National Roudnup

Illinois
Frat members are charged in  hazing death
DEKALB, Ill. (AP) — Nearly two dozen fraternity members at Northern Illinois University have been charged with hazing-related counts after a freshman was found dead at their fraternity house following a night of drinking.
DeKalb police and prosecutors issued arrest warrants Monday for 22 members of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity in DeKalb. Five members are charged with felony hazing, while the other 17 members are facing misdemeanor hazing charges.
Phone messages and emails sent to local and national fraternity officials were not immediately returned.
The warrants were filed after David Bogenberger, 19, was found unresponsive at the fraternity house early on Nov. 2. The DeKalb County Coroner’s Office said toxicology results found his blood alcohol content was about five times the legal limit for driving.
The coroner ruled Bogenberger’s cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia, with alcohol intoxication as a contributing cause.
The DeKalb Police Department said its investigation found the fraternity hosted an unsanctioned event on Nov. 1 that wasn’t registered with the university or the fraternity’s national chapter.
“The event that night involved the pledges rotating between several rooms in the fraternity house, being asked a series of questions, and then being provided cups of vodka and other liquor to drink,” police said in a statement. “This resulted in the pledges drinking a large quantity of alcohol in about a two-hour time period.”
Police said several other pledges reported getting sick and passing out due to excessive alcohol consumption.
In addition to the charges, NIU said 31 students are accused of violating the school’s code of conduct. Those students could face penalties ranging from reprimand to expulsion.
Bogenberger’s family said in a statement that they appreciate law enforcement professionals who investigated his death and “seek accountability for a horrible event.”
“We have no desire for revenge,” the family said. “Rather, we hope that some significant change will come from David’s death. Alcohol poisoning claims far too many young, healthy lives.
“We must realize that young people can and do die in hazing rituals. Alcohol-involved hazing and initiation must end.”

Massachusetts
New charges for chemist in drug testing scandal
BOSTON (AP) — State Attorney General Martha Coakley said a Massachusetts chemist accused of deliberately faking test results on drug samples in criminal cases has been indicted on 27 charges.
Annie Dookhan, 35, of Franklin, was indicted Monday by a grand jury on 17 counts of obstruction of justice, eight counts of tampering with evidence, perjury and pretending to hold a college degree.
She is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Suffolk Superior Court.
“We allege that Annie Dookhan tampered with drug evidence and fabricated test results on multiple occasions,” Coakley said. “Her alleged actions have sent ripple effects throughout the criminal justice system.”
Dookhan’s alleged misconduct led state police to shut down a state lab used by police departments to test drugs in criminal cases.
Since the lab was closed in August, judges have released about 200 defendants from prison and put their cases on hold while their lawyers challenge their convictions. Many more cases could be affected because authorities have said Dookhan tested more than 60,000 samples involving 34,000 defendants during her nine years at the lab.
Dookhan was first arrested in September on two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of pretending to hold a degree. She pleaded not guilty to the original charges and has been free on $10,000 bail. She has not publicly commented on the accusations.
During her arraignment on the original charges, Assistant Attorney General John Verner said state police learned of Dookhan’s actions after a chemist at the lab said he had observed “many irregularities” in Dookhan’s work.
Verner said Dookhan later acknowledged to state police that she sometimes would test only five out of 15 to 20 samples but would list them all as positive for the presence of a drug. She also allegedly acknowledged that sometimes, if a sample tested negative, she would take known cocaine from another sample and add it to the negative sample to make it test positive.
The only motive authorities have described is that Dookhan wanted to be seen as a good worker.

Ohio
Governor spares condemned 450-pound killer
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The governor on Monday sidestepped a decision about whether a condemned inmate is too fat to be humanely executed by sparing him on the grounds that he had poor legal representation.
Republican Gov. John Kasich’s decision to grant clemency to Ronald Post mirrored the recommendation of mercy by the state parole board, which said it didn’t doubt Post’s guilt but said there were too many problems with how he was represented 30 years ago.
Post, who weighs 450 pounds, never raised the issue of his size with the board. And Kasich, who commuted Post’s sentence to life with no chance of parole, didn’t mention Post’s obesity claim in his statement. Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said the governor didn’t consider Post’s obesity claim.
The governor said all criminal defendants, regardless of the heinousness of the crimes, deserve an adequate defense.
Ohio’s next execution is March 6, when Frederick Treesh of Lake County is scheduled to die for the 1994 shooting death of an adult bookstore security guard during a robbery.i