National Roundup

Massachusetts
Disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner released from prison
AYER, Mass. (AP) — Disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner has been released from federal prison after being convicted of having illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl in 2017.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons website shows the 54-year-old New York Democrat is currently in the custody of its Residential Re-entry Management office in Brooklyn, New York.

It’s not immediately clear when Weiner was transferred and where he’s staying now, but Weiner will have to register as a sex-offender and spend three years on supervised release under the terms of his sentence.

The prison bureau and Weiner’s lawyer didn’t respond to emails seeking comment Sunday. Federal prosecutors in New York referred an inquiry to the prison bureau.

Weiner began serving a 21-month prison sentence at the Federal Medical Center Devens, located about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Boston in Ayer, Massachusetts, in November 2017.

The bureau website shows Weiner is slated to complete his sentence May 14, a few months earlier than scheduled because of good conduct in prison.

A once-rising star in the Democratic Party who served nearly 12 years in Congress, Weiner had a dramatic and sordid fall from grace after he sent a lewd picture of himself to a college student over Twitter in 2011.

Weiner initially claimed his account had been hacked, then admitted he’d had inappropriate online interactions with at least six other women while married to top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Weiner resigned from Congress that year but mounted a campaign for New York City mayor in 2013.

But his personal behavior was again his undoing after it was disclosed he sent explicit photos under the alias “Carlos Danger” to at least one woman after resigning from Congress.

Weiner ultimately garnered less than 5 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary.

His final fall came in 2017 after prosecutors say he sent a series of sexually explicit messages to a North Carolina high school student. Weiner pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor.

At his sentencing, he said he’d been a “very sick man for a very long time” because of his sex addiction.

Weiner’s attorney said the ex-lawmaker likely exchanged thousands of messages with hundreds of women over the years and was communicating with up to 19 women when he encountered the teenager.

Abedin also filed for divorce from Weiner in 2017. But the two, who have a young son together, later agreed to discontinue the case in order to negotiate their separation privately.

Pennsylvania
Claims against school over teen’s ­disappearance dismissed
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed an eastern Pennsylvania mother’s argument that a school should be held responsible for psychological harm and bad publicity over her teenage daughter’s disappearance to Mexico with a married man.

The suit alleged that Lehigh Valley Academy violated the mother’s rights by repeatedly allowing 46-year-old Kevin Esterly to sign her out of classes.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Leeson said Thursday that the school wasn’t involved on the day she disappeared, since the suit alleges the two met at a bus stop before school. Attorney Everett Cook said an appeal is planned, but other claims may have to be pursued in Lehigh County Court.

Esterly was sentenced to 2½ to five years in December on a misdemeanor corruption of a minor plea. He apologized but said their relationship was innocent.

Delaware
Judge delays prison reporting time for former bank execs
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — A federal judge has postponed the date for four former Wilmington Trust executives to report to prison.

Former bank president Robert Harra and chief financial officer David Gibson were sentenced to six years, while chief credit officer William North was sentenced to 4½ years and controller Kevyn Rakowski got three years. They were convicted of hiding Wilmington Trust’s massive amount of past-due commercial real estate loans before the bank was hastily sold in 2011.

The defendants were to report to prison Tuesday but are fighting to remain free on bail while they appeal their convictions. The judge last week delayed their reporting date to March 5.

The judge indicated that the delay will give him to rule on the bail requests and allow an appeals court to review his ruling.

Illinois
Cadaver dog ­evidence allowed in ­Chinese ­scholar’s case
URBANA, Ill. (AP) — A federal judge has denied a request to exclude evidence about a cadaver-sniffing dog from the trial of a former University of Illinois physics student accused of killing a Chinese scholar in 2017.

The (Champaign) News-Gazette reports that U.S. District Judge James Shadid ruled Friday that prosecutors can present evidence from McHenry County Deputy Sheriff Jeremy Bruketta’s dog Sage. The judge found both Sage and Bruketta to be reliable.

The FBI says the canine “possibly indicated an alert” in the bathroom of Brendt Christensen’s off-campus apartment in Urbana.

Prosecutors are trying to prove Christensen kidnapped and killed 26-year-old Yingying Zhang. The scholar from China is presumed dead, but her body hasn’t been found.

Christensen faces the death penalty if convicted at his trial, which is scheduled to begin in April.

Florida
6th-grader arrested after confrontation over pledge
LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — A Florida sixth-grader faces charges of disrupting a school function and resisting arrest after a confrontation that followed his refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

In a statement, Lakeland Police say a school resource officer was alerted to a disturbance created by a student in the classroom at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy on Feb. 4.

According to police, the student initially refused to leave the room, continued to be disruptive and made threats while being escorted to the school’s office by the officer and the school’s dean.

The statement says the student was charged based on his failure to comply with the officer’s and the dean’s orders, not his refusal to participate in the pledge. Polk County students aren’t required to stand for the pledge.