National Roundup

Pennsylvania
Woman pleads guilty in loud sex case, sent to jail
YORK, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania woman has pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for having sex so loudly it shook her neighbor’s furniture, then threatening her row house neighbors for complaining.

Twenty-five-year-old Amanda Marie Warfel has been jailed since March 22.

The York Daily Record reports the woman pleaded guilty Wednesday and was sentenced to 45 to 90 days in jail, which she’s already served but remained jailed for another case.

Warfel said during the hearing that she just wanted to go home and regretted her neighbors weren’t in court because she wanted to apologize to them.

Warfel had pleaded guilty previously to disorderly conduct and harassment charges based on the same complaints.

Police say Warfel’s neighbor has dealt with issues for two years.

Georgia
Prosecutor drops case against trucking firm
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A southeast Georgia prosecutor said Wednesday that he has dropped the criminal case against a trucking company charged in a fiery interstate crash last year that killed five nursing students.

District Attorney Tom Durden of Georgia’s Atlantic Judicial Circuit said he made the decision after Total Transportation of Mississippi agreed to spend $200,000 setting up a nonprofit group offering nursing students financial aid. A grand jury indicted the company in June on charges of vehicular homicide and other crimes related to the deadly crash on April 22, 2015.

Total Transportation was the employer of John Wayne Johnson, who drove the tractor-trailer that slammed into traffic backed up on Interstate 16 because of an unrelated crash. The big truck smashed two vehicles in which nursing students from Georgia Southern University were commuting to work at a Savannah hospital.

Johnson of Shreveport, Louisiana, still faces charges in the crash and is scheduled to appear in court next week. While Georgia law allows for corporations to be prosecuted in criminal cases, it rarely happens in the state.

“It’s kind of hard to prosecute a company. You can’t put a company in jail,” said Robert Cheeley, an attorney for the families of three of the women who died in the crash: Amber DeLoach of Savannah, Emily Clark of Powder Springs and Caitlyn Baggett of Millen.

Had Total Transportation been convicted in a criminal court, the only practical punishment would have been a fine, Cheeley said. And the company has already agreed to pay $78 million to settle civil lawsuits in the case.

Cheeley said the only client he had spoken with about the prosecutor’s decision was Megan Richards, who survived the crash but suffered injuries.

“She would have preferred they spent the money on hiring better drivers and equipping their trucks with automatic braking systems so this collision never would have occurred in the first place,” said Cheeley, who praised the district attorney for seeking to hold the company accountable.

Also killed in the crash were McKay Pittman of Alpharetta and Morgan Bass of Leesburg.

After civil lawsuits were filed in the crash, legal depositions revealed that Total Transportation hired Johnson even after he had disclosed being fired by a previous employer for falling asleep at the wheel. Johnson acknowledged under oath that the deadly I-16 crash was his fault, but insisted he was awake.

Durden said a judge signed an order Wednesday granting his request to drop the case against Total Transportation.

When he had discussed the case previously with victims’ families, Durden said, they had asked if there was any way to make Total Transportation do something that would benefit nursing students. That’s one reason he agreed to let the company establish an educational fund rather than stand trial, he said.

“This I thought would be a whole lot better than a fine because it would mirror more of what the families told us in our meetings with them,” Durden said.

Arkansas
Escaped inmate turns himself in at bar, has a beer
PARIS, Ark. (AP) — An inmate who escaped a northwestern Arkansas jail, showed up at a nearby bar a week later, ordered a beer and declared he was turning himself in.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that 45-year-old Shaun Higham turned up Tuesday night at Mitch’s Place in Paris, about 6 miles from the Logan County Jail. He was wearing a dirty prison uniform and covered in insect bites.

Logan County Sheriff Boyd Hicks says there had been no sightings of Higham since he picked a lock and fled the county jail on June 28.

The bar’s owner called police, saying Higham was there and that he wanted to turn himself in. Higham was drinking a beer when police arrived. He surrendered without incident.

Paris is about 90 miles northwest of Little Rock.

Maryland
‘Serial’ murder case defense team expanded 
BALTIMORE (AP) — The defense team for the man convicted of murder and featured in the podcast “Serial” is expanding ahead of a new trial with help from a major law firm.

Adnan Syed was convicted of murdering his former high school girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999 and burying her in a Baltimore park. He was sentenced to life in prison. Last week a judge ruled Syed deserves another trial.

Attorney C. Justin Brown, who has represented Syed for seven years with Christopher Nieto, says he’s delighted to be joined by a pro-bono team from Hogan Lovells, an international firm with litigation experience in Baltimore and in innocence cases.

Syed’s case was widely publicized by “Serial.” The podcast attracted millions of listeners by showcasing little-known evidence and raising questions about Syed’s guilt.


Pennsylvania
Man videotaped children changing at theme park
EASTON, Pa. (AP) — A man accused of videotaping children changing their clothes at a popular Pennsylvania amusement park and editing the images into a movie has admitted trading child pornography.

The Morning Call reports 52-year-old Kurt Eichert pleaded guilty Tuesday to possessing and distributing sexually explicit images of children.
Eichert was indicted in December on charges he edited images into movies he titled “Water Park Fun” and shared them online. Federal prosecutors say he filmed children changing clothes at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, about 60 miles north of Philadelphia.

In 1996, Eichert was charged with attempted sexual abuse of children and violations of electronic surveillance and wiretap laws. He pleaded guilty to corruption of minors and received probation.

Sentencing has been scheduled for Oct. 13.