Court Digest

Mississippi
Man charged with threatening to kill federal judges
MERIDIAN, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man has been indicted on charges he threatened to harm federal judges multiple times.

Donovan Evans, 39, was indicted last month by a federal grand jury on three counts of making threats against the jurists, including threatening to fatally shoot judges, The Clarion-Ledger reported Monday.

Evans was accused of mailing a letter to the U.S. District Court clerk in Jackson in May asking for a new judge to represent him in a court case, and angrily disputing U.S. Magistrate Judge F. Keith Ball’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit he filed, according to an affidavit written by Shelley Boone of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Three months later, Evans allegedly called the clerk’s office again and said he “just wanted to get a gun” and shoot people at the courthouse, the affidavit said.

An additional threat allegedly made in August was not detailed in the U.S. Marshals documents.

Records showed Evans filed several lawsuits in federal court against the Meridian Police Department, the Lauderdale County Detention Center and others. Those lawsuits were dismissed.

Evans faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the three counts. A judge ruled Thursday he would remain in custody pending trial.

His public defender couldn’t be reached for comment, the Clarion-Ledger said.

Indiana
Attorney general may face bill over discipline case
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill could face a big bill from the disciplinary case stemming from allegations that he groped a state lawmaker and three other women during a party.

The state’s attorney disciplinary commission has asked the Indiana Supreme Court to order that Hill pay about $57,000 toward expenses in the case. That includes about $8,000 in investigation and litigation costs and nearly $49,000 for former Supreme Court Justice Myra Selby’s work as the case’s hearing officer.

The Supreme Court has given Hill’s lawyers until Oct. 19 to respond to the expenses filing, after which it will decide on the request.

Hill completed in June a 30-day suspension of his law license after the Supreme Court found “by clear and convincing evidence that (Hill) committed the criminal act of battery” against the women. The women say Hill drunkenly groped them during a March 2018 party at an Indianapolis bar marking the end of that year’s legislative session.

Hill has denied any wrongdoing, but his reelection bid failed when he lost the Republican nomination in June to former U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita. Rokita is facing Democrat Jonathan Weinzapfel, a former Evansville mayor, in the November election.

Rhode Island
Judge: Vanity plate law likely violates First Amendment
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island law allowing the Division of Motor Vehicles to reject vanity license plates that are “offensive to good taste” likely violates the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled.

The judge issued a preliminary injunction Friday in support of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law, which gives the DMV administrator the authority to deny vanity plates based on whether he or she thinks they “might carry connotations offensive to good taste and decency.”

The lawsuit was filed in March against Walter Craddock, state DMV administrator, by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island on behalf of Sean Carroll.

Carroll, a Tesla owner, was ordered by the DMV to turn in his plate “FKGAS” or have his registration canceled after the division received a complaint about the plate.

Carroll said the plate was his daughter’s suggestion, intending a meaning of “fake gas” to refer to the electric car. He doesn’t contest, however, that the plate could also be perceived as sending a different message that included profanity; he was supportive of that one, too.

The division has approved over 41,000 vanity plates, denied dozens of others, and maintains a list of more than 1,000 prohibited license plate combinations. The suit noted the arbitrary nature of the list and the DMV’s decisions; the judge agreed.

The state argued that the case should be dismissed, saying that licenses plates reflected government speech, not private speech, the law was reasonable, and that Carroll hadn’t established his case.

Illinois
Man re-sentenced in 1978 killings of 3 family members
PEKIN, Ill. (AP) — A central Illinois man has been re-sentenced to life in prison in the 1978 killings of his mother, step-father and brother.

Jimmy Childers was 17 when convicted in the three murders. Childers, now 59, petitioned for the hearing in 2018 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled two years earlier that life without parole is unconstitutional for a juvenile except for the rare homicide offender incapable of rehabilitation. Hundreds of offenders originally sentenced to life  without parole as juveniles have been released nationwide.

“I beg this court to grant me the opportunity for a second chance at life,” Childers said.

His defense attorney, Karen Ranos, called four witnesses, including a psychologist who testified that Childers had been subjected to psychological abuse.

But prosecutors called it one of the most “appalling and horrific”’ crimes in Tazewell County’s history.

Childers’ mother, Norma and stepfather Robert Rotramel were both stabbed multiple times and shot. His 15-year-old brother, Warren, was stabbed multiple times.

“Whatever led to your decision to act out in that way cannot and will not be rationalized by this court,” Judge Katherine Gorman said as she handed down her ruling.

Texas
Man accused of punch amid Trump argument turns self in
DENTON, Texas (AP) — A Texas man who was seen on video punching another man as they argued over President Donald Trump has turned himself in after police obtained a warrant for assault, authorities said.

Jason Lata, 44, was booked in the Denton City Jail late Saturday and released a few hours later after posting bond, the Denton Record-Chronicle reported.

The scuffle earlier Saturday outside of a convenience store was captured on video, which showed a man in a hat yelling profanities at another man and screaming “Turn it off!” as an anti-Trump rap song by YG appeared to be playing in the background. The suspect, identified by police as Lata, was standing with other men who were wearing Trump T-shirts. He’s seen on video punching the victim in the face.

Police said the victim suffered a cut below the eyebrow and a broken tooth. It wasn’t clear whether Lata had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Tennessee
Man convicted of slaying parents for their life insurance benefits
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man will likely spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of killing his parents over Thanksgiving weekend in 2016 and disposing of their bodies.

Joel Guy Jr., 32, was found guilty Friday in Knox County of two counts of premeditated first-degree murder, three counts of felony murder and two counts of abuse of a corpse, news outlets reported.

Prosecutors alleged he fatally stabbed his parents, Joel Guy Sr., 61, and Lisa Guy, 55, and dismembered their bodies in a plot to cash in on $500,000 in life insurance benefits after learning they were planning to retire and no longer pay his bills.

Joel Guy Jr. had never held a job and had been taking college courses for a decade at Louisiana State University, The Knoxville News Sentinel said.

He was found to have taken money from his parents’ bank accounts for his rent and tuition after stabbing them dozens of times in their Hardin Valley home, according to authorities. He then attempted to dissolve their remains in chemicals.

A judge was set to decide next month whether Joel Guy Jr. would serve two life terms consecutively.

Indiana
Man who lost eye to tear gas canister sues
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — A man who lost an eye after being struck by a tear gas canister police in Indiana fired during a May protest over George Floyd’s death is suing the city and a police officer.

Balin Brake, 21, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, contends in a federal lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court that the injury “has permanently changed his life” and led to mounting medical bills.

He is suing the city of Fort Wayne and the unidentified officer who fired the canister, alleging his constitutional rights were violated and that police used excessive force during protests in the city’s downtown, The Journal Gazette reported.

City spokesman John Perlich declined to comment on the pending litigation. It stems from a May 30 protest where hundreds of people gathered near the Allen County Courthouse to protest George Floyd’s death after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on the handcuffed Black man’s neck for several minutes.

According to the complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana and a Chicago law firm, Brake was peacefully protesting when a Fort Wayne Police Department officer fired a tear gas canister that struck him in his right eye, rupturing it.

Doctors at a local hospital were forced to remove Brake’s eye, according to the suit, which seeks damages for Brake’s injuries, punitive damages against the officer and a judge’s order declaring that the city violated Brake’s First and Fourth Amendment rights.

“The right to protest is fundamental to our democracy and no one should face tear gassing and injury while exercising that right,” said Jane Henegar, executive director at the ACLU of Indiana.

Fort Wayne police said in a May 31 statement that a protester had stayed in the area following police commands for them to clear out. When tear gas was used that protester bent over to pick up a canister to throw back at police, according to the state from police spokeswoman Sofia Rosales-Scatena.

“When he bent over, another canister was deployed in the area and that canister skipped and hit the protester in the eye,” Rosales-Scatena wrote. “There was no deliberate deployment of gas to any person’s head.”
Brake has denied reaching for a canister to throw and said he didn’t hear warnings to leave.

Connecticut
Police chief pleads guilty to corrupted hiring
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The former police chief of Connecticut’s largest city pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges connected to what prosecutors called a corrupt process that led to his appointment in 2018.

Former Bridgeport Chief Armando “A. J.” Perez could face up to two years in prison under a plea deal in which he admitted receiving confidential information about the police chief’s examination, having two of his officers complete the written portion of the test and lying to federal authorities in an effort to cover up his actions.

Bridgeport’s former acting personnel director, David Dunn, was also expected to plead guilty in the case later Monday. Prosecutors said Dunn gave the confidential testing information to Perez.

Perez and Dunn resigned from their jobs after being arrested last month.

Perez and his lawyer, Robert Frost Jr., appeared in federal court in Bridgeport before Judge Kari Dooley during a hearing that also was available for public viewing via a video conference. Everyone in the courtroom wore masks.

Perez, 64, dressed in a suit and tie, also agreed to pay more than $149,000 in restitution to the city. He will remain free on bail until his sentencing on Jan. 4.

Dooley said Perez could also face potential deportation because of his guilty pleas to two felonies — conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making false statements to the FBI. Perez was born in Havana, Cuba, and is a naturalized citizen.

According to the criminal complaints, Dunn gave confidential materials, including answers to the oral portion of the police chief exam, to Perez and tailored the scoring criteria for that exam in Perez’s favor.

Perez, who had been with the Bridgeport Police Department for nearly four decades and is close to Mayor Joe Ganim, also had two police officers secretly take the written portion of the exam for him, investigators said.

Dunn also instructed officials to eliminate a scoring penalty imposed if the candidates did not have a bachelor’s degree, the complaint said. Perez was the only applicant without one, authorities said.

Dunn, according to investigators, falsely denied that he told a member of the panel ranking the chief candidates that the mayor wanted Perez to be among the top three candidates.

Ganim has denied any wrongdoing in Perez’s appointment as chief.

Ganim returned to office in 2015 after serving nearly seven years in prison for corruption. He was convicted of steering city contracts in exchange for private gifts during his first tenure as Bridgeport mayor, from 1991 until his resignation in 2003.

He was released from prison in 2010 and elected mayor again after apologizing and asking residents for a second chance.