Thomas Clouse

Stevens County deputies discovered a 105-year-old woman begging for food after being asked by an animal cruelty suspect to retrieve his medicine from the squalid Kettle Falls home before taking him to jail. The woman, Frances Swan, was rescued and now is recuperating at a Colville nursing home, while her self-described caretaker, 78-year-old John H. Friedlund, was charged with felony criminal mistreatment in connection with the May 26 discovery.

A judge today ruled against the City of Spokane in a decision that may invalidate the system by which traffic tickets are generated using the controversial Photo Red cameras.

The Washington Supreme Court disbarred a prominent Spokane attorney Thursday after his client complained the lawyer charged him $25,000 to settle a minor dispute over the lease price of a car. The high court ruled unanimously to uphold the disbarment of Russell Van Camp, who has represented National Right to Life advocates and anti-abortion activists throughout the West. The court said he misled his client about the nature of the $25,000 fee and didn’t follow through with the client’s desire to quickly settle the case.

The Washington Supreme Court disbarred a prominent Spokane attorney Thursday after his client complained the lawyer charged him $25,000 to settle a minor dispute over the lease price of a car.

Sex offender's agreement halts trial

Office manager admits to stealing $538k

For more than a decade, Washington state has paid $9,500 a month plus regular legal fees to two big Seattle law firms to represent indigent clients in their appeals – an arrangement that was unknown to the chief justice of the state Supreme Court and one that has angered lawyers in Spokane, who are paid much less for the same work. The discovery of the arrangement comes at a time when lawmakers are slashing budgets in every state agency, and officials at the Office of Public Defense are struggling to explain why it maintains such a two-tiered system.

Felony charges against a registered sex offender have been dismissed on technical grounds after a federal judge ruled that the search warrant used to find hundreds of images of child pornography on the suspect’s computer was invalid. Andrew V. Davis, 34, of Deer Park, faced at least 15 years in federal prison if convicted, but U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush concluded that police failed to disclose when seeking the search warrant that key information came from a girl who had lied to detectives in other cases. Throwing out the search warrant rendered the evidence against Davis inadmissible.

A Spokane jury on Wednesday convicted a 67-year-old man of assault against one of the deputies who shot him three times in 2009. The jury convicted Donald J. Lafavor of one count of second-degree assault in connection with an incident on Nov. 28, 2009.

Felony charges against a registered sex offender have been dismissed on technical grounds after a federal judge ruled that the search warrant used to find hundreds of images of child pornography on the suspect’s computer was invalid. Andrew V. Davis, 34, of Deer Park, faced at least 15 years in federal prison if convicted, but U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush concluded that police failed to disclose when seeking the search warrant that key information came from a girl who had lied to detectives in other cases. By throwing out the search warrant, it rendered the evidence against Davis inadmissible.

Montana and Idaho authorities responded this afternoon to an airplane that apparently crash landed in the Clark Fork River just east of the Cabinet Gorge Dam. The pilot survived the crash and has been transported to Bonner General Hospital in Sandpoint for hypothermia treatment, a dispatcher said.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor on Thursday described a series of random events that came together two years ago in an altercation that left a 24-year-old man dead and resulted in a 21-year prison sentence for the convicted felon who brought a knife to a fistfight. The judge sentenced Matthew M. Nedeau, 26, to 252 months in prison after a Spokane jury convicted him in April of second-degree murder in connection with the July 6, 2009, slaying of Vitaly Shevchuk.

Dorothy Millican sat on a courthouse bench and cried Thursday after losing a five-year legal battle to hold someone responsible for her son’s death. Millican’s son, Daren Lafayette, 19, was working on a road crew on Sept. 12, 2006, when a truck began rolling downhill toward a car that had two people inside. Lafayette chased down the truck and climbed inside, but could not stop it before it careened over an embankment and exploded.

Nearly five years after he died in a fiery crash, the family of Daren Lafayette should know soon who, if anyone, is responsible and how to compensate the family for his loss. The jury will begin this morning deliberating the case that included three weeks of testimony about what happened Sept. 12, 2006, on the highway construction site on Flowery Trail Road near Chewelah when a work truck began rolling downhill toward waiting cars.

Nearly five years after he died in a fiery crash, the family of Daren Lafayette should know soon who, if anyone, is responsible and how to compensate the family for its loss. The jury will begin Wednesday morning deliberating the case that included three weeks of testimony about what happened Sept. 12, 2006, at the highway construction site Chewelah.

Four Seattle residents didn’t just steal $33,000 from several Spokane banks in one afternoon; they were handed the money as if it were theirs, according to court records. In a chilling new example of identity theft, authorities say four people – one suspect has already pleaded guilty – went to local banks on March 12, 2010, with stolen credit cards. They identified themselves as the cardholders and sought cash advances, which were declined.

A serial arsonist’s prolific criminal past earned him the wrath of a federal judge who on Friday sentenced the man to 10 years in prison. Anthony W. Sotin, 42, previously agreed to accept responsibility for setting his own car on fire on Jan.12, and later torching a commercial building at 13412 E. Nora Ave. on Feb. 9. The commercial building was next to an occupied apartment complex.

A Spokane man who claimed to have invented a computer chip that could capture energy from lightning pleaded not guilty this week to federal charges that he defrauded investors of more than $2.5 million. Robert B. Hiatt, 65, presented himself to investors for a decade as a successful inventor and businessman, according to the indictment on three counts of wire fraud returned Wednesday by a grand jury. Hiatt pleaded not guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno on Thursday afternoon.

A Spokane man who claimed to have invented a computer chip that could capture energy from lightning strikes pleaded not guilty this week to federal charges that he defrauded investors of more than $2.5 million.

The state’s highest court on Thursday upheld a $6.5 million ruling against an engineering firm found responsible for the implosion of a sewage digester that killed a Spokane sewer plant worker and injured two others in 2004. The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the decision by now-retired Superior Court Judge Robert Austin, who ruled in 2008 that CH2M Hill caused the event and should pay more than $6 million to the families of the workers.