Court Roundup

California
Ex-skateboard champion could get parole in 1991 rape-murder

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Parole was recommended Tuesday for a one-time champion skateboarder who has spent nearly three decades in prison for raping and killing a woman at his Southern California home.

A parole board made the recommendation for Mark “Gator” Rogowski, 53, during a hearing at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, KGTV-TV reported.

Rogowski confessed to killing 22-year-old Jessica Bergsten in 1991 at his Carlsbad home. He beat her with a car lock, chained her to a bed, raped her, then placed her in a surfboard bag and strangled her before burying her in the desert, authorities said.

Bergsten was a friend of Rogowski’s former girlfriend and he said he attacked her out of “misplaced revenge”after he was dumped.

Rogowski pleaded guilty to rape and murder and was sentenced to 31 years in prison. He lost bids for parole in 2011 and 2016.

“I’m disgusted with what I did. I think about it every day,” the 1980s skateboarding champion told the parole panel Tuesday. “I took everything from that poor family. They have every right to be angry with me. I want to make it go away but I can’t.”

The panel noted Rogowski’s remorse and his clean disciplinary record during 27 years behind bars in concluding he wasn’t an unreasonable risk to the community, despite objections from Bergsten’s father and the San Diego County district attorney’s office, KGTV-TV said.

“The pain never goes away,” Stephen Bergsten told the panel. “This inmate received a life sentence, but he imposed a death sentence upon Jessica and our family.”

“We think he still poses a threat, especially to women,” Super­vising Deputy District Attorney Richard Sachs said. “When someone does something as horrible as this, it shocks the conscience that they would be granted parole.”

The state Board of Parole Hearings has 120 days to finalize the panel’s recommendation. The case would then go before Gov. Gavin Newsom for review.

Florida
Jury recommends death penalty for man who killed his wife

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — A jury recommended the death sentence for a man convicted in the 2015 killing of his wife who was a well-known doctor in Southwest Florida.

On Tuesday, the Lee County jury made the recommendation that Mark Sievers, 51, should received the death sentence for killing his wife, Teresa Sievers, 46.

He was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder by the same jury Dec. 4.

The News-Press reports that prosecutors told the jury Mark Sievers was motivated, in part, by the large amount of money from insurance policies on his wife.

She ran a medical practice, wrote about her passion for combining Eastern and Western medicine, and had filmed episodes for a local TV show about her work. She and Mark Sievers had two children together. They are being cared for by Teresa Sievers’ mother, Mary Ann Groves.

“These two girls have been robbed of their remarkable mother, their home, their pets, their possessions, their family and friends,” Groves said. “Teresa will not be able to love and guide them.”
On June 28, 2015, Teresa Sievers was bludgeoned to death after arriving home alone late after a family vacation. Mark Sievers and the couple’s daughters stayed in Connecticut for a few extra days.

According to testimony, Mark Sievers planned his wife’s murder with help from his best friend, Curtis Wayne Wright Jr., prosecutors told the jury before Mark Sievers was convicted.

A third man, Jimmy Rodgers, was enlisted to help with the killing by Wright and the pair killed Teresa Sievers with hammers, prosecutors said.

Both of Mark Sievers’ co-defendants in the case are awaiting sentencing. Rodgers was convicted by a Lee County jury of second-degree murder Oct. 23. Wright pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016 in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence.

Florida
Teen charged as adult in grandmother’s fatal stabbing

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A 13-year-old Florida boy has been charged as an adult in the fatal stabbing of his grandmother.

A Pinellas County grand jury indicted the teen Friday on a first-degree murder charge, the Tampa Bay Times  reported. He will be moved from a juvenile detention facility to the county jail.

Gloria Davis, 56, was fatally stabbed in her St. Petersburg home last month, an arrest report said. Investigators identified the teen as a suspect based on crime scene evidence and an interview with his 12-year-old half-brother, the only other person home at the time.

The boy’s motive remains a mystery, said Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant state attorney for Pinellas and Pasco counties.

“It’s one of the most gruesome crime scenes that I’ve experienced in a long time,” Bartlett said. “A tremendous amount of violence was involved in her death.”

Bartlett says that even though the boy has been charged as an adult, he could still be sentenced as a child depending on what evidence and testimony comes out in the case.

Online jail and court records didn’t list an attorney for the teen. He was being held without bail.

The Associated Press is not naming the teen because he is a minor.

Ohio
Man sentenced to 6 years for plotting foiled terror attack

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio man accused of plotting with his girlfriend to obtain guns and explosives for a foiled domestic terror attack at a bar was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison.

Vincent Armstrong, 24, of Toledo, pleaded guilty in August to a charge related to conspiring to transport or receive an explosive with intent to harm. He will remain on probation for three years after his release, The Toledo Blade reported.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Freeman said Armstrong’s girlfriend Elizabeth Lecron was the mastermind behind the planned attack and that she introduced him to online communities interested in mass murders.

Prosecutors said the pair had talked extensively about taking part in violent attacks on public places, visited the site of the Columbine High School massacre and had bomb-making materials and weapons.

Armstrong said his roommate convinced him to not go through with the assault.

“When I recall being confronted by my roommate, I felt like it was a second chance at life,” Armstrong said. “My life is far from over. I will become a better version of myself with the help of my family and friends.”

Armstrong’s defense attorney, Adam Nightingale, said Armstrong’s roommate persuaded him to end his involvement with Lecron about six months before he was arrested in December 2018.

Lecron was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November after she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists and to transporting explosives in interstate commerce.