Prosecuting Attorney Bob Rice says people who commit violence of any kind against any law officer in Nodaway County will be treated like suspects in a hate crime. Rice says he was motivated to announce the stricter policy by the recent killings of nine officers in Dallas, Baton Rouge and in Kansas City. But he says he’s seen his share of this sort of thing in Nodaway County..

“Since I’ve been a prosecutor since 2011 here locally I’ve had officers bit,I’ve had officers spat upon, punched, one officer suffered broken ribs, and two officers were intentionally struck by a car leaving a particular crime scene,” Rice said.

“These acts of violence against law enforcement officers are not going to be tolerated. I’m disappointed in the reaction of state and national leaders. There’s not a message out there that strongly fights for our law enforcement officers.”

When he read about what happened in Baton Rouge, Rice says he felt morally compelled to speak out and support our law enforcement officers. He decided to announce that any act of violence against law enforcement officers or agencies will be treated as if it were a hate crime.

“What that means to me is that anything from a drunk that belches on an officer, to those that would lift a fist or worse than that, I will ensure that every effort is made for that guilty person to serve the maximum punishment,” he said.

If the incident qualifies as a hate crime, Rice says he will file charges under that statute. Otherwise, perpetrators of violence against officers in Nodaway County can expect him to file charges of assault of a law officer, and to push for the maximum sentence.

Rice says he will bring to bear the same attitude, the same vigor that he would pursue a hate crime against any suspect charged with attacking law enforcement.

Rice says the police sacrifice to keep our families safe, and he says it’s his duty as prosecutor to make sure those men and women return home safe to their families after their shift.

“The violence against police will stop and it will stop right now.”

(Update 10:19 a.m. Thursday) –  Authorities said there is little new information after an overnight shooting in St. Joseph sent a man to the hospital.

The St. Joseph Police Department responded to a call of shots fired near the intersection of 3rd and Charles Wednesday night.

According to the St. Joseph Police Department, dispatch received a call at 11:47 p.m. from a woman reporting she and her son were at the stoplight at 3rd and Charles heading west, when a car pulled up next to their car and shot at them. The 35-year-old son was struck three or four times. He drove himself to Mosaic and was admitted for overnight observation with non-life threatening injuries.

Capt. Jeff Wilson said the victim received several gunshot wounds to the shoulder and arm.

“Victim stated he had no idea who shot him,” Wilson said.  “Not much information at this time.”

Officers found several shell casings at the intersection. The incident is still under investigation.

A St. Joseph man has been charged after an inmate in the Buchanan County jail alleged she was inappropriately touched.

Carlos Marte, 40 is charged in Buchanan County with a felony of sexual contact with a prisoner.  The charge carries a range of punishment of a maximum of one year in county jail or two to four years in the department of corrections.

According to court documents, on May 27th around 6 p.m. an inmate in the Buchanan County jail said Marte touched her genitals under the guise of conducting a physical examination.

“The defendant is an employee of Advanced Correctional Healthcare with whom Buchanan County contracts to provide medical care for inmates under their custody,” said Thomas Cates with the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department. “The procedure during which the defendant touched the genitals of the victim, according to policies of the medical provider and statements taken from representatives of the provider, is not the type procedure during which any physical contact is require or should take place.”

The felony complaint alleges the defendant was assigned to work in the jail and knowingly had deviate sexual intercourse with an inmate of the jail by touching her with his hand.

As we previously reported, the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office said as soon as a complaint was submitted it began investigating.  The department said it submitted two cases for consideration of charges Tuesday.

Bail for Marte is set at $10,000 cash.  An arraignment had not been set as of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Crime statistics in St. Joseph were up last year and that trend is continuing according to the city’s Chief of Police.

In an interview with 680 KFEQ Wednesday morning, St. Joseph Chief of Police Chris Conally said crime has increased around 6 percent.

Since January, the St. Joseph Police Department has responded to five homicide investigations with six victims.  As we previously reported, officers responded Sunday to a double-homicide investigation on Safari Dr.  Since then, five people have been charged in connection with that case.

“We know when something like this happens it instills a lot of fear in our community.  One of the things that we can guarantee is that when something like this comes up we put every resource into it that we have and we continue to fight this type of crime with any resource available, all resources,” Connally said. “This is a situation that involved career criminals.  The victims were in that neighborhood visiting somebody and had left when this occurred.”

Connally said crime is up all over the nation not just in St. Joseph.

“In my opinion there is a crime wave going across the country and unfortunately the large increases we’ve seen in a lot of the municipal areas, unfortunately we’re not immune to that,” he said.

But some areas of crime are down.

“Burglaries have been down a little bit in recent months, larcenies have been down a little bit in recent months,” Connally said. “If you’re a victim of a crime whether it’s up or down that doesn’t matter very much the fact of the matter is you’re a victim.”

Crime in 2015 was also up.

“Last year we saw over 300 more assaults then the year before, we’ve continued to see that rise,” Connally said. “We saw a significant rise mostly over the last six months of last year and that’s continued on into this year.  Actually June was the most normalized aside from two homicides which is very unfortunate; the other statistics were the most normalized then we’ve seen in the last 12 months.”

He said many of the increases have been with disputes, and domestic related calls and police are also seeing an increase in mental health issues.

 

(News Release) – Four St. Joseph, Mo., residents were indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday for their roles in a $1.5 million tax fraud scheme as well as individual tax fraud.

Dinorah Stoll-Weaver, 48, her sister, Dawn Langlais (formerly Ankrom-Brown), 58, her husband, Thad Weaver, 45, and Langlais’s daughter, Jennifer Sturgis, 37, all of St. Joseph, were charged in a 23-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo.

From 2001 through early 2010, Stoll-Weaver owned, and with the assistance of Langlais, operated Homeward Bound Health Services, Inc., a home health provider located in St. Joseph. In 2010, Stoll-Weaver changed Homeward Bound’s name to Silver Linings, Inc., and put in place nominee owners. According to the indictment, these nominee owners signed the checks but made no business decisions; Stoll-Weaver and Langlais maintained control and continued to operate Silver Linings, which closed in 2013.

Stoll-Weaver and Langlais employed other relatives at Homeward Bound and Silver Linings, including Weaver and Sturgis.

The indictment alleges that Stoll-Weaver and Langlais participated in a conspiracy to willfully fail to pay over employment taxes to the IRS and to steal from a health care benefit program from Oct. 1, 2009, to Jan. 31, 2013. Stoll-Weaver and Langlais withheld $508,088 in employment taxes from the paychecks of their employees, the indictment says, but instead of forwarding those taxes to the government, took them as additional income for themselves and for relatives.

According to the indictment, between 2009 – 2012, when the employment taxes were withheld but not paid to the IRS, Stoll-Weaver and Langlais personally spent approximately $868,565 from business accounts by transferring funds to their own account for personal expenses. They also wrote checks to cash and made cash withdrawals.

Homeward Bound and Silver Linings allegedly withheld and collected $341,996 in federal income taxes, Social Security taxes, and Medicare taxes from employees from 2010 to 2012 and then kept those withheld taxes instead of paying them.

Additionally, Homeward Bound allegedly failed to pay the employer portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2010 to 2012 totaling $166,091. Homeward Bound allegedly failed to pay federal income tax withholdings, and both the employee and employer portions of Social Security tax and Medicare tax, for years prior to 2010. Total employment taxes due and owing for Homeward Bound and Silver Linings from 2005 to 2010 are $765,748.

Homeward Bound and Silver Linings allegedly failed to pay federal unemployment taxes for 2002 to 2009 totaling $24,049. Homeward Bound and Silver Linings allegedly withheld and failed to pay over Missouri state income taxes from 2007 to 2010 totaling $291,204. In like manner, Homeward Bound and Silver Linings withheld from employee paychecks and kept child support payments, employee IRA contributions and medical and dental insurance payments. The theft of these payments from employees had negative collateral consequences for their employees.

The total criminal tax loss for failure to pay employment taxes due and owing from 2001 to 2012 is $1,502,760.

All of the defendants allegedly failed to declare and properly report their income on their personal federal income tax returns.

From at least 2009 to 2012, Stoll-Weaver, Langlais, Weaver and Sturgis all received income from Homeward Bound and Silver Linings, the indictment says, which they failed to report on their individual federal income tax forms, and as a result, underpaid their federal income taxes. According to the indictment, Langlais has not filed an income tax return since 2008. Additionally, from 2009 to 2012, Stoll-Weaver, Weaver, and Sturgis each allegedly claimed personal federal income tax refunds, knowing that Homeward Bound and Silver Linings had not paid any income taxes to the IRS.

In addition to the conspiracy, Stoll-Weaver and Langlais are charged together in one count of theft from a health care benefit program and 11 counts of willful failure to pay over taxes totaling $282,056.

Stoll-Weaver and Weaver are also charged together in four counts of making false statements on tax returns by failing to report a total of $257,826 of unreported income. Sturgis is charged with three counts of making false statements on tax returns by failing to report a total of $150,192 of unreported income. Langlais is also charged with three counts of failing to file tax returns for tax years 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Several towns in northwest Missouri have landed a spot on a list of safest cities according to a 2016 study released earlier this month.

The home security and financial website CreditDonkey has ranked several cities in northwest Missouri on its tops 50 Safest Cities in Missouri for 2016.  Smithville came in seventh followed by Savannah in the eighth spot, Kearney at 12, Pleasant Hill 13, Maryville at 23, Cameron at 29, Chillicothe 42, and Trenton at 48.

The study said on a national scale Missouri’s violent and property crime rates are on par with the average figures reported across all 50 states with St. Louis regarded as being a high crime area.

Mary Ingersoll the Ex. Dir. for the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce said Savannah’s ranking on the list came as no surprise.

“One of the best draws to live in Savannah is the low crime rate and great sense of community,”she said. “Savannah embodies small-town living at its best, and the 5,100 people who live here sleep well at night knowing that crime isn’t a regular occurrence. The city’s police department provides 24/7 protection, and officers are equipped with the latest technology to aid them in heading off criminal activity.”

To see the list in full CLICK HERE.

The Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department is submitting charges after two inmates reported being inappropriately touched.

Sheriff Mike Strong said a complaint from a Buchanan County inmate was submitted June 27 in reference to an employee of Advanced Correctional Healthcare touching a woman inappropriately.

“An investigation was initiated and was substantiated through witnesses, statement, accounts and other corroborative evidence,” Strong said. “During the course of the investigation a second victim was discovered whose account was largely similar in content.”

Strong said two cases will be submitted Tuesday afternoon to the Buchanan County Prosecutor’s Office for consideration of charges.

“Advanced Correctional Healthcare has been very cooperative in the investigation,” Strong said. “The employee of course was immediately suspended and it’s my understanding he’s been terminated by Advanced Healthcare.”

Strong said an investigation was launched right after a report was made and concluded Monday.  He said there are safeguards to try to prevent situations like this from happening.

“We have a healthcare facility upstairs where we do our exams and that’s where it occurred at,” Strong said. “One of the safeguards that we had in effect actually is what brought this to light.  We do and did have stuff in place.  We’re going to try to make them even better.”

Strong said the employee was not hired by the sheriff’s department but through Advanced Correctional Healthcare a contract company for the jail.

“To our knowledge and their knowledge there was not anything in this gentleman’s background that would have sent up alarms on this because if there had I can assure you I would not have allowed him into the building and Advanced Correctional Healthcare would not have hired him,” Strong said.

The charges are now being submitted for consideration by the prosecutor’s office.  We will post more on this story as more information becomes available.