National Roundup

Texas
Last defendant in  scam against elderly sentenced
DALLAS (AP) — A federal judge in Dallas has ordered 10 years in prison for the final defendant in a $13 million investment scheme mainly targeting the elderly.
Adley Husni Abdulwahab must serve the Texas sentence consecutively to a 60-year Virginia term he’s now serving over a $100 million life insurance scheme. He must also make restitution in the Texas case.
Abdulwahab last year pleaded guilty in Dallas to securities fraud during 2006 and 2007. He’s the third defendant over failed investments in the W Financial Group.
Michael Wallens Sr. of Nantucket, Mass., and his son Michael Wallens Jr. of Plano earlier pleaded guilty to securities fraud. The father was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison, while the son received a five-year term.
Abdulwahab was sentenced Friday.

Alabama
Teen accused of plotting to bomb his classmates
SEALE, Ala. (AP) — An eastern Alabama high school student faces an attempted assault charge after authorities say he planned to use homemade explosives in a terrorist attack on fellow students at his school.
Derek Shrout, a 17-year-old student at Russell County High School in Seale, was scheduled to appear at a Monday afternoon court hearing.
Shrout was apprehended after a journal was found by a teacher and turned over to authorities, Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor said.
“The journal contained several plans that looked like potential terrorist attacks, and attacks of violence and danger on the school,” Taylor told WTVM-TV. “And in particular, there were six students specifically named, and one teacher.”
A search of Shrout’s home found several small tobacco cans and two large cans, all with holes drilled in them and containing pellets, Taylor told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
The devices were just “a step or two away from being ready to explode,” the sheriff said.

Ohio
Judge delays trial in fatal shooting at high school
CHARDON, Ohio (AP) — A judge in Ohio has indefinitely delayed the murder trial of an 18-year-old charged in the shooting death of three high school classmates.
Judge David Fuhry in Chardon, east of Cleveland, said Monday that he will hold a hearing in late January to discuss a new trial date. The trial of T.J. Lane had been scheduled to begin next Monday.
The judge ruled in response to a joint motion from prosecution and defense attorneys who say they have new evidence. The nature of the evidence was not disclosed in court.
Prosecutors say Lane took a .22-caliber pistol and a knife to Chardon High School last Feb. 27 and fired 10 shots at a group of students in the cafeteria. Three were killed and three others were wounded.

Pennsylvania
2 more set to go on trial in Philly clergy-abuse case
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest and a former Catholic school teacher are set to go on trial on charges they raped a former altar boy.
Jury selection began Monday in the case of the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero. It had been spun off from last year’s high-profile trial of a church official accused of helping the Philadelphia archdiocese cover up abuse complaints.
The 65-year-old Engelhardt and the 49-year-old Shero have pleaded not guilty. They are accused of assaulting an altar boy from northeast Philadelphia in the late 1990s.
Their lawyers wanted them tried separately from the defendants in last year’s case. The 61-year-old Rev. William Lynn is appealing his landmark conviction in that case, while serving a three- to six-year prison term.

Georgia
Court upholds murder sentence in ex-wife case
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s highest court has upheld a murder conviction and life sentence for a man convicted of stabbing his estranged wife to death in a Walmart parking lot in front of their young daughters.
Phillip Chad Dunn was convicted in June 2011 in the killing of Shelley Dunn in Suwanee on Feb. 14, 2010.
A week before the killing, Dunn pleaded guilty to assault and battery on his wife after choking her. When he got out of jail on bond, he discovered that his wife and daughters had moved out.
Phillip Dunn’s lawyers argued the trial court improperly admitted evidence from that incident and improperly excluded evidence of his wife’s blood alcohol level at the time of her death. In their unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court justices rejected those arguments.

Georgia
Court upholds convictions in Heidt slayings
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld the convictions of an Effingham County man convicted of killing his father and brother after the suspect had an affair with his brother’s wife.
The court announced the ruling Monday morning.
Attorneys for convicted killer Craig Heidt had argued that he deserves a new trial, partly because authorities ignored evidence. Heidt claimed the evidence against him was insufficient to convict him and pointed to conflicting expert testimony about the causes of the bruises on his arms. The court, in a unanimous opinion, disagreed.
Heidt was sentenced to life in prison in 2010 for the slayings of his father, real estate developer Philip Heidt, and brother, Carey Heidt. Prosecutors say Craig Heidt was sleeping with his brother’s wife.

New York
Defendant to get mental exam in granny's death
CENTRAL ISLILP, N.Y. (AP) — A New York man accused of killing his grandmother in a fight over what to watch on television is undergoing a mental health evaluation.
Newsday reports 25-year-old Clarence Newcomb of Kings Park was ordered held without bail during a court appearance Sunday on Long Island.
Newcomb is charged with first-degree manslaughter.
Defense attorney Paul Barahal says his client is in custody at Stony Brook University Hospital undergoing a mental evaluation.
Prosecutors say he suffocated 82-year-old Kathleen Newcomb in the home they shared on Friday morning.
Police say Newcomb and the woman argued over a TV show. He was being treated for migraines before the killing.
Friends and neighbors have said he complained about buzzing sounds that led him to take down the family's smoke detectors to silence the noise.v