COLUMBUS, Neb. (AP) — A 31-year-old Texas man accused of raping a teenage girl in a Nebraska motel has pleaded no contest to a count of sex trafficking of a minor in a deal with prosecutors.

Erick Mills faces up to 50 years in prison when he’s sentenced on Aug. 4.

Court documents say Mills was working in Columbus when he met a 16-year-old Omaha girl and later agreed to pick her up in the city on Jan. 23.

Prosecutors say Mills and the teen ended up at a Columbus hotel with two other men, where Mills forced the girl to sniff cocaine. Authorities say he later raped her multiple times over several hours after the other men refused to pay him to have sex with the girl.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln man accused of hitting his mother and stealing guns from her home has been sentenced to six to nine years in prison.

37-year-old Jacob F. Brehm was sentenced Wednesday. He had pleaded guilty to attempted possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

Prosecutors say Brehm’s mother told police she tried to keep her son away from the guns when he came to get them because she knew he wasn’t allowed to have them due to a prior conviction. According to police, Brehm said he wanted to sell one of the guns.

Brehm was arrested after a standoff with a SWAT team trying to serve a search warrant. Police say they recovered an AK-47 and a Glock 26 handgun from his home.

PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say two people have died in a rollover accident near Beaver Lake in Cass County.

According to authorities, 22-year-old Jeremiah Ferguson of Omaha and 21-year-old Kelsey Leclaire of Council Bluffs, Iowa, died Tuesday.

Authorities say a 2006 Volkswagen GTI Hatchback went through a stop sign at a Highway 75 intersection and struck an embankment. According to the Cass County Sheriff’s Department, the vehicle went over a fence before it landed upside down in a bean field.

Cass County Sheriff William Brueggemann said a local lawn care service noticed tracks and debris and found the vehicle, which was not visible from the highway.

Brueggemann said speed was likely a factor in the crash.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A two-block tract in north downtown Omaha is to be transformed into a $50 million campus featuring a hotel, apartments, shops and a Kiewit international training facility.

What is now a surface parking lot known as “The Yard” near TD Ameritrade Park will be redeveloped by NewStreet Properties and Noddle Cos.

Anchoring the redevelopment site is Kiewit Corp.’s education, innovation and leadership facility, a two-story building that will span nearly 63,000 square feet and train more than 3,000 salaried employees a year from the U.S., Canada and Australia.

The development will also include a five-story apartment building, a five-story national brand hotel and about 6,000 square feet retail shops and services.

Construction is set to begin this fall.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has suspended its Alpha Tau Omega fraternity chapter, citing a culture within the fraternity of alcohol use.

The fraternity has been affiliated with UNL since 1897. Following Wednesday’s announcement, it will no longer be affiliated with the university and its chapter house will not be recognized as a university-approved housing unit. Freshmen will not be allowed to live in the chapter house.

The suspension is in effect until May 2017. That can be shortened by up to one year if the organization takes action to address the university’s concerns.

The Alpha Tau Omega national office, based in Indianapolis, said in a statement Wednesday that the Gamma Theta chapter agreed to the sanctions and that it is expelling fraternity members whose actions led to the suspension.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Mars Inc. announced plans Wednesday to build a new, $100 million candy-making facility in Kansas near where its first new plant in 35 years began churning out sweets last year.

The deal, which the company disclosed in advance of a Topeka economic development meeting, comes a little more than a year after the New Jersey-based company opened a $270 million plant south of the city.

Work on the new 90,000-square-foot facility will start next week, Mars said in a news release. After constructions wraps up in late 2016, the company will add 70 full-time employees to the 200 already working in the Topeka area.

The company has not determined exactly which candies it will make at the new plant. The facility is receiving state and local economic incentives, although Mars didn’t immediately disclose the amount of the incentives. The existing plant makes Snickers and M&M’s. Mars also makes Milky Way, Twix and 3 Musketeers candy bars.

A 2014 report by a marketing research firm called Packaged Facts found that chocolate has experienced “solid market growth,” with Hershey’s and Mars controlling a large chunk of the market share.

Tracey Massey, president of Mars Chocolate North America, said the company, which has no plans to close other facilities, was working to introduce more single-serve products with limited calories.

“By further growing our footprint in the U.S.,” she said in a news release, “we will better be able to introduce new treats to satisfy the most diverse consumer appetites.”

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Officials expect as many as 1,500 people to visit the newly remodeled Nebraska museum on Sunday, when the building’s rededication will be held.

The Leo B. Stuhr building’s renovation took 18 months and cost more than $7 million.

A wooden wagon is the only artifact on the building’s top floor that visitors will find familiar when the remodeled building reopens. New exhibits on the second floor are a wooden windmill and a gun collection.

Museum Executive Director Joe Black says staff decided to focus on different stories and artifacts because it would have been a disservice for the museum “to tell the same stories over and over.”

 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Douglas County officials say the FBI and IRS have taken over an investigation into an event-planning business and its owner, who’s accused of selling thousands of worthless travel vouchers.

The Douglas County Attorney’s Office still will continue its prosecution efforts against Patricia Urbanovsky, who’s charged with three felony counts of theft.

She’s the owner of the business, Creative Creations, in Omaha.

A pretrial hearing is set for Sept. 17 in Douglas County District Court.

The FBI served a search warrant last week on an Omaha residence that Urbanovsky stayed in. An IRS spokesman declined to comment Tuesday, citing an ongoing investigation.