State briefs 1/14/05

Sex offender convicted in escape from Farmington

FARMINGTON, Mo. -- A convicted serial rapist who escaped from a Missouri mental health site's sexual predator unit and spent two years living in Florida under an assumed name has been convicted. Jurors needed just 17 minutes Wednesday to find Thomas Ingrassia, 48, guilty of property damage in the 2001 escape from the mental health facility in Farmington. He was not charged with escape because of a loophole in state law that since has been corrected.

Bid for casino at Laclede's Landing gets go-ahead

ST. LOUIS -- Missouri gaming regulators have signed off on the proposed location of a new downtown St. Louis casino, ruling that the site also expected to feature a hotel is close enough to the Mississippi River to pass constitutional muster. The Missouri Gaming Commission on Wednesday unanimously backed the site plan for Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.'s casino on Laclede's Landing. Missouri's constitution allows riverboat casinos to float in manmade moats as long as the gaming site is no farther than 1,000 feet from the nearest edge of the main channel. The project meets the requirement when "channel" includes the typically dry land covered by water when the river is at flood stage, commission spokesman Harold Bailey said Thursday.

Skidmore murder suspect to be arraigned Jan. 20

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Kansas woman charged with strangling a northwest Missouri woman and cutting the unborn baby from her womb will be arraigned Jan. 20. Lisa Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kan., faces a federal charge of kidnapping resulting in death for the December slaying of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a 23-year-old who was eight-months-pregnant with her first child. The arraignment will be Montgomery's first chance to enter a plea.