Wisconsin
City bars use of kangaroos as service animals
BEAVER DAM, Wis. (AP) - Officials have changed a southeastern Wisconsin city's rules on service animals after a woman took a baby kangaroo into a McDonald's restaurant.
The Beaver Dam Daily Citizen reports the city's Common Council voted 14-0 Monday night to define a service animal as a dog or miniature horse, but not a kangaroo. Police can cite people who try to use other animals.
Beaver Dam police say the woman wrapped the baby kangaroo in a blanket and tucked it in an infant car seat, then took it inside a McDonald's in February. The woman has said the kangaroo is a therapy animal to help her cope with emotional distress.
City Attorney Maryann Schacht says the changes comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
New York
Cops: Would-be Good Samaritan mades it worse
GENESEE FALLS, N.Y. (AP) - Authorities say a Good Samaritan trying to help a western New York man in distress turned out to be a Bad Samaritan.
The Wyoming County Sheriff's Office says a 58-year-old man's foot got stuck under his mower last week as he mowed a sloped lawn near an embankment in the town of Genesee Falls.
Deputies say his cries for help were heard by 31-year-old Christopher Ratcliffe, who had stopped at a nearby gas station while driving back to Pennsylvania.
Police say Ratcliffe tied a rope from his vehicle to the mower. But instead of backing up Ratcliffe went forward, causing the trapped man, the mower and Ratcliff's vehicle to go over the 12-foot-high embankment.
The mower landed on the man but he escaped with minor injuries.
Ratcliffe was ticketed for driving a vehicle that was uninsured, uninspected and unregistered.
Ohio
Probation for mom who lost son in cheetah pit
CLEVELAND (AP) - A woman who dropped her toddler into a Cleveland zoo's cheetah pit has been sentenced to a year of probation that includes counseling and parenting classes.
Michelle Schwab, of Delaware, Ohio, was sentenced Wednesday. She was charged with child endangering after authorities said she dangled her 2-year-old son over the railing of the zoo's cheetah exhibit in April. The boy lunged from her and fell about 10 feet.
Schwab and her husband jumped into the exhibit to retrieve the boy, who broke his leg. Cleveland Metroparks Zoo officials say the cheetahs didn't approach the family.
Schwab pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of aggravated trespassing in May.
Her attorneys said in court Wednesday the accident and media attention that followed brought her a great deal of stress and anxiety.
Connecticut
Woman loses bid for new trial over murder-for-hire
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A Connecticut woman has lost her bid for a new trial in a murder-for-hire case that landed her in prison for life and was depicted in books and TV shows.
A Rockville Superior Court judge on Tuesday rejected arguments by former lawyer and Ledyard resident Beth Carpenter that her lawyers made mistakes at her trial, according to a court ruling obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Carpenter, 51, was convicted of murder and conspiracy in 2002 for plotting with her lover and boss, Haiman Clein, to kill her brother-in-law, Anson "Buzz" Clinton. Carpenter and her parents believed Clinton, a one-time exotic dancer, was abusing his 3-year-old stepdaughter, who was Carpenter's niece.
Clein ended up being the star witness against Carpenter at her trial, testifying that it was Carpenter's idea to kill Clinton. He said he was in love with Carpenter and believed her niece was being abused, so he hired and paid Mark Despres to kill Clinton.
Despres gunned down Clinton in East Lyme in 1994. He initially admitted that he was paid $5,500 for the hit, but later recanted.
Clein was an admitted cocaine user, and Despres was a drug dealer and one of Clein's clients. Both were convicted in the plot. Clein is serving 35 years in prison, and Despres is serving 45 years.
Carpenter fled to Ireland after the killing. She was arrested there in 1997. To secure her return to Connecticut, state prosecutors had to agree to not seek the death penalty, because Ireland does not allow capital punishment.
Carpenter's lawyer, Norman Pattis, said on Wednesday that he planned to take the case to federal court.
Carpenter filed a petition seeking a new trial in 2012. Superior Court Judge Samuel Sferrazza ruled Tuesday that Carpenter did not prove her allegations that her trial attorneys, Hugh Keefe and Tara Knight, were ineffective at trial.
Pennsylvania
Official drives Mercedes seized in drug case
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania attorney general's office is defending an arrangement that allows a top administrator to drive a Mercedes SUV seized in a drug case as his state-issued vehicle.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that the office spent about $6,000 to repair acting chief of staff Jonathan Duecker's 2006 Mercedes R-350.
Spokesman Chuck Ardo says having Duecker drive a seized vehicle saves money compared to leasing a car for $400 a month from a state fleet.
Duecker is the former head of the attorney general's office's Bureau of Narcotics Investigation. He's driven the Mercedes for more than a year.
Ardo says Duecker is still intimately involved with narcotics investigations, making the arrangement OK under a state law restricting use of vehicles seized in drug cases to use in drug investigations.
Pennsylvania
Town pays $650K in case of woman shot by police
WARMINSTER, Pa. (AP) - A Philadelphia suburb is paying a $650,000 settlement to the family of an 89-year-old woman accidentally shot and killed by its police department during a standoff with a drunken suspect.
Marie Zienkewicz was caught in the crossfire in February 2013 as Warminster police confronted suspect Andrew Cairns at an apartment complex. He is serving 14 to 30 years in state prison.
The Bucks County Courier Times obtained the settlement through a public records request and published details Wednesday.
The agreement calls for the township to provide officers with critical-incident training and donate books in Zienkewicz's memory to the local library.
Investigators say Cairns traded shots with police after a dispute with his girlfriend and barricaded himself in his apartment for hours before surrendering.
Published: Thu, Jun 18, 2015
