California
2 given life sentences in 2016 killing of teens
WOODLAND, Calif. (AP) — Two men convicted of killing a pair of California teenagers who vanished six years ago were sentenced Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole, prosecutors said.
Chandale Shannon, 25, of Winters, and Jesus Campos, 22, of Woodland were sentenced for the 2016 kidnapping and killing of the teens, whose bodies were never found despite years of effort.
“The crimes were evil. The families have been impacted terribly. And two boys are dead. I find that Mr. Campos and Mr. Shannon have forfeited their life to live in civilized society,” Yolo County Superior Court Judge David Rosenberg said at the sentencing hearing, according to a statement from the county district attorney’s office.
They were among four people charged with killing 16-year-old Enrique Rios and his friend, 17-year-old Elijah Moore.
Prosecutors said Moore was killed in revenge after stealing 3 ounces (85 grams) of marijuana from three of the defendants.
Rios was shot and killed by David Froste in October 2016 when he refused to call or provide a location for Moore, who was killed several weeks later, on Nov. 4, prosecutors said.
Moore was kidnapped while leaving a barber shop in Woodland, 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of Sacramento.
Prosecutors said he was forced into the trunk of a car and taken to Knights Landing on the Sacramento River, where he was bound and was denied pleas to call his mother and release him. Shannon, Froste and Campos and two other men beat him to death with tree branches, crushing his skull.
His body was then placed in a hole, burned and buried.
Shannon, Campos, David Froste and his brother, Jonathan Froste, were arrested in 2018. Authorities tracked their locations and movements through cellphone data and social media activity.
David Froste was convicted of murder in 2018 and is serving a life sentence without chance of parole.
In May, Shannon was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances and kidnapping.
Jonathan Froste pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and testified against the other three defendants. He is awaiting sentencing and is expected to serve 15 years to life in state prison.
New York
Forgotten co-defendant of Central Park 5 to be exonerated
NEW YORK (AP) — A forgotten co-defendant of the so-called “Central Park Five,” whose convictions in a notorious 1989 rape were thrown out more than a decade later, is set to have his conviction on a related charge overturned.
A hearing was scheduled for Monday afternoon in the case of Steven Lopez, who was arrested along with five other Black and Latino teenagers in the rape and assault on Trisha Meili but reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to the lesser charge of robbing a male jogger.
The brutal assault on Meili, a 28-year-old white investment banker who was in a coma for 12 days after the attack, was considered emblematic of New York City’s lawlessness in an era when the city recorded 2,000 murders a year.
Five teenagers were convicted in the attack on Meili and served six to 13 years in prison. Their convictions were overturned in 2002 after evidence linked convicted serial rapist and murderer Matias Reyes to the attack.
The Central Park Five, now known as the “Exonerated Five,” went on to win a $40 million settlement from the city and inspire books, movies and television shows.
Lopez, now 48, has not received a settlement, and his case has been nearly forgotten in the years since he pleaded guilty to robbery in 1991 to avoid the more serious rape charge.
Lopez’s expected exoneration was first reported in The New York Times.
“We talk about the Central Park Five, the Exonerated Five, but there were six people on that indictment,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told the Times. “And the other five who were charged, their convictions were vacated. And it’s now time to have Mr. Lopez’s charge vacated.”
The Associated Press does not usually identify victims of sexual assault, but Meili went public in 2003 and published a book titled “I Am the Central Park Jogger.”
Colorado
Man pleads guilty to casting missing wife’s ballot
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado man who had been charged in the presumed death of his missing wife has pleaded guilty to forgery for casting her 2020 election ballot for then-President Donald Trump.
Barry Morphew pleaded guilty Thursday and was fined and assessed court costs of $600, The Denver Post reported. He avoids jail time as part of a plea agreement.
Suzanne Morphew was reported missing on Mother’s Day in 2020 after she did not return from a bike ride near her home in the Salida area in southern Colorado. Barry Morphew, who pleaded for help finding his wife, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and other crimes in 2021, but prosecutors dropped the charges in April.
That decision followed the judge’s move to bar prosecutors from presenting most of their key witnesses during Morphew’s scheduled trial because they repeatedly failed to follow rules for turning over evidence in his favor. The evidence included DNA from an unknown male linked to sexual assault cases in other states, which was found in Suzanne Morphew’s SUV and raised the possibility of another suspect being involved.
Suzanne Morphew’s body has not been found.
In the voter fraud case, investigators said Barry Morphew filled out his missing wife’s ballot because he thought Trump could use the extra vote. Trump lost Colorado to President Joe Biden by 14 percentage points.
“Just because I wanted Trump to win. I just thought, give him another vote. I figured all these other guys are cheating,” he told an FBI agent who confronted him about the ballot in April 2021, according to court documents.
Trump has made repeated claims about fraud and “rigged” election results, but experts say there has been no evidence found of widespread fraud that would have changed the election’s outcome.
Morphew also told the agent he didn’t know it was illegal to fill out a ballot on behalf of a spouse.
California
Man pleads not guilty in 1982 killing of child
MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) — A 70-year-old Nevada man charged in the 1982 killing of a 5-year-old girl who disappeared while walking to her kindergarten class was extradited Friday to California, where he entered a not guilty plea during his arraignment, prosecutors said.
Robert John Lanoue, who is a registered sex offender, was arrested earlier this month in Reno, Nevada, in the killing of Anne Pham after detectives say they solved the cold case using DNA evidence.
The child disappeared while walking to her kindergarten class in Seaside, California. Her body was found two days later in the former Ford Ord. She had been kidnapped, sexually assaulted and strangled, California authorities said.
Lanoue was charged with one count of first-degree murder, with special circumstance allegations that he murdered Pham while committing kidnapping and a lewd act on a child under the age of 14, according to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.
Lanoue was assigned a public defender, said Monterey County prosecutor Matt L’Heureux. The Monterey County Public Defender’s office did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.
Lanoue was 29 years old at the time of the girl’s killing and lived near her home in Seaside, authorities said.
The case was reopened in 2020 when investigators with the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Task Force worked with the Seaside Police Department to submit evidence from the case for DNA testing after receiving a grant to reopen cold cases.
On July 6, California investigators obtained a warrant for Lanoue’s arrest. Lanoue was already in the Washoe County jail in Nevada where he was booked on June 8 for a parole violation, records showed.
Georgia
Film producer pleads guilty in fraud investment scams
ATLANTA (AP) — A movie producer has pleaded guilty to several counts of fraud and money laundering arising from his fraudulent promotion of two cryptocurrency investment schemes, federal prosecutors said.
Ryan Felton, 48, entered the plea on the fourth day of his jury trial in his hometown of Atlanta on Thursday.
“The defendant used 21st century technology to perpetrate an age-old fraud: lying to investors to steal their money and fund his own lavish lifestyle,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said in a news release. “Felton’s conviction should serve as a warning to anyone who seeks to capitalize on emerging technology to victimize others.”
Investigators said Felton, in 2017, promoted an initial coin offering, or ICO, for an entertainment streaming platform promising to surpass Netflix. Prosecutors said he falsely promoted that Atlanta rapper T.I. was co-owner of the FLiK platform, the U.S. military had agreed to distribute the platform to service members, and FLiK was finalizing licensing deals with major film and television studios.
Instead of using investor funds to develop the platform, Felton used around $2.4 million from investors to fund an extravagant lifestyle. He bought a $1.5 million home, a Ferrari, a Chevy Tahoe, and about $30,000 in diamond jewelry, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said.
Felton promoted a second ICO for a new company in 2018. Investigators say he raised more than $200,000 for CoinSpark and again diverted money to his personal bank account.
“The technology has advanced, but the crime remains the same, and those who invest in cryptocurrency must be wary of opportunities that appear too good to be true,” said Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “The FBI is committed to protecting investors from sophisticated cryptocurrency scammers that seek to capitalize on the novelty of digital currency.”
Felton pleaded guilty to 12 counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of money laundering, and two counts of securities fraud.
Sentencing will be scheduled at a later date before U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee.
Maryland
Prosecutor: Man posed as young girl to get explicit video
BALTIMORE (AP) — A Baltimore man has pleaded guilty to charges that he posed as a young girl to induce teenage boys to send him sexually explicit images and videos before he extorted them, a federal prosecutor said.
Matthew K. Walsh, 24, pleaded guilty on Friday to sexual exploitation of a minor in order to produce child pornography, said U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron.
According to his plea agreement, from at least 2016 through 2021, Walsh created fake online profiles on multiple platforms posing as a young girl to make contact with boys between the ages of 12 and 17 and induce them to produce sexually explicit images and videos.
Once Walsh got the images, he extorted the boys into producing more explicit images and videos, threatening to send the earlier images to their friends if they didn’t, the plea agreement said.
Prosecutors said Walsh also uploaded the files to various social media accounts and sold the sexually explicit files to others.
To date, more than 40 boys have been positively identified as victims of Walsh’s conduct, and at least 30 victims’ pictures and videos were sold and/or distributed to others by Walsh.
Walsh is to be sentenced on Nov. 4.
