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Post 0144

David Bogdanov, Washington inmate 429555, born 1994, incarceration intake 2021 at age 27, scheduled release date not published

Murder 

In September 2021, David Bogdanov was sentenced to 19½ years in prison in the murder of Nikki Kuhnhausen, a 17-year-old transgender teenager who went missing in 2019.  Her body was later found on Larch Mountain.

A Clark County Superior Court jury found Bogdanov, guilty of second degree murder and malicious harrassment, now legally called a hate-crime offense in Washington, in Kuhnhausen’s death.

His sentence was at the top of the range for the two crimes — 234 months for second-degree murder and 12 months for malicious harassment to run concurrently.

Before announcing the sentence, the Judge became emotional as he spoke about the way Bogdanov strangled Kuhnhausen with a phone charger cord and then dumped her body on Larch Mountain. He said he was “struck by the darkness in this case.”

The Defense attorney requested a low-end sentence of 11 years, noting that Bogdanov had no prior criminal history. Bogdanov claimed self-defence at the trial. He testified that when he pushed Kuhnhausen away and yelled at her to get out of his car, she lunged for a loaded gun he had near the driver’s seat. Bogdanov said he wrapped a phone charger around her shoulders to pull her away, but the cord slipped up around her neck.

After Kuhnhausen’s death, Bogdanov dumped her body down the hillside of Larch Mountain, booked a one-way flight to Ukraine and called a friend to “get rid” of his car, according to trial testimony. He returned to the U.S. about six weeks later.

The prosecution argued throughout the trial that Bogdanov strangled Kuhnhausen because she was transgender. 

In explaining his sentencing decision, the Judge noted there was an element of predation in the case because Kuhnhausen was 17 and Bogdanov was 25 at the time. Bogdanov also admitted during the trial to giving Kuhnhausen alcohol.

The judge also pointed to testimony that Bogdanov dumped Kuhnhausen’s body, left the country and lied to police during the six months she was considered missing.

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Post 0183

Muhamnmad Altantawi, Oakland County (Michigan) inmate 434182, Michigan inmate 724497, born 2001, incarceration (with DOC) intake September 2022 at age 21, scheduled for earliest possible release August 2052, with full discharge of sentence August 2077

Homicide

Initially charged with the murder of his mother, arrested as an under 18, and later transferred to adult jail.  Transferred to adult Jail in July 2020, still incarcerated as of February 2022. Matter went to the State Supreme Court, where the court ruled that Police were improper with their questioning. 

At trial, he was convicted in March 2022.

Sentenced to 35-60 years in prison. The roughly five years he’s already spent in jail will count toward his sentence.

Nada Huranieh, Al-Tantawi’s mother, was 35 when she died in August 2017. Al-Tantawi was 16 at the time. 

A jury found him guilty of premeditated murder in March of 2022. Al-Tantawi pleaded not guilty during trail and has continued to claim he did not kill his mother.

“To say that this was a horrible situation is an understatement,” the Judge said. “When the death of one’s mother, as the jury found, is perpetrated by her son, it’s even more heinous.”

The jury took just two hours to deliberate, accepting the prosecution’s argument that Al-Tantawi smothered his mother with a toxin-soaked cloth and then pushing her already-dead body from a second story window of their home in Farmington Hills.

Having waived his right to an attorney at a hearing in August, Al-Tantawi represented himself Sept. 21. The sentencing took roughly four hours, with most of the event featuring Al-Tantawi’s lengthy list of challenges and disagreements with the prosecution’s case.

Al-Tantawi, who appealed his sentence minutes after it was read, objected to  the relevance of information gathered at the time of the murder when he was still a teen. He also claimed he’s been discriminated against because he’s Muslim and the son of Syrian immigrants.

Previously, Al-Tantawi’s lawyer at the time appealed that information-gathering process to the Michigan Supreme Court, but the information police gathered during the initial investigation was deemed admissible in court.

Having spent five years in jail, Al-Tantawi argued his more recent past, spending 5 years in jail, should play a bigger role in the judge’s decision.

“There is no way this is more relevant than the last five years I’ve had,” he said.

The judge denied most of Al-Tantawi’s challenges, which included him asking to remove information from police reports and his own descriptions of what happened in 2017. The judge said she’d never sat through a four hour sentencing before this one.

“I sat through a trial,” Anderson said. “I’ve sat through five years of this case. I am more intimately familiar with the facts of this case than anyone other than the prosecution and yourself.”

Aya Al-Tantawi, one of the convicted’s two younger sisters, read a victim impact statement from her mother’s family back in Syria, where Huranieh and her husband, who she had been in the process of divorcing at the time of her death, are from.

“Nada was an amazing human who was kind and generous to those in her life,” the statement from Huranieh’s parents, brothers and sisters reads. “Her life ended in a treacherous and despicable way … All we wish for is the court provides justice and hold him accountable for his actions.”

Aya Al-Tantawi also read her own statement, noting the challenges growing into young adulthood without her mother has brought. She also expressed forgiveness to her brother.  "I have to live with waking up every morning wondering when things are going to be OK,“ she said.

Al-Tantawi’s father, Bassel Al-Tantawi, also read part of a statement before the Judge stopped him. The Judge said the statement wasn’t an actual victim impact statement, but a defense of his son.

Huranieh and Bassel Al-Tantawi had been living apart for over a year at the time of her death. Bassel Al-Tantawi had pleaded no contest to a domestic violence charge regarding his wife and was wearing a GPS tether when she died.

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