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Statutory rape, misconduct charges dismissed against former officer after probation

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Charges against Cassen Jackson-Garrison, standing at right, a former Oak Ridge Police Department police officer, were dismissed this year after two years of supervised probation. Jackson-Garrison had agreed to plead guilty to statutory rape and official misconduct in 2017. His attorney, Greg Isaacs, standing next to Jackson-Garrison, said Jackson-Garrison had accepted responsibility for the allegations, and he compared his client’s childhood story to the one portrayed in the movie “The Blind Side.” The probation was a judicial diversion, allowing the felony charges to be dismissed if Jackson-Garrison complied with the terms and conditions. Jackson-Garrison and Isaacs are pictured above during a plea agreement hearing in Anderson County Criminal Court on Monday, June 12, 2017. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

After a two-year probation, charges were dismissed this year against a former Oak Ridge Police Department officer who had agreed to plead guilty to statutory rape and official misconduct in 2017.

His attorney successfully asked for judicial diversion for Cassen Jackson-Garrison, 36, more than three years ago, although the state opposed it. The judicial diversion gave Jackson-Garrison, a former star football player, the opportunity to have the felony charges dismissed and expunged, or removed from his record, at the end of his probationary period. But he had to comply with the terms and conditions. The two-year probation ended in December 2019.

The charges were dismissed in January 2021, after Jackson-Garrison completed the terms of his diversion sentence.

The plea agreement has been previously reported, but the dismissal of the charges has not been. The charges appear to have now been expunged from Jackson-Garrison’s record, at least the portion that is publicly available.

Jackson-Garrison surrendered his P.O.S.T. (Peace Officer Standards Training) certification for police officers as part of his plea agreement, but he will not be placed on the sex offender registry.

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For members: Former ER doc sentenced to 18 months for drug conspiracy, false statement convictions

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Michael Lapaglia

Michael LaPaglia (File photo)

KNOXVILLE—A former emergency room doctor and ambulance medical director in Oak Ridge and Anderson County was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Thursday more than two years after he pleaded guilty in federal court to drug conspiracy and false statement charges.

U.S. District Judge Katherine A. Crytzer granted a request from Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne-Marie Svolto to lengthen the sentence for Michael A. LaPaglia to 18 months. The guideline range had been six to 12 months. Svolto said even 18 months might be considered too lenient. When he is released from prison, LaPaglia will be on supervised released for three years. He also has to pay restitution of about $5,000.

LaPaglia, who has been a doctor for almost 20 years, pleaded guilty to the two federal charges in an information in November 2018, meaning before he had been indicted by a grand jury.

His plea agreement said he had obtained pre-signed prescriptions from another doctor, and the other doctor also give LaPaglia blank prescriptions that LaPaglia filled out, forging the other doctor’s signature. Drug patients would pay LaPaglia and the other doctor $300 cash per month in exchange for the controlled-substance prescriptions. The prescriptions included diazepam; buprenorphine, also known as Suboxone; clonazepam, also known as Klonopin; and pregabalin, also known as Lyrica. The doctors distributed and dispensed the Schedule III, IV, and V drugs between March and September 2018, according to the plea agreement.

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Michael Lapaglia

Michael LaPaglia (File photo)

KNOXVILLE—A former emergency room doctor and ambulance medical director in Oak Ridge and Anderson County was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Thursday more than two years after he pleaded guilty in federal court to drug conspiracy and false statement charges.

U.S. District Judge Katherine A. Crytzer granted a request from Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne-Marie Svolto to lengthen the sentence for Michael A. LaPaglia to 18 months. The guideline range had been six to 12 months. Svolto said even 18 months might be considered too lenient. When he is released from prison, LaPaglia will be on supervised released for three years. He also has to pay restitution of about $5,000.

LaPaglia, who has been a doctor for almost 20 years, pleaded guilty to the two federal charges in an information in November 2018, meaning before he had been indicted by a grand jury.

His plea agreement said he had obtained pre-signed prescriptions from another doctor, and the other doctor also give LaPaglia blank prescriptions that LaPaglia filled out, forging the other doctor’s signature. Drug patients would pay LaPaglia and the other doctor $300 cash per month in exchange for the controlled-substance prescriptions. The prescriptions included diazepam; buprenorphine, also known as Suboxone; clonazepam, also known as Klonopin; and pregabalin, also known as Lyrica. The doctors distributed and dispensed the Schedule III, IV, and V drugs between March and September 2018, according to the plea agreement.

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For members: Man sentenced to 20 years for shooting that injured two

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Claxton-Shooting-Jan-13-2018

The Anderson County Sheriff’s Department investigates a shooting at 3008 Clinton Highway, at the intersection of Clinton Highway and Lonesome Dove Road in Claxton, on Saturday evening, Jan. 13, 2018. Two people were reported to have non-life threatening injuries. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

CLINTON—An Oak Ridge man received a 20-year prison sentence when he pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of attempted first-degree murder after a shooting that injured two people during an argument in a Clinton Highway home about two years ago.

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For members: Man sentenced to 8 years in death of son in crash

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An Anderson County man was sentenced to eight years in prison when he pleaded guilty Friday, June 28, 2019, to vehicular homicide by intoxication after a crash in Oak Ridge that killed his three-year-old son on January 13, 2017. The defendant, Jason Robert Braden II, is pictured above at center in Anderson County Criminal Court on Friday, March 29, 2019. At left is defense attorney David Stuart, who represented Braden. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

An Anderson County man was sentenced to eight years in prison on Friday when he pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide by intoxication after a crash in Oak Ridge that killed his three-year-old son in January 2017.

The man told police that he had injected roxycodone about six to eight hours before the crash and was driving to Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge with a man who had overdosed at the time of the two-vehicle collision at Emory Valley Road and Lafayette Drive, according to court documents.

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For members: Woman pleads guilty to homicide in death of son

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Ashley Marie Ann Braden

CLINTON—A Clinton woman pleaded guilty Thursday to a homicide charge in the death of her three-year-old son in a two-vehicle crash in Oak Ridge in January 2017.

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For members: Man sentenced to 10 years in shooting death of girlfriend’s mother

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William James McMillan

An Andersonville man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday when he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of his girlfriend’s mother four years ago.

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For members: Driver in fatal crash receives 12-year sentence

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Scott-Gray-Hearing-Aug-11-2016

The driver in a fatal two-vehicle crash on Clinton Highway in April 2016 has pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide by intoxication and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, and he received a 12-year sentence.

The defendant served more than the statutory minimum of 45 days before his plea agreement—he served about one year and one month in the Anderson County jail—and the rest of his 12-year sentence was suspended, to be served on intensive probation, among other conditions, according to Anderson County court records.

The crash three years ago killed a 23-year-old Heiskell woman.

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Man, woman receive sentences of 3-5 years in robbery pleas

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Lindsay Elaine Pressley

Lindsay Elaine Pressley

 

A Powell woman received a five-year sentence and a Knoxville man received a three-year sentence when they pleaded guilty to a robbery in Claxton that authorities said started with an advertisement for escort services posted on backpage.com.

Lindsay Elaine Pressley, 29, entered her plea agreement in Anderson County Criminal and Circuit Court in Clinton on October 29.

Her co-defendant, Richard Paul Pressley, 32, entered his plea agreement last week, on Tuesday, April 2.

As part of their plea deals, an aggravated robbery charge filed against both Pressleys was reduced to robbery. Their charges of especially aggravated kidnapping with a deadly weapon were reduced to kidnapping. And charges of conspiracy to commit especially aggravated kidnapping were reduced to conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping. Charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery remained unchanged. All four charges are felony charges.

In each case, the sentences for the individual charges run concurrently, or at the same time.

[Read more…]

(For members) Man sentenced to 35 years in assaults against women

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Jason Bradley Braden

 

CLINTON—A Clinton man was sentenced to 35 years in prison when he pleaded guilty on Wednesday to attempted second-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated assault in a series of assaults that involved four female victims in three cases.

One of the victims, a grandmother in her 70s, was hit in the face with a crowbar and had a fractured skull and teeth knocked out, according to facts cited in Anderson County Criminal Court during the plea agreement hearing in Clinton on Wednesday.

The defendant, Jason Bradley Braden, 30, was ordered to serve 100 percent of his 35-year sentence.

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Man sentenced to 30 years in Oak Ridge shooting

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William Antwon Mollette

William Antwon Mollette

Note: This story was last updated at 4:45 p.m.

CLINTON—An Oak Ridge man was sentenced to the maximum 30 years in prison in an attempted murder case as part of a plea agreement on Thursday after a shooting last year left a woman with life-threatening injuries.

William Antwon Mollette, 44, pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder and possession of a firearm during a dangerous felony in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton on Thursday.

Mollette, who has a prior felony conviction in Alabama, received the maximum 25 years on the attempted first-degree murder charge, a Class A felony, and he received the maximum five years on the firearm possession charge, a Class D felony. The two sentences are to be served consecutively for a total 30-year sentence.

The victim of the shooting, Cathy Griffin, was agreeable to the 30-year sentence, Tony Craighead, deputy district attorney general in Anderson County, told Criminal Court Judge Don Elledge.

Griffin read a statement in court during the plea agreement hearing. She described being shot and stalked by Mollette at a home on Walsh Lane last year, having her lungs collapse and blood stream from her abdomen, and knowing that she, a nurse, was dying. [Read more…]

Woman sentenced to eight years after drugs discarded during police chase

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Clarissa Sharee Tindell

Clarissa Sharee Tindell

 

A Knoxville woman who fled from the Tennessee Highway Patrol in a car in Anderson County last year as methamphetamine and heroin were discarded from the moving vehicle pleaded guilty to four charges and was sentenced to eight years in prison on Tuesday.

About 60 grams of methamphetamine and less than a gram of heroin were thrown out of a car window and two patrol vehicles were hit during the police chase, which started in Clinton and ended in Rocky Top on Sunday, July 30, 2017, according to court proceedings and affidavits.

The plea agreement hearing for the driver of the 1992 Honda Accord, Clarissa Sharee Tindell, 25, was Tuesday in Anderson County Criminal Court in Clinton. Her plea was by information, meaning she entered a plea before she was formally charged in an indictment by the Anderson County Grand Jury. Early pleas can lead to agreements more favorable to defendants.

Tindell, who was represented by defense attorney Paul Sexton of Oak Ridge, had been charged earlier in Anderson County General Sessions Court in Clinton in a case that included additional counts such as aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during a felony, speeding (117 mph in a 45 mph zone), and failure to yield the right of way, among other charges. Those charges were waived to the Grand Jury on June 6. [Read more…]

Attempted carjacking charge added in crash that injured officer

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Khristoff Deshawn Lee

Khristoff Deshawn Lee

 

An attempted carjacking charge has been added to the eight charges already filed against a man accused of injuring an Oak Ridge officer when he fled from police and crashed on South Illinois Avenue last week.

After the five-vehicle crash on Wednesday, April 4, Khristoff Deshawn Lee, 24, of Oak Ridge, was charged with three felony counts of aggravated assault by motor vehicle, two felony counts of reckless endangerment, one felony count of aggravated domestic assault, and one misdemeanor count of evading arrest and another misdemeanor count of resisting, stop, halt, and frisk.

The attempted carjacking charge, a Class C felony, was added Friday, April 6, according to Anderson County court records.

An affidavit filed in Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge said Lee, who was reported to be a fugitive, tried to force his way into two different vehicles in the Panera Bread parking lot as he fled from police on foot after the April 4 crash. [Read more…]

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