In reaction to an underage drinking scandal that police said included a school board member, two teachers and high school students, the Newport school board took steps Wednesday to tighten the district's drug and alcohol policies. At the recommendation of Superintendent Michael Brandt, the board authorized him to: Research drug-testing policies in other districts. Form a task force to study a random drug-testing policy for students. Create a code of conduct for students who want to participate in sports and other extra-curricular activities. [continues 506 words]
Erlanger Board Approves Project Transitions Inc. has cleared a major hurdle in its quest to build a residential drug/alcohol rehabilitation center in Erlanger. The Erlanger Board of Adjustment Monday night granted the Covington non-profit a permit to build the 100-bed facility on Pleasure Isle Drive. Transitions Executive Director Mac McArthur said Transitions planned today to close the deal to buy the property, which is just off Madison Pike. "I'm relieved. I'm delighted that this part of the struggle is over," he said Monday night. [continues 803 words]
It's a rare act of courage when children turn their drug-using parents in to police, says an expert on children from troubled homes. "It takes a lot of guts because a child really doesn't know what is going to happen," said Connie Freking, youth service department director for the Brighton Center, a multi-program social service agency headquartered in Newport. "It also takes a lot of love. I don't think a child's first thought is that the parents may go to jail. The first thought is, 'They need help. We need help. I need help.' In the long run, they're looking out for their family's best interest." [continues 510 words]
Drug-rehab group makes bid for new unit In the back of the crowded Covington City Commission chambers, Jackie Keach held up a sign that memorialized her late son, Josh Motz. The former Covington resident died in 2004. He was addicted to OxyContin and heroin, his mother said. "I would have been better off with cancer," the sign read. "I needed treatment, not hate." Keach, of Cincinnati, was supporting Transitions Inc.'s plan to build a residential drug treatment facility for 100 men off Donaldson Avenue in Covington. [continues 565 words]
Similar Legislation Worked In 1 state FRANKFORT - Kentucky law enforcement officials hope new legislation requiring people to show picture IDs and sign their names when buying medication containing pseudoephedrine will become a useful instrument in their arsenal against methamphetamine. "Without controlling pseudoephedrine, it's going to be really hard to get our arms around the meth problem," said David James, head of the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation - an arm of the attorney general's office. "Now that we have some controls on the pseudoephedrine, it will help law enforcement across the state better protect the citizens." [continues 354 words]
California's medical-marijuana law would seem a classic case of states' rights. It was approved by the voters at large in a ballot initiative and as a law by the state legislature. The commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution would seem not to apply because the product was grown entirely in the state, was never bought and sold and never crossed state lines. And the marijuana was made available to qualified patients by state-regulated doctor's prescription. Nine other states, from Maine to Hawaii, have similar laws, so this is hardly an ill-considered proposition. [continues 224 words]
What makes NIMBY ("Not In My Back Yard") disputes so hard to mediate is that typically there are sincere, well-meaning people on both sides. That was certainly the case when Transitions Inc. recently proposed putting a long-term residential drug treatment facility for about 100 men in the Latonia neighborhood of Covington. Transitions included the county-owned property on its application to state officials who are trying to figure out where to place 10 such facilities as part of Gov. Ernie Fletcher's Recovery Kentucky initiative. [continues 371 words]
Review Process Applications for centers must be reviewed by a panel of representatives from the Kentucky Housing Corp., the Corrections Cabinet and the Governor's Office for Local Development. The panel will recommend choices to the governor. Several other agencies plan to apply for the Recovery Kentucky grants to build treatment centers for substance abusers. Among local groups: Brighton Center, one of Northern Kentucky's largest social service agencies, coupled with Boone County to apply to build a recovery center on property owned by Gateway Community Technical College off Sam Neace Drive in Boone County. The center would serve women. [continues 1070 words]
Proposal to Be Outlined Sunday Transitions Inc. will sponsor a presentation Sunday on the residential recovery center it hopes to build and operate in Latonia for 100 male drug addicts. The recovery center would be modeled on the Healing Place in Louisville, which has been offering detoxification, residential and continuing care for men and women for 15 years. Sunday's session will include a short video on the Healing Place with stories of people who have recovered there, according to Mac McArthur, executive director of Transitions. It will run from 2 to 4 p.m. at Latonia Baptist Church on Church Street. [continues 353 words]
Mac McArthur is about to mail a 55-page document he hopes saves the lives of hundreds of Northern Kentuckians. The document is an application. McArthur is director of Transitions Inc., a substance abuse center that is partnering with the Kenton County Fiscal Court to try to persuade the state to build a million-dollar recovery center in Kenton County for drug addicts and alcoholics who are homeless or in danger of becoming so. The Fletcher Administration plans to build 10 such centers around the state, at least one in each Congressional district. But the Fourth District is a big district geographically; we think a center needs to be built in the three-county area. [continues 454 words]
America's most famous felon, Martha Stewart, has a lot ahead of her now that she's out of jail -- getting her company back into the black, launching two TV shows and re-establishing herself as the credible voice of domestic perfection. Her five months in a minimum-security women's prison was hardly "The Shawshank Redemption," but during that time she became a convert to the cause of prison and sentencing reform, according to Laurie Cohen of The Wall Street Journal, who corresponded with Stewart during her time in prison. [continues 155 words]
Last week on these pages we published a thoughtful guest column by Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Patrick Dinkelacker, who expressed concern over the intimidation of witnesses in criminal trials and praised the bravery of those who had testified in recent cases. Guess what happened Monday night? A man who had testified earlier that day in the murder trial of an alleged drug dealer was shot in the head. He died Tuesday, Cincinnati's 14th homicide victim of the year. Police cautioned that it would be a mistake to automatically assume that Jose Vazquez's testimony and his shooting several hours later in Walnut Hills were linked. And it bears noting that the man he testified against, Jonathan White, was in custody at the Hamilton County Justice Center when Vazquez was shot. [continues 424 words]
Kentucky could soon join Indiana and Oklahoma as states that have laws restricting the sale of over-the-counter cold tablets used to make methamphetamine. Senate Bill 63 was approved by a Senate committee Monday and could go before the full Senate in the next week, co-sponsor Sen. Tom Jensen said Monday. The bill would require drugs that contain pseudoephedrine to be dispensed by pharmacists, who would have to keep records of such transactions. The measure would also limit the amount of the drug the consumers could purchase and impose stiffer penalties for meth crimes. [continues 437 words]
Local law enforcement's battle against the pervasive, but often untracked crimes involving prescription drugs got a big boost recently from new prescription-tracking legislation and pharmaceutical diversion investigative squads in Northern Kentucky and southwest Ohio. Officials say the developments are key to stemming the growing illegal trade and abuse of prescription drugs, which the White House Office of Drug Control Policy says are second only to marijuana in their rate of abuse nationally. In Northern Kentucky, efforts to increase the ranks of those investigating so-called "pharmaceutical diversion" crimes were strengthened by the inception of the area's only Pharmaceutical Diversion Unit at the Boone County Sheriff's Department in July. The two detectives assigned to the team received special training last summer at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. though both have accumulated substantial experience in investigating such crimes in the past. [continues 742 words]
Gov. Ernie Fletcher traveled the state Monday to announce a $9.5 million plan to establish 10 recovery centers to treat drug addicts. It's a worthwhile campaign, but we hope the $9.5 million is just a start. An epidemic of drugs is sweeping this state, and not just in the big cities like Louisville and Lexington. Meth labs are popping up all over Western Kentucky, Oxy Contin abuse is paralyzing Eastern Kentucky and here in Northern Kentucky we've suffered the toll of heroin and other drugs. [continues 439 words]
A local doctor investigated for his prescription-writing practices has settled a forfeiture case brought against him by the federal government. Dr. Ghassan Haj-Hamed's attorney, Bob Carran, said he hopes the settlement will end any questions about the doctor's practice. The government sued the doctor in September 2002, saying his Riverside Medical Clinics and Urgent Care Centers were connected with illegal drug transactions. The settlement agreed on earlier this month calls for the doctor to surrender the properties at (Address omitted), plus $17,325 and two Mercedes Benz automobiles. But the government agreed to give up claims to three properties: (Addresses omitted) [continues 334 words]
Athletes at Walton-Verona High School had a new test to pass last month before they donned the Bearcats uniform and took the court. It had nothing to do with math, with history or with academics at all. The test involved urinating in a cup -- and having it tested for illegal drugs. At any point during the season, they might have to do it again. The test is a reaction to annual student drug and alcohol surveys whose numbers seemed to hold steady no matter what the school did, said Superintendent Bill Boyle. "We've done all the 'just say no' stuff we can do and haven't seen an impact," he said. "We knew we had to do more." [continues 1070 words]
Forcing drug tests on students is ineffective, invasive, and can make existing school drug problems worse. The Walton-Verona school board recently approved a random, suspicionless drug testing program for all student athletes. Advocates of such programs claim that they give young people an excuse to say "no" to drugs. But randomly testing those who participate in after-school sports simply gives students who have used or are thinking about using drugs an excuse to say "no" to trying out for teams. [continues 397 words]
Robert Lawson was the chief architect of the 1975 overhaul of Kentucky's criminal code. He's an authority on the rules that govern criminal proceedings in the commonwealth. As a University of Kentucky law school professor, he trained many of the attorneys who now serve as members of the Kentucky General Assembly. And he is not known as a bleeding heart liberal. So when Lawson began circulating private copies of a 72-page report which argues that Kentucky is incarcerating too many inmates for too long, policy-makers in the state began to sit up and take notice. "If they don't listen to him, they are not going to listen to anybody,'' Kentucky Parole Board Chairman John Coy told the Louisville Courier-Journal, in a story picked up by the Associated Press. [continues 454 words]
The Walton-Verona school board approved this week a drug-testing program for student athletes. The testing will affect about 280 students, or more than half of the student body of Walton-Verona High School. High school Principal Mark Krummen said he had worked about 10 months on the testing proposal and hasn't received any negative comments from parents or students. The testing likely will start in a couple of weeks. School officials don't believe a large number of students use drugs, but the perception among students is that drug use is prevalent, Krummen said. A drug-testing policy will help some students who may be tempted otherwise, he said. The school will test athletes in grades 9-12 once they make a team and then randomly afterward. [continues 79 words]
Campbell County officials believe there may have been as many as seven opiate and prescription drug-related deaths there over the last three months, already exceeding the six during the first half of this year. Four of the seven most recent deaths have been confirmed as opiate-related by state medical examiners, but Campbell County Coroner Mark Schweitzer said in the three other cases, preliminary observations at the time of death pointed to opiate use. If those three are confirmed as opiate-related, that would bring Campbell County's total for the year to 13. [continues 621 words]
Walton-Verona High School could begin testing student athletes for drugs immediately if the district's school board approves a drug-testing policy later this month. District school officials discussed a proposed drug-testing policy Tuesday night with about 100 parents who were at the school for an open house. School officials haven't received major objections from parents or students, though parents did want to know the details about who would be tested and when. The school system plans to test athletes in grades 9-12 once they make a team and then randomly afterward, said Superintendent Bill Boyle. The district believes a drug-testing policy will give students another reason not to use drugs. [continues 192 words]
Walton-Verona school officials have set a public forum for 7 p.m. Oct. 5 to talk about a proposed drug-testing policy for athletes. The district would be the latest in Northern Kentucky to test student athletes, if it approves a proposed drug-testing policy. In 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court approved random drug tests for students who join competitive after-school activities or teams, but some Northern Kentucky districts have tested athletes since the mid-1990s. The forum at the Walton-Verona High School will be part of a Parent Teacher Student Association meeting and open house. [continues 110 words]
Walton-Verona school officials hope a drug-testing program for student athletes will cut down on drug use in the high school. The Walton-Verona Board of Education will discuss a drug-testing policy at its meeting Aug. 18. Walton-Verona Superintendent Bill Boyle said the district wants to give students another reason to stay away from the use of illegal drugs and alcohol. The number of students who say they use drugs or know others who do hasn't declined significantly in several years, Boyle said. [continues 147 words]
Judges and prosecutors around the state were angry last year. A massive backlog (of 10,000 cases, at one point) at state crime labs was delaying the testing of evidence, forcing trial dates to be put off, causing suspects to be released on bond against better judgment and, in some instances, ruining cases altogether. "It makes a mockery of the justice system,'' Kenton County Circuit Judge Greg Bartlett fumed after learning that DNA evidence was not ready for a rape case set for trial. [continues 430 words]
Call it an elaborate game of hide and seek. That's how Kentucky law enforcement officials are describing the patterns of the state's marijuana growers. Police have noticed that areas of high concentrations of marijuana plants are dwindling. More than a decade ago, it was common for police to find about 5,000 plants per plot. Now they'll find 100 plants in 20 different plots, said Capt. Brad Bates of the Kentucky State Police. "It's less risky for growers," he said. [continues 351 words]
Three months into his new job as leader of the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force, veteran law officer Jim Liles says it's obvious that the elite unit has shed its former image problems and gained prominence for its expertise in finding the drug world's bad guys. Now, however, the agency has a new challenge: finding the funding to ensure its future. Liles sees that as one of his primary tasks in the years ahead. Fortunately, the retired 27-year veteran of the Covington Police Department knows the area and has some very definite ideas about how to drum up financial support to keep the unit working, perhaps in an area larger than the four Northern Kentucky counties it now covers. Six months after Liles retired from an assistant chief's job in Covington, the strike force's governing board hired him as director in March. He succeeded Jim Paine, whom Liles credits with greatly improving the professional image and effectiveness of the force, which for years was mired in problems that tarnished the agency's good name and hindered its mission. In the 1990s, the strike force saw one agent resign after admitting he lied to a judge, and one director quit after an employee accused him of sexual harassment. Between 1992 and 2001, the force had three directors and three interim directors before Paine was hired. During his tenure with the agency, Paine doubled the number of strike force agents, added Grant County to the coverage area and obtained Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police accreditation for the unit, the first in the state to do so. Liles said his immediate goal is to broaden the unit's financial base by appealing to both private and public interests. [continues 977 words]
The chief prosecutor in Owsley and Lee counties hopes former Campbell Circuit Judge William Wehr can bring more than just himself when he heads to the eastern Kentucky counties in the fall to help end a backlog of cases. Commonwealth Attorney Tom Hall would like Wehr to bring along some extra hours in the day to take care of criminal cases - -- most involving drugs -- that have doubled in the past year. "It's not a case of not enough judges or not enough prosecutors," Hall said Wednesday. "It's a case of not enough time." [continues 528 words]
Proffers as such are not unusual He proudly calls himself an unreconstructed Roosevelt Democrat. He appears fearless in the face of reporters' questions. But he won't answer a single inquiry he, and the American Bar Association, might deem inappropriate. Montgomery County Commonwealth Attorney George Moore -- the man the Kentucky Attorney General's office recently appointed to investigate alleged wrongdoing by a Ludlow police detective -- clearly feels confident to handle an investigation which may lead to a probe of the office of fellow county prosecutor, Kenton County Commonwealth Attorney Bill Crockett. [continues 1364 words]
FOP Vote Still On Schedule With hundreds of police officers set to consider a vote of no confidence against Kenton County Commonwealth Attorney Bill Crockett tonight, the much-rebuked prosecutor met for hours Tuesday with Covington's police leadership. The meeting was an attempt to address concerns officers have with Crockett's office. Sgt. Bryan Allen, president of Covington FOP Lodge No. 1, said he and Covington Police Chief Tom Schonecker spent nearly four hours with Crockett. Allen said the meeting evolved out of a conversation last weekend between Crockett and Schonecker about officers' growing lack of faith in the commonwealth attorney's performance. [continues 848 words]
The state Attorney General's office has named a special prosecutor to review the state police investigation into the office of Kenton County prosecutor Bill Crockett. George Moore, the commonwealth attorney for four Eastern Kentucky counties, has been appointed to review the matter, said Brian Wright, spokesman for the Kentucky Attorney General's office. "He is looking into -- all aspects of the case to determine how to proceed," Wright said. "We do not want to make any comments that in any way would limit the scope of the review. -- We don't know what we're going to find when we get there or what it would be limited to." [continues 495 words]
Drug counselor Pamela Kammerer hears the same explanations over and over as high school students talk with her about their drug and alcohol use. "I'm not comfortable unless I'm high." "I'm funnier when I'm drunk." List of services . Catholic Social Services' Substance Abuse Solutions program are held at Bishop Brossart, Covington Catholic, St. Henry District, Pendleton County, Newport Independent, Newport Central Catholic, Holy Cross and Holmes high schools . To discuss grants for the Substance Abuse Solutions program, call Herk Iames, (859) 581-8974. [continues 769 words]
FRANKFORT -- The bill born of the tragic consequences of Northern Kentucky's heroin problem is back for reconsideration by the General Assembly. State Rep. Thomas Kerr, R-Taylor Mill, pre-filed legislation late last week that would allow relatives to commit their drug-addicted family members to rehabilitation centers. Under current state law, no one over 18 can be forced to seek drug treatment. The bill, called the "Matthew Casey Wethington Act for Substance Abuse Intervention," is named after a 23-year-old Morning View man who died of a heroin overdose in August 2002. The proposal is similar to a state law that lets relatives commit loved ones to facilities for mental health treatment. [continues 322 words]
Bryan Baldwin had been through the methadone program at the Eastern Indiana Treatment Center. The Latonia man managed to stay clean for nearly three months. His mother says he was trying to rebuild his life. When he slipped -- just once, by all indications. In some ways, he survived; he lived through an intentional overdose of the opiate that was supposed to keep him from abusing other opiates like OxyContin. But in other ways yet to be measured, the 33-year-old Baldwin lost his life. [continues 1634 words]
The detective at the center of a growing investigation of the Ludlow Police Department testified under oath Tuesday that $1,000 payments demanded as part of plea agreements with suspected drug dealers were sought to help defray the department's costs of investigating drug trafficking. Detective Bill Schilling, in his first public comments on the issue, testified that the costs included police officers' time responding to calls, logging evidence, questioning witnesses and transcribing statements. It also was to help pay for one officer to attend classes to help him identify marijuana, Schilling told Kenton District Judge Doug Grothaus. [continues 500 words]
Teen Overdoses Spur Treatment Drug-addicted teens now have a new option to help them get and stay sober in Northern Kentucky. St. Luke Hospitals on Wednesday opened an intensive outpatient adolescent chemical-dependency program in Florence exclusively for teens ages 14-17 who want to kick drug addiction. The program is designed to treat addiction to any drug, but it was Northern Kentucky's recent wave of teen heroin and opiate overdose deaths last winter which first called attention to the need for more treatment options for high school-age youngsters. Last winter three teen-agers died in four months of suspected opiate overdoses in Northern Kentucky. [continues 168 words]
A Ludlow police detective, under investigation for seeking thousands of dollars as part of plea negotiations with people arrested on drug charges, was fired from the Kenton County Jail four years ago for continually violating various county policies. Ludlow Detective Bill Schilling had been fired by County Jailer Terry Carl for performing what were described as law enforcement tasks that he had been told not to do. The Ludlow allegation follows a similar pattern. Schilling is under investigation by state police. Other state police targets could include the Kenton Commonwealth Attorney's office. [continues 847 words]
Ludlow Police Chief Ray Murphy offered to make a felony drug case disappear for $1,000, a man in court on drug charges testified Wednesday during an open court hearing. Murphy, who was not at the hearing, later called the charge bogus. But Edward Elmore told Kenton District Judge Doug Grothaus that his attorney had passed along the offer, saying it came directly from Murphy. And while the attorney, Brad Braun, declined to testify at the hearing Wednesday on the basis of attorney-client privilege, he said later that Elmore was telling the truth. [continues 794 words]
State police have been asked to look into whether Kenton County prosecutors and Ludlow police improperly sought cash payments as part of plea agreements with people arrested during a drug investigation in the small river city. Several defense attorneys recently received "proffers" -- an offer made during plea negotiations -- that asked the suspects to pay up to $12,000 in reimbursements to the Ludlow Police Department for the costs of its investigation. About a week ago, one of those defense attorneys carried the complaints to several Kenton circuit judges. Three of the judges agreed to forward the information on to state police for investigation. [continues 611 words]
There's this Northern Kentucky guy, works at a big Cincinnati company, but he was hooked on heroin. He was finally getting clean though, on methadone at the East Indiana Treatment Center in Lawrenceburg. Except one day he's standing in line for his methadone dose when he spots his boss up ahead of him. When his boss sees him, he tells him, "You say anything to anybody and your job is gone." Taylor Mill family practitioner Dr. David Suetholz tells that story to explain one big reason why he thinks buprenorphine -- a drug recently approved by the FDA to treat opiate addicts at their doctor's offices -- is a revolutionary addiction-fighting tool. [continues 913 words]
Northern Kentucky Is Sedating Itself To Death. Heroin, methadone, morphine, OxyContin -- all strong opiates -- have been found in varying degrees and combinations in the blood of the 44 people dead so far this year from accidental drug overdoses in Boone, Campbell and Kenton County. That overdose death count for the three counties so far in 2003 is nearly equal to the number in all of 2002. County coroners see it as an alarming upsurge in a deadly abuse trend in opiates overall. [continues 1742 words]
Law enforcement officials in Northern Kentucky say addiction to opiates continue to be a problem here, but there are still no plans to open a methadone clinic anywhere in the area. In February, Covington paid a $140,000 settlement to MX Group, of Pittsburgh, which claimed in federal court that the city discriminated against its effort to open a drug treatment facility for drug addicts there. The organization tried twice in the 1990s to locate a clinic in the city, but its zoning application was rejected both times. [continues 334 words]
The Kenton County coroner, a respected family doctor and an elected official, lost his license to prescribe drugs for a year because, he says, he was following his conscience and writing forbidden prescriptions for methadone, a drug used to treat heroin and OxyContin addiction. Legally, family practitioners can write methadone prescriptions only for pain relief. Even when Dr. David Suetholz learned he was not allowed to prescribe methadone for his drug-addicted patients, though, he continued to prescribe the drug for some of them. [continues 1193 words]
Cat and mouse. Officer Megan Tucker has played this game often, and this evening she was playing it again with a young man she suspected of dealing drugs. She steered slowly past him. He pointedly ignored her, looking down at something in his hands. Officer Tucker couldn't see what, but she could guess. Today's drug dealers carry hand-held, text-messaging pagers so they can relay the word, "The boys are out" -- street jargon for the police. An officer for five years, Tucker is a second-generation Covington cop, and like her father before her, she's spent many a night patrolling the Eastside. [continues 282 words]
It was the kind of crime that barely raises an eyebrow in Covington's Eastside. A woman, driving alone into the Jacob Price Homes public housing project, suddenly found two men in her car asking if she wanted to buy drugs. No, she told them. And as quickly as they'd gotten in the car, they got out, taking her purse with them. Add one more crime to the Eastside's police blotter. At least no one was hurt. To read just a week's worth of police calls to the Eastside is to read of rapes, robberies, drive-by shootings, knifings, gang frays, drug deals (marijuana, cocaine and heroin), vandalism and prostitution. Stretched over the past year and half, those weeks account for nearly 2,000 calls dispatched to a neighborhood just eight blocks long and half as wide. [continues 1598 words]
The Kentucky Drug Court program in Campbell and Kenton counties will receive part of $1.3 million in state grant money to continue offering alternative sentencing and other services to select drug offenders. Sixteen counties were selected to receive a portion of the Kentucky Justice Cabinet's Edward Byrne Memorial Grant Fund this year. The funds will be used to pay salaries, treatment and operational costs for the program. Kentucky's Drug Court program began in 1993 and operates in 41 counties. Select drug offenders admitted into the program receive customized treatment plans, counseling, drug testing and job training instead of jail time, allowing them to stay employed as they put their lives back together. [continues 93 words]
Recently I underwent minor knee surgery. For the post-operative pain I was given Oxycontin, a powerful narcotic related to morphine. Oxycontin has been on the prescription drug market for about seven years. Soon after its introduction, it became a popular recreational drug in rural America, so much so that it acquired the moniker "hillbilly heroin." The drug has apparently moved upmarket, as evidenced by the news that the teen-age son of rock musician and television star Ozzy Osbourne has become addicted to the substance. [continues 546 words]
Covington has banned most outdoor pay phones in residential areas, and if the phones' owners don't remove them, the city soon will confiscate them. It was the second ordinance passed recently by the City Commission to curb the number of pay telephones. Police and residents disdainfully refer to some of them as "drug phones" because of the perception that drug dealers and prostitutes use them for crime. The city in April banned all pay phones in or near the city's right-of-way, such as over sidewalks, except those of Cincinnati Bell, which holds a franchise agreement with the city. [continues 406 words]
FRANKFORT -- A defendant charged with manufacturing methamphetamine must have all the necessary equipment or ingredients, the Kentucky Supreme Court said in a split decision Thursday, in a decision that "causes great concern" for one top Northern Kentucky law enforcement official. A defendant who possessed some but not all the equipment or chemicals used in making the illegal drug could be prosecuted for criminal attempt, provided there was evidence of his intent, the court said. In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Joseph Lambert said offenders would have to be caught "red-handed" under the majority interpretation, which he called "excessively technical." [continues 341 words]
The former head of the Northern Kentucky University Foundation quietly pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges Tuesday in Campbell County. James Alford admitted to Campbell Circuit Judge Leonard Kopowski that he sold small amounts of marijuana from his apartment in Highland Heights. He said he was accepting punishment for his actions. Alford did get a break because of his plea. Assistant Campbell Commonwealth Attorney Anthony Bracke said he was dropping a gun specification in the charge, which dropped the maximum penalty from 10 years to five years. [continues 267 words]
