Panel rebukes Craig in men's room case

The Senate Ethics Committee said yesterday that Senator Larry Craig of Idaho acted improperly in connection with a men's room sex sting last year. In a letter to the Republican senator, the ethics panel said Craig's attempt to withdraw his guilty plea after his June arrest at a Minneapolis airport was an effort to evade the legal consequences of his own actions. Craig's actions brought discredit on the Senate, the letter said. The six members of the committee - three Democrats and three Republicans - told Craig they believed that he "committed the offense to which you pled guilty" and that "you entered your plea knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently." (AP)

TAMPA - Four sheriff's deputies have been suspended after purposely tipping a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair onto a jailhouse floor, authorities said. Surveillance footage from Jan. 29 shows Hillsborough County deputy Charlette Marshall-Jones, 44, dumping Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair and searching him on the floor after he was brought in on a warrant after a traffic violation. Sterner, 32, said that when he was taken into a booking room and told to stand up, Marshall-Jones grew agitated when he told her he could not. Sterner can drive a car but has no feeling below his sternum. (AP)

HARRISBURG - A plastic surgeon who replaced the fingerprints of a man involved in a drug ring with skin from the bottom of his feet was sentenced yesterday to 18 months in prison. US District Judge Yvette Kane called the crime "horrific" when she imposed the sentence on Dr. Jose Covarrubias. Covarrubias, a US citizen who lived in the border town of Nogales, Ariz., and practiced in Mexico, pleaded guilty Nov. 1 to a federal charge of harboring and concealing a fugitive. (AP)