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A Wichita woman in her early 30s was critically injured Friday morning in a one-vehicle accident near the intersection of Maple and Maize Road.

The woman's red pickup was westbound on Maple around 9:30 a.m. when witnesses saw the vehicle near the Target store, weaving and stopping in traffic, police Sgt. Diane Varnell said.

A witness told Varnell that the pickup cut in front of another vehicle in the 10000 block of West Maple. The woman apparently lost control of the pickup and it slid into a ravine, catching fire.

The woman was taken to Via Christi -St. Francis in critical condition, Varnell said. An investigation into the accident is continuing, she said.

A man held for a month in jail under a mistaken identity can't sue Sedgwick County or Sheriff Gary Steed, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

His lawyer said Francisco J. Reyes deserves to have a jury decide if his civil rights were violated when authorities mistakenly matched him to a man wanted in connection with an infant's rape.

"You can be thrown in a cage, held for a month, where nobody listens to you or even bothers to look at photos or mug shots or the actual rapist to compare, and that's just tough luck," said Kurt Kerns, who represents Reyes.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil of Kansas City granted a request by Wichita lawyer Art Chalmers to dismiss the suit. The judge said Reyes didn't tell authorities in Colorado or Kansas that he wasn't the man wanted on rape charges, so now he can't sue the county or its sheriff.

Kerns said he plans to file an appeal Monday.

A former Westar Energy Inc. executive is trying to invalidate an appeals court decision that could send him back to prison.

Attorneys for David Wittig, the Topeka-based utility's former chief executive, this week asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear his appeal of a 24-month prison sentence for bank fraud.

A three-judge panel of the court last month upheld the sentence, which was imposed last year by U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson.

But attorneys for Wittig said the panel simply "rubber-stamped" Robinson's decision and want all 12 appellate judges to reconsider the case.

The court already has thrown out two previous sentences of 51 and 60 months against Wittig as too harsh and had recommended Robinson sentence him to no more than six months.

A Wichita man was sentenced Wednesday to one year of federal probation and 100 hours of community service for falsely claiming that he had received a Purple Heart.

Albert Barker, 59, admitted that he had an American Veterans representative submit a form in January 2006 that Barker had altered to reflect he had received the award.

The Purple Heart is awarded to members of the military who have been wounded or killed in the line of duty.

U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren said that the sentencing is timely with the today's holiday.

"This is sort of a patriotic time when we're thinking about the special valor that's due folks that genuinely earned a Purple Heart," Melgren said.

The call came in Wednesday afternoon about a vicious dog.

By Thursday morning, Wichita Animal Control and police officers had confiscated what they said are the remains of a dogfighting site at a home in a northeast residential neighborhood.

"Inside the house looked like an unkempt dog pen," Don Henry, environmental services manager for the city, said Thursday. "It wasn't fit for human habitation."

It was the first case investigated by the city under a new ordinance that strengthens its powers in confiscating potentially dangerous dogs and paraphernalia used to train them to fight -- a blood sport prohibited by law.

The call began like the other 129 such calls of dog attacks the city received between January and March, said Kay Johnson, director of environmental services.

As part of a deal to ensure she'll spend less than a decade in federal prison, a former teacher pleaded guilty Wednesday to fleeing to Mexico with a 13-year-old student so she could have sex with him.

Kelsey Peterson, 26, cried in court and shook her head when the prosecutor said she started having sex with the boy when he was 12 years old and a student at the middle school in Lexington where she taught.

But she pleaded guilty to a charge of transporting a minor across state lines to have sex, and avoided a similar charge that would have carried a mandatory 10-year sentence.

Peterson and the boy left Lexington in October and were found a week later in Mexicali, Mexico.

Peterson admitted the two of them had sex.

Two Kansas men admitted Wednesday in federal court to tying up a black youth, shouting racial epithets and urinating on him to get him to leave their rural community.

The incident happened in May 2007 after a drunken high school graduation party.

David B. Endsley, 19, of Waterville and Isaac Q. Clark, 19, of Blue Rapids pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to criminally interfering with the black youth's right to fair housing.

They will be sentenced Sept. 30, and face up to one year in federal prison and a fine up to $100,000. Endsley also pleaded guilty to making a false statement to federal agents investigating the incident, a crime that carries a potential penalty of five years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000.

According to the plea agreement, Endsley and his parents hosted a high school graduation party at their Waterville home. Most partygoers, including the defendants and victim, identified only as J.L., consumed alcohol. J.L. was a juvenile living in Blue Rapids at the time.

Federal immigration officials and Wichita police arrested 22 Mexican citizens whom they identified as gang members and associates in a roundup targeting four violent street gangs, authorities announced Wednesday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the suspects were members or associates of the Vato Loco Boys, Sureno 13, Players for Life and North Side Gangsters gangs. The local effort was part of a national program called Operation Community Shield.

Nine of the suspects were already in custody during the planning stages on warrants for burglary, theft, assault, drive-by shootings, weapons violations and other crimes, ICE said. They will be deported after their cases are finalized.

The remaining 13 alleged gang members arrested in the one-day sweep are in the U.S. illegally and will be returned to Mexico, ICE officials said.

"We are glad to see it," said Dennis Romero, co-chairman of Peoples Alliance for Latino Advancement in Kansas.

The grand jury investigating Wichita abortion provider George Tiller adjourned Wednesday afternoon without a criminal indictment.

Retired Sedgwick County District Judge Paul Buchanan, assigned to preside over the grand jury, said the panel returned a finding of "no true bill," meaning criminal charges would not be filed.

The grand jury was convened in January through a petition drive by anti-abortion groups seeking an investigation into whether Tiller violated state abortion laws.

In a statement released by the Sedgwick County District Attorney's Office, the grand jury said:

"After six months of conducting an investigation that included hearing extensive witness testimony, reviewing volumes of documents and medical records of patients of Women's Health Care Services (Tiller's clinic), this Grand Jury has not found sufficient evidence to bring an indictment on any crime related to the abortion laws."