The Best and Brightest

JACKSONVILLE, NC (WNCT) — A Jacksonville man was arrested Monday after he took $6,000 for a roof replacement he never completed, the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office said.

Jose Sandoval was charged with obtaining property by a false pretense.

On August 17, a resident paid Sandoval to replace their roof, but materials were never delivered and no work was performed, the Sheriff’s Office said.

Information about this incident or any other incidents involving Sandoval may be reported by contacting the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office at 910-455-3113, Det. M. Curlee at Michael_curlee@onslowcountync.gov, or Crime Stoppers at 910-938-3273. Please refer to case 2017019706 when calling about this incident.

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY, CA (KTLA) – A Chino Hills man has been arrested after allegedly pouring boiling water on his girlfriend’s caged dog, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department officials announced Wednesday.

Witnesses on Tuesday apparently called authorities after hearing the dog, Sophie, yelp in pain. Those witnesses, 17-year-old teens, according to the San Bernardino Sun, spotted the man and watched him pour water on the dog at least five times. The incident was recorded on video.

Deputies responded to the 16000 block of Butterfield Ranch Road to do a welfare check on Sophie and found that the suspect, Enping Qu had a tea kettle with hot water on a warming plate.

“The dog’s coat and skin were warm from the water,” according to a sheriff’s news release.

Officials with the Inland Valley Humane Society discovered that the water in the kettle measured at 129 degrees and the dog was taken to a veterinarian for observation.

The video showing the alleged incident will not be released pending the ongoing investigation, officials said.

“From the video that we have for evidence the dog was yelping,” Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Renear said. “When we got up to the apartment, the dog was skittish and scared.”

Sophie was recovering at the Inland Valley Humane Society and taking medication to ease her pain, according to James Edward, the facility’s operations manager.

“Given the fact she was burned and she doesn’t know why she was burned, it’s quite traumatizing to the dog,” he said. “When we picked her up she was definitely in shock.”

Edward said he expects the pooch to make a full recovery, “but it’ll take some time and some love.”

Qu, 22, was arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty but later released on bail. Deputies will need to investigate further before arraigning Qu but he could face felony animal cruelty charges, sheriff’s officials said.

“He gave us a couple of excuses — ‘I thought I was doing it with cold water; I didn’t mean to; I gave it a bath earlier in the day’ — but nothing really made sense,” Renear said.

The deputies used a translator on their phones to communicate with the suspect, who told them that the dog belonged to his girlfriend, according to the Sun. The girlfriend was not home at the time.

Sophie may be returned to her owner, depending on what investigators uncover, Renear said.

HUNTSVILLE, TX (ABC News) – A Mexican citizen on death row in Texas was executed Wednesday night for the slaying of his 16-year-old cousin who was abducted from her family’s apartment and fatally beaten.

Ruben Ramirez Cardenas, 47, was given a lethal injection after several federal court appeals failed to halt his punishment for the February 1997 killing of Mayra Laguna.

Asked by the warden to make a final statement, he replied, “No, sir.”

As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, he took a couple of breaths and then began snoring. After less than a minute, all movement stopped.

Twenty-one minutes later, at 10:26 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead, making him the seventh convicted killer put to death this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.

In a handwritten statement released afterward, Cardenas thanked his family, attorneys and the Mexican consulate for their help.

“Now! I will not and cannot apologize for someone elses crime, but, I will be Back for Justice,” he wrote. “You can count on that!”

His punishment was delayed for about four hours as last-ditch appeals for the former security guard focused primarily on efforts to have trial evidence undergo new DNA testing. In a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court hours before his execution, lawyers argued Texas was violating Cardenas’ due process rights and a state statute that covers forensic testing. They asked the justices to halt the execution for a court review.

They also asked the justices for more time to appeal a lower court’s rejection of a federal civil rights lawsuit in which they claimed his due process and civil rights were being violated because Texas officials wouldn’t release evidence so it can undergo new DNA testing. Attorneys for the state said the lawsuit was improper and that state courts already refused the DNA request because Cardenas could not show that more advanced tests would exonerate him. DNA results in evidence at Cardenas’ trial were not false, state attorneys said.

The high court, without comment, rejected both appeals.

Earlier this week, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, rejected a similar appeal seeking DNA tests. Cardenas’ attorneys argued the new testing would be better than the now-obsolete testing that left “persistent doubts about his guilt and the integrity of his conviction.”

Laguna was snatched from a bedroom she shared with a younger sister at her family’s public housing apartment in McAllen in South Texas. In a confession to police, Cardenas said he and a friend drove around with the high school student in his mother’s car. He said he had sex with the teen and then punched her as she fought him after he unbound her arms to let her go.

“I didn’t plan on doing this, but I was high on cocaine,” he told authorities.

He said after he hit the teen in the neck, she began coughing up blood and having difficulty breathing. After trying unsuccessfully to revive her, he said he tied her up “and rolled her down a canal bank.”

Her body was found in a canal near a lake in the Rio Grande Valley in far South Texas.

Laguna’s sister, Roxana Jones, said she had waited 21 years for justice to be served.

“Words can’t begin describe the relief it feels to know that there is true peace after so much pain and sorrow,” she said in a statement released by prison officials. “Mayra can be remembered as loving, caring, funny and dimples when she smiled. She will continue to watch over family and friends.”

Cardenas’ attorney, Maurie Levin, contended eyewitness testimony against Cardenas was shaky, that little physical evidence tied him to the killing and that his confession was obtained after 22 hours of isolation and intense police questioning.

She also said that authorities acted improperly when not telling the Mexican-born Cardenas that he could get legal help from the Mexican consulate.

Being born in Mexico, which does not have capital punishment, made Cardenas eligible for legal help from the Mexican consulate when he was arrested, according to provisions of the Vienna Convention of Consular Relations, which is a 1963 international agreement. The courts have allowed executions to move forward in several previous Texas death row cases in which the agreement was said to have been violated.

“For the Mexican government, capital punishment constitutes one of the most essential violations of human rights,” Jacob Prado Gonzalez, the Mexican government’s general director for consular protection, said.

Cardenas grew up in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.

The friend who was with Cardenas during the abduction, Jose Antonio Lopez Castillo, now 45, was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and is serving a 25-year prison term.

AUSTIN, TX (KXAN) – Police identified a man accused of shooting at cars with an assault rifle along an 18-mile stretch of Interstate 35 Saturday morning.

Late Sunday night Rolando Martinez, 25, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a 2nd-degree felony. Four people including a 7-year-old girl were hit. The child remains in critical condition as of Saturday evening.

Austin police say the shooting began about 2 a.m. Saturday and ended around 3:15 a.m. Calls to 911 came in from multiple places along I-35, stretching from south Austin at Stassney Lane up to Wells Branch Parkway.

“We have a lot of crime scenes. We have several people that were injured in this,” said Austin Police Assistant Chief Joseph Chacon on Saturday.

Around 1:52 a.m., police officers were on patrol in north Austin when they heard gunshots nearby. They found nine .223 caliber rounds in the parking lot of the Nocturno Nightclub on North Lamar Boulevard just south of US 183.

At 1:57 a.m., APD dispatch received a call from someone who said his vehicle had been shot at along the I-35 frontage road, a few blocks south of East Braker Lane, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

At 2:25 a.m. police responded to a call and found three people with gunshot wounds in their car at North Lamar Boulevard and Masterson Pass. A man had a gunshot wound to the back of his head, a woman had a wound on her arm and a young girl also had a head injury. The woman told police they were driving by Diamond Back Trail when they heard a pop noise.

Two minutes later, officers responded to a Valero gas station at I-35 and East Braker Lane where people told them a man driving a black vehicle had pointed a black, AR-style rifle at customers in the parking lot. According to the affidavit, one customer said he was in his car when Martinez approached him.

“[The witness] stated he was scared to exit his vehicle as he was afraid he was going to get shot by [Martinez],” the affidavit stated. “[The witness] stated that [Martinez] had a serious look on his face as he was holding a black assault rifle.”

Police later reviewed surveillance video at the gas station and saw Martinez also point a gun at two men in another vehicle, the affidavit stated.

A man at a gas station on Cameron Road and East 51st Street, which is near I-35, told police around 2:58 a.m. that a man wearing dark clothing and driving a small, black vehicle also threatened him with a gun. Two minutes later, a witness told police that a man pointed a “long black rifle” at him near Cameron Road and 52nd Street, according to the affidavit.

At 3:08 a.m. a woman who was in the same area called 911 and said she was being chased by a man driving a black car. She was driving south on I-35 when the car pulled up next to her and its engine revved. When she got off at the East 51st Street exit he followed her, police said.

When she stopped at the light on Cameron Road, the driver rammed into her. To get a way from the suspect, the woman said she ran the red light but he continued to follow her and that’s when he pointed a rifle at her, according to the affidavit.

The woman’s 4-year-old son was in the car with her. “[The victim] stated that she was in fear for her life and the life of her son, believing they were both at risk of serious bodily injury or death,” the affidavit continued. She immediately sped off to get away from the other driver.

Around 3:10 a.m. a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper found an abandoned vehicle near I-35 and US 290. He saw a man run away from the scene, and later discovered a gun inside the car. According to the affidavit, more than 15 loose shells were scattered inside the car, and their location made it appear that the rifle had been shot out of both the passenger and driver’s side windows. License plate data tracked the car back to Martinez.

Officials arrested Martinez at a home on municipal traffic warrants Saturday. When they questioned him, he told them he had been drinking at the Nocturno Nightclub and didn’t remember much from that night but he did remember waking up in a grassy median near the freeway, according to the affidavit.

KXAN spoke with one of Martinez’s sisters and learned he’s the oldest of six siblings. She described him happy, calm and was shocked to hear the news. The family hasn’t had the chance to speak with him and tearing up, she said she’s “not sure what went wrong that night.”

Martinez’s bond is set at $1 million. According to Travis County Jail records, he has an Immigration and Naturalization Service detainer on him.

A Mexican man, wanted in his home country for murder, was deported Oct. 20 by deportation officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

On Sept. 8, 2017, Jose Antonio Cordova-Rodriguez, 33, was arrested outside his Chicago residence by special agents and officers with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Chicago, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force.

Cordova-Rodriguez was removed from the United States and turned over to Mexican authorities at the Brownsville, Texas, Port of Entry.

“The cooperation between the United States and the international law enforcement community was instrumental in the arrest of this foreign fugitive and highlights ICE’s global reach,” said HSI Special Agent in Charge James M. Gibbons.

Cordova-Rodriguez was previously removed from the United States in 2010, and he later illegally re-entered the United States. He has several misdemeanor convictions for crimes committed in Texas and Illinois.

New York City, NY (The New York Post) – Police have located an autistic Brooklyn boy who was kidnapped by his babysitter over the weekend.

Six-year-old Devin Monroe was found Monday morning and is said to be in good health while his 39-year-old sitter, identified as Emmanuel Kolajo, was taken into police custody for questioning.

The NYPD had been searching for the boy since receiving a call from his frantic mother on Sunday afternoon after she couldn’t reach Kolajo.

The boy’s mom, identified as Dorothy Johnson, 38, told police she left Devin — who is non-verbal — in Kolajo’s care after meeting up with him in front of her mother’s home on Madison St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant around 6 a.m. Saturday.

She also allowed Kolajo to borrow her car — a 2002 Hyundai Elantra — which also went missing, police said.

Johnson then went shopping at a Pennsylvania outlet mall for the day. When she returned to the city late Saturday night, she called Kolajo, who explained that the boy was sleeping at his Rockaway Parkway home in Canarsie, and suggested she pick him up on Sunday morning.

Johnson grew worried when she couldn’t reach Kolajo on Sunday and called police, who set out looking for the boy, the babysitter and her car.

Police located surveillance video that showed Kolajo buying a snack from a Bedford-Stuyvesant deli on Van Buren St. near Marcus Garvey Blvd. around 5:30 p.m. Sunday.

Devin was not with him at the time, police said.

Police located both of them Monday morning.

Devin, who lives with his mother at a shelter in Sheepshead Bay, was not harmed, officials said.

Charges against are pending against Kolajo, who is currently being questioned by police.