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Groton Daily Independent
Friday, Aug. 25, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 056 ~ 23 of 65
Mitchell man sentenced for embezzling from restaurant
MITCHELL, S.D. (AP) — A Mitchell man has been ordered to pay nearly $10,000 in restitution, nes and fees for stealing money from Whiskey Creek while he was an employee of the restaurant.
The Daily Republic reports that 25-year-old Eric Anderson Jr. was accused of embezzling between No- vember 2015 and January 2016.
He pleaded guilty Tuesday to felony grand theft. He was given a suspended ve-year prison sentence, and ordered to pay $8,600 in restitution and $1,100 in nes and court fees. He’ll be on probation for four years.
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Information from: The Daily Republic, http://www.mitchellrepublic.com
Thai military ruler says authorities searching for ex-PM By KAWEEWIT KAEWJINDA and TODD PITMAN, Associated Press
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s military ruler said authorities are searching for Yingluck Shinawatra, the prime minister whose government he ousted in a coup three years ago, after she failed to appear for a verdict Friday in a criminal case that could send her to prison for 10 years.
Yingluck’s whereabouts were not immediately known, and her absence fueled speculation that she had left the country.
An of cial of Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party who is close to the Shinawatra family told The Associated Press she was no longer in Thailand. The of cial gave no other details, and declined to be identi ed because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Yingluck, who became Thailand’s rst female prime minister when her party swept elections in 2011, is accused of negligence in overseeing a money-losing rice subsidy program. She pleaded innocent and decried the charges as politically motivated.
A verdict had been expected Friday, as thousands of Yingluck supporters gathered outside the court and thousands of police stood guard. But Yingluck never appeared, and a judge read out a statement saying her lawyers had informed the court she could not attend because of an earache.
The judge said the court did not believe the excuse, however, because no of cial medical veri cation was provided. He said a warrant would be issued for her arrest, and announced the trial would be postponed until Sept. 27.
Norrawit Larlaeng, Yingluck’s lawyer, con rmed a warrant had been issued, but said he had no details on her whereabouts. “I was told this morning that she was ill, that she had vertigo, that she felt dizzy, so I requested the postponement ... that’s all I have to say.”
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the military chief who engineered the 2014 overthrow of Yingluck’s government, also said he did not know where she was, and the government was “looking for her.”
“If she’s not guilty she should stay and ght the case,” Prayuth said. “If she’s not here, what does that tell you? Will she still say that she didn’t get justice?”
Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said security forces had not allowed Yingluck to leave and are checking possible routes she may have used if she did. He said security of cials monitoring Yingluck had not seen her leave her Bangkok home in the last two days.
The trial is the latest chapter in a decadelong struggle by the nation’s elite minority to crush the power- ful political machine founded by Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 coup. Thaksin, who has lived in Dubai since eeing a corruption conviction he says was politically motivated, has studiously avoided commenting on his sister’s case, apparently to avoid imperiling it.
Thaksin is a highly polarizing gure, and his overthrow triggered years of upheaval and division that has pitted a poor, rural majority in the north that supports the Shinawatras against royalists, the military and their urban backers.
When Yingluck’s government proposed an amnesty in 2013 that could have absolved her brother and allowed him to return without being arrested, street protests erupted that eventually led to her govern-