Florida Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

Marco Antonio Delgado, 46, a former trustee at Carnegie Mellon University and Texas lawyer, faces charges of laundering more than $600 million for a Mexican drug cartel.

Delgado was arrested on November 2 at a restaurant in El Paso and was indicted in federal court in El Paso Thursday and asked Judge Norbert Garney to schedule a bond hearing for Wednesday.

Delgado pleaded not guilty to the charges which accuse him of conspiring to launder drug profits from July 2007 through December 2008 for a cartel based in Guadalajara, Mexico. If convicted, Delgado faces a maximum 20 year prison sentence.

Matthew Bent, the teenager accused of ordering Denver Jarvis to pour a container of isopropyl alcohol on Michael Brewer, who was subsequently lit on fire and left with second and third degree burns over two-thirds of his body.

Bent was not convicted of the attempted murder charge, however, he was found guilty of aggravated battery in the October 2009 incident.

After Bent’s conviction, one of the jurors later claimed that she wanted to acquit Bent of all charges but felt pressured by the others to reach a compromise verdict. Additionally, she accused other jurors of discussing aspects of the case before the trial was over and included race in their deliberations.

George Zimmerman, the 28 year-old charged with second-degree murder in the shooting of Martin on February 26 in Sanford, Florida seeks to admit evidence of the victim Trayvon Martin’s school records.

Despite the efforts of the deceased Trayvon Martin’s family to keep school and social media records private, a Florida judge, Circuit Judge Debra has ruled that the records can be provided to Gearge Zimmerman’s defense attorneys. The decisions came just hours after Martin’s father made a plea to the court not to disclose his son’s records.

This judge’s decision may prompt the schools that Trayvon Martin attended, to provide all documents in relation to his grades, attendance, and disciplinary actions. However, the medical records must be given to the prosecutors subject to her review as to admissibility.

A 23-year-old Texas mother, Elizabeth Escalona, super glued her 2-year-old daughter’s hands to a wall and beat her because her daughter was having difficulties potty training. The child urinated on herself during the ordeal, during which she was hit in head and kicked in the groin, among other forms of abuse.

She pleaded guilty in July to a charge of first-degree injury to a child, a crime punishable by anywhere between probation and life in prison. A Dallas County felony records department district clerk has stated that Escalona was sentenced Friday morning to 99 years in prison. Escalona will be eligible to ask for parole in 30 years. An appeal is likely to follow this sentence.

During defendant’s sentencing hearing, her mother testified that she found the girl and took her to a hospital. Once Jocelyn was there, medical authorities noticed severe bruises to her face and head, as well as a severe brain injury and she was temporarily in a coma.

Jerry Sandusky is likely to spend the rest of his lie in jail as he was recently sentenced to at least 30 years in prison after being convicted of sexual abuse. Sandusky had faced a maximum sentence of 400 years for dozens of charges related to his sexual abuse charges, however, his maximum sentence will remain at 60 years and he will not be eligible for parole for 30 years.

On June 22, Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of child sex abuse, from corruption of minors to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, in which his accusers testified to during a trial that lasted less than two weeks.

During the trial, which garnered national attention and cast a shadow on Penn State’sPenn State’s heralded football program, the 23-year-old Victim No. 4 testified that he was only 13 when Sandusky sexually abused him in a university shower.

Three New Jersey high school teachers were arrested Thursday on charges of having sexual relations with their students, along with thee principal and vice-principal for failing to report the illegal and inappropirate relationships to the proper authorities. Camden County authorities announced the charges Thursday.

The teachers were arrested after a two-month investigation that began when a student informed a substitute teacher in April about inappropriate relationships between male teachers and female students. The substitute teacher then notified Principal who then failed proper authorities. The Assistant Principal allegedly helped the girl write her statement to make it sound less serious.

The prosecutor’s office said the three men engaged in sexual activity with three female students on numerous occasions from November 2011 to June 2012.