John Stucke

Dr. Craig Morgenstern led a secret life as a reckless child molester who made sex videos of himself with young boys he had drugged with prescription sedatives, federal prosecutors told jurors Monday. But the children weren’t his only victims. He betrayed neighbors. He betrayed his professional oath. And he betrayed those closest to him – assaulting the three sons of a man who years ago had Morgenstern stand beside him as his best man, witnesses told jurors Monday, the fifth day of trial.

Federal prosecutors continued Thursday to make their case against former VA emergency room doctor Craig Morgenstern, saying investigators found about 1 million pornographic images and items on electronic gear belonging to him.

A homeless drug user rummaging through apartment dumpsters in October 2014 found a trove of computer hard drives and DVDs that helped turn a child-rape investigation into the multi-state child pornography prosecution of former Veterans Affairs emergency doctor Craig Morgenstern. Michael Crowe, clad in lemon-yellow jail scrubs, told jurors during the third day of Morgenstern’s trial how he came upon two U-Haul moving boxes taped shut and discarded with other trash at an apartment complex just north of Francis Avenue.

Jurors in the federal criminal trial of Dr. Craig Morgenstern were shown videos Morgenstern allegedly made of him sexually assaulting boys in the second day of his trial.

A jury of nine women and six men were chosed Monday to hear the criminal case against Dr. Craig Morgenstern, the former Veteran Affairs physician accused of filming sexual assaults on half a dozen children.

The Kalispel Tribe took ownership of the venerable Spokane Country Club this week with plans to preserve the course for private-member play with just a few tee times each day open to the public. Greens fees will be $115 when the course reopens for play next year.

A trustee wants to recoup more than $2 million that bankrupted real estate developer Marshall Chesrown gave to family and friends as his fortunes were collapsing. The legal efforts, for example, target at least $1.3 million Chesrown transferred to his son, Scott Chesrown, in the years leading up to his $72 million personal bankruptcy filing.

The Spokane Country Club could be sold to settle its multimillion bankruptcy case as dozens of members quit and business slows in the aftermath of a gender discrimination verdict. The club sought bankruptcy protection two years ago to prevent collection on the $1.4 million verdict and related legal costs, and the members have not coalesced around a strategy to keep their private golf club.

The Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, the former director of Morning Star Boys’ Ranch, has been reinstated as an active priest after the last sex abuse claims against him were rejected by a retired federal judge hired to rule on the credibility of the cases. Referred to as “Father Joe” by a Catholic community that admired his decades of work with troubled boys, Weitensteiner, now 82, has never wavered in his insistence that he didn’t molest boys entrusted to his care at the ranch southeast of Spokane.

The Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, the former director of the Morning Star Boys Ranch, has been reinstated into the active Catholic ministry after sex abuse claims against him were denied by a retired federal judge hired to rule on the credibility of the cases.

The auxiliary bishop in San Jose, California, has been named by Pope Francis as the seventh bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Spokane. Thomas Daly, 54, succeeds Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, who left Spokane last fall to lead the nation’s third largest diocese.

Pope Francis has appointed Thomas Daly as the new Catholic Bishop of Spokane.

Health care organizations are investing millions of dollars in emergency and urgent care centers across the Spokane region to treat the growing number of patients who have gained insurance and access to health care. CHAS Health will open two clinics this year to help meet a growing demand for health care from the newly insured.

Fairchild Air Force Base’s survival school sought Friday to distance itself from the revelations contained in a scathing report about the CIA’s torture regime. Although commanders refused to address the report directly, they organized a rare news conference to reinforce the important work of the 300 people in the Spokane headquarters of the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school.

The gleaners arrived by the carload Saturday morning ready to harvest the rich remnants of this year’s crop of golden delicious and late season red apples. The plan: pick, box and deliver about 17,000 pounds of Green Bluff fruit to the hungry before a rush of frigid air grips the region this week and ruins what is left.