PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania State Troopers Association says the state police haven't shown "any justification" for rescinding a trooper's permission to work as Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's assistant.

State police spokeswoman Lt. Myra Taylor says Trooper Ed Joyner won't be allowed to work for Roethlisberger while his union grievance is pending.

The union will "vigorously" defend Joyner who was with Roethlisberger when the Steelers star was accused of sexual assault in a Georgia nightclub on March 5.

The state police last month rescinded Joyner's permission to work for Roethlisberger, saying the trooper's presence "demeaned" the state police and was beyond the scope of the work he had permission to do for Roethlisberger since 2005.

GREENSBURG — A man whose fiancee was killed when he crashed with her in his car while driving drunk will spend three to six years in prison.Forty-five-year-old John Mehalic Jr. of Derry Township, Westmoreland County, was sentenced after pleading guilty to vehicular homicide while driving under the influence.Police say Mehalic's blood-alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit when he skidded across a rural highway and hit a utility pole on July 25, 2008.An autopsy showed 40-year-old Sonya Purcell died of injuries from the crash.

PITTSBURGH — Defense attorneys for a Pittsburgh-area woman accused of murdering an FBI agent want the charges against her split into three trials.Christina Korbe is charged with shooting FBI agent Samuel Hicks as officers came to arrest her husband, Robert, on drug charges in November 2008.Korbe faces charges related to the shooting; drug and weapons charges relating to her husband; and that she illegally possessed a gun while she was allegedly a habitual user of drugs.A federal judge on Wednesday will hear defense arguments that evidence for some of those charges could unfairly taint a jury's opinion about the others, so separate trials are necessary. Federal prosecutors say the charges should be tried together.

NEW CASTLE — A judge has ruled that a 12-year-old boy can appeal his decision to try the boy as an adult on charges that he fatally shot his father's pregnant fiancee.Lawrence County Judge Dominick Motto in March ordered Jordan Brown to stand trial as an adult in the 2009 slaying of Kenzie Houk and her unborn son. Brown was 11 at the time.In his original ruling, Motto found the boy was unlikely to be rehabilitated in juvenile court because he won't take responsibility for the crime. But Brown's attorneys argued that making the boy acknowledge the crime to avoid trial as an adult amounts to self-incrimination, which is an issue best handled by a Superior Court appeal.