National Roundup

PENNSYLVANIA
Police: Man used brain preserving fluid to soak weed
CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) — A central Pennsylvania man was charged Thursday after police say he sprayed fluid used to embalm a human brain on marijuana that he then smoked.

State police in Carlisle charged 26-year-old Joshua Lee Long with abuse of a corpse and conspiracy.

Court records indicate Long’s aunt contacted detectives on June 21 after finding a human brain in a department store bag under a porch while cleaning out a trailer.

Long allegedly told her during a phone conversation from the Cumberland County jail that he used the formaldehyde-soaked pot to get high.

“The defendant related that he knew it was illegal to have the brain and that he and (another man) would spray the embalming fluid on ‘weed’ to get high,” wrote Trooper John Boardman, the investigator.

Court records indicate a coroner concluded the brain was real and that Long supposedly named it Freddy.

The coroners who examined the brain believe it was most likely a stolen teaching specimen, according to the arrest affidavit.


MISSISSIPPI
Man pleads not guilty in burning death of woman
HERNANDO, Miss. (AP) — A 27-year-old man, who also faces a murder indictment in Louisiana, has pleaded not guilty in the 2014 burning death of a Mississippi woman.
Quinton Tellis entered his plea Friday in the death of Jessica Chambers.

Panola County District Attorney John Champion said charging Tellis ended a lengthy investigation into the grisly burning death of the 19-year-old, who died in a Memphis, Tennessee, hospital hours after being found near her burned-out vehicle on a road not far from her home.

The Louisiana murder indictment, returned earlier this month, alleges shallow knife wounds on Meing-Chen Hsiao’s face and body probably were inflicted to get her to reveal the pin number for her debit card before he killed her.

He was extradited to Mississippi from Louisiana last month after pleading guilty to fraudulent use of the woman’s card.


ILLINOIS
Lawsuit: Officer’s killing of student was hate crime
CHICAGO (AP) — The family of a college student who was fatally shot by a Chicago police officer has amended a lawsuit to label the shooting a hate crime.

The lawyer for the father of 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier says the texts of Officer Robert Rialmo showed racial bias.

The Chicago Tribune reports  that Rialmo’s attorney says the allegations of racism are “stupid and irresponsible.” Rialmo’s attorney released copies of text conversations in which one of the police officer’s friends used racial slurs in the days before LeGrier’s shooting.

Rialmo was responding to a 911 call for help when he fatally shot LeGrier, claiming the student was coming at him with a bat. The officer also shot and killed a neighbor in what police said was an accident.


NEW JERSEY
Taxpayers have spent $8.2M on Christie’s lawyers
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — It has cost New Jersey taxpayers $8.2 million for Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s private attorneys handling the fallout from the George Washington Bridge lane-closing case.

Invoices released by the attorney general show Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher billed the state $202,000 from September to March. The firm previously billed $8 million since being hired in January 2014.

That comes on top of $2.3 million the Christie administration has paid a risk management firm. That brings billings from the legal team to $10.5 million.

Separately, the legislature has paid $1.2 million to a law firm for an investigation of the bridge case and another $1.2 million has been spent for legal expenses for state employees who were questioned or received subpoenas.

Former Christie allies are charged in the case; he is not.


CONNECTICUT
Man found not guilty by insanity in mom’s slaying
NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man who prosecutors say killed his 86-year-old mother and lived in their home with her dead body for several months has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

A three-judge Superior Court panel in New Britain ruled Thursday that 61-year-old John Waszynski of Wethersfield is not guilty by reason of mental disease or illness. He was ordered committed to a state psychiatric hospital for further evaluation.

The panel is scheduled to reconvene Oct. 6 to decide whether Waszynski should be committed to a mental hospital.

Waszynski was charged with murder in May 2014 after Krystyna Waszynski’s decomposed body was found by police conducting a wellness check in the home they shared in Wethersfield. Court documents say Waszynski confessed to fatally choking her in December 2013.


CALIFORNIA
Homeowner sued for $25 million over wildfire
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The federal government sued a homeowner for nearly $25 million on Thursday, contending his negligence sparked a 2013 fire in the mountains east of Los Angeles that forced 5,000 people from their homes.

The lawsuit says that a short in a poorly maintained electrical junction box sparked a blaze in the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs that charred more than 27,500 acres of brush and timber — about 43 square miles — and at one point threatened the town of Idyllwild.

Investigators determined that the lid of the plastic box containing wires was warped and ajar, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit, which alleges negligence and violations of California law, was filed in Los Angeles one day before the third anniversary of the fire’s eruption. It names Saudi businessman and homeowner Tarek M. Al-Shawaf and two caretakers he employed at his home, known as Gibraltar West, in the community of Mountain Center.

The lawsuit was filed after Al-Shawaf and the caretakers failed to pay the costs of firefighting and fire damage demanded by the government, according to the lawsuit.

But James R. Lance, attorney for Al-Shawaf and the caretakers, denied that his clients had a role in starting the fire.

The fire burned for more than two weeks in and around San Bernardino National Forest. More than 3,000 firefighters, 250 fire engines and 30 aircraft fought the blaze.

The U.S. Forest Service spent more than $15 million on firefighting, and the blaze caused in excess of $9 million in damage to resources, ranging from wildlife and timber to eroded soil, according to the lawsuit.