North Carolina
Man sentenced to 8 years for trafficking carfentanil
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A man convicted last year of trafficking a drug used to tranquilize animals has been sentenced to eight years in prison, a federal prosecutor said.
Miguel Angel Gonzalez-Perez, 54, also was sentenced on Wednesday to three years of supervised release for possession with intent to distribute carfentanil and aiding and abetting, said U.S. Attorney Dena J. King in a news release. He pleaded guilty in November.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, carfentanil is a synthetic opioid generally used as a tranquilizing agent for elephants and other large mammals. It’s approximately 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl, the news release said.
Officials said the presence of carfentanil in illegal U.S. drug markets causes concern because its strength can lead to increased overdoses and overdose-related deaths, and threatens those who may come in contact with it through accidental exposure.
Court documents and courtroom statements show that on May 1, 2020, law enforcement in Gaston County stopped a car Gonzalez-Perez was driving and found more than two kilograms of carfentanil hidden in a shoebox. Court records show that Gonzalez-Perez had gone to Atlanta to get the carfentanil and was heading to western North Carolina when he was stopped.
Massachusetts
Former Boston nanny pleads guilty to child porn charges
BOSTON (AP) — A former Boston-area nanny has pleaded guilty to child pornography possession charges and been sentenced to three years in prison.
Stephanie Lak, 37, was originally charged in April 2021 and had pleaded not guilty, but appeared in Suffolk Superior Court on Wednesday to change her plea to charges including possession of child pornography.
Boston police started investigating after getting a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Prosecutor Nicole Poirier said in addition to possessing “particularly horrifying” images, Lak discussed abusing children in online chats and in one case even sent non-pornographic pictures of a child she was caring for.
Judge Michael Doolin called the case “shocking.”
“These are horrible crimes they’re shocking and it’s some of the worst allegations that I’ve heard in my career as a judge and also in my career as an attorney,” the judge said in court.
Lak’s attorney said his client is remorseful and was herself a victim of sexual abuse.
Lak, who broke down crying during Wednesday’s hearing, had profiles on at least two online babysitting marketplaces, prosecutors have said. In addition to the prison time, she was placed on probation for 10 years and barred from holding child care jobs.
Illinois
Gun in 8-year-old’s backpack goes off at school, mom charged
CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago mother has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her second grader’s backpack accidentally discharged at school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday.
The 28-year-old woman appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A judge ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond.
During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman’s 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city’s North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm owners identification card.
According to police, the backpack was in the boy’s classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that prosecutors said during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child’s abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said.
In an email to parents, the school’s principal said the bullet “caused some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our school community and caused minor scrapes.” The school did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
A teacher then grabbed the backpack and gave it to security officers who found a Glock 19 handgun inside, prosecutors said during the hearing.
The woman’s attorney, Rodger Clarke, acknowledged that the gun should have been locked up and not just placed under the bed. But, he said, “This wasn’t something she planned or something she did on her own volition.”
Cook County Judge Michael Hogan was not impressed by that argument.
“This may not have been an intentional act, but it is a supremely negligent act,” he said.
He continued: “We are inches away, possibly centimeters away, from a very different case and a very different tragedy.”
Georgia
Store shootings: White man faces hate crime charges
ATLANTA (AP) — A federal grand jury in Georgia has brought hate crime charges against a white man accused of shooting into two convenience stores and targeting the people there because of their race last July. Police said he made his intentions clear at the time.
“This is a hate crime and this is a targeted hit,” Larry Edward Foxworth, 48, of Jonesboro told officers, according to a news release sent by the Clayton County Police Department after his arrest.
Prosecutors said Foxworth is charged with repeatedly firing a handgun into the stores near his home about 2:30 a.m. on July 30, 2021. Authorities have not said what race or minority group Foxworth allegedly said he was targeting.
Police said officers were investigating reports of gunshots and criminal damage to property at one gas station when they heard gunfire at another. They went there and stopped a car weaving in the road. They found a bag of ammunition including spent shell casings, as well as an open alcoholic beverage container, the news release said.
Foxworth was arrested at the time on state charges of making terroristic threats, obstructing law enforcement officers, open container and improper lane change, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. The federal indictment charges him with two counts each of hate crime and of using a firearm in a violent crime, the U.S. attorney in Atlanta said in a news release Wednesday.
“No person should be afraid to shop or go to work in our community. Nor should people have to worry that they may be violently attacked because of the color of their skin,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan.
It was not clear whether Foxworth has an attorney who could speak for him.
“Hate-fueled violence has no place in a civilized society,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Thankfully no one was injured by the conduct alleged in this case, but the Justice Department is committed to using all the tools in our law enforcement arsenal to prosecute allegations of hate crimes.”
The Clayton County Police statement last year also said that Foxworth told officers “I can give you a name and we can make this disappear,” the Journal Constitution reported.
California
Tree trimmer guilty in deadly throat-slashings
OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A tree trimmer in rural Northern California was found guilty in a series of throat-slashing attacks that left three people dead, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
A jury in Butte County on Tuesday found Ryan Scott Blinston, 37, guilty of murder, attempted murder and arson, the Tehama County District Attorney’s office said. Blinston, of Oroville, faces a mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Blinston was working for a tree-trimming service when in 2020 he returned to the clients’ homes in Butte and Tehama Counties, north of Sacramento, after the work was completed and slashed the throats of the residents, prosecutors said.
In May 2020, he attacked Loreen Severs, 88, of Los Molinos in Tehama County and her husband, Homer Severs, 91. Homer Severs survived the attack but died that December of an unrelated illness, authorities said.
Blinston was also charged in the killing of Sandra George, 82, and an acquaintance, Vicky Cline, 57, both of Oroville in Butte County. He was also charged with torching Cline’s car.
The District Attorney for Tehama and Butte counties agreed to combine the charges and have the case tried in Butte County, prosecutors said.
Blinston was arrested before dawn on June 14, 2020 — about a week after Cline vanished — by a Butte County sheriff’s SWAT team that had tracked him to a motorhome in heavily wooded and isolated Brush Creek, where authorities planned to arrest him on suspicion of burning Cline’s car, prosecutors said.
The team approached the motorhome and heard the muffled screams of a man inside and loud banging on the outside of the motorhome. The banging turned out to be Blinston attempting to get into the motorhome with a hatchet, prosecutors said.
Blinston ran into the woods, refused to drop the hatchet and was captured after a short struggle and the use of a stun gun and pepper spray, authorities said.
Blinston had met the 50-year-old owner of the motorhome earlier and then stayed over because he told the man he was afraid to leave after dark because of bears, the resident told authorities.
The man said he was sleeping when he awoke to find Blinston attacking him with a knife, prosecutors said.
Blinston slashed his neck but the man said he was able to kick him out of the motorhome and lock the door. A medic treated the seriously injured man and he was airlifted to a hospital, they said.
The SWAT team may have saved the man’s life, prosecutors said, because the isolated area had no cellphone service and it was unlikely anyone would have heard the man’s cries for help.
Prosecutors didn’t mention a motive for the crimes other than to say robbery was not a motivating factor.
Kentucky
Man sentenced to 8 years on federal charge after commutation
PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) — A man who was charged by federal prosecutors with producing child pornography after former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin issued a commutation for state sex crime convictions has been sentenced to eight years in prison.
Dayton R. Jones, 28, received the sentence on Tuesday in federal court in Paducah, news outlets reported. It was less than the 10 years prosecutors had sought, but more than defense lawyers had requested after Jones pleaded guilty last year.
The federal charge stemmed from events that led to sodomy and other charges against him by Kentucky prosecutors in 2014. Jones was a few years into a 15-year sentence when Bevin commuted the sentence in 2019, nullifying the case in state court. Federal prosecutors charged Jones the following year.
Bevin issued hundreds of pardons before leaving office, attracting criticism from lawmakers, prosecutors and victims for a handful of pardons of violent felons that appeared to be politically motivated.
Jones had pleaded guilty in state court to using a sex toy to assault a 15-year-old boy who had passed out from drinking. Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Hancock has said Jones took a video of the assault and sent it to others using Snapchat. One person who received the video turned it in to law enforcement, leading to the federal charge, Hancock said.
