California
Jury convicts man in 2020 killing of security officer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A man with ties to the “boogaloo” extremist movement was convicted of murder and attempted murder by a federal jury Tuesday in the 2020 killing of a federal security officer in Northern California during protests against police brutality.
Robert Alvin Justus Jr., 33, now faces life in prison for the murder of Federal Protective Service Officer David Patrick Underwood. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California confirmed the verdict.
Underwood was shot on May 29, 2020, while he stood in a guard shack outside a federal building in Oakland as hundreds marched against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Steven Carrillo, a former U.S. Air Force sergeant, pleaded guilty and was sentenced last year to more than four decades in federal prison for his role as the gunman in the fatal attack. He fired 19 rounds from a homemade AR-15 rifle from the back of a white van driven by Justus, whom he had connected with online. Underwood was fatally struck, and a second officer was wounded.
Prosecutors said Justus and Carrillo were followers of the “boogaloo” movement, a concept embraced by a loose network of gun enthusiasts and militia-style extremists. Experts say the group believes there is an impending civil war.
An attorney for Justus declined to comment after Tuesday’s verdict. A spokesperson for the Federal Protective Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Justus testified in his own defense during the trial. He sought to portray himself as an unwilling participant and said Carrillo had forced him into the plot at gunpoint, according to the Bay Area News Group. Prosecutors, however, said Justus had opportunities to escape but did not, showing his willingness to be included in the plan.
“In the hour leading up to the shooting, Justus exited the van twice to scout the area on foot and locate targets, returning to the van both times. Following the fatal shooting, Justus drove Carrillo back to Milbrae and the two separated,” said a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.
Justus then destroyed evidence connecting him to the shooting while continuing to correspond with Carrillo about future meetings, prosecutors said.
Days after Underwood’s killing, Carrillo ambushed sheriff’s deputies in Santa Cruz County who were responding to a report of a van containing firearms and bomb-making materials. County Sheriff Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, 38, was killed, and several other law enforcement officials were wounded.
Carrillo also pleaded guilty in that case and was sentenced to life in state prison without parole.
Alaska
Man charged with threatening sheriff who spoke against antisemitism
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska man facing murder charges in state court has now also been indicted on federal charges of cyberstalking and threatening a Florida sheriff who spoke out against antisemitic activity, authorities said Tuesday.
Joshua Wahl, 31, is accused of emailing a threat to Michael Chitwood, the sheriff of Volusia County, Florida, and posting threats against Chitwood on a social media platform popular with far-right extremists, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Alaska announced.
Chitwood garnered national attention in February when he spoke out against people who had distributed antisemitic flyers and who had broadcast a message supporting Adolf Hitler, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
According to the indictment, Wahl allegedly emailed a threat to Chitwood in late March and began posting threats against him in April. The threats continued until at least July, the indictment states.
Wahl, who is from the southwest Alaska community of Dillingham, is facing murder charges in state court in the deaths of two people who were killed in August. He remained in custody at the Anchorage Correctional Center on a $200,000 bail in the state case.
The federal online court records system did not yet show an attorney for Wahl in the federal case. Attorney Rex Butler, who is representing Wahl in the state case, told the newspaper he was not yet representing Wahl in the federal case.
Connecticut
Ex-prosecutor confirmed for state high court
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A former federal prosecutor who helped investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe in 2020 before abruptly leaving the Justice Department was confirmed Tuesday as the newest member of Connecticut’s State Supreme Court.
Nora Dannehy, who also served from 2008 to 2010 as the first woman U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, cleared the state Senate by a 31-2 vote. Her nomination cleared the House of Representatives on a 120-18 vote.
Dannehy, a 62-year-old Connecticut native, spoke publicly for the first time during her confirmation hearing about why she left the federal investigation. That probe looked into how the FBI and other federal agencies set out to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether the campaign of former President Donald Trump had coordinated with the Kremlin.
Dannehy told state lawmakers at the hearing that she was concerned with then-Attorney General William Barr’s public comments about the Trump-Russia case and because she strongly disagreed with a draft of an interim report he considered releasing before the 2020 presidential election.
“I had been taught and spent my entire career at Department of Justice conducting any investigation in an objective and apolitical manner,” she said. “In the spring and summer of 2020, I had growing concerns that this Russia investigation was not being conducted in that way.”
She continued, “Attorney General Barr began to speak more publicly and specifically about the ongoing criminal investigation. I thought these public comments violated DOJ guidelines.”
Both Democrats and Republicans on Tuesday lauded Dannehy for her range of experience. She has had stints as a Connecticut deputy attorney general, associate general counsel for global ethics and compliance with United Technologies Corporation, and chief legal counsel for Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, who nominated Dannehy to the state’s highest court.
Tennessee
Former lawmaker Brian Kelsey can stay out of prison while challenging sentencing
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A former Tennessee state senator can stay out of prison as he challenges his 21-month sentence for violating federal campaign finance laws, a federal judge ruled.
Brian Kelsey, a Republican, was supposed to report to federal prison in October, but U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw agreed Tuesday to let him remain free while his legal team appeals the prison term to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kelsey received his sentence last month in a case centering on his attempts to funnel campaign money from his legislative seat toward his failed 2016 congressional bid.
His attorney, Alex Little, has argued that federal prosecutors violated Kelsey’s plea agreement when they pushed for a harsher sentence after he attempted to withdraw his guilty plea. Prosecutors have countered that Kelsey broke his deal first when he tried to back out of his guilty plea this year and that a harsher sentencing would have been appropriate, but they ultimately chose not to seek the tougher sentence.
Crenshaw disagreed, siding with Kelsey’s attorneys that they have raised “a substantial question” over whether prosecutors crossed a line surrounding the plea agreement.
In March, Kelsey argued he should be allowed to go back on his November 2022 guilty plea because he entered it with an “unsure heart and a confused mind” due to events in his personal life; his father had terminal pancreatic cancer, then died in February, and he and his wife were caring for twin sons born in September. Crenshaw denied the change of plea in May.
Before that, Kelsey had pleaded not guilty, often saying he was being targeted by Democrats. But he changed his mind shortly after his co-defendant, Nashville social club owner Joshua Smith, pleaded guilty to one count under a deal that required him to “cooperate fully and truthfully” with federal authorities. Smith has been sentenced to five years of probation.
Missouri
AG sues school for closed-door debate on transgender bathroom use
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s Republican attorney general on Tuesday sued a school district for allegedly secretly discussing transgender students’ bathroom access, in violation of the state’s open-meeting law.
The lawsuit by Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is campaigning to keep his seat in 2024, claimed a suburban St. Louis school board went into a closed session to talk about a student’s request to use a different bathroom.
Debate during the closed portion of Wentzville’s June 14 Board of Education meeting veered from legal advice and details on the student request to broader policy discussions, board members Jen Olson and Renee Henke wrote in affidavits provided by Bailey’s office.
Olson and Henke claimed members considered whether there should be exceptions for notifying parents when students request bathroom accommodations, such as in cases of parental abuse.
Missouri’s Sunshine Law requires school board meetings to be open to the public. There are some exceptions, including for legal matters, but any other debate must be public.
The Wentzville School District in a statement said it has not yet been served with the lawsuit but takes the issue seriously.
Olson and Henke said they were among members who spoke against discussing restroom access in closed session, arguing that the topic should be considered publicly. They said debate continued anyway.
Associated Press emails seeking comment from all seven board members were not immediately returned Tuesday.
Bailey also alleged that members who spoke against the closed-door discussions faced retaliation under a new ethics policy proposed last week.
The policy would require board members to avoid comments that could be interpreted as “undermining” the administration and “disparaging remarks” about other members, the superintendent or staff.
Bailey’s lawsuit comes amid a wave of Republican-led efforts to put restrictions on transgender people’s access to sports, bathrooms and health care.
A new Missouri law, which took effect Aug. 28, outlawed puberty blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgery for minors. There are exceptions for youth who were already taking those medications before the law kicked in, allowing them to continue receiving that health care.
At least 10 states have enacted laws over bathroom use, including North Dakota, Florida and Kansas. Missouri is not one of them, instead leaving policy debate to local districts.
Supporters argue that bathroom laws protect the privacy of cisgender women and girls. They have also pitched the laws as safety measures, without citing evidence of threats or assaults by transgender people against cisgender women or girls.
“The stance that (Wentzville School District) takes is to protect all students,” Henke wrote in a July 27 email to other school administrators. “How does allowing a male into the female restroom protect all students?”
