New York
Man gets parole after retrial conviction in 1995 killing
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York man who was recently retried and convicted for a second time in a 1995 killing is set to get out of prison on parole as soon as next month.
The Parole Board decided this month to release Eliseo DeLeon as early as Jan. 19, the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said in a statement.
DeLeon had become eligible to seek parole immediately when he was sentenced in September to 20 years to life in prison, as he’d already served about 24 years.
“Mr. DeLeon is excited to go home to his family and finally start the next chapter of his life,” his lawyer, Cary London, said in a statement Wednesday. A message seeking comment was sent to Brooklyn prosecutors.
DeLeon, 45, maintained his innocence in the killing of Fausto Cordero, who was confronted by a mugger and gunned down on a Brooklyn street while heading home from a religious confirmation party. The case got a new look in recent years because of the involvement of a once-lauded detective whose tactics came under scrutiny.
DeLeon’s conviction was overturned in 2019, leading to a retrial this summer.
His lawyers maintained he was framed by now-retired New York Police Department Detectives Louis Scarcella and then-partner Stephen Chmil. Convictions in nearly 20 cases involving Scarcella, and sometimes Chmil, have been thrown out in the past decade after they were accused of eliciting false confessions and witness identifications. The two deny any wrongdoing.
None of those cases had been retried, until DeLeon’s.
Police said DeLeon, then 18, gave a confession; his defense said detectives fabricated it. When a video camera was turned on, DeLeon said he was willing to talk but wouldn’t “put myself on tape and say I did something I didn’t do,” and he asked for a lawyer. Jurors at his initial trial never saw the video because a judge didn’t allow it.
At the retrial, Brooklyn prosecutors argued that the conviction was valid and that Scarcella and Chmil were just sidemen in a solid investigation. Prosecutors emphasized that the victim’s wife and another eyewitness returned to court to stand by their identifications of DeLeon.
He was found guilty by the same judge who had overturned his initial conviction. DeLeon, who had been freed in 2019, went back behind bars.
In the interim, he undertook a college program for medical and dental assistants, worked in food delivery, and set a wedding date for next summer with his fiancée, his lawyer said at the sentencing.
Washington
State AG sues pharmacy chains over opioids
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Wednesday that his office is suing Kroger, Albertsons and Rite Aid, arguing their pharmacy chains failed to act as the “final barrier” against opioid over-prescription.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in King County Superior Court, is the latest effort by Ferguson and other attorneys general throughout the U.S. to hold businesses responsible for their part in allowing prescription opioids to proliferate, The Seattle Times reported.
More than 12,000 Washingtonians died of an opioid overdose between 2006 and 2021, according to the lawsuit.
“During the opioid crisis over the last decade, these companies ignored federal regulations, put profits over safety, and knowingly oversupplied opioids in our state,” Ferguson said at a news conference in Seattle.
The attorney general is suing the companies under state law, accusing them of violating the state’s consumer protection and public nuisance laws.
The Associated Press has sent messages to the three companies seeking comment.
“Washingtonians trust pharmacies to be responsible,” Ferguson said. “They depend on that for their health. Pharmacies serve an important role as the final barrier to prevent overprescribing controlled substances or any prescription drugs. But that is not what happened in many cases.”
Ferguson said the companies have paid fines for violating federal rules concerning opioid prescriptions, but the fines “are not enough to achieve meaningful accountability.” He said the pharmacies helped fuel an illegal market for opioids by oversupplying the drugs.
Ferguson also said Wednesday he signed multistate resolutions with CVS, Walgreens and Walmart pharmacies, as well as Teva and Allergan pharmaceutical companies, for their roles in opioid use. Those resolutions, once finalized, could bring $434.4 million to the state, the Attorney General’s Office estimated.
That money must be used to combat the opioid epidemic and will be divided between the state and local governments.
The recent resolutions are in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars the state has secured after legal battles against opioid makers and distributors.
Kentucky
Thompson to serve as next chief judge for appellate court
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Larry E. Thompson has been sworn in as the next chief judge for the Kentucky Court of Appeals and will begin serving in the role on Jan. 2.
Thompson was administered the oath of office this month by Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice-elect Laurance B. VanMeter, according to a statement from the Administrative Office of the Courts. Thompson was chosen in September by his colleagues on the appellate court to serve in the role for four years. The chief judge provides administrative oversight to the Court of Appeals.
Thompson serves Division 2 of the 7th Appellate District, which is made up of 22 counties in eastern Kentucky. Before being elected to that role in 2018, he served 23 years as a trial court judge in Pike County.
He will succeed Chief Judge Denise G. Clayton, who is retiring from the bench at the end of 2022. Thompson said he hopes to maintain the high standards of the court.
Colorado
Black man sues over being punched, kicked in traffic stop
DENVER (AP) — A Black man who was punched and kicked by police during a traffic stop in Colorado Springs filed a federal lawsuit against three officers last Wednesday, alleging they beat him “beyond recognition” and left him with significant PTSD-like symptoms.
After Dalvin Gadson and a passenger were stopped in October for driving slowly and not having license plates, police body camera footage shows an officer telling Gadson to get out. Gadson opens the driver’s side door, turns his body to face toward them and asks to remain seated inside.
Officers tell him he needs to get out because he’s under investigation for DUI. But he objects. After that, the camera footage captures officers reaching in to get him out and a blurry struggle where it is difficult to see who is doing what.
According to the lawsuit, two officers punched him in the face and one of them put his knee into Gadson’s forehead, causing him to fall back into the car. According to an arrest affidavit, police said Gadson retreated back into the car and kicked one of the officers in the chest and then “kicked, scratched and punched” the officers.
The body camera footage shows an officer repeatedly punching Gadson from the passenger side of the car. According to Gadson’s arrest affidavit, an officer punched Gadson in the face to prevent him from getting a knife out of the car’s console and continued to strike him multiple times. Another portion of the video footage shows an officer kick Gadson once he is pulled out of the car and placed on the ground.
One of Gadson’s lawyers, Harry Daniels, described the knife as a small pocket knife. But he declined to address the police’s allegation further during a news conference announcing the lawsuit outside the police department.
“Look at the video. The video tells the story,” he said, noting that Gadson was no longer being prosecuted for assault.
Prosecutors have dismissed two felony assault charges against Gadson, but he is still being prosecuted for obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors, said Howard Black, a spokesperson for the El Paso County District Attorney’s Office.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from officers Colby J. Hickman, Matthew Anderson and Christopher Hummel for violating Gadson’s constitutional rights.
After Gadson’s lawyers released body camera footage of the incident last week, the department issued a statement saying that a review had found that the officers had followed department policy on use of force but that an internal affairs investigation was being conducted.
Kansas
Judge won’t overturn convictions in murder case
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas judge on Wednesday declined to order a new trial for two men who claimed a disgraced police detective helped convict them for a 1997 murder they did not commit.
Brian Betts, 46, and Celester McKinney, 52, alleged that former Kansas City, Kansas, detective Roger Golubski and another detective coerced their uncle into identifying them as the shooters in the death of 17-year-old Gregory Miller.
Judge Gunnar Sundby ruled the men did not prove their case, despite a “cloud of doubt” over Golubski, The Kansas City Star reported.
Golubski was indicted in September on federal charges that accuse him of sexually assaulting and kidnapping a woman and a teenager from 1998 to 2002. He also faces a separate federal indictment alleging he was part of a sex trafficking ring involving girls between 1996 and 1998.
The FBI has been investigating allegations that Golubski, who is white, sexually assaulted Black women for decades in Kansas City, Kansas, and exchanged drugs for information during criminal investigations.
Golubski, who is under house arrest, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
During a hearing in October, Carter Betts said Golubski and another detective, identified as W.K. Smith, said Betts and his family would suffer if he didn’t testify against his nephews. Betts originally didn’t remember Golubski’s name, but identified him in a photo, noting the detective’s distinctive mustache.
Betts and McKinney, who are Black, both testified that they were at their homes sleeping when Miller was killed and they had no motive to kill the teenager.
Golubski testified at the hearing that he never pressured witnesses into false testimony and did not help investigate Miller’s murder. He also said he had no connection to Miller’s family, although he had been married to Miller’s aunt.
Sundby, who is retired but heard the case as a senior judge, said he wasn’t convinced by Betts’ testimony. He noted Betts testified several times about his interactions with Kansas City, Kansas, police, including times when he did not allege coercion or claimed it was Smith who pressured him.
“It would be easy, under this new cloud of doubt cast about Mr. Golubski, to use that as leverage to secure relief from conviction,” Sundby said. “I do not find his testimony to be credible.”
Brian Betts’ mother, Ellen Betts, said the family plans to appeal Sundby’s decision.
Miller’s family believes Betts and McKinney are guilty. They created a petition urging officials to keep them in prison, saying they were “trying to use the situation” with Golubski to be freed.
The allegations in Betts’ and McKinney’s case came to light when another Kansas City, Kansas, man, Lamonte McIntyre, was freed after serving 23 years in prison for a double murder he did not commit. McIntyre alleged Golubski framed him because his mother rejected the detective’s sexual advances.
The local government settled the lawsuit for $12.5 million.
