Former officer pleads guilty to state charge in George Floyd’s death
MINNEAPOLIS — A former Minneapolis police officer pleaded guilty Wednesday to a state charge of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd, admitting that he intentionally helped restrain the Black man in a way that created an unreasonable risk and caused his death.
As part of Thomas Lane’s plea agreement, a more serious count of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder will be dismissed. Lane and former Officers J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao have been convicted on federal counts of willfully violating Floyd’s rights. While they have yet to be sentenced on the federal charges, Lane’s change of plea means he will avoid what could have been a lengthy state sentence if convicted of the murder charge.
The guilty plea comes a week before the two-year anniversary of Floyd’s May 25, 2020, killing.
Floyd, 46, died after Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, pinned him to the ground with a knee on Floyd’s neck as Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe.
Lane, who is white, and Kueng, who is Black, helped restrain Floyd, who was handcuffed. Lane held down Floyd’s legs and Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back. Thao, who is Hmong American, kept bystanders from intervening during the 9½-minute restraint.
All three are free on bond; the state trial scheduled for June is expected to proceed for Kueng and Thao.
Lane is scheduled to be sentenced on the state charge Sept. 21.
The plea agreement says Lane knew Floyd should have been rolled onto his side — and evidence shows he asked twice if that should be done — but he continued to assist in the restraint despite the risk. Lane agreed the restraint was “unreasonable under the circumstances and constituted an unlawful use of force.”
The state and Lane’s attorneys agreed to a recommended sentence of three years — which is below state sentencing guidelines — and prosecutors agreed to allow him to serve that penalty at the same time as any federal sentence, and in a federal prison.
One legal expert said this would appeal to Lane because he would have less chance of being incarcerated with people he had arrested.
‘Pharma Bro’ freed: Convicted pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli was freed Wednesday from prison after serving much of a seven-year prison sentence for lying to hedge fund investors and cheating investors in a drug company.
His attorney, Ben Brafman, said Shkreli, 39, was released early from a prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.
Shkreli was moved to a halfway house overseen by the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ New York Residential Reentry Management Office, the bureau said in a statement.
The Bureau of Prisons said Shkreli’s projected release date from federal custody was Sept. 14.
Shkreli was sentenced after a 2017 conviction for lying to investors about the performance of two hedge funds he ran, skimming money for himself from those funds, and defrauding investors in a drug company, Retrophin, by hiding his ownership of some of its stock. He was also ordered to forfeit $7.3 million.
Dubbed “Pharma Bro,”
Shkreli gained fame and notoriety after buying rights to Daraprim, a drug used to treat an infection that occurs in some AIDS, malaria and cancer patients and raising its price from $13.50 to $750 per pill.
Israel OKs march: Israeli authorities on Wednesday said they have given the go-ahead for flag-waving Jewish nationalists to march through the heart of the main Palestinian thoroughfare in Jerusalem’s Old City later this month, in a decision that threatens to reignite violence in the holy city.
The office of Internal Security Minister Omer Barlev said the march would take place May 29 along its “customary route” through the Damascus Gate.
Each year, thousands of Israeli nationalists participate in the march, waving Israeli flags, singing songs, and in some cases chanting anti-Arab slogans as they pass by Palestinian onlookers and businesses.
Barlev’s office said the
decision was made after consultations with police.
The march is meant to celebrate Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel subsequently annexed the area in a step that is not internationally recognized. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
Burn-pit veteran aid: Congressional bargainers announced Wednesday that they have reached a deal on legislation to boost health care services and disability benefits for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan where the military routinely disposed of tires, batteries, medical waste and other materials.
The agreement paves the way for passage of a bill that has become the top priority of veterans’ groups seeking to help the increasing number of people with illnesses that they believe are related to toxic exposure.
Most Republican lawmak
ers in the House voted against the bill, voicing concerns that the influx of cases would tax an already stressed VA system, leading to longer wait times for health care and the processing of disability claims.
NKorea boasts recovery:
North Korea on Wednesday added hundreds of thousands of infections to its growing pandemic caseload but also said that a million people have already recovered from suspected COVID-19 just a week after disclosing an outbreak.
The country’s antivirus headquarters announced 232,880 new cases of “fever” and another six deaths in state media Wednesday. Those figures raise its totals to 62 deaths and more than 1.7 million fever cases since late April.
Outside experts believe most of the fevers are from COVID-19 but North Korea lacks tests to confirm so many. It’s also unclear how over 1 million people recovered so quickly when limited
medicine, medical equipment and health facilities exist to treat the country’s impoverished, unvaccinated population of 26 million.
Some experts say the North could be simply releasing people from quarantine after their fevers subside.
Monkeypox outbreak: Portuguese health authorities on Wednesday confirmed five cases of monkeypox in young men, and Britain announced another two, marking an unusual outbreak in Europe of a disease typically limited to Africa.
Britain’s Health Security Agency said the recent cases had been seen “predominantly in gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men,” although it noted it was unclear how exactly people had been infected.
Monkeypox has not previously been documented to have spread through sex, but can be transmitted through close contact with infected people, their clothing or bedsheets.