National Roundup

New York
Police: Upstate  man’s bad idea results in crash
JAMESTOWN, N.Y. (AP) — It turns out coasting an SUV with no brakes downhill to a scrap yard isn’t a good idea after all.
Police say a 28-year-old man found that out Tuesday evening when he attempted to drive an SUV to a scrap yard in Jamestown, 60 miles south of Buffalo.
Officers tell The Post-Journal of Jamestown that the man told them he had disconnected the battery before coasting down a hill to get to a nearby scrap yard. Police say he also told them the 1995 Chevrolet Tahoe had no brakes.
Officials say he was unable to stop at an intersection and collided with another vehicle. He and the other driver suffered minor injuries.
The man was charged with reckless endangerment, failure to stop at a stop sign and having inadequate brakes.

Florida
Online travel tax dispute going to Supreme Court
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — An appeals court has denied a rehearing in a dispute over how much tax online travel companies must pay on hotel rooms booked in Florida. But the court did pass the case directly to the Florida Supreme Court.
The 1st District Court of Appeals decided Tuesday. It had ruled in a split decision that taxes are due on what the companies pay to the hotels but not on the full amount charged to customers.
Seventeen of Florida’s 67 counties sued last year. They argued online firms should be taxed on the markup they charge their customers that runs into the millions statewide and nationally.
The online companies — including Expedia and Travelocity — contend the markup should not be taxed because it pays for their services rather than hotel rent.

Maine
Texts and emails describe Zumba class prostitution
ALFRED, Maine (AP) — A fitness instructor who ran a prostitution operation out of her Zumba dance studio had as many as five clients a day and wanted her business partner monitoring the trysts, according to her emails and text messages to him.
The messages between fitness instructor Alexis Wright and insurance agent Mark Strong Sr. were obtained Tuesday through a records request by the Portland Press Herald. The communications included spreadsheets Wright used to keep track of her clients, with names, dates, times, sex acts and payments.
Wright pleaded guilty last month to 20 counts including prostitution for using her studio in Kennebunk, a village known more for its sea captains’ homes and beaches than for crime, as a front for prostitution. Strong was convicted of 13 counts.
Video and testimony during Strong’s trial indicated Wright’s trysts were captured by a hidden video camera in a sophisticated operation featuring meticulous ledgers and calendars and the use of license plates to identify clients. Strong, who has acknowledged having an affair with Wright, monitored the sex acts from his office 100 miles away.
In one series of texts, Wright says she’s prepared to see a client but is waiting for Strong to let her know he’s watching online.
Other messages, from Feb. 9, 2012, show how busy Wright was having sex with men for money, with as little as 15 minutes between encounters, the newspaper reported.
“I had sex with Larry, Pete and Paul on Thursday,” she writes. “And Michael, Pete, Pat, Jason and Mike today.”
The Kennebunk prostitution scandal attracted international attention in the fall after it was reported that Wright’s ledgers indicated she had more than 150 clients and made $150,000 over 18 months. Authorities then set the town abuzz with word that they would be charging each of the johns, leading residents to wonder who they were. The scores of people charged with engaging Wright’s services include a former mayor, a high school hockey coach, a minister, a lawyer and a firefighter.
Wright, a 30-year-old single mother, pleaded guilty under an agreement that calls for 10 months in jail. Her sentencing is set for next month.
Strong, 57, served 15 days in jail and was released this month. His defense lawyers had characterized him as being infatuated with a younger woman and making bad moral decisions but never profiting from the prostitution operation.

Washington
Man in GPS case to stay in custody before his trial
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Washington nightclub owner charged with drug conspiracy will remain in custody while he awaits a fourth trial.
A judge on Tuesday rejected Antoine Jones’ request to be released from prison, writing that Jones has not shown he is not a danger to the community.
Jones represented himself at his third trial, which ended in a mistrial after a jury couldn’t reach a verdict. The trial followed a victory for Jones at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jones is accused of funneling large amounts of cocaine into the Washington area from Mexico.
He got a conviction thrown out in 2010 because police used a global positioning system without a warrant. The Supreme Court affirmed the ruling and barred police from using GPS technology to track suspects without a judge’s approval.

Florida
Bar: Lawyer is suspected in $3M+ firm theft
BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Bar is seeking emergency suspension of the law license of a South Florida attorney suspected of stealing more than $3 million from his firm’s accounts.
Bar officials asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to suspend the license of Timothy McCabe of Boca Raton. Court documents show that McCabe allegedly took the money from his firm’s trust accounts where clients’ funds are deposited.
The documents include emails McCabe sent to his partner saying that he had committed unspecified wrongdoing and was trying to set it right. His wife told investigators she hadn’t seen McCabe since April 2 and that he has not answered his cell phone. An email to her that same day said he had made bad business decisions.
A missing persons report was filed with police.

Idaho
Prosecutor says pregnant wife’s death had torture
SANDPOINT, Idaho (AP) — Authorities in northern Idaho have filed modified criminal charges against a man accused of stabbing his pregnant wife to death to include torture.
The Bonner County Daily Bee reports that prosecutors in an updated charging document filed late last month contend that 27-year-old Jeremy Keith Swanson meant to inflict extreme and prolonged pain on his wife out of vengeance or to satisfy a sadistic inclination.
Swanson is charged with two counts of first-degree murder.d