Thirty-four-year-old Quinton D. Lucas of Kansas City, Missouri, was arrested early Friday morning in Lawrence.
He was released on bond and ordered to appear in municipal court in November on the misdemeanor charge.
Lucas told The Lawrence Journal-World he had been drinking and decided he shouldn’t drive back to Kansas City. But he says he never moved his vehicle from the public spot where it was parked and “dozed off” in his car.
He says plans to contest the DUI charge.
Lucas is a law lecturer at the University of Kansas, where he had previously been an associated professor. He was elected to the Kansas City council in 2015.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – A political action committee says it’s not pulling a widely condemned radio ad that suggests white Democrats will lynch African-Americans if they win in midterm elections in Arkansas next month.
Vernon Robinson with Black Americans for the President’s Agenda said Friday that the group won’t cancel the radio ad running in the Little Rock area in support of Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill.
He said the group also won’t pull a similar ad he says is airing in Missouri.
Hill and his Democratic challenger have condemned the Arkansas ad in which a woman says “white Democrats will be lynching black folk again.”
Robinson says that ad is scheduled to run through Friday and that it is part of a $50,000 buy.
JACKSON COUNTY— Authorities say one man was killed and another had to have his arm amputated after a mobile crane overturned at a roofing job site in northeast Kansas.
Jackson County Sheriff Tim Morse says the men were in a lift basket that was 30 feet in the air when the crane toppled over Wednesday afternoon in Holton. John Zibell, 66, Holton, was killed. The surviving victim identified as Zachary Estrada, 29, Holton was transferred to the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City.
Morse says the crane, which was being used to access the roof of a three-story house, was sitting on ground that was sloped and soft from recent rains. He says federal officials are investigating the cause.
Morse described what happened as “traumatic, grim and horrid.”
-The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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JACKSON COUNTY — Authorities are investigating the cause of a fatal construction accident. Just after 2p.m. Wednesday, first responders were called to a home in the 500 Block of Iowa in Holton, according to Sheriff Tim Morse.
Two workers were injured when they were thrown from the basket of a lift on a mobile crane while working on the three-story home.
The men were transported to the hospital in Holton where one died, according to Morse. The other man had an arm amputation and was transported to the University of Kansas hospital.
Authorities are expected to release additional details on Thursday.
KANSAS CITY (AP) – A Kansas City doctor has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for his role in prescription drug fraud.
John Verstraete and staff worked from this location in Kansas City
John Verstraete and employees had pleaded guilty to writing unnecessary prescriptions for human growth hormone and importing illegal steroids from overseas and then selling them on the black market.
Verstraete’s attorney, Christopher Angles, asked that Verstraete get only probation and home confinement, citing his history of compassionate patient care and charity work.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sirena Wissler said that Verstraete wrote fraudulent human growth hormone prescriptions to people who used it “strictly for vanity purposes,” cheating Medicare and Medicaid out of about $1.5 million. He or others in his office then bought some of the drugs back to be sold to other patients.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley has used a debate to paint Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill as too liberal for the increasingly red state of Missouri, while McCaskill continued to hammer her challenger over his positions on health care.
The two squared-off Thursday in St. Louis during a debate hosted by St. Louis Public Radio, Nine Network and KSDK Channel 5.
Hawley says McCaskill is out of touch on policies including the recent federal tax cut, which she voted against, and a wall on the southern border, which she says is unnecessary.
McCaskill hammered Hawley over his role in a lawsuit to overturn President Barack Obama’s health care law, including insurance protections for pre-existing medical conditions. Hawley says he supports those protections, but McCaskill says the lawsuit would undo them.
WICHITA — A large crowd was on hand to welcome Vice President Mike Pence to Wichita Thursday evening. Pence arrived just after 7:30p.m. following stops earlier in the day in Colorado and Oklahoma.
The Vice President attended a dinner and reception fundraiser in support of Kansas Secretary of State and Gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach, at the Air Capital Flight Line Building in Wichita. He spoke to the private gathering about immigration, cutting taxes and encouraged them to get out to vote.
Great to be in Wichita supporting an early supporter of @RealDonaldTrump’s @KrisKobach1787 to be be next Governor of the great state of Kansas! Kris is “Kansas grown,” and he’s carried his Kansas values with him at every stage of his life! pic.twitter.com/9aJgVa9gsE
On Friday the Vice President is scheduled to attend a similar reception in Topeka for Kansas 2nd district congressional candidate Steve Watkins. Former state House Minority Leader Paul Davis and Watkins are in a tight race to win the seat currently held by Lynn Jenkins.
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors are calling for a man who kidnapped and raped a suburban Kansas City sheriff’s deputy to serve more time in prison than what’s called for in Kansas sentencing guidelines, saying he also raped another woman while her toddler was present.
Luth and Newman-Caddell
Johnson County prosecutors made their case Wednesday, alleging Brady Newman-Caddell, 23, is a dangerous sexual predator who poses a risk of committing future crimes. Newman-Caddell pleaded guilty in May to charges of rape, aggravated sodomy and aggravated kidnapping.
He and another man, William Luth, were convicted for ambushing and abducting the deputy in 2016 from outside the Johnson County Detention Center in Olathe, Kansas.
The deputy testified Wednesday that she was heading to work when Luth confronted her, punched her multiple times and abducted her in the car that Newman-Caddell was driving. The deputy said that both men raped her, eventually letting her out of the vehicle about 30 miles away in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.
The men were arrested days later.
Newman-Caddell’s DNA samples from the deputy’s case were a match with another rape months prior that occurred in Independence, Missouri.
The woman also testified Wednesday, saying she was asleep in bed with her 2-year-old daughter when she awoke to two men inside her bedroom. The woman said she was punched and sexually assaulted by the men in front of her child. The men eventually stopped and left the apartment.
The woman said she later learned that Newman-Caddell lived in the same apartment building at the time that she was attacked.
Newman-Caddell will be sentenced Jan. 23. Luth was sentenced earlier this year to 41 years in prison after pleading guilty to the same charges.
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors say a man who kidnapped and raped a suburban Kansas City sheriff’s deputy is a dangerous sexual predator who raped another woman while her toddler was in bed with her.
Prosecutors made their case Wednesday for 23-year-old Brady Newman-Caddell to serve more time in prison than what’s called for in Kansas sentencing guidelines.
He and another man, William Luth, were convicted previously of abducting the deputy from outside the detention center in Olathe, Kansas, in October 2016 as she headed to work. She was released in the Missouri suburb of Lee’s Summit. DNA from that case led to the man being charged in the rape of the mother in Independence, Missouri.
Newman-Caddell will be sentenced Jan. 23. Luth is serving a 41-year sentence.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — More than 70 Kansas religious leaders and community activists are asking the state’s political candidates to stop vilifying immigrants.
The interfaith leaders signed an open letter to candidates saying that immigrants in the country legally and illegally are vital parts of communities and contribute to the economy.
Organizers said the letter will be sent this week to scores of Democrats and Republicans seeking state and federal offices. The group did not single out particular candidates. Lead organizer Rev. Bobby L. Love, Sr., deflected questions about whether it’s aimed at Kansas Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach.
Kobach has made illegal immigration a key issue in his campaign after more than a decade of advocating action by states and local communities.
KANSAS CITY (AP) – A new study says the approximately 250-mile trip from Kansas City to St. Louis could be slashed to a half-hour’s time, but an ultra-high-speed Hyperloop system across Missouri wouldn’t come cheap.
Kansas City-based Black and Veatch found in its analysis that the Hyperloop could run in the median or along the side of Interstate 70. The study was accepted Wednesday by Virgin Hyperloop One, a company working to develop the world’s first Hyperloop system.
With speeds two to three times faster than high speed rail, Missouri Hyperloop could give time back to its people – time worth up to $410 million per year. How would you spend your time saved? https://t.co/su3YQxwBYCpic.twitter.com/Ck9gUdk6bF
Hyperloop technology involves a tubular track through which a train-like pod carries passengers at speeds up to 640 mph. It’s not cheap. Some estimates have put the cost at $25 million to $27 million per mile, excluding land acquisition.
SHAWNEE COUNTY— Authorities are continuing the search for an inmate who escaped from a work crew in Topeka.
WORRELL -photo Shawnee County
The Shawnee County Department of Corrections says 27-year-old Brian Andrew Worrell ran away Wednesday on his first day with that crew. The Shawnee County Sheriff’s office confirmed late Thursday afternoon he was still missing.
Maj. Tim Phelps says that Worrell is not thought to be an active threat to any member of the public.
Worrell was part of a community work crew was helping with code compliance work. Worrell ran away when the crew supervisor began taking photos of the work. The remaining inmates were then secured.
He had been booked into the jail Sept. 20 on misdemeanor warrants charging him with theft and criminal damage to property and other charges.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – A political action committee says it’s not pulling a widely condemned radio ad that suggests white Democrats will lynch African-Americans if they win in midterm elections in Arkansas next month.
