North Carolina Criminal Law Blog

A Carteret County man has recently been charged with various drug crimes. Delton Mishon Doneghy, 33, of Nine Foot Road in Newport, has been arrested after authorities conducted several undercover purchases of crack cocaine from his residence. Doneghy was charged with a slew of drug crimes stemming from the undercover sales.

After the undercover drug deals, deputies received a search warrant for Doneghy's home. While executing the search warrant, they seized four grams of marijuana and seven grams of crack cocaine. Doneghy had flushed the drugs down a toilet in an attempt to dispose of them, but the deputies were able to find the drugs in the septic tank.

The Carteret County Sheriff's Office charged Doneghy with three counts of possession with the intent to sell and deliver crack cocaine, two counts of maintaining a dwelling to sell a controlled substance, two counts of sell and deliver crack cocaine, one count of possession of drug paraphernalia and one count of possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana.

According to a sheriff's report, a convicted North Carolina sex offender has been charged with a second sex offense. Brandon Craig Hardy, 26, is accused of molesting a preschooler. He is also accused of moving to a new residence without notifying authorities.

Hardy, of Wagram, was charged last week with two counts of first-degree sex offense with a child and one count of failure to notify authorities of an address change.

The victim of the sexual molestation is four years old.

Hardy became a registered sex offender in 2000, when, at the age of 16, he was convicted of two counts of indecent liberties with a minor.

North Carolina state law provides that a sex offense with a child charge is reserved for adults 18 years of age or older who have sexual contact with an individual under the age of 13.

Mortgage companies accused of fraud returned approximately $21 million to North Carolina consumers recently.

Four large mortgage companies, including WR Starkey Mortgage, Beazer Mortgage, Vanderbilt Mortgage and Countrywide Homes, are accused of utilizing inaccurate information to obtain loans for consumers or working with home dealers to inflate the prices of homes.

The Commissioner of Banks and the Attorney General's office collaborated to collect $4.7 million from WR Starkey, $2.5 million from Beazer, $2.8 million from Vanderbilt and $11 million from Countrywide Homes. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper called mortgage fraud investigations very labor intensive, due to the number of parties involved and the paperwork. He also noted that these types of problems are not easily detected.

Cooper blamed this type of fraud as a major contributor to the downfall of the housing market and stock market troubles in the United States.

Kirstie Pienta, the 19-year-old woman charged with hitting three pedestrians while driving drunk, has bonded out of jail. The pedestrians were leaving Jackalope Jack's in the Elizabeth neighborhood on August 1 when Pienta crashed into them.

One of the three pedestrians, Danielle Moore, remains in the hospital and is scheduled to have her 12th surgery on her leg since she was injured in the accident. Moore is a teacher who was recently offered a new teaching job. However, she is unable to accept the position now, as her doctors have informed her that her recovery will take about two years. Still, Moore insists she is not angry and is focusing on her recovery rather than the accident.

Pienta had received a previous DWI charge in May. She lost her license at that time, but it was reinstated prior to the August 1 accident.

North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation has adopted a new policy for analyzing drug evidence from crimes. The change was initiated after the North Carolina Supreme Court decided that visual inspection rather than chemical testing of drugs was inadequate.

In an email released by the SBI this week, Ann Hamlin, a special agent for the SBI drug lab, stated that the lab will now conduct chemical analysis on all felony and misdemeanor drug charge cases.

The controversy stemmed from testimony provided to the North Carolina Supreme Court by an SBI chemist in a drug conviction appeal in June. Special Agent Irvin Lee Allcox, a long-time SBI chemist, stated that the SBI lab would sometimes only analyze the physical characteristics of the drug in identification rather than performing chemical analysis. Allcox further testified that he believed counterfeit drug tablets could be easily identified from authentic tablets because of differences in shape, color and markings.

There are many different facets to our individual identities. However, someone can steal your identity with just your name, address, social security number, bank account or credit card. Unfortunately, identity theft is one of the fastest-growing white collar crimes both nationally and in North Carolina.

Burlington police detective R. P. Ingram characterizes identity theft as a "great" crime because it is safer for the criminal, as there is no direct contact with the victim.

Every year there are about 10 million victims of identity theft nationally; more than 300,000 of those victims are from North Carolina. The state of North Carolina ranks 21st in the county for the number of identity theft cases reported. Further, the North Carolina Department of Justice reports that Salisbury, Dunn, Durham and Thomasville-Lexington are listed in the top 50 metropolitan areas for identity theft cases.

Even though identity theft is widespread, you can still take precautions to safeguard yourself against having your identity stolen. The most important precautions: limit the amount of information that is accessible and monitor your accounts.

One North Carolina man's decision to drive drunk has turned into a conviction for the second degree murder of his girlfriend.

Julian Gutierrez was drinking at a party on October 30, 2009. He left the party with his girlfriend, Francy Lorena Toro Reich, around 3:00 a.m. While driving south along I-85 near the Cox Road exit, his car went off the road and crashed into a tree. Although Gutierrez suffered injuries, Reich was pinned in the vehicle. She was unconscious and barely alive when first-responders arrived on the scene. Reich later died.

Gutierrez had a previous charge for driving while intoxicated in Statesville to which he pleaded guilty. He also had other traffic violations on his record.

His trial was filled with emotion as emergency workers testified about the mangled condition of the car after the crash. The jury was presented with photos of the wreck and rescue effort. The first-responders described prying Reich from the crumpled passenger side of the car, while a police officer testified that he observed the tire impressions from the crash and found no skid marks on the road.

Amber B. McGill, 31, was sentenced to ten years in prison this week for causing a car wreck that left a young girl injured.

McGill, of Grover, pleaded guilty to felony driving under the influence with great bodily injury. The crash was both alcohol and drug-related. McGill took responsibility for driving under the influence of alcohol, the prescription drug Xanax and marijuana when she caused the wreck last year.

Before the crash on August 28, 2009, witnesses reported that McGill was speeding and weaving through traffic. Around 8:30 p.m., McGill lost control of her vehicle, a late-model Mercedes, while in the northbound lane of Interstate 85 in Cherokee County. She lost control while attempting to pass two cars in the emergency lane. McGill's car crossed over the cable barrier and struck a southbound vehicle carrying 14-year-old Taylor Francis, of Cary, NC, and her mother. Additionally, two other cars heading southbound sustained minor damage as a result of the crash.