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(12/04/07 4:34am)
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. – A teenager pleaded guilty to killing one man and wounding another in a series of Indiana highway sniper shootings in a deal with prosecutors that relatives of the slain man say they dislike.\nZachariah Blanton, 18, of Gaston, was scheduled to stand trial next week on charges of murder, attempted murder and criminal recklessness. He pleaded guilty in Jackson Circuit Court to lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter with a deadly weapon and criminal recklessness. He faces a possible sentence of 20 to 50 years in prison. A judge must still approve the deal, and sentencing is set for Dec. 27.\nProsecutors say Blanton fired his hunting rifle into Interstate 65 traffic from an overpass near Seymour, Ind., about 60 miles south of Indianapolis on July 23, 2006.\nOne of the shots went through a pickup truck’s windshield and killed 40-year-old Jerry L. Ross of New Albany. An Iowa man traveling in another pickup truck also was injured.\nPolice say Blanton later shot at cars along another highway northeast of Indianapolis, but no one was injured. Blanton, who was 17 at the time, was arrested at his home two days later.\nBlanton said very little in court, giving short answers to the judge’s questions about the shootings. His grandparents declined to comment after the hearing.\nBlanton’s defense attorney did not publicly comment after court, and The Associated Press left a message at his office.\nSeveral of Ross’s relatives wearing “Justice for Jerry” buttons gathered at the courthouse, saying they were unhappy with the plea deal.\nHis father, 70-year-old Jesse Ross, had been with his son at car races in Indianapolis the day of the shooting and they were headed back home to New Albany.\nHe said a jury should have decided Blanton’s fate.\n“Twelve people would be about as fair as it could be, it couldn’t get no better than that,” Ross said. “I don’t think this is right the way they’re doing it. All we want is a fair trial because you can’t bring nothing back.”\nJerry’s twin brother, Terry Ross, said many family members were going to stay out of the hearing as a protest.\n“He committed those crimes, he should be standing trial for them,” he said. “He didn’t give Jerry any kind of a deal.”\nProsecutor Rick Poynter said after the hearing that he understands the family’s pain but had to make a decision based on the strength of his case.\nIf Blanton was tried for murder, he could have faced 45 to 65 years in prison. But Poynter said the jury also would likely have been able to consider convicting him of the lesser charge of reckless homicide, which has a sentence of two to eight years. He also could have been acquitted.\n“I can’t tell you what a jury would or would not do, what I’m saying is there is a big risk between 45 to 65 years and two to eight years,” Poynter said.\nEvidence against Blanton included a rifle seized from his grandparents’ home that prosecutors said matched bullet fragments pulled from vehicles shot along I-65 and on I-69 near Muncie.\nBlanton confessed to the shooting and provided police with details, according to statements by Indiana State Police Sgt. John Kelly in a July probable cause hearing. Blanton told police he fired the shots to relieve pressure after he argued with fellow participants in a southern Indiana hunting trip. Blanton confirmed the motive in court Monday.
(12/04/07 4:33am)
FORT WAYNE – A judge has postponed until early February a hearing on nine criminal indictments against defeated Fort Wayne mayoral candidate Matt Kelty.\nThe hearing scheduled for this Monday was delayed until Feb. 8, according to documents filed Thursday in Allen Superior Court.\nJudge Kenneth Scheibenberger granted a request by both sides for more time.\nSpecial Prosecutor Daniel Sigler had sought more time to respond to a defense motion to dismiss the charges that argued Kelty did not break any laws.\nKelty’s attorneys, meanwhile, asked for more time to respond to Sigler’s response.\nA grand jury issued the indictments against Kelty in August, alleging that he improperly handled campaign contributions and lied in his testimony to the grand jury.\nFive of the counts deal with how Kelty reported a $150,000 loan he received from Fred Rost, former campaign chairman and head of Allen County Right to Life, and another $10,000 he received from Steve and Glenna Jehl, his campaign managers.\nAlthough Kelty initially reported he loaned his campaign $140,000 and $8,000 in late December, after he defeated Nelson Peters in the Republican primary in May, Kelty disclosed the money originally came from personal loans from Rost and the Jehls.\nHis attorneys argue there is no Indiana law that says a candidate cannot borrow money from a personal acquaintance or friend, nor one that prohibits a candidate from loaning the proceeds of a prior loan to his or her campaign committee, according to court documents.\nKelty, a Republican, lost to Democrat Tom Henry in the Nov. 6 general election.
(12/04/07 4:32am)
FORT WAYNE – East Allen County Schools and a local branch of the NAACP both want to enlist the U.S. Justice Department to relieve racial tensions at a rural school, leaders say.\nRev. Michael Latham, president of Fort Wayne-Allen County NAACP, said he plans to meet soon with a member of the department’s Community Relations Service in Chicago to discuss complaints of racism at Heritage Junior-Senior High School.\nEast Allen County Schools has also been working to set up an appointment with the department, said Julie Labie, an aide to Superintendent Kay Novotny.\nTwo students in mid-November reported finding identical notes containing racial slurs and threatening language in their lockers at Heritage Junior-Senior High School, located in a rural area southeast of Fort Wayne.\nThe reports prompted an investigation by the school district and meetings involving the NAACP, the school board and district officials. Some parents complained of other racist incidents at the high school.\nThe school district announced Wednesday that it had concluded its investigation and determined only one note existed, and it was found in a classroom lab table, not in a student’s locker. An unidentified number of students have changed their stories, school officials said in a statement.\nBut one of the students who made the initial reports told The Journal Gazette newspaper and Latham that a school administrator had intimidated him into changing his story, and he stands by his original statement that he had received a note in his locker.\nJesse Taylor, regional director of the Community Relations Service in Chicago, said Friday his staff was assessing whether to offer a mediator to help bring closure to the Heritage case.\n“We haven’t made any determination yet,” Taylor said. “We’re still looking at what we’ve learned.”\nThe agency doesn’t have any coercive or punitive power but offers mediation and training in conflict resolution.\nLatham said he would welcome the opportunity for someone outside of the situation to provide a fresh perspective, without the focus on personalities that happens sometimes when local leaders are involved.\n“I think it’d be very helpful,” he said.
(12/04/07 4:31am)
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. – Prosecutors claim Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes of Indianapolis murdered an Iraqi soldier while the two men stood guard together in Fallujah. But the 21-year-old Marine reservist says he acted in self-defense.\nNow, jurors will determine whether he is innocent or guilty during a court-martial, which began Monday with attorneys for both sides arguing motions over the use of photographs of the soldier’s body as evidence and the use of statements taken from Iraqis as part of the investigation.\nHolmes is accused of stabbing Munther Jasem Muhammed Hassin to death as they stood watch at a security post on Dec. 31, 2006. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of unpremeditated murder and making a false statement. If convicted on all counts, Holmes faces life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.\nThe motions offered a hint of Holmes’ defense as attorneys argued against the prosecution use of video and pictures of the dead soldier, saying there was a break in the chain of custody of the body.\nOne of Holmes’ civilian attorneys, Stephanie Byerly, told the judge, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks, it was not clear when the photos were taken and whether they were taken before or after the body was removed by Iraqis and later turned over to Americans. Prosecutors told Meeks the pictures were taken within an hour of the fight.\nMeeks allowed some of the photographs but temporarily excluded use of a video, which showed the body on the ground and onlookers.\nThe killing occurred in the pre-dawn darkness after Hassin allegedly opened his cell phone then lit a cigarette at the post, said Holmes’ attorney Steve Cook.\nThe men were not supposed to display any illuminated objects because of the threat of sniper fire, and Holmes made repeated attempts to make Hassin extinguish the cigarette, Cook said.\nHolmes maintains he knocked the cigarette out of the soldier’s hand and the two got into a fight, falling to the ground. During the struggle, Holmes felt Hassin reaching for his loaded AK-47, so he killed him with a knife and then radioed for help, Cook told The Associated Press.\n“He’s maintained it was self-defense right from the beginning,” Cook said.\nCook said Holmes was charged with murder because of the political climate at the time, citing incidents at Haditha and Hamandia, Iraq, where Marines were accused of murdering civilians.\n“The military was attempting to show ... they were going to treat seriously or crack down on any allegations against Marines,” Cook said.\nCook, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego, said he expects to call 20 to 30 defense witnesses, many of whom will testify the allegations that Holmes murdered the soldier is out of character.\nThe court-martial was expected to last about two weeks, said Marine spokesman Miquel Alvarez.\nHolmes, who is being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton, enlisted in the Marine reserves in May 2004 and was on his first deployment in Iraq, Cook said. He is from the 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, based out of Lansing, Mich.
(11/29/07 3:30am)
INDIANAPOLIS – A prosecutor said Wednesday he would seek life sentences without parole for the mother of a 3-year-old girl and the woman’s live-in boyfriend, who are charged with murder and neglect in the girl’s death.\nCharity Bailey and Lawrence Green, both 20, were arrested Tuesday, hours after Tajanay Bailey was found dead in her mother’s apartment. Both were being held without bond in the Marion County Jail and had initial court hearings set for Friday.\nAn autopsy found Tajanay died of blunt force trauma to her head, neck and abdomen. Police said she had suffered abuse that included being left hanging on a hook by her T-shirt, beaten with a belt and knocked in the chest for wetting her pants.\n“She was systematically tortured over the week of Thanksgiving by her mother’s fiance and by the mother,” Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said. “We believe both of the defendants actively participated in the abuse.”\nThe Indiana Department of Child Services had returned Tajanay to her mother last month after she had lived much of her life with a foster mother.\nHer former foster mother, Janice Springfield, said in an interview that she saw evidence of physical abuse and repeatedly warned a child welfare case worker.\n“I told child services that mom was no good, and that boyfriend was no good,” she said. “The system failed Tajanay.”\nDepartment of Child Services spokeswoman Susan Tielking said the agency was investigating the case.
(11/29/07 3:29am)
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for a mentally ill man convicted in the 1997 abduction, rape and slaying of a Franklin College student – but not without reservations.\nAttorneys for Michael Dean Overstreet had argued that his severe mental illness at the time he was convicted of killing Kelly Eckart would make his execution cruel and unusual punishment under the state Constitution.\nJustice Robert Rucker, who wrote the dissenting opinion issued Tuesday, agreed.\nRucker said 41-year-old Overstreet’s mental illness impeded his thought processes to a point comparable with mental retardation. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mentally retarded people are ineligible for the death penalty, and Rucker wrote that he believed Indiana’s Constitution offered even greater protection.\n“Because I see no principled distinction between the diminished capacities exhibited by Overstreet and the diminished capacities that exempt the mentally retarded from execution, I would declare that executing Overstreet constitutes purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering thereby violating the Cruel and Unusual Punishment provision of the Indiana Constitution,” Rucker wrote in the 46-page opinion.\n“Therefore, I would remand this cause to the post-conviction court with instructions to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.”
(11/29/07 3:28am)
LAPORTE, Ind. – LaPorte police said they will not charge a motorist who drove his pickup truck into a snowman, sending its head flying through a nearby vehicle’s window. \nPolice said 33-year-old Thomas Ross agreed to pay the $600 cost of repairing the shattered window.\nTwenty-eight-year-old Amanda Boes says she saw the gray Ford pickup truck accelerate into the snowman Saturday. The head of the snowman landed on the back window of a parked car belonging to Boes’ mother.\nPolice found the truck parked nearby and said Ross admitted to being the driver.\nAfter Ross promised to pay for a new window, police ordered him to provide a written copy of the cost estimate.
(11/28/07 4:58am)
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – The city’s mayor-elect says a challenge by the current mayor to his election should be dismissed on a technicality: It does not include his middle initial on the paperwork.\nMayor-elect Duke Bennett’s attorney, James Bopp Jr., filed motions Monday to dismiss the legal challenge and a recount request – both filed by current Democratic Mayor Kevin Burke – because the paperwork did not include Bennett’s middle initial and did not match the name that appeared on the ballot.\nBennett, a Republican, appeared on the election’s sample ballot as “Duke A. Bennett.”\nBennett defeated Burke by 107 votes among some 12,000 cast in the Nov. 6 election.\nBurke filed for a recount and also challenged the election results under the Hatch Act, a federal law that limits the political activity of some not-for-profits that receive federal money.\nBennett is the director of operations at Hamilton Center Inc., which receives federal funding for programs such as the Head Start preschool classes.\nAttorney Fred Bauer, who represents Burke in his recount petition, said he thought the effort was “grasping at straws.”\n“If the court is persuaded by that, I’d be surprised,” Bauer said.\nBopp said the Hatch Act does not apply to the mayor-elect.\n“Duke Bennett does not have the responsibilities that would trigger Hatch Act limitations on his political activities,” Bopp said.
(11/28/07 4:55am)
CROWN POINT, Ind. – The Lake County Council has backed a plan that would make it the last of Indiana’s 92 counties to adopt a local income tax.\nNegotiations are likely to continue, however, since the 4-3 vote on Monday in favor of the proposed 1 percent tax fell short of the five votes that were needed to overcome a threatened veto by the county’s Board of Commissioners.\nCounty and municipal leaders expect meetings before the end of December to work out how to allocate about $78 million in anticipated new tax revenues among the county’s 19 cities and towns and its unincorporated area.\nAll the council members described the income tax as a mandate thrust upon Indiana’s second-most populous county by state officials, who have threatened to freeze the county’s property tax levies at 2007 levels, costing taxing entities about $15 million in 2008.\n“We’ve been told by the leaders in the Senate, ‘If you guys in Lake County don’t adopt this, then don’t expect anything from us in the General Assembly,’” said Councilman Will Smith of Gary.\nTwo of the three councilmen who voted against the tax Monday said they believed a compromise could be reached before the end of the year, following months of disputes over which part of the county will see the greatest benefit from the income tax.\nThe plan approved Monday estimates that Gary property owners would receive some $3 million less in property tax relief than the city’s residents would pay in income taxes.\nGary Mayor Rudy Clay said he would push for changes to the distribution plan.\n“We will keep tweaking this to make the formula more beneficial to Gary,” Clay said. “But now the door is open to bringing property tax relief to the people of Gary and the county.”\nThis year, Southwestern Indiana’s Sullivan County became the 91st county to adopt a local option income tax when officials approved a 0.3 percent tax for economic development efforts.
(11/27/07 2:20am)
The fast-growing business of child care ministries is drawing some concern about child safety and relatively light regulations.\nThe ministries, which are unlicensed and required to pass only fire, building and sanitation rules, started outnumbering licensed child care centers in Indiana for the first time three years ago. Today there are 607 licensed centers and 665 child care ministries.\nChild care ministries maintain the industry’s only growth, largely because of an influx of federal child care dollars that can go to religious and nonreligious groups, state officials say.\nLicensed child care centers must follow 60 pages of rules, but ministries only have to abide by four.\nRep. Win Moses, D-Fort Wayne, called the minimal rules for child care ministries an “unequal safety factor” for children.\n“We don’t even know what goes on there, which is dangerous,” he said.\nSince May 2006, 60 ministries and 85 licensed centers have had abuse or neglect complaints, according to the state Bureau of Child Care. Until a new law started last July, Child Protective Services was prevented from investigating complaints at ministries.\nThe state used to require ministries to be inspected twice as often as centers. But that changed last year, when inspectors found it impossible to keep up with the growing number of ministries.\n“But one of the other reasons was the majority of the ministries fare pretty well on their inspections,” said Ken Hudson, a child care manager for the Bureau of Child Care. “So, the feeling was maybe we don’t need to go back as many as four times a year plus.”\nRep. Phil Hinkle, R-Indianapolis, said he is troubled with safety concerns raised by a small number of “paper churches” that the state has little authority to address. He estimates that 4 percent of child care ministries are in it solely for the money.\n“It is a very minute part of the child care system,” he said.\nSome ministries push beyond state requirements to attract and keep business. The Fort Wayne Academy aims to have its children reading on a first-grade level before kindergarten.\n“If we didn’t have that curriculum, we could lose our parents,” said Pastor Ronald Rutledge. “And that’s one of the main reasons why parents come to the Fort Wayne Academy, because they know they’re going to get a great education for their children.”\nEric Miller, head of the conservative lobbying group Advance America, said he helped write 1979 legislation that requires the fire and sanitary inspections of child care ministries. He opposes any “unnecessary restrictions” placed on them.\n“Our concern is that churches that have had these ministries for decades should continue to be free to hire who they want to hire and teach what they want to teach,” said Miller, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate. “And the legislature has recognized that since the passage of the first bill in 1979.”\nBut Hinkle believes more protections are needed.\n“We’re talking about the welfare of our children,” Hinkle said.
(11/27/07 2:19am)
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue’s student union now features a restaurant where customers can order oatmeal, Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms.\nLoops is a cereal bar in the Purdue Memorial Union where patrons can order cold or hot cereal, then add fresh toppings and milk.\n“We provide all of the Kellogg’s and General Mills brands,” supervisor Misty Brummet said. “Our oatmeal has been selling really well, too.”\nCereals and oatmeal can be topped with favorites like bananas, strawberries or brown sugar – but there’s also less traditional alternatives including chocolate chips, crushed malt balls or rum extract.\nThe cereal bar, which is part of Urban Market, also features interesting mixes of cereals. The most popular combination, Brummet said, is called 24 Hours in a Candy Store. It’s a mix of Cocoa Puffs, Corn Pops and Fruit Loops with malt balls, chocolate chips and marshmallows.\nGary Goldberg, the director of Purdue Memorial Union’s dining services, said Loops has been a good addition to the union.\n“It’s colorful and bright and a good complement to the traditional eateries,” he said. “We’re having fun with it.”\nCereal restaurants have popped up around the country in recent years, including a chain called Cereality. Bloomington also has a restaurant for cereal lovers, the Cereal Barn and Peanut Butter Cafe, located at 408 E. Sixth St.
(11/27/07 2:19am)
MUNCIE – Republicans on Monday filed a petition seeking a recount in the city’s mayoral election, which the Democratic candidate won by 11 votes.\nThe Delaware County Republican Party filed the petition in Delaware Circuit Court, saying that votes cast “were not correctly or accurately counted and/or that fraud, tampering or misconduct occurred.”\nCounty Democratic Party officials have rejected any implication of voter fraud.\nDavid Brooks, an attorney for the Republican Party, said the county GOP had amassed evidence of vote fraud, but did not give other details.\n“Probably that’s about all I’m going to say at this point,” Brooks said.\nThe certified results show Republican candidate Sharon McShurley received 6,122 votes in the Nov. 6 election, which Democrat Jim Mansfield won with 6,133 votes. Republican Mayor Dan Canan did not seek re-election after three terms.\nRepublicans are asking for a recount in every city precinct, which Brooks said was not unusual.\n“If you’re down 11 votes, you really don’t have any idea where that’s going to come from,” he said.\nThe party also filed a motion asking Judge Robert Barnet Jr. for a change of venue, which could move the case to another county. Brooks said a hearing on the change of venue filing could happen next week, and the recount must be finished by Dec. 20.
(11/27/07 2:17am)
Come Jan. 1, 2008, Bloomington communications director Maria Heslin will become the city’s first female deputy mayor, Mayor Mark Kruzan announced Monday.\nJames McNamara has resigned after serving for 12 years as deputy mayor under both Kruzan and former mayor John Fernandez, according to a press release. Heslin said McNamara “just decided it was time” to leave.\nHeslin has served as the city’s communications director since January 2005, according to the release. She received both her bachelor’s degree in history and master’s degree in journalism and arts administration from IU and owned a marketing communications firm in Chicago. \nKruzan said in the release that this experience as a business owner will help her in her new role, which will be “dedicated to strategic planning and management, policy development, enhancing community collaborations and strengthening Bloomington as an economically and culturally vibrant place to live, work and visit.”\n“I really look forward to working with every city staff member, plus local businesses, organizations and residents to continue making Bloomington a terrific community,” Heslin said in the release.
(11/27/07 2:16am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Democratic U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, who announced over the weekend that she has terminal lung cancer, will not run for a seventh term, her chief of staff said Monday.\n“She does not plan to seek re-election in 2008,” Len Sistek said.\nIt is unclear whether Carson will complete her current two-year term, which runs through the end of next year, but Sistek said it was his understanding that she wants to do so.\n“She is hopeful that she is going to return to Washington, probably after the first of the year,” he said. “That’s her plan. Whether she’ll be able to make that plan or not, I don’t know.”\nCarson, 69, has been away from Washington since she was admitted Sept. 21 to an Indianapolis hospital for about a week. Her office said she had a deep infection in her leg, near where a vein was removed in January 1997 when she underwent double heart bypass surgery – weeks after she was first elected to Congress.\nCarson said in a statement to The Indianapolis Star published Sunday that she had planned to return to Washington after recuperation, but a doctor then diagnosed her with lung cancer.\n“It had gone into remission years before, but it was back with a terminal vengeance,” Carson said in the statement, which did not disclose the date of her initial diagnosis.\nSistek said he could not discuss Carson’s health status.\nCarson represents Indiana’s 7th District, which includes most of Indianapolis, and most of that district has elected Democrats to the U.S. House in all but one election since 1964.\nShe has suffered from years of health problems, including high blood pressure, asthma and diabetes. She missed dozens of House votes in 2004 because of illness and spent the weekend before the 2004 election in the hospital for what she said was a flu shot reaction – but still won re-election by 10 percentage points.\nHer political career began in the 1960s, when then-U.S. Rep. Andy Jacobs Jr. hired the United Auto Workers secretary to work in his office. It was Jacobs who encouraged Carson to run for the Indiana Legislature in 1972 – the first of her more than two dozen consecutive election victories at the local, state and national levels.\nShe made her first congressional run in 1996 after Jacobs decided to retire after three decades in the House. She went on to defeat a former chairwoman of the state Democratic Party in the primary and a well-known Republican state senator in the general election to become the first black and first woman to represent Indianapolis in Congress.
(11/26/07 10:55pm)
Come Jan. 1, 2008, Bloomington communications director Maria Heslin will become the city’s first female deputy mayor, Mayor Mark Kruzan announced Monday.\nJames McNamara has resigned after serving for 12 years as deputy mayor under both Kruzan and former mayor John Fernandez, according to a press release. Heslin said McNamara “just decided it was time” to leave.\nHeslin has served as the city’s communications director since January 2005, according to the release. She received both her bachelor’s degree in history and master’s degree in journalism and arts administration from IU and owned a marketing communications firm in Chicago. \nKruzan said in the release that this experience as a business owner will help her in her new role, which will be “dedicated to strategic planning and management, policy development, enhancing community collaborations and strengthening Bloomington as an economically and culturally vibrant place to live, work and visit.”\n“I really look forward to working with every city staff member, plus local businesses, organizations and residents to continue making Bloomington a terrific community,” Heslin said in the release.
(11/26/07 1:58am)
WADESVILLE, Ind. – A 29-year-old woman was fatally shot Thursday while trying to coax her dog from a neighbor’s yard and was hit by a bullet that ricocheted off the ground and under a plastic fence before striking her shoulder.\nThe bullet from a .357-caliber Magnum pierced both the lungs and heart of Nicole Stroud, Vanderburgh County Coroner Don Erk said. The Evansville woman was leaning down, trying to get her shih tzu dog out of a neighbor’s yard through a hole in the bottom of a fence when she was shot.\nThe neighbor accused of firing the gun, Melinda Lindauer, 41, was arrested on preliminary charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide. She was still being held in Posey County Jail on Saturday.\nPosey County Prosecutor Jodi Uebelhack said she believes Lindauer fired from a back window of her house at a dog that was loose from a neighboring house, where Stroud was visiting her grandmother.\nThe Lindauers live directly behind Stroud’s grandmother. Wadesville is about 15 miles northwest of Evansville.\nThe prosecutor said Lindauer might not have seen Stroud and probably didn’t intend to kill her, but criminal charges were still warranted. Indiana law states that a person can fire a gun at a dog only if it is threatening an individual or livestock.\n“After we got all the statements, it was pretty clear this was a criminal act,” Uebelhack said. “It’s never an accident to pick up a gun and shoot it.”\nUebelhack said a statement given to police by Lindauer’s husband, Lonnie Lindauer, indicated there was an ongoing dispute between the neighbors over the dog. She said he told authorities the dog had previously dug up a cat that was buried in the Lindauer’s backyard.\nMelinda Lindauer’s attorney, Nick Hermann, said he could not comment on the specifics of the case. But he said the Lindauers are distraught over what happened.\n“Their thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the lady who died in this incident,” he said.
(11/26/07 1:57am)
INDIANAPOLIS – U.S. Rep. Julia Carson told a newspaper she has terminal lung cancer but did not say whether she intends to return to Congress or seek a seventh term.\nCarson, 69, said in a statement published in The Indianapolis Star on Sunday that she had planned to return to Washington after recuperating from a leg infection before a doctor diagnosed her with cancer.\n“It had gone into remission years before, but it was back with a terminal vengeance,” the six-term Indianapolis Democrat said in the statement, which did not disclose the date of her initial diagnosis.\nCarson made no comment beyond the statement she issued to the newspaper. The Associated Press left a phone message at Carson’s Washington office seeking additional comment from her spokesman, Chad Chitwood.\nAnn DeLaney, a former Democratic Party state chairwoman, told The Star that Carson’s health appeared to have been suffering over the past year.\n“Frankly, any of us who had seen her in the last year thought there was something pretty seriously wrong with her,” DeLaney said.\nCarson has been away from Washington since she was admitted to an Indianapolis hospital Sept. 21 for treatment of a deep leg infection. Her office had said Carson intended to return to Congress by mid-December, but that was before “the second shoe fell – heavily,” her statement said.\nCarson has not made her plans for another term clear. She has said she intended to seek re-election. But she also declined to give a yes or no answer when asked during a recent radio interview if she planned to run.\nHer statement did not refer to her political plans, but Carson has been largely undeterred by health problems in the past.\nMost recently, she was hospitalized for more than a week for what her office said was an infection near where a leg vein was removed in January 1997 when she underwent double heart bypass surgery – weeks after she was first elected to Congress.\nCarson also has suffered from high blood pressure, asthma and diabetes and took a one-week leave of absence from her congressional duties in 2003 for what she called routine medical appointments.\nShe missed dozens of House votes in 2004 because of illness and spent the weekend before the 2004 election in the hospital for what she said was a flu shot reaction – but still won re-election by 10 percentage points.\nDespite health problems that have led to missed votes and GOP claims that she was ineffective, Carson has won more than two dozen consecutive elections at the local, state and national levels since 1972.
(11/26/07 1:55am)
Indiana State Police Lt. Paul Bucher, commander at the department’s Bloomington post, announced Sunday that officers statewide will begin using a new electronic ticket system to generate computerized citations.\nThe system, called the Electronic Citation and Warning System, was developed by the Indiana Supreme Court’s Judicial Technology and Automation Committee and will allow police to scan a driver’s license and registration to generate a computerized ticket, according to an Indiana State Police press release. The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles and Judicial Technology and Automation Committee received a $2.4 million federal grant to create the system\nThe Indiana State Police at the Bloomington Post trained troopers and officers on the new system over the last few weeks, according to the press release.\nThe project will help reduce paperwork for officers in the field and for local courts, and will free time for more critical tasks, Paul Whitesell, superintendent of the Indiana State Police, said in the release.\n“The partnership between the executive and judicial branches and our local and federal partners is making Hoosier roadways safer,” Whitesell said.
(11/20/07 7:11pm)
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department was awarded “best small sheriff’s department” by the Governor’s Council on Impaired and Dangerous Driving Friday morning for its participation in Operation Pull Over. \nGov. Mitch Daniels presented the award to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department at a banquet at the Ritz Charles in Carmel, Ind., said Larry Woods, law enforcement liaison with the governor’s council.\nThe Monroe County Sheriff’s Department won the award based on its participation and “production” in Operation Pullover, Woods said. “Production” refers to the number of arrests made by the department. Chief Deputy Scott Mellinger of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department said the award also considered the number of “contacts,” which includes the times cars are stopped for one reason or another, even if drivers are not necessarily issued citations or arrested. \nOperation Pull Over is designed to prevent impaired driving and increase seat belt use in Indiana, according to an Indiana Criminal Justice Institute Web site. Operation Pull Over started in late October, Mellinger said.
(11/19/07 1:51am)
EVANSVILLE – Federal agents seized two tons of copper coins featuring Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and 500 pounds of silver during a raid on the headquarters of a group seeking to dissolve the Federal Reserve.\nAgents also took records, computers and froze the bank accounts at the “Liberty Dollar” headquarters during the Thursday raid, said Bernard von NotHaus, founder of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act & Internal Revenue Code.\nThe organization, which introduced its “Liberty Dollars” nearly a decade ago, has repeatedly clashed with the federal government, which contends the group’s gold, silver, platinum and copper coins are illegal.\nVon NotHaus claims the coins are impervious to inflation and can restore stability to financial markets by allowing commerce based on a currency that does not fluctuate in value like the U.S. dollar.\n“They’re running scared right now and they had to do something,” von NotHaus told The Associated Press on Friday. “I’m volunteering to meet the agents and get arrested so we can thrash this out in court.”\nIn the federal seizure warrant, agents alleged the money and other properties seized in the raid of the group’s Evansville headquarters were linked to money laundering, mail fraud and wire fraud.\nThe document did not include details linking the allegations to Paul’s campaign.\n“We have no connection with that,” said Jesse Benton, a Paul campaign spokesman. “He was using Ron as a marketing technique. We didn’t have anything to do with that or sanction it or give permission in any way.”\nWendy Osborne, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Indianapolis office, declined to comment and referred all questions to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of North Carolina. Suellen Pierce, a spokeswoman for that office, also declined to comment.\nNORFED has produced an estimated $20 million of its own paper currency in the past few decades, claiming its $1, $5 and $10 denominations were backed by silver stored in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.\nFederal agents also raided the group’s storage facilities in Idaho, von NotHaus said.\nVon NotHaus, a self-described “monetary architect,” started NORFED while he lived in Hawaii in the late 1990s as a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization. The organization changed its name to Liberty Services this year.\nThe raid came eight months after von NotHaus filed a federal lawsuit in Evansville seeking a permanent injunction to stop the federal government from labeling the Liberty Dollar an illegal currency. The lawsuit was a response to a U.S. Mint warning that Liberty Dollars violated the U.S. Constitution.\nPaul, a Texas congressman, is Congress’ most prominent advocate of returning to the gold standard, which the country abandoned in the 1930s. In its purest form, it would mean that all paper currency in circulation could be redeemed for gold.\nWhile he is considered a long shot for the Republican presidential nomination, Paul recently set a one-day, online GOP presidential-fundraising record and has improved his standing in recent New Hampshire and Iowa polls.\n“They raided right after the Ron Paul shipment got in. I thought that was amazing,” von NotHaus said. “It isn’t endorsed by Ron Paul, even though Ron Paul is a friend of mine. It came as a total surprise.”