Georgia
Woman on death row receives new execution date
ATLANTA (AP) - The Georgia Department of Corrections has set a new execution date for the only woman on the state's death row.
The department said in a statement Monday that Commissioner Homer Bryson has set Kelly Renee Gissendaner's execution for Sept. 29 at the state prison in Jackson. Gissendaner would be the first woman to be executed in the state in seven decades.
Gissendaner was convicted of murder in the February 1997 slaying of her husband. Prosecutors say she conspired with her lover, who stabbed Douglas Gissendaner to death.
Gissendaner was previously scheduled for execution in February, but that was delayed because of a threat of winter weather. Her execution was reset for March 2, but corrections officials postponed that execution "out of an abundance of caution" because the execution drug appeared "cloudy."
Pennsylvania
Brother of pro wrestler jailed in wife's homicide
DORMONT, Pa. (AP) - The brother of pro wrestler and former Olympian Kurt Angle has been charged in the death of a suburban Pittsburgh woman.
Allegheny County homicide detectives say 62-year-old David Angle was arguing with 57-year-old Donna Angle about vodka.
The suspect tells police his wife tried to kick him, so he dragged her off a couch, stepped on her chest and pulled her arms before she became unconscious.
That's when Angle says he tried to revive the woman as someone called 911 about 6:30 a.m. Sunday.
Online court records don't list an attorney for Angle, who lived with his wife in the Pittsburgh suburb of Dormont.
California
Police: Masked man in Elvis wig robbed winery tasting room
GROVER BEACH, Calif. (AP) - Grover Beach police are searching for a man accused of robbing the Monarch Grover Winery tasting room while wearing a mask and an Elvis wig.
The Tribune in San Luis Obispo reports that the man took about $400 in cash Sunday. They say he showed a black semi-automatic pistol to a tasting room employee before binding the employee's wrists with duct tape and confining the victim to the restroom.
Police say the robber wore an old man mask and a wig. He was last seen walking south on Highway 1.
Mississippi
Lawsuit accuses managers of Medicare fraud
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The U.S. Attorney's Office has filed a lawsuit that accuses Stone County Hospital and its management company of committing millions of dollars in Medicare fraud for more than a decade.
The Sun Herald reports the lawsuit was initially filed under seal in 2007 as a whistleblower complaint by former hospital COO James Aldridge. After investigating the case, the U.S. Attorney's Office decided to intervene and filed its own lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court.
The complaint accuses CEO H. Ted Cain and his wife, Julie Cain, of Ocean Springs, of taking advantage of Medicare rules that apply to small, rural hospitals.
It says millions in fraudulent Medicare reimbursements were related to Ted Cain's "exorbitant, multimillion-dollar salary," Julie Cain's quarter-million-dollar salary as administrator and expenses for two BMWs that Ted Cain used as personal cars. The expenses, the lawsuit says, had nothing to do with the hospital or its Medicare beneficiaries.
The lawsuit says Ted Cain owns and controls the hospital and management company. Julie Cain, it says, served as hospital administrator from 2003 through 2012. It also alleges "they contributed little of value to this endeavor and nothing to justify their exorbitant salaries."
The management company paid Ted Cain $21.4 million between 2004 and 2013, with $10.4 million reimbursed by Medicare. The lawsuit says he had little or no work at the hospital to show for the salary. Medicare reimbursed a total of $47,635 in expenses on his luxury vehicles, the lawsuit says, an unallowable expense.
Julie Cain received total compensation of more than $2.5 million from 2003 to 2013, the lawsuit says, with almost $1.7 million reimbursed by Medicare. "Notwithstanding this exorbitant compensation," the lawsuit says, "Julie Cain did not function as an administrator at, or provide valuable management services to, the hospital."
The lawsuit says staff members ran the hospital, and the management company also was paid millions for its services, which included submitting the Medicare reports.
The government is asking for triple the actual Medicare losses from the defendants on three civil charges: presenting false claims, using false records to back the claims and failing to refund government payments. On a fourth charge of unjust enrichment, the government wants the defendants to pay the money they are alleged to have wrongfully received.
Nevada
'War Machine' asking judge to postpone trial
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A former mixed martial artist who changed his name to War Machine is asking a Nevada judge to postpone his trial in an alleged attack on his porn actress ex-girlfriend and her friend in Las Vegas.
A lawyer for Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver is due in court Monday, a week before jury selection is scheduled to begin in Clark County District Court.
The 33-year-old Koppenhaver has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges including attempted murder, battery, sexual assault and coercion.
Judge Elissa Cadish has rejected Sua's request to challenge Nevada's rape shield law and let the jury hear evidence of prior consensual sexual relations between him and alleged victim Christy Mack.
Mack has agreed to let her name be made public as part of the criminal case.
Ohio
Man who police say confessed to slaying gets bond
CLEVELAND (AP) - A judge has set a $1 million bond for a man who authorities say walked into a Cleveland police district station last week and confessed to fatally stabbing his wife during an argument.
Fifty-year-old Henry C. Ashley Jr. of Cleveland appeared Monday in municipal court after being charged by Cleveland city prosecutors with aggravated murder in the slaying of 50-year-old Francis Davis-Ashley.
Cleveland police have said homicide detectives found the body of Francis Davis-Ashley in the couple's home after Henry Ashley told officers Friday morning that he'd killed her. Police haven't released details about the confession or what the couple had argued about.
Published: Tue, Sep 22, 2015
