National Roundup

Ohio Potty-room pilfering: Auto flushers stolen from restrooms COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A restroom rip-off in central Ohio has automatic flushers disappearing from the bathrooms at restaurants and other businesses. Police say it's been happening in at least a couple Columbus suburbs. Investigators don't know if the thefts are related. Handyman John Hahn tells WBNS-TV the flushers are likely being stolen for scrap because they contain a metal called red brass that can bring $2.50 per pound. He says safeguards are needed because the flushers can be costly to repair. Wisconsin Court denies new trial in mill worker death MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A Wisconsin appeals court has denied the request for a new trial made by a man convicted of killing a Green Bay paper mill worker in 1992. Rey Moore was one of six men convicted of killing their co-worker Tom Monfils. His body was found in a pulp vat at a Green Bay paper mill. Moore's attorney Byron Lichstein argued that the conviction should be overturned because of questionable testimony by a prison inmate who recanted his testimony that Moore participated in beating Monfils. But the 3rd District Court of Appeals on Thursday agreed with the lower court that it was unlikely a jury would overturn its conviction based on the new evidence. Lichstein says he's disappointed in the ruling and considering an appeal. Ohio Execution called off for man in arson death COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A federal judge with no objection from the state has stopped next month's Ohio execution of a man who says he's innocent in an arson fire that killed his 3-year-old son. Michael Webb has argued that a leading arson expert can prove the 1990 fire in southwest Ohio could have been set anywhere in the house, and not just near a closet or bathroom. Webb says that fact backs up his argument that someone else did it. A federal judge on Thursday delayed Webb's Feb. 22 execution after a brief teleconference a day earlier in which the state said it didn't oppose the delay. Attorneys for the 65-year-old Webb say his situation is the same as another inmate whose execution is on hold over challenges to Ohio's lethal injection process. Georgia Suspect in mobile home deaths gets new court date BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) -- A Brunswick man charged in the 2009 slayings of his father and seven others inside a mobile home is scheduled to return to court next month. An arraignment hearing has been scheduled for 24-year-old Guy Heinze Jr. on Feb. 23. Heinze is expected to tell a judge how he will plead to the charges nearly 2 ? years since he was jailed. The Brunswick News reports that pretrial proceedings are expected to move faster now that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has finished analyzing DNA evidence. Prosecutors say Heinze bludgeoned his victims before dialing 911 and sobbing "My whole family's dead." New York Jury acquits man charged in '94 slaying TROY, N.Y. (AP) -- An upstate New York man has been acquitted of killing an employee at a group home for the developmentally disabled in 1994. A Rensselaer County jury deliberated 27 hours before finding 42-year-old George Mott III not guilty Wednesday of second-degree murder. He'd been accused of robbing and killing Rosemary Crosier for money to buy crack. The 47-year-old mother of six was beaten to death with a tire iron while working an overnight shift at the Troy group home in March 1994. Mott's lawyer tells local media the jurors decided there wasn't enough evidence in the two-week trial to convict his client. A co-defendant, 34-year-old Scott Chaplin, is scheduled for trial on second-degree murder charges in July. Mott and Chaplin, a longtime suspect in the case, were arrested in early 2011. Maryland Man caught in sting pleads guilty in bomb plot BALTIMORE (AP) -- A Maryland man pleaded guilty Thursday to trying to detonate what he thought was a car bomb outside a military recruiting center in suburban Baltimore. Antonio Martinez originally pleaded not guilty but entered a new plea in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to a charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against a property leased and used by the U.S. Department of Defense. The plea agreement calls for a 25-year prison sentence. Martinez is scheduled to be sentenced April 6. Court documents detail a sting that allegedly caught Martinez trying to detonate a phony car bomb, provided by the FBI, outside the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Catonsville. The 22-year-old's attorneys sought to have the charges dismissed, arguing that early meetings with an informant were not recorded. They said not having those recordings deprived Martinez of potentially exculpatory evidence. The FBI's informant first communicated with Martinez on Facebook after seeing public posts "espousing his extremist views" and recognizing him from a mosque he attended, according to court documents. Martinez later told the informant of his ideas for attacking military-linked sites and said all he thought about was jihad, documents state. The FBI informant and the undercover agent who communicated with Martinez gave him repeated opportunities to back out of his plan to bomb the recruitment center, documents show. But he insisted he was committed to the plot, even after expressing reservations in the wake of the arrest of a Somali-born teenager in Oregon in a similar sting. Montana School seeks court records in student rape case BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) -- The Billings school district is seeking confidential court records to help it decide how to respond to a $750,000 claim filed after a student who had sex with a teacher committed suicide. The claim was filed in August 2010 by the family of Cherice Moralez, a Billings Senior High student who committed suicide in February 2010, less than 18 months after Stacey Dean Rambold was charged with raping her. Moralez's mother, Auliea Hanlon, alleges the district was negligent in its supervision of Rambold. The Billings Gazette reported Thursday that school attorney Geoffrey Keller and Hanlon's attorney, Shane Colton, told District Judge Susan Watters last month that the district needs the confidential police and prosecution records in order to evaluate Hanlon's claim. Watters has not ruled on the request. Published: Fri, Jan 27, 2012