Kentucky
Sheriff's office asks drug dealers to turn in rivals
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - A Kentucky sheriff's office has posted a flyer on its Facebook page asking drug dealers to turn in their rivals.
Multiple media outlets report the Franklin County Sheriff's Office posted the flyer Monday afternoon. It features an image of a marijuana leaf and says, "Is your drug dealing competition costing you money? We offer a free service to help you eliminate your drug competition!"
Franklin County Sheriff Pat Melton says the post is funny, but the sheriff's department is not joking around.
At the bottom of the letter, people are asked to fill out information about the drug dealer they are reporting, including the dealer's name and vehicle.
Melton says he got the idea from the McIntosh County Sheriff's Office in Georgia.
As of Tuesday morning, the post had 394 online shares.
Ohio
Police: Fake cop tried to pull over off-duty officer
NORTH KINGSVILLE, Ohio (AP) - Authorities in northeast Ohio say a man pretending to be a police officer was caught and charged because the driver targeted by his bogus traffic stop was a real officer.
Police in North Kingsville say an off-duty Youngstown officer was stopped Sunday night by the alleged impersonator, who was driving a black sport utility vehicle with red and blue emergency-style lights. Village police Chief Hugh Flanigan tells The Star-Beacon in nearby Ashtabula (ash-tuh-BYOO'-luh) that the unarmed man in civilian clothes repeatedly tried to convince the Youngstown officer that he was a real lawman, but eventually drove away.
Flanigan says the officer contacted village police, who found the suspect within minutes. A prosecutor says the 42-year-old North Kingsville man faces a misdemeanor charge of impersonating an officer.
North Carolina
Feds charge 3 men prepping for martial law
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Three North Carolina men fearing a government takeover and martial law stockpiled weapons, ammunition and tactical gear while attempting to rig home-made explosives, according to charges announced by the Justice Department on Monday.
The men from Gaston County, near Charlotte, were arrested by federal authorities on Saturday after more than a month's investigation.
Walter Eugene Litteral, 50, Christopher James Barker, 41, and Christopher Todd Campbell, 30, are accused of stockpiling guns and ammunition, as well as attempting to manufacture pipe bombs and live grenades from military surplus "dummy" grenades, according unsealed criminal complaints released Monday.
The close to 60 pages of information compiled by federal authorities since July include allegations Litteral planned to makes explosives out of tennis balls covered in nails and coffee cans filled with ball bearings.
According to the documents, both Litteral and Campbell spoke openly about their opposition to Jade Helm 15, a series of ongoing special forces training missions in several Southwestern states that has drawn suspicion from residents who fear it is part of a planned military takeover.
In addition to ammunition for a long-range .338 caliber rifle, the authorities said Litteral purchased hand-held radios, Kevlar helmets, body armor and face masks in preparation for an armed resistance to the feared military occupation.
Litteral was also planning to purchase an assault rifle along with ammunition for Barker, whose past convictions for possession of stolen goods and cocaine barred him from possessing a gun, according to the documents.
The FBI began its investigation in mid-June after receiving a tip about Litteral and Barker attempting to make homemade explosives, and later began investigating Campbell based on similar information that he was attempting to reconstruct grenades.
Litteral was quoted in the documents calling his planned homemade explosives "game changers," and authorities allege he planned to test the devices with Barker in Shelby, North Carolina.
The federal conspiracy charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. In addition, Campbell has been charged with a separate firearms charge punishable by 10 years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine.
The men will remain in federal custody pending the outcome of detention hearings scheduled for Thursday.
New York
Judge nixes extradition in case of painting looted by Nazis
NEW YORK (AP) - Poland lacks probable cause to extradite a Russian art dealer living in New York on criminal charges accusing him of knowing that an 18th-century painting taken from a Polish museum by the Nazis during World War II was stolen property when he inherited it from his father, a judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan rejected the request to extradite Alexander Khochinskiy, saying the government of Poland failed to produce any evidence that Khochinskiy knew "Girl with a Dove" was stolen when he acquired it.
Khochinskiy, 64, was arrested at his Manhattan apartment in February at the request of Polish authorities, who said he had refused to turn over the 1754 oil painting by Antoine Pesne that was stolen from a Polish museum during the war.
At a spring hearing, Khochinskiy testified that his father, a former Soviet soldier, came home from the war with the painting and he inherited it when his father died in 1991.
Rakoff wrote that evidence supported Khochinskiy's claim that he inherited the painting and only learned that Poland was seeking it in 2010.
"Undisputed evidence showed that Khochinskiy openly displayed the painting in his gallery in Moscow for many years and listed it in published catalogs," the judge wrote. "This behavior is inconsistent with someone who knows his property is sought by a foreign sovereign."
The judge said Poland lacks a sufficient basis to hold Khochinskiy for trial if it cannot establish probable cause that he committed a crime.
The Third Reich took "Girl with a Dove" in 1943 from the National Museum in Poznan, Poland, according to court papers. At the end of the war, the Red Army recovered the painting and took it to a repository in the Soviet Union, the complaint said.
In 2010, Khochinskiy contacted the Polish Embassy in Moscow, saying he had discovered that the painting was on the list of missing art objects.
Polish officials, after authenticating the painting at Khochinskiy's gallery in Moscow, demanded that Khochinskiy return it without compensation in 2011. After not hearing back from him, Russian authorities agreed to try to seize the painting. But when they went to his gallery, it was gone.
Khochinskiy, who has been free on bail, admitted he still has the painting stored at an undisclosed location.
Published: Wed, Aug 05, 2015
