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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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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A Los Angeles County judge today rejected defense efforts to remove the district attorney’s office from the case of a Beverly Hills fashion designer who was convicted last year of rape and sexual assault.
Lawyers for Anand Jon Alexander accused prosecutors of attempting to sabotage their investigation of a juror who allegedly contacted the designer’s sister during and after the trial.
District attorney’s investigators intercepted the juror and interviewed him on Jan. 7 just before he arrived for a meeting with the defendant’s sister, who was wearing a hidden recording device fitted by a defense investigator. Superior Court Judge David S. Wesley said he disagreed with the district attorney’s actions but did not find that they merited removing the entire office or the two prosecutors who tried the case.
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by Laura Gunderson, The Oregonian
Tuesday April 07, 2009, 5:58 PM
The FBI has accused a Roseburg-based fishing boat manufacturer of fraudulently swelling its inventory figures in an attempt to squeeze millions out of a Wells Fargo credit line.
According to an FBI affidavit and search warrant, North River Boats Inc. and its affiliated retail outlets have been accused of wire fraud.
Brian Brush, the company’s president and owner who bought the company in 1997, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Taraneh Foster, a North River spokeswoman, said that though the two companies are owned by Brush and share a headquarters, they are separate entities. She said the manufacturing arm, North River Boats Inc., “had no ties to Wells Fargo” and is operating normally.
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SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A former Idaho sheriff’s deputy who falsely claimed he was paraplegic has pleaded guilty in a $1.5 million disability fraud case that a U.S. attorney said is the largest in Veterans Affairs Department history.
James M. Sebero accepted an agreement with prosecutors and pleaded guilty Monday to charges of wire fraud and making a false statement.
Sebero, a former Bonner County, Idaho, sheriff’s marine deputy, agreed to forfeit personal assets and to pay $950,000 in restitution, and could face 20 years and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced July 10.
U.S. Attorney James A. McDevitt said it was the largest disability compensation fraud case in VA history.
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April 8 (Bloomberg) — India’s Central Bureau of Investigation filed charges against Satyam Computer Services Ltd.’s disgraced founder Ramalinga Raju for his role in the country’s biggest corporate accounting fraud case.
The charges include criminal conspiracy and falsification of accounts, and carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, CBI Deputy Inspector General V.V. Lakshmi Narayana said by phone yesterday. Raju’s brother and former managing director, Rama Raju, and two partners at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s Indian affiliate were among nine people charged in the case, he said.
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Violent crime in Alexandria dropped last year, while overall serious crime rose slightly, according to data released yesterday by city police.
Four homicides occurred last year, down from eight in 2007, police said. The rise in overall crime, which was about 2 percent, was due in part to an increase in thefts of cars and of items such as GPS devices from cars.
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Woman’s habit of inviting homeless addicts into her West Side home may have led to her death, relatives say
By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah | Tribune reporter
April 8, 2009
Relatives believe that an 83-year-old West Side woman’s habit of inviting homeless drug addicts into her home may have contributed to her brutal death.
On Tuesday, police ruled the death of Flora Thompson of the 600 block of North Ridgeway Avenue a homicide. She was found dead Monday evening on the kitchen floor of her East Garfield Park apartment from blunt trauma to her head and a stab wound to her neck.
“She just wanted somebody to come and talk to her,” said Pearlene Ward, 68, who lived downstairs from Thompson and warned her about inviting strangers into her home. “I’d tell her, ‘Don’t befriend homeless drug addicts. Don’t let them be the death of you.’ ”
Ward, whose late husband was Thompson’s nephew, said Thompson lived on the second floor of the two-flat with a female roommate in her 60s. Police said they had no suspects.
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POMONA, Calif.—A 27-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to more than 400 years in prison for a September crime spree that included carjacking, burglarizing and shooting a psychologist during a robbery.
Anthony Hislar must serve at least 85 percent of a 93-year prison sentence before beginning a separate term of 429 years to life, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Hislar was convicted of 33 felony counts last month in Superior Court, including robbery, burglary, carjacking and evading police. His crime spree was carried out in Hermosa Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles and parts of the San Gabriel Valley before he was arrested leaving Disneyland on Sept. 24.
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