One of the men who pleaded guilty to his role in a $400 million health care fraud was part owner of another business that appears to have ties to the scheme.

A hearing in September determined one of the attorneys representing Sumrall's Glenn "Doyle" Beach, owner or managing partner of several pharmacies, could not be on his legal team since he also represents another client who could possibly be involved in the scheme to defraud TRICARE and other health care benefits providers by prescribing costly compounded pain creams and vitamin pills, court documents show.

Beach, 46, pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and a dual-object conspiracy involving money laundering and tax evasion. He faces up to 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines in addition to restitution of assets gained from the fraud.

He was scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 31, but the government objected to the inclusion of attorney Brian Dickerson on Beach's defense team, citing a conflict of interest. His sentencing is postponed until Nov. 21.

Read more: https://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story/news/crime/2019/10/15/pharmacist-doyle-beach-partner-pharmaceuticals-lab/2433550001/

https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1184168478422515717

https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1184168478422515717

Source: CBS News

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - At least eight people are dead following a mass shooting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, according to CBS News.

Gunfire erupted Monday night in residential neighborhood of Río Piedras, not far from the University of San Juan, according to a report from NotiCentro, a news outlet on the island. According to the news agency, seven men and one woman were killed.

Following the shooting, Gov. Wanda Vasquez Garced announced plans to hold an urgent meeting Tuesday to address security measures on the island.

Earlier this year, the top FBI official in Puerto Rico said the island is facing what he calls a "crisis of violence," asking for more personnel and resources to be sent from the U.S. mainland, according to a report.

Read more: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/report-at-least-8-dead-after-mass-shooting-in-puerto-rico

TUSCALOOSA, ALA. -- A University of Alabama student is accused of threatening Louisiana State’s Tiger Stadium during the school’s Saturday night football game against the University of Florida.

The Tuscaloosa News reports 19-year-old Connor Bruce Croll of Crozet, Virginia, was arrested by officers at the Alabama school and jailed Sunday as a “fugitive from justice.”

He faces unspecified charges in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Authorities didn’t immediately provide further detail about the nature of the threat or say whether Croll intended to carry it out. The newspaper didn’t say if Croll had a lawyer.

University of Alabama spokesman Chris Bryant says pranks and threats can have serious ramifications and require an appropriate response. He says the school is cooperating with authorities but can’t provide details on the arrest of or allegations against the freshman.

Read more: https://www.sunherald.com/sports/article236229953.html
(Gulfport Sun Herald)

NATCHEZ -- Officials in southwest Mississippi have denied a rezoning request for a mental health facility, despite complaints that the area is underserved.

Natchez aldermen on Tuesday unanimously rejected rezoning property to allow a crisis stabilization unit, a small mental hospital meant to keep people from being sent to faraway state hospitals or jail.

Opponents said the facility is inappropriate for a mostly residential neighborhood.

Crisis stabilization services were one of the flash points in a recent trial in which a federal judge ruled Mississippi was violating the rights of mentally ill people by relying too much on state hospitals to confine them. Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten testified in that trial that Natchez and surrounding Adams County have few resources to help mentally ill people, saying he padded a jail cell to hold people. Patten testified that he rarely got help from Southwest Mississippi Mental Health because many of its employees were more than an hour away in McComb.

Southwest Mississippi Mental Health Executive Director Sherlene Vince told The Natchez Democrat that city documents improperly labeled the unit as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.

Read more: https://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=76595
(Columbus Dispatch)

DENVER—Tom Sullivan, a Colorado state lawmaker whose son, Alex, was killed in the Aurora theater shooting in 2012, met Beto O’Rourke one cloudless morning in September and, inside a glass-and-brick office building in downtown Denver, introduced him to several other people whose friends or relatives had been killed in mass shootings.

They were seated at a table in a third-floor conference room of the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, beside a largely untouched basket of bagels and a box of Starbucks coffee. Jane Dougherty, whose sister Mary Sherlach was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, brought up the moment, at a presidential debate in Houston the previous week, when O’Rourke had said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

“I think I was jumping around in my family room, because my sister was murdered by an AR-15,” Dougherty said.

Coni Sanders, whose father, Dave, was killed in the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, where he was a teacher, said she had rushed toward the television in her living room, hurting her head on a door jamb before sitting down on the floor and watching in disbelief. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Sanders said. Brandon Kellogg, a student at Columbine during the massacre, said that, sitting on his couch watching the debate that night, he cried.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/10/15/beto-orourke-gun-debate-229849

DENVER—Tom Sullivan, a Colorado state lawmaker whose son, Alex, was killed in the Aurora theater shooting in 2012, met Beto O’Rourke one cloudless morning in September and, inside a glass-and-brick office building in downtown Denver, introduced him to several other people whose friends or relatives had been killed in mass shootings.

They were seated at a table in a third-floor conference room of the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, beside a largely untouched basket of bagels and a box of Starbucks coffee. Jane Dougherty, whose sister Mary Sherlach was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, brought up the moment, at a presidential debate in Houston the previous week, when O’Rourke had said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

“I think I was jumping around in my family room, because my sister was murdered by an AR-15,” Dougherty said.

Coni Sanders, whose father, Dave, was killed in the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, where he was a teacher, said she had rushed toward the television in her living room, hurting her head on a door jamb before sitting down on the floor and watching in disbelief. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Sanders said. Brandon Kellogg, a student at Columbine during the massacre, said that, sitting on his couch watching the debate that night, he cried.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/10/15/beto-orourke-gun-debate-229849

The Alabama State Democratic Executive Committee met Saturday in Montgomery at the call of Chairwoman Nancy Worley and passed bylaws counter to instructions from the Democratic National Committee on a narrow 80 to 73 vote. U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Alabama, warned that Worley’s action have put the state party in danger of losing delegates to the national convention.

“Once again, Nancy Worley and the Alabama Democratic Party leadership have blatantly disregarded the DNC’s directives and put the state party in danger of losing delegates and representation at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee,” Jones said in a statement. “Not only have they caused a rift within the party, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees, ran a meeting that was a parliamentary disaster and thwarted efforts to create a more inclusive, diverse and transparent state party. The DNC-approved bylaws that were passed on October 5th are the only legitimate operational bylaws and will bring new leadership and much-needed young and diverse membership into the party.”

Jones has been highly critical of Worley and the leadership of the Alabama Democratic Party. He faces re-election for his Senate seat in 2020.

The SDEC had met one week earlier at the call of the members. At the October 5 meeting reform-minded SDEC members passed new bylaws as demanded by the DNC. Worley urged members to boycott that Oct. 5 meeting. Despite this, a quorum was achieved. At Saturday’s meeting, a second set of bylaws were passed not in agreement with the ones being forced on the ADP by the DNC. DNC Chairman Tom Perez warned Worley and the DNC not to reject the Oct. 5 bylaws changes, but they did it anyway.

Read more: https://www.alreporter.com/2019/10/14/doug-jones-says-that-worley-has-caused-a-rift-within-the-alabama-democratic-party/
(Alabama Political Reporter)

The tone of the Alabama Democratic Party's meeting was set early on Saturday: A legislator on the floor demanding a point of order, and the chair speaking past him.

"Are we operating under the bylaws that were adopted on Oct. 5?" Rep. Christopher England, D-Tuscaloosa, said to Alabama Democratic Party Chair Nancy Worley at the meeting in Montgomery Saturday.

Worley first told England that they could be operating under two sets of bylaws, but also reiterated her belief that the Oct. 5 meeting of the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) -- called under orders by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) -- was illegitimate.

"I don't even recognize the Oct. 5 meeting because no one invited me or petitioned me," Worley said.

Read more: https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/12/alabama-democratic-party-defy-dnc-national-committee/3941891002/