Nevada
Vegas officer held on federal charges in 3 casino robberies
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A U.S. magistrate judge has ordered a Las Vegas police officer held in federal custody pending another hearing on charges stemming from armed robberies that authorities say netted about $164,000 from three area casinos since November.
Caleb Mitchell Rogers’ appointed federal public defender did not immediately respond Friday to an email seeking comment following Rogers’ appearance Thursday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.
Rogers, 33, was tackled by a security guard and arrested Feb. 27 at the Rio hotel-casino, where police and the FBI say he was seen on security video robbing a cashier of about $79,000 while displaying a police-issued handgun.
Federal court documents allege that Rogers also robbed the Red Rock Resort on Nov. 12 and the Aliante Casino Hotel Spa on Jan. 6.
Rogers also faces criminal charges in Nevada state court.
He could face up to life in federal prison if he is convicted of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, and 20 years on a federal robbery charge. His next court date is March 24.
Rogers has been a Las Vegas officer since 2015. Police Officer Larry Hadfield, a department spokesman, said Rogers is on administrative leave pending the outcome of criminal and internal affairs investigations.
Illinois
Court rejects ex-officer’s efforts to get job back
CHICAGO (AP) — A court has rejected an effort by a former Chicago police officer to get his job back after he was fired for his role in the fatal shooting of a bystander.
The Illinois Appellate Court ruled Friday that the disciplinary process was fair and that there was cause for the firing, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Saturday.
Quintonio LeGrier was having a mental breakdown in 2015 when then-Officer Robert Rialmo and his partner arrived at the scene of the disturbance. Bettie Jones, 55, admitted police into the apartment building where the 19-year-old LeGrier was in a dispute with his father.
Rialmo claimed LeGrier was attacking him with a bat when he fired, killing him and Jones. Investigators cast doubt on whether LeGrier swung the bat. The Chicago Police Board determined Rialmo could have repositioned himself to avoid shooting Jones.
Rialmo was fired in 2019. His attorneys filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court contending that the board’s decision was arbitrary and capricious. The lawsuit asked that the decision be reversed and for Rialmo to be reinstated with back pay.
A Cook County judge rejected that lawsuit in 2020, upholding Rialmo’s firing, according to the newspaper.
In 2018, a Chicago City Council committee gave the go-ahead for a $16 million payment to Jones’ family. A jury had awarded $1.05 million to LeGrier’s family in a wrongful death lawsuit, but a judge reversed it, noting jurors also found Rialmo feared for his life.
Indiana
Judge rules boy to be tried as adult in death of 6-year-old
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A juvenile court judge has ruled that a teenager accused of molesting and fatally strangling a 6-year-old northern Indiana girl last year will be tried as an adult, prosecutors said Friday.
The 15-year-old is charged in the death of 6-year-old Grace Ross of New Carlisle in March 2021.
St. Joseph County Magistrate Graham Polando heard testimony last month on whether the boy should be waived from probate to superior court, where he would be tried as an adult and receive a harsher sentence if convicted.
The boy was previously found psychologically competent to stand trial for the killing in a wooded area near New Carlisle, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Chicago.
According to court documents, the boy, then 14, told police a “shadowy man” controlled him and made him strangle Ross after she followed him into the woods from the nearby apartment complex where she lived.
Arizona
Prosecutors forced to drop 180 idle cases
PHOENIX (AP) — Prosecutors in Arizona’s most populous county have dropped nearly 200 criminal cases because charges were not filed before the statute of limitation expired.
A supervisor never delegated 180 misdemeanor cases to prosecutors, Ryan Green, a division chief in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, told The Arizona Republic.
The cases include drunk driving, domestic violence, assaults and criminal damage incidents that happened in 2020.
Most were initiated by the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the county sheriff’s office. Arizona law requires misdemeanor cases to be filed within a year of the alleged crimes.
“It was human error. However, it was human error that happened in the context of high volume, heavy caseload and not enough staffing,” Green said.
He confirmed that Karen Sciarrotta was the bureau chief who failed to inform anyone about the problem. All of those cases sat untouched in a virtual queue for more than a year. She has since received a written reprimand, Green said.
Letters to alleged victims about the failure to prosecute the cases were sent at the beginning of the year.
But they did not contain an explanation or an apology, the newspaper reported. They simply stated “an attorney has reviewed the report and has made the decision that the case cannot be prosecuted.”
The lapse in case handling came as County Attorney Allister Adel continues to be questioned about her abilities to lead the office.
Some, including Green and former County Attorney Rick Romley, have urged Adel to resign. They say her sobriety struggles have caused her to be absent from crucial day-to-day tasks.
Adel told the newspaper a failure of “a few employees” does not mean she cannot do her job.
“I reached out to the most significantly impacted law enforcement agencies, provided them detailed information about the problem, owned the mistake, and committed to ensuring it does not happen again,” Adel said.
Adel, a Republican, has previously vowed that she will not resign.
When she was elected in November 2020, Adel underwent emergency surgery on election night for a brain bleed after a fall.
She was back at work full-time the following spring. but in August she went into treatment for alcohol abuse, an eating disorder and other issues.
Virginia
Officer gets year in prison for shooting then-fiancée’s dog
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A police officer in Virginia has been sentenced to one year in prison for fatally shooting his then-fiancée dog with a 12-gauge shotgun.
WRIC reports that Richard Chinappi III was sentenced Friday in Powhatan County Circuit Court. The Richmond police officer had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of torturing or maiming a dog or cat and making a false report to police.
Powhatan Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Cerullo told the news station that prosecutors presented evidence that Chinappi killed the beagle-hound mix at close range in October.
Cerullo said that Chinappi initially claimed a bear had attacked the dog in the home he shared with his now-former partner. He then allegedly changed his story to say he had shot the bear and killed the dog in the process.
But the dog’s body had been killed with a 12-gauge shotgun from “exceedingly close range” and there were no signs of damage caused by a bear, Cerullo said.
Chinappi’s attorney, Mark Bong, declined to speak about the case on Friday to the news station.
Richmond police said in a statement that Chinappi “remains on leave without pay. In light of his sentencing today, the department is very close to concluding the internal investigation and administrative process.”
North Carolina
High court decision keeps domestic violence ruling intact
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s ruling that said domestic violence protection orders in the state must apply to same-sex dating cases .
The state’s highest court on Friday affirmed and altered a Court of Appeals decision from December 2020 that had involved a woman who ended her relationship with another woman in 2018 and feared for her safety.
The appeals panel had ruled that the state law laying out how protection orders are issued had treated LGBT people differently and therefore violated both the North Carolina and U.S. constitutions.
The law allowed protection orders to be issued between former and current spouses and couples who live or have lived in the same household. But North Carolina appears to have been the only state that expressly prevented protection orders for people in same-sex relationships who are not spouses or former spouses and who are not current or former household members.
A divided Court of Appeals panel had reversed a local judge’s decision that denied the protection order to the Wake County woman on the basis on the limitations for granting one. The judge did issue a civil no-contact order to the woman, identified in the opinion only by her initials for privacy, but such orders are considered to provide fewer protections.
Several outside groups and individuals had filed legal briefs in the case, including Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein and Gov. Roy Cooper, who both favored Friday’s decision.
“Our state constitution provides robust protections against sex-based discrimination, including discrimination arising from sexual orientation and gender identity,” said Irena Como, an attorney with American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, which helped represent the woman seeking the order.
The state’s three registered Republicans on the seven-member court joined a separate dissenting opinion Friday. The court’s majority, Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. wrote, had ignored rules of civil procedure in part to “allow reverse engineered arguments based on sympathies and desired results.”
Pennsylvania
Former Temple U business dean sentenced in rankings scandal
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A former dean of Temple University’s business school was sentenced Friday to a year and two months in prison in a scheme to falsely boost the school’s rankings.
Moshe Porat, 75, asked U.S. District Judge Gerald Pappert to spare him a prison term so he could care for his ailing wife, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, but he did not apologize or acknowledge his crimes.
Pappert instead cited Porat’s lack of remorse and cited his obsession with driving the Fox School of Business to the top spot as “maniacal,” noting it caused real harm to master’s students who thought they were paying substantial money for a top-ranked degree.
In a statement issued Friday, Temple said it respects “the justice system and the judge’s sentencing decision.”
Porat was convicted in November of federal conspiracy and wire fraud charges.
Prosecutors have said he boosted the university’s online MBA program to the top spot on the U.S. News & World Report rankings for four years in a row. With help from two subordinates, who are also charged, they said Porat submitted false information about student test scores, work experience and other data.
The elevated rankings helped the university draw more students and vastly increased the Fox School of Business’ revenue under Porat’s tenure.
An attorney for Porat, Michael A. Schwartz, had argued at trial that although made mistakes, Porat did not commit a crime.
