LYNCH — An eastern Kentucky police chief has been arrested and charged with assault, alcohol intoxication and disorderly conduct.

The Harlan Daily Enterprise reports that officers in Cumberland arrested Lynch Police Chief James Miller Monday morning.

Police say they found Miller intoxicated and his wife with bruises on her neck and a cut on her elbow. A police report says Miller would not calm down.

Miller was arrested and taken to the Harlan County Detention Center on a $200 cash bond. He was released the same day.

Miller has served as police chief since August 2008. He was promoted after former chief Taylor Hall was hired by the Cumberland Police Department.

Miller declined to comment to the paper.

Detective Albert Johnson parked his Honda Accord near the fence that separates Hillcrest Memorial Park cemetery from a retail parking lot. He walked past mounds of dirt and gravel to a grassy area shrouded with tree limbs and litter.

Two days earlier, on March 30, a man collecting aluminum cans had found a dead fetus on that patch of grass. It was lying on a fairly clean, dry blanket.

The discovery alone would have warranted furrowed brows. But what really stumped investigators, puzzled medical examiners and ignited speculation in the community was that it was the second fetus found in five days — in nearly the same spot.

On March 26, a woman walking her dog at Hillcrest Memorial Park cemetery found a fetus on a tombstone.

“It’s just strange,” said Mary Owens, who said she was staying with a relative on Daniel Court near the cemetery. “That’s all I can say.”

Betty Wolfenbarger, who lives at Stone Bridge Apartments on Village Drive, said most people she has talked to assume that the fetuses belonged to a scared, young girl.

“I hope they find out,” Wolfenbarger said. “But they may never.”

Johnson, the detective lingered in the area on Wednesday in hopes that someone with answers would come forward.

No one did.

“That’s pretty traumatic for a woman to have to go through,” Johnson said later in the week while working in police headquarters.

With few leads to follow, police are at a loss in piecing together the case.

Sgt. Jesse Harris, an investigator in the Lexington police Crimes Against Children unit, said he could not recall ever working such an odd case.

“I’ve been investigating these types of cases for almost 13 years now and never had anything like it,” Harris said.

An autopsy showed that the fetus found March 26 was female and at about 22 weeks gestation. The coroner’s office said the second fetus also was female and at 20 to 23 weeks gestation.

Neither fetus could have survived outside the womb, according to the coroner’s office.

Because the fetuses were not capable of life, Harris said, the cases are not considered homicides. Harris said the appropriate charge would be concealing the birth of an infant, a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.

The medical examiner has not yet determined whether there’s a relationship between the two fetuses, meaning there might be one or two mothers. That has left investigators and city officials wondering whether it was a mother who miscarried — or something more disturbing.

“The one thing I don’t want it to be is that somebody’s performing illegal abortions over there,” said Urban County council member Peggy Henson, whose district includes the cemetery.

Kathy Satow, founder of Newborn Lifeline, an Indiana-based non-profit that tries to help women who are concealing pregnancies, said she received a news alert about the fetuses that were found in Lexington.

She also was puzzled by the events.

“I’ve been doing this 10 years, and I cannot think of a case more unusual,” she said.

Every situation is different, Satow said. But the women who conceal births are typically in their 20s or late teens and “have never made a mistake in their lives.”

“They’re scared to death that their families will not be able to handle it,” she said.

The chances that a woman will abandon a baby are greatly reduced when at least one person knows the woman is pregnant, Satow said. Still, some people might have suspected, even if they didn’t know for sure.

Satow said those people might be able to help police.

Harris said his primary concern is the safety and condition of the mother or mothers.

There are a number of infections that can occur after childbirth as well as cuts that might or might not be noticeable to the woman, said Dr. James Ferguson, a professor and chairman of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at the University of Kentucky.

Ferguson said women who have recently given birth also are generally counseled about postpartum blues and depression, contraceptives and handling breast milk.

Harris said police have exercised “a lot of discretion” in the handling of this case.

“We certainly wouldn’t want fear of prosecution to cause somebody not to get the medical treatment they need,” he said.

A man used gasoline to rob a Lexington gas station early Monday morning, police said.

According to officers, a man entered the Shell Station at Nicholasville Road and Southland Drive about 2:30 a.m., threw some gasoline at the attendant and demanded money. The robber fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.

Police said the gas station worker got some gasoline on his feet, but was not injured.

FRANKFORT — After deliberating for two days, seven women and five men convicted William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. of conspiracy and eight counts of wire fraud.

Shirley Cunningham Jr. (left), William Gallion (right)

This is the second trial for Gallion and Cunningham on charges that they took millions of dollars from 440 former clients in a 2001 fen-phen settlement. Their first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury deliberated for eight days but could not reach a verdict. Melbourne Mills Jr., who was originally charged with Gallion and Cunningham, was acquitted by the same jury.

Prosecutors say Gallion and Cunningham lied and deliberately told half-truths about what happened to the $200 million settlement so all of the lawyers on the case could keep the bulk of the settlement.

Defense attorneys said that Gallion and Cunningham knew little about class-action law at the time the case was settled. If mistakes were made ,those mistakes were unintentional, they argued.

Stephen Dobson, a lawyer for Cunningham, said there was little evidence or testimony that showed that Cunningham was directly involved in the negotiations of the settlement or how the money was disbursed after the case was settled.

Two teens who pleaded guilty in February to charges related to the murder of a fellow gang member in 2007 are scheduled to be sentenced Thursday morning.

Manny Erevia, 16, pleaded guilty to murder and Jose Cruz, 17, pleaded guilty to facilitation to commit murder. Both are expected to appear in Fayette Circuit Court for sentencing Thursday morning.

Luis Quiroz, 19, was found shot in a car on Trailwood Lane on Dec. 21, 2007.

Erevia admitted that he was the one who shot Quiroz. He said he called the victim, met him and told him they were going to commit a robbery, which was a lie. Instead they went to Trailwood Lane, where Erevia called several other men. Erevia got out of his vehicle, walked to the passenger side where Quiroz was sitting and fired a 9mm handgun at Quiroz’s head.

Erevia left in a vehicle with the other men.

Quiroz was taken to University of Kentucky Hospital where he died.

Erevia said Matthew Robey, 27, told him to kill Quiroz, and he had to comply with orders because Robey was at a higher rank within the Latin Kings. Erevia said Julio Varges-Torres, 18, supplied him with the gun.

Robey pleaded guilty last month to first-degree complicity to manslaughter and second-degree unlawful transaction with a minor. He said he ordered gang members to beat up Quiroz, not to kill him.

Vargas has pleaded guilty to criminal facilitation.

FRANKFORT — Closing arguments are likely to begin Wednesday in the retrial of two disbarred Lexington-area lawyers accused of taking $94 million from their former clients in a diet-drug settlement.

Shirley Cunningham Jr. (left), William Gallion (right)

This is the second trial on wire fraud and other charges for William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr., and it’s just the latest chapter in the legal saga over what happened to a $200 million settlement in Boone Circuit Court.

In July, a federal judge declared a mistrial after a jury in Covington deadlocked on whether Cunningham and Gallion were guilty of wire fraud. Melbourne Mills Jr., a third lawyer who also was part of the $220 million settlement, was acquitted by the same jury.

Prosecutors say Gallion and Cunningham refused to disclose the amount of the total settlement to their clients, paid them less than they were supposed to and falsely told them that they would go to jail if they told anyone how much they received from the settlement. Gallion and Cunningham, under their contracts with their clients, were to receive approximately a third of the settlement, but they took more than half, prosecutors say.

Defense lawyers say Gallion and Cunningham were inexperienced with mass-tort or class-action law and that any mistakes were unintentional. The former lawyers were following the advice of famed Cincinnati trial lawyer Stanley Chesley and the original judge on the case, they have argued.

The retrial, which began Feb. 19 in federal court in Frankfort, nearly ended in a mistrial for Gallion after his lawyer suffered health problems during the trial. But O. Hale Almand, a Georgia attorney who has represented Gallion in both trials, was able to return to court, saving his client from a possible third trial.

A Fayette County judge imposed the maximum sentence Friday on a man who was convicted of fleeing the scene of a crash that killed a University of Kentucky freshman last spring.

Connie Blount

Shannon Houser

Shannon Houser, 37, was sentenced to five years in prison for tampering with evidence and leaving the scene of an accident. A jury had recommended six years by asking for the tampering and fleeing sentences to run concurrently, but by law the toughest sentence that Circuit Judge James Ishmael could impose was five years.

Early on April 13, Houser struck Connie Blount, 18, with his pickup. Blount, who investigators have said crossed Broadway against the light, had knelt down in the street, according to testimony.

Blount’s father, Jack, was disappointed that Houser was not prosecuted for murder. He said he’s angry that Houser will be eligible for parole after serving a year.

“Our legal system is a mess,” Jack Blount said.

Police have said that Houser removed the grill and bumper of his truck. But his attorney argued that Houser was not trying to conceal anything, noting that Houser did not wash the truck or try to hide the bumper.

Houser has said that he did not realize that he had hit Blount, who was studying equestrian science at UK.

But Ishmael told Houser on Friday that his explanation defies common sense.

Jack Blount said he will appear before the parole board when Houser is eligible.

“To me, he appears to have accepted no responsibility for what he did,” Jack Blount said. “He just shows no remorse. It is just shocking.”