NEWTON, Kan— The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence Thursday filed suit on behalf of the family of murdered Excel Industries employee Joshua Higbee against A Pawn Shop, located in Newton, Kansas.

According to a media release, the lawsuit alleges that A Pawn Shop negligently sold firearms in a straw purchase, which were then used by a known convicted felon in a February 25, 2016 workplace shooting. One of the guns was a semi-automatic assault rifle, similar to the type used by gunmen in recent mass shootings in Parkland, Florida, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Joshua Higbee was killed when Cedric Ford opened fire on his colleagues at the Excel Industries factory in Hesston, Kansas. The workplace shooting occurred during Ford’s crime spree that began in Newton, Kansas. Ford killed three people, including Higbee, and injured 14 others.

The complaint alleges that A Pawn Shop transferred an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle and a Glock semi-automatic handgun to Sarah Jo Hopkins, despite numerous indications that she was acting as a straw purchaser for Ford. Federal law prohibited Ford, a convicted felon, from purchasing and possessing firearms. A straw purchase is when someone buys a gun for someone else, and it is a violation of federal law. Shamberg, Johnson & Bergman and The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed the suit in the District Court of Harvey County, Kansas.

Subrina Luke, Joshua Higbee’s wife, stated, “Joshua was a wonderful man and a wonderful father. It feels like we lost everything when he was taken from us.”

“Whatever your views are on gun issues, we can all agree that gun dealers have a responsibility to do what they reasonably can to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people,” said Jonathan Lowy, Vice President, Litigation, and co-counsel for the plaintiff at The Brady Center. “When a gun dealer chooses to engage in irresponsible sales practices that arm dangerous people, that dealer should be held accountable.”

“Straw purchases are one of the primary ways that dangerous criminals get guns,” said David Morantz, co-counsel for the plaintiff at Shamberg, Johnson & Bergman. “Gun dealers serve on the front lines of the battle to deter gun violence. This lawsuit will help ensure that gun dealers adhere to their duty and keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”

Shamberg, Johnson & Bergman is a personal injury and civil litigation firm in Overland Park, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo. The firm successfully represented the family of victims in the Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting against Walmart, which sold one of the guns used in the incident.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A former executive of a Springfield charity, who was also an Arkansas lobbyist has been indicted by a federal grand jury for his role in a nearly $1 million bribery conspiracy involving a Springfield, Mo., health care organization, according to Timothy A. Garrison, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri,.

Milton Russell Cranford, also known as “Rusty,” 56, of Rogers, Arkansas, was charged in a nine-count indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Springfield, Mo., on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018. That indictment was unsealed and made public today upon Cranford’s arrest. An initial court appearance is scheduled tomorrow in the U.S. District Court in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Cranford was both a lobbyist and an employee of Preferred Family Healthcare, Inc. (formerly known as Alternative Opportunities, Inc.), a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Springfield. Cranford served as an executive for the charity’s operations in the state of Arkansas. Cranford also operated two lobbying firms, The Cranford Coalition and The Capital Hill Coalition.

The indictment alleges that Cranford and co-conspirator Eddie Wayne Cooper, 51, of Melbourne, Arkansas, received $264,000 in secret kickback payments from co-conspirator Donald Andrew Jones, also known as “D.A.” Jones, of Willingboro, New Jersey, who was paid nearly $1 million by the charity in a bribery scheme that lasted almost six years, from February 2011 until January 2017.

Cooper, a former state representative in Arkansas from 2006 through January 2011, worked for The Cranford Coalition as a lobbyist and held a full-time position as regional director for Preferred Family Healthcare. Jones was a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based political operative who owned and operated the firm, D.A. Jones & Associates, which purported to provide political and advocacy services, including consulting, analysis, and public relations. Neither Cooper nor Jones are charged in the indictment with Cranford; they each have pleaded guilty in separate cases.

Cranford allegedly recommended to the charity’s chief financial officer, chief operating officer and chief executive officer to enter into a contractual arrangement with Jones for lobbying and advocacy services. Cranford influenced the charity in its award of the contract, the indictment says, then demanded payments to himself and Cooper of a portion of the funds Jones obtained from the charity in exchange for Cranford’s influence on Jones’s behalf.

According to the indictment, the charity paid Jones a total of $973,807 to provide advocacy services for the charity, including direct contact with legislators, legislators’ offices, and government officials, in order to influence elected and appointed public officials to the financial benefit of the charity, including attempting to steer grants and other sources of funding to the charity. Jones allegedly paid a total of $264,000 to Cranford and Cooper. Most of the funds were paid to Cranford or one of his firms, the indictment says.

In addition to the conspiracy, the indictment charges Cranford with eight counts of receiving a bribe by an agent of an organization that receives federal funds.

The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation, which would require Cranford to forfeit to the government all property derived from the proceeds of the alleged offenses.

ARNOLD, Mo. (AP) – A man who went to pick up a relative from a suburban St. Louis high school with numerous weapons in his car faces a federal charge, although authorities say there’s no indication he intended harm.

Twenty-three-year-old Dustin Lockwood was taken into custody Tuesday at Fox High School in the town of Arnold and charged Wednesday with possessing a firearm in a school zone. Lockwood told authorities he was picking up his sister and was about to pawn the rifle in his car. The search of his car also yielded a revolver, suspected homemade silencer, multiple knives, a machete, explosive related material and ammunition. Numerous chemicals and bomb making components were found in his home.

Lockwood’s grandfather, Steven Lockwood, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch his grandson had made his own fireworks.

JACKSON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect for an alleged sex crime.

On Wednesday, deputies arrested Antonio Ramirez-Garcia, 38, of Oaxaca, Mexico  in connection to a February rape, according to Sheriff Tim Morse.

The crime is alleged to have occurred in the early morning hours on February 10, in Holton.

Detectives with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office located Ramirez-Garcia in Topeka where he was taken into custody.

Ramirez-Garcia, in the U.S. illegally, is currently being held in the Jackson County Jail for rape with bond  set at $50,000.00.

TOPEKA —Due to safety concerns regarding the winter storm forecast for the state Wednesday evening and continuing through late Thursday afternoon Feb. 22, Gov. Jeff Colyer has ordered the closing of state government for all state agencies.

#ksleg #kswx pic.twitter.com/rnpoemkIIc

— Governor Jeff Colyer (@GovJeffColyer) February 22, 2018

The closing is effect from midnight Thursday morning until 5 p.m. State employees are advised to tune to local television and radio stations or visit their websites for further information as the storm progresses.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – The attorney for a man facing execution next month says she has “very serious concerns” about Missouri’s lethal injection method following a report claiming the state purchased execution drugs from a troubled compounding pharmacy.

Buzzfeed News reported that Foundation Care pharmacy was the supplier of pentobarbital used in the 17 Missouri executions since 2014, even though the Food and Drug Administration deemed it a “high-risk” pharmacy.

Russell Bucklew is scheduled to die March 20 for a 1996 killing. His attorney, Cheryl Pilate, says she’s troubled by the Buzzfeed report and is seeking more information before deciding whether to file a new appeal.

The quality of the execution drug is of particular concern because Bucklew suffers from a rare condition that causes weakened and malformed blood vessels and tumors in his head.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas can’t cut Medicaid funds to a Planned Parenthood affiliate over videos anti-abortion activists secretly recorded in 2015, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision leaves in place a lower court’s preliminary injunction that blocked Kansas from ending the contract. It is the fifth of six circuits to uphold the right of patients to receive health care from their preferred qualified provider.

The decision applies to Kansas’ Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which has two health centers in Kansas and three in Missouri. However, the appeals panel sent back to the lower court a related injunction involving the state’s effort to terminate its contract with Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, which serves some Kansas patients at its clinic in Joplin, Missouri.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains in an emailed statement called the appeals court’s decision a “huge win” for Kansas Medicaid patients who know and trust it as their health care provider, saying the state’s termination of its contract was “baseless and politically motivated.”

“The 10th Circuit’s decision sends a strong message that state officials should not play politics with Medicaid — or the health care and wellbeing of Kansans,” said Dr. Brandon Hill, the group’s president and CEO.

Gov. Jeff Colyer’s spokesman, Kendall Marr, said in an email that the state is studying the 10th Circuit decision and considering further legal options.

“We will continue the fight for life,” Marr said.

Planned Parenthood provides health exams, contraception services, cancer screenings, and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, the court said, adding that while some of its clinics offer abortions, Medicaid seldom pays for those.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson in Kansas City, Kansas, issued the temporary ruling in July 2016 in a lawsuit filed by what was then called Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri and the organization’s St. Louis regional affiliate. Robinson wrote that Medicaid patients have “the explicit right to seek family planning services from the qualified provider of their choice.”

In July 2015, the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress released a series of edited videos purportedly depicting Planned Parenthood of America executives talking about the sale of fetal tissue.

Based on that, Kansas began investigating the affiliates in Kansas. The Kansas Board of Healing Arts determined in 2016 that after review of the investigative materials no further action would be taken. The Missouri attorney general investigated the affiliate in his state and also announced it found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Kansas already has blocked Planned Parenthood from receiving federal family planning dollars for non-abortion services in the state. The affiliate provides both surgical and medication abortions at its clinic in Overland Park, in far eastern Kansas near Kansas City, Missouri. It provides medication abortions at its Wichita clinic.

Federal courts have blocked attempts by other states to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, including Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana and Utah.