Utah

Polygamist will waive right to jury trial

Polygamist Tom Green will waive his right to a jury trial and allow the judge to determine the verdict in his child-rape trial, Green’s defense attorney said.

Green is scheduled for trial Monday. He is accused of committing child rape when he married and impregnated Linda Kunz Green in 1986, when she was 13 and he was 37.

“In this case, there’s nothing for a jury to decide. Everything has been stipulated to,” defense attorney John Bucher said.

Bucher has unsuccessfully argued that the statute of limitations had expired on the case and that Utah did not have jurisdiction to prosecute Green because the marriage took place in Mexico. He said he was looking into the possibility of a plea deal.

Green is serving a five-year prison sentence for bigamy and failing to pay the state back for child support that was given to his five wives and 30 children.

He might be paroled on those convictions this year, but he could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on the child-rape charge.

New Jersey

Reporters fined for defying order

Four Philadelphia Inquirer reporters were fined $1,000 each Thursday, and three of them also were given community service, for violating a judge’s order not to contact or identify jurors after the sensational trial of a rabbi charged with murder.

The case involved Rabbi Fred J. Neulander, who was accused of arranging his wife’s killing. It ended in a mistrial in November after the jury deadlocked. He is awaiting a retrial.

The four reporters were found in contempt by a judge Monday after their bylines appeared on a story exploring whether the jury forewoman actually lived in Pennsylvania rather than New Jersey, where the trial took place.

George Anastasia, Joseph Gambardello, Emilie Lounsberry and Dwight Ott could have gotten up six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Lawyers for the reporters indicated they would appeal.

California

Driver insane when he ran over victims

Jurors in the David Attias murder case found Thursday that the mentally troubled 20-year-old was legally insane last year when he drove his high-powered Saab into a crowd of pedestrians, killing four of them.

The former University of California at Santa Barbara student and his quietly sobbing parents watched as Superior Court Judge Thomas Adams of Santa Barbara ordered local mental health officials to report back July 12 with a recommendation on where Attias should be committed for mental treatment.

The judgment, after 13 hours of deliberations, marked a dramatic end to the sanity phase of a two-stage murder case. The same jury convicted Attias last week on four counts of second-degree murder.

The decision outraged relatives and friends of the four people killed in the Feb. 23, 2001, car crash on streets filled with socializing young people.

New York

Giuliani’s wife cites adultery in divorce filing

Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s estranged wife has filed for divorce, citing adultery.

The filing by Donna Hanover, 52, came more than a year and a half after Giuliani filed to divorce her, citing cruel and inhuman treatment.

Hanover’s lawyer, Helene Brezinsky, said Thursday that her client rejected the grounds on which Giuliani’s divorce was based.

A spokeswoman for Giuliani said she wouldn’t respond to “this mudslinging.”

Meanwhile, the judge agreed to increase the amount Giuliani pays to support his two children with Hanover to $24,000 a month from $1,800 a month, based on Giuliani’s reported $8 million windfall from speaking fees.