A convicted sex offender from Tennessee will serve 20 years in federal prison after confessing to posting sexually explicit Internet pictures of a boy who was raped in an East Spokane apartment. Timothy S. Oakes was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Court Judge Lonny Suko after earlier pleading guilty to separate counts of producing and distributing child pornography between May 2003 and March 17, 2004.
U.S. Secret Service agents arrested two people in the Seattle area Wednesday on federal charges accusing them of pulling off an elaborate credit card fraud scheme in Eastern Washington totaling more than $120,000. The pair, returned to Spokane by federal agents, are accused in a grand jury indictment of obtaining credit card numbers from a copy shop near the University of Washington and using them to post a jail bond in Clarkston and make other purchases.
The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review a federal firearms case brought against Tommy Stanko Marks, the oldest son of Spokane Gypsy leader Jimmy Marks. It will probably be sometime this spring before the nation's highest court decides whether to accept for review the appeal filed by Tommy Marks' attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Steve Hormel, of Spokane.
A Superior Court judge on Friday refused to allow two Spokane men to become parties in a bitter 15-month-old legal fight involving dissident shareholders seeking appointment of a receiver to take over operations at Spokane Raceway Park. Daryl Stokes and Quentin Ratliff, both of Spokane, wanted to become "interpleaders" and intervene in a manner that the dissident shareholders' legal team said was an unsuccessful attempt by defendant Orville Moe to further delay the litigation.
Additional federal charges may be filed against a Spokane Valley man with 19 felony convictions who was arrested last month at Spokane International Airport by FBI agents, authorities say. Michael D. Pirello waived his right Thursday in U.S. District Court to hear the evidence against him that led to his arrest Dec. 21 on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Three men were indicted by a federal grand jury in Spokane on Wednesday after the panel heard evidence about a scheme to smuggle $219,000 worth of Canadian marijuana and hashish into the United States shortly before Christmas. Kevin W. Guinn, Matthew K. Dierck and Geoffrey H. Crook have been in jail since they were arrested Dec. 23 near Laurier, Wash., in Ferry County by federal Border Patrol agents.
Orville Moe's daughter regularly forged his signature on hand-numbered checks written at Spokane Raceway Park, a witness testified Monday at a hearing examining financial irregularities at the popular drag strip. Former SRP employee James R. Tice of Spokane was called as the second witness for a group of 500 dissident "limited partner" shareholders whose civil suit accuses Moe of fraud and demands his ouster as general partner in Washington Motorsports.
COEUR D'ALENE – A former gold and coin dealer, convicted last summer of drug-dealing and firearms charges, was sentenced Monday to 37 years in prison after claiming in federal court he had been set up by "corrupt government officials." Robert Leon Mertens, described by federal authorities as having "an anti-government agenda," could have received life in prison. But U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge agreed to a defense request that changed the defendant's sentencing range to 292 to 365 months in prison.
A Mead woman and her associates, who are accused of operating Internet-based "diploma mills," are being sued in U.S. District Court by Regis University, a Jesuit school in Denver that claims its reputation is being damaged. Dixie Randock, her daughter, Heidi K. Lorhan, and three of their business associates who jointly operate "St. Regis University" are accused in the suit of trademark infringement, unfair competition, unfair business practices and trademark dilution.
KITTITAS, Wash. – Cody Haynes, an 11-year-old with the twinkle and smile of an all-American kid, didn't come home for Thanksgiving. He also wasn't at his home on Main Street for Halloween.
A $4.9-million-dollar claim against Spokane County was filed Tuesday by attorneys representing the family of a man killed last month in the Spokane County Jail. Christopher Rentz, 21, of Spokane, was "assaulted, tortured and killed" on Oct. 2 after he was placed in a dormitory cell with two "extremely violent" men, Michael L. West, 28, and Brandon W. Martin, 28, the claim said.
Authorities are investigating the death of a 27-year-old woman found dead last weekend in a U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs jail cell on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Misty E. Ford, who was receiving medical treatment for a heart and lung condition, complained of chest pains the day before she was found dead, her family members say.
The Spokane Police Department and the Anti-Defamation League jointly sponsored a daylong training session Thursday on "domestic terrorism and criminal extremism in the Pacific Northwest." The information-sharing session at the Spokane Police Academy attracted more than 70 law officers from throughout the region.
A former candidate for the state Legislature admitted Monday in U.S. District Court that he swindled more than $214,000 from customers who bought computers, plasma televisions and diet pills from his online businesses but never received the merchandise. Travis J. Sneed, 21, of Spokane, pleaded guilty to 14 federal counts of wire fraud and likely faces 30 months in prison when he's sentenced early next year.
The state Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a Spokane County Superior Court judge's order directing former Spokane City Councilman Steve Eugster to pay $43,875 in attorney fees to Spokane County Commissioner Phil Harris. In addition, the Division III appeals court ruled Eugster now must pay unspecified additional attorney costs Harris incurred because Eugster appealed the May 2003 ruling of Superior Court Judge Maryann Moreno.
A former firefighter and paramedic will spend the next four years in federal prison for starting a multimillion-dollar grass seed warehouse fire on Labor Day 2003 in southeastern Spokane County. Kenneth Southwell received the sentence Thursday when he appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Fred Van Sickle.
The Spokane Humane Society announced Tuesday that it temporarily is not accepting or adopting out cats in an attempt to control an outbreak of feline distemper at its facility. Jim Fox, the Humane Society's executive director, said 80 cats and kittens at the facility are in quarantine as animal workers attempt to control and eliminate the spread of the easily transmittable disease. Fox said the disease has led to the deaths of about 25 cats in the last two weeks.
A former Spokane car dealer, accused in a scheme of defrauding 120 buyers, was sentenced Friday to 41 months in federal prison on odometer-fraud and tax evasion charges. Michael B. Cosand and his wife, Janice, operated car importing businesses that handled $2.3 million in gross sales that went unreported to state and federal tax agencies between 1999 and 2001, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Wilson said at a sentencing hearing.
A group of minority shareholders is seeking to significantly expand its lawsuit against Orville Moe, the general partner of Spokane Raceway Park, alleging fraud, criminal profiteering and evasion of state and federal taxes. The modified suit asks a Superior Court judge to dissolve the partnership and replace Moe with a court-appointed receiver to control assets of the racetrack and drag strip in Airway Heights.
Employees at Planet Kids Child Care in east Spokane said it's been easy most days to look through the windows and watch drug dealing in a nearby parking lot and on adjoining streets. Cars would pull up, the occupants would exchange something and then disappear.
Jim Shively, who has battled and beaten adversity throughout his legendlike life, is retiring as a top federal prosecutor for Eastern Washington. Shively wanted to slip into retirement this month without any hullabaloo or ceremony, but friends and colleagues wouldn't stand for that.
More than a dozen suspected gang members and their associates from California were arrested Wednesday in the Spokane area by a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration regional task force. Other arrests are planned, authorities said, and the case could become one of the largest gang-related series of arrests ever carried out in Spokane.
DAVENPORT – The possessions of a brutal killer were sold at public auction Tuesday at a decaying Cold War missile silo where a state tax auditor was shot and dismembered 28 months ago. An estimated 350 people, most of them driving pickups, converged on the former home of the late Ralph H. Benson and packed away everything from broken-down furniture to rusty tools, glassware, telephone wire and boxes of chain.
As the sun set Saturday, Sue Anderson cracked open a smelly can of sardines and put it inside a blanket-covered cage in Sullivan Park in Spokane Valley. The animal lover sat in the shadows with a simple mission: Attempt to catch an estimated three dozen feral cats living in a colony in the park on the north bank of the Spokane River.
An eyewitness to a jailhouse killing claims he and the victim both attempted to warn corrections officers that death threats were being made by a cellmate in the Spokane County Jail's psychiatric unit. The beating and strangulation of Christopher Rentz lasted 90 minutes without corrections officers walking by the four-man psychiatric cell where inspections are supposed to occur every half-hour, according to witness James "Jimi" Felice.
