{"id":75395,"date":"2025-05-05T02:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T02:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/75395\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T02:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T02:58:08","slug":"boyfriend-of-london-thomas-charged-in-case-unrelated-to-investigation-into-her-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/75395\/","title":{"rendered":"Boyfriend of London Thomas charged in case unrelated to investigation into her death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The boyfriend of London Thomas, who is considered a person of interest in the death of Thomas, has been charged in an unrelated case.<\/p>\n<p>Jalen Pendergrass, 23, is charged with filing a false police report in Novi, which is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison. His arraignment took place in Oakland County District Court on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Jalen Pendergrass  and his mother, Charla Pendergrass, were the two suspects held after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/detroit\/news\/missing-girl-found-dead-southfield-london-thomas\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">body of Thomas, 17, was found<\/a>. On Friday, both were released from custody.<\/p>\n<p>A few hours after their release,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/detroit\/news\/1-in-custody-death-of-london-thomas\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">Charla Pendergrass<\/a> was taken back into custody and charged with lying to police officers during an investigation. Court records show she has since bonded out.<\/p>\n<p>Defense attorney Terry Johnson, who is representing Jalen and Charla Pendergrass, believes his clients are being unfairly treated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The bonds were extensively high, and they were given GPS tethers because this is what Michigan State police is asking for,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;They&#8217;re the lead investigation agency here, and unfortunately, they have nothing, and what they&#8217;re trying to do is gather information to come forward to charge my clients.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>Johnson says there should be a greater investigation into the house where Thomas&#8217;s body was found \u2014   near the intersection of Millard Street and Sherman Avenue in Southfield \u2014   since neither of his clients has any connection to that residence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Somebody explain to me how a body can sit for two weeks, not in the street but in a driveway of someone&#8217;s house. Whose car is that? Whose house is that? Why are we not talking to these people? And why are they not under arrest?&#8221; he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Charla Pendergrass is expected back in court for a probable cause conference on May 7.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Detroit police say Thomas was reported missing on April 8. Thomas&#8217;s family and friends organized at least two searches in Westland on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/detroit\/news\/missing-girl-prompts-community-search-wayne-county\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">April 12<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/detroit\/news\/search-missing-london-thomas-wayne-county\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">17<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n        More from CBS News\n      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boyfriend of London Thomas, who is considered a person of interest in the death of Thomas, has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,188,6492,393,4884,257,37201,37200,30762,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-75395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-detroit","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-missing-teen","15":"tag-novi","16":"tag-southfield","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114452988165245944","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}