An Omaha man devoted to the TV mobster series “The Sopranos” who used a hammer to attack a former roommate after he declined to join his “family” in challenging his conviction under a relatively new Nebraska anti-gang law.

Steven Scott was convicted last summer of second-degree assault and use of a deadly weapon. He also became the first person in the state convicted of unlawful membership recruitment into an organization or association that engages in criminal acts, a law passed in 2009 as part of a package targeting gang violence.

Scott’s attorney, Steve Lefler, says the law is unconstitutional because it infringes on a person’s rights to free speech and assembly.

The Nebraska Attorney General’s office says there is no constitutionally protected conduct prohibited by the law.

A University of Nebraska-Lincoln sorority has been suspended after a member complained of hazing.

The UNL’s Sigma Lambda Gamma chapter was ordered by its national organization to suspend activities. It can resume activities in June if it complies with its national office.

The sorority was accused of forcing pledges to wear all black, do calisthenics and carry an egg at all times, as well as depriving them of sleep by requiring them to attend late night meetings, among other things.

The local chapter doesn’t have a house, like many UNL fraternities and sororities. The suspension will prevent it from participating in Multicultural Greek Council events.

The university also is investigating.

Bail has been set at $100,000 for a 31-year-old Beatrice man suspected of sexually abusing a 6-year-old boy.

John Richard Meyer was arrested Aug. 20 on suspicion of first-degree sexual assault for abusing the boy in a Beatrice home. Police say the boy told workers at his day care center, who reported it to child welfare officials.

Meyer remained jailed Saturday and could not be reached for comment, but the newspaper reports that he denied the allegations to police.

Meyer is set to appear in Gage County Court to face the charge on Sept. 11.

A 30-year-old Schuyler man arrested in connection with the death of a 14-month-old boy has been charged in Colfax District Court with felony child abuse.

Ricardo Rocha-Luna is set to be arraigned in Colfax County District Court on Sept. 5.

Police say officers were called to the house of Rocha-Luna and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Najar, on July 29 and found 14-month-old Angel Giron unresponsive. The toddler was taken to a local hospital, then flown to Omaha Children’s Hospital, where he died Aug. 1.

Doctors said the boy had suffered severe brain hemorrhaging and a skull fracture that could only have come from a car crash or violent shaking.

Police say Rocha-Luna was alone with the boy when his injuries occurred.

Activists who oppose beer sales in Whiteclay have taken their effort to Lincoln to draw attention to the tiny town that borders the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota where alcohol is banned but chronic alcohol abuse is rampant.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe has sued the town’s four beer stores and several distributors, saying they are knowingly contributing to alcoholism on the reservation.

Activists have tried to shutter Whiteclay for decades. They rallied at the Nebraska Capitol on Thursday.

Activist Charlotte Knoflicek told reporters that people continue to die and suffer.”

Whiteclay sold the equivalent of 4.3 million, 12-ounce cans of beer last year.

Tribal members plan a “Women’s March for Peace” on Sunday, which will begin on the Pine Ridge Reservation and end in Whiteclay.

The former head of the Omaha Chiefs youth football organization has been sentenced to 30 to 80 years in prison for sexually abusing a girl for five years.

Sixty-four-year-old Darrel Meyer was sentenced Wednesday in Douglas County District Court. He pleaded guilty in May to two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child. Under state law, he must serve the full 30 years before he would be eligible for parole.

Prosecutors say Meyer assaulted the girl, now 12, between 2006 and 2011 and threatened to kill himself if she told anyone. He also showered her with gifts.

Meyer blamed his repeated assaults on a sex addiction, which his attorney said started while Meyer served in Vietnam.

Big cracks caused by drought have forced officials to bar bicycles from three recreational trails in southeast Nebraska.

the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District on Wednesday closed stretches of the MoPac East Trail, the Oak Creek Trail and the Homestead Trail.

The closures amount to about 50 miles of trails. Notices have been posted in kiosks and signs will be posted soon.

The district’s Dan Schulz says the cracks are worse than those that occur in the limestone-surfaced trails every summer. Some are a couple of inches wide and more than 3 feet deep.

He says the drought caused the cracks, which pose a hazard to bicyclists. The trails remain open to walkers.

 

Former state Sen. Ernie Chambers has filed a grievance with the Nebraska Supreme Court that says the Omaha school board’s lawyer committed “gross negligence” while handling the Nancy Sebring case.

The district hired Sebring, who was superintendent in Des Moines, Iowa, in April. Sebring abruptly left her Iowa job in May. She lost the Omaha job after emails sent on a Des Moines district computer to her lover became public.

Chambers says attorney Elizabeth Eynon-Kokrda should have informed the entire board about the emails rather than conferring only with board President Freddie Gray.

Gray has been criticized for her handling of the Sebring matter, but the board voted on Aug. 6 to retain Gray as its leader.

Eynon-Kokrda didn’t immediately return an Associated Press call on Thursday.

A former state trooper imprisoned for sexually assaulting a girl is still fighting to protect his pension.

Former Maj. Billy Hobbs is challenging a new state law that would allow his pension to be tapped to pay a $325,000 lawsuit judgment won by the girl’s father.

The new law was passed in April after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled last year that state law protected state benefits from collection actions.

Hobbs’ lawyer has filed a motion to have the law declared unconstitutional, saying it amounts to an ex post facto taking of benefits that Hobbs earned.

The 57-year-old Hobbs gets a monthly pension of more than $3,700, minus more than $1,850 that goes to his ex-wife.