Guilty

One of the suspects in the slaying of a transgender teenager in southwest Missouri has pleaded guilty.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Congressman Henry "Trey" Radel has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of cocaine possession and was sentenced to a year's probation.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A former Lee's Summit man already behind bars has pleaded guilty to defrauding 39 investors in a $3 million Ponzi scheme.

Walter Jack Staten, 50, of Sedalia, pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree and armed criminal action on Wednesday (Oct. 2) in the Circuit Court of Cooper County, Mo. He entered the pleas as prospective jurors waited in the hallway for a trial scheduled for Wednesday through Friday of this week.

After an eight-week trial that often resembled a story arc on 'The Sopranos,' former mobster Whitey Bulger was found guilty of racketeering, conspiracy and 11 counts of murder by a jury in a US District Court on Monday.

Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man who abducted and imprisoned three women in his home for a decade, agreed to a plea deal on Friday that will ensure that he does not face the death penalty. He will be in jail, without chance for parole, for the rest of his life.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A Cleveland man accused of holding three women captive in his home for about a decade has pleaded guilty in a deal to avoid the death penalty.

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — A man charged in the beating death of a Carthage man accepted a plea deal shortly before jury selection was to begin for his trial.

HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. (AP) — A lawyer for Brooklyn Nets coach Jason Kidd says his client intends to plead guilty to a drunken driving charge.

In Circuit Court this morning (May 15), Ricky R. Baker of Sedalia, age 50, pleaded guilty to statutory sodomy in the second degree, child molestation in the second degree and two counts of child molestation in the first degree.  The offenses spanned several years prior to the defendant’s arrest last August.