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Former NBA player sentenced to probation

ATLANTA — A former NBA player was sentenced Thursday to probation and ordered to pay restitution after pleading guilty to financial transaction card fraud, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said. Ronald Michael Behagen, 60, who played seven seasons in the NBA for the Atlanta Hawks and other teams, faces three years of probation and must pay $3, 570 in restitution. According to prosecutors, between April and June 2011, Behagen used a 68-year old Sandy

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Medicaid contractor employee indicted for computer theft

Romona Ferrell-Davis was indicted by a DeKalb County Grand Jury on December 8, 2011 on four counts of computer theft, one count of Computer Invasion of Privacy and one count of Identity Fraud. Ferrell-Davis was employed at Hewlett-Packard (HP), fiscal intermediary for the Georgia Department of Community Health, the Georgia Medicaid agency, from Nov. 10, 2010 to Oct. 11, 2011. The indictment charges that on October 7, 2011, and again on October 11, 2011, Ferrell-Davis

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Opinion: Ethics board members can only serve one four-year term

ATLANTA — A member of the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission “may serve no more than one complete four year term of office,” the state attorney general’s office state said in a recent opinion. However, Deputy Attorney General Dennis R. Dunn said, a member of the board — formerly known as the State Ethics Commission — “may for a period of less than a complete term hold over in office until his successor

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Inmates use cell phones ‘to commit additional crimes’

ATLANTA — The state Department of Corrections is investigating a Monday incident at Telfair State Prison in Helena in which Inmates used smuggled cell phones to start a fight. Three inmates were sent to the hospital, and two remain in stable condition. A corrections officer was also hurt. Two dorms at the prison were placed on lock down. But, state officials say smuggled cell phones cause problems. Inmates, authorities say, can use the phones to

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UPDATE: Court upholds death penalty for man claiming mental retardation

ATLANTA — A federal appeals court this week upheld the death penalty for a man who now claims he is mentally retarded. Warren Lee Hill Jr. did not claim mental retardation during his 1991 trial. However, in 1996, Lee added to a “habeas petition to allege mental retardation for the first time, and he later claimed that Georgia’s reasonable doubt standard of proof (state law) violated the Eighth Amendment,” according to an opinion from the 11th

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Court upholds death penalty for man claiming mental retardation

ATLANTA — A federal appeals court this week upheld the death penalty for a man who now claims he is mentally retarded. Warren Lee Hill Jr. did not claim mental retardation during his 1991 trial. However, in 1996, Lee added to a “habeas petition to allege mental retardation for the first time, and he later claimed that Georgia’s reasonable doubt standard of proof (state law) violated the Eighth Amendment,” according to an opinion from the 11th

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Price: Kagan must not decide health care law

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan must recuse herself from deciding the Constitutionality of the health care law Congress passed last year, a Georgia Congressman said. “The President’s health care law – now headed to the Supreme Court – is a threat to America’s health care system and the principles of affordability, accessibility, quality, responsiveness, innovation, and choices,” U.S Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., said in a statement. “It is important that the Court has agreed to

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Deal: Obamacare case critical to state’s future

Gov. Nathan Deal welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear Georgia’s case challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. More than half of the nation’s states have signed on to the case. “The state of Georgia has been a leader in the fight against the crippling mandates of Obamacare,” Deal said in a statement. “As a member of Congress, I was the first to question the constitutionality of the individual mandate on the floor of the

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Disputed report: Paterno contacts defense attorney

Legendary Penn State football Coach Joe Paterno has “reached out” to a criminal defense attorney with an Atlanta-based firm, NBC news reported. The Paterno camp, according to the report, reached out to J. Sedgwick Sollers, the managing partner of King & Spalding’s Washington’s office, NBC News National Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff reported. Paterno was fired Wednesday in the wake of a child sex abuse scandal involving former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky and two university administrators