Man tied to eatery shooting denied bail
PAPILLION, Neb. -- A 23-year-old man charged with fatally shooting two employees at a Nebraska fast food restaurant and wounding two others was denied bail Tuesday at his first court appearance.
Roberto Carlos Silva Jr. of Omaha faces two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and other charges in Saturday's attack at a Sonic Drive-in restaurant in Bellevue.
Silva's attorney Christopher Lathrop with the Sarpy County public defender's office declined to comment on the case but said Silva will likely plead innocent to the charges. Silva also faces four gun charges and an arson charge for setting fire to a U-Haul truck he drove to the restaurant.
Bellevue police said the U-Haul was on fire when officers arrived around 9:30 p.m. Saturday and found the four victims. Silva was arrested nearby shortly after the shooting. Police said he was unarmed and cooperative when he was arrested, but four guns were found at the restaurant.
Three days before the shooting, Silva was arrested near the same restaurant accused of using someone else's Sonic app to buy $57 worth of food. At the time of that arrest, officers seized three guns from Silva, who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. He was released from jail Thursday after posting $150 bond.
Police said Ryan Helbert, 28, and Nathan Pastrana, 22, were killed in the shooting. The two Sonic workers who were hospitalized are Kenneth Gerner, 25, and Zoey Reece Atalig Lujan, 18. A fifth employee suffered a minor injury but declined treatment.
Coast Guard test fraud leads to arrests
NEW ORLEANS -- More than 30 people face charges, accused of participating in a test score-fixing scheme that happened over seven years at a United States Coast Guard exam center in Louisiana, federal prosecutors announced.
The indictment centers on Dorothy Smith, a former employee at an exam center in Mandeville, who was required to enter scores for exams that merchant mariners were required to pass to get licenses for positions on ships, the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Louisiana said Monday in a news release.
Prosecutors said Smith took bribes to fix exam scores and used six intermediaries, including two former Coast Guard employees, to connect her to maritime workers who were willing to pay.
The release said those intermediaries would funnel the money and the mariners' requests to Smith, who would then falsely report the scores in the Coast Guard computer system. This allowed different applicants to get licenses to work on ships.
Prosecutors said 24 current and former merchant mariners were charged with unlawfully receiving officer-level licenses.
Gang members charged in prostitution
ATLANTA -- Officials say they have criminally charged eight Albany-area gang members in prostituting a 16-year-old girl for two months in 2019.
Gov. Brian Kemp, in an announcement made Tuesday at the state Capitol in Atlanta, touted the charges as an example of state and local cooperation that the Republican has sought as part of his anti-gang push.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said members of the Inglewood Family Gang -- an offshoot of the Bloods -- prostituted the girl in hotels, vehicles and residences, taking money for themselves. Gang members sought men to engage in sex with the girl on a website, claiming she was an adult. The girl eventually ran away, agents said.
Charges include aggravated sodomy, sexual trafficking, violating Georgia's anti-gang law and violating the state's racketeer influenced and corrupt organization law.
Those charged are Korina Johnson, 18; Robert Wingfield, 19; Jeston Yates, 29; Ronaldo Patterson, 29; Johnny Shanard Howard, 33; Tre'Shawn Malik Smith, 30; Bryant Terrell Hooker, 32; and Jamie Rosier, 30.
Project pays 3,200 families' medical bills
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Medical debts totaling more than $5.2 million owed by more than 3,200 families in Kansas and Oklahoma have been paid through a project of the United Church of Christ Kansas-Oklahoma Conference, church officials said Tuesday.
"As a result of our campaign that netted $40,000, with that $40,000 we were able to abolish $5,211,729 in medical debt" for more than 3,200 families in 76 counties in Kansas and 60 Oklahoma counties, according to conference President Bobbie Henderson of Tulsa.
The money was sent to New York-based RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit organization that purchased the debt at a discount and forgave the amount owed.
The average amount forgiven per household was $1,612.54, according to the church. The church does not know who the recipients are, a spokesman said.
The medical debt forgiveness project began in 2019 and has now eliminated about $57 million in medical debt nationwide, according to the United Church of Christ. Based in Cleveland, the church has about 7,000 members in Kansas and Oklahoma, according to Edith Guffey, a minister in Lawrence, Kan.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports