National Roundup

Florida
Alleged thieves left name in gallery guestbook
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say a man and woman left the woman’s name and telephone number in the guestbook of a South Florida art gallery before stealing about $6,000 worth of jewelry.
Palm Beach police say 24-year-old Megan Ohara and 19-year-old David Ziskowski took a bracelet and a ring Sunday from the Attila JK exhibition at the ICFA Gallery. They were spotted a short time later at a nearby grocery, and police reported finding the jewelry in the woman’s purse.
Officers found multiple fake email addresses and at least one obscene drawing in the gallery’s guestbook. The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports that two of the fake emails included the name “Meg” and one included Ohara’s phone number.
Ohara and Ziskowski were arrested and charged with grand theft. Jail records didn’t list attorneys.

Minnesota
Author’s estate wants to overturn defamation award
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — An attorney for the estate of slain “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle has asked a federal appeals court to overturn a $1.8 million defamation judgment for former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.
Lee Levine told 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges they should overturn the verdict on First Amendment and other legal grounds. Levine says that at the least, the Kyle estate deserves a new trial because the judge improperly allowed the jury to hear that the publisher’s insurance would cover their verdict.
Ventura’s attorney, David Bradley Olsen, told the judges the jury properly concluded that Kyle’s story was a complete falsehood. Ventura accused Kyle of making up a story in his book about punching Ventura at a bar in 2006 after Ventura supposedly made offensive remarks about Navy SEALs.

Arizona
Man gets 27 years in border agent’s slaying
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A man who pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent whose death exposed a botched U.S. gun-smuggling operation has been sentenced to 27 years in prison.
The Arizona Daily Star reports  that Rosario Rafael Burboa-Alvarez was sentenced Monday for first-degree murder in the 2010 death of Agent Brian Terry. It comes weeks after two others were convicted in Terry’s death. Another man also has pleaded guilty.
Burboa-Alvarez is accused of assembling the armed crew that was supposed to steal marijuana from smugglers when they encountered agents in the Arizona desert and exchanged gunfire.
Authorities later tied two of the guns found at the scene of the shootout to a federal operation that allowed criminals to buy firearms in Phoenix-area shops with the intention of tracking them. Instead, the agency lost track of more than 1,400 guns.

Oklahoma
Cocaine, meth blamed in death at music festival
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The state medical examiner’s office says a 34-year-old man who died at an Oklahoma music festival last month after an altercation with security officers died from cocaine and methamphetamine toxicity.
Patrick Murphy’s autopsy report was released Tuesday. It shows that Murphy had elevated levels of both drugs in his system when he died at the Backwoods Camping and Music Festival in Stroud. The manner of death was listed as accidental.
The autopsy also noted “excited delirium” may have precipitated Murphy’s death.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has been investigating Murphy’s death as a possible homicide, and spokeswoman Jessica Brown said Tuesday the case “remains open and active.”
The OSBI says Murphy, of Stillwater, stopped breathing after being subdued and placed in handcuffs by security.

Massachusetts
Defense can hold own autopsy in ‘Baby Doe’ case
BOSTON (AP) — A mother and boyfriend charged in the death of a 2-year-old girl whose body washed up on a Boston Harbor beach can have their own autopsy conducted on her remains, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Rachelle Bond and Michael McCarthy were charged last month. Bond’s daughter, Bella, was known as “Baby Doe” for nearly three months as authorities launched a massive investigation and social media campaign to find out who she was and how she died.
The girl’s body was found in a trash bag on Deer Island in June. State police put a composite image of the brown-eyed, chubby-cheeked girl on Facebook and on billboards, generating hundreds of leads but not the identity of the girl.
Finally, on Sept. 16, police received a tip after Bond told a man who lived with the couple earlier this year that McCarthy killed Bella by punching her repeatedly in the abdomen one night when she would not go to sleep.
McCarthy’s lawyer has said he denies killing the child and claims Bond told him her daughter had been taken away by the state’s child protection agency.
McCarthy, 35, is charged with murder, while Bond, 40, is charged with being an accessory after the fact. Both have pleaded not guilty.
A judge approved the request for a separate autopsy during a brief hearing Tuesday in Dorchester District Court. McCarthy and Bond will each have an independent pathologist for the second autopsy, said Bond’s attorney, Janice Bassil.
“Although my client was reluctant to do this, I felt that it was important in corroborating her statement as to the manner in which Michael McCarthy killed her child,” Bassil said after the hearing.
McCarthy’s lawyer, Jonathan Shapiro, said he wanted the second autopsy because the murder charge against McCarthy is based on Bond’s statements to police. He said Bond is “completely not credible.”

California
Ex-US agent gets 6-1/2 years for Silk Road drug site extortion
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) —€” A former undercover federal agent has been sentenced to 6-1/2 years in prison for using his position to steal more than $700,000 in digital currency from an online drug bazaar known as Silk Road.
Federal prosecutors on Monday announced the sentence against former Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Carl M. Force, who pleaded guilty to extortion and other charges.
Force was tasked with masquerading as a drug dealer who had connections to hit men and establishing communications with Ross Ulbricht, operator of the multimillion-dollar marketplace for illegal drugs and other contraband.
After he infiltrated the website, Force sold Ulbricht information about the Silk Road investigation. Ulbricht has been sentenced to life in prison.