Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/294060
By Joe Mandak The Associated Press PITTSBURGH » The 16-year- old boy accused of stabbing 22 people at his high school was dazed "like a deer in the headlights" hours later and doesn't fully grasp what he did, his attorney said Thurs - day as he sketched out the beginnings of a possible mental health defense. Deepening the mystery of what set off the violence, at - torney Patrick Thomassey said Alex Hribal had no his- tory of mental illness or troublemaking, didn't abuse drugs and was no outcast at school, where the lawyer de - scribed him as a B or B-plus student. "In a case like this, it's pretty obvious to me that there must be something in - side this young man that no- body knew about," Thom- assey told The Associated Press. The local prosecutor, meanwhile, said Hribal re - mained an enigma. "We have very little infor- mation about him," Westmo- reland County District At- torney John Peck said, "ex- cept for the fact that he was a student, his age, and how he was as a student." Authorities seized the f a m i l y 's c o mp u t e r a s they searched for clues to Wednesday's rampage at Franklin Regional High, about 15 miles from Pitts - burgh. Authorities said Hribal armed himself with two kitchen knives and stabbed 21 students and a se - curity guard before an assis- tant principal tackled him. The slender, dark-haired boy who looks younger than his years was jailed with - out bail on four counts of attempted homicide and 21 counts of aggravated as- sault. Authorities are pros- ecuting him as an adult, but Thomassey said he will try to have the case moved to ju- venile court. He said he plans to get his client examined by a psychi - atrist before a preliminary hearing on April 30. "I think his mental state now is unstable. I'm not sure that he recognizes the enor - mity, if that's the word, of what has occurred," Thom- assey said. "And I think in his own mind he's trying to figure out what happened here, as we all are trying to figure out what the heck hap- pened here." The attack seemingly came out of nowhere, the at- torney said. "Both parents are good parents. They're parents who pay attention to their kids, who eat dinner with their kids every day, who un - derstand their kids' friends, who, you know, care about who they hang out with," Thomassey said. But a school security con - sultant said it is often the case that school attacks are perpetrated by kids who of- ficials say weren't on their radar. "In incident after incident, when you start peeling back the onion, you find there were some indicators, there cer - tainly were some issues. But it takes some time to find," said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services. Ten boys remained hospi - talized, three in critical con- dition. HIGH ScHool STaBBInG Lawyer: Suspect like 'deer in headlights' Keith SraKocic — the aSSociated PreSS a group of reporters talks with a deputy from the Westmoreland county department of public safety in his vehicle at Franklin regional high School near Pittsburgh on thursday in Murrysville, Pa. John raoux — the aSSociated PreSS Parents leave a daycare center with their children aer a vehicle crashed into the center Wednesday in Winter Park, Fla. at least 15 people were injured, including children. By Matt Sedensky The Associated Press WInTER PaRK, Fla. » As mourners trickled by Thurs- day to honor the 4-year-old girl who was killed and 14 others injured in a crash at a Florida day care, author - ities scoured the state for the driver they said fled in the vehicle that caused the fatal wreck. The Florida Highway Patrol said police agen - cies statewide were alerted to look for Robert Alex Corchado, 26, a man with a long criminal history who's accused of sparking the crash when his Dodge Du - rango hit a convertible, which smashed into the KinderCare building. "We still haven't found him," Sgt. Kim Montes of the Highway Patrol said. "He's had quite some time now. We don't know. We hope he's still in state, but we don't know for sure. We're hoping we can catch him." Montes identified the girl who was killed as 4-year-old Lily Quintus. Her mother, Nicole Quintus, pleaded for Corchado to turn himself in. "Come forward," she said in an interview with The As - sociated Press on Thursday afternoon. "Families are emotionally destroyed be- cause of what he did." The mother softly sobbed as she spoke of her daugh- ter. She said Lily loved prin- cesses, "Star Wars," the TV series "Doctor Who" and ranch dressing on seem- ingly everything she ate — even pizza and hot dogs. Lily was sitting at a table waiting for her afternoon snack when the car crashed into the building, and Nicole Quintus said a teacher called her soon after, screaming but unable to say what hap - pened. "One minute everything was normal and the next there was an explosion and smoke and screams," she said. Police seek driver in day care crash FloRIda By Eric Tucker The Associated Press WaSHInGTon » An Inter- net connection and a bunch of stolen identities are all it takes for crooks to collect billions of dollars in bogus federal tax refunds. And the scam is proving too perva - sive to stop. A government report in November said the IRS is- sued $4 billion in fraudulent tax refunds over the previ- ous year to criminals who were using other people's personal information. Attor- ney General Eric Holder said this week that the "scale, scope and execution of these fraud schemes" has grown substantially and the Jus - tice Department in the past year has charged 880 people. Who's involved? In a video message released ahead of the April 15 tax fil - ing deadline, Holder said the scams "are carried out by a variety of actors, from greedy tax return prepar - ers to identity brokers who profit from the sale of per- sonal information to gangs and drug rings looking for easy access to cash." Even Holder isn't im - mune. Two men pleaded guilty in Georgia last year to trying to get a tax refund by using his name, Social Security number and date of birth on tax forms. The IRS says it opened nearly 1,500 criminal in - vestigations related to iden- tity theft in fiscal year 2013, a 66 percent increase over the previous year, and has strengthened filters that help detect where the scams are coming from. It says it stops far more fraudulent refunds than it pays out and is making a dent in the problem. Still, the schemes have grown more sophisticated, attracting criminals with vi - olent backgrounds who see an easy and safe vehicle for theft, according to law en- forcement officials who fear that not enough controls are in place. "I've been on calls with Alabama, Chicago, some other field divisions, where they're now experiencing people who were from Flor - ida and now moving to other states to conduct this same type of fraud," said FBI Su- pervisory Special Agent Jay Bernardo, who works fraud cases in south Florida. "Based on the parame - ters that are in place now," he added, "it's very difficult to stop." What can taxpayers do? The most important step: Protect their Social Secu - rity numbers. Thieves steal Social Se- curity numbers in any num- ber of ways, including from publicly available sources or workplaces. Victims include school children, prisoners, Medicaid beneficiaries and the deceased. Criminals use the information to file false returns and then pocket the refund checks, often be - fore the legitimate taxpayers have had a chance to submit their own returns. It's a crime made easier by electronic tax filing, which lets crooks mass- produce fraudulent returns. In a statement Thurs - day, the IRS said that it has started more than 200 in- vestigations this filing sea- son into identity theft and refund fraud schemes and that enforcement efforts are taking place nationwide. The agency said investiga - tors are especially focused on the misuse of special- ized identification numbers assigned to firms that elec- tronically file tax returns. TaxES Bogus tax refund problem grows SuSan WalSh — the aSSociated PreSS the exterior of the internal revenue Service building in Washington is shown on March 22, 2013. By Julie Pace The Associated Press WaSHInGTon » Embattled Health and Human Ser- vices Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is resigning as the White House seeks to move past the election-year politi - cal damage inflicted by the rocky rollout of President Barack Obama's signature health care law. Sebel ius' resig nation comes just over a week af - ter sign-ups closed for the first year of insurance cov- erage under the so-called Obamacare law. The open- ing weeks of the enrollment period were marred by widespread website woes, though the administration rebounded strongly by en- rolling 7.1 million people by the March 31 deadline, ex- ceeding initial expectations. Enrollment has since risen to 7.5 million as people were given extra time to complete applications. Even with the late surge in sign-ups, the law remains unpopular with many Amer - icans and Republicans have made it a centerpiece of their efforts to retake the Senate in the fall. A popular former gover - nor of Kansas, Sebelius has been one of Obama's lon- gest-serving Cabinet offi- cials. She was instrumental in shepherding the health care law through Congress in 2010 and implementing its initial components, in- cluding a popular provision that allows young people to stay on their parents' insur- ance plans until the age of 26. But Sebelius' relation- ship with the White House frayed during the fall roll- out of the insurance ex- changes that are at the cen- ter of the sweeping over- haul. The president and his top advisers appeared caught off guard by the ex- tent of the website woes, with warnings from those working on the technology never making it to the West Wing. caBInET Sebelius resigning from HHS post By andrew Taylor The Associated Press WaSHInGTon » House Re- publicans rallied behind a slashing budget blueprint on Thursday, passing a non-binding but politically imposing measure that promises a balanced fed - eral ledger in 10 years with sweeping budget cuts and termination of health care coverage under the Afford- able Care Act. The 219-205 vote on the budget outline takes a mostly symbolic swipe at the government's chronic defi - cits. Follow-up legislation to actually implement the cuts isn't in the offing. Twelve Re- publicans opposed the mea- sure, and not a single Demo- crat supported it. The measure passed af- ter a three-day debate that again exposed the hugely varying visions of the rival parties for the nation's fiscal future. Democrats proposed a rival budget that included tax increases. The GOP plan, by Bud - get Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would cut more than $5 trillion over the coming decade to reach balance by 2024, re - lying on sharp cuts to do- mestic programs, but leav- ing Social Security un- touched and shifting more money to the Pentagon and health care for veterans. It reprises a controversial plan to shift future retir - ees away from traditional Medicare and toward a subsidy-based health in- surance option on the open market. 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