The top story this week is that Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton has been charged with DUI, per this story from the UPI and AP. Retton, 57, became the first American woman to win the all-around gymnastics title at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where she also won two silver and two bronze medals. Retton was stopped on May 17, 2025, in her hometown of Fairmont, West Virginia, allegedly with a container of wine in the passenger seat of her Porsche, and charged with driving under the influence, before being released on a personal recognizance bond. Read on for more criminal law news.
Prison Breaks. Authorities in Louisiana and Arkansas are searching for escapees. On May 16, ten inmates escaped from the Orleans Parish Justice Center in New Orleans, as previously reported here. The inmates removed a toilet and sink and cut steel bars to create a hole in the wall, leaving a message behind, “to easy [sic] LOL.” As of Thursday, eight of the escapees had been apprehended, leaving two still at large, according to the NYT and local sources. In an unrelated incident, Grant Hardin, 56, a former police chief convicted of murder and rape, escaped on Sunday from a high-security prison in northern Arkansas, as reported by the NYT and CNN. Hardin – the so-called “Devil in the Ozarks” – walked out of a controlled gate at the North Central Unit prison in Calico Rock about 3 p.m. wearing a makeshift law enforcement uniform. Heavy rain on Sunday impeded pursuit, but the manhunt continues.
Cryptocurrency Investors Charged with Kidnapping. William Duplessie, 32, and John Woeltz, 37, have been charged with kidnapping and assault after their alleged victim, a 28-year-old Italian national, escaped from a Manhattan townhouse last Friday, per this story from the AP and the NYT. The victim says he was tortured for weeks by captors seeking the password to his Bitcoin account. According to authorities, Duplessie and Woeltz, both investors in blockchain-based companies, lured the victim to the Soho-neighborhood townhouse, where he was bound by the wrists, shocked with electric wires, pistol whipped, and forced to smoke crack cocaine. The victim agreed to reveal his password, he said, and when his captors went to retrieve his computer, he was able to escape. This incident is part of a rise in crypto theft, including a wave of violence targeting wealthy holders of digital currency.
State of Emergency on South Dakota Reservation. Kathleen Wooden Knife, president of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, declared a state of emergency on its South Dakota reservation on Tuesday, according to the AP and local sources. According to the declaration, the reservation is experiencing law and order and public health issues related to an epidemic of drug use, drug trafficking, and gun-related violence. Wooden Knife asked for increased patrol and investigative support from federal agencies, cooperation from reservation communities, and coordination between the tribe and the federal government. Crime on South Dakota’s reservations has been a subject of tension with former South Dakota governor and current Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was banned from tribal lands last year for claiming that tribal leaders were catering to drug cartels.
Delaying Tactics. Gregory J. Moore, 51, a former Ohio lawyer, has been charged with kidnapping and murdering a client in March 2013 in order to delay the start of a trial, as reported by the NYT and sources in Cleveland. According to prosecutors, Moore lured his client, Aliza Sherman, a 53-year-old nurse and mother of four, to his office in downtown Cleveland, where she was stabbed to death, a day before her divorce trial was scheduled to begin. Prosecutors said Moore had a history of seeking to avoid court dates by feigning illness, getting into a car crash, and calling in bomb threats. Moore was arrested in Texas on May 2, 2025. He pled not guilty on Wednesday.
That’s Not a Knife. Australia, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, is seeing a rise in knife crime. On Monday, Jacinta Allan, premier of the state of Victoria, announced a ban on the sale of machetes, defined as a cutting edge knife with a blade longer than 20 centimeters (about 8 inches), per this story from the AP. The announcement followed a violent gang fight at a shopping mall in Melbourne on Sunday involving eight combatants armed with machetes. A 20-year-old man was seriously injured, and four suspects were arrested, including two juveniles. As of September 1, possession of a machete in Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous state, is punishable by up to two years in prison and a fine of more than 47,000 Australian dollars ($30,700).
Florida Man Bitten by Gator, Shot by Cops. The sheriff’s office in Polk County, Florida, received multiple reports on Monday about a man acting strangely, according to this story from the N&O and NBC. The man, identified as Timothy Schulz, 42, was observed swimming in a lake behind a residential area in Lakeland, where he was apparently bitten by an alligator. Schulz got out of the lake, grabbed a pair of garden shears, and tried to break into a vehicle with a brick. When deputies arrived, Schultz allegedly charged at them, before jumping into the passenger seat of a running patrol vehicle and grabbing for a firearm, at which point he was shot and killed by the deputies.
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