National Roundup . . .

New York
Woman leaves $35K worth of jewelry in taxi
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City woman says she accidently left a bag in the trunk of a taxi containing $35,000 worth of jewelry.

Among the items was a $15,000 engagement ring she had designed herself.

Mariko Spigner told the New York Post she realized she had forgotten the bag as soon as the taxi pulled away from a friend’s apartment Wednesday morning in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. But it was too late — the cab had sped off.

She says the missing items also included a $2,000 wedding ring, her green card and her Social Security card.

The 42-year-old Spigner is a Japanese citizen.

She filed a report with the Taxi and Limousine Commission, which is investigating. The bag hasn’t been turned in yet.

Missouri
Court rules against police in ticket scandal
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The St. Louis police department will have to turn over records in a scandal over 2006 World Series tickets after the Missouri Supreme Court threw out a final appeal to block the documents’ release.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch  reports the state high court’s ruling Tuesday clears the way for release of documents on the department’s internal investigation of officers who gave friends and family members tickets that had been confiscated from scalpers.

Eight officers and six supervisors were disciplined as part of the scandal.

The officers had appealed decisions by a St. Louis judge and a state appellate court who have ruled that records from the department’s internal investigation be released.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri sued to make all the records public.

California
Tunnel passes under water across border
CALEXICO, Calif. (AP) — The arrest of a drug smuggler in scuba gear led to the discovery of a tunnel from Mexico that’s partially underwater and ends in a canal.

Evelio Padilla pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in San Diego to one count of possession of drugs with intent to distribute.

Border Patrol agents said in court documents that they discovered a soaked Padilla in a wetsuit next to the All-American Canal, about 7 miles east of Calexico, California, on April 25. Near him, they found a breathing tank with a “rebreather” to prevent surface bubbles, and several vacuum-sealed and giftwrapped packages that held a total of 55 pounds of cocaine.

That led to the discovery of the 150-foot-long tunnel, which began at a house in Mexicali, Mexico, and ended under the water of the canal. The drugs were put on a trolley system on the dry Mexico side of the tunnel, and smugglers would use scuba gear to retrieve it from under the canal’s water from an opening that is normally obscured by rocks.

“Drug smugglers will try anything to move their product — even scuba diving in an underwater tunnel,” U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said in a statement. “The ingenuity of the smugglers is matched only by our determination to thwart it.”

According to the criminal complaint against him, Padilla, a 28-year-old Honduran national who had been living in Mexicali, was told he would be helping to get people across the border, but after jumping the international boundary fence was told he would be smuggling drugs instead. Padilla said he had no other option.

Authorities have not said whether they have learned who built and operated the tunnel, or whether more arrests were expected.

Padilla faces a maximum of 20 years in prison at sentencing.

North Dakota
Woman accused in lottery scam pleads not guilty
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A woman accused of helping a man who was convicted in North Dakota for his role in a Jamaican lottery scam has pleaded not guilty in federal court.

Melinda Bulgin, of Providence, Rhode Island, is charged with four counts, including mail and wire fraud.

Authorities say Bulgin handled money on behalf of Lavrick Willocks and Sanjay Williams, described as leaders of two separate scamming operations based in Jamaica. Williams was found guilty after a 10-day trial in May. Willocks is charged but remains in Jamaica.

Jamaican lottery scams have been happening for years, but rarely prosecuted. This case began when an FBI agent from North Dakota interviewed a Harvey woman who said she lost money in the scam.

Bulgin’s court-appointed attorney could not be immediately reached for comment.

Ohio
Prosecutor: Mom, not legal system, at fault in deaths
BELLEFONTAINE, Ohio (AP) — Three Ohio boys who authorities say were killed by their mother are dead because of her actions, not because the legal system failed them, a county prosecutor said.

Logan County Prosecutor William Goslee said the mother, 23-year-old Brittany Pilkington, was depressed.

“She knew she was depressed and she was not getting any better and of course she had all of this responsibility with these children and a lack of any kind of support group,” he said Wednesday.

Pilkington is jailed on murder charges in all three deaths, including her 3-month-old son Noah, who died Tuesday, less than a week after he was returned from protective custody on a judge’s order.

Goslee said those involved in the case — the court system and children’s services — aren’t to blame.

“Everybody that is involved in this is truly emotionally distraught — including myself, quite honestly — and it isn’t because the system failed,” Goslee said. “It’s because this child is dead. This was not a foreseeable event.”

Authorities believe she used each boy’s comfort blanket to suffocate him in his crib or bed over the last 13 months, because she wanted her husband to pay more attention to her and their 3-year-old daughter, Goslee said.

He said Pilkington was dominated and isolated by her husband, Joseph Pilkington, a man nearly twice her age who had been her own mother’s live-in boyfriend before they married.

Goslee said Wednesday authorities didn’t have any evidence of a crime in the earlier deaths, and no one could have predicted Pilkington would kill her remaining son.

Authorities had not been sure what caused the death of 3-month-old Niall Pilkington in July 2014, and it was attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. After 4-year-old Gavin died in April, daughter Hailey and the newborn boy, Noah, were taken into custody with Logan County Children’s Services pending an investigation.

Then on Tuesday, Noah was dead as well.