Court Digest

Louisiana 3 guilty in killing of girl, 12

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Three men have pleaded guilty in connection with a summer shooting that left a 12-year-old New Orleans girl dead and outraged a city already struggling with a rise in murders.

The Times-Picayune / The New Orleans Advocate reported that the parents of Todriana Peters were in the courtroom Wednesday when the three men pleaded guilty. One man, Pernell Young, admitted to opening fire during the May 30 shooting outside a graduation party  while prosecutors said the other two — 18-year-old Marcus Venible, and 19-year-old Tyrese Riley — were not shooters.

Peters’ death was part of a wave of homicides starting last year that has rattled the city. After a 2019 that marked the lowest number of homicides in nearly half a century, New Orleans saw the number of people killed skyrocket in 2020. This year homicides are up 5% over the same time period last year, according to information on the City Council’s website.

Assistant District Attorney Alex Calenda told the court that Young, Venible and Riley were in a pair of cars on their way to a graduation party when someone opened fire on them, hitting Young’s car. When they got to the party they saw a car that they believed was involved in the earlier shooting. Seven men who were part of Young’s group opened fire, wounding two people and killing Peters, who had stopped by the party with a relative to charge her phone before going home to her grandmother’s house.

According to the newspaper, Young pleaded guilty to man­slaughter, conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, illegal discharge of a weapon during a crime of violence and obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to ten years on the last count with no sentencing yet on the other counts.

Venible and Riley received eight years in prison on counts of conspiring to commit second-degree murder and conspiring to commit the illegal discharge of a weapon during a crime of violence. They also received five years on accessory after the fact to second-degree murder.

Lawyers for all three declined to comment.

Seven other people have also been indicted in the shooting.

Peters would have turned 13 on Sept. 20.

Pennsylvania
City settles in fatal shooting of Walter Wallace Jr.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia has agreed to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man experiencing a mental health episode whose fatal shooting by police a year ago was recorded and led to protests, an attorney said Thursday.

The city agreed to pay his family $2.5 million, city officials told The Philadelphia Inquirer. Family attorney Shaka Johnson said during a news conference that the city’s announcement this week it would spend $14 million to equip all patrol officers with stun guns was also a part of the settlement.

“It was ... a substantial monetary settlement that reflected the tragedy that took place, the city’s role and policy failures that contributed to his death,” Johnson said. “The financial settlement was never the family’s primary objective. They have from the beginning called for reforms to the police department.”

The U.S. Department of Justice had recommended, in a review of the police department’s use of deadly force in 2015, that Philadelphia issue stun guns to all patrol officers, but that never happened, Johnson said.

The family of Wallace, 27, had made several calls for help on the day of the October 2020 shooting, some of them noting he was becoming violent as he experienced a mental health crisis. Video from officers and bystanders showed that two white police officers fired fatal shots within a minute of responding to the home in Philadelphia’s Cobbs Creek neighborhood.

During those tense seconds, Wallace appeared to be holding a knife at his side. He ignored commands to drop the weapon as he walked off a porch and zigzagged between cars and across the street.

The officers fired 14 shots at the man, and he crumpled in the street. His mother could be seen in bystander video following Wallace and begging police not to shoot.

The shooting, just five months after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and subsequent nationwide protests, sparked days of unrest and marches demanding an end to police brutality in Philadelphia.

Wallace’s family has said that if officers had been equipped with less lethal options than guns, he would still be alive. Johnson said the settlement means there will be legal recourse if the city fails to follow through on giving stun guns to officers.

“If this situation can save anybody’s life ... if we can save any human being, then I think it is for a good cause,” said Wallace’s father, Walter Wallace Sr.

After the shooting, police and city officials said that nearly two-thirds of the more than 6,000-member Philadelphia police force were not equipped with or trained to use electroshock weapons.

A script of questions now in place for 911 operators designed to help identify mental health issues before officers arrive is also in part, thanks to negotiations during the lawsuit, Johnson said.

Kansas
Man sentenced to prison for crash that killed woman
LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man has been sentenced to more than six years in prison for causing a crash earlier this year that killed a grandmother and injured her 6-month-old grandson.

Josiah Coleman, 23, of Leavenworth County, was sentenced Thursday to 77 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter and methamphetamine possession, the Kansas City Star reported.

Prosecutors said Coleman was high on meth on Feb. 21 when he drove more than 90 mph in a 40 mph zone, ran a stop sign and crashed into a car driven by 62-year-old Donna Gay Osborne.

Osborne died at the scene, and her infant grandson, who was in the car, suffered minor injuries.

Investigators found meth and drug paraphernalia in Coleman’s car. Prosecutors said Coleman was on probation at the time of the crash for a 2019 felony aggravated battery conviction.

Connecticut
Wife accused of theft, convincing spouse he had Alzheimer’s
WEST HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut woman has been charged with larceny after police say she stole nearly $600,000 from her husband and convinced him he had Alzheimer’s disease in an attempt to hide her actions.

Police said the 63-year-old woman forged documents over nearly 20 years in order to steal her husband’s pension checks, Social Security checks, worker’s compensation settlements, and other funds and put the money in a secret bank account.

She obtained power of attorney for her husband by having a friend, who is a notary public, sign the legal document when her husband was not present, police said.

Police said the woman told investigators she hid the theft for years in part by convincing her husband that he had Alzheimer’s, believing it would dissuade him from questioning the financial irregularities.

The husband, who has since filed for divorce, went to the authorities in March 2020 to report the suspected fraud after concerned family members brought it to his attention, police said.

The woman appeared in court Thursday, charged with first-degree larceny and was being held in lieu of $25,000 bond.

Kansas
Woman charged after violent rampage that left 1 dead
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A woman who went on a violent rampage in Kansas City, Kansas, was charged Thursday with second-degree murder and 11 other felonies.

Wyandotte County prosecutors said Alyssa Leanne Arreola was also charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, three counts of burglary, three counts of theft of a firearm, and two counts of theft of a vehicle.

Police said Arreola stole a vehicle early Wednesday in Kansas City, Kansas. She then allegedly was involved in two hit-and-run crashes before she fled on foot, according to a warrant filed Thursday.

Police said Arreola broke into a woman’s apartment and stabbed her before fleeing again. The woman was hospitalized but is expected to recover, police said.

About a block from that scene, Arreola fatally shot a man in his driveway and stole his car, police said.

Kansas City, Missouri, police later found the stolen car and arrested Arreola.

Authorities have not released a possible motive for Arreola’s actions or any other information in the case.

Iowa
Woman awarded $2.2 million after firing from health clinic
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A woman has been awarded $2.2 million after she was fired by a Sioux City women’s health clinic shortly before she was scheduled to have surgery for a work injury.

Susan Boutwell sued Siouxland Women’s Health Care, alleging she was fired in April 2018 as an ultrasound technician because she planned to file a workers’ compensation claim for time missed for her surgery.

Boutwell, who had worked at the clinic for 28 years, said in her lawsuit she was told a week before the surgery that she would not have a a job to return to and she could file for unemployment benefits, The Sioux City Journal reported.

The Woodbury County jury returned its verdict last week against the clinic, which provides gynecological and obstetric care and other women’s health care services.

The clinic acknowledged Boutwell was injured at work but denied she was fired because she planned to file a workers’ compensation claim.

The clinic’s attorney, Richard Moeller, of Sioux City, said the clinic intends to file a motion asking that the verdict be set aside and a judgment entered in the clinic’s favor. The clinic also will seek a new trial, he said.

Louisiana
Archdiocese settling whistleblower suit for $1M
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Archdiocese of New Orleans has agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit claiming that it inflated damage estimates for federal recovery money after Hurricane Katrina, a newspaper reported.

Federal bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill approved the terms Tuesday, according to The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate.

The agreement calls for paying $1.05 million over two years to the U.S. Department of Justice, with the whistleblower and his lawyers getting as much as $262,500 of that.

The archdiocese “expressly denies” the allegations by Robert Romero, a former project manager at the California-based engineering firm AECOM, court papers noted.

Neither an archdiocese spokeswoman nor its lawyer immediately responded to emailed requests for comment on Thursday.

The archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2020 after being sued by a number of people who say they were sexually abused by priests.

The whistleblower suit filed in 2016 — 11 years after Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans — claimed that the church got $46 million more than it should have from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for damages at a church-run school and an assisted living center.

Romero accused a co-worker of helping the archdiocese and two private universities defraud the government out of more than $100 million.

Xavier University agreed to pay $12 million.

The U.S. Justice Department, which had joined the suit, dismissed Romero’s co-worker and Dillard University as defendants, saying further prosecution wasn’t worth it. Dillard was accused of $15 million in fraudulent claims,
AECOM, which received about $300 million, appears to be the last remaining defendant in the case, the newspaper reported.

The firm has said it always stayed within FEMA guidelines.

Minnesota
Judge says man unfit for trial, cites energy drink testimony
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A judge said a Minnesota man accused of killing three family members with a wrench is mentally incompetent to stand trial, citing testimony from doctors about his schizophrenia intensified by his consumption of energy drinks.

David Ekers, 36, was charged with three counts of second-degree murder in last year’s attack in a Minneapolis suburb that killed his sister, 34-year-old Eleanor Ekers; his mother, 63-year-old Linda Ekers; and his grandmother, 86-year-old Darlene Brost.

The ruling last week by Judge Lisa Janzen said evidence of the negative effect of caffeinated energy drinks on Ekers’ schizophrenia dates back to at least 2017. During one hospitalization in 2018, his “psychotic symptoms appeared worsened with the ingestion of large amounts of energy drinks,” Janzen said.

Ekers told a doctor in July that he sometimes hears voices “due to poor sleep and the ingestion of energy drinks,” the Star Tribune reported.

The attack happened in July 2020. A criminal complaint says Ekers’ father told police that he and his son were downstairs working when Ekers went upstairs. The father heard his wife scream, “David, no,” then ran upstairs and saw his son holding a pipe wrench. He dropped the wrench and curled up into a ball.

Ekers said the attack stemmed from his belief that the women wanted him to return to a psychiatric hospital or start taking his medication again.

Defense attorney Melissa Fraser said Thursday that she respects Janzen and defers to her opinion.