photo by: Mackenzie Clark
Chairs are spaced apart at the Flory Meeting Hall of the Douglas County Fairgrounds on Dec. 18, 2020. Douglas County District Court made plans to hold jury trials at the building beginning in 2021.
Long-delayed jury trials could resume under a recent administrative order in Douglas County District Court, at least for defendants who are in custody.
However, as of Thursday, records from the court and the Douglas County Jail indicated that only two cases scheduled for February jury trials fit that criteria.
Chief Judge James McCabria issued the administrative order Wednesday, stating that any trials scheduled to begin during February for defendants who are not in custody would be continued and removed from the docket.
Joshua Sinnard, pictured in November 2020
A Lawrence man was sentenced Monday to 38 months, or just more than three years, in prison for commercial sexual exploitation of a child.
A jury found Joshua F. Sinnard, now 40, guilty following a trial in January 2020.
The victim, a 17-year-old girl, had been communicating via Snapchat with a user named “Wammajamma,” whom the victim believed to be a 15- or 16-year-old girl from Baldwin City, according to documents in the case file. In July 2017, that user sent out a generic message to all of the account’s friends asking if anyone wanted to make $200.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Alice Walker said during the sentencing hearing that investigators were never able to locate a teen girl connected with that username. Either Sinnard himself was behind the username, or he was using one teenager to help him arrange sex with another teen girl, Walker said.
Lawrence Municipal Airport is pictured in this aerial photo from summer 2019.
The City of Lawrence has agreed to pay $1,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a longtime pilot who claimed the city hadn’t properly kept up some airport infrastructure, causing damage to an airplane.
Great Planes Inc., which operates an airplane hangar and offices at the airport on space leased from the city, filed the lawsuit in spring 2019 in Douglas County District Court. The lawsuit alleged that disrepair of the runway damaged one of the company’s airplanes in 2014 when a loose piece of the runway struck it, and that construction at the airport interfered with the company’s ability to access the runway. Great Planes claimed the city breached its contract with the company, and initially sought damages of about $19,000, plus interest and legal fees.
photo by: Mackenzie Clark
Rontarus Washington Jr., center, listens to the judge speak during a hearing in his court case on Jan. 19. 2021. At left and right, respectively, are defense attorneys Angela Keck and Adam Hall.
A detective testified Tuesday about meetings with a homicide victim’s husband that, apparently, the defendants’ attorneys were never aware of in a case that’s been pending for six years.
Rontarus Washington Jr., 24, is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated burglary in connection with the November 2014 death of his neighbor, 19-year-old Justina Altamirano Mosso. Washington’s attorneys, Adam Hall and Angela Keck, have suggested Altamirano Mosso’s husband, Felipe Cantu Ruiz, as a possible alternative suspect.
photo by: Mackenzie Clark
The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center, which houses Douglas County District Court and a number of other criminal justice services at 111 E. 11th St., is pictured April 8, 2020.
A Lawrence man will stand trial in a child sex crime case that has been pending for almost a year, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Bryon L. Brouhard, 22, was initially charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy. At the prosecutor’s request, Douglas County District Court Judge Amy Hanley bound Brouhard over on three counts of the same charge after a preliminary hearing.
Two young boys reportedly told a relative in June 2019 that Brouhard had touched them inappropriately. A little more than a month later, during a regular checkup, the relative asked a doctor to examine the boys for sexual assault. The doctor then made a report to the state Department for Children and Families, though the examinations did not show any signs of abuse, according to testimony