Utah: Extradition hearing delayed for sect leader
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A state judge has postponed an extradition hearing for polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs.
The head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was scheduled for a 3rd District Court hearing in West Jordan on Thursday. On Tuesday, however, the court rescheduled the hearing for Sept. 7.
Defense attorneys for the 54-year-old church leader requested the delay. They have said they will fight Jeffs’ extradition to face criminal charges in Texas.
Authorities have charged Jeffs with bigamy, aggravated sexual assault and assault related to alleged incidents with underage girls at a church ranch.
The Utah Supreme Court reversed Jeffs’ 2007 convictions on accomplice to rape charges last month and sent the case back for a new trial.
Mississippi: Child-porn trial continued until October
COLUMBUS, Miss. (AP) — The trial of a Lowndes County man on possession of child pornography charges — scheduled for Tuesday in Lowndes County Circuit Court — has been continued until October.
The Commercial Dispatch reports Robert Warren Triplett Jr. faces both state and federal charges of exploitation of a child. His trial on the federal charges still is scheduled to begin Aug. 30 in Oxford.
A conviction on state charges could carry up to a 40-year prison sentence and a federal conviction could tack on an additional 10 years.
The 57-year-old Triplett was arrested after investigators found explicit photos of minor children on a computer obtained from his home, during an investigation into the disappearance of his stepdaughter, Kaila Morris.
The search for Morris is ongoing.
South Dakota: State opposes inmate’s sentence reduction effort
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — The attorney general’s office is asking a federal judge to dismiss a penitentiary inmate’s challenge to the 40-year prison sentence he received for secretly videotaping young girls in his bathroom.
State prosecutors say Cameron Blair fails to state a claim on which relief should be granted and that his petition is without merit. They want a judge to dismiss it without any further hearings or arguments.
The 50-year-old Blair says the sentence is excessive and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment for what amounts to voyeurism.
He went to federal court after running out of options in state court to challenge the sentence.
Pennsylvania: Officer fired after FBI info gets $135,000
NEW KENSINGTON, Pa. (AP) — A Pittsburgh-area police officer fired after her superiors say they received unspecified information about her from the FBI has settled a sex discrimination and wrongful firing lawsuit for $135,000.
Former New Kensington police office Traci Matthews King will share the money with her attorney. As part of a settlement confirmed Tuesday, King’s employment file will be amended to say she voluntarily left the police force.
King was employed by the city about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh for 16 years before she was put on paid leave in March 2008 and fired four months later after city officials say they got information about her during an unspecified FBI probe.
King has never been charged with a crime. She had sued the city for sex discrimination two years before her firing, and amended the suit to claim her firing was in retaliation for filing it. The city has denied that.
Kansas: Retirement community death suit settled
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — A lawsuit over the assault and death of an elderly woman at a central Kansas retirement community has been settled.
The family of 85-year-old Pearl Arthaud sued after she was sexually assaulted and strangled on May 18, 2008, at Buhler Sunshine Home. Marvin J. Gifford Jr. is serving life in prison without parole for Arthaud’s death and attacks on two other elderly women in Reno County.
Arthaud’s heirs sued Sunshine Villa Inc., Buhler Sunshine Home Inc. and its administrator, Keith Pankratz
District Judge Tim Chambers confirmed Tuesday that a settlement had been reached, but said the terms were confidential.
The lawsuit alleged that the retirement community did not take appropriate action to protect Arthaud after she reported a man entered her apartment and tried to have sex with her. Sunshine officials had denied the allegations.
Mississippi: Civil trial begins in inmate-abuse lawsuit
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — One of two ex-jailers on trial in a federal civil case said he used minimum force to subdue a disruptive woman at the Harrison County jail June 17, 2006.
The Sun Herald reports William Jeffrey Priest testified Tuesday that Marguerite Carrubba was drunk and disorderly, and slipped out of handcuffs.
Carrubba has sued Priest and ex-jailer Karle Stolze on allegations of deprivation of civil rights under color of law.
The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount in damages.
The lawsuit claims the officers forced her arms above her head and slammed her to the floor face-down after she tapped on a holding-cell window, wanting to make a phone call.
West Virginia: Marsh Fork coal dust lawsuit set for 2011 trial
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — A lawsuit claiming hundreds of children were exposed to toxic coal dust from a Massey Energy Co. silo next to Marsh Fork Elementary School may be tried next spring.
Raleigh County Judge Harry Kirkpatrick has scheduled trial for March 14, 2011, in Beckley. Williamson attorney Kevin Thompson says a pretrial hearing is set for Feb. 17.
Thompson is suing Virginia-based Massey and three subsidiaries — Goals Coal Co., AT Massey Coal Co. and Massey Coal Services Inc. — over dust from the silo that sits about 235 feet from the school.
The lawsuit accuses Massey of negligence and creating a public nuisance.
It demands punitive damages and a medical monitoring program for children and faculty who may have been harmed by dust that settled around the school.
California: ‘Tax lady’ Roni Deutch says lawsuit is political
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — “Tax Lady” Roni Deutch says California Attorney General Jerry Brown is engaging in election year politics by filing a lawsuit accusing her law firm of false advertising and misleading consumers.
Deutch said in a statement Tuesday that she will fight the $34 million lawsuit filed a day earlier in Sacramento County Superior Court by Brown, the Democrats’ nominee for governor.
She says her firm has saved thousands of people tens of millions of dollars through negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service over nearly 20 years.
The suit accuses her of vastly overstating the number of delinquent taxpayers she has helped. The suit also alleges she ran up clients’ fees through false billings.
Brown spokeswoman Christine Gasparac says the lawsuit is backed by evidence gathered during a monthslong investigation.
Maryland: Ex-inmate sues over beating
WESTMINSTER, Md. (AP) — A former Carroll County Detention Center is seeking $3 million in damages from the county after he was beaten by his cellmate.
Ted Lau of New Windsor filed suit in Carroll County Circuit Court, saying the county was negligent when it put Lau in a cell with an inmate the suit says was violent.
According to the suit, Lau, who was sent to the detention after failing to obey the terms of his pretrial release, was placed in a cell with another inmate.
On July 28, 2007, Lau says his cellmate punched him in the head, choked, kicked and beat him, knocking him unconscious.
County Attorney Kimberly Millender did not comment because the county has not yet been served with the lawsuit.
