CHICAGO — A federal appeals court blocked the immediate release of hundreds of immigrants detained during a Chicago area immigration crackdown in a split decision Thursday that also allowed the extension of a consent decree outlining how federal immigration agents can make warrantless arrests.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments last week about the 2022 agreement governing how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can arrest immigrants besides those being specifically targeted in an operation. The consent decree has been in the spotlight amid the Trump administration’s Chicago-area immigration crackdown that’s led to more than 4,000 arrests.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings, who found the government violated the agreement, ordered the release of more than 600 immigrants on bond, which the appeals court paused. Roughly 450 remain in custody, attorneys say.
In the 2-1 opinion, the appeals court said Cummings overstepped his authority on the blanket release of the detainees without assessing each case individually. The consent decree “carefully maps out what the district judge can or cannot order” to balance enforcement and public safety, according to the opinion. But the ruling also said the Trump administration wrongly categorized all immigrant arrestees as subject to mandatory detention.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys said they were disheartened by the ruling but glad the court upheld the extension of the agreement, which among other things requires ICE to show documentation for each arrest it makes. Federal judges elsewhere including in Colorado have also ruled to limit warrantless arrests.
Attorneys pushed for a quick decision, saying many are being deported without knowing their options. The hundreds of detainees, mostly from the Chicago area, were arrested from summer through the early weeks of the “Operation Midway Blitz” immigration crackdown in the fall. Attorneys have said they have collected information on hundreds of more people they believe were also improperly arrested.
“We will work tirelessly to ensure that people who were unlawfully arrested will be able to return to their families and communities as soon as possible,” said Keren Zwick with the National Immigrant Justice Center.
A message left Thursday for the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately returned.
The consent decree, which expired earlier this year, was extended until February. The federal government tried to challenge the extension in court.
The agreement was originally reached between immigrant rights groups and the federal government following a lawsuit over 2018 immigration sweeps. It applies to immigrants arrested in six states covered by the ICE field office in Chicago. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Wisconsin.
MELBOURNE, Australia — Global online forum Reddit on Friday filed a court challenge to Australia’s world-first law that bans Australian children younger than 16 from holding accounts on the world’s most popular social media platforms.
California-based Reddit Inc.’s suit filed in the High Court follows a case filed last month by Sydney-based rights group Digital Freedom Project.
Both suits claim the law is unconstitutional because it infringes on Australia’s implied freedom of political communication.
“We believe there are more effective ways for the Australian government to accomplish our shared goal of protecting youth, and the SMMA (Social Media Minimum Age) law carries some serious privacy and political expression issues for everyone on the internet,” Reddit said in a statement.
“While we agree with the importance of protecting people under 16, this law has the unfortunate effect of forcing intrusive and potentially insecure verification processes on adults as well as minors, isolating teens from the ability to engage in age-appropriate community experiences (including political discussions), and creating an illogical patchwork of which platforms are included and which aren’t,” Reddit added.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government declined to comment on the merits of Reddit’s challenge.
“The Albanese government is on the side of Australian parents and kids, not platforms,” a government statement said.
“We will stand firm to protect young Australians from experiencing harm on social media. The matter is before the courts so it is not appropriate to comment further,” the statement added.
Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube and Twitch face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32.9 million) from Wednesday if they fail to take reasonable steps to remove the accounts of Australian children younger than 16.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, the law’s enforcer, sent compulsory information notices to the 10 age-restricted platforms on Thursday demanding data on how many accounts of young children they had deactivated since the law took effect on Wednesday.
Inman Grant had predicted that some platforms might have been waiting to receive their first notice or their first fine for noncompliance before mounting a legal challenge.
ESafety will send six monthly notices to gauge how effectively the platforms are complying.
Despite the court challenge, Reddit said it would comply with the law and would continue to engage with eSafety.
The platforms’ age-verification options were to ask for copies of identification documents, use a third party to apply age-estimation technology to analyze an account holder’s face, or make inferences from data already available, such has how long an account has been held.
The government hasn’t told the platforms how to check ages, but has said requesting all account holders verify their ages would be unnecessarily intrusive, given the tech giants already have sufficient personal data on most people to perform that task.
For privacy reasons, the platforms also cannot compel users to provide government-issued identification.
Documents filed with the court registry show Reddit will ask the seven High Court judges to rule the law is invalid.
Alternatively, the company wants the court to prevent the government from listing Reddit among the age-restricted platforms.
The High Court will hold a preliminary hearing in late February to set a date for Digital Freedom Project’s challenge on behalf of two 15-year-olds. It is not yet clear whether the two challenges would be heard together.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Global online forum Reddit on Friday filed a court challenge to Australia’s world-first law that bans Australian children younger than 16 from holding accounts on the world’s most popular social media platforms.
California-based Reddit Inc.’s suit filed in the High Court follows a case filed last month by Sydney-based rights group Digital Freedom Project.
Both suits claim the law is unconstitutional because it infringes on Australia’s implied freedom of political communication.
“We believe there are more effective ways for the Australian government to accomplish our shared goal of protecting youth, and the SMMA (Social Media Minimum Age) law carries some serious privacy and political expression issues for everyone on the internet,” Reddit said in a statement.
“While we agree with the importance of protecting people under 16, this law has the unfortunate effect of forcing intrusive and potentially insecure verification processes on adults as well as minors, isolating teens from the ability to engage in age-appropriate community experiences (including political discussions), and creating an illogical patchwork of which platforms are included and which aren’t,” Reddit added.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government declined to comment on the merits of Reddit’s challenge.
“The Albanese government is on the side of Australian parents and kids, not platforms,” a government statement said.
“We will stand firm to protect young Australians from experiencing harm on social media. The matter is before the courts so it is not appropriate to comment further,” the statement added.
Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube and Twitch face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32.9 million) from Wednesday if they fail to take reasonable steps to remove the accounts of Australian children younger than 16.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, the law’s enforcer, sent compulsory information notices to the 10 age-restricted platforms on Thursday demanding data on how many accounts of young children they had deactivated since the law took effect on Wednesday.
Inman Grant had predicted that some platforms might have been waiting to receive their first notice or their first fine for noncompliance before mounting a legal challenge.
ESafety will send six monthly notices to gauge how effectively the platforms are complying.
Despite the court challenge, Reddit said it would comply with the law and would continue to engage with eSafety.
The platforms’ age-verification options were to ask for copies of identification documents, use a third party to apply age-estimation technology to analyze an account holder’s face, or make inferences from data already available, such has how long an account has been held.
The government hasn’t told the platforms how to check ages, but has said requesting all account holders verify their ages would be unnecessarily intrusive, given the tech giants already have sufficient personal data on most people to perform that task.
For privacy reasons, the platforms also cannot compel users to provide government-issued identification.
Documents filed with the court registry show Reddit will ask the seven High Court judges to rule the law is invalid.
Alternatively, the company wants the court to prevent the government from listing Reddit among the age-restricted platforms.
The High Court will hold a preliminary hearing in late February to set a date for Digital Freedom Project’s challenge on behalf of two 15-year-olds. It is not yet clear whether the two challenges would be heard together.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian authorities on Thursday demanded some of the world’s biggest social media platforms report how many accounts they have deactivated since a ban on accounts for children younger than 16 became law.
Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube and Twitch all said they would abide by Australia’s world-first law that took effect on Wednesday, Communications Minister Anika Wells said.
But the tech companies’ responses to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant’s first demand for data will likely indicate their commitment to ridding their platforms of young children.
“Today the eSafety Commissioner will write to all 10 platforms who are considered age-restricted social media platforms and she will ask them … what were your numbers of under 16 accounts on Dec. 9; what are your numbers today on Dec. 11?” Wells said.
The commissioner would reveal the platforms’ responses within two weeks. The platforms would be required to provide monthly updates for six months.
The companies face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32.9 million) from Wednesday if they fail to take reasonable steps to remove the accounts of Australian children younger than 16.
Wells said the European Commission, France, Denmark, Greece, Romania, Indonesia, Malaysia and New Zealand were considering following Australia’s lead in restricting children’s access to social media.
“There’s been a huge amount of global interest and we welcome it, and we welcome all of the allies who are joining Australia to take action in this space to draw a line to say enough’s enough,” Wells said.
Sydney-based rights group Digital Freedom Project plans to challenge the law on constitutional grounds in the Australian High Court early next year.
Inman Grant said some platforms had consulted lawyers and might be waiting to receive their first so-called compulsory information notice Thursday or their first fine for noncompliance before mounting a legal challenge.
“That could be a strategy that they have in and of themselves: we’ll say we’re complying but then we’ll do a crappy job using these technologies and we’ll let people get through and have people claim it’s a failure,” Inman Grant told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Inman Grant said her research had found that 84% of children in Australia aged 8-12 had accessed a social media account. Of those with social media access, 90% did so with the help of parents.
Inman Grant said the main reason parents helped was because “they didn’t want their children to be excluded.”
“What this legislation does … is it takes away that fear of exclusion,” Inman Grant said.
NEW YORK — Cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday for misleading investors who lost billions when his company’s crypto ecosystem collapsed in 2022.
Kwon, known by some as “the cryptocurrency king,” pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court in August to fraud charges stemming from Terraform Labs’ $40 billion crash.
The company had touted its TerraUSD as a reliable “stablecoin” — a kind of currency typically pegged to stable assets to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices. But prosecutors say it was all an illusion that came crumbling down, devastating investors and triggering “a cascade of crises that swept through cryptocurrency markets.”
Kwon, who hails from South Korea, has agreed to forfeit over $19 million as part of the plea deal.
While federal sentencing guidelines would recommend a prison term of about 25 years, prosecutors have asked the court to sentence Kwon to 12 years. They cited his guilty plea, the fact that he faces further prosecution in Korea and that he has already served time in Montenegro while awaiting extradition.
“Kwon’s fraud was colossal in scope, permeating virtually every facet of Terraform’s purported business,” prosecutors wrote in a recent memo to the judge. “His rampant lies left a trail of financial destruction in their wake.”
Kwon’s attorneys asked that the sentence not exceed five years, arguing in their own memo that his conduct stemmed not from greed, but hubris and desperation.
In a letter to the judge, Kwon wrote, “I alone am responsible for everyone’s pain. The community looked to me to know the path, and I in my hubris led them astray,” while adding, “I made misrepresentations that came from a brashness that is now a source of deep regret.”
Authorities said investors worldwide lost money in the downfall of the Singapore crypto firm, which Kwon co-founded in 2018. Around $40 billion in market value was erased for the holders of TerraUSD and its floating sister currency, Luna, after the stablecoin plunged far below its $1 peg.
Kwon was extradited to the U.S. from Montenegro after his March 23, 2023, arrest while traveling on a false passport in Europe.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A military court on Thursday sentenced a former spy chief of Pakistan to 14 years in prison, more than a year after court-martial proceedings began against him on multiple charges, including engaging in political activities and violating the Official Secrets Act, the military said.
In a statement, it said the Field General Court Martial tried the former Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence, retired Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, under the Pakistan Army Act during proceedings that lasted 15 months.
“The accused was tried on four charges related to engaging in political activities, violation of the Official Secrets Act detrimental to the safety and interest of the state, misuse of authority and government resources, and causing wrongful loss to individuals,” the statement said.
The military said the court found Hameed guilty on all charges after “lengthy and laborious” legal proceedings and sentenced him to 14 years of imprisonment. It said the court-martial followed all legal requirements and that Hameed was provided full rights of defense, including counsel of his choice.
Hameed has the right to appeal the verdict before the relevant forum, it said.
The military provided no additional details, but Hameed was widely known to be a close associate to imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is serving multiple sentences on graft and other charges since he was arrested in 2023.
Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022.
Hameed was detained in 2024 following an internal probe ordered by Pakistan’s Supreme Court into allegations linked to what became known as the Top City project scam. The Top City company had been developing land near Islamabad for a private housing project.
Since his arrest, neither the military nor the government had publicly disclosed the specific charges against him.
The arrest of such a high-profile retired officer last year surprised many in Pakistan, where the army wields significant influence and where detentions of senior or former military officials are rare.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NEW YORK (AP) — Cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday for misleading investors who lost billions when his company’s crypto ecosystem collapsed in 2022.
Kwon, known by some as “the cryptocurrency king,” pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court in August to fraud charges stemming from Terraform Labs’ $40 billion crash.
The company had touted its TerraUSD as a reliable “stablecoin” — a kind of currency typically pegged to stable assets to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices. But prosecutors say it was all an illusion that came crumbling down, devastating investors and triggering “a cascade of crises that swept through cryptocurrency markets.”
Kwon, who hails from South Korea, has agreed to forfeit over $19 million as part of the plea deal.
While federal sentencing guidelines would recommend a prison term of about 25 years, prosecutors have asked the court to sentence Kwon to 12 years. They cited his guilty plea, the fact that he faces further prosecution in Korea and that he has already served time in Montenegro while awaiting extradition.
“Kwon’s fraud was colossal in scope, permeating virtually every facet of Terraform’s purported business,” prosecutors wrote in a recent memo to the judge. “His rampant lies left a trail of financial destruction in their wake.”
Kwon’s attorneys asked that the sentence not exceed five years, arguing in their own memo that his conduct stemmed not from greed, but hubris and desperation.
In a letter to the judge, Kwon wrote, “I alone am responsible for everyone’s pain. The community looked to me to know the path, and I in my hubris led them astray,” while adding, “I made misrepresentations that came from a brashness that is now a source of deep regret.”
Authorities said investors worldwide lost money in the downfall of the Singapore crypto firm, which Kwon co-founded in 2018. Around $40 billion in market value was erased for the holders of TerraUSD and its floating sister currency, Luna, after the stablecoin plunged far below its $1 peg.
Kwon was extradited to the U.S. from Montenegro after his March 23, 2023, arrest while traveling on a false passport in Europe.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NEW YORK — Federal prison officials say the former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch is fit to stand trial on federal sex trafficking charges after he was hospitalized with Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and a traumatic brain injury.
Michael Jeffries had been ordered to be hospitalized in May. But in a letter filed in federal court in New York on Wednesday, Blake Lott, the acting warden at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina said the 81-year-old is “now competent to stand trial.”
Lott didn’t provide further details in the letter but said the center has provided a report to the judge handling the case. Jeffries had been discharged from FMC-Butner on Nov. 21, according to previous filings in the case.
Brian Bieber, an attorney for Jeffries, responded that other doctors had previously found his client incompetent to proceed.
“A doctor from the Bureau of Prisons is of a different opinion,” he said in an email Wednesday. “We look forward to the Judge hearing the medical evidence, and deciding on the appropriate course of action moving forward.”
The letter comes as prosecutors and Jeffries’ lawyers are expected to confer by phone Thursday with U.S. District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury on the status of the case.
Jeffries pleaded not guilty last year to federal charges of sex trafficking and interstate prostitution.
His lawyers had argued that the former executive required around-the-clock care and was unable to understand the nature and consequences of the case against him or to assist properly in his defense.
They had said at least four medical professionals concluded that Jeffries’ cognitive issues were “progressive and incurable” and that he would not “regain his competency and cannot be restored to competency in the future.”
Jeffries’ lawyers and prosecutors had requested that he be hospitalized in federal Bureau of Prisons custody so he could receive treatment that might allow his criminal case to proceed.
Choudhury agreed, ordering him placed in a hospital for up to four months. Before then, Jeffries had been free on a $10 million bond.
Prosecutors say Jeffries, his romantic partner and a third man used the promise of modeling jobs to lure men to drug-fueled sex parties in New York City, the Hamptons and other locations. The charges echoed sexual misconduct accusations made in a civil case and the media in recent years.
Jeffries left Abercrombie in 2014 after more than two decades at the helm. His partner, Matthew Smith, has also pleaded not guilty and remains out on bond, as has their co-defendant, James Jacobson.
A New York City Department of Correction officer forged the signature of a person incarcerated on Rikers Island to prevent him from meeting with his defense counsel, according to testimony provided at a Wednesday New York City Council hearing where attorneys said they are subject to hostile treatment by officers.
Attorneys from the Legal Aid Society, New York County Defender Services, Neighborhood Defender Services and The Bronx Defenders said getting to meet with a client in a timely manner at Rikers Island frequently felt like “sheer luck” because of hours-long wait times and officers fabricating detainee refusals to meet with their attorneys.
Julia Tedesco, an attorney with the New York County Defender Services, said she was told her client refused to meet with her at a scheduled Nov. 12 televisit and was provided with a refusal slip apparently bearing the client’s signature. When she went to visit her client in person on Rikers Island on Nov. 20, officers told her he refused again. She found it suspicious, questioned officers further on the matter and was told about half an hour later that her client was “no longer refusing” to meet.
“When we spoke, he told me unequivocally that he never refused a visit that morning, so there was no refusal,” Tedesco said of her client. “He also said that he never signed a refusal slip on Nov. 12. I compared that signature to the documents he signed in front of me on Nov. 20. They did not match. A correction officer forged my client’s signature.”
Tedesco said officers lying about clients refusing to meet with her and other attorneys violated their constitutional rights.
“Pretrial detention is dehumanizing. We know this, and the persistent denial of counsel access through fabricated refusals is a direct violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel,” Tedesco said. “This is not a clerical error or misunderstanding. It is a deliberate obstruction when Rikers staff fabricate refusals. They do not merely inconvenience attorneys. They silence crimes and sever one of the few lifelines available to people to take pretrial. They prohibit clients’ opportunity to meaningfully participate in their own defense.”
When asked about this situation, a DOC representative said the department is exploring options to improve visitors’ experiences.
“The Department is both reviewing visit operations and implementing improvements to upgrade the process and experience for all who visit our facilities,” the DOC said in an emailed statement. “We have made numerous improvements to our visitor experience in recent years, including through partnerships with nonprofit organizations to provide opportunities to connect with loved ones both on and off Rikers Island. We know there is more work to do, and it remains a priority for our staff to get it done.”
Tedesco’s experience with DOC officers fabricating client refusals is not an isolated incident, Tahanee Dunn, an attorney with The Bronx Defenders attested.
“Recently, I had a client whose case was in a hearing and trial posture. Thus, visiting him was essential,” Dunn said. “His legal team and I went on three consecutive occasions and were told he refused our visit…When we spoke to him later, he assured us that he had not refused. Rather, no one had come to his housing area to notify him of the visit.”
Dunn said this happened to her on “many” visits, sometimes cutting her and her team off from their clients for over a month.
“I receive dozens and dozens of complaints from our staff and our clients every month [about this,” she said. “It is appalling.”
City Council Members Sandy Nurse and Gale Brewer listen to attorney testimony at Wednesday’s hearing.
The fabricated refusals are just part of a hostile culture attorneys experience when trying to meet and speak with clients detained on the island to develop cases, criminal defenders testified.
Elizabeth Bender, senior policy counsel with the Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, said a DOC officer threatened one of her colleagues who was attempting to conduct a client meeting.
“As [an officer] saw her approaching, he said, ‘Oh, it’s you. I have a chloroform-soaked rag behind my desk just for you,’” Bender said of her colleague’s recent experience at Rikers. “There is no circumstance under which a comment like that is acceptable, but everyone…who has spent time visiting Rikers Island will know that it is emblematic of a system that’s designed to make it as unpleasant, difficult and time-consuming as possible to visit our clients and provide them with the legal representation that they deserve.”
Bender said the DOC’s claims that attorneys could schedule client meetings online to bypass long waits and that legal visits should always start within 45 minutes of an attorney registering at the jail were “a joke.”
She and others said that the long waits and a lack of privacy during client meetings prevented attorneys from seeing as many clients as they otherwise could, making it difficult to listen to vulnerable client stories and build the best case possible.
“Almost all of the visit areas force us to shout at our clients through plexiglas,” Bender said. “There are [officers] and sometimes other detained people very nearby who can see and probably hear everything that we are talking about in these immensely vulnerable conversations.”
The attorneys’ testimony came in a hearing on visitation for both families and attorneys at Rikers held by the City Council Committee on Criminal Justice and Oversight and Investigations. A recently published investigation by the committee found many family members trying to visit their incarcerated loved ones on the island face similar issues of long wait times, potentially fabricated refusals and “rude” behavior from officers.
DOC representatives, who left before the attorneys provided council members their testimony, told the committee they were working on improving the visiting experience.
Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie said the department agreed current wait times were too long, was working to ensure officers treated visitors respectfully, was expanding programs that supported young children and families during the visiting process, is moving to increase televisits, improve signage and form a new 13-person team specifically committed to facilitating and improving the visiting experience.
Advocates, including Tanya Krupat, the vice president of policy and advocacy with the Osborne Association, who said the news of a team focused on improving the visiting experience made her “hopeful,” though there was a great deal of work to be done.
“I am very excited to work with this new group of people,” Krupat said. “I really hope that they approach this collaboratively…and in a solutions-oriented way. We all want to improve the visiting process…It improves the correctional environment and improves outcomes. This is not an ‘us’ and ‘them’ issue. This is an ‘all of us’ issue.”
OAKLAND — Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson’s office formally asked a judge this week to dismiss the manslaughter case against the former San Leandro police officer accused of fatally shooting Steven Taylor during an April 2020 shoplifting call.
The request by Jones Dickson’s administration — which is expected to be argued at a hearing Friday morning — marks yet another twist in the case against Jason Fletcher, who was charged with manslaughter months after the killing but has yet to face trial amid a rotating cast of district attorneys. His case has since become a rallying cry by advocates pushing for greater accountability among law enforcement officers who use deadly force.
If granted, the dismissal would represent an abrupt end to the first police officer charged in an on-duty killing in Alameda County since BART Officer Johannes Mehserle was tried — and convicted — in the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant more than 15 years ago. Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in July 2010, by a Los Angeles County jury after the case was moved south.
In a motion filed Tuesday, the district attorney’s office argued that Fletcher’s case “cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt,” nor that it’s entirely clear that Fletcher didn’t act out of self defense or the right to defend others inside the San Leandro Walmart where the shooting happened.
Taylor was fatally shot on April 18, 2020, while allegedly trying to steal an aluminum baseball bat and a tent from the Walmart. Only about 40 seconds passed between the time Fletcher encountered Taylor, 33, and when the fatal shot was fired, according to a lawsuit against the city of San Leandro by the slain man’s family.
Alameda County prosecutors had previously argued that Fletcher did not try to de-escalate the confrontation before fatally shooting Taylor once in the chest after using a Taser on him multiple times. A judge later called the case “a battle of the experts,” given the vast amount of testimony at an evidentiary hearing from police use-of-force experts.
Those experts became the subject of a recent bid by Fletcher’s attorneys — largely backed by the work of Jones Dickson’s own team — to dismiss the case on the grounds of “outrageous government conduct.” The officer’s attorneys argued that previous prosecutors in the case — each overseen by former District Attorney Pamela Price — acted unethically while seeking experts to testify on the prosecution’s behalf.
In ruling from the bench last month, Alameda County Judge Thomas Reardon said he found no evidence that those former prosecutors tainted the case by allegedly hiding evidence from defense attorneys.
The district attorney’s dismissal motion this week again took direct aim at Price’s administration, claiming that her strategy was nothing more than “a desperate de-evolution into violations of both ethics and the law around these experts.”
“The effort made to conceal expert opinions from the defense in violation of Supreme Court case law that requires transparency of this type of evidence only created more hurdles to the prosecution of Fletcher,” the motion added.
The motion appears to have been authored by Darby Williams, a relative newcomer to Jones Dickson’s staff who previously spent time as a prosecutor in San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, as well as a public defender in Los Angeles, according to her LinkedIn account. The site shows her having joined the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in July.
The request by Jones Dickson’s team continues a trend by the former Alameda County prosecutor and judge, who has worked to unwind the legacy of Price, who voters recalled last year. That includes dismissing numerous cases filed by Price’s administration, including several against law enforcement officers related to the deaths of inmates at Santa Rita Jail.
Price has since announced a campaign to once again seek election as the county’s district attorney, roughly a year after voters removed her from office by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. So far, Price and Jones Dickson are the only people known to be vying for the post.
The wave of dismissals had led to fears by Taylor’s family that Fletcher’s case could be next.
Reached Wednesday morning, Taylor’s grandmother, Addie Kitchen, slammed the decision.
“I’m shocked,” said Kitchen, noting how the request to end the case came not from Fletcher’s attorneys, but from Jones Dickson’s office. “How do you think it feels? Five and a half years — the biggest slap in the face by the district attorney.”
Check back for updates to this developing story.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.
Concord, N.H. (AP) — A college freshman trying to fly from Boston to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving was instead deported to Honduras in violation of a court order, according to her attorney.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, 19, had already passed through security at Boston Logan International Airport on Nov. 20 when she was told there was an issue with her boarding pass, said attorney Todd Pomerleau. The Babson College student was then detained by immigration officials and within two days, sent to Texas and then Honduras, the country she left at age 7.
“She’s absolutely heartbroken,” Pomerleau said. “Her college dream has just been shattered.”
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration judge ordered Lopez Belloza deported in 2015. Pomerleau said she wasn’t aware of any removal order, however, and the only record he’s found indicates her case was closed in 2017.
“They’re holding her responsible for something they claim happened a decade ago that she’s completely unaware of and not showing any of the proof,” the lawyer said.
The day after Lopez Belloza was arrested, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting the government from moving her out of Massachusetts or the United States for at least 72 hours. ICE did not respond to an email Friday from The Associated Press seeking comment about violating that order. Babson College also did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Lopez Belloza, who is staying with her grandparents in Honduras, told The Boston Globe she had been looking forward to telling her parents and younger sisters about her first semester studying business.
“That was my dream,” she said. “I’m losing everything.”
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
KISUMU, Kenya — A high court in Kenya on Thursday declared unconstitutional sections of a seed law that prevented farmers from sharing and selling indigenous seeds in what food campaigners have called a landmark win for food security.
Farmers in Kenya could face up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 1 million Kenya shillings ($7,700) for sharing seeds through their community seed banks, according to a seed law signed in 2012.
Justice Rhoda Rutto on Thursday said sections of the seed law that gave government officials powers to raid seed banks and seize seeds were also unconstitutional.
The law was introduced as a measure to curb growing sale of counterfeit seeds that were causing loses in the agricultural sector and gave sole seed trading rights to licensed companies.
The case had been filed by 15 smallholder farmers, who are members of community seed banks that have been in operation for years, preserving and sharing seeds among colleagues.
A farmer, Samuel Wathome, who was among the 15, said the old farming practices had been vindicated.
“My grandmother saved seeds, and today the court has said I can do the same for my grandchildren without fear of the police or of prison,” he said.
Elizabeth Atieno, a food campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, called the win a “victory for our culture, our resilience, and our future.”
“By validating indigenous seeds, the court has struck a blow against the corporate capture of our food system. We can finally say that in Kenya, feeding your community with climate-resilient, locally adapted seeds is no longer a crime,” she said.
Food campaigners have in the past encouraged governments to work with farmers to preserve indigenous seeds as a way of ensuring food security by offering farmers more plant varieties.
Indigenous seeds are believed to be drought resistant and adaptable to the climate conditions of their native areas, and hence often outperform hybrid seeds.
Kenya has a national seed bank based near the capital Nairobi where indigenous seeds are stored in cold rooms, but farmers say community seed banks are equally important for variety and proximity to the farmer.
The country has faced challenges in the seed sector where counterfeit seeds were sold to farmers, leading to losses amounting to millions of shillings in a country that relies on rain-fed agriculture.
BANGKOK (AP) — A court in Thailand said Wednesday that it has issued an arrest warrant for a co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization in connection with a fraud case.
Jakkaphong “Anne” Jakrajutatip was charged with fraud then released on bail in 2023. She failed to appear as required in a Bangkok court on Tuesday. Since she did not notify the court about her absence, she was deemed to be a flight risk, according to a statement from the Bangkok South District Court.
The court rescheduled the hearing for Dec. 26.
According to the court’s statement, Jakkaphong and her company, JKN Global Group Public Co. Ltd., were sued for allegedly defrauding Raweewat Maschamadol in selling him the company’s corporate bonds in 2023. Raweewat says the investment caused him to lose 30 million baht ($930,362).
Financially troubled JKN defaulted on payments to investors beginning in 2023 and began debt rehabilitation procedures with the Central Bankruptcy Court in 2024. The company says it has debts totaling about 3 billion baht ($93 million).
JKN acquired the rights to the Miss Universe pageant from IMG Worldwide LLC in 2022. In 2023, it sold 50% of its Miss Universe shares to Legacy Holding Group USA, which is owned by a Mexican businessman, Raúl Rocha Cantú.
In an unrelated case in Mexico, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that Rocha Cantú has been under investigation since November 2024 for alleged organized crime activity, including drug and arms trafficking, as well as fuel theft.
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The Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that Raúl “R” was the target of the investigation. A federal agent who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation confirmed that was Rocha Cantú.
The Miss Universe Organization did not respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Mexico approved 13 arrest orders against targets in the case. The federal agent would not confirm or deny whether an order was issued for Rocha Cantú.
Jakkaphong resigned from all of the company’s positions in June after being accused by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission of falsifying the company’s 2023 financial statements. She remains its largest shareholder.
Her whereabouts remain unclear. She did not appear at the 74th Miss Universe competition, which was held in Bangkok earlier this month.
This year’s competition was marred by various problems, including a sharp-tongued scolding by a Thai organizer of Fátima Bosch Fernández of Mexico, who was crowned Miss Universe 2025 on Nov. 19. Two judges reportedly dropped out, with one suggesting that there was an element of rigging to the contest. Separately, Thai police investigated allegations that publicity for the event included illegal promotion of online casinos.
On Monday, JKN denied rumors that Jakkaphong had liquidated the company’s assets and fled the country, but there has been no immediate reaction regarding the arrest warrant. She could not be reached for comment.
Jakkaphong is a well-known celebrity in Thailand who has starred in reality shows and is outspoken about her identity as a transgender woman.
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AP writer Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian government said young children will be banned from social media next month as scheduled despite a rights advocacy group on Wednesday challenging the world-first legislation in court.
The Sydney-based Digital Freedom Project said it had filed a constitutional challenge in the High Court on Wednesday to a law due to take effect on Dec. 10 banning Australian children younger than 16 from holding accounts on specified platforms.
Communications Minister Anika Wells referred to the challenge when she later told Parliament her government remained committed to the ban taking effect on schedule.
“We will not be intimidated by legal challenges. We will not be intimidated by Big Tech. On behalf of Australian parents, we stand firm,” Wells told Parliament.
Digital Freedom Project president John Ruddick is a New South Wales state lawmaker for the minor Libertarian Party.
“Parental supervision of online activity is today the paramount parental responsibility. We do not want to outsource that responsibility to government and unelected bureaucrats,” Ruddick said in a statement.
“This ban is a direct assault on young people’s right to freedom of political communication,” he added.
The case is being brought by Sydney law firm Pryor, Tzannes and Wallis Solicitors on behalf of two 15-year-old children.
Digital Freedom Project spokesperson Sam Palmer could not say whether an application would be made for a court injunction to prevent the age restriction taking effect on Dec. 10 before the case is heard.
Technology giant Meta last week began sending thousands of Australian children suspected to be younger than 16 a warning to downland their digital histories and delete their accounts from Facebook, Instagram and Threads before the ban takes effect.
The government has said the three Meta platforms plus Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube must take reasonable steps to exclude Australian account holders younger than 16 or face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($32 million).
Malaysia has also announced plans to ban social media accounts for children under 16 starting in 2026.
Malaysian Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said this week his Cabinet approved the move as part of a broader effort to shield young people from online harm like cyberbullying, scams and sexual exploitation. He said his government was studying approaches taken by Australia and other countries, and the potential use of electronic checks with identity cards or passports to verify users’ ages.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The disappearance of a New Zealand father with his children in a forest for several years before he was discovered and shot dead by the police has prompted the government to launch a major inquiry into how officials handled the case.
The public inquiry — which is a formal, independent investigation of matters of significant importance in New Zealand — will examine “whether government agencies took all practicable steps to protect the safety and welfare” of Tom Phillips’ children, Attorney General Judith Collins said Thursday.
The announcement follows outrage in New Zealand about how a father involved in court proceedings was allowed to evade the authorities for years, while forcing his children to live in rugged conditions in remote countryside without access to health care or education.
Phillips vanished in December 2021 with his three children — then aged 5, 7, and 8 — from Marokopa, a tiny rural township on New Zealand’s North Island. The children were found at a makeshift campsite in September this year, hours after their father was killed by the police following a robbery. A police officer was shot in the head and critically injured during the confrontation.
Inquiry will scrutinize the authorities
The saga began long before the Phillips family first became known to the public in 2021. The children had been the subject of proceedings in family court about their care since 2018, according to a government document outlining the terms of the new inquiry.
The period before the family vanished will be scrutinized by the inquiry, which must decide if officials did all they could to prevent the children’s disappearance. Sightings of Phillips, who carried out robberies while he hid with the children, continually placed him near where he had vanished.
That has provoked questions in New Zealand about the scale and rigor of law enforcement search efforts during the three-and-a-half year disappearance. It was clear “that the children’s safety and welfare remained at risk, especially given the time that had elapsed since they had first disappeared,” the document establishing the inquiry said.
The investigation will be headed by Simon Moore, a high-profile lawyer and a former High Court judge. It’s due to deliver a final report by July 2026, in which Moore must decide if government agencies engaged appropriately with the family court and took all practicable steps to find and recover the children.
The family had disappeared before
Scrutiny of officials’ actions was prompted partly because Phillips had vanished with his children before.
Three months before the family’s December 2021 disappearance, Phillips triggered a massive search and national headlines when his truck was found on a beach with no trace of him or the children.
Authorities concluded the family had died by drowning when Phillips reappeared from the forest three weeks later with the children, saying they had been camping. He was due to face charges in court for wasting police resources when he disappeared again.
This time he didn’t return.
Secrecy surrounds the episode
An early-morning shoot-out in September brought the lengthy ordeal to a close of sorts. Phillips and one of his children were stopped by a police officer as they fled a robbery at a farming supplies store in Waitomo, a small town on New Zealand’s North Island.
The officer was shot at close range. He survived but would require a series of surgeries, officials said.
More officers arrived and Phillips was fatally shot. The child with him was taken into custody and later helped law enforcement to find the campsite where the remaining children waited.
The cache of belongings there included guns, officials said. Law enforcement photos released of campsites the family had used showed grim and squalid encampments.
Officials have not supplied details about the current whereabouts of the children, citing their need for privacy.
Judges’ orders imposed since the children were recovered have barred news outlets from reporting certain details of the case. Some national outlets are challenging the rulings in court.
Secrecy about what the authorities knew and what actions they took has produced growing calls for an inquiry.
The case has gripped New Zealand
The questions about officials’ actions have prompted heated debate in New Zealand and drawn global news headlines, with a documentary about the case in production and reporters converging on the tiny township where the family lived.
News outlets have questioned why calls from the police for the public’s help in locating the family only began well after they disappeared, when Phillips was accused of committing an armed robbery.
After that, officials regularly urged people who knew of the family’s whereabouts to come forward, including by offering a sizable reward that was never collected.
The police believed Phillips was being helped by others in the area and efforts continue to identify his possible accomplices.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana man who spent nearly three decades on death row has been released on bail Wednesday after his conviction was overturned earlier this year.
Jimmie Duncan had originally been convicted of first-degree murder in 1998 after prosecutors accused him of raping and drowning 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux, the daughter of his then-girlfriend Allison Layton Statham.
Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Alvin Sharp threw out that conviction in April after hearing expert testimony that the forensic evidence which put Duncan behind bars was “not scientifically defensible” and that Oliveaux’s death appeared to be the result of an “accidental drowning.” Similar faulty forensic bite mark analysis has led to dozens of other wrongful convictions or charges.
“The presumption is not great that he is guilty,” Sharp wrote in his order Friday granting Duncan bail, citing the new evidence presented at an evidentiary hearing last year and Duncan’s lack of prior criminal history.
Duncan’s attorneys said in a statement that Sharp’s ruling earlier this year provided “clear and convincing evidence showing that Mr. Duncan is factually innocent.” They added that Duncan’s release on bail “marks a significant step forward for Mr. Duncan’s complete exoneration.”
Since 1973, more than 200 people on death row have been exonerated, including 12 people in Louisiana, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In Louisiana, which has one of the highest wrongful conviction rates in the nation, the last death row exoneration came in 2016. Earlier this month, a man who served decades in prison before being exonerated won election to serve as the chief recordkeeper of New Orleans’ criminal court.
Duncan, whose vacated conviction is still being reviewed by the Louisiana Supreme Court, was released after posting a $150,000 bond. He plans to live with a relative in central Louisiana.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who is pushing to hasten executions of death row inmates, said that Duncan should not be released on bail while the Louisiana Supreme Court reviews his case.
But the high court agreed to let a district judge rule on Duncan’s bail request.
During Duncan’s bail hearing in Ouachita Parish, the mother of the girl he was accused of killing told the judge that she had become convinced of Duncan’s innocence. Instead, Statham believed her daughter, who she said had a history of seizures, had accidentally drowned in a bathtub.
Her daughter “wasn’t killed,” Statham said according to court records. “Haley died because she was sick.”
Statham told the court that the lives of her family and Duncan “have been destroyed by the lie” she believed prosecutors and forensic experts had concocted.
Prosecutors had relied on bite mark analysis and an autopsy conducted by two experts later linked to at least 10 wrongful convictions, according to Duncan’s legal team, which described the pair as discredited “charlatans.”
Mississippi-based forensic dentist Michael West and pathologist Steven Hayne examined Oliveaux’s body.
A video recording of the examination shows West “forcibly pushing a mold of Mr. Duncan’s teeth into the child’s body — creating the bite marks” later used to convict him, a court-filing from Duncan’s legal team stated. A state-appointed expert, unaware of this method, testified during trial that the bite marks on the body matched Duncan’s.
“The horror story that they put out and desecrated my baby’s memory makes me infuriated,” Statham said.
“I was not informed of anything that would have exonerated Mr. Duncan at all,” she added. “Had I been then, things would have turned out a lot different for Mr. Duncan and all of our families.”
An Associated Press review from 2013 found at least two dozen wrongful convictions or charges based on bite mark evidence since 2000.
“Bite mark evidence is junk science, and there is no more prejudicial type of junk science that exists than bite mark evidence,” M. Chris Fabricant, an Innocence Project lawyer representing Duncan, told the court during the bail hearing.
Hayne, the pathologist, is deceased. West has previously said that DNA testing has made bite mark analysis obsolete, yet he has defended his work in other cases that led to overturned convictions. The pair’s testimony led two Mississippi men, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, to serve a combined three decades in prison in two separate cases for the rape and murder of young girls until DNA evidence cleared them of the crimes.
Prosecutors are seeking to reinstate Duncan’s conviction and pointed to the 1994 grand jury indictment in his case as grounds for keeping him locked up, court records show. The office of Ouachita Parish District Attorney Robert Tew declined to comment, citing the Louisiana Supreme Court’s pending review.
Duncan was one of 55 people on death row in Louisiana, held at the state prison in Angola. After a 15-year hiatus, Louisiana carried out its first execution in March.
Duncan’s legal team described him as a “model prisoner” who helped other death row inmates obtain their GEDs and has “strong community support for his release.”
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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian government said young children will be banned from social media next month as scheduled despite a rights advocacy group on Wednesday challenging the world-first legislation in court.
The Sydney-based Digital Freedom Project said it had filed a constitutional challenge in the High Court on Wednesday to a law due to take effect on Dec. 10 banning Australian children younger than 16 from holding accounts on specified platforms.
Communications Minister Anika Wells referred to the challenge when she later told Parliament her government remained committed to the ban taking effect on schedule.
“We will not be intimidated by legal challenges. We will not be intimidated by Big Tech. On behalf of Australian parents, we stand firm,” Wells told Parliament.
Digital Freedom Project president John Ruddick is a New South Wales state lawmaker for the minor Libertarian Party.
“Parental supervision of online activity is today the paramount parental responsibility. We do not want to outsource that responsibility to government and unelected bureaucrats,” Ruddick said in a statement.
“This ban is a direct assault on young people’s right to freedom of political communication,” he added.
The case is being brought by Sydney law firm Pryor, Tzannes and Wallis Solicitors on behalf of two 15-year-old children.
Digital Freedom Project spokesperson Sam Palmer could not say whether an application would be made for a court injunction to prevent the age restriction taking effect on Dec. 10 before the case is heard.
Technology giant Meta last week began sending thousands of Australian children suspected to be younger than 16 a warning to downland their digital histories and delete their accounts from Facebook, Instagram and Threads before the ban takes effect.
The government has said the three Meta platforms plus Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube must take reasonable steps to exclude Australian account holders younger than 16 or face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($32 million).
Malaysia has also announced plans to ban social media accounts for children under 16 starting in 2026.
Malaysian Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said this week his Cabinet approved the move as part of a broader effort to shield young people from online harm like cyberbullying, scams and sexual exploitation. He said his government was studying approaches taken by Australia and other countries, and the potential use of electronic checks with identity cards or passports to verify users’ ages.
BANGKOK (AP) — A court in Thailand said Wednesday that it has issued an arrest warrant for a co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization in connection with a fraud case.
Jakkaphong “Anne” Jakrajutatip was charged with fraud then released on bail in 2023. She failed to appear as required in a Bangkok court on Tuesday. Since she did not notify the court about her absence, she was deemed to be a flight risk, according to a statement from the Bangkok South District Court.
The court rescheduled the hearing for Dec. 26.
According to the court’s statement, Jakkaphong and her company, JKN Global Group Public Co. Ltd., were sued for allegedly defrauding Raweewat Maschamadol in selling him the company’s corporate bonds in 2023. Raweewat says the investment caused him to lose 30 million baht ($930,362).
Financially troubled JKN defaulted on payments to investors beginning in 2023 and began debt rehabilitation procedures with the Central Bankruptcy Court in 2024. The company says it has debts totaling about 3 billion baht ($93 million).
JKN acquired the rights to the Miss Universe pageant from IMG Worldwide LLC in 2022. In 2023, it sold 50% of its Miss Universe shares to Legacy Holding Group USA, which is owned by a Mexican businessman, Raúl Rocha Cantú.
Jakkaphong, who is transgender, resigned from all of the company’s positions in June after being accused by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission of falsifying the company’s 2023 financial statements. She remains its largest shareholder.
Her whereabouts remain unclear. She did not appear at the 74th Miss Universe competition, which was held in Bangkok earlier this month.
This year’s competition was marred by various problems, including a sharp-tongued scolding by a Thai organizer of Fátima Bosch Fernández of Mexico, who was crowned Miss Universe 2025 on Nov. 19. Two judges reportedly dropped out, with one suggesting that there was an element of rigging to the contest. Separately, Thai police investigated allegations that publicity for the event included illegal promotion of online casinos.
On Monday, JKN denied rumors that Jakkaphong had liquidated the company’s assets and fled the country, but there has been no immediate reaction regarding the arrest warrant. She could not be reached for comment.
Jakkaphong is a well-known celebrity in Thailand who has starred in reality shows and is outspoken about her identity as a transgender woman.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
SAN FRANCISCO — A man convicted of beating a San Francisco grandmother who later died is facing life in prison, a judge said Tuesday.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Eric Fleming said Keonte Gathron, 25, will likely be sentenced to prison without the possibility of parole in the death of Yik Oi Huang. The judge postponed sentencing until next week because the defendant had not received a presentence report, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Gathron was convicted earlier this month of murder, carjacking, robbery, elder abuse, child endangerment and other charges stemming from a two-week crime rampage in January 2019. Authorities say he targeted victims of Asian descent or who spoke little English.
Huang, 88, was attacked on her morning walk. She was found injured at a playground in the Visitacion Valley neighborhood where she lived. Her skull, arms and neck were broken. Her home was burglarized minutes afterward.
Huang received long-term care at a hospital but died in January 2020. Her assault preceded the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic and rattled the city’s Asian American community.
Gathron represented himself and denied culpability but produced no evidence. He also accused police of manipulating surveillance video, DNA and other evidence.
Fleming announced he intends to sentence Gathron to two life sentences — one with the possibility of parole — and over 30 years for other offenses. Gathron plans to appeal.
Huang’s three daughters and several grandchildren spoke in court, in English and Cantonese. They described Huang as a hard-working wife, mother and garment factory employee in China who made sure her children were fed. She realized a dream of moving to the U.S. and owning a home in San Francisco.
A tearful Gathron said he “understood the pain and loss” but insisted he was innocent.
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge in Manhattan is demanding more information from the Justice Department as he weighs its request to unseal records from the sex trafficking case against Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer on Tuesday ordered the Justice Department to tell him what materials it plans to publicly release that were subject to secrecy orders in the British socialite’s case.
The deadline: Noon on Wednesday.
Engelmayer’s order came after the Justice Department on Monday asked for his permission to release grand jury records, exhibits and discovery materials in the Maxwell case.
Engelmayer said government lawyers must file a letter on the case docket describing materials it wants to release “in sufficient detail to meaningfully inform victims” what it plans to make public.
Epstein, a millionaire money manager known for socializing with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and the academic elite, killed himself in jail a month after his 2019 arrest.
Engelmayer had already notified victims and Maxwell that they can respond next month to Justice Department’s request to release materials before he decides whether to grant it.
The Justice Department said it was seeking the court’s approval to release materials to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress and signed into law last week by President Donald Trump. It calls for the release of grand jury and discovery materials in the case.
The request, along with an identical one for grand jury transcripts from Epstein’s case, was among the first public indications that the Justice Department was trying to comply with the transparency act, which requires it to release Epstein-related files in a searchable format by Dec. 19.
Engelmayer did not preside over the trial, but was assigned to the case after the trial judge, Alison J. Nathan, was elevated to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Discovery materials subject to secrecy orders are likely to include victim interviews and other materials that previously would have been only viewed by lawyers or Maxwell prior to her trial.
Engelmayer said in an order Monday that Maxwell and victims of Maxwell and Epstein can respond by Dec. 3 to the government’s request to make materials public. The government must respond to their filings by Dec. 10. The judge said he will rule “promptly thereafter.”
Lawyers for victims did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. A spokesperson for federal prosecutors declined to comment.
Judge Richard M. Berman, who presided over the Epstein case before his death, issued an order on Tuesday allowing victims and Epstein’s estate to respond to the Justice Department’s unsealing request by Dec. 3. He said the government can respond to any submissions by Dec. 8.
Berman said he would make his “best efforts to resolve this motion promptly.”
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
