Maine
$500 million aquaculture plant nears finish but lawsuit looms
BELFAST, Maine (AP) — A nearly three-year effort to build a land-based salmon facility in Belfast is nearing the finish line, unless a judge rules against the company in a dispute over ownership of the intertidal zone.
Nordic Aquafarms executives remain hopeful the company can soon move forward with its $500 million project.
In September, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection approved draft water, air and land permits for the project. The board is expected to issue the final permits after a comment period.
But two land-use lawsuits pending in Waldo County Superior and U.S. District courts based on a 1946 land-sale agreement is the last — and best — hope for opponents who want to stop the project, the Bangor Daily News reported.
At dispute is who owns the sliver of intertidal zone where Nordic wants to bury its intake and outfall pipes.
A judge’s ruling could force Nordic to find another path to the bay, thereby slowing or potentially stopping the project.
Marianne Naess, executive vice president of commercial for Nordic, said the company isn’t going to give in to opponents’ delay tactics.
“’Delay till they go away,’” she said. “But we’re in it for the long run.”
Missouri
Woman shot in back by officer wins $2M settlement
LADUE, Mo. (AP) — A St. Louis suburb has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a federal lawsuit with a suspected shoplifter who was shot in the back by a police officer who said she intended to use her stun gun but pulled out our service revolver by mistake.
The city of Ladue admitted no wrongdoing in the confidential settlement with Ashley Hall. The agreement was released Friday to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in response to an open records request.
Police have said the incident began in April when Hall and another woman took a grocery cart of steaks and seafood from a Schnucks grocery store without paying. In the process, they said, Hall hit a Schnucks grocery worker “in the face with a bag of stolen merchandise.”
The lawsuit says that after store employees held Hall down in the parking lot, then-officer Julia Crews called for an ambulance to tend to Hall’s injuries and tried to handcuff her, despite saying she wasn’t under arrest.
The suit said Hall then ran away in fear of “the history of unarmed black individuals being shot by white officers.”
That’s when Crews fired, striking Hall in the back. Crews, 38, resigned after the shooting and has pleaded not guilty to a pending charge of second-degree assault.
Virginia
Man tracked through DNA site gets 65 years in rape cases
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A man who was tracked down with the help a public access DNA database and convicted of raping two lifeguards in Northern Virginia has been sentenced to 65 years in prison.
An Alexandria Circuit Court judge handed down Jesse Bjerke’s sentence Friday, radio station WTOP reported.
Bjerke issued a tearful apology in court, saying, “I am sickened by what I’ve done.”
Investigators had been at a dead-end in the case of a woman who was raped at a deserted Alexandria swimming pool in 2016, according to WTOP, when they ran the suspect’s DNA through a genealogical site called GEDmatch. That pointed to Bjerke as a suspect.
He pleaded guilty in October 2019 to six felonies, and then earlier this year pleaded no contest and was convicted in the rape of another woman, who was working as a lifeguard when she was attacked in 2014.
One of the prosecutors on the case described the steps Bjerke took to plan the attacks: “He bought zip ties, he found pools that were remote, waited for bad weather, had latex gloves, guns, ketamine. This was not a crime of impulse.”
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 80 years; Bjerke’s attorney had asked for “a couple of decades.”
Georgia
Incoming prosecutor challenges division of gambling money
MACON, Ga. (AP) — An incoming district attorney in middle Georgia is questioning how the outgoing prosecutor is distributing seized gambling money.
Anita Reynolds Howard, soon to be district attorney in the Macon Judicial Circuit, has filed a court motion to stop outgoing District Attorney David Cooke from sending millions to agencies around the state. Howard beat Cooke in a June Democratic primary and faces no opposition in November.
Howard tells WMAZ-TV that Cooke’s office illegally distributed more than $5 million, some of which she says should have stayed in Bibb, Peach, and Crawford counties, the three counties that make up the circuit.
Howard wants agencies elsewhere to give the money back so it can be “legally and properly disbursed.”
“It’s detrimental to the office, but my main concern is it’s detrimental to Bibb, Crawford, and Peach counties, to the community,” she said.
A Bibb County judge signed an order on Sept. 21, listing money from a July 2019 gambling raid case that would be distributed to a dozen judicial circuits and law enforcement agencies. Howard said the local prosecutor’s office should keep some of the money to pay for work lawyers did.
“We’ve been raised with the idea of you get the fruits of your labor,” Howard said.
The money was taken from businesses and their owners where law enforcement last year found illegal gambling. For years, Cooke has donated money from similar cases to law enforcement agencies and other community programs.
Cooke said he’s already distributed a previous batch of money from this 2019 case. In a February order, the Macon Judicial Circuit received 55 percent of the funds. Cooke said his office got $3 million then.
“Had Ms. Howard bothered to reach out to the attorneys involved in this case before attacking the judge’s order, she would have learned that the order was correct and that the first three million dollars from this case went directly to the DA’s office for the benefit of our community,” Cooke said in a statement. “Unfortunately, she instead chose to play politics and smear the very office she will soon lead.”
Howard claims Cooke ignored Georgia law by distributing the funds in September, citing a law that says a district attorney can’t send any of civil forfeiture proceedings to any other agency after losing an election. She said she believes Cooke retaliated against her for defeating him in June by handing out all that money to other counties.
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