Oklahoma: Man arrested for sexually assaulting teenage sisters
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Tulsa County prosecutors have charged a Broken Arrow man with sexually assaulting two sisters after he allegedly chatted with them online.
Broken Arrow police arrested 21-year-old John David Swyden on Monday night. He remained in the Tulsa County jail on Wednesday on $150,000 bond.
Online court records indicate Swyden also faces sex charges in neighboring Creek County. Clark Brewster of Tulsa, an attorney representing Swyden in that case, did not immediately return a phone message left Wednesday morning.
In Tulsa County, Swyden faces charges of lewd molestation, forcible sodomy and second-degree rape. Prosecutors say the two sisters were ages 12 and 14.
Police say Swyden chatted with the 12-year-old online on a social networking site. They say the girl snuck out to meet him and that she says he forced her to perform a sex act.
Later, police say, her 14-year-old sister met Swyden and had sex with him.
Wisconsin: 3 people charged with stealing soldiers’ identities
RHINELANDER, Wis. (AP) — Three people have been charged with forging checks in the names of Wisconsin service members killed in Iraq.
Forty-six-year-old Bobby McLeod of Green Bay, 25-year-old James Larson of Green Bay and 25-year-old Tina Mitchem are facing a variety of charges, including forgery and misappropriating identity information.
Bond for all three was set at $5,000 cash.
Prosecutors say checks were forged in the name of fallen military members, identified as Rachel Bosveld of Waupun, Matthew Schram of Brookfield and Andrew Halverson of Grant.
WLUK-TV reports the three are due back in court June 21.
New York: TV reporter to appeal verdict in harassment case
NEW YORK (AP) — A former reporter for cable news channel NY1 who lost her sexual harassment case against Times Warner says she will appeal.
Adele Sammarco filed a notice of appeal in Brooklyn federal court. She also sought a waiver of the $455 filing fee, claiming financial hardship.
Sammarco sued the station and three executives for unspecified damages in 2002. In April, a jury rejected her claims.
The station said in a statement that Sammarco “had a full opportunity to try her case before a jury of her peers, who took only 45 minutes to vindicate NY1.”
Mississippi: Woman sentenced in murder-for-hire of husband plot
TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — A former Tupelo real estate agent has been sentenced to 10 years with five years suspended for trying to hire someone to kill her then-husband in 2008.
Prosecutors say 57-year-old Cheryl Pine was sentenced this week in Lee County Circuit Court.
She also was sentenced to another 10 years on a forgery charge, but that sentence was suspended. She had pleaded guilty to forging Wells Fargo individual retirement accounts totaling $78,300 in the name of James Pine, from whom she is now divorced.
She had pleaded guilty to the charges in April.
Pine was indicted in 2008 for trying to hire a hit man, who turned out to be an undercover Tupelo police officer.
Kentucky: Trial next spring in Cynthiana woman’s murder
CYNTHIANA, Ky. (AP) — A central Kentucky man will be tried next spring in the murder of a Cynthiana woman.
Trial for Bass Webb of Means was set for March 21 on Tuesday in Harrison Circuit Court.
The Lexington Herald-Leader quoted Webb’s public defender who said he might try to move it.
Webb is charged with the murder of 32-year-old Bryia Runiewicz.
He’s also charged with two counts of attempted murder, accused of trying to run over two Bourbon County jail employees in July. Police said after he was arrested on those charges, Webb confessed to killing Runiewicz.
Webb has pleaded not guilty in the case.
He is also charged in Montgomery County in the death of his ex-girlfriend Sabrina Marie Vaughn. She was in her 20s when she was last seen alive in December 2003.
Louisiana: Former high school teacher’s porn trial delayed
LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — The trial of a former Acadiana High School teacher accused of filming teenagers having sex in his Lafayette apartment has been delayed.
Stephen McKay Hurst was scheduled to stand trial June 21 on six federal charges, including production of child pornography, possession of child pornography and obstruction of justice, among others. According to federal court documents, no new trial date has been set.
The Advertiser reports Hurst’s attorney, Frank Ferrara, asked for the delay in a May 18 motion. In doing so, Ferrara cited his involvement in four cases in four separate parishes.
Connecticut: Police arrest man in 1997 killing of law school grad
WATERFORD, Conn. (AP) — Cold case detectives in Connecticut have charged a 40-year-old man with murder in the 1997 killing of a law school graduate who had turned to prostitution to support a crack cocaine addiction.
Police arrested Dickie Anderson Jr. of New London on Tuesday in the strangling death of 41-year-old Renee Pellegrino, whose body was found in a Waterford cul-de-sac on June 25, 1997.
Anderson is being held in lieu of $2.5 million bail and is to be arraigned Wednesday in New London Superior Court. It’s not clear if he has a lawyer.
Authorities released few other details of the arrest.
Pellegrino was a Phi Beta Kappa scholar who had a law degree from the University of Connecticut and had been admitted to the bar in Connecticut and New York.
Hurst has been in a St. Martin Parish jail since his arrest in late March.
