Closing arguments Thursday in malpractice case

The uncle of Christopher Lambeth said “knives and throwing stars” were confiscated from Lambeth’s room in the last few months before he murdered his grandparents with a knife.

Their bodies were so disfigured that their coffins were closed to mourners, according to testimony Wednesday in a medical malpractice-wrongful death case under way in Pima County Superior Court.

The civil lawsuit, filed by Lisa Lambeth, who is Christopher Lambeth’s mother, and her sister Karen McCollum, blames COPE and the Community Partnership of Southern Arizona for allegedly failing to provide proper mental health care for Lambeth.

On April 10, 2005, Lambeth attacked his grandparents Carl and Patricia Gremmler with a knife. He is serving two concurrent life sentences at the Arizona State Hospital for the murders.

COPE was Lambeth’s mental health provider for two years prior to the stabbings.

The partnership is the nonprofit agency that oversees publicly funded mental health providers in southern Arizona, including COPE. Lambeth received subsidized care from COPE because he was found to be disabled by serious mental illness.

The uncle, Mark McCollum, told a jury that Lambeth “locked horns” with his grandfather, Carl Gremmler, 76, in the weeks before the murders and exhibited “very bizarre and violent behavior” but McCollum didn’t tell his wife, or alert authorities or Lambeth’s mother.

Lambeth was 20 when sheriff’s deputies found him in bed at his grandparents’ Rillito home and discovered their bodies. They had been dead for two days.

McCollum, who said he spent most weekdays at the Gremmlers helping to restore cars and do chores for his in-laws, said Gremmler was “the head of the family” and it was not McCollum’s place to call authorities about his concerns about Lambeth.

“That was his (Gremmler’s) call,” he said.

He also said he didn’t tell his wife, Karen, about Lambeth’s “increasingly bizarre behavior” because “I didn’t want to upset her any further than she needed to be.”

The suit named Lambeth’s psychiatrist, Dr. Virgil Hancock III, as a defendant.

He was a contract provider for COPE but not an employee and he settled with the Gremmlers’ two daughters in October 2008, according to court records.

Details of the settlement were not publicly disclosed.

Hancock testified as a witness in the civil damage case Wednesday.

He said that if he had been told “of possible danger or a safety issue” by Lisa Lambeth or other family members, “I would have needed to address that.”

“Any information that showed the Gremmlers were at risk would have caused me to do something,” he said.

He said he was never told they might be in danger.

Lambeth had been treated for mental illness with medication for at least two years before the killings. Based on his monthly visits with a psychiatrist and a COPE case manager, he appeared not to need 24-hour care, according to court documents.

Lisa Lambeth said in testimony earlier this week she blames COPE and CPSA for not finding a residential placement for her son, who took multiple psychiatric medications for “schizoaffective and bipolar disorders,” court records show.

Lisa Lambeth’s two children, Christopher and his sister, lived with the McCollums for four years at their mother’s request, following their father’s accidental death, according to testimony in the case.

His mother took her own apartment during that time, according to Mark McCollum’s testimony.

McCollum said Lambeth never displayed any symptoms of mental illness or violent tendencies during the period Lambeth lived with his aunt and uncle.

But in the months before the stabbings, McCollum said he saw Lambeth repeatedly strike a tree trunk with a hockey stick while speaking incoherently.

He also said he saw a bruise on Carl Gremmler’s face that Gremmler said was the result of Lambeth hitting him, but he did not call authorities to report the alleged assault.

He said Gremmler was deeply religious and “feared no evil and no man,” and felt that “God would take care of things.”

But he said Patricia Gremmler, 72, was so fearful of her grandson that she carried pepper spray in a bathrobe pocket at all times and hid pepper spray on a bookshelf in her home to defend herself from him.

McCollum said the couple never slept at the same time so one of them could observe Lambeth.

McCollum said Lambeth usually spent weekdays at his grandparents and weekends with his mother.

But on the weekend the Gremmlers were killed, his mother traveled to Mesa, leaving him with her parents on a Friday, and never spoke to them again.

Lambeth had complained that he did not like staying in the rural community, according to court documents.

McCollum said the Gremmlers required Lambeth to stay in his room whenever Carl Gremmler left the house.

He said Lambeth would knock holes in the walls of the room and kick them while he was confined.

Closing arguments in the case are set for Thursday.

Lambeth

The mother of Christopher Lambeth, who killed his grandparents – her parents – in 2005, said she never filed a grievance against COPE or his psychiatrist while they provided medical care to her son for about two years before the killings.

She is suing them in Pima County Superior Court, claiming wrongful death and malpractice. The case, in Judge Carmine Cornelio’s court, began last week.

Under cross-examination Tuesday by defense attorneys, Lisa Lambeth said she waited for months for a residential placement from COPE for her son while he washed his hands 10 times a day, talked to himself, paced back and forth incessantly and used “special hand signals.”

She blames his psychiatrist, Dr. Virgil Hancock III, a COPE employee, and the behavioral health provider for her parents’ April 10, 2005, killings at the hands of her son.

Christopher Lambeth, now 24, was taking lithium and other drugs to control symptoms of his mental illness, including psychosis.

Lisa Lambeth and her sister Karen McCollum filed the lawsuit, claiming negligence was a cause of the violence that ended the lives of Lisa’s parents, Carl and Patricia Gremmler.

Carl was 76 and Patricia 72 when they were stabbed by Lambeth, who is serving two concurrent life terms in the Arizona State Hospital.

During testimony in the civil suit Tuesday, Lisa Lambeth said her son told her he killed his grandparents because “he thought they were trying to tell him what to do. He really can’t articulate that very well.”

She said she feels no responsibility for her parents’ deaths.

Attorneys for COPE and the nonprofit Community Partnership for Southern Arizona, which oversees COPE and other behavioral health providers in southern Arizona, said Tuesday there were several things she could have done to help her son and protect her parents.

They asserted she is partly responsible for what happened.

She knew, she admitted, that her son would sometimes not take his medications and that she had called police because of Christopher’s alleged menacing and punching holes in the wall.

Before Lambeth left for Mesa for several days to be with her husband, she did not make sure her son’s blood level for lithium was tested to see if he was properly medicated, even though she knew it was necessary, she said during questioning.

She admitted under cross examination that she did not advise her parents before they took Christopher Lambeth into their home for the weekend that the blood test needed to be done to make sure his medication was at a therapeutic level.

“She wasn’t sufficiently concerned,” said CPSA attorney Marshall Humphrey.

Lambeth said she attended her son’s monthly appointments with his psychiatrist and asked each time for her son to be placed in a residential facility where he could get full-time care.

She never filed a petition with the court to have her son committed to a hospital for psychiatric observation after she thought he was a danger to himself or others, she conceded. She also said she did not bring him to an emergency room for an evaluation when he seemed to be agitated and uncooperative. But she did call 911 to have authorities take him to a hospital after one incident.

In the months before the killings, Christopher Lambeth was held for about a day in a psychiatric facility and then was released to his family, according to court records.

Defense attorneys accused her of seeking revenge with the lawsuit, quoting her from her therapist’s records: “I will bring them down.”

Lambeth responded, “It’s not revenge. I have a desire for justice. I feel they should be held accountable.”

She said she left her son with her parents during the week while she worked full time in human resources and kept him at her home on weekends.

Defense attorneys said that as a human resources specialist, she should have known that she had other avenues besides waiting for COPE to find her son a residential placement.

She could have gone over the psychiatrist’s head and complained to his supervisors but she did not, or look for a placement herself.

“I trusted him,” she said of the psychiatrist.

“I’ve lost my mom and dad and son. This has been ripped from me by two organizations who didn’t care about us,” she said. “I feel they are responsible for the death of my mom and dad.”

Pima County sheriff’s detectives are investigating the death of Arthur Huerta Nabor, 30, whose father and brother said they restrained him facedown on a couch until he became unresponsive Saturday, according to court documents.

He was pronounced dead at the scene, said Deputy Dawn Barkman, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.

Deputies were called to a domestic disturbance at the family home in the 5700 block of South Bryant Stravenue, near Alvernon Way and the Benson Highway, at 3 a.m., she said in a news release.

According to a search warrant return obtained Tuesday by the Tucson Citizen, sheriff’s investigators took drug paraphernalia, a “green leafy substance,” “various unknown prescription medications/narcotics,” and a small plastic bag “with powder residue” from the home as evidence.

They also took a plastic bag containing “unknown pills” from a brown purse and “unknown pills” from a closet in the house.

Family members told paramedics Nabor was using crack cocaine and fighting with family members, according to the search warrant papers.

Paramedics could not revive Nabor, according to those documents.

The search warrant request states that Nabor may have used a frying pan and a water pitcher as weapons.

Nabor was held on a couch in the living room, according to documents in the case. A detective described the incident as “somewhat of a prolonged event.”

Deputies said they believed the death may have been caused by “fighting,” according to the documents.

A kitchen blender and cell phones were also taken as evidence.

No one has been charged in the death. The investigation is continuing.

Autopsy drug test results can take up to six weeks.

Traffic backs up at Campbell Avenue and Allen Road on Tuesday as Tucson Water Department employees work on a waterline break. The water supply was disrupted to two shopping centers and an apartment complex.

An 8-inch waterline break beneath Campbell Avenue was repaired by 11 p.m. Tuesday and Campbell was opened for traffic in both directions shortly after that.

Tucson Water Department spokesman Fernando Molina said Wednesday that the road was closed after a line running under the middle of the street broke Tuesday afternoon for an undetermined reason.

He said the water supply to a shopping center and to an apartment complex on Campbell was interrupted by the waterline break about 1:30 p.m.

Water service was restored late Tuesday to the shopping center and to the apartment dwellers, Molina said.

City employees distributed water to residents and businesses in the area.

A man who collided with and killed a motorcyclist on June 21 while driving with a 0.210 percent blood-alcohol level was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to negligent homicide.

Robert William Becker, 39, initially was charged with second-degree murder.

To avoid a trial, he pleaded guilty last week to negligent homicide, felony endangerment and driving with a blood- alcohol concentration of 0.15 or higher, a misdemeanor.

A driver is presumed impaired at 0.08 or higher in Arizona.

Becker was driving north on Flowing Wells Road when he turned west in front of Alan Echols, who was riding his motorcycle south on Flowing Wells, authorities said. Echols died at the scene.

The partially mitigated sentence was based on recommendations from the county’s Pretrial Services. Becker has no prior felonies, was genuinely remorseful and had begun to rehabilitate himself.

On the DUI charge, Superior Court Judge Edgar Acuña sentenced him to 33 days of incarceration, equal to the period he served in jail before he was released to Pretrial Services.

He was sentenced to five years in prison with consecutive community supervision on the negligent homicide charge.

On the endangerment charge, Becker got a suspended sentence of probation and he must take part in an aggravated DUI program for three years after completing his prison sentence.

Jose DeJesus Ortiz, 26, who eluded authorities for six years in connection with a March 17, 2002, killing, was found guilty of first-degree murder Friday by a Pima County Superior Court jury.

Ortiz’s defense attorney, Harley Kurlander, said his client was trying to help his friend, Jeffrey Roberts, when he saw Roberts grappling with Greg Arbuckle, 23, in Roberts’ home.

Arbuckle was shot six times with a .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic handgun, prosecutor Jonathan Mosher said.

The shooting was reported in local media as an attempted drug ripoff and robbery of Arbuckle.

Roberts testified last week that Arbuckle was selling methamphetamine out of the house where Roberts lived with his mother and sister. Arbuckle and Roberts’ sister shared a bedroom.

Arbuckle kept a safe and a handgun in the bedroom, according to testimony in the case.

Roberts testified against Ortiz in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. He said he and Ortiz and other friends talked about “jacking” Arbuckle – robbing him of money from the safe.

But Roberts said they decided not to do that.

They hung out over several hours, drinking alcoholic beverages laced with “a handful” of unspecified pills. They also smoked marijuana from a water pipe, he said.

Arbuckle had methamphetamine in his system, an autopsy showed.

Roberts testified he walked to his East Side house with a gun in his waistband after partying with friends nearby and he began to argue with Arbuckle over a “lack of respect.”

The verbal confrontation became physical, he said.

Both men had pointed guns at each other at one moment.

As they fought, Ortiz entered the home, picked up a handgun he saw on the floor and fired six times. Four bullets struck Arbuckle in the back.

Roberts’ sister, a witness to the shooting, also testified that Ortiz shot Arbuckle.

Ortiz and Roberts were indicted in March 2002.

Ortiz fled and was on the Pima County Attorney’s Most Wanted list for six years until he was picked up in Phoenix last year under a false name on an unrelated matter. He was linked to the Arbuckle killing by fingerprints, according to court documents.

Ortiz faces a sentence of up to life in prison. He will be sentenced in June.

Roberts pleaded guilty to manslaughter and faces seven to 21 years in prison. He will be sentenced May 15 on the manslaughter charge.

A Mexican man in the U.S. illegally and driving drunk with only a Chiapas, Mexico driver’s license was sentenced Friday to 10.5 years in prison for killing a passenger in his vehicle in April 2008.

The vehicle of Carlos Antonio Balanzar-Ortiz, 37, had open containers of alcoholic beverages when it was searched, Pima County sheriff’s deputies said.

He was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.15, nearly twice the legal limit for intoxication of 0.08.

He was charged with manslaughter and pleaded guilty to that charge in a deal with the county attorney to avoid a trial.

The April 22, 2008, crash killed his passenger, Antonio Aros-Gutierrez, 38.

Balanzar-Ortiz was sentenced to 180 days for misdemeanor driving under the influence but Pima County Superior Court Judge Richard Nichols gave him credit for 180 days served in jail awaiting sentencing.

Other lesser charges were dropped.

The victim’s two sons, ages 3 and 4, attended the sentencing hearing along with their mother.

Court documents show that Balanzar-Ortiz failed to yield to a tractor-trailer while he was making a turn at Alvernon Way and Ajo and the vehicles collided.

Aros-Gutierrez died at the scene.

Balanzar-Ortiz had only his Mexico driver’s license and a Mexican voter identification card on him at the time of the incident.

He is in the United States illegally and will be deported to Mexico on his release from the Arizona Department of Corrections, Nichols said.

The head of Pima County’s health department will join Arizona’s director of health services and others in a public briefing here Wednesday on H1N1, the swine flu virus.

The lecture will be from noon to 1 p.m. at the University of Arizona College of Medicine’s DuVal Auditorium, 1501 N. Campbell Ave.

Among the scientists who will speak are Nafees Ahmad, Ph.D, a professor in the department of immunobiology, on the virology of the disease, and Katie Mathhias, Pharm.D, on therapeutic options for treatment of the virus.

A standoff that ended with police killing an East Side man began when officers went to his home to investigate allegations of child molestation, records show.

Investigators found evidence including pink-and-white underwear in Stanley Barr’s home after he was fatally shot April 6, police said.

Barr, 48, who used crutches because he had cerebral palsy, came to the door armed with a handgun and pointed it at officers, according to police reports.

He also indicated he may have intended to “commit suicide by cop,” said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson police spokesman.

Barr told the officers “something to the effect of, ‘you gotta do what you gotta do,’ ” according to the reports.

“He (Barr) did pose a threat to the officers in spite of his medical condition,” Pacheco said. He was able to brandish a handgun.

“Officers have to use lethal force against lethal force,” Pacheco said in an interview Thursday.

“We don’t use Taser or pepper spray against someone armed with a handgun.”

Barr’s handgun was in his pocket as he walked to the front door of his home, police who watched him through a window wrote in their reports.

He refused efforts to get him to “relinquish the weapon,” the reports state.

“As officers spoke with (Barr), he chambered a round in the pistol and put the gun to his head.”

Then Barr pointed his weapon directly at police, the report states. Patrol officers Loren Layton and Steven Boggie fired, killing Barr.

“It’s a very unfortunate incident,” Pacheco said.

He said Barr “taunted” the officers.

“Mr. Barr chose to make that decision to not obey those commands from the officers and to level the gun at the officers and it ended up with tragic results,” Pacheco said.

Police reports describe how the day unfolded for Barr.

His wife called 911 that afternoon to report the alleged sexual molestation of a minor, a female family member.

She told police she and Barr got into a verbal confrontation over the matter.

Afterward, when he went into a bedroom and “got into the bag where he kept his gun,” she left their home, near East 22nd Street and Wilmot Road, and called police.

Sex crimes investigators were assigned to the case and a forensic interview was conducted with the alleged victim.

Investigators had enough evidence to seek a search warrant for the home, Pacheco said.

The search warrant request said probable cause existed to believe there were suicide notes and handguns in the home.

However, no suicide note was found.

A note collected as evidence was “indecipherable,” Pacheco said.

Plainclothes detectives had begun surveillance of Barr’s house by midafternoon. The search warrant allowed them to enter the home after 10:30 p.m.

Plainclothes detectives wore vests identifying them as police as they approached the front door of the home shortly before midnight, Pacheco said.

Investigators from the Child Sex Assault Unit were there to collect DNA evidence from Barr.

In searching the home, officers seized 9 mm Smith & Wesson handguns, pink shorts with candy canes and paws, a pink blanket, salmon-colored bedsheets and pink-and-white underwear.

The shooting ended the molestation investigation.

Police reports state none of the officers “rendered aid” to Barr before Tucson Fire Department paramedics arrived.

He was pronounced dead at University Medical Center at 12:35 a.m.

Layton and Boggie, who each have four years in the department, are back on patrol.

The Police Department is conducting an investigation into the shooting, which is routine in such cases.

Lambeth in 2005

A medical malpractice lawsuit filed by the mother of a mentally ill man who stabbed his grandparents to death on April 10, 2005, is being heard this week in Pima County Superior Court.

The suit was filed by Lisa Lambeth and her sister, Karen McCollum, daughters of the late Carl Gremmler, 76, and Patricia Gremmler, 72, against a publicly funded behavioral health agency and the psychiatrist who treated Christopher Lambeth for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Filed in March 2007, the suit alleges medical malpractice by the psychiatrist, negligence by the behavioral agency and asks for punitive damages from all defendants for the loss of their parents.

However, COPE Behavioral Services Inc. says in court documents that it “believes” Lambeth, now 24, “was wholly and/or partially at fault in causing” damages to the Gremmler family.

Lambeth pleaded guilty but insane to two counts of first-degree murder in March 2007.

His attorney, Ryan Metcalf, said then that Lambeth was in a psychotic state when he stabbed the couple multiple times in their bed. The bodies were found two days after the stabbings.

Lambeth, who had been living with them, was found lying in his bed at their home.

In April 2007, Lambeth was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences at the Arizona State Hospital in Phoenix.

According to documents in the civil suit, Dr. Virgil Hancock was a contract psychiatric provider for COPE.

He began treating Christopher Lambeth in late 2003 and was his psychiatrist until Lambeth killed his grandparents.

On Sept. 22, 2004, Hancock saw Lambeth “in the presence of his mother” and the youth reported he was taking his medications.

His mother said he wasn’t taking the medication and on Oct. 19, 2004, she called Hancock, asking that her son be admitted to a psychiatric hospital without going to an emergency room, but the psychiatrist refused.

On Oct. 26, 2004, she told Hancock her son “would not be medication compliant in the future and would become violent.”

On Nov. 16, 2004, he was admitted to Sonora Behavioral Health Hospital “after physically menacing his mother and punching holes in the walls at her home.”

“A COPE note prepared at or about this date signed by Dr. Hancock states that Christopher Lambeth was unable to control his anger and was homicidal and had a target and a plan,” the lawsuit states.

“This homicidal ideation was not disclosed to the family before, during or at any time after his hospitalization,” according to the lawsuit.

Lambeth was discharged from Sonora and then spent 24 hours at COPE’s Ocotillo drug treatment facility.

He was discharged on Nov. 19, 2004, and taken to his grandparents’ home.

A COPE case manager had called Lambeth’s mother and sister and asked them to take him into their homes. They refused, saying they feared having him in their homes.

His mother said he was “dangerous and violent” when he didn’t take his medications.

“No day program or other supportive behavioral health services were offered,” the suit states.

“The case manager then persuaded Christopher’s sister to transport Christopher directly from Ocotillo to his aging grandparents’ home.”

According to the suit, Lambeth’s mother repeatedly asked for residential behavioral health services for him in 2004 and was told none was available.

On April 7, 2005, Hancock saw Lambeth for a regularly scheduled appointment, along with his mother and his case manager.

“Lisa again asked COPE to get Christopher out of her parents’ home. No residential or other behavioral services were offered,” the suit states.

“(Lisa) expressed fear and concern about Christopher’s history of violence toward her and his grandparents when he was not taking his medicine.”

Lambeth said he wasn’t happy living in the rural community of Rillito with his grandparents.

Lambeth was incarcerated as a juvenile in 2001 for nearly 10 months in a domestic violence case. His parole in that case ended in October 2002.

In 2003, he was court-ordered to receive services from COPE after he was arrested for marijuana possession.

Family members put together a memorial at the dirt lot where Chris Burdon was shot.

The parents of a Tucson man killed by a police sharpshooter May 12 have sued the city, the former police chief and the officer who shot Christopher Burdon after police said he “did not heed oral commands to put down his weapon.”

Burdon, 39, a lifelong insulin-dependent diabetic, was suffering from hypoglycemia, his family said at the time, and was unable to respond to police commands.

The symptoms can make a diabetic appear drunk or under the influence of drugs. The family learned of his death watching local TV news.

Burdon had only nicotine and caffeine in his system, an autopsy by the Pima County medical examiner revealed.

Burdon was shot in the head, arm and chest and had multiple skull fractures from bullets fired by Officer Luis Campos, an eight-year veteran of the Police Department. The department’s internal review of the shooting has not been made public.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court this week, former police chief Richard Miranda, now an assistant city manager, is named because he was the supervisory officer “responsible for the conduct, training and supervision of police officers under his charge.”

He is also named for “his failure to properly train police officers in the appropriate methods of detaining and arresting citizens who are temporarily disoriented and confused as a result of physical illness,” according to the lawsuit.

The city was sued as “the ultimate policymaker for the city of Tucson Police Department.”

City Attorney Mike Rankin was attending a seminar Wednesday and did not return a call for comment.

Attorney Robert L. Murray, who is handling the civil case for Thomas and Janet Burdon, said the Police Department “has long been aware that there is a high probability that their officers may come into contact with citizens who are displaying actions demonstrating that they are either mentally ill, delusional and disoriented or are otherwise incapacitated as a result of some disease or physical ailment.”

The suit says the Police Department “did not adequately train or staff the department with any qualified officers to respond to mental health encounters or encounters with citizens experiencing delusional episodes or those who were confused or disoriented as a result of physical illness.”

The suit also says police were “not armed with sufficient non-lethal use of force equipment to deal with Chris Burdon.”

The suit cites violations of Burdon’s Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizure of his person and of his 14th Amendment right “to be free of excessive and unjustified force” and to be provided substantive due process.

Burdon was suffering from a lack of sleep and low glucose level, and his family believes he fired a handgun three times into the air as a signal for help.

No one was hit by the shots.

Campos shot Burdon after he didn’t follow orders to put down the gun.

Police didn’t know he had removed the clip from his gun and laid it on the floor of his sandrail before falling to the ground nearby, in a dirt lot near Grant Road and Oracle Road.

Police were responding to a 911 call about a man firing a gun in the area.

Chris Burdon

The 91-year-old man accused of causing a collision that injured several El Tour de Tucson bicyclists Nov. 22 pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of attempted leaving the scene of an accident.

William Arthur Wilson, who has been living in Georgia since shortly after the collision, accepted a plea agreement to avoid trial.

The deal gives a Superior Court judge discretion in sentencing him to either a felony or a misdemeanor.The sentence will be based on mitigating and aggravating factors in a presentencing report written for the judge.

The sentencing was set for June 22 at 1:30 p.m. in Judge Deborah Bernini’s court.

The accident caused serious injury to Gary L. Stuebe of Surprise.

Steube’s family objected to the plea deal in a letter to county prosecutor Bruce Chalk. Details on his injury and recovery were not available Wednesday.

Wilson also faces a civil suit filed by Steube’s family seeking damages for Steube’s injuries.

Ward commented at the plea hearing Wednesday that the damages “are extensive.”

Wilson could be offered probation or sentenced to prison for four months to up to two years. The maximum probation period possible is three years.

If the crime is treated as a misdemeanor, Wilson also would face a maximum fine of $2,500. If the judge decides to sentence Wilson as a felon, he would face $150,000 in fines.

A Pima County grand jury indicted him Dec. 19 on a felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident involving serious physical injury. He faced up to 13 1/2 years in prison had he been convicted of that charge.

Sheriff’s deputies said Wilson turned in front of oncoming riders, causing five of them to collide with his car during the annual bicycle race.

Wilson was required by state law to remain at the scene of the incident until he had given his name, driver’s license number and vehicle registration to a sheriff’s deputy, Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall said in December.

On Wednesday, he told Court Commissioner Deborah Ward that he got out of his vehicle after the collision but then drove away because of “a lot of yelling and confusion.”

He told Ward the incident was “an accident.”

He did not return to the scene of the collision later that day.

Wilson contacted an attorney the next day and the attorney contacted law enforcement.

Wilson remained out of custody on his own recognizance and was not permitted to drive, pending a trial or plea.

He moved to Georgia shortly afterward.

Wilson is a retired engineer who worked on the top-secret Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, N.M., during World War II. He helped to assemble the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, according to a 2007 article in The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Edgar Acuña sentenced Cirilo Pedro Macias Jr., 21, to 14 years in prison Monday for the baseball bat attack on Francisco Jacques on July 19 that left Jacques in a permanent vegetative state, according to court documents.

A photograph of the victim, permanently disabled and in a coma, was shown to the courtroom at Macias’ sentencing. Macias did not look at it.

Acuña, in determining the length of the sentence, cited the jury’s findings of aggravating circumstances that Jacques, then 22, suffered physical, emotional and financial harm from the attack.

The judge also found mitigating circumstances, including Macias’ lack of a prior felony conviction, family support and his potential to be rehabilitated.

Macias was indicted on charges of attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon or instrument and aggravated assault.

Acuña sentenced him to 10 years on the aggravated assault conviction, 10 years on the aggravated assault with a deadly weapon conviction and 14 years in prison on the attempted second-degree murder conviction. The sentences will run concurrently and Macias can apply for parole after serving 85 percent of the 14 years, almost 12 years.

He will get credit for 289 days in jail awaiting trial and sentencing.

Macias worked at a Wal-Mart as an “unloader,” according to court documents.

Jacques managed a restaurant at the time of the incident, according to Pima County prosecutor Jonathan Mosher.

Mosher said Jacques had been dating a co-worker over the July 4 holiday. The prosecutor said Macias was interested in her, too.

On the night of the attack, Jacques and the woman were standing outside her house when Macias and three of his friends approached the couple, according to court documents.

“Without any justification,” the prosecutor said in the documents, Macias “clubbed” Jacques in the head and face with a metal baseball bat “at least four times.”

Macias told Acuña at his sentencing hearing Monday he was simply concerned for the woman’s safety and that’s why he went to her house.

Jacques’ surgeon said his prognosis was “extremely poor for life” if he survived the attack and the risks “extremely high for deficits,” court documents state.

Macias told police he did not remember hitting Jacques with the bat. Several witnesses to the attack testified in Macias’ trial that the attack was unprovoked.

Macias’ mother, Gloria Macias, wept as she implored Acuña to show Macias mercy because he was sorry for the attack and accepted responsibility for it.

“He’s a good kid. He’s never gotten into trouble. He turned out well,” she told the judge.

Jacques’ mother, father and two sisters asked the judge for the maximum sentence of 21 years.

Bookkeeper forged signatures, took cash, attorney general says

A former Tucson Museum of Art employee accused of embezzling nearly $1 million from its payroll account and gift shop receipts over five years was arraigned Monday on seven felony charges in Pima County Superior Court.

Ruth Sons, 65, of Tucson, pleaded not guilty to the charges: three counts of fraud, three counts of theft and one count of illegally conducting an enterprise.

Attorney General Terry Goddard said in a news release Monday that Sons allegedly embezzled $973,010 from the museum, where she worked “as a bookkeeper and accountant.”

He said her alleged crimes include forging the signatures of the museum’s chief financial officer and museum director; stealing cash intended for deposit from sales at the museum shop, and “manipulating the museum’s general accounting ledger to conceal the embezzlement.”

Meredith Hayes, director of public relations and marketing at the museum, said Sons’ employment at the museum ended in December 2008 but she could not say whether Sons quit or was fired, citing privacy of personnel records.

Hays issued a statement Monday describing TMA’s cooperation with the Arizona attorney general’s investigation of the matter.

The Tucson Police Department’s Fraud Unit also is involved in the investigation, she said.

“We believed we were doing everything right with our internal systems, including having full financial audits conducted every year with an independent firm specializing in nonprofits,” Hayes said in the statement.

“The investigation, however, has shown that we allowed ourselves to become overly trusting of this employee,” she said.

Sons worked at the museum for 18 years, Hayes said. Museum administrators believed she “was doing her job well.”

The museum’s statement does not address how Sons allegedly could have taken such a large sum without being detected earlier.

Anne Titus Hilby, spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, said in a news release the “alleged scheme was uncovered during an internal audit conducted by the museum last year.”

Dozens of forged checks were cashed at a check cashing business in Tucson, according to documents in the case.

The penalties Sons faces if convicted range from probation to as much as 80 years in prison.

Dion Bruner was one of four teenagers arrested in September

Dion Bruner, 19, one of four teenagers arrested in September in a string of violent crimes, was sentenced Monday to 18 years in prison by Pima County Superior Court Judge Richard Nichols.

Bruner’s aggravated sentence on 34 charges of armed robbery, kidnapping and rape resulted from his involvement in what Tucson police called a crime spree that included robbing the Cash Box Pawn Shop, 2014 S. Craycroft Road, and stealing guns.

The guns were used in an apartment robbery and in several robberies of convenience markets, police said.

Co-defendant Tyrel Flowers, who was 17 when he was arrested, is a member of the Bloods street gang, police said.