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‘Snitch’ kidnapper ditches court hearing

MESA — A woman convicted of kidnapping another woman and branding the word “snitch” into her forehead is still missing despite skipping her sentencing hearing and facing a bench warrant for her arrest, prosecutors say.

Jackie Getz, 27, was one of four people who kidnapped, assaulted, and defamed the forehead of a 39 year-old woman with a branding iron in June 2007, according to the Mesa Police Department.

Maricopa County prosecutor Vincent Cook confirmed that Getz has yet to be apprehended since she first failed to appear at her sentencing on Oct. 23.

Getz, along with James H. Standridge, Preston L. Valdez and Kibbol A. Avila, kidnapped the victim in the area of 2200 West Main Street in Mesa in retaliation for reporting two of the suspects to Child Protective Services.

Police say the four defendants worked together to ensure that the victim would be at a certain apartment in Mesa. When she went inside, the group assaulted her and held her against her will, authorities say. After shaving portions of her hair off and branding the word “snitch” on her face, the victim was blindfolded, placed in a vehicle, and driven to the area of Standage and Pepper Road in northwest Mesa and released.

After an extensive five-day investigation, all four suspects were arrested. Three of them – Standridge, Getz and Avila – were each charged with the crime.

Standridge, 34, was sentenced on Aug. 21 to five years for kidnapping and seven-and-a-half years for aggravated assault. Getz pleaded guilty on Sept. 8 to solicitation to commit kidnapping, a class four felony that has a prison term of two-and-a-half years.

Elizabeth Simmons, who accompanied Getz to her sentencing on Oct. 3, addressed the court on behalf of the defendant in an effort to reduce her jail time. “I’ve been with Jackie since the day this happened and everyday she tells me how sorry she is for what she has done,” Simmons said.

The victim, visibly upset, sat on the opposite side of the courtroom leaning into a friend, fidgeting with her hands and at one point asking for water and tissues.

The judge ordered a new hearing for Getz on Oct. 23, but she failed to appear. Bond has now been set at $10,000. Both Avila and Kibbol are on probation.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Natives sue over White Mountain rapist arrests

WHITERIVER — Two men who were accused of being serial rapists and later cleared by a judge are now suing the tribal police officers who arrested them, claiming they violated their civil rights.

The rapes occured in the summer and fall of 2006 in Whiteriver, the capital of the White Mountain Apache Tribe in northeastern Arizona. Authorities say the rapist disguised himself as a masked police officer, detained teenage girls in the community, then took them to an abandoned house or remote area to sexually assault them. The case garnered national press attention.

But today, two of the suspects who were released are contesting their arrests. In recent court filings, Jeremy Reed and Jesse Dupris are suing the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the White Mountain Apache Tribal Police Department.

Reed, who is married, was arrested Oct. 20, 2006 at his home. Police arrested him without a warrant, the complaint states, based on an interview with one of the rape victims. The 16-year-old allegedly told police her attacker had hairy eyebrows, and she picked Reed out of a photo lineup the officers brought to her school.

Officers also say Reed was a solid suspect because he was working as a security guard for the tribe’s housing authority, which would have given him knowledge of which houses were empty.

But Reed’s lawyers say the investigation was a dud. They say the victim’s “hairy eyebrow” testimony was weak. She also admitted to being drunk on Zima, a malt liquor beverage, at the time of the attack. The photo lineup was shown six months after the incident, lawyers say, and Reed hadn’t started working for the housing authority until at least three weeks after the attack. A judge dismissed the case against Reed on April 27, 2007.

Lawyers are claiming police bungled the investigation of Dupris in the same way. First, a local police officer told investigators she saw Dupris in the area of the attacks wearing his housing authority security outfit. But lawyers say the information was unreliable because Dupris had quit and was not working for the agency at the time of the sighting.

They also say that the victims’ description of the rapist and the actual description of Dupris don’t match. They claimed the rapist was short and stocky, while Dupris is the opposite, standing at 6 feet, 4 inches tall.

Dupris, who is married, did not have access to the keys that opens many of the houses in the area the attacks occured. Only a supervisor did. An authorized search police conducted of Dupris’ house did not turn up any of the gear the rapist allegedly used. A judge dismissed the case on Feb. 20, 2007.

Now Reed and Dupris are suing the police in federal court in Tucson. They are both represented by Phoenix lawyer Joel Robbins.

Tot-beater could face death penalty

MESA — A jury will decide whether a Mesa man will spend life in prison or face the death penalty for beating his friend’s baby to death.

The case stems from a February 2005 incident in which Christohper Langin, 33, was left to babysit the daughter of his neighbor, Michael Plummer, 34. The two men were friends from high school, and Langin lived in a trailer behind Plummer’s east Mesa home at the time.

The 3-year-old girl, Angeline, was developmentally delayed and could barely speak. She was found 24 hours later inside Langin’s fetid trailer beaten and bruised head to toe, according to court records.

Plummer knew Langin had a history of substance abuse and violent tendencies, said Maricopa County prosecutor Patricia Stevens, but he still allowed Langin to care for his daughter.

Records say that the actual cause of death was due to “blunt force trauma to her head.”

In September, a jury in Maricopa County Superior Court found Langin guilty of first-degree murder, child abuse and aggravated assault, according to court documents. Now its members must decide if Langin should face the death penalty.

Joey Hamby, a defense lawyer for Langin, told jurors last week that they should spare Langin from the death penalty because his client suffered from “potential methamphetamine induced psychosis” at the time of Angeline’s death.

Hamby also stated that they planned to bring in expert witnesses to testify Langin’s history of family tragedy, significant brain impairment, and long-standing substance abuse and childhood domestic abuse.

“We will not deny the fact that Chris did abuse meth and alcohol, he has suffered through multiple relapses and has about 11 teeth left, which indicates harsh drug use,” Hamby said.

Growing up, Langin was a special education student who did not graduate from high school or receive a GED, Hamby added. He has no arrest record in Arizona, so the death penalty is too harsh, he said.

“So is life in prison the right sentence, or is death? I believe life in prison is the right decision for Chris Langin,” Hamby told the jury.

Stevens, however, said a sad “life story” should not be a mitigating factor to justify Langin’s actions.

The jury is set to decide Langin’s fate by Nov. 20.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

De-pants bandits still at large in Tolleson

TOLLESON — Police detectives are still investigating a robbery in which two men pulled down a man’s pants and robbed him as he tried to enter a local hotel.

The incident occurred on Sept. 19 at the Comfort Suites near 84th Avenue and McDowell Road. Police say a hotel guest was going inside to meet his three traveling companions when two unidentified suspects approached him near the door.

Both men were armed with semi-automatic pistols, and they pointed them at the victim. The suspects then pulled down the victim’s pants and began to search the pockets, according to police.

After removing the victim’s belongings, the suspects told the victim to pull up his pants and run from the scene.

“He ran around the hotel and across the street to an apartment complex, where he waited until the suspects left before returning to the hotel to call the police,” said Tolleson police Officer Rafael Serra, who was one of the officers on the scene.

The suspects got away with the man’s cell phone, debit card, identification, Social Security card and his wallet, which contained over $3,000.00 cash.

The victim was unable to identify the make or model of the vehicle the two men used to flee. “We checked the area for the vehicle, but the victim didn’t give us a very good description,” Serra said.

This lead police to believe that the victim may have possibly known who the suspects were due to the manner in which they robbed him.

“He was running from them,” Serra said. “Maybe they made him drop his pants so he couldn’t run from them.”

Serra also questioned the victim as to why he was carrying such a large amount of cash. “I found that kind of suspicious,” Serra said.

The victim, who is from Detroit, said he was on vacation. He was not alone.

One male and two females were also with him, but were waiting for him inside of the hotel at the time of the incident.

There may be a possibility the two suspects were also involved in another robbery attempt.

Earlier that night a man was walking two female co-workers to their cars at a business near 86th Avenue and Washington Street when, on his way back, he was approached by two males armed with guns.

“He was able to escape and ran back into the business,” Serra said.

No arrests have been made. Tolleson detectives are still investigating the crime.

Anyone with any information about the case is asked to contact the Tolleson Police Department at (623) 936-7111.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Justice Department targets human trafficking

PHOENIX — A state group has taken over downtown Phoenix billboards in response to Arizona’s dubious distinction for being one of the leading cities in the nation for human trafficking.

The group, called Arizona League to End Regional Trafficking, or ALERT, is backed by funds from the U.S. Department of Justice, which estimates Arizona is one of the top five states in the nation for human trafficking.

As a result, it is putting up 16 new billboards in the area to raise awareness within the community, its law enforcement agencies, and its healthcare workers.

The Spanish-language ads will read, “Stop the Exploitation.”

“It used to be that the three most trafficked items were drugs, guns and humans – in that order,” ALERT program manager Mark Bratman said. “Humans are now second.”

Part of the awareness campaign tries to clear up the public’s confusion between human smuggling and human trafficking.

Although both acts are illegal, smuggling is when a person or group pay another person to help them cross the U.S. border illegally. Experts say it becomes human trafficking when someone is forced into the sex trade without receiving any compensation.

“Trafficking is slavery,” said Kem Ramirez, ALERT’s bilingual outreach coordinator. “It’s a business. If you own a restaurant, and you have free workers, imagine the revenue.”

The profits are so huge and the risk to traffickers is so small that the victims are passed from one trafficker to the next within a vast network, Bratman said. Victims are usually too afraid to press charges or aren’t familiar enough with the legal system to get help.

Arizona is a human trafficking magnet because it is a border state.

“People from poorer countries come here expecting a better life, and they will do anything to get that,” Bratman said. “That makes them vulnerable.”

Other organizations are also at work. The International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit dedicated to aiding refugees, funds anti-trafficking campaigns in Arizona, Washington and Florida.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.