DETROIT (AP) — A former executive at a major Detroit nonprofit was sentenced Thursday to 19 years in prison for stealing more than $40 million meant to help beautify the city’s riverfront.

Investigators said William Smith routinely used Detroit Riverfront Conservancy money for travel, hotels, limousines, household goods, clothing and jewelry. He had side gigs in real estate, a nightclub and amateur basketball.

Smith, 52, was fired as chief financial officer last May and arrested the following month. He pleaded guilty in November to wire fraud and money laundering. A federal judge in Detroit also ordered Smith to pay back the $44.3 million he stole.

Funding for the conservancy comes from private donors and public grants, and the nonprofit says Smith’s theft forced the delay of portions of a popular riverwalk project.

Smith on Thursday called his actions “wrong, plain and simple.”

“I recognize I allowed selfishness, pride and poor judgment to lead me down a destructive path,” he told the court prior to sentencing.

The conservancy is transforming miles of shoreline along the Detroit River into recreation space, with plazas, pavilions and parks. It has been the driving force behind the city’s Riverwalk.

“Every dollar that Smith spent on luxury goods for himself is a dollar that the conservancy could not spend beautifying and improving our city’s riverfront,” acting United States Attorney Julie Beck said in a release.

Smith controlled the money for waterfront projects as chief financial officer from 2011 to May 2024.

After the theft was uncovered, then-conservancy chief executive Mark Wallace resigned and the nonprofit’s auditing firm was replaced, according to The Detroit News.

The Riverfront Conservancy said he stole the money “through a complex web of deception” and is grateful he’s being punished.

“The U.S. government accurately described him as a man of ‘corrupt and depraved character,’” the conservancy said in a statement following the sentencing.

Conservancy attorney Matthew Schneider said in a victim-impact statement that Smith chose greed over Detroit’s prosperity.

“As much as Smith may wish to mask himself as a professional, upstanding Dr. Jekyll, the reality is he was embezzling in the shadows as a cunning and calculating Mr. Hyde,” Schneider wrote.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors can pursue the death penalty against Bryan Kohberger if he is convicted of murdering four University of Idaho students in 2022, despite the defendant’s recent autism diagnosis.

Kohberger, 30, is charged in the stabbing deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022.

Prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty if Kohberger is convicted at his trial, which is set to begin in August.

But his attorneys asked Judge Steven Hippler to remove the death penalty as a possible punishment, citing Kohberger’s diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. They have also filed several other motions challenging the death penalty, including one based on purported violations by the state in providing evidence.

“Mr. Kohberger’s autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reduces his culpability, negates the retributive and deterrent purposes of capital punishment, and exposes him to the unacceptable risk that he will be wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death,” defense attorneys wrote in court papers.

They argued that executing someone with autism would constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Prosecutors argued that under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the only mental disability that precludes imposition of the death penalty is an intellectual disability — and Kohberger’s diagnosis was of mild autism “without accompanying intellectual . . . impairment.”

Kohberger was a criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, in Pullman, about 10 miles (16.1 kilometers) from Moscow, at the time of the killings in November 2022. He was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks later. Investigators said they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.

Autopsies showed the four were all likely asleep when they were attacked, some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times.

This week’s episode of “Survivor 48” opened with Eagan native Eva Erickson celebrating her alliance of five physically strong castaways — her day-one ally Joe Hunter, stuntman David Kinne, debate professor Shauhin Davari and lawyer Kyle Fraser — plus substance abuse counselor Mary Zheng, who has attached herself to Kinne.

“You guys, I’m pumped. I’m so pumped. This six here, I’m pumped,” Erickson said.

From there, the players discussed trust as well as who they’d send home next. They had the numbers and could easily pick off the remaining contestants one by one. “I think that as long as it’s not one of my people, I don’t care,” Erickson said.

If only it was that easy.

Davari and Fraser have become increasingly wary of Kinne and Zheng and that doubt goes in both directions.

“I feel that David and Mary are being extremely paranoid,” said Erickson, the show’s first openly autistic player. “I get that we’re at nine and that if one person from our group swaps, then it changes everything. But nobody’s gonna swap to me. Like I feel like I trust all of them. And so I’m not liking that there is this weird extra tension.

“It sucks for the people I trust not to trust each other. Please, like you guys are so cool, please just be friends. I want all my friends to be friends.”

In last week’s episode, Erickson found a clue to an advantage that required her to, after dark, sneak away from the shelter to the opposite side of the camp. After she thought everyone was asleep, she did just that.

“I’m really excited, but I need to make sure that I don’t get caught with my pants down. So I start creeping my way out of camp and I don’t think that anybody sees me go,” Erickson said.

However, Davari did indeed see her leave and immediately woke up Hunter and share the news and his concern that Erickson was likely earning an advantage.

“He’s super worked up, but I am not worried at all about Eva. I’m not. She’s a team player and I trust her with my life. So, whatever it is, we’ll talk in the morning,” Hunter said of his close ally.

Two choices

After crossing the beach, Erickson arrived to find her advantage was an extra vote for tribal council. But if she’s willing to risk it, she can choose from one of two bamboo tubes, one of which will cause her to lose the extra vote, while the other is a safety without power advantage, which allows Erickson to leave tribal council before the vote. She doesn’t get to vote, but she also can’t receive any votes.

“I’m in the middle and everybody trusts me, but they don’t trust each other,” she said. “And all hell could break loose if something goes wrong with this core group that I’m working with. This extra vote is good, but a 50/50 shot at having a safety without power, being able to evacuate tribal and stay safe, that seems like a huge advantage here. I think I’m gonna risk the extra vote.”

After choosing the correct bamboo tube, Erickson was given yet another chance to upgrade her reward to a full immunity idol, making it her second after the one sales expert Star Toomey gave her earlier in the season. The catch is that she has three bamboo tubes to choose from and if she makes the wrong selection, she leaves with nothing.

“Oh boy, like, I have an idol, but, like, two idols? That’s big. And do I get greedy here? This is a big decision and the game is at a really tough spot. I feel like I have all the ammunition right now, like the artillery is full. I think that I’m sitting with the most power in this game currently. And that’s a great feeling, but it’s also a dangerous one.”

Erickson ultimately chose not to take the risk and returned to camp with the safety without power advantage. And just like Hunter predicted, the next morning she pulled him aside along with Davari and Fraser — but pointedly not Kinne and Zheng — to share the news.

“I almost blew a gasket last night, but her telling me all this information solidifies trust,” Davari said. “She’s dangerous to win this game for sure, but I trust Eva. I’m not coming for Eva.”

Voted out a friend

The rest of the episode revolved around further discussions of trust, with talk of blindsiding Kinne.

“I don’t understand why people are starting to get spooked about each other, but maybe I just feel extra safe because I do have an idol. And maybe I feel extra safe because I’m not recognizing people lying,” Erickson said.

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“I hate that I might have to go against my word to David, but it’s so hard for me, because I do see things in very black and white. Like, I trust you or I don’t. And here, I’m like, I trust Mary and I trust David. I trust that they are with me, but I don’t know if they’re with my people.”

At tribal council, Erickson and her tight three went ahead and voted Kinne out, who was clearly furious. (Kinne also revealed in an Entertainment Weekly interview that his girlfriend did dump him when she found out he didn’t win, as he told the castaways she would earlier in the season.)

That leaves Erickson’s foursome now equal in numbers with the other four players in the game, meaning things could flip yet again in the next episode.

“Survivor 48” airs at 7 p.m. Wednesdays on CBS and streams the next day on Paramount+.

St. Paul music school Walker West Music Academy, known for its decades-long commitment to young Black musicians, is officially opening the doors of its new Marshall Avenue headquarters this weekend.

The school shifted operations to the fully renovated building earlier this year and is planning a two-day grand opening celebration: On April 25, a ribbon-cutting at 4 p.m. will be followed by remarks from school leaders, legislators and community partners and a performance by the school’s Kamoinge Strings ensemble.

Then, an all-day family open-house event from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 26 is set to include tours of the space, food trucks and performances by groups including Walker West’s jazz ensemble, string instrument students and its Amazing Grace Chorus, geared toward older adults including those with dementia.

The 16,000-square-foot facility at 650 Marshall Ave. replaces the school’s previous home on Selby Avenue, which it had occupied since 2014 and was quickly outgrowing. In late 2023, the school, which serves about 5,600 students a year, estimated 200 people were on its waitlist.

Now, with more than double the space it previously occupied, the school will contain 18 music studios, a specialized recording studio, a digital music lab, new instruments and staff and a 200-seat performance hall slated to open in September.

The new building has been a centerpiece of the school’s multi-year capital campaign, which has so far raised about $13.5 million of a $19.5 million goal. Contributions have come from both private and public sources, including $4 million from local philanthropists Pat and Gary Sauer and approximately the same amount in state funding, spearheaded by state Rep. Samakab Hussein, within whose district the school’s new home lies.

“Walker West’s new space is more than just a building; it’s a designated cultural destination and vital community resource right here in the historic Rondo Community,” executive director Braxton Haulcy said in a statement. “We are thrilled to open our doors and invite students, families, and community members to experience the joy of music.”

Walker West Music Academy was founded in 1988 by the Rev. Carl Walker and Grant West, both skilled church musicians and jazz pianists. It’s one of the oldest community music schools in the country founded by Black musicians.

“The academy’s journey from an upstairs duplex to its award-winning ensembles performing on prestigious stages represents the power of community investment in the arts,” Hussein said in a statement. “Walker West exemplifies how music education strengthens our cultural fabric.”

If You Go

What: Two-day grand opening celebration for Walker West Music Academy’s new facility
When: Ribbon-cutting and reception 4 to 8 p.m. April 25; family day and open house 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 26
Where: Walker West Music Academy; 650 Marshall Ave.
More information: Available online at https://walkerwest.org/grand-opening-2025/

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