Alabama
Deputy to plead guilty to assaulting a man having a mental crisis who later died in jail
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama sheriff’s deputy will plead guilty to assaulting a man suffering from a mental health crisis who later died of sepsis and hypothermia in the local jail, court filings made public on Tuesday revealed.
The plea supports a recent onslaught of reports that depict a rampant culture of abuse among the local sheriff’s department in Walker County, in a rural region of northern Alabama.
Carl Lofton Carpenter, 55, agreed to plead guilty to two counts of deprivation of rights, according to the plea. Carpenter and fellow Walker County Sheriff’s Deputy James Handley arrested Tony Mitchell in 2023. Mitchell died in the Walker County jail just two weeks later after he was detained in a concrete cell covered in feces with no toilet or access to medical attention.
Carpenter stepped on Mitchell’s genitals while he was handcuffed, saying, “This is how we treat seizures in Walker County,” according to the plea document. Carpenter then dragged Mitchell on the ground, kicked him and threw him roughly into the police car.
Carpenter assaulted Mitchell even though he was “compliant, obeyed commands, and posed no threat of harm to the officers,” the plea says,
The plea deal says Carpenter “had become accustomed to harming arrestees unnecessarily consistent with the culture of the Walker County Sheriff’s Office.”
The deputies first encountered Mitchell at his residence while responding to a call from one of his relatives who asked for a welfare check on him. The sheriff’s office said at the time that Mitchell was talking about portals to hell and asserted that he had fired a weapon at officers.
The plea also reveals that Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith was directly responsible for sending Mitchell to the local jail where he would later die, “despite (Mitchell) demonstrating symptoms of severe mental illness.”
At least 10 other jail employees have pleaded guilty to charges related to Mitchell’s death. Neither Smith nor lawyers for Carpenter and Handley responded to separate emailed requests for comment on Tuesday evening.
The years long investigation has revealed harrowing details about the weeks leading up to Mitchell’s death. A plea deal made public in January reveals officers intentionally kept the conditions in the Walker County jail “as filthy as possible” to convince county commissioners to increase salaries and the jail budget.
Minutes from a Walker County commissioners meeting confirm that a county commissioner visited the jail two weeks after Mitchell died.
Carpenter faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Handley was indicted in March on charges of assaulting Mitchell and witness tampering for allegedly lying to a separate grand jury about the incident in August.
New York
Two NYPD officers are charged with burglary and forcibly touching a sex worker
NEW YORK (AP) — Two New York City police officers have been suspended after being charged with burglary and forcibly touching a sex worker while responding to a complaint about an illegal brothel, prosecutors said Monday.
Officers Justin McMillan and Justin Colon intentionally turned off their body cameras as they broke into a residential building, stole money and forcibly touched a woman while on duty last July, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.
The patrol officers, who were still on probationary status after entering the police academy in 2023, had been responding to a report of prostitution inside the building.
Prosecutors say the two shut off their bodycams before approaching a woman leaving the building and taking a key to the residence from her.
They returned eight hours later, unlocked the door and found a woman having sex with a man, who immediately fled, according to Katz’s office.
McMillan then stole money from the woman’s purse and groped her.
The woman ran away and eventually called 911 with the help of others, prosecutors said. The officers, meanwhile, returned to their stationhouse without reporting the incidents.
McMillan, 27, of Long Island, and Colon, 24, of Queens, pleaded not guilty during their arraignment hearings Monday in Queens. They were released and are due back in court April 28, according to Katz’s office.
They each face one count of forcible touching and petit larceny, two counts of burglary, and four counts of official misconduct.
Lawyers for the two didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The officers have been suspended without pay. They were placed on modified duty last August as the NYPD’s internal affairs bureau and Katz’s office investigated, according to police.
New York
Tony Bennett’s daughters file new lawsuit against brother over late father’s estate
NEW YORK (AP) — Tony Bennett’s two daughters have filed a new lawsuit against their brother, alleging he illegally enriched himself at their expense against their father’s wishes both before and after the legendary singer’s death in 2023.
Antonia and Johanna Bennett filed the lawsuit Monday in New York against D’Andrea “Danny” Bennett, who was their father’s manager and heads their family trust.
“Since Tony’s death, Johanna and Antonia have discovered that Danny exercised complete and unchecked control over Tony and his financial affairs prior to and following his death through multiple fiduciary and other roles of authority that Danny has abused, and continues to abuse, for his own significant financial gain,” the suit alleges.
It says Danny Bennett took advantage of his father’s diminished capacity late in life due to Alzheimer’s disease to make deals to make millions for himself and his company, including the sale shortly before his death of Tony Bennett’s catalog and his name, likeness and image rights to the brand development firm Iconoclast.
The sisters previously sued their brother in June seeking an accounting of their father’s assets and alleging Danny Bennett had mishandled them. The new suit makes more serious and more specific allegations of wrongdoing.
Attorneys for Danny Bennett did not immediately respond to an after-hours email seeking comment.
In court filings in the previous lawsuit, his attorneys said the sisters’ claims were baseless, that they had been provided with sufficient accounting, and that Tony Bennett trusted Danny Bennett completely during his life and credited his son with pulling him out of financial troubles and reviving his career.
Danny Bennett was his father’s personal and professional manager with power of attorney, was manager of his company Benedetto Arts, and is the trustee of the family trust, the suit says.
The new lawsuit accuses him of benefiting from “self-interested and conflicted transactions, excessive and unearned commissions,” and “substantial loans and gifts to himself and his children” that have diminished assets that Tony Bennett’s will calls for his four children to split equally.
Another brother, Daegal “Dae” Bennett, and Tony’s widow, Susan Bennett, were also named as defendants in the lawsuit.
The suit says the sisters have received a “single modest distribution” of $245,000 apiece that is “nowhere close to what they believe they are entitled to receive.”
The sisters also allege their brother has gotten rid of items of great sentimental value to them in a “malicious and retaliatory manner” after their attempts to get an accounting through the previous lawsuit.
Bennett’s piano, which Antonia says was promised to her, was in “terrible condition” when they were allowed to see it in a tour of the singer’s apartment, where they say they were denied access to much of his property.
The lawsuit seeks damages to be determined at trial, and for a judge to remove Danny Bennett as head of the family trust.
Tony Bennett, a legendary interpreter of classic American songs who created new standards including “I Left My Heart In San Francisco,” died in 2023 at age 96. There was no specific cause, but he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016.
Bennett released more than 70 albums. He won 19 Grammy Awards and a Grammy lifetime achievement award.
Pennsylvania
Lawsuit claims Musk failed to make promised payments over 2024 petition signatures
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Pennsylvania accuses billionaire Elon Musk and the political action committee he started of failing to pay a suburban Philadelphia man more than $20,000 for getting people to sign a petition in favor of free speech and gun rights.
The lawsuit seeking class-action status claims the man, referred to as Bucks County resident John Doe and requesting to remain anonymous, received hourly pay for canvassing ahead of the November presidential election, but that he was not fully paid for the petition referrals.
It claims “John Doe” has repeatedly tried to obtain payment but has not been successful. He says he has been in touch with others who have the same complaint.
“There’s been a lot of discussion and concern from people who were not paid what they understood they were going to be paid,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for “John Doe,” said in a phone interview late Tuesday. The lawsuit was first reported by The New York Times.
Musk’s America PAC offered to pay $100 for registered voters to sign the petition and $100 for people who referred a registered voter who signed the petition.
“America PAC is committed to paying for every legitimate petition signature, which is evidenced by the fact that we have paid tens of millions of dollars to canvassers for their hard work in support of our mission,” America PAC spokesperson Andrew Romeo said in an email. “While we don’t yet know who this ‘John Doe’ plaintiff is and can’t speak to their specific circumstances, we can say that we are also committed to rooting out fraud and have the right to withhold payments to fraudsters.”
The America PAC website says it has mailed out “the overwhelming majority” of the checks it owes to petition signers but that some “have been flagged for mismatched information” that requires attention.
“The answer is basically, ‘we’re working on it,’ but I think that’s been up there for a while,” Liss-Riordan said.
The lawsuit accuses Musk, the PAC and Group America LLC of breaching a contract and violating Pennsylvania state wage payment law.
Musk gave $1 million checks Sunday to two Wisconsin voters, calling them spokespeople for the political group, as voters there were electing a Supreme Court justice on Tuesday.
In Pennsylvania last year, Democratic District Attorney Larry Krasner of Philadelphia sued to challenge a $1 million voter sweepstakes Musk ran. But a judge allowed it to continue, ruling Krasner had not shown it amounted to an illegal lottery.
Deputy to plead guilty to assaulting a man having a mental crisis who later died in jail
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama sheriff’s deputy will plead guilty to assaulting a man suffering from a mental health crisis who later died of sepsis and hypothermia in the local jail, court filings made public on Tuesday revealed.
The plea supports a recent onslaught of reports that depict a rampant culture of abuse among the local sheriff’s department in Walker County, in a rural region of northern Alabama.
Carl Lofton Carpenter, 55, agreed to plead guilty to two counts of deprivation of rights, according to the plea. Carpenter and fellow Walker County Sheriff’s Deputy James Handley arrested Tony Mitchell in 2023. Mitchell died in the Walker County jail just two weeks later after he was detained in a concrete cell covered in feces with no toilet or access to medical attention.
Carpenter stepped on Mitchell’s genitals while he was handcuffed, saying, “This is how we treat seizures in Walker County,” according to the plea document. Carpenter then dragged Mitchell on the ground, kicked him and threw him roughly into the police car.
Carpenter assaulted Mitchell even though he was “compliant, obeyed commands, and posed no threat of harm to the officers,” the plea says,
The plea deal says Carpenter “had become accustomed to harming arrestees unnecessarily consistent with the culture of the Walker County Sheriff’s Office.”
The deputies first encountered Mitchell at his residence while responding to a call from one of his relatives who asked for a welfare check on him. The sheriff’s office said at the time that Mitchell was talking about portals to hell and asserted that he had fired a weapon at officers.
The plea also reveals that Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith was directly responsible for sending Mitchell to the local jail where he would later die, “despite (Mitchell) demonstrating symptoms of severe mental illness.”
At least 10 other jail employees have pleaded guilty to charges related to Mitchell’s death. Neither Smith nor lawyers for Carpenter and Handley responded to separate emailed requests for comment on Tuesday evening.
The years long investigation has revealed harrowing details about the weeks leading up to Mitchell’s death. A plea deal made public in January reveals officers intentionally kept the conditions in the Walker County jail “as filthy as possible” to convince county commissioners to increase salaries and the jail budget.
Minutes from a Walker County commissioners meeting confirm that a county commissioner visited the jail two weeks after Mitchell died.
Carpenter faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Handley was indicted in March on charges of assaulting Mitchell and witness tampering for allegedly lying to a separate grand jury about the incident in August.
New York
Two NYPD officers are charged with burglary and forcibly touching a sex worker
NEW YORK (AP) — Two New York City police officers have been suspended after being charged with burglary and forcibly touching a sex worker while responding to a complaint about an illegal brothel, prosecutors said Monday.
Officers Justin McMillan and Justin Colon intentionally turned off their body cameras as they broke into a residential building, stole money and forcibly touched a woman while on duty last July, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.
The patrol officers, who were still on probationary status after entering the police academy in 2023, had been responding to a report of prostitution inside the building.
Prosecutors say the two shut off their bodycams before approaching a woman leaving the building and taking a key to the residence from her.
They returned eight hours later, unlocked the door and found a woman having sex with a man, who immediately fled, according to Katz’s office.
McMillan then stole money from the woman’s purse and groped her.
The woman ran away and eventually called 911 with the help of others, prosecutors said. The officers, meanwhile, returned to their stationhouse without reporting the incidents.
McMillan, 27, of Long Island, and Colon, 24, of Queens, pleaded not guilty during their arraignment hearings Monday in Queens. They were released and are due back in court April 28, according to Katz’s office.
They each face one count of forcible touching and petit larceny, two counts of burglary, and four counts of official misconduct.
Lawyers for the two didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The officers have been suspended without pay. They were placed on modified duty last August as the NYPD’s internal affairs bureau and Katz’s office investigated, according to police.
New York
Tony Bennett’s daughters file new lawsuit against brother over late father’s estate
NEW YORK (AP) — Tony Bennett’s two daughters have filed a new lawsuit against their brother, alleging he illegally enriched himself at their expense against their father’s wishes both before and after the legendary singer’s death in 2023.
Antonia and Johanna Bennett filed the lawsuit Monday in New York against D’Andrea “Danny” Bennett, who was their father’s manager and heads their family trust.
“Since Tony’s death, Johanna and Antonia have discovered that Danny exercised complete and unchecked control over Tony and his financial affairs prior to and following his death through multiple fiduciary and other roles of authority that Danny has abused, and continues to abuse, for his own significant financial gain,” the suit alleges.
It says Danny Bennett took advantage of his father’s diminished capacity late in life due to Alzheimer’s disease to make deals to make millions for himself and his company, including the sale shortly before his death of Tony Bennett’s catalog and his name, likeness and image rights to the brand development firm Iconoclast.
The sisters previously sued their brother in June seeking an accounting of their father’s assets and alleging Danny Bennett had mishandled them. The new suit makes more serious and more specific allegations of wrongdoing.
Attorneys for Danny Bennett did not immediately respond to an after-hours email seeking comment.
In court filings in the previous lawsuit, his attorneys said the sisters’ claims were baseless, that they had been provided with sufficient accounting, and that Tony Bennett trusted Danny Bennett completely during his life and credited his son with pulling him out of financial troubles and reviving his career.
Danny Bennett was his father’s personal and professional manager with power of attorney, was manager of his company Benedetto Arts, and is the trustee of the family trust, the suit says.
The new lawsuit accuses him of benefiting from “self-interested and conflicted transactions, excessive and unearned commissions,” and “substantial loans and gifts to himself and his children” that have diminished assets that Tony Bennett’s will calls for his four children to split equally.
Another brother, Daegal “Dae” Bennett, and Tony’s widow, Susan Bennett, were also named as defendants in the lawsuit.
The suit says the sisters have received a “single modest distribution” of $245,000 apiece that is “nowhere close to what they believe they are entitled to receive.”
The sisters also allege their brother has gotten rid of items of great sentimental value to them in a “malicious and retaliatory manner” after their attempts to get an accounting through the previous lawsuit.
Bennett’s piano, which Antonia says was promised to her, was in “terrible condition” when they were allowed to see it in a tour of the singer’s apartment, where they say they were denied access to much of his property.
The lawsuit seeks damages to be determined at trial, and for a judge to remove Danny Bennett as head of the family trust.
Tony Bennett, a legendary interpreter of classic American songs who created new standards including “I Left My Heart In San Francisco,” died in 2023 at age 96. There was no specific cause, but he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016.
Bennett released more than 70 albums. He won 19 Grammy Awards and a Grammy lifetime achievement award.
Pennsylvania
Lawsuit claims Musk failed to make promised payments over 2024 petition signatures
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Pennsylvania accuses billionaire Elon Musk and the political action committee he started of failing to pay a suburban Philadelphia man more than $20,000 for getting people to sign a petition in favor of free speech and gun rights.
The lawsuit seeking class-action status claims the man, referred to as Bucks County resident John Doe and requesting to remain anonymous, received hourly pay for canvassing ahead of the November presidential election, but that he was not fully paid for the petition referrals.
It claims “John Doe” has repeatedly tried to obtain payment but has not been successful. He says he has been in touch with others who have the same complaint.
“There’s been a lot of discussion and concern from people who were not paid what they understood they were going to be paid,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for “John Doe,” said in a phone interview late Tuesday. The lawsuit was first reported by The New York Times.
Musk’s America PAC offered to pay $100 for registered voters to sign the petition and $100 for people who referred a registered voter who signed the petition.
“America PAC is committed to paying for every legitimate petition signature, which is evidenced by the fact that we have paid tens of millions of dollars to canvassers for their hard work in support of our mission,” America PAC spokesperson Andrew Romeo said in an email. “While we don’t yet know who this ‘John Doe’ plaintiff is and can’t speak to their specific circumstances, we can say that we are also committed to rooting out fraud and have the right to withhold payments to fraudsters.”
The America PAC website says it has mailed out “the overwhelming majority” of the checks it owes to petition signers but that some “have been flagged for mismatched information” that requires attention.
“The answer is basically, ‘we’re working on it,’ but I think that’s been up there for a while,” Liss-Riordan said.
The lawsuit accuses Musk, the PAC and Group America LLC of breaching a contract and violating Pennsylvania state wage payment law.
Musk gave $1 million checks Sunday to two Wisconsin voters, calling them spokespeople for the political group, as voters there were electing a Supreme Court justice on Tuesday.
In Pennsylvania last year, Democratic District Attorney Larry Krasner of Philadelphia sued to challenge a $1 million voter sweepstakes Musk ran. But a judge allowed it to continue, ruling Krasner had not shown it amounted to an illegal lottery.
