United States Attorney

WICHITA, KAN. – A Beloit man pleaded guilty Thursday to defrauding a bank in Ottawa County, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said.

42-year-old Matthew R. Shurts, pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud. In his plea, he admitted he provided false information when he applied for a loan from the Bank of Tescott. On July 19, 2013, he showed representatives of the bank 71 cows, 71calves and eight bulls the he claimed were his and would serve as collateral on his loan. In fact, he owned only 17 cows and 17 calves among those he showed the representatives of the bank.

On Aug. 1, 2013, he filed a financial statement with the bank representing that he had 70 cow/calf pairs and six bulls worth a total of $152,000. In fact, he had 13 cow/calf pairs valued at a total of $26,000. In December 2013 he told bank representatives he had sold cattle and would be paying off some of his loan. He wrote a check for $53,000 that did not have sufficient funds on account to clear.

Sentencing is set for Dec. 22. He faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison and a fine up to $1 million.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Police in Topeka say a driver involved in an accident that killed an 85-year-old motorcycle rider told officers he was looking at his CD player just before the collision.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports it paid $5 to the city’s Police Department Thursday for a copy of the report on the Sept. 12 accident.

The report quotes the 48-year-old pickup truck driver as saying he was trying to put a compact disc into his CD player just before the collision. The man said he looked up and slammed on his brakes but hit the motorcycle ridden by Harold Eulert.

The motorcycle then struck the back of another pickup. Eulert died at a hospital.

Police are continuing to investigate, and no charges have been filed.

By Julie Appleby
Kaiser Health News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Consumers using the federal healthcare.gov website when open enrollment begins next month should expect a faster website with a shorter application form and features making it easier to use on mobile devices, Obama administration officials said Wednesday.

In a briefing with reporters, they showed off a live version of the updated site and said it has already been used to enroll about 20,000 people.

Still, they did not promise that the website will be glitch-free when it opens for purchases on Nov. 15.

Nonetheless, the administration is focused on “everyone having a good consumer experience,” said Andrew Slavitt, the principal deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Last year, the website’s debut was disastrous: Consumers could not start or complete their applications and faced almost daily website crashes. Problems lasted for months before experts were able to stabilize the system. Eventually, more than 7 million people enrolled and paid premiums on their policies.

This year, the administration officials said they have spent far more time — five and half weeks — testing the revamped website, rather than the 10 days they tested it before last year’s launch. The most intense testing began this week and officials said full “load testing” — determining how many consumers the site can handle at one time — won’t begin in earnest until late October.

Slavitt would not release specific numbers, but said the website aims “to handle significantly more [consumers] than the highest peak day last year.”

That could be particularly important because the time period for enrollment is shorter this year. In addition to new enrollees, many of the people who signed up for this year will be reviewing their options and re-enrolling. They along with new customers who want coverage to begin Jan. 1 have only a month — from Nov. 15 to Dec. 15 — to select a plan. So a lot of activity is expected during the initial weeks.

After that, customers who enroll by Jan. 15 will get coverage Feb. 1, while those who wait until Feb. 15, when the enrollment period ends, will have coverage that begins March 1.

Since July, about 20,000 people have enrolled using the revamped website, all of whom were able to shop outside the official 2014 open enrollment period because they faced a special life circumstance, like the loss of a job or a divorce.

Changes for this year include:

• A shorter application form for new enrollees — 16 screen pages, down from 76. Officials said an estimated 70 percent of new enrollees will be able to use the shorter form. Others, with more complicated situations, will have to enter more information.

• There will be a “back button” that allows consumers to flip back to an earlier page if they need to correct information they’ve already entered, without having to start the entire application over, as was the case last year.

• Information will be sent through the “hub” of the system for verification in one batch, at the end of the application process, instead of question by question, which officials said should speed the process.

• The website is “optimized” for use on mobile devices, which last year were used by about 20 percent of applicants, said Kevin Counihan, chief executive officer of the website. That could make it easier to reach some target consumers, such as young people and Latinos, more than 74 percent of whom have smart phones, he said.

Still, some things consumers want — such as easier access to the lists of doctors and hospitals that make up insurers’ networks of providers — won’t be included on this year’s revamp.

And those who want to start shopping in advance by comparing prices for coverage will have to wait until about Nov. 9, officials said.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Same-sex couples are lining up for marriage applications in Johnson County after a judge cleared the way for what could be the first gay marriage in Kansas.

District court clerk Sandy McCurdy said 30 same-sex couples had applied for licenses by Thursday afternoon. McCurdy said the stream of applicants was “pretty steady” in the first full day after Johnson County Chief District Judge Kevin Moriarty ordered the county to begin issuing licenses to same-sex couples.

McCurdy says the earliest a same-sex couple could pick up a marriage license is Friday. The state requires a three-day waiting period before marriage licenses can be issued. Although Moriarty issued his ruling Wednesday, the county accepted one application Tuesday from a same-sex couple. Two women applied Wednesday, and all the others applied Thursday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Dairy Queen says that its payment systems were breached by hackers who may have gained access to customer names, credit and debit card numbers and expiration dates.

The ice cream and fast food chain says 395 of its stores around the country were affected. The data breach happened between August and September.

Dairy Queen says it worked with law enforcement authorities and credit card companies to investigate the breach. It says there’s no evidence Social Security numbers, personal identification numbers or email addresses were accessed. The Edina, Minnesota-based company is offering customers free identity repair services.

A number of retailers, including Home Depot, Target and Michael’s have been the target of cyberattacks in the past year.

HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press
JOHN HANNA, Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The wedding plans of gay couples across Kansas remain in limbo, with all but one of the state’s 105 counties refusing to issue marriage licenses.

Same-sex couples began heading to county marriage license offices around the state Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the way for its expansion.

Johnson County on Wednesday announced plans to issue licenses to gay couples, setting up a potential showdown with a conservative-led state government.

Attorney General Derek Schmidt and his spokeswoman didn’t immediately return phone calls or emails seeking comment Thursday. The general counsel for the Kansas Office of Judicial Administration is suggesting that county clerks accept applications and let judges decide whether to issue licenses.

Meanwhile, the ACLU is planning to file a lawsuit, but not until next week.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita woman has admitted running an escort service as a front for a prostitution operation.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said 60-year-old Saundra Lacy pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to engaging in interstate commerce in furtherance of prostitution. Both sides have agreed to recommend that Lacy be placed on two years of probation at her sentencing in December.

Lacy admitted that her escort service, Jessie’s Primetime Entertainment, was in fact a prostitution business that employed at least 20 women. Customers paid $160 for half-hour dates or $185 for one-hour dates with an escort. During dates, escorts engaged in sexual contact with the customers.

United State Attorney’s Office

KANSAS CITY, KAN. – A former Farm Service Agency director in Sumner County was indicted Wednesday on a charge of making $306,000 in agriculture disaster payments to applicants who had been denied approval for the money, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said.

Ellen A. Love, 51, Argonia, Kan., was charged with one count of unlawfully conveying federal funds. The indictment alleges the crime occurred while she worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as Executive Director of the Sumner County Farm Service Agency (FSA). The Sumner County FSA Service Center is located in Wellington, Kan.

The USDA provides assistance to farm producers who have suffered losses as a result of agricultural disasters. One program USDA administers is the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments Program (SURE). To be approved, applicants must have suffered significant crop losses in a disaster-designated county and they must have had crop insurance through the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.

Applications for SURE are reviewed by the FSA County Office Committee. The indictment alleges that in June 2013 Love processed payments to four applicants even though they had been disapproved for failing to meet SURE crop insurance requirements.
She faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson is prosecuting.

Little Apple Post

MANHATTAN — The Kansas State University Police Department has issued a statement that the recent crimes near the K-State Manhattan require students and university employees to be aware.

The Riley County Police Department is investigating two robberies in the past 48 hours that occurred off campus — one in the 1200 block of Kearney Street and one in the 700 block of Bertrand Street.

The K-State Police Department has also received calls in the past 48 hours for suspicious activity that may be related to the robberies. In those instances, students reported subjects made contact or attempted to make contact while the students were walking. In all of the incidents the students were walking by themselves. The comments and demeanor of the subjects alarmed the students, and they reported the activity to K-State police. All of the incidents occurred during the overnight hours.

K-State police are urging members of the campus community to use services such as Wildcat Walk and Safe Ride, be aware of surroundings when walking at night, travel in groups, report crimes immediately when they occur, and report any suspicious activity.