In July, the D.C. Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility alleged Kerkhoff Muyskens hid key video evidence and made false statements about video evidence at least 12 times to judges, defense attorneys and even internal investigators at the Department of Justice.

The D.C. Bar case could result in her losing her law license, but that could take years.

The D.C. ACLU’s Interim Legal Director Michael Perloff called the Kerkhoff Muyskens case “an egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct.”

On Jan. 20, 2017, hundreds of protesters took to D.C.’s streets to protest Trump’s inauguration. D.C. police mass arrested more than 200 people, and many were later indicted on felony rioting charges.

Alexei Wood, one of the arrested protesters who was acquitted at trial, said Kerkhoff Muyskens, “really had absolutely nothing [at trial]. And she just kept going and going and going and going.”

In court, not a single person was convicted, and dozens of cases were eventually dismissed.

In her denial filed Monday, Kerkhoff Muyskens, who is now an assistant U.S. attorney in Utah, acknowledged she was the prosecutor in the protest cases but denied any misconduct, paragraph by paragraph.

News4 I-Team Aug 7

Federal prosecutor under ethics cloud still prosecuting; few DC prosecutors ever punished

politics Aug 29

Act fast, be curious when a loved one moves toward political extremism, experts say

While she waits for the D.C. case to proceed, federal court records in Utah show she’s withdrawn or been replaced by another attorney in dozens of cases that just weeks ago she was prosecuting.

The records don’t currently show a single case she’s actively working on in Utah. The bulk of the removals came days after the D.C. ethics case was filed and started the same day the I-Team reached out to the U.S. attorney in Utah. That office is not commenting except to confirm she’s an employee.

The News4 I-Team found Utah lawyers are paying attention. At least one asked for a delay in sentencing of their client to review the ethics charges against Kerkhoff Muyskens. A judge granted it.

Attorneys in Utah told the I-Team other delay requests may soon follow.

Kerkhoff Muyskens and an attorney linked to her have not returned the I-Team’s repeated requests for comment.

This story was reported by News4 Investigative Reporter Ted Oberg and News4 Investigative Producer Rick Yarborough, and shot by News4 Photojournalist Carlos Olazagasti

D.C.’s prison closed decades ago, so once its inmates are sentenced, they are sent to federal prisons all over the country. Both inmates and experts told the News4 I-Team they often feel targeted.

According to Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) data analyzed by the I-Team, at least six D.C. inmates serving in federal prison have been killed in the past four years. This does not include the dozens whose deaths have been ruled natural or “other.” Some of their families are still wondering what happened to them.

Derek’shea Hawkins is now among them. She said her husband, Camara Jones, was a dutiful father but also a complicated man who went in and out of prison. A parole violation put him back behind bars — this time thousands of miles away. Hawkins told the I-Team her husband felt targeted.

Hawkins said he told her, “For some reason they just automatically don’t like people from D.C.”

The distance made it almost impossible for her to see him in person. She said she couldn’t afford to travel thousands of miles with their children, so their communication was limited to letters and very few phone calls where the news was not always good.

Hawkins said Jones expressed concern for his safety and told her he had been injured but didn’t say by whom. He described having a broken collarbone and fractured ribs, according to Hawkins.

Then the news became unbearable

“I missed him prior to this and, now that I know he’s… now it’s a different feeling because I know he’s not coming home,” Hawkins said.

On March 22, Jones’ body was discovered in the Special Housing Unit, a form of isolation for prisoners also known as the SHU, at USP Victorville in California. His death was ruled a homicide.

“The coroner’s office called me and told me that they had his body,” Hawkins said. 

“I asked her, you know, about the autopsy and, like, what happened,” she said. “And she said, well, it doesn’t say anything. The only thing that it says is that he was found standing in the shower. And I inquired, like, how was somebody deceased standing in the shower?”

Prisoners can be removed from general population and placed in the SHU for various reasons, including if they’re part of an investigation, for discipline or for protection at their request. Hawkins said she doesn’t know why Jones was there.

According to BOP records obtained by the I-Team, correctional officers tried to resuscitate Jones after he was found leaning against the shower. A roommate also in the cell was restrained and removed but not named in the report.

Five months before Jones’ death, Robert Jeter — another D.C. inmate serving time at Victorville — died after being found unresponsive inside the SHU.

Initially ruled undetermined, the BOP now list his death as a homicide caused by blunt force trauma.

That update in his cause and manner of death was confirmation for his mother, Christina Jeter. She told the I-Team last spring that doctors who tried to revive her son at a California hospital told her he was severely injured. Christina recalled them saying, “So severely that his brain had swollen and hemorrhaged and that he was beaten so severely that his liver was split.”

Jeter said USP Victorville would not confirm those injuries to her. And they were not mentioned in the prison’s incident report on his death obtained by the I-Team. Those records do, however, confirm that Jeter was also found in the SHU and in the shower, just like Jones.

“So many D.C. prisoners have a level of insecurity and instability that other state prisoners don’t have,” said Brenda V. Smith, professor of law at the American University Washington College of Law.

Smith has studied and advocated for improved conditions for D.C. prisoners since the city’s Lorton Reformatory closed in the early 2000s. She is critical of the city sending its prisoners to federal prisons around the country.

“They’re going to a place where nobody knows them,” Smith said. “Nobody has heard about them and all they’ve heard is about, you know, this D.C. population that’s coming to them that is entitled, who is violent.”

Smith said that makes D.C. prisoners who are in federal prisons more vulnerable because most of their families are not able to routinely check on their well-being due to the distance.

“We cannot send people all over the U.S. and have them moved around like checkerboards and be able to keep up with them,” said Smith.

Nailah Seabron of the D.C. Corrections Information Council (CIC) – the city agency that bridges the gap between D.C.’s inmates, the federal prisons and the city’s legislators – said they visit up to five or more prisons a year, checking on conditions and talking with D.C.’s incarcerated.

“We are here to give them a voice,” said Seabron.

CIC makes recommendations based on what they find to the BOP and D.C. officials.

In a CIC Inspection Report of Victorville from 2016, numerous D.C. inmates said the prison was unsafe and dangerous with high rates of gang-related violence. More than half the inmates interviewed reported being assaulted and expressed fear for their safety or lives. D.C. inmates also complained they were sent to the SHU more than others and were called troublemakers.

The I-Team asked the BOP about those complaints.

“The Federal Bureau of Prisons takes seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody, as well as maintain the safety of correctional employees and the community,” a spokesperson said. “We make every effort to ensure the physical safety and health of the individuals confined to our facilities through a controlled environment that is secure and humane.”

As for what happens to those CIC recommendations, Seabron said, “I would hope that they’re reading (the reports) and taking in the information … Change comes from legislation, and until there’s specific legislation enacted, we just keep churning out reports.”

The I-Team reached out to the office of D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto, chair of the Judiciary and Public Safety Committee. A Pinto spokesperson responded in a statement that said, “The homicides in the federal Bureau of Prisons facilities are extremely troubling. When D.C. residents are incarcerated in the federal system far away from the District, this makes oversight of their custody, rehabilitation and successful reentry much more difficult and less just. I will continue to work with Congress and our federal partners on oversight to ensure the safety of District residents and will keep fighting for more local control over our jail and prison system, agreements to have residents serving time in federal BOP facilities to do so closer to home, and local control over our parole system. I am grateful to the work of the CIC to continue their important visits and oversight work over the federal Bureau of Prisons and the D.C. Department of Corrections.”

CIC does not have the power to enforce its recommendations, and it’s only notified of an inmate’s death in federal custody when the BOP issues a press release.

The I-Team asked how the CIC can properly do its oversight work and data collection without being notified of all D.C. inmate homicides and other deaths.

“I think that that’s where the families come into play,” Seabron said. “If they contact us and they let us know what happened, then we can contact the powers that be at the BOP and inquire within. That’s just the flow of information at this time.”

In another CIC inspection report at Victorville from 2022, there were fewer complaints about violence among inmates, but a quarter of the D.C. inmates there were housed in the SHU at that time.

The San Bernardino (California) Sheriff’s Department told the I-Team the FBI is investigating the homicides of Jones and Jeter. Hawkins said the FBI confirmed to her it’s investigating.

The BOP said that due to privacy, safety and security reasons, it couldn’t comment on the condition or any potential investigations involving inmates when asked about the deaths of Jeter and Jones.

Meanwhile, Hawkins and her children wait and hope to one day understand what happened.

“You know, you want to have answers, like, why he was there in the first place, why was he that far … let alone why he’s not coming home at all,” she said. 

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper.

An affidavit released after White’s arrest alleges the D.C. Council member took bribes to influence violence interruption contracts within D.C.’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement. White has not been indicted, nor commented on the allegations, though he did post a video on Instagram thanking those who’ve continued to support him.

Government leaders who briefed News4 about the review Thursday acknowledged violence interruption work has an effect in lowering gun violence in D.C. communities. But all contract renewals in that space are halted pending the results of the internal review. They are grants and contracts that hire people and neighborhood organizations to do therapy, mediation and peace brokering in spots prone to gun violence.

D.C.’s chief risk officer is looking at contracts in the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and more closely in the Credible Messenger program. Credible Messenger is mentioned throughout court documents detailing bribery allegations against White.

Government officials said the review will look at how those contracts were awarded, overseen and invoiced. Many of them renew Oct. 1, and all of them are on hold, so decisions have to be made quickly.

In an off-camera briefing with two D.C. government leaders, they said they weren’t aware of any subpoenas issued to D.C. employees or agencies by federal prosecutors but said the city has ways of giving them documents without a subpoena.

They also said no D.C. employee has been suspended, put on leave or otherwise sidelined in connection with the review or allegations — not even the employee believed to be mentioned in the court affidavit who may have been pressured by White.

DC Council Aug 23

DC Council committee to consider Trayon White's future after his federal arrest

DC Council Aug 21

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DC Council Aug 21

DC mayor's office to review Trayon White's violence interruption work

The most serious and pressing concern expressed by the government officials is three contracts believed to be held by the company that allegedly paid the bribes to White.

Those contracts are with Child and Family Services, violence prevention and the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services — helping some of D.C.’s most vulnerable kids.

The city acknowledges those contracts can’t be stopped, but the work will most likely have to be shifted quickly to someone else.

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“The first thing you should do, if you believe a loved one is going down a rabbit hole, becoming radicalized, is to try to assess exactly how far down the rabbit hole they are,” Brian Hughes told the News4 I-Team.

Hughes is the co-founder and associate director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University.

Hughes warned that once people make social connections within extremist groups, “it becomes very, very hard to pull them out.”

Why an ex-member of a racist gang now works with Life After Hate

Connecting with others is part of the psychology of why people join extremist organizations in the first place.

“The day that I became involved in this stuff, it could have been a gang, it could have been some other type of extremism,” Brad Galloway told the I-Team. He was looking for “that sense of belonging, that sense of worth, that sense of identity, that we’re all actually searching for.”

Galloway was a member of a Canadian racist skinhead gang for 13 years and eventually became one of its leaders. It’s a time he says he’s not proud of but does not deny.

“The violence was particularly something that, over time, I was like, well, what is this doing? What is this creating? What is this changing? All that I see that it’s doing is hurting,” he said.

For the last decade, Galloway has helped people get out of extremist groups. He works across the U.S. with a group called Life After Hate.

After a decade spent in an extremist group and now with more time out of one, he said, “These groups are not looking for an answer that doesn’t involve violence.”

What a survey showed about beliefs on political violence

In this election year, there’s real concern about how those extremist views could inflame political violence in America.

“Views that were at one time held by a very small number of the population are finding their way into the mainstream,” Dr. Garen Wintemute told the I-Team.

Wintemute is the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.

His group’s ongoing research shows 25% of Americans surveyed in 2023 believe violence is usually or always justified to advance at least one of 17 political objectives. That’s a decrease from the year before, but he says it is potentially more dangerous.

The survey also showed an increase in the number of people who support violence who also said they would be armed with a gun, threaten someone with a gun and even said they were very likely or extremely likely to shoot someone with it for a political reason.

“I think people take it as a matter of course that violence is going to be a part of our political process,” Hughes said. “Ten years ago, that would have been shocking to say.”

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To Hughes, political extremism and the violence that surrounds it have become far too familiar in recent years. He said it’s not unstoppable, though.

“When people have the tools and the resources to recognize these issues before they become very severe, they do intervene. And those interventions are effective,” he said.

How to talk with a loved one about political extremism

Hughes admitted that relationships with people who have become involved with extremist groups can be frustrating.

“It is hard. It can be very frustrating. It can really make you mad to have to talk to a person who seems so far afield, but it has to be done, and the best way to do it is to do it from a place of curiosity.”

Lead with curiosity, not condemnation: Every expert the I-Team spoke with over the past year said the key to convincing a loved one to leave an extremist group is to lead with curiosity, not condemnation.

Hughes has worked with Rachel Carroll Rivas at the Southern Poverty Law Center to develop strategies to help people who have been radicalized.

“If we actually ask the question of, what was the purpose? What do you think is going on here? Why is this happening, that really gives people that agency to come to a decision on their own.”

Galloway, the former extremist turned exit specialist, said, “I want to understand why you’re there, right? So, why is it that you have such a dissent for the government, or why is it that you have such a dissent for certain cultures or communities within America?”

Galloway said he’s led 50 people away from extremism and is currently working with 20 more.

He credits his wife for being part of the push to get him to leave.

“She was never involved in any of that stuff. She would poke at it all the time and say, ‘Are you sure about that? I mean, have you researched, have you looked at that … just keeping those questions going.”

Keep the conversation going: Former Oath Keeper turned congressional Jan. 6 witness Jason VanTatenhove told the I-Team earlier this year that keeping the conversation going is another key.

“We have opportunities with the people in our lives. It’s going to take a tsunami of those little moments of reaching across in our own personal lives to begin to see some change. I think we need everyone to be doing this,” he said.

Do what you can: Wintemute echoed VanTatenhove’s point.

“We all have to be willing to say, ‘This is not acceptable. I will do my part.’ Elected official, I need you to do yours, but we can’t look elsewhere for the solution.”

Go here to see resources from the PERIL project at American University.

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This story was reported by News4 Investigative Reporter Ted Oberg and News4 Investigative Producer Rick Yarborough, shot by News4 Photojournalists Jeff Piper and Steve Jones, and edited by Jones.

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In the order, IAD Commander John Knutsen told all members of the IAD: “The IAD member shall not contact nor attempt to interview the media representative in order to identify the individual (Source) that provided the unauthorized information to the news media.”

The directive was issued Aug. 19. That morning, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith told News4 a junior investigator made the decision on his own to call a reporter and ask for sources.

“That is something we should not do,” Smith said. “They should never do that … You should not see that happen again.”

In an Aug. 15 call to the News4 I-Team, an Internal Affairs agent asked reporter Ted Oberg what internal police documents he received and from whom. The documents in question revealed unanswered 911 calls from a family of an unresponsive 5-month-old child during one of D.C.’s 911 outages. That child later died. It is unclear if a faster 911 response would have changed that outcome.

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At the time, the official D.C. timeline did not include the unanswered calls. D.C. leadership has since acknowledged the family placed calls to 911 that were not answered by call takers.

The directive does leave room to call journalists in a criminal case after getting written permission from police leadership.

“Investigations of a criminal matter and/or in instances in which an interview of a media representative is necessary in order to dispose of a case, the IAD member shall request in writing and through the chain of command, permission from the Assistant Chief, Internal Affairs Bureau, to interview the media representative. The IAD member shall only contact and interview the media representative with written approval from the Assistant Chief, Internal Affairs Bureau. If contact with a media representative is approved, the media representative shall not be compelled to provide an interview or disclose a source.”

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For Metropolitan Police Department officers, that meant long hours and millions of dollars in overtime pay.

Nearly 2,700 MPD officers worked 33 extra hours each from July 21 to 27. Overtime pay plus other costs added up to about $8 million total, the department told News4 on Wednesday.

MPD officers racked up a total of about 90,000 hours of overtime.

Israel-Hamas War Jul 24

Protesters arrested, pepper-sprayed in DC as Israel's Netanyahu addresses Congress

Israel-Hamas War Jul 23

Pro-Palestinian demonstration held on Capitol Hill during Netanyahu's DC visit

Your federal tax dollars pick up the cost.

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In July, the D.C. Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility alleged Kerkhoff Muyskens hid key video evidence and made false statements about video evidence at least 12 times to judges, defense attorneys and even internal investigators at the Department of Justice.

The D.C. Bar case could result in her losing her law license, but that could take years.

The D.C. ACLU’s Interim Legal Director Michael Perloff called the Kerkhoff Muyskens case “an egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct.”

On Jan. 20, 2017, hundreds of protesters took to D.C.’s streets to protest Trump’s inauguration. D.C. police mass arrested more than 200 people, and many were later indicted on felony rioting charges.

Alexei Wood, one of the arrested protesters who was acquitted at trial, said Kerkhoff Muyskens, “really had absolutely nothing [at trial]. And she just kept going and going and going and going.”

In court, not a single person was convicted, and dozens of cases were eventually dismissed.

In her denial filed Monday, Kerkhoff Muyskens, who is now an assistant U.S. attorney in Utah, acknowledged she was the prosecutor in the protest cases but denied any misconduct, paragraph by paragraph.

News4 I-Team Aug 7

Federal prosecutor under ethics cloud still prosecuting; few DC prosecutors ever punished

politics Aug 29

Act fast, be curious when a loved one moves toward political extremism, experts say

While she waits for the D.C. case to proceed, federal court records in Utah show she’s withdrawn or been replaced by another attorney in dozens of cases that just weeks ago she was prosecuting.

The records don’t currently show a single case she’s actively working on in Utah. The bulk of the removals came days after the D.C. ethics case was filed and started the same day the I-Team reached out to the U.S. attorney in Utah. That office is not commenting except to confirm she’s an employee.

The News4 I-Team found Utah lawyers are paying attention. At least one asked for a delay in sentencing of their client to review the ethics charges against Kerkhoff Muyskens. A judge granted it.

Attorneys in Utah told the I-Team other delay requests may soon follow.

Kerkhoff Muyskens and an attorney linked to her have not returned the I-Team’s repeated requests for comment.

This story was reported by News4 Investigative Reporter Ted Oberg and News4 Investigative Producer Rick Yarborough, and shot by News4 Photojournalist Carlos Olazagasti

A slew of unplanned computer dispatch outages, major staffing shortages and a criminal probe hang over Washington, D.C.’s 911 center. A center that residents and visitors rely on to get help in an emergency.

Heather McGaffin, director of the District’s Office of Unified Communications, spoke to reporters for the first time Monday about the issues that have plagued the 911 call center. The News4 I-Team requested comment and interviews with McGaffin for months.

“Being in the nation’s capital and being the call center for the nation’s capital, a lot of folks are looking at us. So, I think what happens is when we have these issues, these mistakes, when we’re doing things, there’s a lot of hyper-focus about what we’re doing,” McGaffin said during Monday’s news conference.

So far this year, the computer system that is used to dispatch police, firefighters and paramedics had at least seven outages. Government officials said Monday there have been a total of 18 disruptions to the system since December 2023.

An outage on Aug. 2 is being investigated by police as they seek to understand whether it was human error or a nefarious act that brought down the system. That outage coincided with the death of a 5-month-old child.

McGaffin said Monday the issue was a “system mistake.”

“No one person did anything in this. If one person had done something in this, I would be holding them accountable. They wouldn’t be answering 911 calls or dispatching,” McGaffin said.

The child’s parents called 911 for help, but said they were unable to get through by phone at first. Officials said phone calls were not affected by the outage.

Here are updates as they came in to our newsroom on Monday:

Today a D.C. police Internal Affairs agent contacted News 4 reporter Ted Oberg trying to find out how we knew about a family’s unanswered 911 call for help.

Last week News4 reported a D.C. family said they called 911 repeatedly for several minutes. They said 911 didn’t pick up. They were trying to get help for their 5-month-old child who couldn’t be revived after a nap. They eventually got through to 911, but the baby died. We don’t know if the delay would have changed that outcome.

D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety released a timeline of the calls 911answered, but that timeline didn’t include the calls that didn’t get through. The News 4 I-Team learned of the family’s unanswered calls from two public safety sources who each had details of an internal police record.

Today an internal affairs agent called Oberg and asked what information we got and who gave it to us. News4 did not provide that information. Protecting our sources is an obligation we take seriously.

The Internal Affairs agent admitted he knew Oberg was unlikely to answer the questions, but said the commander of internal affairs assigned him to investigate it and ask them.

The call comes 13 days after the desperate but unanswered 911 calls for help from those parents. News4 hasn’t heard from the 911 director Heather McGaffin or Lindsey Appiah, the deputy mayor in charge of D.C. public safety on camera about the six 911 outages this year , but now have heard from an internal affairs officer.

News4 asked both D.C. Police and D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety why they think a leak investigation is worth conducting. Neither got back to us.

The owner of the Ellicott City Healthcare Center voluntarily agreed to have that facility monitored for three years as part of a settlement. The nursing home is owned by CommuniCare, an Ohio-based company that operates 2 dozen facilities in Maryland and Virginia. 

Last year, the I-Team investigated its Clinton Healthcare Center location in Clinton, Maryland.

Demetirus Hanna of Northeast D.C. reached out to the I-Team after its first report to share his experiences with CommuniCare’s Clinton location confirming what we heard from other patents. 

In late November, Hanna said he was hospitalized in D.C. after an allergic reaction. He’s living with multiple sclerosis and for three years has relied on a wheelchair to get around after the hospitalization left him weak.  He said staff at Howard University Hospital told him he was going across state lines to Clinton Healthcare Center for rehabilitation.

His fiancee Crystal Willaims told the I-Team she was confused since the couple lived in D.C.

“I was like, well, why are they sending you all the way down there?” Williams said.

The I-Team found in its investigation last year that close to 200 D.C. residents on Medicaid are sent to Clinton each year. Experts said there are fewer long-term care options in the District. Some of those patients complained to the I-Team about conditions inside, which Hanna’s fiance said they also experienced.

“He didn’t take a bath for a week because they kept saying that they didn’t have any laundry. They had no towels, no washcloth,” Williams said. 

The News4 I-Team reviewed a state inspection of Clinton from last summer and found similar complaints including the minimal bathing, unclean conditions and missed or wrong treatments. In all, the I-Team found 35 health citations. That’s twice the state average and four times the national average. 

Stevanne Ellis worked as Maryland’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman for more than 20 years, advocating for nursing home residents and their families. She said the number of citations is unusual, adding, “I would say that I would be concerned if I were a consumer looking at that.”

Ellis offered advice for families who have loved ones in facilities or who are looking for one.

“I always tell people before you choose a facility, go take a tour… don’t tell them you’re coming. Go into the lobby, look for the survey book, and if you see 30 or 40 complaints in the survey, then I would probably want to talk to the facility about some of those complaints,” she said.

“We’re concerned about staffing and facilities. We’re concerned about issues with giving proper treatment, individualized care, those sorts of things,” Ellis explained.

The I-Team found other facilities operated by CommuniCare in our region have had multiple citations that surpass state and national averages, including Ellicott City Healthcare Center.

Zak Shirley with the Maryland Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit said an investigation by his office found conditions were so bad there that the state took historic action.

“It’s the first time that we’ve used the False Claims Act and the theory of worthless services, for a facility in Maryland,” he said.

His unit started a years-long investigation following inspections that found numerous problems at the Ellicott City Healthcare Center.

“We had medication errors, unwitnessed falls, which is often a sign of understaffing because people in those facilities who are fall risks are usually known for risks and should be monitored,” Shirley said.

Shirley said his unit used a new approach to build a case saying the substandard care meant taxpayers who paid for the care through Medicaid were being defrauded.

“When we started looking at this, we realized, we have something here, this is a more systemic issue and we think that this state is being defrauded,” Shirley said.

Shirley said that to prove fraud, they had to build a case over time that included a series of violations that impacted the entire facility, with failures through multiple systems that showed the state should not be paying for services that were not actually being provided.

After the state’s investigation, instead of going to court, CommuniCare settled. The company agreed to pay $400,000 and voluntarily agreed to a third party independent oversight for the next three years at their cost.

“We want to make sure that the services are there for the people of Maryland, and taking back a bunch of money and causing long-term care facilities to fail is not the answer. Pointing out those failures and forcing them to get better and meet the standard is,” Shirley said.

CommuniCare told the I-Team in an email:

“We are committed to providing the highest quality of care for our residents and value the feedback from survey results and take them seriously. After reviewing the findings, our team has already initiated comprehensive action. The company has introduced new facility teams, spent millions in physical renovations within the buildings, and made key management changes. Additionally, we implemented brand new processes to ensure that each one of our residents receive the highest quality of care and compassion they deserve and have come to expect.” 

Shirley couldn’t confirm whether or not his office was investigating any other CommuniCare facilities but said, “I will say that there are a number of chains, nursing home chains and private facilities that are on our radar. We’re aware of problems throughout the system.”

CommuniCare also operates five facilities in Virginia, including Mount Vernon Healthcare Center in Alexandria.  The I-Team found it had the highest number of health violations with 56 from an inspection in 2022.

CommuniCare told the I-Team that the facility has significantly improved after renovating the space and making key leadership changes with management.

As for Clinton Healthcare Center, the owner said it’s currently in compliance with state and federal regulations and that it has invested $7 million in renovations.

Those are improvements that Hanna cannot attest to.

He told the I-Team he got so fed up that he checked himself out early.

“I left, I signed myself out,” he said.

As for his complaints, CommuniCare said: “Due to HIPAA we cannot comment on, or confirm identity of current or past residents. However, as a company we always strive for excellence when it comes to the health and wellbeing of our residents.”

This story was shot by News4’s Jeff Piper, Steve Jones and Lance Ing, and edited by Steve Jones.

That was the case when the News4 I-Team recently went knocking on the door of a man in Falls Church, Virginia.

“Oh, I’m becoming an expert,” he told Consumer Investigative Reporter Susan Hogan. “I probably know as much about this crap as anybody.”

He agreed to talk with News4 if he could stay anonymous, since this, unfortunately, was not his first time dealing with stolen checks.

“This one knocked my socks off,” he said.

How the check was stolen

Six of the man’s checks, which he wrote and mailed in July, were stolen and found for sale on the social media app Telegram, along with dozens of other checks from the Falls Church and Arlington area.

“So, it looks like the criminals hit one specific mailbox or two in in those specific areas,” said David Maimon, director of the Evidence-Based Cybersecurity Research Group at Georgia State University.

His team recently spotted the stolen checks online.

“What the team does on a daily basis is simply monitor hundreds of groups trying to find interesting information for us to work with, monitor trends on the ecosystem, in order to really try and understand what criminals are working on, what are some of the hot commodities that they have under disposal and what is it that they’re offering for sale,” Maimon said.

He said the sheer number of stolen checks, all from the same area, and private information brazenly shown quickly caught his team’s eye.

“Not even covering the addresses and names of the victims – this was kind of unusual in this ecosystem,” Maimon said.

When checks are stolen from the mail, identity theft experts say they’re usually washed, with the ink removed, so that criminals can change the payee name and dollar amount.

Checks are sold to the highest bidder online and often bundled with other stolen information, said James Lee, with the Identity Theft Resource Center.

“Where they sell them, though, is not on the dark web so much as it is now YouTube and Telegram and other channels that are in the open. The volume is so high they don’t need to hide and they tie these now into a full set of credentials,” he said. “You can get checks, you can get driver’s licenses, you can get state IDs, you can get debit cards all tied to the same identity – all tied to the same accounts.”

The I-Team found that last year, banks filed almost 700,000 suspicious activity reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for check fraud. So far in 2024, they have filed more than 340,000.

The homeowner in Falls Church said this is the third time he’s been the victim of check fraud.

“The first time that this happened, which was about eight months ago, the check was washed. I believe it was maybe a utility bill. So, let’s say $200. And I believe it was [washed] for over $100,000,” he said.

Fortunately, his banks caught the suspicious activity.

“So far, I’ve not been out any money, but I’ve been into a lot of aggravation,” he said.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which investigates mail theft, wouldn’t confirm to the I-Team if the stolen checks in Falls Church were being investigated.

How to avoid falling victim to check fraud

The safest way to avoid check fraud is simply to not write checks, Lee said.

“If you have to write a check … do it in a way where you can know when it leaves and check on it along the route. So, if it’s so important, go ahead and get tracking on it,” he said. “If not, check with the organization after a certain amount of time and say, did you receive my check? So you can begin to trace it if it doesn’t show up in time.”

Avoid dropping checks in blue mailboxes, if possible, Lee said.

That’s something the Falls Church check fraud victim said he’s started doing.

“I no longer put things in the mailbox. I go directly to the post office,” he said.

That didn’t seem to stop this latest financial frustration, though.

If you find out your checks have been stolen, Lee advises that you:

• notify your bank immediately
• get a new checking account number
• freeze your credit
• sign up for alerts on your accounts to monitor activity

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Lance Ing and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Carlos Olazagasti.

According to D.C.’s city administrator, the outage was due to a “connectivity disruption” during which public safety agencies in the nation’s capital “transitioned to manual dispatch.”

According to insiders in D.C.’s public safety departments, that means call takers and dispatchers using a pen and pad, sometimes walking slips of paper from one place to another inside the dispatch center. They use radio communications to make sure fire crews knew where to go.

A spokesperson told the News4 I-Team connectivity disruptions “were related to the performance of hardware which hosts the Computer Assisted Dispatch software; and the District is working to implement the necessary monitoring and possible system upgrades.”

The statement did not say if that work is complete or if a fix had been made.

In the same set of answers, the spokesperson for D.C.’s deputy mayor for public safety confirmed D.C.’s 911 system has had seven outages this year. One was planned for a system upgrade, two are related to software update glitches — the CrowdStrike outage on July 19 and the one caused by an “improper” software update in D.C. on Aug. 2.

The Aug. 2 outage is the one during which a Northwest D.C. family says they tried to call 911 for help with their unresponsive 5-month-old, who did not recover and was declared dead.

In a confusing answer Monday, the spokesperson suggested the four other outages are due to those connectivity disruptions — including the outage 10 days ago when it was out for more than two hours. 

Monday, Councilmember Brooke Pinto, who leads the Public Safety Committee, told News4, “In emergency response, our standard of expectation must be 100% expediency and accuracy. I am troubled by what seem to be repeated errors.”

D.C. Director of the Office of Unified Communications Heather McGaffin — the person in charge of the 911 system — has not responded to any questions related to the center in months. She has said in previous testimony that improving staffing will help improve performance.

According to their own record keeping, in July 2023, 33% of all 911 shifts didn’t have enough people working to meet minimum staffing levels. In July 2024, that jumped to 88% of all shifts.

The group that investigates complaints against D.C. lawyers, the D.C. Bar Board on Professional Responsibility, recently filed a complaint against Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens. After the complaint was filed, Kerkhoff, the prosecutor, was ordered to respond and deny or explain her actions in a proceeding that could take away her law license.

At the time of the arrests, she was an assistant U.S. attorney in D.C. and the lead prosecutor on the cases. No one was ever convicted, but now the prosecutor has been accused of lying a dozen times.

On Jan. 20, 2017, hundreds of protesters took to D.C.’s streets. That afternoon, D.C. police mass arrested more than 200 people.

Alexei Wood was among the arrestees. He told the News4 I-Team he was there as an independent journalist.

“I was there; I didn’t do anything illegal,” Wood told the I-Team from his Colorado home.

Olivia Alsip, a recent college graduate at the time, was there, too.

“It was very feasible, in my mind, that I could go to prison for the rest of my life,” she told the I-Team from Chicago.

Reporting from that day and since makes clear few of the 230 people arrested were directly involved in the violence, but more than 200 of them were indicted on felony rioting offenses. Some of the protesters, including Wood, were acquitted at trial. Charges against more than 100 other protesters, including Alsip, were dropped.

Lead prosecutor Kerkhoff worked with Gregg Pemberton, who was the lead detective on the cases. Pemberton is now chairman of the D.C. police union.

They came to court armed with plenty of undercover video from protest planning meetings they were going to use to try to convict the protesters. The I-Team obtained and reviewed some of the video entered as evidence from one of the defendants.

The investigation by the D.C. Bar Board on Professional Responsibility found there was more in the videos prosecutors didn’t turn over, including protesters talking about nonviolence and de-escalation. According to the recently filed ethics complaint against the prosecutor, those key moments in the video were either edited out or never turned over to the defense team.

Now the prosecutor must explain if it’s true and why it was apparently done.

In a recently filed specification of charges, the D.C. Bar Office of Disciplinary Counsel alleges Kerkhoff hid key evidence and made false statements about it at least 12 times during the cases — to judges, defense attorneys, even to internal investigators at the Department of Justice. That’s not allowed. Long-standing rules insist prosecutors share all the evidence with the defense, especially evidence which could help prove their innocence.

In 2018, a D.C. Superior Court judge in one of the protesters’ rioting cases ruled Kerkhoff “acted intentionally to withhold evidence.” D.C.’s American Civil Liberties Union complained to the Department of Justice about the prosecutor in 2019, but five years later, the News4 I-Team found Kerkhoff is still prosecuting federal cases. She now works for the U.S. attorney in Utah.

When asked about the prosecutor’s move to Utah, DOJ said it was not to avoid scrutiny over professional misconduct accusations.

Beyond that the U.S. attorneys in D.C. and Utah and DOJ headquarters all “declined to comment on the D.C. Bar allegations.” Jessie Liu, the former U.S. attorney for D.C. who was in charge at the time of the arrests and is now in private practice, did not reply to the I-Team’s emails.

“What we’re talking about is an egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct,” Michael Perloff, interim legal director of ACLU of DC, told the I-Team. “She absolutely shouldn’t be prosecuting cases today.”

Neither Kerkhoff nor her lawyer replied to I-Team email requests for comment. According to the D.C. Bar, Kerkhoff’s reply is due Sept. 2. A hearing date has not been set.

“This really goes to what I think is a reason why people don’t trust our criminal legal system institutions,” Perloff said, “because those institutions which we rely on to uphold and enforce the law too often will not follow the law themselves.”

Georgetown Law’s Philip Schrag studies cases like this and explained to the I-Team, “Judge (Alex) Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit once said in the opinion that Brady violations, withholding evidence from the defense, are an epidemic in this country. If that’s the case, the only way to cure the epidemic is to hold prosecutors seriously accountable.”

This case is just at the beginning of the disciplinary process. The I-Team found five similar cases in D.C. – they each took years to resolve — and only one prosecutor lost their law license as a result.

Years after their cases ended, the drama isn’t over for Olivia Alsip and Alexei Wood.

“I don’t think you should be able to continue practicing law,” Alsip said, “if you can’t be trusted to be an ethical person.”

The D.C. Bar complaint discusses Gregg Pemberton’s actions, as well. Numerous times throughout the complaint, the D.C. Bar says Pemberton acted with Kerkhoff to withhold or edit evidence. The D.C. Bar, however, has no authority to discipline him as he is a D.C. police officer, not an attorney.

While they admit they are aware of the complaint, a spokesperson for D.C. police would not comment on Pemberton’s connection to the cases, and neither is Pemberton replying to text or email messages. 

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Caroline Tucker and Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Lance Ing.

That child was pronounced dead during a 911 computer outage that afternoon.

Two family members told police they called 911 Friday afternoon, according to two public safety sources familiar with an internal D.C. police report. It happened right about the time D.C.’s 911 system started to have issues.

According to that internal report, neither family member got anyone to pick up at 911.

With calls unanswered, someone instead went to get help outside the Northwest D.C. apartment building and found a nearby federal police officer, the report says.

D.C.’s chief technology officer blamed the outage on an improper software update that kept 911 employees from being able to access their systems for about two hours until it was cleared up later that afternoon.

The deputy mayor for public safety released a statement over the weekend with a timeline that starts when the family was able to get through but does not include the missed calls.

The deputy mayor’s timeline seemed to show a timely response. It says the 911 call center took two calls from the apartment building at 12:51 p.m. The call center dispatched the call at 12:53 p.m.

One call taker gave CPR instructions while the other call taker told the other caller to go downstairs and meet first responders, according to the deputy mayor’s statement. That caller then encountered a federal officer.

At 12:58 p.m., police and firefighters arrived. Another Fire and EMS unit arrived at 1:09 p.m., and at 1:14 p.m., the baby was taken to a hospital where it was pronounced dead.

The statements from the CTO and the deputy mayor did not acknowledge what may be the most serious issue — that urgent 911 calls went unanswered, let alone how many other 911 calls went unanswered, too.

It’s unclear if a faster response could have saved the baby’s life.

The I-Team asked the officials who run D.C.’s 911 system for comment about the internal police report but hasn’t received a response.

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In July, the D.C. Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility alleged Kerkhoff Muyskens hid key video evidence and made false statements about video evidence at least 12 times to judges, defense attorneys and even internal investigators at the Department of Justice.

The D.C. Bar case could result in her losing her law license, but that could take years.

The D.C. ACLU’s Interim Legal Director Michael Perloff called the Kerkhoff Muyskens case “an egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct.”

On Jan. 20, 2017, hundreds of protesters took to D.C.’s streets to protest Trump’s inauguration. D.C. police mass arrested more than 200 people, and many were later indicted on felony rioting charges.

Alexei Wood, one of the arrested protesters who was acquitted at trial, said Kerkhoff Muyskens, “really had absolutely nothing [at trial]. And she just kept going and going and going and going.”

In court, not a single person was convicted, and dozens of cases were eventually dismissed.

In her denial filed Monday, Kerkhoff Muyskens, who is now an assistant U.S. attorney in Utah, acknowledged she was the prosecutor in the protest cases but denied any misconduct, paragraph by paragraph.

News4 I-Team Aug 7

Federal prosecutor under ethics cloud still prosecuting; few DC prosecutors ever punished

politics Aug 29

Act fast, be curious when a loved one moves toward political extremism, experts say

While she waits for the D.C. case to proceed, federal court records in Utah show she’s withdrawn or been replaced by another attorney in dozens of cases that just weeks ago she was prosecuting.

The records don’t currently show a single case she’s actively working on in Utah. The bulk of the removals came days after the D.C. ethics case was filed and started the same day the I-Team reached out to the U.S. attorney in Utah. That office is not commenting except to confirm she’s an employee.

The News4 I-Team found Utah lawyers are paying attention. At least one asked for a delay in sentencing of their client to review the ethics charges against Kerkhoff Muyskens. A judge granted it.

Attorneys in Utah told the I-Team other delay requests may soon follow.

Kerkhoff Muyskens and an attorney linked to her have not returned the I-Team’s repeated requests for comment.

This story was reported by News4 Investigative Reporter Ted Oberg and News4 Investigative Producer Rick Yarborough, and shot by News4 Photojournalist Carlos Olazagasti

But it’s a scam. Law enforcement will never call you to demand money.

This brazen crime is making a resurgence in the D.C. area, and people are losing thousands of dollars. It recently happened to a Silver Spring, Maryland, family. They shared the experience with the News4 I-Team.

Adam helps care for his father, an Army veteran living with a traumatic brain injury. That injury makes him ineligible to serve as a juror. So Adam was confused when his mom called him one day, panicking and hysterical.

“She just says something about the sheriff and they’re coming to get my dad, and I’m going, ‘Well, he’s sitting on the couch in the living room. What are you talking about?’” Adam said.

Adam asked to remain anonymous because his mom, who retired from a high-ranking government job with the Department of Justice, lost thousands of dollars to a jury duty scam.

“I think for her, the embarrassment is too much to bear,” he said.

Adam said his mother got a call from someone claiming to be with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office threatening to arrest her ex-husband for missing jury duty. She asked for proof, and the caller emailed her what appeared to be an arrest warrant. The I-Team confirmed it was fake.

But it looked pretty authentic.

“She just went into, ‘I’m going to protect the family at all cost mode,’” Adam said.

The caller told Adam’s mom they’d remove the arrest warrant if she paid the fine — a whopping $88,000. The caller later knocked down the price when she said she didn’t have that kind of money.

She still ended up paying $5,800, but the scammer had another request: He wanted the payment in bitcoin.

“So, this gentleman — my mother knows very little about technology — was able to coach my mother on how to create a bitcoin wallet, because you have to have a wallet to even purchase it,” said Adam.

She then was instructed to go to a nearby Giant grocery store and use a kiosk to convert cash to cryptocurrency. The scammer walked her through how to add the cash to the account and then transfer it to what she thought was the sheriff’s office.

It was only when she showed up in person at the Montgomery County Court House for a bail hearing — as instructed by the caller — that she found out it was a scam. Her money? Gone.

Montgomery County Sheriff Maxwell Uy said although it’s unusual for victims to show up for fake bail hearings, it has happened.

“Not a week goes by that we don’t, we’re not contacted by a potential victim or victim,” Uy said. “One of the best things that our residents can do is if it’s an unfamiliar number, don’t pick up.”

To protect against these types of scams, remember scammers can spoof the caller ID so it looks like the call is coming from a local police department or courthouse.

While there can be consequences for missing jury duty, like fines and even jail time, the sheriff said they’ll never call someone to collect money.

“If for some reason somebody does miss jury duty, I always encourage them to look at the court’s website to get the actual number that they can call in and reach somebody,” Uy said.

Cyber experts say victims of jury duty scams are often immigrants unfamiliar with the court system or senior citizens who are generally more trusting.

Adam has no idea why or how the scammers targeted his mom, but experts say scammers usually obtain personal information from public resources or stolen information now on the dark web.

While he knows she’ll never get her money back, the family felt it was important to share her story to prevent others from becoming victims.

“If I can save one other person from having this happen, because I think, what if this happened to someone who doesn’t have a lot of money? It would be an absolute nightmare,” Adam said. “It would ruin somebody’s life.”

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

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“I will never, ever stop the parties so long as I am not doing anything illegal,” he told News4’s Walter Morris.

The parties were infuriating to his neighbors, who complained about lewd behavior and so much traffic it was difficult to get to their homes.

But once the News4 I-Team dug into Tataw’s background, there was more to the story than just the parties.

“We’re not here about the parties,” the I-Team’s Ted Oberg told Tataw as he emerged from the home on a recent afternoon. “We’re here about the federal indictment and the activities in Cameroon.”

“Oh,” Tataw replied.

Tataw may not be well known past his Gaithersburg cul-de-sac, but in his home country of Cameroon in West Africa, Tataw is a leader, advocate and supporter of a long-simmering, sometimes violent separatist fight to break off English speaking portions of the country.

In frequent online videos, Tataw has called himself “a key factor in this revolution.” In others he boasts he has no fear of being well known for his views. “Quote me anywhere. My name is Eric Tataw,” he told viewers in a video posted on news site Downtown Info.

Tataw told the I-Team he is a journalist and an advocate. In past videos the I-Team uncovered online, Tataw discussed kidnappings and blockading Cameroonian government leaders in their homes. “I will have my men at your houses, and you may not be able to leave,” he warned Cameroonian government officials in one video.

In others, fellow Cameroonians accused him of supporting amputations of opponents’ limbs. That’s a claim he denies or at least distances himself from.

When asked about the claims of violence, Tataw told the I-Team, “What I think is important is to look at where, at a point, somebody makes contrition and makes a positive shift. That’s what life is about.”

It is likely he hasn’t been back to Cameroon for years despite his ongoing support for the separatist movement.

“I’ll be killed,” he told the I-Team. “I’ll be killed (if I return to Cameroon).”

“Because you have been active in the fight against the government there for more than a decade?” Oberg asked him.

“I agree. Yes, I’ve been active,” Tataw replied.

At least some of his neighbors are worried by Tataw’s outside-the-cul-de-sac activism. “It is alarming. It is of a concern,” said Jung Lee, who lives right next door.

But the I-Team found there’s another reason Tataw might not be traveling. He is facing a multicount indictment alleging bank fraud, wire fraud, ID theft, money laundering and obstruction of justice. He had to surrender his passport and is restricted to Maryland.

Tataw pleaded not guilty, but in an indictment, federal prosecutors allege he lied to get $163,000 from the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program and then intimidated witnesses during the investigation.

“Anything related to the further indictment, only my lawyer can talk,” Tataw told the I-Team when asked about the charges. His lawyer hasn’t called back or replied to News4’s detailed emails. If he does, News4 will update this article.

An affidavit seeking a warrant for Tataw’s arrest filed in federal court says he “instructed (a witness) how to respond if the grand jury asked if Tataw has an army, about Tataw’s role in the Cameroonian separatist movement or about various kidnappings and acts of violence in Cameroon.”

Oberg asked Tataw, “Why would you talk to someone about how to answer questions about that?”

“Well, you see,” Tataw replied, “I’m a law-abiding citizen and I have absolute respect for the laws of this country. And if I have a gag order by the judge not to discuss my further indictment, I will not say it anywhere.”

There is no gag order in the case. When reminded of that, Tataw told the I-Team he just wanted his lawyer to talk about the case. The lawyer has not spoken to the I-Team, and federal investigators aren’t saying anything to the I Team, either.

Court records show if Tataw is found guilty of the charges, a judge could force him to forfeit the home used for the pool parties to pay back some of the loan.

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While she lived in Bowie and inside District 4 for years, some of her constituents grew concerned that something had changed, so one of them hired a private investigator to find out.

District 4 encompasses Bowie and parts of Upper Marlboro. The home the private detective recorded Watson coming and going from is also in Upper Marlboro, but it’s a mile outside of District 4 in District 6. 

The detective, who News4 is not identifying, explained why the constituent contacted him, saying, “It’s not like you could bring this issue to the police and the police are going to do something about it.” 

He said that for two weeks he documented Watson coming in and out of the home outside her District. He said he picked up on signs that suggested she lived there, saying, “What really drove it over the top for me was seeing her coming out in the morning, collecting the garbage pails that were out in the street, bringing those to the back of the house and taking her dog outside.”

The detective said the constituent expressed that they were not happy with Watson’s representation, which is why they paid thousands to confirm where she appeared to be living. 

The I-Team viewed the detective’s videos but did not rely solely on his surveillance. We went to see for ourselves and, as the detective did, we found Watson leaving the home early in the morning, walking her dog and  her car parked there.

According to the Prince George’s County charter, a council member shall forfeit their office if they cease to be a resident of the district they resided in at the time of election. However, it doesn’t define residency requirements or how many days the council member must spend there.

State tax records list that Watson once owned a home in District 4 with her ex-husband but it was sold. She’s now married to Maryland state Sen. Ron Watson, who according to tax records owns the Upper Marlboro home where News4 saw her outside her district.

In her candidacy filing for the county council, Watson listed a Bowie apartment in District 4 as her address, but the detective said he didn’t see her there, and the I-Team didn’t spot her or her vehicle there, either.

Watson agreed to talk to News4 after the I-Team told her about the investigation. She was adamant that she lives at the Bowie apartment, saying, “I’m there most of the time. A lot of times I spend, with Ron at home, at his home. And then other times at night, I’m at my home. So, we have kind of a dual residence going. I do both. I kind of go back and forth to both, but the majority of my time is in District 4.”  

Watson said everything she owns is in Bowie and that she’s abiding by the law. She said that when she and her husband first married in 2022, they looked for a home together in District 4 but were not able to find one they liked. 

David Williams with the Taxpayers Protection Alliance says no matter what the distance or the reason, if there are rules for where elected officials can live, they should be followed. He said that Watson having an apartment in Bowie is “a way to adhere to the rules, but not really adhere to the rules, is because just having an apartment on paper doesn’t mean you’re part of the community.” 

Prince George’s also has two at-large seats, one of which recently opened after Council member Mel Franklin stepped down before the state prosecutor announced that they charged him with stealing his own campaign funds; but Watson is not running for that seat. The couple did, however, hold a fundraiser for one of the candidates at the house outside her district. News4 cameras rolled as guests arrived last week.

“When you see there are at-large seats, that makes even less of a reason why she should be outside the district, because there are opportunities for her to serve the public in a different way than serving a specific district,” Williams said. “She can run at large and still be a public servant.”

Watson said she has no interest in running for an at-large seat and that she loves District 4 where she’s paid taxes for 20 years. 

When News4 asked Watson if she was following the spirit of the law, she said, “I’m meeting the law. I live, reside in Bowie since 2015 in this particular apartment.”

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The allegations against Surrogacy Escrow Account Management LLC (SEAM) are laid out in a civil lawsuit filed in a Houston district court.  

The company was supposed to manage and disburse dollars to surrogates who are carrying someone else’s baby — in many cases people who can’t conceive on their own, according to attorneys. 

In a hearing held just this week in Houston, attorneys accused the owner of SEAM of using money from the surrogacy escrow account to bankroll her budding rap career and other lavish personal expenses. They say it’s left countless families in limbo.

Aaron and Kathryn Melton of Fairfax County say they’re one of those families. After the birth of their son Jackson, a now healthy 5-year-old boy, the Meltons lost their second and third newborn sons due to a rare complication Kathryn experienced during childbirth.

“We have two sons who are no longer with us. James and Noah. James would be 3-and-a-half and Noah would be 2 this September,” Kathryn said. 

The couple cherishes the memories of their boys. They had days with James before his death; Noah was stillborn.

“There’s just so much love in our hearts, having held him and loved him and losing him,” Kathryn said. “So, after we lost Noah, it just was not safe for me to continue to carry children.”

After months of healing and soul searching, the couple decided to try again, this time through a surrogate. Aaron described how difficult the decision was for him.

“Took me a longer time to come around to the idea of surrogacy, but eventually I did, and we found a boutique agency that connected us with a wonderful woman who agreed to be our gestational carrier,” he said.

The family’s agency recommended they begin adding funds to a surrogacy escrow account to manage payments for the gestational carrier to cover everything from medical appointments and transportation to clothing. They put about $52,000 into SEAM LLC, a highly recommended Houston company run by Dominique Side, who said she was once a surrogate in a video posted on the company’s website.

The couple was alerted that something was wrong after receiving emails from SEAM indicating that there was a brief slowdown in accessing funds. Then things quickly escalated. 

The Meltons received a letter from Side last month saying she and her company were the subject of an active investigation by federal authorities. Kathryn’s reaction was disbelief.

“Based off the trauma that I’ve experienced, I find myself just frozen with shock,” she said. “Like, I don’t actually even know where to begin to pick up the pieces of this disaster that’s just been presented to us via email.”

In that civil suit filed in a Houston district court on behalf of another customer who said she lost $60,000, Side is accused of running an “elaborate surrogacy escrow scam.” The lawsuit laid out how she allegedly used more than $10 million taken from an estimated 250 families, according to the attorney who filed it. The lawsuit accuses Side of spending the money on business ventures and her “lavish” lifestyle, including financing a custom music studio where she recorded rap and R&B music under the name Dom.

Marianne Robak, the attorney who brought the initial lawsuit, represents more than 20 families so far.

“In this case, we are talking about not just people’s money, but their hope for their future families, their happiness,” Robak said. “It’s tragic.”

Robak told the I-Team that in cases like this, the money does not disappear, it just changes form. Her plan is to go after those assets, liquidate them and make these families whole. 

The I-Team tried contacting Side for comment and received an email that said, in part, “Under advice of counsel, I am not permitted to respond to any inquiries regarding the investigation.”

In a hearing this week in Houston, Side did not appear, but her music studio co-owner Anthony Hall did. He’s also named in the lawsuit. In court, Hall said he was a music producer who is also a victim. He said he didn’t know from where Side’s money was coming and he would cooperate moving forward.

The Texas judge granted an injunction, freezing all remaining assets. The News4 I-Team could not find an attorney for Side, and so far, she has not been criminally charged.

The FBI confirms to News4 that it is also investigating Side and SEAM and needs the public’s help. The agency is asking any potential victims or people who may know potential victims to complete this form.

Despite it all, the Meltons say that they still have hope and they will continue on their surrogacy journey.

“We have decided to continue,” Kathryn said, holding back tears as her husband comforted her. “We wanted the decision to stop to be our choice, not someone else’s.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Caroline Tucker, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

“I’m allergic to grass, ragweed, dust, you name it,” Nolan said.

So, it’s not a surprise that her husband took care of the yard and all the maintenance that comes along with it.

But last summer their lives changed forever when her husband, Greg, was diagnosed with cancer. It spread quickly, and he died Aug. 12. After his funeral, she faced the daunting task of going through his paperwork, along with bills from companies Nolan said her husband dealt with, which included an invoice in his name for $39 from Lawn Doctor of Woodbridge, which she paid.

“So, I’m thinking we’re done,” Nolan said.

Weeks later she received another bill for $78.64 from the same landscaping company, however, that time the bill was in her name.

“So, I’m wondering, what is this?” Nolan said.

Turns out it was the final two payments for an annual fertilizing program her husband signed up for.

The owner of Lawn Doctor of Woodbridge told the News4 I-Team the work was completed. Nolan said she never saw them.

When she reached out, she received an email from the company’s owner that read, “We are very sorry for your loss, but the debt still needs to be paid.”

But when Nolan asked to see the contract her husband signed, she was told in an email from the owner that there was “no written contract.” The Lawn Doctor of Woodbridge owner, Gary Pierpoint, told her — and confirmed to the News 4 I-Team — that he “never had signed contracts” and has only used verbal agreements with his customers “since 1976.”

In another email, Pierpoint said that since she and her husband are “both listed as co-owners of the home, you may not like the idea that you’re responsible. But it’s the law.”

That’s not exactly right, according to consumer protection attorney Matt Rosendahl.

“You and your spouse can enter into separate contracts, and the other spouse is not liable unless they also signed the contract or they also verbally agreed,” said Rosendahl.

He went onto say, “Unless that’s actually a specific term of the contract, you are not liable for your spouse’s obligations that they take on. And if they, in the event that they unfortunately pass away, it’s their estate that is liable.”

When there’s no money left in the estate, like in Nolan’s husband’s case, the debt would generally go unpaid, Rosendahl said.

“When I get a bill in my name for something I had no part in, that just, that just did something to me, because I’m really big about justice,” Nolan said.

She told the News4 I-Team that she refused to pay the bill. Soon after, the owner of Lawn Doctor of Woodbridge put what’s called a mechanic’s lien on her property.

In Virginia, any company can file a mechanic’s lien against a property if it supplied labor and materials they claim went unpaid. But there are some very specific rules. The amount of the unpaid bill has to be more than $150, and the company can’t tack on additional fees, Rosendahl said.

The I-Team checked county records on the lien against Nolan’s house and found that the $78 bill had jumped to more than $2,000. When Nolan asked Pierpoint for an explanation, in an email he said he added $1,000 for his “time and effort” to file the lien and another $1,000 for his “time and effort” to release it.

“That’s what we call overburdening the lien, and in that situation, the court is going to also invalidate the lien if they find that they intentionally misled the court and the land records when they filed and said that they, that you owe those amounts,” Rosendahl said.

The I-Team found Pierpoint has filed dozens of mechanic’s liens in Prince William County over the past 20 years, and he told the I-Team he has roughly 20 liens currently pending against customers.

Customers should not ignore a mechanic’s lien, which can be very detrimental when placed on a home because title insurance companies won’t clear the house for sale unless the lien is released, Rosendahl said. Legal counsel often is needed to navigate the complicated process.

After the I-Team sent Pierpoint a copy of the law, he said he would remove the lien – and county records show he did — but he added, “The removal of the lien in no way relieves Mrs. Nolan of the money owed to us.”

While Nolan maintains she is not responsible to pay the bill, she mailed the payment to the Lawn Doctor of Woodbridge, saying, “This payment is not an acknowledgement of responsibility but an effort to resolve this matter amicably and avoid further unnecessary conflict.”

She also asked for the account to be closed.

In an email, Pierpoint thanked the I-Team for informing him about the minimum amount due to file a mechanic’s lien.

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Steve Jones and Jeff Piper, and edited by Steve Jones.

Last year, experts suggested to the News4 I-Team assaults against firefighters were increasing, but D.C. Fire and EMS wasn’t collecting data to know. Now the department is, and it’s eye-opening.

According to D.C. FEMS, since Nov. 10, firefighters have been assaulted at least 62 times. That is once every three days on average. Even more worrisome, 20% of the assaults involved the use or at least display of a weapon. Firefighters requested D.C. police be dispatched to the scene in 85% of the assaults. It is not known how many charges were filed.

The D.C. fire department did not agree to an interview with the I-Team to discuss the assaults or the policy changes the department made to address them. A spokesman did share policy highlights, and the I-Team obtained a safety bulletin from March 1 listing them.

The policy makes clear, “The Department does not tolerate violence of any kind against members.” It lays out new ways to track violence against firefighters, training them to avoid and react to it, mandates high level reviews of assaults, and rules governing self-defense. 

To reinforce the danger of assaults and the trauma they can bring, Ben Vernon, a San Diego firefighter and paramedic recently traveled across the country to speak with D.C. firefighters as part of annual training.

In June 2015, Vernon was stabbed three times while responding to a call to assist an intoxicated man on a streetcar platform. The entire incident was caught on body worn camera.

“My attempted murder was caught on film. Yeah, everyone could see that film,” Vernon told the I-Team.

Few departments are immune from potential violence. Vernon uses the video of the stabbing to start a conversation about how even “routine” calls can get violent.

“All of them in that room that I’m about to speak to have been on that call a thousand times … probably four or five (ran it) yesterday,” Vernon told the I-Team as he waited to begin his session. “It is that call I’ve run a thousand times, and it just went sideways once.”

While treating the patient that day, a fight broke out between firefighters and a bystander behind Vernon. He became the target.

“I jumped in to break up this fight, and then he assaulted me with a knife and stabbed me multiple times. He hit me in the back just above my belt and then he got me … in my armpit, right into my lung,” Vernon said. “And then he went over my head.”

Bleeding internally, Vernon ended up with a punctured lung and broken rib. He says he thought he was minutes from death.

It happened to D.C. firefighter Myisha Richards, who was beaten by patients while responding to a call.

“The last thing I remember was her being on the steps and, like, a shoe to my face,” Richard told the I-Team last year. “The girl jumped over the railing, and she came down and just started, like, wailing on me, basically. Then the other girl came down … They literally beat me for two 0minutes.”

At the time, D.C. wasn’t even collecting much information about how often firefighters were assaulted. After that, as numbers and concern over firefighter assaults rose, D.C. Fire and EMS knew it needed to do more.

Both Richards and Vernon admit PTSD kept them from being able to return to work as quickly as they hoped, and both say it was difficult to find mental health professionals skilled at issues unique to first responders.

Vernon says his difficulties and nightmares led him to understand why some people might consider suicide.

Richards says she found mental health help at a center run by the International Association of Firefighters.

Vernon got help from a San Diego clinic with years of experience treating police officers. That clinic now treats San Diego firefighters and their families, as well. The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department says it uses roughly 3,000 hours of treatment every year.

D.C.’s firefighter union told the I-Team, “Exposure to traumatic incidents on the job is an occupational hazard that has been overlooked for too long,” adding it’s working to “expand access … to better quality occupational healthcare.”

Investigations

Investigations by the News4 I-Team

News4 I-Team Jun 4

DC residents haunted by criminal backgrounds nearly impossible to clear 

News4 I-Team Jun 4

Amid judicial vacancy ‘crisis,' Senate confirms new judges to DC Superior Court

Nine years after his attack, Vernon is in D.C. trying to give back and reach out to other firefighters like the ones who helped him.

“When I think of the people, I think the people that rescued me, sacrificed for me, put their lives on the line for me. It’s just, I can’t repay that,” Vernon told the I-Team through tears. “That is a debt I will owe for the rest of my life. I can’t pay them back; I can pay it forward.”

Vernon and some experts say 85% of firefighters will experience some form of assault during their career.

The man who attacked Vernon is still serving a 23-year sentence in a California prison for multiple charges.

Charges against one patient who allegedly attacked Richards were dropped. The other was sentence to a little more than 60 hours of community service.

Resources for anyone struggling with thoughts about suicide:

• Changing Minds Community Partners and Mental Health Resources
• D.C. Fire & EMS Health and Safety Division
• IAFF Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Treatment and Recovery

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

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Jones owns up to a few run-ins with police in the past, including a 2010 misdemeanor assault charge in Maryland, but he says he’s worked hard to turn his life around and be a role model. But there’s one case connected to his name he can’t move on from.

“It’s confusing and it’s demotivating … several jobs asked me about it,” Jones said.

Including when he applied to be a corrections officer in 2022. He received a denial letter after a background check that said, in part, “As result of their findings, you are not eligible for employment with this agency.” Jones said it was another disappointing setback.

“Every time a background check comes, I get that feeling in my stomach type of thing,” he said.

The case he thinks is impacting his career appeared on an FBI background check last summer. In order to unravel how this happened to Jones, the I-Team had to go back to Jan. 4, 1998, the night Jones first heard anything about a carjacking tied to him. It happened at a traffic stop when a D.C. police officer ran his name and — to his surprise — came back with an open warrant.

Jones said the police officer told him he was wanted for an armed carjacking.

“That really took me back, because I have never even been armed before,” Jones said. 

Myron suspects the mistake was tied to his lost driver’s license and someone possibly using his name.

“So, he handcuffed me, took me to the station, and I left the station, and that was it,” Jones said. 

Before he left, Jones was fingerprinted in an arrest report obtained and reviewed by the I-Team. But after that — nothing.  The I-Team found no record of a charge, hearing, trial or any disposition in the case. Just the arrest report that shows up in background checks.  

Questions surrounding accuracy of criminal histories are not as uncommon as people might think. The FBI told the I-Team last year the agency received almost 3,000 challenges to criminal histories. Almost half — 46% — were found to contain incomplete or inaccurate information.

It’s something that can drastically impact lives, said James Lee with the Identity Theft Resource Center.

“There’s a whole host of financial and, just, life impacts that this can have on someone, and it is difficult to undo,” Lee said. 

Lee said criminal histories not only impact jobs, but housing and insurance and can cause an emotional strain.

“My reputation is impacted. The people who love me look at me differently. All those kinds of impacts that are just as hurtful as the financial side,” Lee said.

Attorney John Blake with the Neighborhood Legal Services Program said there are likely tens of thousands of people who have been arrested but weren’t charged in the District yet still carry the arrest on their records.

“If you’re arrested, you weren’t charged, you never got in front of a judge, it really shouldn’t be a record that exists, let alone follow you around everywhere,” Blake said.

Getting rid of a criminal record can be difficult and costly, especially in D.C., which as of now has some of the most restrictive record-relief laws in the nation. Blake said expungements where records are completely wiped clean are rare, leaving only “record sealing” as an option. “Sealing just means that the public can’t have access to the record, but the government can still see it,” according to Blake.

But some relief could be coming after the D.C. Council passed the Second Chance Amendment Act, which was enacted last March. It would provide automatic expungements and sealing in some cases, but that isn’t expected to start until late 2027 after it’s fully funded. The law does allow for motions to be filed for relief in certain cases later this year.

The I-Team asked the D.C. Council and the mayor’s office about funding for the law. So far, $300,000 has been proposed in the budget for a record consultant with D.C. police to start the process of figuring out the best way to move ahead with this very complicated bill.  

That leaves residents like Jones wondering when a past that doesn’t belong to him will ever stop affecting his future.

“I shouldn’t have to explain that to professionals or anyone around this, just because they fingerprint me,” he said. “So, in my heart of hearts, I don’t feel like no one cares about it. It’s not a priority to nobody but me.”

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

The Senate confirmed Tanya Monique Jones Bosier by a 57 to 41 vote Tuesday and Judith Pipe by a 55 to 38 vote Wednesday. A court spokesman told News4 the new judges could be sworn in as early as next week.

The move comes just weeks after the News4 I-Team revealed many D.C. residents are waiting years, in some cases, for their cases to be resolved before a judge, as well as concerns from Chief Judge Anita Josey-Herring that the court is at a “breaking point” due to court vacancies.

“I get to make the assignments and I’ve been playing chess with the assignments to make sure we can keep the court up and running … We’re running out of moves,” Josey-Herring told the I-Team last month.

Unlike every other city in America, D.C has to wait on the Senate to confirm its local judges. For months now, 13 of 62 judicial positions have sat vacant, though the White House has nominated 11 people to fill those spots. A Senate committee, meanwhile, has so far advanced six of those nominees.

Jones Bosier was first nominated by President Joe Biden in March 2023. He later nominated Pipe last summer.

“The DC Courts are grateful to the esteemed members of the United States Senate for taking some initial steps to addressing our substantial and longstanding judicial vacancy crisis,” DC Courts’ Doug Buchanan told the I-Team before mentioning the remaining Superior Court and D.C. Appeals Court vacancies.

“It is essential that the members of the United States Senate continue to focus on addressing this crisis so that the DC Courts can do all that we can to provide fair and timely justice to all of those we serve across the District of Columbia. The playing field must be leveled. It’s only fair.”

The District’s Superior Court processes everything from criminal matters to probate proceedings and civil disputes — with records indicating caseloads in these areas are showing signs of stress.

According to the court, judges in civil courts are handling 400 cases apiece — twice as many as they should. In domestic violence court last year, records show four judges averaged 1,900 cases each. Court records also show the average serious felony case is now taking nearly two years — an increase of nearly seven months from 2019.

When asked when the Senate could schedule a confirmation vote on judicial nominees in mid-May, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s staff told the I-Team they hoped to have a vote by the end of the year.

The New York Democrat’s team also issued a statement blaming the delays on Republicans and said they were “working hard to get these nominees confirmed this year.”

Just two weeks after the I-Team report aired, the vote on Jones Bosier and Pipe was placed on the calendar.

The votes weren’t the only Senate action on D.C. judicial nominees this week. On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs heard from five more Superior Court nominees to fill even more of those empty courtrooms.

Opening the hearing, Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., said the court “handles some of the highest case volumes in the country and is strained further by extended vacancies on the bench … I urge my colleague to join me in confirming these well-qualified nominees.”

According to committee staff, a vote to advance these five out of committee is not scheduled but is expected this summer.

This story was reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie and edited by Derrick Cheston. NBC Washington photographer Evan Carr contributed to this report.

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In July, the D.C. Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility alleged Kerkhoff Muyskens hid key video evidence and made false statements about video evidence at least 12 times to judges, defense attorneys and even internal investigators at the Department of Justice.

The D.C. Bar case could result in her losing her law license, but that could take years.

The D.C. ACLU’s Interim Legal Director Michael Perloff called the Kerkhoff Muyskens case “an egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct.”

On Jan. 20, 2017, hundreds of protesters took to D.C.’s streets to protest Trump’s inauguration. D.C. police mass arrested more than 200 people, and many were later indicted on felony rioting charges.

Alexei Wood, one of the arrested protesters who was acquitted at trial, said Kerkhoff Muyskens, “really had absolutely nothing [at trial]. And she just kept going and going and going and going.”

In court, not a single person was convicted, and dozens of cases were eventually dismissed.

In her denial filed Monday, Kerkhoff Muyskens, who is now an assistant U.S. attorney in Utah, acknowledged she was the prosecutor in the protest cases but denied any misconduct, paragraph by paragraph.

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While she waits for the D.C. case to proceed, federal court records in Utah show she’s withdrawn or been replaced by another attorney in dozens of cases that just weeks ago she was prosecuting.

The records don’t currently show a single case she’s actively working on in Utah. The bulk of the removals came days after the D.C. ethics case was filed and started the same day the I-Team reached out to the U.S. attorney in Utah. That office is not commenting except to confirm she’s an employee.

The News4 I-Team found Utah lawyers are paying attention. At least one asked for a delay in sentencing of their client to review the ethics charges against Kerkhoff Muyskens. A judge granted it.

Attorneys in Utah told the I-Team other delay requests may soon follow.

Kerkhoff Muyskens and an attorney linked to her have not returned the I-Team’s repeated requests for comment.

This story was reported by News4 Investigative Reporter Ted Oberg and News4 Investigative Producer Rick Yarborough, and shot by News4 Photojournalist Carlos Olazagasti

So far in 2024, 12,000 people applied for ERAP aid, the Department of Human Services told the News4 I-Team. DHS told the I-Team 3,095 households were granted aid. Yet Bowser’s Fiscal Year 2025 proposes cutting the program by 67% leaving just $20.2 million for ERAP. This year, there is more than $60 million available, including federal funds. DHS told the I-Team those federal funds are no longer available and “the District is not able to maintain ERAP funding at pre-pandemic levels.”  The D.C. Council is looking for ways to restore some of the cuts.

As she rolled out her proposed cuts, Bowser alleged misuse by some applicants.

“I believe there are people using ERAP who can pay their rent,” Bowser told D.C. Councilmember Robert White.

Days after the mayor’s Council testimony, D.C. DHS Director Laura Zeilinger went further, telling the I-Team, “There is fraud in the program.”

But when the I-Team looked for proof of the alleged fraud, the city did not provide any.

DHS told the I-Team, the agency does not have dedicated fraud investigators for ERAP,  only an office that works to root out fraud across its numerous programs. Asked if the D.C. agency identified any cases of ERAP fraud, the question went unanswered for more than a week. The agency eventually told the I-Team it referred 147 cases of suspected fraud to internal investigators over two years and payment was withheld, but it did not forward a single case to D.C.’s Office of the Inspector General for criminal investigation. Using DHS’s numbers, that means it suspected fraud in less than 1% of ERAP applications and didn’t say they definitely found fraud in any of them.

“Just saying there’s fraud doesn’t mean that there is fraud,” Taxpayers Protection Alliance President David Williams told the I-Team. “They have a responsibility to explain to taxpayers, to explain to every citizen of the city where that fraud is, how much it is and who’s committing that fraud.” 

If not, Williams worries the cuts will hurt D.C.’s most vulnerable.

“The sins of the past should not affect people that need this program in the future,” he said. 

In a written statement, Zeilinger told the I-Team, “Through information obtained informally from our housing providers, we also recognize that there are residents who we know are working and have income because they must demonstrate income to tax credit properties and are misusing ERAP. This is impacting the ability of our housing providers to maintain and sustain their properties.”

It is an issue Zach Huke can identify with. He’s likely the last guy expected to criticize a program that pays back rent.  He is a landlord, and at times, his tenants pay back rent through the program. Huke’s company, CIH Properties, owns and manages thousands of D.C. apartments — most of them in Southwest D.C.’s Bellevue neighborhood.

To Huke, ERAP’s problems are bigger than a budget fight.

“There’s, a false promise of ERAP,” Huke said.

He thinks D.C. leaders running ERAP have not addressed new challenges with the program and is at times misunderstood by D.C. tenants.

“We have residents that have built up large balances, almost hoping or expecting for ERAP to help them out,” he said.

To Huke, ERAP’s false promise is that few of the thousands who apply will get the aid they need, and when they do, the limited bailout is not enough.

Huke said 20% of the apartments in his largest building are behind a month’s rent or more — many far more.

“The top 50 (tenants) owe over $800,000, and our total amount due by current residents is almost $1 million,” he said.

Owed that much money, Huke said he has no choice but to file eviction cases in what he calls another broken system — a backlogged landlord and tenant court.

CIH’s attorneys told the I-Team the company had 26 evictions cases last month. No matter how far behind they are or how much they owe, D.C. law pauses an eviction case when a renter applies for ERAP aid.

In April, more than half of Huke’s cases, 15, were delayed for months for that reason according to their attorneys.

“There are emergencies. Families need government help. And the system was robust and functional before COVID. Right now, this system is untenable … The current state of the business is about as hard as it has ever been in the 50 years,” said Huke.

If something does not change to reset the balance between revenue (rent) and expenses, “The (affordable) housing stock, the housing ecosystem in Washington, D.C., is really under threat,” Huke said.

For longtime D.C. residents like Johnett Mason, continuing ERAP could mean the difference between staying in her home and being evicted. She knows how all-consuming it is to be months behind on her rent.

“All the time, thinking like, Oh, I don’t know how many months I’m going go with not being able to pay all of my rent,” Mason told the I-Team on the front walk of her Marshall Heights home.

She’s lived there for six years, but as she emerged from the pandemic, she said she was falling behind, saying her work as a home health aide was not recovering fast enough to pay all her bills. She had not paid rent in seven months.

“I’m talking to my landlord. I know I’m behind … So, she say, ‘You go apply and talk to someone at ERAP.’ I say, ‘ERAP? I never heard of ERAP,'” said Mason.

Mason said ERAP paid all seven months of her back rent last year.

“It put me back on track,” she said.

Asked about potential cuts, Mason encouraged Bowser to restore them.

“I’ve been in my home for six years, so I only needed ERAP one time,” she said. “I think that people are not really going to just abuse the system. They are going to use it when they need to.”

One reform Bowser is already backing would force applicants to prove their need for ERAP aid. Since the pandemic, ERAP applicants have been able to simply sign a document that claims they need it without any documentation.

A DHS spokesperson added late on Thursday, the agency “is working on legislation that would improve the targeting of assistance provided through ERAP. We are aware of the complex dynamics of the court system. We work closely with our ERAP providers to monitor court cases and to ensure those who are nearing eviction and who have ERAP applications in the queue receive the funds they are eligible for, and that the amount of ERAP assistance is known, when possible, at the time of a hearing.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

Known as the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), the laser makes three-dimensional maps of Earth’s forests – data that is used to measure how much carbon those forests store and would release if burned.

The $94 million laser, developed by researchers at the University of Maryland and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, was initially launched to space in 2018. It was nearly destroyed in recent years, however, to make room for a Department of Defense project on the ISS.

The laser was saved in part by members of Maryland’s Congressional delegation, who intervened on behalf of scientists who said they needed more time to complete GEDI’s mapping mission.

Maryland Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, along with Congressman Steny Hoyer, were among those to help broker a deal with NASA in 2022 to store the laser on the ISS while the Defense project proceeded.

“This is an essential instrument for better understanding how we can protect the world’s forests and what the negative consequences are of deforestation …. We were at risk of losing lots of valuable information for now and for future generations,” Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said in an interview with News4.

GEDI orbits the globe every 90 minutes and uses sensors to create maps that show the height and shape of trees. Pairing that information with data on the ground, scientists can create carbon databases that University of Maryland researcher Ralph Dubayah said are used by governments and nonprofits alike.

GEDI “is giving us a better understanding of how we can plan and predict for the changes that are coming because of climate,” Dubayah previously told News4. “If we lose GEDI, we’re not going to be able to come up with the most accurate estimate of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.”

According to NASA, the laser is expected to resume mapping Earth’s trees sometime this summer.

NBC Washington bureau photographer Evan Carr and producer Arielle Hixson contributed to this report.

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Tuesday, the News4 I-Team reported on the three times this month that D.C. police had been called to calm fights at the Youth Services Center. The Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services called them “group disturbances.”

In all, at least three kids were hospitalized and eight arrested for felony assault according to police records.

On Wednesday, DYRS’s independent oversight agency, the Office of Independent Juvenile Justice Facilities Oversight, released new data showing assaults and injuries doubled in April, averaging more than one a day, a disturbing and violent trend. Thirty-two kids reported injuries from assaults in April alone. The agency says there were 34 youth-on-youth assaults last month inside the secure Youth Services Center.

Both measures are more than twice what they were in March.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser recently recommended cutting all funding and closing the independent oversight agency for the facilities. D.C. Council is debating a way to find money to keep it operating.

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Vacancies have plagued the court for years but are now reaching what many are calling a crisis. Thirteen of the court’s 62 judicial positions are unfilled, according to the court. As a result, judges are overworked, cases are delayed and – Josey-Herring fears – justice is paying the price.

“The fact of the matter is, it’s not sustainable,” Josey-Herring said.

“We don’t have the time to do that extra careful, thoughtful consideration because of the pace at which we’re moving,” she said.

Unlike every other city in America, D.C has to wait on the U.S. Senate to confirm its local judges. When Josey-Herring was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1997, her confirmation took just 66 days. But now, some judges are waiting years, and it’s her job to keep the courts operating in the meantime.

“I get to make the assignments and I’ve been playing chess with the assignments to make sure we can keep the court up and running … We’re running out of moves,” she said.

The District’s Superior Court processes everything from criminal matters to probate proceedings and civil disputes – with records indicating caseloads in these areas are showing signs of stress. 

According to the court, judges in civil courts are handling 400 cases apiece, twice as many as they should. In domestic violence court last year, records show four judges averaged 1,900 cases each. Court records also show the average serious felony case is now taking nearly two years – an increase of nearly seven months from 2019.

When it comes to family cases, the presiding judge of the Family Court Division told the I-Team the number of judges has dropped from 14 a few years ago to 10 judges today. 

That’s where Shanita Simms turned for help during an ugly custody battle with the father of her two children. Records show the D.C. woman filed for sole custody of her children in July 2020, alleging abuse and parental kidnapping.

Simms told News4 she thought the process would be handled swiftly, even with disruption due to the pandemic. Instead, her case took more than two dozen hearings, four judges and three years before a judge ruled in her favor.

“It didn’t feel like they took their time to listen,” Simms said.

With every new judge, Simms had to retell her story — bringing anxiety and sleepless nights. At one point, she debated whether to withdraw her case because of the delays.

“I think maybe after the third judge, I was just like, well, maybe I should just keep it how it is. Just let him do what he wants, because I was tired of going to court,” she said.

According to the chief judge, the backlogs were compounded when the D.C. Council overhauled its criminal justice code, sending more cases to their docket.

In a May 3 letter to the U.S. Senate, Josey-Herring and D.C. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby explained that “as a result, there are more cases that must be heard within statutorily mandated time limits, by substantially few. Judges often double and triple book trial dates to comply with speedy trial statutes.”

The judges noted the Court of Appeals has two vacancies out of nine judges, noting case dispositions were down 44% last year compared to 2013, when it last had a full bench.

Misty Thomas, executive director of the D.C.-based Council for Court Excellence, said the impact of the vacancies is trickling down to the thousands of people who rely on the court for their most pressing matters.

“We are not letting people resolve these crisis points in their lives. And that’s really a big deal, especially for low and moderate-income people,” she said.

According to her organization, D.C. hasn’t had a full bench in 11 years, which she said has untold impact on the functioning of the city.

The longer cases are delayed, “the more we’re delaying administration of justice, even in terms of our public safety,” Thomas said.

The White House has nominated 11 people to fill the 13 open seats. In January, a Senate committee advanced six of them.

“All that is left on the Senate floor is the willingness to use the political capital to move them forward with a up or down vote,” Thomas said.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., runs the Senate calendar, but has yet to schedule that vote. In late 2022, when the Senate last approved some of D.C.’s judicial nominees, Schumer said in a statement, “This Democrat-led Senate will not ignore the needs of the local D.C. courts.”

Following multiple written and in-person inquiries from the I-Team, a spokesman for Schumer repeated that line and said they are “working hard to get these nominees confirmed this year.”

The spokesman also blamed the delays on Republicans he said “have consistently used partisan tactics to delay the confirmation of President Biden’s qualified nominations to the bench.”

In response, a spokesman for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told the I-Team, “Leader Schumer controls the Senate floor and has the power to confirm them should he wish to.”

As the District waits for that vote, the Court is facing at least one more vacancy this year: Josey-Herring’s. After nearly 30 years on the bench, she is stepping down in September.

This story was reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot by Steve Jones and Jeff Piper, and edited by Jeff Piper. Washington Bureau photographer Evan Carr contributed to this report.

Oversight reports show the start of this year showed improvement when it came to violence inside the facility, but the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) told News4 Monday there were 14 assaults in the prior 10 days inside the facility, suggesting that improving trend has hit a roadblock.

At 6:30 p.m. Friday, D.C. police and EMS were called for a fight inside D.C.’s Youth Services Center in Northeast D.C. It was so severe multiple ambulances and police units were sent to calm things down and treat injured young people in what is supposed to be a secure detention facility, according to those government sources.

Dispatch calls make clear there were patients injured in the fight waiting for help on the first and third floors. At least one of them was knocked out, according to multiple calls. DYRS confirmed to the I-Team one person was treated at the facility and three young detainees had to be taken to the hospital.

D.C. police reports note all three had serious injuries and four juveniles were arrested and charged with felony assault.  It appears to be the most serious but far from the only recent trip by D.C. police to calm things down inside the juvenile jail. 

Two days earlier, on May 8, another D.C. police report notes another assault with significant bodily injury. Police arrested four young people in that incident as well.

DYRS confirms a third trip on May 4 for another “group disturbance.”

The group disturbances are not the only issues the I-Team uncovered. In the last four weeks, DYRS confirms four young people inside the facility tested positive for “substances.” Three of those positive tests were for opioids. One of those incidents — on May 3 — was so severe DYRS medical personnel administered NARCAN. DYRS said the young person “responded positively” to the NARCAN. It’s not clear how the drugs got into the secure facility.

In a statement an agency spokesman told the I-Team they are investigating, adding, “It’s unacceptable that anyone would compromise a youth’s pathway to success and the agency is taking proactive measures to enhance security.”

But that’s pretty much what the director of the agency told council in February, when he says opioids were first found in the facility.

“Yes (we have heard of fentanyl in YSC) and it’s a high concern,” DYRS Director Sam Abed told D.C. Council on Feb. 15. “We recently did uncover youth who had tested positive for fentanyl and that is one of the top priorities of our internal investigator.”

It all comes a short time after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser recommended closing DYRS’ independent oversight agency, the Office of Independent Juvenile Justice Facilities Oversight. Bowser created the agency by executive order in 2020 to monitor DYRS for things like staffing and safety issues. The agency was scheduled to close November 2023, but D.C. Council passed emergency legislation to keep it open through the fiscal year due to the rising juvenile crime in the District last year. There is currently no public plan to keep the office open beyond September 2024.

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DYRS declined News4’s request for an interview to help understand why this is all happening. All of this comes as population reports show there are more kids inside that secure facility than there have been at DYRS in years.

This week, the population is listed at 108 young people. Its maximum capacity is 98.

D.C.’s juvenile detention center had very public issues with overcrowding and understaffing last year when a D.C. judge hauled them into court to explain themselves.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

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Virginia State Police admit it is “a staggering number” of arrests for violating laws that prohibit felons, domestic abusers, those committed to mental health institutions and others from owning weapons. The News4 I-Team couldn’t find any program in D.C. or Maryland similar to Virginia’s.

Lt. Dominic Sottile knows his team at Virginia State Police’s Firearms Transaction Center has stopped thousands of people with no right to buy a gun from getting one.  He said they’ve stopped almost half of them just minutes before they got the gun, while the would-be buyer was still in a gun store.

“We don’t want guns being given to those who aren’t legally allowed to possess them,” Sottile told the I-Team.

The program is recognized by gun safety advocates and, according to Sottile, by other law enforcement agencies as a nationwide leader in enforcing gun laws.

“It definitely plays a role in crime prevention,” Sottile said.

It also has prevented “countless” suicides, he said.

Suicide is the leading reason for gun deaths in the United States. People who have been ordered into in-patient mental health treatment are prohibited from buying guns, and Sottile says the Virginia State Police program has helped prevent suicides.

“I’ve had many of those where they were trying to commit suicide, and you could tell it was just an avenue for them to do so,” he said. “These transactions prevent these types of incidents from happening.”

Federal law requires any gun owner to fill out and submit federal background check paperwork prior to buying a gun. It asks about criminal history, mental health history and several other questions.

Virginia is one of 14 states across the country that requires a state background check as well. Virginia State Police handle both the federal and state checks which allows it to seem them in real time.

States and jurisdictions like D.C., which rely on the FBI to do the checks, can’t see them in real time.

According to data from Virginia State Police, 134,125 people submitted background checks to buy guns from January through March of this year. Almost all of them were approved, but when they aren’t or another red flag comes up, Virginia State Police investigate. They have 15 troopers stationed full time in the state’s major population centers, and when a questionable transaction comes into the Richmond nerve center, a trooper is dispatched to the gun store immediately.

According to Sottile, roughly 40% of the team’s arrests of prohibited buyers happen on the spot in a gun store. The others are arrested after investigation by a trooper.

Through the end of March, VSP had arrested 529 people “related to the sale or attempt to purchase firearms as a result of denied transactions.” Last year, there were more than 2,200 arrests.

Inside NOVA Armory, an Arlington gun dealer, owner Shawn Poulin is well aware of the state police program and said selling more guns isn’t always the most important job.

“We want to keep firearms out of the wrong young person’s hands,” he said.

He said he sees troopers in the store “all the time.” 

Christian Heyne, a gun violence survivor and the chief policy and programs officer for gun violence prevention organization Brady, told the I-Team programs that use local and state law enforcement can be more effective.

“It is important to keep guns out of the hands of prohibited buyers,” Heyne said. “This is one way that Virginia State Police reacts to an imminent threat, and in doing so, they leverage the relationships local law enforcement have with gun dealers and the people in their communities.”

Far from viewing troopers as bad for business, Poulin wishes more agencies would do what Virginia State Police are doing. He’s also a legal gun dealer in Washington, D.C.

“The enforcement of the front-end regulations concerning firearms transactions is enforced differently, Virginia versus D.C.,” he said.

While D.C. police don’t have a specialized unit like Virginia’s, it can still enforce firearm restrictions. But when the I-Team tried to find out if they have done so, the Metropolitan Police Department police pointed to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That agency investigates only when someone fails the background check but somehow still obtains a gun.

ATF told the I-Team that only happened “maybe once or twice in the last five years,” adding, “As far as the gun purchase itself, the ATF doesn’t have anything to do with it. Prohibited buyers attempting to buy a firearm in D.C. is an issue that would fall to MPD.”

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Poulin says he heard a similar response from MPD. Poulin told the I-Team he calls D.C. police a handful of times a year when concerned about a questionable buyer in his shop, but nothing happens. In just one episode, Poulin said a would-be buyer “had an altered document that it was very apparent a third grader could have said this was two different documents.”

He said MPD told him to call ATF.

“Yet,” Poulin said, “ATF … That’s not their job to enforce this kind of issue.”

The I-Team spent three weeks trying to get D.C. police’s take on the entire issue. Late on Friday, a spokesperson emailed the I-Team, saying, “The Metropolitan Police Department is focused on removing illegal guns from the streets of the District of Columbia. When it comes to legally registering a firearm, MPD uses strict guidelines and fingerprint-based background checks that enhance federal background checks to determine if an individual is legally permitted to register a firearm under DC Code. MPD does not have any unit assigned specifically to enforcement of prohibited people making willful misrepresentations in an attempt to legally purchase or transfer guns in the District. In 2023, MPD’s background check process prevented 323 people from legally registering a firearm in the District.”

In Maryland, where state law imposes a seven-day waiting period to buy a handgun, dealers and Maryland State Police say paperwork is almost always filled out online and away from the gun store with customers only showing up after their background check and waiting period have cleared.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Jeff Piper and Steve Jones, and edited by Jeff Piper.

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But the News4 I-Team found gaps in motor carrier laws that make holding the truck driver, who didn’t stop or report the incident, accountable for the damages.

“I’ve lost everything,” said Sonja Tucker, a former IT specialist who suffered a disabling traumatic brain injury and from the crash and is now unable to work.

With mounting medical bills, her family is racing against time to find the truck owner before the statute of limitations to file an insurance claim ends in July.

“Somebody needs to be held accountable and responsible for this,” said her longtime partner, Omar Rico.

Tucker doesn’t remember much about the July 1, 2022, afternoon crash. According to police reports, Tucker was driving towards Interstate 66 East when the dual set of tractor-trailer tires smashed into her windshield and sent her car spinning.

According to her family, Tucker suffered several broken bones and a brain hemorrhage. She spent several weeks in a coma as Virginia State Police tried to locate the driver responsible for the crash.

According to VSP, there were no road cameras operating in the work zone that day. The only video came from a local retailer’s surveillance camera, but the truck — later described by a witness to the crash as black and chrome — had no visible signage. The witness didn’t catch the license plate numbers.

Police say it’s impossible to know whether the driver — who was traveling on the opposite side of the interstate — was aware the wheel and tire hub assembly broke off the trailer. If the driver had known the incident caused a crash, he or she would be required to stop and notify authorities, according to police.

But the I-Team found there’s nothing under current law to require drivers to contact authorities if they discover potentially deadly equipment missing from their trucks following a trip.

“He doesn’t have an obligation the way our laws are written to really do anything,” explained Sgt. Steve Vilbert, who inspects trucks traveling through the commonwealth as part of the Virginia State Police Motor Carrier Safety Unit.

Vilbert noted the law only requires truck drivers to notify their bosses or record the equipment issue internally.

Asked if he believes tougher reporting requirements would make a difference, Vilbert said, “Absolutely … It would help us close a lot of cases.”

Though most recent reports show nearly 6,000 people died in truck-involved crashes in 2021, the kind that happened to Tucker are extremely rare.

According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), crashes caused by wheels falling off or tire blow outs accounted for just 3.6% of all fatal wrecks in 2021 and 4.4% of crashes that caused injuries that same year.

But the impact of such crashes can be devastating to families, noted Zach Cahalan with the nonprofit Truck Safety Coalition.

Cahalan said victims trying to collect for damages shouldn’t expect a big pay out under current law, either. That’s because the minimum liability insurance a carrier has to maintain is $750,000, a figure that hasn’t been increased since 1980.

“The average crash cost is $5 million … so the idea that $750,000 has never been increased, not even for inflation, is bananas,” he said.

Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García, D-Ill., is sponsoring a measure that would increase a motor carrier’s liability insurance to $5 million. He told the I-Team he would also support additional reporting requirements.

“I think that’s very important. That’s beyond the scope of this bill, but certainly something we should look at,” he said.

His measure is facing opposition — mostly from trucking groups like the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) and the American Trucking Associations (ATA), which has said there’s little indication the current insurance levels are inadequate.

In a statement, the ATA told News4, “Raising minimums would increase premiums for small trucking businesses across the board and is certain to put many out of business, including those with excellent safety records.”

The statement continued, “Considering that 96% of trucking companies in the country operate 10 trucks or fewer, this would have an adverse impact on the supply chain without any measurable safety benefit.”   

The OOIDA’s Collin Long told News4 his organization supports stronger safety measures for truck drivers, like mandatory behind the wheel training before one can become a commercial driver, but Long questioned the feasibility of increased reporting requirements for equipment failures.

“If someone brings us a proposal, we’re happy to vet that and consider its merits, but I think we need to put a little bit of caution into that, simply because there are already systems in place at the U.S. Department of Transportation that we have been trying to improve for years,” he said.

In a statement to News4, the FMCSA said drivers are required to complete inspections before and after each trip and document any problems with their company, adding any issues “must be corrected immediately” before drivers can get back on the road.

The Tucker family hopes someone who may have seen something that day will reach out to police.

And while they focus on Sonja’s physical recovery, the family said navigating the emotional toll of what Sonja lost is just as difficult.

“Sonja did all the right things that you’re supposed to do,” her mother, Renee Tucker, said. “Didn’t live above her means. Was always capable of supporting herself … Once she decided what she wanted to do, she accomplished it, so the fact that she’s in this position right now …”

“It’s really unfair,” Sonja interjected, breaking down in tears.

“I don’t want my daughter crying. I don’t want her upset. That’s the last thing I want,” Renee Tucker continued. “But there’s got to be an answer to this. I just don’t want this to disappear.”

According to VSP, anyone who witnessed this or other crashes can call the state’s emergency communication center by dialing #7-7.

News4 photographers Lance Ing and Evan Carr, as well as NBC Washington bureau producer Arielle Hixson, contributed to this report.

The furloughs were laid out in a letter sent last week to the D.C. Superior Court’s chief judge and several other D.C. criminal justice agencies, News4 has confirmed.

The D.C. Public Defender Service (PDS) handles thousands of matters in D.C. courts every year, according to its most recent annual report. They represent people accused of every level of crime, people with mental health issues, juvenile cases, and people appearing in appeals and civil courts as well.

While not a federal agency, the PDS is funded by a congressional appropriation.

According to their most recent budget, $3 million of their $53.6 million budget can only be used for a relocation this year. The service recently moved offices, and at this point, News4 has learned, the PDS doesn’t need that money to move anymore. They need it for salaries — but since the cash came from Congress, the problem won’t be fixed without a literal act of Congress.

News4 is not aware of any pending congressional action to fix the budget issue.

According to the PDS budget, posted online, 70% of the agency’s spending is on personnel. That’s the only place they can really look to save money. 

Their solution is to furlough employees one day per week. Most of their 120 attorneys will get an unpaid day off every Wednesday from mid-June to mid-September. Some will take another day off. None are immune from the furlough.

In the letter to the Superior Court and several other D.C. agencies, Heather N. Pinckney, the director of the service, explained: “As a result of the weekly office closure,  PDS attorneys will not be able to appear in any court for any matter, including initial appearances, preliminary hearings, and trials … This decision to close was a difficult one to make but is necessitated by the unprecedented circumstances faced by the agency.”

The furloughs will mean even more delays at the D.C. Superior Court, where the most serious criminal cases are already taking nearly two years to resolve, according to court records.

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A spokesperson for the courts told us Thursday: “The Court is … doing all that we can to administer fair and timely justice in light of this recent news, but we will clearly be hampered in cases where there is not an attorney present to represent their clients.”

“This is yet another significant bump in the road in Superior Court’s efforts deliver fair and timely justice … coupled with the critical judicial vacancies impacting the Court and those that we serve,” the spokesperson said.

As News4 has reported in the past, 13 of the 62 Superior Court judgeships are vacant. That, too, will take an act of Congress to fix — specifically, the U.S. Senate.

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Eleven nominees are working their way through the Senate for confirmation, but some have been waiting months. There is no date for a confirmation vote.

Update (Friday, May 3, 2024, 12:20 p.m. ET): The article has been updated from a previous version. The DC Public Defenders Service budget is $53.6 million this fiscal year, not $59.5 as originally reported. The agency’s budget submission requested $59.5 million and Congress appropriated $53.6 million.

Ten dogs drowned in the incident Aug. 14 in Northeast D.C.

In February, members of the D.C. Council grilled Heather McGaffin, the head of the District’s 911 system — the Office of Unified Communications (OUC) — about the agency’s response to the District Dog flood. While her agency had months to do so before that hearing, McGaffin did not release an after-action report that day as expected, saying it would instead come from D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

What she didn’t say is that the draft report was finished by Dec. 18 – months earlier.

D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto released that report Wednesday. The D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency didn’t explain to the News4 I-Team why it hadn’t released the report.

“As part of my oversight role of our emergency response and public safety agencies as Chairwoman of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, I requested, obtained and am reviewing a draft of the after-action report on the tragic District Dogs flooding incident last August,” Pinto told the I-Team. “I firmly believe that increased transparency of the District’s emergency response is critical for improving accuracy, reliability and public trust, which is why I shared the draft after-action report from the executive with the public.”

The 25-page report breaks down the timeline of what happened Aug. 14.

Three 911 calls came in about District Dogs that afternoon.

The first call at 5:06 p.m. came from an employee who wasn’t at work but watching the flooding from a remote camera. That employee and their partner, Corvo Leung, who was also on the call, told the call taker people and animals were trapped with rising water. According to the report, the call taker questioned how to code the incident in the dispatch system. According to the report, the call taker was told by a supervisor to enter it as “water leak.”

Despite the call, no emergency response was dispatched to District Dogs after that first call. That’s because the report said up until that time, a water rescue inside a building had never occurred in the city.

“To hear that classified as a water leak, when we very clearly said that people and dogs’ lives were in danger … It boggles my mind,” Leung told the I-Team. “And it troubles me on a very, very high level.”

OUC got a second 911 call at 5:09 p.m. from another employee off site who also said there were people and animals inside. Only then did OUC dispatch the first rescue team to District Dogs, but the call over the radio to crews on scene was still described as a “water leak.” At that moment, the report says, “the dispatch did not mention people or dogs being trapped.” It was still coded in the dispatch system as “flooding-public assistance.” That’s considered a “low priority,” so the fire commander turned the rescue crew around, which is standard practice.

A third 911 call came in at 5:17 p.m. from a person actually trapped inside. That’s when the computer system was finally updated to “water rescue.” It was 11 minutes after the first call. Five minutes after that, at 5:22 p.m., OUC made it clear for the first time over the radio to firefighters on the scene that people and animals were trapped and in danger.

The report reveals firefighters didn’t get into District Dogs until 5:29 p.m. and didn’t reach the third caller until 5:35 p.m.

Leung still can’t make sense of it.

“I believe that had there been a faster response, a different response, a more accurate response, that the people that I know and care about and love wouldn’t have as severe PTSD, that they would not have flashbacks every time it rains,” they said.

The report says any change in the coding would not have saved the dogs. The dogs were already dead, the report said, but it would have ensured proper resources were dispatched from the initial dispatch.

OUC says all its call takers and dispatchers have been trained since this incident to code future indoor water rescues as an emergency — categorizing them as “rescue or building collapse.”

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The report does not address the lack of problem solving or a work around for OUC when dealing with an emergency it never encountered before.

OUC didn’t respond to the I-Team’s request for comment.

Pinto said she will push for more insight at OUC.

“With the implementation of my Secure DC public safety omnibus legislation that requires sustained public transparency of our 911 and emergency operations, I’ll continue to push for increased transparency to improve the accuracy and reliability of our emergency response and build trust with the public,” she said.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

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The U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland’s office recently announced the conspiracy charge against Ejike Asiegbunam, whom they say made more than $1.6 million in what they called a “scheme to defraud.”

According to court documents, Asiegbunam was the owner and operator of a nursing school in Florida and a nursing exam prep school in Maryland. The feds allege that, between 2018 and 2021, Asiegbunam — along with three others — “conspired to provide purchasers with false and fraudulent RN degrees” from the Florida nursing school.

In the filing, U.S. Attorney Erek Barron accuses Asiegbunam of accepting thousands of dollars from students to “complete required prerequisites” to enter that nursing school for them. The U.S. attorney alleges Asiegbunam charged purchasers between $15,000 and $22,000 for the false nursing school documents and as much as $5,000 to complete online prerequisites.

The feds also say he conspired with a woman identified as Johanah Napoleon to sell fake degrees from the Palm Beach School of Nursing in Florida to people in Maryland and New York. Reached by News4, her attorney confirmed Napoleon previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy related to a fake nursing degree case in Florida.

The court documents don’t name the test prep business or the nursing school the feds allege Asiegbunam operated, but in 2021, the News4 I-Team reported concerns from local students who took online classes from Asiegbunam’s Jay College of Health Sciences.

Students interviewed at the time said they were out thousands of dollars when the school abruptly shut down that year.

The I-Team’s monthslong investigation found that while Jay College was approved by Florida officials to teach in-person classes there and had temporary emergency approval to offer programs online due to the pandemic, state education officials said it has not been approved to offer distance learning to students across the country.

At the time, Maryland higher education officials told the I-Team Jay College had not received the required approval to offer nursing programs to Maryland students online or in-person, either.

What’s more, the I-Team found local graduates wouldn’t be able to sit for Maryland’s nurse-licensing exams, because even though some states’ nursing boards recognize degrees from Jay College, the Maryland Board of Nursing did not include the school among its approved in-state or out-of-state programs.

“The reason why I chose this school was because it was online,” said a Montgomery County, Maryland, woman.

She said she was enrolled in its practical nursing program for just a couple months when it was suddenly canceled in 2021. She asked News4 not to use her name out of concern for reprisal.

“It was just very devastating for me that all of that happened — the way it happened,” she said.

Neither Asiegbunam nor his school returned repeated requests for comment at the time of that report. On Wednesday, his defense attorney declined comment on the federal conspiracy case.

In its filing, the U.S. attorney’s office said it plans to seek forfeiture of at least $1.6 million from Asiegbunam if he is convicted.

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On Monday, Rick Rahim became the third former auxiliary sheriff’s deputy to plead guilty to bribing Jenkins.

The indictment against Rahim and Jenkins alleges Rahim paid Jenkins $25,000. He handed Jenkins the cash in manila envelopes, prosecutors say. They claim Rahim also paid for a campaign billboard, 200 custom knives and a $17,500 loan “towards a new home Jenkins was building.” Prosecutors say Rahim never asked to be paid back “because he wanted to maintain a good relationship with Jenkins.”

Rahim denied wrongdoing to the News4 I-Team on his way to the federal courthouse in Charlottesville Monday morning.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said.

Just minutes later, Rahim told the federal judge he did.

Prosecutors laid out the plot. Rahim was convicted of four financial felonies in the 1990s. Felons can’t own guns, so Rahim lost his right to own one. Federal prosecutors say and court documents reveal Rahim met then-Sheriff Jenkins in 2019 and a plan started to get Rahim his right to own a gun restored.

In exchange for the cash payments, Jenkins would allegedly use his official position to both help Rahim get his rights restored and become an auxiliary deputy, which further enhanced his rights.

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Rahim is the third former auxiliary deputy to plead guilty in the case. It helps complete the picture of how then-Sheriff Jenkins allegedly worked the bribery scheme to collect cash and checks. Court documents say only some of that money made it to Jenkins’ campaign account. The rest allegedly went to Jenkins’ personal accounts. In exchange, Jenkins gave all three of the men auxiliary deputy badges, allowing them to legally carry a gun.

Rahim also was assigned to a security detail for President Joe Biden during a visit to the Culpeper area in 2022.

Jenkins has pleaded not guilty. His attorney did not respond to an email Monday asking how Rahim’s plea affects the case against Jenkins.

Court documents and previous testimony make clear the feds have hours of recordings of the alleged bribes in this case. All of those tapes and now testimony from three former deputies who have pleaded guilty could be part of former Sheriff Jenkins’ trial. It is now scheduled for late July.

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The White House executive visit to Germanna Community College on Feb. 10, 2022, was a chance for President Joe Biden to pitch a prescription drug price relief plan.

The 20-page “law enforcement sensitive” plan obtained by the I-Team shows many Culpeper Sheriff’s Office deputies were assigned to guard entrances and exits and key points at Culpeper Regional Airport where Marine One, the presidential helicopter, landed. Deep into the plan, auxiliary Deputy Rick Rahim is listed as a rover to provide relief to other deputies at the airport.

The I-Team has reported on Rahim before. Court records show he was sworn in as an auxiliary deputy in May 2021. Rahim is a felon with convictions for conspiracy to commit grand larceny and obtaining money under false pretenses in the 1990s.

Former Sheriff Scott Jenkins, who appointed Rahim, did not answer questions about his appointment or background check when the I-Team first reported it. In recent weeks Jenkins’ attorney did not respond to questions about how Rahim ended up on the presidential assignment.

According to the plan, there were more than a dozen deputies working that day. Rahim was one of at least three auxiliary deputies the I-Team on the schedule that day, but the Culpeper Sheriff’s Office had dozens of auxiliary deputies on a roster.

Jenkins is scheduled for a federal trial in July, accused of allegedly accepting bribes to make at least three people, including Rahim, an auxiliary deputy. Rahim is charged for allegedly paying the bribe. Both pleaded not guilty.

Court records show Rahim is expected to change his plea next week. The I-Team reached out to Rahim’s attorney about the plea hearing and the presidential visit but did not hear back.

When asked about the presidential security assignment, former Secret Service Special Agent Matt Doherty told the I-Team it was “jaw dropping that this would happen in a U.S. police department, that a convicted felon would be authorized not only to carry a gun and badge but charged with the protection of the citizenry and to support the Secret Service in their protective machinery.”

Doherty, who is now a workplace risk assessment expert for the consulting firm Sikich, told the I-Team the Secret Service relies on local law enforcement agencies to assist with every high-level visit. He said the agency has no choice but to trust local agencies.

“We assume that those individuals have been vetted,” Doherty said.

“The Secret Service protective model ensures the highest level of security for our protectees,” the Secret Service told the I-Team in a statement. “There were no security considerations or issues that impacted the President’s movements during the 2022 visit to Culpeper, Virginia.”

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Doherty echoed the statement, assuring the I-Team the president was not in danger that day, but called Rahim’s inclusion in the plan “a horrible dereliction of duty, not only for the president, but the day-to-day interaction with the citizenry.” 

 The Secret Service statement continued, “As it relates to vetting partner law enforcement agencies that assist the Secret Service, there are rigorous legal and background requirements to obtain law enforcement certification in every state. Each local jurisdiction is responsible for ensuring the efficacy of that process. In this instance, there may be questions as to whether that process was followed.”  

 The Secret Service wouldn’t comment more specifically, citing the pending federal case against the former sheriff.

The new sheriff suspended the auxiliary deputy program when he started in January.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

“My brother got shot right here,” the Maryland man said, pointing to the sidewalk in front of a small apartment building.

Robert “Bobby” Plummer was among a group of people hanging outside the evening of Oct. 5, 2020, when police say someone opened fire at them, killing Bobby and wounding three others.

His family believes Bobby – a favorite uncle whom they described as loving and joyful — wasn’t the intended target. Years later, no one has been arrested in the crime. Plummer, his brother-in-law Kenneth McGee and Bobby’s daughter, Alexis, are convinced someone knows something but isn’t talking.

“I’m angry, but I’m not surprised,” McGee, also of Maryland, said. “We have been programmed that doing the right thing is actually doing the wrong thing.”

The Plummer family isn’t alone in its pain. Bobby’s case is one of nearly 120 unsolved homicides from 2020, according to the Metropolitan Police Department’s website. D.C. police are also working to solve 172 homicides from last year – more than 60% of last year’s homicide total.

“The reason they’re not getting solved is because no one will stand up and speak on them,” a frustrated Plummer said.

Bobby’s family knows why some witnesses may stay on the sidelines: fear of police, fear of incrimination, fear of being called to testify or fear of being called a snitch.

There’s one tool, though, they hope someone will use to solve their brother’s case: an anonymous tip line luring callers with the potential for cash.

But the News4 I-Team found not only do these tip reward programs vary widely in how they’re run, there also are concerns over whether having cops run their own program hurts the cases they’re trying to solve.

“Negative perceptions of policing is a major reason for a lack of witness participation,” said Tom Scott, a social scientist with RTI International who studies policing and crime.

He said that while there’s little formal research into what makes a successful cash reward for crime tips program, it’s unusual to have police run them. Most, he noted, are operated by small nonprofit or volunteer groups such as Crime Stoppers or Crime Solvers, which typically fundraise to pay small rewards and aren’t subject to much scrutiny.

D.C. police use public dollars to pay out rewards as high as $25,000 but are also reliant on tips from a community that Scott said may be skeptical of them.

“You’re trying to incentivize witnesses and victims to share information with law enforcement … even when they might have negative personal experiences with law enforcement,” he said.

Frustrated by unsolved homicides, former D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey created the department’s rewards program more than 20 years ago. The program has since expanded to include payouts for tips about shootings, robberies, gun seizures and illegal ATV operators.  

Through an open records request, the I-Team found D.C. police have paid out a combined $1.93 million for homicide-related tips to 191 people since fiscal year 2018. The rewards, associated with convictions related in 73 cases, represent 6% of all homicide cases since that year.

A police spokesman noted there could be additional people who were eligible for reward funds who didn’t follow through with collecting them. 

Scott said even a single closed case makes the program worth it but wonders if there would be even more pay outs if tip calls weren’t fielded by cops. For example, on homicide flyers like Bobby’s, the police department advertises a tip line that sends callers to its 24-hour Command Information Center.

“I think as much as law enforcement can separate themselves from their Crime Stoppers program, those negative perceptions of the police and law enforcement would be less likely to hamper participation in those programs,” Scott said.

D.C. does have a separate Crime Solvers group, which MPD’s rewards page indicates pays out tips on lower level offenses. But the head of the D.C. Crime Solvers program told the I-Team it receives its tips from D.C. police. What’s more, the I-Team found the phone number for the local organization directs callers to other surrounding Crime Solvers organizations, instead of the D.C. program.

In Prince George’s County, local Crime Solvers Chairman William Steen explained his group oversees payouts for tips it receives directly, as well as some that are submitted to Prince George’s County police. In those instances, Steen said, the police tell Crime Solvers about tips that helped close critical cases — usually homicides — and the Crime Solvers board decides how much to award the tipster.

Steen said his group works with police but not for police, a key difference, he said, not just in perception but in reality for the anonymity they provide tipsters.

“If you were to call the police department and you were to give your address or your name or proximity to the case, then they’re obligated to take that information and add it to the file,” Steen said. “With Crime Solvers, we make sure that even if you start down that process, that we stop you because we don’t want any of that being a part of the official record.”

D.C. police, however, pushed back on that notion, telling the I-Team in a statement that it “guarantees anonymity to all tipsters.”

A spokesman also told the I-Team they aren’t concerned about a potential lack of tips, noting Chief Pamela Smith recently credited the public’s help for tips that lead to the arrest of a teenager in a recent Brookland Metro station shooting.

But the I-Team found it could be years for those tipsters to be eligible for a reward in D.C., where most tips have to lead to conviction. That’s a higher bar than in many other places in the D.C. area.

In Prince George’s, Montgomery and Fairfax counties — where Crime Solvers programs aren’t run by police – the I-Team found they typically pay rewards for tips leading to an arrest or indictment.

“If you’re only providing rewards after conviction, I don’t think your Crime Stoppers program will be very effective,” Scott suggested.

In a phone interview, the executive director of Crime Stoppers USA told the I-Team her organization doesn’t measure success by how many tips its member groups receive, but by how well they maintain a reputation for providing anonymity to its callers.

She also said her group recommends paying tipsters when they help solve a case – not for conviction.

In the end, the Plummer family doesn’t care what motivates someone to come forward with information about Bobby’s killer. They just want the phone to ring and justice to be served.

“He was a jewel that was picked from the crown of this family,” McGee said.

Plummer said the grief over unanswered questions hangs over his family.

“Someone needs to pay for their mistake,” he said. “I know it won’t bring my brother back, but it’ll bring closure to this family.”

Anyone with information about the killing of Robert “Bobby” Plummer is asked to call D.C. police at 202-727-9099.

This story was reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper. NBC Boston contributed to this report.

A Virginia woman says she found herself in a financial mess after discovering that the used car she bought from a private seller wasn’t what she’d been told.

Barbara Aboagye, from Woodbridge, Virginia, thought that she’d hit the jackpot, and found “a dream come true,” she told News4.

“I saw this car, a 2015 Porsche Macan,” she said. “And I love it.”

There it was, Aboagye’s dream car, listed on Facebook Marketplace by a private seller from Pennsylvania, for $25,000.

The two arranged to meet, and according to Aboagye, the seller handed her a clean title. That means there were no liens on the car, and he owned it outright.

She then secured a loan with her bank. The seller got his check, and she got her car.

For 19 months, Barbara said she’s been paying down her loan and hasn’t missed a single payment. She even paid double some months.

But the joyride came to a screeching halt when, in early spring, she looked out the window and noticed her beloved Porsche was gone.

“I was like, oh my God, what is going on? Is this stolen?” Aboagye said.

She was even more confused when she called police and they told her it wasn’t stolen — it had been repossessed.

“I said, what is going on? How come?” she said.

Aboagye’s bank told her they didn’t repossess the car, and confirmed she was current on her payments.

So if her bank didn’t order the repo, who did?

After weeks of getting no straight answers, Aboagye contacted NBC4 Responds. We went to her house to see if we could get to the bottom of the mystery, and she gathered all of her paperwork for us.

After several hours and several phone calls to all the parties involved, we found the answer: The car was still under the seller’s name when it was repossessed.

That’s the same name that was on the supposedly clean title she was given.

The seller purchased the Porsche from Carvana in 2020, and financed it through Bridgecrest — Carvana’s finance company. According to Bridgecrest, the seller was delinquent on paying the loan, only making three payments in 2022.

The company said it repossessed the vehicle not knowing about the fraudulent sale.

When Aboagye called the man she bought the car from, he told her the car was paid for.

Bridgecrest is “working with law enforcement to understand what occurred and the unlawful actions the seller took to fraudulently sell the vehicle for which he never paid,” the company told News4.

Since Aboagye was able to purchase and register the car unknowingly using a fraudulent title, the vehicle identification number was linked to her home address, which is where the tow truck was sent to repo the car.

“I’m shocked,” Aboagye said. “I’m speechless. I hear stories and stuff like that but I never knew I would be a victim one day.”

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According to Ira Rheingold, the director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, title washing is the most common scam for vehicle titles.

“The person who sold the consumer the car clearly was the person who committed the fraud,” Rheingold said.

Title washing is when unscrupulous sellers “wash” a title to remove information, like liens or salvage.

“Fraudsters are out there. They’re always looking to take advantage of folks,” Rheingold said.

Luckily for Aboagye, her journey had a happy ending. While her repossessed dream car had been sent to an auction house, and was about to go on the auction block, both Carvana and Bridgecrest agreed to release the car so she could take it home.

“I feel so relieved,” Aboagye said as she got back behind the wheel. “Super happy. I can’t thank you guys enough. I am so grateful.”

News4 contacted the seller numerous times, but he never responded.

As for Bridgecrest, they told News4 they contacted several law enforcement agencies but haven’t heard back from any of them. They have not pursued any civil action against the seller.

How can I protect myself from title fraud?

When buying a car from a private seller, experts have a few tips:

• Ask for a photo ID and compare the names to those on the title to be sure they match.
• If the title is a duplicate, be wary and ask more questions. Ask where the original is and if you can see it.
• Get a CARFAX report. If it shows the car was salvaged, the title should reflect that. If it doesn’t, walk away from the sale.

One woman said her abuse began in first grade. Another said a priest routinely threatened her with a gun and once held her head underwater near a boat’s propellers to keep her silent about her repeated rape. A man described how the abuse he endured as a young teen set him on a path of destruction that has haunted him for years. All said they live with depression and nightmares of their abuse to this day.

The sex abuse survivors have fought for this opportunity since the Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for bankruptcy last fall just days before a Maryland law called the Child Victims Act took effect. The law allows survivors to sue regardless of when their abuse happened but has faced several legal challenges since it was enacted.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Michelle Harner recently ruled to allow the survivors to address the court — something that isn’t a guarantee in typical bankruptcy proceedings.

“The court will provide time and space for listening,” she said Monday.

Lori listened intently as survivors told the stories of how their lives and, in some cases, their will to live, were taken at the hands of church leaders whom they trusted.

“I came as a priest and pastor and someone who hopes that by doing this I can contribute in some small way to the healing,” Lori said.

One survivor, who kept her eyes on Lori as she told of the years of abuse she said she endured, explained the importance of giving her testimony.

“This is a day of liberation for me in this courtroom, at this moment,” said the woman, whom News4 is not naming to protect her privacy, addressing Lori directly. “I am grateful I am allowed this moment and you are listening to me.”

She hugged Lori after sharing her story, but other survivors were not as forgiving.

“I wanted him to hear what happened to all of us and realize the church could have acted a lot earlier than they did,” said Teresa Lancaster, a survivor and attorney who said the sexual abuse she endured at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore began as a junior in 1970, continuing until she graduated in 1972.

What happened to Lancaster and other girls at that high school at the hands of Father A. Joseph Maskell was explored in a 2017 Netflix series called “The Keepers.” Church leaders initially tried to discredit parts of the series. Then last spring, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released a report detailing how more than 150 Catholic priests and other Maryland clergy sexually abused more than 600 children and were never held accountable.

Lancaster spent decades advocating for the passage of the state’s Child Victim’s Act and has criticized the Catholic Church for trying to dismantle it. The Archdiocese of Washington has repeatedly questioned the constitutionality of the law in civil cases now playing out in court.

“We finally got it passed, and now the church is stomping on it, trying to destroy it,” Lancaster said.

A Prince George’s County Circuit Court judge upheld the law in a March decision, allowing a class action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Washington to proceed.

Last week, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge ruled the same law unconstitutional in a case against the archdiocese.

A case against the Harford County school system also upheld the law.

The question of constitutionality is expected to ultimately go before the Maryland Supreme Court for a final ruling.

“All of the survivors that have started to come forward have done so because of this law,” said Jonathan Schochor, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit in Prince George’s County against the Archdiocese of Washington. “It’s a huge step for all Marylanders, including all minors who had been sexually abused.”

Survivors have told the News4 I-Team they feel like they are being further victimized by the church fighting the Child Victims Act.

“The reason we entered into Chapter 11 was so that we could, in fact, help as many victim survivors as equitably as we can while at the same time carrying forward the mission of the church,” Lori said.

Several challenges to the Child Victims Act making their way to Maryland’s Supreme Court. Meanwhile, attorneys who are involved in the bankruptcy process say they don’t know how long it’s going to take, maybe several months or longer.

Survivors are encouraged to get their claims in by May 31.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

“I have nothing. I don’t have his death certificate. I don’t have the autopsy report … We have nothing but this corpse,” said his mother, Christina Jeter.

Last October, Jeter was found unresponsive in his cell at USP Victorville, part of a massive federal facility in California. According to his mother, a prison chaplain called her to say her son was in grave condition and had been transported to a nearby hospital.  

“She said, ‘Your son was found unresponsive.’ I said, ‘Is he dead?’ She said, ‘I don’t know,’” Christina Jeter said.

She told the prison official she was on her way to be by his side.

“That’s when they told me that, by the time I got to California, he’d already be dead because he doesn’t have brain activity,” she said.

According to coroner records, Jeter officially died Oct. 27 at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, and his body was sent to the coroner for review. But his mother said the family didn’t receive his body in D.C. for nearly six weeks and have waited more than five months for information that could shed light into his passing.

Their search for answers highlights a lack of transparency and unique challenges the News4 I-Team found many D.C. families say they face after their loved one is incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

That’s because without a dedicated federal prison, people convicted of crimes in D.C.’s Superior Court are shipped to federal facilities across the country. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the I-Team found more than 2,550 of D.C.’s convicted residents are currently serving time in federal prisons across the U.S.

And though a BOP policy requires the bureau to try to place inmates within 500 miles of their home, last year Jeter was transferred to Victorville – nearly 2,600 miles away from the District.

“He should have never been there,” his mother said.

In an email, a Victorville prison official declined a request for an interview and directed the I-Team to file open records requests with the BOP for information about Jeter’s death. The I-Team has submitted multiple questions and records requests to the bureau headquarters and its western division and has not yet received the information.

Early challenges

Before Jeter was federal inmate 50080-007, his sister Tyria says he was her lovable little brother.

“He was a happy kid,” she said. “He was just very loving and he would make you laugh at any moment, even if you were having a bad day.”

But that changed as he got older and struggled with learning disabilities. Barely able to read and write, his family said he was bullied and eventually dropped out of high school.

“Robert just started getting into things that he shouldn’t have been getting into; following people, doing things that was out of the ordinary,” Christina Jeter recalled.

In June 2012, Jeter and a friend were arrested for carjacking and armed robbery.

“Robert couldn’t even comprehend the danger he had put himself into,” his mother said.

He was sentenced to 12 years and, according to his family, began his incarceration at FCI Gilmer in Glenville, West Virginia. His family often visited him there, but after serving more than half his sentence at Gilmer, his mother said he was moved farther and farther from D.C. until he arrived in California last year. 

His mother said she doesn’t know why he was transferred there as his hopeful release date approached. The BOP declined to specifically address Jeter’s case to the I-Team, but a spokesman said while the BOP attempts to place inmates within the 500-mile radius, the inmate may be placed elsewhere due to “specific security, programming, or population concerns.”

Medical assessments in court records reviewed by the I-Team showed he was in good health while incarcerated in West Virginia. His mother said she doesn’t know what could have changed by the time he arrived at USP Victorville, where prison officials told her his health “had been failing” around the time he was taken to the hospital.

She said she had even more questions after speaking to a doctor at the hospital, who — according to Christina Jeter — told her that her son appeared to have “trauma to the brain so severe that his brain had swollen and hemorrhaged” and that he was “beaten so severely that his liver was, you know, split.”

Christina Jeter said no one at the jail or BOP has confirmed those injuries to her. She hoped his autopsy would give them some insight into his death. Instead, earlier this year, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department coroner ruled Jeter’s death “undetermined.”

The I-Team requested all available records from the coroner’s office but has been told it could take six to 12 months following his death to receive them.

Seeking answers

“I have heard of autopsies and investigations being blocked and results taking a long time, but this is at the extreme end of what I’ve heard,” said Deborah Golden, a local civil rights attorney who has represented many D.C. inmates and their families.

She said it’s not only difficult to get timely answers from BOP about in-custody deaths but even more difficult to get justice if wrongdoing is potentially found.

The longer it takes, she said, the more families lose “any sense of accountability. Any sense of justice. In many cases, the ability to pursue legal action because statutes of limitations have run. And the human sense of finding out what happened to your loved one is lost.”

Former D.C. Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Roger Mitchell, author of “Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do About It,” said he encourages families to pursue a second autopsy when a loved one dies in custody.

“A second forensic autopsy on an individual that died in custody is extremely important. It’s like getting a second opinion when you’ve been given a diagnosis of cancer,” he said.

But Mitchell said it’s best to do so in a timely manner, noting that critical information would have been lost in the several weeks it took for the Jeter family to receive his body. The Jeter family, meanwhile, opted against a private autopsy, as they were told it would cost several thousand dollars.

Mitchell said Jeter’s story underscores why he added a checkbox to the D.C. death certificate to help track in-custody deaths. It’s something he wants to see on all U.S. death certificates to help track the frequency and cause of deaths behind bars.

“We have a very accurate account of how many people are dying from fentanyl and opioids, and we should, because that’s a public health approach that informs policy well beyond the public health policy,” Mitchell said. “What I’m saying, and what the National Medical Association is saying, is that we need that same approach to death in custody.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the District in the U.S. House, introduced multiple pieces of legislation she said are aimed at improving life behind bars for D.C.’s incarcerated. One bill would keep D.C. inmates serving federal time within 250 miles of the District.

“One of the most important things you could do for an inmate is to make him as close to his loved ones as possible,” Norton told the I-Team. “Putting him miles away will make reentry difficult and will make it difficult for him while in prison.”

Her other measure would require the BOP to provide routine updates to the D.C. mayor on where local inmates are housed and their expected release date.

Norton’s questions surrounding the deaths of two D.C. inmates at USP Hazelton in 2018 prompted the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Justice to study death-in-custody procedures at the BOP.

In February, the OIG released a report into the deaths of 344 BOP inmates who died between 2014 and 2021.The OIG found the BOP’s response to medical emergencies often insufficient and that a lack of available information about inmate deaths limits the BOP’s ability to potentially prevent future deaths.

In a hearing before Congress about the OIG’s findings, BOP Director Colette Peters said the bureau is making improvements but that short staffing and a lack of funding for competitive compensation are part of the problem.

That’s little comfort to the Jeter family, which buried Robert Jeter just before the new year.

“He had hopes. He wanted to live his life,” Christina Jeter said.

She said she has accepted that she won’t see her son again, but she can’t rest until she knows how his prison sentence became a death sentence.

This story was reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie, shot by Steve Jones and Jeff Piper, and edited by Jeff Piper. News4 photographer Evan Carr contributed to this report.

That much was reported at the time, but now the News4 I-Team has the federal documents proving a concerning number of guns the Metropolitan Police Department helped bring into the District ended up at crime scenes. So many guns recovered at crime scenes, in such a brief period, that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives placed D.C. police into a program designed to give extra scrutiny to dealers with higher levels of so-called crime guns.

MPD’s gun dealing was different than what many gun owners may be used to. Theirs was not a typical gun store with display cases and racks of guns to peruse. When a D.C. resident wants a legal handgun, they usually go to a gun store in Virginia or Maryland or to an online site. They pick the gun out, pay for it and have it shipped to a licensed dealer in D.C. – at the time, D.C. police headquarters. That D.C. dealer plays an important role in the sale process as the only place a federal background check is conducted, looking for past crimes or other disqualifications.

In recent weeks, the group Brady United Against Gun Violence released hundreds of letters sent by the ATF to gun dealers across the country that sold 25 or more guns recovered at crime scenes in a single year. The I-Team found one sent to MPD in May 2022. ATF calls it the Demand 2 Program.

“We are not anti-gun dealers at Brady,” Josh Scharff, the group’s general counsel, told the I-Team. “We are anti-irresponsible-gun dealing.”

According to Brady, just 2% of gun dealers across the country are in the ATF program any given year. The I-Team found 14 dealers in D.C., Northern Virginia, and the Maryland suburbs. That includes both currently licensed dealers in D.C. along with MPD from the time when it was an active gun dealer.

That means at least 25 of the guns MPD helped sell to D.C. residents in 2020 and 2021 were recovered at crime scenes in 2021 alone.

“It was a little bit surprising to see that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department receive a demand letter,” Scharff said.

Federal firearms licensees (FFLs) play an important part in crime investigations.After a gun is found at a crime scene, the ATF traces it all the way back to the original sale with dealers and then follows the trail to see who else may have bought the gun before it was used in a crime. Detectives use the traces to develop suspects.

Short ‘time-to-crime’ with DC police dealt guns

According to the ATF, a gun found at a crime scene is on average 10 years along from its first sale – a calculation the ATF calls “time-to-crime.” The ATF explained to the I-Team, “Shorter time-to-crime periods could be indicators of illegal trafficking and provide crucial intelligence to investigators.”

The agency says if that happens within three years of the first sale, it deserves extra scrutiny into the gun dealer. For the dozens of guns recovered at crime scenes that D.C. police helped sell, the time-to-crime was at most 20 months – less than two years.

MPD is ‘ultimately responsible’

D.C. police has since stopped operating as an FFL, but Scharff told the I-Team the department should want to know why that time-to-crime was shorter and be able to tell D.C. families if their loved one was shot with a gun they helped bring into the District.

“MPD is ultimately responsible for the public safety of the residents of the of Washington, D.C.,” Scharff said. “Everything that they do should have an eye towards protecting the public safety. If Washington Metropolitan Police Department is engaged in selling firearms to the public, they have an obligation to the residents of D.C., to make sure that they are doing so safely and responsibly.”

Gun dealer had concerns about MPD’s practices

Shawn Poulin opened DC Security Associates in 2021. He is one of two FFLs in D.C. currently working with the public. He said he sees himself as the last check on responsible sales.

“We have a conscience just like everyone else. And we believe in responsible ownership,” he said.

Poulin opened his business months after MPD started operating as an FFL. At that time, MPD was the only licensed operating gun dealer in the District. D.C. police were then – and, according to everyone the I-Team talked to, is still – the only police department in America to help sell or have sold guns to the public. Federal records show D.C. police held a Type 1 federal firearms license, which the ATF defines as a “dealer in firearms other than destructive devices.”

Even before Poulin opened, he said D.C. police told him they wanted out of the gun business.

“They asked us to open early by four weeks?” Poulin told the I-Team at his D.C. location. “They were getting sick and tired of managing all those firearms they had down there. They had thousands of firearms waiting to be processed.”

D.C. police would not talk to the I-Team about Poulin’s claim.

When asked if he agreed with D.C. police getting into the gun business, “Heck, no,” Poulin told the I-Team, explaining, “My biggest point there for a while was if your firearms branch screws up, you’re going to inspect and enforce your own firearms branch?”

Looking back, Poulin said he was not surprised to see D.C. police on the list of dealers with guns that ended up at crime scenes.

“Does not surprise me one bit,” he said. “I walked in there, and it was, it was archaic. The processes, the systems they were using, to manage that process. It was archaic. I offered advice and offered little suggestions.”

D.C. police did not respond to that concern, either.

The I-Team also found Poulin’s business and the other D.C. FFL also received an ATF Demand 2 Program letter. Poulin told the I-Team his managers submit quarterly reports as required by the program and responded, “We don’t play games with (requests from the ATF).”

Few answers from DC police

After weeks of trying to obtain even basic answers from both D.C. police and the mayor’s office, the I-Team received few answers about the department’s time as an FFL. Brady’s Scharff told the I-Team D.C. residents deserve to know more about how their police department legally moved more than 8,000 handguns into the hands of District residents.

The trail started in 2012. At the time, D.C. had recently and repeatedly been in court over its stringent gun regulations and the 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller had upended many of them.

The D.C. Council passed a law in 2012 allowing the city to seek a license to sell guns to D.C. residents if no other private business would do so.

Eight years later as COVID-19 took hold in the District (and, as federal statistics show, gun purchases rose rapidly), D.C.’s longtime lone licensed dealer closed his business. A D.C. police spokesperson told the I-Team, “MPD was required to operate as an FFL from April 3, 2020, until January 4, 2021, to uphold a constitutional right in the District.”

The department would not say how many guns were eventually tracked to crime scenes, or if they told families D.C. police helped sell a gun used to injure their loved one. D.C. police would not tell us how many people were assigned to the gun dealing unit. Nor would they say if they ever refused a sale – as is a dealer’s right.

While D.C. police didn’t answer most specific questions the I-Team sent, even basic answers the department offered were confusing. D.C. police said it started dealing guns more than two weeks before Mayor Muriel Bowser’s order allowing them to do so. D.C. police has not offered any explanation.

The law that allowed D.C. police to get into the gun business also allowed them to charge $125 per firearm transfer. D.C. police confirmed it charged that much, meaning they brought in more than a million dollars. A spokesperson said the funds collected from the transfers went to the city’s general fund.

In a statement to the I-Team, a D.C. police spokesperson wrote, “MPD has never sold guns. MPD was required to operate as an FFL from April 3, 2020, until January 4, 2021, to uphold a constitutional right in the District. During that period, the department facilitated the legal transfer of 8,038 firearms.”

That spokesperson also said once MPD ceased operations as a gun dealer, the department complied with requirements to submit transaction records to the ATF.

DC mayor told Virginia to better oversee gun dealers months before DC became one

Before Bowser told D.C. police to get into the gun business, she criticized Virginia lawmakers for not overseeing dealers in the commonwealth strictly enough.

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In a letter she sent Virginia legislative leaders on Jan. 8, 2020, Bowser urged Virginia legislative leaders to do more to keep guns legally sold in Virginia from being used in DC crimes. “Illegal guns originating in Virginia are a key driver of gun crime in D.C.,” Bowser wrote. She continued, “According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, ATF data show that criminal or negligent gun dealers are responsible for ‘nearly half’ of the total number of trafficked firearms uncovered in ATF investigations.”

Four months later, she signed that mayor’s order authorizing D.C.’s police department to become a dealer themselves, and those ATF records show clearly, D.C. helped bring guns into the District eventually used in crime, too.

The I-Team asked about the letter and D.C. police’s role as a gun dealer two weeks ago. The mayor’s office acknowledged the questions but never answered them.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

In July, the D.C. Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility alleged Kerkhoff Muyskens hid key video evidence and made false statements about video evidence at least 12 times to judges, defense attorneys and even internal investigators at the Department of Justice.

The D.C. Bar case could result in her losing her law license, but that could take years.

The D.C. ACLU’s Interim Legal Director Michael Perloff called the Kerkhoff Muyskens case “an egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct.”

On Jan. 20, 2017, hundreds of protesters took to D.C.’s streets to protest Trump’s inauguration. D.C. police mass arrested more than 200 people, and many were later indicted on felony rioting charges.

Alexei Wood, one of the arrested protesters who was acquitted at trial, said Kerkhoff Muyskens, “really had absolutely nothing [at trial]. And she just kept going and going and going and going.”

In court, not a single person was convicted, and dozens of cases were eventually dismissed.

In her denial filed Monday, Kerkhoff Muyskens, who is now an assistant U.S. attorney in Utah, acknowledged she was the prosecutor in the protest cases but denied any misconduct, paragraph by paragraph.

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While she waits for the D.C. case to proceed, federal court records in Utah show she’s withdrawn or been replaced by another attorney in dozens of cases that just weeks ago she was prosecuting.

The records don’t currently show a single case she’s actively working on in Utah. The bulk of the removals came days after the D.C. ethics case was filed and started the same day the I-Team reached out to the U.S. attorney in Utah. That office is not commenting except to confirm she’s an employee.

The News4 I-Team found Utah lawyers are paying attention. At least one asked for a delay in sentencing of their client to review the ethics charges against Kerkhoff Muyskens. A judge granted it.

Attorneys in Utah told the I-Team other delay requests may soon follow.

Kerkhoff Muyskens and an attorney linked to her have not returned the I-Team’s repeated requests for comment.

This story was reported by News4 Investigative Reporter Ted Oberg and News4 Investigative Producer Rick Yarborough, and shot by News4 Photojournalist Carlos Olazagasti

Check fraud has exploded, increasing by more than 100% in the past five years. And by the time fraudulent checks are detected, the thieves are often long gone. In most cases, banks will put the money back into their customer’s account, but not always. 

Hyman said his company recently wrote a check for $2,150 to one of its vendors who deposited the check into their bank. A few weeks later, Hyman’s office manager noticed something was off when she was checking the books. That single check, according to Hyman, was cashed nine times, draining the business account of more than $15,000.

“Somebody got a hold of that check and washed it,” Hyman said. “We were the ones who caught it. The bank never contacted me.”

The amounts and the check numbers were replaced along with the payee name, which was changed to names no one at Hyman’s company recognized. Only the note in the memo remained unchanged.

After filing a fraud report with Capital Bank, Hyman said they did return the entire amount back into his business account. But he said, without notifying him, the bank took some of the money back.

“Capital Bank of Maryland went back into my account and took out $6,400,” Hyman said. “They said that they can’t get the money back from the bank that the checks were cashed at, so they’re out $6,400 and they wanted to split it with me.”

Hyman said he reluctantly agreed to split the difference and then switched banks after 30 years of being a customer.  

“I would think that the bank, after 30 years, would stand up to, you know, a relationship that we have and help out,” Hyman said. 

Capital Bank’s CEO told the News4 I-Team he couldn’t discuss Hyman’s case because of privacy laws. But when fraud is suspected, the bank will provisionally return money to a customer’s account while they investigate.

Adam Rust, the director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, says by law customers, including businesses, are entitled to be reimbursed for check-washing fraud under the Uniform Commercial Code, which sets standards for banks.

“Ultimately, the depositing bank has liability, but it will be between your bank and that bank to determine how the actual liability is shared,” said Rust.

Rust says when it comes to commercial banking, the UCC does hold businesses more accountable for ensuring the security of their checks.

“Businesses write many checks and businesses write checks for larger amounts,” he said. “So, it’s really important for a business to be looking at their checkbook quickly to see if checks are showing up on the register when they wrote them.”

Hyman said his frustration isn’t about losing $3,200, it’s about principle. His company no longer writes checks. Instead, transactions are done electronically.

“If we do need to write a check, it’s written from the bank and mailed from the bank. We do not write it. But 99% of our vendors now will take ACH wire transfer,” said Hyman.

The I-Team reached out to all the banks involved. Hyman’s former bank, Capital Bank, said it did investigate the fraud, but Hyman said he never heard the outcome. TD Bank, where some of the checks were cashed, told the I-Team it refunded two of the fraudulent checks but have not received any other claims from Capital Bank. A TD bank spokesperson said if they do receive the necessary claims, it will work to help recover the other funds. United Bank, where the original check was deposited, said the I-Team was the first to alert them to any fraud issue and that no one ever contacted them regarding an investigation.

How to protect your checks

• If you suspect a check was washed, contact your bank immediately,
• Even if your bank reimburses you, close the original account.
• Freeze all of your credit reports.
• If possible, avoid writing checks and use electronic forms of payment.

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

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As many looked at the crumpled wreckage of the Key Bridge in awe, engineers the News4 I-Team talked to were looking at what was in place before the accident to protect the bridge from just that type of collision. In pictures and video of the bridge, large concrete circles in the water – called dolphins – are visible. Those columns extend to the bottom of the Patapsco River. They’re designed to absorb the impact of an errant ship and hopefully slow it down enough to keep the support from taking a direct hit.

The Key Bridge has two dolphins on either side but at some distance from the bridge supports. National Transportation Safety Board drone video shows when the Dali lost control, the nearly 1,000-foot-long ship didn’t even come in contact with those protective features before it collided with the bridge.

Bridge engineers tell the I-Team many protective features came about after the collapse of Tampa’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge on May 9, 1980. In that accident, a cargo ship blew off course in a storm and hit a bridge support, collapsing the bridge. Thirty-five people died.

When that bridge was rebuilt seven years later, the new Skyway Bridge had dozens of protective dolphins. Additionally, the bridge supports are surrounded by islands, which extend underwater, designed to force a ship aground before a collision.

The safety of the bridge is now part of the NTSB investigation.

“We look at changes over time, whether we look at bigger container ships or traffic on a bridge or whether a structure that may be decades old is safe,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told News4.

One hundred miles up the coast from Baltimore, the Delaware Memorial Bridge along Interstate 95 near Wilmington is in the middle of a three-year, $95 million safety upgrade.

“The structures themselves that are in the water to act as that bumper would absorb the impacts of the ship and keep it away from our tower,” Jim Salmon, a spokesperson for the Delaware River and Bay Authority told the I-Team.

In renderings of the new project, the protective features are placed closer to the Memorial Bridge than those at the Key Bridge and surround the piers from approaching ship traffic. The Delaware River and Bay Authority predicts if the same accident happened under their bridge once the system is complete, it would still be standing.

“We’d have significant damage to the fendering system, the new cylinders,” Salmon said, “but people will be still using the bridge.”

Engineers reminded cost is a key consideration in bridge planning. Collisions are rare, improvements are expensive, but every day the port is closed has a $10 million economic impact, said Daraius Irani, Ph.D., a Towson University expert.

The I-Team asked the Maryland Transportation Authority when the Key Bridge dolphins were installed but hasn’t heard back.

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This week a Harford County Circuit Court judge ruled against the Harford County Board of Education’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a former student who said he was abused by two employees in the 1980s and 1990s. The man, identified only as John Doe in the filing, alleges he was repeatedly sexually abused by a teacher at Deerfield Elementary and later by an employee at Edgewood High School.

In its motion to dismiss, attorneys for the school board unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the 2023 law, saying the board is protected from these claims by prior statute of limitations.

But the attorneys also laid out arguments for why they say the survivor may also bear some responsibility for the abuse he alleges occurred as a teenager, writing: “Nowhere in the Complaint does Plaintiff allege that [the accused] forced Plaintiff to engage in sexual activity. To the contrary, the Complaint reveals that Plaintiff had numerous opportunities to extricate himself … yet he chose not to do so.”

The attorneys continued: “The Board respectfully submits that an ordinarily prudent minor of that age knows or should know that repeatedly engaging in sexual conduct with an adult carries certain risks and consequences.”

In an interview with News4, the survivor called that argument “reprehensible.”

“It shows how out of touch they are with true victims that they do not understand the abuse that has occurred and the mental health aspect to that,” he said.

The man called his years in public school “the most difficult years of my life” and said “the damage thrust upon me by my offenders is a life sentence that will never go away.”

In their response to the board’s motion to dismiss, attorneys for John Doe wrote: “To suggest that a child can consent to his sexual abuse is morally outrageous and legally meritless.”

This week, Harford Circuit Court Judge Alex Allman dismissed the constitutionality challenge but also dismissed a count of negligent infliction of emotional distress brought by Doe.

A spokesperson for the Harford school system declined News4’s request for comment on the lawsuit, though they’re expected to appeal the judge’s decision.

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Doe’s case is the latest challenge to the state’s landmark abuse survivor law.

Earlier this month, a Prince George’s County Circuit Court judge ruled a class action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Washington can proceed, dismissing a similar challenge brought by the church to the constitutionality of the Child Victims Act. In that case, three men are suing the Archdiocese for abuse they say they endured as children.

Attorneys for the archdiocese argued the institution is protected from civil lawsuits because of the 2017 Maryland law they say granted them “vested rights” to be free from liability as non-perpetrator defendants. The judge disagreed.

As in the Harford case, that matter is expected to head to appeal and likely the Maryland Supreme Court.

Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

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A Maryland homeowner who uses propane to power her heat and water heater told News4 she’s never had a problem with her tanks but added, “I will always have my nose listening for that smell of cabbage.”

However, the recent propane tank explosion in Sterling, Virginia, certainly raised concerns among homeowners who have similar tanks and now wonder about the integrity of theirs.

“You can’t just set it and forget it,” said Holly Burgess, who works for the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit that sets the standards and codes for propane tanks. “Maintenance is key.”

Experts like Burgess say propane is relatively safe to use, but homeowners should still look for signs of wear and tear on their tanks.

“So, what you’re looking at is, is there any sort of pitting in it?” Burgess said. “Is there any sort of rust?”

But Burgess warns that’s about all the visual inspection homeowners should do. The rest should be left to experts.

“You should have a local gas company that’s going to come out,” she said.

“They’re going to check for leaks and they’re going to follow everything that’s in that code,” she added.

According to the Propane Education and Research Council, aboveground tanks and underground tanks are relatively safe since they’re manufactured to government-approved standards. But periodic maintenance is necessary.

If tanks are leased from a propane supplier, that supplier is subject to compliance inspections regarding tank maintenance and will maintain that tank.

If a homeowner thinks there is a leak, the primary indicators are pungent odor and a hissing noise. However, a gas detector is another tool that alerts homeowners of a gas leak inside.

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Natural gas is another option for homeowners to power their stoves, heat, dryers and water heaters, but just as with propane, maintenance of appliances is the key to keeping families safe.

Steve Himmelfarb of Washington Gas walked News4 through simple tips to follow, starting with a gas stove. He said the flame should be blue and steady

“If there are any wavering colors of yellow, it’s an indication that the appliance needs to be looked at by a professional,” he said.

Insulation wrapping a hot water tank could be a fire hazard and should be removed.

Also, make sure to replace or inspect HVAC filters monthly. Not doing so could result in clogs leading to fires and a buildup of carbon monoxide.

Regardless of whether using propane or natural gas to fuel a home, that rotten egg odor means get out immediately. Don’t bother shutting off lights or appliances and don’t even use a cellphone until outside. Just by turning the lights on or off could trigger an explosion.

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“Not at this time,” Loudoun County Fire & Rescue Chief Keith Johnson told the I-Team as he looked back on the response from Feb. 16. At the time of the explosion, firefighters were responding to a gas leak call. Radio calls indicate crews found a leaking 500-gallon underground propane tank in the backyard.

It is believed that gas seeped from the leaking tank into the home before it exploded with firefighters inside.

“Most people will ask, you know, why were you in the house?” Johnson said. “The answer is simply, well, we have occupants to remove in the house. They were inside. Our first job is life safety. We will risk a lot to save a lot.”

The I-Team learned it is far from the only underground tank in the county. Loudoun County does not maintain records on the number of underground storage tanks in the county, but building records show at least 2,000 permitted tanks countywide.

The fire department pointed out that as development spreads across the county, not all neighborhoods are served with underground gas lines.

In Prince William County, Virginia, approximately 5,030 residential gas storage tanks are currently permitted.

In Maryland the Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement in Prince George’s County has permitted approximately 700 above ground and underground gas storage tanks since 1982 and about 230 propane storage tanks. In Montgomery County, there are more than 2,300 permits for storage tanks.

As with many fire departments, Loudoun County firefighters carry a gas meter equipped to measure pentane, which they described to the I-Team as an effective way to detect either propane (normally stored in tanks) or methane (piped natural gas).

As the I-Team examined how departments across the area respond to gas leaks, that handheld meter emerged as one of the most important tools they carry.

“Our meters obviously are calibrated to read gas, and we have action levels,” Johnson said. “When it gets to a certain actionable action level, we will remove ourselves from the environment. We can’t operate in an environment that’s not safe.”

“(It is) still yet to be determined what the crew saw when they got there, what they had on their meters,” Johnson said. “That’s all in the review.”

Johnson hopes his department’s internal reviews will be complete by the end of the year.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health — a national workplace safety agency — is investigating as well. NIOSH investigates all firefighter line-of-duty deaths to find causes, but also to determine better techniques.

NIOSH’s current best practices for gas leaks insists every firefighter should know how to use that gas detecting meter; crews should maintain cold, warm and hot zones to know where it is safe; and a “defensive approach” should be used “until all gases have been eliminated from any structure and surrounding area.”

“It’s hard to say that you should never go inside of a building with a natural gas leak,” said Jamie Burgess, the director of hazardous materials training for the International Association of Fire Fighters. “For the most part, firefighters are going to go inside, because we have to stop, we have to stop the source. We have to stop the leak, or at least identify the source of, of the leak.”

The D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department recently allowed the I-Team inside its training academy to see a gas leak scenario up close.

D.C. Fire Marshal Mitchell Kannry started by explaining why responding crews do not pull up to the front of the gas leak.

“We start at 200 feet away,” he said. “That’s what our policy is. And then we slowly and kind of actually make our way closer.”

It is a common policy among fire departments.

First crews will lay a water line in case a fire starts, and a team will approach with their gas meters.

In the scenario the I-Team witnessed, crews found an elevated gas level. It meant they had to turn on their air tanks and evacuate the building while trying to determine the source of the leak.

“We have a responsibility to search,” Kannry explained. “For the safety of all those citizens, we can’t just leave and wish everybody good luck.”

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Once the building was secure, the training firefighters left the building as well and staged outside at safe distance – outside what they called a ‘collapse zone’ — hopefully far enough to avoid both a building collapse and flying debris.

The danger is very real.

“Essentially what these buildings are, when they’re, when they’re pumped full of natural gas, they’re bombs,” the IAFF’s Burgess emphasized. “All they need is an ignition source.”

D.C. firefighters used that safe distance near the site of a gas leak Jan. 18 in Southeast. That morning, a delivery truck hit the gas line next door to Baby Einstein Child Development Center on Marion Barry Avenue.

“We actually smelled gas (inside and on the second floor),” Baby Einstein owner Regina Snead said.

She jumped into action, getting 16 kids, some just months old, into their coats and out the door.

Minutes after they got to the corner, the windows exploded out of the day care’s building, and the convenience store next door collapsed.

“If we didn’t think quickly, we could have been in the middle of all this,” Snead said.

Not even one of the kids she cared for was hurt.

​In the midst of it, the dozens of responding D.C. firefighters escaped injury, and not a single truck was damaged.

​A month after the Sterling explosion, Battalion Chief Sam Myers said he can see some added concern from his fellow firefighters who respond to gas leaks these days. And as Johnson said, that night will stay with him and his entire team.

“It is the behavioral health aspects of what our folks experienced,” he said. “Both those that were injured and not injured is yet to be seen. There’s a lot of emotional trauma besides the physical trauma, and I don’t know that we’re going to know the extent of that for quite some time.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Jeff Piper and Steve Jones, and edited by Jeff Piper.

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

Video obtained by the News4 I-Team shows the moment on Dec. 30 that Rita Iannazzi says she was hit while walking in a crosswalk at the corner of Cathedral Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in Northwest.

The delivery driver’s dashcam video shows Iannazzi waiting at the crosswalk for the signal to change. The driver, seen in the video eating at the time, turns into the intersection, striking her. A D.C. police crash report obtained by the I-Team shows the driver was issued an infraction for “colliding with a pedestrian.”

Iannazzi had 11 surgeries for multiple broken bones and spent nearly two months in the hospital.

“I’m angry; I feel tired,” said her husband of 40 years, Gianfranco Mancini, who spoke exclusively to News4 on her behalf as she recuperates at home.

She wasn’t up to showing her face, though she did share pictures she says are from happier times.

Mancini was in Italy at the time of her accident, talking with his wife on a video call at the moment she was hit.

“I saw her starting to step to cross the road, and suddenly, I saw the sky,” he said. “I heard people screaming; I could see later an officer approaching … And I saw her bleeding, and she told me, ‘Well, I had an accident,’ and, ‘Don’t worry about that; they are helping me.’”

 He said his wife still needs more surgery and will face a lifetime of medical care.

Mancini knew the delivery truck belonged to Amazon, saying, “They had a sign on it.”

News4 covered the accident, and the video shows a blue truck with “Prime” on the side.

“To the general public, everyone knows it’s an Amazon van. It says ‘Amazon;’ it says ‘Prime’ on it,” said attorney Patrick Regan, who represents the couple.

But despite that Prime logo, Regan said the driver actually worked for a third-party company, what Amazon calls a delivery service partner (DSP). 

Amazon told the I-Team it uses more than 3,500 DSPs to deliver 20 million packages a day across 19 countries. 

“What they’ve done is they’ve attempted to insulate themselves from responsibility by creating these DSPs, and yet all the money flows to Amazon,” said Regan.

Regan said when there is a crash, consumers are often directed to file claims with the DSP instead of Amazon. But he said from his experience with other similar cases he’s filed, the DSP’s insurance coverage is grossly inadequate.

“In this case, the insurance coverage that the DSP has is less than the medical bills to date,” he said.

The couple is suing both Amazon and the DSP — Orion’s Harp LLC of Lanham, Maryland. The I-Team reached out to Amazon along with the DSP about the lawsuit but has not yet heard back.

News4 I-Team

Education Mar 13

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Amazon previously told News4: “Since 2018, the Delivery Service Partner (DSP) program has empowered entrepreneurs who want to launch and operate their own delivery service to do business with Amazon. Now, more than 3,500 DSPs are delivering over 20 million packages every day across 19 countries. As has always been the case, nothing is more important to us than safety, which is why over the last five years we’ve invested more than $8 billion in state-of-the-art technology, safety enhancements, vehicle fleets, and exclusive services for DSPs and their drivers. These investments in safety technology and programs in delivery vehicles have decreased collision rates by 40%. And we’re not done — we’re always innovating with new technology, making process improvements, and helping DSPs provide better training to their employees to improve the safety of drivers, customers, and the communities we serve.”

The lawsuit claims Amazon, along with DSPs in general, prioritize “pickup/delivery speed over driver safety.”

“It’s the sheer volume of the deliveries that these drivers have to deliver every single day, or expected to deliver every day, that causes them to speed, go fast, to cut corners, to be distracted,” said Regan.

Mancini said he puts most of the blame on the companies and the push to deliver so many items, sometimes at a dangerous cost.

“It will surely happen again if you force your workforce to work at that way,” Mancini said. “They are human beings. This kind of accident that will happen again, someone will die for them.”

Reported by Susan Hogan, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.

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But the News4 I-Team found that, despite widespread agreement among educational experts that tutoring is working, there are real fears those programs could sunset as the federal dollars that fund them are poised to go away later this year.

“For us, tutoring isn’t just about remediation; it’s also about acceleration,” said Latisha Coleman, principal of Johnson Middle School in Southeast D.C. “It’s about giving our kids a leg up.”

The District has allocated $33 million across three years to fund tutoring services in schools like hers, which largely serves low-income students who otherwise can’t afford private tutoring services. Coleman said it’s been a game-changer in helping her students catch up in reading and math.  

She said that, at the beginning of the year, 60% of her sixth graders were behind two or more grade levels in reading.  But since tutoring began during school days and on Saturdays, she says that number has dropped to 40%.

“Tutoring has helped build our kids’ confidence,” Coleman said. “Especially in math. Because if you ask a kid, especially a Black kid, if you’re a math person, so many of them say no, but our kids will say yes.”

Experts interviewed by the I-Team said high-impact tutoring typically occurs during school hours and in small group settings at least twice a week. And whether it takes place virtually or online, experts say having the same instructor is key to its success.

“They help you in ways you never thought you can get help … like, not just, like, educationally. They help you with a lot of other things,” said Johnson Middle sixth grader Zaniyah Hearne.

Johnson eighth grader Christopha Alston said that, while he is sometimes distracted in larger classrooms, the small group math tutoring he receives has helped him focus. Now, he’s confident in skills including long division.

“I’m good at that now,” he said.

Seventh grader Nijel Hubbard added: “It helps you learn that math is really fun and makes you want to come to school even more.”

The students said it’s also helped them help other students who are struggling with math.

“It makes me feel good,” said Jayden Johnson, a seventh grader. “I feel like if I’m going to make it; I want them to make it as well.”

The students aren’t the only ones excited about the program. Johnson math teacher Tayler Bryant saw her students struggle during the pandemic. But now, as she also serves as a tutor, Bryant has seen how some students have blossomed in that smaller setting.

 “Students are more motivated. They’re building their confidence. They are more willing to even help other students,” she said.

Josh Weisbard, another math teacher at Johnson who’s also a tutor, said he doesn’t see a future without both classroom instruction and high-impact tutoring.

“You can’t really have one without the other,” he said. “I think it’s just doing so much to help out.”

But that’s exactly what might happen as federal dollars that helped to fund these programs are expected to end later this year, unless the states that haven’t spent all of those dollars file for an extension. Some states have also kicked in their own money, but there are fears that won’t be enough.

“It would just be like a tragic heartbreak, I think, if these programs just ended because of all of the impact that they’re having,” said Liz Cohen with the Georgetown University education think tank FutureEd.

Cohen has studied varying models of high-impact tutoring that were made possible through federal pandemic dollars.  

In one low-income school Cohen studied in Louisiana, every first grader who participated reached their literacy goals for the first time, she said.

Cohen also noted these programs have shown promise when it comes to battling chronic absenteeism. Preliminary findings from a recent study by the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University show a nearly 7% decrease in absenteeism among D.C. students receiving tutoring.

“It’s transformational, because kids are getting sometimes three, six months, even a year’s worth of learning in maybe a few months’ time,” Cohen said.

There’s not just concern these tutoring programs will go away but also concern about what that would mean for the kids whose families have never been able to afford it on their own.

In D.C., expensive private tutoring centers tend to be in communities with higher incomes, but experts say government-funded programs have meant students on both sides of the river can benefit.

 “That makes it more equitable for the students who usually don’t see services like this. And so that puts them on par,” said Lindsay Washington, a tutoring coordinator with the nonprofit Raising a Village.

Abimbola Ogundare, who provides tutoring in D.C. schools through George Washington University’s Math Matters program, said she’s hopeful District leaders will find a way to continue funding the services.

“The schools have seen the work that our tutors do and the relationships that our tutors have built with these students and how impactful that has been for the students. It would be very difficult to believe that [after] seeing that, that they would just let it fall to the wayside,” she said.

According to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, D.C.’s three-year program is on target to help at least 7,000 students with the goal of helping 10,000. According to OSSE, the schools help decide which students would benefit the most from tutoring.

OSSE leaders also said they’re having discussions with schools about funding choices and hope to continue the programs long-term, but acknowledge it’s so far unclear how that will play out.

Virginia Department of Education Superintendent Lisa Coons is trying to solve the same problem.

“We have to have high-impact tutoring for our students,” she told the I-Team.

Last year, the Virginia General Assembly approved $418 million that can be spent on programs like tutoring through 2026, but Coons said she’d like to find a way to make the program a permanent fixture.

“I do think there are some other things that we spend dollars on in education that we need to think about and make sure that our first two priorities are that high-quality teachers are teaching a high-quality lesson every single day. And then, second, making sure that our supports around students are focused on what we know works — and high-impact tutoring works,” Coons said. 

A spokesperson with Virginia’s Alexandria City Public Schools told the I-Team the additional state funds will allow it to scale its tutoring programs to reach a larger number of students. It currently is offering tutoring at schools with the greatest risk of accreditation issues and it’s using its division, Title I and American Rescue Plan funds to pay for its tutoring. 

In Prince George’s County, Maryland, there are also high-impact tutoring programs in reading and mathematics.  According to a spokesperson, one is the Carnegie Learning Program, which costs $1.8 million a year and is paid for with federal pandemic relief dollars. The school system is planning to sustain the program with district funds, saying it has seen significant performance improvements among students who attended at least 60% of the tutoring sessions.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education says schools that haven’t spent all of their federal relief dollars are eligible to file for an extension to spend that money through 2026. According to the spokesperson, none in our area had applied for the extension as of late February, but many — including D.C. — tell us those discussions are in the works.

If the money does go away, researchers like Cohen say there are some options on the table, such as expanding federal work-study programs that allow college students to tutor in public schools, or expanding programs now offered through AmeriCorps.

Principal Coleman said she’s hopeful but concerned about having to make tough budgeting choices, at a time she already knows she’s losing several school positions next year.

“Without [tutoring], how do we give our kids on this side of town a leg up? How do we say we’re getting these kids ready for algebra?” she said. “I have to staff the school building. But without the additional funding, how do I staff the afterschool tutoring supports? It’s a tough choice.”

She said, pandemic or not, tutoring’s impact is so life changing she wishes she had it throughout her career.

“Most of my career has been in Southeast Washington, D.C., with kids furthest from opportunity,” Coleman said. “To have had this 20 years ago would have been absolutely a game changer for so many students and their families. I know it to be true.”

This story was reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot and edited by Steve Jones. News4 I-Team photographer Jeff Piper contributed to this report.

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For the first time since 2021, Democrats control both houses of the Virginia Legislature. As the session started, Democrat leaders promised a big push on gun safety.

As the session went on, the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights advocate group warned its members, “It is absolutely an all-out war (on lawful gun owners).”

But as the session ends and attention turns to what Gov. Glenn Youngkin will sign, gun safety advocates still want to know what will become law.

Gun safety bills sailed through the General Assembly. 

A bill to ban Glock switches, also known as auto sears, is one of them.

It’s a small device that turns a common handgun into an incredibly dangerous and lethal machine gun. They’re already federally banned. Former Loudoun County prosecutor, now Democrat State Senator Russet Perry, led the charge in the Senate to outlaw them in Virginia.

“It can be one of those things that gives states an extra tool to combat, you know, dangerous gun violence that most people can get behind and agree on,” she said.

It passed out of the Senate with bipartisan support. In the Virginia House of Delegates, a nearly identical Glock switch ban Del. Mike Jones, D-Richmond, sponsored has unanimous support. In initial votes, it did not get a single no vote even from a Republican.

“I’m proud of my Republican colleagues,” Jones said. “Everyone always talks about working across the aisle. This is one of those issues. Safe streets matter to everyone. It’s not a blue or red issue.”

The News4 I-Team found even gun rights supporters support it — sort of.

“I’m not going to lose any sleep if they signed that into law, because it won’t affect a law-abiding citizen,” firearms trainer Curt Sebastian said. “It’s not going to affect me.”

The Glock switch ban is now on the way to the governor’s desk for his signature and is expected to get it, but that may be where the agreement on this issue ends in Richmond and the politics of it take over. Gun safety advocates told the I-Team just signing something on gun safety isn’t what they were hoping for this session.

“I am sure (Youngkin), and his team will evaluate them and then he’ll cherry pick which ones he might want to sign,” said Lori Haas, an advocacy manager for the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Political observers expect the governor to sign the Glock switch bill along with a tax credit for gun locks, which expands an existing price break on simple safety devices to lock guns up.

Youngkin could also support a modified safe storage law, which would make it a misdemeanor to leave a gun where kids could get it and possibly bring to school or use in a crime. It would only be a felony if the person knew the child was a threat.

But Haas says, “It’s not enough. It’s just not enough.”

For Haas, this is a personal issue. Her daughter Emily survived the Virginia Tech shooting on April 16, 2007. Thirty-two students died in that mass shooting.

“On average, three people will die today from firearms. What about those families?” Haas asked. “What is the governor doing to care for them? What is the governor doing to prevent that violence?”

Haas hopes the governor would sign a more robust safe storage bill which is also passing through the House and Senate and consider the assault-weapons ban that Democrats pushed through. 

She’s not optimistic about that.

“He’s going to veto the bill, and you know, that bill is something the general public wants over and over and over again,” Haas said. 

The expanded safe storage law is a non-starter to Sebastian, who trains law enforcement and civilians and advocates for training for all gun owners.

“Frankly, I like the idea of my 12-year-old being able to defend herself even if I wasn’t with her,” he said.

The assault weapons ban would be even worse for Virginia, Sebastian says. He predicts political doom for the governor should he sign it.

“I think, obviously, it would decimate him,” he said.

Jones knows the governor may not sign the assault weapons bill, “but he’s going to have to tell the Virginia delegation, he’s going to have to tell everyday Virginians, he’s going to have to tell moms, dads that we don’t care about these streets, these guns being on the street.”

The governor has until Friday to sign or veto the few gun bills already on his desk. He will have 30 days to act on dozens more once the session ends.

“Virginia’s gun laws are already among the toughest in the nation, and Gov. Youngkin continues to pursue policies to hold criminals that commit crimes with guns accountable by strengthening penalties to effectively keep criminals off the streets and Virginians safe,” a Youngkin spokesperson said.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.

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