FRESNO — A federal grand jury returned a two-count indictment yesterday against Thomas Layman Binford, 55, of Clovis, California, charging him with separate counts of attempting coercion and enticement of a minor and receipt of material involving the sexual exploitation of minors, as well as receipt of child pornography, United States Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.
According to court documents, Binford traveled to a park in Fresno, California on the evening of July 28, 2020, with the intent of meeting and engaging in illegal sex acts with a 13-year-old minor he had earlier met online through the Skout social media application. Upon his arrest at the park, his cell phone was seized and subsequently searched, where over 250 images of minors being sexually exploited were found.
FRESNO — Bryan Connor Herrell, 26, of Aurora, Colorado, was sentenced today by United States District Court Judge Dale A. Drozd to 11 years in prison, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott for the Eastern District of California and Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division announced.
MADERA - Madera County is reporting a fatality from St. Louis Encephalitis Virus (SLEV) in a male in his 90s from August 2020. This is the first confirmed case of SLEV in the state of California in 2020 and the first case in Madera County since 1976. While preliminary testing originally suggested the West Nile Virus, further testing has now confirmed SLEV as the final diagnosis.
ATWATER - The Atwater Police Department has initiated a hate crime investigation after a report of an African American Teacher at Buhach Colony High School being subjected to racial epitaphs and slurs during a Zoom online classroom event on Thursday, August 27.
