TOPEKA, KAN. – Federal charges were unsealed Thursday against three men who are accused of drug trafficking in Topeka, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.
On Wednesday, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies served search warrants at 13 locations and arrested three defendants as part of the investigation.
Charges have been filed in federal court in Topeka against James Charles Booker, Jr., 35, Topeka, one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine; Brett Damon McMurray, 48, Topeka, one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and Maurice Ross, 47, Topeka, one count of distributing cocaine.
Ross photo Shawnee Co.
Upon conviction, the crimes carry the following penalties:Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute crack cocaine: Not less than five years and not more than 40 years in federal prison and a fine up to $5 million, Distributing cocaine: Up to 20 years in federal prison and a f fine up to $1 million.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Safe Streets Task Force of Topeka investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Maag is prosecuting.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Jan Bennett learned a lot of lessons on her solo bicycle ride across the entire 2,220-mile Pony Express Trail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California.
She already had endured food poisoning, hail and near misses with tornado weather by the time she made it to a remote stretch of northern Nevada as part of her effort to map out a bike-packing route the historic trail.
But she told the Reno Gazette Journal recently it was a “little bit of a gut check” when she had to walk her bike up a canyon road where the water was scarce.
She remembered a piece of advice she had received about endurance riding: “If you have to cry, cry while you are moving.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal judges in three states on Friday temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s policy to deny green cards to many immigrants who use Medicaid, food stamps and other government benefits, dealing a setback to one of the president’s most aggressive moves yet to cut legal immigration and make it more based on employment skills than family ties.
The rulings in California, New York and Washington came in quick succession four days before the new rules were set to take effect. The judges ruled in favor of 21 states and the District of Columbia, which challenged the policy almost immediately after it was announced in August.
U.S. District Judge George Daniels in New York said the policy redefined longstanding immigration laws with a new framework that had “no logic.” Allowing the policy to go into effect now, he said, would have a significant impact on “law-abiding residents who have come to this country to seek a better life.”
“Overnight, the rule will expose individuals to economic insecurity, health instability, denial of their path to citizenship and potential deportation,” Daniels wrote. “It is a rule that will punish individuals for their receipt of benefits provided by our government, and discourages them from lawfully receiving available assistance intended to aid them in becoming contributing members of society.”
Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, expressed confidence that the administration would eventually prevail and framed the policy as a legal attempt to ensure that those who settle in the United States can support themselves financially.
“An objective judiciary will see that this rule lies squarely within long-held existing law,” Cuccinelli wrote on Twitter. “Long-standing federal law requires aliens to rely on their own capabilities and the resources of their families, sponsors, and private organizations in their communities to succeed.”
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham added that the rulings were “extremely disappointing” and “the latest inexplicable example of the administration being ordered to comply with the flawed or lawless guidance of a previous administration instead of the actual laws passed by Congress.”
While Trump has focused much of his attention on illegal immigration — including his pledge to build a wall on the Mexican border — he has also trained his sights on curbing legal immigration by moving away from a system that is largely based on family ties. He outlined his plans early in his administration in discussions with Congress to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, turning to executive actions after those efforts failed.
Just last week, Trump issued a presidential proclamation that says immigrants will be barred from the country unless they are covered by health insurance within 30 days of entering or have enough financial resources to pay for any medical costs. The measure, which is scheduled to take effect Nov. 3, could prohibit the entry of about 375,000 people a year, mainly family members who account for a majority of people getting green cards from abroad, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
Friday’s rulings put the policy to deny green cards to more immigrants on government aid on hold while lawsuits proceed. Federal law already requires immigrants seeking to become permanent U.S. residents to prove they will not be a burden on the country — a “public charge,” in legal terms —but the new rules detail a broader range of programs that could disqualify applicants.
On average, 544,000 people apply for green cards every year, with about 382,000 falling into categories that would be subject to the new review, according to the government. Guidelines in use since 1999 refer to a “public charge” as someone primarily dependent on cash assistance, income maintenance or government support.
Under the new rules, the Department of Homeland Security has redefined a public charge as someone who is “more likely than not” to receive public benefits for more than 12 months within a 36-month period. If someone uses two benefits, that is counted as two months. And the definition has been broadened to include Medicaid, housing assistance and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Factors like the immigrant’s age, employment status and English-language ability would also be looked at to determine whether they could potentially become public burdens at any point in the future.
While the administration argues that the rule changes would ensure that those gaining legal residency status are self-sufficient, critics say they are discriminatory and would have the effect of barring immigrants with lower incomes in favor of those with wealth. They consider it a betrayal of Emma Lazarus’ words on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the ruling “an important win for our country (that) sends a clear message that we will not allow these hateful policies imposed by the Trump administration to tear our country apart. Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, said it stops a “heartless attempt to weaponize” health care, housing and other essential public services.
Daniels’ ruling in New York was in a lawsuit filed by the states of New York, Connecticut and Vermont. The Washington decision, authored by U.S. District Judge Rosanna Molouf Peterson in Spokane, was in a lawsuit by the state of Washington and 13 others: Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Virginia.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, ruled in favor of California, Maine, Oregon, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. Her decision applies only in those states, a moot point because the other two injunctions are nationwide.
Daniels and Hamilton were appointed by President Bill Clinton. Peterson was appointed by President Barack Obama.
TOPEKA — The Kansas Supreme Court has adopted new child support guidelines that will take effect January 1, 2020.
The court adopted the updated guidelines through Administrative Order 307, which says they are to be used as a basis for establishing and reviewing child support orders in Kansas district courts.
The new guidelines are available on the Kansas judicial branch website at www.kscourts.org:
Kansas Child Support Guidelines are rules judges and hearing officers follow to decide how much child support each parent is to pay toward raising their children. At the most basic level, they guide parents to create a fair and balanced distribution of resources essential to raising children: time and money.
Child support pays for housing, clothing, transportation, recreation, health care, child care, and other expenses that would have been shared by the parents had the family remained intact.
Federal law requires states to review their child support guidelines every four years. In Kansas, an advisory committee reviews Kansas’ guidelines to ensure that the roughly $35 million mothers and fathers pay in support each month is equitable for the parents and appropriate for the day-to-day essential needs of the children they support.
Kansas has reviewed and revised its guidelines 10 times since they were initially established in 1989. The advisory committee that has done the reviews has included parents who either pay or receive child support, tax professionals with expertise in child support, attorneys, and judges. An economist is enlisted to help with the review.
The current committee spent nearly a year reviewing the guidelines and making proposed updates. The updates were made available for public comment this summer, and comments were considered by the Supreme Court before the updates were adopted this week.
Two BNSF locomotives collided on Friday night around 11 p.m. approximately 11 miles east of Alliance or a few miles west of Antioch, Nebraska.
According to BNSF public affairs director Andy Williams, one of the trains was stopped as another train hit the other in the rear while slowing down to stop. Both came off the train tracks. All the coal cars on the trains were empty.
Photo By KALIN KROHE
The trains were westbound going to Wyoming.
Williams said, Hulcher Services helped lift the empty train cars and set them back on the tracks.
ABILENE — Former White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater is returning to the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum, and Boyhood home, according to a media release from the museum.
Marlin Fitzwater courtesy photo
Abilene’s very own Marlin Fitzwater returns to discuss his new book, Calm Before the Storm: Desert Storm Diaries & Other Stories, during the next Eisenhower Presidential Library’s Lunch & Learn program.
The program is scheduled for noon Wednesday in the Eisenhower Presidential Library Visitors Center Auditorium, 200 SE 4th, Abilene. Free and open to the public, a light lunch is included on a first come, first serve basis. A sign-language interpreter will be available for this program.
Fitzwater’s front row seat as White House Press Secretary to some of America’s most defining moments provides an intimate look at what transpired inside the White House.
Fitzwater is an American writer who served as White House Press Secretary for President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush from 1983 to 1993. Fitzwater was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal in 1992. He is the founder of the Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication located at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire. He is married and lives in Maryland, in a village on the Chesapeake Bay.
A book signing will follow Fitzwater’s presentation. Copies of his book are available for sale in the gift shop and online at www.ILikeIkeStore.com.
The Lunch & Learn series is made possible courtesy of the Eisenhower Foundation and the Jeffcoat Memorial Foundation.
Kansas farmer Luke Ulrich faces long hours and low pay in part because of President Trump’s trade policies, but he still backs Trump.-photo by FRANK MORRIS
Most farmers haven’t had a single good year since President Trump took office, and Trump’s policies on trade, immigration and ethanol are part of the problem.
Yet farmers, who broadly supported Trump in 2016, are sticking with him as the impeachment inquiry moves forward.
“You see everyone circling their wagons now, and the farm community is no different in that,” says John Herath, the news director at Farm Journal.
The farm magazine polls more than a thousand farmers monthly. Herath says Trump’s popularity slumped a bit in the summer, but he notes it bounced back to 76% favorable the week the U.S. House launched its impeachment inquiry.
‘Scratching our heads’
Farmer Luke Ulrich says he works at least 12 hours a day, almost every day, tending his crops and cattle near Baldwin City, Kansas.
Ulrich anticipates a decent corn and soybean crop this year. But his expenses are so high, and the prices he’s getting for his crops and cattle are so low, he’s budgeting less than $25,000 in income for the whole year.
“We more or less live off my wife’s income,” says Ulrich, looking up from the combine he’s fixing. “She carries the benefits. If it wasn’t for her we’d probably be sunk.”
President Trump is partly to blame for low grain prices. China retaliated against his tariffs by all but closing a giant export market for Ulrich’s soybeans.
“I’d probably be lying if I said some of us aren’t scratching our heads every once in a while,” says Ulrich. “I sometimes wonder if he didn’t bite off a little more than he could chew.”
The Trump administration hurt demand for corn by allowing dozens of oil refineries to sidestep their legal obligations to use billions of gallons of corn-based ethanol in gasoline blends.
Still, Ulrich says he’s not mad at Trump. He loves Trump’s hands-off approach to environmental regulations, and he appreciates the $28 billion aid package that Trump’s agriculture department has distributed to compensate farmers for what they’re losing in export sales.
Walking the line
Pat Westhoff, who directs the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri, says farm bankruptcies are up sharply this year and says the so-called “trade aid” payments are crucial.
“Every dollar counts right now, so it’s a difference between profit and loss for many producers,” says Westhoff.
Trump has mitigated some of the problems he’s caused farmers. Sara Wyant, president of Agri-Pulse Communications, has been polling farmers about Trump for years and says they’ve stood by him through it all.
“That is not going to hold forever,” warns Wyant. “That is going to be a position that when some of them start to face, well, either it’s Trump or going out of business, they’re not going to be still voting for Trump.”
But many farmers are keeping their hopes up. That’s what they tell Jim Mintert, director of the Center for Commercial Agriculture at Purdue University. Mintert says two-thirds of the 400 farmers he polls each month look for a happy ending to the trade wars.
“I wouldn’t say that we’ve seen any evidence of people becoming, less supportive of the administration’s trade policy,” says Mintert. “That’s not to say farmers aren’t concerned. They are very definitely concerned.”
Deeply personal politics
Trump’s tried to ease those concerns. He’s promised progress on trade, pledged to force oil companies to use billions of gallons more ethanol.
And then there are the $28 billion in so-called “market facilitation payments” over and above other farm subsidies and disaster assistance.
And politics are deeply personal these days, according to Chris Larimer, a political science professor at the University of Northern Iowa. Larimer says farmers have to square their economic differences with Trump, with their partisan allegiance to him.
“These partisan identities are hardening,” says Larimer. “So, you kind of have forces pushing in both ways. And it’s sort of this ongoing experiment to see which one breaks first.”
For now, political ideology seems to be winning. While there’s a lot of grumbling about Trump among farmers, neither the trade wars nor the impeachment investigations seem to be driving them away from him, yet.
Frank Morris is a national NPR correspondent and senior editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @FrankNewsman.
WICHITA, KAN. – A Kansas man who robbed three stores was sentenced this week to 84 months in federal prison, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.
Willie Smith, 39, Wichita, pleaded guilty to one count of robbery. In his plea, he admitted that in 2018 he robbed the QuikTrip store at 1532 S. Seneca. He showed the clerk what appeared to be a revolver before demanding money. Later, when investigators searched his apartment, they found a black BB gun they believe Smith used in three robberies.
At sentencing, the court also took into account as relevant conduct two other robberies Smith committed in 2018. Smith robbed the Express Mart at 565 S. Market. During the robbery, he showed the clerk what appeared to be a revolver. Smith also robbed Pete’s Liquor at 332 W. Harry. During the robbery, he pulled out what appeared to be a revolver.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A man charged in the shooting death of a former Washburn University football player and the wounding of current New York Giants cornerback Corey Ballentine has a new attorney.
KiAnn Caprice was appointed this week to defend 18-year-old Francisco Mendez, who faces 12 charges after the April 28 shooting that killed Dwane Simmons. The appointment came after Mendez’s previous attorney withdrew from the case.
Last month, Mendez pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, four counts of attempted murder and seven other counts. Simmons, Ballentine and three other Washburn players were shot at as they celebrated after Ballentine was drafted by the Giants earlier in the day.
Investigators have said at least three guns were used in the shooting.
PRATT – A Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) Law Enforcement K-9 known as “Tibbie” died August 6, 2019 when the idling vehicle she was kept in stalled, disabling the air conditioning system and causing the cab temperature to rise to dangerous levels.
Tibbie photo courtesy KDWP&T Game Wardens
According to a media release from the KDWPT, her game warden handler Adam Pack and a local veterinarian gave Tibbie, a Labrador retriever, emergency treatment before being rushed to the Veterinary Health Center at Kansas State University where she ultimately passed. A thorough investigation was completed on October 11, 2019.
“K-9 handlers have a bond with their animal that is as strong as any human partner, and this team was no different,” KDWPT Law Enforcement Division director Col. Jason Ott said. “These K-9s aren’t just a law enforcement asset, they’re also a friend and colleague. We feel for Adam and the loss he’s experienced, and the impact this has on the K-9 program and law enforcement division.”
The pair were on patrol when Tibbie was secured in the idling vehicle while the game warden conducted business that did not require K-9 assistance. As is standard practice, the specially-equipped patrol vehicle was left locked with the engine running.
Because each KDWPT law enforcement vehicle that carries a K-9 is outfitted with a state-of-the-art heat-alarm system – specifically designed to lower the windows and engage fans if the engine stalls and the cabin temperature reaches a certain threshold – the vehicle was immediately taken out of service and an investigation was conducted into the cause of the incident.
While a report from the vehicle manufacturer was inconclusive in determining the cause of the vehicle stall, the heat-alarm system manufacturer determined that the heat alarm was not engaged during the time of the incident. An internal investigation confirmed these findings and determined the game warden had not checked that the heat-alarm system was in working order the day of the incident.
The KDWPT Law Enforcement Division is conducting a check of all vehicles that carry a K-9 officer, and modifying K-9 program procedures and officer training to help prevent such an incident from occurring in t
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Two convicted felons facing criminal charges over a Kansas bar shooting that killed four people and wounded five others had previous brushes with the law that could have kept them behind bars had judges and other officials made different decisions, according to a review of court records by The Associated Press.
Hugo Villanueva-Morales photo KCK Police
But observers say those decisions — to let one man out on bond pending trial and to let the other serve probation rather than return to prison — weren’t in themselves unusual and underscore the kinds of issues judges often must assess to determine which offenders pose a public danger.
One of the men, who remains on the lam, even spent two nights in a local jail within two weeks of the shooting early Sunday at the Tequila KC bar in a close-knit Kansas City, Kansas, neighborhood.
Hugo Villanueva-Morales, 29, had been caught with synthetic marijuana during a stretch of more than four years in a state prison for robbery and had been released by the time he was sentenced for trafficking contraband. The judge could have sent him back to prison for nine years but instead put him on three years’ probation. Villanueva-Morales violated probation by testing positive for marijuana use in September and agreed to serve two days in jail, according to a review of court records by AP.
Villanueva-Morales left the jail in neighboring Leavenworth County on Sept. 29, a week before police say he caused a disturbance at the bar and returned with 23-year-old Javier Alatorre to shoot it up.
Alatorre also had been released from jail in September across the state line in Jackson County, Missouri, where he still faces charges of fleeing from police in a stolen vehicle. A judge released him on his own recognizance after his attorney sought to have his bail lowered.
Probation is the most common result in Kansas for a conviction involving trafficking in prisons or jails, imposed nearly 66% of the time over the past three years, according to the Kansas Sentencing Commission. The charges Alatorre faced in Missouri were “run-of-the-mill felony cases,” according to Rodney Uphoff, a law professor for the University of Missouri’s flagship campus in Columbia.
“No one has a crystal ball,” Uphoff said. “No one can predict with 100 % accuracy whether someone who is released will be safe or not.”
Both Villanueva-Morales and Alatorre now face four counts of first-degree murder in district court in Wyandotte County, where the bar is located. Authorities arrested Alatorre hours after the shooting at a Kansas City, Missouri, home. He had his first court appearance on the murder charges Thursday and is due in court again Oct. 15.
Authorities say people should presume Villanueva-Morales is armed and dangerous. Stymied investigators conceded Thursday they don’t know whether he has left the area and sought the public’s help. Leavenworth County District Judge Michael Gibbens also issued a warrant Thursday for his arrest for violating the terms of a three-year probation that Gibbens imposed in September 2018 in the contraband-trafficking case.
At the time of the bar shooting, Villanueva-Morales also was facing charges in an assault case in which prosecutors allege he fought with a sheriff’s deputy outside a Kansas City, Missouri, bar in August. Charging documents say the scuffle happened after an unknown man was kicked out of the bar and returned later with Villanueva-Morales.
Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson filed a request this week to have Villanueva-Morales’ probation revoked. In an affidavit, a community corrections official said he had failed to report the August incident to probation officers as required and that crossing the state line without permission, using a gun and going to a place where alcohol is served violated his probation.
In the summer of 2018, Thompson’s office had argued for returning Villanueva-Morales to prison. Though online Kansas Department of Corrections records list 30 infractions inside prison walls, Villanueva-Morales still earned enough good-time credits to be released in January 2018, a little more than nine months early, according to the department.
But Villanueva-Morales’ attorney argued that he was caught in 2015 with only a small amount of synthetic marijuana for personal use and the crime would be a misdemeanor outside the walls. He had obtained a GED while in state custody, and Leavenworth County court records include a positive statement from an employer and a church’s baptismal certificate.
Though the complaint in the case said Villanueva-Morales was caught in April 2015 with the drug — hiding it in his rectum, Thompson said — the charge wasn’t filed until February 2017.
Randy Bowman, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Corrections, said he can’t say why it took so long to file charges against Villanueva-Morales and that investigators with the department filed an affidavit in the case on Aug. 17, 2015.
Gibbens departed from the state’s sentencing guidelines by setting a five-year sentence and then suspending it for three years’ probation. The judge also made news this year when he reduced the sentence of a convicted sex offender because he said the 13- and 14-year-old girls the man abused were actually the “aggressor.”
In his form detailing the sentence in the contraband case, Gibbens noted that Villanueva-Morales accepted responsibility.
On Wednesday, after The Kansas City Star reported on the case, Gibbens filed an updated version that said: “Defendant doing well on parole as evidenced by letter form supervising authority; the amount of contraband (synthetic marijuana) was small and was indicative of personal usage.”
A court administrator said Friday that Gibbens is the presiding judge in the case and is prohibited from commenting on it.
Thompson said that when an offender has been released, judges often look to see how they’re doing on probation or parole.
“We can’t foresee what someone’s going to do,” Thompson. “Every time they come out of prison, we have to have the hope that they learned their lesson.”
And when Villanueva-Morales tested positive for marijuana on Sept. 9, a 2013 state law designed to keep non-violent drug offenders from filling the state’s crowded prisons called for a two-day jail sentence. He acknowledged the violation and accepted the punishment without a court hearing, records show.
Alatorre photo KCK Police
Meanwhile, Alatorre had been in and out of jail in Missouri in the months prior to the shooting. In Kansas, he was on parole for evading a road block and driving recklessly while attempting to evade capture, having served a little more than a month in prison for violating probation.
In the fleeing-from-police case, dating from 2018, Jackson County, Missouri, Judge Kevin Harrell reduced Alatorre’s bail and released him on his own recognizance last month over the objections of prosecutors.
Harrell provided no explanation for his decision in the order and a county court spokeswoman said rules bar judges from commenting on pending cases, but the defense attorney who argued for his release cited revamped bail rules that took effect in July. The rules stemmed from scrutiny of the Missouri court system in the wake of the 2014 deadly shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
After Brown was killed, complaints started surfacing about the way some municipal courts were handling pretrial releases or detention. The new rules mandate that pretrial release decisions must begin with non-monetary conditions of release, and the courts may impose monetary conditions, such as a bond, only when necessary and only in an amount needed to ensure the defendant’s appearance in court or the public’s safety.
But J.R. Hobbs, a Kansas City, Missouri, defense attorney, said the rules still allow for bail and for defendants to be held without it.
“Pretrial release is a careful balance of what conditions will assure the appearance in court and the safety of the community,” Hobbs said.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita lawyer accused of plotting a cyberattack on websites with information criticizing his work has told a federal court he intends to change his plea.
A docket notation Friday shows attorney Bradley Pistotnik has a change-of-plea hearing Tuesday.
The move comes two days after his co-defendant , VIRAL Artificial Intelligence co-founder David Dorsett, notified the court of his plea change. Dorsett’s hearing is Oct. 21.
Both men pleaded not guilty last year to computer fraud and conspiracy. Pistotnik is also charged with making false statements to the FBI.
The indictment alleges they are responsible for cyberattacks on Leagle.com, Ripoffreport.com and JaburgWilk.com in 2014 and 2015. The indictment accuses Dorsett of filling website inboxes with threats. An email purportedly demanded that a webpage be removed or the hackers will target advertisers.
