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Bill Morlin

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News >  Spokane

Lawsuit seeks $1.5 million for use of Taser

For the second time in five weeks, Spokane County is being sued over the use of a Taser stun gun by a sheriff's deputy. Daniel Brian Strange seeks $1.5 million and additional unspecified punitive damages and attorney fees in his suit filed Tuesday in Superior Court.
News >  Spokane

Moe, ex-mayor will face trial together

The ex-mayor of Airway Heights and Spokane racing legend Orville Moe will be tried together on federal public corruption charges next year, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Shea ruled Thursday. Moe's failed attempt to be tried separately on federal bribery charges in U.S. District Court came a day after he was found in contempt of court in a civil lawsuit in Spokane County Superior Court.
News >  Spokane

Moe found in contempt of court

Former Spokane Raceway Park operator Orville Moe was found in contempt of court Wednesday by a Superior Court judge who set a deadline when $1,000-a-day fines will begin for the 70-year-old businessman. Moe was ordered on June 1 to turn over an $11,000 bank account and other business records to court-appointed receiver Barry Davidson, who was named in the summer of 2005 to take over operations of the Airway Heights racing complex.
News >  Idaho

Silver Mountain opens tube runs

KELLOGG – Take two 3-year-old girls, bundled up against the late-autumn cold. Let them sit inside flashy blue nylon tubes atop 6,000-foot Silver Mountain.
News >  Spokane

Man admits having child porn

The child pornography he possessed while living in a Spokane police officer's home "was the worst stuff" imaginable, registered sex offender Thomas R. Herman said Friday in U.S. District Court. His description of his collection of 1,000 child porn images came as the 65-year-old defendant pleaded guilty to a federal charge of possession of child pornography.
News >  Spokane

County may settle Hahn suit

Spokane County commissioners today will consider paying $325,000 to two men who say they were molested by a county sheriff's deputy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The men filed a lawsuit in 2004 that alleges the county was negligent for the actions of Deputy David Hahn, in part because Hahn was allowed to keep his job even after his commanders were told that he abused boys.
News >  Spokane

Sex offender says he baby-sat

Detectives got conflicting information when they attempted to determine if a suspended Spokane police officer or his wife ever left their three children alone with a registered sex offender living in the family's home, newly released police records show. Cpl. David Freitag has been on paid administrative leave since July 25, when Thomas A. Herman was arrested by FBI agents on federal child pornography charges.
News >  Spokane

Light sentence angers family

BONNERS FERRY – A Spokane man whose stepfather works in law enforcement was sentenced Wednesday to 20 days on a work detail by a judge who brokered a plea bargain – saying "boys will be boys" in describing how a teenage girl was burned in a bonfire. Brian Todd Davis, 21, was accused of saying "Jews burn" as he threw 17-year-old Ilaura Fleck into a bonfire on July 27 during a beer keg party on Katka Mountain in Boundary County.
News >  Spokane

Skinhead held in California in witness harassment

A skinhead from the Spokane area is in custody in California after being arrested by FBI agents on a charge of threatening a witness in a 2005 federal firearms prosecution. Ryan Joseph Will was arrested without incident at his parents' home in Santee, Calif., near San Diego, on Tuesday, authorities said Friday.
News >  Spokane

Repeat robber sentenced to 14 years

A robber who twice held up the same Spokane credit union got double the sentence he was hoping for when he appeared before Senior U.S. District Court Judge Justin Quackenbush. William J. Lawrence, described as a "danger to society" by the federal judge, was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison. His court-appointed attorney had asked the judge to sentence the 47-year-old defendant to no more than seven years.
News >  Spokane

Spokane man arrested in child-porn inquiry

A Spokane man is among 125 suspects arrested in a nationwide child-porn investigation of an Internet site that allowed on-line subscribers to view photos and movies of adults sexually abusing children, including infants as young as 6-month-old. Peter Schoen, a life-long Spokane resident, was identified when federal authorities in New Jersey began investigating "illegal.CP," a Web site offering access to "videos and images of hard-core child pornography" for an $80 subscription fee, Justice Department officials said Thursday.
News >  Idaho

Password is key bargaining chip

Joseph Duncan didn't throw in all his cards when he accepted a last-minute plea deal that short-circuited the need for a jury trial. As part of the unique plea bargain, the 43-year-old confessed killer must answer questions put to him by Kootenai County sheriff's detectives who investigated the grisly triple-murders at Wolf Lodge Bay in May 2005.
News >  Spokane

Federal employees bought degrees

An unidentified member of the White House staff and employees of the National Security Agency are among 6,000 people who bought online college degrees from a Spokane-based "diploma mill" now at the center of a criminal case, a federal judge was told Wednesday. Others who paid thousands of dollars for the bogus diplomas include a senior U.S. State Department employee stationed in Kuwait and a U.S. Department of Justice employee who works in Spokane, defense attorney Peter Schweda told U.S. District Court Judge Lonnie Suko.
News >  Spokane

Fraud conspiracy admitted

The man who designed and maintained 125 phony online university and high school Web sites for a Spokane-based diploma mill pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal conspiracy and child pornography charges. Kenneth Wade Pearson's plea in U.S. District Court was part of a deal that should guarantee him less prison time in exchange for his "substantial assistance" in helping federal prosecutors convict the alleged ringleaders, Dixie and Stephen Randock, of Colbert.
News >  Spokane

Lawsuit alleges retaliation by West

The city of Spokane is being sued by its former retirement director who alleges he was fired two years ago after refusing to take steps to substantially increase state retirement benefits for then-Mayor Jim West and two of his assistants. Daniel M. Daniels alleges he was fired by West after blocking the mayor's attempt to use his $138,000 annual city salary as the basis for his state retirement benefits, instead of the approximate $35,000 a year he was earning in his final years as a state lawmaker.
News >  Spokane

Moe pleads not guilty to bribe charge

Orville Moe, the former operator of Spokane Raceway Park, was told by a federal judge Thursday he faces a possible prison sentence if convicted of two bribery charges returned last month by a grand jury. The businessman and his attorney, Mark Vovos, had no comment as they left U.S. District Court in downtown Spokane after the brief arraignment before Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno.
News >  Spokane

Chief’s tip leads to arrest

The police chief in the one-cop town of Reardan, Wash., is being credited with helping the FBI on Tuesday capture the so-called "nomad bandit," suspected of robbing at least 16 banks throughout the Northwest. Jeremy L. Stewart told arresting agents he began robbing banks after becoming disgusted over $800 in bank fees that he was assessed for a U.S. Bank account he had a year ago while in jail for an unrelated crime.
News >  Spokane

Perry pleads not guilty to bribery

The former mayor of Airway Heights entered not guilty pleas Tuesday in U.S. District Court to four federal bribery charges associated with his financial ties to Orville Moe, formerly the operator of Spokane Raceway Park. Dale R. Perry was indicted last month on four counts alleging he violated federal anti-public corruption laws. He is charged with two counts of soliciting a bribe and two counts of accepting a bribe.
News >  Idaho

Two plead guilty in cigarette trafficking

A couple from Plummer, Idaho, agreed to forfeit $1.4 million in cash to the U.S. government as they pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Spokane to interstate trafficking in contraband cigarettes. Peter and Peggy Mahoney, who operated the Warpath Smoke Shop in Plummer, entered their guilty pleas before U.S. District Court Judge Robert Whaley. He scheduled sentencing for April 19.
News >  Spokane

Use of rebreather mask restricted for firefighters

Spokane firefighters are under new orders to no longer use a so-called "anti-spitting" device like the one strapped to the face of Otto Zehm, who died two days after lapsing into unconsciousness during a March 18 convenience store struggle with police.
News >  Spokane

Lynch absence unexplained

Spokane Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch's request to be placed on paid medical leave comes at a time of increasing questions about recent visits to a city park known for lewd conduct and drug abuse. What prompted the surprise medical leave remained unclear Wednesday but Mayor Dennis Hession, in an unusual move, personally addressed City Council members Monday night, saying only that the deputy mayor would be away for up to "several weeks" and is under a doctor's care.
News >  Spokane

Secret of the sea

A marine geophysicist from Spokane played a key role last month in apparently unraveling a 64-year-old mystery from World War II: What happened to the USS Grunion, a submarine that vanished with 70 sailors aboard? The work of 35-year-old Mike Kelly and seven other employees of a Seattle-based underwater exploration company helped locate what's believed to be the wreckage of the U.S. submarine.
News >  Spokane

New chief examines increasing oversight

BOISE – At a national conference on police oversight Monday, a short woman in a dark suit had one of the first questions for the noted speaker, who was saying it was important for citizens to monitor their police agencies. The question for police-oversight author and law professor David A. Harris came from Anne Kirkpatrick, Spokane's new police chief.
News >  Spokane

Felon works at business bureau

A woman at the heart of a $1.4 million mortgage fraud scheme involving dozens of victims has been working as a "marketing representative" with the Spokane Better Business Bureau while appealing her conviction and federal prison sentence.
News >  Spokane

Council in dark on cop’s rehiring

Several Spokane City Council members are complaining they were given inadequate information last year when they were asked in executive session to approve the rehiring of a Spokane police officer who kicked a restrained man in the chest. The Spokesman-Review reported Sunday on documents from a 2004 police internal affairs investigation that resulted in the firing of Sgt. Jerry Hensley by former Police Chief Roger Bragdon. The documents show that nine of 12 officers who responded in January 2004 to restrain a meth-addicted man said Hensley's kick was excessive force.