National Roundup

Indiana
Judge awards no damages to worker burned inside tank
RICHMOND, Ind. (AP) — A lawsuit filed by an eastern Indiana man seriously burned inside a heated chemical tank has ended without any damages being awarded.

Zachary M. Hale sued several entities, including trucking company Miller Transporters Inc. in 2013, two years after he fell through unguarded openings into a tank of 200-degree caustic soda while working for a truck-washing company.

The soda used to clean tanker trucks burned the then-21-year-old Richmond man over 60 percent of his body.

Hale’s suit said he was left with excruciatingly painful and disabling scarring and argued that the defendants should have corrected the unsafe working conditions.

But the Palladium-Item reports a Wayne County judge recently ruled in favor of Miller Transporters Inc., the suit’s sole remaining defendant. The judge previously ruled in the other defendants’ favor.

Pennsylvania
AG: ‘Mafia’ threat scammed woman of her life savings
LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — Authorities says a Pennsylvania woman has been scammed out of her $159,000 life savings by a man who told her she’d face Mafia retaliation if she didn’t give him money.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro says that man, 45-year-old Yancey Taylor, gambled away the money at casinos.

Taylor is from Donora, a Pittsburgh suburb, but the charges were announced Tuesday in Lancaster County, where the alleged 69-year-old victim lived.

Police say Taylor stole the money from the woman in 2013 and that she received threatening phone calls when she tried to resist. A state grand jury investigated the case, which began when the woman rented some property she owned in Westmoreland County to Taylor in 2012.

Online court records don’t list an attorney for Taylor, who faces a preliminary hearing June 9.

Florida
Disney employee accused of impersonating FBI agent
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A Walt Disney World employee is accused of impersonating an FBI agent while stopping a woman on a Florida road.

Orlando television station WKMG reports an Orange County Sheriff’s deputy responded when he saw 26-year-old Brett Michael Smith pull over the woman near SeaWorld’s Aquatica waterpark Saturday.

The woman didn’t initially stop after hitting an orange traffic cone when she realized the Aquatica parking lot was full. An arrest report says Smith walked up to her car at a red light and flashed his badge, saying he “worked for the FBI.”

The deputy, who was nearby, turned on his lights and parked his cruiser. The report says at first he thought the badge was real. Authorities say Smith bought the badge for Halloween.

A lawyer wasn’t listed for Smith.

Florida
Woman gets $30K settlement after being dragged by cop
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A woman shown on cellphone video being dragged by the shackles on her ankles across a Florida courthouse hallway has settled a lawsuit for $30,000.

David Frankel, the attorney representing Dasyl Rios, tells the SunSentinel he hopes something good comes from the February 2015 case. He says he received the check Tuesday.

The video showed Rios screaming “you’re hurting me” as she was dragged about 300 feet by Broward County Sheriff’s detention deputy Christopher Johnson.

The lawsuit says Rios, who was 28 at the time, was diagnosed with “significant mental illness.” She was arrested in December 2014 on a cocaine possession charge.

Following a yearlong investigation, prosecutors declined to prosecute Johnson, finding his actions fell within legally permissible use of force. Johnson was given a written reprimand following a sheriff’s review.

New Jersey
Mistrial in case against dad accused in 3-year-old’s death
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A mistrial was declared Wednesday in the case of a New Jersey man accused of killing his 3-year-old son, as jurors told a judge they couldn’t reach a verdict after five days of deliberations.

Judge John Kelley declared a mistrial one day after the jury first told him they couldn’t agree on a verdict against David Creato. Prosecutors said Wednesday they plan to retry the case, and Kelley set a conference for July 5.

Creato, known as D.J., maintained that his 3-year-old son, Brendan Creato, wandered away from his Haddon Township home in October 2015. The boy would have turned 5 on Thursday.

Prosecutors had maintained Creato, 23, killed his son because he feared his then-17-year-old girlfriend, who was away at college, was going to leave him. She had made it clear she didn’t want to be around his child and wanted him to give up custody.

Creato’s attorney, Richard Fuschino Jr., said that he will make a motion for bail. He said that Creato is upset and wants to go home to see his family and that the jury’s decision showed that prosecutors couldn’t prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt with the circumstantial evidence they presented.

“I am so appreciative of what the jury did. This is such a tough job. There’s such sensitive facts,” Fuschino said. “I wouldn’t say that I was surprised, but I certainly was not shocked.”

Creato called 911 at about 6 a.m. to report his son missing, and the boy’s pajama-clad body was found hours later in a wooded area by the Cooper River about a mile from the home.

During the trial, Camden County prosecutors said the boy’s neon green socks were clean, which would be impossible if he had wandered away from home. They also noted that about a month after the slaying, in a conversation secretly recorded by the boy’s mother, Creato spoke about “a spirit” drawing his son to the woods where he was found dead.

A medical examiner testified Brendan died from “homicidal violence” but couldn’t determine where or when he died. Brendan’s brain showed an abnormality consistent with oxygen deprivation that can be caused by asphyxiation, drowning or strangulation, but it couldn’t be determined which of those led to his death.

Prosecutors spent nearly 10 days presenting their case, but the defense took just 20 minutes before resting. Fuschino then sought to have the charges dismissed, claiming prosecutors had “put on no evidence to say that Brendan Creato was killed or that D.J. Creato was the person who killed him.”

Kelley rejected the motion, saying that prosecutors had showed motive and enough evidence for jurors to decide whether Creato was guilty.

Creato’s then-girlfriend, who’s now 19, was never charged, and they’ve broken up.