Kansas
Oklahoma man charged with fatally shooting beloved priest
SENECA, Kan. (AP) — An Oklahoma man has been charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting a Catholic priest at a church rectory in northeast Kansas, authorities said Friday.
Officers called to the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca on Thursday afternoon found Arul Carasala with gunshot wounds outside the rectory, the Nemaha County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post. The 57-year-old priest was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died.
Sheriff’s deputies and officers with the Seneca Police Department later arrested Gary Hermesch of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hermesch, 66, was charged Friday and held in the Nemaha County Jail in lieu of $1 million bond, County Attorney Brad Lippert said Friday in a written statement.
The charging complaint says that Hermesch “intentionally and with premeditation” killed Carasala, Lippert said. Lippert did not return phone and email messages Friday seeking more information.
Authorities have not released a possible motive for the shooting or said whether the suspect and the priest knew each other.
Kris Anderson, the parish’s director of religious education, told the AP on Thursday through tears that she knew few details.
“From what we know, an older man walked up to him (Carasala) and shot him three times,” she said.
The priest’s death left people in shock in Seneca, a city of about 2,100 where Carasala had been the pastor at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church since 2011, according to his profile on the parish website.
Carasala was ordained as a priest in 1994 for the Diocese of Cuddapah, located on the southeast coast of his native India. He had served in Kansas since 2004, including as pastor of five Kansas parishes, after he was invited to visit by Archbishop James P. Keleher. Carasala became a U.S. citizen in 2011, while retaining his status as an overseas citizen of India.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said in a Facebook post that there was no ongoing threat to the community, but that he recognized the “pain and shock” the priest’s death had brought to the community.
“This senseless act of violence has left us grieving the loss of a beloved priest, leader, and friend,” he wrote.
New York
Drug dealer whose sentence was commuted by Trump is charged with several crimes
NEW YORK (AP) — A convicted New York drug dealer whose 10-year federal prison sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump is back in custody after he was accused of several crimes, including assaulting a toddler.
Jonathan Braun was charged Friday with violating the terms of his supervised release and ordered detained in Brooklyn federal court, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York’s office.
The 41-year-old Long Island resident was arrested at a hotel Friday morning. Judge Kiyo Matsumoto deemed him a danger to the community.
Braun is charged with seven violations of his release stemming from multiple arrests over the past seven months, said John Marzulli, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
He said Braun has been charged with assault of an elderly man; assault of his wife; groping his nanny’s breast without her permission; assault of a 3-year-old child and menacing a hospital staffer.
Braun pleaded not guilty. He’s due back in Brooklyn court April 10 and also has an April 29 appearance in a Long Island court related to some of the crimes.
His public defender didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. If convicted, Braun faces up to five years in prison.
Braun pleaded guilty to drug-related charges and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2019.
He served roughly a year behind bars before Trump commuted his sentence in the final days of his first term in January 2021. The Republican granted Braun — and many others — clemency without explanation.
Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said Trump “stands by” his decision.
“There is always a risk in granting pardons, and it’s unfortunate when this privilege is abused,” he said.
Braun had been a high-ranking member of an international group that smuggled more than 100,000 kilograms (220,460 pounds) of marijuana from Canada into the United States, federal prosecutors said at the time.
The drugs were transported mostly through Native American reservations along the border in vehicles with secret compartments. They were then delivered to stash houses in New York City before being distributed by street-level dealers throughout the metropolitan area, according to prosecutors.
In one of the criminal cases that prompted Friday’s arrest, prosecutors say Braun fought with a guest during a March 29 event observing the Sabbath at his home in Lawrence, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Manhattan.
Braun punched the man in the face, shoved him to the ground, then pushed his 3-year-old son to the ground, leaving a red mark on the child’s back, according to a complaint filed in Nassau County court.
He has been charged with two counts of assault and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.
Braun also faces two counts of menacing. Prosecutors say he argued with a staffer at a hospital in January and swung an IV pole at her. In March, he threatened a man who asked him to be quiet during a synagogue service.
“Do you know who I am or what I can do to you?” Braun said, grabbing the man’s arm, according to the complaint.
Last August, Braun’s wife told police he threw her to the floor and punched her in the head multiple times. She also said he had assaulted her and her father during other recent altercations.
In a case last summer, police said Braun evaded bridge tolls at least 40 times, accruing $160 in unpaid fees because his Lamborghini and Ferrari sports cars didn’t have license plates, court records show.
Braun’s legal troubles don’t end there. The Federal Trade Commission sued him and won a $20 million judgment last year.
The FTC said Braun ran a loan company that illegally withdrew money from customers’ accounts and sometimes threatened physical violence to get them to pay.
North Carolina
Electronic courts management lawsuit can continue against developer, sheriff
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — A federal lawsuit alleging North Carolina’s new electronic courts records and case management system contributed to unlawful arrests or extended jail detainments can continue against the system’s developer and a county sheriff, a judge ruled this week.
U.S. District Judge William Osteen declined to dismiss the “eCourts” system litigation against Tyler Technologies and Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, meaning the lawsuit can continue to trial against them. But Osteen dismissed Wake County Sheriff Willie Rowe from the lawsuit.
About a dozen people are suing over eCourts from when its case management software was implemented in Wake and three other pilot counties in February 2023 and in Mecklenburg County several months later. Now the case management software serves 62 North Carolina counties and is expected to reach the remaining 38 counties by this fall.
The plaintiffs contend that software errors and human errors led to multiple arrests on the same warrants and extra time in jail after release conditions were met. The plaintiffs allege several dozen people spent extra time in the Mecklenburg County jail during the first days of the eCourts’ rollout in the county.
Osteen ruled Monday in central North Carolina federal court that, in the prediscovery phase of the lawsuit, the plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that Tyler Technologies breached its duty to ensure its software worked and lacked defects that led to unlawful arrests and detentions. As for McFadden, the plaintiffs in part also have plausibly alleged “their constitutional injury was caused by the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Office failure to train its deputies on how to use the eCourts software,” Osteen wrote.
Rowe was granted his dismissal because he held “statutory immunity” for any alleged negligence associated with executing warrants, Osteen ruled, and the plaintiffs haven’t alleged their arrests constituted a constitutional injury within the judicial system.
Last year, lawsuit plaintiffs ended voluntarily civil claims against two leaders of the state Administrative Office of the Courts, which is implementing the system, some state court clerks and another sheriff.
No trial date has been set. The plaintiffs’ lawsuit also seeks to expand the litigation to cover additional people who contend they were jailed longer or wrongly arrested because of eCourts.
California
2 US border inspectors are charged with taking bribes
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Two U.S. border inspectors in Southern California have been charged with taking thousands of dollars in bribes to allow people to enter the country through the nation’s busiest port of entry without showing documents, prosecutors said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers Farlis Almonte and Ricardo Rodriguez were assigned to immigration inspection booths at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. They were charged after investigators found phone evidence showing they had exchanged messages with human traffickers in Mexico and discovered unexplained cash deposits into their bank accounts, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday.
Surveillance video showed at least one instance in which a vehicle with a driver and a passenger stopped at a checkpoint but only the driver was documented as having entered the country, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said the officers waved dozens of vehicles carrying people without documents. They said both men were paid thousands for each vehicle they waved through.
It wasn’t immediately known if Almonte has an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
Rodriguez’s attorney, Michael Hawkins, said the case was still in the “infant stages” and that Rodriguez has the presumption of innocence.
“We look forward to working through the current situation,” Hawkins said in an email in which he described Rodriguez as hardworking and loyal.
The investigation on Almonte and Rodriguez started after three migrant smugglers who were arrested last year told federal investigators they had been working with U.S. border inspectors, federal prosecutors said.
While Almonte was in custody, investigators allegedly seized nearly $70,000 in cash they believe his romantic partner was trying to move to Tijuana. Prosecutors wrote in a court filing that Almonte is potentially facing additional charges for money laundering and obstruction of justice, The San Diego Union Tribune reported.
“Any Customs and Border Protection agent who aids or turns a blind eye to smugglers bringing undocumented immigrants into the U.S. is betraying their oath and endangering our national security,” Acting U.S. Attorney Andrew Haden told the newspaper in a statement.
There have been five U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to the San Diego area to face similar corruption charges in the last two years.
Last year, former U.S. border inspector Leonard Darnell George was sentenced to 23 years in prison for taking bribes to allow people and drug-laden vehicles to enter the country through the San Ysidro border crossing. Two other former border officers at the Otay Mesa and Tecate ports of entry were charged last year with similar charges. They are expected to go on trial this summer.
Oklahoma man charged with fatally shooting beloved priest
SENECA, Kan. (AP) — An Oklahoma man has been charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting a Catholic priest at a church rectory in northeast Kansas, authorities said Friday.
Officers called to the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca on Thursday afternoon found Arul Carasala with gunshot wounds outside the rectory, the Nemaha County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post. The 57-year-old priest was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died.
Sheriff’s deputies and officers with the Seneca Police Department later arrested Gary Hermesch of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hermesch, 66, was charged Friday and held in the Nemaha County Jail in lieu of $1 million bond, County Attorney Brad Lippert said Friday in a written statement.
The charging complaint says that Hermesch “intentionally and with premeditation” killed Carasala, Lippert said. Lippert did not return phone and email messages Friday seeking more information.
Authorities have not released a possible motive for the shooting or said whether the suspect and the priest knew each other.
Kris Anderson, the parish’s director of religious education, told the AP on Thursday through tears that she knew few details.
“From what we know, an older man walked up to him (Carasala) and shot him three times,” she said.
The priest’s death left people in shock in Seneca, a city of about 2,100 where Carasala had been the pastor at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church since 2011, according to his profile on the parish website.
Carasala was ordained as a priest in 1994 for the Diocese of Cuddapah, located on the southeast coast of his native India. He had served in Kansas since 2004, including as pastor of five Kansas parishes, after he was invited to visit by Archbishop James P. Keleher. Carasala became a U.S. citizen in 2011, while retaining his status as an overseas citizen of India.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said in a Facebook post that there was no ongoing threat to the community, but that he recognized the “pain and shock” the priest’s death had brought to the community.
“This senseless act of violence has left us grieving the loss of a beloved priest, leader, and friend,” he wrote.
New York
Drug dealer whose sentence was commuted by Trump is charged with several crimes
NEW YORK (AP) — A convicted New York drug dealer whose 10-year federal prison sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump is back in custody after he was accused of several crimes, including assaulting a toddler.
Jonathan Braun was charged Friday with violating the terms of his supervised release and ordered detained in Brooklyn federal court, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York’s office.
The 41-year-old Long Island resident was arrested at a hotel Friday morning. Judge Kiyo Matsumoto deemed him a danger to the community.
Braun is charged with seven violations of his release stemming from multiple arrests over the past seven months, said John Marzulli, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
He said Braun has been charged with assault of an elderly man; assault of his wife; groping his nanny’s breast without her permission; assault of a 3-year-old child and menacing a hospital staffer.
Braun pleaded not guilty. He’s due back in Brooklyn court April 10 and also has an April 29 appearance in a Long Island court related to some of the crimes.
His public defender didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. If convicted, Braun faces up to five years in prison.
Braun pleaded guilty to drug-related charges and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2019.
He served roughly a year behind bars before Trump commuted his sentence in the final days of his first term in January 2021. The Republican granted Braun — and many others — clemency without explanation.
Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said Trump “stands by” his decision.
“There is always a risk in granting pardons, and it’s unfortunate when this privilege is abused,” he said.
Braun had been a high-ranking member of an international group that smuggled more than 100,000 kilograms (220,460 pounds) of marijuana from Canada into the United States, federal prosecutors said at the time.
The drugs were transported mostly through Native American reservations along the border in vehicles with secret compartments. They were then delivered to stash houses in New York City before being distributed by street-level dealers throughout the metropolitan area, according to prosecutors.
In one of the criminal cases that prompted Friday’s arrest, prosecutors say Braun fought with a guest during a March 29 event observing the Sabbath at his home in Lawrence, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Manhattan.
Braun punched the man in the face, shoved him to the ground, then pushed his 3-year-old son to the ground, leaving a red mark on the child’s back, according to a complaint filed in Nassau County court.
He has been charged with two counts of assault and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.
Braun also faces two counts of menacing. Prosecutors say he argued with a staffer at a hospital in January and swung an IV pole at her. In March, he threatened a man who asked him to be quiet during a synagogue service.
“Do you know who I am or what I can do to you?” Braun said, grabbing the man’s arm, according to the complaint.
Last August, Braun’s wife told police he threw her to the floor and punched her in the head multiple times. She also said he had assaulted her and her father during other recent altercations.
In a case last summer, police said Braun evaded bridge tolls at least 40 times, accruing $160 in unpaid fees because his Lamborghini and Ferrari sports cars didn’t have license plates, court records show.
Braun’s legal troubles don’t end there. The Federal Trade Commission sued him and won a $20 million judgment last year.
The FTC said Braun ran a loan company that illegally withdrew money from customers’ accounts and sometimes threatened physical violence to get them to pay.
North Carolina
Electronic courts management lawsuit can continue against developer, sheriff
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — A federal lawsuit alleging North Carolina’s new electronic courts records and case management system contributed to unlawful arrests or extended jail detainments can continue against the system’s developer and a county sheriff, a judge ruled this week.
U.S. District Judge William Osteen declined to dismiss the “eCourts” system litigation against Tyler Technologies and Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, meaning the lawsuit can continue to trial against them. But Osteen dismissed Wake County Sheriff Willie Rowe from the lawsuit.
About a dozen people are suing over eCourts from when its case management software was implemented in Wake and three other pilot counties in February 2023 and in Mecklenburg County several months later. Now the case management software serves 62 North Carolina counties and is expected to reach the remaining 38 counties by this fall.
The plaintiffs contend that software errors and human errors led to multiple arrests on the same warrants and extra time in jail after release conditions were met. The plaintiffs allege several dozen people spent extra time in the Mecklenburg County jail during the first days of the eCourts’ rollout in the county.
Osteen ruled Monday in central North Carolina federal court that, in the prediscovery phase of the lawsuit, the plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that Tyler Technologies breached its duty to ensure its software worked and lacked defects that led to unlawful arrests and detentions. As for McFadden, the plaintiffs in part also have plausibly alleged “their constitutional injury was caused by the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Office failure to train its deputies on how to use the eCourts software,” Osteen wrote.
Rowe was granted his dismissal because he held “statutory immunity” for any alleged negligence associated with executing warrants, Osteen ruled, and the plaintiffs haven’t alleged their arrests constituted a constitutional injury within the judicial system.
Last year, lawsuit plaintiffs ended voluntarily civil claims against two leaders of the state Administrative Office of the Courts, which is implementing the system, some state court clerks and another sheriff.
No trial date has been set. The plaintiffs’ lawsuit also seeks to expand the litigation to cover additional people who contend they were jailed longer or wrongly arrested because of eCourts.
California
2 US border inspectors are charged with taking bribes
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Two U.S. border inspectors in Southern California have been charged with taking thousands of dollars in bribes to allow people to enter the country through the nation’s busiest port of entry without showing documents, prosecutors said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers Farlis Almonte and Ricardo Rodriguez were assigned to immigration inspection booths at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. They were charged after investigators found phone evidence showing they had exchanged messages with human traffickers in Mexico and discovered unexplained cash deposits into their bank accounts, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday.
Surveillance video showed at least one instance in which a vehicle with a driver and a passenger stopped at a checkpoint but only the driver was documented as having entered the country, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said the officers waved dozens of vehicles carrying people without documents. They said both men were paid thousands for each vehicle they waved through.
It wasn’t immediately known if Almonte has an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
Rodriguez’s attorney, Michael Hawkins, said the case was still in the “infant stages” and that Rodriguez has the presumption of innocence.
“We look forward to working through the current situation,” Hawkins said in an email in which he described Rodriguez as hardworking and loyal.
The investigation on Almonte and Rodriguez started after three migrant smugglers who were arrested last year told federal investigators they had been working with U.S. border inspectors, federal prosecutors said.
While Almonte was in custody, investigators allegedly seized nearly $70,000 in cash they believe his romantic partner was trying to move to Tijuana. Prosecutors wrote in a court filing that Almonte is potentially facing additional charges for money laundering and obstruction of justice, The San Diego Union Tribune reported.
“Any Customs and Border Protection agent who aids or turns a blind eye to smugglers bringing undocumented immigrants into the U.S. is betraying their oath and endangering our national security,” Acting U.S. Attorney Andrew Haden told the newspaper in a statement.
There have been five U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to the San Diego area to face similar corruption charges in the last two years.
Last year, former U.S. border inspector Leonard Darnell George was sentenced to 23 years in prison for taking bribes to allow people and drug-laden vehicles to enter the country through the San Ysidro border crossing. Two other former border officers at the Otay Mesa and Tecate ports of entry were charged last year with similar charges. They are expected to go on trial this summer.
