Category Archives: Docket call

Armed robbery earns men $7, up to nine criminal charges

Feb. 19, 20094:20 p.m.

Four men could face years in prison over an armed robbery that netted them $7 in cash.

The men, ranging in age from 18 to 20, were arrested after Wichita police said four people were held at gunpoint on Dec. 12 in the 2100 block of North Broadway.

Set for preliminary hearing next week on nine criminal charges are Rodolfo Ortiz, 20; Oscar C. Ortiz, 19; Wilson J. Agosto, 19; and Rene W. Ibarra, 18.

Prosecutors said the four men pointed guns at two men and two women and demanded money. They received $7 in cash from one of the women, according to the criminal complaint.

That alone brought one charge of aggravated robbery and three counts of attempted aggravated robbery against each of the men. The minimum prison sentence they could receive for the aggravated robbery charge is 4 1/2 years.

But there’s more.

Police reports say the group also knocked out the windows out of a sport-utility vehicle and two pick-up trucks and took $20 in speakers. Add three counts of criminal damage to property and misdemeanor theft, which could bring another 12 months in jail on each count.

Two of the men, Wilson Agosto and Oscar Ortiz, also had prior convictions as juveniles, which prevented them from carrying handguns. Now, they stand charged with criminal possession of a firearm.

If convicted of all the charges, and sentences run consecutively, the men could face between 12 and 52 years in prison.

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as , \n | Comments (3) | Share this post

Wichita school bus driver charged with fondling 6-year-old

Jan. 21, 20094:38 p.m.

A 73-year-old Wichita school bus driver has been charged with fondling a 6-year-old girl.

Billy J. Reynolds made his first appearance Tuesday morning to hear charges against him on four counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Prosecutors say he engaged in lewd touching of the girl from October until his arrest Jan. 6.

Susan Arensman, spokeswoman for Wichita Public Schools, said the girl’s parent reported the acts to the principal at Emerson Open Magnet Elementary, who called the Wichita-Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Children’s Unit. Arensman said Reynolds, employed privately by Durham School Services, was fired the day after the district received the complaint. He had driven a bus for 16 years.

Reynolds’ preliminary hearing is tentatively set for Feb. 3.

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as , , \n | Comments Off | Share this post

Wichita tennis coach will go to trial accused of sex with teen

Jan. 20, 20095:50 p.m.

Wichita tennis coach Barry Fields will face trial this spring, accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl who attended his family’s academy.

Fields, 44, helps run BK Tennis Academy, which opened in 1992 and serves about 200 young tennis players each month. Today he pleaded not guilty to having sexual intercourse with one of the girls from the academy three times between May and July last year.

After Fields waived his preliminary hearing, Sedgwick County District Judge Ben Burgess ordered the case to proceed to trial, tentatively set for April 13. Fields is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, because the girl was older than 14 but younger than 16, which is the age of consent in Kansas.

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as , , , \n | Comments Off | Share this post

County public defender’s office stops taking cases

Dec. 8, 200811:56 a.m.

UPDATED: With judge’s plan to appoint private attorneys and quotes from the judge.

The Sedgwick County Regional Public Defenders office has stopped taking cases for at least two weeks, its chief said this morning.

“We have an obligation to offer ethical representation, and we just can’t keep going on like we’re have been,” Steve Osburn said. “We just had to stop the bleeding.”

Update 1: Judge Eric Yost, who presides over the criminal division of Sedgwick County District Court, said he will appoint private attorneys to fill the void and expects them to be paid by the state.

“We have an obligation under the law to make sure everyone has legal representation, and we need to do everything we can to provide that,” Yost said.

Osburn’s office lost two lawyers, who went to work for the district attorney’s office at the first of the month, and he learned last week that there wasn’t enough money to replace them. Two other attorneys are on extended medical leave. That came on top of a caseload that has been increasing for three years. Public defenders in Wichita average nearly 200 cases apiece every year. There are currently 22 attorneys in the office.

“We are hoping for permission to fill the vacancies with the reduced budget,” said Pat Scalia, director of the state’s Board of Indigent Defense Services.

This is the first time the Wichita office has had to stop accepting cases, Scalia said, although she said it has happened in other offices throughout the state.

Update 2: Yost said he will assign cases to lawyers who have volunteered to take court-appointed clients.

“But their volume is about to increase,” the judge said.

Meanwhile, judges in Sedgwick County district court are struggling to find representation for people charged with crimes who can’t afford attorneys, as required by law.

“We don’t have an answer,” said Judge Eric Yost, presiding judge of the criminal division, after getting word of the shut-down late Friday afternoon. “We don’t know what we’re going to do.”

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as , \n | Comments (5) | Share this post

Man headed to trial for threat over policeman’s name

Wednesday4:50 p.m.

Hassan Ramzah probably can relate a little to verbal assaults on Barack Obama during this past presidential campaign.

A man was ordered this morning to stand trial for criminal threat to Ramzah, a captain with the Wichita Police Department, because of Ramzah’s name.

William Bakker heard evidence at a preliminary hearing this morning that he saw Ramzah’s name on the WPD Web site and called Patrol East. Officer J.W. Kasparek reported he took the call at around 2 a.m. on June 28. Kasparek said the caller appeared intoxicated.

The officer said Bakker identified himself as Jason Sanchez, and demanded to speak to Ramzah, who is African-American. When told Ramzah was not on duty, police said the caller referred to Ramzah with a racial slur and called him a Muslim.

Kasparek said the caller then claimed to have a gun and said “I’ve shot people like that.” The caller also said he didn’t think a black man who was a Muslim should have achieved the rank of captain at the WPD “without being shot.”

Police were able to trace Bakker through the phone number.

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as , , \n | Comments Off | Share this post

Couple’s spat leads to their arrest as robbery suspects

Aug. 22, 20085:53 p.m.

A man and a woman fighting with each other drew the attention of Wichita police this week, who arrested them after seeing they fit the description of a couple who attacked and robbed a 79-year-old man just an hour earlier.

Terry Ross, 25, and Kelly Baalmann, 33, were charged today with aggravated robbery.

The older man who lived in th 200 block of South Chautauqua called police to report being robbed just before 8:30 Wednesday morning. Detective Ken Davis said in his report that the man told police he answered a knock on his door to find a woman standing with a towel wrapped around her head, claiming to be involved in an accident. As he opened the door, another man pushed his way into the home and began beating the resident. The couple took $100 out of the man’s pocket and fled. A neighbor upstairs heard the commotion and saw the couple leave in a green truck.

About an hour later, police received a call of a couple fighting in a green truck in the 6300 block of Eilerts, less than 3 miles from the reported robbery. Police found Baalmann with a swollen eye and scratches on her face and arms. Ross had scratches on his face and neck, police said. Officer Valerie Shirkey said she asked Baalman how she’d gotten hurt. Baalman replied “gymnastics injuries.”

Judge Eric Yost scheduled the couple for a preliminary hearing Sept. 9. Yost set Baalmann’s bond at $75,000 bond and $100,000 for Ross.

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as , \n | Comments (1) | Share this post

Deputy “chief,” “police officer” of bogus Indian set for plea

July 22, 20087:20 p.m.

Updated: A man who has been described in court hearings as a deputy “chief” and a man who told people he was a “police officer” of the reservation for a non-existent American Indian tribe have decided to plead guilty.

They are the latest to admit guilt in the scheme of the Kaweah Indian Nation, a fake tribe that purported to sell memberships to illegal immigrants for hundreds of dollars with the false promise of legal citizenship.

Chuck Flynn has been charged with being one of the top officers of the so-called Kaweah Indian tribe. He’s set for a change of plea hearing at 11 a.m. Thursday before U.S. Senior District Judge Wesley E. Brown.

Britton Bergman also is set for plea before Brown, on Aug. 1 rescheduled for 10:15 a.m.Tuesday. Bergman, a college student, had claimed to be a policeman for the Kaweah’s at their office in Wichita.

What they’re pleading guilty to won’t become public until after the hearings.

Malcom Webber, the leader who also went by “Grand Chief Thunderbird IV,” and other defendants are set for trial Aug. 5.

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as , \n | Comments Off | Share this post

Repeat parole violator faces trial in dragging, beating of police

July 18, 20086:46 p.m.

RienerUpdated: The jury is set to get the case this afternoon.

A man set for trial next week had skipped out on his parole five days before police reported pulling him over in a traffic stop on June 27, 2007. Apparently to avoid detection, Scott Riener, 40, gave officers the name of his brother as his own, police said.

Problem was, Riener’s brother had a warrant for his arrest.

When confronted with his brothers’ warrant, police said Riener drove off, dragging an officer, who had reached into the car, about 50 feet. Another officer gave chase north on Broadway, then west on Morris before Riener’s car hit a curb. The officer chased Riener and became involved in a lengthy fight before finally arresting him. Police said both officers required treatment at a local hospital.

Riener, listed in prison records as 6 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing 230 pounds, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated battery of an officer. He had been on parole six times in the past 15 years. He’d stopped reporting to his parole officer four times.

Wichita lawyer Mark Schoenhofer, a candidate for district attorney, represents Riener. Deputy District Attorney Kevin O’Connor is prosecuting.

The trial began Monday before Judge Rebecca Pilshaw.

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as , , \n | Comments (2) | Share this post

At trial, public may finally see controversial video of convenience-store stabbing

July 3, 20085:52 p.m.

Cherish McCullough was 19 when she was booked and charged with first-degree murder. Her case could soon swirl with controversy over a community’s value of human life.

McCullough has pleaded not guilty of stabbing 27-year-old LaShanda Callaway after an argument in a convenience store at 2601 N. Hillside. At her trial, which begins next week, the public is expected to see for the first time a security video of the stabbing that raised concerns beyond the crime itself.

Soon after Callaway’s death on June 24, 2007, Wichita police chief Norman Williams told Eagle columnist Mark McCormick that the video showed people continuing to shop, some even snapping cell-phone pictures of the fallen woman.

Jury selection is expected to start Monday. Richard Ney will represent McCullough for the defense. C.J. Rieg is prosecuting.

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as , , \n | Comments (4) | Share this post

Police: Accused forger presents stolen check to its owner for cashing

July 2, 200811:06 a.m.

Fay Britton may have an answer to the question “Just how small is Wichita?” Britton is charged with writing a forged check and then presenting it to the person from whom it was stolen.

Police say Britton walked into the Braum’s at 4211 West Central last Friday and gave a check to the clerk for $12.51. The name on the check: Francisca B. Romero.

Romero happened to be working behind the counter at Braum’s last Friday. She recognized the check as one of her own and called police. Police learned the bank had mistakenly sent Romero’s checks to Britton’s home. The two women live in the same block of the same street with one numeral separating their addresses.

Britton made her first court appearance Tuesday afternoon. Sedgwick County District Judge Eric Yost set a preliminary hearing for July 15.

By Ron Sylvester | Tagged as \n | Comments (1) | Share this post