Dennis Churchwell pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to a felony perjury count related to grand jury testimony he gave as part of FBI Operation Main Street Sweeper.

The local businessman and property owner admitted he lied to a grand jury by saying indicted former city councilman Edmund Ford Sr. was not delinquent in paying rent for 3390 Elvis Presley Blvd., where the politician runs E.H. Ford Mortuary Services.

Under the plea agreement, federal prosecutors will drop five other perjury charges against Churchwell.

The politician's landlord appeared before the grand jury on March 27, 2007, as part of the FBI operation that investigated, among other things, how Ford used his elected position for personal financial gain.

He seemed lucky when it counted. Through the years, Vaughn — a cocaine trafficker known as "V Dog" — also had altercations with police from at least three different agencies. In a 2006 incident, he led local and federal law enforcement on a high-speed chase that ended when he rammed his Jeep Commander into a Shelby County Sheriff's patrol car. Yet he escaped relatively unscathed. Now, that luck may have run out.

On the eve of his sentencing next week for his role in Petties' crime organization, Vaughn is accused of selling marijuana at the West Tennessee Detention Facility, a federal jail in Mason — nullifying his plea deal with prosecutors on charges of trafficking large amounts of cocaine.

Prosecutors recently withdrew their motion to support a reduced sentence for co-defendant Demetrius Fields, of Germantown, after allegations surfaced in August that he sold cocaine at the Mason jail.

Vaughn's attorney, Mark McDaniel, said he learned of the new allegations against his client during a phone call from a federal prosecutor.

"I've never had this happen before," he said this week. "It's disappointing and discouraging.

"I think he has served enough time for what he has done."

Vaughn has been in jail for about six years while prosecutors secured guilty pleas from Petties and more than 40 drug ring associates and convictions for alleged Petties hit men Clinton "Goldie" Lewis and his cousin Martin "M" Lewis. The organization, with ties to a vicious Mexican drug cartel, is blamed for six murders and other crimes spanning 17 years, including pumping millions of dollars of cocaine and marijuana into the southeastern U.S.

Because Vaughn has cooperated with the investigation, McDaniel had hoped his client would receive a sentence of less than 20 years. Now, Vaughn could face up to life in a federal prison without parole.

U.S. Dist. Judge Samuel "Hardy" Mays is scheduled to determine the punishment during a hearing Tuesday.

McDaniel said his client had a less active role in the drug ring than alleged by federal agents, who portrayed Vaughn as part of Petties' inner circle after Petties fled Memphis for Mexico.

"He didn't help plot murders," the defense attorney said. "He didn't help carry out murders. He was given drugs and he dealt those drugs. He was a distributor."

Prosecutors won't discuss the pending case and many of the documents are sealed, but other associates have accused Vaughn in federal documents and court testimony of helping to kidnap murder victim Marcus Turner, who was tortured for days, stripped nude, shot and dumped in an Olive Branch ditch in 2006. A Petties associate had stolen more than $4 million worth of cocaine and Petties thought Turner could help them find the thief.

McDaniel said of his client's role: "He may have summoned Marcus Turner to a meeting, but he had no knowledge at all that there was going to be a murder."


In court documents, agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency accuse Vaughn of ordering and bankrolling the August 2004 revenge death of Latrell Small, 32, whom Vaughn believed was one of the fake cops who shot him a month earlier. When a Petties hit man shot Small at a South Memphis apartment complex, the victim's 25-year-old friend Kalonji Griffin happened to be in the car and also was killed.

McDaniel, who said his client isn't to blame for the double murder, said Vaughn has "turned his life around. He's due another chance."

The attorney also questioned prosecutors' proof of the new drug-dealing allegation from two sources whose identities have not been revealed to the defense.

     Most testing is done in the FBI crime laboratory in Washington, and, to a lesser extent, at private laboratories. DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid and determines individual characteristics such as eye, hair, and skin color. With the exception of identical twins, each person's DNA has a unique genetic pattern or blueprint. DNA analysis compares samples of blood, hair, semen or saliva found at a crime scene with the DNA makeup of a suspect. In the lab, the DNA samples are cut into fragments, separated into bands and compared on a slide where they resemble bar codes on grocery store products.

     "Three years ago it was met with disbelief but juries usually understand what's going on now," said mark Stolorow of Cellmark Diagnostics, a private DNA testing lab in Germantown, MD, near Washington. "The next step is to make testing faster, more sensitive, and to improve the precision." But that may take another five years and critics point out that current testing is done on only the parts of the genetic material that are most likely to differ from person to person. Thus, critics say, this leads to inflated claims of accuracy...

     DNA results will play an important role in the pending trial of a former Juvenile Court probation officer, William T. Wilson, 24, accused of raping two teenage girls in detention in July 1989. Since the alleged incident occurred before the legislature authorized courts to include DNA evidence in trials, the decision was left to Criminal Court Judge W. Fred Axley during a hearing last week. His courtroom looked more like a science classroom, complete with overhead projector, lecturers with pointers and slides illustration some fine points of biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology.  But no one was dozing. Instead, nearly a dozen defense lawyers and prosecutors watched from the audience and got a sneak preview from an FBI expert of what will likely become a common trial tool. "I think we will get to the point one day where DNA will replace fingerprints," prosecutor Chris Craft said, "It's science now but I think it will eventually become commonplace."


    Critics say two key problems with current DNA testing are that no outside agency has been allowed to examine the FBI's lab methods for quality control and that the population data base it uses for comparisons is too broad and thus results in inflated accuracy rates. Some scientists have even accused the bureau of trying to stifle criticism by pressuring scholarly journals to shape their articles toward the FBI's liking. "There's big turmoil in the scientific community," said attorney McDaniel. "it's beginning to receive some vigorous challenge." 


     Still, DNA's courtroom proponents are relying on studies such as one published earlier this year by two Yale University scientists. The study said in part that an innocent suspect could be wrongly convicted by DNA fingerprints "only in you have an evil twin."

As reported here by Brooke Sanders at WMC Action News 5:

The Tennessee State Supreme Court heard arguments today in the case of a Bartlett father charged after leaving his child in a hot car to die.

It's an emotional case. Steve McKim doesn't want to relive the death of his child during a trial, but the District Attorney said "no way" to essentially giving Steven McKim probation.

It was standing room only as students, judges, lawyers and family members packed the civil courthouse to see the Tennessee Supreme Court in action.

The question: whether or not Stephen McKim should have been granted pre-trial diversion, which essentially would allow him to avoid a trial and serve probation.

"Any person who has been a parent has had the opportunity to make a mistake with their child. Fortunately, they are not always fatal. 19:48:45 This happened to be an accident that ended up being fatal," said McKim attorney Mark McDaniel.