• Moses deGraft-Johnson, a vascular surgeon in Tallahassee, Fla., falsely billed insurers, including Medicare and Medicaid, for more than $26 million to possibly finance his political ambitions in his native country of Ghana, according to investigators within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Sophia Negroponte, 27, the daughter of former U.S. diplomat John Negroponte, was charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing of Yousuf Rasmussen, 24, of Bethesda, Md., during a disagreement at a residence in Rockville, Md., police said.
• Sharon Weston Broome, the mayor of Baton Rouge, is asking anyone with photos or video of people spray-painting graffiti or otherwise damaging property in Louisiana's capital to notify law enforcement officials via the Crime Stoppers number or online app, which she has dubbed the city's "graffiti hotline."
• Juliette Parker, 38, and her 16-year-old daughter were arrested on suspicion of attempted kidnapping and assault after sheriff's office detectives in Pierce County, Wash., said the two posed as baby photographers and drugged a woman in a bid to snatch the mother's 5-week-old baby.
• Aaron Davis, 36, of Long Branch, N.J., was sentenced to a year in prison for leaving his girlfriend's 8-month-old pit bull mix -- a gift from her ex-boyfriend -- to drown, caged in the rising tide of Sandy Hook Bay for three hours before a passerby spotted the dog and rescued it.
• Sara Saucier of Ponchatoula, La., was returning in a cruise ship from her honeymoon in Cozumel, Mexico, with her husband when she was arrested for not returning a leased vehicle and held in the Orleans Parish jail for 36 hours before sheriff's office deputies realized that U.S. Customs agents had detained the wrong Sara Saucier.
A Section on 02/16/2020