California
Driver in cliff crash that injured 4 is charged
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — The driver of a car that plunged off a treacherous cliff in northern California, seriously injuring himself, his wife and their two young children, was charged Monday with attempted murder.
Dharmesh A. Patel, 41, also faces enhancements for great bodily injury and domestic violence in the Jan. 2 crash, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said in a statement.
Witness statements from family and motorists, and video footage from the nearby Tom Lantos tunnels provided enough evidence to charge the father of two, Wagstaffe told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Patel’s wife, who remains hospitalized, was “screaming” about her husband’s “intentionality” to paramedics after they rappelled down the 250-foot (76-meter) cliff to rescue the family, Wagstaffe said. He declined to share what she said.
“We do believe the evidence establishes the necessary intent to kill,” Wagstaffe told the newspaper.
Patel’s attorney, Josh Bentley, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Patel was scheduled to be arraigned Monday but Bentley asked for a delay until Feb. 9, which the judge granted. The judge also granted the prosecution’s request for no bail and ordered that Patel stay away from his family.
Patel, a radiologist at a Southern California hospital, was seriously injured and taken to a hospital after the car went over the 250-foot (76-meter) cliff at Devil’s Slide, an area along the Pacific Coast Highway about 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of San Francisco that is known for deadly wrecks. On Friday, he was moved to jail.
Rescuers initially hailed the family’s survival as a miracle. Firefighters had to cut open the Tesla Model Y to extract the family, including Patel’s 41-year-old wife, 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son.
Patel was later arrested after California Highway Patrol investigators “developed probable cause to believe this incident was an intentional act,” the agency said.
Wagstaffe said his office was still trying to determine why Patel drove off the cliff. Patel has not spoken to investigators since the Jan. 2 crash, Wagstaffe said.
“We’re looking into what led up to this. Was there depression or anything else?” Wagstaffe said. “It wasn’t just that he was trying to kill them, he was trying to kill himself too.”
Colorado
Officer wants charges dismissed in shooting of stranded man
DENVER (AP) — An attorney for one of two law enforcement officers indicted in the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man who was stranded along a road in a small mountain town and having a “mental health crisis” last year is trying to have the charges thrown out against him.
Attorney Christopher T. Brousseau, representing Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Kyle Gould, told a judge in court Monday that there weren’t grounds to charge Gould with a crime. He said Gould was not among the officers who responded to help Christian Glass after his vehicle got stuck in the former mining town of Silver Plume in June.
Brousseau said Gould only gave advice to the other officer accused of shooting Glass, Andrew Buen, based on the information provided to him. Gould was off-duty and at home at the time, Brousseau said, echoing arguments he made in a motion to dismiss the charges filed last week.
Prosecutors did not respond to the argument during the hearing in Idaho Springs. Judge Catherine Cheroutes said she would give the district attorney’s office until Feb. 14 to respond to Brousseau’s arguments in writing.
An attorney for Glass’ parents, Siddhartha Rathod, said he opposed the move, saying Gould listened in to what was happening at the scene through Buen’s body camera. Once Gould arrived after the scene after the shooting, he muted his body camera as he spoke to officers in what he called an attempt to cover up what had happened, Rathod said.
Gould was indicted for reckless endangerment and criminally negligent homicide in Glass’ death, which drew national attention and prompted calls for police reforms focused on crisis intervention.
Glass, who called police to help get his Honda Pilot unstuck, appeared to be paranoid and having a “mental health crisis,” according to the indictment.
After authorities broke a window in his vehicle, Glass then brandished a knife in “a state of complete panic and self defense,” and Buen fired five times at Glass, according to the indictment.
Gould gave permission for officers to break a vehicle window as a last resort, but he could not have foreseen a series of events that preceded the shooting, including Glass holding a knife and another officer getting too close to Glass, Brousseau said in last week’s filing.
Missouri
St. Louis to pay $5.2 million after mass arrests in 2017
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The city of St. Louis will pay nearly $5.2 million to settle claims by people who were arrested during a protest in 2017 over the acquittal of a police officer in the shooting death of a Black man, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
According to a proposed class action settlement filed last week, the city agreed to pay $4.91 million, or about $58,500 per person, to 84 people who were protesting in downtown St. Louis.
The lawsuit claimed the protesters’ rights were violated when they were caught in a police “kettle” as officers surrounded and arrested everyone in the area. Three people who filed individual lawsuits settled from $85,000 each.
They were protesting after former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley was acquitted in the Dec. 20, 2011, shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith.
Protesters said police surrounded more than 120 people who officers said did not follow dispersal orders. Several people claimed police used excessive force and indiscriminate pepper spray, including against bystanders who were not protesting.
The city denied any wrongdoing as part of last week’s settlement. A city spokesman declined comment Monday.
The settlement proposal must still be approved by a judge.
Previously, the city paid $5 million to Luther Hall, a Black undercover officer who said he was assaulted by fellow policemen who thought he was a protester.
In 2021, the city also agreed to pay $115,000 to a deceased Kansas City filmmaker who said he was beaten and pepper-sprayed during the protests.
Several more Stockley-related cases are still working through the legal system in St. Louis.
Rhode Island
Man charged with killing mom at sea seeks grand jury minutes
The man charged with killing his mother at sea during a 2016 fishing trip off the coast of New England is asking for minutes from the grand jury proceeding that led to his indictment, seeking to learn what was disclosed about his grandfather’s death three years earlier.
Nathan Carman, 29, of Vernon, Vermont, is accused of plotting to inherit millions of dollars. He pleaded not guilty last year to fraud and first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Linda Carman of Middletown, Connecticut.
Carman’s grandfather, John Chakalos, was shot to death at his home in Windsor, Connecticut, in 2013. In the indictment, Carman is accused of, but not charged with that killing.
Carman’s lawyers argue in a court paperwork filed Thursday that their client was never charged, convicted or held civilly responsible for Chakalos’ death, but that the indictment “includes matter-of-fact assertions of uncharged and unadjudicated criminal conduct.” They say Carman is entitled to know what the government presented to the grand jury regarding Chakalos’ death because if it was “inaccurate or untrue,” then Carman may have grounds to get the indictment dismissed.
Federal prosecutors have until next Monday, Feb. 6, to respond. A court hearing on the matter was scheduled for Thursday but was cancelled, a clerk said.
Carmen inherited about $550,000 after his grandfather was killed.
In September 2016, Carman arranged a fishing trip with his mother, during which prosecutors say he planned to kill her and report that his boat sank and his mother disappeared in the accident.
He was found in an inflatable raft eight days after leaving a Rhode Island marina with his mother, who was never found. Prosecutors allege he altered the boat to make it more likely to sink, which Carman has denied.
In 2019, a federal judge in Rhode Island decided that Carman contributed to sinking the 31-foot fishing boat, ruling in favor of an insurance company that had refused to pay an $85,000 claim for the boat’s loss.
West Virginia
Lab owner admits to lying about testing public water
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (AP) — The co-owner of a West Virginia water laboratory on Monday pleaded guilty in federal court to submitting false results for a city’s public drinking water samples that were never tested, prosecutors said.
Tenley Megan Miller reported that she tested water samples sent to her company, Reliance Laboratories Inc., by the city of Martinsburg in May 2021 and found them to be safe. But investigators found that the samples were not tested because Miller’s laboratory equipment was not operational, prosecutors said Monday in a news release.
The city then unwittingly reported the fake results to the state pursuant to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations, the statement said.
Miller, 42, of Bridgeport, pleaded guilty to making a false representation in a matter within the jurisdiction of the EPA. She faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine at sentencing.
Illinois
School audit shows theft of $1.5M in food, mostly wings
HARVEY, Ill. (AP) — A Chicago-area school district official has been charged in the theft of $1.5 million worth of food — mostly chicken wings.
Vera Liddell, 66, was being held in the Cook County Jail on a $150,000 bond, WGN-TV reported Monday.
Liddell worked as food service director for Harvey School District 152.
More than 11,000 cases of chicken wings were ordered from the district’s food provider and then picked up in a district cargo van, according to court documents reviewed by the television station.
The food was ordered during the height of the coronavirus pandemic at a time when students were being educated remotely and not allowed to attend class in school buildings. The district continued to provide meals for students that their parents could pick up.
Prosecutors say district funds were used to pay for the food, but none of it was taken to the district or provided to students. A routine mid-year audit found the district was $300,000 over its annual food service budget, despite being only halfway through that academic year.
The district’s business manager discovered signed invoices for “massive quantities of chicken wings, an item that was never served to students because they contain bones,” prosecutors said.
The Associated Press was unable Monday afternoon to determine if Liddell has an attorney.
More than 80% of the 1,600 students attending the district’s five schools qualify as low-income, according to the television station.
