California
Man who hid assets gets 17 years in prison
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California businessman who declared bankruptcy and then hid his assets to avoid paying child support and alimony following a contentious divorce has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison.
The Sacramento Bee reports 50-year-old Steven K. Zinnel was also ordered Tuesday to pay a $500,000 fine and forfeit assets worth more than $2.8 million.
U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley described Zinnel as “narcissistic,” citing the defendant’s repeated lies in bankruptcy and family courts.
The newspaper says the Sacramento County man’s crimes were found out after he called the FBI and asked the bureau to investigate his ex-wife.
The couple, who have two teenage children, split in 1999.
Zinnel’s co-defendant, attorney Derian Eidson, will be sentenced later this month for her role in facilitating his crimes.
Connecticut
Yale caught up in dispute over honorary degree
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Victims of asbestos poisoning in Italy, and some Yale University alumni and faculty, are urging the school to rescind an honorary degree given to a Swiss man later convicted over contamination in Italy.
Stephan Schmidheiny, former owner of Swiss construction company Eternit, was convicted in 2012 by an Italian court and sentenced to 16 years for his role in the contamination of sites in northern Italy. An appeals court upheld the conviction and increased his sentence to 18 years.
The New Haven Register reports that Yale awarded Schmidheiny an honorary degree in 1996, citing him as an “environmentally conscious business leader.”
Lawyer Christopher Meisenkothen, who represents the Asbestos Victims and Relatives Association, says the situation in Italy is the exact opposite of what Yale cited.
Yale says a decision to revoke an honorary degree must be by the Yale Corporation, the university’s governing body.
California
Group asks High Court to allow California cross
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A veterans group on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule an order to remove a war memorial cross from a San Diego mountaintop after it was found to violate the constitutional separation of church and state.
The Mt. Soledad Memorial Association already had asked the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeal to allow the 43-foot cross to remain, as had the U.S. Department of Justice. But the veterans group said it wanted to leapfrog straight to the nation’s highest court to hasten a resolution to a legal dispute that began in 1989.
The 9th Circuit has been an unfriendly venue to advocates of the cross, ruling in 2011 that it was unconstitutional because it sits on federal property. After the Supreme Court declined to review it, the case went back to a district judge to consider possible alternatives.
In December, the district judge, Larry Burns, ordered the cross removed in 90 days, declaring “it’s time for finality” 22 years after another judge ordered the cross to be taken down. Burns said he didn’t believe the cross represented a government attempt to promote religion but acknowledged that the appeals court ruled differently.
Advocates of letting the cross stay are emboldened by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s statement that the dispute raised a “question of substantial importance.” They are essentially counting on another defeat at the appellate level and hoping for a more sympathetic audience at the high court.
“We’re asking them to take the case without having to require us to plow through the 9th Circuit because there’s really nothing left to do at the 9th Circuit,” said Hiram Susser, an attorney for the Liberty Institute, which represents the veterans group.
If the Supreme Court rejects the petition, the veterans group will continue to plead its case to the appeals court, a process that could take more than two years, Susser said.
The cross, which offers sweeping views of San Diego, was erected in 1954. The American Civil Liberties Union and Jewish War Veterans sued the federal government in 2006 after the land on which the cross sits was transferred from the city to the federal government.
Colorado
Couple accused of killing noted Aspen socialite
ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — A husband and wife who rented the house of a Colorado resort town socialite are accused of killing her and leaving her body in a closet after she returned home from an overseas vacation.
Nancy Pfister, 57, was the daughter of the late Betty and Art Pfister, longtime prominent Aspen residents who co-founded the Buttermilk ski area west of town. Buttermilk Mountain has hosted the Winter X Games multiple times.
On Monday evening, authorities arrested William F. Styler III, 65, and Nancy Christine Styler, 62, at the Aspenalt Lodge in Basalt, where they were staying after apparently moving out of Pfister’s two-garage, two-story Aspen home Feb. 22. Both face first-degree murder charges.
The Stylers appeared in court Tuesday and both waived a formal reading of the charges, the Aspen Times reported (http://tinyurl.com/l7ko53c ).
William Styler sat in a wheelchair. His attorney, Sara Steele, told the judge Styler has “mental health issues that need to be taken care of.” Steele didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message seeking clarification.
Beth Krulewitch, the attorney representing Nancy Styler, also did not immediately return a phone message.
The couple were being held without bond. Their next court appearance is March 17.
Authorities said the couple rented Pfister’s West Buttermilk Road home during the fall.
Pfister returned from a vacation in Australia on Feb. 22, and she was found dead four days later. A friend discovered her body in an upstairs closet at Pfister’s home on the evening of Feb. 26. A cause of death has not yet been released.
Sheriff Joe DiSalvo said the investigation is ongoing, and he did not rule out the possibility of more arrests. The sheriff’s office curbed public access in the courthouse and put up barricades to sequester scores of people interviewed in the past several days after Pfister’s body was found.
DiSalvo said both suspects were questioned early in the investigation, but authorities lacked enough probable to arrest them. He declined to discuss the investigation further, and court records were sealed.
“This case has been hard from the beginning on all of us, because of the nature of it,” DiSalvo said. “First-degree murders don’t happen here too often.”
Authorities said it was Pitkin County’s first murder since 2001, excluding deaths ruled murder-suicides.
