Utah
AG ordered to explain stance over gay adoption
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A state judge has ordered Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and two state health officials to explain the state’s refusal to recognize a same-sex couple’s adoption.
Third District Judge Andrew Stone ordered the officials to appear at a June 16 hearing to show why they should not be held in contempt for what he called “their willful disregard and refusal” to honor the adoption.
The order, dated May 7, does not identify the child or the two women who adopted it.
The two were among more than 1,000 gay and lesbian partners who married after a federal judge overturned Utah’s same-sex marriage ban Dec. 20.
Those weddings stopped Jan. 6 when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay, prompting the attorney general’s office to maintain adoptions also should be on hold.
Mississippi
2 Gulfport men face charges they stole mail carts
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — A father and son face charges that they stole aluminum carts from the U.S. Postal Service, cut them up for scrap and sold the metal.
Gulfport residents 51-year-old John Wendell Boyles and 24-year-old Nicholas Alan Boyles were arraigned in federal court Thursday after an April indictment was unsealed. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Roper set bond for each man at $25,000.
A lawyer for the men couldn’t immediately be reached Friday.
The indictment alleges the men stole the containers — used to load mail onto trucks — and sold material to a scrapyard 21 times over two years.
This case is set for trial before U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden on July 7. Each man faces up to 15 years in federal prison, and fines of up to $250,000 per count.
Wisconsin
Prosecutors want to keep probe records closed
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Prosecutors in the investigation of Gov. Scott Walker’s recall campaign and other conservative groups are objecting to a request that some of the records in the case remain secret.
Attorneys for Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and two of his prosecutors filed a motion in federal court late Thursday objecting to the Wisconsin Club for Growth’s request that all or portions of 13 documents remain sealed.
Both sides had agreed that most of the secret documents in the investigation should be made public, given that so much information is already known.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa is considering the request. He had previously ruled in favor of Wisconsin Club for Growth that the investigation related to illegal campaign coordination was an infringement on the conservative group’s free speech rights.
Texas
Boy, 13, pleads guilty to store owner slaying
CONROE, Texas (AP) — A 13-year-old boy charged in the March slaying of Montgomery County convenience store owner has pleaded guilty to murder and is accepting a 15-year sentence to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department.
Montgomery County Attorney J.D. Lambright tells The Courier of Montgomery County the boy isn’t eligible to be certified as an adult to stand trial in criminal court.
But he says the boy has provided information about the fatal shooting of Shamsuddin “Sam” Sadruddin on March 24. He’s told authorities he was there and knew the store east of Conroe would be robbed.
A 19-year-old man who was with him, Joseph Gutierrez, is awaiting trial on capital murder charges.
Once the boy approaches 19, a juvenile court judge will decide whether he gets released or is transferred to prison.
Louisiana
Man pleads guilty to more than 500 child-sex crimes
ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) — A former Pineville resident who was charged in Rapides Parish with more than 500 sex crimes related to children has pleaded guilty to a dozen of those offenses in a plea bargain.
The Town Talk reports Kyle Hauenstein, 39, pleaded guilty last week to three counts of aggravated rape, three counts of attempted sexual battery with a victim under age 13, three counts of aggravated incest and three counts of possession of pornography with juveniles.
He was sentenced to nine concurrent 35-year prison terms and three concurrent 20-year prison terms.
Hauenstein originally was charged with 355 counts of child pornography, 40 counts of sexual battery, 52 counts of indecent behavior, 25 counts of aggravated incest and 60 counts of attempted aggravated rape.
He will be 72 before he is eligible for parole, officials said.
Sheriff William Earl Hilton has referred to the sex-abuse investigation as “one of the biggest cases in Rapides Parish history.”
The abuse came to the attention of law enforcement agents when a family member of 32-year-old Elmer resident Dorothy Jean Vanasselberg discovered a photo of young, unclothed girl on Vanasselberg’s computer.
The investigation revealed that Hauenstein, then living in Pineville, and Vanasselberg shared photographs of children in a sexual context, authorities said.
Vanasselberg currently is awaiting trial. She has been indicted by a parish grand jury on 53 counts of aggravated rape, 42 counts of sexual battery, 79 counts of aggravated incest, 48 counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile and 25 counts of pornography with juveniles, officials reported.
Hauenstein fled Rapides Parish after Vanasselberg’s arrest in July 2013. He was arrested on a fugitive warrant Aug. 7 in Washington County, Oregon.
Rapides Parish First Assistant District Attorney Harold Van Dyke III prosecuted the case.
Vansasselberg’s next court date is scheduled for May 20.
Alabama
Tennessee man found guilty of human trafficking
DOTHAN, Ala. (AP) — A jury in southeast Alabama has found a Tennessee man guilty of human trafficking and giving drugs to an underage girl.
The Dothan Eagle reports that the jury Houston County returned the guilty verdicts on Thursday against 28-year-old Santiago Alonso. He was convicted of first-degree human trafficking and felony distribution of drugs to a minor.
Authorities have said the escape of a girl from a Dothan motel room resulted in his arrest in the summer of 2013. The girl told police she had been held against her will, forced to take drugs and forced to prostitute herself.
The victim testified that Alonso used a website to prostitute her after she said he picked her up in Mississippi and then took her to Memphis and then Dothan, where she escaped.
