West Virginia
Ex-parole officer sentenced to 15 years in sex assault case
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A former West Virginia parole officer was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for violating the civil rights of a female parolee by sexually assaulting her.
Anthony Demetro received the maximum sentence in federal court in West Virginia’s southern district.
Prosecutors said Demetro, 44, was a parole officer with the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation when the assault occurred in April 2021. At the time, the woman was in a residential drug and alcohol treatment program as a condition of her parole.
“We thank the survivor for having the courage and strength to come forward to tell her story,” Kristen Clarke, an assistant attorney general with the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said,
She added in a statement: “The Department of Justice will continue to hold accountable public officials who exploit their power and authority to sexually assault and harm vulnerable people.”
Montana
Man faces prison in threats against U.S. Sen. Tester
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A 46-year-old Montana man pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to threatening to murder U.S. Sen. Jon Tester.
Kevin Patrick Smith of Kalispell faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine after admitting to threatening Tester’s life in voice messages left at the Democratic lawmaker’s office.
Prosecutors said Smith made the threats because he was upset with Tester’s political decisions.
In late January, Smith made numerous phone calls to Tester’s office, including one in which he challenged Tester to contact the FBI, according to court documents.
The FBI contacted Smith on Feb. 1 and told him to stop threatening the senator. But 10 days later, the threatening calls resumed, and he was arrested on Feb. 22, the documents show.
Smith’s public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A second count of threatening the senator would be dropped under a plea deal.
Texas
Jan. 6 suspect charged with firing gun from home at officers
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas man who agreed to surrender on charges for taking part in the U.S. Capitol riot fired a gun toward sheriff’s deputies who went to his house later that day in response to a welfare call, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
Nathan Donald Pelham, 40, allegedly fired the shots from his rural home on April 12, the same day he was told he was charged with four misdemeanors for allegedly participating in the Jan. 6 attack. Officers heard bullets “whiz” past them and hit objects nearby, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent. The deputies left without making an arrest, according to court records.
The Justice Department said no law enforcement officers were injured. An attorney for Pelham, who was arrested Tuesday, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
The episode is an outlier in the more than 1,000 federal arrests that have been made in the Jan. 6 riot. Practically all of the arrests have been made without incident, including those of members of far-right extremist groups facing serious felony charges such as seditious conspiracy.
Investigators say Pelham entered the Capitol wearing goggles and a hat with the logo of the Proud Boys extremist group, but later denied affiliation with them. He allegedly stayed inside the Capitol for about seven minutes. About two months later, Pelham was stopped while attempting to enter Canada and told Border Patrol agents that he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, court records show.
Prosecutors say Pelham had agreed to surrender on the Capitol riot charges when he was contacted last week by an FBI agent. Later that day though, a deputy from the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office was sent to the house in response to a welfare call made by a relative. A child was sent out of the house and deputies began to hear gun shots, according to court records.
Pelham lives about 50 miles (81 kilometers) northeast of Dallas.
Pelham was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, prosecutors said.
In the case of another Jan. 6 defendant, a Tennessee man charged with assaulting an officer in the riot was later accused of conspiring with another person on a failed attempt to kill dozens of federal agents involved in the investigation.
Authorities have alleged Edward Kelley discussed plans with another man to kill law enforcement personnel who had worked in his criminal investigation, and made a list of targets.
Missouri
Man sentenced for anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime in Kansas City
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City man was sentenced Thursday to nearly 22 years in federal prison for committing a hate crime when he shot and wounded a teenager because of the victim’s sexual orientation, prosecutors said.
Malachi Robinson, 25, pleaded guilty in July to violating federal hate crime laws when he shot the 16-year-old eight times on May 29, 2019. He was sentenced Thursday to 21 years and 10 months in federal prison without parole.
The teenager survived after spending two weeks in the hospital but underwent several surgeries and physical therapy and still has bullets in his body, prosecutors said.
Court documents said the two met by chance and were walking near Swope Park when Robinson suggested they go into a wooded area to engage in a sex act. But Robinson wrote separately to his girlfriend that he “might shoot this boy” because of his sexual orientation.
When the teenager changed his mind and tried to leave, Robinson shot him eight times, prosecutors said. He was able to get away and eventually collapsed near an apartment building, where a bystander called 911. Before his arrest, Robinson told several people that he shot the victim because of his sexual orientation, according to court documents.
California
Driver accused of intentionally mowing down group of teens
VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — A man accused of intentionally ramming his car into a group of California high school students, killing one and injuring three others, was charged Thursday with murder and other counts in a series of alleged crimes earlier this week.
Austin Eis, 24, of Camarillo, appeared in a Ventura County courtroom but didn’t enter a plea. His attorney asked that his arraignment be postponed, and Eis was ordered held without bail until his court hearing next month, the county district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Eis is accused of committing a string of crimes in Ventura County on Tuesday.
Prosecutors allege that he entered a Simi Valley Walmart where he used pepper spray and stabbed a worker, “physically assaulted and attempted to drag a second employee and lunged at two additional employees with a knife,” according to the DA’s office statement.
He then left and forced his way inside a home in neighboring Camarillo, where he argued with some members of his family, and finally drove to Thousand Oaks, where he purposely rammed his car into the students as they waited at a bus stop outside Westlake High School, authorities contend.
Wesley Welling, 15, of Thousand Oaks, was killed. A 15-year-old boy and two girls ages 14 and 16 were treated for injuries.
Eis was arrested at the scene. He is a former Westlake High student without any known criminal record, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether he knew the victims, sheriff’s Deputy Wendell Campbell said after the arrest.
Investigators haven’t released a possible motive for the attacks.
Eis is charged with a dozen felony and misdemeanor counts, including murder and assault with a deadly weapon.
Arizona
GOP loses bid to undo $18,000 in fees over 2020 election lawsuit
PHOENIX (AP) — An appeals court has rejected a bid by the Arizona Republican Party and its lawyers to undo $18,000 in attorneys’ fees that they were ordered to pay for bringing one of the party’s failed lawsuits challenging President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state.
In an order Thursday, the Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the party’s lawsuit, concluding that evidence supported a lower-court judge finding that the party’s legal claims were groundless and rejecting its allegation that the judge stuck them with the attorneys’ fees for primarily political motives.
The appeals court wrote, “The First Amendment does not shield attorneys or parties from a court’s obligation” under a law requiring judges to impose attorneys’ fees against those who bring claims to court without substantial justification or to delay or harass.
In a statement, the Arizona Republican Party said, “We were surprised by the court’s decision, and will be speaking with legal counsel soon to discuss the best path forward. We are committed to ensuring that elections are fair and accurate.”
Jack Wilenchik, an attorney who at the time represented the party, said the decision will be appealed.
The fees that the party and its attorneys were ordered to pay cover the costs that taxpayers were forced to pick up to defend government officials in the case. In the lawsuit, the party tried unsuccessfully to postpone the certification of election results in Maricopa County and seek a new audit of a sampling of ballots.
While the Republican Party said the purpose of its challenge was to determine whether voting machines were hacked, election officials argued the lawsuit was a delay tactic aimed at undermining the certification of election results.
Of the eight unsuccessful lawsuits challenging Biden’s win in Arizona, two were filed by the Arizona Republican Party and another case was filed by then-Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward, whose tenure as state party leader ended in January.
No evidence of fraud or hacking of voting machines emerged from the election in Arizona.
The county completed a hand-count of some ballots about a week after the election showing that its machine counts were 100% accurate. The same was found later during routine post-election accuracy tests on the counting machines. Still, the GOP lawsuit sought a new limited electronic audit of ballots that would be measured on a precinct level, rather than the audit that was conducted of the county’s new vote centers, which let people vote at any location across the county. The GOP argued state law requires the hand-count audit to be done on the basis of precincts and said county officials would still have adequate time to certify results.
The lower-court judge found the state GOP had waited too long to file its challenge, and the Court of Appeals concluded that the party had waived any challenge of that portion of the ruling.
