Pennsylvania: Juvenile unit planned in judge kickback county
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — The public defender’s office in a northeastern Pennsylvania county wracked by a $2.8 million juvenile justice scandal will open a full-time unit focused on young defendants.
At a news conference Tuesday, Luzerne County Chief Public Defender Al Flora said the new juvenile unit of three lawyers will push for outpatient treatment services whenever possible. He says incarceration will be a last resort.
Two county judges were charged last year with accepting millions of dollars in exchange for putting juvenile offenders into private detention facilities, sometimes for very minor offenses.
Ex-judge Michael Conahan has since pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge and faces up to 20 years in prison. Former judge Mark Ciavarella is awaiting trial.
North Carolina: Man with gun at NC Obama stop found guilty
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — The Ohio man arrested with a loaded handgun outside a North Carolina airport as President Barack Obama was flying away has been convicted of violating a gun ordinance.
The Asheville Citizen-Times reported Wednesday that 23-year-old Joseph Sean McVey of Coshocton, Ohio, has been found guilty of violating an ordinance prohibiting firearms on city property and possessing a siren.
McVey had already served three days in jail and was sentenced to the time served.
The state dropped the misdemeanor charge of going armed to the terror of the public because the facts didn’t fit the charge.
Police arrested McVey at Asheville Regional Airport on April 25. He told police he was parked near a gate that led to the runway as Air Force One was taxiing because he wanted to see the president.
New York: Queens judge refuses request to void divorce
NEW YORK (AP) — A divorced couple who says they are back together again is getting no cooperation from a New York City judge.
Queens Supreme Court Justice Charles Markey has refused a request to void the couple’s 2009 divorce.
In his ruling, Markey said if the man and woman are serious about saving their four-year union, they should renew their vows.
The couple said in court papers that they wanted to wipe out “this sad chapter” of their lives. Their names were not released.
The judge said that “the court does not bow to alleged religious sentiments or convictions that may attach to divorce.”
Iowa: Prosecutors: Judge did no wrong in raid
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Prosecutors say a federal judge who presided over the trial of a former Iowa kosher slaughterhouse executive did nothing improper when she met with federal agents before a 2008 immigration raid at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville.
Sholom Rubashkin was convicted last fall of 86 financial fraud charges. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
Rubashkin’s attorneys are seeking a new trial, claiming Chief U.S. District Judge Linda Reade participated in planning of the raid.
In court papers filed Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan Jr. says the judge was only told about a planned raid, and was not privy to where it would take place, who would be targeted or other details.
The court filing is in response to defense claims that Reade did not disclose all of her conversations before the raid.
Illinois: Pair gets 18 years in prison for crime spree
ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. (AP) — A Cook County judge who sentenced two men to 18 years in prison for a crime spree says the duo had acted “like Bonnie and Clyde but with two Clydes.”
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Fecarotta sentenced Antonio Espino and Brian Norbut on Tuesday. The 22-year-old suburban Chicago men had pleaded guilty to home invasion, aggravated kidnapping and vehicular hijacking charges.
Prosecutors say Espino and Norbut wore masks and carried pellet guns that looked like semiautomatic handguns when they forced their way into the garage of a home in Prospect Heights in February.
The intruders put the guns to the residents’ heads and demanded money and credit cards.
Authorities say the spree continued when a Schaumburg woman was kidnapped and forced to withdraw money from her bank account. And prosecutors say the men also later robbed two Subway sandwich shops.
Louisiana: ACLU’s appeal on single-sex classes Oct. 5
LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals set oral arguments for Oct. 5 to consider the ACLU’s appeal of a federal district judge’s decision to allow single gender classes to continue at a Kaplan middle school.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the Vermilion Parish School Board in September 2009 claiming the single-gender classes at Rene Rost Middle School were discriminatory and violated students’ rights to an equal education.
The Advocate reports the lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Rost parent and her two daughters.
A federal district judge ruled in April that the all-boys and all-girls classes could continue under court-mandated conditions addressing errors in the program’s planning and implementation.
Connecticut: Mother charged with stabbing disabled son
MANSFIELD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut woman was charged with stabbing her disabled 16-year-old son multiple times after having blamed a teenage neighbor.
State police arrested 40-year-old Robin Foster of Mansfield Tuesday on charges of first-degree assault and risk of injury to a minor. She was held on $1 million bail and is to be arraigned Wednesday in Rockville Superior Court.
Authorities say the boy is in serious but stable condition at Windham Hospital.
Police say the non-verbal, physically challenged boy was stabbed in the family’s apartment on Foster Drive. Troopers say Foster told police she went to her son’s room after hearing a noise Tuesday morning and encountered a teenage boy who fled.
Police say they interviewed the teenager and determined he didn’t stab the boy.
