rages Archives - Home Safety Tech Pros

Mother rages at daughter’s killer as he’s sentenced to life

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 18:48:23 +0000

Top inset: Sonja Moen (West Funeral Home). Bottom inset: Spencer Moen (Cass County Jail). Background: The location where Sonja Moen was killed (KVLY).

A North Dakota man will spend the rest of his life in prison for the beating death of his wife, who he initially said face-planted on the stairs.

Spencer Moen, 32, learned his fate on Monday for the murder of Sonja Moen, 30. He was convicted in October.

“I just can’t seem to get out of that space. You beat the life out of my daughter. And to make it worse, you did it in front of the kids,” said the victim’s mother, Kristin Scofield, in court. “I will continue to pray for forgiveness, but currently, it is not in my soul. I’m sorry.”

Spencer Moen apologized to the family.

“I’d like everyone to know the remorse, pain and sorrow I feel, I never meant for this to happen,” Spencer Moen said Monday. “She was everything to me. I feel lost without her. If I had the ability to go back and change it, I absolutely would. … I am deeply sorry and promise to be a better man.”

The case came to light on Aug. 10, 2023, when Spencer Moen called 911, according to the affidavit for probable cause obtained by Law&Crime. Police found Sonja Moen lying in a bathtub not breathing or responding. She was declared dead at the scene.

Spencer Moen first told cops his wife had slept in the bathtub the previous night and was now unresponsive.

“He said she had slept there because she had said she was going to take a bath or a shower,” the affidavit stated. “He also said she had vomited last night as well.”

Cops noted visible injuries on the victim, including what appeared to be defensive wounds.

“Sonja had significant bruising on the left side of her face and forehead,” cops wrote. “Both of her eyes appeared to be swollen shut and had dried blood from the right corner of her mouth. Sonja had bruising on the backs of her hands, which appear to be defensive wounds.”

Sonja Moen’s mother arrived within a minute of the first responding officer, police said.

Police asked the mother and Spencer Moen to step out of the bathroom, where Sonja Moen’s body was, into the adjoining bedroom.

“After exiting the bathroom, [the mother] looked at Spencer and said ‘get the f— out of my house,”” police said. “While in the bedroom, officers noticed bruising on Spencer’s right hand in the knuckle area.”

Cops also said they found blood on the master bedroom floor. Blood drops were spotted on the left side of the bed, on the floor, and at the foot of the bed going toward the bathroom, police said.

Officers said they learned that Spencer Moen had been golfing the day before, on Aug. 9. Sonja Moen went to pick him up after dark.

They purchased sandwiches and cigarettes at a Holiday Convenience Store on the way home, Spencer Moen told police.

“According to witness statements, Sonja and Spencer would have arrived home sometime around 10 PM (CST),” police said.

According to Sonja Moen’s mother, Spencer Moen took the children to day care the morning of Aug. 10 between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. — approximately two hours before he usually brought them there. The normal time was 9 a.m., the mother told police.

Officers detained Spencer Moen and took him to the police department for an interview. He said that he and his wife had been intoxicated when they arrived home.

“When asked about the injuries to Sonja’s face, Spencer explained that when they arrived home from Mapleton, Sonja had tripped coming up the steps from the garage into the house and ‘face planted,’” police wrote.

In further conversation with officers, Spencer Moen said he put their children to bed. After that, he returned downstairs to Sonja Moen and argued with her again while smoking in the garage. He claimed his wife smacked him in the back of the head.

Spencer Moen claimed his wife later jumped on him while he was in bed. They rolled off the side of the bed as she punched him. He pushed her away by her throat, but she kept attacking, he claimed.

Spencer Moen asserted he punched her in the face three to four times.

“F— you, I’m taking a shower,” Sonja Moen said, according to this account.

But police did not find any marks on Spencer Moen that indicated his wife punched him, according to the affidavit.

In this account, Sonja Moen entered the bathroom, but Spencer Moen heard no running water from the tub, he said. The defendant asserted he went downstairs for about 15 minutes to smoke after hearing a commotion in the bathtub but not checking.

“Spencer was asked if it would be fair to say that Sonja had fallen in the tub due to the head trauma, associated to the intentional punches,” officers said. “Spencer stated, ‘Sure.’”

Spencer Moen said that when he returned, he saw his wife lying in the bathtub alive and making noise but not talking.

“Spencer states he dumped water over her head to get her attention, so she would return to the bedroom to go to sleep,” police wrote. “Sonja didn’t give him a response and remained in the tub.”

Spencer Moen said he returned to bed and slept. Upon waking up, he found Sonja Moen in the tub and tried to wake her up. She was cold to the touch. He then took the children to the day care.

Spencer Moen said he returned home and tried to wake her up again. When she did not, he called her mother to say Sonja Moen was not waking up and that he did not think she was breathing. He then called 911.

Cops said they also spoke with the children.

“According to one of the children, they were present when Spencer and Sonja were wrestling and observed Sonja’s blood on Spencer’s face,” police said. “It should also be noted, officers were also able to recover Sonja and Spencer’s Apple iPhones.”

Police said that it turned out that Sonja Moen’s eldest daughter called her the night of Aug. 9. But Spencer Moen picked up at 10:41 p.m.

“She explained Spencer’s voice sounded irritated and he told her to go to bed because it was late,” police said. “Spencer’s daughter advised she heard Sonja in the background snoring.”

Spencer Moen denied this conversation happened.

Police said they found a video on the defendant’s phone showing Sonja Moen lying in the bathtub. It was time-stamped Aug. 9 at 11:37 p.m.

“The video shows Sonja lying in the opposite direction from where she was found by responding patrol officers,” cops said. “It appears Sonja was having extreme difficulty with breathing and lying in an abnormal sleeping position. Sonja was also exhibiting a sound similar to snoring, which was described by Moen’s oldest child. Based off my training and experience, the sound being made by Sonja appears to be consistent with agonal breathing [which is labored breathing associated with agony or dying].”

Police determined the husband filmed the video based on him calling out her name, but he did nothing to help her while filming. The autopsy determined Sonja Moen suffered a subdural hematoma and died from a blunt force trauma to the head. She also suffered a fractured rib.

Alberto Luperon contributed to this report.

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Trump rages in filing after Biden classified docs decision

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 02:50:52 +0000

Left: Former President Donald Trump, center, sits at the defense table at New York Supreme Court, Dec. 7, 2023, in New York City. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, Pool, File) Right: Special counsel Jack Smith speaks about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Former President Donald Trump issued a broadside attack against special counsel Jack Smith and the broader Biden administration in a late Friday motion filed in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

Stylized as a reply to the government’s response over extended discovery schedules requested by the defense, the 37-page brief obtained by Law&Crime aims at prosecutors and politicians alike. The focus of the filing is the Thursday special counsel report declining to criminally charge President Joe Biden despite finding he likely violated the law by retaining and sharing classified documents.

“Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report issued by Special Counsel Robert Hur, finding that President Biden has ‘willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,’ over the course of his decades-long career,” Trump’s reply brief reads. “President Biden will not be charged, and President Trump should not have been either.”

“Based on this evidence, the Defendants are entitled to discovery and a hearing concerning selective and vindictive prosecution, and they will ultimately demonstrate that the Superseding Indictment must be dismissed,” the filing reads.

Citing “ongoing discovery abuses” by the government, the 45th president and his co-defendants, Waltine Nauta, Trump’s longtime butler, and Carlos De Oliveira, Mar-a-Lago’s property manager, allege the decision not to charge Biden over his own unlawful retention of classified documents is “prima facie” evidence of a “selective and vindictive prosecution.”

More Law&Crime coverage: The Trump Docket: Victory appears likely at SCOTUS, but immunity is a much tougher hill to climb

The controversial decision not to charge Biden over what special counsel Robert Hur said he believed was, in fact, a violation of federal law, came down to several factors. One factor cited in the 388-page report is the belief that prosecutors simply would not be able to make their case because Biden would sell himself to a potential jury as an “elderly man with a poor memory” who did not know he was breaking the law. Hur also noted, in passages on multiple pages throughout the report, that the allegations against Trump are far worse.

“The Hur Report is the latest entry on a long list of similarly situated government officials not being charged with a crime in connection with allegations relating to the handling of classified information,” Trump’s motion continues. “There is also significant evidence that this prosecution is motivated by impermissible considerations concerning President Trump’s status as the leading candidate in the 2024 election and President Biden’s chief political rival. Dating back to April 2022, the Biden Administration has urged prosecutors to coopt the criminal justice system to try and accomplish what President Biden cannot do on the campaign trial [sic], defeat President Trump.”

While pushing for the indictment to be dismissed, the criticism leveled by Trump against Smith, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Biden and others comes in a motion that argues for more expansive discovery and more time to conduct such discovery. Prosecutors have been adamant that extended discovery deadlines are just an effort to stall and push the trial date past the 2024 election.

The argument advanced by Trump’s attorneys, which is also joined by Nauta’s and Oliveira’s attorneys in the motion, is that the non-charging decision over Biden’s retention of the documents shows not only selective and vindictive prosecution but also clear evidence of “political animus.”

Each of those theories, the motion notes, are akin to terms of art under federal law — and each has its own discovery standards.

In other words, because the U.S. Department of Justice did not charge Biden, the Mar-a-Lago co-defendants are entitled to increase the scope of their discovery requests substantially, the motion argues.

“In light of the decision not to prosecute President Biden for his ‘willful’ violation of the Espionage Act, the Special Counsel’s Office can no longer avoid discovery on a selective and vindictive prosecution theories,” the motion reads. “This discovery includes all materials within the possession of the prosecution team that ‘might corroborate’ President Trump’s motion to dismiss on behalf of the Defendants.”

The motion cites several pieces of case law to bolster their argument — while musing that most prior court decisions have dealt with whether discovery can be used during trial proceedings in instances where the state had provided such discovery.

More Law&Crime coverage: Jack Smith must immediately provide Trump and Mar-a-Lago co-defendants with sensitive document the government claims ‘risks disrupting’ an ongoing investigation

“[T]he defense seeks information and evidence demonstrating that participants in the investigation were biased against President Trump and motivated to reach false and inaccurate conclusions based on political animus,” the motion goes on. “Materiality is the standard, and it is a low bar. Relevance and admissibility are for another day — if this case survives that long.”

But, the motion also says, the government has not been complying with their already-in-place discovery demands.

“In discovery letters and motion papers, the Special Counsel’s Office has sought to avoid their discovery obligations by claiming that otherwise-discoverable materials are not in the possession of the prosecution team,” the motion continues. “In fact, other than by seeking to exclude the possessors of the evidence from the prosecution team’s scope, the Office largely declined to address the specific types of political-animus and bias evidence President Trump is seeking.”

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