Olathe
Former attorney pleads no contest to theft
A former Overland Park lawyer pleaded no contest to theft involving money taken from his grandmother's trust account.
John J. Phillips, 52, was disbarred in June 2000 and has agreed to a judgment of more than $600,000 in a lawsuit involving the same trust account. He will be sentenced March 6.
On Wednesday, Johnson County Assistant Dist. Atty. Steve Howe said Phillips' grandmother established the trust in 1993, with Phillips as one beneficiary. Her estate was worth more than $600,000 when she died in 1998.
Howe said Phillips took money from the account and tried to keep other beneficiaries from finding out.
Howe planned to ask the judge to send Phillips to prison instead of following guidelines that call for probation.
Kansas City, Kan.
Neighborhood sees second swastika graffiti
Residents of a Kansas City, Kan., neighborhood have discovered spray-painted Nazi graffiti for the second time in about a week.
This time, Maurice and Marisa Gray found a backward swastika, two stylized S's and a racial epithet spray-painted on a shed behind their home.
"I was angry," Marisa Gray said Wednesday. "Here we are in 2002, the beginning of a whole new era, and we still have this mentality."
The Grays live near the home of David Coleman Jr., who discovered on New Year's Day a backward swastika sprayed on his car. Coleman and the Grays are black.
Police Chief Ron Miller said police are investigating the incidents, but no one has been arrested.
"This is definitely racially based," Miller said. "This is not ambiguous at all."
Kansas City, Kan.
State Rep. Spangler won't seek re-election
Democratic State Rep. Doug Spangler of Kansas City, Kan., won't seek re-election this year so he can spend more time with his family and concentrate on his job as Edwardsville city administrator.
Spangler, 38, began his first term in 1995.
"I think you should get in, learn as much as you can, have seven, eight years of effective service and get out," he said.
Wyandotte County lost 4,500 residents during the 1990s, meaning it may lose one house district.
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