Russell family via Reuters

Sgt. John M. Russell last month pleaded guilty to killing two medical staff officers and three soldiers.

TACOMA, Washington - A survivor of a shooting spree that killed five U.S. servicemen at a combat stress clinic in Iraq testified on Tuesday that he remembered the gunman, a fellow soldier, chuckling after he shot an unarmed man who had been trying to hide.

U.S. Army Sergeant John Russell pleaded guilty last month to killing two medical staff officers and three soldiers at Camp Liberty, adjacent to the Baghdad airport, in a 2009 shooting the military has said could have been triggered by combat stress.

He is facing a streamlined court martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state to determine the level of his guilt, a question that will hinge largely on whether the military judge finds he acted with premeditation, as prosecutors say, or on impulse, as the defense argues.

Army Sergeant Dominic Morales, working at the clinic at the time of the attack, recalled that he hid under a desk beside another soldier and heard shots ring out and said he could smell gunpowder.

Morales testified that Russell shot a soldier hiding near a filing shelf one time and chuckled as he moaned "Oh God, oh God..." and then shot him again.

"I heard Sergeant Russell chuckle ... an evil chuckle," Morales said. "To me, a frightening chuckle."

Russell then approached his hiding place and shot the soldier next to him, Specialist Jacob Barton, whose dead body fell onto him.

Seconds later, with Russell out of sight, Morales sprinted out of hiding but the soldier fired at least two bullets at him.

The testimony came on the second day of a court martial that is expected to focus largely on Russell's state of mind at the time of the shooting, which marked one of the worst episodes of soldier-on-soldier violence in the Iraq war.

Defense attorney James Culp later established through questioning Morales that nightmares jogged his memory of Russell's laugh.

Military prosecutors have focused this week on the more than 40 minutes Russell had to consider his actions as he drove back to the clinic with a stolen SUV and rifle and on his calm, stone-faced demeanor as he carried that rifle in a combat-ready position as he slipped into the clinic through a rear entrance.

Russell, who agreed to plead guilty in a deal that will spare him the death penalty, faces up to life in confinement without the possibility of parole, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge.

Defense lawyers, who had not yet made an opening statement, have said Russell suffered a host of mental ailments after several combat tours and was suicidal before the attack. With his mind damaged and unable to get the help he needed, they say, he cracked.

An independent forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Sadoff of the University of Pennsylvania, concluded that Russell suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis at the time of the shootings.

Sadoff suggested Russell, who was attached to the 54th Engineer Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany, was provoked to violence by maltreatment at the hands of mental health personnel at Camp Liberty.

The presiding judge, Army Colonel David Conn, ruled on Monday that when Sadoff testifies he can draw upon another doctor's findings that the soldier had "brain abnormalities" in areas that govern behavior and emotion. Sadoff used that analysis in his own broader psychiatric evaluation.

Prosecutors also asked Staff Sergeant Derrick Flowers, who jumped out of a window to escape the attack, whether Russell's gunshots were "erratic or controlled."

"It was controlled, sir," Flowers said. 

Related:

• Ten years after Iraq invasion, US troops ask: 'Was it worth it?'
• Army deserter who fled to Canada sentenced to 10 months in prison
• Iraq, 10 years on: Did invasion bring 'hope and progress' to millions?

Courtesy of the McMahon family

Ryan McMahon (middle) suffered fractures to her back and wrists when she fell off the VIP grandstand in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. She is flanked by her father, John, and her mother, Donna. She is seen taking her first steps after the attacks.

BOSTON – Nearly 20 people out of the more than 170 wounded in the Boston Marathon bombings were hurt so badly that they had to have one or two limbs amputated -- while another 50 other injured runners and spectators are still in the hospital a week after the blast.

But another group of hurt survivors are beginning the long roads to recovery at home, with hospitals releasing more people each day. Though they are leaving, they may spend months or more recovering from multiple broken bones, damage caused by shrapnel or painful ruptured eardrums.

Ryan McMahon, 33, is one of those survivors. Suffering from fractures to her back and wrists, she left the hospital on Monday a week after the attacks to embark on the next part of her journey to recovery, which will include physical therapy and possibly mental health support.

"I want my Boston back … I just want to see my town, you know, and like I feel like they stole it," she said through sobs. "I love this city. ... It just has a lot of heart."

But as eager as she is to get back to normal, McMahon was anxious about her release, too. “I actually don't know what's going to happen, so (I'm) just setting up all of the support."

"I know how lucky I am. … I am going to be fine,” she said. “It was just really hard, especially being in the ER and just seeing how many horrible injuries there were and just hoping that everyone is going to be okay and get through this."

Ryan's mother has watched the injured forge ahead in the hospital as she tended to her daughter.

"The strength that they have moving forward, it’s been really quite something to see. ... They're survivors," said Donna McMahon, a 57-year-old nanny who lives in western Massachusetts. "It's a real lesson … the human spirit and how you just, you know, fight back and go on."

Ryan is one of those fighting back from her injuries, both emotional and physical.

Over the last week, she watched TV reports of the manhunt for the two suspects – Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a gun battle with police and his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, who was captured late Friday.

Ryan sent a lot of "angry texts” as the authorities searched for the pair — which isn't like her, she said.

"I'm still trying to understand all my feelings about this," she said.

She ended up in the hospital after watching the first blast go off directly across from where she was sitting with friends at the top of a VIP grandstand. The group nervously looked at each other and decided to get out.

As they did, the second explosion tore through the air and a frenzied exodus began from the riser.

Ryan looked under the bleachers and thought her best chance would be to climb down, but the thunderous shaking as people ran from the stands caused her to lose her hold and she was tossed into the air, landing on her back.

Though she also had a concussion, adrenaline gave her enough fuel to propel her through the streets, running, as she and her friends sought help.

"I definitely knew I hurt my back when I fell, but my friends said ‘we’ve got to get out of here,’ and that was the main thing," she said. "I just knew that ... if there was another blast I would be by far worse" off.

Kind strangers picked up the group in a cab and dropped them off at the hospital, where Ryan was among the first to arrive and had a front-row seat to see other patients rolling into the emergency room.

Ryan had surgery on her right wrist, which was seriously damaged and is now tucked in a cast, and has braces on her other wrist and her back. Doctors have said it could take six months to a year to recover, but she can walk.

“She came out of the surgery fighting, feisty. She was a big sister bossing her brothers around,” said her dad, John McMahon, 58, who works in sales.

Though they know she has a long journey ahead, her release was “awesome,” Donna said.

As for Ryan, she has some plans for this time next year: She intends to run in her first Boston Marathon.

Related:

Classmates of bomb suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev suggest 'brainwashing' by brother

Terrorists may leave 'digital breadcrumbs' for investigators

Boston nurses tell of bloody aftermath

In a Supreme Court test of whether a company can be granted a patent on the genes in the human body, a majority of the justices indicated during Monday's oral arguments that the court is likely to rule that a human gene can’t be patented. 

It would be one thing, several of the justices said during Monday’s oral arguments, for a company to seek a patent on a test for breast cancer that was developed by analyzing a human gene, but it would be going too far to be awarded a patent on the gene itself.

"What's the difference between snipping off a piece of the liver or kidney, and seeking a patent on that, and seeking a patent on a piece of a gene?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Justice Samuel Alito made a different analogy, to someone seeking a patent on a plant found in the Amazon rain forest that bore leaves containing a cancer cure. "You could patent the process used to get the chemical out and the use of the result, but you cannot patent the plant," he said. 

Stelios Varias / Reuters file photo

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington

The case, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, involves a test that has helped guide more than a million women in their medical decisions. The test can determine whether the composition of their genes makes them more likely to get breast or ovarian cancer.

Myriad Genetics, a Utah company, owns patents on two parts of human genes known as BRCA 1 and BRCA 2, named for the first two letters of the words breast and cancer.

Women with mutations in those genes face up to an 85 percent risk of getting breast cancer and up to a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer. Because of the patents, Myriad has a monopoly on performing all diagnostic tests related to BRCA 1 and BRCA 2.

In the past three decades, the federal government has granted nearly 3,000 similar patents on genetic material. Without such protection, Myriad argues, companies would be less willing to spend the money required for making genetic discoveries.

"Countless companies and investors have risked billions of dollars to research and develop advances under this promise of stable patent protection," according to Gregory Castanias, a Washington, D.C, lawyer who argued the case for Myriad.

The idea of patenting DNA material has provoked a strong debate among scientists, and many have lined up on opposite sides of the case.

"Human genes should not be patented," says James Watson, the Nobel Prize winner and co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA.

"Life's instructions ought not be controlled by legal monopolies created at the whim of Congress or the courts," he says.

But a group of researchers at the University of Maryland is among those arguing just the opposite. "The costs are outweighed by the benefits stemming from the fruits of increased inventive activity," they say in their friend-of-court brief.

In the 220 years since Thomas Jefferson wrote the cornerstone of U.S. patent law, the courts have agreed on a general principle: patents protect inventions, not products of nature. A central issue in this case is whether Myriad has obtained a patent on something already in the body or has created something new.

The ACLU, representing a group of scientists, doctors, and cancer patients, claims that Myriad has merely removed from the body something that was already there -- the DNA sequence making up the BRAC 1 and BRAC 2 genes. Because it is a creation of nature, the ACLU says, it cannot be protected by a patent, even though Myriad claims that removing it is what makes it useful.

"Gold does not become patentable once taken out of a stream because it can be used in jewelry. Kidneys do not become patentable once taken out of a body because they can be transplanted," says the ACLU's Christopher Hansen.

Myriad's exclusive patent, says the ACLU, creates a monopoly that denies women the ability to seek a second opinion, based on another test of the genetic material, and dissuades other laboratories from pursuing research on the patented genes.

The ACLU also contends that because the test costs roughly $3,000, many women cannot afford it or lack the necessary insurance coverage. If the gene was not under patent protection, the ACLU says, competition would make the test cheaper.

But Myriad argues that removing the gene sequence from the body requires breaking chemical bonds that lock it into place, thereby creating a new chemical entity.

The resulting genetic materials, the company says, "were never available to the world until Myriad's scientists applied their inventive faculties to a previously undistinguished mass of genetic matter."

Myriad cites a line of cases finding patent eligibility for naturally occurring substances that were isolated and purified, including aspirin, vitamin B12, and adrenaline derived from cows.

As for availability, the company says the cost of the test is covered by private insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid. It also says many other labs provide second opinions regarding the company's test results and that thousands of researchers have done studies on the gene sequence involved, unimpeded by the patent.

The Obama administration has urged the court to be deeply skeptical of Myriad's broad claim of what can be patented. The Justice Department's brief in the case says the public interest has consistently been given precedence by the Supreme Court "in avoiding undue restrictions imposed by patents that effectively preempt natural laws and substances."   

NBC's Tom Curry contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Mon Apr 15, 2013 4:17 AM EDT

Lehigh Valley IronPigs

A urinal gaming system is coming to the men's rooms of Coca-Cola Park in the Lehigh Valley.

PHILADELPHIA — A steady stream will help Lehigh Valley IronPig fans stay entertained and learn about prostate health while answering nature’s call at the ballpark.

The Phillies’ AAA-minor league team will introduce the first “urinal gaming system” when the season kicks off at Coca-Cola Park next week.

Screens installed above urinals will display the game, which is a downhill snowmobile competition. The user’s flow controls the virtual snowmobiler as he tries to hit penguins on the route — directing the stream left or right will move the driver in that direction.

“It’s just like a joystick on a video game,” said Brian Downs, Director of Media Relations for Lehigh Valley Health Network. The health system will be advertising on the game’s screens.

Downs says his team had a few laughs when they were approached to be a sponsor, but quickly decided it would be a great way to educate men about prostate health.

“You kind of have a built-in audience and an opportunity to create an awareness about the importance of prostate health,” he said.

The game screens will display information from the health system when the urinal is not in use. When a guy walks up to use the urinal, the information will go away and switch into game mode.

“There’s a lot of ways you can market different programs and healthcare. In this case, it made a lot of sense,” Downs says.

In the U.S., prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among men, behind lung cancer. One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society.

IronPigs spokesman Jon Schaeffer says the "pee" game will be installed in four men’s rooms inside the 10,100-seat ballpark — one per restroom. Anyone using the urinal can play the game and it doesn't cost extra.

Players will be given a score at the end of their game. The high scorers will be displayed in real-time on video boards inside the ballpark. Players will also be ranked and recognized on the team's website.

"Our fans are always looking for the next big thing and these 'X-Stream Games' are another example of our commitment to providing an unparalleled entertainment experience in all aspects of Coca-Cola Park, including our restrooms," IronPigs General Manager Kurt Landes said in a statement.

The urinal gaming system is already in use at bars in the United Kingdom, but has never been installed in a sporting venue.

Related: You can now enjoy 'Toylet' at home

The system will debut with the downhill snowmobile game, but that six to 12 others will be swapped in as the season progresses. Schaeffer says the team has gotten a huge response from fans so far — even before the system's debut.

“The feedback that we’ve gotten, it’s been overwhelmingly positive," Schaeffer said. He added that the team's Twitter feed has been blowing up over the announcement.

Aside from the fun, Downs hopes the system will remind men to get a checkup and hopefully save lives by catching cancer early.

“The idea is that you see the health network and remember to talk with your doctor, especially if you have issues. And at least keep it in the back of their mind.”

Mark Lennihan /AP

Cigarette packs, like these in a New York convenience store, will have to be hidden under a new law proposed by Mayor Bloomberg.

The mayor of a tiny village that tried to ban stores from displaying cigarettes has a message for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as he attempts to do the same thing.

Good luck.

Mayor Michael Kohut, of the Village of Haverstraw in upstate New York, said the town board had to repeal its ordinance after Big Tobacco came after them with a federal lawsuit that would have cost the community -- population 11,000 -- hundreds of thousands in legal fees.

"They brought their full forces to bear and it was going to be a long, drawn-out, expensive process." Kohut said Tuesday. "I said unless someone wants to pay for this, I can't pass this onto my village."

As part of the settlement, the town rescinded an ordinance that would have forced retailers to keep tobacco products out of public view.

Andrew Gombert/EPA

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to force stores to hide tobacco products. A small-town mayor who tried to do the same thing says Bloomberg should be ready for a legal battle.

Lawyers who represented a retailers' group and tobacco companies in the case, including prominent First Amendment expert Floyd Abrams, did not return calls.

But it seems likely that if Bloomberg's proposed measure passes the City Council and is signed into law, it will face a similar legal challenge on grounds that it violates shopkeepers' freedom of speech.

"We're considering all the options, from political to legal," said Brad Gerstman, counsel to the New York Association of Grocery Stores, who noted that Bloomberg's recent efforts to ban super-size sodas and force stores to display gruesome anti-smoking ads have been shot down.

"The only people who can put up a fight are big industries," Gerstman said of the city's public-health crusade. "The soda industry has won and tobacco has won but the city is notorious for grinding people down."

The mayor -- who has been lampooned as Nanny Bloomberg by some critics -- has championed health reforms for a decade. His initiatives include banning trans fats, forcing restaurants to post calorie counts, pressuring hospitals to remove junk food from vending machines, and making baby formula less accessible on maternity wards.

He asked restaurants to reduce salt by 25 percent and pushed through new rules that sharply limit the sale of sugary drinks bigger than 16 ounces. The latter was just struck down by judge who called it "arbitrary," and the city is appealing.

While obesity is one obsession, smoking is just as big a target. In 2002, the city banned it in bars and restaurants and in 2011, it was stamped out at parks and beaches.

The mayor said his efforts are paying off: life expectancy in the city is now three years longer than it was a decade ago.

The latest proposed law is aimed at reducing teen smoking. The mayor and his health advisers argue that displaying tobacco products near candy and groceries sends young people the message there's nothing wrong with smoking and increases the chance they'll try it.

Kohut agrees with his big-city counterpart.

"Anything we can do as government to prevent teenage smoking is a good thing. I watched my mother get sick and die from smoking-related disease," he said. "I felt good making an effort but I'm not Don Quixote swinging at windmills."

New York City has deeper pockets than Haverstraw, and the mayor has an entire Law Department at his disposal. In a statement Tuesday, the agency said because concealing cigarettes cuts down on smoking among kids and adults trying to kick the habit, "the proposed regulations are consistent with the First Amendment."

The New York Association of Convenience Stores, a plaintiff in the Haverstraw case, said it's reviewing the proposed law.

"It's premature to indicate whether any legal action is warranted," said the group's president, Jim Calvin.

Gerstman said he's hopeful the proposal won't be approved even even though the head of the City Council said she was "very open" to it.

"The mayor has gone into a nutty world of radical social agenda," he said. "I'm not certain the City Council in an election year will support it."

In Haverstraw, the mayor will be watching closely -- and rooting for Bloomberg.

"If the city prevails, I would think you would see a flood of communities pass something like this," Kohut said. "We’d be happy to pick up the gauntlet."

Related:

After big soda ban, NYC's Mayor Bloomberg wants to hide cigarettes

For some, out-of-sight cigarettes really could be out of mind

NYC's sugary drink ban battle puts restaurants into limbo

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:21 PM EDT

If New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets his way, stores won't be able to publicly display tobacco products and will have to keep cigarettes under the counter or behind curtains.

The legislation announced Monday is the latest public-health crackdown by the mayor, whose ban on super-sized sugary soft drinks was shot down by a judge last week.

The proposed law would "prohibit display of tobacco products" in most retail shops, Bloomberg said. "Such displays suggest smoking is a normal activity and invite young people to experiment with tobacco."

He said it would be the first of its kind in the nation.

A second law would impose new rules to make it harder to sell smuggled cigarettes.

"These laws would protect New Yorkers, especially young and impressionable New Yorkers," Bloomberg said at a Queens hospital, adding that a decline in youth smoking has stalled out with about 8 percent of young people lighting up.

The New York Association of Convenience Stores, which has 1,600 members, called the proposed ban on displays “absurd.”

“I can’t think of another business that is selling legal products that is being forced to hide them from public view,” said association president Jim Calvin. “Businesses have a fundamental right to communicate with customers.”

He said he hoped the City Council would reject the bill after it’s introduced later this week. If it passes, the National Association of Tobacco Outlets predicts it will be overturned by the courts.

“Retailers are responsible business people that go to great lengths to prevent sales to minors, and there are First Amendment protections that extend to advertising,” said Tom Briant, executive director of the group.

“You’re talking about a basic right under the Constitution. If you do this with cigarettes and tobacco products, what else is going to have to be out of view? Wine and spirits? It’s a very slippery slope.”

After the town of Haverstraw in upstate New York passed a similar ordinance last year, retail and tobacco groups sued and the board repealed it.

Sunny Parikh, who has operated a Midtown Manhattan newsstand for 20 years, wondered where he would put the cigarettes he sells, which are in slots at the top of his cramped kiosk. He also questioned whether the initiative would reduce youth smoking.

“If kids want to smoke, they’ll find a way,” he said.

City officials, though, said the point of the display ban isn’t to prevent kids from buying cigarettes, which is already illegal; the idea is that lowering exposure to the products reduces the chances a young person will try smoking in the first place.

Bloomberg has made public-health campaigns a hallmark of his administration and boasted that life expectancy in the city is up three years since 2001. He has also crusaded against salt in restaurant foods and junk food in vending machines and required calorie counts on fast-food menus.

A new policy sharply limiting the sale of 16-ounce sugary drinks was supposed to take effect last week, but a judge put a stop to it, ruling it was “arbitrary and capricious.”

Related:

Bloomberg confident NYC will win appeal on soda ban

Allison Joyce / Getty Images

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seen here holding a super-size soda cup while promoting a crackdown on sugary drinks, has announced a new public-health campaign to shield cigarettes from public view.

This story was originally published on Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:06 PM EDT

Jonathan Sanger / NBC News

Patricia Krentcil, at her home in Nutley, N.J., is hoping to turn her notoriety into a lotion line, a book and a comedy act.

The New Jersey woman known as "Tan Mom" has big plans now that the criminal case against her is over: a self-tanning lotion line, a book proposal, a comedy act — and a raft of lawsuits.

But right now what Patricia Krentcil wants is a vacation.

"Somewhere hot so I can fry like a bacon and come back and say, 'Ha! Ha! You can't arrest me for lying in the sun,'" Krentcil, 44, said with a laugh.

"Not my face, though. Just my body."

It was Krentcil's face — practically the color of a chestnut in some photos — that made her a national punchline after she was arrested in May and charged with exposing her then-five-year-old daughter, Anna, to damaging ultraviolet rays at tanning salons in Nutley, N.J.

Julio Cortez / AP file

Patricia Krentcil as she waited to be arraigned at the Essex County Superior Court in May.

Krentcil denied it from the start, claiming a school nurse misinterpreted a sunburn Anna got from playing outside and that police misunderstood when her daughter said she "went tanning with Mommy."

Last week, a grand jury declined to indict her on a child endangerment charge, ending a 10-month saga that the mother of five described a nightmare.

"I’ve literally been stuck in my home for the past year," she said. "No matter where I go, everyone knows me. It’s very uncomfortable."

If she went out to eat, a murmur would run through the restaurant. A sofa-shopping trip had to be cut short when other customers started taking pictures. She was the object of ridicule in her children's schools.

"It doesn't matter where I go: I'm 'Tan Mom,'" she said.

She couldn't shake the nickname, so she embraced it, making TV appearances and getting a magazine makeover.

Over the last few months, she's been working with a self-styled skin guru, Dana Ramos, on launching her own line of self-tanners under the name Real Tan Mom Healthy Glow.

Ramos, who has her own skin-care line, helped rehabilitate Krentcil's complexion, which was marred by oversize pores, dark spots, and lines from up to 20 sessions in the tanning bed each month.

She said she banned Krentcil from tanning -- many salons said they wouldn't serve her anyway -- and oversaw a regimen of peels and moisturizers. A plastic surgeon helped with some fillers.

"I haven't tanned in forever," Krentcil said, sounding not entirely happy about it.

She vowed she'll never set foot in another salon, but insisted there's nothing wrong with catching some natural rays, along as she keeps the sun off her paler, but hardly porcelain face.

With her stock broker husband out of work and thousands in legal bills to pay, Krentcil is looking for other ways to cash in on her notoriety beyond the lotion line, which is weeks away from being finished.

She said she is writing a book, but doesn't have an agent or publisher. Once the subject of a "Saturday Night Live" sendup, she'd like to leverage her wacky story and offbeat personality for a comedy routine.

And she's ready for warmer climes.

"I don't like this town at all or this state, more or less ... I wanna go somewhere beautiful," she said.

Krentcil said she is planning lawsuits against anyone who made money off her story, like the manufacturers of a Barbie-type doll  based on her, or Halloween costumes.

She said she also wants to sue the school district since that's where the initial complaint about Anna's sunburn came from. The district superintendent did not return a call for comment.

Nearly a year after her arrest, Krentcil said she’s at a loss to explain why the authorities went after her. "Envy? Jealousy?" she said.

She's certainly not ready to forgive and forget, boasting that when the school nurse called recently about her daughter being ill, she barked at her, "Oh, you didn't call the police?"

For the record, she said, she never once put her child in a tanning bed. The fair-skinned redhead would lie on towels on the floor, sometimes with a mask over her eyes, while her mother soaked up the UV rays, she said.

At one point, she was offered a plea deal with 60 days of probation and turned it down, deciding she'd take her chances with a jury if it came to that.

"They made a mockery of me,” she said. “But I stood by my beliefs and said, 'I did not do this.'"

Related:

What's caused the N.J. tanning mom's leathery look?

Charles Norfleet/Getty Images

Patricia Krentcil attends "Tan Mom" Patricia Krentcil Skin Cancer Foundation Event at Westchester MMA-Fit on September 21, 2012 in Mt Kisco, New York.

The New Jersey woman whose deeply bronzed complexion made her a national punchline after she was charged with putting her 5-year-old daughter in a tanning bed has been cleared of criminal charges.

A grand jury refused to indict Patricia Krentcil on a child-endangerment charge for allegedly violating a state law that bans children from using tanning salons, NBC New York reported Tuesday.

Krentcil, of Nutley, N.J., was arrested after her daughter appeared in school with burns on her legs last April. Her mother said they were from swimming outside and that she never put the child in a tanning bed.

After she was first arrested, Krentcil told NBC New York that she treated her tanning salon trips as an errand in which she brings along her daughter, but insisted the booth lights were never exposed to the girl.

"It's like taking your daughter to go food shopping," she said. "There's tons of moms that bring their children in ... 

"I tan, she doesn't tan," she continued. "I'm in the booth, she's in the room. That's all there is to it."

It's against the law in New Jersey for any child under 14-year-old to use an artificial tanning booth.

“We presented all the available evidence in the case to the grand jury, both the state’s evidence and the defense’s evidence,” said Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Gina Iosim. “The grand jurors voted not to indict Mrs. Krentcil. We respect their decision."

Krentcil, 44, has admitted she went overboard with the ultraviolet rays that gave her a skin tone some likened to a roasted nut and made her the target of standup comics and late-night monologues.

She even took up a magazine's offer to stay away from the salons for a month and emerged looking much healthier, but complaining she felt "weird and pale."

More recently, she told the New York Daily News she was contemplating a move to overcast London, but denied it was because she had been banned by local tanning salons who considered her bad for business.