National Roundup

Alabama
Mother, 3 women charged in young girl’s abduction
CENTREVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Kidnapping charges were filed against an Alabama girl’s mother and three other women who are accused of trying to take the child to Ohio.

Jasmine Crutchfield, 22; Deanna Gentry, 21; Sierra Hill, 33; and India Washington, 24, were expected to be transported from a Kentucky jail to face charges in Alabama, AL.com reported Monday. A court date has been set for June 5.

Miy’Angel Crutchfield, 6, was found with the group near Elizabethtown, Kentucky, on Saturday afternoon. She had been taken from Centreville, Alabama, on Saturday morning.

Jasmine Crutchfield is the child’s mother but does not have custody and had been ordered not to have contact with the girl, Bibb County District Attorney Michael Jackson said.

All four suspects live in Ohio and authorities said the group was headed to Cincinnati. It’s unclear whether they had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.

Missouri
Jim Bakker seeks suit dismissal; ex-governor is his lawyer
O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — Missouri-based TV pastor Jim Bakker is asking a judge to dismiss a state lawsuit accusing him of falsely claiming that a health supplement could cure the coronavirus, and the lawyer representing Bakker is former Gov. Jay Nixon.

Republican Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt sued Bakker and Morningside Church Productions Inc. in early March. Schmitt sought an injunction ordering Bakker to stop selling Silver Solution as a treatment for the coronavirus on his streaming TV program, The Jim Bakker Show. The lawsuit said Bakker and a guest made the cure claim during a program on Feb. 12.

In a court filing on Monday, Nixon — a Democrat who served two terms as governor before leaving office in 2017, and two terms as attorney general before that — called the lawsuit an assault on Bakker’s religious freedom.

“Jim Bakker is being unfairly targeted by those who want to crush his ministry and force his Christian television program off the air,” Nixon said in a statement. “The video recording of The Jim Bakker Show clearly shows the allegations are false. Bakker did not claim or state that Silver Solution was a cure for COVID-19.”

Schmitt wasn’t alone in going after Bakker. Also in March, U.S. regulators warned Bakker’s company and six others to stop selling items using what the government called false claims that they could treat the coronavirus or keep people from catching it. Letters sent jointly by the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission warned the companies that their products for treating COVID-19 were fraudulent, “pose significant risks to patient health and violate federal law.”

Nixon said Bakker immediately complied with orders to stop offering Silver Solution on his show and ministry website.

There are no approved treatments for the new virus. Potential treatments and vaccines now in testing won’t be ready for many months or even years.

Nixon said Schmitt’s lawsuit violated Bakker’s constitutional right to free speech, as well as the Missouri Constitution and the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. He said silver products are commonly sold at stores and online.

“Targeting a Christian pastor, who has been using and offering the product for the past 10 years, is not supported by the facts or the law,” Nixon said.

Pennsylvania
Missing woman’s body found in refrigerator
MCKEES ROCKS, Pa. (AP) — A body found in an unplugged refrigerator at a western Pennsylvania apartment building has been identified as a woman who went missing last week.

Daryl Jones, 41, of McKees Rocks, was charged Monday with abusing a corpse, authorities said. He was ordered held without bail because he may be a danger to the community and himself, according to court records, and it wasn’t known if he’s retained an attorney.

McKees Rocks police went to the apartment building around 9:45 a.m. Monday after residents who had smelled a foul odor discovered the decomposed body of Kristy Jefferson, 38. She had been reported missing on April 29.

Authorities have not said how Jefferson’s body ended up in the refrigerator.

Kentucky
Federal judge dismisses lawsuit over mail delivery
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge says he can’t deliver an opinion in a dispute over how mail is dispersed to Kentucky college students living in four Bowling Green apartment complexes.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Greg Stivers ruled last week that his court lacked jurisdiction in the case, the Daily News reported. Stivers said the Postal Regulatory Commission should decide the issue.

The apartment complexes near Western Kentucky University sued the United States Postal Service and a postmaster in January after the agency began delivering mail in bulk to property management offices instead of tenants’ mailboxes. The change came after the Postal Service reclassified the residences as dormitories, according to the lawsuit.

The apartments are located near the university, but they are not owned by the school, attorneys said.

The plaintiffs had sought an injunction that would require the Postal Service to stop bulk mail deliveries and return to individual deliveries.

Attorney Brian Lowder, who represents the apartment complexes, said he planned to discuss the court’s ruling with officials from each complex and determine how to proceed.

Louisiana
Trial date pushed back in wrongful death lawsuit
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A new trial date has been set in the wrongful death lawsuit filed the family of a black man killed by a white police officer in Louisiana’s capital city four years ago.

The suit, filed by the children of Alton Sterling, will go to court on March 1, 2021, unless a settlement is reached, news outlets reported.

The trial was set in 2018 for April 20, 2020, but was pushed back by state District Judge William Morvant late last month over a number of developments, including changes in the judge presiding over the case, an appeal pending before the state Supreme Court and a hold on trials until June 30 amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Advocate reported.

In 2017, Sterling’s family sued the city of Baton Rouge, its police department and former police chief and the two officers involved in the July 2016 struggle in which officer Blane Salamoni shot Sterling six times outside a convenience store. The lawsuit alleges the shooting fit a pattern of racist behavior and excessive force by police.

Salamoni was not criminally charged but was fired by Baton Rouge’s police chief.