Tag: Prisons

Woman convicted of killing pro cyclist Anna ‘Mo’ Wilson gets 90 years in prison. What happened?

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AUSTIN, Texas — The murder trial of a Texas woman charged in the May 2022 shooting death of rising professional cyclist Anna “Mo” Wilson has ended with a guilty verdict and a 90-year prison sentence.

It took jurors only two hours to convict Kaitlin Armstrong of murder on Thursday and just over three hours to decide her sentence on Friday.

Investigators said Armstrong fled the U.S. shortly after Wilson was killed and underwent plastic surgery in an attempt to evade authorities.

Wilson — a Vermont native and former alpine skier at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire — was an emerging star in gravel and mountain bike riding when she was killed in a friend’s apartment in Austin. She had been preparing to participate in a Texas race that she was among the favorites to win.

In the hours before she was killed, Wilson went swimming and had a meal with Armstrong’s boyfriend, former pro cyclist Colin Strickland, with whom Wilson had a brief romantic relationship months earlier.

Investigators say Armstrong gunned down Wilson in a jealous rage, then used her sister’s passport to escape the U.S. before she was tracked down and arrested at a beachside hostel in Costa Rica.

Here’s a look at what happened in the trial:

There were no witnesses to the shooting or videos that place Armstrong in the apartment when Wilson was gunned down on May 11, 2022. Prosecutors built their case on a tight web of circumstantial evidence.

Strickland testified that he had to hide Wilson’s phone number from Armstrong under a fake name in his phone. Two of Armstrong’s friends said she told them she wanted to — or could — kill Wilson.

Vehicle satellite records, phone-tracking data and surveillance video from a nearby home showed Armstrong’s Jeep driving around the apartment and parking in an alley shortly before Wilson was killed. Data from Armstrong’s phone showed it had been used that day to track Wilson’s location via a fitness app that she used to chart her training rides.

Investigators also said shell casings near Wilson’s body matched a gun Armstrong owned.

Jurors heard the frantic emergency call from the friend who found Wilson’s body, saw the gruesome police camera footage of first responders performing CPR, and heard audio from a neighbor’s home surveillance system that prosecutors said captured Wilson’s final screams and three gunshots.

Wilson was shot twice in the head, and once through the heart.

Police interviewed Armstrong, among others, after Wilson was killed. The day after that interview, Armstrong sold her Jeep for more than $12,000 and headed to Costa Rica, where investigators say she had plastic surgery to change her nose, and she changed her hairstyle and color.

Armstrong evaded capture for 43 days as she moved around Costa Rica trying to establish herself as a yoga instructor before she was finally caught on June 29.

The jury also heard about another escape attempt by Armstrong, on Oct. 11, when she tried to flee two corrections officers who had escorted her to a medical appointment outside jail. Video showed Armstrong, in a striped jail uniform and arm restraints, running and trying to scale a fence.

She was quickly recaptured and faces a separate felony escape attempt charge.

Armstrong’s lawyers spent only a few hours presenting her defense and she did not testify on her own behalf.

The defense accused police of a sloppy investigation that too quickly focused on Armstrong as the sole suspect. And they tried to raise doubts among jurors by suggesting someone else could have killed Wilson, asking why prosecutors so quickly dismissed Strickland as a suspect.

But a police analyst testified that data tracking on Strickland’s phone showed him traveling away from Wilson’s apartment immediately after dropping her off, and taking a phone call at or near his home around the time Wilson was killed.

Armstrong’s lawyers tried to pick at that data as unreliable and imprecise. They questioned whether someone other than Armstrong had her vehicle and phone that night. They also called an expert on forensic metallurgy to try to debunk as faulty the firearms and tool-marking methods used to match the bullets to Armstrong’s gun.

The sentencing phase of the trial packed an emotional wallop.

Caitlin Cash, the friend who found Wilson and pumped her chest 100 times in a desperate attempt to save her through CPR, said she had texted Wilson’s family earlier that day with a picture of her starting a training ride. It included a message, “Your girl is in safe hands here in Austin.”

“I felt a lot of guilt not being able to protect her,” Cash said. “I fought for her with everything I had.”

Cash also described Anna Wilson’s mother, Karen, later coming to the apartment and lying on the bathroom floor to put herself in her daughter’s final place, stroking the floor tiles and crying.

Karen Wilson spoke twice, once before the sentence was delivered, and again afterward.

“When you shot Moriah in the heart, you shot me in the heart … all the people who loved her, pierced their hearts,” Karen Wilson said, looking at Armstrong as she left the witness stand.

Armstrong did not appear to return her gaze.

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November 17, 2023
Mother of boy, 6, who shot teacher faces sentencing

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NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The mother of a 6-year-old boy who shot his teacher in Virginia is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday and could face prison time for using marijuana while owning a firearm, which is illegal under U.S. law.

Deja Taylor’s son took her handgun to school and shot Abby Zwerner in her first-grade classroom in January, seriously wounding the educator. Investigators later found nearly an ounce of marijuana in Taylor’s bedroom and evidence of frequent drug use in her text messages and paraphernalia.

The federal charges against Taylor appear to be relatively rare and come at a time when marijuana is legal in many states, including Virginia.

Some U.S. courts in other parts of the country also have ruled against the federal law that bans drug users from having guns. But the law remains in effect in many states and has been used to charge others including Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son.

Federal prosecutors in Virginia argued in court filings that Taylor’s “chronic, persistent and … life-affecting abuse extends this case far beyond any occasional and/or recreational use.”

Prosecutors said they’ll seek a 21-month prison sentence.

“This case is not a marijuana case,” they wrote. “It is a case that underscores the inherently dangerous nature and circumstances that arise from the caustic cocktail of mixing consistent and prolonged controlled substance use with a lethal firearm.”

Taylor agreed in June to a negotiated guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Newport News in the state’s southeast coastal region. She has been convicted of using marijuana while owning a gun as well as lying about her drug use on a federal form when she bought the firearm.

Taylor’s attorneys said they’ll ask for probation and home confinement, according to court filings. They argued that Taylor needs counseling for issues that include schizoaffective disorder, a condition that shares symptoms with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

They also said she needs treatment for marijuana addiction.

“Addiction is a disease and incarceration is not the cure,” her attorneys wrote.

Taylor’s attorneys also argued that the U.S. Supreme Court could eventually strike down the federal ban on drug users owning guns. For example, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled in August that drug users shouldn’t automatically be banned from having guns.

Other lower courts have upheld the ban, and the Justice Department has appealed the 5th Circuit ruling to the Supreme Court. The high court hasn’t yet decided whether to take up the case.

“Ms. Taylor is deeply saddened, extremely despondent, and completely remorseful for the unintended consequences and mistakes that led to this horrible shooting,” her attorneys wrote.

Taylor’s sentencing could offer the first measure of accountability for January’s shooting, which revived a national dialogue about gun violence and roiled the military shipbuilding city of Newport News.

Taylor, 26, still faces a separate sentencing in December on the state level for felony child neglect. And Zwerner is suing the school system for $40 million, alleging that administrators ignored multiple warnings the boy had a gun.

Immediately after the shooting, the child told a reading specialist who restrained him: “I shot that (expletive) dead,” and “I got my mom’s gun last night,” according to search warrants.

Taylor’s son told authorities he obtained the gun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse. Taylor initially told investigators that she had secured her gun with a trigger lock, but investigators never found one.

Taylor’s grandfather has had full custody of her son, now age 7, since the shooting, according to court documents.

It wasn’t the first time Taylor’s gun was fired in public, prosecutors wrote. Taylor shot at her son’s father in December after seeing him with his girlfriend.

“u kouldve killed me,” the father said to Taylor in a text message, according to a brief from prosecutors.

Sometime after her son shot his teacher, Taylor smoked two blunts, prosecutors added. She also failed drug tests while awaiting sentencing on the federal charges.

Taylor’s attorneys said Taylor “vulnerably stands before this court humiliated, contrite and saddened.”

——

Associated Press reporter Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this report.

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November 14, 2023
80 people freed from Australian migrant centers since High Court outlawed indefinite detention

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CANBERRA, Australia — Eighty people, including convicted criminals considered dangerous, have been released from Australian migrant detention centers since the High Court ruled last week that their indefinite detention was unconstitutional, the immigration minister said Monday,

A member of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority won freedom Wednesday when the court outlawed his indefinite detention.

Australia has been unable to find any country willing to resettle the man, identified only as NZYQ, because he had been convicted of raping a 10-year-old boy, and authaorities consider him a danger to the Australian community.

The court overturned a 2004 High Court precedent set in the case of a Palestinian man, Ahmed Al-Kateb, that found stateless people could be held indefinitely in detention.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said NZYQ is one of 80 people who had been detained indefinitely and have been freed since Wednesday’s ruling.

“It is important to note that the High Court hasn’t yet provided reasons for its decision, so the full ramifications of the decision won’t be able to be determined,” Giles told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“We have been required, though, to release people almost immediately in order to abide by the decision,” he added.

All 80 were released with appropriate visa conditions determined by factors including an individual’s criminal record, Giles said.

“Community safety has been our number one priority in anticipation of the decision and since it’s been handed down,” he said.

Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue told the court last week that 92 people in detention were in similar circumstances to NZYQ in that no other country would accept them.

“The more undesirable they are … the more difficult it is to remove them to any other country in the world, the stronger their case for admission into the Australian community — that is the practical ramifications” of outlawing indefinite detention, Donaghue said.

NZYQ came to Australia in a people smuggling boat in 2012. He had been in detention since January 2015 after he was charged with raping a child and his visa was canceled.

Ian Rintoul, Sydney-based director of the Australian advocacy group Refugee Action Coalition, said it was unclear on what basis detainees were being released.

One detainee from the restive Indonesian province of West Papua has been in a Sydney detention center for 15 years and has not been freed, Rintoul said.

Not all the detainees were stateless. Iran will accept its citizens only if they return voluntarily from Australia, and Australia has stopped deporting Afghans since the Taliban took control, Rintoul said.

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November 12, 2023
Capitol rioter plans 2024 run as a Libertarian candidate in Arizona’s 8th congressional district

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One of the more recognizable figures in the U.S. Capitol riot apparently wants to run for Congress

ByThe Associated Press

November 12, 2023, 4:14 PM

FILE – Supporters of President Donald Trump, including Jacob Chansley, right with fur hat, are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber inside the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Chansley, the spear-carrying rioter whose horned fur hat, bare chest and face paint made him one of the more recognizable figures in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, apparently aspires to be a member of Congress. Online paperwork shows that Chansley filed a candidate statement of interest, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023, indicating he wants to run as a Libertarian in the 2024 election for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District seat. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

The Associated Press

PHOENIX — Jacob Chansley, the spear-carrying rioter whose horned fur hat, bare chest and face paint made him one of the more recognizable figures in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, apparently aspires to be a member of Congress.

Online paperwork shows the 35-year-old Chansley filed a candidate statement of interest Thursday, indicating he wants to run as a Libertarian in next year’s election for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District seat.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko, a 64-year-old Republican representing the district since 2018, announced last month that she won’t seek re-election. Her term officially ends in January 2025.

Chansley pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding in connection with the Capitol insurrection.

He was sentenced to 41 months in prison in November 2021 and served about 27 months before being transferred to a Phoenix halfway house in March 2023. Chansely grew up in the greater Phoenix area.

Chansley is among the more than 700 people who have been sentenced in relation to Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Authorities said Chansley was among the first rioters to enter the Capitol building and he acknowledged using a bullhorn to rouse the mob.

Although he previously called himself the “QAnon Shaman,” Chansley has since disavowed the QAnon movement.

He identified himself as Jacob Angeli-Chansley in the candidate statement of interest paperwork filed with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office.

The U.S. Constitution doesn’t prohibit felons from holding federal office. But Arizona law prohibits felons from voting until they have completed their sentence and had their civil rights restored.

Emails sent to Chansley and his attorney seeking comment on his political intentions weren’t immediately returned Sunday.

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November 12, 2023
Michigan man cleared of sexual assault after 35 years in prison

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ALBION, Mich. — A man accused of breaking into a home and sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl in southwestern Michigan is out of prison after 35 years after authorities agreed that he was wrongly convicted.

Louis Wright’s convictions from 1988 were set aside by a judge Thursday at the request of the Calhoun County prosecutor and the attorney general’s office.

“New DNA testing excluded Mr. Wright as the perpetrator,” the attorney general’s office said.

The Cooley Law School Innocence Project, which represents Wright, said a false confession and a no-contest plea caused his decades of incarceration.

In 1988, police investigating the assault of a girl in Albion, 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Detroit, settled on Wright as the suspect after an off-duty officer said he had been seen in the neighborhood.

Police said Wright confessed, though the interview was not recorded and he did not sign a confession, according to the Innocence Project.

“The victim was never asked to identify anyone in or outside of court,” the Innocence Project said.

Wright, now 65, eventually pleaded no-contest to the charges and was sentenced to 25 years to 50 years in prison. He subsequently sought to withdraw his plea, but the request was denied.

An email seeking additional comment from the Innocence Project wasn’t immediately answered Friday. It’s unclear why Wright decided to plead no-contest, which is treated as a guilty plea for sentencing purposes.

“Mr. Wright has always maintained his innocence,” the Innocence Project said in a written statement.

Prosecutor David Gilbert said the case is being reopened.

“There is no justice without truth. It applies to everyone,” he said.

Wright could be eligible for $1.75 million under a state law that grants $50,000 for each year spent in prison for a conviction overturned based on new evidence.

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November 10, 2023
Class-action lawsuit alleges unsafe conditions at migrant detention facility in New Mexico

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SANTA FE, N.M. — A new class-action lawsuit alleges that U.S. immigration authorities disregarded signs of unsanitary and unsafe conditions at a detention center in New Mexico to ensure the facility would continue to receive public funding and remain open.

The lawsuit announced Wednesday by a coalition of migrants’ rights advocates was filed on behalf of four Venezuelans ranging in age from 26 to 40 who have sought asylum in the U.S. and say they were denied medical care, access to working showers and adequate food at the Torrance County Detention Facility, all while being pressed into cleaning duties, sometimes without compensation.

The detention center in the rural town of Estancia, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) from the Mexico border, is contracted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to accommodate at least 505 adult male migrants at any time, though actual populations fluctuate.

Advocates have repeatedly alleged in recent years that the the facility has inadequate living conditions and there is limited access to legal counsel for asylum-seekers who cycle through. They have urged ICE to end its contract with a private detention operator, while calling on state lawmakers to ban local government contracts for migrant detention.

“The point is that ICE can’t turn a blind eye to conditions in detention facilities,” said Mark Feldman, senior attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center, which is among those representing the plaintiffs. “They maintain congressionally mandated oversight responsibility over conditions wherever immigrants are detained.”

The detention center failed a performance evaluation in 2021, and the lawsuit alleges that ICE scrambled to avoid documentation of a second consecutive failure that might discontinue federal funding by endorsing a “deeply flawed, lax inspection” by an independent contractor.

The lawsuit says the agency disregarded contradictory findings by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General and a contracting officer at ICE that suggested continued unhealthy conditions and staff shortages.

A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday that the agency does not comment on litigation. Last year Chief of Staff Jason Houser said ICE would continuously monitor the facility and noted that it stopped using the Etowah County Detention Center in Alabama when expectations there were not met.

CoreCivic, the private operator at Torrance County, said ICE has repeatedly audited the Estancia facility with results that support continued operations.

“We provide a safe, humane and appropriate environment for those entrusted to us and are constantly striving to deliver an even better standard of care,” spokesperson Ryan Gustin said via email.

As of September about 35,000 migrants were being held in ICE detention facilities across the U.S., while the agency monitors another 195,000 under alternatives to detention as they advance through immigration or removal proceedings, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

The southern border region has struggled to cope with increasing numbers of migrants from South America who move quickly through the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama before heading north.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, are also represented by the ACLU, Innovation Law Lab and attorneys for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.

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November 9, 2023
Father of July 4th parade shooting suspect pleads guilty to misdemeanors linked to son’s gun license

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WAUKEGAN, Ill. — The father of a man charged in a deadly Fourth of July parade shooting in suburban Chicago pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanors Monday in a case that centered on how his son obtained a gun license.

Robert Crimo Jr. entered the plea as his trial was about to start in Lake County court, in Waukegan, Illinois. He was immediately sentenced by Judge George Strickland to 60 days in jail, starting next week, and 100 hours of community service.

Crimo Jr. had been charged with seven felony counts of reckless conduct — one for each person his son, Robert Crimo III, is accused of killing in Highland Park on Independence Day 2022.

In 2019, at age 19, Crimo III was too young to seek his own gun license, but he could apply with the sponsorship of a parent or guardian. His father agreed, even though just months earlier a relative reported to police that Crimo III had a collection of knives and had threatened to “kill everyone.”

State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart told the judge that Crimo Jr. also was aware that his son had expressed suicidal thoughts.

“It was 2 1/2 years later,” the prosecutor told reporters, referring to the time between the gun application and the mass shooting, “but he was still reckless — he was criminally reckless — the moment he submitted that affidavit.”

Rinehart said a plea deal with jail time was a good result.

“We’ve laid down a marker to other prosecutors, to other police in this country, to other parents, that they must be held accountable,” he said. “The risk of potentially losing this innovative prosecution, and not putting down any marker, was too great for our trial team.”

Defense attorney George Gomez said Crimo Jr. pleaded guilty to misdemeanor versions of reckless conduct to spare the Highland Park community from reliving “these tragic events.”

Crimo Jr. also was concerned about his son’s ability to get a fair trial if details and evidence from the shooting were widely aired, Gomez said.

“Mr. Crimo ultimately did not want his family to be more torn apart upon the public stage than it already is,” Gomez said.

Anti-gun violence advocates say they are encouraged that police and prosecutors are investigating anyone who may have contributed to the attack. But legal experts say criminal liability can be hard to prove against a shooter’s parent or guardian. More often, they face civil lawsuits where legal standards of proof are less stringent.

There are exceptions. In Michigan, the parents of a teenager who killed four students at Oxford High School are facing involuntary manslaughter charges. James and Jennifer Crumbley are accused of making a gun accessible to Ethan Crumbley at home and ignoring his mental health needs.

“Any parent who is reckless in these decisions isn’t going to have any idea when that ticking time bomb will go off. … This was a matter of years, and we have held him responsible, even over that period of years,” Rinehart said of Crimo Jr.

Crimo III, meanwhile, still faces 21 first-degree murder counts, 48 counts of attempted murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery. Prosecutors say he admitted he was the gunman when he was arrested hours after the shooting in Highland Park. No trial date has been set.

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Savage is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed.

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November 6, 2023
Ex-State Department official sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison for Capitol riot attacks

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WASHINGTON — A Marine Corps veteran who served as a politically appointed State Department official in former President Donald Trump’s administration was sentenced on Friday to nearly six years in prison for attacking police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Federico Klein joined other Trump supporters in one of the most violent episodes of the Jan. 6 siege — a mob’s fight with outnumbered police for control of a tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Klein repeatedly assaulted officers, urged other rioters to join the fray and tried to stop police from shutting entrance doors, according to federal prosecutors.

Klein “waged a relentless siege on police officers” as he tried to enter the Capitol and stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump, prosecutors said in a court filing.

Klein, who didn’t testify at his trial, declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden sentenced him to five years and 10 months in prison.

“Your actions on January 6th were shocking and egregious,” the judge told Klein.

McFadden also ordered Klein to pay a $3,000 fine and $2,000 in restitution. He will report to prison at a date to be determined.

Klein worked in the State Department’s office of Brazilian and Southern Cone Affairs from 2017 until he resigned from that position on Jan. 19, 2021, a day before Biden’s inauguration.

Prosecutors said Klein’s participation in the riot was likely motivated by a desire to keep his job as a presidential appointee.

“As an employee of the federal government, Klein was endowed with the trust of the American people and to uphold the law. He violated that trust on January 6 when he attacked the very country for which he was paid to work,” prosecutors wrote.

Defense attorney Stanley Woodward has accused prosecutors of exaggerating Klein’s role in the riot due to his political connection to the Trump administration.

“Accordingly, Mr. Klein should be sentenced for his actual role in the events of the day, and not the more egregious conduct of others with which the government would have Mr. Klein be found guilty by association,” Woodward wrote.

Prosecutors had recommended a 10-year prison sentence for Klein, an Alexandria, Virginia, resident who was 42 years old at the time of the riot. Klein was arrested in March 2021.

In July 2023, McFadden heard trial testimony without a jury before he convicted Klein and a co-defendant, Steven Cappuccio, of assault charges and other Capitol riot-related offenses.

Klein and Cappuccio were among nine defendants charged in a 53-count indictment. The judge convicted Klein of 12 counts, including six assault charges.

Also on Friday, McFadden sentenced Cappuccio, 53, of Universal City, Texas, to seven years and one month in prison, according to a Justice Department news release. Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 10 years and one month for Cappuccio, who was arrested at his home in August 2021.

Klein and Cappuccio separately attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 before marching to the Capitol. Klein was in the first wave of rioters to enter the tunnel, according to prosecutors. They said he pushed hard against officers, telling them, “You can’t stop this!”

Klein also wedged a stolen police riot shield between two doors, preventing officers from closing them, prosecutors said. Video captured Klein encouraging other rioters to attack police, repeatedly yelling, “We need fresh people!”

McFadden told Klein on Friday that his conduct “prolonged the mayhem” in the tunnel.

“You were front and center in that chaos,” the judge said.

Cappuccio yelled, “Storming the castle, boys!” and chanted, “Fight for Trump!” and “Our house!” as he reached the Lower West Terrace. In the tunnel, he joined other rioters in pushing against the police line, prosecutors said.

When another rioter pinned Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges against a door, Cappuccio ripped a gas mask off the officer’s face and dislodged his helmet, prosecutors said.

Klein, who served in the Marine Corps for roughly nine years, was deployed to Iraq as a combat engineer in 2005. In January 2017, he went to work for the State Department as a desk officer specializing in the South American region.

Klein also worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign and took time off from work after the 2020 presidential election and traveled to Nevada to help investigate the baseless claims of voter fraud promoted by Trump and his allies, prosecutors said.

Nearly 1,200 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 800 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury or judge after a trial. Approximately 700 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from three days to 22 years.

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November 3, 2023
Georgia lawmakers launch investigation of troubled Fulton County Jail in Atlanta

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ATLANTA — The troubled jail in Atlanta where former President Donald Trump surrendered in August is in such bad shape that inmates are able to make weapons from broken flooring and pipes, an attorney for the sheriff’s office told state lawmakers Thursday.

But Amelia Joiner also said the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office had made progress in recent months to reduce overcrowding across its jail facilities.

Joiner was among several people who testified on the first day of hearings before a state Senate subcommittee studying problems with the jail system in Georgia’s most populous county.

Fulton County’s main jail, which opened in 1989 in a neighborhood west of downtown Atlanta, has been plagued by overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and violence. Ten people have died in Fulton County custody this year, Joiner said.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced earlier this year that it had opened a civil rights investigation into conditions in the jail system, which has five different facilities. Officials cited in part the death last year of Lashawn Thompson, whose body was found covered in insects.

The subcommittee plans to look at jail funding and management, as well as how quickly Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and the judicial system are processing inmates’ cases, subcommittee Chair Randy Robertson, a Republican, said. Robertson, who used to work at a jail, said the goal was to offer recommendations for lawmakers to consider.

Some Republicans have blamed Willis for the overcrowding, suggesting she has diverted too many prosecutors to pursuing the case that led to the indictments of Trump and 18 others for conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.

Of 3,500 people jailed at the end of August in Fulton County, 35% had yet to be indicted and faced no other charges. Though Trump surrendered at the main jail in August, he was immediately released on bond and returned home.

Willis dismissed criticism in July that Trump was keeping her office from handling other cases, saying, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Robertson said Thursday the subcommittee was not interested in politics.

“This will not be a political podium for anyone to come and speak about what their beliefs are,” he said.

Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has campaigned to build a new jail, which could cost $1.7 billion or more. Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts has said he wants to seek other solutions, in part because such an expensive undertaking would probably require a tax increase on Fulton County’s million-plus residents.

Joiner also called during her testimony for a new jail while going through some of the challenges that the current system faces.

Of the 2,900 or so inmates, 1,000 have severe or serious mental health problems, she said. As of Wednesday, officials had counted nearly 300 stabbings, more than 900 assaults by inmates on other inmates and 68 assaults on staff this year. At the main jail, more than 300 beds were “inoperable” because of deterioration to the building, she said.

“The physical plant has become so dilapidated that the inmates are able to create weapons by reaching into the walls, using broken flooring, electrical covering, pipes, etcetera to create makeshift weapons,” she said.

She also cited some improvements. She said a new inmate advocacy unit has been able to get more than 250 inmates released.

The jail population has recently dropped from a high of 3,700 inmates to less than 3,000. That’s reduced the number of inmates forced to sleep on plastic bunks on the floor from 600 to 13, she said.

Robertson toured the main jail and said he found it clean.

“Everything looked well-maintained,” he said. “Staff was extremely professional.”

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November 2, 2023
Attorney says van der Sloot’s confession about Natalee Holloway’s murder was ‘chilling’

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Natalee Holloway’s parents gathered in a room at an Alabama jail on Oct. 3 to watch the man long-suspected in their daughter’s 2005 disappearance describe how he killed her.

For three hours Joran van der Sloot was questioned — first by his own attorney and then by FBI agents — about what happened to Holloway, said Mark White, an attorney representing Natalee’s father, Dave Holloway.

“Chilling,” White said of watching and listening to van der Sloot’s account. “It was listening to a person who lacks any sort of moral compass.”

Van der Sloot’s admission that he killed Holloway came as part of a plea deal in a related extortion case after months of work and was agreed to by her parents in order to get answers about what happened to their daughter. The plea deal required van der Sloot to make a proffer — providing information about what he knew about the crime — and to let her parents witness the statement in “real time.”

Van der Sloot then had to take a polygraph exam to test the truthfulness of his account, according to court documents.

Natalee Holloway, 18, went missing during a high school graduation trip to Aruba with classmates. She was last seen May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen. The disappearance quickly became an international story.

Van der Sloot was extradited in June from Peru — where he was in prison for killing another woman — to the United States to face trial on federal charges that he tried to extort money from Holloway’s mother to reveal the location of her daughter’s body.

White said he got notification in August that there was discussion of doing a proffer as part of a plea deal.

“Dave has always been interested in getting the truth. I’d say initially everybody was skeptical if he would be that forthcoming or just back out at the last minute. We decided we would engage in the process and take it one step at a time,” White said.

The proffer was made on Oct. 3 at the Shelby County Jail, where van der Sloot was being held. Holloway’s parents watched an audio and video feed from a nearby room as van der Sloot was questioned.

“Going into that room that day, both parties kind of went in with a mutual understanding of why we were there and what we hoped to accomplish,” an FBI official told CNN of the day they sat down with van der Sloot.

White said agents were “very, very methodical” in their questioning. “It became apparent they had utilized every resource of the Bureau,” White said.

Van der Sloot said Holloway was physically fighting his sexual advances and that he kicked her “extremely hard” in the face while she was still lying down. Van der Sloot said the teen was unconscious, or possibly already dead, when he picked up a nearby cinderblock and brought it down on her.

“It’s just blistering to your soul, and it hurts so deeply,” Beth Holloway told The Associated Press earlier this month of listening to the account. “But you know that you’re there in a functionality role because this is the moment where I’ve been searching for for 18 years. Even as hard as it is to hear, it still not as torturous as the not knowing. It was time for me to know.”

The plea agreement also required that van der Sloot take a polygraph test. White said that was an important component because they were trying to determine if he “scammed us with this latest story.” He said the report that they received “had the highest level of confidence that he was telling the truth.”

Beth Holloway said that she was “absolutely” confident that they had finally obtained the truth about what happened.

Dave Holloway in a statement said he accepted that van der Sloot alone killed his daughter, but continues to question if others helped him conceal the crime.

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November 1, 2023
The murder trial for the woman charged in the shooting death of pro cyclist Mo Wilson is starting

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AUSTIN, Texas — The murder trial of a woman accused of gunning down rising pro cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson and then fleeing the country until she was tracked down in Costa Rica, begins Wednesday in Texas, three weeks after authorities said she tried to escape from custody.

Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, has been charged with murder and faces up to 99 years in prison in the May 2022 shooting death of Wilson, a competitive gravel and mountain bike racer. Wilson had been shot five times when she was found at a friend’s home before a race she was among the favorites to win.

Police have said the 25-year-old Wilson, a Vermont native who was also known as “Mo,” had previously dated Armstrong’s boyfriend and had gone swimming with him earlier in the day.

Armstrong’s SUV was seen at the home where Wilson was staying the night she was killed. Police also said shell casings found at the scene matched a gun found at Armstrong’s home.

Armstrong has pleaded not guilty.

The case drew international headlines when Armstrong fled the country after her initial meeting with police, leading to a 43-day search to find her. Investigators said she sold her vehicle for $12,000 and fled the country using someone else’s passport.

Federal authorities tracked Armstrong to Costa Rica, where investigators said she tried to change her appearance and used several aliases while attempting to establish herself as a yoga instructor in that country. She had cut and darkened her hair, and had a bandage on her nose and discoloration under her eyes when arrested at a beachside hostel.

Investigators have not said if they believe Armstrong had some sort of surgery to change her facial features. Armstrong told police when she was arrested that she was injured in a surfing accident.

The trial judge placed a gag order on the case in August 2022, preventing her defense attorneys or prosecutors from commenting.

But her case took another strange turn when authorities said Armstrong tried to escape from two officers who escorted her to a medical appointment outside of the jail on Oct. 11.

Cell phone video captured in the parking lot showed Armstrong, who was wearing striped jail clothes and handcuffed, running from an officer and trying to climb over a fence. Authorities have said Armstrong appeared to plan her escape by complaining of an injury to get the the outside medical appointment and have her leg restraints removed.

She faces an additional felony escape charge punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

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October 31, 2023
Natalee Holloway’s confessed killer returns to Peru to serve out sentence in another murder

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LIMA, Peru — A Dutchman who recently confessed to killing American high school student Natalee Holloway in 2005 in Aruba was returned to Peru on Tuesday to serve the remainder of his prison sentence for murdering a Peruvian woman.

Joran van der Sloot arrived in Lima in the custody of law enforcement. The South American country’s government agreed in June to temporarily extradite him to the U.S. to face trial on extortion and wire fraud charges.

Van der Sloot was long the chief suspect in Holloway’s disappearance in Aruba, though authorities in the Dutch Caribbean island never prosecuted him. Then in an interview with his attorney conducted in the U.S. after his extradition, he admitted to beating the young woman to death on a beach after she refused his advances. He said he dumped her body into the sea.

Van der Sloot, 36, was charged in the U.S. for seeking a quarter of a million dollars to tell Holloway’s family the location of her remains. A plea deal in exchange for a 20-year sentence required him to provide all the information he knew about Holloway’s disappearance, allow her parents to hear in real time his discussion with law enforcement and take a polygraph test.

His sentence for extortion will run concurrently with prison time he is serving for murder in Peru, where he pleaded guilty in 2012 to killing 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student from a prominent Peruvian family. She was killed in 2010 five years to the day after Holloway’s disappearance.

Van der Sloot has been transferred among Peruvian prisons while serving his 28-year sentence in response to reports that he enjoyed privileges such as television, internet access and a cellphone and accusations that he threatened to kill a warden. Before he was extradited to the U.S., he was housed in a prison in a remote area of the Andes, called Challapalca, at 4,600 meters (about 15,090 feet) above sea level.

Holloway went missing during a high school graduation trip. She was last seen May 30, 2005, leaving a bar with van der Sloot. A judge eventually declared her dead, but her body was never found.

The Holloway family has long sought answers about her disappearance, and van der Sloot has given shifting accounts over the years. At one point, he said Holloway was buried in gravel under the foundation of a house but later admitted that was untrue.

Five years after the killing, an FBI sting recorded the extortion attempt in which van der Sloot asked Beth Holloway to pay him $250,000 so he would tell her where to find her daughter’s body. He agreed to accept $25,000 to disclose the location and asked for the other $225,000 once the remains were recovered.

Before he could be arrested in the extortion case, van der Sloot slipped away by moving from Aruba to Peru.

After his recent confession to killing Holloway became public, prosecutors in Aruba asked the U.S. Justice Department for documents to determine if any measures will be taken against van der Sloot.

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October 31, 2023
Judge wants to know why men tied to Gov. Whitmer kidnap plot were moved to federal prisons

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DETROIT — A judge wants to know why two men convicted of secondary roles in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have been transferred to federal prisons out of state.

Paul Bellar and Joe Morrison are entitled to appeal their convictions following a trial on state charges in Jackson County in 2022. But their lawyers said it’s extremely hard to work with them hundreds of miles away.

They said the distance interferes with a right to have access to Michigan courts.

The transfer is “mind-boggling” and “appalling,” said Michael Faraone, who represents Morrison.

“Whatever we may say about this case, however we may feel about it, I think we can agree we’re not dealing with al-Qaida,” Faraone told a judge Friday, referring to the Middle East terrorist group.

Musico, Bellar and Morrison were found guilty of providing material support for a terrorist act and other charges. They had no direct role in the kidnapping conspiracy but had held gun training with leader Adam Fox and shared his disgust for Whitmer, police and public officials, especially after COVID-19 restrictions were imposed.

Musico was sentenced to at least 12 years in prison. Morrison got 10 years, and Bellar received seven.

Morrison was shipped to a federal prison in Illinois, and Bellar is in Pennsylvania. Musico is in West Virginia, though he hasn’t formally challenged that placement like the other two men.

“Under what legal authority did the MDOC send him there?” Faraone said, referring to Morrison and the state Corrections Department. “I haven’t seen an answer to that.”

Appellate lawyer Ron Ambrose said trial transcripts sent to Bellar through the mail have been returned.

“Trying to communicate with Mr. Bellar is almost nonexistent,” Ambrose said, according to courtroom video posted online.

Assistant Attorney General John Pallas said he didn’t know specifically why the three men were transferred out of Michigan, other “than general safety concerns.”

“Without that information, it feels like we’re flying blind,” Judge Thomas Wilson said.

There was no immediate response to an email seeking comment Monday from the Corrections Department.

Pallas pledged to help the lawyers improve their ability to talk to the men. Wilson, however, set a hearing for Dec. 1 to get answers and an update.

___

Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez

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October 30, 2023
Prosecutor takes aim at Sam Bankman-Fried’s credibility at trial of FTX founder

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NEW YORK — A prosecutor began cross-examining Sam Bankman-Fried at a New York City trial on Monday, attacking his credibility by highlighting public statements he made before and after the FTX cryptocurrency exchange he founded filed for bankruptcy late last year when it could no longer process billions of dollars in withdrawals.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon confronted Bankman-Fried with instances in which he’d promised customers that their assets would be safe and that they could demand those assets to be returned at any time.

Repeatedly, Bankman-Fried answered the series of questions with a rapid “Yep.”

Bankman-Fried, 31, has been on trial for the past month on charges that he defrauded his customers and investors of billions of dollars. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that carry a potential penalty of decades in prison.

The California man gained a level of fame from 2017 to 2022 as he created the Alameda Research hedge fund and FTX, building a cryptocurrency empire that became worth tens of billions of dollars. For a time, he seemed to be transforming the emerging industry by conforming to his publicly stated vision of a more regulated and safe environment for users.

Through her line of questioning, Sassoon tried to show that Bankman-Fried’s public statements were false and that he promised customers that their accounts were safe while he looted them, spending lavishly on real estate, celebrity-laden promotions, investments and political contributions.

In one instance, she asked him if he’d used profanity in speaking about regulators — even as he was trying to convince Congress to bring more legitimacy to the cryptocurrency industry by setting up a regulatory framework.

“I said that once,” he answered when she offered a specific example.

And when Sassoon asked if his pursuit of regulations was just an attempt at garnering positive public relations, he answered: “I said something related to that, yes.”

Before cross-examination began on Monday, Bankman-Fried testified that he believed his companies could withstand the daily withdrawal of billions of dollars in assets until several days before they could not.

Bankman-Fried was arrested last December on fraud charges. Initially freed on a $250 million personal recognizance bond to live with his parents in Palo Alto, California, he was jailed in August when Judge Lewis A. Kaplan became convinced that he had tried to tamper with potential trial witnesses.

He began testifying on Thursday. Kaplan has told jurors that the trial might be completed as early as this week.

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October 30, 2023
Prosecutor refiles case accusing Missouri woman accused of killing her friend

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A Missouri prosecutor dropped and refiled the murder case against Pamela Hupp.

ByThe Associated Press

October 28, 2023, 3:39 PM

FILE – This 2016 file booking photo, provided by the St. Charles County, Mo., Prosecuting Attorney’s Office shows Pamela Hupp. A Missouri prosecutor, on Friday, Oct. 27, 2023, has dropped and refiled the murder case of Hupp, a killing that inspired a TV miniseries. Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Wood charged Hupp with first-degree murder in July 2021, accusing her of killing her friend, Betsy Faria, a decade earlier. (St. Charles County Missouri, Prosecuting Attorney’s Office via AP, File)

The Associated Press

TROY, Mo. — A Missouri prosecutor has dropped and refiled the murder case against Pamela Hupp, a killing that inspired a TV miniseries.

Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Wood charged Hupp with first-degree murder in July 2021, accusing her of killing her friend, Betsy Faria, a decade earlier. Faria’s husband, Russ, spent time in prison for the crime before his conviction was overturned.

On Friday, Wood told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that his office decided to refile the case to petition for a closer venue. The original case had been moved on a change of venue to Springfield, about four hours away from Lincoln County.

Wood hopes the move will ease the financial and travel burden on prosecutors, witnesses and Faria’s family.

“It was too much to ask of witnesses and Besty Faria’s loved ones,” he said.

Phone calls seeking comment Saturday from Hupp’s attorney were unanswered.

Prosecutors allege Hupp fatally stabbed Faria in 2011 for the $150,000 life insurance policy that Faria had switched over to Hupp days before her death. They say Hupp staged the scene to implicate Russ Faria.

Russ Faria was sentenced in 2013 to life in prison but the conviction was overturned in 2015. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department last year reached a $2 million settlement with him for the wrongful conviction.

The Faria case was the subject of an NBC miniseries last year, “The Thing About Pam,” which starred Renee Zellweger.

Hupp already is in prison for another killing. In 2019, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole for the 2016 fatal shooting of 33-year-old Louis Gumpenberger.

In that case, Hupp staged a fake kidnapping to divert attention from herself in a reinvestigation of the Faria killing, prosecutors said. They claimed she lured Gumpenberger to her home with claims she was a producer for NBC’s Dateline in need of help reenacting a 911 call. Gumpenberger had mental and physical disabilities from an accident.

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October 28, 2023
Former NYC jail guards avoid prison time for 8-minute delay in helping inmate who attempted suicide

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NEW YORK — Two former New York City jail guards have avoided prison time for what authorities called their failure to intervene in a teenage inmate’s suicide attempt for nearly eight minutes until it was too late to save him from serious brain damage in 2019.

Daniel Fullerton and Mark Wilson received conditional discharges after pleading guilty to misdemeanor official misconduct in May and September, respectively, the Daily News reported Friday. They will not serve any time in jail if they stay out of trouble for a year.

Fullerton, Wilson and two other officers were charged in connection with 18-year-old Nicholas Feliciano’s suicide attempt at the Rikers Island jail complex on Nov. 27, 2019. The other officers’ cases remain pending. Feliciano suffered permanent brain damage and needs long-term medical care.

Prosecutors said jail guards were seen on surveillance video walking past Feliciano and taking no action for seven minutes and 51 seconds. An investigation report by the city Board of Correction later found that the officers believed Feliciano was faking a suicide attempt.

The report also says Feliciano had a history of depression and previously had tried to harm himself in jail on multiple occasions. He was at Rikers on a parole violation connected to robbery cases. It recommended several actions, including a system to immediately identify people with prior histories of self-harm while in jail and a reevaluation of mental health training for guards.

The Bronx district attorney’s office issued a statement when the guards were indicted but did not publicly announce Fullerton and Wilson’s guilty pleas and sentences, the Daily News reported. All the guards were initially charged with misdemeanor official misconduct and felony reckless endangerment, which can carry up to seven years in prison.

David Rankin, a lawyer for Feliciano’s family, said they are “gratified” that the two guards took responsibility in pleading guilty. But he added, “It is shocking you can just let someone almost die and you don’t get so much as community service.”

The Bronx district attorney’s office declined to comment.

Contact information for Fullerton and Wilson could not be immediately found in public records Saturday.

Fullerton’s lawyer, Kenneth Montgomery, said Fullerton took immediate action when he saw Feliciano in distress and called the prosecution “heavy-handed.”

“I just thought it was political and overkill,” he said in a phone interview Saturday with The Associated Press.

Information about Wilson’s case and his lawyer was not listed in online court records. Fullerton quit the Correction Department and Wilson was fired, the Daily News reported.

The Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association also has called the officers’ indictments politically motivated and called on prosecutors to charge inmates who assault guards.

The Rikers Island complex has been criticized in multiple reports for inmate deaths, violence, mold and other problems. In August, a federal judge agreed to begin a process that could wrest control of the city’s troubled jail system from Mayor Eric Adams and place a court-appointed outside authority in charge of Rikers Island.

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October 28, 2023
1 of 4 men who escaped from a central Georgia jail has been caught, authorities say

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Authorities say one of four men who escaped from a central Georgia jail last week has been caught

ByThe Associated Press

October 26, 2023, 4:38 PM

MACON, Ga. — One of four men who escaped from a central Georgia jail last week was caught Thursday, authorities said.

The U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force said 29-year-old Chavis Demaryo Stokes was arrested at home in Montezuma, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the jail, around 2 p.m., the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. The sheriff’s office did not provide any other information about the arrest.

Sheriff David Davis said last week that Stokes, 52-year-old Joey Fournier, 24-year-old Marc Kerry Anderson and 37-year-old Johnifer Dernard Barnwell had escaped through a damaged window and a cut fence at the jail early Oct. 16. There was no indication Thursday that any of the others had been caught.

Video footage showed a blue Dodge Challenger that had been just outside the jail hours before the escape and appeared to show someone tampering with the fence. That person then brought some items into the enclosed area, and the sheriff said investigators believe the items were used to help the men escape.

Davis said last week that it wasn’t clear whether the four men left the jail in that car or in another vehicle or whether they left on foot. The sheriff’s office said the car was found abandoned Friday in the parking lot of a Macon supermarket.

Bibb County deputies arrested a man on Tuesday and charged him with auto theft, saying he stole a Dodge Challenger from a rental car agency a week before the escape, which he was also charged with aiding.

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October 26, 2023
Iran sentences 2 journalists for collaborating with US. Both covered Mahsa Amini’s death

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A court in Iran has sentenced two female journalists to up to seven years in prison for “collaborating” with the United States government among other charges

ByThe Associated Press

October 22, 2023, 5:27 AM

FILE – A woman holds a placard with a picture of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini during a protest against her death, in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 28, 2022. A court in Iran sentenced two female journalists to up to seven years in prison for “collaborating” with the United States government among other charges, local reports said Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023. Both have been imprisoned for over a year following their coverage of the death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody in September 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

The Associated Press

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — A court in Iran sentenced two female journalists to up to seven years in prison for “collaborating” with the United States government among other charges, local reports said. Both have been imprisoned for over a year following their coverage of the death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody in Sept. 2022.

This is a preliminary sentencing that can be appealed in 20 days.

The two journalists, Niloufar Hamedi, who broke the news of Amini’s death for wearing her headscarf too loosely, and Elaheh Mohammadi, who wrote about her funeral, were sentenced to seven and six years in jail respectively, reported the judiciary news website, Mizan on Sunday.

Tehran Revolutionary Court charged them with “collaborating with the hostile American government,” “colluding against national security” and “propaganda against the system,” according to Mezan.

Hamedi worked for the reformist newspaper Shargh while Mohammadi for Ham-Mihan. They were detained in September 2022.

In May, the United Nations awarded them both its premier prize for press freedom “for their commitment to truth and accountability.”

Amini’s death touched off months-long protests in dozens of cities across Iran. The demonstrations posed one of the most serious challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 2009 Green Movement protests drew millions to the streets.

While nearly 100 journalists were arrested amid the demonstrations, Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi’s reporting was crucial in the days after Amini’s death to spread the word about the anger that followed.

Their detentions have sparked international criticism over the bloody security force crackdown that lasted months after Amini’s death.

Since the protests began, at least 529 people have been killed in demonstrations, according to Human Rights activists in Iran. Over 19,700 others have been detained by authorities amid a violent crackdown trying to suppress the dissent. Iran for months has not offered any overall casualty figures, while acknowledging tens of thousands had been detained.

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October 22, 2023
Woman who made fake cancer claims on social media must pay restitution

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DAVENPORT, Iowa — An Iowa woman who falsely claimed to have cancer and documented her “battle” on social media will stay out of prison after a judge gave her probation and a suspended sentence.

Madison Russo, 20, never had pancreatic cancer, leukemia nor the football-sized tumor wrapped around her spine she that claimed in postings on TikTok, GoFundMe, Facebook and LinkedIn. But over 400 people sent her donations. As part of the 10-year suspended sentence handed down Friday, she was ordered to pay $39,000 in restitution and a $1,370 fine. If she stays out of trouble for three years of probation, she’ll stay free.

The Bettendorf woman pleaded guilty in June to first-degree theft. In court on Friday, Judge John Telleen declined a defense request that would have wiped the conviction off her record if she completes probation successfully. He said people who deal with her in the future should know that she once engaged in a “criminal scheme,” and that “serious crimes must have serious consequences.”

“Through this scheme, you deceived your friends, your family, your community, other cancer victims, charities and strangers who were motivated by your supposedly tragic story to donate to help support you,” the judge said.

Russo told the court she made her story up because she hoped her fake cancer battle would force her troubled family to focus on her.

“A lot of people have made speculation as to why I did this and how somebody who looked like they had everything together could have such a mess,” she said. “I didn’t do this for money or greed. I didn’t do this for attention. I did this as an attempt to get my family back together.”

Her sentence also includes 100 hours of community service. She paid the $39,000 restitution earlier, and the money was being held by the court. GoFundMe has already sent refunds to donors.

Her scam unraveled when medical professionals spotted discrepancies in her story online. Police subpoenaed her medical records and found she had never been diagnosed with cancer at any medical facility in the area. She was arrested in January.

Scott County prosecutor Kelly Cunningham recommended against prison time because Russo had no criminal history, had good grades in college, was employed and was unlikely to reoffend. That bothered Rhonda Miles, who runs a pancreatic cancer foundation in Nashville, Tennessee, that donated to Russo and testified at the hearing.

“It was devastating to sit there and watch the Scott County prosecuting attorney act like a defending attorney, so that was tough,” Miles said. “And I think she’ll have a lot of questions to answer from the locals on that at some point. Why were you defending this girl when you were supposed to be prosecuting?”

Russo apologized to the court and her victims, and said she wished she had sought out help regarding her family.

“I fully acknowledge what I did was wrong. And I’m incredibly sorry,” she said through sobs. “If there was anything I could do to take it back I would. The reality is I can’t.”

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October 21, 2023
California tech CEO convicted in COVID-19 and allergy test fraud case sentenced to 8 years in prison

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A Silicon Valley executive who lied to investors about inventing technology that tested for allergies and COVID-19 using only a few drops of blood has sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay $24 million in restitution

ByThe Associated Press

October 18, 2023, 7:51 PM

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A Silicon Valley executive who lied to investors about inventing technology that tested for allergies and COVID-19 using only a few drops of blood was sentenced Wednesday to eight years in prison and ordered to pay $24 million in restitution, federal prosecutors said.

Mark Schena, 60, was convicted last year of paying bribes to doctors and defrauding the government after his company billed Medicare $77 million for fraudulent COVID-19 and allergy tests, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

Schena claimed his Sunnyvale, California-based company, Arrayit Corporation, had the only laboratory in the world that offered “revolutionary microarray technology” that allowed it to test for allergies and COVID-19 with the same finger-stick test kit, prosecutors said.

In meetings with investors, Schena claimed he was on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize and falsely represented that Arrayit could be valued at $4.5 billion, prosecutors said.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, from 2018 through February 2020, Schena and other employees paid bribes to recruiters and doctors to run an allergy screening test for 120 allergens ranging from stinging insects to food allergens on every patient whether they were needed or not, authorities said.

The case against Schena shared similarities with a more prominent legal saga surrounding former Silicon Valley star Elizabeth Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford University in 2003 to found a company called Theranos that she pledged would revolutionize health care with a technology that could scan for hundreds of diseases and other issues with just a few drops of blood, too.

Holmes was convicted on four felony counts of investor fraud following a nearly four-month trial in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where Schena’s trial was held. In May, Holmes entered a Texas prison where she could spend the next 11 years.

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October 18, 2023