Former Officer Gets Maximum Sentence for Brutal Baton Attack

A former Veterans Affairs police officer is heading to federal prison for one year—the maximum possible time—after brutally beating an unarmed man outside a VA facility. Juan Anthony Carrillo, 46, of Alhambra, struck his baton 45 times in just 41 seconds against a 34-year-old homeless man known in court papers only as R.V. As KTLA reports , it all started around 4 a.m. on January 16, 2022, at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center, when another VA cop stopped R.V. for holding what looked like a glass pipe.

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Things quickly turned violent. When Carrillo arrived, he found R.V. already pinned down and "cowering on the ground with his body curled" under another officer who outweighed him by 85 pounds. Despite this, Carrillo—who himself outweighed R.V. by 60 pounds—kept striking with his department-issued steel baton while R.V. screamed in pain. The beating was so severe that Carrillo's expandable baton wouldn't even collapse afterward. According to the U.S. Department of Justice , "This might be a far different case if [Carrillo] had ceased his strikes after the first ten, first fifteen, possibly even first twenty strikes," prosecutors wrote. The assault left R.V. with cuts on both legs and a broken foot bone. At sentencing, U.S. District Judge Wesley L. Hsu noted that "officers owe a special duty and have a special obligation to keep the trust of the citizens they police." Despite Carrillo's background as a decorated Marine Corps veteran who once provided presidential security for Bill Clinton, Hsu handed down the maximum sentence on November 15 after Carrillo pleaded guilty to deprivation of rights under color of law.

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An Australian accused of smuggling amphetamines in a suitcase appeared in a Japanese court on Monday nearly two years after her arrest, saying she is innocent and that she was tricked into carrying them as part of an online romance scam. Donna Nelson from Perth, Australia, was arrested at Japan's Narita International Airport just outside Tokyo when customs officials found about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of stimulants, or phenylaminopropane, hidden in a double-bottom suitcase she was carrying. Nelson, 58, said she received the suitcase from an acquaintance of a man she met on social media in 2020, and brought it from Laos to Tokyo as instructed.