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State Sen. Janet Nguyen hands Sen. Tom Berryhill a copy of Sen. Tony Mendoza’s letter of resignation on Thursday in Sacramento, Calif.
State Sen. Janet Nguyen hands Sen. Tom Berryhill a copy of Sen. Tony Mendoza’s letter of resignation on Thursday in Sacramento, Calif.

California lawmaker in sex case quits

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Tony Mendoza, a California state senator accused of sexual misconduct, resigned Thursday just ahead of a possible vote to expel him, delivering a scathing resignation letter that called the investigation process a farce.

Mendoza is now the third California lawmaker to resign over sexual-misconduct allegations since last fall. His resignation letter takes aim at the leader of the Senate, a fellow Democrat and Mendoza's former roommate in Sacramento who was leading the effort to expel him.

"It is clear that Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon will not rest until he has my head on a platter to convince the MeToo movement of his 'sincerity' in supporting the MeToo cause," Mendoza wrote.

Lawyers investigating complaints against Mendoza, who is 46 and married, found that he likely engaged in unwanted "flirtatious or sexually suggestive" behavior with six women, including four subordinates, a lobbyist and a woman in a fellowship with another lawmaker.

Missouri governor indicted over photo

ST. LOUIS -- A St. Louis grand jury has indicted Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens on a felony invasion-of-privacy charge on accusations that he took a compromising photo of a woman with whom he had an affair in 2015, the city circuit attorney's office said Thursday.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner began an investigation in January after Greitens admitted to an affair with his St. Louis hairdresser that began in March 2015. He was elected governor in November 2016.

Gardner declined comment beyond a brief news release, but spokesman Susan Ryan confirmed the indictment stemmed from a photo Greitens reportedly took of the woman.

Greitens was taken into custody in St. Louis and released on his own recognizance, Ryan said.

The indictment states that on March 21, 2015, Greitens photographed a woman identified only by her initials "in a state of full or partial nudity" without consent.

The woman told her husband, who was secretly taping the conversation, that Greitens took the compromising photo of her at his home and threatened to use it as blackmail if she spoke about the affair.

New Pennsylvania districts draw suit

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Eight Republican congressmen from Pennsylvania filed a federal lawsuit Thursday accusing the state's highest court of overstepping its authority by drawing new congressional district lines without giving state lawmakers enough time to produce a map of their own.

A separate legal challenge to the new map by two senior Republican legislative leaders is currently awaiting action by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The latest complaint in Harrisburg federal court challenged the legality of the map put in place Monday by the state Supreme Court. The suit said a 2011 Republican-crafted map should remain in use this year.

The plaintiffs asked for an injunction to prevent state officials from implementing the new plan.

The 2011 map is widely considered among the nation's most gerrymandered, a melange of jagged lines and odd shapes, in some places narrowing to the width of a single property.

Florida doctor gets 17 years for fraud

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A prominent Florida eye doctor once accused of bribing Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey received a 17-year sentence Thursday for stealing $73 million from Medicare by persuading elderly patients to undergo excruciating tests and treatments they didn't need for diseases they didn't have.

Salomon Melgen was convicted of 67 crimes including health care fraud, submitting false claims and falsifying records in patients' files. Prosecutors said that between 2008 and 2013, he became the nation's highest-paid Medicare doctor, building his practice by giving elderly patients unnecessary eye injections and laser blasts on their retinas that some compared to torture.

Melgen, 63, was ordered to pay $42.6 million in restitution to Medicare. He has been in custody since his April 28 conviction.

Defense attorneys plan to appeal the conviction.

Prosecutors dropped their case against Menendez after a jury deadlocked over allegations he tried to intercede with Medicare officials investigating Melgen in return for vacations and gifts.

A Section on 02/23/2018

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