Colorado
Woman pleads guilty in cross-burning hoax during mayoral campaign
DENVER (AP) — A woman who was part of a group charged with setting a cross on fire in front of a defaced campaign sign for a candidate who became Colorado Springs’ first Black mayor pleaded guilty on Tuesday in what authorities say was a hoax.
Deanna West, one of three people indicted in the 2023 incident, pleaded guilty in Denver federal court to one count of being part of a conspiracy to set the fire and then spread false information about it in the run-up to the election of Mayor Yemi Mobolade.
In exchange, prosecutors said they would drop an additional charge related to setting the fire.
Prosecutors say that after staging the cross burning, a photo and video of it were sent to media and civic organizations making it seem like an attack on Mobolade.
According to the plea agreement, the conspiracy’s goal was to interfere in the campaign of Mobolade’s opponent and create the belief that Mobolade was being discouraged from running because of his race. West was dependent on one of the other three people charged, Derrick Bernard, for employment and housing and agreed to participate to curry favor with him, the document said.
Lawyers for Bernard and the third person charged, Ashley Blackcloud, said in court filings that the government’s evidence shows they were trying to help Mobolade win by generating outrage. They argued that the actions were a kind of political theater, which they say is free speech protected by the First Amendment.
Both are asking for charges against their clients to be dropped because they say no one was threatened by the cross set on fire in the middle of the night, which no one other than the defendants apparently saw.
According to the indictment, Bernard communicated with Mobolade before the cross-burning on April 23, 2023, and after Mobolade won election in a May 6, 2023, runoff election.
About a week before the cross-burning, Bernard told the then-candidate in a Facebook message that he was, “mobilizing my squadron in defense and for the final push. Black ops style big brother. The klan cannot be allowed to run this city again.”
They spoke for about five minutes on the telephone three days after the incident.
Mobolade has denied having any knowledge, warning or involvement in the crime.
A city spokesperson, Vanessa Zink, on Tuesday referred a reporter to a video statement that Mobolade posted on social media in December, shortly after the three were indicted. In it, the mayor said he knew Bernard as a “local media personality.”
Mobolade also showed a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice saying he had been identified as a victim or potential victim during the investigation into the cross burning. He said he willingly provided all communications sought by investigators.
Texas
Court stays execution of man days before he was set to die by lethal injection
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas appeals court on Tuesday halted the execution of a man who has spent more than 30 years on death row and had been set to die by lethal injection this week over the killings of six girls and young women found buried in the desert near El Paso.
It was the second scheduled execution in the U.S. halted on Tuesday after a federal judge stopped Louisiana’s first death row execution using nitrogen gas, which was to take place next week.
In Texas, the order was another reprieve for David Leonard Wood, who in 2009 was about 24 hours away from execution when it was halted over claims he is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for execution.
Those claims were later rejected by a judge and Wood, 67, had been set to die Thursday. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, issued a stay of execution after his latest appeal, which renewed his claims of innocence.
The court put Wood’s execution on pause “until further order.” It did not elaborate on the decision in a brief three-page order.
Had Wood been executed this week, he would have spent 32 years and two months on Texas’ death row, the longest time a Texas inmate has waited before being put to death.
The 1987 murders remained unsolved for several years until authorities say Wood bragged to a cellmate that he was the so-called “Desert Killer.” The victims’ bodies were found buried in shallow graves in the same desert area northeast of El Paso.
Authorities said Wood gave rides to the victims and then drove them into the desert, where he sexually assaulted and killed them. The victims were Rosa Casio and Ivy Williams, both 23; Karen Baker, 21; Angelica Frausto, 17; Desiree Wheatley, 15; and Dawn Smith, 14.
Two other girls and a young woman were also reported missing but were never found.
Wood, a repeat convicted sex offender who had worked as a mechanic, has long maintained his innocence.
“I did not do it. I am innocent of this case. I’ll fight it,” Wood said in recent documents filed in his appeals.
On March 4, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles declined a request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty or grant him a 90-day reprieve.
His lawyers have for years sought to have hundreds of pieces of evidence tested for DNA after testing in 2011 of bloodstains on the clothing Smith wore found a male DNA profile that was not Wood. The Texas Attorney General’s Office has fought against new DNA tests and various courts have denied Wood’s request for it.
Prior to the court’s decision Tuesday, Gregory Wiercioch, one of Wood’s attorneys, said that when authorities identified Wood as a suspect, they focused on him and not on the evidence they had.
“We’ve tried to make it clear to the courts that he’s innocent, and we’ll see if anyone listens,” Wiercioch said.
Woman pleads guilty in cross-burning hoax during mayoral campaign
DENVER (AP) — A woman who was part of a group charged with setting a cross on fire in front of a defaced campaign sign for a candidate who became Colorado Springs’ first Black mayor pleaded guilty on Tuesday in what authorities say was a hoax.
Deanna West, one of three people indicted in the 2023 incident, pleaded guilty in Denver federal court to one count of being part of a conspiracy to set the fire and then spread false information about it in the run-up to the election of Mayor Yemi Mobolade.
In exchange, prosecutors said they would drop an additional charge related to setting the fire.
Prosecutors say that after staging the cross burning, a photo and video of it were sent to media and civic organizations making it seem like an attack on Mobolade.
According to the plea agreement, the conspiracy’s goal was to interfere in the campaign of Mobolade’s opponent and create the belief that Mobolade was being discouraged from running because of his race. West was dependent on one of the other three people charged, Derrick Bernard, for employment and housing and agreed to participate to curry favor with him, the document said.
Lawyers for Bernard and the third person charged, Ashley Blackcloud, said in court filings that the government’s evidence shows they were trying to help Mobolade win by generating outrage. They argued that the actions were a kind of political theater, which they say is free speech protected by the First Amendment.
Both are asking for charges against their clients to be dropped because they say no one was threatened by the cross set on fire in the middle of the night, which no one other than the defendants apparently saw.
According to the indictment, Bernard communicated with Mobolade before the cross-burning on April 23, 2023, and after Mobolade won election in a May 6, 2023, runoff election.
About a week before the cross-burning, Bernard told the then-candidate in a Facebook message that he was, “mobilizing my squadron in defense and for the final push. Black ops style big brother. The klan cannot be allowed to run this city again.”
They spoke for about five minutes on the telephone three days after the incident.
Mobolade has denied having any knowledge, warning or involvement in the crime.
A city spokesperson, Vanessa Zink, on Tuesday referred a reporter to a video statement that Mobolade posted on social media in December, shortly after the three were indicted. In it, the mayor said he knew Bernard as a “local media personality.”
Mobolade also showed a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice saying he had been identified as a victim or potential victim during the investigation into the cross burning. He said he willingly provided all communications sought by investigators.
Texas
Court stays execution of man days before he was set to die by lethal injection
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas appeals court on Tuesday halted the execution of a man who has spent more than 30 years on death row and had been set to die by lethal injection this week over the killings of six girls and young women found buried in the desert near El Paso.
It was the second scheduled execution in the U.S. halted on Tuesday after a federal judge stopped Louisiana’s first death row execution using nitrogen gas, which was to take place next week.
In Texas, the order was another reprieve for David Leonard Wood, who in 2009 was about 24 hours away from execution when it was halted over claims he is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for execution.
Those claims were later rejected by a judge and Wood, 67, had been set to die Thursday. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, issued a stay of execution after his latest appeal, which renewed his claims of innocence.
The court put Wood’s execution on pause “until further order.” It did not elaborate on the decision in a brief three-page order.
Had Wood been executed this week, he would have spent 32 years and two months on Texas’ death row, the longest time a Texas inmate has waited before being put to death.
The 1987 murders remained unsolved for several years until authorities say Wood bragged to a cellmate that he was the so-called “Desert Killer.” The victims’ bodies were found buried in shallow graves in the same desert area northeast of El Paso.
Authorities said Wood gave rides to the victims and then drove them into the desert, where he sexually assaulted and killed them. The victims were Rosa Casio and Ivy Williams, both 23; Karen Baker, 21; Angelica Frausto, 17; Desiree Wheatley, 15; and Dawn Smith, 14.
Two other girls and a young woman were also reported missing but were never found.
Wood, a repeat convicted sex offender who had worked as a mechanic, has long maintained his innocence.
“I did not do it. I am innocent of this case. I’ll fight it,” Wood said in recent documents filed in his appeals.
On March 4, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles declined a request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty or grant him a 90-day reprieve.
His lawyers have for years sought to have hundreds of pieces of evidence tested for DNA after testing in 2011 of bloodstains on the clothing Smith wore found a male DNA profile that was not Wood. The Texas Attorney General’s Office has fought against new DNA tests and various courts have denied Wood’s request for it.
Prior to the court’s decision Tuesday, Gregory Wiercioch, one of Wood’s attorneys, said that when authorities identified Wood as a suspect, they focused on him and not on the evidence they had.
“We’ve tried to make it clear to the courts that he’s innocent, and we’ll see if anyone listens,” Wiercioch said.
