Nation briefs

Computers, records seized at ACORN offices

NEW ORLEANS | State investigators raided ACORN offices on Friday, taking away computer hard drives and documents as part of a probe into alleged embezzlement and tax fraud when the organization’s national headquarters was based in New Orleans.

“This is an investigation of everything — ACORN, the national organization, the local organization and all of its affiliated entities, specifically as it relates to any potential violations of Louisiana law,” Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell said.

ACORN staff on the scene declined to comment, but an attorney for the group said in a statement the raid was prompted by allegations that former ACORN employees had removed or altered electronic documents and may do so in the future.

Attorney Pamela Marple said ACORN was cooperating and called the raid exhaustive, saying investigators wanted “virtually every document in the possession of ACORN and any related entity.”

The raid was the latest development for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Videotapes released recently showed ACORN employees offering tax advice to two people in Baltimore posing as a prostitute and her pimp. The videos led Congress and state governments to cut funding for ACORN.

Stepfather convicted in death of ’Baby Grace’

GALVESTON, Texas | A Texas jury has convicted a man for the 2007 beating death of his 2-year-old stepdaughter, whose battered body was found in a container floating in Galveston Bay.

Jurors deliberated for 4 1/2 hours Friday before convicting Royce Clyde Zeigler II of capital murder. He receives an automatic life sentence since prosecutors didn’t seek the death penalty.

Zeigler and his wife, Kimberly Trenor, were accused of killing Riley Ann Sawyers during a discipline session that spun out of control. Trenor was the child’s mother. She was convicted of capital murder in February and also received an automatic life sentence.

The child was known as “Baby Grace” until relatives in Ohio identified her as Riley Ann Sawyers.

Party leader pleads guilty to hitting son

MINDEN, Nev. | A Nevada Democratic Party leader who pleaded guilty to hitting his teenage son and throwing him on the hood of a car has resigned, according to a letter received Friday by a newspaper.

Paul Belt, the party chairman of Douglas County, said in a letter to the Record-Courier that he resigned his post after his “regrettable actions.”

He pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a misdemeanor count of domestic battery. He was sentenced to a suspended one-year jail term and ordered to attend counseling.

Belt, 45, was accused of punching his 15-year-old son several times on Oct. 22 when he learned his son was no longer on the boys’ junior varsity soccer team.

Man convicted in ’fat defense’ trial

HACKENSACK, N.J. | A jury convicted a Florida man Friday of murdering his former son-in-law, rejecting the man’s defense that he was too fat to have run up and down a flight of stairs to commit the crime and make a quick getaway.

Edward Ates looked down and shook his head in court as he was found guilty of murder and weapons counts for killing Paul Duncsak, who was shot six times at his home in Ramsey, about 25 miles northwest of New York.

Ates’ “too fat to kill” defense provided an angle to the trial that attracted attention from the news media but didn’t sway the jury of eight women and four men, who reached a verdict on their second day of deliberations after a six-week trial.

Agency asked to look into animal’s treatment

OKLAHOMA CITY | An animal rights group on Friday asked a U.S. Department of Agriculture agency to look into an owner’s treatment of a circus elephant that escaped and was hit by a sport utility vehicle on a northwestern Oklahoma highway.

The 29-year-old female elephant, meanwhile, was treated by veterinarians at Oklahoma State University and released to its owner, said university spokesman Gary Shutt. Mr. Shutt would only say that the animal’s injuries were not major.

The group In Defense of Animals wants the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service “to confiscate two suffering elephants” from Douglas K. Terranova of Kaufman, Texas, the group said in a letter to Robert Gibbens, a regional director for the agency.

Agency spokesman David Sacks said all complaints are taken seriously and that the agency will look into the situation.

Release of some Yale killing files OK’d

NEW HAVEN, Conn. | Some documents detailing the case against a former Yale University employee accused of killing a graduate student must be unsealed and made available to the public in three business days, a Connecticut judge ruled Friday.

New Haven Superior Court Judge Roland Fasano said certain sensitive information will remain confidential, and his ruling gave attorneys for Raymond Clark III enough time to appeal if they wish.

Mr. Clark, 24, is charged with murder in the death of Annie Le, 24, of Placerville, Calif. She vanished Sept. 8 from the Yale medical school research building where she and Mr. Clark worked, and her body was found five days later on what was to be her wedding day.

Mr. Clark has not yet entered a plea, and police have not released information about a possible motive.