(AP) — A prosecutor is seeking the death penalty against a 28-year-old man accused in the fatal shooting of four people at a rural eastern Kansas farm.

Kyle Flack stood silent during his arraignment Tuesday as District Judge Eric Godderz entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Flack is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 30-year-old Andrew Stout and 31-year-old Steven White at the property in Ottawa. He is charged with capital murder in the deaths of 21-year-old Kaylie Bailey and her 18-month-old daughter, Lana-Leigh Bailey.

Franklin County prosecutor Stephen Hunting filed a motion seeking the death penalty in connection with the deaths of Bailey and her daughter.

All four were fatally shot in late April or early May last year.

(AP) — Three owners of a former exotic dance bar in downtown Omaha have pleaded not guilty to prostitution charges.

Louis Venditte, his wife, Ruby Venditte, and John Wagstaffe made their pleas on Monday in U.S. District Court in Omaha.

The federal indictment says women working the stage at Goodfellas were encouraged by the Vendittes to engage in sex acts for extra cash. The Vendittes are accused of accepting payments from customers seeking sex.

Law enforcement raided the bar in October 2013 while serving a search warrant. It has since closed.

(AP) — A northeast Nebraska man has been given 50 years in prison for trying to kidnap his former wife.

Online court records say 50-year-old Kevin Heldt, of Tilden, was sentenced on Monday. He’d pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping in exchange for prosecutors dropping several other charges. The judge credited Heldt with 337 days already served.

Madison County Attorney Joe Smith says Heldt took his ex-wife from her home in May 2013 and took her to an abandoned farm. Smith says Heldt hit his ex-wife and terrorized her while demanding money. The woman later escaped when Heldt was distracted.

(AP) — A June trial has been set for a 23-year-old man accused of threatening three students at Northeast Community College in Norfolk.

John Ertzner pleaded not guilty on Monday in Madison County District Court.

Officials say an armed man approached three students at the school early last month. A court affidavit says the students reported that the man followed them on a campus road and stopped next to them when they stopped, pointing a gun at two of them.

Ertzner told an investigator he mistook the three for other men who’d chased him earlier in Norfolk. He said he’d put his BB pistol on his car console but didn’t point it at the students.

His trial is scheduled to begin on June 9.

(AP) — A Nebraska inmate has pleaded no contest to manslaughter in the death of a Lincoln woman who was struck and killed by a state prison van he was driving.

36-year-old Jeremy Dobbe entered the plea Monday in the death of 47-year-old Joyce Meeks. She was killed on June 25 in Lincoln. A no-contest plea acknowledges there’s sufficient evidence to convict but is not an admittance of guilt.

Dobbe was seen speeding and swerving before he struck Meeks’ minivan. Dobbe was transporting inmates as part of a state work-release program.

Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Nick Freeman said that in exchange for the plea, the state agreed not to file additional charges.

Dobbe faces up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced in June.

(AP) — A Nebraska man convicted of killing four people shortly after he was released from prison last summer will have lawyers representing him when it’s decided whether he should be executed.

Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon (buh-TAL’-yuhn) decided to reappoint lawyers for 27-year-old Nikko Jenkins after accepting his no contest pleas last Wednesday.

Bataillon wrote in court documents that he decided to reappoint lawyers because of the complexity of the death penalty sentencing process.

Jenkins had been representing himself in court for the past several months.

Jenkins has been convicted of fatally shooting Juan Uribe-Pena, Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz, Curtis Bradford and Andrea Kruger in three separate ambushes over 10 days last summer after his July 30 release from prison without supervision.

 

(AP) — An estimated 1,000 Nebraskans will receive insurance coverage for autism therapies under a new state law.

Gov. Dave Heineman signed the bill into law Monday standing alongside two families with autistic children.

The proposal allows for up to 25 hours per week of covered therapy until the insured person turns 21 years old. Required coverage would include applied behavioral analysis, a treatment method that has been shown to help autistic children learn to function better.

Certain insurance plans will be exempt from the autism requirement, including those that are sold in the individual and small group markets under the new federal health care marketplace.

(AP) — Police are investigating a woman’s death in southeast Lincoln as a homicide, and have taken her husband into custody.

The woman was found dead at a home near 84th Street and Pioneers Boulevard shortly after noon on Monday. Police did not identify the woman or her husband, saying they had not yet notified relatives.

Lincoln Police Capt. David Beggs says officers were called to check on the woman after she failed to show up for work. Beggs says authorities are confident that there’s no immediate threat to the public.

Police have not said how the woman was killed. Beggs says the investigation is still in its early stages.