Detroit
Man faces murder charge in 1997 slaying of woman
DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit man was charged with first-degree murder Friday in the fatal strangulation of a woman nearly 25 years ago.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy charged Johnny Joseph Yenshaw, 51, in connection with the slaying of Sonya Dockery, 33, of Detroit.
Detroit police found Dockery unresponsive on the morning of Dec. 1, 1997, with strangulation marks and lacerations on her neck. Medics pronounced the woman dead.
An investigation of the cold case by Detroit police led to Yenshaw’s arrest on Wednesday, Worthy said. Further details will be introduced in court at his preliminary examination on April 25, she said.
Yenshaw was arraigned on one count of first-degree murder and remanded to jail on Friday
It wasn’t clear whether Yenshaw has an attorney who might comment on his behalf.
Nebraska
Man on parole for murder sentenced in foiled home invasion
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man on parole for murder has been sentenced to more than 22 years in prison for plotting a home invasion robbery that was foiled when he tried to buy a gun from an undercover agent and recruited a confidential FBI informant to act as his getaway driver, authorities say.
Chief United States District Judge Robert F. Rossiter Jr. said Friday that the reason he ordered 43-year-old Rufus Dennis, of Omaha, to serve so much time is that he intended to murder victims.
The U.S. attorney’s office said that Dennis repeatedly “cased” the home of a single mother of two young children in January 2020 as he made plans to physically harm her in the presence of her elderly mother. The FBI obtained recordings of Dennis in which he said he wasn’t going to be caught or identified and would leave no witnesses behind.
Rossiter also noted that Dennis was on parole for second-degree murder when he committed the federal offenses. They included being a felon in possession of a firearm.
When Dennis was just 17 in 1995, he took the wheel of a vehicle so an 18-year-old passenger could shoot a sawed-off shotgun and kill another teen.
Massachusetts
Researcher inspired by ‘Breaking Bad’ given home confinement
BOSTON (AP) — A former top researcher at MIT who says he was inspired by the hit television show “Breaking Bad” when he purchased ingredients for the powerful poison ricin has been sentenced to six months of home confinement.
Ishtiaq Ali Saaem, 38, was also given three years of probation by a Boston federal court judge on Thursday, The Boston Globe reports.
Saaem said he never made poison and maintained was “guided by innocent curiosity” to learn more about ricin when he purchased castor beans, the source of the poison.
Saaem, who holds a doctorate in biomedical engineering and also had been head of advanced research at a Boston-area biotechnology company, had ordered 100 packets of the beans online in 2015.
It’s not illegal to purchase castor beans but Saaem, who now lives in Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice last year for lying to federal authorities about his reason for purchasing them.
He told investigators he purchased castor beans because he was interested in planting them in his apartment as decoration and had only intended to purchase one packet, not 100.
California
Paralegal to plead guilty to immigration fraud
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles paralegal has agreed to plead guilty to helping a Philippines-based church commit immigration fraud by setting up sham marriages, prosecutors said.
Maria De Leon, 73, could be sentenced to up to five years in federal prison, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
Victims of the immigration fraud were forced to solicit donations in the U.S. to finance the lavish lifestyle of leaders of the church called Kingdom of Jesus Christ, federal prosecutors said in court documents.
As a part of a plea deal, De Leon has agreed to cooperate in the federal government’s case against the church’s administrators, including its founder, Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, the Times said.
A federal grand jury in November indicted Quiboloy on charges of having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and “eternal damnation.”
Quiboloy and three other church administrators are fugitives and are believed to still be in the Philippines, according to federal prosecutors. Quiboloy was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list earlier this year.
According to her plea agreement, De Leon filed fraudulent paperwork in at least 10 separate instances between 2013 and 2020 on behalf of the church’s members, entering them into sham marriages with other followers who already have U.S. citizenship.
Pennsylvania
Woman gets 15 to 30 years after plea in 2019 toddler’s death
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A woman has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and kidnapping in the 2019 death of a western Pennsylvania toddler kidnapped near Pittsburgh and later found dead in a park dozens of miles away.
Sharena Nancy, 27, entered the plea Friday in Allegheny County Court as part of an agreement with prosecutors under which she was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison. She will receive credit for the 2 1/2 years she has spent behind bars.
The father of Nalani Johnson told authorities that Nancy, with whom he had been romantically involved, drove off with the toddler Aug. 31, 2019 in Penn Hills. The body of the child, who was about to have her second birthday, was found four days later in an Indiana County park about 37 miles (60 kilometers) away. Investigators said the girl was strapped into her car seat and in the same clothes she was last seen wearing.
The Indiana County coroner’s office ruled the death a homicide and called it consistent with suffocation. Authorities said there was no evidence to support Nancy’s post-arrest allegation that the child’s father had sold her and she turned the toddler over to a woman in a roadside rendezvous. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors withdrew charges of interference with the custody of a child, concealment of children, and abuse of a corpse.
Defense attorney Anthony DeLuca called the case “an unimaginable tragedy,” adding that there was “deep regret here in the courtroom on behalf of our client.” He said Nancy has served as a mentor to others at the county jail and has shown a willingness to improve her own life and that of those around her.
More than 20 family members and other supporters were in court for the plea, many weeping as prosecutors reviewed the facts of the case. Some said they couldn’t understand how the defendant, a mother of two children herself, could be capable of harming an innocent child.
“The fact that you are a mother shows what kind of monster you really are,” the child’s great-aunt, Pariss Johnson, told Nancy during a victim impact statement Friday.
Common Pleas Judge Bruce Beemer said there are no words to express the suffering of the family.
“You have robbed them, and robbed her, of that life,” Beemer said. “She should be coming home and telling these wonderful people what happened in kindergarten, the friends she made. ... This poor family has been sentenced to life. I hope you understand that.”
New Jersey
Man in GoFundMe scam gets 27-month federal prison sentence
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man who conspired with his then-girlfriend to cook up a feel-good story about a helpful homeless man and then used the lie to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations online was sentenced in federal court Friday to more than two years in prison.
Mark D’Amico will also have to serve three years probation once he completes his 27-month term. He also must pay restitution and undergo gambling, drug and mental health counseling.
Before being sentenced, D’Amico told U.S. District Judge Noel Hillman that he was a changed man, devoted to his family.
“The person that did the things that led us here no longer exists,” D’Amico said.
He had pleaded guilty before Hillman in Camden in November to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. An indictment unsealed in January 2020 charged D’Amico with a total of 16 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering.
He had already pleaded guilty to charges in state court last year. His former girlfriend, Katelyn McClure, and homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt Jr. previously pleaded guilty to state and federal charges. Bobbitt was sentenced to five years’ probation on state charges in 2019. Both are scheduled to be sentenced on the federal charges this year.
The trio made up a story in late 2017 about Bobbitt giving $20 to help McClure when her car ran out of gas in Philadelphia, according to prosecutors. D’Amico and McClure solicited donations through GoFundMe, purportedly to help Bobbitt, and conducted newspaper and television interviews. Investigators said D’Amico was the plot’s ringleader.
They eventually raised more than $400,000 in donations over about a month, according to investigators, who said almost no part of the tale was true. The group had met near a Philadelphia casino in October 2017 shortly before they told their story, prosecutors said.
Authorities began investigating after Bobbitt sued the couple, accusing them of not giving him the money. The federal criminal complaint alleged all of the money raised in the campaign was spent by March 2018, with large chunks spent by McClure and D’Amico on a recreational vehicle, a BMW and trips to casinos in Las Vegas and New Jersey.
Ohio
GOP leaders: No contempt in 4th set of legislative maps
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s two most powerful legislators told the Ohio Supreme Court on Monday that they should not be held in contempt for leading the charge to push through a fourth set of GOP-drawn legislative maps to meet a court-imposed deadline.
In a filing by Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, Senate President Matt Huffman and House Speaker and Ohio Redistricting Commission co-chair Bob Cupp, both Republicans, said the fourth map is not in contempt, “It is compliance.”
They argued that the “real complaint” of voting rights and Democratic groups who have thrice prevailed in constitutional challenges against the maps is that they acted on a “failsafe” back-up plan rather than the one drawn by a pair of independent mapmakers.
The filing said independent mapmakers unanimously hired by the commission, one Democrat, one Republican, “neither considered nor implemented” any of the Republicans’ suggestions for the map they were drawing from scratch when time ran out.
Voting begins in Ohio’s May 3 primary Tuesday, despite ongoing legal disputes over the maps. Legislative candidates will not appear on ballots, because those districts are still undetermined.
