Earlier this afternoon, while on regular patrol, troopers received
information that two wanted subjects were at the Casey’s Gas Mart on South U.S. #31 in Scottsburg.

When troopers arrived at the location they located Eric Sizemore, 30, from Scottsburg and Norman Adams Jr., 29, from Austin at thestore. Eric Sizemore had a warrant out of Clark County, IN for Possession of Stolen Property and Norman Adams Jr., had a warrant out of Scott County for Battery. They were both arrested and transported to the Scott County Jail.

At the jail, a syringe and suspected Methamphetamine were located on Eric
Sizemore. He was then additionally charged with Possession of a Syringe, D
Felony; Possession of Methamphetamine, D Felony; Maintaining a Common Nuisance, D Felony, and Trafficking with an Inmate, C Felony.

Shortly before midnight last night, a trooper from the Indiana
State Police Post at Sellersburg observed a female standing near the roadway at U.S. Highway #31 near Court Avenue in Jeffersonville. The female was holding a sign panhandling for money. As the trooper approached her he recognized her as a person he had advised earlier in the evening to move away from the road for safety concerns.

As the trooper began speaking with the female from his vehicle, she refused to identify herself. She then ran around to the driver’s side of the police car
and attempted to shut the trooper’s car door as he was exiting the car. As he
continued out of his car the female fled.

As the trooper got closer to her, she turned around and battered the trooper. The trooper took her into custody,identified her as Jennifer Renea Trew, 32, of Jeffersonville, and transported her to the Clark County Jail on charges of Battery and Resisting Law Enforcement, both Misdemeanors.

No one was injured during the incident.

Indiana Conservation Officers are investigating a fatal ATV accident that occurred outside of Salem Tuesday evening in the 5000 block of Old State Road 56 East.

A 911 was placed to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office reporting an unresponsive male near an overturned ATV.

Steven Raisor, 20, Salem, was pronounced dead at approximately 9:31 p.m. According to the preliminary investigation, Raisor was eastbound on a Honda ATV before he lost control and was thrown from the ATV, striking the roadway surface.

Washington County Coroner Rondale Brishaber will determine the official cause of death.

Assisting agencies were the Sheriff’s Department, Gibson Township Volunteer Fire Department and Washington County Ambulance Service.

Raisor was not wearing a helmet or any safety equipment at the time of the accident.

Indiana Conservation officers strongly encourage riders to always wear a helmet and necessary safety equipment when operating an ATV.

Stay tuned to WSLM for more on this and other stories.

An Indiana congressman is at the center of a conservative push to kill the federal health care law by cutting off funding.

Third District Republican Marlin Stutzman was the first House member to declare he‘ll vote against any budget or stopgap spending bill that includes funding for the health care law.

About 80 Republicans have signed on, including Sixth District Representative Luke Messer.  Other Republicans argue President Obama will veto any defunding attempt. They warn it‘s the G-O-P that will pay the political price if a budget stalemate forces a government shutdown.

Stutzman argues President Obama is the only one talking about a shutdown. He says it‘s a “false choice” to contend defunding would automatically torpedo budget talks.  Stutzman argues Obama‘s decision to delay implementation for businesses proves the law “isn‘t ready for prime time.”

Fifth District Republican Susan Brooks agrees the law is hamstringing the economy, but says the more effective way to stop the law is to strip it piece by piece, zeroing in on specific provisions like the I-R-S’s administration of the law’s financial penalties.

One of the suspects accused of setting an explosion at an Indianapolis home last year that killed two people may be ready to implicate her boyfriend. Monserrate Shirley has filed court documents to have a separate trial.

The filings suggest that she will tell a judge that her boyfriend Mark Leonard gave her no control over her life. Shirley, Leonard, and Leonard‘s brother Bob Jr. are charged with two counts of murder and over 50 counts of arson. Shirley‘s lawyer James Voyles filed a lengthy narrative to the court that stated Shirley was trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship.

The documents indicate Shirley was naive and controlled by Leonard. In other documents filed to the court, Voyles cited the criminal histories of Mark and Bob Leonard. Several witnesses claimed they were duped by Leonard in insurance scams. A court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

When Gen Con opens tomorrow, (Thurs) visitors will have the chance to visit an alternate reality created by students at IUPUI, and win prizes at the same time.  The multi-player game “Return of Aetheria” was designed by students and an instructor with the Media Arts and Sciences Program at IU‘s School of Informatics and Computing. “Gen Con contacted us about a year ago and wanted us to become the flagship school of their educational initiaive,” said IUPUI‘s Matthew Powers, who lectures at the school and lead the development of the game.  “We have together several classes to have students design, create, program and finish a real-world game.”
“Return of Aetheria” will be a three-day interactive game, open to anyone attending, using video mapping and projectors to create a large crystalline display.  “Players pay $2, and they will help return magic – or Aetheria – to the real world.  The more they play, the more the crystals will crack and return magic to the real world,” said Powers, adding that players will be guided through the game via an app they can download.  Winners will split $4,000 in prizes, donated by sponsors recruited by the school.  Since Gen Con partnered with IUPUI last year, the Media Arts and Science program has added two classes, one on pre-production and another on the production of games.  Powers says “Aetheria”, in addition to being fun to play, will help students get a job in the industry.  “We need to blur the line, so that when students go out in the real world, they are prepared for the type of chaos and type of pressure that comes with making a game,” said Powers.  “In the industry, if you can make just one game, game makers will look at your portfolio.”
Powers plans to have students add on to the game each year, creating new versions for display at other conventions.

New research shows the number of motorcycle collision fatalities are up in Indiana.  The Indiana University survey shows motorcycle crash fatalities were up 28 percent in 2012.

Also, the number of motorcycles or mopeds involved in collisions was up 15.6 percent in 2012 over 2011. There were 158 alcohol impaired driving fatalities, up almost 13 percent from 2011 and 2,112 injuries in 2012.

Despite that, the survey says Indiana seatbelt usage is seven points higher than the national average at 93.6 percent.  Finally, the number of young drivers involved in collisions continued on a downward trend in 2012.

Young driver involvement dropped 5.6 percent in 2012.  The information was compiled by the IU Public Policy Institute‘s Center for Criminal Justice Research.

Indiana‘s largest teachers‘ union says it wants to move on from the scandal over an insurance trust that led to a $14 million dollar settlement deal with the state.

The Indiana State Teachers Union agreed to the settlement with Secretary of State Connie Lawson‘s office during talks last month.  The tentative deal was announced today and will likely be approved by a federal judge if the 27 school districts who lost 27 (m) million dollars that were paid into health plans also approve the settlement.

The state sued the ISTA and its parent, the National Education Association, in 2009.  The lawsuit said money paid into the health plans was shifted without the knowledge of the schools into the ISTA‘s long-term disability fund.  When the disability fund subsequently lost money, the state says the union placed much of the remaining health trust fund into high-risk investments in an effort to recoup their losses.  Warren Williams lost his job as ISTA executive director in part because of the trust and other financial problems with the union, and the NEA bailed out the ISTA months before the lawsuit was filed.

Secretary of State Connie Lawson referred to the insurance trust as a “Ponzi scheme,” unfortunate language according to ISTA spokesman Mark Shoup (SHOOP).  “It‘s not a good time to send verbal bric-a-back (sic) back and forth between the folks who came together to make this settlement happen,” said Shoup.

The settlement allows schools and perhaps teachers to recover just over half the money that was lost.  “We‘ve been transparent with that.  We‘ve been true to our word over the last four years,” said Shoup, even though the ISTA and NEA tried to have the lawsuit dismissed in 2010 and asked for a summary judgement in its favor last year.  The union‘s trustee overseeing the trust, Ed Sullivan, also offered school districts lump sum payments of 25 cents on the dollar lost in October 2009 – two months before the state‘s lawsuit – in an effort to quell claims against the union.

If the school districts agree to the settlement, the union has ten days to pay the state, which Shoup says will come from a settlement fund created from the ISTA‘s lawsuits against Williams and others who had a hand in the scheme.  “No ISTA or NEA dollars, dues dollars or otherwise, will be used for this settlement,” said Shoup.

The state has reached a tentative $14 million dollar settlement with Indiana‘s largest teachers union over a securities complaint in which 27 school districts were defrauded out of money.

Secretary of State Connie Lawson announced the settlement with the Indiana State Teachers Association, which was agreed upon after a settlement conference with a federal magistrate last month.  The settlement amount is almost half the 27 (m) million dollars Lawson says was lost by school districts in what she and State Securities Commissioner Chris Naylor called a “Ponzi scheme” involving health plans sold by the ISTA.

Naylor sued the ISTA and it‘s parent, the National Education Association, in December 2009 over the health trusts.  The program, which Naylor says was heavily marketed by the union to teachers and schools, allowed school districts to build surpluses which would be held in reserves and invested by ISTA.  Instead, the state‘s lawsuit says the union mixed the money in with it‘s long-term disability fund and perhaps other money.  The disability fund subsequently lost money, and Naylor says the union tried to recoup the funds by making “risky investments” with much of the remaining money.

Naylor says ISTA representatives also gave false assurances to school districts, in some cases providing bogus financial statements, saying the money invested in the health trust was safe.

The NEA was also sued because, prior to the lawsuit‘s filing, the national union bailed out the ISTA due to the state union‘s financial problems.  Naylor says it also became clear that the NEA had some oversight over the labor representatives that promoted the health plans.  The NEA asked to be absolved from the suit, but a federal judge repeatedly refused.

While Lawson says the state was, and is, prepared to go to trial in October, settling now for half the amount the schools lost will get them money more quickly than they would have seen during a long court fight.  She says it is also better than an offer made  prior to the state‘s lawsuit by the health trustee appointed by the NEA – he offered school districts as little as 20-cents on the dollar to quell possible claims against the ISTA.

The 27 school corporations affected were not named – Lawson said their names could not be made public until after the settlement is final.  That will happen once all of them agree to the terms hammered out by the state and the union.

Scientists and engineers are using radar to determine the safety of a sand dune at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore that collapsed onto a 6-year-old Illinois boy, burying him under 11 feet of sand last month.  EPA spokesman Francisco Arcaute (AHR‘-koot-ay) says the  gear they‘re using at Mount Baldy is usually used to do underground searches at hazardous waste sites.  But he says they definitely do not think anything hazardous is there under the dune.  Arcute would not speculate on what caused the sand pocket to swallow Nathan Woessner (WAYS-ner), but they hope to gather some solid scientific information that could lead them to find the cause.  I-U Northwest geosciences professor Erin Argyilan (AHR-guh-lin) says what the EPA and National Park Service team is doing is the right way to investigate the Mount Baldy issue.  Arcute says the team will remain at the dunes for at least one more day, but may need more equipment and more time to conduct the investigation.