WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal trial that begins Monday will focus on whether police lied about the results of tests on discarded tea leaves found in a Kansas couple’s trash to get permission for a SWAT-style raid on their home.

Robert and Adlynn Harte are seeking $5 million for economic losses plus emotional pain, distress and humiliation after a 2012 raid on their Leawood home. They are also seeking $2 million in punitive damages.

Authorities targeted the Hartes, both former CIA employees, after seeing Robert Harte leaving a store that sold hydroponic gardening equipment. Johnson County sheriff’s deputies found brewed tea leaves outside their home. An affidavit claimed field tests indicated the leaves were marijuana. A search of the home found only vegetable plants. The Hartes say law enforcement lied about the test results.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas may be getting closer to adding another memorial for President Dwight Eisenhower at the Statehouse.

The state’s Capitol Preservation Committee is set to meet Thursday. Its agenda includes a presentation from the state Department of Administration about a statute honoring Eisenhower on the Statehouse grounds.

Gov. Sam Brownback has advocated honoring Ike with a statute outside, and his administration has been working on the idea for about four years.

The state added a plaque for the president and supreme Allied commander during World War II to the Statehouse’s sidewalk “Walk of Honor” in 2015. Eisenhower grew up in Abilene.

The visitor’s center also has a small statue of Ike in front of a sign with his photo and a quote from him about statesmanship.

 

 

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Insurance companies have classified Missouri as one of three states deemed “high-risk” for deer collisions.

The Joplin Globe reports that the other two states considered high-risk are Arkansas and Kansas, according to State Farm.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol says that accidents involving deer are common, but fatalities and injuries are rare. The patrol reported three deaths and just more than 300 injuries from deer collisions in 2015.

Auto shop manager Kelly Peterson says he’s had 15 people in the past three weeks come in to have their cars repaired after a run-in with deer. Peterson recommends motorists slow down and pay more attention than usual this time of year, especially at night.

State Highway Patrol Sgt. John Lueckenhoff advises people to avoid making an erratic action upon seeing deer.

KANSAS CITY – Former professional basketball player and representative for the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) has pleaded guilty in federal court to charges related to a charity fraud scheme, according to Tom Larson, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Kermit Alan Washington, 66, of Las Vegas, Nev., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Greg Kays on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017, to two counts of making a false statement in a tax return and one count of aggravated identity theft.

Co-defendant Patricia Harris, 65, of Las Vegas, also pleaded guilty yesterday. Harris pleaded guilty to making false declarations before a grand jury.

Washington and Harris are among 11 defendants who have pleaded guilty in several cases related to the investigations of an international software piracy conspiracy and charity fraud scheme.

Washington agreed to refer professional athletes to attorney Ronald Jack Mix, 78, of San Diego, Calif., so that Mix could file workers’ compensation claims in the state of California on behalf of the athletes. Mix then agreed to make donations to Washington’s charity, The Sixth Man Foundation, doing business as Project Contact Africa.

Washington accepted approximately $155,000 in donations to his charity, which were actually illegal referral payments from Mix and his law firm. Washington diverted those funds from the charity’s bank account to pay himself or for personal spending. Washington admitted that he failed to account for this income to the charity on Project Contact Africa’s IRS filings during those years.

In a separate but related case, Mix pleaded guilty on May 23, 2016, to filing a false tax return. Mix admitted that he made donations ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 for referrals of athletes, some of whom lived in the Western District of Missouri. Mix then claimed those payments as charitable contributions on his individual tax returns from 2010 to 2013.

Washington also admitted that he accepted approximately $82,025 in contributions to his charity from Reza Davachi, 43, of Damascus, Md., and likewise diverted those funds from the charity’s bank account to pay himself or for personal spending.

In a separate but related case, Davachi pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2015, to his role in one of the largest software piracy schemes ever prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice. Investigators seized more than $20 million in assets from conspirators who are estimated to have sold in excess of $100 million worth of illicit, unauthorized and counterfeit software products to thousands of online customers.

Davachi admitted that he managed the on-line presence of the Project Contact Africa eBay/PayPal charity. Davachi actively used the Project Contact Africa charity’s eBay/PayPal account to sell unauthorized, illicit, and counterfeit software and software components through eBay, and used the charity’s PayPal account to facilitate payments for these software components. By using the charity’s account to sell his items through the eBay charity store, Davachi saved thousands of dollars per month that he would have otherwise had to pay eBay in the form of various fees. During this time, the Project Contact Africa eBay/PayPal account took in approximately $12 million in revenue, and eBay/PayPal sustained losses of approximately $908,231 due to the waived fees.

Customers of the Project Contact Africa eBay charity store were under the impression that “100 percent” of the proceeds of sales were intended to go to the charity when, in fact, only a portion of the proceeds actually went to the charity. The remainder went to Davachi and his company, Rez Candles, Inc. Davachi also admitted that he allowed numerous other individuals to use the Project Contact Africa eBay/PayPal charity store to sell their own items at a significantly reduced amount as compared to other for-profit sales methods on eBay, with the understanding that they would pay back to Davachi a portion of their savings.

By pleading guilty, Washington specifically admitted that he filed a materially false individual tax return on Feb. 18, 2014, and that he filed a materially false Form 990-EZ for his tax-exempt organization on Aug. 20, 2012. On this Form 990-EZ, Washington claimed that Project Contact Africa received $52,069 in income; in reality these charity accounts received approximately $114,774 in income, some of which Washington diverted to his personal accounts and used towards his personal spending.

Washington also admitted that used the name, personal address and business address of another person without lawful authority in numerous state and federal filings on behalf of the charity. The identity theft victim, identified in court documents as “T.G.”, was a resident of Oregon. Washington admitted that he used her identity information so that Project Contact Africa could maintain its active status within the state of Oregon, which enabled the charity to receive the charitable donations from Mix and permitted Davachi to maintain the charity store for his sales on eBay.

Harris admitted that, while under oath before a federal grand jury, she made materially false statements by denying that she played any role in creating and co-authoring false and fictitious board minutes for the Sixth Man Foundation d/b/a Project Contact Africa charity. Harris admitted that she created and co-authored false and fictitious board minutes for purported board of directors meetings in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, which never actually occurred. The information and content contained within these falsified board minutes was relayed to Harris by Washington. She aided in the preparation and falsification of these minutes at Washington’s direction.

Under federal statutes, Washington is subject to a sentence of up to six years in federal prison without parole for the tax counts, plus a mandatory consecutive sentence of two years in federal prison without parole on the identity theft count. Harris is subject to a sentence of up to five years in federal prison without parole. By pleading guilty today, Washington acknowledged that the court may order restitution as related conduct in connection with his personal tax years 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014, and for the tax years 2010, 2012, and 2013 for the tax returns filed for the Sixth Man Foundation, D/B/A Project Contact Africa.

The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. Sentencing hearings will be scheduled after the completion of presentence investigations by the United States Probation Office.

By JIM MCLEAN

Republican legislators have temporarily sidetracked an effort to block the Brownback administration from obtaining federal approval to renew KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program.

Democrats on a joint committee that oversees KanCare wanted the panel’s report to the full Legislature to recommend keeping the current program in place until a newly elected governor takes office in January 2019.

“If we are to extend KanCare by five years, which is what this does, we are going to take this right through the entire first term of the next administration,” said Sen. Laura Kelly, from Topeka, the top Democrat on the oversight committee. “I’m not comfortable as a legislator doing that.”

In addition to the timing issue, advocates and some lawmakers are concerned about several provisions in the administration’s KanCare 2.0 plan, including work requirements and lifetime caps on services for some beneficiaries.

But with two Democrats and a moderate Republican who has been critical of KanCare absent at the time of this week’s vote, Kelly had no chance of prevailing. So Sen. Vicki Schmidt, a moderate Republican from Topeka and chairwoman of the committee, suggested that the panel take no position.

That didn’t sit well with conservative Republicans who wanted to go on record in support of the administration, specifically Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, who will take the reins of state government if and when the U.S. Senate confirms Gov. Sam Brownback’s nomination to a State Department post.

Colyer, a physician, is the architect of KanCare, which in 2013 transferred the health care of more than 400,000 low-income, elderly and disabled Kansans to three for-profit managed care organizations.

“I think we’ve got to move forward,” said Rep. Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, in making a motion to back the administration’s plan to implement KanCare 2.0 by Jan. 1, 2019.

Members approved the motion on a voice vote. But representatives of advocacy groups opposed to “doubling down” on a KanCare program that they say continues to be plagued by administrative and service delivery problems blamed the outcome on timing.

“Had that vote taken place when everybody was here, his motion fails,” said Tim Graham, associate director of InterHab, a nonprofit organization that represents providers of community services to Kansans with developmental disabilities.

Opponents will continue their efforts to block or delay implementation, Graham said.

“This is a non-binding recommendation,” he said. “We need to take the conversation into the Legislature as a whole.”

Opponents hope to use the departure of several top officials at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the state’s lead Medicaid agency, to bolster their case for delaying a decision on renewing KanCare until a newly elected administration takes office.

Jim McLean is managing director of the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A judge says he will find officials at Larned State Hospital in contempt for not turning over records on the man charged with the murder of a Kansas police officer.

Wyandotte County District Judge Wes Griffin said Friday the hospital has not responded to repeated record requests on Jamaal Lewis. He is charged with capital murder in the death of Kansas City, Kansas, police Capt. Robert Melton.

Griffin says mental health experts need them to determine competency for trial, and requests from prosecutors and defense attorneys have not been met.

Griffin says he is reluctant to enter a contempt order and would wait until Monday to send the notice.

Melton was killed last year while attempting to stop a suspect in a drive-by shooting.

WABAUNSEE COUNTY — A Kansas woman died in an accident just before 2:30p.m. Saturday in Wabaunsee County

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2011 Chevy Traverse driven by Richard L. McDaneld, Osborne, was westbound on Interstate 70 one mile east of Wabaunsee Road.

The vehicle left the roadway to the right, entered the north ditch, drove up an embankment, and flipped onto its top.

A passenger Rita Eileen McDaneld, 59, Osborne, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Richard McDaneld was transported to the hospital in Manhattan. Both drivers were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Wind industry executives are pressing Gov. Sam Brownback to lobby Kansas’ congressional delegation in opposition to a cut to a federal tax credit that could threaten $1.5 billion in planned projects across the state.

A provision weakening the production tax credit was incorporated into the U.S. House bill endorsed by all four Kansas representatives. But executives of seven wind energy companies asked Brownback and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer to encourage Republican U.S. Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran to keep changes to the tax credit out of the Senate’s bill and the final legislation.

Wind officials say the tax credit is originally scheduled to be phased out in 2020 based on a 2015 agreement approved by Congress. The House bill gets rid of that agreement.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Police say a man has died in an early morning shooting in northeast Wichita.

Wichita police say officers responded around 2 a.m. Saturday to a report of a shooting. Arriving officers found a man in his 20s with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died.

Police have not released the victim’s name, nor have they reported any arrests in the shooting death.

Police Sgt. Paul Kimble says homicide detectives are investigating.

It is the city’s 33rd homicide this year..

SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspect  on felony charges.

On Thursday, a business in the 3000 Block NW Topeka in Topeka reported a felony theft of firearms, according to a media release.

Suspects were described as 2 younger males, a white male and a black male. With the assistance of the business surveillance technology- clear video was obtained of the suspects and the suspect’s vehicle.