National Roundup

Nevada
Man who sold ammo to Vegas shooter asks for trial by judge
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Arizona man who has acknowledged selling bullets to the gunman in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history has asked to be tried by a judge on his federal ammunition-manufacturing charge.

The attorney for Douglas Haig argued that the connection to the massacre will have a “prejudicial effect” on Las Vegas jurors, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Tuesday.

“Unlike a judge, jurors may simply be unable to set aside their passion and prejudice to render a fair and impartial verdict in this case,” Haig’s attorney wrote in recent court filings.

A federal magistrate judge in Nevada has recommended for the trial judge to deny Haig’s new request. “Though the trial will present challenges, the trial judge will ensure the Defendant an impartial trial,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Cam Ferenbach wrote in a report.

U.S. District Judge James Mahan has not yet issued a decision.

Haig has pleaded not guilty to illegally making tracer and armor-piercing bullets at his home in Mesa, Arizona. He is not charged in the October 2017 shooting that killed 59 people and injured more than 850.

Prosecutors have said his fingerprints were found on unfired reloaded bullets found inside the hotel room where the gunman fired down at the crowd.

Haig previously sought to move the trial to Arizona, citing similar concerns about an impartial jury. The court denied the request.

His attorney also sought to prevent prosecutors from mentioning the Las Vegas shooting at trial. The court agreed to exclude some related evidence, but noted other procedural safeguards would reduce the possibility of prejudice.

The trial is scheduled to begin in August.

New York
Ex-NYPD sergeant praised for aiding gun probe gets jail time
NEW YORK (AP) — A former sergeant on the nation’s largest police force who helped prosecutors build cases against his former colleagues in the biggest scandal to hit the New York Police Department in decades was sentenced to four months in prison Wednesday by a judge who said cooperation was not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein did not spare David Villanueva from prison even after hearing the former supervisor in the department’s licensing division praised by a prosecutor and after the Probation Department recommended no prison.

“It’s hard for me to give the proverbial get-out-of-jail-free card,” Stein said, addressing yearslong corruption resulting in over 100 gun license permits being awarded to individuals, including a felon, without proper procedures being followed.

Villanueva, 45, of Valley Stream, was sentenced after pleading guilty in January 2017 to conspiracy, bribery and false statement charges and testifying against co-defendants at two trials.

In court papers, prosecutors said bribes to Villanueva began in 2006 when he accepted tickets to a Broadway musical from John Chambers, an attorney whose practice consisted solely of gun license matters.

From 2006 to 2015, Villanueva accepted tickets to Broadway shows and baseball games, gift cards, boxes of toys for his son, over $2,000 in cash and two designer wristwatches, one of which was valued at $9,500, prosecutors said.

They said that in return for bribes, he speeded the closure of about 100 incident investigations into whether a gun licensee should keep a license after an arrest, a domestic dispute and an accidental discharge of a firearm.

In another scheme, he accepted about $20,000 in cash and other benefits such as Broadway tickets and airline tickets from a businessman who helped people get gun licenses, prosecutors said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni told Stein that prosecutors probably could not have charged Chambers, a former prosecutor, without Villanueva’s help. In November, Chambers was sentenced to a year in prison.

Monteleoni said Villanueva’s cooperation was also pivotal in the conviction of Paul Dean, a former NYPD lieutenant and second-in-command at the licensing division.

Dean, sentenced to 18 months in prison in January, alleged in pre-sentence papers that those who received special treatment included President Donald Trump, his former lawyer Michael Cohen and Donald Trump Jr. Others included comedian Tracy Morgan, actor Tom Selleck and the owner of a Manhattan nightclub where police officers received free lap dances, he claimed.

Dean did not suggest Trump or others did anything wrong or were aware of any bribes.

Pennsylvania
Man wants new sentence in teen’s rape and  murder
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A man sentenced to death for raping, strangling and dismembering his girlfriend’s 14-year-old daughter has asked a judge to instead give him a life term.

Jacob Sullivan pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other offenses for killing Grace Packer in 2016 as part of a rape-murder fantasy he shared with the teen’s mother. Jurors decided in March he should get the death penalty.

The jury deliberated over parts of three days before making its decision. Jurors told the judge during the deliberations they were unable to agree, and Sullivan’s lawyers argued Wednesday the judge “forced” jurors to keep deliberating, sending the message that a life sentence “was unacceptable.”

Pennsylvania has a moratorium on the death penalty, but juries can still impose the sentence.

Grace Packer’s mother, Sara Packer, received a life sentence in a plea deal with prosecutors.

Indiana
Prison sentence affirmed in malnourished boy’s death
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The Indiana Court of Appeals has affirmed an eight-year prison term for a man who pleaded guilty to neglect in the death of a malnourished 9-year-old boy with cerebral palsy.

The Tribune-Star reports the decision filed Wednesday notes “mitigating factors” for 59-year-old Hubert Kraemer “are far outweighed by the horrendous fact that Kraemer starved his disabled child to death.” Kraemer was sentenced in December and argued the sentence was too harsh.

The boy, Cameron Hoopingarner, was blind and weighed less than 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms) when officers found him in February 2017 at the family’s home near Fontanet, 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of Indianapolis.
The boy’s primary caregiver was Kraemer’s wife, Robin Kraemer. She was convicted in 2017. The Kraemers’ adult son and his girlfriend also pleaded guilty.