A former aide to U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander hanged himself in his parents’ basement in Maryland as he awaited trial on child pornography charges, officials said Friday.
Ryan Loskarn, 35, was pronounced dead in Sykesville, Md., just after noon Thursday, said Bruce Goldfarb, a spokesman for the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore. He said the death was ruled a suicide.
Family members called police after finding Loskarn unresponsive in the basement, where he had been living, the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement posted on its website.
Maj. Phillip Kasten said the sheriff’s office may not release additional details until the investigation is finished. He said that could take several weeks
A federal judge had allowed Loskarn to live with his parents while awaiting trial on charges of possession and attempted distribution of child pornography. He was required to be electronically monitored.
Loskarn had been chief of staff for Alexander, R-Tennessee, for two years before his arrest. Loskarn was fired immediately after his arrest.
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - A cold snap is stretching supplies of propane gas and causing transportation bottlenecks across a broad section of the United States, officials said Friday, sending everyone from rural educators to chicken farmers in search of enough fuel to keep warm.
Governors and federal regulators already have taken the rare step of loosening transportation rules for about 33 states in the South, Midwest and East to allow additional hours for truckers to deliver propane and keep up with demand, according to Jeff Petrash, vice president of the National Propane Gas Association.
The gas often is used outside metropolitan areas to heat homes and chicken houses and to fuel some manufacturing operations, and tankers from the Midwest are waiting in line for hours to fill up with propane at bulk storage locations in the South before heading back north. About 5.5 million homes are heated by propane, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
Prices are spiking, and many are worried that a propane crunch will worsen in coming days as temperatures get even colder and demand rises, sending prices even higher and stretching supplies further.
“I think the only answer is warmer weather,” said Marvin Childers, president of The Poultry Federation in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.
Some are questioning what’s driving the spike in prices. U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter Thursday to the Federal Trade Commission asking for oversight of the propane market. Grassley noted, as have many retailers, that the price for propane at Conway, Kan. - one of two primary propane storage sites in the United States - has been significantly higher than the price at the other site, in Mont Belvieu, Texas.
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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Two orthopedic clinics serving patients in Tennessee and Virginia have agreed to pay a combined settlement of $1.85 million to resolve claims that they purchased medications overseas at cut-rate prices and then billed the government at much higher rates.
Bill Killian, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Tennessee, announced the agreement on Friday. Under the settlement, Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics, which is headquartered in Knoxville, will pay $1.3 million and Kingsport, Tenn.-based Appalachian Orthopaedic Clinics will pay $550,000.
The government said the drugs, used to treat osteoarthritis, were sometimes labeled in foreign languages and there was no guarantee that they had not been tampered with or that they were stored properly.
Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics released a statement saying that it admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement. The statement says the drugs were manufactured in the U.S., exported by a foreign distributor and later brought back by another distributor.
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JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. (AP) - An autopsy on a Washington County inmate who died in April while in custody shows that the cause of death was “excited delirium” due to drug use, a statement issued Friday by the county sheriff and prosecutor said.
The autopsy showed that Stewart Peppers, 22, died on April 29 of excited delirium caused by the misuse of anabolic steroids, testosterone and marijuana, the statement said.
Peppers was pronounced dead at Johnson City Medical Center Hospital after he was found unresponsive in the Washington County Detention Center. The inmate became unresponsive while jailers were trying to restrain him due to “combative, bizarre and destructive behavior,” officials said.
“I support the officers involved in this incident,” Sheriff Ed Graybeal said in the statement. “They were confronted with a violent assault and, despite the tragic outcome, responded in an appropriate manner.”
Peppers’ parents have an entirely different view.
Joe and Natasha Peppers filed a $21 million lawsuit against the sheriff, the county and six jailers claiming that their son was beaten by guards after he started screaming obscenities. The federal lawsuit accuses guards of using a stun gun and chemical spray on the inmate during a 20-minute beating.
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