National Roundup

Florida
Police: Pastor caught with man’s wife, flees naked
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A police report says a prominent Florida pastor was forced to run out of a house naked after a woman’s husband came home to find him having sex with his wife.

The Tallahassee Democrat reports police documents show a woman’s husband found her in bed with Pastor O. Jermaine Simmons in the middle of the afternoon on Jan. 17. The woman told police that her husband yelled that he was going to kill Simmons, who fled the apartment naked and hid behind a nearby fence. The husband took the pastor’s clothes, wallet and car keys and later agreed to return the items following negotiations with police.

Video posted online shows Simmons asking for forgiveness from his congregation at Tallahassee’s Jacob Chapel, saying “you cannot defend sin.”

Arkansas
Defendants dismissed in wrongful death suit in Little Rock
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A judge has dismissed all claims against the city of Little Rock and its former police chief two weeks before a federal jury was scheduled to begin hearing evidence in a 2015 wrongful death suit.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller granted a motion for summary judgment filed on behalf of the city and retired city police chief Stuart Thomas.

The lawsuit filed was on behalf of Sylvia Perkins the mother of 15-year-old Bobby Hoe Moore III, who was shot and killed by authorities in 2012. The lawsuit alleges former officer Josh Hastings violated Moore’s civil rights when he shot into a car that the teen was driving.

Miller’s order leaves Hastings as the only remaining defendant. Perkins’ attorney Mike Laux says he will still try the case on Feb. 13 against Hastings.

Ohio
Death row inmate files appeal over DNA testing
AKRON, Ohio (AP) — A death row inmate seeking DNA testing on a cigarette butt in hopes it could help exonerate him in a 1990 double murder has appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Tyrone Noling wants access to results of DNA testing previously completed, plus new testing on shell casings and other evidence from the Portage County crime scene, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.

The state’s high court previously heard arguments about Noling’s case when it considered whether a constitutional appeals process is available to condemned prisoners who are denied DNA testing after a trial is over. The court cleared the way for the DNA testing appeal when it sided with Noling in that matter last month and ruled that part of a law denying that appeals process is unconstitutional.

Noling, 44, was convicted of killing Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig, both 81, at their home. He maintains his innocence. No execution date has been set.

Authorities say Noling was part of a group involved in home robberies of elderly couples. Three others in the group implicated Noling in the slayings of the Hartigs during a burglary but later retracted their statements, saying that police pressured them to name Noling as the shooter.

Attorneys for Noling argue that technological advances make it possible to identify who smoked the cigarette found near the scene and to determine whether that person was among other previously undisclosed suspects. The original DNA tests of a cigarette butt found in the Hartigs’ driveway didn’t match Noling or the others in the group.

Portage County Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci had said he doesn’t expect the Supreme Court’s allowance of the appeal to change the ultimate outcome in Noling’s case.


New York
Etan defendant didn’t make up confession, says NYC prosecutor
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City prosecutor says a man accused of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz 37 years ago didn’t make up his confession.

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi gave her closing argument Tuesday at the trial of Pedro Hernandez. An earlier trial for the Maple Shade, New Jersey, man ended in a hung jury.

The defense says Hernandez is mentally ill and falsely confessed.

Illuzzi said Hernandez was a careful observer who watched Etan before choosing him as a victim. She says his statements over the years that he killed someone, plus his consistency in his confessions to authorities, prove he didn’t make it up.

Etan vanished while walking to school on May 25, 1979. His face was one of the first on milk cartons. His body has never been found.

Pennsylvania
Professor kills himself 2 days before child porn term begins
PAOLI, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania history professor has killed himself two days before he was scheduled to begin serving a 20-month prison term for child pornography.

The Chester County coroner’s office said Tuesday that 60-year-old Villanova University professor Christopher Haas died Saturday adjacent to train tracks due to blood loss. The manner of death was ruled suicide.

Haas’ attorney, Scott Godshall, tells The Philadelphia Inquirer he was planning to drive Haas to federal prison in New Jersey on Monday. His lawyer says Haas was apprehensive but seemed in good spirits last week.

Haas was accused of using a campus computer to search the internet for child pornography. He pleaded guilty in September to accessing the internet with the intent to view child exploitation images.

Pennsylvania
Jury awards $14.5 million in cerebral palsy birth
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A federal jury says a Pennsylvania hospital and obstetrician should pay an Ohio couple $14.5 million after delivery mistakes left their son with cerebral palsy.

The (Johnstown) Tribune-Democrat reports the jury on Monday awarded Nicole Welker and Justin Brinkley, of Wellsville, $3 million for the boy’s pain, suffering and lost earnings, and $11.5 million for his future medical care.

The boy, identified only by his initials, cannot talk, walk or sit up, even though he’s 4½ years old.

The couple’s lawsuit, filed in federal court, Johnstown, blamed Penn Highlands’ Clearfield Hospital and Dr. Thomas Carnevale.

The couple’s attorneys contend the doctor gave Welker the drug Pitocin to speed up the boy’s birth, but say that left the baby unable to breathe properly between contractions.

Attorneys for the doctor and hospital didn’t immediately comment Tuesday.