National Roundup

Illinois
Chicago to file federal lawsuit over sanctuary cities threat
CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago will keep fighting President Donald Trump’s immigration policies with a federal lawsuit alleging it’s illegal for the federal government to withhold public safety grants from so-called sanctuary cities, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Sunday.
The mayor said Chicago won’t “be blackmailed into changing our values, and we are and will remain a welcoming City.”
The lawsuit will be filed Monday.
Officials said there are new qualifications for a public safety grant requiring cities to share information with federal immigration authorities. City officials allege those qualifications are unconstitutional.
Chicago received about $2.3 million in such grants last year, which have been used for buying police vehicles.
Chicago is being helped by two outside law firms on a pro bono basis.
Federal officials have threatened to withhold federal funding for sanctuary cities, saying they don’t comply with federal laws.
Asked to comment on Emanuel’s statement, U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Ian D. Prior said via email: “In 2016, more Chicagoans were murdered than in New York City and Los Angeles combined. So it’s especially tragic that the mayor is less concerned with that staggering figure than he is spending time and taxpayer money protecting criminal aliens and putting Chicago’s law enforcement at greater risk.”

New Mexico
Ex-officer says he looked at nude photos for research
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico law enforcement officer admits he looked at pictures of naked women on the internet while on duty, but says he was doing so as part of his job.
The Albuquerque Journal reports that former Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Mark Kmatz filed a complaint for employment retaliation on Wednesday against the Bernalillo County Commission.
Kmatz says he was looking at the naked pictures to research “a specific group of individuals with distinct tattoos and piercings.”
Kmatz wrote in the lawsuit that he was forced to resign or be terminated and that the nudes weren’t on pornographic sites.
Donald Gilpin, Kmatz’s attorney, did not return calls for comment.
Felicia Romero, a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, declined to comment on the case.
Kmatz had been with the Sheriff’s Office since 1997.

Indiana
Judge: IBM owes state $78M for failed welfare automation
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — IBM Corp. owes Indiana $78 million in damages stemming from the company’s failed effort to automate much of the state’s welfare services, a judge has ruled in a long-running dispute.
Marion Superior Court Judge Heather Welch issued the ruling dated Friday, nearly six months after she heard arguments from attorneys for the state and IBM. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled last year that IBM had breached its contract and it directed the trial court to calculate the damages.
Indiana and New York-based IBM sued each other in 2010 after then-Gov. Mitch Daniels cancelled the company’s $1.3 billion contract to privatize and automate the processing of Indiana’s welfare applications.
Under the deal, an IBM-led team of vendors worked to process applications for food stamps, Medicaid and other benefits. Residents could apply for the benefits through call centers, the internet and fax machines. The contract was pulled in late 2009, less than three years into the 10-year deal, following complaints about long wait times, lost documents and improper rejections.
The state sought more than $172 million from IBM, but the judge ruled IBM responsible for $128 million in damages. That amount was offset by about $50 million in state fees that the company was owed.
Peter Rusthoven, one of the state’s private attorneys, said Monday that the ruling would be carefully reviewed before deciding on any additional appeals.
The state argued that IBM owed Indiana for the cost of fixing the company’s problematic automation efforts to make the system workable, paying overtime for state staffers to review and correct those problems, and hiring new staff to help oversee that process, among other expenses.
IBM’s attorneys argued that the company had delivered “substantial benefits” to the state that undermined Indiana’s damages claims.
Welch heard arguments from both sides on Feb. 10. She was scheduled to rule by early May in the complicated case, but lawyers twice agreed to allow the court more time.

Georgia
Many recall deadly 1967 car bombing
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — On an early morning 50 years ago, Jackson County Solicitor General Floyd Hoard walked out of his Jefferson home, climbed into his Ford Galaxy, turned the ignition, and died when dynamite blew the car into a mangled mess.
Hoard became the victim of an angry, vengeful bootlegger.
The 50th anniversary of the most notorious crime in Jackson County history was observed Monday.
The University of Georgia Press is also re-releasing a memoir on the case, “Alone Among the Living: A Memoir of the Floyd Hoard Murder,” written by Hoard’s son, Richard Hoard.
Hoard, the pastor of Oconee River Methodist Church in Watkinsville, where he lives, is the author of three novels.
The Aug. 7, 1967, slaying is still remembered by many people in Jackson County.
Richard Hoard was only 14 when dynamite shattered the quiet morning. Eventually five men were charged with murder.
The killing was arranged and paid for by longtime moonshiner A.C. “Cliff” Park of Pendergrass, whom lawmen believe was angered by the new prosecutor’s decision to crack down on illegal moonshine and car thievery that thrived in Jackson County.
The 76-year-old Park had two of his cohorts in the illegal business, George Iras Worley, 40, and Douglas Pinion, 40, find someone to kill Hoard. These two conspired with John Hyman Blackwell and Lloyd George Seay.
Seay showed Blackwell how to rig the bomb to a car’s electric coil and during the night Blackwell attached the bomb, according to court testimony. During the trial, Blackwell, 24, and Seay, 23, turned state’s evidence against Park.
Park died in prison, while Hoard said Seay was killed in a gunfight after he was paroled from prison. Pinion, ironically, died in his vehicle when it blew up from cans of gasoline in the cab. It is a mystery on whether it was self-inflicted or someone killed him, according to Hoard.
Worley died about 10 years ago and Blackwell died in 2004 in Pickens County at the age of 60.