STOCKTON (AP) – The driver of a car involved in a shootout that left a passenger and a southwest Missouri sheriff’s deputy dead has been charged with two felonies.

KYTV reports 28-year-old Joshua Jay Brown, of El Dorado Springs, was charged Monday in Cedar County with drug possession and tampering with evidence. Online court records show Brown is jailed on $100,000 bond and does not have a lawyer.

Authorities say Brown sped off around 12:30 a.m. Sunday when Cedar County Deputy Matthew Chism tried to stop him for a traffic violation. Chism chased the vehicle through El Dorado Springs, where 28-year-old William Collins jumped out as the car drove away.

Chism and Collins fought before exchanging gunfire that killed both of them.

Investigators say Brown and Collins both had multiple prior convictions.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Finance reports show that independent U.S. Senate candidate Greg Orman has put $3 million of his own funds into his race in Kansas against Republican Sen. Pat Roberts.

Orman’s contributions to his campaign included $1.8 million in October. Orman is an Olathe businessman who co-founded a private equity fund.

His race against the three-term GOP incumbent is close. Republicans have always counted on Roberts winning re-election as they seek a net gain of six seats to recapture a Senate majority.

Finance reports show Roberts raised more than $644,000 during the last two weeks of October, including $262,000 from political action committees.

Orman contributed $2 million in cash to his campaign in addition to covering $1 million in expenses. But he also raised more than $433,000 in contributions in October.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. (AP) — Sears and Kmart say they will open on Thanksgiving day again this year with extended hours to draw shoppers.

Sears will open at its earliest time ever — letting shoppers in at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving. The retailer decided two years ago to open on Thanksgiving and nudged up its opening time by two hours this year.

Kmart will open its doors at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving and stay open for 42 hours straight, an hour longer than last year.

The company is also offering special offers at both chains in the weeks preceding Thanksgiving.

A number of retailers have decided to open on Thanksgiving to lure shoppers as the holiday season can account for up to 40 percent of a retailer’s annual sales.

DETROIT (AP) — Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia will pay the U.S. government a $100 million penalty to end a two-year investigation into overstated gas mileage claims on about one-third of their models.

The government says the civil penalty is the largest for a Clean Air Act violation in U.S. history.

The discrepancy was discovered after the EPA got complaints about lower-than-advertised mileage on Hyundai’s Elantra compact. Audits discovered overstated mileage on the Elantra and other models from 2011 into 2013.

Hyundai says it made honest mistakes in interpreting complex EPA mileage test requirements. Neither company admitted liability and both maintain they complied with the law.

Generally mileage was overstated by one or two miles per gallon on 13 vehicles. But one vehicle’s highway mileage was 6 mpg higher than the EPA tes

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is leaving in place a portion of a New York City law aimed at regulating crisis pregnancy centers that are run by anti-abortion organizations.

The court rejected a free-speech appeal Monday in which the centers argued that the law’s requirement that they disclose whether a licensed medical provider works at the facilities is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

City officials said the 2011 law protects consumers and demands truth in advertising.

Courts have blocked other parts of the law, including a requirement that centers disclose whether they provide referrals for abortion, emergency contraception or prenatal care.

In addition, the court won’t hear an appeal challenging the constitutionality of a Colorado law that prohibits people from obstructing entry to abortion clinics.

The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that said the law does not restrict free speech or otherwise violate the rights of abortion protesters.

Protester Jo Ann Scott was convicted of violating the law after a jury found that she made physical contact with a woman trying to enter a Planned Parenthood clinic in Denver. An appeals court affirmed.

Scott argued that the law contains vague and overly broad terms that give police too much discretion to enforce it.

 

 

United States Attorney

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that a former Kansas City, Mo., woman has been indicted by a federal grand jury for a fraud scheme in which she stole $480,000 in lottery winnings from her victim as part of a scheme that resulted in a total loss of more than $640,000.

Freya Pearson, 41, of Georgia, formerly of Kansas City, was charged in a nine-count indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo., on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014. The indictment was unsealed and made public today upon Pearson’s initial court appearance.

The federal indictment alleges that Pearson convinced her 60-year-old victim to transfer $480,000 into the bank account of an organization called Recidivism at Work (RAW), a nonprofit entity Pearson had recently established. This victim, the indictment says, had won $2 million in the Missouri Lottery in 2008 and, after purchasing two houses, established an annuity to provide approximately $30,000 per year for the rest of her life.

Pearson allegedly instructed Wilson to withdraw her lottery winnings from the annuity account. The victim made three wire transfers in April, May and June 2010 to deposit the funds into Wilson’s RAW checking account. Whether the money was an investment or a business loan, the indictment says, Pearson materially omitted to disclose to Wilson that she would use the money to gamble and for her own personal expenses. Pearson allegedly used the $480,000 to gamble, travel, buy cars, clothes, and furniture, and pay rent while she lived in the St. Louis, Mo., metropolitan area. According to the indictment, no identifiable money was used for the nonprofit entity, nor for any business purpose.

When she met the victim in 2010, according to the indictment, Pearson was unemployed and her only income came from child support and Social Security benefits for one of her children. In March 2010, Pearson began to receive federal housing benefits for a residence in Kansas City, Mo. The Section 8 program assists low-income families with housing by paying most or all the beneficiary’s rent. She received a total of $76,837 in federal housing benefits over four years. In 2011, Pearson also began receiving welfare and/or food stamp benefits.

According to the indictment, Pearson filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 2, 2010, but did not disclose the RAW bank accounts, which had total balances of $56,506. Pearson received a discharge of her debts on March 15, 2011.

Pearson allegedly made random payments totaling $38,170 to Wilson, using Wilson’s own money, before stopping entirely in August 2011. Pearson filed no tax return for tax year 2010, the indictment alleges, and thus did not pay income taxes of $122,000 that would have been due on the $441,830 of taxable income Pearson received as a result of defrauding her victim.

Pearson allegedly defrauded Wilson of a total of $441,830. Pearson allegedly evaded $122,000 in federal income tax. Pearson allegedly defrauded the Weston Housing Authority of $76,837 in housing benefits. According to the indictment, Pearson thus caused a total loss of at least $640,667.

The federal indictment charges Pearson with three counts of wire fraud, four counts of money laundering, one count of tax evasion and one count of making false statements to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (related to her application for federal housing benefits).

The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation, which would require Pearson to forfeit to the government any property derived from the proceeds of the alleged offenses, including a money judgment of $441,830.

Dickinson cautioned that the charges contained in this indictment are simply accusations, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charges must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen D. Mahoney. It was investigated by the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department, IRS-Criminal Investigation and the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Health officials are trying to determine why Medicaid enrollment grew at extremely low rates last year in Kansas.

The Kansas Health Institute reports Medicaid enrollment grew by 0.1 percent from 2012 to 2013. The normal yearly growth rate is about 3 percent, which reflects population growth and families becoming eligible or dropping out of Medicaid.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports a KHI analyst said Medicaid’s transition to private management in Kansas last year, called KanCare, did not appear to effect enrollment because eligibility requirements were the same.

About 61,286 children were enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program in Kansas in 2013, and 225,116 children and families were enrolled in Medicaid. Another 103,364 people were enrolled in Medicaid programs for the disabled and low-income senior citizens.

WAYNESVILLE (AP) – One year after a child’s remains were found in rural southwest Missouri, an FBI evidence team will try to help identify the child.

A photographer found the remains of a child between the ages of 8 and 13 last Oct. 26 in a wooded area near Dixon in Pulaski County.

KOLR-TV reports that a forensic team in Texas examined the remains and found they belonged to a Caucasian with either Indian or Latino characteristics.

Investigators have not linked the remains to any missing persons cases.

Pulaski County Sheriff Ron Long says the FBI’s Evidence Response Team will be in the county this week to work with detectives. He says investigators have high hopes that more evidence will be found.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A former University of Kansas student is fighting his expulsion over social media posts about his ex-girlfriend.

The university expelled Navid Yeasin in November 2013 for violating an order not to contact his ex-girlfriend in any way. Yeasin sued earlier this year and a Douglas County judge ruled in September that the school did not have jurisdiction to expel him.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports (http://bit.ly/1Ebc3NY ) the university’s lawyer has filed a motion asking the court to reconsider its ruling and continue Yeasin’s expulsion until the judge rules.

The university cited its Student Conduct Code to expel Yeasin. The code says a student can be punished for incidents that occur while on campus or at university-sponsored events. Yeasin says the incidents that led to his expulsion didn’t occur on campus.