Indiana
Man gets 103 years for shooting woman dead, burning car
CROWN POIINT, Ind. (AP) — A Lake County judge sentenced a Gary man to more than 103 years in prison Tuesday for fatally shooting his girlfriend and leaving her body in a car he set ablaze.
A jury last month convicted Hugh Scott, 37, of murder and other charges in the June 2018 slaying of Davita Ward, 39.
Judge Samuel Cappas sentenced him to 65 years for murder, 16 years for aggravated battery, 2.5 years for arson and 20 years for a habitual offender enhancement.
Scott has denied his involvement in the crime.
“I am not that monster they are pointing me out to be,” Scott said.
Cappas said although the case was “circumstantial,” strong evidence pointed to Scott’s involvement, including the fact he was treated at Loyola for severe burns on his legs just after her death, the Post-Tribune reported.
At the time of her death, documents alleged Ward had been in a volatile and abusive relationship with Scott. At one point, she wrote in Facebook messages to Scott she was afraid of him and he was “crazy.”
After Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, Ward’s mother and stepfather, Davona and Simon Lillie, said they were grateful for justice nearly four years after her death.
Defense attorney Lemuel Stigler sought a 51-year sentence for Scott.
New Jersey
Man pleads guilty in ex-girlfriend’s death, desecrating body
RAHWAY, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man who authorities say killed his toddler son’s mother and then drove the boy and her body to Tennessee last summer has pleaded guilty aggravated manslaughter.
Tyler Rios, 27, of East Orange, also pleaded guilty Monday to desecrating human remains in the death of 24-year-old Yasemin Uyar, of Rahway. He now faces up to 30 years in prison when he’s sentenced June 10, according to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.
Rios had been charged with numerous counts, including murder and kidnapping his 2-year-old son, who wasn’t injured when his mother was killed last July. An autopsy determined she died from strangulation and blunt force trauma.
Authorities had issued an Amber alert for the boy after he wasn’t dropped off at day care and Uyar didn’t arrive for her scheduled work shifts. The boy eventually was found unharmed at a hotel in Monterey, Tennessee, when Rios was taken into custody. Uyar’s body was found later that day in a wooded area off an interstate in Tennessee, authorities have said.
A motive for the slaying has not been disclosed. Authorities have said the couple met in high school and dated on and off for years.
Mississippi
Doctor convicted of hospice health care fraud
GREENVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A federal jury has convicted a Mississippi doctor of referring and certifying patients to hospice care who were not terminally ill and didn’t know what sort of treatment they would be getting.
Dr. Scott Nelson, of Cleveland, was found guilty on Monday of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi said in a news release Tuesday.
“In almost all cases, the patients had no idea they were being placed on hospice,” the news release said. It said patients testified that he didn’t tell them he was referring them to hospice care or explain what it was.
Judge Debra M. Brown has scheduled sentencing for July 27, online court records show. He was convicted on one conspiracy count and seven of health care fraud. Each count carries up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Court documents and evidence show Nelson served as medical director for as many as 14 hospice providers from 2009 to 2014, receiving about $442,000 from them. Medicare paid the hospice owners more than $15 million based on Nelson’s patient referrals and certifications, prosecutors said.
They said co-defendants Charline Brandon, Wendell Brandon and Annette Lofton have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
Authorities said hospice employees routinely brought prospective patients to Nelson’s office and the doctor would then refer them to hospice, claiming to be their primary or attending physician.
He also certified patients as terminally ill when they were not, and he “robosigned” numerous medical records, allowing hospice owners to bill Medicare and Medicaid for services that were not medically necessary.
“This type of fraud drives up medical costs for those who truly need care and jeopardizes our entire health care system.” U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner said. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to work with all federal, state and local partners to do everything in our power to eradicate it.”
Virginia
Man gets life plus 15 years in stepdaughter’s death
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man convicted of murdering his 18-year-old stepdaughter and hiding her body behind an abandoned house in 2015 has been sentenced to life in prison plus 15 years.
Wesley Hadsell was convicted earlier this year of killing 18-year-old Anjelica “A.J.” Hadsell. He was sentenced Monday by a judge to the maximum allowed for each charge he was convicted of, including first-degree murder, concealing a body and possessing drugs in jail, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
Hadsell asserted his innocence, suggesting his stepdaughter had killed herself, drawing a sharp rebuke from Circuit Judge L. Wayne Farmer at sentencing.
“I have been wrongfully convicted of these crimes, but this fight is not over,” Hadsell told Farmer, saying he would appeal.
Farmer scolded Hadsell for trying to pin the crime on others, then implying the woman took her own life.
“To blame her — it’s offensive,” the judge said. “You took a beautiful life and dumped it like trash.”
Prosecutors said the defendant had kidnapped the stepdaughter, assaulted her and then injected her with a lethal dose of heroin. She was spending her spring break from Longwood University at her family’s home in Norfolk when she disappeared in March 2015.
Her body was found five weeks later partially buried in a drainage ditch behind an abandoned house. A medical examiner determined she had died from acute heroin poisoning and “homicidal violence.”
Hadsell wasn’t charged for the murder until 2018. His first trial in 2020 was declared a mistrial after two days over a disagreement on what evidence the jury should be allowed to hear.
Prosecutors said that shortly before A.J. Hadsell disappeared, Wesley Hadsell’s wife kicked him out of the house because of his drug use. Investigators said Wesley Hadsell kidnapped his stepdaughter while she was folding laundry and listening to music in the living room.
Hadsell then tried to distract police by lying and planting evidence in various places, including one of her jackets at her friend’s home, prosecutors said. Hadsell admitted to breaking into the home during an interview with a local TV station, but denied hiding the jacket there.
Montana
Appeals court says U.S. downplayed coal mine’s climate impacts
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. officials improperly downplayed the climate change effects from burning coal when they approved a large expansion of an underground Montana coal mine that would release an estimated 190 million tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, a court ruled.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 ruling that Interior Department officials “hid the ball” during the Trump administration, by failing to fully account for emissions from burning the fuel in a 2018 environmental analysis.
A judge previously ruled against the disputed expansion of Signal Peak Energy’s Bull Mountain mine in 2017, but allowed mining to continue while a lawsuit brought by environmentalists proceeded.
Monday’s ruling sends the case back to the district court level to decide the fate of the mine’s federal permit.
It marks the latest in long string of decisions against the U.S. government going back to the Obama administration for failing to adequately consider climate damages from extracting and burning fossil fuels.
The appeals court faulted the government for comparing emissions from the mine against total global emissions. That approach “predestined that the emissions would appear relatively minor,” Circuit Judge Morgan Christen wrote.
Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson disagreed, saying in a dissenting opinion that the court should have deferred to the Interior Department’s expertise after agency officials determined the expansion would not significantly affect the environment.
An attorney for environmental groups that challenged the mine expansion said the ruling could have impacts for mines across the country.
“They have to evaluate the impacts of billowing hundreds of millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere,” said Derf Johnson with the Montana Environmental Information Center.
The mine near Roundup is a major employer in central Montana with about 250 workers. Its coal has been exported to countries including South Korea, Japan and the Netherlands, according to court documents.
Interior spokesperson Tyler Cherry said the agency was reviewing the ruling. Signal Peak representatives did not immediately respond to the ruling.
The Biden administration last year announced it will review the climate impacts of a U.S. coal leasing program that allows companies to mine vast reserves of the fuel from public lands. It has also priced future climate damage s from burning fossil fuels at about $51 for every ton of carbon dioxide emitted, a figure known as the social cost of carbon.
Environmentalists had sought a ruling that would compel officials to apply the social cost of carbon to Signal Peak’s mine, but the court rejected the request and said how effects are measured is up to the government.
Washington
Proud Boys leader pleads not guilty to Jan. 6 charges
WASHINGTON (AP) — Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges that he remotely led a plot to stop Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Though he wasn’t at the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, prosecutors say Tarrio organized encrypted chats with Proud Boys members in the weeks before the attack, had a 42-second phone call with another member of the group in the building during the insurrection and took credit for the chaos at the Capitol.
Police had arrested Tarrio in Washington two days before the riot and charged him with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in December 2020. The day before the Capitol was attacked, a judge ordered Tarrio to stay out of Washington.
Tarrio’s indictment said that instead of staying out of town, he met with Oath Keepers founder and leader Elmer “Stewart” Rhodes and others in an underground parking garage for about 30 minutes on Jan. 5.
His lawyers have said the evidence against Tarrio was weak and relies mostly on text messages and social media.
A judge has postponed the May 18 trial for Tarrio and five others affiliated with the far-right group.
Prosecutors sought the postponement to give them more time to assess and share with opposing lawyers new information gathered in the investigation. Some defendants in the case agreed with the postponement request.
A new trial date is expected to be picked during an April 21 hearing.
