A military source on Tuesday released the amounts of narcotics and weapons seized between 2021 and December 19 of 2023 on the north-eastern front.
He said that the seized items included 60,280,642 Captagon pills, 41,717 palm-sized sheets, 735 kilogrammes and 13 bags of hashish, 100,386 pills and 86 strips of Tramadol and 589,000 pills of Lasix, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.
The items also included 35,810 strips of Galica capsules, 18,355 pills of Blarica capsules, and 197,009 pills, 103.96 kilogrammes and 6 bags of various narcotic substances.
The army also seized 5,819 kilogrammes and two bags of crystal meth, and 360 pills of other types of narcotics.
The source said that army, during the same period, has seized four rocket launchers, four RPG missiles, 10 anti-personnel mines, one G3 sniper rifle, one M16 rifle with sniping binoculars, 225 grammes of TNT, 21 automatic rifles, 10 pistols, five hand grenades, one M203 grenade, and one Kalashnikov rifle, Petra reported.
Luke Combs has apologized to a fan — a Florida woman who was ordered to pay him $250,000 in a copyright case — for selling tumblers featuring his name and likeness on Amazon.
The country music star also vowed to make it right by compensating the single mom involved in the ordeal.
The fan — Nicol Harness — said she recently returned home after a hospital stay for congenital heart failure and discovered that she was being sued in federal court by the “When It Rains It Pours” hit-maker. Harness’ homemade-gift shop on Amazon had been frozen and the judge had already ruled against her, ordering her to pay the musician $250,000 for violating copyright laws by selling unauthorized Combs merchandise.
The online craft seller told Tampa TV station WFLA on Dec. 12 that she sold a total of 18 cups featuring the Grammy-nominated singer and made $380 from her sales.
“It’s very stressful,” a visibly shaken Harness said. “I don’t have money to pay my bills. I just want this resolved. I didn’t mean any harm to Luke Combs. I quit selling the tumbler. I pulled it down. I just I don’t understand.”
By Dec. 13, the “Hurricane” singer caught wind of Harness’ plight and issued an emotional apology on TikTok and Instagram, explaining that he told his legal team to remove her from the lawsuit and that he planned to send her $11,000.
“It’s 7:27 a.m. here in Tennessee. I woke up at 5 a.m. to use the restroom and first thing I saw was this — a woman that’s been sued by me for $250,000,” Combs said in the video. “I spent the last two hours trying to make this right. Trying to figure out what’s going on, because I was completely and utterly unaware of this.”
The 33-year-old musician revealed that his manager contacted the news station that ran the story to get more information, sharing what they learned with Combs’ 5.1 million TikTok followers and 5.9 million Instagram followers.
“We do have a company that goes after folks, only supposedly large corporations operating internationally that make millions and millions of dollars, making counterfeit T-shirts, things of that nature, running illegal businesses,” Combs continued. “And apparently this woman Nicol has somehow gotten wrapped into that. And that makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.”
Combs said he tracked down Harness’ phone number and called her that morning.
“She told me that she was absolutely shocked by this. I was so apologetic talking to her. It makes me sick, honestly, that this would happen. Especially at the holidays. I can’t imagine being in her shoes.”
Combs said that Harness told him that she had $5,500 frozen in her Amazon account and he decided he would “double that,” as well as do right by the crafting fan another way.
“Send her $11,000 today, just so she doesn’t have anything to worry about,” he said. “She was never supposed to be involved in anything like this. No fan should ever have to be involved in anything like this. And she got in trouble apparently for making tumblers. So I’m gonna make my own tumbler today … all that money is gonna go to Nicol and her family to try to help with her medical bills.”
Combs said he wanted his fans to know, “this not the kind of person I am. I’m not greedy in any way, shape, or form. Money is the last thing on my mind. I promise you guys that.”
The singer also extended an invitation to Harness and her family to attend one of his upcoming concerts so he could give her a hug and apologize in person.
The woman spoke with the TV station again on Dec. 13, expressing both relief and surprise when Combs called.
“He was a very nice guy, very understanding,” she said. “I explained to him what happened, he understood. I still can’t believe he called me and he is doing these things for me.”
Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the death of a civilian worker found unresponsive aboard the USS George H.W. Bush earlier this month, a shipyard spokesperson said.
The employee, 44-year-old Reginald Collins, was found unresponsive around 2 p.m. Dec. 7 on the aircraft carrier as it was pierside at Naval Station Norfolk, said Chessie Bray, spokesperson for Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth. Collins was later declared deceased.
Bray confirmed Collins was a Navy competent person working for Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s Temporary Services Department.
A shipwide stand-down was held Dec. 8 “to address safety, grief and counseling options.” A second stand-down was held Dec. 11 when support options were made available for civilians working at the shipyard by the Department of the Navy Civilian Employee Assistance Program.
According to Collins’ obituary, he worked as a pipefitter for Norfolk Naval Shipyard for 12 years. Prior to his time at the shipyard, he was a Navy sailor for six years.
Apple is pulling two of its most popular watch models from shelves this week. By Christmas Day, if a trade ruling stands, those watches will be illegal to import into the U.S.
Online orders for the Series 9 and Ultra 2 models will end Thursday, and the watches will be cleared out of the retail stores by Sunday, which is Christmas Eve. The pause in Apple Watch sales comes as the tech giant prepares to comply with an International Trade Court ruling that places an import ban on the products.
It’s the latest development in a remarkable and potentially wide-ranging patent dispute between two California tech companies, one of which happens to be the richest corporation in the world.
In late October, the International Trade Court ruled that Apple’s watches contain technology that violates patents held by the Orange County-based medical tech company Masimo — and that the infringing tech must either be removed, or the watches, which are largely manufactured in China, would be banned from import into the United States.
The ruling is the result of a David vs. Goliath legal battle that stretches back years. Joe Kiani, the CEO and founder of Masimo, has long argued that Apple’s Watch products infringe on patents for his pulse oximetry technology — tech that allows the user to take a crucial reading of oxygen levels in blood.
Apple met with his company more than a decade ago, and they discussed the technology, Kiani says, and he thought they were destined for a partnership, or, perhaps, an acquisition. Instead, Apple began to hire away his executives and top talent, who quickly began patenting similar technologies for Apple, which then began turning up in Apple Watches.
So Kiani sued. The trade court’s initial ruling in January 2023 found that Apple violated Masimo’s patent for pulse oximetry technology, and the October decision confirmed the earlier one. The ruling is now under presidential review, and President Biden can veto the ban. Such presidential interventions are rare, but Apple has a powerful lobbying presence on Capitol Hill.
“Maybe Apple’s Board will ask Tim Cook, ‘Why didn’t you buy Masimo or license their technology in 2013? Did you even try to settle with Masimo before you took this step?’ ” Masimo’s Kiani says. “That is a hope, but one that makes me feel better.”
In a statement, Apple said that “While the [presidential] review period will not end until December 25, Apple is preemptively taking steps to comply should the ruling stand. This includes pausing sales of Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 from Apple.com starting December 21, and from Apple retail locations after December 24.”
The company added that “Apple’s teams work tirelessly to create products and services that empower users with industry-leading health, wellness, and safety features. Apple strongly disagrees with the order and is pursuing a range of legal and technical options to ensure that Apple Watch is available to customers. Should the order stand, Apple will continue to take all measures to return Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 to customers in the U.S. as soon as possible.”
Kiani, meanwhile, is keen to continue to press Apple further.
“Apple can avoid an ITC injunction by making their watches in the U.S.,” he tells me, pointing out that Masimo does its manufacturing in New Hampshire and Southern California. “What is in their relationship with China, that makes this not an option for Apple?”
The legal battle is far from finished, despite the fairly stunning turn of events. Apple is not used to losing legal challenges. Kiani estimates he’s already spent $60 million in legal fees on this fight, and is prepared to spend twice that. But for now, he’s enjoying the victory.
“Now the world knows we are the true inventors and creators of this technology and not Apple,” he says.
A source from Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) on Monday said that “intense” armed clashes broke out earlier in the day between the border guards and infiltrating armed groups along the Kingdom’s northern borders with Syria.
The army personnel successfully foiled a major smuggling attempt, and seized large amounts of narcotics, automatic weapons, and missiles, the source said in a statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.
JAF also said that 12,858 palm-sized sheets of hashish, 4.7 million Captagon pills and 2.6 kilogrammes of crystal meth have been seized on Monday’s operation. JAF also shared photos revealing the identities of eight out of nine smugglers who had been apprehended, as well as the weapons and drugs seized.
The JAF official revealed that the militants were being driven back into Syria, noting that several members of the border guards sustained minor to moderate injuries.
The army said that nine smugglers were arrested and four rocket launchers, four RPG missiles, 10 anti-personnel mines, a JG3 sniper rifle and an M16 rifle equipped with a sniper scope were seized.
A vehicle loaded with explosives was also neutralized, JAF source said, adding that “large” quantities of narcotics were also seized.
He noted that recent days have seen an escalation in such incidents, which changed from mere infiltration and smuggling attempts to aggressive armed engagements that aim at forcefully breaching the border, with direct assaults on the border guards.
The official stressed that such clashes represent a continuation of the aggressive tactics employed by smugglers, adding that recent engagements have led to the killing of several smugglers, arresting one, the death of a JAF member, and the injury of another.
The military source stressed the armed forces’ vigilance in tracking the movements of these groups and their efforts to de-stabilise the national security, reiterating that the JAF remains resolute in its commitment to deterring and pursuing these groups to maintain the country’s stability and security.
A woman is dead and a junior Marine has been arrested after crashing a military vehicle while fleeing from Escondido police late Monday night.
Police responded to Dick’s Sporting Goods on Auto Parkway west of Interstate 15 just before 10:30 p.m. after getting a report that a man and two women were shoplifting, Escondido police said in a news release.
When officers arrived, they saw the trio get into a pickup and take off, the man behind the wheel. Police chased them to Washington Avenue, where the driver tried to make a high-speed turn onto Fig Street.
He lost control and slammed into a retaining wall. The two women in the pickup were thrown from it. The driver got out and ran off.
Officers found the suspect hiding about a block from the crash site and arrested him.
The two women were taken to a hospital, where one died. The other underwent surgery and is expected to survive. She told police that during the chase, she had repeatedly asked him to let her out of the pickup, but he refused.
Neither of the women was publicly identified.
Police said the driver is Lance Cpl. John Eugene Brand, 21, who is based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. The pickup belongs to the Marine Corps. Investigators found stolen clothing inside it.
Brand was booked into jail on suspicion of several felonies, including burglary, kidnapping and vehicular manslaughter.
According to a military spokesperson at Miramar, Brand is from Kansas and enlisted in the Marine Corps in July 2021. He arrived at 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Miramar in March 2022, and it was his first duty station.
Brand is a logistics and embark specialist assigned to Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 465, Marine Aircraft Group 16.
Whether Brand had authorization to use the mid-sized pickup at the time of the incident is under investigation, Capt. Stephanie Leguizamon said. The truck is usually used for daily flightline operations, transporting equipment, driving around the military base and other routine military business, she said.
This is the second time this month that a fleeing suspect led police on a chase that ended in a fatal crash in the region. On Dec. 8, a fleeing driver slammed into a Honda on a freeway off-ramp in San Diego’s Mountain View neighborhood, propelling the Honda off the freeway. Two brothers — ages 4 and 8 — inside the car were gravely injured and died at a hospital.
Just before midnight on a Tuesday in May 2016, Kyle McCool answered a knock on his door. Sheriff’s deputies and a police detective stood on the other side, carrying a search warrant.
The 27-year-old let the officers inside the ranch-style house near Emporia State University. They were hunting for illegal drugs after a confidential informant purchased weed earlier in the evening from a suspected dealer at the property.
Stepping inside, Lyon County Deputy Sheriff Heath Samuels quickly realized the rental house was divided into three apartments, but believed the suspected dealer lived in the basement.
The grave of Caldyn Wasinger in Sabetha, Kansas. The city paid Caldyn’s parents, Austin and Krista Wasinger, $105,000 after the couple’s home was searched and Austin was wrongfully arrested a few months after Caldyn’s death in 2018. (Emily Curiel/The Kansas City Star/TNS)
Confronted with a house that was more of a mini-apartment building, Samuels made a fateful decision. Instead of seeking additional warrants for the other apartments while officers searched the basement, he gave the residents a stark choice.
“He basically said if they had to search for anything that we would go to jail that night or go to the police station,” McCool later testified.
Kansas law enforcement have committed numerous violations of Fourth Amendment rights over the past decade, an investigation by The Kansas City Star found. At least 25 times since 2014, courts either ruled that Kansas law enforcement trampled search and seizure protections; or lawsuits alleging Fourth Amendment violations have led to payouts, court-ordered remedies or remain ongoing. The number almost certainly significantly undercounts the true number of violations because it includes only incidents that have made their way into the courts.
Main Street in downtown Sabetha, Kansas. The city paid Austin and Krista Wasinger after the couple filed a federal lawsuit against the city and its police force for a warrantless search of their home. (Emily Curiel/The Kansas City Star/TNS)
The Fourth Amendment is one of the most basic rights people in the United States enjoy, providing a bulwark against government intrusion. It says the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated” and that warrants can only be approved based on probable cause and must “particularly” describe what will be searched or seized.
The Star’s investigation began after police raided the Marion County Record in August. Gideon Cody, then the Marion police chief, obtained search warrants for the Record’s newsroom, as well as the homes of the publisher and a city councilwoman. Cody’s investigation quickly fell apart and he resigned weeks later.
Cody’s raid was widely seen as an attack on the First Amendment – retaliation against the press after the newspaper had investigated Cody’s past at the Kansas City Police Department, where he was facing discipline before he left for Marion.
But it also raises troubling questions about Fourth Amendment rights. While the Marion raids provoked widespread condemnation, many other confirmed or alleged Fourth Amendment violations draw little public attention. The episodes identified by The Star encompass everything from warrantless searches of homes to the alleged wrongful seizure of vehicles, firearms and animals.
Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett says not enough people practice law in rural areas. (Jaime Green/The Wichita Eagle/TNS)
Some are flagrant violations while others represent borderline calls. They have taken place all over the state. The cases involve both victims who likely engaged in illegal activity and those never accused of a crime.
Among them:
–The City of Sabetha paid a couple $105,000 after police arrested one of them following what the family alleged was a warrantless search of their home.
–The Thomas County Sheriff’s Office aided in the repossession of a resident’s vehicle despite having no court order authorizing a repossession. The sheriff’s office later agreed to require additional training to settle a lawsuit over the incident.
–Buhler police conducted a warrantless search of a rental home after the landlord let an officer in. The police found marijuana, but a state appeals court said the police violated the renter’s Fourth Amendment rights and ordered the evidence suppressed.
Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson typically declines to review search warrant applications from law enforcement before they’re submitted to a judge. (File photo/The Kansas City Star/TNS)
–The Kansas Highway Patrol engaged in a pattern of Fourth Amendment violations in how troopers conducted traffic stops, a federal judge ruled this summer.
The list goes on.
The Star interviewed more than 40 Kansas residents, defense attorneys, prosecutors, current and former law enforcement and judges, elected officials and others for this investigation. The newspaper also reviewed thousands of pages of court records, including transcripts of court hearings and trials.
Additionally, The Star collaborated with local newspapers across Kansas. This story includes reporting from The Emporia Gazette, the Abilene Reflector Chronicle, the Chase County Leader-News and The Cowley Courier Traveler.
This story is part of The Star’s “Broken Government” project, which exposes the ways governments across Missouri and Kansas fail to work for residents and taxpayers – and hold officials and politicians accountable. Previous installments examined fraud in local governments, police vetting requirements and the water crisis in Kansas.
Chris McMullin, chief deputy district attorney for Johnson County. McMullin says prosecutors lose cases if police aren’t well trained on Fourth Amendment rights. (File photo/The Kansas City Star/TNS)
In the Emporia police search, after Samuels threatened residents with jail time if they didn’t allow him to search their apartments, McCool took the deputy to his ground floor apartment. As Samuels held open a bag, McCool deposited bongs, pipes, digital scales and showed the deputy where he kept his marijuana.
The Lyon County Attorney’s Office charged McCool with marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia, both class A misdemeanors. After a one-day bench trial in October 2016, a district court judge found him guilty.
The convictions unraveled a little more than a year later. In early 2018, the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled that Samuels had coerced McCool into letting the deputy sheriff search his apartment and vacated the convictions.
Judge Anthony Powell, now the state solicitor general, wrote for the court that the “jail threat gave the appearance that McCool did not have much choice about whether to deny the request.”
But many alleged Fourth Amendment violations are never challenged in court, especially if criminal charges are never brought. In other instances, prosecutors might quietly dismiss a criminal case before troubling conduct by law enforcement draws attention or reach a plea deal before Fourth Amendment issues are resolved. And many individuals who believe their rights have been violated don’t have access to top-flight lawyers or the ability to attract public attention the way the Record did.
“We see violations of the Fourth Amendment, or at least things we think are violations of the Fourth Amendment, all the time,” said Cole Hawver, a Junction City-based public defender.
Several key factors make Fourth Amendment violations more likely, The Star found, including insufficient experience among officers and a lack of coordination between law enforcement and prosecutors before searches.
Across Kansas, law enforcement experience with searches and seizures varies dramatically. Officers, especially in rural areas, can go a whole career obtaining as few as a dozen search warrants, which must be approved by a judge. Others may handle a dozen or more a year.
Officers are required to take continuing education each year, but Kansas imposes no rule that any of it focus on Fourth Amendment issues. While some law enforcement officials say most training in some way touches on the Fourth Amendment, it’s up to individual departments and agencies whether to mandate specific instruction.
In some rural areas, police departments and sheriff’s offices don’t consistently work with local prosecutors before obtaining a search warrant. Prosecutors often work with multiple agencies and may be the only lawyer in their office, leaving little time to keep tabs on investigations.
And because Kansas allows non-lawyers to serve as magistrate judges, it’s possible some search warrants are approved without ever being reviewed by an attorney.
“For folks in the metro areas who go, ‘Oh my lord, that’s ridiculous, how on earth could that be?’ Well, the reality is there are not enough people practicing law in rural areas to have law-trained judges everywhere,” Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said.
Searches and seizures change lives
Violations of the Fourth Amendment can upend the lives of those who experience them.
In Sabetha, police arrested Austin Wasinger four months after the death of his 1-month-old son, Caldyn, on Dec. 1, 2018. The day he received Caldyn’s autopsy report in mid-March 2019, Wasinger said he called a suicide hotline.
Caldyn’s death was ruled accidental and attributed it to an unsafe sleeping environment, which Wasinger said involved him. Wasinger said he “absolutely was a total mess” for a couple days after reading the report.
On April 3, 2019, a social worker from the Kansas Department for Children and Families arrived at Wasinger’s home, accompanied by police.
“I answered the door, I was standing in the doorway and they basically said you have to come with us, answer some questions,” Wasinger said.
Wasinger said he protested because he was looking after the children alone while his wife, Krista, was out of town. In a federal lawsuit, he alleged an officer unlawfully entered the home and conducted a warrantless search. Wasinger spent two days in jail, accused of interfering with a police officer. He was never prosecuted.
The City of Sabetha paid Wasinger $105,000 to settle the lawsuit last year. In a court filing, an attorney representing the city admitted the Wasingers were innocent of any criminal activity and the officers had no basis to arrest Austin or search his home.
But Martin Mishler, Sabetha’s city attorney, said the city is confident the police handled the situation correctly.
Wasinger said he emerged from the experience with an altered view of law enforcement, becoming aware of “all the constitutional oversteps that take place on a regular basis that people just don’t question.”
Such experiences can be traumatizing and diminish public confidence in police.
“If someone feels that they’ve been mistreated by the police, if they feel like they’ve been treated unfairly, if they feel like their privacy has been invaded for no reason, that can significantly shift someone’s attitude,” said Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project.
In Leavenworth, Ebony Shaffer spent months trying to retrieve guns police took from the home of her father, Willie Gillom, Jr., after he died unexpectedly in December 2020. The seizures, she said, were warrantless and unreasonable.
As family members sorted through Gillom’s belongings after his death, they discovered at least five missing handguns. After Shaffer called police to file a report, she learned police had seized the weapons.
That set off rounds of back-and-forth between Shaffer and police as she tried to get the guns back. She said the department set shifting requirements for what she needed to do and that she was shuffled around to different staff members without making progress.
“I think they didn’t like being questioned, they didn’t like their authority being questioned,” Shaffer said.
Only in April 2021 – four months later and with the involvement of an attorney – did police release the weapons. Shaffer filed a lawsuit in late 2022 in Leavenworth District Court against the city and police department.
The police department agreed to pay $25,000 to settle the lawsuit, which landed in federal court. The settlement agreement indicates the city and police department “categorically deny” Shaffer’s claims.
Leavenworth Police Maj. Dan Nicodemus, the deputy police chief, said the department has a longstanding practice of taking firearms for safekeeping when there’s an unaccompanied death and no immediate family members to secure the weapons. He said the death initially appeared potentially suspicious but an autopsy later put those concerns to rest.
Police say Shaffer temporarily fell through the cracks of the department’s bureaucracy when she tried to get the guns back, leading to delays.
For Shaffer, the experience left a bitter taste.
“My parents were very law-abiding citizens, they raised my brother and I to be that way,” she said. “You don’t really question the authority of the police department.”
Shaffer said she never wants to step back into the police department again. “I felt so frustrated, very frustrated,” she said.
Training, experience questioned
Police receive specific training on searches and seizures when they enter the profession at academies. But after that, Kansas doesn’t require that the 40 hours of annual continuing education each officer must attend focus on the Fourth Amendment.
That raises the prospect of officers going years without formal training specifically on the constitutional right, even as court decisions alter the bounds of acceptable conduct.
Some agencies said they had no specific training or policy regarding search and seizures while others provided The Star with hundreds of pages of training and policy documents, often prepared by the national police consulting firm Lexipol, which writes training and policy documents for thousands of clients across the United States and Canada.
According to data kept by the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, every state in the nation but Hawaii requires some continuing education for officers. Kansas is one of seven states that mandates 40 or more hours.
Sometimes local prosecutors aid law enforcement in Fourth Amendment training. The Johnson County District Attorney’s Office holds training for individual agencies and briefs rank-and-file officers.
If officers aren’t well trained on the Fourth Amendment, “we lose cases,” said Chris McMullin, chief deputy in the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office, and president of the Kansas District and County Attorney Association.
“Very few instances in my entire career where I’ve seen an officer that is deliberately doing something,” McMullin said. “It’s more like … it’s a gray enough area that maybe they’re pushing the edge of the envelope.”
Despite extensive training, former Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning said at times warrants would be denied and evidence suppressed. Those instances, he said, were learning experiences for officers.
“It should be – and it is – a process that is complex and it should be difficult to obtain,” Denning said.
In Thomas County in northwestern Kansas, the sheriff’s office settled a 2020 lawsuit in part by agreeing to adopt policy requiring annual training for deputies on the department’s policy manual, including policies on seizures. The sheriff’s office also paid $55,000.
The settlement came after Kyle McLinn, who runs a towing business in Oakley, woke up on Aug. 10, 2018, to the Thomas County Sheriff’s Office and Kansas Highway Patrol standing by as his truck was itself towed away.
McLinn’s bank was repossessing his truck, even though it didn’t have a court order authorizing the repossession. From his own work assisting in repossessions, McLinn knew that police’s only role was to keep the peace and that, without a court order, police and the towing company had to obey if he asked them to leave his land.
The officers did not leave, McLinn said in the lawsuit. Instead, they instructed him to allow the repossession to occur and one deputy made repeated gestures toward his gun, the lawsuit alleged.
“I’ve had law enforcement on more than one occasion tell me that I have to follow the law or else,” McLinn said in an interview. “I follow them but when it comes around to their side they don’t really have a lot of concern for it.”
Craig Uhrich, an attorney who represented McLinn, said the situation would have been avoided if the deputies had followed their policy manual. He accused the sheriff’s office of violating the settlement by never training its officers.
Law enforcement in Thomas County have had issues with searches and seizures on numerous occasions. At least two other lawsuits allege either the Thomas County Sheriff’s Office or Colby Police Department improperly assisted with a vehicle seizure without a court order.
The Thomas County Sheriff’s Office did not comment on the seizure. However, the department provided records to The Star, including the settlement agreement in which the agency denies any wrongdoing.
The office also provided recordings of phone calls between McLinn and department employees and body camera footage of the seizure. The footage shows Deputy Jacob Cox encouraging McLinn to allow the repossession to take place.
On the other side of Kansas, Louisburg Police Chief Josh Weber said the Fourth Amendment factors into nearly every element of training. The department doesn’t have specific training activities on the amendment, he said, but it comes up in most continuing education activities.
“I would venture to say it touches 90-plus percent of everything we do,” he said.
How much experience officers have with search warrants also varies widely.
In Louisburg, Weber said the agency requests fewer than 10 search warrants annually. Abilene Police Chief Chad Langley told the Abilene Reflector Chronicle his officers might go a month without filing a search warrant affidavit and then submit five to seven on a single case.
But Rep. Eric Smith, a Burlington Republican and undersheriff in Coffey County, said his agency obtains around two search warrants every week.
Officers often make quick decisions about whether they can act without a warrant, and the details of every situation matters.
“You may think you’re completely in the right but then, as you get somebody who has a little bit of training and legal theory starts to tear it apart, you start to question yourself,” Smith said.
In February 2014, Buhler Police Chief William Tracy conducted a warrantless search of a rental home after U.S. Marshals arrested the renter, Darla Conners, and her roommate John Galentine on out-of-state warrants in late January.
The owner, Lewayne Bartel, had heard about the arrests and went to the property to investigate. He asked Tracy to come to the property, and the two men went inside, where they found marijuana plants in the basement. They also found a bag of marijuana leaves in the backyard.
Bartel, who once owned 20 rental properties but has since sold off nearly all of them, said in an interview that he believed he needed to check on the property following the arrests. Given that he was the landlord and the renters had been arrested, he said at that point “I don’t know if he would have needed a warrant.”
Tracy used what he saw while in the house to obtain a search warrant the next day. He and two drug task force agents seized 131 plant stems and bags with “green leafy vegetation.” Based on what police found, prosecutors charged Conners with cultivating marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
But Reno County District Court Judge Trish Rose suppressed the evidence. Generally, renters enjoy Fourth Amendment protections over their apartments or rental homes that owners cannot unilaterally waive. Simply put, Bartel didn’t have the authority to consent to a search of the property. The Kansas Court of Appeals later affirmed Rose’s ruling.
During a 2016 court hearing over the search, Tracy testified that in his 27-year law enforcement career, he had executed just 10 search warrants.
A public defender for Conners asked Tracy on the stand whether he thought he should get a search warrant once he saw what appeared to be marijuana leaves in the bag in the backyard. Tracy responded that Bartel wanted to show him the basement, so they went into the basement.
“I’m asking, did you at that point think you needed to go get a search warrant?” the attorney said.
“Not at that time,” Tracy replied.
Tracy, who has since retired as police chief but still works part time for the department, said in an interview he was surprised by the court’s decision. He said as a small town of fewer than 2,000 residents, Buhler police don’t obtain many search warrants and that he changed how he did his job in the wake of the opinion.
“I would ask more questions,” Tracy said.
Should prosecutors review warrants?
When Marion’s then-police chief prepared to raid the Marion County Record in August, he sent his search warrant application to Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey. Cody, the former chief, later claimed Ensey never read the application before it went to Magistrate Judge Laura Viar for approval.
But under Kansas law, Ensey wasn’t required to look. Police officers have power to apply for search warrants without running it by prosecutors first.
Approaches vary sharply by county and law enforcement agency.
Some law enforcement agencies said they send warrant applications to prosecutors as a matter of policy before submitting them to judges. Others sought prosecutorial review on a case-by-case basis, while some did not send their warrants to prosecutors at all.
Chase County Sheriff Jacob Welsh, for instance, told the Chase County Leader-News that a prosecutor may recommend officers seek a search warrant in a case but they do not consult on warrant applications.
Sherri Schuck, the Pottawatomie County attorney, said her office, which has just three attorneys, tends to review search warrant applications but they cannot get to all of them.
“Practically, it’s not feasible,” she said.
Some prosecutors are reluctant to partner with law enforcement on search warrants at all. Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson said he is cautious because of court decisions suggesting prosecutors can take on liability if they assist with warrants.
Thompson said his office will talk to officers about the law but that they don’t review warrants. “I’ve taken a more standoffish approach to processing or helping search warrants,” he said.
Kansas’ two biggest counties by population — Johnson and Sedgwick — take the opposite approach. The district attorney’s offices in both counties review every search warrant application before it’s sent to a judge.
Bennett, the Sedgwick County district attorney, said the policy provides quality control for warrants and ensures judges’ time isn’t wasted by warrant applications that don’t pass muster.
McMullin, the chief deputy in the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office, said the review provides comfort for judges, who know more than one set of eyes has already taken a look at the application. He said prosecutors have a special role in helping to ensure the rights of county residents are respected.
Prosecutors have a strong incentive to help law enforcement obtain search warrants. Case law heavily favors allowing evidence obtained through a search warrant, even if courts later determine the warrant shouldn’t have been approved by a judge.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1984 created a “good faith” exception to the general rule that illegally obtained evidence must be excluded at trial. At the time, the justices wanted to encourage law enforcement to seek warrants and created an opening for them to retain evidence gathered illegally as long as they had obtained a search warrant in good faith.
Once a search warrant application is in front of a judge, approval can come very quickly.
State Rep. Jason Probst, a Hutchinson Democrat and former journalist, recalled a moment when he sat in a Reno County courtroom years ago as a reporter and watched a judge approve a search warrant application with no more than a cursory glance.
“A judge signs a warrant, that’s all there is, that’s what demonstrates it’s been reviewed,” Probst said. “There’s no way to demonstrate that a judge actually reviewed it.”
A 2018 Salt Lake Tribune analysis of Utah search warrants found that judges spent fewer than 10 minutes reviewing applications more than half the time. Unlike Utah, Kansas doesn’t maintain a central database of search warrants, making a similar analysis impossible.
But anecdotally, the amount of time judges spend reviewing warrant applications appears to vary widely.
In the 5th Judicial District, which covers Lyon and Chase counties, Chief Judge Jeffry Larson told The Emporia Gazette that judges can spend just a few minutes to more than 20 on an application. Chief Judge Nick St. Peter of the 19th Judicial District told the Courier Traveler that judges divide up Cowley County geographically in handling applications.
Even when judges are carefully looking over search warrant applications, Johnson County Chief Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan said in an interview that having prosecutors take a look beforehand serves as an important backstop. Prosecutors are able to anticipate what a judge is looking for.
Still, prosecutorial review — whether of a warrant or an overall investigation — isn’t foolproof. In the arrest of Wasinger, the Sabetha man whose 1-month-old child died, police had been told by the county prosecutor that enough probable cause existed to arrest him, said Mishler, the city’s attorney.
“It’s definitely made me a whole lot more aware of how frequently these things do happen,” Wasinger said. “They can happen to anyone.”
The owner of a Lexington drug-testing laboratory has been sentenced to three years and 10 months for health fraud and for evading $3.5 million in federal taxes as he pursued what a prosecutor called an “obscenely lavish lifestyle.”
Under the sentence, Ronald Coburn is liable for paying a total of $1.8 million in restitution to Medicaid and Medicare and $3.5 million to the Internal Revenue Service.
Chief U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves sentenced Coburn, 76, in federal court in Lexington on Monday, directing him to report to prison in February.
Reeves also sentenced Erica Baker, an employee at Coburn’s now-defunct lab, to 12 months and one day in prison followed by one year on home detention.
Baker is liable for restitution of $1.5 million to the Kentucky Medicaid program and $105,605 to Medicare.
Coburn owned LabTox LLC in Lexington. The services included analyzing urine samples for drugs.
Courts and substance-abuse recovery programs use the tests to check whether people are using drugs in violation of program rules.
Baker pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit health fraud.
She got non-medical recovery programs — typically faith-based programs or homeless shelters — to send drug samples to LabTox to be tested, and the company billed Medicaid and Medicare for the work.
That was fraudulent because the tests were not medically necessary.
In court Monday, Baker’s attorney, Kent Wicker, sought a sentence for Baker that did not include any time behind bars, saying she is a “genuinely good person” whom friends describe as hard-working, kind and loving.
Baker has a 2-year-old son, so being locked up will be particularly hard for her, Wicker said.
Wicker also argued that Coburn is the one who set policy for LabTox and directed the illegal acts, and that Baker only carried out the scheme she was taught to pursue.
Coburn also sexually harassed and assaulted Baker and controlled her, Wicker said.
“She was the classic abuse victim,” Wicker said.
The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul McCaffrey, agreed that Baker was naive when she first started working at LabTox, and that Coburn set her on a bad path.
But by 2019, during the period covered in the charges, Baker was fully aware that her actions were wrong and kept taking part in extensive fraud anyway because she wanted to be rich, McCaffrey said.
“She made a deliberate choice to engage in criminal conduct,” McCaffrey told Reeves.
Reeves said that a sentence of probation for Baker would unduly diminish the seriousness of the offense.
However, the judge sentenced her to less time than outlined under advisory guidelines, partly in recognition of her effort to provide information to prosecutors.
Coburn pleaded guilty to one charge of health care fraud and one charge of tax evasion.
His attorney, Daniel Fetterman, asked Reeves to place Coburn on probation, citing his age, health problems that include a heart condition, and his 17 years of military service.
But prosecutors argued Coburn should receive a substantial sentence.
“He profited greatly from the illegal billing, failed to pay taxes on the income he earned, and used those profits to fund his outrageously luxurious lifestyle — expensive cars, a personal plane, yachts, jewelry, and more, possible only because of his health care fraud and tax evasion,” McCaffrey and Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Mattingly Williams said in a sentencing memorandum.
Coburn put his assets in the name of another person and didn’t pay personal income taxes for 20 years, the memo said.
His payment to the IRS as a result of the criminal case covers only five years.
In addition to his fraudulent conduct, Coburn also was a bully at work, running LabTox through fear and intimidation and sexually harassing Baker, the prosecutors said.
Coburn apologized in court and and noted his Air Force service, but said yes when Reeves asked whether his crimes dishonored his military service.
Reeves imposed the maximum prison time on Coburn outlined in the advisory sentencing guidelines.
The services for the 24-year-old U.S. Air Force member from Pittsfield who died when his aircraft went down near Japan in November will begin on Tuesday afternoon.
Jacob “Jake” Galliher was killed on Nov. 29, along with six of the seven other airmen aboard the lost Osprey V-22, whose bodies have been recovered as of Dec. 14. The eighth airman is still missing and is presumed dead, the Air Force said.
Galliher’s body arrived home in Massachusetts to Westover Air Reserve Base on Friday, Dec. 15, to a display in his honor across the region.
The U.S. Air Force aircraft carries the remains of U.S. Air Force and Pittsfield native staff sergeant Jacob Galliher, killed in training aircraft accident in Japan, arrives at Westover Air Reserve Base (Hoang ‘Leon’ Nguyen / The Republican/TNS)
Veterans and mourners lined the 60-mile-plus motorcade route to Dery Funeral Home, electronic signs lit up state highways reading, “Rest in peace,” and towing equipment from Interstate Tribute was arranged in patriotic tribute just outside the base gates.
The Galliher family released a statement on Tuesday morning, ahead of his wake scheduled for later in the day.
“Our hearts are filled with love and loss as we honor our beloved Jacob today and tomorrow,” the family said.
“We are beyond grateful for the outpouring of support from those who loved Jake most, from throughout the Berkshires, from his Air Force and military family, from across Massachusetts and from around the world. Your love and support have brought us tremendous comfort, strength and solace during these unbearably difficult times.
Families and friends console each other after receiving the remains of U.S. Air Force and Pittsfield native staff sergeant Jacob Galliher. (Hoang ‘Leon’ Nguyen / The Republican/TNS)
“Jake’s life was a blessing and his memory a treasure,” his family continued.
“The way he has been honored since his tragic loss means so much to his family and we know will help his young children better understand the lasting impact their Dad had on everyone he met. We will love and honor Jacob, always.”
Friends and family are invited to attend Galliher’s wake on Dec. 19 from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m. at St. Agnes Catholic Community at 489 Main St. in Dalton.
The wake will also be streamed by St. Agnes Catholic Community at www.saintagnescc.com and at Pittsfield Community Television at www.pittsfieldtv.org.
Galliher’s funeral will begin at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 20, at St. Agnes, and will again be streamed on the church’s website and Pittsfield’s community television. Following the funeral will be a private internment for the family.
Galliher was a 2017 graduate of Taconic High School in Pittsfield and was “a deeply beloved member of this community,” the city said in its repatriation announcement.
He and his wife, Ivy Groshong-Galliher and their 2-year-old and 9-week-old sons, had lived on a military base in Japan prior to his death. His best friend, currently on active duty in Kadena, Japan, Victor “Tito” Cervantes, said he and Galliher had a “brotherly bond” and shared some of Groshong-Galliher’s words.
“Jacob is one of the strongest people I have ever known, he cared deeply for everyone he met and was constantly trying to get smiles and laughs out of people,” his wife wrote, according to the GoFundMe fundraiser established by Cervantes.
The Pentagon grounded its fleet of nearly 500 Osprey aircraft following the crash that killed Galliher, a move U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal told The Republican-American he commended and said was necessary to ensure safety and learn what happened.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently used laser technology to transmit a cat video from 19 million miles in space.
According to a press release by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), NASA’s recent Deep Space Optical Communications experiment transmitted the video on Dec. 11 from 19 million miles away in space, which is roughly 80 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. NASA explained that the experiment is part of NASA’s goal to stream “very high-bandwidth video and other data from deep space” in order to aid future space exploration missions.
“This accomplishment underscores our commitment to advancing optical communications as a key element to meeting our future data transmission needs,” NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said. “Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future exploration and science goals, and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions.”
READ MORE: Pic: NASA astronaut sets record for longest US spaceflight
NASA’s press release explained that the experiment involved the transmission of a 15-second video through a “flight laser transceiver.” The video’s signal only took 101 seconds to transmit to Earth, despite the record distance.
“Capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals, the instrument beamed an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, where it was downloaded,” NASA’s press release stated. “Each frame from the looping video was then sent ‘live’ to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the video was played in real time.”
Bill Klipstein, JPL’s project manager for the technology demonstration, noted that one of the goals of the experiment was to “demonstrate the ability to transmit broadband video across millions of miles.”
NASA explained that the laser communications demonstration was launched as part of the Psyche mission on Oct. 13. The technology is designed to “transmit data from deep space at rates 10 to 100 times greater than the state-of-the-art radio frequency systems used by deep space missions today.”
NASA added that the technology demonstration “paves the way” for the future communication of scientific information, images, and videos that will aid future missions to Mars.
The video that was transmitted through space features a JPL employee’s pet cat named Taters chasing a laser pointer with multiple graphics overlayed on the video. NASA’s press release noted that the video graphics demonstrate multiple features from the tech demonstration, including Palomar’s telescope dome, Psyche’s orbital path, and information pertaining to the laser.
“To make this significant event more memorable, we decided to work with designers at JPL to create a fun video, which captures the essence of the demo as part of the Psyche mission,” Klipstein said.
