National Roundup

West Virginia
Supreme Court justice indicted on 22 counts
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — FBI agents have arrested West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Allen Loughry and taken him to the federal courthouse in Charleston to face a 22-count federal indictment.

U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart said Wednesday that Loughry is charged with 16 counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, one count of witness tampering and three counts of making false statements to a federal agent.

Loughry was suspended over allegations he repeatedly lied about using his office for personal gain.

The state Judicial Investigation Commission filed a 32-count complaint alleging he “made false statements” and tried to deceive others about his office renovation, a federal subpoena, the moving of furniture from his Capitol office to his home and his improper personal use of state vehicles.

Connecticut
PayPal move blocks sales of school shooting video game
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The developer of a school shooting video game condemned by parents of slain children has lost the ability to sell its products online after being dumped by PayPal.

Acid Software said Tuesday that purchases of “Active Shooter” were “temporarily disabled” as its representatives tried to resolve the issues with PayPal. Acid’s postings on Twitter and an online bulletin board included the hashtags “QuitCensoringUs,” ‘’FreedomOfExpression” and “WeWillBeBack.”

PayPal confirmed it closed the account.

“PayPal has a longstanding, well-defined and consistently enforced Acceptable Use Policy, and regardless of the individual or organization in question, we work to ensure that our services are not used to accept payments for activities that promote violence,” the company, based in San Jose, California, said in a statement Wednesday.

“Active Shooter” is branded as a “SWAT simulator” that lets players choose between being an active shooter terrorizing a school or the SWAT team responding to the shooting. Players can choose a gun, grenade or knife, and civilian and police death totals are shown on the screen. Acid was selling an early version of the game online for $20 and plans to release a new version early next month.

Acid recently set up two websites for “Active Shooter” after the game was removed from the webpages of video game marketplace Steam and crowdfunding site Indiegogo. The removals followed complaints and online petitions by anti-gun violence advocates including parents of children killed in school shootings in Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and staff died in February, and Newtown, Connecticut, where 26 children and staff died in 2012.

A company that hosted the new websites removed them last week after receiving similar complaints. But Acid got the sites back up and running by switching to Russian servers, said an Acid representative, Ata Berdyev, of Seattle.

“Active Shooter” was created by Anton Makarevskiy, a 21-year-old developer from Moscow, Russia, and is being marketed by his entity Acid Software. Berdyev is helping Makarevskiy promote the game.

Berdyev said Wednesday that the future of the game could now be in doubt.

“Seems like everyone in US trying to censor us, whilst not explaining what exactly we are violating,” Berdyev said in a message to The Associated Press.

Wisconsin
Judge can’t drug ­defendant to make him ­competent
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The state Supreme Court says a judge improperly ordered the state to medicate a convict until he was competent to help his attorney with his appeal.

Andre Scott was convicted of battery, disorderly conduct and kidnapping in 2009. His attorney in 2015 raised concerns about Scott’s ability to help with an appeal. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Kremers issued an order concluding Scott was incompetent to proceed and ordered him medicated to the point of competent.

An appeals court upheld the order.

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the appellate court on Wednesday, ruling that Kremers’ violated procedure by tacking an involuntary medication order onto his incompetency finding. Justice Shirley ­Abrahamson wrote that forced medication for appeal purposes should be rare and Scott’s case doesn’t support the need for it.

New Hampshire
Legal fight ­winding down in hospital hepatitis C case
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The case over a traveling medical technician who infected dozens of patients with hepatitis C in multiple states is close to ending.

New Hampshire’s Exeter Hospital has settled with a staffing agency but is still suing a registry organization over technician David Kwiatkowski who was arrested in 2012.

Kwiatkowski is serving 39 years in prison for stealing painkillers and replacing them with saline-filled syringes tainted with his blood. Despite several firings over drug allegations, he had worked in 18 hospitals in seven states before being hired in New Hampshire in 2011.

The hospital had sued the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists and several staffing agencies to recoup money it has paid to patients. Some claims were dismissed and settlements were reached with others. If a judge approves the agreement, only the registry organization remains.

Pennsylvania
Ex-youth center worker gets 10 to 25 years in abuse case
LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — A former employee at a Pennsylvania county youth detention center has been sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison following convictions of sexual abuse of juveniles in the facility.

Fifty-five-year-old David Stevenson pleaded guilty or no contest Wednesday to a score of sex abuse charges as part of an agreement with Lancaster County prosecutors.

Authorities said the crimes occurred in 2016 and 2017 as Stevenson worked at the county Youth Intervention Center and involved five 15- to 17-year-old juveniles who were dependency residents, meaning they lived separately from the population in detention.

LNP newspaper reports that Judge Dennis Reinaker told the defendant “You took advantage of individuals entrusted to your care.”

Stevenson apologized to the victims and said “I am ready to pay for my mistakes.”