Washington
2 Florida men guilty of participating in Capitol riot
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Florida men were convicted Wednesday of storming the U.S. Capitol during the January 2021 insurrection.
Joshua Christopher Doolin, 25, of Polk City, and Michael Steven Perkins, 39, of Plant City, were each found guilty of felony civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, according to court records. Doolin was also convicted of theft of government property. Perkins was separately convicted of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon and engaging in acts of physical violence while on the restricted Capitol grounds. Sentencing is scheduled for July 13.
Doolin and Perkins were arrested on June 30, 2021, along with co-defendants, Joseph Hutchinson and Olivia Pollock, officials said. A federal judge issued bench warrants for Hutchinson and Pollock earlier this month after the FBI reported that they had tampered with or removed their ankle monitors and disappeared. A fifth co-defendant, Jonathan Pollock, has not yet been apprehended, and the FBI is offering a reward of up to $30,000 in exchange for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
According to court documents, Doolin and Perkins joined with others in objecting to Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over then-President Donald Trump. A mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying election results for Biden over the Republican Trump, authorities said. Five people died in the violence.
According to evidence and testimony presented at trial, Doolin and Perkins were on the west side of the Capitol on Jan. 6. Hutchinson, pushed from behind by Perkins, charged a line of police officers in an effort to break through the line, prosecutors said. As officers descended into the crowd to assist another officer, Perkins picked up a flagpole and thrust it into the chest of an approaching officer, authorities said. Perkins then raised the flagpole over his head swung it down, striking two officers in the back of their heads, officials said.
Doolin and Perkins then advanced closer to the Capitol building, where Doolin acquired a Metropolitan Police Department crowd-control spray cannister and a U.S. Capitol Police riot shield, prosecutors said. Doolin eventually re-located to a Capitol building entrance passageway where he used the stolen riot shield to join the crowd of rioters pushing against the police officers inside the passageway in an effort to break through and enter the Capitol, officials said.
Since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 999 people have been arrested for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, officials said. More than 320 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
Florida
Man guilty in 2019 fatal shooting of 5 women at bank
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting five women at a small-town bank branch in 2019 and will face either life in prison or a death sentence during the penalty phase next year.
Court records show 25-year-old Zephen Xaver entered guilty pleas Tuesday to five counts of first-degree murder. He had previously pleaded not guilty, with a trial initially set for January in Sebring, located about 84 miles (135 kilometers) southeast of Tampa.
Now, a Highlands County judge has set the penalty portion of the case to begin Jan. 16, 2024.
Xaver admitted shooting four employees of a SunTrust Bank branch and one customer on Jan. 23, 2019. All five female victims were ordered to lie on the floor and then were shot one by one, investigators said. They added that robbery did not appear to be a motive and that Xaver had no connection to the victims.
“”We believe it was a random act,” Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund said shortly after the slayings. “Aside from perhaps driving by and seeing it was a bank, we have no known evidence that he targeted this bank for any particular reason.”
Investigators said Xaver called 911 from the bank and told a dispatcher what he had done, then refused to come out of the bank building when heavily-armed police arrived. After a two-hour standoff, Xaver finally surrendered and was taken into custody where he has remained ever since.
The four SunTrust employees slain that day were Ana Piñon-Williams, Debra Cook, Marisol Lopez and Jessica Montague. The customer who died was Cynthia Watson. Police said one employee who was in a back break room escaped the carnage.
There were troubling signs that Xaver, who previously lived in Indiana, was fascinated with guns and killing people. A former girlfriend said after the killings that Xaver described having dreams while still in high school of hurting other students.
“He got kicked out of school for having a dream that he killed everybody in his class, and he’s been threatening this for so long, and he’s been having dreams about it and everything,” the ex-girlfriend, Alex Gerlach, said after the Florida killings.
School officials in Bremen, Indiana, contacted police in 2014 after Xaver reported the dream and his mother agreed to take him to a behavioral health center, according to police records. No other action was taken. Police in Michigan released information about a 2017 incident in which he was messaging a girl in that state about “possibly thinking of suicide by cop and taking hostages.”
Prior to the shootings, Xaver trained for about two months to be a correctional officer at the nearby Avon Park Correctional Institution. He resigned two weeks before the bank killings.
Indiana
Couple arrested for alleged role in Capitol riot
BROWNSBURG, Ind. (AP) — A suburban Indianapolis couple was arrested Wednesday on charges alleging that they took part in the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Arthur Reyher, 38, and Jessica Reyher, 38, were arrested in Indiana on a felony civil disorder charge and four misdemeanors, prosecutors said in a news release.
The Brownsburg residents, who were charged in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, appeared Wednesday in federal court in Indianapolis. They were released without bond, told to surrender their passports and to restrict their travel, WISH-TV reported.
Online court records do not list attorneys who could speak the Reyhers’ behalf.
A criminal complaint alleges the couple was among the first group of rioters to enter the tunnel areas of the Capitol, The Indianapolis Star reported.
They allegedly entered the tunnel near the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace three separate times on Jan. 6, 2021, joining others pushing against police officers while trying to enter the Capitol. The complaint alleges the mob’s pushing pinned one officer against a shield and a door, causing him pain.
Arthur Reyher was seen on officer body camera footage and surveillance cameras chanting “Our House” as they pushed, the complaint alleges. The pushing continued for several minutes until police shoved the rioters, including the Reyhers, out of the area.
Investigators said an anonymous tipster told them the Reyhers were posting on Facebook about their involvement in the riot.
Arthur Reyher allegedly told law enforcement he and his wife were at the Capitol, and said he believed former President Donald Trump lost the election because of voter fraud.
Wisconsin
Ex-college student faces federal threat charges
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal grand jury has indicted a former University of Wisconsin-Madison student accused of threatening people at the school, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
The grand jury in Madison indicted 32-year-old Arvin Raj Mathur on six counts of transmitting communications containing threats to injure other persons. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted on each count.
Prosecutors have accused Mathur, a former UW-Madison anthropology graduate student, of using email to threaten graduate students, staff and professors in February. He threatened to “personally stalk and kill all of your loved ones” in one email and wrote in another that he would kill their children, according to the FBI.
Prosecutors initially charged Mathur via complaint on March 8. He was arrested Friday at a Detroit-area airport after traveling from Copenhagen, where he has been enrolled at a university, court records and online jail records show.
He remains in custody in Michigan pending an arraignment in Madison. A date for the proceeding hasn’t been set yet.
Online court records did not list an attorney for Mathur. The Detroit News has reported that Mathur’s court-appointed attorney is Amanda Bashi. She didn’t immediately return a voicemail Wednesday afternoon.
Arizona
Ex-high school coach gets prison for sex crimes with minors
WINSLOW, Ariz. (AP) — A former Winslow High School wrestling coach has been sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to sex crimes involving underage children, according to authorities.
Navajo County prosecutors said 40-year-old Daniel Scott Larsen also was sentenced last week to 15 years of supervised probation with sex offender terms.
They said Larsen admitted to sexually abusing a high school student from the time the victim was 15.
“These crimes spanned decades and affected children ages five to 15, when the abuse of each of the four minor victims began,” County Attorney Brad Carlyon said in a statement.
Larsen was indicted last October on more than 20 counts of various sex crimes, mostly from the 1990s.
He pleaded guilty to sexual conduct with a minor, attempted sexual conduct with a minor and three counts of public sexual indecency to a minor.
Prosecutors said after serving his prison sentence, Larsen will be placed on supervised probation for 15 years, must register as a sex offender and perform 300 hours of community service.
Alaska
ACLU sues over prison involuntary medication rules
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The ACLU of Alaska is asking a judge to strike down as unconstitutional a state Department of Corrections policy on involuntary medication of people who are incarcerated, saying the policy does not adequately protect due process rights.
The organization said it filed a lawsuit against state corrections officials Wednesday on behalf of a man serving a 99-year sentence at a prison in Seward. The lawsuit says the man, who has been in department custody since 2001 and has had mental health issues while incarcerated, had been taking antipsychotic medication voluntarily but beginning in 2018 felt he no longer needed the medication.
The lawsuit alleges the man has been “forcibly injected” with medication over the past five years. It asks that he be given a judicial hearing at which evidence can be heard and he can have an attorney present before being administered any psychiatric medication “against his will.”
Melody Vidmar, an attorney with ACLU of Alaska, said the organization is seeking the same process for others who may be in a similar situation.
The complaint seeks to replace a prior claim with the court that was initiated by the man before the ACLU of Alaska represented him, said Megan Edge, a spokesperson for the organization.
Patty Sullivan, a state Department of Law spokesperson, said the assigned attorney in that matter had not yet received the documents filed Wednesday and would respond in the time provided by court rules.
