National Roundup

New Jersey
TGI Fridays fined $500,000 for switching booze
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — An operator of TGI Fridays restaurants in New Jersey raided as part of Operation Swill has agreed to pay a $500,000 fine for serving customers cheap booze when they paid for top shelf.
Acting Attorney General John Hoffman said Wednesday that the fine levied against Livingston-based Briad Group should send a message to every bar and restaurant in the state that customers should always get what they pay for.
Twenty-nine establishments were raided as part of the operation.
The eight TGI Fridays included in the settlement are in West Orange, East Windsor, Old Bridge, Piscataway, Freehold, Marlboro, Hazlet and Linden.
Under terms of the settlement, Briad will employ a state-appointed monitor through June 14 to ensure the restaurants and employees are in compliance.

New Mexico
Corrections to target inmate online profiles
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Corrections Department officials say inmates could face disciplinary action if they don’t remove profiles from an online pen-pal website.
Corrections Deputy Secretary of Operations Joe Booker says officials are investigating how many inmates have profiles on WriteAPrisoner.com, and they’re asking inmates to remove them.
Adam Lovell, president and owner of the website, says it was created to connect pen-pals with prisoners so they can trade letters. He says the site also provides educational tools and legal aide help.
KRQE-TV reports the site charges $40 a year to let inmates post profiles that include photos and descriptions of themselves and their crimes. The profiles also say where the inmates are serving so people can write to them.
Booker says it’s against state rules for inmates to have social media profiles on any sites.

New York
Relative blames dim barge lights for NY boat crash
PIERMONT, N.Y. (AP) — The stepfather of a bride-to-be killed in a boating accident on New York’s Hudson River says no one aboard saw the construction barge before crashing into it.
Walter Kosik tells The Journal News he spoke with his daughter’s fiance, Brian Bond, who says the barge’s anchor lights were dim and obscured by a glare from the Tappan  Zee Bridge.
Bond was to marry Lindsey Stewart on Aug. 10. His best man also died.
Bond told Kosik that passengers had about one alcoholic beverage each before Friday’s crash. He says boat operator Jojo John had a few drinks but wasn’t drunk.
John was charged with vehicular homicide. His lawyer calls the crash “a tragedy.”
The New York State Thruway Authority says the barge lighting appeared to be functioning normally.

Florida
Police: Man takes cash from dying man’s bank ATM
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Police in Florida say a maintenance man used a man’s ATM card before calling 911 after finding him dead or dying in a Gainesville apartment.
The Gainesville Sun reports police learned about the theft three weeks after J.W. White died on July 1. The man’s brother called authorities after finding an ATM transaction on White’s Bank of America account minutes before paramedics arrived at the apartment.
Police arrested 52-year-old Clarence Davis on Monday. He was jailed on $5,000 bail.
Video footage shows Davis checking the balance and making two withdrawals from White’s account for $611.90. Davis told police he had permission to withdraw the money to pay rent and other bills for White.
Police say Davis admitted to using the money to restore the apartment to re-rent it.

Ohio
Teens suspected in shootings got ride from trooper
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Two teenagers charged in a pair of fatal shootings were given a ride to the scene of another non-fatal shooting by an Ohio state trooper who did not pat them down or check them for warrants after he found them walking along a highway ramp, authorities said.
The young men, ages 17 and 18, were charged Tuesday with the death of a teenager whose body was found last week on a sidewalk in Columbus, not far from the convenience store when they are accused of having killed a clerk a day earlier. They are also being questioned in the non-fatal shooting Saturday at a truck stop west of Columbus where the trooper dropped them off.
Sgt. Jeffrey Shane, a 29-year-member of the State Patrol, has been placed on administrative desk duty during an internal investigation to determine whether he violated any policies, patrol Lt. Anne Ralston has said.
The suspects — Nathaniel Brunner, 18, of Columbus, and a 17-year-old, also from Columbus — were arrested Saturday in Dayton on warrants charging them with murder in the slaying of store clerk Imran Ashgar on Wednesday night.
They were charged Tuesday with murder in the slaying of Lamont Frazier, 17, Columbus police said. Police said Frazier’s body was found early Thursday on a sidewalk in Columbus, a few hours after Ashgar was slain.
The teens had been walking Saturday along a ramp at Route 42 and Interstate 70, the patrol has said. Patrol log information released Tuesday notes Shane was with an abandoned car on the interstate about 2:06 a.m. and out with the suspects on the ramp about 2:12 a.m., dropping them off at the nearby truck stop a few minutes afterward.
Normal procedure calls for troopers to pat down anyone being given a courtesy ride in a patrol car and check their names for any outstanding warrants, but it appears that didn’t happen, Ralston has said.

Kentucky
Ex-judge, 5 others will be out of prison soon
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A one-time judge from southeastern Kentucky and five other people could be released from federal prison soon while awaiting a retrial on charges they engineered a massive vote buying scheme stretching across three elections.
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday told a judge they didn’t object to former Clay County Circuit Judge R. Cletus Maricle, one-time county Clerk Freddy Thompson and others being freed on bond before their new trial in October.
But the U.S. Attorney’s office is seeking to hold former school superintendent Doug Adams and ex-election officer William E. Stivers in custody because they violated their bond before being tried several years ago.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the group’s convictions on July 17 after finding that the trial judge committed several errors in handling the case.