officials knew they were missing. Authorities also blamed switched-off motion sensors and a sleeping guard, and several people were also charged with having helped the escapees.
Assistant District Attorney Anthony Voci said investigators are pleased by the outcome of the cases, mostly because the victims’ families will be spared a lengthy trial. He said, however, that it was “difficult to imagine that four young lives were extinguished by somebody who was 16 years old. That’s a tragedy in and of itself.”
He also said that Hurst laughed about the killings in calls from behind bars, showing “a level of callousness and remorselessness that is frightening.” Assistant District Attorney Brett Zakeosian said that while on the run, Hurst rented a recording studio and recorded a new rap song that he has since released online.
Defense attorney Gary Silver declined comment Friday. Hurst is expected to be sentenced in two weeks.
New Hampshire
Man pleads guilty to booking politicians and professors to brothels near D.C. and Boston
MEREDITH, N.H. (AP) — A second person has pleaded guilty to helping run a high-end brothel network whose clients around Boston and Washington, D.C., included elected officials, military officers, professors and lawyers, prosecutors said Thursday.
Junmyung Lee, 31, of Dedham, Massachusetts, served primarily as the booking agent for the prostitution network, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to persuade, coerce or entice people to travel interstate to engage in prostitution, and one count of money laundering. He faces up to 25 years in prison when he’s sentenced in February.
His plea comes after Han Lee, 42, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty last month to running the operation. Officials say Han Lee concealed more than $1 million in proceeds by converting the cash into money orders and other items to make it seem legitimate. She is due to be sentenced Dec. 20. James Lee, 69, of Torrance, California, was indicted on the same charges as the other two defendants.
Junmyung Lee’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Authorities have not publicly named or charged any of the more than 5,000 clients, although prosecutors say they’re committed to holding those who fueled the demand to account. Some of the clients have appealed to the highest court in Massachusetts, seeking to keep their names private.
The women who worked in the brothels were considered victims and weren’t charged, prosecutors said.
Junmyung Lee was recruited in late 2021 as the business expanded, prosecutors said, and worked for the prostitution ring for about two years. Many clients reached them through two websites, www.bostontoptenl0.com and www. browneyesgirlsva.blog.
Han Lee paid Junmyung Lee up to $8,000 cash per month to vet clients and book appointments and transport some of the women sex workers to and from the airport, they said. Junmyung Lee used some of his proceeds to buy a Corvette, authorities said.
Junmyung Lee communicated directly with customers, using different cellphones for Massachusetts and Virginia, prosecutors said. Each of the cellphones contained numbers for more than 2,800 clients and a third cellphone was never recovered, prosecutors said.
The vetting process frequently included having the men confirm their identities by sending photographs of themselves and either a photograph of their work or government-issued identification card, according to the indictment.
The operators rented high-end apartments to use as brothels, with four locations in Massachusetts and two in Virginia, prosecutors said.
The scheme raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars, with men paying about $350 to $600 per hour or more, depending on the services, according to prosecutors.
New York
Man pleads guilty in smuggling scheme intended to aid Russia’s war effort
NEW YORK (AP) — A New Jersey man who was among seven people charged with smuggling electronic components to aid Russia’s war effort pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and other charges, authorities said.
Vadim Yermolenko, 43, faces up to 30 years in prison for his role in a transnational procurement and money laundering network that sought to acquire sensitive electronics for Russian military and intelligence services, Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.
Yermolenko, who lives in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey and has dual U.S. and Russian citizenship, was indicted along with six other people in December 2022.
Prosecutors said the conspirators worked with two Moscow-based companies controlled by Russian intelligence services to acquire electronic components in the U.S. that have civilian uses but can also be used to make nuclear and hypersonic weapons and in quantum computing.
The exporting of the technology violated U.S. sanctions, prosecutors said.
The prosecution was coordinated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency entity dedicated to enforcing sanctions imposed after Russian invaded Ukraine.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in statement that Yermolenko “joins the nearly two dozen other criminals that our Task Force KleptoCapture has brought to justice in American courtrooms over the past two and a half years for enabling Russia’s military aggression.”
A message seeking comment was sent to Yermolenko’s attorney with the federal public defender’s office.
Prosecutors said Yermolenko helped set up shell companies and U.S. bank accounts to move money and export-controlled goods. Money from one of his accounts was used to purchase export-controlled sniper bullets that were intercepted in Estonia before they could be smuggled into Russia, they said.
One of Yermolenko’s co-defendants, Alexey Brayman of Merrimack, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty previously to conspiracy to defraud the United States and is awaiting sentencing.
Another, Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service, was arrested in Estonia and extradited to the United States. He was later released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange that included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and other individuals.
The four others named in the indictment are Russian nationals who remain at large, prosecutors said.
2 officers charged with reckless homicide in death of man in custody after crash arrest
CANTON, Ohio (AP) — Prosecutors in Ohio have announced reckless homicide charges against two police officers in the death of a man who was handcuffed and left face down on the floor of a social club in Canton while telling officers he couldn’t breathe.
Stark County prosecutor Kyle Stone told reporters Saturday that the charges against Canton officers Beau Schoenegge and Camden Burch were brought by a grand jury in the April 18 death of Frank Tyson, a 53-year-old East Canton resident taken into custody shortly after a vehicle crash that had severed a utility pole.
Police body-camera footage showed Tyson, who was Black, resisting and saying repeatedly, “They’re trying to kill me” and “Call the sheriff” as he was taken to the floor, and he told officers he could not breathe.
Officers told Tyson he was fine, to calm down and to stop fighting as he was handcuffed face down, and officers joked with bystanders and leafed through Tyson’s wallet before realizing he was in a medical crisis.
The county coroner’s office ruled Tyson’s death a homicide in August, also listing as contributing factors a heart condition and cocaine and alcohol intoxication.
Stone said the charges were third-degree felonies punishable by a maximum term of 36 months in prison and a $10,000 fine. He said in response to a question Saturday that there was no evidence to support charges against any bystander.
The Stark County sheriff’s office confirmed Saturday that Schoenegge and Burch had been booked into the county jail. An official said there was no information available about who might be representing them. The Canton police department earlier said the two had been placed on paid administrative leave per department policy.
Tyson family attorney Bobby DiCello said in a statement that the arrests came as a relief because the officers involved in what he called Tyson’s “inhumane and brutal death will not escape prosecution.” But he called it
“bittersweet because it makes official what they have long known: Frank is a victim of homicide.”
The president of the county’s NAACP chapter, Hector McDaniel, called the charges “consistent with the behavior we saw.”
“We believe that we’re moving in the right direction towards transparency and accountability and truth,” McDaniel said, according to the Canton Repository.
Tyson had been released from state prison on April 6 after serving 24 years on a kidnapping and theft case and was almost immediately declared a post-release control supervision violator for failing to report to a parole officer, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Pennsylvania
Man who fled prison after being charged with 4 murders pleads guilty to slayings, other crimes
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man who escaped from prison last year after being charged with four murders and then spent a week and a half on the run before he was recaptured has pleaded guilty to the slayings and other crimes.
Ameen Hurst, 20, shackled to a wooden chair, entered the plea Friday to 28 counts — including four counts of third-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder as well as escape, conspiracy and firearms crimes, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Hurst was arrested at age 16 in 2021 and charged in four killings and two armed robberies. Law enforcement authorities said he was affiliated with two allied Philadelphia gangs responsible for a wave of violence.
Hurst and another inmate, Nasir Grant, escaped in May of last year from the Philadelphia Industrial Correction Center in northeast Philadelphia. Grant was taken into custody four days later and Hurst was on the run for 10 days before he was rearrested.
Prosecutors said the two cut a hole in a fence surrounding a recreation yard at the prison and were gone for nearly 19 hours before officials knew they were missing. Authorities also blamed switched-off motion sensors and a sleeping guard, and several people were also charged with having helped the escapees.
Assistant District Attorney Anthony Voci said investigators are pleased by the outcome of the cases, mostly because the victims’ families will be spared a lengthy trial. He said, however, that it was “difficult to imagine that four young lives were extinguished by somebody who was 16 years old. That’s a tragedy in and of itself.”
He also said that Hurst laughed about the killings in calls from behind bars, showing “a level of callousness and remorselessness that is frightening.” Assistant District Attorney Brett Zakeosian said that while on the run, Hurst rented a recording studio and recorded a new rap song that he has since released online.
Defense attorney Gary Silver declined comment Friday. Hurst is expected to be sentenced in two weeks.
New Hampshire
Man pleads guilty to booking politicians and professors to brothels near D.C. and Boston
MEREDITH, N.H. (AP) — A second person has pleaded guilty to helping run a high-end brothel network whose clients around Boston and Washington, D.C., included elected officials, military officers, professors and lawyers, prosecutors said Thursday.
Junmyung Lee, 31, of Dedham, Massachusetts, served primarily as the booking agent for the prostitution network, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to persuade, coerce or entice people to travel interstate to engage in prostitution, and one count of money laundering. He faces up to 25 years in prison when he’s sentenced in February.
His plea comes after Han Lee, 42, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty last month to running the operation. Officials say Han Lee concealed more than $1 million in proceeds by converting the cash into money orders and other items to make it seem legitimate. She is due to be sentenced Dec. 20. James Lee, 69, of Torrance, California, was indicted on the same charges as the other two defendants.
Junmyung Lee’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Authorities have not publicly named or charged any of the more than 5,000 clients, although prosecutors say they’re committed to holding those who fueled the demand to account. Some of the clients have appealed to the highest court in Massachusetts, seeking to keep their names private.
The women who worked in the brothels were considered victims and weren’t charged, prosecutors said.
Junmyung Lee was recruited in late 2021 as the business expanded, prosecutors said, and worked for the prostitution ring for about two years. Many clients reached them through two websites, www.bostontoptenl0.com and www. browneyesgirlsva.blog.
Han Lee paid Junmyung Lee up to $8,000 cash per month to vet clients and book appointments and transport some of the women sex workers to and from the airport, they said. Junmyung Lee used some of his proceeds to buy a Corvette, authorities said.
Junmyung Lee communicated directly with customers, using different cellphones for Massachusetts and Virginia, prosecutors said. Each of the cellphones contained numbers for more than 2,800 clients and a third cellphone was never recovered, prosecutors said.
The vetting process frequently included having the men confirm their identities by sending photographs of themselves and either a photograph of their work or government-issued identification card, according to the indictment.
The operators rented high-end apartments to use as brothels, with four locations in Massachusetts and two in Virginia, prosecutors said.
The scheme raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars, with men paying about $350 to $600 per hour or more, depending on the services, according to prosecutors.
New York
Man pleads guilty in smuggling scheme intended to aid Russia’s war effort
NEW YORK (AP) — A New Jersey man who was among seven people charged with smuggling electronic components to aid Russia’s war effort pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and other charges, authorities said.
Vadim Yermolenko, 43, faces up to 30 years in prison for his role in a transnational procurement and money laundering network that sought to acquire sensitive electronics for Russian military and intelligence services, Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.
Yermolenko, who lives in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey and has dual U.S. and Russian citizenship, was indicted along with six other people in December 2022.
Prosecutors said the conspirators worked with two Moscow-based companies controlled by Russian intelligence services to acquire electronic components in the U.S. that have civilian uses but can also be used to make nuclear and hypersonic weapons and in quantum computing.
The exporting of the technology violated U.S. sanctions, prosecutors said.
The prosecution was coordinated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency entity dedicated to enforcing sanctions imposed after Russian invaded Ukraine.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in statement that Yermolenko “joins the nearly two dozen other criminals that our Task Force KleptoCapture has brought to justice in American courtrooms over the past two and a half years for enabling Russia’s military aggression.”
A message seeking comment was sent to Yermolenko’s attorney with the federal public defender’s office.
Prosecutors said Yermolenko helped set up shell companies and U.S. bank accounts to move money and export-controlled goods. Money from one of his accounts was used to purchase export-controlled sniper bullets that were intercepted in Estonia before they could be smuggled into Russia, they said.
One of Yermolenko’s co-defendants, Alexey Brayman of Merrimack, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty previously to conspiracy to defraud the United States and is awaiting sentencing.
Another, Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service, was arrested in Estonia and extradited to the United States. He was later released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange that included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and other individuals.
The four others named in the indictment are Russian nationals who remain at large, prosecutors said.
