California
Man guilty of murder in 2019 double killing
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A 38-year-old man was convicted Tuesday of murder for the 2019 slayings of a man and woman at a Southern California condominium.
Prosecutors said Jamon Buggs shot Darren Partch, 38, and Wendi Miller, 48, in a fit of jealousy over their relationships with his estranged girlfriend.
Buggs’ defense attorneys never disputed that he killed the pair. Instead they argued that Buggs committed the slayings in the heat of passion and should be convicted of a lesser charge, the Orange County Register reported.
After a two-week trial, the jury deliberated for about three hours. Buggs showed no reaction to the verdicts as they were read in court, the Register said.
Sentencing is set for June 3. Buggs faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
New Jersey
Man gets 14-year sentence for role in online dating scheme
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A man who helped dupe dozens into sending millions of dollars to people posing as U.S. military personnel in an online dating scheme has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison.
Rubbin Sarpong, 38, of Millville, New Jersey, must also pay more than $3 million in restitution to 36 victims under the sentence imposed Tuesday, as well as more than $385,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. He had pleaded guilty last November to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering and tax evasion counts.
Federal prosecutors say the scheme ran from January 2016 to September 2019. They say Sarpong and his co-conspirators, several of whom live in Ghana, set up phony profiles on online dating sites using fictitious or stolen identities and posing as U.S. military personnel.
They eventually pretended to forge romantic relationships with at least 40 victims overall and sought money from them, often purportedly to ship gold bars to the United States. The conspirators told many victims that their money would be returned once the gold bars were received in the United States, but instead it was withdrawn in cash, wired to other domestic bank accounts and to other conspirators in Ghana.
Sarpong received roughly $1.14 million in taxable income from the scheme but didn’t file income tax returns and paid no income tax, prosecutors said.
Texas
Man convicted in fatal stabbing of 11-year-old boy
HOUSTON (AP) — A man was convicted Tuesday in the fatal stabbing of an 11-year-old Houston boy as the child walked home from school in 2016.
Jurors deliberated for about three hours before finding 33-year-old Andre Timothy Jackson, guilty of murder in the death of Josue Flores.
Jackson, who has always maintained his innocence, faces up to life in prison.
Authorities say the sixth grader was killed as he walked home from a science club meeting at a school just north of downtown Houston on May 17, 2016. He was only two blocks from home when he was stabbed more than 20 times.
Witnesses told officers they heard loud screams and saw the boy struggling with a man. The boy collapsed on the grass near the sidewalk and the man ran away.
During closing arguments on Tuesday, prosecutors told jurors that the boy’s DNA was found on Jackson’s jacket.
“The reasonable conclusion here is that the victim’s DNA is on Andre Jackson’s jacket because he murdered Josue Flores. Andre Jackson is a killer. He killed a child and the evidence is right here guys,” said Harris County Assistant District Attorney Chris Condon.
Police say the jacket was found in the room at the Salvation Army shelter where Jackson had been living in at the time of the killing. Surveillance video from the day of Josue’s death showed Jackson wearing the jacket.
But Jerome Godinich, one of Jackson’s attorneys, suggested to jurors that the amount of DNA found on the jacket was so small that it could have been transferred onto it by someone else at the shelter. Jackson’s attorneys said he didn’t match the physical description of the suspect seen by people who witnessed the killing and Jackson had no history of violence.
“It is a textbook example of how innocent people get convicted,” said Justin Keiter, another of Jackson’s attorneys.
Jackson said in a YouTube video posted in May 2019: “I am not Josue’s killer. I am not a killer.”
The Marine Corps veteran was first arrested weeks after Josue’s killing. But prosecutors dropped the charge in 2017, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to try Jackson or uphold a conviction.
He was rearrested in 2019 after prosecutors said newly tested DNA evidence connected him to the killing.
Jackson wasn’t the first person charged in the case.
A 31-year-old man with a long criminal history was charged days after the killing, but that charge was dropped when detectives found evidence to support his alibi.
Louisiana
Feds: fentanyl sold as heroin; buyer ran into police station
ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) — A Louisiana man who sold fentanyl as heroin was sentenced Tuesday to 22.5 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.
In 2018, a buyer who thought he had taken heroin passed out at the wheel and crashed into the Alexandria Police Department, U.S. Attorney Brandon B. Brown said in a news release.
Dustin Thompson, 36, of Alexandria, pleaded guilty in October to possessing fentanyl with intent to distribute it and to possessing firearms to further drug trafficking. U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell ordered three years of supervised release after Thompson leaves prison.
After the crash in March 2018, officers gave the opioid recovery drug Narcan to the buyer. He needed an “extended period” on a Narcan drip in a hospital, the news release said.
A search of Thompson’s home found three loaded firearms, 54 grams (1.90 ounces) of fentanyl, and a large sum of cash, the statement said. Brown described that as a large amount of the drug, but noted his office will seek stiff sentences no matter how much fentanyl is illegally sold.
“This has become an epidemic throughout the southern part of the country and this district is no exception,” he said.
Kansas
Gamer pleads guilty for role in fatal ‘swatting’ case
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man has pleaded guilty to his role in a hoax call that led to a fatal shooting of an innocent bystander by Wichita police in 2017.
Shane Gaskell, 23, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to wire fraud in case that drew national attention to “swatting,” during which a caller falsely reports a crime that is dangerous enough to send a SWAT team to the location, The Wichita Eagle reported.
The “swatting” call on Dec. 28, 2017, led to the death of 28-year-old Andrew Finch, who was shot by Wichita police as he opened the door of his home to see why police were outside.
In his plea Tuesday, Gaskell said he got into an argument with another online gamer, Casey Viner, of North College Hill, Ohio, and gave him an old address. Viner recruited another gamer, Tyler Barriss, of Los Angeles, to falsely report a shooting and kidnapping at Gaskell’s old address. A Wichita officer shot Finch after responding to Barriss’ call.
After hearing about the fatal shooting, Gaskill suggested Viner and Barriss “alter or destroy their communications” with him and deleted his message threads, his plea agreement says.
Federal prosecutors initially agreed to an 18-month pretrial diversion program for Gaskill that would have allowed several original charges to be dropped. But prosecutors resumed prosecution in September 2021 after they said Gaskill violated the terms of his diversion.
Gaskill will be sentenced July 21.
Barriss is serving 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty in April 2019 to 51 counts associated with the Wichita swatting and other hoax emergency calls across the U.S.
Viner was sentenced in September 2019 to 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
The officer involved in the shooting was not charged.
Nebraska
Man guilty of stabbing fiancé to death in her home
WAHOO, Neb. (AP) — A jury has found a Nebraska man guilty of first-degree murder and other counts in the stabbing death of his fiancé nearly two years ago in their Saunders County home as her two young children slept upstairs.
Kolton Barnes, 27, of Malmo, was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder in the July 15, 2020, death of 27-year-old Kayla Matulka at their Malmo home, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. The jury also found Barnes guilty of animal cruelty, two counts of child abuse, two counts of use of a deadly weapon and evidence tampering.
Investigators said Barnes kicked in the home’s locked door after Matulka ended the relationship, then beat, strangled and stabbed Matulka more than two dozen times. Police said Barnes left Matulka’s naked, blooded body — with a restraint still attached to one of her wrists — in the home for her children, ages 11 and 6, to find.
Prosecutors painted a picture of a man who changed his story to police repeatedly and told the jury he had deleted texts he had sent to Matulka saying he would break into the house. Barnes initially told police he was being framed, prosecutors said, then that Matulka had killed herself. At trial, he changed his story again to claim self-defense, saying that Matulka killed the dog and then attacked him.
Barnes faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole when he’s sentenced in July.
Maryland
Man, woman plead guilty in bus driver’s death
BALTIMORE (AP) — A Baltimore man and woman pleaded guilty Tuesday in the shooting death of a bus driver in 2020.
Cameron Silcott, 25, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to first-degree murder and a firearms offense in the fatal shooting of Maryland Transit Administration bus driver Marcus Parks, The Baltimore Sun reported. Nichelle Greene, 29, pleaded guilty to first-degree felony murder, acknowledging that she participated in the robbery that led to Parks’ killing.
Circuit Judge Lynn Stewart Mays is expected to sentence Silcott to life in prison later this week and tentatively agreed to adhere to the punishment proposed by the prosecutor and defense attorney for Greene: life with all but 40 years suspended.
Greene and Silcott began arguing with Parks at a bus stop when Parks couldn’t make change for a $20 bill, Assistant State’s Attorney David Owens said. Greene snatched Parks’ backpack, tossed it to Silcott and both fled. Parks chased them and Silcott shot him. A witness was slated to testify that Silcott was the shooter and several cameras, including one on the bus, captured much of the incident, Owens said.
