North Dakota: Lawyer disbarred for trying to buy cocaine off client
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota’s Supreme Court has disbarred an attorney for asking a client to buy cocaine for him.
In a decision Monday, the court ordered James Wolff to pay about $8,000 in disciplinary costs. Wolff has been suspended from practicing law since June 2009. He had offices in Mohall and Minot.
Wolff’s disbarment takes effect Oct. 1.
Wolff pleaded guilty last January to a misdemeanor charge of attempting to possess cocaine. The Supreme Court’s ruling says Wolff gave $200 to a client and asked her to buy the cocaine “so they could party.”
Records show he was disciplined earlier for a felony bad check conviction. An investigation into complaints against Wolff concluded he billed some clients for work he never did.
Louisiana: Judge to rule Sept. 30 in case of killed girl
SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — A Caddo district judge will rule Sept. 30 on whether to acquit a Shreveport woman convicted of murder after her 6-year-old daughter died in an apartment fire while home alone with another child.
The Times reports defense attorney Christopher Hatch filed the post-verdict motion Monday arguing that Satonia Small did not kill her child and her absence from the apartment at the time of the 2008 fire did not directly cause the girl’s death. The defense team initially asked the court for a new trial, but on Monday, Hatch said the case warranted an acquittal.
A Caddo jury last month unanimously convicted Small of second-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
Pennsylvania: Judge rejects relocating collar bomb trial
ERIE, Pa. (AP) — A federal judge says he won’t move the trial of a woman charged with masterminding a bank robbery plot that ended with a pizza deliveryman being killed by a bomb locked around his neck.
Sixty-one-year-old Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong wanted the trial moved from U.S. District Court in Erie because she says intense publicity will prevent her from picking an impartial jury.
But U.S. District Judge Sean McLaughlin says much of that publicity was generated by the defendant, who has repeatedly called the Erie Times-News to proclaim her innocence and otherwise prompted stories about the case.
Jury selection will begin Oct. 12 in Erie and jurors will be drawn from seven northwestern Pennsylvania counties. The judge says the trial could still be moved if too many potential jurors have a preconceived bias.
Massachusetts: Lenox man pleads guilty in 1998 rape case
PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A long and circuitous legal process for a Lenox man charged in a 1998 rape has come to and end with a guilty plea that will allow him to avoid additional prison time.
Aaron Kincaid pleaded guilty Monday in Berkshire Superior Court to aggravated rape and was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.
The prosecution and defense agreed that the nearly two years Kincaid has served in connection with the case was sufficient.
Kincaid was convicted of the 1998 rape in 2001. Prosecutors allege he and another man raped a drugged woman while a third man videotaped it. The Supreme Judicial Court overturned the conviction and his second trial ended in a mistrial.
Kincaid’s lawyer tells The Berkshire Eagle registering as a sex offender is “a high price to pay.”
Delaware: Man can run for AG despite felony conviction
DOVER, Del. (AP) — Delaware election officials will let a candidate for attorney general run despite a 2004 felony conviction for speeding to elude arrest.
Officials said Monday that Doug Campbell, 30, can run against incumbent Democratic Attorney General Beau Biden. Individuals convicted of felonies cannot run for elected office in Delaware. But state elections commissioner Elaine Manlove says Campbell got the conviction in North Carolina, and the same conviction would not be a felony in Delaware.
According to court records, Campbell was arrested in 2004 and spent seven months in prison after being convicted of speeding to elude arrest. He was also convicted of driving with a revoked license, driving without proper vehicle registration and driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor.
Campbell is an Independent Party candidate.
Connecticut: Man gets 25 years in prison for fatal shooting
STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — A 22-year-old Connecticut man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for shooting another man to death in Stamford more than two years ago.
The Advocate of Stamford reports that a Stamford Superior Court judge sentenced Giovanni Rodriguez on Monday in the killing of 51-year-old Marco Paoletta, who was shot in the head and left to die on Vine Road in January 2008.
Rodriguez, who had lived at a Bridgeport halfway house, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and arson in June.
Paoletta, of Stamford, had just finished a racquetball game when he was shot, and his car was doused with gasoline and set ablaze in Norwalk. Rodriguez’s brother awaits trial on charges of arson and conspiracy.
Police say DNA on a baseball cap left in the burning car linked Rodriguez to the case.
North Dakota: Man pleads not guilty to killing brother with pipe
GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) — A rural Manvel man accused of killing his brother has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge.
The Grand Forks Herald reports that 45-year-old Rodney Chisholm also pleaded not guilty on Monday to several theft charges related to stolen farm equipment.
Court documents say Chisholm told investigators he killed his 59-year-old brother, Donald, in late June by either hitting him in the head with a metal pipe, strangling him or a combination of the two.
Chisholm has told the Grand Forks Herald that he acted in self-defense after a dispute over property.
A pretrial hearing Nov. 4 in Grand Forks.
