South Carolina
Man gets 30 years for 2008 Halloween killing
SUMTER, S.C. (AP) — A 27-year-old South Carolina man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing a trick-or-treater who came to his door on Halloween 2008.
Quentin Patrick was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to murder in the death of T.J. Darrisaw.
Prosecutors say the 12-year-old boy was shot at least a dozen times as he stood on the porch of Patrick’s home in Sumter. The boy’s stepfather and a brother were wounded.
Patrick is a convicted drug dealer and said he fired his AK-47 because he thought a rival drug dealer was back to shoot him again. Patrick has already been sentenced to more than 16 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a weapon.
New York
Woman pleads guilty to charge of growing pot
NEW YORK (AP) — A woman from a wealthy New York City suburb has pleaded guilty to running a multimillion-dollar marijuana-growing operating in a Queens warehouse.
Andrea Sanderlin of Scarsdale admitted Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court that she operated the facility between 2009 and 2013.
In a statement, she said the operation grew at least 1,000 pot plants and that it “sold the marijuana product from the plants.”
Her arrest in May sparked comparisons to the TV series “Weeds.” The show chronicled a fictional California woman’s attempt to support her family by raising marijuana.
Sanderlin, a 45-year-old mother of three, is out on $500,000 bail. She faces 10 years in prison at sentencing.
Illinois
Ex-trader pleads guilty in $500M fraud scheme
CHICAGO (AP) — A former Chicago trader who was charged in one of the city’s largest-ever financial fraud cases is pleading guilty as part of a deal with prosecutors.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Charles Mosley’s plea caps his sentence at 10 years behind bars. He had faced up to 370 years in prison if he was convicted in the $500 million fraud scheme.
Prosecutors say the 49-year-old from Vernon Hills and Eric Bloom, the former CEO of Sentinel Management Group, defrauded more than 70 customers before the firm collapsed.
Mosley will cooperate with prosecutors in their case against Bloom.
Before the Northbrook-based company went bust in 2007, officials boasted no client had ever lost money in its fund that was available to corporations, institutional investors and wealthy individuals.
Missouri
Woman acquitted at 2nd trial over 2003 slaying
FORSYTH, Mo. (AP) — A southwest Missouri woman was acquitted at a second trial over the 2003 slaying of a 68-year-old woman.
Greene County Judge Michael Cordonnier ruled Tuesday that no physical evidence linked Paula Hall, of Sparta, to the death of Freda Heyn, 68, who disappeared in November 2003 from Oldfield, about 30 miles southeast of Springfield. Heyn’s skull was found in the Mark Twain National Forest in southern Christian County in 2004.
Hall was convicted in 2009 of second-degree murder in Heyn’s death and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. But an appeals court overturned the conviction in 2011. She was released on bail in June.
“There is no physical evidence supporting the conclusion that (Hall) was present at any one, or either of the purported crime scenes,” said Cordonnier, who heard the case in a bench trial last week, The Springfield News-Leader reported.
Prosecutors argued that Hall killed Heyn by hitting her with a golf club.
But Cordonnier questioned the testimony of David Epperson, who pleaded guilty last year to tampering with physical evidence. The judge said Epperson’s testimony is the only thing that links Hall to Heyn’s death. Epperson, who was originally charged with murder in Heyn’s death, was offered a plea deal for his testimony against Hall.
The judge said Epperson told several versions of what happened to Heyn.
“The court concludes that David Epperson is not honest, is not truthful, and that his testimony is belied by his drug use, by the plea bargain made with him, and by his personal animus toward (Hall),” Cordonnier wrote.
The judge also wrote that he could not conclude “beyond a reasonable doubt that Freda Heyn died as a result of being struck in the head.”
North Carolina
Fed. prosecutors oppose attempt by MacDonald
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Federal lawyers are opposing attempts by former Army doctor Jeffrey MacDonald to get a new trial on his conviction of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters more than 30 years ago at Fort Bragg.
The Fayetteville Observer reported the attorneys have filed court documents saying a federal judge should not consider evidence introduced since a hearing in September of last year.
U.S. attorneys say MacDonald had plenty of time to present the evidence during or before the hearing in Wilmington.
The 69-year-old MacDonald is serving three life sentences for the 1970 stabbing deaths of his pregnant wife, Colette, and his 5-year-old daughter Kimberley and 2-year-old daughter Kristen in their home at Fort Bragg.
MacDonald says his family was killed during a home invasion.
Oregon
Convicted sex offender pleads to killing women
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A convicted sex predator who has confessed to killing three women in Oregon was scheduled to enter pleas Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland.
The Oregonian reports 64-year-old Jeffrey Cutlip detailed the deaths after calling 911 in July 2012 in Brownsville, Texas, saying he wanted to talk about bad things he had done in the past.
He was indicted in the deaths of 44-year-old Marlene Claire Carlson of Portland in 1975, 15-year-old Julie Marie Bennett of Milwaukie in 1977 and 33-year-old Nielen Doll of Spokane, Wash., in 1993. Carlson and Doll were strangled. Bennett was drowned.
Cutlip has been classified as a predatory sex offender since 1982 convictions for sodomy and burglary.
