Court Digest

Mississippi
Attorney: Contractor got $454K for ‘pile of dirt’ at church
STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A judge has ruled that a Mississippi contractor will have to pay restitution after accepting more than $450,000 to build a church sanctuary but doing little work.

Donald Crowther is owner of TCM Construction of Long Beach. In July, he pleaded guilty to fraud in the project at Second Baptist Church in Starkville.

During a hearing Thursday in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court, Judge Lee Coleman said Crowther must pay restitution, with an amount to be determined, the Commercial Dispatch reported. Sentencing is Nov. 2.

“They paid you $454,000 and all they have to show for it is a pile of dirt,” Assistant District Attorney Ben Rush told Crowther during the hearing.

Crowther was arrested in 2016. In pleading guilty, he admitted he had “prepared and submitted false invoices.”

Charles Ware, spokesman and adviser for Second Baptist Church trustees, asked Coleman to give Crowther the maximum of 10 years in prison. Ware read from Crowther’s bank records in court.

The only part of the project completed was preliminary site preparation. The building permit expired in October 2017.

“How can you steal from a church, the bedrock of our community, the bedrock I grew up in?” Ware said.

Crowther asked the judge to sentence him to house arrest, as did his aunt, Jeanette Self. Crowther, 73, is the primary caretaker for his 95-year-old father, who has dementia, and his 40-year-old son, who has a disability, both Crowther and Self testified.

Coleman said Crowther should be able to make care arrangements for his father and son by Nov. 2.

The church has pursued multiple lawsuits over the incomplete project. Crowther’s attorney, Warren Conway of Gulfport, told The Dispatch after the hearing that it was “unfortunate” the church kept pursuing multiple cases and “trying to get paid three times.”

North Carolina
Man gets 8 years in prison in child pornography case
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man with the username “NC Pig” has been sentenced to eight years in prison after authorities connected him to an online chatroom for child pornography
Federal prosecutors said William Gene Kaleb Koch pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography earlier this year and was sentenced before a federal judge Thursday.

The 45-year-old Koch, of Wilmington, also received five years of supervised release and will have to register as a sex offender.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said in a news release that federal agents traced Koch to the username “NC Pig” after infiltrating an online chatroom where Koch had shared pictures of child pornography.

The Wilmington Police Department and federal agents raided Koch’s home in August 2018 after obtaining a search warrant. Prosecutors said Koch later admitted sending and receiving pornographic content in the chatroom.

Prosecutors said agents found hundreds of videos and more than 14,000 pictures of child pornography on Koch’s electronic devices.

Wisconsin
Girl appeals Slender Man stabbing to state Supreme Court
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — One of two girls convicted of stabbing a classmate to please the horror character Slender Man asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday to rule that the case should have been tried in juvenile court.

Morgan Geyser and Anisa Weier attacked their friend, Payton Leutner, in a Waukesha County park following a sleepover in 2014. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times, as Weier encouraged her, leaving the girl to die. All three girls were 12 at the time.

Leutner survived the attack. Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in adult court in a deal with prosecutors to avoid prison. She was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide in adult court. She was also found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

Geyser was ordered to spend 40 years in a mental health institution, and Weier was committed to one for 25 years.

Geyser’s attorney, Matthew Pinx, argued in his petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday that Geyser thought she had to kill Lautner or Slender Man would kill her or kill her family. She was acting in self-defense and should have been charged with attempted second-degree intentional homicide in juvenile court, Pinx argued.

He also maintained that Geyser gave statements to detectives before she was read her rights, and she couldn’t really understand what rights she gave up when she agreed to speak alone with a detective while she was in custody and confessed to the stabbing.

The state Department of Justice is defending Geyser’s conviction. Department spokeswoman Gillian Drummond had no immediate comment.

Last month, the 2nd District Court of Appeals rejected  the argument that Geyser’s case was overcharged and belonged in juvenile court.

Iowa
Judge voids absentee ballot requests in Johnson County
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa judge has again sided with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and voided more than 90,000 absentee ballot requests in Johnson County.

It’s the third county in Iowa to have the ballot request forms voided after Trump’s campaign and state and national Republican Party groups challenged county election officials who mailed the forms to voters with personal information filled in to simplify the process.

Judge Ian Thornhill sided with the Trump campaign in the Linn County case and Judge Patrick Tott similarly ruled in favor of the Republicans in a Woodbury County case. Those rulings voided about 64,000 requests for absentee ballots that had been submitted. Affected voters either have to fill out a new blank form to request an absentee ballot or vote at the polls on Election Day.

Thornhill filed his ruling in the Johnson County case on Saturday, again siding with the Republican groups and saying about 92,000 ballot requests sent to voters were invalid.

Officials in the three counties argued they pre-filled the forms to make it easier to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.

About 15,000 of the pre-filled forms had been returned by last week in Johnson County.

London
US lawyer says Assange faces decades in prison if convicted
LONDON (AP) — An American lawyer told an extradition hearing in Britain for Julian Assange on Monday that the WikiLeaks founder faces decades in prison if he is convicted on spying charges in the United States.

U.S. prosecutors have indicted the 49-year-old Australian on 17 espionage charges, and one of computer misuse, over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret U.S. military documents a decade ago. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Attorney Eric Lewis, appearing as a defense witness, said the scope of the indictment pointed to “a very aggressive approach to sentencing on the part of the government.”

“All signs point to a very long sentence, measured in many decades,” said Lewis, a senior partner at Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss in Washington, DC.

“We are looking at a sentence somewhere between 20 years, if everything goes brilliantly, to 175 years, which the government could easily ask for,” he said.

Assange’s lawyers say the prosecution is politically motivated and that he will not receive a fair trial in the United States, They also argue that the conditions he would face in prison would breach his human rights.

Assange’s legal woes began a decade ago, when WikiLeaks published classified U.K. military documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been in a British prison since he was ejected from his refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in April 2019.

The extradition hearing began a week ago at London’s Central Criminal Court and is due to last until early October.

On Monday, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied a request by Assange’s lawyers that everyone in the court wear masks to reduce the risk of transmitting coronavirus.

The hearing was briefly suspended last week while one lawyer for the U.S. government was tested for COVID-19. The test came back negative.

Baraitser said masks were required in communal areas of the court building, and that anyone who wanted to wear one in the courtroom could do so.

Tennessee
Ex-soldier agrees not to contest conviction in baby’s death
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A former Fort Campbell soldier accused of raping and killing his infant daughter has agreed not to contest a conviction for second-degree murder and will serve 15 years in prison without parole, authorities said.

Christopher Paul Conway, 25, entered the plea Friday, shortly before his trial was to begin in Tennessee’s Montgomery County, news outlets reported.

His daughter, Adeline, was found dead on Nov. 14, 2017, with a dehumidifier cord wrapped around her neck. Findings from the autopsy indicated the 8-month-old girl had injuries consistent with being raped and her father was charged.

Prosecutor Kimberly Lund told Clarksville Now that the victim’s family agreed with the plea.

“There will never be a sentence harsh enough to ease the death of a child. Adeline was a beautiful baby whose life was taken far too soon. I hope her sister and family can find peace now that this case has been resolved,” Lund said.

Defense attorney Edward DeWerff told The Leaf Chronicle that he believes a jury would have convicted his client.

“That is an incredibly good settlement for my client,” DeWerff said. “If convicted, he would have got life ... 51 calendar years.”

Pennsylvania
Judge strikes down pandemic restrictions
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A federal judge on Monday struck down Gov. Tom Wolf’s pandemic restrictions that required people to stay at home, placed size limits on gatherings and ordered “non-life-sustaining” businesses to shut down, calling them unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV sided with plaintiffs that included hair salons, drive-in movie theaters, a farmer’s market vendor, a horse trainer and several Republican officeholders who sued as individuals.

Stickman, an appointee of President Donald Trump, wrote in his ruling that the Wolf administration’s pandemic policies have been overreaching, arbitrary and violated citizens’ constitutional rights.

The governor’s efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus “were undertaken with the good intention of addressing a public health emergency,” Stickman wrote. “But even in an emergency, the authority of government is not unfettered.”

Courts had consistently rejected challenges to Wolf’s power to order businesses to close during the pandemic, and many other governors, Republican and Democrat, undertook similar measures as the virus spread across the country.

Wolf has lifted many of the restrictions since the lawsuit was filed in May, allowing businesses to reopen and canceling a statewide stay-at-home order. But his administration has maintained capacity restrictions and limitations on alcohol sales at bars and restaurants. The state has also imposed a gathering limit of more than 25 people for events held indoors and more than 250 people for those held outside.

A spokesperson for Wolf said the administration was reviewing the decision.

Pennsylvania has reported that more than 145,000 people statewide have contracted the virus since the beginning of the pandemic. More than 7,800 people have died.


South Dakota
AG says he wasn’t drinking before fatal crash
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg had not been drinking before he was involved in a fatal car crash, his office said Monday.

Ravnsborg was driving from a Republican fundraiser in Redfield, South Dakota, to his home some 110 miles (177 kilometers) away in Pierre on Saturday night when he was involved in the crash on U.S. Highway 14, spokesman Tim Bormann said. Ravnsborg was uninjured and immediately called 911.

He had been at a fundraising dinner hosted by the Spink County Republicans at Rooster’s Bar & Grill. The attorney general is known to be a frequent attendee of the fundraisers known as Lincoln Day Dinners, hosted by county GOP groups across the state.

Bormann said the attorney general is known to have an occasional drink, but has made it a practice not to drink at the Lincoln Day events.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has said the Highway Patrol will oversee the investigation into the crash. Investigators have not released any details on the crash.

Ravnsborg has received six traffic tickets for speeding in South Dakota over the last six years. He also received tickets for a seat belt violation and for driving a vehicle without a proper exhaust and muffler system.