Prosecution alleges recklessness in \n6- year-old's death\nVALPARAISO -- Prosecutors contend a 6-year-old girl died just after she stepped off a school bus because of the recklessness of a motorcyclist, while his defense attorney says it was an accident caused by bright sunlight.\nThe trial of Michael L. Hineline, 37, of Westville began Tuesday. Hineline faces felony counts of reckless homicide and criminal recklessness and a misdemeanor charge of reckless driving. If convicted, he faces two to 11 years in prison.\nMary Ross was killed in September 2002 after she got off a school bus in front of her family's rural home about 20 miles southeast of Gary. She was a first grader at Washington Township Elementary School.\nMichael Drenth, a deputy Porter County prosecutor, told jurors in opening arguments that Hineline's driver's license had expired in 1999, and he was legally blind when he drove past a school bus with the red lights flashing and the stop arm extended.\nDefense attorney Larry Rogers said that was not true.\nDiabetes had previously left Hineline blind, but treatment restored his sight, and he could see well enough to drive at the time of the accident.
Court rules police not authorized to ban people from parks\nINDIANAPOLIS -- State law does not authorize police officers to place people on a trespass list or ban them from a public park, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.\nThe court said a Kokomo police officer overstepped his authority when he saw Stephen L. Travis sitting on a city park bench in September 2002 and arrested him for trespassing.\nAnother officer, Greg Baldini, had encountered Travis and some other people gambling in the park two days earlier and told Travis that if he came back he would be arrested for trespassing.\nDuring the trial, Baldini could not say precisely what authority he had to place a citizen on a trespass list for a public park. \n"I just know we can do it," he said.\nThe judge said police officers should have the ability to place people on a trespass list who are misusing public property and found Travis guilty. But the appeals court said Travis was not doing anything wrong when arrested.\n"Indeed, the state directs us to no statute, and our research reveals none, which authorizes a police officer to take such action," the ruling said.
Court affirms 23-year sentence in \nlawmaker's death\nINDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Court of Appeals, Wednesday, upheld a 23-year prison sentence imposed on a drunken driver who caused a crash that killed a state legislator.\nThe ruling said Alan Wickliff, of Shelbyville, Ind., had an extensive criminal history, and the judge who sentenced him properly weighed aggravating and mitigating circumstances.\nWickliff received the maximum term allowed in the April 2003 death of Rep. Roland Stine. The freshman lawmaker and middle school teacher from Shelbyville was driving home from the Statehouse when the wreck occurred on a state highway about 20 miles southeast of Indianapolis.\nWickliff pleaded guilty in Johnson County Superior Court without any sentencing agreement with prosecutors.\nJudge Cynthia Emkes sentenced Wickliff to 20 years for causing a death while driving drunk -- a crime aggravated by Wickliff's 1999 misdemeanor drunken-driving conviction. He also was sentenced to three years on each of two marijuana-possession charges.\nThe latter two sentences were to be served at the same time, making Wickliff's actual sentence 23 years.\nWickliff appealed, saying the sentence was inappropriate, but the appeals court said it was proper.\nAmong other things, it said "prior lenient sentences had done little, if anything, to improve his behavior."
Daycare owner charged with $4.4 million in fraud\nINDIANAPOLIS -- A former Indianapolis day-care owner has been indicted by a federal grand jury for defrauding government-assistance programs of more than $4.4 million.\nThe indictment filed Wednesday said that Saundra J. Pritchett-Guidry, 61, of Indianapolis, inflated attendance numbers in part by fabricating the names of some children. She also inflated the amount of food that was bought and used, the indictment said.\nThe inflated numbers were all submitted to the government to collect more funding than her businesses were entitled to, the indictment said.\nPritchett-Guidry operated several day cares under the name of A Rainbow House from 1984 to 2003.\nThe indictment said Pritchett-Guidry submitted false documents to three federal programs starting in the mid-1990s. She included names of children who did not exist or were no longer enrolled in the submitted documents, the indictment said.\nBetween November 1997 and April 2003, Pritchett-Guidry received $4,459,625 in illegal money, the indictment said. Pritchett-Guidry used a significant portion of the money to buy real estate, the U.S. Attorney's office said in a news release.\nPritchett-Guidry faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count of fraud and money laundering, Assistant U.S. Attorney James M. Warden said.\nShe has not yet been taken into custody, but will soon be ordered to appear in court, the U.S. Attorney's office said. There was no telephone listing for Pritchett-Guidry in Indianapolis to contact her for comment.
