Court Digest

Wisconsin
Lawyer: Ex-pain clinic owner sentenced to 20 years to appeal
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The attorney for a Wisconsin woman sentenced to 20 years in prison on accusations she illegally prescribed opioids out of her pain clinic plans to appeal on grounds that a federal judge made a mistake.

U.S. District Chief Judge Pamela Pepper handed down the mandatory minimum sentence Friday for Lisa Hofschulz, 61, of Wauwatosa, after a jury in August convicted her of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. The jury found Hofschulz, who was a licensed nurse practitioner, responsible for the death of one patient.

Beau Brindley, Hofschulz’s attorney, told The Associated Press that Pepper failed to instruct the jury that a doctor’s “subjective good faith is a complete defense against these charges.” Brindley said a similar instruction was allowed in a case involving Dr. Charles Szyman, the operator of a Manitowoc pain clinic who was acquitted in 2017 of overprescribing narcotic medications.

Hofschulz and her ex-husband, Robert Hofschulz, owned and operated Clinical Pain Consultants in Wauwatosa. The indictment accused them of collecting more than $800,000 in 2015 and $1 million in 2016 by prescribing excessive dosages of opioids, particularly oxycodone and methadone, for no medical purpose.

Robert Hofschulz, who was the clinic’s business manager, was sentenced on Friday to three years in prison. His attorney, Jonathan Smith, did not return an email message seeking comment.

Washington
Man convicted of killing wife with ice cream
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A jury in Spokane County has convicted a man of murdering his wife by lacing her ice cream with a lethal dose of hydrocodone.

David Pettis was convicted of grinding up and mixing the drug into a bowl of ice cream he gave to his wife Peggy Pettis, 64, on June 25, 2018.

The amount of pain medication was about 10 times what is considered a therapeutic dose, The Spokesman-Review reported.

Prosecutors said money and a rekindled love interest with a former girlfriend motivated Pettis, 60, to kill his wife. They presented jurors with proof of new life insurance policies taken on Peggy Pettis.

David Pettis leaned forward and bowed his head as soon as Monday’s verdict was read by Spokane County Superior Court Judge Michael Price. After the hearing ended, Pettis’ daughter, Elizabeth Culp, tearfully ran up to hug her father before he was taken into custody.

“I know my dad didn’t kill her,” Culp said through tears outside of court.

The Pettis family has been divided throughout the trial with Culp standing by her father while her brother, David Pettis Jr., testified he believed his father had something to do with his mother’s death.

Pettis will be sentenced on the first-degree murder conviction early next year.

Georgia
State high court says gov naming judge was legal
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision Tuesday dismissing a challenge to the governor’s appointment of a former state senator as a superior court judge.

The ruling allows Jesse Stone to remain a judge in the Augusta Judicial Circuit. His appointment by Gov. Brian Kemp had been challenged by lawyer Maureen Floyd, who argued Kemp had waited too long to appoint him to fill a vacancy on the court.

The vacancy was created when former judge Michael Annis sent a letter to the governor in December 2019 saying he intended to resign Feb. 1, 2020. The state’s Judicial Nominating Commission on Feb. 17, 2020, submitted a list of four potential candidates to fill the seat, including Stone. Kemp appointed Stone to the seat on Feb. 22, 2021, for a term to end Dec. 31, 2022.

Floyd argued Kemp had waited too long because Annis’ term expired at the end of 2020.

Senior Judge Michael Karpf ruled Kemp had not violated the state constitution’s requirement that Kemp fill the vacancy “promptly” and wrote that it did not matter that Annis’ term had run out because previous case law stated that judicial terms of office are eliminated when judges resign.

The judge also rejected Floyd’s claims that Kemp manipulated the appointment process to give Stone a longer period in office before he had to face voters.

Karpf noted Stone will face voters in a nonpartisan election next year, the same time he would have gone before voters even if Kemp had appointed him in February 2020, because state law requires at least a six-month delay before an appointed judge faces voters. Judicial elections generally take place in May, not on the November ballot that includes partisan elected officials.

The high court upheld Karpf’s ruling and noted that removing Stone would prolong the vacancy of that office.

“A remedy that aggravates the injury flowing from a constitutional violation is not a remedy that is tailored to the injury,” Presiding Justice Michael P. Boggs writes in the opinion. Floyd cited no reason that Stone is ineligible to hold the office, he added.

Oregon
Man who hit officer with hammer at protest gets 4 years
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut held the 4-pound hammer that Jacob Gaines swung at the head of a federal marshal outside Portland’s downtown federal courthouse before sentencing him to nearly four years in prison on Monday.

Immergut chose a sentence Monday that exceeded the plea-deal recommended three years and one month sentence, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

Defense lawyer Rosalind M. Lee had sought a sentence of time served, covering the 18 months Gaines has spent in custody, followed by residential drug and alcohol treatment.

Gaines, of Texas, was arrested July 11, 2020, after he banged a hole in the plywood covering a courthouse entrance. When a deputy marshal went to arrest Gaines, federal prosecutor Christopher Cardani said Gaines struck the officer with it.

Gaines hit the marshal in the shoulder and upper back before other members of the U.S. Marshals Service arrested him, according to court records. The marshal wasn’t seriously injured as he was wearing a helmet and body armor.

Gaines pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly and dangerous weapon, a felony.

“I’d like to apologize to the victim, his family and his colleagues for the stress, harm and anxiety that I caused,” Gaines said.

Gaines is among a handful of defendants who have pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from arrests related to nightly protests against police brutality in Portland last year that started after the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis.


Tennessee
Woman charged after infant remains found in storage unit
TULLAHOMA, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee woman has been charged after the discovery of a newborn baby’s remains in a storage unit rented 27 years ago, officials said.

Melissa Sims McCann, 62, of Tullahoma, was indicted last week by a Coffee County grand jury on charges of abuse of a corpse and disposal of a corpse in violation of the law, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.

The charges stem from a Nov. 13 call to Tullahoma police reporting remains found in a storage unit that had been auctioned, prosecutor Craig Northcott said in a statement. The unit allegedly had been rented by McCann since March 1994, Northcott said.

“Officers with the Tullahoma Police Department discovered that she rented the unit for the sole purpose of storing the remains of her full-term, newborn baby, which she delivered at home a few days prior to renting the unit,” he said.

A cause of death has not been determined, Northcott said.

Court records did not list contact information for McCann and Coffee County Circuit Court officials said she does not yet have an attorney.


Texas
Witnesses: Fraud defendant triggers courtroom brawl
HOUSTON (AP) — A defendant in a criminal fraud case punched and attacked a bailiff, prosecutor and judge after he was denied bond Tuesday at a court hearing in Houston, witnesses said.

Joseph Catarineau, 58, was making a routine appearance before state District Judge Danny Lacayo when the judge asked if the defendant needed an attorney, witnesses told the Houston Chronicle.

When Catarineau addressed him disrespectfully, Lacayo denied him bond and directed a bailiff to take him into custody, said Daniel Glasscock, who was waiting to appear in another case.

When the bailiff tried to take him into custody, Catarineau grabbed the bailiff’s hair, took her to the ground and began punching her, according to prosecutor Jacob Salinas.

“He was just wailing on her, so I tried to jump in,” Salinas said. Lacayo came down from the bench to help Salinas, and both traded punches with Catarineau, he said.

“The bottom line is that I’m not going to let a deputy get beat up in front of me,” Lacayo said.

As Salinas, a former college football lineman, and Lacayo subdued the man, the bailiff retrieved the stun gun Catarineau had knocked from her hand and shot the man, giving all three men a jolt, Salinas said.

Catarineau had been charged in 2018 with submitting false financial statements that he had worked for American Airlines and Envoy Air and was owed money by the two companies. Court records show that Catarineau’s attorney asked the judge to withdraw from the case on Dec. 13.

Catarineau had worked as a pilot for Envoy Air until he was fired in 2017 for “erratic behavior,” according to court records. He proclaimed himself a “sovereign citizen” who did not have to pay federal income tax. The sovereign citizen movement has an extremist following that believes itself exempt from most federal and state laws and has been linked to violence.

He now likely faces three counts of assault on a public servant, said senior Harris County prosecutor Sean Teare.

South Carolina
Man gets life for raping, killing woman, 89, in her home
PICKENS, S.C. (AP) — A man was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for raping, robbing and choking an 89-year-old woman until she was unconscious, then returning later with a knife to kill her by slashing her throat in her South Carolina home, prosecutors said.

Thomas James Chapman, 23, pleaded guilty to murder, first degree criminal sexual conduct, burglary and other charges in the killing of Margaret Alice Karr in her Liberty home in April 2020, the 13th Circuit Solicitor's Office said in a statement.

Chapman lived less than a half-mile (1 kilometer) from Karr's home and climbed into her house through a back window, investigators said.

He stole a small amount of cash and attacked Karr in her bedroom, raping her and choking her until she was unconscious, police said.

Chapman then returned with a knife and slit the woman's throat, Liberty Police Chief Adam Gilstrap said shortly after the killing.

Investigators determined Chapman was a suspect when t hey questioned people in Karr's neighborhood and he confessed, according to arrest warrants.

Chapman's life sentence is without parole.