A registered sex offender who was found guilty of another sex crime against a child was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday in Douglas County District Court. The offender, Calvin Lee Payne, 36, was convicted in September after pleading no contest to one count of criminal sodomy against a child who was 13 at the time of the offense in June 2022. As part of his agreement with the Douglas County District ...
A woman who has "detransitioned" — and who regrets her transition from female to male as a young teen — told a Douglas County judge on Thursday that she supports Kansas' law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors. "If California had a law like this when I was 13, none of this would have happened to me," said Chloe Cole, a well-known 21-year-old activist from California who has testified ...
Former Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez always believed that Carrody Buchhorn murdered 9-month-old Oliver Ortiz at a Eudora day care in 2016, and an expert's report saying that Oliver died of natural causes didn't change her mind one bit, she testified Wednesday at Buchhorn's wrongful conviction trial. In fact, when she received the report of forensic pathologist Jane Turner, whom she had hired, ...
A Douglas County jury on Tuesday took under an hour to acquit a man of aggravated battery after he was accused of attacking another man last winter and gouging his eyes. The man, Hector Seeger, 21, took the stand Tuesday morning and admitted that he had "poked" the other man's eyes after the two left a Lawrence bar on March 7, but he told the jury that he did it in self-defense after the other man called him a ...
A Douglas County judge presiding over two lawsuits against the Lawrence school district related to allegations of sexual abuse at an elementary school denied the district's request to halt the civil proceedings until the criminal case is entirely completed. Judge Catherine Theisen is overseeing two civil suits brought by separate child plaintiffs against the district, one filed on March 6 and one filed on March ...
A college student on Monday told a Douglas County jury that shortly after he left a bar one night last winter another young man jumped him, gouged his eyes and pulled him to the ground. The 21-year-old student said that the man — defendant Hector Seeger, who is charged with the felony of aggravated battery — was an acquaintance from high school with whom he was not close. The reason for the alleged attack ...