Kansas City, Kan.

Fines issued in libel case

A publisher and editor who were convicted of criminal defamation were sentenced to fines and probation Wednesday.

David Carson, 86, and Edward H. Powers Jr., 61, were convicted in July of seven counts of misdemeanor libel for reporting in their free-distribution newspaper, The New Observer, that Mayor Carol Marinovich lived in Johnson County.

Marinovich and her husband, Wyandotte County Dist. Judge Ernest Johnson, are required by law to live in the county where they are in office.

Carson and Powers were fined $3,500 each. All but $700 of the fines for each was suspended, with payment delayed while the legal battle moves to a higher court.

Kansas City, Kan.

Settlement reached on Sunday liquor sales

State officials have agreed not to prosecute Wyandotte County retail stores that sell liquor on Sundays.

Voters approved an ordinance Nov. 5 to permit Sunday sales in liquor stores in the county, but Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall filed a petition asking that the county ordinance and a similar one in Edwardsville be declared illegal.

Wyandotte officials had asked District Judge George Groneman to declare the ordinance legal.

Under the agreement announced Wednesday, the state will not prosecute liquor stores until May 5, 2003, or until a decision is issued in Stovall’s lawsuit, whichever comes first.

Liberty, Mo.

Wife asks judge to freeze marital assets

A woman whose husband is accused of killing their son and wounding her in a shooting in front of a school has asked a judge to freeze their marital assets.

Mandeep Singh has been granted a temporary restraining order against her husband, Jaswinder P. Singh, who is jailed on first-degree murder and armed criminal action charges.

The couple’s son, 9-year-old Kawaldeep Singh, was killed in a Nov. 7 shooting in the parking lot of St. James Catholic Church. Mandeep Singh was wounded in the shooting.

Earlier this month, Jaswinder Singh tried through his attorney to withdraw $48,000 from his bank accounts, court records said. But a temporary restraining order last week by a Clay County circuit judge stopped the transaction.