New York
Prosecutor says ex-hockey pro had wife kille
CATON, N.Y. (AP) - A prosecutor says an upstate New York woman was slain in a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by her husband, a former professional hockey player.
Steuben County District Attorney Brooks Baker made the accusation Monday during a bail hearing for 37-year-old Thomas Clayton, who is charged with second-degree murder.
His 35-year-old wife, Kelley, was found dead Sept. 29 in the couple's home in rural Caton, on the Pennsylvania border.
Authorities over the weekend announced they had also charged 44-year-old Michael Beard of Elmira with second-degree murder. He is an acquaintance of Thomas Clayton's. It wasn't immediately clear if he has an attorney.
Thomas Clayton's lawyer says his client is innocent.
Prosecutors haven't said how Kelley Clayton died or who actually carried out the slaying.
Clayton played for Elmira's minor league hockey team.
Illinois
Terrorist suspect found competent to stand trial
CHICAGO (AP) - A court-ordered report has found that a 21-year-old suburban Chicago man facing terrorism charges is competent to stand trial despite his talk of shadowy conspiracies.
The report's conclusion was disclosed at a pretrial hearing Monday for Adel Daoud in a Chicago federal court. He's denied trying to ignite an inert bomb outside a Chicago bar in 2012 in an FBI sting.
Daoud told Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman in August that there's a conspiracy against him involving Freemasons and Illuminati.
Defense attorney Thomas Durkin said at Monday's hearing he may challenge the report's finding. He told reporters later that Daoud's conspiracy theories and other behavior raised questions about his mental health.
Coleman has set Jan. 5 as the trial date after repeated delays. She said Monday she won't delay it again.
Pennsylvania
Woman who snatched girl gets 40 years to life
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A former day care worker convicted of abducting a 5-year-old girl from her Philadelphia kindergarten classroom and sexually assaulting her has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.
Prosecutors believe 22-year-old Christina Regusters donned a Muslim dress and veil to impersonate the girl's mother and take her from the public school classroom in January 2013.
Regusters apologized Monday but said she is not a "monster." She says her only role was taking the child from school and leaving her half-naked the next morning at a playground.
The girl says, "I think what she did to me was wrong, and I think she shouldn't do it to anyone else." The Associated Press doesn't identify victims of sexual abuse.
Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Minehart calls the crime "a horror show."
Tennessee
Boy, 11, accused of killing girl with dad's shotgun
WHITE PINE, Tenn. (AP) - An 11-year-old boy faces a murder charge after witnesses say he killed his 8-year-old neighbor because she would not let him see her puppy.
Latasha Dyer told WATE-TV her daughter was playing outside when the next-door neighbor asked to see the puppy. She says the girl, McKayla, told the boy "no," and the boy then shot her.
Jefferson County Sheriff Bud McCoig says the boy used his father's 12-gauge shotgun to kill McKayla from inside his home. Deputies called to the scene Saturday in White Pine found McKayla on the ground with a chest wound. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Dyer told the station that McKayla "was a mommy's girl" who "could always make you smile."
Louisiana
5th US Circuit hears appeal of ex-Mayor Nagin
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Lawyers for former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin asked a federal appeals court Monday to reverse his 2014 corruption convictions, arguing that a judge gave erroneous instructions to the jury that convicted him.
Federal prosecutors scoffed at the argument.
"We have a case chock full of bribes, official acts and concealment," Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Pickens told a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
There was no indication when the panel would rule. Nagin, who has adamantly insisted that he did nothing wrong, is serving a 10-year sentence and did not attend the arguments. Several of his family members were present.
Nagin, a Democrat who served from 2002 to 2010, was convicted on charges of wire fraud, bribery, money laundering and filing false tax returns. Prosecutors say graft in his administration began before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 and flourished afterward. Bribes included money, free vacations and truckloads of free granite for his family business.
Jordan Siverd, a public defender representing the now-financially destitute ex-mayor, focused most of his argument on the contention that U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan erred in instructions to the jury regarding federal fraud counts. Jurors should not have been told they should convict Nagin for taking actions he would have legally taken even if he hadn't been bribed to do so.
"Claiming later that you would have performed the same act anyway has never been an excuse," Pickens countered in his rebuttal.
Siverd also argued against forfeiture orders requiring Nagin to turn over some $500,000 that prosecutors said he gained illegally. Prosecutors say the forfeiture order was proper.
Rhode Island
'Blacklivesmatter' written on coffee cup for officer
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - The Providence police union is speaking out after an officer received a cup of coffee with "blacklivesmatter" written on it.
The Fraternal Order of Police says the incident is "unacceptable and discouraging."
The officer told the union that he received a cup of coffee Friday at a Dunkin' Donuts store with the slogan written on the cup. He says an employee was rude to him.
The slogan arose last year during protests nationwide over police violence against civilians.
Lt. Roger Aspinall, a union member, told WLNE-TV the slogan is anti-police and the Black Lives Matter movement "condones violence against police."
The union says it believes that "all lives matter."
A call to the Dunkin' Donuts corporate headquarters in Canton, Massachusetts, wasn't immediately returned.
Published: Tue, Oct 06, 2015
