National Roundup

Colorado
Parents say avalanche not a routine ski risk
VAIL, Colo. (AP) — The parents of a 13-year-old boy killed in an avalanche last winter say it’s not a ski risk protected from lawsuits.
The parents sued Vail Resorts last summer claiming the company’s negligence created an avalanche trap that killed their son, Taft Conlin
According to the Vail Daily, Vail Resorts has asked the Broomfield County District Court to throw out the lawsuit, saying they complied with Colorado’s Skier Safety Act.
The ski company says the death resulted from inherent dangers and risks of skiing, and they should be protected because they claim they did not violate Colorado law.

New York
Man accused of defrauding B’way show ‘Rebecca’
NEW YORK (AP) — A former stock broker was arrested early Monday on charges of defrauding the producers of the Broadway musical adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller “Rebecca.”
Mark Hotton, 46, led the producers to believe he had $4.5 million in financing commitments and the possibility of a $1.1 million loan, said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
He was arrested at his West Islip home.
The planned Broadway production of the 1938 novel collapsed earlier this month amid questions about its financial backing, and a growing suspicion that one of its primary investors — a secretive businessman named Paul Abrams who had supposedly pledged $4.5 million, then suddenly died of malaria — never existed.
“Mark Hotton perpetrated stranger-than-fiction frauds both on and off Broadway,” Bharara said. “Hotton concocted a cast of characters to invest in a major musical — investors who turned out to be deep-pocketed phantoms. To carry out the alleged fraud, Hotton faked lives, faked companies and even staged a fake death, pretending that one imaginary investor had suddenly died from malaria.”
Hotton was charged with two counts of wire fraud, each punishable by up to 20 years in prison. His attorney, Heath Berger, did not immediately return a call for comment.
Hotton also was accused of using a similar scheme to trick a Connecticut-based real estate company into paying $750,000 to him and entities he controlled, Bharara said.
According to the criminal complaint unsealed Monday, Hotton misled the producers into believing he had secured the money from four overseas investors, who in fact did not exist. The producers agreed to pay Hotton $15,000 in fees and commissions between March and June 2012, prosecutors said. He was also paid an additional $18,000 “advance” against his 8 percent commission, they said.
The investigation, which began in September, found that when it became obvious that investors’ commitments would fall through, Hotton allegedly tried to broker a $1.1 million loan for the producers.
The musical was influenced by the classic Hitchcock film, based on the Daphne du Maurier novel about a wealthy Englishman, his new wife and a manipulative housekeeper — all haunted by the hero’s dead first wife, Rebecca.
The prosecutors say Hotton “enlisted his same cast of invisible men to carry out a real estate scam.” They did not name the Connecticut real estate company.
“In his alleged scheme to defraud investors, Mark Hotton wrote, directed and starred in the work of fiction he took to Broadway.” FBI Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge Galligan said. “He even allegedly played the supporting characters - phantom investors who existed only in fictitious emails and Hotton’s bogus assertions about them.”

Utah
Officials: Man stabbed grandma over 100 times
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah man accused of stabbing his grandmother 111 times told police he slit her heart and belly and removed several of her internal organs, prosecutors said in court documents.
Police went to 84-year-old Joyce Dexter’s Salt Lake City home on Oct. 3 after neighbors heard screams and called 911. Officers found Zachary Cole Weston standing over Dexter’s body while holding a bloody knife, according to court records released Friday.
Weston had blood on his clothing and hands and later told investigators he had also cut his grandmother’s jugular, the records said.
The 21-year-old has been charged with aggravated murder, a capital offense. Family members told The Salt Lake Tribune that Weston suffers from mental illness.
He was arrested in 2010 after he was accused of pushing his mother and striking a police officer. He pleaded guilty to one of two assault charges.
As part of his sentence, he was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and complete any recommended treatment, but he was charged Aug. 9 with two counts of assault and interfering with a police officer during an arrest for slapping one hospital employee and punching another in the face, the Deseret News reported.
He was also charged with assault for hitting his father during a Sept. 27 argument.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill declined to comment Friday on a possible motive in the stabbing, but he praised police for responding so quickly.

Georgia
State high court denies effort to suppress scan
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld a ruling against an Athens man who sought to suppress evidence that he said was based on a thermal imaging scan that was improperly obtained.
James Brundige faces various drug charges after authorities say they found a marijuana grow operation in his home in 2009. One of the search warrants in the case was based in part on a thermal imaging scan.
Brundige argued that was inadmissible because under state law thermal imaging shouldn’t be considered “tangible evidence” for which a search warrant can be issued.
The state high court said in an opinion published Monday that the judge who issued the warrant found sufficient probable cause outside the thermal imaging scan to make the question of whether it’s “tangible evidence” irrelevant.