STATE NEWS
Sidney Daily News, Saturday,March 10, 2012
Page 6A
Feds: Credit card numbers stolen at McDonald’s men, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Souders said he was not aware anyone had been appointed. The complaint says investigators discovered “approximately 282” card numbers on a laptop found in a suspect’s vehicle. The majority of the cards had been used at a McDonald’s on South Zurich Avenue in Tulsa, according to the Secret Service. Internet searches had been done on the computer for magnetic strip card readers and writers and skimming devices. Ponca City police arrested the men Oct. 16 on suspicion of using counterfeit cards at a Walmart Supercenter. The four had debit and gift cards encoded with stolen numbers, and inside a vehicle, authorities found a laptop, a magnetic card reader and writer, three iPads and Walmart receipts, according to the complaint. The McDonald’s employee told authorities Jefferson would come to his apartment each night after work and download the card numbers from the skimmer. He said he was paid $600 and given two laptops and a Nintendo 3DS.
An unnamed suspect told a Tulsa police detective he met Jefferson at school in Tulsa, and Jefferson told him about a credit card scam. “(The suspect) stated Jefferson eventually told him about a scam that originated in Ghana where a person uses gift cards that have been reencoded with stolen credit card numbers to purchase merchandise,” according to the affidavit. Jefferson, 20, and Tetty-Mensah, 19, are from Columbus, Ohio; Mensah, 21, is from Dayton; and Baah, 20, is from West Columbus. A woman contacted the Bank of Oklahoma about $316.32 in charges on her debit card from a Tulsa Walmart, and surveillance footage shows Tetty-Mensah making the purchases, according to the affidavit. Hector Hernandez, resident agent in charge of the Secret Service office in Tulsa, said he hopes attention to skimming cases will deter others. “Big ones like this, there are several that happen throughout the year,” Hernandez said. Secret Service Special Agent Robert Idoux said there are other suspects in the case.
Local GOP leader says deal offered to quit race COLUMBUS (AP) — A Republican Party chairman in a northeast Ohio county alleges the governor’s allies offered him a say in gubernatorial appointments if he didn’t run for a position on the panel that elects state’s GOP chairman, a newspaper reported Friday. Portage County GOP Chairman Andrew Manning told The Columbus Dispatch (http://bit.ly/ylRWUa ) friends of Republican Gov. John Kasich relentlessly pressured him. He told the newspaper he’s sent a notarized affidavit to the FBI, county prosecutors and the state inspector general asking them to investigate whether laws were broken. “In my opinion, I felt
it was unethical and it crossed the line, but I don’t know about it being against the law,” Manning said. Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said the governor would never permit anyone to do in his name what Manning alleges. “That may be how it used to be done or how other folks do it but it’s not how this governor works,” Nichols said. “No one authorized to represent the governor would do that.” Kasich has made clear he wants the GOP central committee that governs the state party to replace Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine. Manning has been on the 66-member committee since 2008 and ran to
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keep his position during Tuesday’s primary, but said the re-election bid was undetermined and could require a recount. He said he had been asked not to run because it was perceived he supported DeWine. He said he was told that, if he withdrew from the race, he’d be designated “the governor’s guy” in the county and have influence over the selection of state appointees there, such as members of Kent State University boards. “It wasn’t overt,” he said, “but this is pretty much how I understood it: If I was not to be a candidate, then I would get the governor’s support and help.” Messages were left by The Associated Press on Friday at the county GOP office and at Manning’s number at the office.
Early effort fails for gay marriage measure COLUMBUS (AP) — Supporters of a measure that would allow gay marriage in Ohio have failed in their initial efforts toward getting the issue on the ballot. Attorney General Mike DeWine said Friday that Freedom to Marry Ohio had submitted the initial required 1,000 voter signatures but had not supplied an adequate description of the measure. The group seeks to repeal and replace a 2004 state constitutional amendment that says Ohio only recognizes marriages between a man and a woman. DeWine’s initial approval was needed before the group could start an effort to obtain the 385,000 signatures needed to put the measure before Ohio voters.
AP Photo/Al Behrman
CINCINNATI BENGALS defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer (center) helps with post-tornado cleanup Friday in Moscow. About 35 Bengals office personnel and a few players volunteered to help at the town that was heavily damaged last Friday by a tornado.
Delegation asks Obama for storm relief aid COLUMBUS (AP) — U.S. Sens. Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown and other members of the Ohio congressional delegation are urging President Barack Obama to meet the governor’s request for a disaster declaration and federal aid in response to last week’s harsh storms and tornadoes.
Portman, a Republican, and Brown, a Democrat, are supporting Gov. John Kasich’s (KAY’siks) request for the declaration in Clermont County and federal resources for Scioto, Adams and Pike counties. Three people were killed and hundreds of buildings damaged in
southern Ohio in the storm system that killed dozens across five states. In a Friday letter to Obama, the Ohio delegation says federal aid is critically needed to ensure health and safety. It says damage is so severe that state and local governments don’t have the ability to adequately respond.
Wastewater well operator claims quake link premature BY JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS (AP) — The operator of an Ohio gas-drilling wastewater well that was linked to a dozen small earthquakes says the state has based its findings on incomplete science. D&L Energy noted in a statement Friday that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources came to its conclusions without testing the well. It says the well complied with all state regulations at the time it was idled by the company in January. D&L said there is “no
reason to rush and accept bad or incomplete science,” since the well is closed. Similar wells have been known to cause earthquakes elsewhere. The environmental department cites “coincidental circumstances” suggesting the quakes in
the Youngstown area were induced. It says it will require well operators in the future to submit more comprehensive geological data and require electronic monitoring of wastewater shipments entering the state.
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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Federal prosecutors have accused four Ohio men of stealing customers’ credit card numbers from the drivethru at a McDonald’s in Tulsa. A McDonald’s worker told authorities he used a handheld skimming device for three weeks to capture the customers’ card numbers, according to a complaint filed Thursday in federal court. The employee, who was not named in court documents, told authorities he sold the credit card numbers to Daniel Jefferson. Jefferson, Godlive Tetty-Mensah, Stanjulfran Mensah, and Bismark Baah are in jail on charges they re-encoded other cards to buy iPads and laptop computers. The McDonald’s worker wasn’t identified in the court filing. “Nothing is more important to us than the security of our cusMcDonald’s tomers,” franchisee Bob Wagner said in a statement released by McDonald’s. “This is an isolated incident which we take very seriously, and this person is no longer employed by our organization.” Court records did not list attorneys for the
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