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Sedgwick County detention Deputy Cleve Werner's $32,355 salary was supplemented last year by overtime that pushed his take-home pay to $76,939.

He earned those paychecks, in part, by working 83 consecutive days from mid-January through early April. Payroll records show that 50 of those shifts were double shifts.

Officer Brad Stone saw his $38,031 base pay pushed to $75,986 by overtime. Unlike Werner, Stone stuck with five-day work weeks. But from June through September, he worked 66 consecutive double shifts, which at the jail means 16 ½ hour days.

Overtime pay has become an integral part of the Sedgwick County Jail budget, and some deputies have been out-earning captains four steps ahead of them in rank as they keep the 1,032-bed facility running.

The jail paid more than $1.4 million in overtime last year to officers who worked 86,023 overtime hours -- an increase of 25 percent from the year before.

A man suspected of robbing an 81-year-old woman while she visited a Wichita cemetery Thursday remained at large Friday.

Wichita police say the woman, from California, was visiting the grave of a family member at Old Mission Mortuary and Cemetery near 21st and Hillside at about 1 p.m. when a man approached and asked for money to catch the bus to work.

As the woman opened her purse, the man snatched it, ran, then took out cash and threw the purse down, police said.

Wichita police robbery Detective Phil Jacob said that such crimes can occur anywhere -- even at places where people go to mourn and pay their respects.

"Highway robberies occur wherever and whenever," he said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday reinstated a lawsuit contending that Wesley Medical Center and other hospitals owned by its parent company deliberately understaffed registered nurses to increase profits.

A three-member panel of the 10th Circuit Court in Denver returned the class-action lawsuit to federal district court in Wichita for further proceedings against the Hospital Corporation of America.

"I don't file cases that are meritless," said Kansas City lawyer Lawrence Williamson, who filed the case in 2006.

After U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten dismissed the lawsuit two years ago, HCA asked for sanctions against Williamson, including that he pay $400,000 to the 11 lawyers it hired to defend the suit. Marten denied the sanctions.

"The 10th Circuit decision shows the defendants' attacks on me personally were unfounded and that my clients' claims are legally sound," Williamson said.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors are entitled to civil malpractice settlements in their criminal case against a Haysville physician whose clinic is linked to 56 overdose deaths.

U.S. District Judge Monti Belot refused to quash government subpoenas issued to attorneys in the civil cases filed against Stephen Schneider, saying a defense claim that the settlements are not relevant "borders on the frivolous."

Belot ordered that the subpoenas be complied with immediately.

The government contended there have been at least five malpractice settlement agreements between Schneider and plaintiffs. Prosecutors sought them as impeachment evidence, arguing the settlements could be relevant to the credibility of witnesses who testify at the criminal trial.

A 34-count federal indictment accuses Schneider and his wife, Linda, of directly causing four deaths and contributing to at least 11 others. The couple have pleaded not guilty.

A pharmacist who worked for an Internet pharmacy once located in Wichita was sentenced Thursday 18 months in prison for unlawfully distributing prescription drugs. A computer technician who worked at the company received two years probation.

Pharmacist Jerry L. Lovern told U.S. District Judge Wesley Brown on Thursday that he had no intention of hurting anybody, and implored the judge to consider home imprisonment.

"I know I have been terribly, terribly naive and I am sorry for that," Lovern said before his sentencing.

Brown imposed the prison term for Lovern, 68, to be followed by a year of supervised release. He allowed Lovern to remain free while he appeals.

Brown said he considered that Lovern had four prior convictions for shoplifting for which he had been given probation, yet he had continued to commit those crimes.

As the clock neared 5 p.m. Thursday, jurors deliberating the case of capital murder against Ted Burnett sent a question to the judge.

"Is there a previous case," they asked, "where an accomplice, eyewitness testimony was the primary evidence to convict a suspect?"

The merits of testimony from that witness, Everett Gentry, had been argued all morning by lawyers from both sides before the jury began deliberating over Burnett's involvement in the death of 14-year-old Chelsea Brooks.

Ben Burgess, Sedgwick County district judge, told jurors simply that it didn't matter.

"You must return a verdict based solely on the facts and the law in this case and cannot consider any other factors," the judge wrote.

Two armed men burst in and robbed a family in their south Wichita home early Thursday, police said.

A 48-year-old man answered a knock at his door in the 2600 block of South Holyoke at about 4:15 a.m. The intruders pushed their way in, pointing handguns at him and six other people in the house.

The men took money and a 42-inch plasma television and left in a teal green foreign-made SUV with tinted windows, police said.

Their descriptions were similar to those provided by victims of a residential robbery Tuesday morning in southwest Wichita, but police said the two are not connected.

The victims told police the first man was black, about 23 years old, 6-foot-1 and weighed about 160 pounds; the second was black, about 25 years old, 5-foot-7 and 145 pounds.