National Roundup

New York
Husband charged with wife’s killing in affluent suburb
SCARSDALE, N.Y. (AP) — The husband of a 58-year-old pediatrician at a New York City children’s hospital was arrested and charged Thursday with her murder inside their multimillion-dollar home in an affluent suburb.

Jules Reich, a tax specialist at a New York City firm, was charged with second-degree murder, said a spokesman for the Westchester district attorney’s office.

His wife, Dr. Robin Goldman, was found dead in their Scarsdale home on Wednesday. Police responded after receiving a 911 call of a woman seriously injured at the 5-bedroom, 4-bath property, which sits on 1.29 acres about 26 miles from Manhattan.

Public records show that Reich had petitioned for divorce in August 2015.

Goldman was a pediatrician affiliated with the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Prosecutors didn’t immediately say how she died.

“As a community, we are grief stricken and our hearts are filled with pain to know that Robin, who was so good, so sweet and so pious has so suddenly been taken from us,” said a statement from the Modern Orthodox Young Israel of Scarsdale, the synagogue Goldman attended.

Reich was scheduled to be arraigned later Thursday. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had an attorney who could comment on the charges.

According to his Linkedin page, Reich was a partner at the Manhattan accounting firm of WeiserMazars LLP, which he joined in August 2014. Previously, he spent 20 years at the accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. He graduated from New York University law school and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

It’s the first homicide there in nearly four decades.

The last murder was in 1977 when Yale senior Bonnie Garland was bludgeoned to death in her home. Her ex-boyfriend, Yale graduate Richard Herrin, was convicted of manslaughter in her death.


Idaho
Theater sues police over ‘Fifty Shades’ flap
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A theater is suing the Idaho State Police for threatening to revoke its liquor license after the theater served alcohol while showing “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

The Idaho Statesman reports  Idaho law prohibits places licensed to serve alcohol from showing movies that depict sexual acts.

ISP says Village Cinema in Meridian served beer and rum to undercover detectives watching the risque “Fifty Shades” in a 21-and-older VIP area. A police spokeswoman said the agency is tasked with upholding the state’s laws and whether or not they are valid is a question for the courts to decide.

The cinema claims ISP’s attempt to revoke its liquor license is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment’s free speech protections.


North Dakota
Flight attendant accused of two bomb threats
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A flight attendant accused of making a phony bomb threat that forced a flight he was working to make an emergency landing in North Dakota is accused in a similar incident in Virginia.

Justin Cox-Sever, who was a SkyWest Airlines flight attendant from Tempe, Arizona, was charged last week in a Virginia federal court with making a bogus bomb threat that forced a SkyWest flight to Chicago to return to Charlottesville last July.

Cox-Sever doesn’t have a lawyer for the Virginia case. His lawyer for the North Dakota case, Neil Fulton, declined to discuss the case in detail via email Thursday.

Cox-Sever, 22, was previously charged in a North Dakota federal court with disrupting a Sept. 9 SkyWest flight from Minneapolis to Dickinson that led to the temporary shutdown of the Dickinson airport after the plane landed. Prosecutors say he stuffed a bag with towels and reported it as a suspicious package making beeping noises, leading the pilot to declare an in-flight emergency.

FBI Special Agent Daniel Genck wrote in an affidavit that Cox-Sever admitted planting the bag on the North Dakota flight and fabricating the bomb threat in the Virginia case. Genck said Cox-Sever reported that someone had written a threat on a wall of the plane’s bathroom, but that he later admitted that he wrote the threat himself after he recanted a claim of being extorted by someone threatening harm to his family.

Cox-Sever pleaded not guilty in the North Dakota case and is scheduled to stand trial next month on charges related to interfering with the operation of an airplane. He faces three similar counts in the Virginia case, which hasn’t been scheduled for trial.

It’s possible both cases could be handled in one location, though nothing has been decided, Clare Hochhalter, assistant U.S. attorney for North Dakota, said Thursday.

Cox-Sever is no longer employed by SkyWest, though the airline won’t say whether he was fired or left willingly. He is not allowed to fly without court approval while his cases proceed.


Georgia
Judge won’t release jailed  filmmaker early
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia judge won’t grant early release from jail for a movie director sentenced for the death of a camera assistant while shooting a film about singer Gregg Allman.

Former “Midnight Rider” director Randall Miller had asked to be set free after serving less than half of a two-year sentence at the Wayne County jail, citing good behavior and health concerns.

Superior Court Judge Anthony Harrison said he was “unequivocally” rejecting Miller’s request. In a ruling filed Tuesday, the judge said he intended for the director to serve a full two years when Miller pleaded guilty last March to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the 2014 death of Sarah Jones.

Jones was killed by a train as Miller’s crew worked on a railroad bridge without permission.

Oklahoma
Teen suspect in slaying seeks juvenile status
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — One of two Oklahoma brothers accused in the stabbing deaths of their parents and three siblings is challenging the constitutionality of a state law that says he must be charged as an adult.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals heard oral arguments on Thursday in the case of 17-year-old Michael Bever.

Bever and his 19-year-old brother, Robert Bever, are charged in Tulsa County with five counts of first-degree murder in the July attack that killed their parents and siblings, the youngest of whom was 5.

Michael Bever, who was 16 at the time of the deaths, is challenging a special judge’s ruling that rejected a request by defense attorneys to certify him as a juvenile delinquent or youthful offender.

A preliminary hearing for the brothers is set Feb. 23.