National Roundup

Iowa
Man gets 50 years for killing woman after break-in
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A Marion man has been given 50 years for killing a Cedar Rapids woman during a break-in.

Linn County District Court records say 20-year-old Kyler Junkins also was sentenced Friday to 10 years for burglary, a term to be served at the same time as his sentence for second-degree murder. He was ordered to pay $150,000 restitution to her heirs or her estate. He’d pleaded guilty after making a deal with prosecutors.

Police say Junkins was involved in breaking into the apartment of 18-year-old AnnaElise Edgeton and shooting her. Her body was found Jan. 13 last year.

Louisiana
Man gets 10 years of hard labor over death of missing woman
LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — A Louisiana man who says he dumped the body of an overdose victim in the trash has been sentenced to 10 years of hard labor.

News outlets report Malik Davis pleaded guilty last week to obstructing justice in the death of 18-year-old Jacquelyn “Daisy Lynn” Landry, who disappeared in May 2017. Her body hasn’t been found.

Davis testified that Landry was hanging out with him and several others when she overdosed, so he dumped her body in a trash can to be taken to a landfill.

Assistant District Attorney Daniel Landry says Davis’ testimony led investigators to arrest 26-year-old Matthew Perez and 26-year-old Devan Dufour on Wednesday. They too face obstructing justice charges. News reports don’t say whether the prosecutor is related to the missing woman.

Maryland
County settles excessive force suit for $1 ­million
BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore County will pay more than $1 million to settle claims by the family of a 21-year-old who died days after an encounter with police officers and medical workers.

The Baltimore Sun reported Monday on the settlement.

The family of Tawon Boyd accused police of excessive force. The county said the officers used reasonable force. A medical examiner ruled the death accidental, caused by the synthetic drug known as bath salts.

The family’s lawyers said Boyd called 911 in 2016 to report a break-in. His girlfriend said he may have been delusional. Their federal lawsuit accused police of beating Boyd, and says paramedics gave Boyd the drug Haldol to calm him down, but it sent him into cardiac arrest.

New York
Court upholds conviction of ex-minister
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of Guinea’s former minister of mines, rejecting his effort to use redefined rules about public corruption in the U.S. to get a new trial.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that U.S. citizen Mahmoud Thiam was properly convicted.

Thiam was sentenced in August 2017 to seven years in prison after a jury concluded he betrayed the Republic of Guinea by accepting $8.5 million in bribes.

Prosecutors said he used his official position as minister of mines in 2009 and 2010 to help a Chinese conglomerate to obtain exclusive and highly valuable investment rights in Guinea.

The appeals court rejected his effort to use a recent Supreme Court ruling about public corruption to reverse his conviction.

Indiana
Landlord seeks high court’s help in land dispute
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) — A northwestern Indiana landlord wants the U.S. Supreme Court to wade into his dispute with the city of Hammond and overturn a city order directing him to remove five apartments that he’s leased to tenants in what was once a single-family home.

Jose Andrade, who argues that Hammond’s order violates his constitutional rights, has filed a petition for review with the nation’s highest court, The (North­west Indiana) Times reported.

He contends that Hammond officials cannot require the home, which was built in 1927 and subsequently converted to apartments, to adhere to the city’s building code since it only was adopted in 1981.

“The enforcement of said code as it is being applied to a dwelling that was built prior to the adoption of said code represents an enforcement of an ex post facto law,” Andrade said. “Such enforcement is deemed illegal and improper, and therefore violates petitioner’s Fifth and 14th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution regarding property and due process.”

Andrade also asserts it’s unfair that the city allows other homes in the neighborhood to contain two apartments.

The city of Hammond’s does not plan on responding to Andrade’s request for review, unless explicitly directed to by the Supreme Court, according to the city’s attorneys.

In March, the Indiana Sup­reme Court declined to grant Andrade’s transfer request, thus leaving intact rulings from the Indiana Court of Appeals and Lake Superior Court Judge Calvin Hawkins that affirmed the city’s Board of Public Works and Safety’s directive for Andrade to remove the apartments.

Court records show the Hammond board’s order followed a 2016 city inspection of the home that found 12 structural problems, fire dangers and maintenance issues, subsequently rendering the home an unsafe structure under Indiana’s Unsafe Building Law.

The nine Supreme Court justices are slated to consider Andrade’s petition Oct. 1 at a conference meeting, the court’s docket indicates. At least four of the justices must agree to accept the case otherwise the city’s order will remain.

Iowa
Nurse ­anesthetist pleads guilty in painkiller case
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A nurse anesthetist has pleaded guilty to tampering with opioid painkillers in northern Iowa.

Records for the U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids say Christopher West also pleaded guilty to obtaining a controlled substance by deception.

The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports that West had been accused of ordering extra painkillers so he could use the leftovers. Prosecutors also say West reported several times that painkiller vials broke when he dropped his anesthesia kit at the Floyd County Medical Center in Charles City. Prosecutors say he actually stole the vials and used the painkillers himself.

Hospital officials who’d grown suspicious of West last year also checked a supply of painkiller vials and ampules and found they’d been opened, the painkiller replaced with saline and then glued back together.