BARTON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the chase of a wanted suspect who died on Monday.

Just after 11p.m., a Sheriff’s Deputy attempted to stop a 2002 Chevy Avalanche driven by 36-year-old Nicholas Curtice of rural Ellinwood, according to Sheriff Brian Bellendir.  He was wanted on Barton County District Court warrants and had been involved in numerous encounters with law enforcement.

Curtis fled from the intersection of 5^th  and Odell in the City of Great Bend. The deputy pursued the suspect through the City of Great Bend and south toward the Arkansas River on Washington Street. The suspect vehicle struck the ravine near the north bank of the river, at which point it was disabled. Curtice exited the vehicle with a firearm and placed it to his head. The deputy ordered Curtis to drop the weapon repeatedly. He then waded into about 4 feet of water and fired a single round. 

Barton County Sheriff’s Deputies, Great Bend Police Officers and members of the Great Bend Fire Department searched for Curtice for several hours after the incident. We were unable to locate him due to the swift current and darkness. The search resumed at about 8 AM this morning. Members of the Great Bend Fire Department “swift water rescue team” located the body. A boat from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks assisted and were able to locate the body at about 10:45 a.m. approximately 1200 feet downstream from a location where he had been involved in a confrontation with law enforcement, according to Bellendir.

Curtice had previous convictions for criminal damage to property, flee or attempt to elude law enforcement, driving while suspended and for drugs, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

In April of 2018, Curtice had been jailed after a high-speed chase in Barton County. In April of 2017, Curtice was captured after a high-speed motorcycle chase following an alleged domestic disturbance in Hoisington.

BARTON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the chase of a suspect who died on Monday .

Just after 11p.m.,  sheriff’s deputies attempted to stop a vehicle driven by a wanted person that fled south on Washington Street in Great Bend, according to Sheriff Brian Bellendir.

The vehicle crossed over the flood control dike, enter the riverbed, proceeded approximately ½ mile west when it became disabled.

The driver exited the vehicle with a firearm, entered the Arkansas River and shot himself. The suspect disappeared into deep, fast-moving water, according to Bellendir.

As of 9a.m. Tuesday, emergency personnel have not been able to locate the body. The Sheriff’s Office has contacted Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, Kansas Highway Patrol and the Great Bend Fire Department swift water rescue team for assistance. 

The sheriff did not release the suspect’s name. 

NEW YORK (AP) — A group of state attorneys general led by New York and California filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday to block T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion bid for Sprint, citing consumer harm.

The state attorneys general said the promised benefits, such as better networks in rural areas and faster service overall, cannot be verified, while eliminating a major wireless company will immediately harm consumers by reducing competition and driving up prices for cellphone service.

The T-Mobile/Sprint merger would cause irreplaceable harm to millions of subscribers nationwide, particularly affecting low-income & communities of color.

It's exactly the sort of consumer-harming, job-killing megamerger our antitrust laws were designed to prevent. #MegaBlock pic.twitter.com/XfO68fShoy

— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) June 11, 2019

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that combining the two companies would reduce access to affordable, reliable wireless service nationwide and would particularly affect lower-income and minority communities in New York and other urban areas.

Other attorneys general joining Tuesday’s lawsuit are from Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Virginia and Wisconsin. All 10 attorneys general are Democrats. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in New York.

The lawsuit is an unusual step by state officials ahead of a decision by federal antitrust authorities. The Justice Department’s decision is pending. The Republican majority of the Federal Communications Commission supports the deal , though the agency has yet to vote.

Too many “mega mergers have sailed through the governmental approval process,” so it’s up to the states to “step up,” James said at a news conference.

“There’s no rule or regulation that we have to wait for the DOJ,” she said. She added the attorneys general will “continue to litigate whether the DOJ approves the merger or not.”

Diana Moss, the president of the American Antitrust Institute and an advocate for tougher antitrust enforcement, said the states’ lawsuit could signal to other potential merger partners that there would be tougher enforcement from states even if the federal government permitted deals to go through.

James said Tuesday that her office’s renewed focus on mergers and anti-competitiveness goes beyond the tech industry, though she did not elaborate.

T-Mobile and Sprint have argued that they need to bulk up to upgrade to a fast, powerful “5G” mobile network that competes with Verizon and AT&T. The companies are appealing to President Donald Trump’s desire for the U.S. to “win” a global 5G race.

Consumer advocates, labor unions and many Democratic lawmakers worry that the deal could mean job cuts, higher wireless prices and a hit to the rural cellphone market.

Amanda Wait, an antitrust lawyer and former Federal Trade Commission lawyer, said states are acting because they disagree with what they have seen the federal government doing.

“They see the FCC accepting certain remedies and concessions that don’t, in their minds, solve the problem,” she said.

T-Mobile declined comment. Sprint and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

One famous example of when the states and federal government diverged on a big antitrust case was in the fight against Microsoft, although that was not a merger case. Several states dissented from the Justice Department’s settlement roughly 20 years ago, pushing for tougher sanctions to curtail Microsoft’s ability to use its dominance in the Windows operating system to thwart competition in other technologies.

More recently, in the Bayer-Monsanto agribusiness merger, five states last year criticized the federal government’s approval.

T-Mobile and Sprint previously tried to combine during the Obama administration but regulators rebuffed them. They resumed talks on combining once Trump took office, hoping for more industry-friendly regulators.

T-Mobile has a reputation for consumer-friendly changes to the cellphone industry. T-Mobile and Sprint led the return of unlimited-data cellphone plans, for example.

T-Mobile, trying to reassure critics, promised the FCC it would build out a 5G network and invest in rural broadband on a specific timeframe or pay penalties. It also promised to sell off Sprint’s prepaid Boost Mobile brand and keep price increases on hold for three years.

That was enough for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to back thedeal. The other two Republican commissioners indicated they would join him.

But public-interest advocates said these conditions did not address concerns about higher prices and reduced competition— and would be difficult for regulators to enforce.

The Justice Department evaluates deals using stricter criteria than the FCC’s “public interest” standard — namely whether they harm competition and raise prices for consumers. Staff attorneys at DOJ have reportedly told the companies they won’t approve the deal as proposed, but the ultimate decision lies with Makan Delrahim, the top antitrust official who is a political appointee.

The state attorneys general said in Tuesday’s lawsuit that combining Sprint and T-Mobile would make the industry as a whole — Verizon and AT&T, too — less likely to offer plans and services that consumers like. And they say the companies have already been working to roll out 5G and don’t need to combine to do so.

Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank owns Sprint, while Germany’s Deutsche Telekom owns T-Mobile.

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors say DNA from a Manhattan man who is standing trial this week has connected him to the sexual assaults of four women.

18-year-old Tommie Baggett is charged with one count of rape, three counts of attempted rape, one count of criminal sodomy, one count of aggravated criminal sodomy, one count of aggravated robbery, three counts of aggravated burglary and three counts of aggravated battery.

One woman said she was assaulted in August 2016 after meeting Baggett in Manhattan through an escort service. Two other women were roommates who said they were assaulted in their home in February 2017. Prosecutors say Baggett then slipped through an open window a month later and choked a third roommate when she refused to have sex with him.

The defense says the victims aren’t reliable.

By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN 

Kansas can no longer put off care for Medicaid patients with hepatitis C because of a recent legal settlement. But hundreds of the state’s prison inmates not covered by that lawsuit will have to wait another year for the pricey treatment.

That raises concerns about whether the delay constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution, civil rights lawyers say, because inmates have the right to medical care.

“This is a fairly clear Eighth Amendment violation,” said Lauren Bonds, legal director for the ACLU of Kansas, which brought the Medicaid lawsuit. “Delayed treatment is unconstitutional.”

Kansas prison officials say more than 700 inmates currently have hepatitis C, a virus that attacks the liver and that’s most commonly contracted by sharing needles to inject illegal drugs. The state Department of Corrections expects about half will receive treatment this year, starting with those who’ve developed liver cirrhosis from the virus.

That’s on top of about 100 inmates treated in recent months, agency spokeswoman Jeanny Sharp said.

“The treatment strategy,” she said, “aligns with what many other states that were sued were asked to do.”

Kansas, she said, is doing it voluntarily.

Legal challenges

States landed in legal hot water in recent years for limiting hepatitis C treatment for their Medicaid and prison populations in response to the sky-high cost of new drugs. The drugs offered highly effective treatment to clear infections up, but with price tags that could total nearly $100,000 per person.

Kansas settled the Medicaid lawsuit, agreeing to no longer limit coverage of hepatitis C medication to those with more advanced liver scarring, while forcing others to wait.

Read the state’s settlement with the ACLU over Hep C coverage.

The suit didn’t cover prisons, but last fall, Kansas began screening all inmates for hepatitis C.

The corrections department says costs vary, but tend to run between $15,000 and $17,000 to treat the typical inmate. That can involve several months of daily medication.

The state will spend $6 million in fiscal 2020 on treating about half of its inmates with hepatitis C, a corrections official last week told a meeting of state leaders charged with signing off on the expense. Gov. Laura Kelly and the legislative leaders agreed unanimously.

Waiting for treatment

As it stands, inmates with less advanced hepatitis C will need to wait until fiscal 2021.

The corrections department wanted more funding to treat them this year instead, but the governor’s office didn’t request the full amount from the Legislature.

A spokeswoman said Tuesday Kelly is committed to ensuring inmates get treatment.

The state “will move as quickly as possible to treat every prisoner affected,” Dena Sattler wrote, “and if additional funding is required to keep providing treatment before the next fiscal year, the Governor will make additional budget recommendations as necessary.”

More inmates are testing positive for hepatitis C than initially estimated — about 13 percent of people entering the prison system.

It can take years for the outward signs and symptoms of the virus to develop, such as jaundice and fatigue.

About one in four people who get hepatitis C fend it off naturally. For most, the disease takes its toll, causing chronic infections.

As many as one in five eventually develop cirrhosis and one in 20 get liver cancer. Some cases require liver transplants.

Studies suggest early hepatitis C treatment benefits patients, while delaying treatment can harm their long-term health.

The costs of hepatitis C treatment are just one of the woes the corrections department is juggling. It’s struggled, for example, to pay guards well enough to keep prisons adequately staffed.

Bonds, of the ACLU, wouldn’t rule out heading back to court to press for speedier hepatitis C treatment in prisons. At the same time, she said the ACLU understands the system is facing budgetary hurdles.

“We do want to recognize and at least acknowledge that there has been some progress made,” she said. “We do want to be reasonable and see if there is a non-litigation means to get prisoners treated more quickly.”

The ACLU is continuing to monitor hepatitis C treatment for Medicaid patients, too. Under the terms of the state’s settlement with the group, Kansas agreed to hand over quarterly updates on how many patients are prescribed treatment and whether their requests get approved.

Previously, the state’s privatized Medicaid program, KanCare, approved only patients with the most serious liver scarring. It made them pass extensive sobriety tests, too.

The settlement says Kansas can only impose a three-month drug-free period instead of six, and that it can’t reject patients for using alcohol or illegal drugs that aren’t taken by needle.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ 

ATCHISON COUNTY —The search for a convicted felon suspected in a weekend shooting continues.  Kevin Maxey, Jr., 31, Atchison is wanted for the Sunday morning shooting of a 42-year-old Atchison man near a city park, according to Police Chief Mike Wilson.

On Tuesday, Wilson said they had expanded the search beyond the city of Atchison and are doing a number of things in an attempt to locate him.

Officers raided Maxey’s home Sunday evening but he wasn’t there. The victim, whose name wasn’t released, suffered two gunshot wounds.

Wilson said about 20 people had gathered in the area when an argument broke out, primarily between two people. He says the victim apparently was not involved in the argument and was standing in the area when the shots were fired.

Maxey has been imprisoned for aggravated robbery, aggravated battery and Contraband: Non firearm, etc non employee, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a driver crashed into a tree while Topeka police chased him from the scene of an apparent hit-and-run crash.

Topeka police Lt. Steve Roth says the fleeing driver appeared conscious and alert Monday night after the crash.

The driver had apparently been involved in a crash a short time earlier in which a motorcyclist suffered injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening.

Roth says another driver followed the man from the scene and called police. Officers initially pulled the man over, but then he drove away. No one else was hurt when he crashed into a tree. His name wasn’t immediately released.