Washington
Man gets nearly 5 years in 2019 DUI crash that killed 4
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — A federal judge has sentenced a Wapato man to nearly five years in prison for a 2019 driving under the influence crash that killed four citizens of the Yakama Nation.
Leland James Finley, 28, had pleaded guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury in connection with the May 2019 crash on the Yakama Nation Reservation.
U.S. District Court Judge Sal Mendoza sentenced Finley on May 31 in Richland, the Yakama Herald-Republic reports.
Authorities said Finley was driving an SUV with five passengers when he drove in front of a semitrailer at an intersection on U.S. Highway 97 just south of Toppenish. Four of the six people in the SUV were killed. Finley and another passenger were injured.
The Yakima County Coroner’s Office identified the victims as 41-year-old Frances Northover, of Bellingham; 61-year-old Susan Brown, of Yakima; 21-year-old Matt Brown-Washington, of Wapato; and 39-year-old Michelle Untuch, of Toppenish.
Wisconsin
Man killed in ‘targeted’ attack on judicial system
A man was fatally shot at his home in Wisconsin on Friday and a suspect was discovered in the basement with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in what appeared to be a plan to target people connected to the judicial system, Wisconsin’s attorney general said.
Attorney General Josh Kaul refused to name the victim or the suspect, but said the shooting appeared to be a “targeted act” and that the gunman had selected targets who were “part of the judicial system.” They were found in a residence that a neighbor and public records said belonged to a retired county judge.
Investigators don’t believe any one else is at risk any longer, but an investigation involving the FBI and the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation is ongoing, Kaul said during a news conference.
“The information that’s been gathered indicated that it was a targeted act and that the targeting was based on some sort of court case or court cases,” Kaul said.
The Juneau County Sheriff’s Office received a call that two shots were fired at a home in New Lisbon at approximately 6:30 a.m. Friday, according to the Division of Criminal Investigation. The caller had fled the home where the gunman had entered and made the call from another nearby home.
Donna Voss, a neighbor, told The Associated Press local police on Friday morning instructed her to stay in her home. She said she heard law enforcement on a loudspeaker telling the man to surrender and leave the home.
The Division of Criminal Investigation said in a news release that law enforcement officers outside tried to negotiate with the gunman, but after that failed they entered the home shortly after 10 a.m. The Juneau County Special Tactics and Response Team found the 68-year-old homeowner dead and a 56-year-old man in the basement with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was taken to a medical facility.
Kaul said the man is in critical condition.
For Voss, the shooting came as a shock in a usually quiet neighborhood where houses sit alongside farmland and wooded lots, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Madison.
“It’s unbelievable and really freaky,” she said.
Minnesota
Man pleads guilty to online pornography scheme
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A St. Paul man has pleaded guilty to federal charges that he ran an online pornography scheme that victimized at least 500 girls across the United States and elsewhere.
The Pioneer Press reported that 31-year-old Yue Vang entered the plea on Thursday to two counts of child pornography, one count of possession of child pornography and one count of interstate communications with intent to extort. Prosecutors are seeking a 72-year prison sentence.
According to court documents, Vang created fake female profiles online to entice girls to create sexually explicit video images and send them to him. Prosecutors alleged he knew they were all under 16 because their ages were posted in profiles or they told him.
He collected more than 1,000 child pornography images and videos on his devices, according to the plea agreement. He threatened to release the images to the girls’ families, friends and classmates unless they sent him more images of themselves nude or engaged in sex.
Vang’s attorney, listed in online court records as John Arechigo, didn’t immediately return a message Monday morning.
North Carolina
Man gets death sentence in daughter’s killing
MONROE, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man has been sentenced to death for the 2019 murder of his teenage daughter, according to the local prosecutor’s office.
The Union County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release Friday that a jury handed the sentence down after about three hours of deliberations following the three-week trial of 35-year-old Joshua Lee Burgess.
Burgess killed his 15-year-old daughter, Zaria, after “psychologically and sexually torturing her for 22 hours,” the news release said.
“This was truly an especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel killing of an innocent child. This case was emotionally taxing for everyone involved. We continue to grieve with and pray for Zaria’s mother,” the news release said.
In addition to one count of first-degree murder, Burgess was convicted of one count of statutory rape, three counts of statutory sex offense, and one count of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. He received an additional minimum of nearly 76 years in prison for those offenses, according to the news release.
Authorities said at the time of Burgess’s arrest that he had walked into a sheriff’s office and confessed to the killing.
TV station WSOC previously reported Burgess’s defense attorneys asked for his admission to be scrubbed from the record. It was not immediately clear who represented Burgess at trial or whether he would seek an appeal.
Rhode Island
Man gets life in prison for fatal beating of 78-year-old man
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Providence man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing a 78-year-old man during a 2013 home invasion.
Leopoldo Belen, who was already serving a life sentence for a separate crime, was sentenced Thursday in Providence County Superior Court, according to Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.
Prosecutors say Belen and co-defendant Joel Valdez broke into a third-floor apartment in Providence in October 2013 and had assaulted a resident when Delor “Dean” Cabral, the owner of the apartment, rushed upstairs to respond. As Cabral entered the apartment, prosecutors said, Belen and Valdez threw him to the floor and stomped on him before fleeing.
The attack caused significant trauma to the head and neck of Cabral, who died nearly a month later.
Valdez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2015 and is awaiting sentencing. Belen was scheduled to go to trial later this month but changed his plea to no contest, meaning he accepts the charge without admitting guilt.
A lawyer for Belen could not be reached for comment.
Neronha said he hopes the sentence brings “a measure of closure” to Cabral’s family.
“To hear the account of this crime is to be overwhelmed by its senselessness and life-extinguishing impact on a man who had lived life well and at the time of his death was coming to the assistance of others,” he said in a statement.
Another man, Wilbert Richardson, spent 19 months in prison for Cabral’s murder before his charges were dismissed in 2015. Richardson later sued the Providence Police Department, saying he was at a funeral at the time of Cabral’s attack and that there was no DNA to match him to the scene. He went on to settle with the police department for $67,500.
Belen was previously sentenced to life in prison in 2017 after a jury convicted him on four counts of first-degree sexual assault. In that case, prosecutors say Belen violently assaulted his then-girlfriend after becoming angry because she smoked their last cigarette.
Georgia
Former police officer pleads guilty to 2019 rape
DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — A former police officer in suburban Atlanta pleaded guilty Friday to raping a woman during a 2019 traffic stop, with a judge sentencing him to 25 years in prison.
David Wilborn, 45, pleaded guilty to crimes including rape, aggravated assault and false imprisonment, DeKalb County prosecutors said.
Wilborn was on duty as an officer in Lithonia when officials said he kept a car from leaving a park, ordered a woman to get out and raped her at gunpoint while the car’s male driver lay face down in front of the vehicle.
After the rape, Wilborn told the woman to repeat the words “nothing happened” before allowing the man and woman to leave, prosecutors say.
The woman called police when she got home and investigators determined Wilborn had raped her. Lithonia fired Wilborn after the arrest.
Wilborn had a history of sexual assault allegations. He had resigned from the Atlanta Police Department after someone accused him of assault in 2007. No charges were filed.
At a pretrial hearing, a DeKalb County police sergeant testified that Wilborn had told a supervisor that he had sex with a woman at the same park but said it was consensual. Wilborn said “that he messed up and that his career is over,” the investigator testified.
Wilborn also pleaded guilty to sexual contact by a police officer, possessing a firearm while committing a felony and five counts of violating his oath of office.
DeKalb County Superior Court Senior Judge David Irwin sentenced Wilborn to a life sentence split between 25 years in prison without parole and the rest on probation. Wilborn also must register as a sex offender.
Indiana
Man gets 40 years in 1-year-old son’s fatal shooting
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A northern Indiana man was sentenced to 40 years in prison on child neglect charges stemming from the shooting death of his 1-year-old son by the boy’s 4-year-old sibling.
A St. Joseph County judge sentenced Avion Sexton Sr. to the maximum sentence Friday in the June 2020 death of Javion Sexton, who the older sibling killed while playing unsupervised with a gun.
A jury had convicted Sexton, 24, in April on a felony count of neglect of a dependent resulting in death and several drug dealing and possession charges, the South Bend Tribune reported.
Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hurley said in sentencing Sexton that he deserved the maximum sentence for creating an “egregious” environment by leaving guns and fentanyl within reach of his children in a South Bend home.
“Your child who pulled the trigger has to live with that with the rest of his life,” Hurley said. “To live with that, I would think, makes these facts and circumstances even that much more egregious.”
The judge also sentenced Sexton to 25 years for his drug dealing convictions, although that sentence will run concurrent with his child neglect sentence.
The boy’s mother, Eboni Hosea, was indicted on criminal charges, including child neglect resulting in death and drug possession. She has entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors and will be sentenced later this month.
