DIGEST

• Pontoon woman faces charges in connection with bar fight

  A Pontoon Beach woman faces felony charges of aggravated battery after a bar fight on Tuesday night.

• Veterans advocate convicted of murder claims he was defending himself

  A former East St. Louis Veterans Advocate Center-director who must spend 40 years in prison for a 2004 shooting at a resale shop that left one man dead and two others wounded contends he was only defending himself.

• Cahokia police may charge man in motorcycle crash pending toxicology reports

  The Cahokia Police Department is waiting for a toxicology report before deciding whether to seek charges against a man in connection with the death of a Freeburg man whose motorcycle was struck by a hit-and-run driver last week.

• Jury awards $5 million to former altar boy in Belleville priest abuse case

  

  A jury awarded $5 million to a former altar boy Wednesday, validating arguments by his attorneys that the Rev. Raymond Kownacki sexually abused him and other youths and that top officials of the Belleville Diocese covered it up for decades.

• Maryville nursing home robbed at gunpoint

  A man walked into a nursing home early Saturday morning, pulled out a gun and demanded prescription drugs, police said.

• Three women report rape by one man

  Police are investigating the reported rape of three women at gunpoint Saturday night by the same man.

• Pregnant woman shot in hand by Collinsville man

  A pregnant woman was hospitalized Tuesday afternoon after she was shot in the right hand by a Collinsville man whom she knows, police said.

• IDOT: Thieves knock out street lights on I-64 and I-255 in St. Clair County

  Copper thieves are causing more headaches for highway workers in St. Clair County.

• Former Belleville Bishop Gregory says key documents about sex abuse were kept from him

  

  Former Belleville Bishop Wilton Gregory testified Tuesday that key documents concerning an accused priest were kept from him while he was leading an investigation into sexual abuse of minors in the 1990s.

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