Crime and Court briefs
Crime and Court briefs: Thursday, June 5, 2008

A Sapulpa man jailed in Lubbock County, Texas, and accused of beating his ex-wife unconscious violated a protective order issued in Kansas, investigators said.

Arthur Dean Swagger, 37, was arrested Tuesday and accused of beating his ex-wife unconscious and then sexually assaulting her and hitting her 5-year-old son.

Lubbock police Capt. Greg Stevens says the woman is still alive, but in very poor condition. Her son remains in Department of Human Services custody in Texas, Stevens said.

Swagger was booked into the Lubbock County jail on complaints of aggravated assault, sexual assault, injury to a child and violating a protective order.

From Staff Reports

A state prison inmate was convicted Wednesday of first-degree rape. His DNA was connected to the 2001 attack on a woman who said she was sexually assaulted at gunpoint.

Earnest Dean Phillips now faces an additional 35 years in prison, the punishment set by the Oklahoma County jury that convicted him of rape.

Phillips, 36, claimed he had consensual sex with the woman the day before she told Oklahoma City police she had been raped in December 2001, but prosecutors argued that didn't fit with testimony and evidence in the case.

Phillips was linked to the rape in July 2007 after police learned his DNA matched evidence collected nearly six years earlier, according to court papers.

Phillips is in prison on drug convictions from Oklahoma and Garfield counties.

Staff Writer Jay F. Marks

A former Tulsa nursing home administrator who pleaded no contest to financially exploiting patients is avoiding prison.

Mark Ferris was sentenced Tuesday after entering the plea to two counts of financial exploitation by a caregiver.

Ferris was originally charged with nine counts of taking nearly $5,400 from the trust funds of two patients but seven counts were dismissed for insufficient evidence.

The Associated Press

A man jailed last month has been charged with robbing a Weatherford pawn shop at knifepoint last year.

Robert Ross Jr. of Clinton is accused of holding the store clerk at knifepoint in December then tying her hands and feet with electrical tape.

Ross was arrested last month in Bethany after leading highway patrol troopers on a chase in Canadian and Oklahoma counties.

He remains in custody.

The Associated Press

News Photo Galleriesview all