KANSAS CITY, Mo. –  Three more defendants have been indicted for their roles in a three-months-long conspiracy that included at least 27 armed robberies, culminating in the armed robbery of a Walgreens in Blue Springs, Mo., in which a suspect was fatally shot by law enforcement officers, according to Tom Larson, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Kevin Thompson-Randell, also known as “Kilo Ali,” 22, and Demetrius Nelson, 24, both of Kansas City, Mo., and Frank Garner, Jr., also known as “Fonzi,” 23, of Grandview, Mo., were charged in a 36-count second superseding indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2017. That indictment was unsealed and made public today; all of the defendants have been arrested.

The second superseding indictment replaces a superseding indictment that was returned on Aug. 10, 2016, and includes additional charges.

The second superseding indictment contains the original charges against Shannon R. Thomas, 27, of Shawnee, Kan., and Deonte J. Collins-Abbott, 22, and Parrise K. Black, also known as “Kilo,” 25, both of Grandview. Thomas, Collins-Abbott and Black have been in federal custody without bond since their arrests.

The federal indictment alleges that all six co-defendants participated in a conspiracy to commit a series of armed robberies between Jan. 2 and March 24, 2016. According to court documents, conspirators participated in at least 27 armed robberies over a period of less than three months; 17 of those robberies are charged in the indictment.

New Charges Added in the Second Superseding Indictment

In addition to three new co-defendants, the second superseding indictment also contains new charges related to six additional armed robberies.

Thompson-Randell and Thomas are charged together in one count of armed robbery of Moonlight Adult Boutique, 8801 E. Truman Rd., Kansas City, Mo., on Feb. 29, 2016. They are also charged together in one count of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.

Nelson and Thomas are charged together in four counts of armed robbery. They allegedly robbed Valero Express, 1331 E. Bannister Rd., Kansas City, Mo., on March 9, 2016; Sonic, 4520 Blue Parkway, Kansas City, Mo., on March 9, 2016; World of Wine and Spirits, 1722 W. 39th St., Kansas City, Mo., on March 10, 2016; and Phillips 66, 1509 W. 12th St., Kansas City, Mo., on March 10, 2016. They are also charged together in four counts of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of those crimes.

Thomas is charged with one count of armed robbery of Conoco, 4656 Prospect Ave., Kansas City, Mo., on March 15, 2016, and one count of brandishing a firearm in relation to that crime of violence. According to court documents, a victim was shot during this robbery.

Garner and Thomas are charged together in one count of armed robbery of a Conoco station, 4516 E. 39th St., Kansas City, Mo., on March 15, 2016. They are also charged together in one count of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. (Thomas was previously charged alone with the Conoco robbery.)

Fatal Shooting During Walgreen’s Robbery

Thomas and Collins-Abbott are charged together with the armed robbery of the Walgreens located at 9th and Duncan in Blue Springs on March 24, 2016. They are also charged together with possessing and brandishing a firearm in relation to that crime. Thomas is also charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Thomas allegedly possessed a Springfield Armory semi-automatic pistol.

According to an affidavit filed in support of the original criminal complaint, law enforcement officers were conducting surveillance that day on Thomas and Collins-Abbott as part of the investigation into a series of armed robberies at area businesses.

On March 24, 2016, according to the affidavit, Thomas, Collins-Abbot and Jermon Seals of Shawnee, Kan., confronted a Walgreens employee outside the business and forced the employee inside at gunpoint. Once inside, the affidavit says, one of the robbers placed a firearm to the back of the employee’s head and took money from the front register. The other two robbers went over the pharmacy counter and took prescription grade cough syrup at gunpoint from the pharmacist. They left the business but were confronted by law enforcement officers as they were walking back to the vehicle. They failed to comply with the officers’ commands, according to the affidavit, and turned towards the officers, pointing a gun in their direction. Officers returned fire and Seals was struck in the exchange. Collins-Abbott and Thomas were apprehended by officers after a short foot pursuit.

Previous Charges Continued in the Second Superseding Indictment

Thomas and Collins-Abbott also are charged together in one count of armed robbery of Phillips 66, 8111 E. 87th St., Raytown, Mo., on March 2, 2016. They are also charged together in one count of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of that crime of violdence.

Thomas and Black are charged together in one count of armed robbery of Shell, 3786 Broadway, Kansas City, Mo., on March 20, 2016, and one count of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of that crime of violence.

Collins-Abbot and Black are charged together in two counts of armed robbery and two counts of brandishing a firearm in relation to those crimes. They allegedly robbed QuikTrip, 16501 E. U.S. 40 Hwy., Independence, Mo., on Feb. 3, 2016; and Pour Boys, 2601 Chouteau, North Kansas City, Mo., on Feb. 3, 2016.

Thomas also is charged with one count of armed robbery of Midwest Title Loan, 330 W. 85th St., Kansas City, Mo., on Jan. 19, 2016, and one count of brandishing a firearm in relation to that crime of violence.

Collins-Abbott also is charged with five counts of armed robbery and five counts of possessing and brandishing a firearm in relation to those crimes. Collins-Abbott allegedly robbed Worlds Liquor and Tobacco, 1901 NE Russell Rd., Kansas City, Mo., on March 7, 2016; Conoco, 4516 E. 39th St., Kansas City, Mo., on March 8, 2016; and Dollar General, 5100 Blue Ridge Cutoff, Kansas City, Mo., on March 21, 2016.

OTTAWA COUNTY– The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) and the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office have requested the public’s assistance locating a vehicle connected to a death investigation which began Saturday night in Ottawa County, Kansas.

At approximately 7:15 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 12, the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office responded to 806 KS-18 Hwy., in Tescott, Kansas after a 911 call reporting a deceased individual. When deputies arrived 35-year-old Matthew Schoshke, a resident of the home, was pronounced dead, according to a media release.

The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office asked the KBI for assistance on Saturday at approximately 7:50 p.m., and agents and a crime scene response team responded.

Authorities are looking for a silver 2006 Ford F-150 extended cab pickup which is connected to the suspcious death of Mr. Schoshke. The pickup has a chrome push guard on the front and a black plastic tool box in the back. It has a Kansas tag 892DZO and also a front tag that reads “EATBEEF.”

Anyone who sees this vehicle is asked to immediately call the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office at (785) 392-2157.

This investigation is ongoing. No further information will be released at this time.

By Dan Margolies

A Leawood, Kansas, couple whose home was raided by a police tactical team in a bungled SWAT-like search for marijuana will get their day in court after all.

The couple, both retired CIA agents, sued the Johnson County Board of Commissioners, Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning and seven sheriff’s deputies over the botched 2012 raid, but a federal judge threw out the case in December 2015.

Last month, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver reversed the judge and reinstated the couple’s claims that sheriff’s deputies had violated their Fourth Amendment rights.

Each member of the 10th Circuit’s three-judge panel wrote his or her own separate opinion, amounting to 100 pages in all. In a withering critique of the conduct of the Johnson County deputies, Judge Carlos F. Lucero began his opinion this way:

“Law-abiding tea drinkers and gardeners beware: One visit to a garden store and some loose tea leaves in your trash may subject you to an early-morning, SWAT-style raid, complete with battering ram, bulletproof vests, and assault rifles. Perhaps the officers will intentionally conduct the terrifying raid while your children are home, and keep the entire family under armed guard for two and a half hours while concerned residents of your quiet, family-oriented neighborhood wonder what nefarious crime you have committed. This is neither hyperbole nor metaphor — it is precisely what happened to the Harte family in the case before us on appeal.”

In a statement, the plaintiffs ‘ attorney, Cheryl Pilate,called the decision “a huge and significant” decision for her clients,  Robert and Adlynn Harte, and the Fourth Amendment.

“The appeals court obviously carefully scrutinized the large factual record,” Pilate said. “The court’s opinions recount the details leading up to and surrounding the frightening raid on the home of a wholly innocent family that had done nothing more than shop at a garden store and discard loose tea leaves in the trash.

“One of the judges indeed noted that the facts surrounding Operation Constant Gardener and the raid on the Hartes’ home were ‘too rich for fiction.’ The Hartes now look forward to presenting those facts to a jury.”

An attorney for the defendants, Lawrence Ferree III, declined to comment.

The case drew national attention. The raid occurred nearly eight months after Robert Harte and his children visited a hydroponic-gardening store and bought a small bag of supplies as part of a tomato-growing project in their basement. A Missouri State Highway Patrol officer, James Wingo, was parked nearby in an unmarked car, surveilling the store for possible evidence of people purchasing supplies for indoor marijuana grow operations.

The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, which had earlier conducted a big multi-agency raid on indoor marijuana growers based on tips from Wingo, was eager to conduct another one on April 20, 2012, a day celebrated by marijuana activists. Wingo sent the sheriff’s office a list of names, including those of the Hartes, based on the single instance he observed of Robert Harte and his children patronizing the garden store.

Sheriff’s deputies did three “trash pulls” at the Hartes’ Leawood home, finding wet green vegetation mixed in with the Hartes’ kitchen trash. After deputies determined the vegetation field-tested positive for marijuana, seven officers clad in black SWAT uniforms and brandishing 9 mm Glocks, an AR-15 assault rifle and a battering ram pounded on the Hartes’ door and burst in, guns drawn, at around 7:30 a.m. on April 20, 2012.

Robert Harte was forced to the floor, face-down and shirtless, as officers searched the house for two and a half hours during which all four family members, including the Harte children, were detained in the living room under armed guard. After searching for traces of marijuana and even calling in a drug dog, all that the deputies found was a hydroponic tomato-growing operation. The wet plant material uncovered in the trash pulls turned out to be loose-leaf tea.

Denning, who has since retired, held a preplanned news conference later that day, and subsequent TV news coverage included pre-recorded footage of Denning and marijuana plants that deputies had supposedly confiscated – although none, in fact, had been seized.

In reinstating the Hartes’ Fourth Amendment claims, Lucero found that the Hartes had cast sufficient doubt on the truthfulness of the deputies claims that their field tests of the Hartes’ trash had tested positive for marijuana. That – coupled with evidence that the sheriff’s office had planned its news conference touting its success before probable cause to conduct the raids had even been established – is “sufficient to permit a conclusion that the officers fabricated the ‘positive’ field tests,” Lucero wrote in his opinion.

“There was no probable cause at any step of the investigation. Not at the garden shop, not at the gathering of the tea leaves, and certainly not at the analytical stage when the officers willfully ignored directions to submit any presumed results to a laboratory for analysis. Full stop,” Lucero stated.

Judge Gregory Phillips, while disagreeing that the field tests did not give the deputies probable cause to search the Hartes’ home, found that the deputies ran afoul of the Fourth Amendment by unreasonably continuing their search after they found no evidence of marijuana in the house.

The 10th Circuit’s decision overturns U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum’s dismissal of the case. Lungstrum had ruled that the deputies were protected by qualified immunity and, in any case, could not have known that the field tests they used had produced false positives.

Dan Margolies is KCUR’s health editor. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man has been ordered to spend more than 13 years in prison for raping one woman and trying to sexually attack another after taking them to his apartment.

Forty-two-year-old Jimmie Trosclair pleaded guilty in April to charges of rape, attempted rape and breach of privacy.

Authorities say that on Feb. 18, Trosclair met two women at a tavern and took them to his apartment, where they were intoxicated and fell unconscious. Prosecutors say Trosclair filmed and photographed his sexual attack of one woman and was disrobing the other victim when she regained consciousness, fled and flagged down a motorist for help.

The Sedgwick County judge who sentenced Tosclair ordered him to register as a sex offender after his release from prison.