In brief: Napier jailed over records dispute

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Ellen Clark on Friday ordered Tony Napier jailed for contempt of court for failing to surrender personal financial records sought as part of a review of restitution due victims of an equity skimming scheme that dates to the late 1990s.

Napier was convicted of equity skimming and first- and third-degree theft in 1998. He has been paying restitution at the rate of $200 per month, not enough to cover the debt service on the more than $100,000 he owes.

Spokane County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney George W. Gagnon III said the records were first requested in December.

Since then, he said, Napier has claimed the records were in his wife’s possession, or had submitted incomplete information that did not conform to Clark’s order.

Napier will remain in jail until another hearing this Friday, when he will again be expected to produce the required records, Gagnon said.

S-R’s newsstand price increased

The newsstand price for Monday through Saturday issues of The Spokesman-Review has increased to 75 cents in Spokane and Kootenai counties and in the Moses Lake, Pullman and Moscow areas. The price was 50 cents.

In all other areas the newsstand price was already 75 cents.

There was no change in Sunday pricing, nor for home-delivered copies of the paper.

The change took effect Monday in Spokane County and last week elsewhere.

“The price increase was made reluctantly and reflects the costs of maintaining the largest and best news-gathering force in our region,” said Shaun O’L. Higgins, director of sales and marketing.

The Coeur d’Alene Press previously raised its daily price to 75 cents, as did the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Higgins said.

“We feel that the product we deliver compares favorably to those papers and represents a relative bargain when compared to other consumer information products,” he said in a statement.

SAN JOSE, Calif.

Sun Microsystems buyout talks stall

Without IBM Corp.’s $7 billion takeover offer, Sun Microsystems Inc. is possibly alone again. Unless a new suitor somehow emerges, Sun will have to overcome the wobbly finances that forced it to shop itself around.

The two sides had been nearing an agreement before the weekend. But Sun balked at IBM’s last price of $9.40 per share, which had come down from earlier offers but still was about double Sun’s stock price before word of the negotiations leaked last month.

From staff and wire reports