Federal prosecutors told a judge Monday that a life prison sentence would be justified for the leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, saying his goal to turn the country upside down in 2020 was a forerunner of rampant anti-government extremism.
“If our elected leaders must live in fear, our representative government suffers. A plan to kidnap and harm the governor of Michigan is not only a threat to the officeholder but to democracy itself,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler wrote.
Adam Fox “fanatically embraced the cause and persistently pushed his recruits to action,” Kessler said.
The court filing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, came a week before U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker is scheduled to sentence Fox for conspiracy crimes. He and co-defendant Barry Croft Jr. were convicted in August.
Fox’s attorney hadn’t filed a sentencing memo yet. At trial, Christopher Gibbons portrayed him as hapless and virtually homeless, a man with a loud, vile mouth who was living in the basement of a Grand Rapids-area vacuum shop.
Jonker has much flexibility in determining Fox’s punishment, though Kessler noted that his sentencing score is “off the chart,” greatly enhanced by a conviction for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in the scheme.
“The guidelines provide for a life sentence because Congress recognized kidnapping is an extremely serious offense,” Kessler said. “When the aim of that kidnapping is to terrorize the people and affect the conduct of government, it is so pernicious that only the most serious sanction is sufficient.”
In 33 pages, the prosecutor highlighted what FBI agents and informants revealed at trial, repeatedly citing Fox’s own violent words, which were secretly recorded or plucked from text messages and social media.
“Fox’s plot was a harbinger of more widespread anti-government militia extremism,” Kessler said.
Fox and others trained with guns inside crudely built “shoot houses” in Wisconsin and Michigan and made trips to Elk Rapids to scout Whitmer’s second home. The strategy included blowing up a bridge to slow down police officers responding to an abduction, according to evidence. The FBI broke up the plan with arrests in October 2020.
The government said Fox’s rage at elected officials was fueled by Whitmer’s COVID-19 restrictions.
“We want a revolutionary war,” he said in a June 2020 video. “We want to get rid of this corrupt, tyrannical … government. That’s what we want to get rid of.”
Croft, a trucker from Bear, Delaware, will be sentenced on Dec. 28. Two more men pleaded guilty to the kidnapping conspiracy and testified against Fox and Croft, while two other men were acquitted last spring.
In October, in state court, three members of a paramilitary group called the Wolverine Watchmen were convicted of providing support for Fox.
PARADISE, Texas — A 7-year-old Texas girl has been found dead, two days after being reported missing, and a FedEx delivery driver arrested in her death, authorities said.
The body of Athena Strand was found Friday and Tanner Lynn Horner, 31, was arrested on kidnapping and murder charges after confessing to killing the girl and telling authorities where to find her body, according to Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin.
Horner remained jailed Saturday on $1.5 million bond. Jail records did not list an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Akin said during a late Friday news conference that a tip led authorities to Horner, who the sheriff said had made a delivery to the girl’s home shortly before she disappeared.
Horner did not know the girl’s family, according to Akin, who declined to discuss a motive for the crime.
“We really can’t get into the content of the confession, but I will say we have a confession” from Horner, Akin said.
The girl’s stepmother had reported her missing on Wednesday from the family home near Paradise on the northwestern outskirts of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.
Her body was found near the town of Boyd, about 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) southeast of Paradise, a town of about 475 people, Akin said.
James Dwyer, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Dallas field office, said FedEx cooperated with investigators.
FedEx said in a statement that it is working with law enforcement agencies investigating the case.
“Our thoughts are with the family of Athena Strand during this most difficult time,” according to the statement. “Words cannot describe our shock and sorrow surrounding this tragic event.”
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A Virginia sheriff’s deputy posed as a 17-year-old boy online and asked a teenage California girl for nude photos before he drove across the country and killed her mother and grandparents and set fire to their home, authorities said Wednesday.
Austin Lee Edwards, 28, died by suicide Friday during a shootout with San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies. The 15-year-old girl from Riverside, California, was rescued and is in counseling for trauma, family members and police said at a news conference Wednesday.
Edwards, a resident of North Chesterfield, Virginia, appears to have posed as a teenager online to engage in a romantic relationship with the girl and obtain her personal information by deceiving her with a false identity, known as “catfishing,” police said.
Authorities did not provide additional details about their communications and said they still need to comb through online accounts. Officials are looking into whether he victimized other minors across the country.
It’s also unclear whether this was the girl’s first in-person encounter with Edwards or whether she was aware that he was coming to California, officials said.
Riverside Police Chief Larry Gonzalez said that because of the girl’s young age and trauma it will take time to complete their interviews with her and get answers to the many questions surrounding the case, such as whether she was coerced or threatened into leaving with him.
“We don’t believe at this point she had anything to do with the murders,” he said.
At some point, Edwards asked the girl for sexual photos and she stopped communicating with him, Gonzalez said, but detectives don’t yet know when that happened or whether Edwards killed her family in retaliation.
Authorities believe Edwards parked his vehicle in a neighbor’s driveway, walked to the home and killed the family members before leaving with the girl on Friday. Officials have not yet determined how he entered the home, killed the victims or set the fire.
The bodies found in the Riverside home — about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of downtown Los Angeles in a suburban neighborhood of single-family homes where the loud rush of freeway traffic can be heard — were identified as the girl’s grandparents and mother: Mark Winek, 69; Sharie Winek, 65; and their 38-year-old daughter, Brooke Winek.
“Nobody could imagine this crime happening to my family, to our family,” said Michelle Blandin, Mark and Sharie’s daughter and Brooke’s sister.
A tearful Blandin said her parents and sister “lived and loved selflessly.” The killing of Brooke, a single parent, means that her daughters — the 15-year-old girl and her 13-year-old sister — are now motherless, Blandin said.
A front window of the charred home in the Riverside cul-de-sac was boarded up Wednesday with a wooden cross. Dozens of candles had been laid on the sidewalk, along with bouquets of flowers and stuffed animals.
Edwards is a former Virginia state trooper and was a sheriff’s deputy in Washington County, Virginia, at the time of the killings. The law enforcement agencies there said he did not show any concerning behaviors and no other employers disclosed any issues during background checks.
Gonzalez called it “disgusting really” to see someone in law enforcement involved in such heinous crimes and wondered how he had been hired at two Virginia agencies.
“How did this person get past a background investigation? How this person get past a polygraph investigation?” the chief said. “From what we understand so far about him, there’s really not a big rap sheet on this person or anything that would indicate that they can see that outcome.”
Police are also looking into whether Edwards used his law enforcement weapon or government-issued laptop in the crimes.
A neighbor on Friday called police to report Edwards’ red Kia Soul as a suspicious car and said the girl appeared to be in distress and involved in a disturbance with a man, Gonzalez said.
Police were able to run the vehicle’s license plate and discovered that Edwards had filed a police report earlier this year regarding vandalism to the Kia, the chief said. The police report had Edwards’ cellphone number in it, which allowed investigators to ping his phone and quickly locate him in Southern California.
He got into a gun battle with San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies and died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the coroner’s office said Wednesday.
Blandin said she last saw her parents and sister on Thanksgiving, the day before they were slain.
“We had a family debate, and it got heated, on if the brownies my mom made should be frosted with sprinkles or just left plain,” she said. “Little did I know, on that day, that would be the last time that my husband and I would see my parents and my sister again.”
Blandin begged parents and guardians to use her family’s tragedy to start conversations about internet safety.
“When you are talking to your children about the dangers of their online actions, please use us as a reference,” she said. “Tell our story to help your parenting. Not out of fear, but out of an example of something that did happen.”
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This story has been corrected to attribute a quote to Riverside Police Chief Larry Gonzalez. It was incorrectly attributed to Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback.
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Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press Writer Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia, contributed.
A former Virginia state trooper is accused of driving across the country to meet a teenage girl in California, murdering her family and then kidnapping her before police killed him. Nikki Battiste shares more.
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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A federal judge has denied a new trial request by two men convicted of conspiring to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Lawyers for Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. alleged misconduct by a juror and unfairness by U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker following their conviction by a federal jury in August.
Jonker in a written ruling Friday shot down claims of juror misconduct and said he found “no constitutional violation and no credible evidence” to convene a new hearing.
Fox and Croft face up to life in prison when they’re sentenced Dec. 28.
Whitmer, who was reelected Nov. 8 to a second term, was never physically harmed in the plot, which led to more than a dozen arrests in 2020.
Fox and Croft’s first trial ended in a mistrial earlier this year when the jury was unable to come to a unanimous verdict. A motion for a third trial was filed in September.
Defense lawyers said a juror seated in the second trial was described by a co-worker as “far-left leaning,” was eager to get on the jury and poised to convict before hearing evidence.
The defense team’s investigator said he interviewed two co-workers who said they had heard about it but had no firsthand knowledge. A third person declined to speak to him in the parking lot.
The allegation first was raised early in the second trial. Jonker said he spoke privately to the juror, who denied saying that a vote to convict was already settled.
Separately, defense lawyers said the judge violated the rights of Fox and Croft by imposing a time limit on the cross-examination of a star government witness.
“Defendants have neither demonstrated that the jury verdict is ‘against the manifest weight of the evidence’ nor that a ‘substantial legal error has occurred’ such that the interests of justice demand a new trial,” Jonker wrote in Friday’s ruling.
Croft is from Bear, Delaware. Fox lived in the Grand Rapids area in western Michigan.
Two other men have pleaded guilty in the federal case, while two more were acquitted.
Three other men accused of supporting terrorism in the kidnapping plot were convicted in October in state court.
Joe Morrison; Morrison’s father-in-law, Pete Musico; and Paul Bellar were found guilty of supplying “material support” for a terrorist act as members of a group known as the Wolverine Watchmen. They await sentencing on Dec. 15.
They held gun training in rural Jackson County with Fox who was disgusted with Whitmer and other officials and said he wanted to snatch her.
KYIV, Ukraine — Not long after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, soldiers broke down the office door of Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov. They put a bag over his head, bundled him into a car and drove him around the southern city for hours, threatening to kill him.
Fedorov, 34, is one of over 50 local leaders who have been held in Russian captivity since the war began on Feb. 24 in an attempt to subdue cities and towns coming under Moscow’s control. Like many others, he said he was pressured to collaborate with the invaders.
“The bullying and threats did not stop for a minute. They tried to force me to continue leading the city under the Russian flag, but I refused,” Fedorov told The Associated Press by phone last month in Kyiv. “They didn’t beat me, but day and night, wild screams from the next cell would tell me what was waiting for me.”
As Russians seized parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, civilian administrators and others, including nuclear power plant workers, say they have been abducted, threatened or beaten to force their cooperation — something that legal and human rights experts say may constitute a war crime.
Ukrainian and Western historians say the tactic is used when invading forces are unable to subjugate the population.
This year, as Russian forces sought to tighten their hold on Melitopol, hundreds of residents took to the streets to demand Fedorov’s release. After six days in detention and an intervention from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he was exchanged for nine Russian prisoners of war and expelled from the occupied city. A pro-Kremlin figure was installed.
“The Russians cannot govern the captured cities. They have neither the personnel nor the experience,” Fedorov said. They want to force public officials to work for them because they realize that someone has to “clean the streets and fix up the destroyed houses.”
The Association of Ukrainian Cities (AUC), a group of local leaders from across Ukraine, said that of the more than 50 abducted officials, including 34 mayors, at least 10 remain captive.
Russian officials haven’t commented on the allegations. Moscow-backed authorities in eastern Ukraine even launched a criminal investigation into Fedorov on charges of involvement in terrorist activities.
“Kidnapping the heads of villages, towns and cities, especially in wartime, endangers all residents of a community, because all critical management, provision of basic amenities and important decisions on which the fate of thousands of residents depends are entrusted to the community’s head,” said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, head of the AUC.
In the southern city of Kherson, one of the first seized by Russia and a key target of an unfolding counteroffensive, Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev tried to stand his ground. He said in April that he would refuse to cooperate with its new, Kremlin-backed overseer.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed regional administration, repeatedly denounced Kolykhaiev as a “Nazi,” echoing the false Kremlin narrative that its attack on Ukraine was an attempt to “de-Nazify” the country.
Kolykhaiev continued to supervise Kherson’s public utilities until his arrest on June 28. His whereabouts remain unknown.
According to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, 407 forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests of civilians were recorded in areas seized by Russia in the first six months of the war. Most were civil servants, local councilors, civil society activists and journalists.
Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the abuse “violates international law and may constitute a war crime,” adding that Russian forces’ actions appeared to be aimed at “obtaining information and instilling fear.”
The U.N. human rights office has warned repeatedly that arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances are among possible war crimes committed in Ukraine.
Several mayors have been killed, shocking Ukrainian society. Following the discovery of mass burials in areas recaptured by Kyiv, Ukrainian and foreign investigators continue to uncover details of extrajudicial killings of mayors.
The body of Olga Sukhenko, who headed the village of Motyzhyn, near Kyiv, was found in a mass grave next to those of her husband and son after Russian forces retreated. The village, with a prewar population of about 1,000, is a short drive from Bucha, which saw hundreds of civilians killed under Russian occupation.
Residents said Sukhenko had refused to cooperate with the Russians. When her body was unearthed on the outskirts of Motyzhyn, her hands were found tied behind her back.
Mayor Yurii Prylypko of nearby Hostomel was gunned down in March while handing out food and medicine. The prosecutor general’s office later said his body was found rigged with explosives.
Ukraine’s government has tried to swap captive officials for Russian POWs, but officials complain that Moscow sometimes demands Kyiv release hundreds for each Ukrainian in a position of authority, prolonging negotiations.
“It’s such a difficult job that any superfluous word can get in the way of our exchange,” said Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner. “We know the places where prisoners are kept, as well as the appalling conditions in which they are kept.”
There has been no news about the fate of Ivan Samoydyuk, the deputy mayor of Enerhodar, site of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Samoydyuk, abducted in March, has repeatedly been considered for a prisoner swap, but his name was struck off the list each time, Mayor Dmytro Orlov told the AP.
The 58-year-old deputy mayor was seriously ill when seized, Orlov said, and “we don’t even know if he’s alive.” At best, Samoydyuk is sitting in a basement somewhere “and his life depends on the whim of people with guns,” he added.
More than 1,000 Enerhodar residents, including dozens of workers at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, were detained by the Russians at one time or another.
“The vast majority of those who came out of the Russian cellars speak of brutal beatings and electric shocks,” he said.
Gorbunova, the HRW senior researcher, said torture “is prohibited under all circumstances under international law, and, when connected to an armed conflict, constitutes a war crime and may also constitute a crime against humanity.”
Each week brings reports of abductions of officials, engineers, doctors and teachers who won’t cooperate with the Russians.
Viktor Marunyak, head of the village of Stara Zburivka in the southern Kherson region, is famous for appearing in Roman Bondarchuk’s 2015 documentary “Ukrainian Sheriffs,” an Academy Award contender. The film explores the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014. While the film didn’t win an Oscar, it cemented Marunyak’s salt-of-the-earth reputation.
After Russian troops seized Stara Zburivka in spring, Marunyak held pro-Ukrainian rallies and hid some activists in his home. He was eventually taken prisoner.
“At first, they put (electrical) wires on my thumbs. Then it seemed not enough for them, and they put them on my big toes. And they poured water on my head so it would flow down my back,” he told the AP. “Honestly, I was so beaten up that I didn’t have any impressions from the electric current.”
After 23 days, Marunyak was “released to die,” he said. Hospitalized for 10 days with pneumonia and nine broken ribs, he finally left for territory controlled by Kyiv.
History professor Hubertus Jahn of Cambridge University said that from the time of Peter the Great onward, the tactic by imperialist Russia of co-opting locals targeted elites and nobility, with resistance often bringing Siberian exile.
During World War II, he said, “German SS units operated in a similar way,” by targeting local administrators in order to pressure residents into submission. Jahn called it an obvious strategy “if you don’t have the strength to subordinate a region outright.”
Historian Ivan Patryliuk of Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko National University said municipal authorities in Soviet Ukraine often fled before Nazi occupation forces arrived, which “helped avoid mass executions of officials.”
“The kind of torture and humiliation (of) city leaders that the Russians are now perpetrating … is one of the darkest and most shameful pages of the current war,” Patryliuk said.
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Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Joanna Kozlowska in London, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva, contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Today is Thursday, Nov. 3, the 307th day of 2022. There are 58 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Nov. 3, 1986, the Iran-Contra affair came to light as Ash-Shiraa, a pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine, first broke the story of U.S. arms sales to Iran.
On this date:
In 1839, the first Opium War between China and Britain broke out.
In 1908, Republican William Howard Taft was elected president, outpolling Democrat William Jennings Bryan.
In 1911, the Chevrolet Motor Car Co. was founded in Detroit by Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant. (The company was acquired by General Motors in 1918.)
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the U.S. Agency for International Development.
In 1970, Salvador Allende (ah-YEN’-day) was inaugurated as president of Chile.
In 1976, the horror movie “Carrie,” adapted from the Stephen King novel and starring Sissy Spacek, was released by United Artists.
In 1979, five Communist Workers Party members were killed in a clash with heavily armed Ku Klux Klansmen and neo-Nazis during an anti-Klan protest in Greensboro, North Carolina.
In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd president of the United States, defeating President George H.W. Bush. In Illinois, Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
In 1994, Susan Smith of Union, South Carolina, was arrested for drowning her two young sons, Michael and Alex, nine days after claiming the children had been abducted by a Black carjacker.
In 1997, the Supreme Court let stand California’s groundbreaking Proposition 209, which banned race and gender preference in hiring and school admissions.
In 2014, 13 years after the 9/11 terrorist attack, a new 1,776-foot skyscraper at the World Trade Center site opened for business, marking an emotional milestone for both New Yorkers and the nation.
In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won the presidency in an election that saw more than 103 million Americans vote early, many by mail, amid a coronavirus pandemic that upended a campaign marked by fear and rancor, waged against a backdrop of protests over racial injustice. As vote counting continued in battleground states, Biden’s victory would not be known for more than three days; Republican President Donald Trump would refuse to concede, falsely claiming that he was a victim of widespread voter fraud. Kamala Harris made history as the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to become vice president. Democrats clinched two more years of controlling the House but saw their majority shrink. Republicans emerged with a two-seat Senate majority that would be erased by Democratic wins in two runoffs in Georgia in January.
Ten years ago: The lights went back on in lower Manhattan to the relief of residents who’d been plunged into darkness for nearly five days by Superstorm Sandy, but there was deepening resentment in the city’s outer boroughs and suburbs over a continued lack of power and maddening gas shortages. New York’s newly relocated NBA team, the former New Jersey Nets, hosted the first regular-season game by a major sports team in Brooklyn since the Dodgers left in 1957; the Brooklyn Nets beat the Toronto Raptors 107-100.
Five years ago: Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked away from his post in Afghanistan and triggered a search that left some of his comrades severely wounded, was spared a prison sentence by a military judge in North Carolina; President Donald Trump blasted the decision as a “complete and total disgrace.” Netflix said it was cutting all ties with Kevin Spacey after a series of allegations of sexual harassment and assault, and that it would not be a part of any further production of “House of Cards” that included him. A massive report from scientists inside and outside the government concluded that the evidence of global warming was stronger than ever. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky suffered five broken ribs in an attack by a longtime next-door neighbor as Paul did yard work at his home. (Rene Boucher pleaded guilty to assaulting a member of Congress and was sentenced to 30 days in prison.)
One year ago: After serving more than seven years in an Indonesian prison for killing her mother at a luxury resort on the island of Bali, Heather Mack of Chicago was indicted on murder conspiracy charges in the United States and taken into federal custody on her arrival at O’Hare International Airport. Police in western Australia used a battering ram to enter a locked house and rescue a 4-year-old girl, Cleo Smith, who’d been abducted from a camping tent more than two weeks earlier; the suspect in the kidnapping was arrested nearby. (Terence Kelly pleaded guilty to the abduction.) A government advisory committee recommended that all U.S. adults younger than 60 be vaccinated against hepatitis B. The Federal Reserve announced a plan to gradually reduce bond purchases, a first step in withdrawing emergency aid for the economy during the coronavirus pandemic.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Lois Smith is 92. Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis is 89. Actor Shadoe Stevens is 76. Singer Lulu is 74. “Vogue” editor-in-chief Anna Wintour is 73. Comedian-actor Roseanne Barr is 70. Actor Kate Capshaw is 69. Comedian Dennis Miller is 69. Actor Kathy Kinney is 69. Singer Adam Ant is 68. Sports commentator and former quarterback Phil Simms is 67. Director-screenwriter Gary Ross is 66. Actor Dolph Lundgren is 65. Rock musician C.J. Pierce (Drowning Pool) is 50. Actor Francois Battiste (TV: “Ten Days in the Valley”) is 46. Olympic gold medal figure skater Evgeni Plushenko is 40. Actor Julie Berman is 39. Actor Antonia Thomas (TV: “The Good Doctor”) is 36. Alternative rock singer/songwriter Courtney Barnett is 35. TV personality and model Kendall Jenner (TV: “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”) is 27.
WESTMINSTER, Calif. — Two suspects are in custody after they allegedly kidnapped four people, including a teenage girl and a 6-month-old baby, last week in Southern California, authorities said.
Officers found the 14-year-old girl and the baby uninjured inside a hotel room in Costa Mesa early Thursday morning after the two adults who also were kidnapped managed to escape and call 911, according to the Westminster Police Department.
The suspects, Michael Alexander Rodriguez, 26, and Bich Dao Vo, aka Michelle Rodriguez, were arrested Thursday during a traffic stop on suspicion of kidnapping, assault with a firearm, robbery, false imprisonment, child endangerment and felon in possession of a firearm. Dao Vo, 30, is related to one of the adult victims.
The two suspects remained in jail Sunday without bail and they are expected to appear in court next week, according to online jail records. It was not immediately clear whether they had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.
Police said the suspects were armed with a handgun when they forced their way into a Westminster home and demanded money. Rodriguez allegedly pistol-whipped the adults, a man and a woman, when no money was located.
The suspects then forced the four victims into a cargo van at gunpoint and drove them to the Costa Mesa hotel, where they threatened to kill them if they didn’t get money, Westminster police said. The adults were able to escape to their Westminster home, where they called 911. Officers found them both bleeding from head injuries, police said.
Authorities were able to rescue the children from the hotel and later found a loaded .40-caliber handgun and a loaded AK-47-style rifle inside the cargo van after the suspects were taken into custody.
LOS ANGELES — A man who spent more than 38 years behind bars for a 1983 murder and two attempted murders has been released from a California prison after long-untested DNA evidence pointed to a different person, the Los Angeles County district attorney said Friday.
The conviction of Maurice Hastings, 69, and a life sentence were vacated during an Oct. 20 court hearing at the request of prosecutors and his lawyers from the Los Angeles Innocence Project at California State University, Los Angeles.
“I prayed for many years that this day would come,” Hastings said at a news conference Friday, adding: “I am not pointing fingers; I am not standing up here a bitter man, but I just want to enjoy my life now while I have it.”
“What has happened to Mr. Hastings is a terrible injustice,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement. “The justice system is not perfect, and when we learn of new evidence which causes us to lose confidence in a conviction, it is our obligation to act swiftly.”
The victim in the case, Roberta Wydermyer, was sexually assaulted and killed by a single gunshot to the head, authorities said. Her body was found in the trunk of her vehicle in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood.
Hastings was charged with special-circumstance murder and the district attorney’s office sought the death penalty but the jury deadlocked. A second jury convicted him and he was sentenced in 1988 to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Hastings has maintained he was innocent since the time of his arrest.
At the time of the victim’s autopsy, the coroner conducted a sexual assault examination and semen was detected in an oral swab, the district attorney’s statement said.
Hastings sought DNA testing in 2000 but at that time the DA’s office denied the request. Hastings submitted a claim of innocence to the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit last year and DNA testing last June found that the semen was not his.
The DNA profile was put into a state database this month and was matched to a person who was convicted of an armed kidnapping in which a female victim was placed in a vehicle’s trunk as well as the forced oral copulation of a woman.
That suspect, whose name was not released, died in prison in 2020.
The district attorney’s office said it is working with police to further investigate the involvement of the dead person in the case.
Three men accused of supporting a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor were convicted of all charges Wednesday, a triumph for state prosecutors after months of mixed results in the main case in federal court.
Joe Morrison, his father-in-law Pete Musico, and Paul Bellar were found guilty of providing “material support” for a terrorist act as members of a paramilitary group, the Wolverine Watchmen.
They held gun drills in rural Jackson County with a leader of the scheme, Adam Fox, who was disgusted with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other officials in 2020 and said he wanted to kidnap her.
Jurors read and heard violent, anti-government screeds as well as support for the “boogaloo,” a civil war that might be triggered by a shocking abduction. Prosecutors said COVID-19 restrictions ordered by Whitmer turned out to be fruit to recruit more people to the Watchmen.
“The facts drip out slowly,” state Assistant Attorney General Bill Rollstin told jurors in Jackson, Michigan, “and you begin to see — wow — there were things that happened that people knew about. … When you see how close Adam Fox got to the governor, you can see how a very bad event was thwarted.”
Morrison, 28, Musico, 44, and Bellar, 24, were also convicted of a gun crime and membership in a gang. Prosecutors said the Wolverine Watchmen was a criminal enterprise.
The verdicts “are further proof that violence and threats have no place in our politics,” said Whitmer, who has not participated as a trial witness or spectator in the state or federal cases. “Those who seek to sow discord by pursuing violent plots will be held accountable under the law.”
Morrison, who recently tested positive for COVID-19, and Musico watched the verdicts by video away from the courtroom. Judge Thomas Wilson ordered all three to jail while they await sentencing on Dec. 15.
Defense attorneys argued that the three men had broken ties with Fox by late summer 2020 when the Whitmer plot came into focus. Unlike Fox and others, they didn’t travel to northern Michigan to scout the governor’s vacation home or participate in a key weekend training session inside a “shoot house.”
“In this country you are allowed to talk the talk, but you only get convicted if you walk the walk,” Musico’s attorney, Kareem Johnson, said in his closing remarks.
Defense lawyers couldn’t argue entrapment. But they attacked the tactics of Dan Chappel, an Army veteran and undercover informant. He took instructions from FBI agents, secretly recorded conversations and produced a deep cache of messages exchanged with the men.
Whitmer, a Democrat running for reelection on Nov. 8, was never physically harmed. Undercover agents and informants were inside Fox’s group for months. The scheme was broken up with 14 arrests in October 2020.
Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of a kidnapping conspiracy in federal court in August. Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were acquitted last spring. Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks pleaded guilty.
Five of the 14 men are facing charges in state court in Antrim County, the site of Whitmer’s second home. A judge there still must determine whether there’s probable cause to send them to trial.
Schanda Handley was at her home in the suburban neighborhood of Lafayette, Louisiana, with her daughter, Isabella, when the doorbell rang around 2:30 p.m. on August 6, 2017.
Two men, posing as deliverymen, forced themselves in with guns. “They started to scream … to ‘get the F on the floor,’ and ‘don’t move,’” Handley told “48 Hours” contributor David Begnaud in her first television interview.
The two men handcuffed Handley and threw her into the back of a van.
“I’m hooded. They hooded me as soon as I went into the van. It was a van that didn’t have the windows in the back. And it was just a rubber mat without seats back there, and — laid me on the floor,” she said.
Handley said one of the abductors was straddling her in the back of the vehicle, forcing pills into her mouth, and holding a gun to her head, while the other erratically drove them out of town. She recounted beginning to lose consciousness, as she says the men threatened to sexually assault and then kill her.
“And I started praying,” said Handley.
Then she heard the sirens.
RESCUE OF A LIFETIME
Isabella Cumberland: I didn’t know what was going on with my mom. There was no one really telling me what was happening.
KLFY REPORT: “Police say the woman was forcefully removed from her home in Lafayette …”
With her childhood home now a crime scene and her mother Schanda Handley just abducted by armed intruders, Isabella Cumberland found herself confused amidst a crowd of investigators and forensic analysts.
Isabella Cumberland: They wanted to go over the fingerprints on the doors, upstairs, my phone. And it just kinda felt like I was another piece of evidence.
Isabella, then just 14 years old, was trying to process the sight of the violent kidnapping she had just witnessed at her family’s home.
David Begnaud: As they’re driving away with her, did you think that was the last time you’d ever see her?
Isabella Cumberland: I thought there was a chance.
Lafayette investigators and Isabella had no idea that about an hour after the kidnapping, just across the state near Baton Rouge, Chad Martin, an Iberville Parish sheriff’s deputy, had pulled over a suspicious white van after a brief pursuit. There were two men inside.
They got stuck in the mud. So, the men jumped out and took off running. They jumped into the Intercoastal Waterway and disappeared.
And when Martin went to investigate that vehicle, he discovered Schanda Handley, handcuffed and naked in the back.
Deputy Chad Martin: She looked at me and I’ll never forget this, she said, “Are you the real police? Are you the one that’s gonna kill me?”
Schanda Handley: And he was like, “You’re safe. You’re safe.”
Just minutes before, Martin was rushing home for Sunday dinner in his squad car after clocking out, unaware of Schanda’s kidnapping nearly 60 miles away. His biggest worry at that time? His wife’s wrath.
David Begnaud: I heard you were habitually late for dinners.
Deputy Chad Martin: I had a tendency — to be late for everything.
Now, he had unwittingly made the rescue of a lifetime.
Iberville Parish Deputy Chad Martin approached the van and found Schanda Handley naked and handcuffed in the back. “She looked at me and said, ‘Are you the real police? Or are you the one that’s gonna kill me?’” Martin told “48 Hours.”
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David Begnaud: What’s going through your head? I mean, you were just tryin’ to pull over a couple of guys who looked a little suspicious.
Deputy Chad Martin: I can’t really tell you what was goin’ through my head. Almost like I went into, like, robot mode. … I was just tryin’ to get this woman help.
Schanda told him a harrowing story: that the kidnappers had drugged her and threatened to rape her and kill her.
David Begnaud: If not for Chad Martin —
Schanda Handley: Oh. I would be dead. … I can’t even imagine, but I know it wasn’t gonna be quick and swift.
Martin relayed the news of Schanda’s rescue to dispatch, and it soon reached Isabella.
Isabella Cumberland: Whenever they told me that she was safe … I felt this relief.
Deputy Chad Martin: She had said that — she believed that her husband is the one that had paid them to kill her.
Her estranged husband, Michael Handley. Schanda says that before the difficult months leading up to the kidnapping, Michael would have been the last person she could’ve imagined would harm her. They had met in 2005 through friends in Lafayette, at a time when both were single parents and emerging from failed marriages.
Schanda Handley: He … was … really catering and just sweet and compassionate.
Another thing they had in common — both were in recovery for addiction.
Schanda Handley: At that time, I had been sober for about … 18 years.
David Begnaud: Oh. Wow.
Schanda Handley: Michael was newly clean and sober. … He had about a year.
Isabella Cumberland, center, with Schanda and Michael Handley.
Schanda Handley
The new couple hit it off, and a year later they were married in Hawaii. Isabella took an immediate liking to Michael.
Isabella Cumberland: He — well, was my dad from when I was 2 years old … And so that’s how I saw him, was really as my dad.
In 2007, Michael and Schanda found success channeling their experience in recovery into a new business, partnering with a doctor to start a chain of addiction treatment centers.
Schanda Handley: So, we wound up … opening at one point, I think, there were 14 centers throughout the south.
Eight years later, they made a decision.
Schanda Handley: We sold the company.
David Begnaud: How much did y’all make on the sale?
Schanda Handley: The two of them, Michael and his partner, we sold the company for $21.5 million.
David Begnaud: Wow.
Schanda Handley: Yeah.
But their life as happy millionaires didn’t last long say prosecutors Donald Knecht and Kenny Hebert.
Kenny Hebert: You know, money and free time with someone with … an addictive personality isn’t a great combination.
Schanda was seeing that firsthand with Michael in 2017, less than two years after the sale of their company, when she found a bottle of Adderall with Michael Handley’s name on it.
Schanda Handley: So, what we believed at our treatment center was that use of something like that amphetamine could open the doors to a world of trouble. So, when I found the bottle, … it terrified me. … And I can remember telling him, “This could lead to death. This could lead to something devastating.”
And soon things got even worse when Schanda discovered that Michael was seeing another woman.
Schanda Handley: He was having an affair. … And all I could think was, like, “I don’t even know who this man is.”
Michael and Schanda Handley
Schanda Handley
Schanda issued an ultimatum: Michael had to go into treatment, but when he refused to get help, she made a difficult decision.
Schanda Handley: I change the locks, and Michael was locked outta the house. And he started to lose his mind at that point … and so after a coupla weeks, he said, “You’re gonna regret this.” And then that turned into, “I’m telling you, it’s gonna get bad.”
The Handleys’ life together was falling apart fast. Michael accused Schanda of assaulting him; she was charged, but later acquitted by a judge. All while Schanda was begging the authorities to see that she was the one in danger.
Schanda Handley: If Michael wasn’t apprehended, he was going to kill me.
LIVING IN FEAR
As Schanda Handley was recovering in the hospital, investigators were learning the details of her tumultuous past with Michael Handley. They knew they had to find him and the kidnappers fast. They started scouring the canal – the last place her abductors had been seen.
Kenny Hebert: There was a fisherman … And … he reported these two individuals wading by him in the water … And one of ’em pointed a gun at him and said, “Be cool.”
But as the kidnappers had been swimming towards freedom, the canal’s unforgiving current had other plans.
Kenny Hebert: They found them floating in the Intracoastal Canal, drowned.
David Begnaud: Dead?
Kenny Hebert: Dead.
They were later identified as Sylvester Bracey and Arsenio Haynes.
David Begnaud: What did you think when you found out they were dead?
Schanda Handley: I thought … “I’m not gonna have to worry about them hurting me,” as sad as that is.
While investigators suspected Michael Handley was responsible for the abduction, proving it might have been difficult with their main witnesses — the kidnappers — dead. But, Handley, it seemed, had made it kind of easy for them.
Kenny Hebert: Detectives were running the VIN number on the white van … That VIN number leads them to an Enterprise dealership in Baton Rouge. … They said, “Well, a few days ago, an individual named Lawrence Michael Handley came in a rented the van.”
Kenny Hebert: And then a couple days before that, he went to Barney’s Police Depot, which was a store … that carries specifically police-issue merchandise.
While investigating the case, authorities found evidence that they say pointed to Michael Handley as the mastermind behind the kidnapping. In this surveillance footage, he is seen purchasing handcuffs from a police supply store three days before Schanda’s kidnapping.
15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office
Handley was seen on store surveillance cameras as he pulls up, and purchases handcuffs. Finding evidence allegedly connecting Handley to the kidnapping wasn’t difficult but finding him turned out to be the challenge.
Schanda Handley: I’m asking if Michael’s been apprehended. And they said, “No.” And so, they said, “We need to, like, lay low for a little while.”
With a fortune at his fingertips, investigators feared he could be anywhere and a danger to Schanda once she was released from the hospital. So, they came up with a plan of action.
Sid Hebert: We decided on a safe house outside of Lafayette
Sid Hebert, a former Louisiana sheriff, was part of the security detail watching Schanda 24/7.
Sid Hebert: We had a Lafayette Sheriff’s deputy in a marked unit on premises. … No visitors, no … package deliveries, nothing until further notice.
Even in hiding, Schanda was feeling relief that Michael was finally being recognized as a threat after living in constant fear prior to the kidnapping.
Schanda Handley: The terror that I was in for those three months… the kidnapping was nothing in comparison … The kidnapping was a blessing.
David Begnaud: What?
Schanda Handley: The kidnapping is what allowed me to get to a place where people were willing to support me.
David Begnaud: In the beginning, how many people believed Schanda?
Christine Mire: Not many.
But Schanda had found a fierce ally in Christine Mire, her divorce attorney. Mire knew all too well what Schanda had experienced.
Christine Mire: The most dangerous case I have ever heard about, let alone been a part of.
David Begnaud: What made it so dangerous?
Christine Mire: Michael Handley. … He was constantly stalking her, telling her that he knew where she was, threatening her, threatening her daughter with harm.
Schanda called the police several times, but felt she wasn’t taken seriously. Mire helped Shanda secure a restraining order, but says Michael found creative ways to make it effectively worthless.
Christine Mire: He disguised his voice, he also used an app that picked up dummy numbers that he used to contact her. … So, there was no proof that it was him that was actually violating the protective order.
And he seemed to be tracking Schanda’s every move.
Sid Hebert: He was able to spy on her through her own laptop computers. … her alarm system. … he compromised all of that. … nothing was out of bounds.
Michael’s behavior was growing increasingly erratic. Even though he was the one to initially file for divorce in the spring of 2017, he soon changed his mind and Schanda says now he was demanding they reconcile, or she’d pay a humiliating price.
Schanda Handley: He says, “Some of our private videos are gonna go out to people in the community.”
David Begnaud: Intimate videos?
Schanda Handley: Intimate videos.
Schanda struggled over this but knew she couldn’t take him back.
Schanda Handley: So, videos went out to hundreds of people in the community. … My cousins, uncles … administration at the school, political friends, neighbors. … I sat and cried and was sick to my stomach … I almost didn’t stand up.
Just when Schanda thought she couldn’t take any more, on June 8, 2017 — almost two months to the day before the kidnapping — Michael Handley slipped into her house through the garage.
Schanda Handley: He was enraged. He reeked of alcohol. He was — he was furious … And he had me pinned up against the wall. And … I screamed, “Isabella.” Well, he put his hand over my mouth, and he pulled out a gun, a 9mm.
David Begnaud: A gun?
Schanda Handley: He pulls out a handgun. … And — and he said, “If you scream or anybody comes to interfere, I will shoot you both. I will kill you both. Do you understand me?”
Schanda says that after hours saying anything she could think of to calm him down, she finally convinced Michael to leave.
“When Michael left that day after he had attacked me, I was 100% positive he was going to kill me,” said Schanda Handley.
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Schanda Handley: As soon as he walked out of that gate, I ran in the house, bolted the door … And I started screaming and crying.
Schanda Handley: When Michael left that day after he had attacked me, I was 100% positive he was going to kill me.
Police were called once again, but they didn’t arrest Michael Handley.
David Begnaud: I can see in your eyes that you’re getting emotional.
Schanda Handley: Oh … I felt as though I was being told … that I was lying and that I was making it up.
Christine Mire: This is why women don’t report abuse. Because they fear they will not be believed
David Begnaud: How many times had Schanda filed a report against Michael?
Kenny Hebert: I believe that the … actual reports filed were a couple dozen, if not more. As far as how many times was there an arrest made, there wasn’t.
David Begnaud: Why?
Kenny Hebert: A lotta times he was out of state. Sometimes the investigators felt like they didn’t have enough evidence to actually go forward and get a warrant for the arrest.
After the kidnapping, investigators were confident that this time they had more than enough evidence to make an arrest. But could they find him in time?
Kenny Hebert: So, somehow, Michael is able to track Schanda down to the place that she’s seeking refuge.
A DAMNING DISCOVERY
David Begnaud: Does Michael Handley know that the cops are onto him?
Kenny Hebert: Yes. … because at some point he tried to … charter a private plane … And so, the pilot essentially said, “I am not going to be taking you anywhere—um, because you’re a wanted man.”
The pilot reported it to police, but Michael was long gone. And as he continued to evade authorities, Schanda got a text message from a strange number, claiming that Michael had also been kidnapped, saying in part “pay the ransom for your husband” and “pay us 500 large or we will send him home in pieces.” A day later, friends received a shocking photo of Michael — he was nude, handcuffed, and seemingly injured.
David Begnaud: And he’s got blood on him?
Kenny Hebert: Right.
It appearedto be from Schanda’s kidnappers, but investigators knew that couldn’t be true.
Kenny Hebert: We know that, obviously, it wasn’t from them because they’re dead at this point. So, Michael, is behind these messages.
On August 11, 2017, after a four-day manhunt, detectives finally cornered the multimillionaire, once accustomed to private jets and five-star hotels—he was in an off-ramp motel in Slidell, Louisiana.
After a four-day manhunt, detectives found and arrested an oddly smiling Michael Handley at a Super 8 motel in Slidell, Louisiana.
15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office
As they took an oddly smiling Michael Handley into custody, investigators began sifting through the nearly $10,000 in cash, pizza boxes, and illicit drugs, finding a “to-do” list. On it were things like “burner phone, hair dye, cash” — but its final task was even more ominous, says prosecutor, Kenny Hebert, since Schanda’s safehouse was just 35 miles away.
Kenny Hebert: But on the bottom of that list were the words, “Finish the job.”
David Begnaud: And finish the job would mean?
Kenny Hebert: In our opinion, he was gonna kill her.
With Michael Handley now in a jail, Schanda and her security team decided it was finally safe to come out of hiding.
Sid Hebert: It was time to go home. And that’s what she said, “I just wanna go home … and rebuild my life.”
But with his track record of evading justice, Isabella was skeptical that the worst was behind them.
Isabella Cumberland: I remember thinking that … it was almost pointless that he was being arrested. … It felt like he had all the power, and he was gonna keep all of the power.
Michael Handley pleaded not guilty to a litany of charges, including conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, and prosecutors got to work building their case against him.
Kenny Hebert: Anytime you’re on our side of the table, you start thinking, “What’s the defense gonna be?” We could not figure out what (laughs) his defense was gonna be.
Kevin Stockstill: There was no question that she was a victim of a kidnapping.
But, says Kevin Stockstill, the man who Michael Handley hired to defend him, the physical evidence doesn’t prove his client played a part in any of it.
David Begnaud: Were the van and handcuffs enough to convict him?
Kevin Stockstill: I don’t think so.
That is because, Stockstill says, there is an explanation for everything. It started when Michael hired Sylvester Bracey — not to kidnap his wife — but instead, he claims, to move some furniture. That was the reason Michael rented the van, he says, and made no effort to hide it.
Kevin Stockstill: Mr. Handley, you know, goes into the Enterprise Rent-A-Car location with his … credit card in one hand and driver’s license in the other.
David Begnaud: So, you thought you could explain to the jury, “Hey, listen. Nobody who’s actually gonna commit this crime’s gonna go in with their license and ID and buy it themselves.”
Kevin Stockstill: Correct.
It was all innocent enough, Stockstill says, until the would-be “mover” went rogue. Stockstill theorizes Sylvester Bracey saw Michael’s desperation to get his wife back and decided to use it to his advantage. That’s when he enlisted Arsenio Haynes to help him kidnap Schanda and hold her for ransom.
David Begnaud: So, you’re thinking the kidnappers could have wanted to extort Michael to get money from him, so they would have kidnapped his wife.
Kevin Stockstill: Potentially.
And of course, he did buy the handcuffs, but Stockstill says he only used them to stage that fake kidnapping photo.
Kevin Stockstill: So, as he’s bound and gagged, he’s bound with handcuffs.
It was just the latest example, according to Stockstill, of photos and videos that Michael had been sending to Schanda for months showing him in emotional distress, and, in one case, apparently beaten up in a misguided attempt to try to win her back.
MICHAEL HANDLEY (crying in video): I love you. I love you.
Kevin Stockstill: Because Michael had … he had a proclivity to try … and stage these things … to get, you know, sympathy from Schanda.
But as the defense prepared to argue that the kidnappers acted on their own, Schanda Handley made a damning discovery while cleaning out a remote Mississippi property they owned.
Kenny Hebert: Schanda starts gettin’ some of her personal belongings. Well, one of the things that they found was this camera.
It was a type of camera called Arlo and Michael Handley used it for security.
David Begnaud: When Arlo detects sound and video, Arlo starts recording.
Well, it turns out he accidently turned the camera on himself.
David Begnaud: All put together, what did the camera record?
Schanda Handley: I mean, hundreds of hours, hundreds of hours.
One of the first videos is from two months before the kidnapping. Michael is by himself in a hotel room and is apparently talking to himself.
Kenny Hebert: You see him movin’ around. And at some point, he picks the camera up and he puts it in a bag. And you hear him say the words, “I’m gonna kill her. I’m gonna kill her.”
MICHAEL HANDLEY (video): Kill her … kill her.
Prosecutors believe the “her” he intended to kill was Schanda, and that Michael was even more explicit just days later in a conversation with a friend in the living room of the Mississippi house.
Kenny Hebert: They’re havin’ beers and they’re discussing the issues that he’s having with Schanda.
FRIEND (video): Y’all are both pretty stubborn …
MICHAEL HANDLEY: Neither one of us is going to surrender to the other.
FRIEND: Right. Yeah, she’s not going to and you’re not going to.
The friend later said he didn’t recall hearing what Michael said next.
MICHAEL HANDLEY (video): And that’s why she’ll die.
Schanda Handley: Michael says … “That’s why she’s gonna have to die.” Just so matter of fact.
Michael Handley, right, is caught on camera with one of the kidnappers, Sylvester Bracey, prosecutors say, planning Schanda’s abduction.
15th Judicial Court
In yet another clip from just two weeks before the kidnapping… Michael Handley is caught with Sylvester Bracey at that property planning how it was the perfect place, prosecutors say, to bring Schanda to torture her — and possibly worse.
Kenny Hebert: He specifically says, “It’s almost impossible for anyone to get in here.” … to which Bracey responds, “And it’ll be impossible for her to get out.”
MICHAEL HANDLEY (video): Thing is, you can’t break in this place. You can’t break in here …
SYLVESTER BRACEY: And she can’t break out.
David Begnaud: I mean, did you think you had a rock-solid case before that?
Kenny Hebert: Yes.
David Begnaud: But what’d you think after it.
Kenny Hebert: I thought, “I must have done somethin’ right in the world.”
Then, in a move no one saw coming,Michael Handley agreed to tell his side of things.
QUESTIONS FOR MICHAEL HANDLEY
While awaiting trial for the kidnapping of his estranged wife, Schanda, Michael Handley was held in the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center. But Schanda says even though Michael was behind bars, he continued to harass her.
Schanda Handley: I’ve received a lot of mail, letters … while he’s been incarcerated. … I got numerous calls.
David Begnaud: Can’t they stop him from calling you?
Schanda Handley: I guess not.
Schanda Handley said Michael continued to harass her from behind bars.
15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office
On top of that, Schanda lived in fear that Michael just might get out. That’s because, at one point, the defense argued that Michael was suffering from mental illness and was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Kevin Stockstill: When Michael was — was sober … he was a fantastic individual, you know … Very talented — willing to help people. … when he was found at the hotel in Slidell, I mean, there were drugs there. You know. There’s no question that he was using again. … I don’t know the level of his responsibility, but … I think it’s a combination of — substance abuse and … some mental illness.
For prosecutor Kenny Hebert, however, it was a desperate attempt to get Michael released.
Kenny Hebert: They did it so that they could get some psychological — professionals on the stand to say, “He needs to be out of jail, and he needs to go to these mental health facilities.” … Well, we’re talkin’ about mental health facilities that don’t have nearly the security that a jail has.
Michael’s defense team submitted mental health records showing that he suffered from bipolar disorder complicated by drug addiction, which they say rendered him legally insane during the time leading up to the kidnapping. Two court-appointed doctors agreed. But the judge ruled Michael was competent to stand trial and must remain behind bars.
Kenny Hebert: Once they initially failed to get him out … they withdrew that plea.
David Begnaud: And what did they change it to?
Kenny Hebert: They just changed it to regular not guilty.
While Michael Handley’s criminal battle was heating up, in March of 2018, his divorce from Schanda became finalized. Schanda was awarded all of the assets. There was only one problem.
Schanda Handley: There is no money. There’s no money. You know, millions of dollars vanished.
Christine Mire: Michael was a very eccentric person. … he was obsessed with the collapse of the American dollar. So much of their money was in gold bars.
Kenny Hebert: Schanda said she had seen gold before and knew that there was gold somewhere on that … property. … I believe people actually went out with metal detectors to try to figure out if he stashed it somewhere. … No gold was ever recovered … So, there’s all of this money that’s unaccounted for … But we know it’s gotta be out there somewhere.
On top of being left with nothing, Schanda says she suddenly found herself responsible for repaying her now ex-husband’s massive debts.
David Begnaud: How much of a hole did he leave you in?
Schanda Handley: $750,000. … I can’t comprehend how I’m now in a position where I owe this sort of money.
Schanda felt like it was a slap in the face after enduring so much. But it wasn’t all for naught. During the settlement negotiations Schanda’s divorce attorney Christine Mire had subpoenaed Michael for a deposition. And surprisingly he agreed.
David Begnaud: I mean, that’s wild.
Christine Mire: It is.
Kenny Hebert: I can imagine that someone with the arrogance that Michael Handley had, insisted that he was gonna testify and it was gonna be fine, ’cause he is the smartest person in the room.
Schanda’s divorce attorney and the prosecutors had agreed to cooperate with each other. And everyone was interested in hearing what Michael Handley had to say.
Kevin Stockstill: It was a risk.
David Begnaud: Because he might go into that deposition and say stuff that really jeopardizes his criminal case.
Kevin Stockstill: I’ve never been more nervous in a deposition than that one.
Dressed in a striped prison uniform, Michael answered questions for 10 hours over three days.
Kevin Stockstill: I was hanging on every question.
David Begnaud: I bet you were.
Kevin Stockstill: Yeah.
MICHAEL HANDLEY: It was a chaotic and hectic time. I was living out of hotels. I’d been moving from hotel to hotel for several months.
Michael was asked about his relationship with Sylvester Bracey, and the reason he rented that van.
MICHAEL HANDLEY: Sylvester Bracey, I had hired him to move furniture. … I rented the van to make a move, to move the furniture.
He stuck with his original story.
Christine Mire: He said that he had hired movers in order to move furniture, and they went rogue, because they thought he had money.
MICHAEL HANDLEY: I got a phone call. … As soon as I answered the phone and I said “Hello,” they screamed — they screamed, “We’ve got your mother******* wife.” And — I just remember ’cause it was like I got punched in the gut … It was like one of those moments when you go into — not real.
Michael Handley answered questions for 10 hours over three days.
15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office
But when pressed about the details of how he first met Bracey, Michael claimed he couldn’t remember much about the weeks leading up to the kidnapping.
MICHAEL HANDLEY: I don’t recall.
MICHAEL HANDLEY: The reason that I don’t recall is because I was high. I was living like a rock star. I was on and off medications during this period of time … and I was under the influence of substances.
MICHAEL HANDLEY: Mental illness is tough, you know.
But, he insisted, despite the gaps in memory, there was one thing he knew for certain.
MICHAEL HANDLEY: I would not kidnap my wife.
Christine Mire: He would cry, and say that he loved her so much, that he was so sorry. It was that type of manipulation.
MICHAEL HANDLEY: I have tremendous regret.
During the deposition, Mire pulled that Arlo camera recording in which prosecutors believe Bracey and Michael Handley were caught talking about the plot to kidnap Schanda — the wife Handley claimed he loved so much.
Christine Mire: I queued up where one of the kidnappers was telling Michael, “And, you know, if she gets outta line, I won’t hesitate to kill her.”
SYLVESTER BRACEY TO MICHAEL HANDLEY (camera recording): I’ll kill that mother f*****.
Christine Mire: And I said, “What kind of movers tell that to you?” And his fear was palpable, and he said, “Oh, I don’t know Christine, people tell me all sorts of things.”
Michael Handley withered under questioning, poking holes in his owndefense with his own words.
Kenny Hebert: The civil attorneys provided us with those deposition transcripts shortly after receiving ’em.
And with the trial date fast approaching, Michael’s defense attorney feared the worst.
Kevin Stockstill: We were of the opinion that he ran a significant risk of — of a conviction.
With the walls closing in, and hours before the trial was to start, Michael Handley indicated he was open to a deal.
Kevin Stockstill: He would plead, you know, second-degree kidnapping. The minimum sentence would be 15 years. The maximum sentence would be 35 years.
Prosecutors Donny Knecht and Kenny Hebert say there was a lot to take into consideration.
Donny Knecht: The problem with a jury trial is you — you almost never know.
Kenny Hebert: But also knew that there’s Schanda Handley. … there’s Isabella. … You’ve got victims that have to relive that moment if you go to trial.
Ultimately, the decision to take the deal or go to trial was Schanda’s.
Schanda Handley: I was so scared that if we went to trial that it could work out beautifully for him. … because Michael always lands on his feet. … once Michael’s out, I’m no longer free.
SCHANDA’S DECISION
In July 2021, all Schanda Handley wanted was for her ex-husband Michael Handley to stay behind bars. So, she agreed to accept his plea of guilty to second degree kidnapping.
Schanda Handley: I didn’t want to take any risks … I would rather the plea deal than to take the chance and go to trial.
Less than a year later, on March 24, 2022, Schanda was in the courtroom to find out what Michael’s sentence would be. Isabella was there, too, as was Michael.
David Begnaud: What was it like to come face-to-face with him in court?
Isabella Cumberland: It was so surreal, you know? … And I think honestly for both of us, it was this really strong, powerful emotion that we both felt, but mine was hatred.
Hoping to help convince the judge to give Michael the maximum sentence, Isabella chose to give a victim impact statement.
David Begnaud: What did you say at the hearing?
Hoping to help convince the judge to give Michael the maximum sentence, Isabella Cumberland chose to give a victim impact statement.
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Isabella Cumberland: I really kind of told a story about … how difficult it really made my life, and how difficult it still makes my life. … because I didn’t think he knew that it affected me as well as it affected her.
Schanda also had something she wanted to say to Michael.
Schanda Handley: I told him that he wrecked everything, and that he destroyed everything, … and how could you … like, we had, like, a really — we had a good life. We … had a good family. And we … we adored each other. … He was the person I most admired in this world until then.
David Begnaud: Do you think Michael understands his actions have had an effect on his former wife and stepchild?
Kevin Stockstill: I think that he does.
David Begnaud: You get the sense the guy is sorry?
Kevin Stockstill: I think so. … I think he’s capable of remorse.
Yet, when it was Michael’s turn to speak, instead of a tearful apology, he gave yet another new story. This time he admitted he did, in fact, hire the two men to kidnap Schanda. But he claimed it was all fake, and staged so that he could swoop in, save her, and be the hero.
Donny Knecht: What he really wanted to do was emerge as the white knight … who came in and rescued her. … It was a way for him to try to win her back, but he never really intended to hurt her. … it was all a big game.
In the end, the judge sided with the prosecution and gave Michael Handley the maximum penalty.
NEWS REPORT: A Lafayette man was sentenced today in the 2017 kidnapping case of his estranged wife. Lawrence Michael Handley received 35-years in prison for the crime.
Schanda Handley: Thirty-five years, minus five for time served … puts him out when he’s 79.
David Begnaud: Seventy-nine. … Are you OK with that?
Schanda Handley: I’d rather he never get out.
David Begnaud: Are you still afraid, even with him behind bars?
Schanda Handley: Oh, yeah.
That concern is something Isabella shares.
David Begnaud: Do you fear for your safety from Michael Handley?
Isabella Cumberland: Yeah. I do. … Nothing could stop him.
Isabella Cumberland: I just see him as a villain, not a good person. And … I’m not sad about it. In my mind, he’s changed to a completely different person. So, it doesn’t feel like I’ve lost my dad. It feels like I’ve lost a stranger.
“It’s so powerful to see how my mom handled this situation,” said Isabella Cumberland. “She’s amazing, you know. And she’s really, really strong.”
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The now 20-year-old college junior chooses to focus on the valuable lesson that she learned from her mother.
Isabella Cumberland: It’s so powerful to see how my mom handled this situation, … She’s shown me how she can overcome something so horrible, and turn it into something great, and become an even better person out of it.
Schanda has found renewed purpose working with others like her. She sold property, took out a loan, and opened two sober living homes dedicated to helping women get back on their feet.
Schanda Handley (outside of sober living home): It’s been really, really rewarding. … And you know, from my experiences that I’ve had — the challenges that I’ve had … I’m … able to … show them firsthand that … We get up, we keep goin’. We put one foot in front of the other and— we will persevere.
An important part of moving forward for Schanda has been recognizing those who stood by her. And while she did speak on the phone with Chad Martin, the officer who saved her, she never got the chance to thank him in person until now. “48 Hours” arranged for them to meet.
DEPUTY CHAD MARTIN: It’s good to see you again. (They hug)
SCHANDA: Yeah, I’m looking at you to see if I can remember.
DEPUTY CHAD MARTIN: I remember. … I’m really glad that — I was in the right place at the right time to help you. Really glad.
SCHANDA HANDLEY: Thank you. … I feel like I owe you everything. … I guess my greatest gratitude in you saving my life is that my daughter gets to have her mom and have a good life. … Thank you. Give you another hug.
Handley is appealing, saying he was not properly informed of his rights when he pleaded guilty. He is also arguing his sentence of 35 year was too harsh.
Produced by Chris O’Connell, Betsy Shuller and Rich Fetzer. David Dow is the development producer. Marlon Disla, Michelle Harris and George Baluzy are the editors. Morgan Canty is the associate producer. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior broadcast producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer
Schanda Handley and her daughter, Isabella Cumberland, were at their home on a quiet street in Lafayette, Louisiana, on August 6, 2017, when two men appeared at their front door. At first glance they looked like deliverymen, which was a welcome interruption, since Handley had been anxiously awaiting a clothes steamer she had ordered.
“I was so excited,” Handley told David Begnaud, CBS News lead national correspondent and “48 Hours” contributor. “I was like, ‘Oh, my steamer.’”
Her joy was transformed into terror, when instead of dropping off a package, the two men held Handley at gunpoint, handcuffed her and threw her into the back of a van.
Schanda Handley was taken from her home at gunpoint by two people posing as deliverymen. It was a brazen kidnapping in the normally quiet suburban town of Lafayette, Louisiana. And it was not a random attack
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“They hooded me as soon as I went into the van,” Handley said. “It was a van that didn’t have the windows in the back.”
Cumberland watched helplessly as the men sped off with her mother.
“As they’re driving away with her, did you think that was the last time you’d ever see her?” Begnaud asked Cumberland.
“I thought there was a chance,” Cumberland answered.
Handley said one of the abductors was straddling her in the back of the van, forcing pills into her mouth, while the other erratically drove them out of town. She recounted beginning to lose consciousness, as she says the men threatened to sexually assault and then kill her.
Her prayers were answered when Deputy Chad Martin with the Iberville Parish Sheriff’s Office — who had just clocked out of work and was unaware of Handley’s kidnapping nearly 60 miles away — spotted the van and attempted to make a traffic stop. The kidnappers exited the highway and tried to get away. After making a turn onto a dead-end road, they got stuck in the mud and continued to flee on foot. As Martin investigated the van, he discovered a barely conscious Handley in the back.
“She looked at me,” Martin recounted. “She said, ‘Are you the real police? Are you the one that’s gonna kill me?’”
Martin assured Handley that she was safe. A day later, her kidnappers’ remains were discovered in a waterway not far from where they had abandoned the van — having drowned as they attempted to escape. Even then, Handley believed that the mastermind behind the plot was still at large and a danger to her.
“She had said that she believed that her husband is the one that had paid them to kill her,” Martin recalls Handley telling him shortly after her rescue.
Michael and Schanda Handley
Schanda Handley
Investigators began looking into Handley’s estranged husband, Michael Handley, and discovered that in the months leading up to the abduction, Schanda had called the police numerous times on Michael, and had even been granted a restraining order. They also found a rapidly accumulating list of evidence pointing to his involvement in the kidnapping itself. They learned he had rented the van a day before the abduction, and had also purchased the handcuffs used to restrain Handley during it. He was arrested after a four-day manhunt. He was charged with multiple kidnapping counts, as well as conspiracy to commit second-degree murder.
Then, as prosecutors were building their case, Schanda made a damning discovery of her own while she was cleaning out a remote property the couple owned in Mississippi. It was a camera that Michael had been using for security. But, with a motion activated recording feature, it turns out he had accidentally turned the camera on himself.
“All put together, what did the camera record?” Begnaud asked Schanda.
“I mean, hundreds of hours,” she responded.
Prosecutor Kenny Hebert watched the months’ worth of video documenting the time leading up to the kidnapping. Hebert said that on at least one occasion, Michael was recorded expressing how his wife needed to die. In a video clip from just two weeks before the abduction, Michael was caught on camera with one of the kidnappers, Sylvester Bracey, planning Schanda’s abduction while they chatted in the living room of the Mississippi property, Hebert said.
“[Michael Handley] specifically says, ‘It’s almost impossible for anyone to get in here,’” Hebert said. “To which Bracey responds, ‘And it’ll be impossible for her to get out.’”
Michael Handley, right, is caught on camera with one of the kidnappers, Sylvester Bracey, prosecutors say, planning Schanda’s abduction.
15th Judicial Court
On top of the other physical evidence, Hebert said, they now had documented proof Michael had plotted Shanda’s kidnapping — theorizing his ultimate plan was to have her killed.
“I thought, ‘I must have done somethin’ right in the world,’” Hebert said about the video evidence.
In July of 2021, Michael Handley pleaded guilty to second-degree kidnapping, and was later sentenced to 35 years in prison. A small relief to Schanda, who said she fears the day her now ex-husband will eventually walk out of prison.
“I’d rather he never get out,” Schanda said. “Once Michael’s out, I’m no longer free.”
A daughter watches in horror as her mother is kidnapped from their home by intruders posing as deliverymen. “CBS Mornings” lead national correspondent David Begnaud reports for “48 Hours.”
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Two men arrived at Schanda Handley’s door, handcuffed her, and threw her in the back of a van. They put a gun to her head and threatened to kill her, but she lived to tell the story.
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Louisiana sheriff’s deputy, Chad Martin, made the rescue of a lifetime when he pulled over two men who abducted Schanda Handley. Years later, Martin and Handley reunited.
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MERCED, Calif. — The younger brother of a man charged in the kidnapping and killing of a family in central California pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges he helped his brother.
Alberto Salgado was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, accessory after the fact, and arson of property, the Merced County District Attorney’s Office said.
Salgado, 41, was arrested days after authorities arrested his older brother, Jesus Salgado, 48. The elder Salgado pleaded not guilty last week to kidnapping and killing an 8-month-old baby, her parents and uncle.
Alberto Salgado was appointed a public defender by the court. A message was left with the Merced County Public Defender’s Office seeking comment.
Jesus Salgado allegedly kidnapped the family at gunpoint from their trucking business on Oct. 3. Authorities say Salgado, a former employee with a longstanding dispute, likely killed them within an hour.
The victims’ bodies were found two days after the kidnapping. A farm worker in an almond orchard in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s agricultural heartland, discovered the remains of Aroohi Dheri; her 27-year-old mother, Jasleen Kaur; her 36-year-old father, Jasdeep Singh; and her 39-year-old uncle, Amandeep Singh.
Surveillance video showed the family members were taken from their business in Merced, a city of 86,000 people about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco, by a suspect later identified as Jesus Salgado and driven away in Amandeep Singh’s pickup truck.
Firefighters found the truck on fire in the town of Winton, 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Merced, hours after the kidnapping.
A man was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday after confessing to the 2009 killing of a 17-year-old girl who disappeared while on a beach vacation in South Carolina.
Raymond Moody led police to Brittanee Drexel’s body in May after advances in technology helped investigators determine that the teen’s cellphone was in Moody’s vehicle the night she disappeared while walking alone along the Myrtle Beach waterfront.
Drexel, a high school student from upstate New York, had been celebrating spring break with friends.
Moody, 62, confessed to her killing, saying he’d offered marijuana to Drexel and that she voluntarily went to his campsite 35 miles (56 kilometers) away in Georgetown County. After his girlfriend left, Moody said he tried to have sex with Drexel, who refused.
Moody said he then strangled Drexel because he realized he would go back to prison as a convicted sex offender — he had previously been convicted of raping an 8-year-old girl in California.
“I was a monster. I was a monster then and I was a monster when I took Brittanee Drexel’s life,” Moody said in a Georgetown County courthouse after pleading guilty Wednesday to murder, kidnapping and rape for the teen’s killing.
Drexel was always texting and her boyfriend, who stayed home near Rochester, New York, began looking for her within 15 minutes of her disappearance in April 2009, prosecutor Scott Hixon said.
That search went on for more than a decade. Drexel’s family repeatedly came to Myrtle Beach to keep attention on the missing teen. There were candlelight vigils and police sifted through hundreds of false tips as the case captured the attention of the true-crime community.
Among those tips were rumored links to other missing women and wild allegations of stash houses in which sexual abuse victims’ bodies were being fed to alligators.
“Some were excruciatingly sickening in detail on what some person claimed they did. Law enforcement had to spend a significant amount of time disproving what I would call crackpot, really breathtaking claims,” Hixon said.
Moody’s girlfriend came to police in 2011 and said she was abused. She knew Moody served 20 years of a 40-year prison sentence for raping a child in California and said she no longer believed Moody’s story that friends picked up Drexel while she was gone.
Investigators searched where Moody was staying and questioned him, but couldn’t gather enough evidence to charge them.
Then, in 2019, investigators decided to restart their investigation and take a new look at the evidence. Notably, advances in technology allowed police to pinpoint within a minute when Drexel’s cellphone went from moving at a walking pace to fast enough to be in a vehicle.
Initially, investigators had tried to sort through dozens of vehicles seen on a surveillance camera around the time the teen disappeared. More than 10 years later, now knowing the exact time Drexel got into a vehicle, they were able to pinpoint it to an SUV owned by Moody.
When authorities returned to question Moody, this time he confessed, telling investigators he had buried her body in a wooded area in Georgetown County, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) down the coast from where she disappeared.
Hixon said investigators could only go by his version of events and will never know if Drexel got into Moody’s SUV on her own or was forced inside. Hixon also said that because the teen’s body wasn’t found for 13 years, they can’t know if she was strangled or killed some other way or whether Moody abused her in other ways.
Drexel’s family joined prosecutors in asking for the life sentence. They said she was a loving teen, who played soccer, liked fashion and was like a mother for her younger siblings.
Dawn Drexel wore her daughter’s ashes in a necklace around her neck and told Moody he was a serial child predator who should be especially ashamed since he had three daughters.
Drexel’s mother said she was proud her daughter fought back, scratching Moody on his head, neck and face before she died.
“I hope you suffer in prison for the rest of your useless life,” Dawn Drexel said.
A defense lawyer lashed out Thursday at a star witness in a trial related to a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, accusing the Army veteran of “stolen valor” and questioning why he wasn’t given a Purple Heart if he was truly injured in Iraq.
The ruckus broke out in front of jurors and continued after they were excused. Defense attorneys and prosecutors raised their voices over each other. At one point, an FBI agent firmly told lawyer Leonard Ballard to “back up, please.”
“Judge, it’s literally hurting my ears. I just can’t listen to it anymore,” state Assistant Attorney General Sunita Doddamani pleaded.
The commotion occurred on the ninth day of trial in Jackson, Michigan, where three members of a paramilitary group, the Wolverine Watchmen, are charged with providing material support for a terrorist act.
Joe Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar are not accused of directly participating in the Whitmer kidnapping scheme. But state prosecutors said they provided training and support to key players who were subsequently convicted of conspiracy in federal court.
Just like in the federal case, a crucial witness against the three men is Dan Chappel. He agreed in 2020 to become an informant, embedding himself for months inside the Watchmen after reporting to the FBI that the group talked chillingly about attacking police.
In response to questions from prosecutors, Chappel, 36, explained that he was simply looking for a way to maintain his gun skills when he joined the group, years after serving with the Army in Iraq. He told jurors that he suffered back and head trauma overseas that sometimes affected his memory.
Ballard, who is Morrison’s lawyer, pounced during cross-examination, challenging Chappel over his lack of a Purple Heart, a medal typically given to people injured in combat.
“It’s relevant because they have put his combat, and his combat ability, and his combat wounds and everything into evidence,” Ballard said, referring to prosecutors. “They said this is who and what he is. It goes to his credibility.”
Ballard, a former Marine, said a Purple Heart for Chappel’s injuries should have been automatic under Army regulations. But Chappel said his injuries weren’t diagnosed by doctors until later.
“This witness can’t get away with misrepresenting his conduct, his service, his valor — which I would argue is stolen valor in this matter — to these 15 people,” Ballard said of the jury.
Assistant Attorney General Bill Rollstin fired back, accusing Ballard of “besmirching this man’s integrity.”
“What’s (Ballard’s) point: He does or doesn’t have a Purple Heart so now you shouldn’t believe his testimony?” Rollstin asked.
Judge Thomas Wilson said Chappel would get an opportunity Friday to more fully explain his injuries to the jury.
“Then I’ll allow you to ask him if he ever had the Purple Heart,” Wilson told Ballard.
EXCELSIOR SPRINGS, Mo. — A Missouri woman was held captive in a basement room for about a month and was raped repeatedly before she was able to escape, according to charging documents filed Tuesday.
The suspect, 39-year-old Timothy M. Haslett of Excelsior Springs, Missouri, was arrested Friday and appeared in court by video Tuesday from the Clay County jail.
Judge Louis Angles entered a not guilty plea on Haslett’s behalf on charges of first-degree rape or attempted rape, first-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault. He is jailed on $500,000 bond and told the court on Tuesday that he needs a public defender to represent him.
The victim was found early Friday, wearing latex lingerie and a metal collar with what appeared to be a padlock on the front, the Kansas City Star reported. The woman told police she had been been picked up in early September, then taken to a home and kept in a small room in the suspect’s basement.
Police removed the lock which they said was restricting the woman’s breathing. She pointed out the home where she was held as she was being driven to the hospital, according to a probable cause statement from a detective.
“He kept her restrained in handcuffs on her wrists and ankles. She was able to get free when he took his child to school,” the probable cause statement said. The woman told police that Haslett whipped and raped her frequently.
The Star reported that since Haslett’s arrest, police have carried large bags of evidence from the ranch-style home. They’ve used a cadaver dog — which can track the missing or dead — to examine the yard and Haslett’s truck.
Excelsior Springs, a town of 11,600 residents, is 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Kansas City.
MERCED, Calif. — Prosecutors on Monday charged a California man in the kidnapping and killings of an 8-month-old baby, her parents and uncle.
Jesus Salgado is accused of kidnapping the family at gunpoint from their trucking business on Oct. 3. Authorities say Salgado, a former employee with a longstanding dispute, likely killed them within an hour.
Their bodies were not found until late Wednesday, when a farm worker in an almond orchard in a remote area of the San Joaquin Valley, California’s agricultural heartland, discovered the remains of Aroohi Dheri; her 27-year-old mother Jasleen Kaur; her 36-year-old father Jasdeep Singh; and her 39-year-old uncle Amandeep Singh.
Salgado, 48, tried to kill himself a day after the kidnappings before he was taken into custody. He faces four counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances, the Merced County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The special circumstances allege that the slayings were committed during the commission of a kidnapping and were part of multiple killings in the same case.
Salgado appeared in court Monday on video, KFSN reported. He did not enter a plea and asked for more time to find an attorney. He is scheduled to return to court Thursday.
Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke last week would not discuss the condition of the adults’ remains in the orchard and said it was unclear how the baby died. Warnke said the child had no visible trauma.
Warnke called for Salgado to face the death penalty. But District Attorney Kimberly Lewis on Monday said she would defer that decision to next year.
Salgado is also charged with arson and the possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. He was previously convicted of first-degree robbery with the use of a firearm in Merced County, attempted false imprisonment and an attempt to prevent or dissuade a victim or witness after he held a family he had worked for at gunpoint and forced them to follow his orders nearly 20 years ago.
In 2007, he was sentenced to 11 years in state prison in that case. He was released in 2015 and discharged from parole three years later, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He also has a conviction for possession of a controlled substance, the department said.
Salgado’s younger brother Alberto Salgado, 41, was arrested late Thursday and accused of criminal conspiracy, accessory, and destroying evidence.
