Ohio: Plumber who lost leg urges leniency for driver
CINCINNATI (AP) — A judge has granted a Cincinnati area man’s request that he spare from prison the driver who cost the man his leg.
Scott Lane rolled his wheelchair into a Hamilton County court on Monday to tell the judge nothing could bring his left leg back, but that Amber Schwartz could be helped.
Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman said Lane’s compassion led him to allow Schwartz to plead guilty to vehicular assault and undergo a drug rehabilitation program instead of prison. She will be on probation five years.
The 24-year-old Fairfield woman also must pay the 41-year-old plumber at least $34,400 for medical costs and lost wages.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports testing showed illegal opiates in her system when she crashed her car into Lane’s motorcycle May 6.
South Carolina: Court documents: Charleston pastor ran Ponzi scam
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Court documents say a Charleston pastor ran a financial scam out of his church for several years.
The Post and Courier of Charleston reported Tuesday a federal judge has frozen what remains of $3.3 million that investigators say the Rev. Ronald Satterfield used in a foreign currency investment scam.
Satterfield is rector at St. John’s Reformed Episcopal Church.
Court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston on Monday say Satterfield used money from 70 investors between 2006 and 2009.
Satterfield said Monday some people lost money but the allegations by the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission mischaracterize his trading.
Documents say Satterfield lost almost all $2 million he invested. The commission says he used the rest to pay returns to customers until his companies failed.
Mississippi: Mother held without bond in newborn’s death
CANTON, Miss. (AP) — A mother of five accused of capital murder in the death of her newborn son is back in jail following a bond hearing in Madison County Circuit Court.
Circuit Judge William Chapman ordered 41-year-old Sheila Ealey of Flora to be held without bond Monday until her trial.
Ealey is accused of placing her child in a suitcase and leaving it behind a Flora church.
Madison County District Attorney Michael Guest tells The Clarion-Ledger that he will seek the death penalty at trial, which is scheduled for July 18.
Ealey’s attorney asked the court for a seasonable bond, because he said there is no evidence the child was alive when placed in the suitcase.
Officials say two autopsies were unable to determine the cause of death.
Iowa: Jury: hotel unlawfully fired “tomboy” worker
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A federal jury in Des Moines has found that an Iowa hotel unlawfully fired an employee because of her “tomboy” appearance.
A jury found Heartland Inns of America fired Brenna Lewis for not conforming to the hotel’s sex stereotypes about how women should look or behave.
The hotel claimed it fired Lewis because she thwarted the interview process and was hostile toward company policies.
Lewis, who was described as “tomboyish,” claimed she was fired because she wore loose fitting clothes, including men’s shirts and slacks.
Court records show the company’s director of operations, Barbara Cullinan, said hotel staff should be pretty.
A telephone message left for Cullinan was not immediately returned.
The jury awarded Lewis more than $50,000 last Friday.
Florida: Man faces 168 years in tax fraud
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A Broward County man is facing up to 168 years in federal prison for a conviction on tax fraud charges.
Prosecutors said Monday that Michael D. Beiter sold investors so-called “pure trusts” allowing them to declare their independence from typical obligations such as paying taxes and debts.
Trial testimony showed Beiter sold more than 100 of these investment packages. Beiter also reported no income and taxes between 2004 and 2006 despite earning $1.8 million in taxable income.
Prosecutors say people should beware of those who claim there are secret ways to avoid taxes.
Beiter is to be sentenced Jan. 28 in Fort Lauderdale federal court. The maximum is 168 years behind bars, though Beiter could get far less time.
Oregon: Lawsuit alleges officer cuffed boy, 8
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed in the case of an Oregon third grader whose mother says he was handcuffed by a police officer after the child’s teacher locked him out of class with no supervision.
The lawsuit says the teacher sent the boy out of class for being disruptive on Oct. 14, 2009, and he began throwing chairs in a hallway. Police apparently were called after an incorrect report that the then 8-year-old boy had left the school.
The suit alleges excessive force, false imprisonment and discrimination, saying the boy was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Friday’s court filing names a Gresham, Ore., police officer, three Highland Elementary School faculty members and the Gresham-Barlow School District. The Oregonian says the Gresham Police Department declined comment and the officer could not be reached. The school district declined comment Monday but said locking a student out of class without supervision “is not a common practice.”
California: Slain Ca. girl’s family settles with psychologist
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The family of an Escondido girl who was stabbed to death in her bedroom in 1998 has settled a lawsuit with a psychologist who took part in aggressive interrogations of her wrongly accused brother and two of his friends.
The San Diego Union-Tribune says Monday that the family of 12-year-old Stephanie and 14-year-old Michael Crowe settled with Dr. Lawrence Blum for just under $1 million last week, and a federal judge approved the move.
Blum assisted police as they interrogated the three boys until each confessed. A judge later called the sessions “psychologically abusive.”
The charges were later dropped and transient Richard Tuitte (TOO’-it) was convicted of killing Stephanie, whose grandmother found her dead on Jan. 21, 1998.
A family lawsuit against the police is pending in federal court.
