Court Digest

New York
Man charged in rhino horns, elephant ivory trafficking case
NEW YORK (AP) — A man charged with conspiring to smuggle tons of elephant ivory and rhinoceros horns was extradited Monday from Kenya to the United States, where he pleaded not guilty to multiple charges.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss announced the arrival of Mansur Mohamed Surur to face a federal court indictment charging him with conspiring in the illegal poaching of over 35 rhinos and more than 100 elephants. The 190 kilograms (420 pounds) of rhinoceros horns and 10 tons (9 metric tons) of elephant ivory were valued at more than $7 million, authorities said.

Strauss said Surur and the criminal enterprise he was part of were responsible for the illegal slaughter of the animals, which are endangered.

Surur, 60, was arrested by authorities in Mombasa, Kenya, last July, after law enforcement agents on July 17, 2018, intercepted a package containing two rhinoceros horns sold to a law enforcement operative who posed as a Manhattan-based buyer.

According to court papers, Surur and co-defendants exported and agreed to export the rhinoceros horns and elephant ivory to foreign buyers, including some in Manhattan.

When they were shipped, the rhinoceros horns and elephant ivory were sometimes hidden in pieces of art such as African masks and statues, authorities said.

The defendants received and deposited payments from foreign customers that were sent in the form of international wire transfers, some of which were sent through U.S. financial institutions, the indictment said.

At an initial appearance before a magistrate judge, Surur pleaded not guilty. He was detained without bail. A message seeking comment was sent to his attorney.

Surur was charged with conspiracy to commit wildlife trafficking, wildlife trafficking, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to distribute and possess one kilogram or more of heroin. The last charge carries the potential for life imprisonment and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Two co-defendants were brought to the United States last spring to face charges. A fourth individual is a fugitive.

Minnesota
Woman who lied to support family gets full pardon
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Board of Pardons on Monday granted its first full pardon in more than three decades, to a woman who used a fake name and false documents to get a job so she could cover food and housing costs for her family.

Maria Elizondo was convicted in 2012 of wrongfully obtaining assistance and identify theft. She was sentenced to serve 10 years of probation and ordered to pay back $24,758 to the state. She returned $9,750 but her payments dropped off about four years ago after a cancer diagnosis and other health issues.

According to her attorney, the mother of seven — who was unable to support her family on food stamps and other assistance — took a job at a turkey farm in Ada, Minnesota, in 2006 under the pseudonym Natalia Rubio. She used false identifying documents and someone else’s social security number on her employment records, the Star Tribune reported.

“As a mom, and even myself now as a parent, I recognize that she did what she had to do, not to be malicious, but when you have a family there are things you have to do to overcome challenges,” said her son, Jorge Elizondo, who translated for his mother at Monday’s hearing.

Elizondo’s case was brought to light by a group of law students at the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, Minnesota, who believed she was convicted because she was poor and started a GoFundMe to pay off the remainder of her restitution. Elizondo was also facing deportation to Mexico.

Gov. Tim Walz, a member of the pardon board along with Attorney General Keith Ellison and Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea, said it was the first full pardon in 35 years.

Florida
Judge: Destroy massage parlor video of Patriots owner, Kraft
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge in Florida has ordered the destruction of video that allegedly shows New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft paying for massage parlor sex, according to court documents.

U.S. District Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II on Friday ruled that the videos of Kraft and other customers must be wiped from existence, because the Jupiter police surveillance was deemed unlawful, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported. Kraft’s attorneys had argued that the billionaire feared the tapes of him in the nude would be publicized on the internet.

A misdemeanor solicitation charge against Kraft was dropped  in September after an appeals court ruled that video evidence couldn’t be used in the case.

Kraft, 79, and others were charged in February 2019 in a multicounty investigation of massage parlors that included the secret installation of video cameras in the spas’ lobbies and rooms. Police say the recordings show Kraft and other men engaging in sex acts with women and paying them.

Police say they recorded Kraft, a widower, paying for sex acts at the Orchids of Asia spa on consecutive days in January 2019. Kraft pleaded not guilty but issued a public apology for his actions.

Colorado
Judges deny many virus requests to release inmates
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Out of dozens of requests for sentence reductions from inmates with health concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic, federal judges in Colorado approved just three in the final four months of 2020.

Judges have the power to apply legal criteria differently when weighing requests for so-called compassionate release, Colorado Politics reported  Sunday.

Federal inmates can petition courts directly if there are “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to leave prison, which could include elevated threat to life from COVID-19.

Jackie Fielding of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law said judges can make varied interpretations.

While some judges may interpret the coronavirus to be a risk factor, “others are saying that unless you can prove that there’s been enough transmission within your facility specifically, it’s not extraordinary and compelling enough,” Fielding said.

In 24 opinions published from September through December in response to compassionate release requests, judges in the U.S. District Court in Colorado found the health condition of inmates or the level of virus transmission in prisons was not severe.

The judges commonly denied requests to those who were not 65 or older, had not served 75% of their sentence or whose family circumstances did not merit release.

In two opinions denying compassionate release, Senior Judge Marcia S. Krieger found inmates may be safer from COVID-19 in prison than outside of it.

As of Jan. 14, the federal Bureau of Prisons reported 190 federal inmate deaths from the coronavirus, with 38,535 recoveries, out of a population of 123,052 in bureau facilities.
Virginia Grady, federal public defender for Colorado and Wyoming, declined to comment on compassionate release.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some — especially older adults and people with existing health problems — it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.

Kansas
Appeals court upholds convictions in 2016 bomb plot
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld the convictions and sentences of three militia members facing decades in prison for their roles in a foiled 2016 plot to massacre Somali Muslims in southwest Kansas.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected all the arguments raised by attorneys for Gavin Wright, Curtis Allen and Patrick Stein. The court was not swayed by claims that the men were entrapped and the method of selecting jurors was flawed.

Jurors convicted them in 2018 of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy against civil rights for a scheme to blow up a mosque and apartments housing Somalis in Garden City, about 220 miles (350 kilometers) west of Wichita.

Stein, the alleged ringleader, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Allen, who drafted a manifesto for the group, got 25 years. Wright, who helped make and test explosives at his mobile home business, received 26 years.

Before their sentencing, attorneys for the men had urged the court to consider rhetoric from former President Donald Trump that they said encouraged violence. Attorneys pointed to a Trump tweet at the time saying that “some very bad people” were mixed in a South American migrant caravan headed toward the U.S., calling it “an invasion” of the country.


Texas
Man pleads guilty in plot to attack Trump Tower
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A Texas man has pleaded guilty to a terror charge after authorities accused him of plotting attacks on the White House and Trump Tower in New York City.

Jaylyn Christopher Molina, 22, of Cost, also pleaded guilty Monday to one count of receiving child pornography after authorities found images on his cellphone while executing a search warrant, federal prosecutors said.

Kristopher Sean Matthews, of South Carolina, and Molina were charged last year with conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Their plotting allegedly began in May 2019, prosecutors said.

While President Donald Trump was in office, the pair had discussed traveling to Syria to fight with the Islamic State group or carrying out attacks at Trump Tower, the White House, the New York Stock Exchange or the headquarters of federal law enforcement agencies, according to court records.

Matthews pleaded guilty in November and is scheduled to be sentenced in March 4, while Molina’s sentencing is scheduled for April 22. Both men face up to 20 years in prison for the conspiracy charge and Molina faces up to 20 years in prison on the child pornography charge.

Connecticut
Lawsuit: Priest raped boy, 9, on day of his sister’s wedding
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — A Catholic priest raped a 9-year-old altar boy on the day of his sister’s wedding that the the priest officiated, according to a new lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport.

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Bridgeport, charges that the diocese knew or should have known that the Rev. Kiernan Ahearn was unfit to be around children but continued to assign him duties that involved children.

“Unfortunately, we continue to witness the carnage of the Catholic Church’s decades-long tolerance of pedophiles in its ranks,” attorney Joel Faxon, who represents the plaintiff in the lawsuit, told the Connecticut Post. “This particular criminal, Ahearn, was circulated through the Bridgeport Diocese and others in New York — attacking children all along the way.”

Ahearn, who died in 1997, served as parochial vicar at St. Mary Church in Bethel, Connecticut, from 1991 to 1993. He was arrested in Massachusetts in 1993 for contributing to the delinquency of a minor after he was found in a motel with a 16-year-old boy. He was convicted and sentenced to two years of probation.

According to the lawsuit, Ahearn repeatedly sexually assaulted the former altar boy at St. Mary when the boy was between the ages of 7 and 10. During one “particularly egregious act of sexual assault” in 1992, Ahearn raped the boy on his sister’s wedding day, the lawsuit charges.

Diocese spokesperson Brian Wallace told the newspaper on Monday that the diocese had not been formally served with a complaint related to Ahearn, who was on the diocese’s published list of former clergy members credibly accused of abuse.

Minnesota
Two men plead guilty to arson
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Two men have pleaded guilty to federal arson charges in connection with fires that were set inside the Target corporate headquarters during unrest that followed rumors of a police shooting in downtown Minneapolis last August.

The unrest began after a Black man who was a suspect in a homicide fatally shot himself as police were closing in. In the city still reeling from the May 25 death of George Floyd, rumors of a police shooting circulated and demonstrators went downtown to protest.

Twenty-four-year-old Shador Tommie Cortez Jackson of Richfield and 34-year-old Leroy Lemonte Perry Williams of Minneapolis both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit arson.

Prosecutors say Jackson broke through the building’s glass doors using a construction sign, and then entered the building with Williams and others. Once inside, Jackson helped set a fire in the mailroom, court documents said.

The men, along with other identified individuals, then ran out of the building. Williams later went back inside and tried to light a fire at the building’s entrance, according to the indictment.