Chicago

Suspect arrested in plot to blow up courthouse

A convicted counterfeiter with an apparent grudge against the courts was arrested Thursday on charges of plotting to blow up a federal courthouse, but he never actually had materials to make a truck bomb, authorities said.

Prosecutors said Gale William Nettles, 66, was arrested with a pickup truck containing 1,500 pounds of fertilizer that he allegedly thought was volatile ammonium nitrate, the farm chemical used to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building.

Nettles had planned to sell the chemical to terrorists who would blow up the Dirksen federal building, U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald said Thursday. But all the other people involved, including the “terrorists” and the people who sold him the fertilizer, were cooperating witnesses or federal agents.

North Carolina

Interrogators testify they saw prison abuse

Military interrogators testified Thursday that they saw reservist guards abusing detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, but failed to properly report the incidents up the chain of command.

In a hearing to determine whether Pfc. Lynndie England should be court-martialed in the abuse case, interrogators said they saw guards putting naked prisoners in sexual poses, and torturing them by forcing them to drag their genitals on the ground and keeping them unclothed in their cells 24 hours a day.

While several said they told fellow interrogators and questioned the behavior to the guards themselves, they failed to tell their superiors.

The third day of prosecution testimony in the Article 32 hearing scarcely mentioned England.

California

Peterson trial delayed to study new evidence

Scott Peterson’s murder trial will be delayed until early next week so the defense can investigate recently discovered evidence, the judge announced Thursday after a closed-door session with the lawyers.

Defense lawyer Mark Geragos said outside court that the evidence was “potentially exculpatory” and was “reluctantly” turned over by the prosecution. No details about the evidence were announced.

Trial testimony is expected to resume on Tuesday.

New York City

Officer on trial for not arresting homeless man

An officer on trial for refusing to arrest a homeless man took the stand Thursday, saying he was punished for trying to help needy people instead of locking them up.

Officer Eduardo Delacruz could be kicked off the police force if an administrative judge finds him guilty of failing to obey a lawful order. He refused to arrest a homeless man who had been sleeping in a Manhattan parking garage in 2002.

“I’m not going to do it,” Delacruz recalled telling a sergeant who had handcuffed the man and told the officer to make the arrest. “I’m not going to lock up a homeless man.”

Delacruz, 39, has drawn support from homeless advocates who portray him as a conscientious objector to a crackdown on the city’s dispossessed.

Georgia

Teen, girlfriend accused of slaying grandparents

Fayetteville Police said Thursday they found a chilling “to do” list scrawled on the arm of a 15-year-old girl arrested in the stabbing deaths of her grandparents: kill, keys, money, jewelry.

Holly Harvey allegedly recruited her 16-year-old lesbian lover to help kill Carl and Sarah Collier in their suburban Atlanta home Monday, said Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department.

He said the elderly couple, with whom Harvey lived, had ordered her to stop seeing the girl, Sandy Ketchum, and to stop using drugs.

“I believe the evidence at trial will be that the motive was to gain freedom and be able to stay together forever,” he said.

New York City

Ferry director arraigned for October wreck

The city’s director of ferries pleaded not guilty Thursday to 11 counts of manslaughter in last year’s wreck of a Staten Island ferry.

Patrick Ryan left the federal courthouse without speaking to reporters. His attorney, Tom Fitzpatrick, said he and Ryan were taken aback by the harshness of the charges.

“He’s a bit dazed by the whole thing, just dazed,” Fitzpatrick said.

The Oct. 15 crash was one of the worst mass-transit disasters in New York history. Eleven people died and dozens were hurt when the ferry’s pilot blacked out and the Andrew J. Barberi slammed into a maintenance pier.

Ferry pilot Richard Smith pleaded guilty Wednesday to 11 counts of manslaughter.