KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - An 84-year-old nun was sentenced Tuesday to nearly three years in prison for breaking into a nuclear weapons complex and defacing a bunker holding bomb-grade uranium, a demonstration that exposed serious security flaws at the Tennessee plant.
Two other peace activists who broke into the facility with Megan Rice were sentenced to more than five years in prison, in part because they had much longer criminal histories of mostly non-violent civil disobedience.
Although officials said there was never any danger of the protesters reaching materials that could be detonated or made into a dirty bomb, the break-in raised questions about safekeeping at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. The facility holds the nation’s primary supply of bomb-grade uranium and was known as the “Fort Knox of uranium.”
After the break-in, the complex had to be shut down, security forces were re-trained and contractors were replaced.
In her closing statement, Rice asked the judge to sentence her to life in prison, even though sentencing guidelines called for about six years.
“Please have no leniency with me,” she said. “To remain in prison for the rest of my life would be the greatest gift you could give me.”
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LEBANON, Tenn. (AP) - A Tennessee man accused of killing his in-laws with a package bomb that exploded in their rural home was at his mother-in-law’s bedside before she died from the blast, a pastor said.
Richard Parker pleaded not guilty Tuesday to two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of premeditated first-degree murder and unlawful possession of a prohibited weapon. Authorities said the package bomb exploded in his in-laws home in Lebanon, which is about 30 east miles east of Nashville. The Feb. 10 blast killed 74-year-old Jon Setzer, a retired lawyer, and his 72-year-old wife, Marion, died later at a Nashville hospital.
Parker lived in a home directly behind the Setzers.
Before his arrest, Parker sat for hours at Marion Setzer’s bedside along with her other children, said Kevin Ulmet, senior pastor of the Nashville First Church of the Nazarene.
“There was no difference in his demeanor than any of the other children that we could discern at the time,” Ulmet said.
At the arraignment hearing, Parker, 49, wore an orange jail jumpsuit and showed little emotion. He told Wilson County Circuit Court Judge John Wootten that he did not have the money to make his $1 million bail.
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MIDDLESBORO, Ky. (AP) - People in southeastern Kentucky have been lining up to pay their respects to a snake-handling pastor who died after being bitten by a snake during a church service.
Jamie Coots was known for his role on the National Geographic television reality show “Snake Salvation,” but a family friend remembered him Tuesday night for his “great faith” and tolerance of others. Bill Bisceglia (bih-SHEG’-lee-ah) of Middlesboro told reporter Jennifer Meckles of Knoxville, Tenn., station WBIR-TV that the 42-year-old Coots didn’t argue with people who didn’t agree with him but maintained his own beliefs until he died.
People parked blocks away from the funeral home where visitation and a funeral service were held. Visitors said afterward the funeral home was full and lines were long.
Coots was handling a rattlesnake when he was bitten Saturday night.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A former soldier sentenced to life for raping and killing a teenage Iraqi girl and using a shotgun to gun down her family died in an Arizona prison over the weekend in what officials suspect was a suicide.
Steven Dale Green was the first American soldier charged and convicted under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act - a law signed in 2000 that gives the federal government jurisdiction to pursue criminal cases against American citizens and soldiers for acts committed in foreign lands.
The federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman John Stahley said staff members at the federal penitentiary in Tucson, Ariz., found the 28-year-old Green, of Midland, Texas, unresponsive in his cell on Saturday. Stahley said Green’s death is being investigated as a suicide.
Green was a private in the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell on the Kentucky-Tennessee state line when he deployed to Iraq.
Green and three other soldiers went to the home of an Iraqi family in Mahmoudiya, Iraq, near a traffic checkpoint in March 2006. At the home, Green shot and killed three members of the al-Janabi family before becoming the third soldier to rape 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi before killing her. He was convicted and sentenced in 2009.
Three other soldiers. Jesse Spielman, Paul Cortez and James Barker, are serving lengthy sentences in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for their roles in the attack. Each is eligible for parole in 2015.
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