National Roundup

Indiana
Boy, 11, charged after shooting dad, a state trooper
GRANGER, Ind. (AP) — Authorities say an 11-year-old Indiana boy who shot and wounded his state-trooper father has been charged as a juvenile with attempted murder.

The South Bend Tribune reports that St. Joseph County prosecutors filed a petition alleging delinquency for attempted murder, the juvenile equivalent of a criminal charge.

Authorities say the off-duty trooper suffered a single gunshot wound to his lower extremities on Feb. 21. The trooper was at home in Granger, near South Bend, at the time of the shooting. He was hospitalized and his condition had improved as of last week.

The Associated Press isn’t reporting the trooper’s name to avoid identifying his son.

The prosecutor’s office said it wouldn’t release details about the gun used, including whether it was the trooper’s service weapon, because of the ongoing investigation.

Missouri
Man admits to sex with girl ­transported by his grandma, mom
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man has been sentenced for sex crimes involving a 13-year-old Alabama girl who was brought to Missouri by the man’s mother and grandmother.

Twenty-two-year-old Michael James Collins was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison without parole.

Investigators say Collins met the girl on a dating website in July 2017. At the time, Collins was a registered sex offender on probation for a previous conviction for sexual misconduct involving a child.
He admitted in November that he paid his grandmother $400 to bring the girl from Alabama to Missouri. His mother was with his grandmother when they picked up the girl.

Collins says he had sex with the girl in a van while the women were taking him to and from work and the Community Supervision Center in Fulton.

Kansas
1 suspect pleads guilty in carnival vendors’ deaths
GREAT BEND, Kan. (AP) — One of several people charged in the deaths of a couple who disappeared from a Kansas county fair has pleaded guilty.

The Great Bend Tribune reports that 54-year-old Michael Fowler Jr., of Sarasota, Florida, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of first-degree murder and one count of theft. A capital murder charge was dropped.

The bodies of Alfred “Sonny” Carpenter and Pauline Carpenter of Wichita were discovered in July in shallow graves near Van Buren, Arkansas. Prosecutors say the Carpenters were killed at the Barton County Fair, where they were vendors. The suspects worked for the carnival company at the fair.

Investigators say one suspect posed as a carnival mafia boss and ordered the other suspects to kill the couple. Police have said the “carnival mafia” does not exist.

New York
Report: White supremacist ­propaganda efforts soar off campus
NEW YORK (AP) — White supremacist groups in the U.S. tried to spread their propaganda at a record-setting rate last year, increasingly picking targets beyond college campuses, a Jewish civil rights group said Tuesday.

The Anti-Defamation League counted a 182 percent increase in propaganda incidents by white supremacists, from 421 such cases in 2017 to 1,187 in 2018.

College campuses remained a primary target for hateful flyers, but the New York-based ADL said the number of off-campus propaganda incidents soared from 129 in 2017 to 868 last year. The ADL says two white supremacist groups accounted for 636 of those incidents.

“The propaganda, which includes everything from veiled white supremacist language to explicitly racist images and words, often features a recruitment element, and frequently targets minority groups, including Jews, Blacks, Muslims, non-white immigrants and the LGBTQ community,” the ADL’s report says.

The ADL found a modest increase in propaganda activity on campuses, with 319 incidents at 212 colleges and universities, up from 292 campus incidents in 2017. The group also counted 91 rallies or other public events attended by white supremacists in 2018, up from 76 in 2017.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s CEO and national director, said posting flyers is a “tried-and-true tactic” for hate groups.

“Hate groups were emboldened in 2018, but their increasing reliance on hate leafleting indicates that most of their members understand this is a fringe activity and are unwilling to risk greater public exposure or arrest,” Greenblatt said in a statement.

New Jersey
Juror’s comment spurs new trial over religious bias concerns
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey appellate court has ordered a new civil trial for a doctor accused of sexual harassment because a juror commented that the doctor didn’t put his hand on the Bible when he testified to defend himself.

The three-judge panel found the juror’s remark about Abbas Husain, who is Hindu, could have compromised the verdict with religious bias.

A jury in 2011 had found Husain created a hostile work environment, sexually harassed and retaliated against a then-part time office employee. The complainant was awarded $12,500 and her lawyer was granted $103,000 in fees.

The juror’s comment was revealed after the trial judge held a post-verdict meeting with the jury.

A judge rejected Husain’s request for a new trial in 2016.

But the appellate panel found that the deliberations could be tainted.

Mississippi
$1.25M wrongful ­termination ­settlement upheld on appeal
HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — The Alabama Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s ruling that a man who was wrongfully terminated is entitled to seek lost future earnings totaling $1.25 million.

The Hattiesburg American reported Saturday that the justices say Merchants Foodservice used faulty logic to argue against the award for former truck driver Denny Rice. They say in their decision that the Hattiesburg, Mississippi-based company argued Rice shouldn’t get lost future earnings because he had a new job that paid more.

The company didn’t argue that Rice was rightfully terminated. The justices say the company didn’t take into account that Rice had been paid more at Merchants and was working more hours at the new job to earn the higher pay.

The newspaper says Merchants has previously declined to comment on “personnel matters.”