Alabama
Jury unable to reach verdict for man accused of killing sheriff
TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) — The capital murder trial of a man accused of killing an Alabama sheriff ended in a mistrial Tuesday after jurors told a judge that they were unable to reach a verdict.
Jurors, who previously indicated they were at an impasse, told the judge that they remained deadlocked Tuesday morning, WSFA-TV reported. Judge Bert Rice declared a mistrial. A new trial will be held at a later date.
William Chase Johnson is charged with capital murder for the Nov. 23, 2019, shooting death of Lowndes County Sheriff John Williams.
Williams had gone to a gas station in downtown Hayneville to disperse a crowd. It is not disputed that Johnson shot the sheriff. But defense lawyers maintain that Johnson acted in self defense and did not know that Williams, who was not in uniform, was the sheriff.
Jurors had the option of returning a verdict on charges of murder or manslaughter.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers in closing arguments gave differing accounts of the moments before the fatal shooting, WSFA reported.
Prosecutors said Johnson was the aggressor and shot the sheriff out of anger. They said the evidence did not match his assertion that he was acting in self defense.
“All he had to do was get back in his car and we would not be here,” Assistant Attorney General Kenny Gibbs told jurors in closing arguments.
Johnson took the stand during the trial. He testified that he did not know that Williams was a law enforcement officer. Johnson said he got out of his truck when he saw Williams yelling at his friend. He testified that Williams grabbed him by the throat and pointed a gun at him.
“If John Williams identified himself, Will would not have been afraid for his life,” defense attorney Terry Luck told jurors in closing arguments, according to the station.
Johnson, now 23, was 18 at the time of the shooting.
Sometimes known as “Big John” for his towering frame, the 62-year-old sheriff spent more than 40 years in law enforcement. He was elected sheriff in 2010. The Lowndes County Courthouse, which is across the street from the gas station where he was killed, was renamed in his honor.
Johnson’s trial was held in Macon County after a judge ruled that a fair trial could not be held in Lowndes County.
Louisiana
Advocates seek restoration of federal judge removed from long-running foster care case
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court was asked Monday to reconsider its decision to overturn an expensive contempt finding and remove a district judge from a lawsuit over conditions within Texas’ struggling foster care system.
A panel of three 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges ruled Oct. 11 that U.S. District Judge Janis Jack’s contempt ruling and $100,000-per-day fine violated the court’s constitutional limits of power over individual states.
The appeals court panel also said Jack had disrespected the state and its attorneys during the long-running case.
Attorneys for the child advocates in the case disagreed and on Monday asked for a hearing before all 17 full-time members of the New Orleans-based appeals court. Their filing said the decision by judges Edith Jones, Edith Brown Clement and Cory Wilson conflicted with precedent in a case involving vulnerable children.
“Removing the district judge with deep institutional knowledge poses great risks to the entire plaintiff class of children by further delaying reform,” the filing said. The state had not yet filed a reply as of Monday evening.
The case began in 2011 with a lawsuit over foster care conditions at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Since 2019, court-appointed monitors have released periodic reports on DFPS’ progress toward eliminating threats to the foster children’s safety.
A report earlier this year cited progress in staff training but continued weaknesses in responding to investigations into abuse and neglect allegations, including those made by children.
In one case, plaintiffs say, a girl was left in the same, now-closed residential facility for a year while 12 separate investigations piled up around allegations that she had been raped by a worker there.
Florida
Judge continues to block state officials from threatening TV stations over abortion ads
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge has continued to block the head of Florida’s health department from taking any more steps to threaten TV stations that air commercials for an abortion rights measure on next week’s ballot.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker extended a temporary restraining order Tuesday, siding with Floridians Defending Freedom, the group that created the ads promoting the ballot question that would add abortion rights to the state constitution if it passes Nov. 5.
Walker handed down the decision from the bench after hearing arguments from attorneys for the campaign and state officials. The order extends a previous one that bars State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo from taking any further action to coerce or intimidate broadcasters that run the commercials.
Walker said extending the temporary restraining order will give him more time to rule on the preliminary injunction that the abortion rights campaign is requesting.
The group filed the lawsuit after Ladapo and John Wilson, who was then the top lawyer at the state health department before resigning unexpectedly, sent a letter to TV stations on Oct. 3 telling them to stop running an abortion rights ad, asserting that it was false and dangerous. The letter also says broadcasters could face criminal prosecution.
Massachusetts
Pizza shop owner sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for threatening his workers with deportation
BOSTON (AP) — The owner of two Boston-area pizza shops convicted of forced labor for using physical violence and threats of reprisal or deportation against employees living in the country illegally has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison.
Stavros Papantoniadis, 49, of Westwood — the owner of Stash’s Pizza, a Massachusetts pizzeria chain — was sentenced Friday in federal court to 102 months in prison, one year of supervised release and ordered to pay a $35,000 fine.
Papantoniadis forced or attempted to force six victims — five men and one woman — to work for him and comply with excessive workplace demands through violent physical abuse; threats of violence and serious harm; and repeated threats to report the victims to immigration authorities for deportation, according to prosecutors.
In June, a jury convicted Papantoniadis of three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor. Papantoniadis has remained in custody since his arrest in March 2023.
A lawyer for Papantoniadis said he’s pursuing a new trial and an appeal.
“Although the judge saw fit to sentence him slightly beneath the guidelines, we are disappointed in the length of the sentence,” Carmine Lepore said in an email. “The sentencing guidelines applicable to this case are more appropriate for human traffickers and sexual servitude defendants.”
Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy said Papantoniadis was driven by greed to prey on his workers.
“He deliberately hired foreign nationals who lacked authorization to work in the United States and then turned their lack of immigration status against them, threatening them with deportation and violence to keep them under his control,” Levy said.
Papantoniadis thinly staffed his pizza shops, and deliberately hired workers without immigration status to work behind the scenes, for 14 or more hours per day and as many as seven days per week, investigators said.
To control the undocumented workers, he made them believe that he would physically harm them or have them deported and monitored them with surveillance cameras. When Papantoniadis learned that one victim planned to quit, he choked him, causing that victim to flee the pizza shop.
When another worker tried to leave and drive away from one of Papantoniadis’ pizza shops, Papantoniadis chased the victim down Route 1 in Norwood, Massachusetts, and falsely reported the victim to the local police to pressure the victim to return to work at the pizza shop, prosecutors said.
Ohio
Ex-officer accused of murder in shooting testifies he saw a gun
A white former Ohio police officer charged with murder in the shooting of Andre Hill testified Monday that he fired four times after he spotted what he thought was a silver revolver in the Black man’s hand while Hill was emerging from a dark garage.
Former officer Adam Coy said he rolled over Hill’s body, saw a pile of keys and realized there was no gun.
“I knew at that point I made a mistake,” Coy told jurors while fighting back tears. “I was horrified. It was the worst night of my life.”
Coy, who served nearly 20 years with the Columbus police force and was fired after the shooting four years ago, testified he thought he was going to die when he mistook the keys for a gun.
Police body camera footage showed Hill coming out of the garage of a friend’s house holding up a cellphone in his left hand, his right hand not visible, seconds before Coy fatally shot him. About 10 minutes passed before officers at the scene began coming to the aid of Hill, who lay bleeding on the garage floor. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Weeks after the December 2020 shooting, the mayor forced out the police chief amid a series of high-profile fatal police shootings of Black men and children. Columbus later reached a $10 million settlement with Hill’s family, the largest in city history. The Columbus City Council also passed Andre’s Law, which requires police officers to render immediate medical attention to an injured suspect.
Prosecutors have said Hill had followed the officer’s commands and was never a threat to Coy, who also is charged with reckless homicide and felonious assault and could face up to life in prison if convicted of murder.
Coy had gone to the neighborhood to investigate a resident’s complaint about someone in a running vehicle when he first encountered Hill sitting in an SUV. Hill told Coy he was waiting on a friend to come outside.
The officer said he thought Hill seemed dismissive at first and then suspicious after walking to a house and knocking on the door before entering the garage.
Coy said he lost sight of Hill and suspected he might be trying to break into the house. Coy used a flashlight to spot Hill in the garage and told him to come out and show himself, the officer testified.
When Hill walked toward him, Coy said he could not initially see the man’s right hand and then saw what he thought was a revolver. He said he yelled, “Gun! Gun!” and then fired at Hill.
Family and friends said Hill — a father and grandfather — was devoted to his family and was a skilled tradesman who dreamed after years of work as a chef and restaurant manager of one day owning his own restaurant.
Coy had a lengthy history of complaints from residents, with more than three dozen filed against him since he joined the department in 2002, according to his personnel file. A dozen of the complaints were for use of force. All but a few were marked “unfounded” or “not sustained.”
Jury unable to reach verdict for man accused of killing sheriff
TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) — The capital murder trial of a man accused of killing an Alabama sheriff ended in a mistrial Tuesday after jurors told a judge that they were unable to reach a verdict.
Jurors, who previously indicated they were at an impasse, told the judge that they remained deadlocked Tuesday morning, WSFA-TV reported. Judge Bert Rice declared a mistrial. A new trial will be held at a later date.
William Chase Johnson is charged with capital murder for the Nov. 23, 2019, shooting death of Lowndes County Sheriff John Williams.
Williams had gone to a gas station in downtown Hayneville to disperse a crowd. It is not disputed that Johnson shot the sheriff. But defense lawyers maintain that Johnson acted in self defense and did not know that Williams, who was not in uniform, was the sheriff.
Jurors had the option of returning a verdict on charges of murder or manslaughter.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers in closing arguments gave differing accounts of the moments before the fatal shooting, WSFA reported.
Prosecutors said Johnson was the aggressor and shot the sheriff out of anger. They said the evidence did not match his assertion that he was acting in self defense.
“All he had to do was get back in his car and we would not be here,” Assistant Attorney General Kenny Gibbs told jurors in closing arguments.
Johnson took the stand during the trial. He testified that he did not know that Williams was a law enforcement officer. Johnson said he got out of his truck when he saw Williams yelling at his friend. He testified that Williams grabbed him by the throat and pointed a gun at him.
“If John Williams identified himself, Will would not have been afraid for his life,” defense attorney Terry Luck told jurors in closing arguments, according to the station.
Johnson, now 23, was 18 at the time of the shooting.
Sometimes known as “Big John” for his towering frame, the 62-year-old sheriff spent more than 40 years in law enforcement. He was elected sheriff in 2010. The Lowndes County Courthouse, which is across the street from the gas station where he was killed, was renamed in his honor.
Johnson’s trial was held in Macon County after a judge ruled that a fair trial could not be held in Lowndes County.
Louisiana
Advocates seek restoration of federal judge removed from long-running foster care case
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court was asked Monday to reconsider its decision to overturn an expensive contempt finding and remove a district judge from a lawsuit over conditions within Texas’ struggling foster care system.
A panel of three 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges ruled Oct. 11 that U.S. District Judge Janis Jack’s contempt ruling and $100,000-per-day fine violated the court’s constitutional limits of power over individual states.
The appeals court panel also said Jack had disrespected the state and its attorneys during the long-running case.
Attorneys for the child advocates in the case disagreed and on Monday asked for a hearing before all 17 full-time members of the New Orleans-based appeals court. Their filing said the decision by judges Edith Jones, Edith Brown Clement and Cory Wilson conflicted with precedent in a case involving vulnerable children.
“Removing the district judge with deep institutional knowledge poses great risks to the entire plaintiff class of children by further delaying reform,” the filing said. The state had not yet filed a reply as of Monday evening.
The case began in 2011 with a lawsuit over foster care conditions at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Since 2019, court-appointed monitors have released periodic reports on DFPS’ progress toward eliminating threats to the foster children’s safety.
A report earlier this year cited progress in staff training but continued weaknesses in responding to investigations into abuse and neglect allegations, including those made by children.
In one case, plaintiffs say, a girl was left in the same, now-closed residential facility for a year while 12 separate investigations piled up around allegations that she had been raped by a worker there.
Florida
Judge continues to block state officials from threatening TV stations over abortion ads
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge has continued to block the head of Florida’s health department from taking any more steps to threaten TV stations that air commercials for an abortion rights measure on next week’s ballot.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker extended a temporary restraining order Tuesday, siding with Floridians Defending Freedom, the group that created the ads promoting the ballot question that would add abortion rights to the state constitution if it passes Nov. 5.
Walker handed down the decision from the bench after hearing arguments from attorneys for the campaign and state officials. The order extends a previous one that bars State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo from taking any further action to coerce or intimidate broadcasters that run the commercials.
Walker said extending the temporary restraining order will give him more time to rule on the preliminary injunction that the abortion rights campaign is requesting.
The group filed the lawsuit after Ladapo and John Wilson, who was then the top lawyer at the state health department before resigning unexpectedly, sent a letter to TV stations on Oct. 3 telling them to stop running an abortion rights ad, asserting that it was false and dangerous. The letter also says broadcasters could face criminal prosecution.
Massachusetts
Pizza shop owner sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for threatening his workers with deportation
BOSTON (AP) — The owner of two Boston-area pizza shops convicted of forced labor for using physical violence and threats of reprisal or deportation against employees living in the country illegally has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison.
Stavros Papantoniadis, 49, of Westwood — the owner of Stash’s Pizza, a Massachusetts pizzeria chain — was sentenced Friday in federal court to 102 months in prison, one year of supervised release and ordered to pay a $35,000 fine.
Papantoniadis forced or attempted to force six victims — five men and one woman — to work for him and comply with excessive workplace demands through violent physical abuse; threats of violence and serious harm; and repeated threats to report the victims to immigration authorities for deportation, according to prosecutors.
In June, a jury convicted Papantoniadis of three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor. Papantoniadis has remained in custody since his arrest in March 2023.
A lawyer for Papantoniadis said he’s pursuing a new trial and an appeal.
“Although the judge saw fit to sentence him slightly beneath the guidelines, we are disappointed in the length of the sentence,” Carmine Lepore said in an email. “The sentencing guidelines applicable to this case are more appropriate for human traffickers and sexual servitude defendants.”
Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy said Papantoniadis was driven by greed to prey on his workers.
“He deliberately hired foreign nationals who lacked authorization to work in the United States and then turned their lack of immigration status against them, threatening them with deportation and violence to keep them under his control,” Levy said.
Papantoniadis thinly staffed his pizza shops, and deliberately hired workers without immigration status to work behind the scenes, for 14 or more hours per day and as many as seven days per week, investigators said.
To control the undocumented workers, he made them believe that he would physically harm them or have them deported and monitored them with surveillance cameras. When Papantoniadis learned that one victim planned to quit, he choked him, causing that victim to flee the pizza shop.
When another worker tried to leave and drive away from one of Papantoniadis’ pizza shops, Papantoniadis chased the victim down Route 1 in Norwood, Massachusetts, and falsely reported the victim to the local police to pressure the victim to return to work at the pizza shop, prosecutors said.
Ohio
Ex-officer accused of murder in shooting testifies he saw a gun
A white former Ohio police officer charged with murder in the shooting of Andre Hill testified Monday that he fired four times after he spotted what he thought was a silver revolver in the Black man’s hand while Hill was emerging from a dark garage.
Former officer Adam Coy said he rolled over Hill’s body, saw a pile of keys and realized there was no gun.
“I knew at that point I made a mistake,” Coy told jurors while fighting back tears. “I was horrified. It was the worst night of my life.”
Coy, who served nearly 20 years with the Columbus police force and was fired after the shooting four years ago, testified he thought he was going to die when he mistook the keys for a gun.
Police body camera footage showed Hill coming out of the garage of a friend’s house holding up a cellphone in his left hand, his right hand not visible, seconds before Coy fatally shot him. About 10 minutes passed before officers at the scene began coming to the aid of Hill, who lay bleeding on the garage floor. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Weeks after the December 2020 shooting, the mayor forced out the police chief amid a series of high-profile fatal police shootings of Black men and children. Columbus later reached a $10 million settlement with Hill’s family, the largest in city history. The Columbus City Council also passed Andre’s Law, which requires police officers to render immediate medical attention to an injured suspect.
Prosecutors have said Hill had followed the officer’s commands and was never a threat to Coy, who also is charged with reckless homicide and felonious assault and could face up to life in prison if convicted of murder.
Coy had gone to the neighborhood to investigate a resident’s complaint about someone in a running vehicle when he first encountered Hill sitting in an SUV. Hill told Coy he was waiting on a friend to come outside.
The officer said he thought Hill seemed dismissive at first and then suspicious after walking to a house and knocking on the door before entering the garage.
Coy said he lost sight of Hill and suspected he might be trying to break into the house. Coy used a flashlight to spot Hill in the garage and told him to come out and show himself, the officer testified.
When Hill walked toward him, Coy said he could not initially see the man’s right hand and then saw what he thought was a revolver. He said he yelled, “Gun! Gun!” and then fired at Hill.
Family and friends said Hill — a father and grandfather — was devoted to his family and was a skilled tradesman who dreamed after years of work as a chef and restaurant manager of one day owning his own restaurant.
Coy had a lengthy history of complaints from residents, with more than three dozen filed against him since he joined the department in 2002, according to his personnel file. A dozen of the complaints were for use of force. All but a few were marked “unfounded” or “not sustained.”
