National Roundup

Ohio
State to pay $17.5 million to inmate paralyzed after takedown
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The state has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by an Ohio inmate paralyzed during a takedown by prison guards.

Seth Fletcher was serving a two-year sentence at Chillicothe Correctional Institution in southern Ohio in April 2020 when his attorney says he was tackled, handcuffed and dropped by guards. The 21-year-old Fletcher was left paralyzed from the chest down with a spinal cord injury.

Fletcher was seized during a strip search on April 3, 2020, when guards caught the inmate with a cigarette they suspected was laced with drugs, according to reports by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and the Ohio Highway State Patrol.

Guards dropped Fletcher while dragging him to a suicide watch cell and poured water on his face and into his nose when he asked for water, records show. One guard bragged afterward that he had waterboarded Fletcher.

Fletcher filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the prisons agency, and the settlement was announced last week in a federal court filing.

Prisons spokesperson JoEllen Smith said the parties agreed to settle and the terms were being worked out.

Georgia
Sheriff threatens lawsuit if county won’t provide more money
WOODBINE, Ga. (AP) — A southeast Georgia sheriff says he may sue county leaders because they won’t increase his budget.

Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor is expressing frustration, with The Brunswick News reporting he wants to increase pay for deputies and jail guards.

Proctor said law enforcement faces “unprecedented challenges” recruiting and retaining “the best and brightest men and women to patrol your streets, secure your courts, and answer your calls for help.”

“The law is clear that the budget allotted to the Camden County Sheriff’s Office by the Camden County Commission must be sufficient to allow me to fulfill our duties as a law enforcement agency,” Proctor said. “The law is also clear that it is up to me and my management team to determine how best to use those funds.”

Proctor said his department spends “judiciously” to provide public safety, but that he will “push back and speak loudly” when he doesn’t have enough money.

Sheriff’s Capt. Larry Bruce said Proctor has contacted an Atlanta attorney who has represented other law enforcement agencies in Georgia experiencing funding problems.

“Litigation is very possible to assist the sheriff’s office with the funding that is required to maintain the quality and quantity of personnel needed to maintain a safe environment for the citizens and visitors to Camden County,” Bruce said.

Nebraska
Woman avoids death sentence for clerk slaying
WILBER, Neb. (AP) — A woman convicted of murder for her role in the death and dismemberment of a Nebraska hardware store clerk was sentenced to life in prison on Monday, avoiding the prospect of being the first woman in state history to be sentenced to death.

Bailey Boswell, 27, received the punishment for her role in the 2017 death and dismemberment of Sidney Loofe, a Nebraska hardware store clerk. A three-judge panel deadlocked 2-1, with one judge saying he didn’t believe the state met its burden of proof for a death sentence.

Prosecutors said Boswell and her boyfriend, Aubrey Trail, 55, had been planning to kill someone before Boswell met Loofe, 24, on the dating app Tinder and lured her to them. Loofe, a cashier at a Menards store in Lincoln, was strangled. Her body parts were later found in garbage bags, cut into 14 pieces and left in ditches along country roads in rural Clay County.

Boswell was convicted in October 2020 of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and improper disposal of human remains. Trail was convicted of the same charges in 2019 and sentenced in June to death. No execution date has been set, and based on Nebraska’s history with the death penalty, it’s unlikely his punishment will be carried out anytime soon.

Boswell was sentenced at the county courthouse in Wilber, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) southwest of Lincoln.

Although Trail has changed his story numerous times, he admitted at his sentencing that he strangled Loofe with an electric cord, as prosecutors had alleged. He said he tied up Loofe and killed her because she “freaked out” when he told her about his lifestyle with Loofe and other young women, which included defrauding antique dealers and rough group sex.

Trail acknowledged that he repeatedly lied to authorities and plotted to kill Loofe two to three hours before her slaying. But he asserted that Boswell wasn’t in the room and didn’t know he was going to do it.

Trail became the 12th man on death row in Nebraska, a state that rarely carries out executions. He missed much of his own trial after slashing his neck in the courtroom and yelling, “Bailey is innocent, I curse you all.”

In Nebraska, all death sentences are automatically appealed. The state’s most recent execution was of convicted murderer Carey Dean Moore in 2018. Before that, Nebraska’s last execution was in 1997.


Kansas
Man accused of letting children be sexually assaulted
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man has been accused of allowing children in his care to be sexually assaulted by a former landlord in exchange for rent.

A Douglas County judge recently ruled that Cormick Ferrell, 42, of Lawrence should stand trial on two counts of aggravated human trafficking in connection with the alleged assaults that took place between April 2014 and August 2017. The Lawrence Journal-World reports  that the children were 6- and 7-years-old at the time the alleged assaults began.

One of the children testified at the hearing that she told Ferrell about the assaults when she was 8, and he told her to “suck it up” because they needed a place to stay.

Ferrell’s attorney, Branden Smith, said during the hearing that there was no documentation showing that Ferrell received rent assistance in exchange for letting the landlord assault the children.

Ferrell remains in jail in lieu of $100,000 bond. He is also charged with aggravated child endangerment in connection with a third child.

The landlord accused in the assaults, Mark Strand, has also been charged in Douglas County, but he is currently in federal prison for a conviction in an unrelated case. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison last year for attempting to coerce and entice a minor to engage in sexual activity.