Page 24 - Florida Sentinel 12-14-18

National
Wilfred DeFour, One Of The Remaining Tuskegee Airmen, Dies At Age 100
Wilfred DeFour, one of the few living members of the Tuskegee Airmen was found dead Saturday at home in Harlem at the age of 100.
According to CNN, the New York Police Department responded to a 911 call and found DeFour unconscious and unresponsive. DeFour was pronounced dead by Emergency Medical Service workers. There were no obvi- ous signs of trauma, police said, and the medical exam- iner will determine the cause of death.
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military aviators in the U. S. service corps and predated the for- mation of the United States Air Force. They trained at the Tuskegee Army Airfield in Al- abama.
The group was generally said to include pilots, naviga-
WILFRED DEFOUR
tors, bombardiers, mainte- nance and support staff who went through a U. S. Army Air Corps training program to bring African-Americans into the war effort, according to Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., a group devoted to the history of the airmen.
Lee Merritt, The Family Lawyer For Botham Jean, Cleared Of Contempt Charges In Texas
Lee Merritt, the Civil Rights attorney representing the family of Botham Jean, has been cleared of 16 crimi- nal contempt charges after a complaint was lodged about him practicing law in Texas without a license.
“Two years of taxpayer re- sources were wasted on this witch-hunt and more impor- tantly pulled me away from serving families seeking jus- tice in a system clearly de- signed to deny them that,” Merritt said in a statement on Friday.
Judge Cynthia Whe- less dismissed all 16 charges, including 14 that were dis- missed outright before rebut- tal. Merritt, who is from Los Angeles and whose law office is based in Philadelphia, faced 16 counts of criminal contempt for practicing state
Sammie L. Berry invites questions after making a statement at a press conference following the funeral service for Botham Shem Jean, where his mother, father, and brother stand by along with attorney Lee Merritt.
law without a Texas law li- cense.
Merritt is not licensed to practice state law in Texas, but Merritt has said that he was practicing federal law in regard to the civil rights
cases.
The Unauthorized Practice
of Law Committee is consid- ering appealing Thursday’s ruling by, according to com- mittee member Leland de la Garza.
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