National Roundup

Oklahoma
Man gets life in prison for child pornography
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A judge has sentenced an Oklahoma workman to life in prison for hiding cameras in homes to capture images of girls.

Ryan Aaron Alden pleaded guilty in June to 28 felonies, including creating child pornography and possession of obscene material of minors.

Oklahoma County District Judge Amy Palumbo said during sentencing Wednesday that she would have ordered Alden castrated if the law allowed. The 39-year-old was also sentenced to nearly 150 years in prison.

Prosecutors say Alden hid cameras in the bedrooms, bathrooms and closets of four Oklahoma homes where he did electrical work. Police said they found child pornography on Alden’s five computers and two phones.

The Oklahoman reports that Alden was also accused of secretly taking photos of girls in gyms, schools and mall changing rooms.

North Carolina
Man declared innocent in 1979 dorm murder
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A three-judge panel has ruled that a mentally ill man convicted of killing a North Carolina college student 40 years ago is innocent.

Ruling as part of North Carolina’s innocence process, the judges agreed Thursday that 66-year-old James Blackmon didn’t fatally stab Helena Payton in 1979 at what’s now St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh.

Blackmon was sentenced in 1988, about nine years after the murder, because the case had gone cold until 1983.

Both sides agreed Blackmon is mentally ill with a low IQ. In interviews with police, he wore a Superman-like cape and compared himself to Dracula.

His case came before the judges through the work of the North Carolina Innocence Commission, which ruled in November that there was enough evidence of Blackmon’s innocence to warrant a judicial review.

Idaho
Man gets 42 years for 1990s murders solved by DNA evidence
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A 54-year-old Boise man who killed two women in the 1990s in different states has been sentenced to life in prison after DNA evidence connected him to the slayings.

Lee Miller was sentenced in both cases on Wednesday in Idaho with a Washington judge participating via video conference.

Miller previously pleaded guilty in each case to second-degree murder for the 1994 stabbing death of 49-year-old Cheryle Barrett in Boise and the 1992 strangulation death of 57-year-old Marilyn Hickey in Bremerton, near Seattle.

The Idaho sentence is life with a minimum of 25 years, while the Washington sentence is 17 years.

The sentences are to run consecutively, meaning Miller faces a minimum of 42 years in prison.

Miller apologized to the families of the victims in court.

Connecticut
Consultant gets probation in prison drug ­program scam
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A prison consultant has been sentenced to two years of probation for helping federal inmates lie their way into a prison drug treatment program to reduce their sentences.

Constance Moerland, of Hudsonville, Michigan, was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in New Haven, Connecticut. She pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy charge in May.

Federal prosecutors in Connecticut say Moreland and fellow Michigan residents Tony Pham and Samuel Copenhaver, both of Grand Rapids, helped convicts with no alcohol or drug problems get into the Residential
Drug Abuse Program, which can knock up to a year off a prison sentence.

Authorities say the three consultants coached convicts to show up to prison intoxicated and fake withdrawal symptoms.

Pham and Copenhaver have pleaded not guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges.

New Hampshire
Man convicted of aiding in ­roommate’s ­suicide
NORTH HAVERHILL, N.H. (AP) — A jury in New Hampshire has convicted a man of helping his roommate kill himself by bringing him a gun and advising him on how to use it.

Police said 19-year-old Michael Buskey killed himself in May 2018 in Plymouth. WMUR-TV reports his roommate, 20-year-old Parker Hogan, was found guilty Wednesday of aiding in Buskey’s suicide. Hogan also was convicted of falsifying evidence by wiping his fingerprints off the gun.

Hogan’s lawyers argued that he was a friend who helped Buskey carry out his wishes.

Buskey’s mother, Jennifer Phelps, said she’s relieved Hogan has been convicted.

Hogan hasn’t been sentenced yet.

Idaho
Man gets 25 years for ­creating child pornography
POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) — A 32-year-old eastern Idaho man who produced child pornography by sexually abusing a 4-year-old child has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Joseph Lavern Harris of Rigby received the sentence Wednes­day in U.S. District Court that also includes a lifetime of supervised release after prison.

Harris pleaded guilty in March to sexual exploitation of a minor child.

Investigators say that in February they responded to a Jefferson County home where Harris lived following allegations of child abuse.

Investigators discovered images of the sexual abuse on his phone, and Harris in court admitted he created the images.

Harris will be required to register as a sex offender.

North Dakota
Court tosses life sentence in case of baby cut from womb
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — The North Dakota Supreme Court has thrown out a life sentence for a man convicted of conspiring to kidnap a baby that his girlfriend had cut from their neighbor’s body.

A jury last year found William Hoehn, of Fargo, guilty for his role in the August 2017 death of Savanna Greywind. That came after Hoehn’s girlfriend, Brooke Crews, admitted that she sliced Greywind’s baby from her womb.

Hoehn had faced a maximum 21 years behind bars, but state Judge Tom Olson granted prosecutors’ request to label Hoehn a dangerous offender, enhancing his maximum sentence to life with the possibility of parole.
The Supreme Court said in a ruling released Thursday that Hoehn should not have been received that designation and ordered that Hoehn receive a new sentence.