Tag: court witnesses

Penn State Scandal Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
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Here’s a look at the Penn State sexual abuse scandal. On November 4, 2011, a grand jury report was released containing testimony that former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abused eight young boys over a period of at least 15 years. Officials at Penn State purportedly failed to notify law enforcement after learning about some of these incidents. On December 7, 2011, the number of victims increased to 10. Sandusky was found guilty in 2012.

Included is a timeline of accusations, lists of the charges against Sandusky, a list of involved parties, a post grand jury report timeline, information about The Second Mile charity and Sandusky with links to the grand jury investigation.

Jerry Sandusky

Birth date: January 26, 1944

Birth place: Washington, Pennsylvania

Birth name: Gerald Arthur Sandusky

Marriage: Dorothy “Dottie” (Gross) Sandusky (1966-present)

Children: (all adopted) E.J., Kara, Jon, Jeff, Ray and Matt. The Sanduskys also fostered several children.

Occupation: Assistant football coach at Penn State for 32 years before his retirement, including 23 years as defensive coordinator.

Initially founded by Sandusky in 1977 as a group foster home for troubled boys, but grew into a non-profit organization that “helps young people to achieve their potential as individuals and community members.”

May 25, 2012 – The Second Mile requests court approval in Centre County, Pennsylvania, to transfer its programs to Arrow Child & Family Ministries and shut down.

August 27, 2012 – The Second Mile requests a stay in their petition to transfer its programs to Arrow Child & Family Ministries saying, “this action will allow any pending or future claims filed by Sandusky’s victims to be resolved before key programs or assets are considered for transfer.”

March 2016 – After years of dismantling and distributing assets to Arrow Child & Family Ministries and any remaining funds to the Pennsylvania Attorney General to hold in escrow, the organization is dissolved.

Source: Grand Jury Report

1994-1997 – Sandusky engages in inappropriate conduct with different boys he met separately through The Second Mile program.

1998 – Penn State police and the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare investigate an incident in which the mother of an 11-year-old boy reported that Sandusky showered with her son.

1998 – Psychologist Alycia Chambers tells Penn State police that Sandusky acted the way a pedophile might in her assessment of a case in which the mother of a young boy reported that Sandusky showered with her son and may have had inappropriate contact with him. A second psychologist, John Seasock, reported he found no indication of child abuse.

June 1, 1998 – In an interview, Sandusky admits to showering naked with the boy, saying it was wrong and promising not to do it again. The district attorney advises investigators that no charges will be filed, and the university police chief instructs that the case be closed.

June 1999 – Sandusky retires from Penn State after coaching there for 32 years, but receives emeritus status, with full access to the campus and football facilities.

2000 – James Calhoun, a janitor at Penn State, tells his supervisor and another janitor that he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the Lasch Building showers. No one reports the incident to university officials or law enforcement.

March 2, 2002 – Graduate Assistant Mike McQueary tells Coach Joe Paterno that on March 1, he witnessed Sandusky sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in the Lasch Building showers. On May 7, 2012, prosecutors file court documents to change the date of the assault to on or around February 9, 2001.

March 3, 2002 – Paterno reports the incident to Athletic Director Tim Curley. Later, McQueary meets with Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz. McQueary testifies that he told Curley and Schultz that he saw Sandusky and the boy engage in anal sex; Curley and Schultz testify they were not told of any such allegation. No law enforcement investigation is launched.

2005 or 2006 – Sandusky befriends another Second Mile participant whose allegations would form the foundation of the multi-year grand jury investigation.

2006 or 2007 – Sandusky begins to spend more time with the boy, taking him to sporting events and giving him gifts. During this period, Sandusky performs oral sex on the boy more than 20 times and the boy performs oral sex on him once.

2008 – The boy breaks off contact with Sandusky. Later, his mother calls the boy’s high school to report her son had been sexually assaulted and the principal bans Sandusky from campus and reports the incident to police. The ensuing investigation reveals 118 calls from Sandusky’s home and cell phone numbers to the boy’s home.

November 2008 – Sandusky informs The Second Mile that he is under investigation. He is removed from all program activities involving children, according to the group.

November 4, 2011 – The grand jury report is released.

November 5, 2011 – Sandusky is arraigned on 40 criminal counts. He is released on $100,000 bail. Curley and Schultz are each charged with one count of felony perjury and one count of failure to report abuse allegations.

November 7, 2011 – Curley and Schultz are both arraigned and resign from their positions.

November 9, 2011 – Paterno announces that he intends to retire at the end of the 2011 football season. Hours later, university trustees announce that President Graham Spanier and Coach Paterno are fired, effective immediately.

November 11, 2011 – McQueary, now a Penn State receivers’ coach, is placed on indefinite administrative leave.

November 14, 2011 – In a phone interview with NBC’s Bob Costas, Sandusky states that he is “innocent” of the charges and claims that the only thing he did wrong was “showering with those kids.”

November 15, 2011 – The Morning Call reports that in a November 8, 2011, email to a former classmate, McQueary says he did stop the 2002 assault he witnessed and talked with police about it.

November 16, 2011 – Representatives of Penn State’s campus police and State College police say they have no record of having received any report from McQueary about his having witnessed the rape of a boy by Sandusky.

November 16, 2011 – A new judge is assigned to the Sandusky case after it is discovered that Leslie Dutchcot, the judge who freed Sandusky on $100,000 bail, volunteered at The Second Mile charity.

November 21, 2011 – It is announced that former FBI Director Louis Freeh will lead an independent inquiry for Penn State into the school’s response to allegations of child sex abuse.

November 22, 2011 – The Patriot-News reports that Children and Youth Services in Pennsylvania has two open cases of child sex abuse against Sandusky. The cases were reported less than two months ago and are in the initial stages of investigation.

November 22, 2011 – The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts announces that all Centre County Common Pleas Court judges have recused themselves from the Sandusky case. This is to avoid any conflicts of interest due to connections with Sandusky, The Second Mile charity, or Penn State.

November 30, 2011 – The first lawsuit is filed on behalf of a person listed in the complaint as “John Doe,” who says he was 10 years-old when he met Sandusky through The Second Mile charity. His attorneys say Sandusky sexually abused the victim “over one hundred times” and threatened to harm the victim and his family if he alerted anyone to the abuse.

December 2, 2011 – A victim’s attorneys say they have reached a settlement with The Second Mile that allows it to stay in operation but requires it to obtain court approval before transferring assets or closing.

December 3, 2011 – In an interview with The New York Times, Sandusky says, “If I say, ‘No, I’m not attracted to young boys,’ that’s not the truth. Because I’m attracted to young people – boys, girls – I …” His lawyer speaks up at that point to note that Sandusky is not “sexually” attracted to them.

December 7, 2011 – Sandusky is arrested on additional child rape charges, which raises the number of victims from eight to 10 people. He is charged with four counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and two counts of unlawful contact with a minor. He also faces one new count of indecent assault and two counts of endangering a child’s welfare, in addition to a single new count of indecent assault and two counts of corruption of minors.

December 8, 2011 – Sandusky is released on $250,000 bail. He is placed under house arrest and is required to wear an electronic monitoring device. He is also restricted from contacting the victims and possible witnesses, and he must be supervised during any interactions with minors.

December 13, 2011 – Sandusky enters a plea of not guilty and waives his right to a preliminary hearing.

December 16, 2011 – A hearing is held for Curley and Schultz. McQueary testifies he told university officials that he saw Sandusky possibly sexually assaulting a boy in 2002. Following the testimony, the judge rules that the perjury case against Curley and Schultz will go to trial. The incident is later said to have happened in 2001.

January 13, 2012 – Curley and Schultz enter pleas of not guilty for their failure to report child sex abuse.

January 22, 2012 – Paterno dies at the age of 85.

February 14, 2012 – Penn State says that the Sandusky case has cost the university $3.2 million thus far in combined legal, consultant and public relations fees.

June 11, 2012 – The Sandusky trial begins. On June 22, Sandusky is found guilty on 45 counts after jurors deliberate for almost 21 hours. His bail is immediately revoked, and he is taken to jail.

June 30, 2012 – McQueary’s contract as assistant football coach ends.

July 12, 2012 – Freeh announces the findings of the investigation into Penn State’s actions concerning Sandusky. The report accuses the former leaders at Penn State of showing “total and consistent disregard” for child sex abuse victims, while covering up the attacks of a longtime sexual predator.

July 23, 2012 – The NCAA announces a $60 million fine against Penn State and bans the team from the postseason for four years. Additionally, the school must vacate all wins from 1998-2011 and will lose 20 football scholarships a year for four seasons.
– The Big Ten Conference rules that Penn State’s share of bowl revenues for the next four seasons – roughly $13 million will be donated to charities working to prevent child abuse.

August 24, 2012 – “Victim 1” files a lawsuit against Penn State.

September 20, 2012 – Penn State hires Feinberg Rozen LLP (headed by Kenneth Feinberg who oversaw the 9/11 and BP oil spill victim funds).

October 2, 2012 – McQueary files a whistleblower lawsuit against Penn State.

October 8, 2012 – An audio statement from Sandusky airs in which he protests his innocence and says he is falsely accused.

October 9, 2012 – Sandusky is sentenced to no less than 30 years and no more than 60 years in prison. During the hearing, Sandusky is designated a violent sexual offender.

October 15, 2012 – Plaintiff “John Doe,” a 21-year-old male, files a lawsuit against Sandusky, Penn State, The Second Mile, Spanier, Curley and Schultz. Doe alleges that he would not have been assaulted by Sandusky if officials, who were aware he was molesting boys, had not covered up his misconduct.

November 1, 2012 – The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania files eight charges against former Penn State President Spanier. The charges include perjury and endangering the welfare of a child. Former university Vice President Schultz and former Athletic Director Curley face the same charges, according to Attorney General Linda Kelly.

November 15, 2012 – The Middle States Commission on Higher Education lifts its warning and reaffirms Penn State’s accreditation.

January 30, 2013 – Judge John M. Cleland denies Sandusky’s appeal for a new trial.

July 30, 2013 – A judge rules that Spanier, Curley and Schultz will face trial on obstruction of justice and other charges.

August 26, 2013 – Attorneys announce Sandusky’s adopted son and six other victims have finalized settlement agreements.

October 2, 2013 – The Superior Court of Pennsylvania denies Sandusky’s appeal.

October 28, 2013 – Penn State announces it has reached settlements with 26 victims of Sandusky. The amount paid by the university totals $59.7 million.

April 2, 2014 – The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania also denies Sandusky’s appeal.

September 8, 2014 – NCAA ends Penn State’s postseason ban and scholarship limits. The $60 million fine and the 13 years of vacated wins for Paterno remain in place.

January 16, 2015 – The NCAA agrees to restore 111 of Paterno’s wins as part of a settlement of the lawsuit brought by State Senator Jake Corman and Treasurer Rob McCord. Also, as part of the settlement, Penn State agrees to commit $60 million to the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse.

December 23, 2015 – A spokeswoman for the State of Pennsylvania employee retirement system says Sandusky will receive $211,000 in back payments and his regular pension payments will resume. This is the result of a November 13 court ruling that reversed a 2012 decision to terminate Sandusky’s pension under a state law that allows the termination of pensions of public employees convicted of a “disqualifying crime.” The judge said in his ruling that Sandusky was not employed at the time of the crimes he was convicted of committing.

January 22, 2016 – A three-judge panel reverses the obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges against Spanier, Curley and Schultz, and the perjury charges against Spanier and Curley.

May 4, 2016 – A new allegation purports Paterno knew that his assistant coach Sandusky was sexually abusing a child as early as 1976, according to a new court filing. The ongoing lawsuit, filed in 2013, seeks to determine whether Penn State or its insurance policy is liable for paying Sandusky’s victims. At least 30 men were involved in a civil settlement with Penn State, and the number of victims could be higher.

May 6, 2016 – CNN reports the story of another alleged victim who explains how he was a troubled young kid in 1971 when Sandusky raped him in a Penn State bathroom. He says his complaint about it was ignored by Paterno.

July 12, 2016 – Newly unsealed court documents allege that Paterno knew about Sandusky’s abuse and that he dismissed a victim’s complaint.

August 12, 2016 – In a bid for a new trial, Sandusky testifies at a post-conviction hearing claiming his lawyers bungled his 2012 trial. On the stand, Sandusky describes what he said as bad media and legal advice given to him by his former lawyer, Joseph Amendola.

November 3, 2016 – The Department of Education fines Penn State $2.4 million for violating the Clery Act, a law that requires universities to report crime on campuses. It’s the largest fine in the history of the act.

March 13, 2017 – Curley and Schultz plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of children in exchange for the dismissal of felony charges.

March 24, 2017 – Spanier is found guilty on one misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child. Spanier was acquitted of more serious allegations, including conspiracy charges and a felony count of child endangerment.

June 2, 2017 – Spanier and two other former administrators are sentenced to jail terms for failing to report a 2001 allegation that Sandusky was molesting young boys. Spanier whose total sentence is four to 12 months incarceration, will be on probation for two years and must pay a $7,500 fine, according to Joe Grace, a spokesman for Pennsylvania’s attorney general’s office.

– Curley is sentenced to seven to 23 months’ incarceration and two years’ probation, Grace said. He will serve three months in jail followed by house arrest and pay a $5,000 fine.

– Schultz is sentenced to six to 23 months’ incarceration and two years’ probation. He will serve two months in jail, followed by house arrest and pay a $5,000 fine, according to Grace.

January 9, 2018 – Penn State reports that the total amount of settlement awards paid to Sandusky’s victims is now over $109 million.

February 5, 2019 – In response to an appeal for a new trial that also questions the validity of mandatory minimum sentencing, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania orders Sandusky to be re-sentenced. The request for a new trial is denied.

April 30, 2019 – US Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick vacates Spanier’s 2017 conviction for endangering the welfare of a child. Spanier was set to be sentenced on the one count conviction, instead, the court ordered the conviction be vacated because it was based on a criminal statute that did not go into effect until after the conduct in question. The state has 90 days to retry him, according to court documents. The following month, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro appeals the judge’s decision to throw out the conviction.

November 22, 2019 – Sandusky is resentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison, the same penalty that was previously overturned. The initial sentence of at least 30 years in prison was overturned by the Pennsylvania Superior Court, which found that mandatory minimum sentences were illegally imposed.

March 26, 2020 – The US Office for Civil Rights finds that Penn State failed to protect students who filed sexual harassment complaints. OCR completed the compliance review after it was initially launched in 2014, and found that the University violated Title IX for several years, in various ways. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announces that the US Department of Education and the university have entered into a resolution agreement that compels Penn State to address deficiencies in their complaint process, reporting policy requirements, record keeping, and training of staff, university police and other persons who work with students.

December 1, 2020 – Spanier’s conviction is restored by a federal appeals court.

May 26, 2021 – A judge rules that Spanier will start his two month prison sentence on July 9. Spanier reports to jail early and is released on August 4 after serving 58 days.

Sandusky Verdict

Victim 1
Count 1 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 2 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 3 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Felony 3)
Count 4 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 5 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 6 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 2
Count 7 – not guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 8 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 9 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 10 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 11 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

Victim 3
Count 12 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 13 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 3)
Count 14 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 15 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 4
Count 16 – ****DROPPED****: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 17 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 18 – ****DROPPED*****: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 19 – ****DROPPED*****: Aggravated Indecent Assault (Felony 2)
Count 20 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 21 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 22 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 23 – guilty” Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 5
Count 24 – not guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 25 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 3)
Count 26 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 27 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 6
Count 28 – not guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 29 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 3)
Count 30 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 31 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

Victim 7
Count 32 – guilty: Criminal Attempt to Commit Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 33 – ****DROPPED****: WITHDRAWN BY PROSECUTORS (unlawful contact with minors)
Count 34 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 35 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

Victim 8
Count 36 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 37 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 2)
Count 38 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 39 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 40 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Misdemeanor 1)

(Due to 2nd indictment, counts start over with Victims 9 and 10)

Victim 9
Count 1 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 2 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 3 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Felony 3)
Count 4 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 5 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 6 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

Victim 10
Count 7 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 8 – guilty: Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse (Felony 1)
Count 9 – guilty: Indecent Assault (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 10 – guilty: Unlawful Contact with Minors (Felony 1)
Count 11 – guilty: Corruption of Minors (Misdemeanor 1)
Count 12 – guilty: Endangering Welfare of Children (Felony 3)

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April 24, 2024
Takeaways from President Biden’s first impeachment hearing by House Oversight panel | CNN Politics

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CNN
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House Republicans kicked off their first impeachment inquiry hearing Thursday laying out the allegations they will pursue against President Joe Biden, though their expert witnesses acknowledged Republicans don’t yet have the evidence to prove the accusation they’re leveling.

Thursday’s hearing in the House Oversight Committee didn’t include witnesses who could speak directly to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealing at the center of the inquiry, but the hearing offered Republicans the chance to show some of the evidence they’ve uncovered to date.

None of that evidence has shown Joe Biden received any financial benefit from his son’s business dealings, but Republicans said at Thursday’s hearing what they’ve found so far has given them the justification to launch their impeachment inquiry.

Democrats responded by accusing Republicans of doing Donald Trump’s bidding and raising his and his family’s various foreign dealings themselves, as well as Trump’s attempts to get Ukraine to investigate in 2019 the same allegations now being raised in the impeachment inquiry.

Here’s takeaways from Thursday’s first impeachment inquiry hearing:

While Republicans leveled accusations of corruption against Joe Biden over his son’s business dealings, the GOP expert witnesses who testified Thursday were not ready to go that far.

Forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky, one of the GOP witnesses, undercut Republicans’ main narrative by saying there wasn’t enough evidence yet for him to conclude that there was “corruption” by the Bidens.

“I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud or wrongdoing,” Dubinsky said. “More information needs to be gathered before I can make such an assessment.”

He said there was a “smokescreen” surrounding Hunter Biden’s finances, including complex overseas shell companies, which he said raise questions for a fraud expert about possible “illicit” activities.

Conservative law professor Jonathan Turley also said that the House does not yet have evidence to support articles of impeachment against Joe Biden, but argued that House Republicans were justified in opening an impeachment inquiry.

“I want to emphasize what it is that we’re here today for. This is a question of an impeachment inquiry. It is not a vote on articles of impeachment,” Turley said. “In fact, I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. That is something that an inquiry has to establish. But I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden.”

Turley said that Biden’s false statements about his knowledge of Hunter Biden’s business endeavors, as well as the unproven allegations that Biden may have benefited from his son’s business deals, were reason for the House to move forward with the impeachment inquiry. (CNN has previously reported that Joe Biden’s unequivocal denials of any business-related contact with his son have been undercut over time, including by evidence uncovered by House Republicans.)

Turley, a George Washington University Law School professor, has repeatedly backed up Republican arguments on key legal matters in recent years, including his opposition to Trump’s first and second impeachments.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, pushed Turley further on his comments, asking whether he would vote “no” today on impeachment.

“On this evidence, certainly,” Turley said. “At the moment, these are allegations. There is some credible evidence there that is the basis of the allegations.”

House Republicans opened their first impeachment hearing Thursday with a series of lofty claims against the president, as they try to connect him to his son’s “corrupt” business dealings overseas.

House Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer claimed the GOP probes have “uncovered a mountain of evidence revealing how Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain,” even though he hasn’t put forward any concrete evidence backing up that massive allegation.

Two other Republican committee chairs further pressed their case, including by citing some of the newly released Internal Revenue Service documents, which two IRS whistleblowers claim show how the Justice Department intervened in the Hunter Biden criminal probe to protect the Biden family. However, many of their examples of alleged wrongdoing occurred during the Trump administration before Joe Biden took office.

Ahead of the hearing, the Republican chairs released a formal framework laying out the scope of their probe, saying it “will span the time of Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency to the present, including his time out of office.”

The document outlines specific lines of inquiry, including whether Biden engaged in “corruption, bribery, and influence peddling” – none of which Republicans have proved yet.

The memo included four questions the Republicans are seeking to answer related to whether Biden took any action related to payments his family received or if the president obstructed the investigations into Hunter Biden.

At the close of the hearing Thursday, Comer announced that he was issuing subpoenas for the bank records of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and brother, James Biden.

The subpoenas will be for Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records, a source familiar with the subpoenas confirmed.

The subpoenas are not a surprise, as Comer has been signaling his intention to issue the subpoenas for the personal bank records. They show where Republicans will head next in their investigation as they continue to seek evidence to substantiate their unproven allegations about the president.

Some inside the GOP expressed frustration to CNN in real time with how the House GOP’s first impeachment inquiry hearing is playing out, as the Republican witnesses directly undercut the GOP’s own narrative and admit there is no evidence that Biden has committed impeachable offenses.

“You want witnesses that make your case. Picking witnesses that refute House Republicans arguments for impeachment is mind blowing,” one senior GOP aide told CNN. “This is an unmitigated disaster.”

One GOP lawmaker also expressed some disappointment with their performance thus far, telling CNN: “I wish we had more outbursts.”

The bar for Thursday’s hearing was set low: Republicans admitted they would not reveal any new evidence, but were hoping to at least make the public case for why their impeachment inquiry is warranted, especially as some of their own members remain skeptical of the push.

But some Republicans are not even paying attention, as Congress is on the brink of a shutdown – a point Democrats hammered during the hearing.

“I haven’t watched or listened to a moment of it,” said another GOP lawmaker. There’s a shutdown looming.”

Democrats repeatedly pointed out that the Republican allegations about foreign payments were tied to money that went mostly Hunter Biden – but not the to the president.

“The majority sits completely empty handed with no evidence of any presidential wrongdoing, no smoking gun, no gun, no smoke,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight committee.

Raskin’s staff brought in the 12,000 pages of bank records the committee has received so far, as Raskin said, “not a single page shows a dime going to President Joe Biden.”

Raskin also had a laptop open displaying a countdown clock for when the government shuts down in a little more than two days – another point Democrats used to bash Republicans for focusing on impeachment and failing to pass bills to fund the government. The Democrats passed the laptop around to each lawmaker as they had their five minutes to question the witnesses.

Their arguments also previewed how Democrats intend to play defense for the White House as Republicans move forward on their impeachment inquiry.

The Democrats needled Republicans for not holding a vote on an impeachment inquiry – one Democrat asked Turley whether he would recommend a vote, which Turley said he would.

House Democrats’ 2019 impeachment of Trump was sparked by Trump’s attempts to push Ukraine to investigate allegations involving Biden and his son’s position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company – some of the same allegations now being probed by the House GOP.

That led Democrats Thursday to push for testimony from Rudy Giuliani, who as Trump’s personal lawyer sought to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine in 2019.

Twice, the Democrats forced the Oversight Committee to vote on Democratic motions to subpoena Giuliani, votes that served as stunts to try to hammer home their argument that Giuliani tried and failed to corroborate the same allegations at the heart of the Biden impeachment inquiry.

“I ask the question: Where in the world is Rudy Giuliani?” said Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, one of the Democrats who forced the procedural vote. “That’s how we got here, ladies and gentlemen. And this committee is afraid to bring him before us and put him on the record. Shame! And the question was raised. What does this have to do with it? It has everything to do with it.”

In addition to Giuliani, Raskin sought testimony from Lev Parnas, an associate of Giuliani’s who was indicted in 2019. Parnas subsequently cooperated with the Democratic impeachment inquiry, including providing a statement from a top official at Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company, stating, “No one from Burisma had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him.”

Several Democrats also raised Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who worked in the White House, receiving $2 billion from Saudi Arabia through a company he formed after leaving the White House.

The Democrats charged that Kushner’s actions were far worse than Hunter Biden’s, because Kushner worked in government, while Biden’s son did not.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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September 28, 2023
Donald Trump and his adult children are listed as potential witnesses in NY fraud case | CNN Politics

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New York
CNN
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Donald Trump, his adult children, and his closest business advisers could be called to testify during the civil fraud trial expected to begin next week in New York.

The former president is listed on the witness lists submitted by the New York attorney general and Trump’s legal team.

Placing someone on a potential witness list does not mean that person will be called to testify. Attorneys for both sides need to be inclusive on their witness lists of any potential person they might want to call, or the judge could exclude the testimony.

Trump previously sat for a deposition in the case and said he had little “if any” role in preparing the financial statements that a New York judge ruled earlier this week were fraudulent.

Also on both lists are Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who are both defendants in the case, and numerous current and former Trump Organization employees, including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg. Most of the witnesses have also testified in videotaped depositions.

In civil cases, defendants can be called to testify and if they refuse, the jury, or in this case Judge Arthur Engoron, can use that against them in weighing the evidence.

The New York attorney general’s office identified 28 witnesses they could call in the case, including Michael Cohen and Ivanka Trump. Ivanka Trump was initially a defendant in the case, but a New York appeals court struck her from the lawsuit saying the claims brought against her were too old.

Trump’s attorneys identified 127 possible witnesses that they would call, including some of the lenders behind the loans at issue in the lawsuit.

The case is scheduled to start Monday. Engoron will decide how much money the Trumps would pay the state after finding the former president and his business engaged in a persistent fraud by using inflated financial statements for nearly a decade.

The state is also seeking to prove the Trumps engaged in insurance fraud and falsified business records. Engoron has set aside nearly three months for the trial.

An appeals court ruling is expected as soon as Thursday that could potentially impact the trial start date.

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August 2, 2023
Michael Cohen to take stand in fraud trial of his former boss, Donald Trump | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Michael Cohen was once one of Donald Trump’s most loyal allies.

But after going to jail for tax crimes and lying to Congress, Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer,” became a star witness against his former boss, testifying before Congress about the hush-money payments he made to women claiming affairs with Trump and writing books highly critical of the former president.

Tuesday, Trump and Cohen are expected to be face to face in a New York courtroom as Cohen delivers testimony as part of the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against the former president.

When Cohen takes the stand, he will face down a very angry Donald Trump. It’s the first time the two have been in the same room or even spoken in five years, according to multiple sources.

“It appears that I will be reunited with my old client @realDonaldTrump when I testify this Tuesday, October 24th at the @NewYorkStateAG civil fraud trial. See you there!” Cohen posted last week on the social media site Threads.

Cohen’s testimony is the latest high-profile moment in the civil fraud trial, in which New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to bar Trump from doing business in the state. While Trump has played only a passive role in the trial to date, he is expected to be called as a witness later on.

Michael Cohen reacts to testimony about Eric Trump

Trump voluntarily attended the civil trial’s opening days, and the former president returned last week, when Cohen was initially supposed to be called to testify, though Cohen’s appearance was delayed after he cited a medical issue.

Trump is also returning to the courtroom after he was fined $5,000 last week by Judge Arthur Engoron – and warned about possible imprisonment – for violating a gag order not to speak about any members of the court staff. Engoron fined Trump over a social media post attacking Engoron’s clerk that had not been removed from Trump’s campaign website.

Cohen is expected to testify about meetings with former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg and Trump regarding Trump’s financial statements and net worth. Cohen has claimed there were meetings with Weisselberg and Trump about Trump’s net worth before the financial statements were filed. Weisselberg testified earlier in the trial, “I don’t believe it ever happened, no.”

The attorney general’s office has said Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee in February 2019 – when Cohen alleged that officials at the Trump Organization inflated the value of its assets to secure loans and insurance and that they lowered the values for tax benefits – was the impetus for its investigation that led to the lawsuit against Trump.

Assistant Attorney General Colleen Faherty is expected to question Cohen on direct examination.

Cohen’s testimony is also a crucial part of the criminal case against Trump brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump earlier this year with falsifying business records related to the hush-money payments.

Cohen testified before Congress in 2019 about Trump’s involvement in the hush-money scheme involving both former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who alleged having affairs with Trump (Trump has denied the affairs). Cohen even released a recording in which he and Trump can be heard discussing how they would buy the rights to McDougal’s story.

Tuesday’s testimony, however, is expected to focus not on the hush-money payments but on Trump’s financial statements. Before Cohen testifies, the first witness will be Bill Kelly, the general counsel of Mazars, Trump’s onetime accounting firm.

The trial is now in its fourth week. The attorney general’s office has called 12 witnesses to testify, including six current or former Trump Organization employees, two of whom are defendants in the case: Weisselberg and former Controller Jeff McConney.

Trump’s lawyers have cross-examined only about half the witnesses so far, opting to reserve their right to call them in the defense case. Engoron set aside more than three months for the trial, which could continue through late December.

An appraiser for Cushman & Wakefield testified last week that Trump’s son Eric Trump was closely involved in several appraisal consultations with the real estate firm for Trump assets Seven Springs and Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, New York, that valued the properties substantially lower than the amounts that appeared on Trump’s financial statements in those years.

Eric Trump said in a deposition for the case that he didn’t remember being involved in any appraisals for Trump properties.

The attorneys are scheduled to argue at a hearing Friday morning whether Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, can be forced to testify at trial even though an appellate court dismissed her as a defendant because the claims against her were too old.

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August 2, 2023
Prince Harry gives tense testimony in historic courtroom battle against British media | CNN Business

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Prince Harry has become the first senior British royal to give evidence on a witness stand in 132 years, as his bitter fight against the UK’s tabloid press came to a head in tense courtroom showdown on Tuesday.

Harry is suing a big British newspaper group, Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), alleging the publisher’s journalists hacked his phone and used other illicit means to gather information about his life between 1996 and 2009.

Follow live updates from the courtroom here.

As the landmark hearing got underway at the High Court in London, Prince Harry answered questions in a measured, almost hushed tone. He appeared nervous at first, and was at one point asked to raise his voice.

He faced forensic and detailed questioning from MGN’s lawyer, Andrew Green who probed him on the specifics of his claims and occasionally left him scrambling to recall sections of his written statement or find pieces of evidence.

But the Duke of Sussex brought to court an overriding argument that he has previously made on television programs and in podcast interviews: that the media’s intrusion and tactics caused him significant distress and wrecked some of his closest relationships.

And he increasingly asserted himself as the testimony wore on, clashing at times with the publisher’s lawyer as they dissected reams of press coverage and legalese.

“Some editors and journalists do have blood on their hands” for the distress caused to him, Harry told the court at one point – and “perhaps, inadvertently death,” he added, in reference to his mother Princess Diana.

Here’s what we learned as Harry began giving evidence on Tuesday.

Tuesday’s courtroom session touched on dozens of snippets from Harry’s youth, repeated aloud in court as the prince and MGN’s lawyer parsed over the fine details of several news articles.

Harry’s diagnosis with the “kissing disease,” also known as mono; his teenage trips to the pub; his broken thumb and a back injury sustained in a game of polo; his gap year afternoons on the beach; and Princess Diana’s trips to collect him from school – all were all the subject of stories entered into evidence, and each was dissected by Green and the duke.

Overall, the prince alleges that about 140 articles published in titles belonging to Mirror Group contained information gathered using unlawful methods, and 33 of those articles have been selected to be considered at the trial.

In the courtroom on Tuesday, Harry said that “every single article has caused me distress.”

“All of these articles played an important role – a destructive role – in my growing up,” Harry said. The newspapers in question were on constantly display “in every single palace, unfortunately,” while he was growing up. At school, fellow students and others would read the articles, he said. Harry described the level of coverage as “incredibly invasive.”

Green began by attempting to establish whether Harry remembered reading the articles in question at the time of publication. When the duke conceded he could not always recall, Green pressed him on how he could realistically argue they could have affected him so strongly. It was a theme to which Green would often return.

In a written statement entered into the court record on Tuesday, Harry expressed concern that his conversations with family and friends may have been intercepted. He noted that he and his brother, Prince William, “naturally discussed personal aspects of our lives as we trusted each other with the private information we shared.”

He said private information about his life was raised on voicemails left on the phones of his father Charles and his mother Diana.

Harry said that he would discuss “private and sensitive matters regarding our family and personal lives” on voicemails left on the phone of the then Kate Middleton, now the Princess of Wales, he said. The Duke listed a number of other friends with whom he had been in contact, including the late TV presenter Caroline Flack, in his witness statement.

He said he recalled “unusual mobile activity” relating to his voicemails that he dismissed at the time, but now alleges was caused by phone hacking.

“I remember on multiple occasions hearing a voicemail for the first time that wasn’t ‘new’,” he wrote. “I would simply put it down to perhaps a technical glitch, as mobile phones were still relatively new back then, or even just having too many drinks the night before (and having forgotten that I’d listened to it).”

Also in his written statement, Harry argued that the press actively tried to ruin his relationships. “I always felt as if the tabloids wanted me to be single, as I was much more interesting to them and sold more newspapers,” Harry wrote.

“Whilst they would, of course, report on my successes in life, it seemed to me that they took far greater pleasure in knocking me down, time and time again,” he added.

Harry claimed that papers would go about that task by putting “strain” on his relationships and creating distrust between him and his partners. He spoke regularly about one of his former girlfriends, Chelsy Davy, alleging journalists would find out about flight details to photograph her at airports, and would book rooms in the same hotels as the couple when they were on vacation.

The duke evidently believes that continues to be the case since his marriage to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. “This twisted objective is still pursued to this day even though I’m now married,” he wrote.

The atmosphere in court was occasionally tense. “Are we not, Prince Harry, in the realms of total speculation,” Green asked Harry at one point on Tuesday, after an exchange over a story about the teen prince breaking his thumb. Green had quizzed the duke about which specific illicit means of newsgathering Harry was alleging.

“I’m not the one who wrote the article,” Harry replied.

“No, but you’re the one who’s bringing the claim,” Green said.

Earlier in the morning, when discussing Harry’s use of a landline phone to talk to his mother from school, Harry suggested that either that phone or Diana’s could have been hacked.

“That’s just speculation you’ve come up with now,” Green said in response.

The exchanges between Harry and Green ultimately settled into a predictable pattern; when a new article was brought up, Green would press Harry on how he could know that the information was obtained illegally, and not through typical means.

Harry would often respond that he couldn’t fathom how information would have made its way into newspapers without illicit involvement. And he would repeatedly assert that the journalists who wrote the stories, not the subject of the stories, should answer questions about their sourcing.

There were times during the back-and-forth between Harry and Green when the prince appeared uncomfortable or unaware of the minutiae of his case.

Harry at one point joked that he was being put through a “workout” by having to repeatedly reach for bundles of evidence, stacked in folders beside him.

Green offered to arrange for someone to help the prince navigate the evidence, and Harry would often reply “if you say so,” when Green sought to establish details of the articles the prince’s team entered into evidence.

After a brief mid-morning recess, the judge asked Harry to raise his voice to ensure he could be heard throughout the courtroom, telling the duke that a number of observers in the courtroom had struggled to hear him.

The questioning was far more intense and detailed than anything Harry has experienced in the many television and podcast interviews he has given on the topic of press intrusion.

And Green sought to poke a number of holes in Harry’s argument, including that Harry was initially unaware of several specific stories, or that details in those stories could not have come through phone hacking as they had already been reported by other outlets.

In a lengthy witness statement and over the course of an hours-long testimony, the Duke of Sussex touched on a number of topics. They included:

The British government: Harry criticized the current Conservative government in his written testimony, in particular for what he described as an overly close relationship with the media.

“On a national level as, at the moment, our country is judged globally by the state of our press and our government – both of which I believe are at rock bottom,” Harry wrote.

He added that Rishi Sunak’s government “clearly have no appetite” for press regulation, “because their friends in the press said so.”

Piers Morgan: The British broadcaster was the editor of The Mirror from 1995 to 2004, and has been intensely critical of the duke and his wife, Meghan, in recent years. “The thought of Piers Morgan and his band of journalists earwigging into my mother’s private and sensitive messages … makes me feel physically sick,” Harry wrote in his evidence.

He claimed that, in response to his lawsuit, “myself and my wife have been subjected to a barrage of horrific personal attacks and intimidation from Piers Morgan,” suggesting that Morgan has taken the stance “in the hope that I will back down.”

Morgan has been unapologetic about his criticism of the pair, calling them “repulsive narcissistic hypocrites” in one December tweet.

The Queen’s concerns: Harry said he had recently learned that Queen Elizabeth II had a member of her staff secretly fly to Australia in 2003, and stay in a house down the road from where Harry was staying on his gap year.

“She was concerned about the extent of the coverage of my trip and wanted someone I knew to be nearby, in case I needed support,” Harry wrote.

At the time Harry had been photographed on the beach with friends – photos that Harry claims must have been obtained illicitly, because he did not understand how any journalists would know he was there.

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June 6, 2023
Ex-Fox producer said she gave misleading testimony in Dominion case ‘to keep my job’ | CNN Business

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Abby Grossberg, the former Fox News producer who accused the right-wing network of pressuring her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion defamation case, told NBC News Thursday in her first TV interview that she was “bullied, intimidated and coerced” into protecting the right-wing network to keep her job.

“It felt awful. I mean it felt terrible because I knew that I was bullied, intimidated, and coerced into saying that just to keep my job and stay at the company,” Grossberg told NBC.

Asked why she did that, Grossberg said “Because I made the decision to keep my job so that I can keep paying my bills. It seemed like the safer decision for me at the time.”

Her latest comments echo what she said last week in an interview with CNN’s Oliver Darcy, where she said she filed the lawsuit to protect her career and “expose the lies and deceit” that she says is rampant at the right-wing network.

Fox News contests all of her allegations, and said in a prior statement that, “the assertion that Ms. Grossberg was coached or intimidated into being dishonest during her Dominion deposition is patently false.”

Fox News also denies wrongdoing in the underlying Dominion case, and says it didn’t defame anyone.

Last week, Grossberg filed explosive lawsuits in New York and Delaware accusing Fox News lawyers of pressuring her into providing misleading testimony in the Dominion case – testimony that would protect the network and its top talent. Since filing the lawsuit, she submitted new sworn testimony in the Dominion defamation case that undermines some of Fox’s defenses.

She also claimed in her lawsuit that she had been subjected to a toxic and sexist work environment while at Fox News. The network has vehemently pushed back against these allegations.

After filing the lawsuit, Grossberg was fired from Fox News. The right-wing network said in a statement that she violated corporate rules improperly exposed legally privileged information in her lawsuit.

During Thursday’s interview, Grossberg said that she experienced harassment so severe that she thought about killing herself.

“I reached a breaking point where the harassment was so bad that I called a crisis line,” Grossberg told NBC News. “I thought I could just walk in front of a car and I wouldn’t have to go to work tomorrow.”

Describing the allegedly toxic workplace at the right-wing network, Grossberg said: “Women were objectified. It was a game. It was a sport. Female politicians who came on the show were mocked. There were debates about who they’d rather sleep with. C-word all the time.”

A Fox News spokesperson didn’t offer any comment when asked about Grossberg’s mention of suicide. But the spokesperson denied Grossberg’s claims of workplace misogyny, saying her lawsuit was “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees.” The spokesperson also noted that women are currently serving as the CEO of Fox News Media and the presidents of two of its networks.

Fox News is no stranger to claims of workplace sexism. Fox News founder Roger Ailes, former primetime star host Bill O’Reilly and other men were forced out amid sexual harassment allegations, and the network has paid tens of millions to settle related lawsuits.

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March 30, 2023
Prosecutors call rebuttal witnesses in Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial before jury visits scene where wife and son were killed | CNN

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Prosecutors on Tuesday planned to call up to seven further witnesses to rebut parts of Alex Murdaugh’s defense in his murder trial, according to attorneys in court.

The first rebuttal witness was Ronnie Crosby, an attorney who worked with Murdaugh and testified for the prosecution three weeks ago.

“He was a theatrical-type presence in the courtroom and he could get very emotional during closing arguments in front of a jury,” Crosby testified Tuesday.

Once the rebuttal witnesses are complete, the jury will be allowed to view Murdaugh’s property in Islandton, particularly its dog kennels near where the bodies of Murdaugh’s wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son Paul Murdaugh were found. Closing arguments will follow after that.

The rebuttal comes more than a month into the murder trial and a day after the defense rested its case following testimony from 14 witnesses.

The most important defense witness was Murdaugh himself, as he admitted he had lied about his whereabouts on the night of the murders and that he had in fact been at the kennels shortly before the murders took place. He blamed his lies on “paranoid thinking” stemming from his addiction to painkillers.

“I don’t think I was capable of reason, and I lied about being down there, and I’m so sorry that I did,” Murdaugh said.

Prosecutors, who called 61 witnesses in the case, have argued he killed his wife and son to gain sympathy and distract from the financial misconduct allegations, some of which the state says were about to come to light before the fatal shootings. Murdaugh indeed confessed to much of that financial misconduct – yet denied killing his family.

“If I was under the pressure that they’re talking about here, I can promise you I would hurt myself before I would hurt one of them, without a doubt,” Murdaugh said on the stand Friday.

He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the June 7, 2021, killings. He is separately facing 99 charges related to alleged financial crimes that will be adjudicated later.

In their case, prosecutors sought to poke holes in Murdaugh’s account of the night of the killings, using cell phone data, video and other evidence to suggest he tried to manufacture an alibi.

In the absence of direct evidence connecting Murdaugh to the killings – no murder weapon, bloody clothing or eyewitnesses – key arguments in his trial have revolved around the timeline of events and Murdaugh’s whereabouts the night of June 7, 2021.

In particular, prosecutors used video filmed at the dog kennels shortly before authorities say the killings took place to show Murdaugh was at the scene just minutes before the fatal shootings. Multiple witnesses testified that Murdaugh’s voice can be heard in the background of the video, which was filmed on Paul’s phone starting at 8:44 p.m. In his testimony, Murdaugh admitted he was indeed there and had lied about it.

Murdaugh testified last week that he went down to the kennels at Maggie’s request, but then returned to the house and laid down on a couch. When he got up, he said, he drove to visit his ailing mother at her home in nearby Almeda, before returning to his property later that night. Police say he called 911 at 10:07 p.m. to report finding the bodies.

The defense has painted Murdaugh as a loving father and husband being wrongfully accused of the killings after what it says has been a mishandled investigation and crime scene.

Among the witnesses called by Murdaugh’s attorneys were his former legal partner who testified the scene was not properly secured, and a forensics expert who said his analysis suggests two shooters carried out the killings.

Murdaugh’s only surviving son, Buster Murdaugh, also testified last week, saying his father was “destroyed” and “heartbroken” following the killings.

To show the killings could have taken place after Murdaugh left the kennels, the defense has tried to establish that Maggie and Paul’s time of death could have fallen in a much longer time window than prosecutors have presented.

More than a week ago, Colleton County Coroner Richard Harvey testified that he estimated the time of death to be around 9 p.m. – just minutes after Murdaugh’s voice was captured on the video – based in part on armpit checks he conducted to feel how warm the bodies were.

Harvey, who said he arrived on scene at 11:04 p.m., also testified that rigor mortis – the stiffening of a body’s joints and muscles following death – had not yet set in, and that it typically starts developing one to three hours following death.

However, when asked by the defense if the pair could have been shot anytime between 8 or 10 p.m., Harvey said yes.

A forensic pathologist, Jonathan Eisenstat, testified Monday that armpit temperature checks are “just not a valid method to try to make a determination of time of death,” calling the technique “just a guess.”

Instead, he said, someone arriving on scene should first check the ambient temperature of the area where the body is found and then take a rectal temperature to get as close to a core body temperature as possible.

Harvey testified earlier that he did not take rectal temperatures that night. During cross examination, prosecutors asked if the coroner had an idea of when the killings occurred since he did not take exact temperatures.

“You really do not have a general idea as to when that incident actually occurred?” Deputy Attorney General Attorney Don Zelenka asked Harvey.

“Yes sir, that’s true,” Harvey said.

The defense has also tried to portray the investigation into the case as shoddy, arguing that the crime scene was not secure or handled carefully. One witness, Mark Ball, one of Murdaugh’s former law firm colleagues, testified no barricades or police tape were set up to block several visitors from entering the property the night of the killings.

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February 28, 2023
Alex Murdaugh takes the stand to testify in his double murder trial | CNN

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[Breaking news update at 10:45 a.m. ET]

Alex Murdaugh took the stand to testify in his double murder trial Thursday morning, as he and his defense attorneys work to convince a jury he is innocent in the June 2021 killings of his wife Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and 22-year-old son Paul Murdaugh.

[Previous story, published at 10:19 a.m. ET]

Alex Murdaugh will testify in his double murder trial, he told the judge Thursday, as he and his attorneys work to convince a jury he is innocent in the June 2021 killings of his wife Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and 22-year-old son Paul Murdaugh.

“I am going to testify,” Murdaugh told Judge Clifton Newman when asked if he had made a decision on taking the stand. “I want to testify.”

Murdaugh announced his decision soon after his defense attorneys again asked the judge to limit the scope of questioning Murdaugh would face under cross-examination, specifically in regard to his alleged financial crimes, which the state has pointed to as a possible motive for the killings.

Newman denied the request, echoing his decision a day prior when he ruled not to issue a blanket order limiting the state’s questions, saying it was “unheard of to me.”

FOLLOW LIVE UPDATES: Alex Murdaugh will testify in murder trial

Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the killings of his wife son at the family’s estate in Islandton, South Carolina.

Prosecutors accuse Murdaugh of killing his wife and son to distract from an array of financial misconduct allegations against him, while his defense attorneys argue he is a caring father who has been wrongly accused after a mishandled investigation.

The now-disbarred lawyer is separately facing 99 charges stemming from those alleged financial schemes, including money laundering, insurance fraud and forgery.

The judge previously ruled to allow prosecutors to present evidence related to Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes, which the defense has argued are irrelevant to the murder case.

The state, however, contends the purported misconduct was about to be revealed at the time of the killings and provided Murdaugh with a motive to fatally shoot his wife and son by the family’s dog kennels that night.

Prosecutors rested their case last week after calling more than 60 witnesses to the stand. In the absence of direct DNA or eyewitness evidence connecting Murdaugh to the killings, they have attempted to show Murdaugh lied to investigators and was at the scene just minutes before the fatal shootings.

Murdaugh has repeatedly denied being at the scene for the fatal shootings. He told investigators he had gone to visit his mother that evening and found the bodies by the kennels when he returned home later that night.

So far, the defense has called witnesses including the county coroner, one of Murdaugh’s former law partners, forensics experts and his surviving son, Buster Murdaugh, in their effort to reveal flaws in the investigation and paint Murdaugh as shocked and devastated on the night of the fatal shootings.

Buster Murdaugh testified that his father was “destroyed” by the killings of Paul and Maggie.

“He was heartbroken. I walked in the door and saw him, gave him a hug,” he said of seeing his father in the hours after learning of the deaths of his brother and mother. Alex Murdaugh was “just broken down,” Buster said, adding his father was crying and couldn’t really speak.

Buster’s testimony was intended to undermine statements made by a state witness who previously testified he believed Alex Murdaugh had made an inadvertent confession to investigators.

The witness, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Special Agent Jeff Croft, said he believed Murdaugh said “I did him so bad” in reference to Paul’s body during an emotional interview with investigators on June 10, 2021.

The defense has argued Murdaugh actually said, “They did him so bad” – a claim Buster supported. The son said he heard his father use the phrase more than once on the night of the killings.

Murdaugh’s former law partner, Mark Ball, also supported that interpretation in his testimony. He said Alex Murdaugh was “devastated” the night of the killings and told Ball, “Look at what they did. Look at what they did to them.”

Ball also testified that Murdaugh repeatedly said he had not been at the kennels before finding the bodies that night. But he said he now thinks that is not true after hearing Murdaugh’s voice in the background of a video that was filmed on Paul’s phone minutes before the state says the killings occurred.

In the video, which appears to have been taken at the kennels, three voices can be heard in the background, which family friends have testified belong to Alex, Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.

Ball said he has “no doubt” it is Alex Murdaugh’s voice that is heard in the footage. At least nine witnesses have identified Murdaugh’s voice on the video, recorded at the scene at 8:44 p.m., around the time of the shootings.

The defense also used Ball’s testimony to support their argument the investigation and crime scene were mishandled. When Ball arrived at the Murdaugh’s home the night of the killings, he testified, there were no barricades or police tape to prevent people from entering the property and walking around the scene.

He said the coroner, citing instructions from South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigators, asked people to gather inside the family’s house, where people began cleaning up. This concerned Ball, who worried whether it was safe and whether the house was part of the crime scene, wondering if their presence there might impede the investigation.

Ball also recalled watching the rain that was falling that evening drip onto Paul’s body, which was covered by a sheet, and pool around it. Maggie’s body was covered and under a tent, he said.

When he returned to the property the next day – after he’d been told investigators had released the scene, he said – he looked into the feed room where Paul was shot and saw “a piece of Paul’s skull about the size of a baseball laying there,” he said. “It just infuriated me that this young man had been murdered and there was still his remains there.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Alex Murdaugh’s last name.

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February 23, 2023
Forensic expert testifies she found gunshot primer residue particles on Alex Murdaugh’s shirt and hands, and on a jacket | CNN

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A forensic scientist testified in Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial Tuesday she found gunshot primer residue particles on clothes the now-disbarred South Carolina attorney was wearing the night his wife and son were killed – and on a blue jacket that has drawn increasing attention in the proceedings.

The particles were found on samples taken from Murdaugh’s hands, as well as the shirt and shorts he was wearing the night the two were fatally shot in 2021, Megan Fletcher, a forensic scientist who analyzes gunshot residue for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, testified.

The findings could mean those items were close to a firearm that was discharged, or the particles could have been transferred to those items from an object with gunshot primer residue on it, she said.

In the case of a person’s hands, the particles could indicate the person fired a gun, Fletcher testified. She could not say when those particles would have been deposited. The Murdaughs owned firearms and had a shooting range on their property.

Primer is one of the elements – along with the powder, the bullet and the casing – that make up an ammunition cartridge, often referred to as a round.

Fletcher also examined a blue rain jacket that investigators found in a closet at the home of Murdaugh’s mother several months after the killings, she said. She found 38 particles of gunshot primer residue inside the jacket, which she described as a “significant number,” as well as 14 particles on the outside, she testified.

“If a recently fired firearm were wrapped up inside that jacket, would that be consistent with your findings?” prosecutor John Meadors asked.

“There is a possibility of that, yes,” Fletcher responded. The prosecution has said the murder weapon has yet to be found.

The court heard about that blue rain jacket a day earlier, when defense attorneys argued to keep it out of evidence. A caregiver for Murdaugh’s mother, Mushell Smith, first testified Monday that Murdaugh went to his mother’s home early one morning after the killings and headed upstairs with something blue – which she described as a tarp – in his hands.

South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Agent Kristin Moore told the court later on Monday. agent Kristin Moore told the court later on Monday investigators found both a blue tarp and a blue rain jacket on the second floor of the mother’s home.

Without the jury present, the defense on Monday asked the judge to rule that the jacket shouldn’t be considered evidence. They argued the caregiver testified she saw Murdaugh carrying only a tarp – not a jacket – and said nothing connected Murdaugh to the jacket. The judge on Tuesday denied the defense’s request.

Under cross-examination Wednesday, Fletcher acknowledged there were myriad possibilities for how the particles could have ended up on Murdaugh’s hands or the jacket, including if he had simply held a firearm or if the jacket made contact with the weapon.

First responders testified early in the prosecution’s case that Murdaugh had a shotgun when they arrived at the scene. It was entered into evidence and is not believed to be a murder weapon.

“When I analyzed the evidence, I did not know that he had a firearm in his hand,” Fletcher said under questioning by defense attorney Jim Griffin. “But that would be consistent with somebody who had a firearm in his hand prior to collection.”

Griffin posited there were “just a whole lot of possibilities what could have happened, right?”

“That’s correct,” Fletcher said.

“And all you can tell us is what you saw under a microscope.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can’t tell us how it got there, or when it got there.”

“That’s correct.”

But on re-direct, Fletcher underscored that the number of gunshot residue particles found on the interior of the jacket was unusual.

“Typically, people wear their clothing right side out,” she said. “And so, if they’re in the vicinity to the discharge of a shooting, that’s where the particles are going to land.

“On the outside?” Meadors asked.

“Yes, sir,” Fletcher said.

Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in the killings of his wife Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and his 22-year-old son Paul on June 7, 2021.

Murdaugh called 911 the night of the killings to report he’d found his wife and son shot dead at the family’s home in Islandton, South Carolina – a property known as Moselle.

Prosecutors accuse Murdaugh of committing the murders to distract attention from a series of alleged illicit schemes he was running to avoid “personal legal and financial ruin,” per court filings. Separate from the murder charges, Murdaugh faces 99 charges stemming from alleged financial crimes, per the state attorney general. Opening statements were delivered January 25.

Jurors on Tuesday also heard from Murdaugh’s longtime friend and former law partner, who became the third witness to identify the disgraced former attorney’s voice on a video clip that authorities say was recorded shortly before the killings.

The video, just short of a minute long, was filmed on Paul Murdaugh’s phone starting at 8:44 p.m. the night of the killings, a law enforcement witness testified earlier in the trial. Three different voices could be heard in the footage, which appeared to have been recorded around the Murdaugh family’s kennels, according to that earlier testimony.

Prosecutors believe one of those voices – the only other on the video besides the victims’ – belongs to Alex Murdaugh, placing him at the scene at the time of the killings. Murdaugh has maintained in interviews with law enforcement he was not there.

On Tuesday, the friend and former law partner, Ronnie Crosby, testified that after the killings, Murdaugh shared he had dinner with Maggie and Paul, and then fell asleep on the couch while the two went to the kennels on the Murdaugh property.

Murdaugh told Crosby that after he woke up, Murdaugh drove to his parents’ house – roughly 20 minutes away – to see his mother, and when he returned home, discovered Maggie and Paul had been fatally shot, Crosby testified.

“He specifically said he did not (go to the kennels),” Crosby testified.

When the prosecution on Tuesday played the video from Paul’s phone, Crosby said he identified three voices: Paul’s, Maggie’s and Alex’s. When asked if he was certain that’s who he heard, Crosby replied, “I’m 100% sure that’s whose voices are on that audio.”

Two other witnesses told the court last week they were certain they heard Alex Murdaugh’s voice in that footage.

Smith, the caregiver, testified Monday that Murdaugh visited his mother for about 15 or 20 minutes the night of the killings.

Also Tuesday, jurors heard from Jeanne Seckinger, the chief financial officer of Alex Murdaugh’s former law firm who testified last week without the jury present. At the time, the judge still was weighing whether to allow the admission of evidence about the alleged financial schemes. He decided Monday to allow it.

Seckinger testified Tuesday – this time in front of jurors – that she confronted Murdaugh about missing funds from the firm on the morning of June 7, 2021 – hours before his wife and son would be killed.

She looked for Alex that morning and found him standing outside his office, she testified. He “looked at me with a pretty dirty look – one I’ve not seen before – and said, ‘What do you need now?’ Clearly disgusted with me.” she testified.

Seckinger told Murdaugh she had reason to believe he personally received legal fees from a settlement – amounting to about $792,000 – that should have been made payable to the law firm, she testified.

“He assured me again that money was in there,” Seckinger said Tuesday. “I told him I still needed to see ledgers or proof that it was.”

At the time, Murdaugh was facing a lawsuit from the family of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who was killed in February 2019 when a boat, owned by Murdaugh and allegedly driven by Paul, struck a bridge piling.

Murdaugh’s financial records – which state court filings said “would expose (Murdaugh) for his years of alleged misdeeds” – could have been disclosed following a hearing in the civil case scheduled for June 10, 2021, three days after the killings.

Prosecutors’ pretrial motion contended “the murders served as Murdaugh’s means to shift the focus away from himself and buy some additional time to try and prevent his financial crimes from being uncovered, which, if revealed, would have resulted in personal legal and financial ruin for Murdaugh.” According to that filing, the missing money had already been spent.

But the June 10 hearing was canceled after Maggie’s and Paul’s deaths, Seckinger said last week.

Immediately after the killings, no one at the firm was concerned about finding the missing money, “because we were concerned about Alex,” Seckinger testified Tuesday.

Yet Seckinger dug into more of Murdaugh’s records in the weeks ahead and found more impropriety, she testified. In September 2021, the firm’s partners confronted Murdaugh about the money and informed him they were forcing him to resign, she told the court.

To cover the cost of the misappropriated money, “Each partner put up money and we refunded the money to the clients,” Seckinger told the court. When asked why, she said that Murdaugh “stole it.”

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February 8, 2023
Judge rules to allow evidence of Alex Murdaugh’s alleged financial crimes in double murder trial | CNN

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The judge in Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial on Monday ruled to allow the state to present evidence of the now-disbarred South Carolina attorney’s alleged financial crimes, which the prosecution contends were about to be revealed and provided him a motive to kill his wife and son.

The decision came after days of testimony from witnesses who were heard without the jury present as Judge Clifton Newman weighed the admissibility of the evidence of the alleged schemes, for which Murdaugh faces 99 charges separate from the murder case.

“I find that the jury is entitled to consider whether the apparent desperation of Mr. Murdaugh, because of his dire financial situation, threat of being exposed for committing the crimes for which he was later charged with, resulted in the commission of the alleged crimes,” Newman said.

Prosecutors indicated in pretrial filings they believed Murdaugh killed his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and his 22-year-old son Paul Murdaugh to distract attention from those alleged crimes, which the state asserts were about to come to light when they were killed on June 7, 2021.

Newman’s ruling is a blow to the defense, who fought the admissibility of the evidence in the murder case, claiming the fraud cases are irrelevant to the question of Murdaugh’s guilt in the murders of his wife and son.

While proving motive is not necessary, “the state must prove malice, and evidence of motive may be used to prove it,” Newman said in explaining his decision.

“In this case, since the identity of the perpetrator is a critical element that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, evidence of motive may be used in an attempt to meet that burden,” he said, adding the evidence was “so intimately connected” with the explanation of the state’s theory of the case “that proof of it is essential to complete the story.”

Over the last several days, the state called a parade of witnesses who testified in camera, or outside the jury’s presence, about the allegations against Murdaugh and the state of his finances when his wife and son were fatally shot on the family’s property in Islandton, South Carolina, known as Moselle.

That included testimony Monday from attorney Mark Tinsley, who was suing Murdaugh at the time of the killings on behalf of the family of Mallory Beach, the 19-year-old killed when a boat – owned by Murdaugh and allegedly driven by Paul Murdaugh – crashed in February 2019.

At the time of his death, Paul Murdaugh was facing charges of boating under the influence causing great bodily harm and causing death. He had pleaded not guilty, and court records show the charges were dropped after his death.

Tinsley was seeking a settlement in the civil case but had been told by Murdaugh’s defense attorneys he was broke and could only “cobble together a million dollars” for a settlement. Tinsley didn’t believe that, he said, testifying he knew Murdaugh was handling a lot of cases.

“I know that he’s actively making money, and you just can’t possibly be broke, not the way he was making money,” he said. “Beyond that, I mean my clients have known Alex and his family forever, and so their perspective is that there’s generational wealth as well.”

Tinsley offered a payment plan, he said, but the defense objected and Tinsley filed a motion to compel that, were the judge to rule in Tinsley’s favor, would have forced Murdaugh to reveal his accounts, he testified.

A hearing on that matter and others was scheduled for June 10, 2021 – three days after the murders – Tinsley said Monday. But it was delayed when Maggie and Paul were killed, something the attorney framed as a deathblow to his civil case against Murdaugh, telling the court, “I recognized that the case against Alex, if he were a victim of some vigilante, would in fact be over.”

“When you’re asking for a money judgment, people have to be motivated to give you that money judgment,” Tinsley said. “If you represent Attila the Hun versus some sweet old grandmother, nobody’s gonna give Attila the Hun money, but they would give money to some sweet grandmother.”

“So if Alex had been victimized by a vigilante, nobody would have brought a verdict back against Alex … so I would have ended the case against Alex,” he said.

The prosecution has pointed to June 10, 2021, as a “day of reckoning,” when the hearing might lead to Murdaugh’s alleged misdeeds being exposed. But in their cross-examination of Tinsley Monday, Murdaugh’s attorneys sought to undermine that argument, suggesting June 10, 2021, did not herald that reckoning.

The motion to compel just one of a “pile of motions” that would be heard that day ahead of a potential trial that might be weeks or months down the road, defense attorney Phillip Barber said.

“The gist of this is that there was perhaps going to be this Judgment Day, I think is the term the state used,” Barber said. “But that was going to be trial, right? That was going to be the verdict. That was going to be Judgment Day.

Tinsley disagreed: “That’s the Judgment Day … and there were a lot of threads that were being pulled and it was subject to unraveling at any moment.”

Prosecutor Creighton Waters drove his point home in his re-direct, asking Tinsley, “If the hearing takes place on June 10, 2021, what is the net effect of everything that could happen at that point?”

“The discovery,” Tinsley said, “of everything he’s done.”

After the judge’s ruling the jury heard from Mushell Smith, a caregiver for Alex Murdaugh’s mother, who testified she saw Murdaugh at his parents’ home in Almeda the night of the killings.

That evening, Murdaugh called the house phone, told Smith he was outside and to let him in, said Smith, who was at times emotional during her testimony. Murdaugh then went into the room with his mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s, sat on the bed, looked at his phone and left about 20 minutes later, Smith testified. Asked to describe his behavior, Smith said Murdaugh was “fidgety.”

Murdaugh’s father passed away days later, and following the funeral, the family hosted a meal at the Almeda home, she said. During the gathering, Murdaugh came into his mother’s room and spoke to Smith, she said, telling her, “I was here 30 to 40 minutes” the night of the murders.

The conversation upset Smith, she testified, adding she called her brother afterward to tell him about it.

The next day, Smith said, Murdaugh asked her about her upcoming wedding, commented that it would be expensive and offered to help. Murdaugh had never before asked her about her wedding, Smith said.

Three days after the funeral, Murdaugh showed up at the house again, Smith said, this time around 6:30 a.m., which was unusually early. But unlike his last unannounced visit, Murdaugh did not call the house phone to let Smith know he’d arrived. Instead, he knocked on the exterior wall by the bedroom window, she said.

When she let him inside, Murdaugh was carrying something in his arms, Smith said, describing it as a blue tarp. He said nothing to her, Smith said, and went upstairs. He left soon after, she said, and while Smith later saw the blue item unfolded on a chair in a room upstairs, it was gone when she returned the next day.

Under cross examination by defense attorney Jim Griffin, Smith told the court Murdaugh did not have blood on his clothes, shoes or in his hair when she saw him the night of the killings, also conceding that his “fidgety” behavior was normal for Murdaugh. She also acknowledged that Murdaugh’s offer to help with her wedding was something a “good person” would do.

Additionally, Smith conceded she did not mention the blue, tarp-like item in her interview with state investigators, on June 16, 2021. It wasn’t until she had been in a car accident in September that she mentioned the tarp to a police officer working the wreck. The officer apparently reported Smith said Murdaugh had come over the night of the murders with a blue tarp that looked like it had a gun wrapped inside, but Smith insisted she did not say that.

“So, you didn’t tell (the officer) that he came over and you couldn’t tell, but stated, ‘It looked like a rifle,’” Griffin asked.

“No, I said it looked like he was holding something, I did not say it was a rifle,” Smith said.

“And if (the officer) wrote a report saying that, he was incorrect?”

“Yes,” Smith said.”

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February 6, 2023
The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes: A timeline | CNN Business

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More than three years after Elizabeth Holmes was first indicted and nearly four months after her trial kicked off, the founder and former CEO of failed blood testing startup Theranos was found guilty on four out of 11 federal fraud and conspiracy charges.

The verdict comes after a stunning downfall that saw Holmes, once hailed as the next Steve Jobs, go from being a tech industry icon to being a rare Silicon Valley entrepreneur on trial for fraud.

A Stanford University dropout, Holmes – inspired by her own fear of needles – started the company at the age of 19, with a mission of creating a cheaper, more efficient alternative to a traditional blood test. Theranos promised patients the ability to test for conditions like cancer and diabetes with just a few drops of blood. She attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, a board of well-known political figures, and key retail partners.

But a Wall Street Journal investigation poked holes into Theranos’ testing and technology, and the dominoes fell from there. Holmes and her former business partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, were charged in 2018 by the US government with multiple counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. (Both pleaded not guilty.)

Here are the highlights of the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.

Holmes, a Stanford University sophomore studying chemical engineering, drops out of school to pursue her startup, Theranos, which she founded in 2003 at age 19. The name is a combination of the words “therapy” and “diagnosis.”

Balwani joins as chief operating officer and president of the startup. Balwani, nearly 20 years her senior, met Holmes in 2002 on a trip to Beijing through Stanford University. The two are later revealed to be romantically involved.

A decade after first starting the company, Holmes takes the lid off Theranos and courts media attention the same month that Theranos and Walgreens announce they’ve struck up a long-term partnership. The first Theranos Wellness Center location opens in a Walgreens in Palo Alto where consumers can access Theranos’ blood test.

The original plan had been to make Theranos’ testing available at Walgreens locations nationwide.

Holmes is named to the magazine’s American billionaire list with the outlet reporting she owns a 50% stake in the startup, pinning her personal wealth at $4.5 billion.

Theranos has raised more than $400 million, according to a profile of the company and Holmes by The New Yorker. It counts Oracle’s Larry Ellison among its investors.

The FDA clears Theranos to use of its proprietary tiny blood-collection vials to finger stick blood test for herpes simplex 1 virus – its first and only approval for a diagnostic test.

The Wall Street Journal reports Theranos is using its proprietary technique on only a small number of the 240 tests it performs, and that the vast majority of its tests are done with traditional vials of blood drawn from the arm, not the “few drops” taken by a finger prick. In response, Theranos defends its testing practices, calling the Journal’s reporting “factually and scientifically erroneous.”

A day later, Theranos halts the use of its blood-collection vials for all but the herpes test due to pressures from the FDA. (Later that month, the FDA released two heavily redacted reports citing 14 concerns, including calling the company’s proprietary vial an “uncleared medical device.”)

One week after the Journal report, Holmes is interviewed on-stage at the outlet’s conference in Laguna Beach. “We know what we’re doing and we’re very proud of it,” she says.

Amid the criticism, Theranos reportedly shakes up its board of directors, eliminating Henry Kissinger and George Shultz as directors while moving them to a new board of counselors; the company also forms a separate medical board.

Safeway, which invested $350 million into building out clinics in hundreds of its supermarkets to eventually offer Theranos blood tests, reportedly looks to dissolve its relationship with the company before it ever offered its services.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sends Theranos a letter saying its California lab has failed to comply with federal standards and that patients are in “immediate jeopardy.” It gives the company 10 days to address the issues.

In response, Walgreens says it will not send any lab tests to Theranos’ California lab for analysis and suspends Theranos services at its Palo Alto Walgreens location.

CMS threatens to ban Holmes and Balwani from the laboratory business for two years after the company allegedly failed to fix problems at its California lab. Theranos says that’s a “worst case scenario.”

Balwani departs. The company also adds three new board members as part of the restructuring: Fabrizio Bonanni, a former executive vice president of biotech firm Amgen, former CDC director William Foege, and former Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich.

Theranos voids two years of blood test results from its proprietary testing devices, correcting tens of thousands of blood-test reports, the Journal reports.

Forbes revises its estimate of Holmes’ net worth from $4.5 billion to $0. The magazine also lowers its valuation for the company from $9 billion to $800 million.

Walgreens, once Theranos’ largest retail partner, ends its partnership with the company and says it will close all 40 Theranos Wellness Centers.

CMS revokes Theranos’ license to operate its California lab and bans Holmes from running a blood-testing lab for two years.

Holmes tries to move past recent setbacks by unveiling a mini testing laboratory, called miniLab, at a conference for the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. In selling the device, versus operating its own clinics, Theranos seeks to effectively side-step CMS sanctions, which don’t prohibit research and development.

Theranos investor Partner Fund Management sues the company for $96.1 million, the amount it sunk into the company in February 2014, plus damages. It accuses the company of securities fraud. Theranos and Partner Fund Management settled in May, 2017, for an undisclosed amount.

The company also lays off 340 employees as it closes clinical labs and wellness centers as it attempts to pivot and focus on the miniLab.

Walgreens sues the blood testing startup for breach of contract. Walgreens sought to recover the $140 million it poured into the company. The lawsuit was settled August, 2017.

Theranos downsizes its workforce yet again following the increased scrutiny into its operations, laying off approximately 155 employees or about 41% of staffers.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Theranos failed a second regulatory lab inspection in September, and that the company was closing its last blood testing location as a result.

Theranos settles with the CMS, agreeing to pay $30,000 and to not to own or operate any clinical labs for two years.

Theranos also settles with the Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich over allegations that its advertisements misrepresented the method, accuracy, and reliability of its blood testing and that the company was out of compliance with federal regulations governing clinical lab testing. Theranos agrees to pay $4.65 million back to its Arizona customers as part of a settlement deal.

The SEC charges Holmes and Balwani with a “massive fraud” involving more than $700 million from investors through an “elaborate, years-long fraud in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company’s technology, business, and financial performance.”

The SEC alleges Holmes and Balwani knew that Theranos’ proprietary analyzer could perform only 12 of the 200 tests it published on its patient testing menu.

Theranos and Holmes agree to resolve the claims against them, and Holmes gives up control of the company and much of her stake in it. Balwani, however, is fighting the charges, with his attorney saying he “accurately represented Theranos to investors to the best of his ability.”

Reporter John Carreyrou, who first broke open the story of Theranos for the Wall Street Journal, publishes “Bad Blood,” a definitive look at what happened inside the disgraced company. Director Adam McKay (who directed “The Big Short”) secures the rights to make the film, starring Jennifer Lawrence as Holmes, by the same name.

Holmes and Balwani are indicted on federal wire fraud charges over allegedly engaging in a multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors, as well as a scheme to defraud doctors and patients. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Minutes before the charges were made public, Theranos announced that Holmes has stepped down as CEO. The company’s general counsel, David Taylor, takes over as CEO. Holmes remains chair of the company’s board.

Taylor emails shareholders that Theranos will dissolve, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Taylor said more than 80 potential buyers were not interested in a sale. “We are now out of time,” Taylor wrote.

Alex Gibney, the prolific documentary filmmaker behind “Dirty Money,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” and “The Armstrong Lie,” debuts “The Inventor” on HBO, following the rise and fall of Theranos.

A new court document reveals Holmes may seek a “mental disease” defense in her criminal fraud trial. Later, in August 2021, unsealed court documents reveal Holmes is likely to claim she was the victim of a decade-long abusive relationship with Balwani. The allegations led to the severing of their trials. His trial is slated to begin in 2022.

Initially set to begin in July 2020, Holmes’ criminal trial is further delayed til July 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

News surfaces that Holmes’ is expecting her first child, once more further delaying her criminal trial. Holmes’ counsel advised the US government that Holmes is due in July 2021, a court document revealed. She gave birth in July.

More than 80 potential jurors are brought into a San Jose courtroom for questioning over the course of two days to determine if they are fit to serve as impartial, fair jurors for the criminal trial of Holmes. A jury of seven men and five women is selected, with five alternatives.

After three months of testimony from 32 witnesses, the criminal fraud case of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes makes its way to the jury of eight men and four women who will decide her fate. The jury would go on to deliberate for more than 50 hours before returning a verdict.

Holmes is found guilty of one count of conspiracy to defraud investors as well as three wire fraud counts tied to specific investors. She is found not guilty on three additional charges concerning defrauding patients and one charge of conspiracy to defraud patients. The jury returns no verdict on three of the charges concerning defrauding investors. Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison as well as a fine of $250,000 plus restitution for each count.

“The Dropout,” a scripted miniseries about Theranos produced by ABC, debuts on Hulu. Amanda Seyfried stars as Holmes and Naveen Andrews plays Balwani. Their romantic and professional relationship features prominently in the show.

Following delays due to Holmes’ prolonged trial then a surge of Covid-19, jury selection for Balwani’s trial gets underway. On March 22, opening arguments are held and the government’s first witness, a former Theranos employee turned whistleblower, is called to the stand.

After four full days of deliberations, a jury finds Balwani guilty of ten counts of federal wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Like Holmes, Balwani faces up to 20 years in prison as well as a fine of $250,000 plus restitution for each count of wire fraud and each conspiracy count.

Holmes asks for a new trial after claiming that a key witness visited her house unannounced and allegedly said he “feels guilty” about his testimony.

In a court filing with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Holmes’ attorneys said Adam Rosendorff, a former Theranos lab director who was one of the government’s main witnesses, arrived at her home on August 8 asking to speak with her. According to the filing, Rosendorff did not interact with Holmes but did speak to her partner Billy Evans, who recounted the exchange in an email to Holmes’ lawyers shortly after.

“His shirt was untucked, his hair was messy, his voice slightly trembled,” Evans wrote about Rosendorff. According to Evans’ email, Rosendorff “said when he was called as a witness he tried to answer the questions honestly but that the prosecutors tried to make everybody look bad.”

The former Theranos lab director also “said he felt like he had done something wrong,” Evans wrote.

Rosendorff takes the stand again to address concerns from Holmes’ defense team and their claims he had shown up at her home after the trial concluded asking to speak with her and expressed regrets about his testimony.

At the hearing, Rosendorff reaffirmed the truthfulness of his testimony at Holmes’ trial and said that the government did not influence what he said.

A federal judge denies Elizabeth Holmes’ request for a new trial, according to court filings, paving the way for the founder of failed blood testing startup Theranos to be sentenced later in the month.

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November 20, 2022
Elizabeth Holmes’ request for a new trial is denied | CNN Business

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A federal judge has denied Elizabeth Holmes’ request for a new trial, according to court filings on Monday, paving the way for the founder of failed blood testing startup Theranos to be sentenced later this month.

The decision comes weeks after an October 17 hearing held in San Jose, during which Judge Edward Davila had Adam Rosendorff, one of the government’s key witnesses, take the stand again. The hearing was to address concerns from Holmes’ defense team, which claimed Rosendorff had shown up at her home after the trial concluded asking to speak with her and expressed regrets about his testimony.

At that hearing in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Rosendorff, a former Theranos lab director, reaffirmed the truthfulness of his testimony at Holmes’ trial and said that the government did not influence what he said.

In his decision on Monday, Davila denied all three of Holmes’ motions requesting a new trial. A sentencing hearing, previously scheduled for last month, is now set for November 18.

Holmes, once hailed as a tech industry icon for her company’s promises to test for a range of conditions with just a few drops of blood, was found guilty in January on four charges of defrauding investors. Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, her ex-boyfriend and former COO at Theranos, was convicted in a separate trial in July. Both face up to 20 years in prison as well as a fine of $250,000 plus restitution for each count.

In September, Holmes’ defense team filed a motion asking for a new trial, after claiming that Rosendorff arrived at Holmes’ home on August 8. According to that court filing, Rosendorff did not interact with Holmes but did speak to her partner Billy Evans, who recounted the exchange in an email to Holmes’ lawyers shortly after.

In Evans’ email, he wrote that Rosendorff “said when he was called as a witness he tried to answer the questions honestly but that the prosecutors tried to make everybody look bad.” The former Theranos lab director also “said he felt like he had done something wrong,” Evans wrote.

Davila wrote in his order Monday that the court “finds that the statements Dr. Rosendorff made to Mr. Evans do not stand for any of the proposed meanings that Defendant would want and, even if they did, they would not be material to the issues” at trial.

“Accordingly, a new trial is not warranted based on the ‘newly discovered’ evidence of Dr. Rosendorff’s statements to Mr. Evans,” Davila wrote.

In a sworn declaration filed with the court on September 21, Rosendorff wrote that he stands by his testimony in the trials of Holmes and Balwani “in every respect.”

During the hearing last month, Holmes and Evans were present as Rosendorff was asked by a defense lawyer about his decision to visit Holmes’ home. He responded that in the weeks and months following Holmes’ conviction he “started to feel increasingly distressed and uncomfortable at the prospect that a young child, an infant child, would spend their formative years without a mother in their life.” (Holmes has one child with Evans.)

Rosendorff said that when he visited Holmes’ residence in August, he rang the doorbell and spoke briefly to Evans, who asked him to leave. He went to his car and started to drive away, he testified, but Evans motioned for him to roll down his window; he did, and they had a conversation, Rosendorff said, in which he “expressed sympathy for the rank and file employees at Theranos.”

When asked by the defense lawyer whether he had said the prosecution was trying to make everyone look bad, Rosendorff said that the prosecution was trying to paint “an angry picture of Elizabeth Holmes. To the extent other people looked bad it was because of their association with Elizabeth.”

He said he did not recall telling Evans that he felt he had done something wrong, as Evans had written in his email to Holmes’ lawyers after their interaction.

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November 8, 2022
Prosecutors use Oath Keepers leader’s own words against him in heated cross-examination | CNN Politics

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In a tense, head-to-head exchange with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, prosecutors used Rhodes’ own words from texts, speeches and interviews to suggest to the jury that the militia leader misled them when he testified he was unaware of other members’ activities on January 6, 2021, and was appalled by the violence that day.

Rhodes is the first of the five defendants charged with seditious conspiracy in federal court in Washington, DC, to testify.

In his two-day testimony, Rhodes told the jury that he wasn’t involved in the specifics of planning for January 6, and that he had no knowledge of plans for the so-called quick reaction force that the group set up in Virginia to quickly move weapons into Washington, as prosecutors have alleged.

Prosecutor Kathryn Rakoczy, however, showed the jury Signal messages in which Rhodes told other members that “We WILL have a QRF” on January 6 because “this situation calls for it” and was part of group messages where members shared photographs of routes the QRF could use to enter the city.

“The buck stopped with you in this operation,” Rakoczy said to Rhodes, reading the leader’s messages aloud.

“I’m responsible for everything everyone else did?” Rhodes responded.

“You’re in charge, right?” Rakoczy said.

“Not if they do something off mission,” he shot back.

“That’s convenient,” Rakoczy said, smiling.

The militia leader also told prosecutors that he “hoped to avoid” conflict and was only concerned about a civil war breaking out after Joe Biden became president – leading to a chiding question from Rakoczy about how “the civil war will be on [January] 21st and not on the sixth?”

“I don’t condone the violence that happened” on January 6, Rhodes testified. “Anyone who did assault a police officer that day should be prosecuted for it.”

Rakoczy pointed to statements Rhodes made in a secretly recorded conversation in the days after January 6 where he said he wished the Oath Keepers had brought rifles to the Capitol that day.

“If he’s not going to do the right thing, and he’s just going to let himself be removed illegally, then we should have brought rifles,” Rhodes said in the recording prosecutors again played for the jury.

“We could have fixed it right then and there,” Rhodes said of the Capitol attack, according to the recording. “I’d hang f**king Pelosi from the lamppost.”

After playing the recording, Rakoczy asked Rhodes, “That’s what you said four days after the assault at the Capitol, right?”

“Yeah, after a couple drinks and I was pissed off,” Rhodes testified.

Rhodes and the other four defendants have pleaded not guilty to the seditious conspiracy charges.

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November 7, 2022
These are the women expected to testify against Harvey Weinstein at his second sexual assault trial | CNN

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Reporting five years ago on Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse spurred women to speak publicly about their own experiences with sexual violence in what became known as the #MeToo movement.

Now, in a Los Angeles courtroom, eight women are set to testify in a trial altogether similar to the one that led to Weinstein’s landmark conviction two years ago.

Weinstein, the 70-year-old movie producer, has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges based on allegations of sexual assault at Los Angeles hotels between 2004 to 2013.

Opening statements in the trial began Monday and one woman has already testified about her alleged assault. Three more women are expected to testify directly to the charges, and four other women are expected to testify as “prior bad acts” witnesses, meaning their testimony isn’t directly connected to a charge but can be considered as prosecutors try to show Weinstein had a pattern in his behavior.

He was found guilty in New York in 2020 of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape and was sentenced to 23 years in prison. He has appealed.

Here’s what we know about the women set to testify in the California case and the charges connected to their allegations based on comments from the prosecution, the defense and their testimony.

Weinstein is charged with forcible oral copulation and forcible rape of Jane Doe 4 between September 1, 2004, and September 30, 2005.

Jane Doe 4 has been identified as Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. In a statement, her attorneys confirmed she would be testifying against Weinstein in court.

“Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap,” said Beth Fegan, one of Siebel Newsom’s attorneys. “She intends to testify at his trial to seek some measure of justice for survivors and as part of her life’s work to improve the lives of women.”

Siebel Newsom is a Stanford University graduate who has written, directed and produced several documentaries, including “Miss Representation,” “The Mask You Live In” and “The Great American Lie.” During her time as California’s first partner, Siebel Newsom has advocated for working mothers and launched initiatives focused on closing the gender pay gap, among other efforts.

In opening statements, prosecutor Paul Thompson said the assault occurred when Siebel Newsom was a “powerless actor trying to make her way in Hollywood.” Weinstein invited her to “discuss her career” at the Peninsula Hotel, and in a hotel room, he assaulted and raped her, the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Mark Werksman countered that Siebel Newsom had consensual sex with Weinstein because she wanted his help getting roles and producing films.

Werksman also said Weinstein donated to two of Gov. Newsom’s political races and that Siebel Newsom took her husband to a Weinstein party. “She brought her husband to meet and party with the man who raped her. Who does that?” he asked.

Siebel Newsom has written about the incident with Weinstein in vague terms. In October 2017, just a day after The New York Times published its bombshell report on Weinstein, she wrote an opinion editorial for the Huffington Post saying she believed the report because she had a similar experience with Weinstein.

“I was naive, new to the industry, and didn’t know how to deal with his aggressive advances ― work invitations with a friend late-night at The Toronto Film Festival, and later an invitation to meet with him about a role in The Peninsula Hotel, where staff were present and then all of a sudden disappeared like clockwork, leaving me alone with this extremely powerful and intimidating Hollywood legend,” she wrote.

Weinstein is charged with forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by foreign object and forcible rape of Jane Doe 1 on or about February 18, 2013, in Los Angeles County, according to the indictment.

Jane Doe 1 was a model and actress who was married, had three children and was living in Italy in 2013. She speaks Russian, Italian and English, but her English was not very good at the time, she said.

She was the first witness to testify in the trial and said she was staying in a hotel for the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival when she got a call that Weinstein wanted to see her. She testified she had met him previously in Rome.

He came to her hotel room and tried to rape her, she testified.

“I wanted to die. It was disgusting. It was humiliating, miserable. I didn’t fight,” she testified in court. “I remember how he was looking in the mirror and he was telling me to look at him. I wish this never happened to me.”

Years later, she told her daughter about the assault in an attempt to connect with her about a similar issue, she testified. Jane Doe 1 then went to the police in October 2017 because she promised her daughter she would, she testified.

In the defense’s opening statements, Werksman said she had fabricated the story and argued there was no evidence he went to her hotel room. Under cross-examination, she acknowledged she had no evidence to show the jury that would prove she was with Weinstein that night and said she couldn’t remember everything about the incident.

“I remember a lot but I forgot a lot also,” she said.

Weinstein is charged with sexual battery by restraint of Jane Doe 2 on or about February 19, 2013, in Los Angeles County.

Jane Doe 2 was a 23-year-old model and aspiring screenwriter who had been modeling since she was 12, Thompson said in opening statements.

She alleges she was assaulted during the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival, according to Thompson. She met with Weinstein at a restaurant at the Montage hotel and told him she wanted to be a screenwriter, the prosecutor said. The meeting then moved to a space upstairs, and when Weinstein led her into a bathroom, another woman shut the door behind Jane Doe 2, the prosecutor said.

While she was trapped inside with Weinstein, he allegedly undid her dress, groped her and masturbated, the prosecutor said.

The next day, she went to a pre-scheduled meeting with a Weinstein Company employee and was advised to go on “Project Runway,” a Weinstein-produced reality TV show.

Werksman, the defense attorney, said in opening statements that Jane Doe 2 fabricated her story and noted that she met with the Weinstein Company employee the next day.

Weinstein is charged with sexual battery by restraint of Jane Doe 3 on or about May 11, 2010.

Jane Doe 3 was a licensed massage therapist who often worked with celebrities and athletes, Thompson said.

In 2010, she massaged Weinstein and then went to the restroom to wash her hands, and he followed her into the bathroom, backed her into a corner, groped her and masturbated, Thompson said.

Weinstein had suggested Jane Doe 3 could write a book about her massage work, Thompson said, and afterward an aide to Weinstein paid her $200 for the massage and put her in touch with Miramax’s book division about a potential book deal.

In contrast, Werksman argued that their sexual interaction was consensual and part of an arrangement. He said that Jane Doe 3 gave him four additional massages after the alleged assault.

“She made a deal. Sex in exchange for something of value. Jane Doe 3 and Mr. Weinstein were friends with benefits,” Werksman argued.

Weinstein is charged with four counts related to Jane Doe 5: forcible oral copulation and forcible rape between November 3 and November 9, 2009, and forcible oral copulation and forcible rape on or about November 5, 2010, according to the indictment.

However, prosecutors did not mention her or her accusations in opening statements of the trial, and neither did the defense. The current status of these charges is not clear.

“While we have no comment at this time, our office is tirelessly ensuring all of the victims in this case receive justice,” the district attorney’s office said.

Like in his New York trial, Weinstein’s LA trial will feature testimony from several “prior bad acts” witnesses.

There are four of these witnesses in this case, identified by their first name and initial. Each of these women alleged they were assaulted by Weinstein outside of LA jurisdiction.

In all, the defense argued these witnesses were being used solely to “confuse and overwhelm” the jury. Werksman defended Weinstein’s actions as part of the “casting couch” culture at the time.

The prosecution said the testimony from these women will prove Weinstein’s guilt on the charges.

“Each of these women came forward independent of each other, and none of them knew one another,” Thompson told the jury.

Ambra B. went to Weinstein’s office for a meeting in Manhattan in 2015 and he grabbed her breast and put his hand up her skirt, prosecutors said. She reported the incident to the NYPD, which then directed her to speak with him on the phone and at a hotel restaurant and secretly record their conversations, according to Thompson. No charges were filed against Weinstein.

Werksman argued nothing on the recording was tantamount to a confession and dismissed her as someone playing a “junior G-man” in an undercover sting targeting Weinstein.

Ashley M., a dancer in the movie “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” was alone in a hotel room with Weinstein in 2003 and said he groped her and masturbated on her, according to Thompson.

Werksman argued she did not resist or refuse the interaction at the time.

Natassia M. met Weinstein and briefly interacted with him at an industry party for the 2008 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards and alleges he raped her at her hotel, according to Thompson.

Werksman said there was no evidence of rape and notes they maintained contact for years afterward.

Kelly S. was an actor in 1991 when, in a hotel room for the Toronto International Film Festival, Weinstein raped her, Thompson said. In 2008, at the same festival, she went to his hotel room with the intention of confronting him, and when he allegedly started groping her and masturbating, she left the room, the prosecutor said.

Werksman attacked the idea that she didn’t confront him immediately upon seeing him again in 2008 and said she didn’t report the incident to police until 2018.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported Harvey Weinstein was arrested in the alleged incident involving Ambra B.

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October 27, 2022
January 6 committee member says panel will ask former Secret Service agent to testify again | CNN Politics

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Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, told CNN on Sunday the panel will ask former Secret Service Assistant Director Tony Ornato to testify again.

“We’re in a position in the very near future to call the witnesses from the Secret Service back in for a few additional questions,” the California Democrat told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “CNN Newsroom,” explaining that the panel had wanted to “get through all the documentary evidence … over a million documents,” which they’ve now done.

The House select committee has made clear it believes Ornato was a central figure who could provide valuable information about former President Donald Trump’s movements and intentions leading up to and on January 6.

Not only did Ornato once run Trump’s detail, but he also made the unprecedented move of joining White House staff as the deputy chief of staff in December 2019 on a temporary assignment and eventually returned to the Secret Service to run its training program.

To this point, Ornato has met with the panel on two occasions – in January and March – as part of its investigation.

It’s not clear whether Ornato will end up testifying related to the claims from Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Hutchinson specifically testified that Ornato had told her about Trump lashing out in anger and lunging at a member of his protective detail as he demanded to be taken to the Capitol on January 6.

Asked Sunday who else from the Secret Service would be called back to testify, Lofgren also mentioned the head of Trump’s Secret Service detail, Robert Engel, “and a few others,” but did not specify whom.

“We want to make sure that we’re getting the straight story. Some of the testimony received doesn’t seem to align with some of the documents, so we have a need to understand that better from them,” she said.

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October 16, 2022
Prosecutors ask jury to recommend death sentence for Parkland shooter | CNN

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Prosecutors have called on a Florida jury to recommend the Parkland school shooter be put to death, saying in a closing argument Tuesday he meticulously planned the February 2018 massacre, and that the facts of the case outweigh anything in his background that defense attorneys claim warrant a life sentence.

“What he wanted to do, what his plan was and what he did, was to murder children at school and their caretakers,” lead prosecutor Michael Satz said of Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in which 14 students and three school staff members were killed. “That’s what he wanted to do.”

But Cruz “is a brain damaged, broken, mentally ill person, through no fault of his own,” defense attorney Melisa McNeill said in her own closing argument, pointing to the defense’s claim that Cruz’s mother used drugs and drank alcohol while his mother was pregnant with him, saying he was “poisoned” in her womb.

“And in a civilized humane society, do we kill brain damaged, mentally ill, broken people?” McNeill asked Tuesday. “Do we? I hope not.”

With closing arguments, the monthslong sentencing phase of Cruz’s trial is nearing its end, marking prosecutors’ last chance to convince the jury to recommend a death sentence and defense attorneys’ last opportunity to lobby for life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors have argued Cruz’s decision to commit the deadliest mass shooting at an American high school was premeditated and calculated, while Cruz’s defense attorneys have offered evidence of a lifetime of struggles at home and in school.

Each side was allotted two and a half hours to make their closing arguments.

Jury deliberations are expected to begin Wednesday, during which time jurors will be sequestered, per Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer.

If they choose to recommend a death sentence, the jurors must be unanimous, or Cruz will receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. If the jury does recommend death, the final decision rests with Judge Scherer, who could choose to follow the recommendation or sentence Cruz to life.

In his remarks, Satz outlined prosecutors’ reasoning, including the preparations Cruz made. For a “long time” prior to the shooting, Satz said, Cruz thought about carrying it out.

Revisiting ground covered in the trial, the prosecutor said Cruz researched mass shootings and their perpetrators, including those at a music festival in Las Vegas; at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado; at Virginia Tech; and at Colorado’s Columbine High School.

Cruz modified his AR-15 to help improve his marksmanship; he accumulated ammunition and and magazines; and he searched online for information about how long it would take police to respond to a school shooting, Satz said.

Then, the day of, Satz said, Cruz hid his tactical vest in a backpack and took an Uber to the school, wearing a Marjory Stoneman Douglas JROTC polo shirt to blend in. Based on his planning, he told the Uber driver to drop him off at a specific pedestrian gate, knowing it would be open soon before school let out.

“All these details he thought of, and he did,” Satz said.

Satz also detailed a narrative of the shooting, which he called a “systematic massacre,” recounting how the shooter killed or wounded each of his victims, whose families and loved ones filled the courtroom gallery. Prosecutors also showed jurors a video of the shooting, which was not shown to the public.

Cruz, wearing a striped sweater and flanked by his public defenders, looked on expressionless, occasionally looking down at the table in front of him or talking to one of his attorneys.

“The appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty,” Satz concluded.

In her own statement, McNeill stressed to jurors that defense attorneys were not disputing that Cruz deserves to be punished for the shooting.

“We are asking you to punish him and to punish him severely,” she said. “We are asking you to sentence him to prison for the rest of his life, where he will wait to die, either by natural causes or whatever else could possibly happen to him while he’s in prison.”

The 14 slain students were: Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Martin Duque Anguiano, 14; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Jaime Guttenberg, 14; Luke Hoyer, 15; Cara Loughran, 14; Gina Montalto, 14; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Alaina Petty, 14; Meadow Pollack, 18; Helena Ramsay, 17; Alex Schachter, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16; and Peter Wang, 14.

Geography teacher Scott Beigel, 35; wrestling coach Chris Hixon, 49; and assistant football coach Aaron Feis, 37, also were killed – each while running toward danger or trying to help students to safety.

The lengthy trial – jury selection began six months ago, in early April – has seen prosecutors and defense attorneys present evidence of aggravating factors and mitigating circumstances, reasons Cruz should or should not be put to death.

The state has pointed to seven aggravating factors, including that the killings were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, as well as cold, calculated and premeditated, Satz said Tuesday. Other aggravating factors include the fact the defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to many people and that he disrupted a lawful government function – in this case, the running of a school.

Together, these aggravating factors “outweigh any mitigation about anything about the defendant’s background or character,” Satz said.

Satz rejected the mitigating circumstances presented during trial by the defense, including that Cruz’s mother smoked or used drugs while pregnant with him. Those factors would not turn someone into a mass murderer, Satz argued, adding it was the jury’s job to weigh the credibility of the defense witnesses who testified to those claims.

Satz cast doubt on the defense’s other proposed mitigators. In response to a claim that Cruz has neurological or intellectual deficits, Satz pointed to the gunman’s ability to carefully research and prepare for the Parkland shooting.

In response to claims Cruz was bullied by his peers, Satz argued Cruz was an aggressor, pointing to testimony that he walked around in high school with a swastika drawn on his backpack, along with the N-word and other explicit language.

“Hate is not a mental disorder,” Satz said.

During trial, prosecutors presented evidence showing the gunman spent months searching online for information about mass shootings and left behind social media comments sharing his express desire to “kill people,” while Google searches illustrated how he sought information about mass shootings. On YouTube, Cruz left comments like “Im going to be a professional school shooter,” and promised to “go on a killing rampage.”

“What one writes,” Satz said, referencing Cruz’s online history Tuesday, “what one says, is a window to someone’s soul.”

Public defenders assigned to represent Cruz have asked the jury to take into account his troubled history, from a dysfunctional family life to serious mental and developmental issues, contending he was born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

On Tuesday, McNeill reiterated the defense’s case, starting with one of the first witnesses called in August, Cruz’s older sister, Danielle Woodard. Woodard testified their mother, Brenda Woodard, used drugs and drank alcohol while pregnant with him.

“Her brother, Nikolas Cruz never recovered from the drugs and the alcohol that Brenda put in her polluted womb,” McNeill said Tuesday.

Several neighbors who knew Cruz when he lived with his late adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, also testified about watching him grow up, McNeill reminded jurors Tuesday. They shared how they saw him behaving in ways they described as “strange” or “weird,” or saw him being bullied. One neighbor, McNeill said, had told jurors that “from the moment he set eyes on Nikolas, he could tell something was not right with him.”

McNeill also revisited Cruz’s academic struggles throughout his childhood, recounting the “many people” – including educators and school counselors or psychologists – who testified they had concerns about his bad behavior or poor performance in school.

Those struggles continued into adolescence, McNeill said: When he was 15 years old, Cruz’s skills in reading, writing and math were well below the levels they should have been. These academic struggles, along with his anxiety and depression, were indicators, McNeill said, of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Various counselors and psychiatrists also testified, McNeill reminded the jury, offering their observations from years of treating or interacting with Cruz. One, former Broward County school district counselor John Newnham, testified that while Lynda Cruz was a caring mother, after the death of her husband, she was “overwhelmed” and did not take advantage of the support available.

This was a factor in Cruz’s failure to receive the proper help, McNeill told jurors Tuesday.

“Everybody told you that Lynda never truly appreciated what was wrong with Nikolas … But the evidence has shown you that Lynda consistently minimized, enabled, ignored, excused, defended and ultimately lied to the very people that were trying to help Nikolas.”

“Sometimes the people who deserve the least amount of compassion and grace and remorse are the ones who should get it,” she said.

As part of the prosecution’s case, family members of the victims were given the opportunity this summer to take the stand and offer raw and emotional testimony about how Cruz’s actions had forever changed their lives. At one point, even members of Cruz’s defense team were brought to tears.

“I feel I can’t truly be happy if I smile,” Max Schachter, the father of 14-year-old victim Alex Schachter, testified in August. “I know that behind that smile is the sharp realization that part of me will always be sad and miserable because Alex isn’t here.”

The defense’s case came to an unexpected end last month when – having called just 26 of 80 planned witnesses – public defenders assigned to represent Cruz abruptly rested, leading the judge to admonish the team for what she said was unprofessionalism, resulting in a courtroom squabble between her and the defense (the jury was not present).

Defense attorneys would later file a motion to disqualify the judge for her comments, arguing in part they suggested the judge was not impartial and Cruz’s right to a fair trial had been undermined. Prosecutors disagreed, writing “judicial comments, even of a critical or hostile nature, are not grounds for disqualification.”

Scherer ultimately denied the motion.

Prosecutors then presented their rebuttal, concluding last week following a three-day delay attributed to Hurricane Ian.

Their case included footage of Cruz telling clinical neuropsychologist Dr. Robert Denney he chose to carry out the shooting on Valentine’s Day because he “felt like no one loved me, and I didn’t like Valentine’s Day and I wanted to ruin it for everyone.”

Denney, who spent more than 400 hours with the gunman, testified for the prosecution that he concluded Cruz has borderline personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder.

But Cruz did not meet the criteria for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, as the defense has contended, Denney testified, accusing Cruz of “grossly exaggerating” his “psychiatric problems” in tests Denney administered.

When read the list of names of the 17 people killed and asked if fetal alcohol spectrum disorder explained their murders, Denney responded “no” each time.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of defense attorney Melisa McNeill.

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October 11, 2022
Timeline: The special counsel inquiry into Trump’s handling of classified documents | CNN Politics

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The federal criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents escalated in stunning fashion this week with Trump’s indictment.

The indictment hasn’t been unsealed yet, so details of the charges aren’t publicly available. But the investigation – led by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith – revolves around sensitive government papers that Trump held onto after his White House term ended in January 2021. The special counsel has also examined whether Trump or his aides obstructed the investigation.

Federal authorities have recovered more than 325 classified documents from Trump. He has voluntarily given back some materials, his lawyers turned over additional files after a subpoena, and the FBI found dozens of classified records during a court-approved search of his Mar-a-Lago home last summer.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing and claims the investigation is a politically motivated sham, intended to derail his ongoing campaign to win the Republican 2024 nomination and return to the White House.

Here’s a timeline of the important developments in the blockbuster investigation.

An official from the National Archives and Records Administration contacts Trump’s team after realizing that several important documents weren’t handed over before Trump left the White House. In hopes of locating the missing items, NARA lawyer Gary Stern reaches out to someone who served in the White House counsel’s office under Trump, who was the point of contact for recordkeeping matters. The missing documents include some of Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as the map of Hurricane Dorian that Trump infamously altered with a sharpie pen.

In a taped conversation, Trump acknowledges that he still has a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack against Iran, according to CNN reporting. The recording, which was made at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey, indicates that Trump understood that he retained classified material after leaving the White House. The special counsel later obtained this audiotape, a key piece of evidence in his inquiry.

NARA grows frustrated with the slow pace of document turnover after several months of conversations with the Trump team. Stern reaches out to another Trump attorney to intervene. The archivist asks about several boxes of records that were apparently taken to Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s relocation to Florida. NARA still doesn’t receive the White House documents they are searching for.

After months of discussions with Trump’s team, NARA retrieves 15 boxes of Trump White House records from Mar-a-Lago. The boxes contained some materials that were part of “special access programs,” known as SAP, which is a classification that includes protocols to significantly limit who would have access to the information. NARA says in a statement that some of the records it received at the end of Trump’s administration were “torn up by former President Trump,” and that White House officials had to tape them back together. Not all the torn-up documents were reconstructed, NARA says.

NARA asks the Justice Department to investigate Trump’s handling of White House records and whether he violated the Presidential Records Act and other laws related to classified information. The Presidential Records Act requires all records created by a sitting president to be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administration.

NARA informs the Justice Department that some of the documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago included classified material. NARA also tells the department that, despite being warned it was illegal, Trump occasionally tore up government documents while he was president.

On April 7, NARA publicly acknowledges for the first time that the Justice Department is involved, and news outlets report that prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. Around this time, FBI agents quietly interview Trump aides at Mar-a-Lago about the handling of presidential records as part of their widening investigation.

The FBI asks NARA for access to the 15 boxes it retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January. The request was formally transmitted to NARA by President Joe Biden’s White House Counsel’s office, because the incumbent president controls presidential documents in NARA custody.

The Justice Department sends a letter to Trump’s lawyers as part of its effort to access the 15 boxes, notifying them that more than 100 classified documents, totaling more than 700 pages, were found in the boxes. The letter says the FBI and US intelligence agencies need “immediate access” to these materials because of “important national security interests.” Also on this day, Trump lawyers ask NARA to delay its plans to give the FBI access to these materials. Trump’s lawyers say they want time to examine the materials to see if anything is privileged, and that they are making a “protective assertion of executive privilege” over all the documents.

Trump’s lawyers write again to NARA, and ask again that NARA postpone its plans to give the FBI access to the materials retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.

Debra Steidel Wall, the acting archivist of the United States, who runs NARA, informs Trump’s lawyers that she is rejecting their claims of “protective” executive privilege over all the materials taken from Mar-a-Lago and will therefore turn over the materials to the FBI and US intelligence agencies, in a four-page letter.

The Justice Department subpoenas Trump, demanding all documents with classification markings that are still at Mar-a-Lago. At some point after receiving the subpoena, Trump asks his lawyer Evan Corcoran if there was any way to fight the subpoena, but Corcoran tells him he has to comply, according to notes Cochran took and later gave to investigators. Also after getting the subpoena, Trump aides are captured on surveillance footage moving document boxes into and out of a basement storage room – which has become a major element of the obstruction investigation.

News outlets report that investigators subpoenaed NARA for access to the classified documents they retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. The subpoena is the first public indication of the Justice Department using a grand jury in its investigation.

As part of the effort to comply with the subpoena, Corcoran searches a Mar-a-Lago storage room and finds 38 classified documents. According to a lawsuit that the former president later filed, Trump invites FBI officials to come to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the subpoenaed materials.

Federal investigators, including a top Justice Department counterintelligence official, visit Mar-a-Lago to deal with the subpoena for remaining classified documents. The investigators meet with Trump’s attorneys, including Corcoran, and look around the basement storage room where the documents were stored. Trump briefly stops by the meeting to say hello to the officials, but he does not answer any questions. Corcoran hands over the 38 classified documents that he found. Trump lawyer Christina Bobb signs a sworn affidavit inaccurately asserting that there aren’t any more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s attorneys receive a letter from federal investigators, asking them to further secure the room where documents are being stored. In response, Trump aides add a padlock to the room in the basement of Mar-a-Lago.

Federal investigators serve a subpoena to the Trump Organization, demanding surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s company complies with the subpoena and turns over the footage. CNN has reported that this was part of an effort to gather information about who had access to areas at the club where government documents were stored.

The FBI executes a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago – a major escalation of the investigation. The search focused on the area of the club where Trump’s offices and personal quarters are located. Federal agents found more than 100 additional classified documents at the property. The search was the first time in American history that a former president’s home was searched as part of a criminal investigation.

Trump sends a message through one his lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland, saying he has “been hearing from people all over the country about the raid” who are “angry,” and that “whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know,” according to a lawsuit he later filed. Hours later, after three days of silence, Garland makes a brief public statement about the investigation. He reveals that he personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant, and that the Justice Department will continue to apply the law “without fear or favor.” Garland also pushes back against what he called “unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department.”

Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart approves the unsealing of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant and its property receipt, at the Justice Department’s request and after Trump’s lawyers agree to the release. The warrant reveals the Justice Department is looking into possible violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records, as part of its investigation.

Trump files a federal lawsuit seeking the appointment of a third-party attorney known as a “special master” to independently review the materials that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. In the lawsuit, Trump’s lawyers argue that the Justice Department can’t be trusted to do its own review for potentially privileged materials that should be siloed off from the criminal probe.

In a major ruling in Trump’s favor, Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, grants Trump’s request for a special master to review the seized materials from Mar-a-Lago. She says the special master will have the power to look for documents covered under attorney-client privilege and executive privilege.

The Justice Department appeals Cannon’s decision in the special master case.

Cannon appoints senior Judge Raymond Dearie to serve as the special master and sets a November 30 deadline for the Brooklyn-based federal judge to finish his review of the seized materials.

A maintenance worker drains the swimming pool at Mar-a-Lago, which ends up flooding a room where there are computer severs that contain surveillance video logs, according to CNN reporting. It’s unclear if the flood was accidental or on purpose, and it’s possible that the IT equipment wasn’t damaged, but federal prosecutors found the incident to be suspicious.

Former Trump administration official Kash Patel testifies before the federal grand jury in the classified documents investigation. A Trump loyalist, Patel had publicly claimed that Trump declassified all the materials that ended up at Mar-a-Lago, even though there is no evidence to back up those assertions.

Garland announces that he is appointing special counsel Jack Smith to take over the investigation.

A federal appeals court shuts down the special master review of the documents that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. The appeals panel rebuked Cannon’s earlier decisions, writing that she essentially tried to “interfere” with the criminal probe and had created a “special exception” in the law to help Trump.

Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore testifies before the special counsel’s grand jury, where he described how Trump’s lawyers scoured his properties for classified materials. He later left Trump’s legal team.

Trump’s legal team searches four of his properties in Florida, New York and New Jersey for additional classified material. They find two more classified files in a Florida storage unit, and give them to the FBI. Around this time, Trump’s team also finds additional papers with classification markings at Mar-a-Lago, and they give those materials to the Justice Department. They also turn over a laptop belonging to a Trump aide who had copied those documents onto the computer, not realizing they were classified.

A string of key witnesses testify before the special counsel’s grand jury in Washington, DC. This includes Trump administration officials Robert O’Brien and Ric Grenell, who handled national security and intelligence matters; Margo Martin, a communications aide who continued working for Trump after he left the White House; and Matthew Calamari Sr. and his son, Matthew Calamari Jr., longtime Trump employees who oversee security for the Trump Organization.

In response to a new subpoena from the special counsel, Trump’s lawyers turn over some material related to a classified Pentagon document that he discussed at a recorded meeting in 2021. However, Trump’s team wasn’t able to find the specific document – about a potential US attack on Iran – that prosecutors were looking for.

Corcoran, the lead Trump attorney, testifies before the grand jury in Washington, DC. This occurred after a federal judge ordered him to answer prosecutors’ questions, ruling that attorney-client privilege did not shield his discussion with Trump because Trump might been trying to commit a crime through his attorneys. Corcoran later recused himself from handling the Mar-a-Lago matter.

The first public indications emerge that the special counsel is using a second grand jury in Miami to gather evidence. Multiple witnesses testify in front of the Miami-based panel, CNN reported.

Trump lawyers meet with senior Justice Department officials – including special counsel Smith – to discuss the Mar-a-Lago investigation. The sitdown lasted about 90 minutes, and Trump’s team raised concerns about the probe, which they have called an “unlawful” and “outrageous” abuse of the legal system.

News outlets report that the Justice Department recently sent a “target letter” to Trump, formally notifying him that he’s a target of the investigation into potential mishandling of classified documents.

News outlets report that Trump has been indicted in connection with the classified documents investigation. Trump also says in a social media post that the Justice Department informed his attorneys that he was indicted – and called the case a “hoax.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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April 12, 2021

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