Virginia
Prosecutor gets case involving 6-year-old who shot teacher
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — Detectives in the Virginia city where a 6-year-old shot his teacher have finished their criminal investigation and turned it over to the local prosecutor’s office for review, the police chief for Newport News said Tuesday.
Chief Steve Drew spoke about the case during a Facebook live chat, although he offered few details.
The boy used his mother’s 9mm handgun when he shot and wounded teacher Abby Zwerner as she taught her class at Richneck Elementary on Jan. 6, police have said.
Police said the mother’s gun was purchased legally. The parents’ attorney, James S. Ellenson, has said the weapon was secured on a top shelf in the mother’s closet and had a trigger lock.
Drew said his department’s investigation was turned over Tuesday morning to the local prosecutor, known as the Commonwealth’s Attorney, who will determine if any charges will be filed.
“I totally understand people would like to have a case open and shut — that’s just not what we have here,” Drew said.
Drew described a complicated investigation that involved coordinating interviews with first-graders, which required permission from their parents as well as the expertise of a child psychologist. Detectives also had to interview teachers and follow up on various leads as new information came to light.
Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard E. Gwynn told The Associated Press that the city’s detectives handed over three binders of information to his office. Those files do not include the body camera footage of dozens of police officers who responded to the shooting. That video will also be reviewed.
“It’s a lot of information and we’re going to carefully review it as we do in every case,” Gwynn said.
Legal experts have said that even though it is theoretically possible under Virginia law to criminally charge a 6-year-old child, there are numerous obstacles to doing so and it’s highly unlikely that any prosecutor would even try.
But adults could be held accountable. For example, a Virginia law prohibits leaving a loaded gun where it is accessible to a child under 14, a misdemeanor crime punishable with a maximum one-year prison sentence and a $2,500 fine.
The shooting has sent shockwaves through Newport News, a shipbuilding city of about 185,000 people near the Chesapeake Bay. The school system installed metal detectors in the school where the shooting occurred, while the superintendent and an assistant principal have resigned.
Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital before coming home to continue her recovery. Her attorney has sent the school district a notice that she intends to sue. So have the families of two students at the elementary school.
Iowa
Teen pleads guilty in death of another teen near school
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A teenager pleaded guilty Tuesday in the drive-by shooting death of another teen outside a Des Moines, Iowa, high school and was sentenced to a life prison term with the possibility of parole.
Romeo Perdomo, 17, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the March 7, 2022, death of Jose Lopez-Perez, 15, outside East High School. That plea followed a deal in which prosecutors dismissed other charges and recommended a life sentence with a possibility of parole, according to the Des Moines Register. Adults convicted of first-degree murder in Iowa are required to spend the rest of their lives in prison but judges can give juveniles a chance at parole.
Judge Lawrence McLellan gave Perdomo the life sentence with no requirement on the time he must serve in prison, telling him, “I hope you use this opportunity to fully understand the consequences you have created, the pain you have created, the grief you have created.”
Perdomo was among 10 teens charged in the death of Lopez-Perez and the wounding of two girls. According to court filings, at least eight of those charged plan to plead guilty and one has been sentenced.
Police investigators blamed the shooting on a dispute between rival gang members, and video evidence showed teens getting into three vehicles and driving by the school, where they sprayed at least 42 bullets from six guns.
Iowa
Chicago man convicted of shooting sheriff’s deputy during store robbery
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A Chicago man was convicted Tuesday of shooting and seriously wounding an Iowa sheriff’s deputy during a robbery at a convenience store in 2021.
Stanley Donahue, 38, was convicted of several charges, including attempted murder, stemming from the shooting in Coggon, a town about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Cedar Rapids.
Prosecutors said Donahue robbed two employees at a Casey’s store and confined them in a cooler before shooting Linn County deputy Will Halverson seven times on June 20, 2021.
Halverson was seriously injured but has returned to work. He testified during the trial that Donahue was the man who shot him.
As he was being led from the courtroom on Tuesday, Donahue looked at Halverson and his family and said “It should of been worse than what it was,” followed by an expletive, The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported.
Donahue fled after the shooting and was later arrested after a more than 12-hour manhunt that ended when he was spotted by a television news crew.
During the trial County Attorney Nick Maybacks argued it was clear Donahue meant to kill Halverson.
Donahue’s attorney argued DNA was inconclusive and did not rule out the possibility of other suspects.
Donahue faces up to 112 years in prison at sentencing. He was convicted of attempted murder, two counts of first-degree robbery, willful injury, attempt to elude, trafficking stolen weapons, disarming a peace officer, being a felon in possession of firearm and two counts of false imprisonment.
No sentencing date was set.
California
Alleged gang member pleads not guilty in killings
PORTERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A man with alleged ties to a California prison gang pleaded not guilty Tuesday to killing six people, including a teenage mother and her baby, last month at a central California home connected to a rival gang, prosecutors said.
Rural Goshen, a community of about 3,000 people in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, was stunned by the Jan. 16 massacre.
Angel Uriarte, 35, pleaded not guilty Tuesday and remains held without bail. He had been hospitalized in custody after he was wounded in a shootout with federal agents more than two weeks after the killings.
Uriarte’s co-defendant, 25-year-old Noah David Beard, pleaded not guilty earlier this month. Authorities say he shot Alissa Parraz, 16, and her 10-month-old baby, Nycholas Parraz, in the back of their heads.
Both are charged with six counts of murder and other crimes, and they each face a potential sentence of the death penalty or life in prison without parole. The Tulare County District Attorney’s Office hasn’t decided yet whether to seek capital punishment.
“The Tulare County sheriff and prosecutor have already poisoned the jury pool by announcing to anyone who will listen that this is a death penalty case, despite the fact that the governor announced some time ago that he was pausing executions in California,” Uriarte’s attorney, Anthony Dell’Anno Sr., said in an email. “Sounds political to me.”
Due to various legal challenges and court decisions, California has not executed anyone in years. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on executions for as long as he is in office.
Sheriff Mike Boudreaux has publicly called for Newsom to reinstate the death penalty for both men and other cases where children are killed.
Beard’s lawyer declined to comment Tuesday.
The defendants are scheduled to return to court March 15.
Investigators believe the two suspects have ties to the Nuestra Familia prison gang. Uriarte was convicted in 2015 of assault with a firearm in association with a street gang, and Beard had juvenile convictions, prosecutors said in a court filing.
Authorities have not disclosed the reason for the shooting, but the Los Angeles Times reported that it occurred after years of bad blood between two warring families in Goshen.
The other victims were identified as: Rosa Parraz, 72; Eladio Parraz, Jr., 52; Jennifer Analla, 49; and Marcos Parraz, 19.
Florida
Art dealer pleads guilty in Warhol forgery scheme
FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A South Florida art dealer pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday in connection with a scheme involving the sale of fake Andy Warhol paintings.
Daniel Elie Bouaziz, 69, pleaded to a single count of money laundering in Fort Pierce federal court, while prosecutors agreed to drop 16 other counts related to fraud and embezzlement, according to court records. He faces up to 10 years in prison at a May 30 sentencing hearing.
Prosecutors said Bouaziz, the owner of Danieli Fine Art and Galerie Danieli in Palm Beach County, sold counterfeit artwork to a customer in October 2021 including pieces purportedly by Warhol.
Bouaziz told the customer that the pieces, which he was selling for between $75,000 and $240,000, were authentic originals and that some were signed by the artist, investigators said.
Officials said the customer gave Bouaziz a $200,000 down payment that was deposited into Bouaziz’s account, and then the comingled funds were wired to other accounts.
Warhol was an American visual artist and filmmaker most associated with the pop art movement of the 1960s.
Alabama
Woman embezzled $200K from church, gets 5-year sentence
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman has been sentenced to five years in prison for wire fraud after she was convicted of embezzling more than $200,000 from the church where she worked for 12 years.
U.S. District Judge Terry F. Moorer also sentenced Sharon Collins, 53, of Foley, to three years of supervised release and ordered her to pay more than $211,000 in restitution, al.com reported.
Collins worked as financial secretary for the First Baptist Church in Foley between May 2007 and July 2019. She was responsible for managing the church’s accounting system, preparing financial reports and managing church-issued credit cards.
According to prosecutors, Collins used church funds to make hundreds of electronic transactions using unauthorized church-issued credit cards to cover the costs of trips to New Orleans and Las Vegas, a cruise, jewelry and funding a bachelor’s degree.
Prosecutors said Collins later admitted making several false statements, including lying about having the church’s approval to make the purchases.
