Court Digest

California
Nun, 80, gets prison for $835,000 school theft
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles nun and school principal who stole more than $800,000 to pay for a gambling habit was sentenced Monday to a year in federal prison.

Mary Margaret Kreuper, 80, admitted to stealing the money from 2008 to 2018 while she was principal at St. James Catholic School in the LA suburb of Torrance.

She pleaded guilty last July to one count each of wire fraud and money laundering.

U.S. District Court Judge Otis D. Wright II also ordered Kreuper to pay back the school approximately $835,000 as restitution, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported.

“I have sinned, I’ve broken the law and I have no excuses,” Kreuper said via teleconference. “My actions were in violation of my vows, my commandments, the law and, above all, the sacred trust that so many had placed in me. I was wrong and I’m profoundly sorry for the pain and suffering I’ve caused so many people.”

Prosecutors said that in a plea agreement that the now-retired elementary school principal acknowledged that she embezzled donations, tuition and fees.

In her plea agreement, Kreuper acknowledged diverting money to pay for personal expenses that included credit card charges and “large gambling expenses incurred at casinos,” the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Oregon
Man found guilty in woman’s murder, body burning
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Washington County jury has found a Beaverton man guilty of murder and first-degree abuse of a corpse after a woman was beaten to death and her body burned, The Washington County District Attorney’s office said.

Norbeto Nestor Muniz will be sentenced Tuesday for the murder of 29-year-old Amy Low, a Molalla woman whose body was found on Nov. 17, 2018 at a Beaverton home, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

Police were called to the home on a report of a “suspicious circumstance.” Officers searched the home and found Low’s body, which was so badly burned she was not positively identified until two months later.

Low lived at the home with Muniz and another man. Investigators found DNA evidence in the home and determined Low was beaten to death and then burned in a backyard burn pile, the district attorney’s office said.

Muniz, 42, was arrested in May 2019 and was in custody until his trial. Shortly before Low’s murder, Muniz had been released from prison after serving a robbery sentence.

A motive remains unclear.

Mississippi
Woman pleads guilty in murder-for-hire scheme
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi woman pleaded guilty Monday to a charge in an unsuccessful murder-for-hire scheme, federal authorities said.
Jessica Leeann Sledge, 40, of Pelahatchie, appeared before U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves and pleaded to a charge of using interstate commerce facilities in commission of a killing.

The intended victim was ultimately unharmed, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Darren J. LaMarca and the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Jackson office, Jermicha Fomby.

Sentencing is scheduled for May 16. Sledge faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Sledge admitted that between September 2021 and Nov. 1, 2021, she tried to hire a supposed assassin to kill a person in Mississippi, according to the news release. It said she used the internet, her cellphone and the Whatsapp app.

Unknown to Sledge, the alleged hitman she hired was an FBI agent. On Nov. 1, 2021, Sledge met in Brandon with the person she thought was the assassin to provide payment and information about her intended victim.

After her arrest, Sledge waived her rights and admitted to her role in the plot. Authorities didn’t identify the intended victim or indicate why Sledge wanted the person killed.

Delaware
Man pleads guilty in death of teen
SALEM, Mass. (AP) — A Delaware man charged with shooting and killing a Massachusetts teenager when he answered the door of his own home has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and been sentenced to up to 25 years in prison.

Kenneth Pitts, 22, of Frankford, Delaware, also pleaded guilty Monday in Salem Superior Court to armed assault with intent to rob and carrying a firearm without a license in connection with the June 6, 2017 shooting of Bryce Finn, 18, at his Haverhill home just days after his high school graduation, authorities said in a statement.

On that day, Finn answered a knock at the kitchen door and was confronted by Pitts and two other men who had travelled from Delaware to rob him of money, drugs and jewelry, prosecutors said.

Witnesses told investigators that Pitts shot Finn in the chest after Finn displayed a weapon.

The killing went unsolved for over a year until a witness identified one of the other men allegedly involved. Three other men charged in the case are scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 18.

South Carolina
Man charged in $1 million scheme involving silver dollars
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A man is charged with scamming a friend he met at a dancing club in South Carolina out of more than $1 million in an alleged scheme to buy silver dollars, The State reported.

Court documents that were unsealed show Clyde Anthony Murchison III was jailed on a federal wire fraud charge, the newspaper reported.

One night at a dance club in which they were both members, the victim told Murchison about $26,000 in cash he had after selling property. In response, Murchison said his friend could make more money if he purchased silver dollars, melted the silver down and resold it for a higher price, according to a sworn statement.

Eventually, the victim met Murchison at a Cracker Barrel restaurant and handed over a check for $1 million to pay for an order of Morgan silver dollars that were released by the U.S. Mint, documents showed. The man later grew suspicious after contacting a bank where the coins were supposed to be delivered and contacted authorities.

Prosecutors filed a criminal complaint charging Murchison with wire fraud on Jan. 28, and he was arrested Feb. 2, court documents show. Murchison waived his right to a bond hearing as a result and will remain in jail.

A public defender representing Murchison did not immediately respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.

California
Ex-deputy sentenced in killing of fleeing man
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A former San Diego County sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot a man he saw escape from a patrol car was sentenced Monday to three years of probation and a year in jail.

Aaron Russell, 25, pleaded guilty last month to voluntary manslaughter in the May 2020 shooting death of Nicholas Bils.

Superior Court Judge Francis Devaney also ordered a three-year suspended sentence, meaning that if Russell were to violate the terms of probation, he could be sent to prison, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The prosecutor had sought a six-year term behind bars.

Russell’s one year of custody could be served in county jail, but may be served in a work furlough program, if he is approved.

Bils’ mother, Kathleen Bils, walked out of the courtroom when she heard the judge’s ruling, Fjermicha-TV reported.

Outside court, Bils’ cousin Amber Barnett called the sentence “shameful” and said it “sends the message to law enforcement officers that they can shoot someone in the back and maybe get a year in jail.”

Russell was a deputy with 18 months on the force when he saw Bils, 36, escape from a State Parks patrol car. He shot Bils in the back as he was running away.

In his plea agreement, Russell admitted he “unreasonably believed that I or someone else was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily injury.”

“I actually, but unreasonably believed that the immediate use of deadly force was necessary to defend against the danger,” Russell said.

Kathleen Bils has sued Russell and the county in federal court, alleging excessive force and wrongful death.

Alabama
Court revives high school student’s suit over strip search
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit brought by an Alabama student who said she was strip-searched at age 14 by school officials who suspected her of smoking marijuana.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reversed the ruling of a district court that stated Lamar County school officials had qualified immunity. The latest ruling allows the civil lawsuit brought by the student and her mother to proceed against the school system and officials.

The lawsuit contends the then eighth-grade student at Sulligent High School was strip-searched twice in 2017 after a teacher smelled marijuana burning in the classroom, and administrators found marijuana stems, seeds and rolling paper in the girl’s backpack.

No drugs were found on the student after the searches, and a teacher later found the remains of a marijuana cigarette under her desk the next day, according to the appellate court ruling. The student was identified as T.R. in court filings because of her age.

The appellate court said a district judge erred in granting judgment on favor of the school board. The ruling said school officials had no specific reason to think the student hid marijuana in her underwear and that they subjected her to the “categorically extreme intrusiveness of a search” of her body.

“Not only did they not have reasonable suspicion to strip search T.R. the first time, but the school officials also clearly had no basis to strip search T.R. a second time after the first search yielded nothing,” the appellate ruling stated.

Missouri
State high court to hear challenge to gun law
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on the constitutionality of a new state law forbidding local law enforcement from enforcing federal gun laws.

A lower court judge rejected a challenge to the law brought by St. Louis city and county and Kansas City officials last August, so they appealed to the higher court.

The gun law has drawn strong opposition from police departments across the state, and federal law enforcement officials have said it hampers criminal investigations and hurts cooperation between federal and local investigators.

The cities say in their appeal that the law could also prevent state and local officers from participating in important task forces with federal officials.

State officials who are defending the law argue it is necessary to prevent federal officials from trying to enforce new gun control measures.

Gun rights groups, such as the Missouri Firearms Coalition, have also weighed in, arguing that the law is needed because “gun rights are in a precarious situation in America.”

A separate lawsuit asking a judge to clarify the provisions of the law is also progressing in lower courts. That lawsuit filed by the city of Arnold attracted support last month from a group of nearly 60 Missouri police chiefs associated with the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association or the Missouri Police Chiefs Association.