Court Digest

New Jersey
State Supreme Court dismisses up to 1,400 minor juvenile warrants
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The New Jersey Supreme Court has cleaned the slate for some juveniles who were facing warrants and fines from more than five years ago under a plan “to ensure equal justic in the courts.”

The court on Wednesday ordered the dismissal of up to 1,400 failure-to-appear warrants that are more than five years old for nonviolent minor offenses that were issued against juveniles.

County prosecutors can then determine whether to proceed with underlying complaints, the court said.

The court also vacated more than $140,000 in discretionary juveniles fines that were imposed before July 1 on 592 juveniles.

According to the court, the fines being dismissed “are discretionary and non-mandatory county and state assessments.” They do not include money owed to victims for restitution.

“The young people who owe those fines – including disproportionate numbers of youth of color – overwhelmingly lack the capacity to make necessary payments, and the fines serve only to prolong involvement with the juvenile and criminal justice systems,” the court wrote in an order signed by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner.

The actions follow a plan that the court issued in July outlining a series of reforms that support juvenile rehabilitation.

The justices have instructed courts to periodically review and dismiss similar warrants.

Missouri
Man gets more than 3 years in prison in road rage case
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A southwestern Missouri man has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for a road rage incident.

The Springfield News-Leader  reports that 30-year-old William Duval of Springfield was sentenced Oct. 14 after admitting that he waved a gun during the incident on June 19, 2019.

A plea agreement signed earlier this year says Duval was driving in Springfield when he possibly drifted into another lane, prompting another driver to honk. Duval made an obscene gesture and then flashed a 9mm pistol.

Police who stopped Duval after the incident learned he had prior felony convictions for stealing a motor vehicle, theft, burglary, forgery, possession of a controlled substance and stealing. Federal law prohibits convicted felons of possessing a gun.

Washington
Ex-port commissioner sentenced for damaging memorial
POULSBO, Wash. (AP) — A former Port of Poulsbo commissioner arrested for vandalizing a memorial to a Native American man killed by police struck a deal with prosecutors to avoid a felony conviction, The Kitsap Sun reported.

Mark James DeSalvo, 49, who resigned from the port after his arrest, agreed last week to follow for a year the conditions set forth in Kitsap County District Court. At that point his second-degree malicious mischief charge will be dismissed.
DeSalvo was found July 11 by Poulsbo police, apparently intoxicated, vandalizing the memorial at Muriel Iverson Williams Waterfront Park.

On July 3, 2019, Poulsbo police Officer Craig Keller shot and killed Stonechild Chiefstick at the park amid a crowd gathered to watch fireworks. Witnesses said Chiefstick lunged at Keller with a screwdriver in his hand, according to a prosecutor’s report declining to charge the officer. Keller was trying to arrest Chiefstick after a person in the crowd reported Chiefstick had threatened someone with the screwdriver.

Reports say that during the incident, DeSalvo mocked Chiefstick’s name and claimed he was using his First Amendment rights. Prayer candles from the memorial had been tossed, apparently by DeSalvo, damaging a minivan parked nearby.

DeSalvo’s attorney, Tim Kelly, said DeSalvo attended alcohol-related inpatient treatment, and is remorseful.

Kelly said though technically the Suquamish Tribe is not a victim in the case, he recognizes tribal members have suffered because of DeSalvo’s actions.

According to court documents, DeSalvo is required to complete 100 hours of community service, attend treatment, pay for the van damage and reimburse the city $90 for clean-up costs. Also, DeSalvo will be required to attend a restorative justice circle with the Suquamish Tribe, if the tribe wants to exercise that option.

Prosecutor Chad Enright said the option for diversion would have been an option for anyone charged with a similar non-violent offense.

Massachusetts
Nurse pleads guilty to stealing dying veterans’ morphine
BOSTON (AP) — A former nurse at a veterans’ hospital in Massachusetts has pleaded guilty to stealing liquid morphine intended for her dying patients and using it herself, federal prosecutors say.

Kathleen Noftle, 55, of Tewksbury, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to tampering with a consumer product and obtaining a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, deception and subterfuge, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston.

Noftle worked in the hospice unit at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford.

Noftle in January 2017 mixed tap water from the sink with a portion of the liquid morphine doses, and then administered the diluted medication to her patients orally, prosecutors said. Noftle then took some of the remaining diluted solution herself, authorities said.

In one case, prosecutors said, a veteran who received a diluted dose of morphine experienced increased difficulty breathing and increased suffering in his final days.

Noftle was arrested and charged in September 2019.

She faces up to 14 years in prison at sentencing scheduled for Feb. 24.

Florida
FBI calls arrested attorney a serial bank robber
MIAMI (AP) — The FBI says a 41-year-old Miami attorney is a “serial bank robber” who tried to rob five banks in the last three weeks before being arrested on his way to another bank.

A criminal complaint filed Wednesday in federal court said Aaron Honaker, 41, successfully robbed only two of the banks for a total of $1,850.

A police detective spotted Honaker driving in Coral Gables on Tuesday evening and took him into custody, the Miami Herald reported. Inside the vehicle, police found a hammer and demand notes.

Federal prosecutors are seeking to detain Honaker, who appeared at a first appearance in federal magistrate count Wednesday, the newspaper reported. A bond hearing is scheduled for Friday. He is represented by the federal public defender’s office.

He was charged by criminal complaint, which means prosecutors only have to show probable cause to move forward with the case. If a judge makes that finding, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will then seek a grand jury indictment charging him with the bank robberies. He would then be arraigned and enter a plea.

Honaker’s LinkedIn page and Florida Bar profile say he’s with the Coral Gables-based firm of Martinez Morales. But the firm’s partner Raul Morales told the Herald that Honaker disappeared two years ago and never returned to work.

Both profiles also claim Honaker graduated from Duke University School of Law in 2006, but the school told the newspaper there is no record that he ever went there. Other online sources including a Wake Forest University alumni page say Honaker graduated from Wake Forest School of Law.

The complaint says Honaker sat in the lobby at a Coral Gables Citibank branch on Sept. 30 before eventually handing the teller a note demanding $10,000 and warning her not to touch the alarm or call police. She told him she did not have money and he left with the note.

On Oct. 3, Honaker went to Chase bank in Aventura, he handed a teller a note requesting that all the $50 and $100 bills in the drawer to be placed in an envelope, the complaint said. The teller complied and he left with $1,050.

Two days later, the complaint said Honaker handed a Wells Fargo teller a note that said, “Keep calm and give me all the money in the drawer. I have a gun.” When the teller said she had trouble with English as an excuse to talk to a manager, Honaker left the bank.

On Oct. 10, Honaker asked for $50s and $100s again at a Chase bank in Coral Gables. He left with $800.

Five days later, Honaker’s note confused the teller at the HSBC branch in Coral Gables. She glanced at the note “without realizing its true meaning,” and asked Honake to fill out a withdrawal slip because she needed an account number. Honaker wrote on a withdrawal slip: “Read the note.” She then told him they keep the cash in a machine. He left without money, the complaint said.

Oregon
2 vineyards lose suit against nearby pot operation
MCMINVILLE, Ore. (AP) — Two Oregon wine grape growers have failed to convince a state judge their grapes would be marred by odors from a neighboring marijuana operation.

Yamhill County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Easterday ruled that Smera Vineyard and Maysara Winery haven’t met their burden of proof to justify blocking the Wagner family from growing and processing the crop, The Capital Press reported.

The judge said she deliberated for nearly eight months since the February trial and had re-listened to expert testimony several times.

“This was a very difficult and close decision,” and while the potential for the smell of marijuana to taint wine grapes raises “a threat, a risk, and concerns, there is insufficient proof at this time by a preponderance of the evidence that it will damage plaintiffs’ current or future agricultural products,” Easterday said.

The judge also determined that Steven, Mary and Richard Wagner, the marijuana producers, can lawfully use an easement across one of the plaintiff’s properties and that the defendants are the prevailing parties under Oregon’s “right to farm” statute.

The vineyard plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in 2017 but their request for a temporary restraining order against the marijuana operation was denied.

However, their complaint survived a motion to dismiss after the court found the defendants didn’t have a “blanket immunity” from the charges under Oregon’s “right to farm” law.

Maysara Winery produces wine and grows grapevines on over 530 acres near McMinnville, while Smera Vineyards is a much smaller grape-growing operation.


New York
Transcripts show Ghislaine Maxwell as combative and defensive
NEW YORK (AP) — Transcripts released Thursday show financier Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend was combative and defensive under tough questioning four years ago about her ex-boyfriend’s interactions with underage girls.

In the transcripts, Ghislaine Maxwell repeatedly denied hiring anyone under the age of 18 for Epstein.

“I never saw any inappropriate underage activities with Jeffrey ever,” she said.

Manhattan U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska had ordered the transcripts of seven hours of depositions of Maxwell released by 9 a.m. Thursday.

Preska allowed release of the transcripts after rejecting arguments from Maxwell’s lawyers that the interviews for a defamation lawsuit brought against Maxwell by an Epstein victim several years ago would jeopardize a fair criminal trial for her next July.

Maxwell, 58, has been held without bail since her July arrest on charges that she procured three underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse between 1994 and 1997. She has pleaded not guilty.

The 2016 transcripts were among over 2,000 pages of documents that began to be released last year after a federal appeals court began the unsealing of documents from the since-settled defamation case brought in 2015 by Virginia Giuffre. She said Maxwell recruited her at age 17 to be sexually abused by Epstein and Maxwell from 1999 to 2002.

Giuffre has accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous wealthy and influential men, including Britain’s Prince Andrew. He and the other men have denied her allegations.
In the transcripts, Maxwell repeatedly derided Giuffre, saying: “She has lied repeatedly.”

She said she “never instructed Virginia to have sex with anybody ever.”

Asked if she trained Giuffre to recruit other women to perform sexual massages, Maxwell said: “It’s absurd and her entire story is one giant tissue of lies.”

The Miami Herald, whose reporting in 2018 brought fresh scrutiny to Epstein’s crimes, had argued in seeking the unsealing that Maxwell’s fear of embarrassment shouldn’t stop the public from learning of “the sexual abuse of young girls at the hands of the wealthy and powerful.”

Epstein was 66 in August 2019 when he killed himself in a federal jail in Manhattan as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.