Ohio
Shooter of 5 family members claims he ‘had no choice’
WAVERLY, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio man convicted of shooting five of eight family members killed in a 2016 massacre testified Monday he had no choice but to kill the mother of his child.
Jake Wagner pleaded guilty last year to shooting the five victims, an attack that investigators said resulted from a custody dispute between two families.
As part of his plea deal, Jake Wagner had agreed to testify against his older brother, George Wagner IV, in exchange for being spared the death penalty.
George Wagner IV, whose trial has entered its eighth week in Pike County court, faces the death penalty if he’s convicted in the slayings of the Rhoden family near Piketon. George Wagner is the first person to go on trial for the killings.
Jake and George’s mother, Angela Wagner, also has pleaded guilty to helping plan the slayings, and is expected to testify. Jake and George’s father, George “Billy” Wagner III, has pleaded not guilty. He likely won’t go on trial until next year. The four members of the Wagner family were not arrested until more than two years after the slayings.
Special prosecutor Angela Canepa has not accused George Wagner, 31, of shooting anyone in April 2016, but she said he took part in planning, carrying out and covering up “one of the most heinous crimes in Ohio history.”
The two families had been close for years, but Canepa described the Wagners as being obsessed with gaining control over the child that Jake Wagner had with Hanna Rhoden.
The Wagner family had pressured Hanna Rhoden to sign away custody of the 3-year-old girl, but Hanna vowed in a Facebook message sent four months before the massacre that “they will have to kill me first,” Canepa has said.
Jake Wagner, who said he feared his daughter might suffer abuse, testified Monday that Hanna Rhoden’s comment was his “tipping point” when he decided Hanna, 19, had to die.
George Wagner was with his brother and his father when they drove to three separate locations where all eight victims were killed, went inside with the pair and helped his brother move two of the bodies, Canepa said previously.
Jake Wagner testified Monday that that was the tipping point that led him to conclude he had to kill Hanna, who was 19 at the time of her death. He said the other intended victims were Hanna’s brothers Frankie and Chris Rhoden and their father, Chris Rhoden Sr. The other four victims were killed because they could have been witnesses, Jake Wagner testified.
Jake Wagner also testified that George Wagner was supposed to kill Chris Rhoden Sr. but didn’t fire, so Jake Wagner shot Rhoden himself.
Defense attorney Richard Nash has said George Wagner is not like the rest of his family and had nothing to do with the killings.
The Wagners spent three months planning the massacre, buying masks, ammunition and a device to jam phone signals, Canepa said. The two brothers even dyed their hair in the week leading up to the killings, she said.
Several discoveries, Canepa said, led investigators to the Wagners including a shell casing found outside the Wagner’s home that matched one from a gun that killed five of the victims.
Those killed were 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden Sr.; his ex-wife, 37-year-old Dana Rhoden; their three children, 20-year-old Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 16-year-old Christopher Jr., and Hanna; Clarence Rhoden’s fiancee, 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; Christopher Rhoden Sr.’s brother, 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; and a cousin, 38-year-old Gary Rhoden.
Arizona
Man facing prison for Border Patrol agent attack
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A Mexican man is facing up to nine years in prison for attacking a U.S. Border Patrol agent in southern Arizona in January, federal authorities said Monday.
Prosecutors said 22-year-old Rey David Marquez-Jimenez pleaded guilty last week to one count of attempted murder of a federal officer.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 12 in U.S. District Court in Tucson.
Under terms of the plea agreement, prosecutors said Marquez-Jimenez faces a prison sentence of 60 to 108 months followed by three years of supervised release.
Marquez-Jimenez was accused of tackling a Border Patrol agent on Jan. 26 near Hereford as the agent was attempting to handcuff another person.
Authorities said Marquez-Jimenez punched the agent several times and tried to pull the agent’s gun out of its holster.
Marquez-Jimenez reportedly tried to point the weapon at the agent, then got on top of him and tried to stab him with a knife.
Authorities said the agent gained control of the knife and Marquez-Jimenez fled on foot before being apprehended by other Border Patrol agents.
Texas
Man who sold gun to hostage-taker gets nearly 8 years
DALLAS (AP) — A man who sold a pistol to a man who used it to hold four hostages inside a Texas synagogue before being fatally shot by the FBI was sentenced Monday to nearly eight years in prison for a federal gun crime, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Henry “Michael” Dwight Williams, 33, pleaded guilty in June to being a felon in possession of a firearm, prosectors said. Williams sold Malik Faisal Akram the weapon Arkam used when he entered Congregation Beth Israel in the Dallas-area suburb of Colleyville on Jan. 15 and held the synagogue’s rabbi and three others hostage, according to prosecutors.
Williams, who was previously convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted possession of a controlled substance, sold Akram a semi-automatic pistol on Jan. 13. Prosecutors said that in plea papers, Williams admitted to possession of that firearm despite his prior conviction.
“This defendant, a convicted felon, had no business carrying — much less buying and selling — firearms,” U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham said in a news release.
Prosecutors said Williams confirmed selling Akram the handgun at a Dallas intersection.
Akram, a 44-year-old British citizen, held hostages while demanding the release of a federal prisoner. The standoff ended after more than 10 hours when the temple’s rabbi threw a chair at Akram and fled with the other two remaining hostages just as an FBI tactical team was moving in. None of the hostages were injured.
Williams was arrested just over a week after the standoff.
Virginia
Ex-Foreign Service officer admits sex crimes in Philippines
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A retired Foreign Service officer has pleaded guilty to having sex with one minor and exchanging explicit images with another while he was stationed in the Philippines.
Dean Cheves, 63, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to two counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place in 2020 and 2021.
Cheves admitted having sex with a 16-year-old girl twice in the Philippines after meeting her online. In chats he said he needed to be “extra careful” about the relationship because “(t)his kind of thing causes international incidents.”
He also admitted meeting a 15-year-old girl and paying her to send him sexually explicit images.
Cheves retired from the Foreign Service in September 2021, shortly after he returned to the U.S. in connection with the criminal investigation. He was previously stationed in Brazil.
Court papers indicate he told the 16-year-old that he also had sex with a 14-year-old girl in Brazil. An FBI affidavit states one of his seized phones contained contact information for numerous minors, listing their dates of birth and account information for sending them electronic payments.
Cheves faces up to 30 years of prison on each count when he is sentenced Jan. 20.
Texas
Pair receives life for killing U.S. consulate worker, 2 others
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Two gunmen with the Barrio Azteca gang were sentenced to life imprisonment Monday for killing a U.S. consulate worker, her husband and the husband of another consulate worker in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, officials said.
The pair had been found guilty by a federal jury in February of the fatal March 2010 shootings of consulate worker Lesley Enriquez, her husband Arthur Redelfs, an El Paso County jailer, and Jorge Salcido Ceniceros. Both were sentenced Monday in El Paso, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office statement.
The victims were returning home from a children’s birthday party when they were mistakenly targeted and killed.
Trial evidence showed that Jose Guadalupe Diaz Diaz and Martin Artin Perez Marrufo, both of Chihuahua, Mexico, served as the hit team that killed the three on March 13, 2010, after being mistaken for members of a rival gang, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office statement.
According to the same statement, “Barrio Azteca is a transnational criminal organization engaged in, among other things, money laundering, racketeering, and drug-related activities in El Paso, Texas, among other places.”
The gang joined with other drug gangs to battle the Sinaloa Cartel, at the time headed by Joaquín ‘Chapo’ Guzman, and its allies for control of the drug trafficking routes through Juarez, according to the statement.
The drug routes through Juarez, which is situated across the border from El Paso, are important to drug trafficking organizations because it is a principal illicit drug trafficking route into the United States, federal officials said.
Indiana
Man gets 5 years in prison on Capitol riot charges
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A central Indiana man has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to carrying a loaded gun on the Capitol grounds and assaulting police during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
A federal judge in the District of Columbia sentenced Mark Mazza, 57, on Friday to five years in prison, followed by three years on supervised release. The Shelbyville man had pleaded guilty in June to two of the 13 charges he faced — assaulting a police officer using a deadly weapon and carrying a firearm without a license.
Prosecutors had sought a 6.5-year sentence for Mazza, calling his conduct that day “extremely violent” and pointing to a prior criminal conviction in which he battered an adolescent, The Indianapolis Star reported.
According to court records, Mazza brought a revolver loaded with three shotgun shells and two hollow point bullets to the Capitol but lost possession of the weapon. He then made his way to a tunnel area with doors leading into the Capitol Building and joined rioters’ collective effort to push through at least 20 officers defending the tunnel entrance, records say.
Mazza then held a door to allow other rioters to attack officers with flag poles, batons, sticks and stolen law enforcement shields, according to court records. He then wrestled a baton from an officer’s hand and swung it, striking one officer in the arm before police pushed him out of the tunnel.
