Archive for the 'U.S. District Court' Category

Judge refuses to dismiss bid-rigging case

Published
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H-L Justice Team
on December 24, 2008
in U.S. District Court
. 1 Comment

The Associated Press

FRANKFORT — A federal judge has denied a request to dismiss bid-rigging charges against a former government official, a construction contractor and one of his aides.

U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves ruled Wednesday that the public release of an FBI affidavit doesn’t warrant dismissal of the charges.

Attorneys for former Kentucky Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert, road builder Leonard Lawson, and Lawson aide Brian Billings had asked that the case be dismissed. They claimed that the affidavit left in a public file where it could be obtained by reporters prejudiced the grand jury that issued the indictment in September.

The affidavit provided details of the bid-rigging investigation four weeks before the grand jury brought charges of conspiracy, misapplication of property and obstruction of justice.

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Three plead guilty in Harrison, Pendleton bank robberies

Published
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Steve Lannen
on December 8, 2008
in U.S. District Court
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By Becky Barnes

Three of the five individuals accused of robbing or being accomplices to area bank robberies have entered guilty pleas to their charges. The remaining two will be on trial next week.

On Friday, Nov. 26, Jeffrey Allen Pratt, 30, pleaded guilty to two central Kentucky bank robberies in U.S. District Court in Lexington.

Read more in the Cynthiana Democrat.

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Judge: Clear Ky. record of former death row inmate

Published
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Steve Lannen
on December 5, 2008
in U.S. District Court
. 0 Comments

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge has ordered Kentucky to expunge the record of a man who was once on Death Row.

U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves’s order on Thursday clears the record of 62-year-old Eugene Williams Gall in the kidnapping, rape and death of 12-year-old Lisa Jansen in 1978.

A federal appeals court overturned Gall’s conviction in 2001 saying prosecutors failed to prove key elements of the case and that the prohibition against double jeopardy forbade a retrial.

Kentucky turned Gall over to Ohio, where he is serving a life sentence for rape and murder.

Gall’s attorney, public defender Tim Arnold, says the decision may make it easier for him to argue for parole in 2021. A message left with the Montgomery County, Ohio, prosecutor’s office, was not immediately returned Friday.

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Man pleads guilty in murder-for-hire plot

Published
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Steve Lannen
on November 19, 2008
in U.S. District Court
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LONDON, Ky. — A Knox County man pleaded guilty today for his part in a murder-for-hire scheme.

Bill Perkins, 42, pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. He admitted that in June he tried to help his brother, who was a Whitely County jail inmate, arrange a hit on a witness in a drug-trafficking case against him, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

Perkins admitted he gave a $500 down payment and a .22-caliber rifle to a cooperating witness. His jailed brother, Randall Perkins, had promised $4,000 and a car if the man killed the witness.

The cooperating witness worked with authorities to stage a murder scene and showed a picture of it to Randall Perkins on his cell phone.

From jail, he called his brother and told him to make a check out to the witness for “building a garage.” A search later revealed a receipt, according to the press release.

Bill Perkins is scheduled for sentencing on March 12 in U.S. District Court in Lexington. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years and a $250,000 release.

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Police identify suspects in apartment parking lot murder

Published
by
Steve Lannen
on November 19, 2008
in U.S. District Court and Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

Two men are suspected in the murder of another man outside a Lexington apartment building last month.

Curtis F. Smith, 18, is wanted on robbery and murder charges in connection with the death of Charles I. Holder. Christopher Edward Taylor, 23, who is already in custody, is accused of complicity to commit murder and robbery, according to arrest warrants filed in Fayette District Court.

Christopher Edward Taylor
Christopher Edward Taylor
Curtis F. Smith
Curtis F. Smith

On the morning of Oct. 22, Holder, 31, was found with gunshot wounds in a breezeway of the Coolavin Apartments on West Sixth Street. He was taken to University of Kentucky Hospital, where he died.

Holder and Smith met in the breezeway for a drug transaction, according to court documents. Then, Smith produced a handgun and demanded money. Holder resisted and he was shot and killed by Smith, according to the arrest warrants.

Smith and Taylor fled in a Nissan Maxima that was later seized. The last person to possess the vehicle was Taylor, according to the warrants.

Forensic investigators found Smith’s fingerprints on the vehicle. Witnesses interviewed later said that Smith admitted to them that he shot and killed a man at the Coolavin Apartments.

If anyone knows Smith’s whereabouts or has recently seen him, call police at (859) 258-3700. Taylor is already in the Fayette County jail because of a probation violation, according to the jail’s Web site.

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School district, officials deny wrongdoing in student assault

Published
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Steve Lannen
on November 12, 2008
in U.S. District Court
. 0 Comments

By KENNETH HART

The Independent

ASHLAND — Lawrence County High School’s principal, assistant principal and the school district have denied wrongdoing in an assault that seriously injured a female student and prompted the victim’s parents to file a federal lawsuit.

In their response to the suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court, LCHS Principal James Boggs, Assistant Principal Debra Delong and the Lawrence County Board of Education all maintain they are not liable for injuries 17-year-old Jerica Moore suffered at the hands of another girl.

Read the full story in the Ashland Daily Independent.

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Man sentenced to 30 years for making child porn

Published
by
Steve Lannen
on November 12, 2008
in U.S. District Court
. 2 Comments

Herald-Leader Staff Report

A Lexington man who has admitted to producing child pornography was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Lexington said.

John Charles Johnson, 38, of Lexington, pleaded guilty in July of photographing a 10-year-old girl engaging in sexually explicit conduct in November 2006.

A federal judge sentenced Johnson to 30 years on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Lexington.

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Accused bigamist sentenced for bank fraud

Published
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Steve Lannen
on October 31, 2008
in U.S. District Court
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By Andrew Wolfson
awolfson@courier-journal.com

Over the tearful objections of one of his former wives and another witness, who asked for a harsher penalty, accused bigamist George W. Dumstorf Jr. was sentenced today to 27 months in prison for providing counterfeit certificates of deposit as collateral for nearly $850,000 in loans.

Often crying as she spoke, Martha Irene Weed, who married Dumstorf in 2004 while he allegedly was still married to the first of his three wives, said part of her “still loves him dearly,” but he can’t be trusted.

Read the full story in the Courier-Journal.

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Kentucky man gets 10 years for Internet sex crime

Published
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Steve Lannen
on October 31, 2008
in U.S. District Court
. 0 Comments

A man was sentenced in federal court in Lexington on Friday to 10 years in prison for using a computer to entice a 14-year-old Madison County girl to engage in sexual activity.

Timothy Scott Richerson, 40, of Greensburg admitted in July that he met the girl on a MySpace.com page, where he represented himself as a 16-year-old boy. Richerson communicated with the girl through the computer and by telephone during the summer of 2007, according to a release from the U.S. attorney’s office.

In September 2007, Richerson traveled from his home in Green County to the girl’s house in Madison County. Richerson picked up the girl and drove to a location near her home and had sex with her.

After becoming suspicious, the victim’s mother found some sexually explicit text messages on the girl’s cell phone and reported it to Richmond police. Richerson was indicted in March.

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Transy book thieves won’t get more prison time

Published
by
H-L Justice Team
on October 30, 2008
in U.S. District Court
. 10 Comments

By Brandon Ortiz
bortiz@herald-leader.com

A federal judge declined Thursday to give additional prison time to four men serving 87-month sentences for stealing rare books and assaulting a librarian with a taser.

In February, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Charles Allen, Eric Borsuk, Warren Lipka and Spencer Reinhard — all from Lexington — should have received more time than the 7 years, 3 months they were given after they pleaded guilty to the high-profile theft in April 2005.

The men faced an additional two to four years.

The appeals court said that U.S. District Judge Jennifer Coffman miscalculated the federal sentencing guidelines by not including the cost of all the books that the men tried to steal in the December 2004 robbery.

But Coffman said Thursday that she would have imposed the same sentence even if she had considered the tougher sentencing guidelines.

Federal sentencing guidelines are no longer mandatory.

Charles Allen
Eric Borsuk
Warren Lipka

Spencer Reinhard

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