Dallas Defense Attorney Blog

May 11, 2009

Dallas DNA TV Show Subject Appears on The View

Filed under: DNA — Tags: , — admin @ 5:00 pm

Last week when Dallas County DNA exonerree Johnnie Lindsey appeared on the talk show The View, he and his fiancee said they weren’t getting married until he had a job.

Now, at least three people have offered him work. No details yet on what the jobs might be.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins and Lindsey’s attorney, Dallas County public defender Michelle Moore, were also on the show.

They were promoting a new documentary style-show, Dallas DNA, about the Dallas County DA’s office and the work of the conviction integrity unit.
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Stanford CIO to be indicted Tuesday of Obstruction

Filed under: Obstruction — LegalNews @ 2:00 pm

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The former chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group will be indicted by a federal grand jury on Tuesday on more charges than the single count of obstruction she currently faces, Fox Business Network reported on Monday, citing the executive’s lawyers.

A court deadline to indict Laura Pendergest-Holt expires on Tuesday.

Dan Cogdell, Pendergest-Holt’s criminal defense attorney in Houston said the government had, by his count, until Wednesday to take action and, if an indictment is handed down, his client will plead not guilty.

Pendergest-Holt was arrested in Houston in February on one criminal charge of obstruction. She also faces civil charges for her role in an $8 billion fraud involving certificates of deposit issued by Stanford’s Antigua bank.
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Flower Mound Man Convicted of Buying 9-year Old - Sex Trafficking

Filed under: Child Pornograhy, Possesion — LegalNews @ 1:00 pm

A Flower Mound man who admitted to trying to buy a 9-year-old girl for sex was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for possession of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.

Kevin Moake, 50, was also ordered to register as a sex offender and serve a lifetime of supervised release after he had pleaded guilty to a federal child porn charge in January, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. According to authorities, Moake admitted to driving to a Burger King restaurant on Mockingbird Lane near Love Field in an attempt to buy a girl for sex. He met a “seller” and said he would pay $2,000 but did not have the full amount. Instead, he gave the “seller,” who was an undercover officer, $100 as a down payment and suggested a “rent-to-own” plan.

Read the rest of the article at the DallasNews.com

May 6, 2009

Dallas Deputy constable’s off-duty actions questioned

Filed under: Police — LegalNews @ 9:02 am

By ED TIMMS and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
/ The Dallas Morning News
Julian Resendiz contributed to this report.

When Gerardo Rendon called 911, he had a simple explanation for what happened to his wallet: A man he believed was a police impersonator took it, along with his car keys.

Kevin Schoch, an off-duty Dallas County Precinct 2 deputy constable, gave police a more complicated account: He’d called 911 about an hour earlier to report that he had a suspected drunk in custody – Rendon – at the parking lot of a 24-hour service station, convenience store and fast food restaurant in the Love Field area. But before Dallas officers showed up, he took Rendon’s car keys and left because he had to be at another job.

Returning several hours later to leave the keys in Rendon’s car, he told police that he saw the wallet on top of the car and took it home until he could turn it in to his unit’s property room.

Law enforcement experts and civil rights advocates say the incident suggests serious lapses in accepted police procedures and judgment – including the decision to approach a suspect while off duty and driving a personal vehicle, leaving before on-duty police arrived, and – depending on the account – either taking the wallet, or finding it, and not placing it into a property room promptly.
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May 5, 2009

Man Guilty in Doulbe Kidnap Homocide from 2004

Filed under: Kidnapping, homocide — LegalNews @ 5:44 pm

PITTSBURGH - A 24-year-old Pittsburgh man has been convicted of kidnapping and killing a 17-year-old girl and her boyfriend, and the same jury must now decide if he deserves the death penalty.

The Allegheny County jury convicted 24-year-old Lester Johnson on Monday of first-degree murder for killing Shawnte Betts, of Pittsburgh, and her boyfriend, 26-year-old James Jones, of Wilkinsburg, in July 2004.

Jones’ wife says she received a ransom call demanding $80,000 the night her husband disappeared.

Johnson’s co-defendant, 25-year-old Jaurvon Hopkins, of Pittsburgh, is jailed awaiting a separate trial.
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Man, 26, charged with kidnapping

Filed under: Kidnapping — Tags: — LegalNews @ 5:42 pm

A 26-year-old man has been charged with kidnapping after an incident involving a 14-year-old girl in Ipswich.

Suffolk Police said Hector Seaman, of no fixed abode, was arrested after the incident, which happened in Bucklesham Road.

He was also charged with failing to provide a breath test, a police spokeswoman said.

Mr Seaman was due to appear before Ipswich Magistrates Court on Wednesday to face the charges.

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37 Prior Arrests & Kidnapping Death

Filed under: Kidnapping, Murder — LegalNews @ 1:44 pm

Court records show that a Baltimore man charged in a kidnapping and fatal shooting has been arrested and charged at least 37 times previously.

Thirty-two-year-old Sherman Anderson is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and more than a dozen other offenses in the death of 24-year-old Qonta Waddell.

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2 men arrested in Dallas for burning of dogs

Filed under: Animal Cruelty — LegalNews @ 11:00 am

Two 17-year-old Dallas men have been arrested in the burning of two dogs on April 4, Dallas Police said Thursday.

Lefferido Sudds and Jucorey Davis are facing animal cruelty charges, said Senior Cpl. Janice Crowther, police spokeswoman.

The men are accused of torturing the two dogs on April 4 by setting them on fire, Crowther said. Neighborhood residents saw the burning dogs running nearby and tried to extinguish the flames.

Both dogs were burned badly and had to be euthanized, Crowther said.

She said that seven other dogs were seized from Sudds’ back yard and that a veterinarian said some of those dogs had injuries consistent with dog fighting.

Those dogs’ injuries were so severe that they, too, were euthanized, Crowther said.

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April 27, 2009

New Evidence May Clear Man in Jail for 22 Years

Filed under: Falsely Accused, Rape, Robbery — LegalNews @ 6:14 pm

A 53-year-old Houston man is innocent and should be released from prison after serving 22 years for a rape and robbery, his lawyer said Friday, because faulty forensics and false testimony from the Houston crime lab secured his conviction.

A jury convicted Gary Alvin Richard in a 1987 attack on a nursing student in a trial based largely on blood-typing evidence from the Houston Police Department crime lab. But, prosecutors and the defense attorney agree, new tests completed Friday show that an HPD analyst misled jurors at Richard’s trial and failed to report evidence that may have helped him.

Based on the new tests, both sides will ask a judge next week to release Richard on bond while they sort out what happened in his case.

“This is a new chapter, among many, of mistakes that were made, of sloppy work at the crime lab,” said Bob Wicoff, Richard’s lawyer. “Most troubling are the results that were not passed on to people who needed them.”

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Staten Island Woman Charged with Murder of Husband

Filed under: Murder — LegalNews @ 6:06 pm

The defense hammered away at a Crime Scene Unit detective in court today, questioning why he did not voucher blue jeans and a bag that were found in the bedroom of an Oakwood Fire marshal allegedly murdered in his home by his wife.

Detective Charles Reiss testified he did not believe the jeans or bag, which contained several items — possibly a towel and sock — were of “forensic significance” to the probe into the slaying of Supervising Fire Marshal Douglas Mercereau.

Mercereau was found shot to death in bed in his Tarring Street home on Dec. 2, 2007.

His wife, Janet Redmond-Mercereau, 40, is on trial in state Supreme Court, St. George, for his murder.
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