Missouri
Father, son convicted in assault spurred by Pokemon Go
CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri jury has convicted a father and son for attacking a Pokemon Go rival in a dispute that ended with all three men in a lake.
The St. Louis County jury on Wednesday found Robert Matteuzzi, 75, and Angelo Matteuzzi, 33, guilty of third-degree assault. Jurors recommended a sentence of three days in jail and a fine for the father, and only a fine for the son.
Pokemon Go is an augmented reality video game in which players walk around outside hunting for animated monsters on their phones.
In June 2018, the Matteuzzis were on one team and the victim was on another. Both teams wanted to claim a Kirkwood Park gym — a site in the game where teams can compete for control.
After a scuffle, Angelo Matteuzzi and the victim rolled into a lake. Prosecutors said Robert Matteuzzi jumped in, dunked the victim and held him underwater while his son punched him. The victim suffered facial abrasions and other injuries, including to his eye.
“Grown men — including a man in his 70s — coming to blows over a childish game they are playing is ridiculous, but there was nothing funny about the injuries sustained by the victim, who could have drowned,” Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said in a news release.
Florida
Guilty: Huffing driver reached 100 mph; crash killed family
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A young man who killed a family in a high-speed crash after ingesting household dust cleaner has been convicted of vehicular homicide.
Jurors found Paul Streater, now 25, guilty of four counts of vehicular homicide in the 2018 crash, which killed a family visiting Florida from Mexico and Argentina.
Prosecutors said Streater, who was in rehabilitation for drug abuse at the time, was on a “euphoric” high from huffing a can of household dust cleaner and traveling at speeds reaching 100 mph (161 kph) when he crashed into the family’s minivan in Delray Beach.
Assistant State Attorney Storm Tropea said Streater faces up to 40 years in prison in the deaths of Jorge Raschiotto, 50, his sister Veronica Raschiotto, 42, and her two children, Diego, 8, and Mia, 6. Jorge Raschiotto specialized in adult education as a professor at Argentina’s National University of Lomas de Zamora. He and Veronica, from Mexico, were visiting their sister Silvina in Florida.
The jury acquitted Streater on felony counts of DUI manslaughter and driving under the influence, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Defense attorney Samuel Halpern told jurors that the chemical found in Streater’s bloodstream was inadvertently ingested due to the car having been cleaned and detailed that day. He also argued that a “catastrophic” malfunction caused Streater’s vehicle to accelerate and left him unable to stop.
Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen revoked Streater’s bond and will sentence him on Dec. 20. His attorney said they will appeal.
Georgia
Suspended sheriff convicted of civil rights abuses
ATLANTA (AP) — A federal jury on Wednesday returned a guilty verdict on six of seven charges against a suspended Georgia sheriff accused of violating the constitutional rights of people in his custody by unnecessarily strapping them into restraint chairs.
Prosecutors said Victor Hill, who was suspended as Clayton County sheriff after his indictment last year, had detainees strapped into restraint chairs for hours even though they posed no threat and complied with deputies’ instructions. The use of the chairs was unnecessary, was improperly used as punishment and caused pain and bodily injury in violation of the civil rights of seven men, prosecutors argued.
Defense attorneys asserted that Hill used the restraint chair legally to maintain order at the jail and didn’t overstep his lawful authority.
Hill testified last week that he based his decisions to use the restraint chairs on indicators such as the way the men behaved before they arrived at the jail, including eluding police or assaulting women, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The jury began deliberating Friday afternoon, after about a week of testimony from more than three dozen witnesses, news outlets reported. Their verdict — guilty of violating the civil rights of six of the seven detainees — came Wednesday afternoon, news outlets reported.
The jury on Monday told the judge they were deadlocked on most of the charges and she read them what is known as an Allen charge, which urges jurors to continue deliberating to reach a unanimous verdict. She read them a second Allen charge on Wednesday, Findling said.
The jury foreperson told the judge Tuesday that she and other jurors had concerns about one juror, and on Wednesday sent the judge a note saying that one juror was failing to follow instructions, the Journal-Constitution reported. The judge questioned both the foreperson and the juror in question in open court.
Findling, who had moved multiple times for a mistrial, said the situation — where one juror was singled out and felt he had to defend himself during deliberations — was concerning.
“Our review of case law from this circuit and around the country would indicate that given what we experienced, this conviction will struggle to survive legal review by an appellate court,” Findling told The Associated Press.
Prosecutors said the chair is meant to be used to keep a violent or uncontrollable person from hurting himself or others. Instead, they said, Hill used it as punishment, keeping some of the men strapped in so long that they urinated on themselves.
Hill has attracted both vocal critics and fierce supporters since he first became sheriff in 2005, adopting a tough-on-crime attitude and favoring Batman imagery on social media and in campaign ads. He fired 27 deputies his first day on the job, though a judge later ordered them reinstated, and used a tank owned by the sheriff’s office during drug raids.
He lost a bid for reelection in 2008 after his first term. But the voters of Clayton County, just south of Atlanta, returned him to office in 2012 even though he was under indictment at the time, accused of using his office for personal gain. A jury ultimately acquitted him on all 27 charges in that case.
In 2016, he pleaded no contest to a reckless conduct charge after he shot and injured a woman in a model home in Gwinnett County, north of Atlanta. He and the woman both said the 2015 shooting was accidental and happened while they were practicing police tactics.
Idaho
Former sheriff sentenced to probation in assault case
BLACKFOOT, Idaho (AP) — A former Idaho sheriff has been sentenced to three years of probation and 10 days in jail after prosecutors said he pulled a gun on a woman who was delivering a thank you note to his home.
Seventh District Judge Stephen Dunn sentenced Craig Rowland on Tuesday, ordering him to also meet six times with a therapist and to avoid any contact with the victims in the case for five years.
Rowland was the Bingham County Sheriff on Nov. 9, 2021 when a youth group from his church attempted to leave a “thankful turkey” thank-you card for his wife. Law enforcement investigators said the group was driving away when Rowland stopped the car, pulled the youth group leader out by her hair, held a gun to her head and threatened to shoot her.
He was charged with aggravated assault, aggravated battery and exhibiting or using a deadly weapon the following month, but refused to resign from his position as sheriff for months despite repeated requests from local leaders.
After hiring a new attorney, Rowland resigned and pleaded guilty in August to the aggravated assault charge. The other two charges were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea.
“The defendant’s actions that night last November broke Idaho law,” Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said in a news release. “Now he will suffer the appropriate consequences. Our system worked and justice has been served.”
Texas
Man gets death for killing state agency’s 1st Sikh deputy
HOUSTON (AP) — A man was sentenced to death Wednesday for the fatal 2019 shooting of a law enforcement officer who was the first Sikh deputy in his Texas agency.
A Harris County jury deliberated for about 35 minutes before returning the death sentence for Robert Solis, 50, after convicting him of capital murder on Oct. 17 in Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal’s killing.
According to trial evidence, Solis shot the 42-year-old deputy multiple times during a Sept. 27, 2019, traffic stop in a residential cul-de-sac 18 miles (29 kilometers) northwest of Houston. Dhaliwal was returning to his patrol car when Solis shot him from behind.
“The defendant executed a uniformed deputy by shooting him in cold blood in broad daylight. That makes him the worst of the worst, which is why we asked jurors to sentence him to death,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement.
Solis represented himself in the trial after firing his three defense attorneys.
Prosecutors had told jurors that Solis had a lengthy criminal record of robberies and sexual predation leading up to Dhaliwal’s killing.
Assistant District Attorney Katie Warren, who prosecuted the case, said in a Wednesday statement that Dhaliwal was not just a trailblazer in the law enforcement community but also an exceptional officer.
“Deputy Dhaliwal was a pillar of this community, and when it came to law enforcement, he set the bar,” Warren said. “His loss is a loss that every single one of us feels. We’re glad today that this jury was able to give justice.”
Minnesota
Man convicted in fatal nightclub shooting
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A jury has convicted a man in a downtown Minneapolis nightclub shooting that left two dead and seven others injured.
Jurors in Hennepin County deliberated about four hours before finding Jawan Carroll guilty of two counts of second-degree murder and seven counts of attempted second-degree murder Wednesday, the Star Tribune reported.
Carroll testified he fired his gun in self-defense during the shootout at the Monarch club on May 22, 2021.
The 25-year-old St. Paul man said the group of friends he was with got into a fight with another group before he shot at Christopher Jones, a 24-year-old Brooklyn Park man who died in an exchange of gunfire.
A stray bullet struck Charlie Johnson in the back as he was running away. The 21-year-old Golden Valley man was killed just hours after graduating from the University of St. Thomas.
“We got some closure today,” said Shanell Jones, the mother of Jones’ son. “He got found guilty on all charges. I’m happy, Charlie’s family is happy. This is good. The prosecutors did their thing. They got a monster off the streets.”
Carroll’s attorney Bruce Rivers said he doesn’t understand how the jury didn’t see this as a case of self defense.
Carroll will be sentenced Dec. 12.
