Indiana
Man gets 95 years in slaying where body was burned
GOSHEN, Ind. (AP) — A northern Indiana man convicted in a fatal shooting where the victim’s body was later driven to Michigan and burned has been sentenced to 95 years in prison.
An Elkhart County judge sentenced Austin Bowlin of Elkhart on Thursday for the slaying of Jeffrey Crapo, 32. A jury had convicted Bowlin, 38, in February of murder and other charges in Crapo’s murder.
According to trial testimony, Bowlin shot Crapo twice in the head on March 1, 2020, and then drove around in a car with the Elkhart man’s body before leaving the car in Jackson, Michigan, a few days later.
Bowlin then set the car on fire with Crapo’s body still inside. His body was identified by dental records.
Elkhart Circuit Court Judge Michael Christofeno pointed to the burning of the victim’s body in deciding on a 95-year sentence, which includes the maximum 65-year sentence for murder and 30 years for using a firearm and being a habitual criminal offender.
“You committed the murder of Jeffrey Crapo by cold-blooded execution, then you burned his body and left it in charred pieces,” the judge said.
Bowlin maintained his innocence Thursday and told the court he intends to appeal his murder conviction.
Bowlin had previously pleaded guilty to arson and desecration of a body in Michigan, where he is serving time for those charges.
Rhode Island
30-year sentence for man who sexually assaulted 2 teenage girls
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island man who admitted to federal authorities that he used a cellphone to record himself sexually assaulting two teenage girls has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
In one case in February 2017, Francis Scott pretended to be a driver for a ride-hailing service and offered to give a 15-year-old girl a ride to school, the U.S. attorney’s office in Providence said. Instead, he drove her to a secluded area, took away her phone and recorded himself assaulting her, prosecutors said.
Following his arrest in that case, a 17-year-old girl came forward and said that after offering her a ride, Scott gave her alcohol and marijuana and sexually assaulted her, prosecutors said.
“This degradation, exploitation, and depravity represented by this defendant’s abuse of his victims — and his recording of those acts for his own obscene enjoyment, are contemptible,” U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha said in a statement Thursday, when Scott was sentenced.
Scott, 42, of North Providence, pleaded guilty in June to sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child pornography.
His lawyer asked for a 25-year sentence, citing Scott’s remorse, cooperation with investigators, and his own troubled childhood that included heavy drug use by his parents and a sexual assault by a woman who was supposed to be caring for him.
California
Man arrested in killing of San Diego couple, toddler in 2000
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A man charged with killing a couple and their sleeping toddler in San Diego more than two decades ago has been arrested after he was extradited from Mexico, authorities announced Thursday.
Sergio Lopez Contreras, 44, was extradited on Wednesday and remained jailed without bail pending his arraignment on three counts of first-degree murder, authorities said.
Michael Plummer, 20, his girlfriend Adah Pearson, 18, and Plummer’s 21-month-old nephew Julio Rangel, were shot to death in a Normal Heights apartment on Sept. 4, 2000.
The child’s parents were home during the shooting but weren’t wounded, police said.
Police at the time said it appeared that the shooting started when Plummer went to an apartment next door to buy some drugs and returned to his own unit without paying for them, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The dealer followed and demanded money, then opened fire with a rifle from outside the door, spraying 14 shots into the living room, police said.
Contreras was believed to have fled to Tijuana after the killings. Police didn’t immediately say when he was arrested.
Contreras was charged in 2007 with three counts of murder with special-circumstance allegations that the killings were committed with a rifle and while lying in wait.
It wasn’t immediately known whether he had an attorney to speak on his behalf.
Michigan
2 men ordered to trial in 2018 slaying of hunter
ST. JOHNS, Mich. (AP) — A judge ordered two men to trial Thursday in the fatal shooting of a Lansing-area hunter after text messages showed them apparently joking about the man’s death.
Judge Michael Clarizio said prosecutors had revealed enough evidence to send Thomas Olson and Robert Rodway to trial on murder and gun charges, though there were no eyewitnesses or physical evidence against them.
“If you want to spin it as gallows humor ... a jury might buy it,” Clarizio said of the text messages. “I don’t know why any rational person would want to joke about an innocent man being shot in the back of the head.”
Chong Moua Yang, 68, was killed in November 2018 in the Rose Lake State Wildlife Area in Bath Township, northeast of Lansing. Olson and Rodway weren’t charged until December, more than four years later.
Investigators found text messages on their phones, the Lansing State Journal reported. A 2020 photo showed the men in hunting gear at Rose Lake, along with a message: “A couple of cold-blooded killers revisiting the crime scene.”
Another message in 2020 had a photo of a reward poster and a remark: “They haven’t caught ya,” which was changed to “us.”
Defense attorneys argued that police had no meaningful evidence against the men.
Yang frequently hunted in the area. His headlamp, knife, backpack and shotgun were stolen.
Pennsylvania
Judge dismisses latest GOP mail ballot lawsuit
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee that had sought to prevent counties from helping voters ensure their ballots count by fixing minor, technical deficiencies on mail-in ballot envelopes.
The judge said county courts, not a statewide court, have jurisdiction.
The lawsuit, filed in the statewide Commonwealth Court, had argued that state law prevents what is known as “ballot curing” and, as a result, must be barred by the court.
But Commonwealth Court Judge Ellen Ceisler agreed with lawyers for the state’s Democratic administration and ruled that county courts have jurisdiction in the matter, not a state court, because counties have the authority under state law to make rules, regulations and instructions necessary to run an election.
Ballot curing has been practiced primarily by Democratic-leaning counties in Pennsylvania. It includes notifying voters that they forgot to do things like date or sign their ballot envelope and gives them the opportunity to come into a county office and fix it before polls close.
The state’s lawyers also argued that no state law bars ballot curing. Lawyers for Democratic Party groups that intervened in the case called it a “win for voters.”
The lawsuit is one of many filed by Republicans over the past three years in an effort to stop mail-in voting in Pennsylvania or, at least, to throw out mail-in ballots.
Mail-in voting tilts heavily toward Democrats in the presidential battleground state. That reflects Republican distaste for it sowed by former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that mail-in voting was a vehicle for Democrats to steal the election.
Republicans filed this latest lawsuit in September, two months before Pennsylvanians elected Democrats to the governor’s office and the U.S. Senate.
Republicans made similar arguments in lawsuits filed in 2020, before and after the presidential election.
In one of those cases, Trump’s campaign sued counties — all Democratic-leaning counties — over their practice of ballot curing. The federal judge, a Trump appointee, rejected their claims and told Trump’s lawyers that they should be suing counties that didn’t help voters cure ballots.
Florida
Lawsuit challenges ban on gender-affirming care
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Four families challenging Florida’s prohibition against puberty-blocking hormones and gender-affirming surgeries for minors filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against state health officials.
The lawsuit filed in Tallahassee federal court against Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and the state boards of medicine and osteopathic medicine claims the ban violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution by singling out transgender minors and blocking them from obtaining medically necessary care for gender dysphoria.
The Florida Department of Health and the governor’s office didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
“This ban puts me and other Florida parents in the nightmare position of not being able to help our child when they need us most,” one parent said in a statement.
The anonymous plaintiffs are four mothers with transgender children, ages 9 to 14, from St. Johns, Alachua, Duval and Orange counties. They’re being represented by Southern Legal Counsel, LGBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Human Rights Campaign.
The families are seeking a preliminary injunction, asking the federal court to halt the policy while their case against it proceeds. At least nine states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah and South Dakota. A proposed ban is pending before Kentucky’s Democratic governor. Federal judges have blocked enforcement of laws in Alabama and Arkansas, and nearly two dozen states are considering bills this year to restrict or ban care.
Last summer, Ladapo and the Florida health department asked the state boards of medicine and osteopathic medicine to ban all treatment of gender dysphoria for people under 18 years of age. The boards went on to adopt formal rules prohibiting all access to puberty blocking hormones and gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
“This policy came about through a political process with a predetermined conclusion, and it stands in direct contrast to the overwhelming weight of the evidence and science,” Southern Legal Counsel attorney Simone Chriss said in a statement.
According to the lawsuit, the bans contradict guidelines established through years of clinical research and recommended by every major medical association including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
In 2021, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is widely considered to be weighing a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, signed a bill barring transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams intended for student athletes assigned female at birth.
