National Roundup

North Carolina
Police say vandals wrote ‘Satan rules!’ on church
MARSHALL, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina authorities say they caught two people vandalizing a Baptist church with caricatures of the devil and the phrase “Satan rules!”

Officials with the Madison County Sheriff’s Office arrested Gavin Martin Beaudet and Kamia Dae Reed last week in a small town about 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of Asheville, North Carolina.

News outlets report a sheriff’s deputy said they caught the suspects as they were scrawling pictures of a horned devil on the church walls. The suspects then reportedly led officers on a short chase before being caught with stolen property on them.

In a Facebook post, the sheriff’s department says Beaudet and Reed are charged with breaking and entering a place of worship, larceny after breaking and entering, resisting public officer and injury to real property.

New Jersey
Man sentenced for concealing toddler ­daughter’s remains
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — A Virginia man whose toddler daughter’s body was found in a suitcase next to New Jersey railroad tracks has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Travis Plummer was convicted in April of unlawful concealment of human remains. The 38-year-old Richmond man was sentenced Friday.

Authorities have said Plummer took 23-month-old Te’Myah Layauna Plummer from her mother in Virginia in fall 2017 and traveled to New Jersey with the decomposing body wrapped inside a suitcase.

Investigators said they believe Plummer left the suitcase in a friend’s Jersey City garage for months, but after a March 2018 police visit dumped it off a bridge, where it was found near the tracks the following month.

The child died of unspecified violence and cocaine intoxication. Plummer hasn’t been charged with killing the girl.

Ohio
Case on hold for man charged with posing as missing child
CINCINNATI (AP) — The case of a 24-year-old Ohio man charged with impersonating a long-missing child is on hold in federal court.

U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett on May 20 granted a sealed motion filed by Brian Michael Rini’s attorney and canceled what had been scheduled as a final pretrial hearing before a June 24 trial date. Court records Monday didn’t show any new dates.

Rini has pleaded not guilty to two counts of lying to federal agents and one of aggravated identity theft.

Federal prison records indicate he’s being held in Oklahoma City.

Authorities say Rini claimed to be Timmothy Pitzen, an Aurora, Illinois, boy who disappeared in 2011 at age 6.

Court records show Rini was treated in 2017 at an Ohio center for mental health or substance abuse problems.

Illinois
Appeals court tosses conviction over Facebook photo
ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) — An appellate court has tossed a central Illinois man’s gun conviction, ruling a lower court shouldn’t have allowed a Facebook photograph of him standing near guns to be entered as evidence.

Illinois’ 3rd District Court of Appeals reversed the conviction of 29-year-old Spencer D. Watkins. The Peoria man was convicted of being a felon in possession of a gun in 2016 and given a nine-year prison term.

The court found the photo wasn’t proof Watkins possessed a gun as he ran from a car after a traffic stop. An officer said he had one, but it was never recovered.

Prosecutors entered the photo to show it was likely he had a gun and disposed of it before his arrest. The defense says the officer mistook a cellphone for a gun.

No retrial date has been set.

Georgia
Sheriff steps in after 140 people skipped jury duty
DUBLIN, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia sheriff says he had to get involved when nearly three-fourths of people summoned for jury duty in his county failed to show up for court.

WMAZ-TV reports courts in Laurens County faced a small crisis last week when only 60 people showed up for jury duty out of 200 who were mailed subpoenas. Sheriff Larry Dean had deputies make calls to the no-shows Tuesday. He also used the department’s Facebook page to warn that a judge could have any absent prospective jurors arrested.

Dean says enough people were coaxed into court late to make up four juries. He says many of them explained their absences by saying they were busy.

The sheriff says none of the people who failed to answer a jury summons were arrested.

New Jersey
Legal feud still simmers in ­‘Melrose Place’ fatal crash case
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A bitter legal feud is continuing in the case of a former “Melrose Place” actress who has already served prison time for a fatal crash but could wind up back behind bars.

Prosecutors want Amy Locane’s sentence from February thrown out because they say the judge violated legal principles in ignoring a higher court’s instructions.

Locane served about 2 1/2 years for the 2010 crash that killed 60-year-old Helene Seeman. A state expert testified her blood alcohol level was likely about three times the legal limit.

Appeals courts have twice ruled Locane’s original sentence was too lenient and ordered resentencing. Prosecutors have sought a sentence of seven years.

The actress’s attorney argued in a court filing Friday that sending her back to jail would violate constitutional protections against double jeopardy.

Florida
20 people to sue over fired deputy’s arrests
STUART, Fla. (AP) — Twenty people have served notice they will file a lawsuit against a Florida sheriff’s office and a fired deputy for a series of questionable drug arrests.

TCPalm newspapers report that the lawsuit will bring claims of wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and other claims against the Martin County Sheriff’s Office and former Deputy Steven O’Leary. An official notice of intent to sue was recently filed.

O’Leary was fired in January after an investigation into several of his drug arrests, some of which turned out to include substances that were not drugs. State prosecutors are looking into 80 of O’Leary’s drug arrests over an 11-month period.

Attorney Lance Richard says the 20 people he represents for the pending lawsuit all had their charges dropped.

The sheriff’s office continues to investigate O’Leary.