11 years-plus for meth conspiracy

If there are 28.4 grams in an ounce, police seized about a half-pound each of cocaine, meth and pot from Jesus Cardenas-Celestino, 29, a Mexican citizen living in Kansas City. That was worth 11 years and three months in federal prison, plus forfeit of $81,840 seized at his Kansas City home, a federal judge ruled today. A codefendant, Patrick Weaver, was sentenced earlier to 12 years three months.

News release from US attorney Bradley J. Schlozman's office:
Mexican national sentenced for meth conspiracy

Does Internet pornography reduce rape?

A 56-page paper presented at Stanford Law school by a Clemson University economics professor last month argues it does. Slate reports it as How the Internet Prevents Rape.

Professor Todd Kendall isn't advocating use of porn -- he's just saying its easy access online has provided a "substitute" for aggression leading to sexual assault (although not for other violent crimes).

Hat tip to reader Joshua G.!

Student stabs 8 with used hypodermic

ST. ALBANS, VT. (AP) - A high school student found a used needle and syringe by the side of a road and jabbed eight fellow students over two days.
"He just walked up and stabbed me with a needle and said, 'You now have hepatitis,'" said student Ava Staples of the Bellows Free Academy. Students will be tested for hepatitis B and later for AIDS and hepatitis C.
The student, who threw the needle away, has been charged with eight counts of assault. The needle hasn't been recovered.

Hat tip to reader blondie2hot7!

Hedge clippers fail as holdup weapon

A 23-year-old woman walked into a liquor store in Leavenworth, pulled a pair of hedge clippers out of a large plastic bag and tried to rob the place, police said. Oh, she said she had a gun in there somewhere, too.

Hat tip to reader blondie2hot7!

Previously: Hannah and Amelia, the Urdang gang

Paroled son of activist killed by police

NEWBURGH, N.Y. (AP) _ A man on parole after serving time for manslaughter was killed in a gunfight with Newburgh police Monday evening, police said.
Antonio ''Tony'' Bryant, 23, bolted from a Jeep stopped by police on a city street at about 7 p.m. and fired shots at two officers before he was killed by return fire
Hundreds of people took to the streets after the shooting, some of them shouting at police. Bryant was the son of a well-known critic of the police in a city where relations between the mostly minority residents and the almost entirely white police force have been strained for years.

Hank Williams' song notebook stolen

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ Nashville police arrested two people accused of stealing a 59-year-old Hank Williams notebook containing notes and unpublished song lyrics.
Sony/ATV Music Publishing said the book was stolen and was valued by music experts at as much as $250,000.Stephen M. Shutts, co-owner of a traveling music memorabilia collection, and Francine Boykin, a former worker on a cleaning crew at Sony, turned themselves in yesterday on felony theft charges. They were released on bond.
Police said the singer's notebook had not been recovered. The 42-year-old collector told The Tennessean newspaper he acquired the notebook legally after purchasing it for an undisclosed amount. Police said the 50-year-old former employee said she found the book in the trash.
Williams' daughter, Jet Williams, said she looks forward to its return to Sony.

Boy shouting "I want Jesus" Tasered, dies

A 17-year-old boy carrying a Bible and shouting ''I want Jesus'' was shot twice with a stun gun by Jerseyville, IL, police and later died at a St. Louis hospital. Police in Jerseyville, about 40 miles north of St. Louis, said they were sorry expressed sympathy and then said they weren't going to say anything else.
Police had used Tasers more than 70,000 times as of last year, Congress' Government Accountability Office said. Report
Amnesty International has urged police departments to suspend the use of Tasers pending more study. Taser International said the group's count was flawed and falsely linked deaths to Taser use when there has been no such official conclusion.

Babysitter punches out naked intruder

A 12-year-old babysitter in New York punched a masked, naked intruder in the face and fled upstairs with her neighbor's children, 2 and 6. Police caught the man a minute later, but he slipped away and fell into a stream.

Fewer police officers killed, hurt on job

The number of police officers killed by criminals dropped last year, from 57 to 55. Officers killed on the job accidentally also decreased, as did assaults on police officers.
"Police officer" does not make the top 10 list of most dangerous jobs, based on deaths and total number of persons in the occupation. But it is listed ninth in a Bureau of Labor Statistics report on occupations with a high number of fatalities.

FBI report

Fertility nurse allegedly chops up husband

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) - Melanie McGuire, a New Jersey woman accused of hacking her husband into pieces and dumping his remains in suitcases, was indicted Monday on new charges of writing anonymous letters to throw detectives off her trail.
McGuire, a reproductive health care nurse, forged a prescription for a powerful sedative, which she then used to sedate her husband before shooting him and dismembering the body inside their Woodbridge apartment, prosecutors said.

Melanie's to-do list?

• Search Internet on poisoning, state gun laws and how to commit murder
• Ask boss at fertility clinic -- I love him so!  -- if he remembered to buy that hacksaw
• Find three suitcases, insert husband, dump in river
• Write letters to authorities saying sister probably did it

Hat tip to reader Doc!

Mom helped son lure sex victims: charge

A 32-year-old Colorado man has been sentenced to 508 years in prison for sexually assaulting more than a dozen teens 13-15.  His mother is accused of helping him by introducing him to families with young children.

Hat tip to reader Doc!

Open thread Tuesday: Halloween!

This is the place to come for discussion of off-topic topics. It's also a good place to bring crime-related story ideas, especially with a link or hint to where I can find it. The blog is always hungry.

11:40 a.m. -- I can't resist -- this picture/cutline combination was just on The Star's home page:

Tony, poor Tony!  Reduced to a petri dish!  Now THAT'S a crime!

Coach gets 13 years for child porn

A former head football coach at University of St. Mary in Leavenworth was sentenced Monday to 13 years in federal prison for trafficking in child pornography.
Scott Frear, 43, who coached his first St. Mary team in 2002 and was the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference coach of the year that season, pleaded guilty in June to one count of trafficking in child pornography.
Frear admitted corresponding in July 2005 with a person he thought was a 14-year-old boy from New Hampshire. Instead, it was an undercover police detective.

News release

10+ years for 3-time convicted drug dealer

A Parsons man was sentenced Monday to more than 10 years in federal prison for selling crack cocaine to undercover agents at Meadowbrook Mall in Pittsburg as part of a southeast Kansas drug ring. He was already convicted twice of selling drugs.
Chavoris Neal, 33, was sentenced to 130 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia. The case was part of Operation Little Big Man, an Organized Crime Drug Task Force that targets drug trafficking networks operating in southeast Kansas.

News release from U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren's office.

Halloween bungee-jump turns deadly

Halloween event turns deadly
A man who bungee-jumped out of a tree to scare passengers on a Halloween hayride in Oklahoma died when his cable apparently snapped and he slammed into the side of the ride.

Lisa Montgomery trial set for April

Reader Jerry C. of Mesa, AZ says he's read "Murder In The Heartland", by M. William Phelps, about "a Kansas woman who drove to a small town in Missouri" and cut the fetus out of a woman who was eight months pregnant, and would like to know the trial date.

This is the Lisa Montgomery case, and trial is currently set for April. Most recent entry in PACER:

• AMENDED SCHEDULING AND TRIAL ORDER as to Lisa M. Montgomery Jury Trial is specially set for 4/30/2007 10:00 AM in Courtroom 8A, Kansas City (GAF) before Judge Gary Fenner. Signed by Judge John T. Maughmer on 10/18/06. (Martinez, Kerry) (Entered: 10/18/2006)

Park ranger interrupts holdup; 3 held

Three persons were arrested after a Wyandotte County park ranger interrupted a robbery in progress near 7th and Lowell and was threatened with a gun about 6:30 a.m. today, KCK police said.

News release

Update: one of the three suspects is being held as a "person of interest" in the four homicides that occurred in the area of 39th & Victory Drive on Saturday, Oct. 14.

Genital cutting trial believed first in U.S.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — The trial of an Atlanta-area father accused of circumcising his 2-year-old daughter with scissors is focusing attention on an ancient African practice that experts say is slowly becoming more common in the U.S. as immigrant communities grow.
Khalid Adem, a 31-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia, is charged with aggravated battery and cruelty to children. Human rights observers said they believe this is the first criminal case in the U.S. involving the 5,000-year-old practice.

• Up to 130 million women had undergone circumcision worldwide as of 2001. Knives, razors or even sharp stones are usually used, according to a 2001 department report. The tools often are not sterilized, and often, many girls are circumcised in the same ceremony, leading to infection.

Traffic diverted Saturday night on I-435

E-mail query from reader Brandon P.:

• Subject: Saturday night on 435
• So as a few friends and I were headed to Funky Town for their Annual Halloween bash, we noticed a big police presence on 435 near Gregory with all the traffic being diverted onto Gregory. Was it a wreck or a DUI checkpoint?

No DUI checkpoint that I know of -- especially on an interstate -- I'll try to find out about a crash.

Inmate-kin charged in "Katie's Revenge"

COLUMBUS, Ind. (AP) - An inmate accused of forcibly tattooing a slain 10-year-old girl's name onto her killer's forehead in an Indiana prison was the victim's cousin, a family friend said.
Jared Harris, 22, a cousin of Katlyn "Katie" Collman, is serving time on a burglary conviction and has been charged with battery for tattooing "KATIE'S REVENGE" across Anthony Ray Stockelman's forehead.
Stockelman is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to abducting, molesting and killing the fourth-grader, who lived about 70 miles south of Indianapolis. She was missing for five days before her body was found Jan. 30, 2005, in a creek about 15 miles from her home.

Hat tip to reader blondie2hot7!

Wife, 2 in-laws not enough to kill

This story is yet another example of the message that once hung on a wall at the Command And General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth: Victory through Superior Firepower.

• A Virginia police officer fought off his wife, mother-in-law and brother-in-law who were trying to smother him, and held them at gunpoint while he called 911.

Google co-founder picks locks for fun

NEWINGTON, Conn. _ On a recent evening in this quiet suburb, Matthew Fiddler hunched over a door lock, jiggling it with a pick and poking it with a wrench. In just a few moments, it popped open.
Mr. Fiddler wasn't locked out and he isn't a thief. Instead, the 36-year-old father of four, clad in khakis and a blue button-down shirt, was seated around a table with a handful of people who pick locks for fun. The group, a chapter of Locksport International, gets together monthly to poke and prod everything from padlocks to dead-bolt cylinders.
Pin tumbler locks, commonly used on doors, mailboxes or padlocks, are opened with a key when their spring-loaded pins are pushed into the right alignment. To open them without a key, hobbyists often use a slender pick to maneuver the pins, while at the same time sticking a tension wrench in the keyhole to apply turning pressure.
Another popular method is ''bumping,'' which involves inserting a specially filed key blank into a lock and hitting _ or ''bumping'' _ it.
Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin says he became interested in lock picking as a graduate student and years ago picked the lock of Google's offices when he didn't have a key.

KCK shooting victim in serious condition

Shooting in KCK Sunday 7:30 p.m., 300 South 11th, victim man early 50s, serious condition.

Nnews release

Duke accuser: 'Put marks on me!'

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) _ Kim Roberts, the second dancer at the Duke lacrosse team party where a woman performing as a stripper said she was raped, is now saying that the accuser was clearly impaired and ''talking crazy'' afterward.
Roberts said, the accuser said: '''Go ahead, go ahead. Put marks on me. Go ahead. That's what I want. Go ahead.' And it chilled me to the bone.''

Medical 911 at Arrowhead Sunday

Query in the open thread from reader Scott:

• We were at the Chief's game yesterday sitting in Section 328, Row 34 and were heading up to our seats before the game. We noticed that there was a lot of confusion about 6 rows above our seats with police and emergency personal. Apparently a woman had a heart attack and was unresponsive for 10 or so minutes. They finally got her pulse back through CPR, but she didn't look good when they were taking her down the stands.

Normally, two ambulances are on hand for fans  -- plus one for players -- at the stadium during games,  Sgt. Rick Sticken, KCPD stadium supervisor, tells me. The above incident was only one of several requiring ambulance service, he said.

I have a call into MAST, which can tell me how many calls there were but is prohibited by privacy laws from giving any details.

Update: MAST answered a dozen ambulance calls at the game, "a bit more than normal", a spokesperson told me,  ranging from a person who felt sick to cardiac seizure.