Month: August 2022

The father and son convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery were both given an additional sentence of life in prison Monday on federal hate crime charges.

A judge also required that Travis McMichael, 36, and Greg McMichael, 66, serve their sentences in state prison, not federal prison as had been requested by their attorneys.

Before handing down the sentence to Travis McMichael, who fatally shot Arbery in February 2020, US District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said he had received a fair trial, “the kind of trial that Ahmaud Arbery did not receive before he was shot and killed.”

“You killed a man on Feb. 23, 2020. The events depicted in the video, they are recorded in the annals of this court and no doubt in your mind forever,” she said.

Amy Lee Copeland, Travis McMichael’s attorney, had asked the judge to allow her client to serve his sentence in federal prison, saying he had received “hundreds of threats” and that he would probably be killed in state custody. AJ Balbo, an attorney for Greg McMichael, told the judge he was medically “not fit” to serve his sentence in state prison.

Both Copeland and Balbo also said they were concerned about an investigation by the Department of Justice into inmate violence in the Georgia state prison system.

The prosecution and members of Arbery’s family asked that the McMichaels serve their sentences in state prison.

Travis McMichael, whose sentence is life plus 10 years, declined to speak before the judge announced her decision.

His father, whose life sentence includes an additional seven years, addressed Arbery’s family, telling them “the loss you’ve endured is beyond description. There’s no words for it.”

He added that he “never wanted any of this to happen. There was no malice in my heart, or my son’s heart, that day.”

The older McMichael also apologized to his son, saying he should have “never put him in that situation.”

A third man involved in the attack, William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, is also scheduled to be sentenced Monday.

Marcus Arbery, Ahmaud Arbery’s father, said ahead of the sentencing that “these three devils have broken my heart into pieces that cannot be found or repaired” and asked the court to give the stiffest sentence possible.

“You killed him because he was a Black man and you hate Black people,” he said.

Wanda Cooper-Jones, Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, said Travis McMichael “took my baby son.”

“I feel every shot that was fired every day,” she said.

The McMichaels and Bryan, who are all white, were found guilty in February on federal hate crime charges in the killing of Arbery, a Black man who was running in their neighborhood when the defendants confronted him in February 2020. The three men were convicted of all of the federal charges against them, including hate crimes, attempted kidnapping and the use of a firearm to commit a crime.

The federal case followed a state trial in November in which the men were convicted of murder and given life sentences. They have appealed their convictions in that case.

The federal hate crimes trial centered on the history of the three men and their racial bias, a motive that prosecutors in the state case largely avoided, even though Arbery’s killing gained national attention as the United States was reckoning with systemic institutional racism and bias in policing. .

The McMichaels and Bryan chased Arbery, 25, through their coastal Georgia neighborhood in trucks. The men, who spotted Arbery running by their homes, cornered him, and Travis McMichael fatally shot him with a shotgun. Bryan filmed the fatal encounter on his cellphone.

The men were arrested months after the shooting, following the release of Bryan’s phone video and growing national attention. The case was then taken over by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Arbery’s family and civil rights leaders have likened his death to a modern-day lynching.

The McMichaels attempted to plead guilty to the hate crime charges before trial, but the plea agreement was rejected by the judge after Arbery’s parents protested that the men would be able to serve their time in federal prison instead of state.

Federal prosecutors worked to establish that Arbery’s murder was driven by the men’s strong prejudices against Black people. Witnesses included an FBI analyst who went through the men’s social media history and neighbors and former co-workers of the McMichaels, who all testified that the father and son made troubling racist jokes, rants and statements and were open about their negative feelings toward Black people .

The defense said the messages and social media posts were taken out of context and that even though they had said troubling things, they insisted the men were not driven by their racial bias to pursue and kill Arbery.

This month, Greg McMichael’s attorney asked the judge not to impose a life sentence, although he said his client still deserves “a substantial period of incarceration,” The Associated Press reported. McMichael’s defense team also asked the judge for a transfer to federal prison, where he could avoid serving time for the murder in Georgia’s state prison system.

The family of Gabby Petito on Monday announced a wrongful death lawsuit against police in Moab, Utah, accusing the department of failing to properly investigate her domestic violence case and protect her.

The lawsuit, which seeks $50 million in damages, comes around the first anniversary of Petito’s death.

Petito was 22 when she was reported missing in September 2021. She was on a monthslong cross-country trip living in a van with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie.

Petito’s body was found in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on Sept. 19, 2021. It was determined she had been dead for at least three weeks and her death de ella was ruled a homicide by “manual strangulation.” Laundrie, who was named a person of interest in the case, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Florida’s Carlton Reserve in October 2021.

Laundrie admitted to killing Petito in writings that were found after his death.

The notice of intent filing, which is required before suing government entities, was filed against the Moab City Police Department, its then-Chief Bret Edge, former–Assistant Chief Braydon Palmer, and Officers Eric Pratt and Daniel Robbins.

The Moab City Police Department did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment. A representative for the city of Moab said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The suit will center on a police encounter with Petito and Laundrie on Aug. 12, 2021, during their trip in Utah, shortly before her death.

That interaction made headlines following Petito’s disappearance, with body camera footage released showing Petito visibly distraught. According to the police report, Petito told officers she had slapped Laundrie and hit him first and that he had grabbed her face from her.

But ultimately, both Petito and Laundrie said that they did not want to press charges and that they loved each other.

An independent review, completed in January this year, found that the officers made several mistakes in handling that case—misclassifying it as more of a mental/emotional health “break” rather than domestic violence, and lacking details in their reports.

Their reports lacked details or documentation of any injury Petito suffered — and no one appeared to ask Laundrie about a scratch on Petito’s cheek, the independent review found.

In the new filing, lawyers for the Petito family argue that had police officers involved in that incident had proper training — teaching them to conduct a thorough lethality assessment and recognize signs of abuse — they’d know “Gabby was a victim of intimate partner violence ” and needed “immediate protection.”

In that incident, Laundrie and Petito were stopped in their van by officers who saw the vehicle speeding, crossing the double yellow line and hitting a curb near Arches National Park. A witness had called police, reporting they saw Laundrie “slapping” Petito.

Officer Daniels and Robbins interviewed Petito and Laundrie separately.

Robbins said he observed cuts on Gabby’s cheek and arm in his report, but court documents said that when she was asked about her fight with Laundrie, she “displayed the classic hallmarks of an abused partner” in trying to take the blame saying she hit him first and didn’t want to be separated from him.

Lawyers for the Petito family said a new photo, that hasn’t been released to the public yet, shows a close-up of Gabby’s face “where blood is smeared on her cheek and left eye.”

“The photo shows that Gabby’s face was grabbed across her nose and mouth, potentially restricting her airway,” the filing said.

When speaking with officers, Laundrie told Officer Robbins he pushed Gabby away to avoid being slapped, and admitted to taking her phone saying he didn’t have one. But later in that same interview he pulled out his own phone from his pocket, the document said.

“The officers did not question Brian about the inconsistencies in his version of events. Instead, they determined that Gabby was the primary aggressor and that Brian was a potential victim of domestic violence,” the document said.

Under Utah state law about domestic violence, the officers would have been required to send a report to prosecutors, but it was not done because the incident was mischaracterized as disorderly conduct, the independent review of the police interaction said.

The filing said that Officer Pratt called Assistant Chief Palmer for assistance on how the handle the situation and he was told to read the assault statute carefully and decide if the situation satisfied the law.

Pratt decided that Utah law only recognizes assault if the perpetrator intended to cause bodily injury — which the suit said is an incorrect interpretation. When Pratt questioned Gabby if she intended to cause Laundrie bodily injury when she hit him, she replied no.

Ultimately, police told the couple to separate for the night and no charges were filed.

James McConkie, one of the attorneys retained in the case, said, “While the full evidence has not yet been made public, when it is released, it will clearly show that if the officers had been properly trained and followed the law, Gabby would still be alive today.”

“Failure to follow the law can have a deadly consequence, as it did in this case,” he said.

He claimed the Moab City Police Department has had “chronic problems with protecting” domestic violence victims in failing to provide training and resources for officers.

“This is an institutional failure plain and simple,” he said.

The lawsuit is in addition to another suit filed by the Petito family in Florida against Laundrie’s parents, accusing them of hindering the search for their daughter, and alleging they knew Laundrie killed Petito.

Petito’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, wiped away tears at a press conference Monday.

“This is just bringing back a lot of pain,” she said. “We’re going to do whatever we can. That’s why we’re here.”

Schmidt recalled seeing that police body camera footage in question saying, “Watching it is very painful. I wanted to jump through the screen and rescue her.”

She shared a message to victims currently in abusive relationships, saying, “Just reach out when you can and get the help that you need… You can get out. Just do it safely. Reach out to someone that you can trust.”