It’s Friday the 13th, and a corpse was found in a Raleigh Food Lion freezer earlier this week, according to a story from the N&O. Chillingly, the incident “is not the first time a body has been found in a workplace freezer.” The investigation continues. Read on for more criminal law news.
Can’t Stop the Rock. Several outlets – including AP, CNN, ABC, and NYT – report that Justin Timberlake has agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge, resolving his DWI case. As previously reported here, Timberlake was arrested in Sag Harbor, New York, in June after running a stop sign and emerging from his BMW with bloodshot eyes and alcohol on his breath. In other celebrity news, Jon Bon Jovi, reportedly talked a woman off a ledge in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, according to Fox News, NPR, NBC, and The Tennessean. The 62-year-old rocker was filming a music video for his song, “The People’s House,” on the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge when he saw the woman standing on a ledge over the Cumberland River. Bon Jovi and a production assistant talked to the woman and helped her come back onto the pedestrian walkway.
Signed, Sealed, Revoked. Seven news organizations, including Fox News, NBC, AP, and NPR, filed a motion late last week seeing access to the plea deal reached with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III revoked the agreement days after it was signed by the retired general he put in charge of the process, leaving the military judge to ponder whether Austin had the authority to do so. Survivors of 9/11 have complained that they were not included in the plea deal negotiations.
Online Predator. A Pennsylvania man is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting women he met through a dating site, as reported by Fox News, Washington Post, and NYT. Police say that Andrew Gallo, 40, met women through sugardaddymeet.com and invited them to his home; plied them with alcohol secretly laced with drugs like methamphetamine, ecstasy, and cocaine; and then sexually assaulted them. Gallo was arrested on Wednesday and charged with five counts of rape by causing impairment, six counts of drug possession, and four counts of strangulation, among other charges. The case bears disturbing similarities to a recent case in France, where a man is accused of drugging his wife for years and inviting dozens of men to abuse her.
Faster, Higher, Stronger. In other international news, an Australian field hockey player has been suspended by Hockey Australia’s Integrity Unit after trying to buy cocaine during the Olympics. According to CNN, NYT, and AP, Tom Craig, 29, was detained by French police last month after attempting to purchase cocaine in central Paris. The incident occurred after Australia was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the men’s field hockey tournament. Craig was brought before a French judge and released with a criminal warning. Craig is not the same Australian field hockey player who chose to amputate a finger so he could play in the Paris Olympics, but what a team.
Strip Search Leads to Settlement. The wife of a California inmate has been awarded $5.6 million in settlement for a strip search, according to these stories in the AP, NYT, and LA Times. Carlos Cardenas was incarcerated at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi for armed robbery. Officers allegedly had a warrant to search anyone visiting him, but the warrant authorized a strip search only if an X-ray detected foreign objects inside the visitor’s body. In September 2019, Christina Cardenas arrived to visit her husband and was forced by prison officials to strip down and submit to a cavity search at a hospital, even though an X-ray showed there was nothing in her body. She was not allowed to visit her husband that day, and she was billed by the hospital for more than $5,000. In 2020, she filed suit in state court. All the defendants denied wrongdoing in the settlement agreement.
Welcome to Oz. The prison visited by Truman Capote when he was writing ‘In Cold Blood’ will open to tourists, as reported by NYT, ABC, and AP. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith were convicted of murdering four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, on November 15, 1959, and committed to death row at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing. Intrigued, Capote (accompanied by his childhood friend Harper Lee) traveled to Kansas to interview the defendants, community members, and investigators, ultimately producing the true crime book, ‘In Cold Blood,’ published in 1966. The Lansing Historical Society recently reached an agreement with the Kansas Department of Corrections to open the former prison, otherwise slated for demolition, for tours beginning on Friday. The society also hopes to acquire the gallows where Hickock and Smith were hanged on April 14, 1965, (with Capote in attendance) and reassemble it for public viewing.
Known by their Fruits. A Kernersville, North Carolina, pastor is facing charges after Las Vegas police found weapons and drugs in his hotel room last month, as reported by the Winston-Salem Journal. The Rev. David Tildon McGee, senior pastor of The Bridge Fellowship, was staying at the Strat Hotel, Casino, and Tower in early August when he called hotel security to make a claim for missing property. Asked if he had any weapons, McGee admitted to a gun in his guitar case. A subsequent search of the room revealed multiple knives, an AR-15 rifle with a scope, and fentanyl pills and powder inside a prescription bottle. Police also found a digital scale, marijuana, two handguns, and body armor. The Bridge Fellowship is temporarily closed according to its website.
Free Range Beef. The N&O reports that a 400-pound bull in on the loose in the triangle after escaping from a livestock trailer in Garner. “His name is Roger and he is friendly but skittish.” The owners are offering a reward for his return. Under state law, allowing livestock to run at large is a Class 3 misdemeanor. G.S. 68-16.
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