Officers stripped of badges, guns

        Two Cincinnati police officers have been reassigned to desk duty, without their badges and guns, after allegations they had sex on duty with a woman they took home from a bar.

        Officers Robert Kidd and Robert Johnson, both assigned to District 1, have been off patrol for several months, but initially kept their police powers. Chief Tom Streicher changed that several weeks ago, said spokesman Lt. Kurt Byrd.

        The officers are being sued in federal court by Kandy Linthicum, a woman who was celebrating her 40th birthday at Madonna's bar in December when she said the officers offered to take her home. She said she then had sex with both of them in her Corryville apartment, but that she was too intoxicated to consent. She's suing them for violating her constitutional rights.

        The police department's internal investigation is still pending.

Two men indicted on sexual abuse charges

        Two Hamilton County men were indicted Wednesday on charges of having sex with 14-year-old girls they met through Internet chat rooms.

        Authorities say the two cases are unrelated and involve different victims.

        Byron Betts, 44, of Springdale, is charged with rape, corruption of a minor, abduction and intimidating a victim. Daniel G. Nolan, 30, of Westwood, is charged with unlawful sex with a minor, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and interfering with custody.

        Prosecutors say Mr. Betts, who has a prior rape conviction, arranged to meet a girl via the Internet, picked her up in Fayetteville on June 26 and brought her to his home, where he had sex with her. Mr. Nolan is accused of meeting a girl for sex in March after talking to her for months in an Internet chat room.

        Mr. Nolan also is charged with leading police on a high-speed chase before he was arrested in Boone County, Ky.

        If convicted, Mr. Betts faces up to 23 years in prison and Mr. Nolan faces up to 13 years.
       

Man sentenced to 9 years in barn scam

        HAMILTON — A Butler County judge on Wednesday sentenced a Kentucky man to nine years in prison and ordered him to pay almost $280,000 in restitution to scam victims who paid for pole barns that were never built throughout several counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

        In what officials say was probably the most complex white-collar crime case tried in Butler County in at least a decade, Judge Michael J. Sage pronounced the sentence for William J. Hicks, 33.

        A jury in late May convicted him of 23 theft-related charges, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity. The jury acquitted Mr. Hicks' brother, Timothy, 38, of all 24 charges he had faced. A third brother, Daniel P. Hicks, 37, previously pleaded guilty to reduced charges.

        Mr. Hicks was ordered to repay Firstar Bank $67,500; construction-materials suppliers about $100,000; and 21 individual victims a total of more than $111,500. Prosecutors have said nearly two dozen customers of APF Construction in Butler, Warren, Hamilton, Clermont, Clinton and Holmes counties were charged for structures that went unbuilt.
       

$100K goes toward Hazmat equipment

       Hamilton County commissioners on Wednesday gave $100,000 to the county's Emergency Management Agency so that the Greater Cincinnati Hazardous Materials Unit can buy equipment to deal with bio-terrorism attacks and weapons of mass destruction.

        The Hazmat Unit says it needs the equipment immediately. The list includes decontamination tents with showers, anthrax test strips, botulinum toxin test strips, and more.

        The money will come out of the county's general fund.

        The equipment needed for the Hazmat crew is part of a larger $50 million list of homeland security equipment the county says it needs. Assistant County Administrator Eric Stuckey said his staff will work with the Hazmat Unit to apply for grants that might help get back some of the money.

        Don Maccarone, director of the county's Emergency Management Agency, said the county has received $550,000 in federal grants so far with another $81,000 in the pipeline.

        “The last word I received is that we should anticipate a significant increase in 2003,” Mr. Maccarone said.
       

Candidate lacks enough signatures

        The Hamilton County Board of Elections decided Tuesday that Marilyn Hyland does not have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot as an independent candidate in November's county commission race.

        Ms. Hyland, who hoped to run against Republican Phil Heimlich and Democrat Jean Siebenaler for the commission seat being vacated by Tom Neyer, is 198 signatures short of getting on the ballot.

        That's a little better than the 242 signatures she was short last week. Board of Election officials allowed some of the contested signatures after meeting with Ms. Hyland and checking them against their database earlier this week.

        Ms. Hyland said she will appeal the board's decision, saying that some of the signatures on her petition were disallowed because those who signed listed post office boxes instead of addresses, or printed their name instead of signing.

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