Wednesday, June 26, 2013

06262013 - Officer Kenneth Bluew - Appeal - Murder Of Jennifer Webb And Unborn Child - Deadline extended to 11-12-13



Jennifer Webb Murder Case Links






















On June 26, 2013, the Michigan Court of Appeals extended Officer Kenneth Bluew's time to file his appeal until November 12, 2013.
Officer Bluew was convicted in 2012 of the murder of his pregnant girlfriend Jennifer Webb [August 2011].




Monday, June 3, 2013

06032013 - Hart City Councilman Tim Shannon - Convicted / Plea Bargain - Murder Of Wife Lee-Ann Shannon
































Ex-Hart city official Timothy Shannon pleads no contest to wife's bathtub murder
MLive
June 03, 2013
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2013/06/ex-hart_city_official_timothy.html

HART, MI -- Timothy Nathaniel Shannon, former Hart City Council member, has pleaded no contest to second-degree murder for the bathtub drowning of his wife, Lee-Ann Elizabeth Shannon.

Shannon, 34, was scheduled for sentencing at 10 a.m. July 15. Oceana County 27th Circuit Judge Terrence R. Thomas took the plea Monday, June 3, and will sentence Shannon.

Oceana County Prosecutor Joseph Bizon said he will ask for a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison, which he said is near the high end of state sentencing guidelines. Thomas can set a maximum sentence of anything up to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt but results in conviction, and judges treat it as a guilty plea at sentencing.

The original charge of open murder was dismissed. Open murder includes the possibility of conviction of first-degree or second-degree murder or manslaughter. Shannon's plea headed off a trial that had been scheduled for July 17. A conviction of first-degree premeditated murder would have guaranteed a sentence of life without chance of parole.

Bizon said he and the Oceana County Sheriff's Office detectives who investigated the case believe second-degree murder is what they could have proved at trial. He said Lee-Ann Shannon's family agreed to the offer.

"We're hoping to allow the victim's family to have a sense of closure and hopefully find some peace from this," Bizon said.

Tim Shannon's attorney, Douglas Springstead, could not immediately be reached for comment after the plea.

Lee-Ann Shannon, who was 34, died Dec. 29 in a bathtub in the couple's home in the 200 block of Courtland Street in the city of Hart.The death was reported initially as an accidental drowning.

When the case turned into a homicide investigation, the Hart Police Department turned it over to the Oceana County Sheriff’s Office because Tim Shannon was a city council member. He later resigned his seat on the council.

At Shannon's preliminary hearing Jan. 22, two police detectives testified that Shannon told them he held his wife underwater until she died, after she angrily pulled him into the tub with her.

Shannon has been lodged at the Oceana County Jail since shortly after his arrest in January. He was denied bond.













Former city council member pleads no contest to wife's bathtub drowning
UP North Live
June 04, 2013
http://www.upnorthlive.com/news/story.aspx?id=905704

OCEANA CO. -- A former city council member in Oceana County has pleaded no contest in the bathtub drowning of his wife.

Timothy Shannon, of Hart, enter the plea Monday in Oceana County Circuit Court to second-degree murder in the Dec. 29 death of 34-year-old Lee-Ann Shannon. He faced open murder.

A no contest plea isn't an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing.

The 34-year-old is scheduled to be sentenced July 15. Prosecutors have asked for 20 years in prison.

Defense attorney Doug Springstead sought the plea so Shannon could avoid speaking about the crime. He faces a civil lawsuit.

The department says the death was initially reported Dec. 29 as an accidental drowning at the couple's home in the Oceana County community, about 60 miles northwest of Grand Rapids. Investigators believe Timothy Shannon drowned his wife in the tub and attempted to report it as an accident.

He was a Hart City Council member at the time of her death. The couple has two children.



Thursday, May 30, 2013

05302013 - US Department Of Justice - Michigan Public Act 550 - Michigan's Silencing Of OIDV Criminal Cases

Dear Michigan state officials,

RE: Public Act 550 [April 01, 2013] amendment to MCL 769.4a : Closed criminal proceedings [i.e. OIDV criminal cases]
http://michiganoidv.blogspot.com/2013/04/mcl-7694a-and-act-550-closed-crminal.html

I sent PA 550 to the U.S. Department of Justice to review:





I couldn't understand why Michigan officials would create a law to  silence  victims of officer involved domestic violence. Shouldn't you be focusing on creating laws to protect the victims?












Tuesday, May 7, 2013

05072013 - Officer Dale Malesh - Preliminary Exam - Warren PD [retired]

Also See:

Officer Dale Malesh charged with CSC [April 2013]

Officer Dale Malesh sentenced - CSC - November 15, 2013 http://michiganoidv.blogspot.com/2013/11/officer-dale-malesh-sentenced-csc.html








Former Warren school security officer faces trial on sex charges
By NORB FRANZ
Macomb Daily
Posted: Tuesday, 06/04/13 06:35 pm
http://www.macombdaily.com/article/20130604/NEWS01/130609830/former-warren-school-security-officer-faces-trial-on-sex-charges





A former Warren police officer who spent more than a dozen years working in one of the city’s school districts was ordered Tuesday to stand trial on sexual misconduct charges, following testimony by a 16-year-old girl.


Dale Wayne Malesh, 62, was bound over to Macomb County Circuit Court on four counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct — a 15-year felony — after the teen said in Warren district court that she voluntarily engaged in sexual penetration with him in February and March. The girl — whose name is not being published by The Macomb Daily — is a student at Warren Woods-Tower High School.

Malesh was employed by the Warren Woods Public schools as a school liaison officer from January 2011 to June 2012. Prior to that, he served as a school resource officer in Warren Woods, with the district and the city splitting the cost of his salary from September 1999 until his retirement from the Police Department in January 2011.

The age of consent in Michigan is 16. Macomb County prosecutors have based their case against Malesh on a portion of the state’s criminal sexual conduct laws that prohibits a volunteer from using his or her role to access, or establish a relationship with, minors between ages 15 and 17.

RELATED ASSETS
The Warren girl’s willingness to testify about a romantic relationship between her and Malesh was uncertain heading into Tuesday’s preliminary exam before 37th District Judge Dean Ausilio. On May 7, she repeatedly said from the witness stand that she was “too emotionally distraught” to answer whether her relationship with Malesh — known in the school district as “O.D.” for Officer Dale — turned romantic. Two weeks later, she was admitted into a psychiatric center and the case was adjourned again. At the time, the judge warned that he would continue to postpone the hearing as often as necessary and hinted he may find her in contempt of court if she refused to answer the prosecution’s questions.

The teen cried as she entered and sat in the courtroom Tuesday. With support from friends and her father, she took the witness stand.

She appeared composed and smiled while saying she and Malesh had exchanged phone calls and sexual texts daily. She said they rendezvoused at a Warren hotel on a Friday in February, and that they also had sex at her home in March while she was baby-sitting her nieces, ages 4 and 5.

















Teen in psychiatric center; case against ex-cop adjourned
By NORB FRANZ
Posted: Wednesday, 05/22/13 12:01 am
Updated: Wednesday, 05/22/13 07:35 am
http://www.macombdaily.com/article/20130522/NEWS01/130529884/teen-in-psychiatric-center-case-against-ex-cop-adjourned




A hearing for a retired Warren police officer charged with criminal sexual conduct was postponed Tuesday because the prosecution’s key witness — a 16-year-old girl — is in a psychiatric hospital.

The unavailability of the teenager to take the witness stand caused 37th District Judge Dean Ausilio to adjourn the resumption of Dale Wayne Malesh’s preliminary exam for two weeks. Ausilio rejected requests by defense attorney Steven Kaplan to dismiss the case or, in the alternative, reduce Malesh’s $150,000 bond to $50,000.

Nicole Blank, the Macomb County assistant prosecutor on the case, said she was notified by Harbor Oaks Psychiatric Hospital staff that the teenager was admitted to the facility Tuesday and is expected to remain there two to five days for treatment.

“There’s no indication from the school or family that she’s trying to elongate the case,” Blank said.

RELATED ASSETS
In April, the teenager told The Macomb Daily that her relationship with Malesh, 62, was consensual, and she called the criminal charges “ridiculous” and “overblown.”

Earlier this month, the girl testified that she knew Malesh because he worked as the Warren Police Department’s school resource officer to the Warren Woods Public Schools. Malesh held that post for 11 years, up to his retirement from the city in January 2011. After he left the force, school officials hired him as a private security officer. The teen, currently a junior at Warren Woods-Tower High School, also repeatedly testified on May 7 that she was “too emotionally distressed” to answer whether her relationship with Malesh turned romantic.

Blank insinuated Tuesday that someone has tried to influence the teenager’s testimony. The assistant prosecutor said text messages retrieved from the girl’s cellphone show a person named “Steve” told her to contact him from a different phone to discuss their mutual “friend.”

                         














Ex-cop’s sex case halted when teen too ‘distressed’
By NORB FRANZ
Posted: Tuesday, 05/07/13 08:02 pm
http://www.macombdaily.com/article/20130507/NEWS01/130509639/ex-cop-8217-s-sex-case-halted-when-teen-too--145-distressed-8217


A Warren teenager testified Tuesday she was too upset to answer whether her relationship with a retired police officer who worked at her school, turned romantic.

The 16-year-old girl, who attends Warren Woods-Tower High School, sat silently for several seconds when asked repeatedly in court about a change in her relationship with former Warren police officer Dale Wayne Malesh, 62.

“I’m too emotionally distressed to answer,” said the teen, whose name is not being published by The Macomb Daily.

Malesh, of Roseville, faces two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. He retired from the Warren Police Department in January 2011, having spent the last 11 years of his law enforcement career as a school resource officer in Warren Woods Public Schools, where he had the nickname “OD” for “Officer Dale.”

RELATED ASSETS
After Malesh left the police force, school district officials hired him as a school security contractor.

According to court records, Warren police and prosecutors allege that sexual penetration occurred in February and March. The teen turned age 16 last August. The age of consent in Michigan is 16.

However, county prosecutors allege Malesh violated a section of Michigan’s criminal sexual conduct law that prohibits anyone from using their status to gain access to, or establish a sexual relationship with, a student between 16 and 18 years of age.