Idaho
Judge sentences 5 from white nationalist group to jail for conspiracy to riot at Pride event
COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP) — Five members of the white nationalist hate group Patriot Front have been sentenced to several days in jail for conspiring to riot at a Pride event in Idaho.
Judge James Stow sentenced each of the men on Friday to five days in jail with credit for two days already served, the Coeur d’Alene Press reported. Forrest Rankin, Devin Center, Derek Smith, James Julius Johnson and Robert Whitted are also not allowed to be within 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of the Coeur d’Alene City Park while on unsupervised probation for a year.
The men were also fined $1,000 each. If they successfully complete probation they will be able to have the charges dismissed.
A Kootenai County jury on Thursday found them guilty of the riot charge after about an hour of deliberation. The men were accused of planning to riot at the Coeur d’Alene LGBTQ+ Pride event in 2022.
A total of 31 Patriot Front members, including one identified as its founder, were arrested June 11, 2022, after someone reported seeing people loading into a U-Haul van like “a little army” at a hotel parking lot in Coeur d’Alene, police have said.
Police found riot gear, a smoke grenade, shin guards and shields in the van after pulling it over near where the North Idaho Pride Alliance was holding a Pride in the Park event, Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White has said.
The group’s documents reportedly outlined a plan to form a column outside City Park and proceed inward, “until barriers to approach are met.” Once “an appropriate amount of confrontational dynamic had been established,” the column would disengage and head down Sherman Avenue.
Defense attorney Robert Sargent said in court Thursday that the men were citizens “who had a right to have their words heard and did not have an intent to harm anyone,” the Coeur d’Alene Press reported. “We don’t convict citizens on mere suspicion.”
But prosecutors said law enforcement prevented the group from carrying out their plan to violently disrupt the event.
Those arrested came from at least 11 states, including Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Illinois, Wyoming, Virginia and Arkansas. Nearly all of the others arrested are awaiting trial.
Alexander Sisenstein, of Midvale, Utah, pleaded guilty to the same riot charge in November and was sentenced to two years of unsupervised probation and ordered to pay a $500 fine.
Rioting is generally a misdemeanor in Idaho. Conspiracy to riot is punishable by up to one year in jail, as well as a $5,000 fine and up to two years of probation.
Founded after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, Patriot Front’s manifesto reportedly calls for the formation of a white ethnostate in the United States.
Nevada
A woman who hired a hitman using bitcoin to kill her ex-husband gets five years in prison
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada woman who admitted to hiring a hitman on the internet for $5,000 in bitcoin to kill her ex-husband “and make it look like an accident” was sentenced to five years in prison.
Kristy Lynn Felkins, 38, of Fallon, Nevada, pleaded guilty in March to a charge of murder-for-hire as part of a deal with federal prosecutors that avoided trial, court records show.
A U.S. District Court judge in California also ordered on Thursday that Felkins be released under supervision for three years after she serves her prison sentence.
Felkins began communicating with someone in 2016 on a dark web hitman website that claimed to offer murder-for-hire services, according to her September 2020 indictment. Felkins wanted her ex-husband killed while he was traveling in Chico, California, the indictment said.
Authorities described the website as a scam that simply took money from unsuspecting customers.
In a statement admitting her guilt that was entered into the court record as part of her plea deal, Felkins said she offered to pay an extra $4,000 to speed up the timeline of the murder plot in March 2016. She also admitted to saying she “did not care” if her ex-husband’s new girlfriend “was harmed during the murder.”
Felkins said she expected to receive a large life insurance payment after her ex-husband’s death, which she requested to be made to look like an accident. According to her statement, she asked the purported hitman if it was “possible to make it seem like it was a mugging gone wrong?”
Felkins, who has been out of custody, was ordered to surrender in September to begin serving her prison sentence.
Connecticut
Charges dismissed against white woman who spat on Black woman during protest
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A judge Friday dismissed hate crime and other charges against a white woman who spat on a Black woman during competing protests at the Connecticut state Capitol, then was allowed to resolve the case through probation. The victim called the outcome “being spit on once again.”
“The justice system has failed me,” Keren Prescott told the court.
Yuliya Gilshteyn had faced charges including deprivation of rights, which is a hate crime, in the 2021 encounter. Then she was granted a special probation program that lets first-time offenders avoid a criminal record if they complete certain requirements. Hers included 100 hours of anti-hate instruction.
The two women, both in their 40s, crossed paths as people rallied at the Capitol for various causes on Jan. 6, 2021, the start of a new state legislative session. It was also, as it turned out, the date of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and it was in the thick of the coronavirus pandemic.
Prescott was taking part in a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Gilshteyn was protesting mandatory childhood vaccinations and COVID-19 masking requirements.
Prescott said she and others were shouting “Black Lives Matter” and other slogans when Gilshteyn countered with remarks including “all lives matter” and “Black lives don’t matter.”
Prescott, who was wearing a face mask, said she also told Gilshteyn to back up because she wasn’t masked. Gilshteyn then spat in her face and left, video shot by WTNH-TV showed.
Gilshteyn’s attorney, Ioannis Kaloidis, has said his client’s actions were wrong but not racially motivated. He characterized the encounter as a reaction in “a heated environment.”
Hartford Superior Court Judge Sheila Prats has called the incident “despicable” but said Gilshteyn still qualified for the special probation program, known as “accelerated rehabilitation.”
Prescott, on Friday, said she was disgusted by the outcome. She called the program “one of the worst things that could happen to a victim of a hate crime.”
“The justice system is failing Black and brown people,” she told the judge, adding: “This is being spit on once again.”
Maryland
Man charged with hate crimes in parking dispute killings
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland prosecutors have filed hate crime charges against a man accused of killing three people and wounding three more in a dispute over parking.
The three people shot to death were Latino; the man accused of shooting them is white. Their families have lived on the same street for years and have had a history of disputes, including allegations of racial slurs against one of the victims.
Charles Robert Smith, 43, had been charged with second-degree murder. Now he faces first-degree murder and hate-crime charges in the killings of Mario Mireles, his father Nicholas Mireles, and Christian Segovia, under an indictment returned by an Anne Arundel County grand jury on Friday, according to online court records.
The 42-count indictment also includes six charges of attempted first-degree murder. Smith’s initial court appearance was scheduled for next Monday. His initial lawyer is no longer representing him, and another attorney did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment.
Maryland’s hate crime law applies to crimes that are motivated either in whole or in substantial part to another person’s race, color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, disability or national origin. It enables prosecutors to add years to a sentence, and financial penalties. Smith faces up to life in prison without possibility of parole if convicted of first-degree murder.
According to the police charging documents, the six people who were shot were attending a large party when a dispute broke out over a parking issue. Mireles went to Smith’s home to talk about it and was arguing with Shirley Smith when her son Charles Smith returned home and confronted him. The verbal argument became physical.
Smith pulled out a gun and Mireles tried to grab it before Smith shot Mireles and Segovia. Smith “then stood over Mario Mireles and shot him several more times,” the document says. Smith then went into his house, got a rifle and began firing through a window at people who had come trying to help the mortally wounded men. Smith fatally shot Nicolas Mireles, and wounded Rosalina Segovia, Paul Johnnson and Enner Canales-Hernandez, police said.
Smith surrendered when the police arrived, telling officers he shot the victims because they shot at his house. However, none of the witnesses interviewed saw any of the victims with a firearm, according to the charging documents.
The Smith and Mireles families have had disputes for years, even going to court for help at one point. Mario Mireles sought a peace order petition in September 2016, accusing Shirley Smith of harassing him and their neighbors since he was a child. He accused her of directing racial slurs at him and his family, as well as other neighbors who are Black.
He wrote that he was washing his car in front of his house when Shirley Smith drove fast by him about an “arm length away,” saying he believed she was “targeting” him with her car.
Shirley Smith also sought a peace order at the same time, accusing Mireles of hitting her car with a large wet towel or blanket. She also accused him of throwing rocks at street signs and hitting vehicles.
Peace orders are civil orders asking a person to refrain from committing certain acts. The judge denied both their petitions.
Florida
Man pleads guilty to participating in the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Florida man has pleaded guilty to participating in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Court records show that 47-year-old Anthony Sargent pleaded guilty in District of Columbia federal court to a felony count of civil disorder along with six misdemeanor charges. He faces up to five years in prison at a Sept. 28 sentencing hearing.
Sargent was arrested in September 2021. According to the criminal complaint, several videos show Sargent attempting to breach the north entrance to the Capitol. He’s later seen exiting the building through a cloud of white smoke. Prosecutors say that later that day,
Sargent physically separated a law enforcement officer from a rioter and prevented the officer from apprehending the person.
