Around theNation

Connecticut Skakel's attorneys appeal conviction HARTFORD - Attorneys for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel filed an appeal Monday seeking to overturn his conviction for the 1975 murder of a teen-age neighbor. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, was convicted in 2002 of beating Martha Moxley to death with a golf club in Greenwich when they were both 15. Skakel, 43, is serving 20 years to life in prison. The appeal filed in state Superior Court argues that prosecutors engaged in pervasive misconduct, including falsely claiming a powerful family cover-up. It also says the case should never have been transferred to Superior Court from Juvenile Court, where Skakel was first charged because of his age at the time of the murder. Texas Captive shoots fugitive abductor LUFKIN - A man suspected of killing an elderly Oklahoma couple was caught after five weeks on the lam when he kidnapped another couple and then was shot and wounded by one of his captives. Scott J. Eizember, 42, had eluded one of the longest manhunts in Oklahoma history. Law enforcement agencies picked up his trail after Eizember was spotted at a church food bank Sunday morning and drove off in a volunteer's car. Authorities said he then drove to Arkansas and abducted an emergency room doctor and his wife. The doctor shot Eizember at least three times at a road stop in East Texas with a gun he had hidden in his van. Doctors expect Eizember could leave the hospital as early as Friday to face murder and other charges, officials said. 2 teens charged in murder plot ORANGE - Two teen-agers were charged Monday with conspiracy to commit murder in an alleged plot to shoot more than 20 students at their high school. The 16-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl were being held in juvenile detention centers. Authorities said they uncovered the plot on Nov. 10, two days before the teen-agers planned to shoot more than 20 students and four administrators at Vidor High School in far southeastern Texas. Michigan Former Nazi to be deported DETROIT - A federal judge has ordered the deportation of a former Nazi concentration camp guard found living in the United States, immigration officials said Monday. Johann Leprich, a 78-year-old retired machinist, will be sent to his native Romania or possibly Germany or Hungary, said Greg Gagne, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Immigration Review. Leprich came to the United States in 1952 and became a citizen in 1958. But the Justice Department later discovered his Nazi past and moved to revoke his citizenship in 1986. Leprich relocated to Windsor, Ontario. But evidence indicated he was living secretly in the United States. On July 1, authorities found him hiding behind a panel under the basement stairs at his family's home about 25 miles northeast of Detroit. Tennessee Man shot in head at KKK ceremony JOHNSON CITY - A bullet fired in the air during a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony came down and struck a participant in the head, critically injuring him, authorities said. Gregory Allen Freeman, 45, was charged with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment in the Saturday night incident that wounded Jeffery S. Murr, 24. About 10 people, including two children, had gathered for the ceremony. The man who was being initiated was blindfolded, tied with a noose to a tree and shot with paintball guns as Freeman fired a pistol in the air to provide the sound of real gunfire, officials said.