New York
Mock trial for the poem ‘The Night Before Christmas’
TROY, N.Y. (AP) — It’s a controversy whose roots trace back nearly two centuries to a holiday poem first published in an upstate New York newspaper: Who really wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas"?
This week, a mock trial will be held in a courtroom in Troy, where the now-classic also known as “The Night Before Christmas” was first published anonymously in the Sentinel newspaper on Dec. 23, 1823.
The Daily Gazette of Schenectady reports that Wednesday’s trial will have a prominent local lawyer representing Clement Clark Moore, a wealthy scholar from New York City who’s credited with writing the poem.
Other attorneys will argue the side of Henry Livingston Jr., whose descendants claim the gentleman farmer from the Hudson Valley was the true author.
Actors portraying Moore and Livingston will take the stand during the courtroom showdown.
Massachusetts
Boston gangster transferred to Oklahoma prison
BOSTON (AP) — Former Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger has been moved to a federal prison in Oklahoma, although it was not immediately clear when or why.
The 84-year-old Bulger was being held Tuesday at FTC Oklahoma City, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons website. The facility is a transfer point for many federal prisoners.
Prosecutors in Tulsa, Okla., have been deciding whether to move forward with a murder case against Bulger in the 1981 killing of businessman Roger Wheeler. Bulger was convicted by a federal jury in Boston earlier this year of killing Wheeler and 10 others. He was sentenced to two life terms.
Bulger is charged with first-degree murder in Tulsa. Last month, Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris told the Tulsa World that prosecutors would take into consideration Bulger’s federal sentence as they decide whether to try him.
Wheeler’s daughter, Pam, has said she didn’t want Bulger extradited to Tulsa, saying it would be a waste of taxpayer money.
Bulger was moved out of Massachusetts to a federal prison Brooklyn, N.Y. in November.
A federal judge in Boston last week ordered Bulger to pay $6 million in restitution to Wheeler’s family. The mobster previously was ordered to pay $19.5 million in restitution to his other victims’ families and forfeit $25 million to the government.
Investigators found $822,000 in cash stashed in his apartment walls when he was caught in Santa Monica, Calif., after more than 16 years on the run.
North Dakota
Man gets life for killing two kids on reservation
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — A man convicted of stabbing to death two young children on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation in North Dakota was sentenced Monday to life in prison without parole.
A federal jury in September found Valentino “Tino” Bagola, 20, guilty of the May 2011 slayings of 9-year-old Destiny Shaw-Dubois and her 6-year-old brother, Travis DuBois Jr., of St. Michael. The victims were stabbed a total of 100 times, investigators said.
Authorities said Bagola stabbed the children to death after he sexually assaulted the girl because he was angry at their father but couldn’t find him. Defense attorneys argued that children’s father — who was interrogated by investigators but was never charged — was responsible.
U.S. District Judge Ralph R. Erickson in Fargo sentenced Bagola on Monday to life in prison on each of two counts of first-degree murder.
“The life sentences imposed today cannot bring Destiny and Travis Jr. back or undo any of the horror of these criminal acts. It does, however, provide some measure of justice to these victims, their family, and the Spirit Lake Community. It was this commitment to obtaining justice for Destiny and Travis, Jr. that kept us going in the 14-month search-for-the-truth between the discovery of the bodies of these children and the Indictment in this case,” U.S. Attorney Timothy Q. Purdon said in a news release.
Neil Fulton, federal public defender, said his office will talk to Bagola about the possibility of appealing to the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“That is his decision, but I would fully anticipate that he will want to appeal,” Fulton said in an emailed statement.
The case was one of two high-profile indictments in recent years involving the deaths of children on the reservation. Last month, a Spirit Lake woman was sentenced to 30 years in prison for throwing a child down an embankment.
Defense attorneys spent much of the 13-day trial focusing on a confession from the children’s father, Travis DuBois Sr. He later recanted.
Bagola was arrested more than a year later and also confessed to investigators.
Montana
Lockwood meth dealer gets 12 years in prison
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Lockwood man whose son is charged with shooting him over a drug debt has been sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for dealing methamphetamine.
The Billings Gazette reports U.S. District Judge Don Molloy sentenced 53-year-old Walter Jack White to nine years for possession of meth for distribution followed by three-and-a-half years on weapons charges. Molloy held White responsible for the distribution of 32.5 pounds of meth, a quantity he called “extraordinary.”
White’s son, Brandon White, is charged with assault with a weapon and jailed on $150,000 bond. Court records say Brandon White told investigators he shot his father in January during an argument over a $10,000 debt.
White told Molloy he got addicted to meth and when he tried to get out of selling it, suppliers threatened him.
Missouri
Police action against homeless prompts lawsuit
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union is suing a small southeast Missouri town after police allegedly threatened to arrest a homeless couple for holding a sign asking for help.
The ACLU filed suit Monday on behalf of the homeless couple, Edward Gillespie and Brandalyn Orchard. The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau names the city of Miner and two unidentified police officers.
The lawsuit claims that in late September, Gillespie and Orchard were holding a sign that read, “Traveling. Anything helps. God bless.” A Miner officer told them to leave.
The ACLU says the officer later showed copies of city ordinances related to vagrancy, begging and loitering. A second officer arrived and the couple was told to leave town or face arrest.
