National Roundup

Massachusetts
City to clear large homeless camp, citing opioid crisis
BOSTON (AP) — Officials in Boston are beginning to clear a sprawling homeless camp, citing a crisis of opioid addiction there.

Notices posted on Sunday near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, an area commonly known as Mass and Cass, say officials will start a “general cleanup of this public space” starting at 7 a.m. Monday.

Last week, Acting Mayor Kim Janey declared addiction and homelessness a public health emergency and said the roughly 150 tents that have been set up in the area, mostly along Theodore Glynn Way, will be removed.

The order also says police will continue to enforce all laws related to drug trafficking, human trafficking, disorderly conduct and trespassing.

“Tents are not appropriate for housing, they lack clean water and adequate facilities,” Janey said at the time. “We cannot let our most vulnerable residents continue to suffer in these encampments.”

It’s not clear where the city plans to relocate people displaced by the removal of the encampment.

City officials said those dependent on opioids will be connected with treatment and permanent shelter options. They stressed that the city is not criminalizing homelessness, and no one will be forcibly removed.

The area, home to numerous methadone clinics and social services, has long been a haven for crime and illegal drug sales and use, often in the open.

Georgia
Prosecutors: Man used COVID loan to buy $57,000 Pokemon card
DUBLIN, Ga. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say a Georgia man used a pandemic relief loan to buy a $57,000 Pokemon card.

Court records show a Dublin man is charged with lying on an application for a pandemic economic relief loan about the number of people his business employed and the company’s gross revenue. He faces one count of wire fraud.

The court filing said he received $85,000 in August of last year, and used the money to buy a Pokemon card for $57,789.

The Telegraph reports that defense lawyers issued a statement declining to talk about the case.

Rare Pokemon cards can sell for thousands of dollars. Collectors have been bidding up prices  for trading cards, video games and other mementos.

Dublin, a city of about 16,000 people, is located about 130 miles (209kms) southeast of Atlanta.

Texas
Sheriff: Child’s remains, 3 abandoned siblings found in home
HOUSTON (AP) — The skeletal remains of a child, and three surviving siblings who appear to have been abandoned, were found inside an apartment in the Houston area, a sheriff said.

One of the children, a 15-year-old, called the Harris County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday afternoon and told authorities that his 9-year-old brother had been dead for a year and the body was inside the apartment, the office said in a statement.

Deputies responded and found the teen, and two other siblings ages 10 and 7, living alone in the apartment, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters. The other child’s skeletal remains were also located.

“It appears that the remains had been there for an extended period of time. And I emphasize extended,” Gonzalez said.

The sheriff said it also appeared that the surviving children were “fending for each other,” with the oldest sibling caring for the younger two. It was unclear whether any of the kids were attending school.

The younger children appeared to be malnourished and had physical injuries, the statement said. All three siblings were taken to a hospital to be assessed and treated.

The mother of the children and her boyfriend were later located, authorities said. Both were being questioned.

Neighbors expressed shock and disbelief when they learned about the children. Kayla Williams told the Houston Chronicle that she has two children, but she doesn’t plan to tell them what happened.

“I don’t need to put this in their heads,” she said. “This is crazy.”

Ohio
New trial begins for man who spent 45 years behind bars
CLEVELAND (AP) — A new trial has begun for an 83-year-old Ohio man who spent 45 years in prison in the death of his wife.

Cleveland.com reports that jurors in the Cuyahoga County retrial of Isiah Andrews learned in opening statements Friday something the jury that convicted Andrews in 1975 never knew — that police had initially arrested another man in the killing of Regina Andrews.

Andrews was released last year after another judge reversed his conviction, citing prosecutors’ failure to disclose information about the other suspect.

The other man had an alibi for the time the slaying was believed to have been committed, but an autopsy later concluded the crime had occurred at a different time. That man died in 2011.

“They let the murderer go because they messed up on the time of death,” defense attorney Marcus Sidoti told jurors.

Assistant Prosecutor Kristen Karkutt said detectives in 1974 and an FBI agent who has reviewed the case in recent years have ruled out the other man as a suspect.

Defense attorneys also cite a lack of physical evidence linking Andrews to his wife’s slaying and argue that he was convicted largely on the testimony of two women whose stories changed over time.

Karkutt acknowledged that prosecutors no longer have physical evidence from the case but said the suspicious behavior described by the witnesses would be sufficient for conviction.

The Ohio Innocence Project took up Andrews’ case in 2015. The new trial will include testimony from two witnesses who are still alive, but prosecutors will read to the jury transcripts from the 1975 proceedings because of the deaths of other witnesses and detectives.

Prosecutors sought a gag order following statements by the defense and Andrews to reporters, and the judge granted the request. But he rejected prosecutors’ request that the jury pool be dismissed and the trial restarted because of defense comments that Andrews is innocent and retrying him was “gross and disgusting.”