Ohio
In pepper-spray case, victim gets to fire back
PAINESVILLE, Ohio (AP) - An assault suspect who pepper-sprayed someone in the face at a fast-food restaurant received similar treatment in court as punishment from a Cleveland-area judge embracing the principle of "an eye for an eye."
Painesville Municipal Court Judge Michael Cicconetti on Thursday told Diamond Gaston she could serve 30 days in jail or be pepper-sprayed by her victim, and she chose the second option. Cicconetti said he couldn't really allow pepper spray, so harmless saline spray was substituted without Gaston knowing.
"He goes, 'I'd really like to use pepper spray,' and I said, 'No, no, we can't do that!" Cicconetti told WEWS-TV. He said what mattered was that the punishment sting emotionally, if not physically.
The Painesville woman, 20, says she learned her lesson.
"He's like 'Oh it's water,' and I'm like 'Oh OK, that's a relief,'" Gaston told WKYC-TV.
Cicconetti is known for occasionally doling out unusual sentences.
In another case he handled Thursday, a woman who failed to pay a cab driver was given a choice between jail time or paying $100 restitution and walking 30 miles, the distance of her ride. She chose to walk and will do so at a fairgrounds, wearing a GPS monitor, WEWS said.
In previous cases, Cicconetti has told a drunk driver to view crash victims' bodies at a morgue and had teens in criminal mischief case fulfill community service by playing drums as entertainment at a park, WJW-TV reported.
"I do whatever I think will prevent a person from coming back in the courts again," he told WKYC. "Yeah it's a little different. It's a little unique, but maybe we just need that a little bit in the judicial system."
Nebraska
Lawyer ordered to pay $15,000 in long-running suit
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A Nebraska judge has ordered a lawyer to pay $15,000 for filing frivolous motions in a long-running lawsuit dispute over a defunct insurance company's assets.
The case that dates back to 1998 is far from over because that lawyer, Bill Gast, is appealing the latest ruling against his David Fulkerson's estate and his former firm, Countrywide Insurance Agency.
The dispute may soon visit the Nebraska Supreme Court for a fifth time if the latest appeals are heard.
Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon fined Gast Friday after deciding that several of his motions were frivolous, particularly a motion last fall that asked the judge to remove himself from the case.
"Mr. Gast filed a motion for this court to recuse itself because of some relationship/friendship this court had with plaintiff's counsel in the late 1970s and/or early 1980s," Bataillon wrote.
Gast didn't immediately respond over the weekend to questions about the sanctions. Gast has been critical of Bataillon's past rulings, and he argues in his appeal that the judge didn't have the legal authority to decide the case this spring.
Florida regulators are trying to recover at least $2.2 million in the case. Gast argues that the case should have ended after Fulkerson's 2009 death because Florida's lawyers missed a key filing deadline.
Before United Southern failed, Countrywide had been selling insurance policies as an agent. When Florida officials ordered United Southern to stop writing insurance policies in 1997, Countrywide did not hand over four months of premiums.
In a 2006, Fulkerson was ordered to repay $2.23 million in premiums and pay $2.44 million in interest, but that ruling by Bataillon was later overturned.
The Fulkerson family denies any money was taken fraudulently. Gast has argued the missing premium money was either returned to customers or applied to new insurance policies with a different company.
The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled on aspects of this case four times already. The state high court said in 1999 that Bataillon was wrong to issue a judgment against Fulkerson and Countrywide without a full trial. Then in 2005, the court ruled it didn't have jurisdiction to evaluate whether the trial judge should have recused himself from the case.
The court also ruled a jury, not the judge, should have decided the case in 2006. And then it issued another ruling in 2009 clarifying how the case should proceed.
Missouri
Police stopped blacks more than whites in 2014
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Missouri's top law enforcer says the disparity last year between the number of black drivers pulled over, versus motorists stopped who are white, was the highest since 2000.
Attorney General Chris Koster says the state's African-American drivers were 75 percent more likely than their white counterparts to be stopped on Missouri's roads based on their proportionate share of the driving-age population.
Koster says that disparity is the highest since the state's data collection began in 2000.
The report is Missouri's first released since the racial uproar that followed last August's shooting death of a black, unarmed 18-year-old, Michael Brown, by a white Ferguson police officer.
Koster's report shows that black drivers were pulled over in Ferguson at a lower rate than the statewide average.
Rhode Island
Trial begins over control of oldest synagogue in U.S.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Trial has begun in Rhode Island in a bitter fight over control of the oldest synagogue in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Joh McConnell said Monday that the court is resolving a civil, not religious, dispute and to do otherwise would violate the First Amendment.
The dispute is between the congregation that worships in the 250-year-old Touro Synagogue in Newport and the nation's first Jewish congregation, Shearith Israel, of New York.
Shearith Israel owns the synagogue. The Newport congregation says Shearith Israel is a trustee and breached its duties.
The New York congregation is trying to stop Newport from selling ceremonial bells worth more than $7 million to a museum.
The Newport congregation says it's in financial straits and wants to sell them to create an endowment.
Published: Tue, Jun 02, 2015
