Posted: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 12:00 am
Searchers find Sheridan man's body
BILLINGS, Mont. - Searchers on Monday recovered the body of a Wyoming man who drowned in the Tongue River Reservoir during a severe thunderstorm last week.
Big Horn County Coroner Terry Bullis said Michael Steel, 43, of Sheridan, was pulled from the reservoir about noon. Authorities used sonar and cadaver dogs to try to locate the body.
Steel fell off a boat dock Wednesday evening. Authorities said he had been holding a rope attached to a boat when the wind picked up. A friend tried to help the man but a heavy hailstorm obscured visibility.
Bullis said Steel was married, with four children.
A Sheridan woman was reported missing Wednesday night after her small aluminum boat capsized during the same storm. Searchers found the body of 47-year-old Debra McCaffrey on Thursday morning.
The Montana reservoir is about 20 miles north of Sheridan.
Man gets prison time in fraud
CHEYENNE - A man who had proposed to build a day care facility in Gillette has been sentenced to serve more than five years in federal prison on convictions of bank fraud and illegally obtaining lines of credit.
U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson on Friday sentenced Anthony L. Ciocchetti Jr. to serve five years and five months in prison, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office says.
The 60-year-old Ciocchetti was convicted in February of using false tax returns to obtain two lines of credit totaling $125,000 from a bank in Gillette. He also was convicted of bank fraud after he wrote bad checks totaling more than $100,000 from another bank account.
Laramie man dies on float trip
LARAMIE - A man died Saturday on a float trip down the Laramie River.
Fifty-three-year-old Ronald Benabese died while floating the river on inner-tubes with four or five friends on Saturday afternoon.
The friends later told police that Benabese went under water about a mile north of the Optimist Park Greenbelt trailhead. Although they performed CPR on him, he was later pronounced dead at Ivinson Memorial Hospital.
Interim Laramie Police Chief Dale Stalder says Benabese's death is being classified as an accidental drowning. Benabese was originally from Arizona and was a student at WyoTech.
Police look for nanny's assailant
JACKSON - Jackson police are looking for a man who attacked a 17-year-old girl who was pushing a baby stroller in a city park on Monday.
Police said the girl was working as a nanny and was pushing an infant in a stroller in Miller Park when the man took her wallet and pushed her to the ground violently. Police said she hit her head and may have lost consciousness.
Sgt. Scott Terry of the Jackson Police Department said police are actively searching for the man. He's described as a Caucasian between 30-50 years old. He's said to be about 6-foot-3, and weighing between 250 and 280 pounds.