AUSTIN — A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced two people to federal prison for their roles in a scheme that involved the capital murder of State District Court Judge Julie Kocurek in November 2015.
Marcellus Antoine Burgin, 29, of Cypress, Texas, and Rasul Kareem Scott, 27, of Marrero, Louisiana, received 300 and 210 months respectively in federal prison for carrying out fraud and racketeering schemes. Both will be placed under supervised release for a period of five years, and pay restitution -- joint and severally -- of $22,315.80.
According to the Department of Justice, Burgin and Scott pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute in November 2017. In a trial earlier this year, the evidence presented for their co-defendant, 31-year-old Chimene Hamilton Onyeri, revealed that all three conspired to commit various fraud schemes for financial gain in Austin, Houston and Louisiana. Those schemes included converting stolen debit card numbers obtained from skimmers into cash.
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The Department of Justice said the "Onyeri racketeering enterprise" included mail fraud, bribery of a public official, wire fraud, document fraud, access device fraud, money laundering and attempted murder.
According to testimony, Onyeri responded with violence when the existence of the criminal enterprise was threatened. He shot Kocurek on the night of Nov. 6, 2015, because he believed she was going to sentence him to prison. She suffered serious bodily injury from multiple gunshots and resulting shrapnel while sitting in her car outside of her Austin home.
On Oct. 2, 2018, Onyeri was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to violate the RICO statute, one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, seven counts of aggravated identity theft, and six counts of witness tampering.