National Roundup

Illinois
Woman ordered to get help after her 396 arrests
CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago woman who has been arrested 396 times in the past 35 years has been ordered to get mental health and substance abuse treatment in a deal with prosecutors.
Fifty-one-year-old Shermain Miles, who’s been in the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln since December for violating parole, appeared in a Cook County court on Monday to plead guilty to charges she attacked a city alderman. She also pleaded guilty to trespassing and public drinking in separate cases.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports a judge sentenced her to time served in all three, because Miles agreed to undergo a mental health evaluation and get follow-up treatment.
Miles, who is homeless, has dozens of convictions for felonies and misdemeanors.
The paper says she thanked a judge for the opportunity to get help.

Connecticut
Woman accused of crushing her ex with her car
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut woman is accused of killing her former boyfriend by pinning him against a garage wall with a car and crushing him.
The Connecticut Post reports that 21-year-old Cherelle Baldwin of Bridgeport was arrested Monday and charged with murder in the May 18 death of 24-year-old Jeffrey Brown.
Police say Baldwin accelerated as she drove 100 feet into Brown, crushing him between the car and a cinder-block wall at the rear of a garage.
Police spokesman William Kaempffer says the impact pushed the wall back more than 10 inches.
Baldwin is being held in lieu of $1 million bond and couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Police say she has given several accounts of the crash, but her version was not substantiated by the evidence.

Texas
Woman claims self-defense in heel stabbing
HOUSTON (AP) — Officials say a Houston woman accused of stabbing her boyfriend to death with a stiletto high heel told police she was trying to protect herself.
Houston police say 44-year-old Ana Lilia Trujillo told investigators the man was attacking her and she acted in self-defense.
Trujillo was charged with murder in the Sunday stabbing death. In a statement Monday, the University of Houston identified the 59-year-old man killed at a luxury high-rise condominium as Alf Stefan Andersson, a research professor in the university’s biology and biochemistry department.
Police say officers answering an assault report found Andersson’s body on the floor with multiple stab wounds to the head.
Trujillo remained jailed Monday on $100,000 bail and had no attorney yet.

Louisiana
Brees sues ex-teammate over bogus tax credits
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees sued a former teammate Monday for allegedly advising him to invest $160,000 in tax credits that turned out to be bogus.
The suit filed on Brees’ behalf in federal court claims former Saints long snapper Kevin Houser, a licensed securities broker, mishandled the star quarterback’s money and failed to disclose his own financial interests in the investments he was promoting.
Several other teammates and coaches sued Houser for allegedly advising them to invest a total of roughly $2 million to buy nonexistent tax credits from a defunct movie studio. Brees’ lawyer, Daniel Becnel Jr., said his client had held off on joining them in suing to see if their dispute could be resolved out of court.
“We gave them an opportunity to settle,” Becnel said. “We didn’t want to file suit. We’ve been trying to negotiate with them.”
Meanwhile, former New Orleans Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey and former Saints defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs reached separate settlements Monday with Houser over the same investment deal. Terms were confidential.
Saints head coach Sean Payton reached a separate settlement with Houser last month. Former Saints defensive end Charles Grant still has claims pending against Houser that are scheduled to be tried later this month.
Wayne Read, who once ran Louisiana Film Studios LLC, is the only person to face criminal charges over the investment deal.
Read was sentenced to four years in prison after he pleaded guilty in May 2010 to fraud charges. Read never invested the money necessary to obtain the tax credits he sold to his investors, who wanted to use them to reduce their state income-tax liability, according to federal prosecutors.
More than two dozen team members were among Read’s victims. Grant paid $425,000. Payton paid $144,000. Former Saints star quarterback Archie Manning and Shockey each paid $80,000.

New York
Trial of Madoff associates could take 5 months
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York trial later this year of five former associates of disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff could last five months or more.
The government has accused Madoff’s ex-secretary and four others of being in on a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that burned thousands of investors, with Madoff paying off longtime investors with money from newer investors.
Prosecutors told a Manhattan judge at a pretrial hearing Monday their case will last four months. Defense attorneys say they’ll need a month.
Madoff and seven other people have pleaded guilty since the epic fraud was uncovered in 2008. Among them is Madoff’s chief financial officer, who’s expected to testify at the trial beginning Oct. 7.

Hawaii
Hawaii murder case to go before fed appeals court
HONOLULU (AP) — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will be hearing oral arguments on whether the murder trial of a federal agent charged in a Waikiki McDonald’s shooting should be held in state or federal court.
The federal appeals court will hear oral arguments Tuesday in downtown Honolulu on State Department Special Agent Christopher Deedy’s appeal to move the case to federal court.
Deedy’s defense attorney Karl Blanke says he’s moving forward with the request even though a jury has been selected in state court and opening statements are scheduled for July 8.
Deedy is accused of killing a Hawaii man in November 2011 while in town for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.
A U.S. District Court judge in August denied his motion to have the case moved and Deedy appealed.i