CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) — A man pleaded guilty Monday to killing three teenagers and burying their bodies in the basement of his rented home.
In exchange for his plea, David Edward Maust, 51, will receive three sentences of life without parole.
Police said the three victims — Nicholas James, 19, James Raganyi, 16, and Michael Dennis, 13 — were attracted by beer and marijuana that Maust had given them.
James' girlfriend reported him missing in May 2003. Raganyi and Dennis disappeared four months later, after leaving notes they were running away from home.
Police searched the basement of Maust's apartment building and found freshly poured concrete. A cadaver-sniffing police dog led police to remove the concrete and expose the graves. At least two bodies were wrapped in plastic and secured with cords and tape.
Police said they suspect Raganyi and Dennis died of suffocation or strangulation and James of a fractured skull.
Maust, whose trial was scheduled to start Monday, will be sentenced Dec. 16.
Maust has been in and out of mental institutions since an early age. In Illinois, a judge committed him in 1985 because he was unfit to stand trial on an earlier murder charge.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Roman Catholic school is canceling a fashion show by the manufacturer of American Girl dolls and books amid conservative groups' criticism of a girls organization that receives support from the company.
St. Luke School in Brookfield notified its parents of the decision through bulletins at Masses over the weekend.
Two national groups — the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago and the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss. — have raised questions about the American Girl brand and its parent company, Mattel Inc., because of the company's fund-raising for Girls Inc., formerly known as Girls Clubs of America.
The American Family Association has called Girls Inc. "a pro-abortion, pro-lesbian advocacy group." Girls Inc., which has more than 1,500 centers across the country, says it provides a variety of programs to educate and encourage girls and does accept lesbian sexual orientation. Alexander Kopelman, director of communications, said it does not include abortion in its programming, though it does not control what leaders say if girls ask about it.
Money raised through ticket and raffle sales at the planned fashion show was to go toward a new playground and a refurbished library at St. Luke School.
"It's a bargain we'll just have to pass up," wrote Frank Malloy, St. Luke pastor. "The cost is too high. Our integrity isn't for sale."
American Girl spokeswoman Julie Parks said no other groups have canceled because of the issue, and the company said some groups "have chosen to misconstrue American Girl's purely altruistic efforts." The fashion shows include the company's popular historic dolls being carried by girls who dress up in the same outfits.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former armored car driver who turned herself in after more than a decade on the run has agreed to plead guilty in a $2.9 million heist at a casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
In exchange, Heather Tallchief, 33, hopes for a lenient sentence, her lawyer said Monday.
According to documents filed in federal court, Tallchief will plead guilty to bank and credit union embezzlement and passport fraud.
She could get up to 40 years behind bars for the 1993 heist. But her attorney, Robert Axelrod, said he would be "surprised and disappointed" if she got more than 10 years.
She "knows she's going to prison, and she's OK with that," he said.
Tallchief surrendered Sept. 15 to federal authorities in Las Vegas, saying she wanted her 10-year-old son to have a normal life. She said she had been living under an assumed name in Amsterdam.
She acknowledged driving an armored car full of cash away from the Circus Circus hotel-casino. But she said she was an impressionable 21-year-old who had been brainwashed into getting a job at the armored car company and committing the crime by her boyfriend, Roberto Solis.
Solis remains a fugitive. Tallchief's lawyer said the woman has no idea where Solis or the money is.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former armored car driver who turned herself in after more than a decade on the run has agreed to plead guilty in a $2.9 million casino heist.
In exchange, Heather Tallchief, 33, hopes for a lenient sentence, her lawyer said Monday.
Tallchief could be sentenced to up to 40 years if a federal judge imposes the most severe penalties for the 1993 Las Vegas Strip heist. Tallchief will plead guilty to bank and credit union embezzlement and passport fraud, according to court documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.
Her lawyer, Robert Axelrod, said he would be "surprised and disappointed" if she got more than 10 years.
She "knows she's going to prison, and she's OK with that," he said.
Court documents reveal that Tallchief used a forged British passport and the name Donna Marie Eaton while living as a fugitive for more than a decade in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The plea agreement calls for Tallchief to forfeit almost $2.95 million — the amount she is accused of stealing.
Axelrod, of Meriden, Conn., said Tallchief does not know where the money is. In a telephone interview from Charlotte, N.C., the lawyer said the forfeiture agreement was designed to return any money Tallchief might reap from a book or movie deal to the armored car company, Loomis Armor Inc., and its insurance carrier.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas declined comment.
Tallchief, who is in federal custody in Las Vegas, was scheduled to enter her plea Nov. 30 before U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro, who would then set a sentencing date.
Tallchief surrendered Sept. 15 to federal authorities in Las Vegas, after telling the media she was tired of hiding and wanted her 10-year-old son to have a normal life. She said the boy was being cared for by a friend in Amsterdam.
She acknowledged driving the armored car full of cash away from the Circus Circus hotel-casino in October 1993, but said she was an impressionable 21-year-old who had been brainwashed to get a job at the armored car company and commit the crime by Roberto Solis, her former boyfriend.
Solis, an ex-convict and the father of Tallchief's son, remains a fugitive.
Tallchief has no idea where Solis is, Axelrod said.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal grand jury on Monday indicted a dozen alleged gang members in San Francisco who authorities said terrorized a 10-block section of a poor city neighborhood.
The alleged gang members were charged with either murder, attempted murder, drug dealing, arson, witness tampering or weapons violations. Much of the criminal activity, which included the murder of a 7-week-old baby who was killed by a stray bullet, occurred in the Sunnydale section of Visitacion Valley, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan said.
Some of the defendants also are accused of conspiring to sell drugs from a San Francisco jail.
Ryan said 12 of the 20 estimated members of the Down Below Gangsters are now under indictment. Two of those indicted are on the run and were not named, he said.
Eight could be eligible for the death penalty based on the nature of the charges against them, although the government has not decided whether to pursue capital punishment in the cases, Ryan said.
"We can not and will not allow dangerous street gangs to take over neighborhoods," he said.
San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong did not say why she pursued the case with federal prosecutors over the local district attorney's office.
GEORGETOWN, Texas (AP) — A Texas mayor can't set foot in the small city he leads until a criminal case against him is over, but he still plans on running it.
Bartlett Mayor Bobby Hill, 61, was arrested last week and accused of stealing money and services from his 1,500-person city, about 53 miles northeast of Austin. State District Judge Ken Anderson ruled Monday that until the case is over, Hill must live outside city limits.
"He can do the job as mayor from wherever he's at," said his attorney, Marc Ranc.
Ranc said the mayor's job is only a part-time position, and Hill can still conduct city business by phone and do paperwork at home.
Hill is accused of writing nearly $9,000 in personal checks to the city of Bartlett for cash and for his personal utility bills, then instructing a city secretary to falsify the books and not deposit the checks until he told her otherwise.
According to two complaints, he never did.
He faces up to 12 years behind bars if convicted on a charge of theft by a public servant and theft of service.
SAN ANDRES LARRAINZAR, Mexico (AP) — An Indian man beat and then burned his wife alive after an argument in the southern state of Chiapas, police said Monday.
Andres Gomez Santiz tied his wife, Maria Lopez Diaz, to a post, dumped gasoline on her and lit her on fire on Sunday in their house in the community of Jocoljo, according to a police statement.
Police said an "infuriated" Gomez argued with his wife before beating her up and then burning her alive.
Village residents detained Gomez when he tried to flee and handed him over to a judge. In his statement to police, he did not say why he killed his wife.
Local authorities say there is a high rate of wife abuse among the Indian communities in southern Chiapas, based on outdated concepts of women's roles in society.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federally licensed explosives manufacturer was fined more than $1 million Monday for falsifying records to cover up the disappearance of explosives from some of its plants, prosecutors said.
The Ohio-based Austin Powder Co. pleaded guilty in August to three felony counts of falsifying inventory records from plants in Northampton, Greencastle and Dixon, Ill., according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Brandler in Harrisburg.
The explosives' disappearance and falsified records came to light after undercover agents purchased blasting caps that had been stolen from a delivery truck from the Greencastle facility, according to the U.S attorney's office.
In all, the Austin Power plea involved 55 pounds of Hydromite explosive missing from Northampton; the blasting caps from Greencastle; and detonators from Dixon, Brandler said.
Authorities say all the explosives were recovered.
A spokesman for the company, which makes explosives for quarrying, mining and construction, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane ordered Austin Powder to pay $500,000 in fines and $510,000 in forfeitures to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives under a plea agreement and accompanying administrative licensing settlements.
The plea agreement allows the prosecution of others who may have been involved, Brandler said.
The ATF permanently revoked federal explosives licenses at the Greencastle facility and at sites in Palmyra, Va., and Raleigh, N.C.
In 2002, Austin Powder also pleaded guilty in federal court to misdemeanor counts of failing to notify the ATF about missing explosives in Nevada and improperly storing explosives in Kentucky, Brandler said.
BALTIMORE (AP) — Pluto has three moons, not one, new images from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest.
Pluto, discovered as the ninth planet in 1930, was thought to be alone until its moon Charon was spotted in 1978. The new moons, more than twice as far away as Charon and many times fainter, were spotted by Hubble in May.
While the observations have to be confirmed, members of the team that discovered the satellites said Monday they felt confident about their data.
"Pluto and Charon are not alone, they have two neighbors," said Hal Weaver of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Follow-up observations by the Hubble are planned in February. If they are confirmed, the International Astronomical Union will consider names for the objects.
Earlier this month another group of astronomers, who claim to have discovered the 10th planet in the solar system, also said that body had a moon. (Whether the group actually discovered a new planet has not been confirmed.)
Both Pluto and the new, so-called planet are found in the Kuiper Belt, a disc of icy bodies beyond Neptune. In fact, about a fifth of the objects observed in the region have been found to have satellites, and the percentage could grow as more are found, said Keith Noll, an astronomer at the Baltimore-based Space Telescope Science Institute. The institute coordinates use of the orbiting telescope, but Noll wasn't part of the Pluto team. He believes Pluto team's finding is convincing.
Weaver said Pluto would be the first Kuiper belt object found to have multiple satellites. Depending on how reflective the surface of the moons are, the newly found moons are estimated to be between 30 and 100 miles across, he said.
Further observations of Pluto and the two new bodies will help astronomers more accurately determine the mass and density of Pluto and its large moon Charon, said team member Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.
The jury is still out on the impact additional moons will have on the ongoing debate over whether Pluto is actually a planet.
While having a moon is a not a criteria — Mercury and Venus are moonless — having more can't hurt, Stern said.
"Just on a visceral level, the fact that Pluto has a whole suite of companions will make some people feel better," Stern said.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford agreed Monday to pay $22 million to 43 people who said they were molested by priests.
The alleged abuse dates back as far as the 1960s and involved 14 priests or retired priests.
Parents tried to bring it to the attention of Archbishop John Francis Whealon in 1983 but were threatened with legal action by the archdiocese, said attorney Jason Tremont, a lawyer for the 43 people.
"By giving victims a voice, we can change the behavior of the church and finally force the archdiocese to acknowledge responsibility for the past," Tremont said.
A spokesman for the archdiocese, the Rev. John Gatzak, said the settlement will be paid for with long-term savings and insurance policies.
"The archbishop wants to begin the healing process for those whose lives have been seriously harmed by sexual abuse, and for the church itself," Gatzak said. "We must acknowledge and deal with what has been done with justice and compassion."
Kevin Zile, 52, said the settlement can prevent others from being abused, but will not stop his flashbacks. "There were times when I was driven to New York City and woke up in the back of the car, tied and being abused by men I didn't know," he said.
The archdiocese said six of the priests are dead and four are retired. Three others are no longer active in ministry. One remains active, and a sexual abuse review panel determined allegations against him were not credible, the diocese said.
Larger settlements have been reached elsewhere. In 2004, the Diocese of Orange County, Calif., agreed to pay $100 million to 87 victims. In 2003, the Boston Archdiocese settled with 552 victims for $85 million. A judge in Kentucky has granted preliminary approval for what would be the nation's largest settlement at $120 million.
PHOENIX (AP) — A Utah man was charged with harboring and concealing his older brother, a fugitive polygamist leader who's accused of arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a married man.
Seth Steed Jeffs, 32, was charged in Denver federal court after he was found with $140,000 in cash and prepaid credit and cell phone cards, officials said Monday. Authorities said the items often are used to help wanted people evade capture.
Warren Jeffs has been a fugitive since his June indictment in Arizona. The FBI added a charge of unlawful flight against him and joined the search.
Warren Jeffs, 49, is the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The sect practices polygamy in a remote enclave in Arizona on the state line with Utah.
When questioned by authorities, Seth Jeffs said he didn't know his brother's whereabouts and wouldn't help investigators find him, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent in Colorado.
The money and prepaid credit and cell phone cards were found Friday after Seth Jeffs and another man were pulled over in a traffic stop in Pueblo, Colo., authorities said.
MOULTON, Ala. (AP) — A 15-year-old boy was charged with murder Monday in the killing of a teacher who was beaten, robbed and left for dead at the school where she worked.
Police Chief Lyndon McWhorter said prosecutors would ask a judge to decide whether the teenager can be tried as an adult in the slaying of Judy Jester. The teen's court-appointed defense lawyer, Errek Jett, said he hoped his client wouldn't be treated as an adult in court.
Jester, 55, died Sunday after being removed from life support. Her skull was cracked in the beating Wednesday.
The teenager, an eighth-grader at Lawrence County High School whose name was not released because of his age, was also charged with burglary and robbery.
McWhorter said investigators believe the boy entered the school, where Jester was doing administrative work alone, and beat her unconscious with his fists before rifling through her purse and stealing money.
"It looked like a pretty good struggle went on," McWhorter said.
A group of teens found the teacher after noticing an open door and called police.
NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News said Monday said that it would begin making its "NBC Nightly News" broadcast available for free on the Internet starting next week.
Past broadcasts will also be archived at the www.nightlynews.msnbc.com Web site, the network said.
It's not necessarily news on demand, though. The newscast, aired at 6:30 p.m. on many NBC stations on the East Coast, won't be available on the Web until after 10 p.m. ET.
"Many of our viewers tell me they often miss the broadcast because they're not at home or tending to their busy lives and families," anchor Brian Williams said. "This new service reflects the fact that the pace of our lives has changed."
The first newscast available on the Internet will be on Nov. 7.
LEWISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — After three decades of close calls, should-have-beens, could-have-beens and almosts, the Lewistown football team finally did it.
The 2005 Panthers will go down in history with a winning record — and they did it the hard way, defeating arch rival Indian Valley 16-13 in a game Friday that wasn't decided until the final moments.
"First winning season in 30 years," quarterback Chad Snook said. "You can't beat this."
With the win, the Panthers capped a 5-4 regular season and added some momentum as they head into the postseason.
"We've worked so hard for this," said running back Chris Tressler, who rushed for 215 yards. "This is the greatest moment of my life."
Lewistown had a chance in 1984 to finish with a winning record, entering the final game of the season with a 5-5 record. They wound up tying the game.
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (AP) — He didn't get a medal to pin on his uniform. But then the people who honored Pvt. Jake Lybrook probably would like him better without a uniform anyway.
The 21-year-old Marine is one of America's 50 sexiest bachelors, according to Cosmopolitan magazine.
His mother, Robin Edinger, nominated Lybrook for Cosmo's contest at the urging of family members, never really thinking he'd win.
"He is a good-looking kid, but I don't view him as sexy or hot," she said. "He's a cutie pie to me."
Lybrook had nothing to do with it. He was in training with his unit — Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines — when his mother learned he had been chosen. Lybrook found out when he was checking phone messages one night while on field training with his unit.
"All the guys just started laughing and hooting and hollering," Edinger said. "They made a banner for him and started going around calling him Mr. North Carolina."
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Perhaps the most dedicated state worker in Nebraska history is retiring.
The historic lion's head state seal, which came on the job in 1867 and has since stamped tens of thousands of state documents, is being replaced by a newer, easier-to-use, toggle-hand device.
Secretary of State John Gale, whose office houses the historic seal, announced the retirement on Thursday.
The change was needed because the original cast-iron seal — purchased for $25 by the first Legislature — has become brittle and was in danger of breaking, Gale said. Its water pump-style arm was loose and later determined to be broken, he said.
"It's remarkable that the Secretary of State Office has had a working piece of equipment that dates back to the time of statehood," Gale said. "The seal is probably one of the best investments the state has ever made."
The new seal cost $3,560 — 142 times the price of the original.
Its job is to affix documents such as deeds and proclamations with the official state seal, known as the Great Seal of the State of Nebraska. The seal, which is also on the state flag, includes images of a steamboat, the Missouri River, the Rocky Mountains, a train, a cabin, trees, sheaves of wheat, a blacksmith hammering an anvil, and the state motto "Equality Before The Law."
Posted in Backpage on Tuesday, November 1, 2005 12:00 am
© Copyright 2009, North County Times - Californian, Escondido, CA | Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
