Branded for life; degree in brewing; boxing beats back Parkinson's
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Odd and interesting news from the Midwest.
- By SHARON ROZNIK USA Today Network-Wisconsin
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FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — Sean Erickson is a convicted sex offender who cannot escape his past.
The 44-year-old Fond du Lac man served five years in prison for sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in 1991. He was 19 years old when he forced her to have sex with him, court records indicate.
Erickson said the incident started as an argument, then took a terrible turn.
"At that age, and the way I was thinking at the time, I only knew one way of trying to gain control," Erickson said. "I wanted to see my daughter and basically gave (the woman) an ultimatum."
Twenty-five years later, the shadow of the incident still darkens his life, USA Today Network-Wisconsin (http://fondul.ac/1MA2WPB ) reported. Being labeled a sex offender has hurt his relationships, employment opportunities and caused him deep despair.
Erickson is now married but does not live with his wife, even though the Department of Corrections has placed no restrictions on where he resides other than reporting his address. The mobile home his wife owns is located on rental property, and the landlord allows Erickson only to visit, not reside there, because of his criminal past.
"People don't see me," Erickson said. "All they see are the words 'sex offender' and they judge me. Employers hold it against me. How can I get a chance to show people I have changed? I am a different person now."
Equally aggravating for Erickson and others on the sex offender registries is that, besides being stigmatized for a lifetime, the chance that a convicted sex offender will re-offend after prison is less than 5 percent, a rate lower than any other type of criminal offender, according to a recent study.
"We let our emotions take over and people have gone overboard thinking that every sex offender is a boogeyman," said Joe Harber, a state-licensed independent counselor who has worked with some 9,000 sex offenders over the past 25 years.
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The crimes of people on the sex offender registries vary extensively. On the list in which Erickson's name appears are teenagers convicted of consensual sex with an underage partner (known among caseworkers as "Romeo and Juliet" cases), perpetrators of violent sexual crimes in which a person tried to kill his or her victim, serial pedophiles and people convicted of date rape after a he-said-she-said jury trial.
Once on the list, offenders can expect police in many communities to send out a media release stating where the offender lives if he or she is new to a community — information that is often reported by local media. Citizens and employers also can view the registries online.
Most of these people remain under scrutiny the rest of their lives, and lately in Wisconsin, state services have struggled to find areas to place them after they have served their time. Many state officials have passed ordinances restricting sex offenders from living in cities and counties.
In 2014, Milwaukee passed an ordinance that limited where they could be placed to a handful of pockets in the city. With few areas in Milwaukee open to offenders, officials started looking to other Wisconsin counties for placement.
Over the past two years, the state has initiated 11 statewide searches to place the offenders, nine of whom lived in Milwaukee County before serving time, according to the Department of Health Services. Nearing the end of their sentences, the offenders are legally designated as violent and must live in a supervised setting.
Placing Milwaukee County offenders in other Wisconsin counties is a new phenomenon. In the four years preceding 2014, no statewide searches were conducted, according to the DHS.
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Last November, placement of two high-risk sex offenders in Brownsville near a home where two young children live caused an uproar and packed a town hall meeting. Residents in Brownsville, backed by Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt, were so up in arms a judge reversed the decision and removed the sex offenders from the home.
Four months later, no viable options have been found in Dodge County for housing the two men.
In December 2015, Manitowoc and Two Rivers approved ordinances that ban the placement of sex offenders who lived outside the cities before they were sentenced. The move came after Mark R. Rickert, a Milwaukee-area offender, was placed in Manitowoc the month prior.
Also that month, Fond du Lac County Sheriff Mick Fink fought against the placement in the Town of Eldorado of Clint Rhymes of Milwaukee. He is 51 and was convicted in 1988 of raping a woman, beating her with a tire iron and leaving her for dead.
About 200 citizens packed into the town's community center to voice disapproval of his living in the area.
"I can't guarantee your safety," Fink told an agitated crowd. "On a good night we have six deputies on patrol. I can't promise you anything."
The sheriff was so incensed, he was ready to take a busload of residents to a Milwaukee courthouse to fight the decision. Around the same time, the Town of Eldorado board quickly passed an ordinance prohibiting placement of sex offenders who weren't residents of Fond du Lac County.
Once again, a judge reversed the order. Rhymes is still awaiting placement.
Fink has no problem having sex offenders from Fond du Lac County placed back in the county after prison. Also, he said, it wasn't sex offender hysteria or fear that drove his reaction to the potential Eldorado placement of Rhymes.
"Of course we will take our own because they have done their time," Fink said. "I have always said that and sometimes it did not make me popular. But we don't want somebody else's. That's what caused the dust-up."
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Sex offenders are generally placed on extended supervision, parole or probation after release. Services available may include offense-related counseling, employment services and other programs that have the overall goal of reintegrating them into society and minimizing recidivism, said Jeff Grothman, director of legislative affairs for the DOC.
A September 2015 DOC report of sex offender recidivism rates indicates a 40 percent decline between 1992 and 2010, which might be due to better rehabilitation programs. Moreover, their recidivism rates are lower than the overall offender population, such as people who committed robbery or assault. The report looked at 12,849 sex offenders during that time period and found that 4.9 percent ended up re-offending sexually.
Harber, the state-licensed counselor, believes that when communities tell an offender he can't live there, it adds gasoline to the fire. Currently, there are 3,000 homeless sex offenders in the state because of prohibitive ordinances.
"How safe is that? I would rather have a sex offender living in a supervised location, getting the support they need, than living out on the street angry, with no hope," Harbor said. "Lifting restrictions can help them be empowered to change their life."
After conducting a study of his own Milwaukee program over 10 years, Harber found a 2.6 percent recidivism rate. Most sex offenders knew their victims, he said, don't have significant criminal histories and are not pedophiles.
"Some I know have committed crimes when they were 14 years old, and that is ridiculous to label them for life," Harbor said.
Under Wisconsin's Chapter 980, people like Rhymes, convicted of a sexually violent crime, are committed to DHS supervised care at Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center in Mauston. Those who complete treatment and are deemed safe for release are placed in supervised-housing communities, which include GPS monitoring and constant supervision, even when offenders leave the house.
Between 2009 and 2013, a total of 114 offenders were released from involuntary commitment at Sand Ridge, according to a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism analysis. The increasing number of individuals on supervised release is explained in part by recent research that has determined that certain types of offenders are less likely to commit additional sexual crimes.
From 1994 through March 2010, the state discharged 67 sex offenders from Sand Ridge. Of these, 49 did not commit new crimes within three years, the standard time used to track recidivism, a state audit found. Of the 18 people who did re-commit crimes, five were sexual in nature.
Regarding the Rhymes case, Fink said, "A lot of experts have different opinions on whether or not you can cure a sex offender. I wasn't given enough information about whether or not I thought (Rhymes) would re-offend, and it wasn't about him personally. It was on principle."
Eugene Nell, 85, lives on a mile-long rural road in Eldorado, a few houses down from a mobile home shrouded by tall evergreens. Rhymes was going to be placed there with other offenders in a supervised-housing setting.
Men have been living there for several years, Nell said, but he hasn't seen or heard any trouble. Sometimes people in state-owned cars park in front of his house and appear to watch the residence, he said.
"It really doesn't bother me," he said, before adding that sometimes he's concerned for the children living in the house next door.
Another neighbor, Nancy Carroll, said that, though she never sees the mobile home residents or has been given any reason to fear them, she still wrote a letter last year to the Milwaukee judge deciding on Rhymes' placement.
Carroll took action because there are many senior citizens in the area with visiting grandchildren, she said.
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Sean Erickson of Fond du Lac checks in with his probation officer on a regular basis and has found a part-time job to help support his family. He wants a normal life without being held back by something terrible he did a quarter of a century ago, he said.
Currently, he's speaking with lawyers about the property manager refusing to allow him to live with his wife in her home. But so far nothing has changed, he said.
"By the time I had notified the state of my plans to move in with my wife, and was ready to fill out an application with the landlord, she had already received a notice in the mail saying she was going to be evicted for having a sex offender living with her. She has so far gotten three letters in the mail," he said.
According to Louise Gudex, executive director of the Fond du Lac County Housing Authority, landlords can refuse to rent to registered sex offenders. In fact, the U.S. Department of Urban Housing and Development prohibits sex-offenders from living in HUD-owned properties. When contacted, the property owners for the land where Erickson's wife's home is said there are strict policies in place for applicants, including criminal background checks.
In a recent email to the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, the property owner said Erickson didn't go through the application process to live on the premises.
The owner also said that while a felony conviction does not automatically disqualify someone from living on the property, convicted felons are a legitimate safety concern.
"The distortion out there is that there is no hope for these men, that they are social outcasts," Harber said. "Our goal in treatment is to give them hope. A more common-sense approach on where they can live is needed."
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by USA Today Network-Wisconsin
- By KIM FUNDINGSLAND Minot Daily News
- Updated
By KIM FUNDINGSLAND
Minot Daily News
MINOT, N.D. (AP) — Recent appearances in Minot Municipal Court by two defendants charged with violating the city's pit bull ordinance may be an indicator of either a lack of public knowledge about the ordinance or an increased number of pit bulls within the city. Perhaps both.
Minot's pit bull ordinance is clearly written, the Minot Daily News (http://bit.ly/26fwVmb ) reported. It states, in part, "It shall be unlawful, and punishable under section 1-8 of the Minot Code of Ordinances, to harbor, own or in any way keep or possess within the corporate city limits of Minot, North Dakota, any pit bull dogs as described in this section."
Minot's Code of Ordinances can be found on the city's website at minotnd.org. The code defines a pit bull dog as a bull terrier, Staffordshire bull terrier, American pit bull, American Staffordshire terrier, a mixed breed or of other breeds commonly known as pit bulls or any dog which has the appearance and characteristics of being predominantly of the breed of defined pit bulls.
How many pit bulls are in the city is unknown, but the amount of calls regarding pit bulls received by Minot Police indicates that, despite an ordinance to the contrary, a surprising number of pit bulls reside within city limits. Some of Minot's pit bulls are owned by new residents who may be unaware of Minot's pit bull ordinance and didn't bother to check city code. Others knowingly harbor pit bulls despite knowledge of breed restrictions within the city.
During the session of Municipal Court, two pit bull owners pleaded guilty to having pits bulls in the city, a B misdemeanor. Both owners were assessed $175 in fines and received a deferred imposition of sentence for six months in addition to having to remove their pit bulls from the city limits. The maximum penalty for a B misdemeanor is 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine.
Minot Police Animal Control confirmed that the pit bull belonging to Aaron Staniger, 39, Minot, had been removed from city limits. Staniger was cited April 7. Robert Schnabel, 54, Minot, was scheduled for a court trial on violation of the city's pit bull ordinance but reached a plea agreement just prior to the start of court Tuesday.
Schnabel entered a guilty plea. He was originally charged Dec. 31, 2015 when his two dogs were running loose until they were impounded inside a fenced yard in the 600 block of 12th Street Northeast and identified by Schnabel. According to the court Tuesday, Schnabel had removed his two pit bulls from the city and is required to notify Minot Police Animal Control if the pit bulls are returned to the city as service animals.
The court has the authority to order a pit bull to be destroyed if an owner refuses or fails to remove a pit bull from the city. If a pit bull is order to be impounded while a possible violation of city ordinance is being considered by the court, the owner must pay the cost of impoundment.
A pit bull mandated by the American Disabilities Act, Fair Housing Act or other federal or state law as a "service dog" is allowed in the city under certain restrictions. Those restrictions include keeping the pit bull confined at the owner's property indoors or, if outdoors, confined within a secure locked fence at least six feet high. If outside of the owner's property pit bulls must be muzzled and on a leash no longer than four feet and held at all times by the owner or other adult.
On some occasions, DNA testing is necessary to determine pit bull blood. Most often though, visual identification and owner admittance is sufficient to classify a dog as a pit bull or pit bull-mix. In the Schnabel case, Animal Control determined that both of his dogs had the appearance of pit bull breeding. According to an arrest narrative, Schnabel initially told Animal Control that his dogs were Labrador-mixes but later conceded that they had pit bull in them and DNA testing was not necessary.
City ordinance states that any "owner or keeper shall remove the pit bull from the city within twenty-four hours of the service of the citation and shall not cause the dog to be returned to the city unless there is a final court decision in his or her favor."
The Souris Valley Animal Shelter receives a dozen or more pit bulls a year, primarily dogs that are surrendered by new residents of the city so they will be in compliance with city ordinance. Shelter Director Randy McDonald says pit bulls are treated as every other dog in the shelter with one exception. Anyone wishing to adopt a pit bull from the Souris Valley Animal Shelter must reside in an area or community that allows pit bulls.
"We can't adopt within the city limits," said McDonald.
One of the most severe incidents involving pit bulls in the Minot area occurred in the nearby community of Des Lacs in late November 2010 when 46-year-old Lori Amsden, a mother of four, was attacked and nearly killed by two pit bulls while babysitting for a Des Lacs resident.
The dogs' owner, the late Anna Heppler, said she had warned Amsden not to go into the children's room where the dogs were located. A member of the household arrived home to find Amsden on the floor in a semi-conscious state with the dogs still attacking her. Both of Amsden's ears were torn from her head and she received numerous bite wounds. She survived but endured a lengthy recovery.
At the time of the attack, Des Lacs had an ordinance in place prohibiting pit bull breeds. Both dogs were euthanized following the incident.
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Information from: Minot Daily News, http://www.minotdailynews.com
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Minot Daily News
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MAQUOKETA, Iowa (AP) — A program that offers assistance in paying off student loans is helping draw dentists to small towns in Iowa.
Since the grant program started in 2002, 28 of the 31 dentists who received the financial aid have remained in Iowa, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald reported (http://bit.ly/1MR2i0l ) Sunday. Sixty-five of Iowa's 99 counties are short on dentists.
Adrienne D'Agostino Kane is receiving $80,000 in tuition reimbursement that helped make it possible for her to take over her father's practice in Maquoketa and serve the community she grew up in.
"This grant opportunity became available, and it just made it easier to be able to do that, as well as pay off my student loans," Kane told the newspaper.
Delta Dental of Iowa provides most of the grant money while the state and local communities add to the total. Participants receive $50,000 from the insurance agency, $25,000 from Iowa and $5,000 or more from local communities.
The grant money is applied directly to participants' student loan debt, said Beth Jones, Delta Dental's public benefit manager.
"What we see in applicants are around $200,000 to $250,000 in student loan debt," Jones said. "(The grant) makes a significant dent for them, but it does not by any means pay off their student loan debt."
The program requires that recipients agree to stay for several years and emphasize serving residents who might otherwise struggle to find care.
Ryan Oetken is another grant recipient who is practicing dentistry in Epworth. Oetken grew up in Akron, Iowa, with about 1,500 residents, so he was familiar with the challenges rural residents can face when finding a dentist.
"A lot of small towns in western Iowa did not have dentists," Oetken said. "A lot of people drove 35 to 40 minutes (to get care). And that's still the situation today."
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Information from: Telegraph Herald, http://www.thonline.com
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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A Springfield businessman has pleaded guilty to a federal charge accusing him trying to avoid financial reporting laws by making frequent bank withdrawals.
The U.S. Attorney's office for the western district of Missouri says in a release that 55-year-old Douglas Gooch pleaded guilty late last week to structuring financial transactions to evade federal reporting requirements.
The prosecutor's office says Gooch made several $9,000 cash withdrawals in 2011 and 2015 from his bank account to avoid reports that are required for withdrawing $10,000 or more from a bank. Gooch's withdrawals totaled more than $222,000.
The Springfield News-Leader reports (http://j.mp/1raJfnH ) he owns a business selling antiques, jewelry and coins. Gooch faces up to 10 years in prison.
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Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com
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NEW STRAITSVILLE, Ohio (AP) — Video footage of bobcats recorded in a forest near a reclaimed coal mine is a hopeful sign of the species' recovery in southeast Ohio and that environmental rehabilitation efforts are working, wildlife and environmental group officials said.
Rural Action recorded a bobcat and her three kittens using an infrared motion sensing camera attached to a tree in the Wayne National Forest, The Columbus Dispatch has reported (http://bit.ly/1oNW0To ). The group has installed six of the cameras in forests around unregulated coal mines where millions of dollars have been spent on environmental cleanup.
The footage included the mother bobcat winning a standoff with a coyote over a deer carcass at a bait station where the camera was focused. Other cameras have recorded gray fox, deer, rabbits, turkeys and woodpeckers.
"It was exciting to see kittens and know that bobcats are successfully mating here," said Katrina Schultes, a wildlife biologist for the forest. "That suggests these animals have come back on their own and are recolonizing the available habitats in Ohio."
Bobcats were nearly wiped out in Ohio during the 1800s by hunting and loss of habitat. After what has been a slow revival, bobcats were removed from Ohio's endangered species list in Ohio in 2014. Wildlife officials plan to use footage from the infrared cameras installed in December for the state's annual bobcat report. There were 197 verified bobcat sightings in 39 Ohio counties during 2014.
The environmental rehabilitation work around abandoned and unregulated coal mine continues. Rural Action's Monday Creek Restoration Project has spent about $16 million since 1994 to clean up and reclaim streams and land around the creek, project coordinator Nate Schlater said.
Work to reclaim the 27-mile long tributary and other streams includes neutralizing the highly acidic, orange-tinted, and smelly water that leaks from nearby abandoned mines.
The Monday Creek Project covers more than 100 square miles while contending with 15,000 acres of underground abandoned mines. The creek was highly acidic when cleanup began 20 years ago. Schlater likened water in the creek 20 years ago to vinegar.
Aquatic wildlife has since been revived, increasing from four fish species then to 35 today, including seven types of darters along with large-mouth, small-mouth and spotted bass.
"This shows that water quality is improving significantly," Schlater said.
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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com
- By ADAM ATON Associated Press
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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers passed a budget last week that spends millions in state money to block Planned Parenthood from accessing federal funding.
The plan puts Missouri alongside at least a dozen other states in a national effort to strip public money from the country's largest abortion provider. The federal government says states don't have the authority to steer Medicaid funding away from Planned Parenthood, and courts have blocked some of those efforts. But Missouri's budget writers say eliminating federal dollars from women's health programs means federal restrictions no longer apply.
The Legislature rejected more than $8.3 million in federal Medicaid funding the state was slated to receive for family planning, sexually transmitted disease testing and pelvic exams at county health departments, other clinics and Planned Parenthood. They replaced it with money from Missouri's general revenues, leaving the total unchanged at $10.8 million, and stipulated that none of it could go to organizations that provide abortions, as Planned Parenthood does.
Government money cannot fund non-emergency abortions, but states are prohibited from otherwise blocking Medicaid dollars from abortion providers for services such as vaccinations and cancer screenings — a rule the federal government reiterated Tuesday in a letter to state Medicaid directors.
When lawmakers initially proposed blocking Medicaid payments from Planned Parenthood in March, budget staffers estimated less than $400,000 in Medicaid payments go to Missouri's 13 Planned Parenthood clinics for procedures and drugs.
Planned Parenthood serves more than 50,000 patients per year in Missouri, and about 7,000 of them are on Medicaid, said Sarah Felts, a spokeswoman for the organization. Planned Parenthood will continue accepting Medicaid patients "no matter what," she said.
Medicaid patients can still go to county health departments, rural health clinics and federally qualified health centers, said Sen. Kurt Schaefer, the Columbia Republican who chairs the appropriations committee.
"If someone wants to go to Planned Parenthood, they're free to do that," he said. "Taxpayers in Missouri just aren't going to pay for it anymore."
Rep. Stacey Newman, a St. Louis Democrat, said it was reckless for the Legislature to refuse more than $8 million from the federal government "just because we feel like it."
Schaefer pointed to Texas, which cut Planned Parenthood out of the state's Women's Health Program in 2013. Like Missouri, Republican officials chose to fund the program entirely with state money so it would not run afoul of federal law.
Nevertheless, Planned Parenthood in Texas still receives some Medicaid funding from other programs.
Family planning is the easiest public funding stream for lawmakers to target because it's the biggest, said Emily Horne, a legislative associate with Texas Right to Life. Texas lawmakers are now looking at cutting Planned Parenthood out of smaller government programs, such as HIV and AIDS testing, she said.
Texas' decision to exclude Planned Parenthood from family planning programs resulted in over 30 percent fewer claims for long-acting and injectable contraceptives among low-income patients using the Women's Health Program, according to a study published in February in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study found claims for short-term hormonal contraceptives did not significantly change.
Texas Republicans have called that study misleading.
Other than Texas and Missouri, Felts said Planned Parenthood isn't aware of any other state declining federal Medicaid funds for women's health programs.
The $27 billion budget goes into effect July 1.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A non-commissioned officer in the Ohio National Guard has been ordered to repay nearly $11,000 after being convicted of falsely claiming travel expenses for participating in military funeral honors details.
The Ohio Inspector General's Office says the prosecution of Sgt. First Class Jason Edwards of Miamisburg followed an investigation that showed he filed more than 100 claims for travel to funerals where he didn't actively participate.
Edwards pleaded guilty in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to one count of theft in office and one count of tampering with records in February. He received five years' probation and was ordered to repay the state $10,800 during sentencing last week. He could have received three years in prison.
Edwards doesn't have a publicly listed telephone number and couldn't be reached for comment.
- By MAJA BECKSTROM St. Paul Pioneer Press
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ARDEN HILLS, Minn. (AP) — Boxing instructor Mark Royce paced the mat in red sneakers and barked instructions like a drill sergeant. His students were all over 60 and have Parkinson's disease, but he wasn't cutting them any slack.
"Let's see you step up your game," he yelled, his voice carrying though the Arden Hills boxing gym. "Jab! Upper cut! A little harder with those punches!"
Mike Fingerson, 83, made an unsteady pivot and threw a right upper cut at a 100-pound boxing bag. Tap. The bag's metal chain creaked a bit. It wasn't a knock-out blow, but with each jab, Fingerson hopes to beat back his disease, the St. Paul Pioneer Press (http://bit.ly/1SJ9eZx ) reported.
"People with Parkinson's tend to have small, slow movements," said Maria Walde-Douglas, a physical therapist at Struthers Parkinson's Center in Golden Valley and proponent of boxing fitness training. "Boxing is the opposite of that. It requires eye-hand coordination, balance and moving fast with a lot of power. It's a lot of things rolled into one. Plus it's fun."
After getting established in other parts of the country, boxing-fitness classes for people with Parkinson's have come to the Twin Cities. By next month, four local clubs will offer sessions, including the Title Boxing Club in Arden Hills.
Parkinson's affects about 1 million people in the United States. The progressive disease kills dopamine-producing cells in the region of the brain that affects movement, which can cause tremors, stiffness, slowness, muscle freezes and a loss of balance, along with mental fogginess and depression. Medication can control symptoms, but there is no cure.
So why has boxing become a popular treatment for people with Parkinson's?
"Exercise is the closest thing we have to a cure," said Okeanis Vaou, a neurologist and Parkinson's specialist at Noran Neurological Clinic in Lake Elmo and Minneapolis. "It would be misleading to say exercise arrests the progression of the disease, but it can slow it significantly. I have patients who exercise two to three hours per day, every single day, and they are doing phenomenally well. I also have patients who were exercising and then they stopped abruptly for whatever reason, and within six months I see this fast decline."
Exercise is now considered so important in managing the disease that Minnesota chapters of the National Parkinson Foundation and the American Parkinson Disease Association recently began offering $500 annual stipends for exercise classes, including boxing.
Research suggests the harder and the more often you work out, the larger the benefit. There are promising studies on bicycling, Pilates, Nordic walking with poles, and dancing, including Irish set dancing and tango. The University of Minnesota just launched a study on Parkinson's and yoga, which, like tai chi, may help maintain flexibility and balance and reduce stress. One of the only studies to look at boxing fitness training found it improves balance and gait and makes some daily tasks easier.
"There haven't been any head-to-head studies comparing boxing to other types of exercise," said Vaou. "But I think boxing is a great idea."
"The whole culture of boxing is pushing people beyond their limits, and it can be incredibly empowering, even for a little old 90-year-old lady," said Walde-Douglas, who was certified two years ago by Rock Steady, a boxing program founded by a county prosecutor in Indianapolis a decade ago after boxing training slowed his disease. "I've seen people box who you'd think would be the least likely and least able to do it. The disease takes away a lot, and for some people boxing feels like they're fighting back. I think it taps into your inner warrior. It's not for everybody, but it's for some people."
Royce worked with Walde-Douglas to create a boxing fitness program modeled on Rock Steady to offer through Title Boxing Clubs in the Twin Cities. Knock out Parkinson's classes started last month at the franchises Royce manages in Arden Hills and Coon Rapids. Title Boxing Club in Lakeville also offers the program. Meanwhile, Uppercut Boxing Gym in Northeast Minneapolis is signing people up for the first Rock Steady program in the Twin Cities.
"If it takes off, I think other club owners are interested and will say let's do it," said Royce.
About six people are taking the class in Arden Hills, which meets for an hour, twice a week. On a recent Tuesday, people arrived early to change shoes and wrap their hands. One man slowly entered leaning on a cane. Dozens of six-foot long black bags hung in rows over the padded floor and a corner was roped off in a tiny ring.
"I really hate exercise, but this has changed my attitude," said a woman from St. Paul, as she wound a lime green wrap around her knuckles for protection. She preferred to remain anonymous since she hasn't told friends about her diagnosis.
At 2 p.m., Royce strode onto the mat. During 35 years of teaching boxing and martial arts, he's honed a style that blends military toughness with a lot of encouragement.
"Get those knees up real high. Get them way up there, Mike," shouted Royce, as he started with a warm-up march around the room. "Get them ALL the way up. And I want those arms swinging straight, just like in the army."
Fingerson was diagnosed with Parkinson's 10 years ago and approaches the disease with the problem-solving attitude he brought to his career as an engineer and founder of TSI Inc., a Shoreview company that manufactures precision testing equipment. Still, he is frustrated by his slow decline.
"I can always do a little more than I think I can," he said. "But that little more isn't as much as it used to be."
A year ago he started falling, to the point where his wife stocked hydrogen peroxide to take the blood stains out of his clothes. In one nasty fall, he broke ribs. He got serious about doing daily exercises at home and took up boxing.
"Right now his falling is better than it was two months ago," said his wife, Ruth Fingerson. "He hasn't drawn blood in, oh, gosh, over six weeks. I really think it's the combination of the boxing and the exercises."
Another participant, Elizabeth Clark, also thinks exercise makes a difference. A graphic designer with a graduate degree in music composition, Clark was active but never exercised regularly, until her diagnosis five years ago in her 50s. The Minneapolis woman began pushing herself to go to physical therapy and classes in dance, Pilates, and now boxing.
"I'm more fluid and I feel overall a little better when I exercise," said Clark, who also takes medication to manage her symptoms. "I think there's more of a benefit in boxing than, say, going walking for a walk. You're balancing on your right foot and then left foot, and then putting your left hand out, then your right hand. You're constantly changing reference points. Something about that multiplicity of signals to your brain seems to be beneficial."
On her bad days, Clark gets a glimpse into what the future may hold for her.
"Those are the moments when reality hits, when you think you just want to crawl into a hole," she said. Boxing and the other exercise routines are a way of feeling as strong as she can, for as long as she can.
As the end of the Arden Hills class built to a crescendo. Royce told everyone to punch their bag for three minutes straight, as hard as they could, like human pistons.
"You've got this!" shouted Royce as he circled his boxing students. "Jab! Cross! Jab! Cross! Are you feeling it? All the way to the bell now! This is going to make you strong."
The timer went off and the bell rang.
"Put your arms up," Royce said. "That's a victory. We took that fight, right?"
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Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http://www.twincities.com
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the St. Paul Pioneer Press
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- By SHARON ROZNIK USA Today Network-Wisconsin
FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — Sean Erickson is a convicted sex offender who cannot escape his past.
The 44-year-old Fond du Lac man served five years in prison for sexually assaulting a former girlfriend in 1991. He was 19 years old when he forced her to have sex with him, court records indicate.
Erickson said the incident started as an argument, then took a terrible turn.
"At that age, and the way I was thinking at the time, I only knew one way of trying to gain control," Erickson said. "I wanted to see my daughter and basically gave (the woman) an ultimatum."
Twenty-five years later, the shadow of the incident still darkens his life, USA Today Network-Wisconsin (http://fondul.ac/1MA2WPB ) reported. Being labeled a sex offender has hurt his relationships, employment opportunities and caused him deep despair.
Erickson is now married but does not live with his wife, even though the Department of Corrections has placed no restrictions on where he resides other than reporting his address. The mobile home his wife owns is located on rental property, and the landlord allows Erickson only to visit, not reside there, because of his criminal past.
"People don't see me," Erickson said. "All they see are the words 'sex offender' and they judge me. Employers hold it against me. How can I get a chance to show people I have changed? I am a different person now."
Equally aggravating for Erickson and others on the sex offender registries is that, besides being stigmatized for a lifetime, the chance that a convicted sex offender will re-offend after prison is less than 5 percent, a rate lower than any other type of criminal offender, according to a recent study.
"We let our emotions take over and people have gone overboard thinking that every sex offender is a boogeyman," said Joe Harber, a state-licensed independent counselor who has worked with some 9,000 sex offenders over the past 25 years.
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The crimes of people on the sex offender registries vary extensively. On the list in which Erickson's name appears are teenagers convicted of consensual sex with an underage partner (known among caseworkers as "Romeo and Juliet" cases), perpetrators of violent sexual crimes in which a person tried to kill his or her victim, serial pedophiles and people convicted of date rape after a he-said-she-said jury trial.
Once on the list, offenders can expect police in many communities to send out a media release stating where the offender lives if he or she is new to a community — information that is often reported by local media. Citizens and employers also can view the registries online.
Most of these people remain under scrutiny the rest of their lives, and lately in Wisconsin, state services have struggled to find areas to place them after they have served their time. Many state officials have passed ordinances restricting sex offenders from living in cities and counties.
In 2014, Milwaukee passed an ordinance that limited where they could be placed to a handful of pockets in the city. With few areas in Milwaukee open to offenders, officials started looking to other Wisconsin counties for placement.
Over the past two years, the state has initiated 11 statewide searches to place the offenders, nine of whom lived in Milwaukee County before serving time, according to the Department of Health Services. Nearing the end of their sentences, the offenders are legally designated as violent and must live in a supervised setting.
Placing Milwaukee County offenders in other Wisconsin counties is a new phenomenon. In the four years preceding 2014, no statewide searches were conducted, according to the DHS.
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Last November, placement of two high-risk sex offenders in Brownsville near a home where two young children live caused an uproar and packed a town hall meeting. Residents in Brownsville, backed by Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt, were so up in arms a judge reversed the decision and removed the sex offenders from the home.
Four months later, no viable options have been found in Dodge County for housing the two men.
In December 2015, Manitowoc and Two Rivers approved ordinances that ban the placement of sex offenders who lived outside the cities before they were sentenced. The move came after Mark R. Rickert, a Milwaukee-area offender, was placed in Manitowoc the month prior.
Also that month, Fond du Lac County Sheriff Mick Fink fought against the placement in the Town of Eldorado of Clint Rhymes of Milwaukee. He is 51 and was convicted in 1988 of raping a woman, beating her with a tire iron and leaving her for dead.
About 200 citizens packed into the town's community center to voice disapproval of his living in the area.
"I can't guarantee your safety," Fink told an agitated crowd. "On a good night we have six deputies on patrol. I can't promise you anything."
The sheriff was so incensed, he was ready to take a busload of residents to a Milwaukee courthouse to fight the decision. Around the same time, the Town of Eldorado board quickly passed an ordinance prohibiting placement of sex offenders who weren't residents of Fond du Lac County.
Once again, a judge reversed the order. Rhymes is still awaiting placement.
Fink has no problem having sex offenders from Fond du Lac County placed back in the county after prison. Also, he said, it wasn't sex offender hysteria or fear that drove his reaction to the potential Eldorado placement of Rhymes.
"Of course we will take our own because they have done their time," Fink said. "I have always said that and sometimes it did not make me popular. But we don't want somebody else's. That's what caused the dust-up."
___
Sex offenders are generally placed on extended supervision, parole or probation after release. Services available may include offense-related counseling, employment services and other programs that have the overall goal of reintegrating them into society and minimizing recidivism, said Jeff Grothman, director of legislative affairs for the DOC.
A September 2015 DOC report of sex offender recidivism rates indicates a 40 percent decline between 1992 and 2010, which might be due to better rehabilitation programs. Moreover, their recidivism rates are lower than the overall offender population, such as people who committed robbery or assault. The report looked at 12,849 sex offenders during that time period and found that 4.9 percent ended up re-offending sexually.
Harber, the state-licensed counselor, believes that when communities tell an offender he can't live there, it adds gasoline to the fire. Currently, there are 3,000 homeless sex offenders in the state because of prohibitive ordinances.
"How safe is that? I would rather have a sex offender living in a supervised location, getting the support they need, than living out on the street angry, with no hope," Harbor said. "Lifting restrictions can help them be empowered to change their life."
After conducting a study of his own Milwaukee program over 10 years, Harber found a 2.6 percent recidivism rate. Most sex offenders knew their victims, he said, don't have significant criminal histories and are not pedophiles.
"Some I know have committed crimes when they were 14 years old, and that is ridiculous to label them for life," Harbor said.
Under Wisconsin's Chapter 980, people like Rhymes, convicted of a sexually violent crime, are committed to DHS supervised care at Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center in Mauston. Those who complete treatment and are deemed safe for release are placed in supervised-housing communities, which include GPS monitoring and constant supervision, even when offenders leave the house.
Between 2009 and 2013, a total of 114 offenders were released from involuntary commitment at Sand Ridge, according to a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism analysis. The increasing number of individuals on supervised release is explained in part by recent research that has determined that certain types of offenders are less likely to commit additional sexual crimes.
From 1994 through March 2010, the state discharged 67 sex offenders from Sand Ridge. Of these, 49 did not commit new crimes within three years, the standard time used to track recidivism, a state audit found. Of the 18 people who did re-commit crimes, five were sexual in nature.
Regarding the Rhymes case, Fink said, "A lot of experts have different opinions on whether or not you can cure a sex offender. I wasn't given enough information about whether or not I thought (Rhymes) would re-offend, and it wasn't about him personally. It was on principle."
Eugene Nell, 85, lives on a mile-long rural road in Eldorado, a few houses down from a mobile home shrouded by tall evergreens. Rhymes was going to be placed there with other offenders in a supervised-housing setting.
Men have been living there for several years, Nell said, but he hasn't seen or heard any trouble. Sometimes people in state-owned cars park in front of his house and appear to watch the residence, he said.
"It really doesn't bother me," he said, before adding that sometimes he's concerned for the children living in the house next door.
Another neighbor, Nancy Carroll, said that, though she never sees the mobile home residents or has been given any reason to fear them, she still wrote a letter last year to the Milwaukee judge deciding on Rhymes' placement.
Carroll took action because there are many senior citizens in the area with visiting grandchildren, she said.
___
Sean Erickson of Fond du Lac checks in with his probation officer on a regular basis and has found a part-time job to help support his family. He wants a normal life without being held back by something terrible he did a quarter of a century ago, he said.
Currently, he's speaking with lawyers about the property manager refusing to allow him to live with his wife in her home. But so far nothing has changed, he said.
"By the time I had notified the state of my plans to move in with my wife, and was ready to fill out an application with the landlord, she had already received a notice in the mail saying she was going to be evicted for having a sex offender living with her. She has so far gotten three letters in the mail," he said.
According to Louise Gudex, executive director of the Fond du Lac County Housing Authority, landlords can refuse to rent to registered sex offenders. In fact, the U.S. Department of Urban Housing and Development prohibits sex-offenders from living in HUD-owned properties. When contacted, the property owners for the land where Erickson's wife's home is said there are strict policies in place for applicants, including criminal background checks.
In a recent email to the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, the property owner said Erickson didn't go through the application process to live on the premises.
The owner also said that while a felony conviction does not automatically disqualify someone from living on the property, convicted felons are a legitimate safety concern.
"The distortion out there is that there is no hope for these men, that they are social outcasts," Harber said. "Our goal in treatment is to give them hope. A more common-sense approach on where they can live is needed."
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by USA Today Network-Wisconsin
- By KIM FUNDINGSLAND Minot Daily News
By KIM FUNDINGSLAND
Minot Daily News
MINOT, N.D. (AP) — Recent appearances in Minot Municipal Court by two defendants charged with violating the city's pit bull ordinance may be an indicator of either a lack of public knowledge about the ordinance or an increased number of pit bulls within the city. Perhaps both.
Minot's pit bull ordinance is clearly written, the Minot Daily News (http://bit.ly/26fwVmb ) reported. It states, in part, "It shall be unlawful, and punishable under section 1-8 of the Minot Code of Ordinances, to harbor, own or in any way keep or possess within the corporate city limits of Minot, North Dakota, any pit bull dogs as described in this section."
Minot's Code of Ordinances can be found on the city's website at minotnd.org. The code defines a pit bull dog as a bull terrier, Staffordshire bull terrier, American pit bull, American Staffordshire terrier, a mixed breed or of other breeds commonly known as pit bulls or any dog which has the appearance and characteristics of being predominantly of the breed of defined pit bulls.
How many pit bulls are in the city is unknown, but the amount of calls regarding pit bulls received by Minot Police indicates that, despite an ordinance to the contrary, a surprising number of pit bulls reside within city limits. Some of Minot's pit bulls are owned by new residents who may be unaware of Minot's pit bull ordinance and didn't bother to check city code. Others knowingly harbor pit bulls despite knowledge of breed restrictions within the city.
During the session of Municipal Court, two pit bull owners pleaded guilty to having pits bulls in the city, a B misdemeanor. Both owners were assessed $175 in fines and received a deferred imposition of sentence for six months in addition to having to remove their pit bulls from the city limits. The maximum penalty for a B misdemeanor is 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine.
Minot Police Animal Control confirmed that the pit bull belonging to Aaron Staniger, 39, Minot, had been removed from city limits. Staniger was cited April 7. Robert Schnabel, 54, Minot, was scheduled for a court trial on violation of the city's pit bull ordinance but reached a plea agreement just prior to the start of court Tuesday.
Schnabel entered a guilty plea. He was originally charged Dec. 31, 2015 when his two dogs were running loose until they were impounded inside a fenced yard in the 600 block of 12th Street Northeast and identified by Schnabel. According to the court Tuesday, Schnabel had removed his two pit bulls from the city and is required to notify Minot Police Animal Control if the pit bulls are returned to the city as service animals.
The court has the authority to order a pit bull to be destroyed if an owner refuses or fails to remove a pit bull from the city. If a pit bull is order to be impounded while a possible violation of city ordinance is being considered by the court, the owner must pay the cost of impoundment.
A pit bull mandated by the American Disabilities Act, Fair Housing Act or other federal or state law as a "service dog" is allowed in the city under certain restrictions. Those restrictions include keeping the pit bull confined at the owner's property indoors or, if outdoors, confined within a secure locked fence at least six feet high. If outside of the owner's property pit bulls must be muzzled and on a leash no longer than four feet and held at all times by the owner or other adult.
On some occasions, DNA testing is necessary to determine pit bull blood. Most often though, visual identification and owner admittance is sufficient to classify a dog as a pit bull or pit bull-mix. In the Schnabel case, Animal Control determined that both of his dogs had the appearance of pit bull breeding. According to an arrest narrative, Schnabel initially told Animal Control that his dogs were Labrador-mixes but later conceded that they had pit bull in them and DNA testing was not necessary.
City ordinance states that any "owner or keeper shall remove the pit bull from the city within twenty-four hours of the service of the citation and shall not cause the dog to be returned to the city unless there is a final court decision in his or her favor."
The Souris Valley Animal Shelter receives a dozen or more pit bulls a year, primarily dogs that are surrendered by new residents of the city so they will be in compliance with city ordinance. Shelter Director Randy McDonald says pit bulls are treated as every other dog in the shelter with one exception. Anyone wishing to adopt a pit bull from the Souris Valley Animal Shelter must reside in an area or community that allows pit bulls.
"We can't adopt within the city limits," said McDonald.
One of the most severe incidents involving pit bulls in the Minot area occurred in the nearby community of Des Lacs in late November 2010 when 46-year-old Lori Amsden, a mother of four, was attacked and nearly killed by two pit bulls while babysitting for a Des Lacs resident.
The dogs' owner, the late Anna Heppler, said she had warned Amsden not to go into the children's room where the dogs were located. A member of the household arrived home to find Amsden on the floor in a semi-conscious state with the dogs still attacking her. Both of Amsden's ears were torn from her head and she received numerous bite wounds. She survived but endured a lengthy recovery.
At the time of the attack, Des Lacs had an ordinance in place prohibiting pit bull breeds. Both dogs were euthanized following the incident.
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Information from: Minot Daily News, http://www.minotdailynews.com
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Minot Daily News
MAQUOKETA, Iowa (AP) — A program that offers assistance in paying off student loans is helping draw dentists to small towns in Iowa.
Since the grant program started in 2002, 28 of the 31 dentists who received the financial aid have remained in Iowa, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald reported (http://bit.ly/1MR2i0l ) Sunday. Sixty-five of Iowa's 99 counties are short on dentists.
Adrienne D'Agostino Kane is receiving $80,000 in tuition reimbursement that helped make it possible for her to take over her father's practice in Maquoketa and serve the community she grew up in.
"This grant opportunity became available, and it just made it easier to be able to do that, as well as pay off my student loans," Kane told the newspaper.
Delta Dental of Iowa provides most of the grant money while the state and local communities add to the total. Participants receive $50,000 from the insurance agency, $25,000 from Iowa and $5,000 or more from local communities.
The grant money is applied directly to participants' student loan debt, said Beth Jones, Delta Dental's public benefit manager.
"What we see in applicants are around $200,000 to $250,000 in student loan debt," Jones said. "(The grant) makes a significant dent for them, but it does not by any means pay off their student loan debt."
The program requires that recipients agree to stay for several years and emphasize serving residents who might otherwise struggle to find care.
Ryan Oetken is another grant recipient who is practicing dentistry in Epworth. Oetken grew up in Akron, Iowa, with about 1,500 residents, so he was familiar with the challenges rural residents can face when finding a dentist.
"A lot of small towns in western Iowa did not have dentists," Oetken said. "A lot of people drove 35 to 40 minutes (to get care). And that's still the situation today."
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Information from: Telegraph Herald, http://www.thonline.com
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A Springfield businessman has pleaded guilty to a federal charge accusing him trying to avoid financial reporting laws by making frequent bank withdrawals.
The U.S. Attorney's office for the western district of Missouri says in a release that 55-year-old Douglas Gooch pleaded guilty late last week to structuring financial transactions to evade federal reporting requirements.
The prosecutor's office says Gooch made several $9,000 cash withdrawals in 2011 and 2015 from his bank account to avoid reports that are required for withdrawing $10,000 or more from a bank. Gooch's withdrawals totaled more than $222,000.
The Springfield News-Leader reports (http://j.mp/1raJfnH ) he owns a business selling antiques, jewelry and coins. Gooch faces up to 10 years in prison.
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Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com
NEW STRAITSVILLE, Ohio (AP) — Video footage of bobcats recorded in a forest near a reclaimed coal mine is a hopeful sign of the species' recovery in southeast Ohio and that environmental rehabilitation efforts are working, wildlife and environmental group officials said.
Rural Action recorded a bobcat and her three kittens using an infrared motion sensing camera attached to a tree in the Wayne National Forest, The Columbus Dispatch has reported (http://bit.ly/1oNW0To ). The group has installed six of the cameras in forests around unregulated coal mines where millions of dollars have been spent on environmental cleanup.
The footage included the mother bobcat winning a standoff with a coyote over a deer carcass at a bait station where the camera was focused. Other cameras have recorded gray fox, deer, rabbits, turkeys and woodpeckers.
"It was exciting to see kittens and know that bobcats are successfully mating here," said Katrina Schultes, a wildlife biologist for the forest. "That suggests these animals have come back on their own and are recolonizing the available habitats in Ohio."
Bobcats were nearly wiped out in Ohio during the 1800s by hunting and loss of habitat. After what has been a slow revival, bobcats were removed from Ohio's endangered species list in Ohio in 2014. Wildlife officials plan to use footage from the infrared cameras installed in December for the state's annual bobcat report. There were 197 verified bobcat sightings in 39 Ohio counties during 2014.
The environmental rehabilitation work around abandoned and unregulated coal mine continues. Rural Action's Monday Creek Restoration Project has spent about $16 million since 1994 to clean up and reclaim streams and land around the creek, project coordinator Nate Schlater said.
Work to reclaim the 27-mile long tributary and other streams includes neutralizing the highly acidic, orange-tinted, and smelly water that leaks from nearby abandoned mines.
The Monday Creek Project covers more than 100 square miles while contending with 15,000 acres of underground abandoned mines. The creek was highly acidic when cleanup began 20 years ago. Schlater likened water in the creek 20 years ago to vinegar.
Aquatic wildlife has since been revived, increasing from four fish species then to 35 today, including seven types of darters along with large-mouth, small-mouth and spotted bass.
"This shows that water quality is improving significantly," Schlater said.
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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com
- By ADAM ATON Associated Press
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers passed a budget last week that spends millions in state money to block Planned Parenthood from accessing federal funding.
The plan puts Missouri alongside at least a dozen other states in a national effort to strip public money from the country's largest abortion provider. The federal government says states don't have the authority to steer Medicaid funding away from Planned Parenthood, and courts have blocked some of those efforts. But Missouri's budget writers say eliminating federal dollars from women's health programs means federal restrictions no longer apply.
The Legislature rejected more than $8.3 million in federal Medicaid funding the state was slated to receive for family planning, sexually transmitted disease testing and pelvic exams at county health departments, other clinics and Planned Parenthood. They replaced it with money from Missouri's general revenues, leaving the total unchanged at $10.8 million, and stipulated that none of it could go to organizations that provide abortions, as Planned Parenthood does.
Government money cannot fund non-emergency abortions, but states are prohibited from otherwise blocking Medicaid dollars from abortion providers for services such as vaccinations and cancer screenings — a rule the federal government reiterated Tuesday in a letter to state Medicaid directors.
When lawmakers initially proposed blocking Medicaid payments from Planned Parenthood in March, budget staffers estimated less than $400,000 in Medicaid payments go to Missouri's 13 Planned Parenthood clinics for procedures and drugs.
Planned Parenthood serves more than 50,000 patients per year in Missouri, and about 7,000 of them are on Medicaid, said Sarah Felts, a spokeswoman for the organization. Planned Parenthood will continue accepting Medicaid patients "no matter what," she said.
Medicaid patients can still go to county health departments, rural health clinics and federally qualified health centers, said Sen. Kurt Schaefer, the Columbia Republican who chairs the appropriations committee.
"If someone wants to go to Planned Parenthood, they're free to do that," he said. "Taxpayers in Missouri just aren't going to pay for it anymore."
Rep. Stacey Newman, a St. Louis Democrat, said it was reckless for the Legislature to refuse more than $8 million from the federal government "just because we feel like it."
Schaefer pointed to Texas, which cut Planned Parenthood out of the state's Women's Health Program in 2013. Like Missouri, Republican officials chose to fund the program entirely with state money so it would not run afoul of federal law.
Nevertheless, Planned Parenthood in Texas still receives some Medicaid funding from other programs.
Family planning is the easiest public funding stream for lawmakers to target because it's the biggest, said Emily Horne, a legislative associate with Texas Right to Life. Texas lawmakers are now looking at cutting Planned Parenthood out of smaller government programs, such as HIV and AIDS testing, she said.
Texas' decision to exclude Planned Parenthood from family planning programs resulted in over 30 percent fewer claims for long-acting and injectable contraceptives among low-income patients using the Women's Health Program, according to a study published in February in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study found claims for short-term hormonal contraceptives did not significantly change.
Texas Republicans have called that study misleading.
Other than Texas and Missouri, Felts said Planned Parenthood isn't aware of any other state declining federal Medicaid funds for women's health programs.
The $27 billion budget goes into effect July 1.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A non-commissioned officer in the Ohio National Guard has been ordered to repay nearly $11,000 after being convicted of falsely claiming travel expenses for participating in military funeral honors details.
The Ohio Inspector General's Office says the prosecution of Sgt. First Class Jason Edwards of Miamisburg followed an investigation that showed he filed more than 100 claims for travel to funerals where he didn't actively participate.
Edwards pleaded guilty in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to one count of theft in office and one count of tampering with records in February. He received five years' probation and was ordered to repay the state $10,800 during sentencing last week. He could have received three years in prison.
Edwards doesn't have a publicly listed telephone number and couldn't be reached for comment.
- By MAJA BECKSTROM St. Paul Pioneer Press
ARDEN HILLS, Minn. (AP) — Boxing instructor Mark Royce paced the mat in red sneakers and barked instructions like a drill sergeant. His students were all over 60 and have Parkinson's disease, but he wasn't cutting them any slack.
"Let's see you step up your game," he yelled, his voice carrying though the Arden Hills boxing gym. "Jab! Upper cut! A little harder with those punches!"
Mike Fingerson, 83, made an unsteady pivot and threw a right upper cut at a 100-pound boxing bag. Tap. The bag's metal chain creaked a bit. It wasn't a knock-out blow, but with each jab, Fingerson hopes to beat back his disease, the St. Paul Pioneer Press (http://bit.ly/1SJ9eZx ) reported.
"People with Parkinson's tend to have small, slow movements," said Maria Walde-Douglas, a physical therapist at Struthers Parkinson's Center in Golden Valley and proponent of boxing fitness training. "Boxing is the opposite of that. It requires eye-hand coordination, balance and moving fast with a lot of power. It's a lot of things rolled into one. Plus it's fun."
After getting established in other parts of the country, boxing-fitness classes for people with Parkinson's have come to the Twin Cities. By next month, four local clubs will offer sessions, including the Title Boxing Club in Arden Hills.
Parkinson's affects about 1 million people in the United States. The progressive disease kills dopamine-producing cells in the region of the brain that affects movement, which can cause tremors, stiffness, slowness, muscle freezes and a loss of balance, along with mental fogginess and depression. Medication can control symptoms, but there is no cure.
So why has boxing become a popular treatment for people with Parkinson's?
"Exercise is the closest thing we have to a cure," said Okeanis Vaou, a neurologist and Parkinson's specialist at Noran Neurological Clinic in Lake Elmo and Minneapolis. "It would be misleading to say exercise arrests the progression of the disease, but it can slow it significantly. I have patients who exercise two to three hours per day, every single day, and they are doing phenomenally well. I also have patients who were exercising and then they stopped abruptly for whatever reason, and within six months I see this fast decline."
Exercise is now considered so important in managing the disease that Minnesota chapters of the National Parkinson Foundation and the American Parkinson Disease Association recently began offering $500 annual stipends for exercise classes, including boxing.
Research suggests the harder and the more often you work out, the larger the benefit. There are promising studies on bicycling, Pilates, Nordic walking with poles, and dancing, including Irish set dancing and tango. The University of Minnesota just launched a study on Parkinson's and yoga, which, like tai chi, may help maintain flexibility and balance and reduce stress. One of the only studies to look at boxing fitness training found it improves balance and gait and makes some daily tasks easier.
"There haven't been any head-to-head studies comparing boxing to other types of exercise," said Vaou. "But I think boxing is a great idea."
"The whole culture of boxing is pushing people beyond their limits, and it can be incredibly empowering, even for a little old 90-year-old lady," said Walde-Douglas, who was certified two years ago by Rock Steady, a boxing program founded by a county prosecutor in Indianapolis a decade ago after boxing training slowed his disease. "I've seen people box who you'd think would be the least likely and least able to do it. The disease takes away a lot, and for some people boxing feels like they're fighting back. I think it taps into your inner warrior. It's not for everybody, but it's for some people."
Royce worked with Walde-Douglas to create a boxing fitness program modeled on Rock Steady to offer through Title Boxing Clubs in the Twin Cities. Knock out Parkinson's classes started last month at the franchises Royce manages in Arden Hills and Coon Rapids. Title Boxing Club in Lakeville also offers the program. Meanwhile, Uppercut Boxing Gym in Northeast Minneapolis is signing people up for the first Rock Steady program in the Twin Cities.
"If it takes off, I think other club owners are interested and will say let's do it," said Royce.
About six people are taking the class in Arden Hills, which meets for an hour, twice a week. On a recent Tuesday, people arrived early to change shoes and wrap their hands. One man slowly entered leaning on a cane. Dozens of six-foot long black bags hung in rows over the padded floor and a corner was roped off in a tiny ring.
"I really hate exercise, but this has changed my attitude," said a woman from St. Paul, as she wound a lime green wrap around her knuckles for protection. She preferred to remain anonymous since she hasn't told friends about her diagnosis.
At 2 p.m., Royce strode onto the mat. During 35 years of teaching boxing and martial arts, he's honed a style that blends military toughness with a lot of encouragement.
"Get those knees up real high. Get them way up there, Mike," shouted Royce, as he started with a warm-up march around the room. "Get them ALL the way up. And I want those arms swinging straight, just like in the army."
Fingerson was diagnosed with Parkinson's 10 years ago and approaches the disease with the problem-solving attitude he brought to his career as an engineer and founder of TSI Inc., a Shoreview company that manufactures precision testing equipment. Still, he is frustrated by his slow decline.
"I can always do a little more than I think I can," he said. "But that little more isn't as much as it used to be."
A year ago he started falling, to the point where his wife stocked hydrogen peroxide to take the blood stains out of his clothes. In one nasty fall, he broke ribs. He got serious about doing daily exercises at home and took up boxing.
"Right now his falling is better than it was two months ago," said his wife, Ruth Fingerson. "He hasn't drawn blood in, oh, gosh, over six weeks. I really think it's the combination of the boxing and the exercises."
Another participant, Elizabeth Clark, also thinks exercise makes a difference. A graphic designer with a graduate degree in music composition, Clark was active but never exercised regularly, until her diagnosis five years ago in her 50s. The Minneapolis woman began pushing herself to go to physical therapy and classes in dance, Pilates, and now boxing.
"I'm more fluid and I feel overall a little better when I exercise," said Clark, who also takes medication to manage her symptoms. "I think there's more of a benefit in boxing than, say, going walking for a walk. You're balancing on your right foot and then left foot, and then putting your left hand out, then your right hand. You're constantly changing reference points. Something about that multiplicity of signals to your brain seems to be beneficial."
On her bad days, Clark gets a glimpse into what the future may hold for her.
"Those are the moments when reality hits, when you think you just want to crawl into a hole," she said. Boxing and the other exercise routines are a way of feeling as strong as she can, for as long as she can.
As the end of the Arden Hills class built to a crescendo. Royce told everyone to punch their bag for three minutes straight, as hard as they could, like human pistons.
"You've got this!" shouted Royce as he circled his boxing students. "Jab! Cross! Jab! Cross! Are you feeling it? All the way to the bell now! This is going to make you strong."
The timer went off and the bell rang.
"Put your arms up," Royce said. "That's a victory. We took that fight, right?"
___
Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http://www.twincities.com
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the St. Paul Pioneer Press
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