Leader of white nationalist gang escapes Arkansas jail

Wesley Gullett appears in this handout photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service on August 1, 2019. U.S. Marshals Service/Handout via REUTERS

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – A white nationalist gang leader facing federal charges escaped from an Arkansas jail along with another inmate on Thursday, officials said.

Wesley Gullett, who prosecutors earlier this year said was the head of the New Aryan Empire, was found to be missing early on Wednesday at the Jefferson County Jail in Pine Bluff, a city about 30 miles (50 km) south of Little Rock, the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement.

The New Aryan Empire began as a prison gang and branched out beyond prisons, with members committing violence to support a large drug-trafficking operation, the Department of Justice said in February.

Christopher Sanderson appears in this handout photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service on August 1, 2019. U.S. Marshals Service/Handout via REUTERS

Christopher Sanderson appears in this handout photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service on August 1, 2019. U.S. Marshals Service/Handout via REUTERS

The other inmate missing was Christopher Sanderson, 34, who was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, the Marshals Service said. His prior convictions include possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and theft.

Federal prosecutors in 2017 charged Gullett and more than 40 other people with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, according to court documents.

This past February, a federal grand jury named other defendants and brought additional charges. For Gullett, those new charges included attempted murder and assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Gullett, 30, who is from Russellville, Arkansas, has pleaded not guilty.

The Marshals Service has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Gullett and a $5,000 reward for Sanderson and agency officials warned that both men should be considered armed and dangerous.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Federal charges filed against captain of deadly Missouri duck boat

Rescue personnel work after an amphibious "duck boat" capsized and sank, at Table Rock Lake near Branson, Stone County, Missouri, U.S. July 19, 2018 in this still image obtained from a video on social media. SOUTHERN STONE COUNTY FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT/Facebook/via REUTERS

(Reuters) – The captain of the World War Two-style tourist “duck boat” that sank on a Missouri lake during a storm in July killing 17 people was charged on Thursday with misconduct, negligence and inattention to duty by a federal grand jury, prosecutors said.

Kenneth Scott McKee, 51, of Verona, Missouri, was charged in a 17-count indictment, one count for each of the passengers who died when the vessel sank on July 19.

McKee was captain of the vessel operated by Ripley Entertainment Inc, which ran duck boat tours in Branson, Missouri, Lake Taneycomo and Table Rock Lake, where the incident occurred.

There were 31 passengers aboard the duck boat on Table Rock Lake, outside Branson, Missouri, when hurricane-strength winds churned up the water and sank the craft, causing one of the deadliest U.S. tourist tragedies in recent years.

“The captain of the vessel always has a duty to operate his vessel in a safe manner and that’s why Mr. McKee is under indictment this morning,” Timothy Garrison, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said in a news conference.

McKee is accused of failing to properly assess the severe weather, instruct passengers to use personal flotation devices, or head for shore and prepare to abandon ship, the indictment said.

McKee was not yet in custody and was expected to surrender to authorities, Garrison said.

He faces up to 10 years in federal prison without parole for each count and a $250,000 fine. McKee’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Garrison declined to say whether other people were being investigated.

The families of four people who died have filed lawsuits against tour operator Ripley Entertainment, which operates under the name Ride the Ducks, saying it recklessly allowed the vessel out in dangerous weather.

Nine members of the same family were among the 17 killed.

The boats, modeled on the amphibious landing craft used in the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944, have a checkered history involving more than three dozen fatalities on water and land, including the Table Rock Lake sinking, according to the complaint.

(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; editing by Bill Berkrot)

Danish man charged with starting destructive Colorado wildfire

FILE PHOTO: Flames rise from a treeline near an emergency vehicle during efforts to contain the Spring Creek Fire in Costilla County, Colorado, U.S. June 27, 2018. Costilla County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) – A Danish national accused of starting the second-largest wildfire on record in Colorado was charged on Thursday with 141 counts of first-degree arson for each building destroyed in the massive blaze, court documents showed.

Jesper Joergensen, 52, was advised of the felony charges in Costilla County Court via a telephone hook-up from the county jail where he is being held on a $50,000 bond for igniting the Spring Creek Fire in southern Colorado on June 27.

The blaze has scorched nearly 108,000 acres in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, although wetter weather and mild temperatures this week have allowed crews to carve containment lines around 83 percent of the fire by Thursday afternoon, according to the InciWeb federal tracking website.

It is unclear from the charging documents how many of the 141 structures destroyed are homes.  Fire managers earlier said more than 130 homes had been reduced to ash.

Joergensen’s court-appointed attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Joergensen denied to police that he intentionally started the fire, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

U.S. wildfires have already burned more than 3.3 million acres (1.3 million hectares) this year, more than the annual average of about 2.6 million acres over the past 10 years, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) tracking website.

The American West has been particularly hit hard by wildfires this season, with 50 active fires burning in the region on Thursday, the agency said.

Colorado has suffered 589 fires so far this year, burning a total of 431,540 acres up to Tuesday morning, according to preliminary data provided by NIFC. That is nearly four times the 111,667 acres burned in all of 2017 in the state, according to NIFC data.

Joergensen told investigators that he thought a fire he lit for cooking while camping in the area was extinguished, but that the next day he saw a fire burning in the tinder-dry brush 20 feet away from his camper, police said.

Joergensen was in the United States on a visa which had expired and was living in the country illegally, the police affidavit said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has placed an immigration detainer on Joergensen for possible deportation proceedings whenever he is released from state custody, the agency said in a statement. He is due back in court in August.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Grant McCool)

Accused New York, New Jersey bomber makes first court appearance

Ahmad Khan Rahimi (on hospital bed) appears via video in a court room in Elizabeth, New Jersey,

By Joseph Ax

ELIZABETH, N.J. (Reuters) – The man accused of last month’s bombings in New York and New Jersey that injured dozens of people pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges of attempted murder stemming from his shootout with police.

Ahmad Khan Rahimi, whose last name had previously been widely reported as Rahami, appeared via video in a New Jersey state courtroom from his hospital bed, where he is recovering from gunshot wounds suffered during his arrest.

The 28-year-old was laying under a sheet as his court-appointed lawyer, Peter Liguori, stood beside his bed in hospital scrubs. He did not speak aside from answering “yes” to several questions from Union County Superior Court Judge Regina Caulfield about whether he understood the charges and wished Liguori to represent him.

Liguori told the judge that his client’s last name was spelled “Rahimi.”

The hearing in Elizabeth, New Jersey, lasted only a few minutes. Prosecutors said the state charges would be brought before a grand jury within a few months.

Rahimi, a U.S. citizen who was born in Afghanistan, is also facing federal terrorism charges in both New York and New Jersey. He is accused of setting off an explosive in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood that injured 31 people as well as a pipe bomb near a charity running race in a New Jersey shore town on Sept. 17.

In addition, Rahimi is charged with planting another pressure-cooker bomb in Chelsea that did not go off and with leaving several devices at a train station in Elizabeth. One of those explosives detonated when a bomb squad robot attempted to defuse it. None of the blasts killed anyone.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; editing by James Dalgleish and Phil Berlowitz)