Court Digest

Washington
Postal worker sentenced for fraud, theft and embezzlement
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A former postal worker was sentenced Tuesday for wire fraud, embezzlement and identity theft amounting to $276,000 over seven years.

The News Tribune reports  U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones sentenced Iliganoa Theresa Lauofo, 40, to two years, three months in prison after she pleaded guilty. She’ll also must pay $276,639 in restitution.

“There are large families across this country who have no source of income and mouths to feed,” Jones said. “You had no right to go out and lie and cheat and steal your way. ... You told a persistent and protracted series of lies.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release that Lauofo “lied about her household composition and income, used stolen identities to claim additional benefits and open bank and credit accounts, and stole checks from the mail during a period when she was employed by the U.S. Postal Service.”

As part of the public assistance fraud, which started in 2011, she “stole and misused the identity information of 13 minor children who lived in American Samoa and Western Samoa,” falsely reporting that they lived with her, the release said.

Lauofo also used stolen identities to open bank accounts and credit accounts, including in the name of her ex-husband years after he died, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

As a letter carrier, they alleged she deposited stolen checks and threw away more than 200 pieces of mail.

“This defendant was unrelenting in her efforts to defraud the systems we rely on to help the neediest in our communities,” U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran said in the news release. “She persisted even after authorities made clear they were investigating her fraud scheme.”

“At a time when many are struggling to make ends meet because of COVID-19, we must safeguard federal resources for those who need assistance.”

Minnesota
Prosecutors want 2017 arrest of teen in Floyd death trial
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Prosecutors in the upcoming trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd want to introduce evidence of a 2017 arrest in which they say the officer held his knee on the back of a 14-year-old boy and ignored his pleas that he couldn’t breathe.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank, in a memorandum filed in Hennepin County District Court, said the body camera video that captured the boy’s arrest shows that Derek Chauvin uses unreasonable force when dealing with a suspect who does not immediate comply with his orders, the  Star Tribune reported.

“As was true with the conduct with George Floyd, Chauvin rapidly escalated his use of force for a relatively minor offense,” Frank wrote in the filing. “Just like with Floyd, Chauvin used an unreasonable amount of force without regard for the need for that level of force or the victim’s well-being.”

Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, argued that the force used in the 2017 arrest was in keeping with department’s then-policy on dealing with uncooperative suspects.

Floyd, a Black man who was handcuffed, died in May after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for several minutes while Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. His death sparked a renewed sense of outrage over the deaths of Black people at the hands of police and sparked mass demonstrations.

In the 2017 arrest, the 14-year-old was slow to comply with Chauvin and another officer’s instructions, so Chauvin grabbed the child by the throat, forced him to the ground and put his knee on the boy’s neck before placing him in a prone position with a knee in his back, prosecutors said.

The boy told Chauvin “he could not breathe. And just like with Floyd, Chauvin ignored those pleas and refused to provide medical assistance,” Frank wrote.

Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill has yet to rule on Monday’s memorandum.

Chauvin and his co-defendants, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, were all fired the day after Floyd’s death. Chauvin is facing second-degree unintentional murder and manslaughter charges, while the other three former officers are charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter.

The four former officers are expected to stand trial in state court in March.

Oregon
Deputy convicted of menacing involving former girlfriend
OREGON CITY, Ore. (AP) — A Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office deputy pleaded guilty this month to a misdemeanor menacing charge in connection with domestic violence charges involving his former girlfriend.

Brandon Kearns, 36, was initially charged with strangulation and harassment in connection with a Jan. 15, 2019, incident. He was sentenced to 24 months of probation on the menacing charge.

John Wentworth, a chief deputy district attorney in Clackamas County and the incoming district attorney, said Tuesday that his office consulted with the victim and “weighed the risks of coming away from the Clackamas County case with nothing and decided making a criminal record of Mr. Kearns’ behavior with a meaningful charge was the most important outcome.”

The case was one of two Kearns faced in connection with the same victim, who also worked for the Sheriff’s Office.

In May 2019, Kearns was accused by Las Vegas authorities of domestic battery by strangulation and domestic battery. In that case, Kearns was convicted of disorderly conduct and violating a restraining order, and received a suspended jail sentence, according to court records.

According to a Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office report, the woman said he assaulted her in her Oregon City home. She also told the investigators she met Kearns in Las Vegas where he allegedly grabbed her arm, causing “a large bruise.”

According to court records, the next day, he hit and strangled her. She sought medical treatment and was diagnosed with bruised vocal cords, according to court records.

Kearns, who started with the agency in 2008, was placed on unpaid administrative leave after he was indicted in 2019. Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Marcus Mendoza said Kearns has resigned.
Kearns on Tuesday told The Oregonian/OregonLive that “the incidents that were alleged weren’t 100% accurate.” He said the Sheriff’s Office should have handed off the criminal investigation of one of its own to an outside agency.

Pennsylvania
Judge accused of making racist remarks resigns
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A judge in western Pennsylvania accused of making racist and demeaning comments has resigned one day before he was to face a misconduct trial.

His lawyer on Tuesday confirmed Allegheny County Judge Mark Tranquilli stepped down from the bench.

His resignation halts Wednesday’s start of a trial before a three-judge panel in which Tranquilli faced six counts of judicial misconduct, mostly involving racist and belittling remarks that allegedly were aimed at jurors and defendants.

Officials began investigating after a trial in January in which the judge was accused of referring to a Black female juror as “Aunt Jemima.” Tranquilli later wrote his colleagues that he was referring not to the woman, but to the head wrap she was wearing.

The judicial misconduct charges accuse him of not living up to state rules requiring judges to act in ways that promote public confidence in the judiciary and to do their job in a patient, dignified and courteous way, and without bias or prejudice.

Tranquilli was placed on administrative leave in February and was suspended without pay in August.

Wisconsin
Suburban Milwaukee officer who killed 3 since 2015 resigns
WAUWATOSA, Wis. (AP) — A suburban Milwaukee police officer who has fatally shot three people in the line of duty since 2015, including a Black teenager outside a mall in February, is resigning from the department.

The Wauwatosa Common Council approved a separation agreement with Joseph Mensah on Tuesday night, effective Nov. 30, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office has ruled all three shootings by Mensah, who also is Black, were justified self-defense.

Protests followed the most recent shooting outside Mayfair Mall. Alvin Cole, 17, was shot five times by Mensah after he fled from police following a disturbance inside the mall. Mensah said Cole pointed a gun at him, so he shot him.

Protesters marched for months, calling for Mensah to be fired. They protested outside the mall and Wauwatosa City Hall.

Mensah was suspended by the Wauwatosa Police and Fire Commission after a complaint was filed by the family of one of the men he killed, Jay Anderson Jr. He was shot after Mensah found him sitting in a car in a city park after hours in 2016. Mensah also fatally shot Antonio Gonzales in 2015 after Gonzales refused to drop a sword, according to police.

On the same day that Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm cleared Mensah of any criminal wrongdoing in Cole’s death, an independent investigator hired by the commission recommended that Mensah be fired.

Investigator Steven Biskupic wrote in his report released Oct. 7 that the potential for a fourth fatal shooting by Mensah created an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to the police department and the city.

Chisholm’s decision set off nights of protests throughout the city where a curfew was imposed for five days. Wauwatosa schools closed, businesses were boarded up and the police department was surrounded by a metal fence in anticipation of civil unrest. The National Guard was stationed outside the mall.


Tennessee
2 men charged in fentanyl-related overdoses
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Two Tennessee men have been charged in separate overdose deaths related to the dangerous opioid fentanyl.

Christopher Pipken, 39, has been indicted on federal charges of distributing heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine, the U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said Tuesday. Prosecutors said Pipken sold drugs that led to an overdose death in Bartlett in August 2019.

Pipken faces 20 years to life in prison if convicted. Court records did not show if he had a lawyer late Tuesday.

In another case, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Patrick Goolsby, 41, has been charged with second-degree murder and selling a controlled substance in DeKalb County.

Investigators said Goolsby sold drugs to Jennifer Leighann Jacobs, 45, who was found dead in May of an overdose. Fentanyl contributed to her death, the TBI said. 

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid considered many times more deadly than heroin.

Colorado
Women challenge tribal banishment in appeals court
DENVER (AP) — A lawyer for four women who were temporarily banned from the Ute Indian Tribe’s reservation in Utah asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to revive a lawsuit challenging their punishment.

In 2018, the tribe banned Angelita Chegup, Tara Amboh, Mary Carol Jenkins and Lynda Kozlowicz from its reservation about 150 miles (241 kilometers) east of Salt Lake City for five years over allegations they tried to destabilize the tribal government and had filed frivolous lawsuits for nearly 30 years, among other things.

The women’s lawyer, Ryan Dreveskracht, told a three-judge panel for the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver during a virtual hearing that courts have previously found that Native Americans have the right to challenge a banishment. He said the punishment puts 15% of the state off limits to his clients.

The tribe’s lawyer, Preston Stieff, argued that federal courts have not found that a temporary banishment is the equivalent of being in custody, the legal standard for them to intervene in tribal discipline under the Indian Civil Rights Act. The 1968 law prevents sovereign tribal governments from infringing on the rights of members and non-members.

Tribes historically did not build jails to incarcerate people and banishment developed as a way to deal with people both accused of committing crimes and also civil offenses, said Grant Christensen, a professor at the University of North Dakota’s law school who focuses on Native American law.

The Ute Indian Tribe says the women, described in their lawsuit as older, tried to disrupt federal litigation between it and Utah to stop the reservation from being reduced in size. The existing reservation boundaries were eventually upheld, the tribe said.

A federal district judge in Utah threw out the women’s claim, citing a 2017 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in another temporary banishment case. It involved members of the United Auburn Indian Community in California who were banished for 10 years after they publicly accused the tribal council of financial mismanagement and claimed that tribal elections were rigged.

The court ruled that they did not have a right to challenge the banishment in federal court because of tribes’ sovereign immunity to determine the makeup of their communities. However, in 1996 the 2nd Circuit appeals court found that a federal court could become involved in a case of permanent banishment imposed by the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians in New York.