Court Digest

New York
R. Kelly’s lawyer wants trial delayed due to jail quarantine
NEW YORK (AP) — R. Kelly’s new lawyers are asking a judge to postpone his Aug. 9 sex trafficking trial in New York City, arguing they haven’t had enough time to prepare because he’s under a mandatory jail quarantine since his transfer from Chicago.

In a letter Monday to U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly, lawyer Deveraux Cannick wrote that Kelly’s 14-day quarantine ending Tuesday has exacerbated what Cannick said was a “herculean effort” to get up to speed after their June 21 hiring.

Cannick argued in the letter that Kelly’s new lawyers  haven’t been able to meet with him in person because of the quarantine and that proceeding with the R&B star’s trial as scheduled would rob him of effective and meaningful representation.

Kelly, whose legal name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was placed in quarantine when he arrived at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on June 22 from Chicago, where he was being held on similar charges. Tuesday will mark 14 days since Kelly’s transfer to Brooklyn.

“Robert is anxious to have his day in court; however not at the expense of his Sixth Amendment rights,” Cannick wrote, saying the request was not a delay tactic.

Federal prosecutors hadn’t responded to Cannick’s request as of Monday night and declined to comment. Donnelly has yet to rule on the filing.

Federal lockups have been quarantining transferred and newly incarcerated inmates since early in the COVID-19 pandemic as part of protocols to prevent the disease’s spread.

Kelly, 54, is accused of leading an enterprise made up of his managers, bodyguards and other employees who helped him recruit women and girls for sex. Federal prosecutors say the group selected victims at concerts and other venues and arranged for them to travel to see Kelly. The Grammy Award-winning singer denies ever abusing anyone.

Cannick said that once Kelly’s quarantine ends and he is cleared to meet with his lawyers, they’ll be forced to jockey for one of a limited number of conference rooms at the Brooklyn jail. If a room is not available, he wrote, they’ll have to meet with Kelly at a table alongside other lawyers and inmates.

“The nature of the evidence here does not lend itself to open frank discussions in such an environment,” Cannick wrote.


Maryland
Prosecutors seek 35-year sentence for gang member in killing
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Federal prosecutors in Maryland are seeking a 35-year prison sentence for a gang member who pleaded guilty to participating in the killing of a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed and cut more than 100 times before his body was set on fire.

A judge is scheduled to sentence Kevin Alexis Rodriguez-Flores on July 19. He pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise and conspiracy to destroy and conceal evidence.

Rodriguez admitted that he was a member of Mara Salvatrucha street gang, or MS-13 for short, and took part in the March 2019 killing over the mistaken belief that the boy, a fellow member, was working with police, prosecutors said in a court filing on Friday. The boy was beaten and stabbed or cut roughly 144 times by Rodriguez and others whom he believed to be his friends, they wrote.

The killing took place during an MS-13 clique meeting in the Hyattsville, Maryland, home of the clique’s leader. After the boy’s killing, clique members took his body to a secluded location in Stafford County, Virginia, and set it on fire, according to prosecutors.

Rodriguez was 20 when a grand jury indicted him and three other men in July 2020 on charges stemming from the boy’s killing. He was the first and only defendant to plead guilty as of Monday.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has set a Sept. 17 deadline for the U.S. Justice Department to notify the court whether it intends to seek the death penalty against co-defendant Jose Domingo Ordonez-Zometa.
The indictment describes Ordonez as the MS-13 clique leader and claims he ordered the boy’s killing after questioning him about a recent encounter with police.

Rodriguez came to the U.S. from El Salvador in 2016, living with his mother in New Jersey before he moved to Virginia approximately a month before the killing.

The plea agreement between prosecutors and Rodriguez calls for a sentence ranging from 30 years to life imprisonment, but Xinis isn’t bound by that recommendation.

Mississippi
Court clears way for new trial for ex-judge in contempt case
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A former Mississippi judge will get a new trial to determine whether a contempt of court citation that stemmed from an argument in court should stand.

The Mississippi Supreme Court recently unanimously denied a request from the state attorney general to reverse a decision by the Mississippi Court of Appeals granting a new trial to former Simpson County Judge Larry Buffington, WLBT-TV reported.

The decision came months after the appellate court reversed a May 2019 decision by Chancery Judge David Shoemake to hold Buffington in criminal contempt following an argument between the two in Shoemake’s court concerning a case.

Buffington, who was serving as an attorney in a child custody case that was before Shoemake, was jailed following the incident.

Much of Buffington’s “alleged contemptuous conduct falls under the classification of constructive rather than direct criminal contempt,” the appeals court said, and Buffington was entitled to more than an immediate sentence. A new hearing on the contempt charge should be held before another judge, the court said.

It wasn’t clear when a trial would be scheduled.

Florida
Ex-officer to ask state high court to overturn conviction
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — An ex-Florida police officer will ask the Florida Supreme Court to overturn his conviction in the fatal 2015 shooting of a stranded motorist, according to documents filed by his attorney.

The notice is the first step in a long process in getting the state’s high court to consider whether the 4th District Court of Appeal was wrong in April when it upheld Nouman Raja’s conviction, the Palm Beach Post reported.

The former Palm Beach Gardens police officer is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence. In 2019 he became the first Florida police officer in three decades to be convicted in connection with an off-duty shooting.

Raja was found guilty of shooting Corey Jones, 31, a drummer whose car had broken down in the early morning hours along an Interstate 95 ramp as he was heading home from a gig.

Jurors convicted Raja after an accidental audio recording of the shooting was used to disprove his claim that Jones, who was Black, came after him with a gun.

The undercover officer shot Jones six times.

In the court papers filed last week, attorney Steven Malone, who is representing Raja, wasn’t required to explain the reasons for the appeal, the newspaper reported.

Later in July he is expected to file documents to ask the high court to hear the case.

The attorney had attempted to convince the appeals court that Raja’s conviction on charges of both manslaughter and attempted first-degree murder constituted double jeopardy.

The court ruled that since manslaughter is a homicide offense and attempted first-degree murder isn’t, the offenses don’t overlap, the Post reported. Justices also rejected 11 other claims that Malone raised.

The appeal will also further delay a promised multimillion-dollar lawsuit that civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump filed against Raja and the city of Palm Beach Gardens, the newspaper said. A federal judge put that lawsuit on hold until Raja’s criminal case has been resolved.

Crump filed the lawsuit on behalf on Jones’ father. It claims Beach Gardens failed to properly vet and train Raja, who was hired six months before the shooting.

Raja previously worked for the Atlantis Police Department, and numerous complaints, including excessive use of force complaints, had been filed against him there.

The city has denied Crump’s allegations.

Alabama
Judge to decide lawsuit over nuclear plant sale
SCOTTSBORO, Ala. (AP) — The future of an unfinished nuclear plant in northeast Alabama is now in the hands of a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Liles Burke recently heard closing arguments in the lawsuit over the sale of the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Plant near Scottsboro, news outlets reported. It is unclear when Burke will issue his ruling but it could take several months.

Nuclear Development LLC in 2018 filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the Tennessee Valley Authority of illegally pulling out of the sale a day before closing. Nuclear Development had agreed to buy the site for $111 million.

Nuclear Development argued that TVA actually blocked the sale at the last minute because of concerns that Nuclear Development could finish Bellefonte and deliver power at a lower cost.

Lawyers for the company wrote in a court filing that a TVA official, “made the decision to pull the plug at the last minute after it became real to him that Memphis, TVA’s largest customer, might be lost if TVA sold Bellefonte to ND.”

The utility has argued it couldn’t complete the transaction because Nuclear Development failed to get the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval for transfer of the construction permits.

“Who is at fault for the NRC being unable to make a decision on ND’s permit transfer application by that closing date? The blame rests entirely with ND,” lawyers for TVA wrote in a summary of the utility’s arguments.

TVA began work at the Bellefonte site in the mid-1970s, but it never finished the two-reactor plant as growth in the demand for electricity waned.

TVA is the nation’s largest public utility and provides electricity to millions of people in parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

New Mexico
Lawsuit: Man who sparked treasure hunt retrieved own loot
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A French treasure hunter has sued the estate of a Santa Fe, New Mexico, antiquities dealer who sparked a yearslong search across the American West by hiding a chest filled with gold, coins and other valuables.

Bruno Raphoz is seeking $10 million in a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court in New Mexico. He claims the late Forrest Fenn deprived him of the riches by moving the treasure chest after he solved a riddle that would lead him to the loot.

The lawsuit comes a year after another man found the treasure in Wyoming, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.

“It appeared suspicious to everyone,” Raphoz said in the lawsuit. “Our assumption is that (Forrest) Fenn went to retrieve the chest himself, declared it found publicly and kept the content for himself.”

In his autobiography, “The Thrill of the Chase,” Fenn said he buried the chest somewhere in the Rocky Mountains north of Santa Fe. His book included a poem that contained clues on where the chest was hidden.
For a decade, thousands of people roamed the Rockies in search of the treasure estimated to be worth at least $1 million.

Several treasure seekers had to be rescued from precarious situations and as many as six died.

Raphoz’s lawsuit is just the latest legal claim to be spurred by the treasure hunt. A number of people have sued, alleging Fenn betrayed them or gave misleading clues.

Shiloh Old, Fenn’s grandson, could not be reached for comment.

Raphoz said he used the clues to determine Fenn’s treasure was in southwestern Colorado. He informed Fenn he solved the puzzle and was on his way to retrieve the chest. However, his plans were derailed by the coronavirus pandemic, and Fenn announced a short time later that the treasure had been found.

Fenn died in September at age 90 without saying who found the chest or specifically where.

Fenn’s grandson confirmed in December that Jonathan “Jack” Stuef, a 32-year-old medical student from Michigan, discovered it. Fenn said before his death that the treasure was in Wyoming, but neither Stuef nor Fenn’s relatives have specified where.