The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/author/stephenh/)
The prosecutor in Carver County, Mn., where Prince died, said no criminal charges will be filed in the musician’s death, ending the state’s two-year investigation into how Prince got the fentanyl that killed him. The physician who illegally prescribed an opioid for Prince agreed to pay a $30,000 federal settlement.
Current and former inmates allege that CoreCivic is violating a federal anti-human trafficking law with a work program it oversees. The center says the program as voluntary. The lawsuit says detainees are paid about $1 to $4 per day for tasks such as mopping floors, scrubbing toilets, and serving meals.
Prescriptions showed their biggest drop in 25 years. The decline comes amid increasing legal restrictions and public awareness of the dangers of addiction. Health data firm IQVIA’s Institute for Human Data Science found a 9 percent drop nationwide in the number of prescriptions for opioids filled by retail and mail-order pharmacies.
Jared Kushner visited Capitol Hill to lobby for prison legislation. Some Republicans and many Democrats want a broader bill that includes sentencing reform. The House Judiciary Committee could take up the issue next week.
In his new book, former FBI director James Comey recalled that he told then-President Obama that the term “mass incarceration” used by Obama struck law enforcement officials like Comey as “both inaccurate and insulting.”
As homicides increase, tough-talking federal prosecutor Josh Minkler gets the backing of Mayor Joe Hogsett, his former supervisor as U.S. Attorney under President Obama. Public defender complains of “relics of the past.”
A jury found three Kansas man guilty of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. They were charged with plotting to set off a bomb at an apartment complex where Somali immigrants lived and worshipped.
Jackson County, Mo., Sheriff Mike Sharp is resigning amid revelations that he kept up an ongoing romantic, sexual and financial relationship with a female employee of the sheriff’s office while she had a pending lawsuit against Jackson County for harassment. Sharp made the woman the highest-paid civilian employee in his department.
California reached an agreement with the federal government that the state’s National Guard troops will deploy to the border to focus on fighting transnational gangs as well as drug and gun smugglers, Gov. Jerry Brown said. The announcement came after a week of uncertainty in which President Trump bashed the governor’s insistence that troops avoid immigration-related work.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman asked NY state legislators to close a double jeopardy loophole that could allow associates of President Trump to avoid state prosecution if granted a presidential pardon.