Court Digest

Missouri
Business owner sentenced for targeting rival
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — An Independence business owner who admitted he hired a man to burn down a rival business has been sentenced to more than six years in federal prison.

William “Bill” Joseph Reneau, 44, of Overland Park, Kansas, was sentenced Tuesday to 78 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $167,085 in restitution to his victims, federal prosecutors said in a news release.

Reneau pleaded guilty in August to single counts of arson and being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Investigators said Reneau was the owner of Gold Rush Exchange in Independence when he hired Randall Eugene Yeager Jr. to destroy Bobby Jackson’s Trading, a gold-buying business operated by a former employee of Reneau’s. Prosecutors said Reneau was trying to settle a grievance with the former employee.

Investigators say Reneau hired Yeager on two separate occasions to target Bobby Jackson’s Trading, paying Yeager a total of $1,600. Prosecutors say Yeager drove a stolen Jeep into the business in July 2017, causing $10,000 in damage, and set fire to the store a month later, causing about $5,000 in damage.

Yeager was sentenced last year to more than five years in federal prison for participating in an arson conspiracy.

Washington
Grocery industry suing Seattle over hazard-pay law
SEATTLE (AP) — Two grocery industry trade groups have filed a lawsuit against the city of Seattle over its new law mandating $4 an hour pay raises for grocery stores.

The suit was filed by the Northwest Grocery Association and the Washington Food Industry Association Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, The Seattle Times reported.

It alleges the city’s law interferes with the collective-bargaining process between grocery stores and unions and also “picks winners and losers” by singling out large grocery companies.
Seattle’s law passed last week and went into effect Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, the council’s unprecedented ordinance, its unilateral action, and unwillingness to work with the grocery industry has left us with no other option than to file a lawsuit against the city,” Tammie Hetrick, president and CEO of WFIA, said in a statement.

The law applies to grocers with over 500 employees worldwide and stores larger than 10,000 square feet in Seattle. It mandates a $4 an hour pay boost for all workers in retail locations, a bump that stays in effect as long as Seattle remains in a declared civil emergency.

The lawsuit claims the new law is “invalid and unconstitutional” for two reasons. First, it says, it is preempted by federal law governing collective bargaining and labor practices. Second, the lawsuit says, the law violates the equal protection clauses of the U.S. and Washington constitutions by treating large grocers differently “without providing any reasonable justification for the exclusion of other employers or frontline retail workers.”

A spokesperson for Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes. Dan Nolte, said “We will absolutely defend the City’s right to see essential grocery workers receive the hazard pay they so rightly deserve.”

Several California cities including Berkeley have passed similar legislation in recent weeks.

The lawsuit directs blame at the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, which pushed for the law.

“The Ordinance establishes premium pay standards that, by design or consequence, empower the UFCW or other collective bargaining units to secure a wage rate they could not otherwise have obtained from the employer at a unionized or non-union grocery store,” the suit says.

UFCW Local 21 didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In response to Seattle’s legislation, Trader Joe’s raised pay, temporarily, for all its employees nationwide, while also canceling a much-smaller scheduled midyear raise. Kroger closed two California stores in response to similar legislation there.

Wisconsin
12-year-old charged with attempting to kill younger brother
SUPERIOR, Wis. (AP) — A 12-year-old boy accused of stabbing his younger brother in far northwestern Wisconsin can be charged with attempted intentional homicide, a judge has ruled.

According to a criminal complaint, the older boy stabbed his 7-year-old sibling once in the back, twice in the abdomen and once in the chest in the Jan. 11 attack at a home on Solon Springs, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) south of Duluth, Minnesota.

The younger boy survived the attack and told police his older brother put a pillow over his face during the stabbing to mute his screams, KBJR-TV reported.

The judge made the ruling during a preliminary hearing Wednesday in adult court. The case could still be sent back to juvenile court; a hearing on that decision was scheduled for March 5.

In Wisconsin, juveniles over the age of 10 accused of attempted first-degree intentional homicide are first sent to adult court.

The 12-year-old is being held at the Northwest Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Eau Claire.

Maine
Police error prompts call to toss evidence in Alaska killing
AUBURN, Maine (AP) — An attorney for a former Maine resident who is facing trial for an Alaska killing is trying to exclude evidence due to misinformation from police.

Steven Downs, formerly of Auburn, was charged for the 1993 rape and killing of Sophie Sergie at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Authorities arrested Downs in Maine in 2019 after the case sat dormant for years.

The second day of hearings in the case took place Tuesday, and Alaska State Police Trooper Randel McPherron said some of the information contained in affidavits used to secure search warrants was false. The Sun Journal reported  McPherron said he included the incorrect information in his police report unintentionally.

James Howaniec, the defense attorney for Downs, said evidence should be tossed out because search warrants for his client’s home and DNA were based on the flawed affidavits.

Illinois
Judge convicts man in 2018 triple homicide
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (AP) — A judge has convicted a central Illinois man on nine counts of first-degree murder and other charges in a 2018 triple slaying to steal money and drugs.

Prosecutors said Sydney Mays Jr., 24, of Bloomington fatally shot Nate Pena and Corey Jackson, both 22, and Juan Carlos Perez, 33, on June 18, 2018, at a Bloomington apartment. Pena’s son, who was 4 years old at the time, was paralyzed in the shooting.

Eleventh Circuit Court Judge Casey Costigan found Mays guilty Wednesday in a bench trial on each of 11 counts he was indicted on.

A recording of a 2018 police interview with one of Jackson’s friends, Navarro Howard, revealed that Mays and Pena had dispute because Mays said Pena was “outshining” him and always showing off the amount of money he had made as a drug dealer.

Howard also told police he had seen Mays with a .380 handgun a few days before the shooting — the same type of gun later identified to have killed Perez.

Mays’ lawyer, Michael Clancy, argued it could not be proven that Mays was the one who fired the gunshots. He said it is possible that Mays was in a different part of the apartment building at the time.

Clancy declined to comment after Costigan’s ruling.

Massachusetts
Buzzkill: Lawsuit says supermarket shorts customers on cups of coffee
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man has sued a supermarket chain he alleges overstated the number of cups of coffee that could be made from a store brand can of coffee.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Boston alleges the Market Basket cans which contain roughly 11 ounces of coffee are labeled as containing enough coffee to brew 79 cups in the case of regular or 76 cups in the case of decaffeinated, WCVB-TV reported.

But the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, David Cohen, of Weymouth, alleges when he follows the directions on the can he can brew only 39 and 37 cups respectively.

“This means that consumers of the products, including plaintiff, were cheated out of 51% of the servings they paid for, in both cases, based on the advertising, marketing, and labeling of the products,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit says there are possibly tens of thousands of potential plaintiffs, and is asking for at least $25 in damages for each one.

A spokesperson for Tewksbury-based Market Basket said the chain no longer sells the coffee in question.

“The label referenced in the lawsuit is no longer in our stores,” the spokesperson said. “We believe the lawsuit has no merit.”

West Virginia
Woman who tried to fake death gets extra year in prison
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia woman who tried to fake her death to avoid being sentenced for health care fraud has received an additional year in prison.

Julie M. Wheeler of Beaver was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Charleston for conspiring to obstruct justice.

Prosecutors said Wheeler admitted to conspiring with her husband to keep her out of prison. Rodney Wheeler told authorities on May 31 that she had fallen from an overlook at the New River Gorge, prompting a massive search.

State Police found Julie Wheeler two days later hiding in a closet at her home. She was sentenced in June to 42 months in prison for health care fraud related to overbilling.

A judge Wednesday ordered her two sentences to be served consecutively.

Rodney Wheeler pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to obstruct justice and faces up to five years in prison. His sentencing is set for April 5.

Kentucky
Couple plead guilty to trying to buy infant
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky couple has pleaded guilty to trying to buy a 1-month-old baby from the child’s mother.

Catarina Jose Felipe, 39, and Pascual Jose Manuel, 46, both of Bowling Green, agreed to plead guilty in exchange for the charge being reduced to a misdemeanor, the Bowling Green Daily News reported.

Felipe and Manuel pleaded guilty Tuesday to attempting to sell or purchase a child for the purpose of adoption and were sentenced to two years of conditional discharge each.

“We just didn’t know the laws of how everything works here,” Manuel said through an interpreter in video footage of the hearing. “We were just trying to adopt a baby.”

They were arrested in 2019 along with the child’s mother, Maria Domingo Perez, 32, of Bowling Green.

Perez was also given two years of conditional discharge after pleading guilty last year to a misdemeanor second-degree wanton endangerment.

New York
Hedge fund founder pleads guilty in Neiman Marcus-tied case
NEW YORK (AP) — A hedge fund founder pleaded guilty Wednesday to a criminal charge alleging he defrauded Neiman Marcus creditors by pressuring an investment bank not to bid against his hedge fund to buy securities from them.

Marble Ridge Capital founder Daniel Kamensky, 48, entered the plea to a single count of bankruptcy fraud in Manhattan federal court. A plea agreement suggested a sentence of up to 18 months in prison. Sentencing was set for May 7 for the Roslyn, New York, resident.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said Kamensky abused his position as a committee member in the Neiman Marcus bankruptcy to corrupt the process for distributing assets and take extra profits for himself and his hedge fund.

Authorities say he coerced a competitor to withdraw a bid for bankruptcy estate assets that was higher than his hedge fund would offer.

Kamensky’s hedge fund managed assets of over $1 billion as it invested in securities in distressed situations, including bankruptcies.

Before opening his hedge fund, Kamensky worked as a bankruptcy attorney at a well-known international law firm and as a distressed debt investor at prominent financial institutions, prosecutors said.

Neiman Marcus, an U.S. luxury department store chain with outlets nationwide, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Texas last May.

Prosecutors said Kamensky carried out his fraud over the summer.

Joon H. Kim, Kamensky’s attorney, said his client has admitted what he did was wrong and “deeply regrets his conduct on July 31, 2020 and the great pain it has caused his family, colleagues and others.”