New Hampshire
Man pleads guilty to fraud in getting COVID-19 work benefits
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire man has pleaded guilty in federal court to defrauding government programs that were intended to provide assistance related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
George Adyns, 51, of Sandown, who was chief financial officer of several companies in Plaistow, directed employees in March 2020 to file for state unemployment benefits while continuing to work, prosecutors said. The state paid more than $49,000 in fraudulently obtained benefits.
Adyns also fraudulently obtained loans totaling more than $135,000, prosecutors said.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 31 on a wire fraud charge.
A co-defendant pleaded not guilty.
North Carolina
Woman sentenced to prison for Medicare fraud
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina woman has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison for conspiring with others to defraud North Carolina’s Medicaid system by turning in more than $4 million in fake claims for behavioral health services.
Sharita Mathis Richardson of Greensboro was also sentenced on Wednesday to three years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit health care fraud. She pleaded guilty to the charge in March 2021, said U.S. Attorney Michael Easley.
As part of sentencing, Richardson was also ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution to the North Carolina Fund for Medical Assistance, according to a news release.
Court documents and information presented in court showed Richardson conspired with others between approximately 2012 and 2016. One of them, Antonio Fozard, owned and operated a number of behavioral health companies that said they provided services to Medicaid beneficiaries. Prosecutors said each of these entities engaged in a systematic effort to steal from Medicaid by billing for services that were never delivered.
Fozard was one of four co-conspirators to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud in separate related cases. The other three have been sentenced, and Fozard is scheduled to be sentenced in July.
Texas
Appeals court spares man who killed girl, 11, from execution
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Texas’ top criminal appeals court on Wednesday ordered a man convicted of killing an 11-year-old Fort Worth girl be removed from the state’s death row.
In a three-page opinion, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled by a 6-3 vote that Juan Ramon Meza Segundo does not qualify for execution because of intellectual disability under a recent Supreme Court standard. The appeals court reformed his death sentence to life imprisonment with parole possible, the only alternative sentence for capital murder available at Segundo’s 2006 sentencing by a Tarrant County jury.
He was arrested nearly 19 years after the 1986 crime when a DNA match tied him to the cold case slaying in Fort Worth of Vanessa Villa, 11. The child was raped and strangled at her home while her family ran errands.
Between the girl’s death and his arrest, Segundo raped and killed two women, according to a statement from the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office.
Courts had rejected Segundo’s attorney’s appeals until the Supreme Court changed standards for intellectual disability in 2017, meaning previous rejections were based on “an unconstitutional standard,” the state appeals court said.
The court stayed Segundo’s scheduled Oct. 10, 2018, execution five days before it was to occur. Under the new sentence, Segundo could become eligible for parole as soon as 2026, according to a statement from the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office.
Oregon
‘How to Murder Your Husband’ writer found guilty of murder
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A jury in Portland has convicted a self-published romance novelist — who once wrote an essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband” — of fatally shooting her husband four years ago.
The jury of seven women and five men found Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, guilty of second-degree murder Wednesday after deliberating over two days in chef Daniel Brophy’s death, KOIN-TV reported.
Brophy, 63, was killed June 2, 2018, as he prepped for work at the Oregon Culinary Institute in Southwest Portland.
Crampton Brophy displayed no visible reaction Wednesday inside the crowded Multnomah County courtroom.
Lisa Maxfield, one of Crampton Brophy’s attorneys, said the defense team plans to appeal.
Prosecutors told jurors that Crampton Brophy was motivated by money problems and a life insurance policy.
Crampton Brophy said during the trial, however, that she had no reason to kill her husband and that their financial problems had largely been solved by cashing in a chunk of Brophy’s retirement savings plan.
She owned the same make and model of gun used to kill her husband and was seen on surveillance camera footage driving to and from the culinary institute, court exhibits and court testimony showed.
Police never found the gun that killed Brophy. Prosecutors alleged Crampton Brophy swapped out the barrel of the gun used in the shooting and then discarded the barrel.
Defense attorneys said the gun parts were inspiration for Crampton Brophy’s writing and suggested someone else might have killed Brophy during a robbery gone wrong. Crampton Brophy testified during the trial that her presence near the culinary school on the day of her husband’s death was mere coincidence and that she had parked in the area to work on her writing.
Crampton Brophy’s how-two treatise detailed various options for committing an untraceable killing and professed a desire to avoid getting caught. Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras ultimately excluded the essay from the trial, noting it was published in 2011. A prosecutor, however, alluded to the essay’s themes without naming it after Crampton Brophy took the stand.
Crampton Brophy has remained in custody since her arrest in September 2018, several months after her husband was shot. Her sentencing has been scheduled for June 13.
California
7 arrests connected to gambling ‘slaphouses’
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Seven people were arrested on suspicion of running illegal gambling dens at Southern California homes after a years-long investigation uncovered crimes including drug trafficking, bribery and a shooting, authorities said Wednesday.
The so-called slaphouses were operated inside residences in suburban Santa Ana and surrounding areas of Orange County, California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said in a statement.
Four of the seven defendants were charged with conspiracy and operating an illegal gambling business that generated thousands of dollars in profits on a daily basis, the statement said.
Three separate indictments also allege defendants tried to extort small businesses and distributed or possessed methamphetamine and heroin, prosecutors said.
A shooting at one of the homes injured an employee in the neck, officials said.
“The number of illegal gambling dens has exploded during the pandemic, dramatically impacting the quality of life in many Orange County neighborhoods,” U.S. Attorney Tracy Wilkison said in a statement. “These illicit businesses are a breeding ground for drug trafficking, violence and even police corruption.”
One defendant is also charged with bribery after authorities say he paid approximately $128,000 to former Santa Ana police Officer Steven Lopez in an effort to protect his illicit casinos from law enforcement intervention. Lopez, who pleaded guilty in December 2020 to accepting the bribes, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 17.
Authorities are searching for two additional suspects.
The investigation included agents from the FBI and the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gambling Control.
Moving gambling into residential neighborhoods makes it tougher for police to detect since they need a warrant to get in. Neighbors are often afraid to report the homes to police even when they attract drug use and other crime.
Inside the homes, players often try their hand at video poker or blackjack. A gambling video game earned the dens the name “slaphouses” because of the sound of players pounding their hands on the game controls.
Nebraska
Man sentenced to 70 years to life in officer’s death
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln man was sentenced to 70 years to life in prison Wednesday for the shooting death of a police officer in 2020.
Felipe Vazquez, now 19, shot Officer Mario Herrera when he tried to escape from police who were serving an arrest warrant for him at his Lincoln home. Vazquez was wanted in the stabbing death of 36-year-old Edward Varejcka months earlier.
Vazquez was sentenced to another 59 to 86 years for attempted assault on a second officer, escape and four gun charges, the Lincoln Star reported. He will not be eligible for parole for about 70 years.
Vazquez was convicted in March.
Herrera, a 23-year-veteran of the Lincoln police department, was shot as Vasquez and another man jumped out of window and fired at officers in an effort to escape.
Herrera, who was wearing plain clothes and had no bulletproof vest, was at the scene, in part, as a translator. He was struck in the torso and underwent several surgeries before dying on Sept. 7, 2020.
He was the first Lincoln police officer killed in the line of duty in more than 50 years.
California
Life in prison for killer in Reno motel shooting
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A California man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing a Reno woman whose 5-year-old son told police he pretended to be dead after the killer started firing nearly two dozen gunshots in their motel room.
Lamar Adams, 49, of Richmond, pleaded guilty earlier to one count of first-degree murder and one count of child endangerment, both with the use of a deadly weapon, in the 2020 killing of 42-year-old Lynette Lozano.
Both counts included deadly weapon enhancements extending the sentence.
Washoe District Judge Barry Breslow said Adams will have to serve nearly 33 years in prison before he’s eligible for parole.
Police said Adams had been living with Lozano before he fired 23 shots in the small motel room near the Reno airport where she was staying with her two young children.
Assistant District Attorney Zach Young said the egregious facts in the case included a 7-year-old suffering a small burn on his back when he was struck by an ejected cartridge case.
The 5-year-old told detectives that he “laid there and pretended to be dead so he wouldn’t do nothing to me,” the DA’s office said in a statement Wednesday.
