A midday accident proved fatal for a motorist near Cleveland.Monday crash victim identified
BRADLEY COUNTY, Tenn. - The victim of Monday morning's crash on Georgetown Road has been identified as Randall Lewis Geren, 67, of Decatur, Tenn., according to the Bradley County Sheriff's Office.
Geren was killed in a single-car crash on Georgetown Road (State Highway 60) just west of White Oak Valley Road. He was the only occupant of the vehicle when it left the road on a curve and struck a tree.
This was the 8th traffic death in Bradley County this year.
Torah defacing leads to prison
JACKSON, Tenn. - A Jackson man who pleaded guilty to defacing a Torah and religious prayer books at a Jackson hotel has been sentenced to four years in prison.
The Jackson Sun reports Madison County Circuit Court Judge Roy Morgan Jr. sentenced 25-year-old Justin Shawn Baker on Monday to the maximum amount for the charges he faced.
"It's quite clear that for thousands of years people have been attacked around the world and persecuted for their religious beliefs, whatever that belief is, and the nature of the crime here is clearly a direct, intentional attack on what's guaranteed as a freedom in this country, freedom of religion," Morgan said in court.
Students and faculty at the Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis were staying at the Doubletree Hotel in Jackson on Jan. 12 and had used a meeting room to conduct a Sabbath worship. They left the items in the room overnight with plans to resume worship the next morning.
They arrived to find the items defaced.
Baker was working at the hotel at the time as a security guard.
Missing bank director arrested
BRUNSWICK, Ga. - A South Georgia bank director accused of losing millions of investors' dollars before vanishing last year has been arrested.
The U.S. attorney's office in Savannah says 47-year-old Aubrey Lee Price was arrested Tuesday during a traffic stop on Interstate 95 in Brunswick by members of the Glynn County Sheriff's Department.
Price disappeared in June 2012 after sending a rambling confession letter to his family and investors saying he planned to drown himself off the Florida coast.
A Florida judge declared him dead about a year ago. But the FBI had said it didn't believe Price was dead and continued to search for him.
Prosecutors say Price raised $40 million from his bank and 115 investors, and he lost much of the money.
Award named for lottery CEO
NASHVILLE - The president and CEO of the Tennessee Education Lottery Corp. is being recognized by a leading lottery trade organization with an award named after her.
According to the lottery, the "Rebecca Hargrove Award for Mentorship" is given in recognition of an individual's "generous spirit that supports the wise and responsible development of the next generation of lottery industry leaders."
Hargrove also is the first recipient of the award from the Public Gaming Research Institute.
She began her career directing the Illinois Lottery and later led successful lottery startups in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.