HYATTSVILLE, Md. — The parents of a 7-year-old first grader with autism are demanding answers from Prince George’s County Public Schools after their son suffered a severe leg fracture while at school — an injury no one has been able to explain.

Daevian Donaldson, a student at Felegy Elementary School in Hyattsville, is recovering from surgery after his femur was snapped and displaced during class last Friday, according to his parents, Daechele Kaufman and Anthony Donaldson.

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Kaufman said the day began normally as she dropped Daevian and his twin brother off for first grade. Around 9 a.m., she received an alarming phone call from the school.

“They just said he was on the floor screaming and didn’t want anyone to touch him,” Kaufman said.

She rushed to the school and found her son with obvious trauma to his leg. Neither staff nor Daevian — who communicates differently because he is on the autism spectrum — could explain how the injury occurred, she said.

Doctors later confirmed the severity of the injury through X-rays.

“When I saw the X-ray and one of the nurses said he was going to need surgery, all these wheels started turning,” Kaufman said.

The parents said they later learned Daevian’s regular teacher was attending a meeting at the time, and the special-needs classroom was being supervised by a substitute. They said no clear explanation has been provided for how a child could suffer such a serious injury without staff noticing what happened.

“It’s definitely neglect,” Kaufman said. “You can’t turn away and come back and say, ‘Oh, you fell,’ for a major injury like that. That’s not acceptable.”

After the family raised concerns publicly, Prince George’s County Public Schools issued a statement saying the district is investigating the incident and has placed the staff member involved on administrative leave.

Anthony Donaldson said that response does not go far enough.

“It needs to be more than one person on administrative leave,” he said. “Several people need to be evaluated on how they’re trained, or they need to be fired.”

Daevian is continuing to recover after surgery but is still experiencing pain, his parents said. As the interview concluded, the 7-year-old quietly asked for his medication.

The family said they want accountability — and assurances that other children, especially those with special needs, will be kept safe.

The St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office is reporting that a 62-year-old man died in a barn fire at his home in Chaptico, Md. It’s believed that the victim was actor Bobby J. Brown, who starred on “The Wire.”

MARYLAND (WBFF) — A prominent Supreme Court litigator who also published a popular blog about the nation’s highest court was convicted Wednesday of tax evasion and related charges stemming from his secretive lifestyle as an ultra-high-stakes poker player.

A federal jury found SCOTUSblog co-founder Thomas Goldstein guilty of 12 of 16 counts after a six-week trial in Greenbelt, Maryland. Jurors deliberated for approximately two days before convicting Goldstein of one count of tax evasion, four of eight counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns, four counts of willful failure to timely pay taxes, and three counts of false statements on loan applications.

Goldstein was charged with failing to pay taxes on millions of dollars in gambling income. Justice Department prosecutors also accused him of diverting money from his law firm to pay gambling debts and falsely deducting gambling debts as business expenses.

Goldstein argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme Court before retiring in 2023. He was part of the legal team that represented Democrat Al Gore in the Supreme Court litigation over the 2000 election ultimately won by Republican President George W. Bush.

Goldstein’s indictment a year ago sent shockwaves through the legal community in Washington, D.C. Many friends and colleagues didn’t know the extent of his gambling.

“He lied to everyone around him,” Justice Department prosecutor Sean Beaty said during the trial’s closing arguments.

Defense attorney Jonathan Kravis said the government rushed to judgment and failed to adequately investigate the case. Goldstein made “innocent mistakes” on his tax returns but didn’t cheat on his taxes or knowingly make false statements on his tax returns, Kravis told jurors.

“A mistake is not a crime,” he said.

Beaty described Goldstein as a “willful tax cheat.” Goldstein raked in approximately $50 million in poker winnings in 2016, including roughly $22 million that he won playing in Asia, according to Beaty. The prosecutor said the tax evasion scheme “fell apart” when another gambler, feeling cheated by Goldstein, notified the IRS about a 2016 debt owed to the attorney.

“It was a textbook tax-evasion scheme,” Beaty said. “And Mr. Goldstein executed that nearly flawlessly.”

The trial, which started Jan. 12, included testimony by “Spider-Man” star Tobey Maguire, an avid poker player who enlisted Goldstein’s help in recovering a gambling debt from a billionaire.

Goldstein, who testified in his own defense, denied any wrongdoing. He has said he repeatedly instructed his law firm’s staff and accountants to correctly characterize his personal expenses. In a 2014 email, he told a firm employee that “we always play completely by the rules.”

Goldstein also was accused of lying to IRS agents and hiding his gambling debts from his accountants, employees and mortgage lenders. He omitted a $15 million gambling debt from mortgage loan applications while looking for a new home in Washington, D.C., with his wife in 2021, his indictment alleges.

“He was thinking only of his wife when he left off the gambling debts,” Kravis said.