Around the State

Bend Bulletin
March 2, 2017

http://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/5112867-151/around-the-state

Employment — Oregon’s jobless rate dropped to 4.3 percent in January, marking the lowest such figure since the state began tracking employment data in 1976. State officials say it’s also lower than the nationwide rate of 4.8 percent. The last time Oregon’s jobless rate dipped below 5 percent was during the dot-com boom in the mid-1990s. Oregon businesses added 2,600 nonfarm employees to their payrolls in January, which was a quarter-percent drop from the recent monthly averages. The construction industry added the most jobs for the month, while the biggest cuts occurred in sectors such as government and health care. Statewide employment growth over the last 12 months totaled 43,200 new jobs. The strongest yearly gains were in construction, transportation, financial activities, information technology and health care.

Pastor sentenced — A 56-year-old church pastor has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for multiple counts of rape and other sex crime charges against a child under age 14. The Marion County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release that Mauricio Aguilera-Garcia pleaded guilty Tuesday to rape, sodomy and unlawful sexual penetration. He entered the pleas at the end of the first day of his jury trial after the victim testified. Prosecutors say Aguilera-Garcia also was convicted of sex abuse against a child under age 12 in 1985.

Landlord sentenced ­— A Portland man who killed his mentally ill tenant with a hammer and hid her body in a shed has been sentenced to 16 years in prison. Gary A. Lewis apologized Wednesday to Renee Sandidge-Crowell’s family in court before he was sentenced on a manslaughter charge. Lewis, 63, had faced a murder charge but pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a deal with prosecutors. Court documents show Lewis was trying to evict Sandidge-Crowell from her apartment when she was killed on June 7, 2014. Surveillance video shows Lewis following his tenant, then dragging her body while also carrying a bloody hammer and bleach. Her body was found wrapped in a blue tarp inside a false wall in a shed.

Teacher acquitted — A judge has acquitted a 31-year-old Portland Public Schools employee accused of molesting a 7-year-old developmentally disabled girl in a school bathroom. Multnomah County Circuit Judge David Rees on Wednesday found Brett Christy-Hamilton not guilty of two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. Christy-Hamilton declined to comment after the six-day trial. Christy-Hamilton, a paraeducator assigned to help the student throughout the day, was accused in November 2015 of molesting the girl while accompanying her to the bathroom. Prosecutors said that despite the girl’s speech impairments, she could be understood by her mother. The defense had argued it was impossible that the girl could have offered such a detailed account of what happened.

Gray wolf blamed — State wildlife officials say a gray wolf has spent the last several months in Jackson County, where it attacked and killed a 3-day-old calf on a private ranch. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says the GPS collar on OR-25 showed it was at the ranch in Prospect on Saturday around the time a person working on the property found the dead calf. Records show Saturday’s attack was the second time OR-25 has been involved in livestock predation