Crime and Courts: Friday, August 22, 2008
Crime and Courts: Friday, August 22, 2008

Longtime Oklahoma City attorney Don Easter was chosen Thursday as Oklahoma County's newest special judge.

Easter, 60, will handle the mental health and protective order docket, filling the post vacated July 31 by former judge Brian Upp, officials said.

Easter was hired by the county's 15 elected district judges. He will be one of 18 special judges, who earn more than $105,000 a year.

Easter, a Yukon resident, is a former Oklahoma County prosecutor who had been in private practice since 1982. He specialized in warranty cases.

He has served on Yukon's city council and school board.

Staff Writer Jay F. Marks

Oklahoma County prosecutors will not file criminal charges against a Midwest City resident who killed a man last month during an apparent burglary attempt.

District Attorney David Prater said evidence indicates Steven John Palenko, 44, was defending himself when he shot Mikah Ryan Smith on July 17.

Palenko shot Smith once with a shotgun after interrupting a suspected burglary attempt, authorities said. He shot at Smith's car when it veered toward him while Smith was trying to drive away.

Staff Writer Jay F. Marks

Danny Brian Giacomo may be serving six years in prison sentence for sexual contact with two band students, and he may have a net worth of less than $100, but that didn't deter a federal jury from ordering him to pay $2.1 million to one of his two teenage victims.

Now, the school district that once employed the 37-year-old band director must figure out whether to settle the two cases for an additional $1 million.

In a civil trial this week, a federal jury in Muskogee County said Giacomo should pay $2.1 million and the school should pay $600,000 to the 14-year-old victim.

Staff Writer Johnny Johnson,

The Associated Press

A former spa manager in Stillwater who secretly videotaped unclothed women during massage sessions has been given a five-year prison term.

Daniel Robert Hines of Tulsa pleaded guilty to 114 counts of unlawful use of videotaping equipment and no contest to four counts of sexual battery and one count of attempted sexual battery. He also pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of possessing drug paraphernalia.

Hines' term will be followed by 25 years of probation.

The Associated Press

A Tulsa woman has been arrested on suspicion of trying to hire an undercover police officer to kill her husband.

Police arrested Debra Rose Derr, 46, on a complaint of solicitation of first-degree murder. She's accused of offering an undercover officer more than $4,000 in life insurance money to kill her husband by cutting his throat.

The Associated Press

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