Court Digest

Missouri
Teen admits to fatal shooting of 13-year-old boy
O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — A St. Charles County teenager will enter a youth detention program after admitting to charges in the fatal shooting of a 13-year-old boy in May.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that 17-year-old Dylan J. Woolbright pleaded guilty Tuesday to involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in the May 9 shooting of Owen Fielder in O’Fallon. Owen died three days later.

Police said Woolbright, who was 16 at the time, shot Owen while at a friend’s mobile home.

Charging documents said a juvenile witness told police that Woolbright asked Owen if he wanted to see his gun, then pulled a 9mm pistol from between a mattress and wall, handed it to Owen and then took it back. Woolbright “operated the slide and pulled the trigger, causing the firearm to discharge.”

Woolbright initially told police the gun discharged as it slipped from his hands.

He has previously been in juvenile detention for marijuana possession, truancy and alcohol possession, court documents say.

Completing the in-custody program, which includes counseling, education and vocational training, would enable Woolbright’s release at age 21. Formal sentencing is March 31.

Oregon
Leader in oxycodone prescription fraud gets 4 years
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man who fraudulently obtained and sold 2,400 oxycodone pills by having others pass fake prescriptions at Portland-area pharmacies was sentenced Tuesday to four years in federal prison.

Chase Adam Conway, 36, sent women into pharmacies to fill the bogus prescriptions, obtaining 90 to 180 pills at a time, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration tracked Conway’s car in 2018, and found he had been using doctors’ DEA registration numbers without their knowledge, according to Kemp Strickland, an assistant U.S. attorney.

Conway also obtained medical prescription paper, used his printer to fraudulently place the doctors’ names and their DEA registration numbers on the prescriptions, and provided his “runners,” with bogus IDs to obtain the pills.

Conway’s lawyer Robert Hamilton, an assistant federal public defender, said his client’s crime was driven by a long-term addiction to opiates and methamphetamine.

His arrest in this case has “probably saved his life and others too and he recognizes that,” Hamilton said.

“In my mind, I thought I was helping out friends that were involved. I could give them free pills. They’re not going to have to rob people, not going to have to sell their bodies,” Conway said he thought.

Once Conway was sober, he said he realized that “all I was doing I was enabling their addiction. I’m genuinely sorry for that.”

Ohio
Man arrested picking up groceries during curfew sues city
CLEVELAND (AP) — A man arrested for trying to pick up a grocery order during a city-imposed curfew following racial injustice protests in downtown Cleveland sued in federal court on Tuesday the city and police officers who detained him.

Mehdi Mollahasani, 38, of Cleveland, spent two nights in jail after his arrest on May 31, according to the lawsuit filed by the civil rights firm Friedman, Gilbert + Gerhardstein. A judge dismissed the misdemeanor charge of failure to obey an order in October with a docket entry noting “groceries/instacart order.”

Cleveland established the curfew on May 30 after some protesters began vandalizing property and breaking into downtown stores. The following day, Mollahasani tried to walk from his downtown apartment to meet a delivery driver who told him she could not get past police barricades, the lawsuit said.

The first officer Mollahasani he met allowed him to pass. He encountered a second group of officers a few blocks away and explained where he was going. After asking officers to maintain social distance, he was asked to provide identification. Mollahasani showed them his New York driver’s license, a paystub listing his downtown Cleveland address and the receipt for his grocery order, the lawsuit said.

Mollahasani told the officers he was not a looter, prompting a sergeant to tell him, “You look like one,” the lawsuit said.

Cleveland.com reported that charges against more than 50 people arrested for violating curfew after the protests were eventually dismissed.

The complaint cites a number of violations of Mollahasani’s rights and seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages.

Messages were left with a Cleveland spokesperson seeking comment about the lawsuit.

Washington
Last of 4 domestic terrorists sentenced to 55 years in jail
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The last of four domestic terrorists who robbed banks and planted bombs in the Spokane region in 1996 has been resentenced to 55 years in federal prison.

Charles Barbee, 68, along with his co-conspirators, were linked to the white supremacist Phineas Priesthood group and were convicted of multiple federal crimes which carry mandatory minimum prison sentences.

Among their bomb targets was The Spokesman-Review’s Spokane Valley office and a Planned Parenthood clinic. No one was killed.

The Spokesman-Review reported that a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision found that some of the statutes the men were convicted under were unconstitutionally vague about the elements of crimes that require long prison sentencing.

Barbee was resentenced Monday by U.S. District Court Judge William Fremming Nielsen.

Numerous people testified they felt Barbee was rehabilitated should be released from prison.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Harrington reminded the court of the terror Barbee and his co-conspirator’s actions inspired in the Spokane community.

The judge said he was “frustrated” by the lack of flexibility he had in the sentencing due to mandatory sentence requirements.

Nielsen previously re-sentenced co-conspirators Robert S. Berry, 68, and Verne J. Merrell, 74, to long prison terms earlier this year. Brian J. Rattigan, 61, was released with credit for time served. All the men lived in the nearby Sandpoint, Idaho, area.

Minnesota
Woman injured by police during Floyd unrest settles lawsuit
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The city of Minneapolis has settled the first lawsuit by a demonstrator injured by a police projectile in violent protests that followed the death of George Floyd.

Graciela Cisneros, 22, will receive a payment of $57,900 for injuries to her face when a police officer fired a non-lethal round at her May 29 as she walked home from a demonstration. Cisneros’ cheekbone was broken and her injury required stitches. She was not arrested.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey signed off on the settlement last week.

Major civil unrest followed the May 25 death of Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police. Four officers have been charged in his death, including  Derek Chauvin, who is white and who knelt on his neck while Floyd lay handcuffed in the street.

Cisneros’ lawsuit is one of several that allege police misconduct during the protests following Floyd’s death. At the time, Cisneros was a student at Augsburg University in Minneapolis and was living in the suburb of Eagan.

Her attorney, Nico Ratkowski, said there was green paint on Cisneros’ face, indicating she was likely shot with a “marking round” used by police to control a crowd. Ratkowski said he could not determine the name of the officer who fired the round.

Ratkowski also represents Ericka Khounedaleth, 21, an accounting administrator from Plymouth, in a second federal lawsuit. Her lawsuit said she was yanked from her car at gunpoint by a Minneapolis police officer who pushed her to the pavement on May 31, the  Star Tribune reported.

Khounedaleth was driving a car with four passengers with the intention of passing out water bottles to protesters and pulled into a parking lot to turn around when police pointed guns at her, Ratkowski said.

“She was ripped out of the car without any warning,” said Ratkowski. Khounedaleth was handcuffed with plastic ties and put on a city bus with other protesters.

Pennsylvania
Lawyer: Pelosi laptop hasn’t been recovered
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A laptop stolen from the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the U.S. Capitol attack has not been recovered from the home or car of a Pennsylvania woman accused of helping steal it, the woman’s lawyer said Tuesday.

Public defender A.J. Kramer told a federal judge that investigators searched the car and Harrisburg residence of Riley June Williams but did not locate the computer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Sedky said during a hearing in Washington that she was reluctant to say more about what she described as an ongoing and fluid investigation, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

“I’m very uncomfortable discussing the facts of the case at this stage,” Sedky said. “I’m concerned that talking about what we do and don’t know and what we’re running down could jeopardize the investigation.”

Williams, 22, is accused of helping steal the laptop, which a Pelosi aide has said was only used for presentations. She is on electronic monitoring and largely confined to her home to await trial on that charge, along with obstruction, trespassing and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

Sedky told the judge there is evidence Williams has directed others to delete data after the attack, the paper said. U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui restricted Williams’ internet access while she awaits trial.

The FBI has said an unidentified former romantic partner of Williams tipped them off that she appeared in video from the Jan. 6 rioting and the tipster claimed she had hoped to sell the computer to Russian intelligence.

Her lawyers have said the tipster’s accusations are overstated.

Video from the riot shows a woman matching Williams’ description exhorting invaders to go “upstairs, upstairs, upstairs” during the attack. The FBI has said Williams was recorded on closed-circuit cameras in the Capitol going into and coming out of Pelosi’s office.

An FBI affidavit said a cellphone video likely shot by Williams showed a man’s gloved hand lifting an HP laptop from a table, and the caption read, “they got the laptop.”


Connecticut
Lawsuit over training flight crash  settled
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — The sister of a student pilot who died in a small plane crash in Connecticut in 2017 has settled a wrongful-death lawsuit against the flight school she accused of failing to maintain the aircraft.

Terms of the settlement over the death of Pablo Campos-Isona during a training flight crash in East Haven have not been disclosed. The agreement with the now-defunct American Flight Academy was revealed in a document filed Monday in New Haven Superior Court by the attorney for Campos-Isona’s sister, Marie Matta-Isona.

Messages seeking comment were left for lawyers in the case Wednesday.

Campos-Isona, 31, died after a Piper PA38 crashed while he and instructor Rafayel Hany Wassef were practicing touch-and-go landings near Tweed New Haven Airport on Feb. 22, 2017. Wassef survived but suffered multiple broken bones.

American Flight Academy and its owner, Arian Prevalla, denied the lawsuit’s allegations and, in court documents, blamed Campos-Isona for the crash.

Federal investigators concluded a fuel selector valve failure likely caused the plane’s engine to stall and placed some blame on Wassef.

American Flight Academy also was sued over a 2016 fatal training flight crash in East Hartford, but a judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2019. In that case, Prevalla, who survived the crash, accused student Feras Freitekh, who died, of intentionally causing the crash, which Freitekh’s family denied.


Missouri
Ex-fire captain sentenced for illegal gun sales
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A former fire department captain in Kansas City, Missouri, has been sentenced to six years in federal prison for illegally selling guns, including to convicted felons.

James Samuels, 55, was sentenced Monday. He will be required to serve three years of supervised released once he gets out of prison.

Samuels pleaded guilty to several gun charges in August, admitting he bought 77 guns from November 2013 to August 2018, and transferred 47 of the guns to third parties. He made a profit of $40 to $50 per firearm, prosecutors said.

Authorities said 10 to 20 of the guns were sold to people forbidden to possess firearms.

Samuels also was ordered to pay a fine of more than $11,000 — the amount of cash seized at the time of his arrest.