Shooter’s kin arrested in marriage plot
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Three people with close family ties to the couple responsible for the San Bernardino terror attack were arrested Thursday in a purported marriage-fraud scheme involving a pair of Russian sisters.
The suspects include Syed Raheel Farook. His brother and sister-in-law, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, died in a shootout with police after killing 14 people and wounding 22 others on Dec. 2.
Also arrested were Syed Raheel Farook’s wife, Tatiana, and her sister, Mariya Chernykh. Prosecutors say Mariya’s marriage to Enrique Marquez Jr., the only person charged in the shootings, was a sham designed to enable her to obtain legal status in the U.S. after overstaying a visitor visa in 2009.
Marquez confessed to the scheme when authorities questioned him about the shootings, and he acknowledged getting $200 per month to marry Chernykh, according to his criminal complaint.
The three people all pleaded innocent at a court hearing Thursday.
A judge ordered that Chernykh, who prosecutors allege was most culpable for the sham marriage, be subject to electronic monitoring. Chernykh said her boyfriend, who is the father of her child, will post her $50,000 bond.
The mother of the Farook brothers posted the $25,000 bond for her oldest son and his wife.
In deal, Ohio teen gunman pleads guilty
HAMILTON, Ohio — A 15-year-old boy accused of shooting students in a school cafeteria pleaded guilty Thursday to four counts of attempted murder and one count of inducing panic.
In exchange, Butler County’s prosecutor agreed to drop four felonious assault charges against James Austin Hancock.
Hancock was charged in the Feb. 29 shooting at Madison Local Schools near Middletown, north of Cincinnati. Authorities said Hancock, who was 14 at the time, took a relative’s loaded gun to school and opened fire in a cafeteria, hitting two students. Two other students were injured either by shrapnel or while running away. Authorities did not give a motive.
Defense attorney Charles Rittgers said Hancock’s family was “in shock” after the shooting because the teen did not have a history of violence or of causing trouble.
Georgia executes killer of father, 2 kids
JACKSON, Ga. — Georgia executed a man Wednesday who was convicted in the 1998 killings of a central Georgia trucking company owner and his two children during a home burglary.
Daniel Anthony Lucas became the fifth person the state has executed this year. He was put to death by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. Warden Bruce Chatman told witnesses the time of death was 9:54 p.m.
The 37-year-old inmate was sentenced to death for the April 1998 killings of 37-year-old Steven Moss, his 11-year-old son Bryan and 15-year-old daughter Kristin, who interrupted a burglary at their home near Macon. Gerri Ann Moss, the victims’ wife and mother, found their bodies when she arrived home.
“I would like to say I’m sorry to Mrs. Moss and the family,” Lucas said when given a chance to make a final statement.
Lucas and another man, Brandon Rhode, broke into the Moss home looking for drugs, cash or things they could sell to get money for drugs, according to court filings.
Rhode, who also was convicted for the killings, was executed in September 2010.
EPA paying $1M over Western mine spill
DENVER — The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it is reimbursing states, tribes and local governments about $1 million for their costs after the agency accidentally triggered a large wastewater spill from a Colorado mine.
The EPA said the money is being paid to Colorado, New Mexico and Utah state governments, the Navajo Nation and Southern Ute Indian Tribe, and Colorado counties and towns.
Most of the money is for the cost of responding to the spill from the inactive Gold King Mine in southwestern Colorado in August. The agency said it is considering requests for another $570,000 in expenses from the immediate aftermath.
The EPA also is considering whether to designate the area around the Gold King Mine as a Superfund site, which would free up millions of dollars in federal aid for a broad cleanup.
A Section on 04/29/2016