Buncombe County Assistant District Attorney John Pritchard has been appointed to serve as Special Assistant United States Attorney (“SAUSA”) with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville, announced Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina and Ronald L. Moore, District Attorney for Buncombe County. Pritchard will prosecute state gang, violent crime and high level drug trafficking cases in federal court.

Pritchard, a veteran prosecutor with the Buncombe County District Attorney’s Office, was sworn in October, as a SAUSA with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville. Pritchard has been a state prosecutor with the District Attorney’s Office in North Carolina for the past ten years, joining the Buncombe County office in December 2006.

Operation Spyglass targets top traffickers in images of child abuse

Twenty four of the state’s worst child exploiters have been arrested as part of an ongoing push to use new technology to target top traffickers in images of child sexual abuse, Attorney General Roy Cooper announced recently.

Joining Cooper to make the announcement were U.S. Attorneys Anne Tompkins, Ripley Rand and Thomas Walker and State Bureau of Investigation Director Greg McLeod.

Eric Robert Murdock sentenced last week with online enticement charges

A Waynesville man was sentenced last week to serve 120 months in a federal prison to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release for online enticement charges, announced Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger also ordered the defendant to register as a sex offender. U.S. Attorney Tompkins is joined in making the announcement by Chief Bill Hollingsed of the Waynesville Police Department.

A new publication released by Human Rights Watch, “We Know What To Do: Harm Reduction and Human Rights in North Carolina” highlights human rights abuses in North Carolina. Cited abuses include the criminalization of syringes and other equipment proven to curb the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, failure to enact “Good Samaritan” laws that protect those who seek help for an overdose victim, and inadequate access to affordable drug treatment and harm reduction information for people who are using drugs. Human Rights Watch also documented the testimony of women reluctant to carry multiple condoms for fear that they will be used as evidence of prostitution.