BOSTON — A former insurance executive from California is the 14th parent to plead guilty to participating in the nationwide college admissions bribery scheme.
Authorities say Toby MacFarlane paid $450,000 to get his children admitted to the University of Southern California as fake athletic recruits. MacFarlane pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in Boston federal court Friday.
MacFarlane, of Del Mar, California, is a former senior executive at a title insurance company. Prosecutors have said they’ll recommend 15 months in prison.
Other parents who have pleaded guilty in the case include “Desperate Housewives” actress Felicity Huffman .
Among the parents fighting the charges are “Full House” actress Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli.
SPRINGFIELD — A former police officer has been sentenced to more than a year in prison for elbowing a man he had arrested in the face and breaking his nose.
Former Hadley officer Christopher Roeder was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Springfield to a year and two months behind bars and a year of probation.
He was found guilty in February of deprivation of rights under color of law and falsification of a document.
The 50-year-old Roeder said the victim, Nickolas Peters, clipped him with his rearview mirror while Peters drove through a construction zone in March 2017. The assault occurred in the police station several days later when Roeder spotted Peters again and arrested him. All charges Peters faced were eventually dismissed.
Roeder was fired after he was indicted.
BOSTON — The Boston Police Department is doubling the number of people it dedicates to investigating unsolved homicides.
Commissioner William Gross and Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins announced Thursday that the new unit will be made up of one sergeant and three detectives.
Gross said the creation of the new squad was prompted by community members who have lost a loved one to violence and wanted more resources allocated to solving the crimes. Mayor Marty Walsh gave the new unit his quick stamp of approval.
In addition, four criminologists will be added to the department’s crime lab to assist in handling DNA evidence and forensic evidence for homicides or sexual assaults.
The Suffolk district attorney’s office says there are 1,367 unsolved homicides in the city, some dating back decades.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Three teens charged in the strangling and stabbing of a Maine woman chanted “murder gang” while detained.
The Kennebec Journal reports that several Long Creek Youth Development Center workers testified about the chant during a hearing to determine if one of the teens should be tried as an adult. The teen’s lawyer suggested the trio could’ve been joking.
Law enforcement officials say the 15-year-old son of 47-year-old Kimberly Mironovas strangled and stabbed the Litchfield woman with the help of a 15-year-old boy from Massachusetts in April 2018.
A friend of Mironovas’ said her son was resentful of their move to Maine.
A third teen pleaded guilty to lesser charges. The state also wants to have a second teen tried as an adult.
BOSTON — A retired U.S. Army colonel has been convicted by a federal jury of conspiring to bribe Haitian government officials.
Federal prosecutors in Boston say 64-year-old Joseph Baptiste, of Fulton, Maryland was one of two men convicted Thursday. The other was 74-year-old Roger Richard Boncy, a dual U.S. and Haitian citizen who lives in Madrid, Spain.
Prosecutors say Baptiste and Boncy solicited bribes from undercover federal agents who posed as potential investors in a proposed $84 million port project in the Mole-Saint-Nicolas area of Haiti. Boncy and Baptiste told agents they would funnel the payments to Haitian officials through a nonprofit Baptiste controlled that purported to help impoverished residents of Haiti.
Baptiste is a dentist who served 23 years in the Army.
Sentencing for both men is scheduled for Sept. 12.
From Associated Press