National Roundup

Kentucky
Police: Woman abandons 6 kids inside Walmart
COLUMBIA, Ky. (AP) — Authorities in Kentucky have arrested a woman they say abandoned her two children and four others inside a Walmart.

A Columbia Police Facebook post says 34-year-old Amanda Jardinez was charged Saturday with six counts of abandoning a minor and wanton endangerment.

Police say Jardinez took six children to a Walmart on Friday and told them to find a worker, while she attempted to retrieve a MoneyGram transfer. The post says she left the store without the children and when they tried to follow her, she told them to go back inside. The children ranged in age from 6 to 11 years old.

Police say Jardinez then fled with James Holovich and his 5-year-old daughter.

New Mexico
Police: Woman  wore ‘fake beard’ to rob stores
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico woman is facing charges after authorities say she robbed stores while wearing a fake beard.

Court documents show that Tamala Cole was arrested Thursday following heists at the Nothing Bundt Cake store and a Boba Tea cafe in Albuquerque. In each case, police say the 51-year-old year Cole demanded money while holding a gun and wearing a “black beanie style hat” and a fake brown beard.

Investigators say Cole also is suspected of robbing a Subway and the religious goods store FaithWorks.

Police say Cole was tracked down through caller ID after she called the tea shop moments before the robbery and asked for her mother.

She is facing seven counts of robbery.

Oklahoma
Woman avoids prison, forced kids to eat feces
JAY, Okla. (AP) — A northeast Oklahoma woman charged with forcing her children to eat dog feces has been given two, seven-year suspended prison sentences after pleading no contest to the charges.

The Tulsa World reports that 34-year-old Mary Elizabeth Moore of Miami was sentenced Friday after entering the plea in Delaware County District Court.

Moore was charged in April after her 5- and 3-year-old children were hospitalized in Tulsa for severe malnutrition and placed on nasal feeding tubes. Both children were placed into state custody.

An affidavit says the older child told Department of Human Services workers that she ate dog feces and said the arresting officer noted the child had parasitic pinworms.

Defense attorney Ken Gallon said Monday that Moore doesn’t admit wrongdoing, but decided to take a plea offer from prosecutors.

Minnesota
Son of ex-NFL player extradited for killing parents
LONG PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) — The son of a former NFL lineman accused of killing his parents in Minnesota has been extradited from Mexico.

Twenty-two-year-old Dylan John Bennett was booked into the Todd County Jail early Monday. Bennett was arrested for second-degree murder at a hotel in Cancun Saturday.

Barry and Carol Bennett, both 63, were found fatally shot last Wednesday at their home in Long Prairie, a town of about 3,500 people 124 miles (200 kilometers) northwest of Minneapolis.

The criminal complaint says Barry Bennett told the Todd County Sheriff’s Office in December that Dylan had expressed thoughts about killing his parents while he was in a mental health treatment facility.

Barry Bennett played 11 seasons with the New Orleans Saints, the New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings.

North Carolina
Black man handcuffed after home alarm is tripped in error
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Police in North Carolina say they’re investigating the actions of officers who handcuffed a black man in his boxer shorts after his burglar alarm was accidentally tripped.

ABC 11 reported Sunday that Kazeem Oyeneyin is seeking an apology for the Aug. 17 incident.

The 31-year-old said a friend stayed over and unknowingly tripped the alarm when he left. Oyeneyin disengaged the alarm and returned to bed.

Oyeneyin said he soon heard screaming. He grabbed his gun and encountered police downstairs. He complied with orders to drop his gun, for which he had a permit. He tried to explain that he had just spoken to the alarm company.

Oyeneyin believes he was handcuffed because of his skin color. Raleigh police said they’re investigating but have repeatedly failed to reach Oyeneyin to discuss the incident.

Pennsylvania
Green energy firm founder gets 22 years in fraud cases
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The founder of a green energy company who authorities say ran a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of millions of dollars has been sentenced to more than two decades in prison.

Troy Wragg, 37, was sentenced last week in federal court to 22 years in prison and ordered to pay $54 million restitution in a pair of fraud cases.

Wragg pleaded guilty in March 2017 to conspiracy and securities fraud stemming from a “trash to cash” operation by Bala Cynwyd-based Mantria Corp. from 2005 to 2009.

KYW-TV reports that at the federal courthouse Tuesday, Wragg told the judge that he considered investors his friends and was sorry.

Prosecutors said he and co-defendants touted technology to turn household waste into power and a valuable charcoal-like material used in agriculture, but they had almost no earnings and used money from new investors to repay earlier investors. Housing developments that Mantria cited as collateral were never finished — the sites lacked drinking water, and some may have contained unexploded artillery shells, prosecutors said.

Two months before the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against Mantria Corp., the Clinton Global Initiative recognized the company for its stated commitment to “help mitigate global warming.”

Prosecutors also alleged that, while out on bail, Wragg solicited investment for an online video dating website by falsely saying that a well-known internet entrepreneur was about to buy the company.

“Wragg and his co-conspirators talked a big game about their bogus trash-to-green-energy business, but it was all a lie,” U.S. Attorney William McSwain said in a statement. “And when he was caught in this lie, he just couldn’t help himself and decided to scam yet another innocent investor.”

Co-defendant Amanda Knorr, 36, of Hellertown, pleaded guilty to fraud in the green energy case in 2016 and was sentenced in April to 30 months in prison. Prosecutors said another co-defendant awaits sentencing.