News Roundup for August 4, 2011
A Maryland teen pleaded guilty to a charge of assault and committing a hate crime. Teonna Brown, 18, was caught on camera attacking and beating a transgender woman inside a McDonald’s. The beating was caught on camera, posted on YouTube and shown on TV stations across the country. Brown faces 10 years in prison, with five years suspended.
An Oregon white supremacist who threatened to assassinate President Obama was sentenced to further prison time. David Earl Anderson Jr. wrote several letters threatening the life of the president and sent letters to prosecutors, threatening to kill them. The latter caused him to be sentenced to four more years in prison.
The case against a suspected ringleader of a white supremacist gang has been declared a mistrial. Ruthie Christine Marshall was among 50 people arrested in an undercover investigation of gang activity, drugs and gun crimes by Orange County, Calif., sheriff’s deputies ATF agents. Three other defendants pleaded guilty to charges against them.
Parole has been withdrawn from a Texas hate-crime killer after new evidence was made available in the case. Jon Buice was convicted, along with nine others, in the brutal murder of Paul Broussard because he was gay. Buice had served 20 years of a 45-year sentence.
A Georgia judge has reinstated bond for a “sovereign citizen” defendant who was jailed after disrupting court proceedings. Akeem Kwame, 48, is accused of filing court papers claiming ownership of a house that did not belong to him. Kwame vehemently denied the charges, and repeatedly argued with the judge, prompting the judge to jail him for contempt.
A Georgia militia supporter has received approval to change his court-appointed lawyers. Barren Wesley Huff is charged with federal weapons violations for traveling to the Monroe County, Tenn., courthouse with a handgun and AK-47 intending to make a citizen’s arrest of court officials after a grand jury refused to indict President Obama on charges relating to his birth certificate.
