WILBER, Neb. (AP) — A state audit has criticized business practices in Saline County Court, where an assistant court clerk has been charged with theft.

The audit released this week cited among other problems the lack of duty segregation, which allowed one person to handle all aspects of transaction processing.

The assistant county court clerk, 42-year-old Jodi Rezabek, is accused of fraudulently writing and depositing in her own account a $15,500 check in May. Rezabek, who lives in Tobias, has pleaded not guilty. A pretrial hearing on her case is scheduled for Dec. 8.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — A man already serving time in Nebraska for child sexual assault faces similar charges in western Iowa.

Rocky Ontiveros is charged with two counts of sexual abuse of a minor in Pottawattamie County. Online court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could be contacted to comment on his behalf.

Iowa court documents say Ontiveros sexually abused two children from Nov. 1, 2013, to Sept. 19, 2014. His preliminary hearing in a Council Bluffs courtroom is scheduled for next week.

In August the 28-year-old Ontiveros was sentenced to 30 to 40 years in a Nebraska prison and must register as a sex offender. He’d pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a minor in Douglas County.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A man who Lincoln authorities say had more than 20 pounds of marijuana in his possession has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison.

59-year-old Gary Tarrence was sentenced Thursday. Tarrence also received two years of supervised released and was ordered to forfeit almost $6,000.

He had pleaded guilty to possession with the intent to distribute.

Prosecutors say the marijuana was found in his Lincoln apartment April 15, 2014, during a drug raid. Tarrence’s brother, David Tarrence, has filed a claim against the city of Lincoln and Lancaster County, saying law enforcement wrongly seized cash and property from his home after his brother was arrested in 2014.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Attorney General’s Office says the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear its appeal on a ruling that would let the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska collect a liquor tax on business owners in the northeast Nebraska city of Pender.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May upheld a federal district judge’s February that said Pender is inside the Omaha Reservation and subject to the tribe’s liquor regulations.

Those regulations require licenses for businesses that sell alcohol and a 10 percent tax on alcohol purchases. A group of Pender retailers sued in federal court in 2007, arguing that they should not be subject to the tribe’s regulations, because the land upon which their businesses sat is not part of the reservation.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 19-year-old man shot by a deputy near the Nebraska Capitol is out of the hospital and in jail.

Police say Tareik Artis was released from the hospital Wednesday and booked into the Lancaster County Jail. He has been charged with three counts of possession with intent to deliver and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Authorities say Lancaster County Deputy Jeffrey Moeller and a deputy U.S. Marshal shot Artis after he pointed a loaded handgun at them. Police say Artis was fleeing from a Lincoln officer after a traffic stop. Officials say the officer saw Artis had a gun and called for more aid.

Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said last month that Moeller had followed department protocol in the shooting.

INGLEWOOD, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 59-year-old Fremont man has died after his car crashed off Nebraska Highway 109 in Saunders County.

The accident occurred a little after noon on Wednesday, about two miles southwest of Inglewood.

The Saunders County Sheriff’s Office says a witness reported that the eastbound car ran off the roadway and traveled several hundred feet on the shoulder before entering a steep ditch and crashing.

The driver was identified as Dennis Shipley. The Sheriff’s Office says he was pronounced dead at the scene.

COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — A $3.4 million cleanup effort has begun at three sites linked to groundwater contamination in Columbus.

As of Wednesday morning, one of three buildings had already been demolished. A Missouri-based company hired as the main contractor will continue working with local contractors to demolish the other buildings over the coming weeks.

The remediation project is the result of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordering the city to control a plume of tainted groundwater that originated more than 30 years ago on the former dry cleaner properties.

The agency identified the properties as the source of two carcinogenic chemicals that leached into the soil and groundwater over three decades ago, creating a contamination plume.

State health officials initially identified the groundwater contamination in 1983.

MCCOOL JUNCTION, Neb. (AP) — The longtime village clerk of McCool Junction in eastern Nebraska has been fired.

The village board of trustees held an emergency meeting Tuesday morning to discuss action by the clerk, Vanee Holtmeier. The board went into executive session, returned and voted to remove her.

Mayor Steve Green says the board terminated Holtmeier because her duties “were not being performed as outlined in the job description in the employee handbook.” He says no other information is being released, because the firing was a personnel matter.

Holtmeier didn’t immediately return a phone call Thursday from The Associated Press.

McCool Junction is a York County village of about 400 residents.