Home > GJsentinel.com breaking news > Archives > 2007 > September > 12
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Hsu booked into Mesa County Jail
Fugitive Yung Yuen “Norman” Hsu was booked into Mesa County Jail this evening, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department confirmed.
Hsu was booked into the Mesa County Jail at 6:30 p.m. after he was discharged from St. Mary’s Hospital, according to a Sheriff’s Department news release.
A federal warrant against Hsu to prevent him from fleeing is expected to be dropped, leaving him detained on an outstanding San Mateo County, Calif., warrant, according to the statement.
Hsu is scheduled for an advisement hearing by video at 1:30 p.m. Thursday from the Mesa County Jail.
Permalink | |
Hsu will enter Mesa County Jail tonight
Fugitive Yung Yuen “Norman” Hsu will be transferred to the Mesa County Jail sometime tonight, Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger confirmed this afternoon.
Hautzinger said he was told today to be prepared to handle Hsu’s bond-setting hearing Thursday.
Hautzinger said he plans to ask for at least $4 million bond for the wealthy businessman. One day before Hsu was arrested in Grand Junction, he skipped a bond hearing in a San Mateo, Calif., courtroom.
“Given that he failed to appear on a $2 million bond, I have to ask the judge to double that at least,” Hautzinger said.
The FBI arrested Hsu on Sept. 6 after he fell ill on an eastbound train passing through Grand Junction.
Once Hsu returns to California, he will face sentencing for a 16-year-old grand theft charge he pleaded “no contest” to in 1992.
Hsu returned to California Aug. 31 to face the grand theft charge but became a fugitive for the second time when he failed to attend the Sept. 5 bond hearing.
Permalink | |
Officials call off search after report of body in Gunnison River
Deputies with the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department determined a report of a body seen floating in the Gunnison River on Tuesday was unfounded.
Searchers used boats Tuesday night and this morning to scour the river near the roller dam south of the U.S. Department of Energy building in Orchard Mesa, in the area where someone reported seeing an arm and the back of someone’s head floating in the river, said spokeswoman Heather Benjamin of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department.
The search was called off this afternoon.
Benjamin said searchers continued the effort until they felt confident they’d done a thorough job.
She said the Sheriff’s Department investigates all reports of bodies. The Department’s only listed missing person case is 34-year-old Paige Birgfeld, who disappeared in late June.
Benjamin said another report of a body under a blanket was unrelated and also unfounded. In that incident, a person reported seeing a pink blanket off Interstate 70 and thought a body was underneath it. The person then reported it was actually rocks, according to the report.
BREAKING NEWS DELIVERED TO YOUR E-MAIL: CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP.
Permalink | |
West Nile death confirmed
West Nile has been determined to have caused the death of a 75-year-old woman in Mesa County.
“It was caused by West Nile,” said Kristy Westerman, spokeswoman for the Mesa County Health Department.
The death is the first due to the West Nile virus this year in Mesa County and bumps the state’s total of fatalities caused by the West Nile virus up to five.
Permalink | |
GJ pump prices inch higher
The average price for regular unleaded gas rose 1 cent this week to $2.945 per gallon in Grand Junction, according to an industry survey released today.
Last week, the average price stood at $2.937 per gallon, AAA Colorado reported.
At this time last year, the average price was $2.724 per gallon in Grand Junction.
Statewide, the average price climbed to $2.924 per gallon from $2.909 this week.
One year ago, the average price in the Centennial State was $2.859 per gallon.
Permalink | |
DeGette proposes making Roan, Vermillion wilderness areas
Democratic Denver Congresswoman Diana DeGette announced today she plans to introduce a bill to set aside areas on the Roan Plateau and in the Vermillion Basin for wilderness protection and stave off future energy development.
DeGette said her bill would set aside 40,494 acres on the Roan Plateau and 86,569 acres in the Vermillion Basin as wilderness areas.
“The drive to grant oil and gas leases without respect to any other values like wilderness values has been tremendous,” DeGette said.
She said her bill, which would set aside more than 1.6 million acres of Colorado’s federal lands, is an attempt to preserve some of the state’s “defining characteristics.”
DeGette said she was confident her bill, first introduced in 1999, will pass muster this year due to Congress’s new Democratic leadership.
Both the Roan Plateau and the Vermillion Basin have been the object of intense political debate this year.
Congressmen John Salazar, D-Colo., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., have proposed halting leasing atop the Roan. Their measure was amended into the House version of a 2007 energy omnibus bill. Its survival hinges on a conference committee slated to meet later this year.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and Gov. Bill Ritter lobbied for and obtained a 120-day moratorium on leasing activities so the state could review and comment on the BLM’s Roan leasing plan.
Ritter has also announced he wants to see the Vermillion Basin closed to oil and gas development in an effort to preserve one of Colorado’s “special places” for future generations.
Local officials, including the Moffat County commissions, have lambasted Ritter’s disregard for how the county could benefit from energy development.
Outgoing-Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., has also attacked Colorado’s Democratic congressmen for disregarding the “bottom-up” process the BLM used to develop its Roan and Vermillion leasing plans.
DeGette defender her bill’s Vermillion Basin provision saying those more than 86,000 acres belong to no one.
“My belief about all of these lands is these are lands that don’t belong to any one person,” DeGette said. “They don’t belong to Moffat County commissioners or me or anyone else. They belong to our children’s children.”
Permalink | |
Colorado River State Park in line for federal money
U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D- Colo., said today $300,000 for a new Colorado River state park in Grand Junction is included in the 2008 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies appropriations bill
President Bush has threatened to veto the measure, but Salazar in a news release urged him not to. The bill provides about $150 million in new federal funding for Colorado transportation projects.
The funding in the bill signals that Congress is committed to providing the investment necessary to adequately operate and maintain America’s highways, roads, bridges and urban recreation areas, Salazar said.
“I urge President Bush to reconsider his threat to veto this bill, which addresses the growing need to improve these crucial public assets,” Salazar said.
Permalink | |
Anonymous tip led FBI to Hsu
Court documents the Federal Bureau of Investigation filed to obtain a warrant last week for the arrest of Yung Yuen “Norman” Hsu show an anonymous tip led to Hsu’s apprehension at St. Mary’s Hospital.
According to the recently unsealed documents, filed Sept. 6 at the federal courthouse in San Francisco, “an individual called San Francisco FBI and said that a Yueng Yuen Hsu was in the emergency room at St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado.”
The affidavit does not identify the tipster.
Following the tip, the affidavit shows FBI Special Agent Jane Quimby “reported to the hospital” and confirmed Hsu’s identity as the same man who ducked a bond hearing in a San Mateo, Calif., courtroom the day before.
Hsu was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital after he fell ill on an eastbound train passing through Grand Junction.
Dan Prinster, vice president for business development for St. Mary’s Hospital, said last week no one at the hospital contacted the FBI.
He said the FBI called the hospital hours after Hsu was admitted and said: “You have a fugitive in your hospital, and we are coming to arrest him.”
When he was arrested at St. Mary’s Hospital, Hsu was on the run from California authorities for the second time in two decades.
Hsu had returned to California on Aug. 31 to turn himself in on a 1992 warrant, issued after he failed to show up at a sentencing hearing for a grand theft charge he pleaded “no contest” to that year.
That day he posted $2 million bond.
Less than a week later, he failed to appear for a bond hearing and had a California warrant issued for his arrest.
As of this morning, Hsu remained in good condition at St. Mary’s Hospital. Upon his release, he will be booked into the Mesa County Jail and face state extradition proceedings.
Permalink | |
