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Tag: criminal law

  • ‘It’s being left in the dark,’ mother of murdered Idaho student says of police investigation | CNN

    ‘It’s being left in the dark,’ mother of murdered Idaho student says of police investigation | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The mother of one of the four college students killed near the University of Idaho last month expressed frustration over police communications on the status of the investigation into the murders.

    “It’s sleepless nights. It’s feeling sick to your stomach. It’s just being left in the dark,” Kristi Goncalves, the mother of 21-year-old victim Kaylee Goncalves, said in an interview aired on NBC’s TODAY show Thursday.

    Goncalves recounted the day she learned something had happened to her daughter.

    “We’re running around for hours just not knowing what was going on, what happened,” she explained. “… We found out by people calling us. And the sheriff showed up about three hours later.”

    She also described learning about the police interest in a white Hyundai sedan seen in the area around the time of the murders not from investigators but from reading about it in a news release sent to her by someone else.

    Authorities are sorting through tens of thousands of registered vehicles that fit the criteria of one spotted near the residence the night of the attacks, the Moscow Police Department said in a news release Thursday.

    “So far, we have a list of approximately 22,000 registered white Hyundai Elantras that fit into our criteria that we’re sorting through,” Chief James Fry said in a video update. “We are confident that the occupant or occupants of that vehicle have information that’s critical to this investigation.”

    Goncalves said her family learned graphic details of their daughter’s autopsy when a woman from the coroner’s office called and asked her 17-year-old daughter if she wanted to know the findings.

    “She asked, are you sure you want to know this? And my daughter, thinking that she did for whatever reason, said yes. And she proceeded to tell her.”

    The Latah County Coroner’s Office was not immediately available for comment.

    The killings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21-year-old Madison Mogen, 20-year-old Xana Kernodle, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin in the early morning hours of November 13 shook the small college town of Moscow, Idaho, which had not recorded a murder since 2015.

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  • Jury deliberations begin in murder trial of former Texas police officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson in her home | CNN

    Jury deliberations begin in murder trial of former Texas police officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson in her home | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Texas jury began deliberations Wednesday in the trial of a former Fort Worth police officer accused of murder in the 2019 shooting of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her home.

    The deliberations got underway after closing arguments in which the state portrayed Aaron Dean as a power-hungry former cop whose preconceived notions about the neighborhood where Jefferson lived tainted his conduct the night of the shooting.

    The defense countered that Dean fired his weapon in self-defense while fearing for his life in what attorneys said was a tragic accident but not a criminal act.

    The case went to the jury more than three years after Dean and his partner responded to Jefferson’s house around 2:25 a.m. on October 12, 2019, in response to a neighbor calling a nonemergency police line to report that her doors were open.

    Dean, who is White, resigned days afterward and was arrested and charged in the killing of Jefferson, who is Black. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, a charge which carries a possible sentence of five to 99 years.

    Jurors also can consider the lesser included offense of manslaughter, which carries a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

    Prosecutors maintained there is no evidence Dean saw a gun in Jefferson’s hand before firing.

    “If you can’t feel safe in your own home, where can you feel safe?” Tarrant County Prosecutor Ashlea Deener told jurors in closing. “When you think about your house, you think about safety. It’s where you go to retreat, to get away from the world.”

    Dean, the prosecutor said, had a “tremendous amount of power” when he put on his uniform.

    “When you put on that badge and you put on that uniform you say you’re going to serve and protect us all. That means her too,” Deener said of Jefferson.

    “And the Fort Worth Police Department – those officers that do serve and protect us, that don’t have those preconceived notions, that did a thorough investigation in this case – are ashamed that they ever called somebody like him a brother in blue,” she added, referring to the former officer.

    Defense attorney Bob Gill told jurors Dean feared for his life as he peered through the bedroom window that night.

    “The state cannot prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that this was not self-defense,” Gill said. “It’s tragic, but is not an offense under the state of Texas.”

    Defense attorney Bob Gill gives his closing argument.

    Holding his hands in the air to show the size of the gun Dean claimed he saw through the bedroom window, Gill told the jury: “What is immediately more necessary than having a handgun stuck in your face? And you have heard from several people, starting with Aaron, that that handgun was this big when he saw it.”

    Gill added, “If you believe that Aaron was legitimately defending a third person, and reasonably defending a third person, or if you had a reasonable doubt about whether he was doing such, then you are to acquit Aaron. And you don’t have to agree that it was self-defense or defense of a third person. You just have to decide in your mind that he reasonably believed he was doing one of those two things.”

    Dean testified Monday that he fired at Jefferson because she pointed a gun at him.

    “As I started to get that second phrase out, ‘Show me your hands,’ I saw a silhouette,” the former officer said. “I was looking right down the barrel of a gun, and when I saw the barrel of that gun pointed at me, I fired a single shot from my duty weapon.”

    Dean said he had his weapon out because he believed the home was in the midst of being robbed. He fired at her through the window “because we’re taught to meet deadly force with deadly force. We’re not taught that we have to wait,” he said.

    In cross-examination, however, Dean admitted many of his actions that night were “bad police work,” including firing without seeing her hands or what was behind her, failing to tell his partner he saw a gun and rushing into the home without fully ensuring it was safe.

    “You’ve got another fellow officer from the Fort Worth Police Department entering a home which you have determined to be a burglary in progress with a possible armed assailant, and you didn’t think to tell your partner, ‘Hey there’s a gun inside?’” prosecutor R. Dale Smith asked.

    “No,” Dean said.

    Body cam footage released by the Fort Worth Police department. Must Mention the video is heavily edited and released by police when using.

    Woman shot and killed by police officer in her own home

    “You didn’t think to tell her, ‘Hey I saw somebody with a gun?’” Smith asked.

    “No,” he said.

    Dean’s testimony is pivotal in the trial, which also featured body-camera footage of the shooting and testimony from the primary witnesses, Dean’s police partner Carol Darch and Jefferson’s 11-year-old nephew.

    On the stand, Dean described the silhouette he saw as being “bent over” facing the window with upper arm movement.

    He grew emotional as he spoke about the moments after he shot Jefferson.

    “I observed the person that we now know is Ms. Jefferson. I heard her scream and saw her fall like this,” Dean said, gesturing in a downward motion. “And I knew that I’d shot that person.”

    He said after firing the shot he tried opening the window to render aid but couldn’t get it open, so they ran around to the front door and entered the home. He and Darch went into the bedroom and saw a child there.

    “I’m thinking, who brings a kid to a burglary? What is going on?” Dean said.

    The prosecution’s first witness was Zion Carr, who was 8 years old and in the bedroom with his “Aunt Tay” when she was shot.

    Now 11, the boy testified they had accidentally burned hamburgers earlier in the night, so they opened the doors to air the smoke out of the house.

    He and his aunt were up late playing video games when Jefferson heard a noise outside, and she then went to her purse to get her gun, he testified. He did not see her raise her firearm toward the window, he testified.

    Zion said he did not hear or see anything outside the window, but he saw his aunt fall to the ground and start crying.

    “I was thinking, ‘Is it a dream?’” he testified. “She was crying and just shaking.”

    Prosecutors also called to the stand Dean’s police partner, Darch, who testified she was with Dean when they went to investigate the home.

    She said she believed the home was being burglarized because two doors were open, lights were on inside, cabinets were wide open and things were strewn about the living room and kitchen area.

    She had her back to the window when Dean began to yell out commands for Jefferson to put her hands up, she testified. Darch said she started to turn around, heard a gunshot, then looked over Dean’s shoulder and could see a face in the window with eyes “as big as saucers.”

    She testified she did not see Jefferson holding a gun and didn’t recall Dean ever saying Jefferson had a gun.

    An attorney for Jefferson’s family said she was trying to protect her nephew from what they both thought was a prowler. She had moved into her ailing mother’s Fort Worth home a few months earlier to take care of her, family attorney S. Lee Merritt said at the time. She also took care of her nephews.

    Jefferson graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2014 with a degree in biology and worked in pharmaceutical equipment sales, according to her family’s attorney.

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  • Trump Org. entities were held in criminal contempt and fined $4K ahead of tax fraud trial | CNN Politics

    Trump Org. entities were held in criminal contempt and fined $4K ahead of tax fraud trial | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A Manhattan criminal court judge held entities of the Trump Organization in criminal contempt for not complying with multiple grand jury subpoenas dating as far back as October 2020 and three court orders mandating they produce the requested evidence ahead of their recent tax fraud trial.

    Judge Juan Merchan’s order requiring that the Trump Org. entities pay $4,000 in fines for the violations had been sealed since he issued the ruling last December so as to not prejudice against the defendants at trial, the judge previously said in court.

    It is unclear whether the companies have already paid the fines levied a year ago, separate from the penalties that could tally as much as $1.61 million in connection to the guilty verdict against the two Trump Org. companies.

    CNN has reached out to the parties for comment.

    Merchan ruled at the end of the Trump Org. tax fraud trial that he would unseal the order once a verdict was handed down by the jury because he found the order to be “of significant public concern.”

    A jury ultimately convicted the two entities – the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corp. – last week on all counts related to schemes for Trump Org. executives to cheat their personal taxes.

    The Trump companies did produce thousands of pages of documents in the discovery process, the order said, but still failed to fulfill key requests from prosecutors despite the court orders.

    Lawyers for the Trump companies claimed they were noncompliant in 2021 because the subpoenas were vague and the time frame to respond was “unreasonably short given the scope and breadth of the demands,” according to the court order.

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  • Everything you need to know about the FTX saga that unfolded today | CNN Business

    Everything you need to know about the FTX saga that unfolded today | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    John J. Ray III, who made his name overseeing the liquidation of Enron in the early 2000s, is the man in charge of sifting through the rubble of FTX, the once-mighty cryptocurrency exchange — founded in 2019 and run into the ground by 2022 by Sam Bankman-Fried.

    On Tuesday, Ray testified before the House Financial Services Committee, relaying what he could about the company he took over just four weeks ago. When a congressman asked Ray how his experience with FTX compares with Enron, Ray was quick to make the distinction clear:

    “The crimes that were committed [at Enron] were highly orchestrated financial machinations by highly sophisticated people to keep transactions off balance sheets,” Ray told lawmakers. FTX, on the other hand, was “not sophisticated at all.”

    “This is really old-fashioned embezzlement,” Ray continued. “This is just taking money from customers, and using it for your own purpose.”

    In other words: Look, there’s a lot going on here, but don’t let all the talk of digital assets confuse you — this is a con as old as time.

    Mark Cohen, a lawyer for Bankman-Fried, said his client “is reviewing the charges with his legal team and considering all of his legal options.”

    Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York (aka, a really aggressive, elite bunch of lawyers who rarely lose when it comes to white-collar cases) charged Sam Bankman-Fried with eight charges of fraud and conspiracy. They say he misappropriated FTX customers’ deposits by using those funds to pay expenses and debts of Alameda, his crypto hedge fund.

    US Attorney Damian Williams called the FTX case “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”

    Meanwhile, US markets regulators filed civil lawsuits accusing Bankman-Fried of defrauding investors and customers, saying he “built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto.”

    And as if all that weren’t enough, Bankman-Fried’s successor, Ray, spent the day calling out the colossal mismanagement that took place before FTX and Alameda collapsed. In addition to calling the previous leaders “a very small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals” — under oath, mind you — Ray also illustrated that mismanagement by revealing that FTX used QuickBooks to run its business, which was valued at more than $30 billion at its peak. (Ray clarified: “Nothing against QuickBooks. It’s a very nice tool. Just not for a multibillion-dollar company.”)

    So much… but I’ll stick to the highlights.

    Bankman-Fried could face up to 115 years in prison if convicted on all eight counts against him in a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday morning, according to congressional statutory maximum sentencing guidelines.

    (That said, he likely wouldn’t get the maximum sentence, and it’s not uncommon for a judge to have those sentences run concurrently.)

    Bankman-Fried remains in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, and was arrested Monday night. He was arraigned Tuesday, and a Bahamian judge denied his request for bail, saying that he posed a flight risk. (His extradition to the United States is in the works, but that process can take weeks.)

    There’s still a ton we don’t know about the case. But the fact that prosecutors put together an eight-count, 14-page indictment just four weeks after FTX filed for bankruptcy suggests prosecutors may have an ace in the hole, and/or a preponderance of evidence against the company. (The SDNY are an aggressive people, but they are not sloppy, and they don’t indict without a solid case.)

    Several lawyers not involved in the case have told me that the speed of Bankman-Fried’s arrest signals that former FTX employees may be aiding prosecutors.

    “The smart move by former employees would be to rush to become a cooperator in exchange for more lenient treatment, and it would not be surprising to learn that one or more of them had done so,” said Howard A. Fischer, a former SEC lawyer. He added: “The fact that only one person has been charged so far would seem to indicate this as well.”

    Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified John Ray. He is Sam Bankman-Fried’s successor.

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  • Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend reaches $2 million settlement with City of Louisville | CNN

    Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend reaches $2 million settlement with City of Louisville | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, has reached a $2 million dollar settlement with the City of Louisville, resolving lawsuits Walker filed in response to “the unlawful police raid that led to Ms. Taylor’s death,” a news release from Walker’s legal team says.

    Breonna Taylor, 26, was shot and killed by Louisville Metro Police Department officers on March 13, 2020, as they executed a search warrant as part of a narcotics investigation in the early morning hours.

    Just before 1 a.m., officers battered down the door of Taylor’s apartment. The officers said they announced their presence before entering.

    Walker later said he and Taylor yelled to ask who was at the door, but they did not get a response. Believing police to be intruders, Walker grabbed a gun he legally owned and fired a shot when the officers broke through the door, CNN previously reported.

    Walker was accused of shooting Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg and was charged at first with attempted murder of a police officer and first-degree assault, but prosecutors later decided to drop the charges.

    Walker filed a lawsuit in state court in September 2020, followed by a federal civil rights lawsuit in March 2021. Both lawsuits named as defendants the Louisville Metro Government and some of the individual officers involved in obtaining a “materially false” search warrant and Taylor’s fatal shooting.

    The settlement resolves both lawsuits, the news release says.

    “While this tragedy will haunt Kenny for the rest of his life, he is pleased that this chapter of his life is completed. He will live with the effects of being put in harm’s way due to a falsified warrant, to being a victim of a hailstorm of gunfire and to suffering the unimaginable and horrific death of Breonna Taylor,” Steve Romines, one of the attorneys representing Walker, said in the release.

    The statement does not indicate whether the agreement included an admission of wrongdoing by the defendants.

    CNN has reached out to the city for comment but has not yet received a response.

    About six months after Taylor was killed, the city paid a historic $12 million settlement to her family to settle a wrongful death lawsuit. At the time, Mayor Greg Fischer said the agreement did not include an admission of wrongdoing.

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  • Danish bank pleads guilty to multi-billion dollar fraud scheme on U.S. Banks | CNN Business

    Danish bank pleads guilty to multi-billion dollar fraud scheme on U.S. Banks | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Federal prosecutors announced a plea deal and $2 billion forfeiture Tuesday with Danske Bank, one of Denmark’s largest banks, for illegally allowing foreign actors to funnel money through their branch in Estonia in order to gain unlawful access to the US financial system.

    The guilty plea marks the end of a years-long investigation into the company after accusations that it funneled billions of dollars in illicit payments from high-risk clients, including in Russia, into countries including the United States.

    Danske Bank agreed forfeit over $2 billion as part of the plea agreement, according to the Justice Department, which required the bank to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

    In addition to the criminal guilty plea, the SEC announced a separate settlement with Danske Bank over the allegations of money laundering in which the bank agreed to pay approximately $413 million.

    The Justice Department said that it will credit the bank approximately $850 million to settle other claims with SEC and the Danish authorities.

    “Today’s guilty plea by Danske Bank and two-billion-dollar penalty demonstrate that the Department of Justice will fiercely guard the integrity of the U.S. financial system from tainted foreign money – Russian or otherwise,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement Tuesday. “Whether you are a U.S. or foreign bank, if you use the U.S. financial system, you must comply with our laws… Failure to do so may well be a one-way ticket to a multi-billion-dollar guilty plea.”

    The bank, according to the Justice Department, was aware of billions of dollars being funneled over an eight-year period through an Estonia branch into accounts in the United States and elsewhere without the proper anti-money laundering information about each account. The Estonia branch of the bank processed around $160 billion during that time period, prosecutors say.

    The bank promised customers they could move money through an Estonia branch with little to no oversight, prosecutors allege. Bank employees in Estonia conspired with their customers, the department alleged, and helped “to shield the true nature of their transactions, including by using shell companies that obscured actual ownership of the funds.”

    Though Danske Bank was aware the branch had potentially broken the law and was not meeting the standards of the company’s anti-money laundering program, executives overlooked the transactions and lied about information regarding Danske Bank Estonia’s customers and their risk profile.

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  • Former NFL player indicted for murder of his girlfriend, Harris County DA says | CNN

    Former NFL player indicted for murder of his girlfriend, Harris County DA says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Former NFL player Kevin Ware has been indicted on charges of murder and tampering with evidence, specifically a corpse, in the death of his girlfriend, Taylor Pomaski, who disappeared in 2021, according to a news release from the Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.

    “Prosecutors presented the evidence to a Harris County grand jury, which determined there was sufficient evidence for criminal charges,” Ogg said in the release.

    CNN reached out to the Harris County District Clerk’s Office for the indictment and was told the case file is not viewable to the public at this time.

    Lacy Johnson, a chief prosecutor in the Major Offenders Division, who is handling the case, said, “Although this investigation has been going on since Taylor’s disappearance in 2021, the court process is just beginning, and we encourage anyone who has knowledge about what happened between Kevin and Taylor to come forward.”

    On May 11, 2021, Pomaski’s family reported her missing and “possibly endangered,” according to a Harris County Sheriff’s Office news release. An investigation revealed that she was last seen in April following a party at her residence, and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance “appeared suspicious.”

    In December 2021, authorities found remains they believed to be related to Pomaski. In April 2022, the remains were identified as belonging to Pomaski, online records show.

    Ware is currently in jail for an unrelated case, according to Montgomery County Jail records.

    Ware’s attorney did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    According to the NFL official website, Kevin Ware had a two season career in the league.

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  • Former officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson testifies she pointed a gun at him before he fired | CNN

    Former officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson testifies she pointed a gun at him before he fired | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The former Fort Worth police officer charged with murder for the 2019 shooting of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her own home testified Monday he fired at her because she pointed a gun at him.

    “As I started to get that second phrase out, ‘Show me your hands,’ I saw a silhouette,” the former officer, 38-year-old Aaron Dean, said. “I was looking right down the barrel of a gun, and when I saw the barrel of that gun pointed at me, I fired a single shot from my duty weapon.”

    Dean said he had his weapon out because he believed the home was in the midst of being robbed. He fired at her through the window “because we’re taught to meet deadly force with deadly force. We’re not taught that we have to wait,” he said.

    Yet in cross-examination, he admitted many of his actions that night were “bad police work,” including firing without seeing her hands or what was behind her, failing to tell his partner he saw a gun and rushing into the home without fully ensuring it was safe.

    “You’ve got another fellow officer from the Fort Worth Police Department entering a home which you have determined to be a burglary in progress with a possible armed assailant, and you didn’t think to tell your partner, ‘Hey there’s a gun inside?’” prosecutor R. Dale Smith asked.

    “No,” Dean said.

    “You didn’t think to tell her, ‘Hey I saw somebody with a gun?’” Smith asked.

    “No,” he said.

    His testimony is likely to be pivotal in the trial, which began last week and has already featured body-camera footage of the shooting and testimony from the primary witnesses, Jefferson’s 11-year-old nephew and Dean’s police partner Carol Darch. The prosecution rested its case after three days of testimony.

    Woman shot and killed by police officer in her own home

    The testimony comes more than three years after Dean and his partner responded to Jefferson’s house around 2:25 a.m. on an October night in response to a neighbor calling a nonemergency police line to note her doors were open.

    The officers did not at any point identify themselves as police when scoping out the home, and Dean then shot into a back window at Jefferson, who was up late playing video games with her young nephew.

    Heavily edited body camera footage released to the public showed an officer peering through two open doors, but he didn’t knock or announce his presence. Instead, he walked around the house for about a minute. Eventually, the officer approached a window and shined a flashlight into what appeared to be a dark room.

    “Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” the officer yelled before firing a single shot, according to the body camera footage.

    Dean, who is White, resigned days afterward and was arrested and charged with murder for killing Jefferson, who is Black. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, a charge which carries a possible sentence of five to 99 years.

    His defense has said he fired in self-defense, but prosecutors argued there is no evidence he saw a gun in her hand before firing.

    On Monday, Dean testified he and his partner arrived to the scene and approached the home quietly because they believed it was in the midst of a burglary. They parked at a nearby home and did not announce themselves as police when approaching.

    When they were in the home’s backyard, Dean said he saw the silhouette of a person in the window. He thought the person was a burglar and shouted out commands for the person to show their hands. Dean said he could not identify the gender or race of the person in the window.

    Dean described the silhouette as being “bent over” facing the window with upper arm movement.

    He grew emotional on the stand as he spoke about the moments after he shot Jefferson.

    “I observed the person that we now know is Ms. Jefferson. I heard her scream and saw her fall like this,” Dean said, gesturing in a downward motion. “And I knew that I’d shot that person.”

    He said after firing the shot, he tried opening the window to render aid but couldn’t get it open, so they ran around to the front door and entered the home. He and Darch went into the bedroom and saw a child there.

    “I’m thinking, who brings a kid to a burglary? What is going on?” Dean said.

    He testified he found a firearm between Jefferson’s feet and noticed it had a green laser attached to it. Body-camera footage shows he audibly exhaled at that moment. “I was thinking that’s how close we came to dying,” he testified.

    In a confrontational cross-examination, Smith, the prosecutor, walked through each of Dean’s actions that night and repeatedly asked him, “Is that good police work?”

    Dean acknowledged many of his actions were not. In particular, he acknowledged he could not tell whether the gun was raised in a position ready to fire, only that he saw the barrel of the gun and decided to shoot.

    “Once you saw the barrel of the gun, you decided to pull the trigger and take who was on the other side of that window’s life?” the prosecutor said.

    “Yes,” Dean said.

    Smith went step-by-step through Dean’s body camera footage, showing multiple missteps Dean and his partner took while surrounding Jefferson’s home. Dean admitted he did not secure exits for a potential burglar, did not call for backup and did not administer CPR to Jefferson.

    Still, he gave himself an overall grade of “B” on an A-to-F scale for his actions before he pulled the trigger.

    “I’m sure there are things we could have done better,” he said.

    In opening statements, prosecutors acknowledged Jefferson had a firearm but said there was no evidence Dean saw the weapon in her hand before firing at her.

    “This is not a circumstance where they’re staring at the barrel of a gun and he had to defend himself against that person or to protect his partner,” Tarrant County prosecutor Ashlea Deener said. “The evidence will support he did not see the gun in her hand. This is not a justification. This is not a self-defense case. This is murder.”

    Yet Dean’s defense attorney said the former officer had seen an armed silhouette with a green laser pointed at him before firing.

    “In that window he sees a silhouette,” attorney Miles Brissette said. “He doesn’t know if it’s a male or female, he doesn’t know the racial makeup of the silhouette. He sees it, he sees the green laser and the gun come up on him. He takes a half-step back, gives a command and fires his weapon.”

    The prosecution’s first witness was Zion Carr, who was 8 years old and in the bedroom with his “Aunt Tay” when she was shot. Now 11, he testified they had accidentally burned hamburgers earlier in the night, so they opened the doors to air the smoke out of the house.

    He and his aunt were up late playing video games when Jefferson heard a noise outside, and she then went to her purse to get her gun, he testified. He did not see her raise her firearm toward the window, he testified.

    Zion said he did not hear or see anything outside the window, but he saw his aunt fall to the ground and start crying.

    “I was thinking, ‘Is it a dream?’” he testified. “She was crying and just shaking.”

    Prosecutors also called to the stand Dean’s police partner Carol Darch, who testified she was with Dean when they went to investigate the home.

    She said she believed the home was being burglarized because two doors were open, lights were on inside, cabinets were wide open and things were strewn about the living room and kitchen area.

    She had her back to the window when Dean began to yell out commands for Jefferson to put her hands up, she testified. Darch said she started to turn around, heard a gunshot, then looked over Dean’s shoulder and could see a face in the window with eyes “as big as saucers.”

    She testified she did not see Jefferson holding a gun and doesn’t recall Dean ever saying Jefferson had a gun.

    An attorney for Jefferson’s family said she was trying to protect her nephew from what they both thought was a prowler. She had moved into her ailing mother’s Fort Worth home a few months earlier to take care of her, family attorney S. Lee Merritt said at the time. She also took care of her nephews.

    Jefferson graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2014 with a degree in biology and worked in pharmaceutical equipment sales, according to her family’s attorney.

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  • Second known protest-related execution carried out in Iran | CNN

    Second known protest-related execution carried out in Iran | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Iran has executed a second man allegedly involved in the nationwide anti-government protest movement after he was convicted of fatally stabbing two security officials last month, Mizan Online, a news agency affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, and the semi-official Tasmin news agency reported on Monday.

    Mizan Online named the man as Majidreza Rahnavard. He was convicted of “waging war against God” for reportedly killing two members of the Basij paramilitary force, and injuring four others on November 17, the outlet said. The charge of “waging war against God” carries the death penalty under the theocracy of the Islamic Republic since 1979.

    Rahnavard was hanged in a public execution in the northeastern city of Mashhad early Monday morning, it said.

    He is the second known person to be executed in connection to the 2022 protests. His death comes less than a week after Mohsen Shekari – the first known protester to be executed – who was hanged last Thursday.

    Several more Iranians have been sentenced to death by execution during the nationwide protests, which were sparked by the case of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being apprehended by the state’s morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.

    Public anger over Amini’s death has combined with a range of grievances against the Islamic Republic’s oppressive regime to fuel the demonstrations even in the face of harsh punishments, and possibly the death sentence.

    CNN cannot independently verify the number of people facing executions in Iran, or the latest arrest figures or death tolls related to the protests – precise numbers are impossible for anyone outside the Iranian government to confirm.

    Last week, Amnesty International said it had identified at least 17 others, in addition to Rahnavard and Shekari, who are at risk of execution in connection to the recent protests.

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  • After 25 years of wrongful imprisonment, 2 Georgia men set free after newly uncovered evidence exonerates them of murder charges | CNN

    After 25 years of wrongful imprisonment, 2 Georgia men set free after newly uncovered evidence exonerates them of murder charges | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    After spending 25 years in prison on murder convictions related to the 1996 shooting death of their friend, two Georgia men were exonerated this week, after new evidence uncovered in a true-crime podcast last year proved their innocence, their lawyers said.

    Darrell Lee Clark and his co-defendant Cain Joshua Storey were 17 years old when they were arrested for their alleged involvement in the death of 15-year-old Brian Bowling.

    He died from a gunshot wound to the head in his family’s mobile home on October 18, 1996, according to Clark’s lawyers, Christina Cribbs and Meagan Hurley, with the nonprofit Georgia Innocence Project.

    Moments before the gun was fired, Bowling was on the phone with his girlfriend and told her he was playing a game of Russian roulette with a gun, which was brought to his home by Storey, who was in the room at the time of the shooting, according to a news release from the Georgia Innocence Project.

    Storey was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but months later, police began investigating the death as a homicide, and interviewed two witnesses whose statements led authorities to tie Clark to Bowling’s death, the Georgia Innocence Project said.

    “Despite the circumstances, which strongly indicated that Bowling accidentally shot himself in the head, at the urging of Bowling’s family members, police later began investigating the death as a homicide,” according to a motion filed by Clark’s attorneys, requesting a new trial.

    The two teenagers were sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, following a weeklong trial in 1998.

    Clark’s exoneration came a year and a half after investigative podcasters Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis began scrutinizing his case in their Proof true-crime podcast in 2021, and interviewed two of the state’s key witnesses.

    Through their investigation, new evidence emerged which “shattered the state’s theory of Clark’s involvement” in Bowling’s death and the podcasters flagged his case to the Georgia Innocence Project, according to its news release.

    The first witness, a woman who lived near Bowling’s home was interviewed by police, who claimed she alleged the teens confessed they had “planned the murder of Bowling because he knew too much about a prior theft Storey and Clark had committed,” according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

    Based on her testimony, Storey was charged with murder and Clark was arrested as a co-conspirator despite having a corroborated alibi, stating he was home on the night of the shooting, which was supported by two witnesses, according to Clark’s motion for a new trial.

    But the woman revealed in the podcast, police coerced her into giving false statements and threatened to take her children away from her if she failed to comply, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

    Darrell Lee Clark was released from the Floyd County Jail on Thursday after the Rome Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office and Floyd County Superior Court Judge John Neidrach agreed that his conviction should be overturned.

    Police claimed the other witness, a man who was in a different room of the Bowlings’ home at the time of the shooting, identified Clark from a photo lineup as the person he saw running through the yard on the night Bowling was shot, the news release said.

    It was uncovered in the podcast the man’s testimony was based on an “unrelated, factually similar shooting” which he witnessed in 1976, and he never identified Clark as the individual in the yard, nor did he ever witness anyone in the yard on the night of the shooting, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

    Davis told CNN in an interview when she and Simpson started their investigation, they weren’t expecting anything to come of it, but as they interviewed more people, it was “clear that it just wasn’t adding up.”

    “It took us a long time to talk to both of those witnesses. The podcast was happening in almost real time as an investigation. When we finally found and were able to talk to those two witnesses, it really solidified that both of these guys had been wrongly convicted,” Davis said.

    Clark’s attorneys filed pleadings in September to challenge a wrongful conviction and ask for a new trial, citing new information which proved his conviction was based on false evidence and coercion, Hurley told CNN.

    Clark, now 43, was released from the Floyd County Jail Thursday after the Rome Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office and Floyd County Superior Court Judge John Neidrach agreed the conviction should be overturned and all underlying charges against him dismissed, after evidence in the case was reexamined.

    Storey, who admitted to bringing the gun to Bowling’s home, was also released after accepting a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter, and a 10-year sentence with time served, after spending 25 years in prison. He was also exonerated of murder charges.

    Storey told CNN in an interview he was afraid to go to sleep the first night after he was released in case he would wake up and “realize it was all a dream.”

    “It’s been surreal to say the least,” he added. “I believe it’s going to be great. One step at a time. I never allowed my mind to get locked up all those years, anyhow.”

    “You never think something like that is going to happen to you,” said Lee Clark in a statement released by the Georgia Innocence Project. “Never would I have thought I would spend more than half my life in prison, especially for something I didn’t do.”

    Clark’s father, Glen Clark, told CNN in an interview, “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time. 25 years. My son was wrongly accused, and I knew it all these years. It’s hard for me to live with that.”

    “I watched my son go into prison as a kid, I watched him go through prison, I watched him come out as a man. He became a man in prison,” he added.

    Clark is living with his family in their home in Floyd County for the foreseeable future as he focuses on readjusting to life outside prison and rebuilding his life, he told CNN. Storey said he also moved back to Floyd County, with plans to go back to school and get a job.

    Clark said Judge Neidrach apologized on behalf of the state of Georgia and Floyd County this week during the court hearing this week, which was an important step toward healing.

    “That really touched my heart, because I had been living in corruption for so long, and it meant a lot to have someone acknowledge that wrong,” he told CNN.

    The Georgia Innocence Project will work to support Clark during his transition and connect him to resources, and a personal fundraiser has been organized on the MightyCause platform, open to the public for donations to Clark and his family, Hurley said.

    “It’s probably going to take some time to like truly process that he is free and doesn’t have to go back behind prison walls, because he spent most of his life behind them,” Hurley said.

    After his release, Clark is living with his family in their home in Floyd County for the foreseeable future as he focuses on readjusting to life outside prison and rebuilding his life.

    “More than anything, he’s looking forward to getting to spend time with his family and rebuilding some of those relationships that he was, frankly, ripped away from at the age of 17,” she added.

    The exonerations of both men were the culmination of a collaboration between Clark, Storey and his defense team, as well as the Bowling family, which was willing to take an “objective look at this case and reevaluate some of the things they have been told in the past,” Hurley said.

    Davis was in the courtroom during Clark and Storey’s hearing this week and said she’s still “in shock” and feels a huge amount of relief for both men.

    “In the end, I also feel for Brian Bowling’s family who have been incredibly gracious and supportive as well. It’s really rare when you have the victim’s family support the convictions being overturned,” Davis said.

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  • White House Security Breaches Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    White House Security Breaches Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a selected list of White House intrusions and security breaches.

    The White House grounds include 18 acres of land. That and the adjacent 52-acre Ellipse to the south belong to President’s Park, a national park.

    The Secret Service is in charge of White House security.

    According to the White House Historical Society, US President Thomas Jefferson was the first to put a fence around the White House. Over the years, the fence has been updated and fortified, with the wrought-iron fences of the 19th century having been replaced in the 1930s by a steel fence with tall bronze spears atop it. Most of the fence is currently about six feet six inches tall, and is undergoing an eight-phase replacement with an approximately 13 foot tall fence which began in July 2019.

    Security became especially tighter during World War II. After a truck-bomb attack on the US Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, low concrete walls were put up around the White House. Bollards – sturdy, vertical posts that can stop vehicles – were added a few years later.

    “Security incidents occur frequently,” according to a 2015 House of Representatives report. Data from the Secret Service included in the report show that there were 104 security breaches or attempted breaches between April 2005 and April 15, 2015.

    April 13, 1912 – On his second attempt to enter the White House to see President William Howard Taft, Michael Winter makes it several feet inside the front door before being noticed.

    September 26, 1963 – Doyle Allen Hicks rams his pickup truck through the gates and drives up to within 25 feet of the North Portico main entrance. When stopped, he tells guards that he must see the president, because communists are taking over his state, North Carolina.

    February 17, 1974 – Robert K. Preston, an Army private, steals a helicopter from Fort Meade, Maryland. He hovers over the Washington Monument and White House grounds before leading two state police helicopters on an aerial chase around Maryland and Washington, DC. After more than an hour, Preston heads back to the White House, according to a state police officer. Officers shoot at the helicopter, forcing Preston to land. He reportedly was upset about flunking out of flight school.

    February 22, 1974 – Samuel Joseph Byck tries to hijack a Delta passenger jet at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, with the plan to crash it into the White House. He forces his way on to the plane, killing an airport policeman and the copilot. Byck is killed by police before takeoff.

    December 25, 1974 – Marshall Fields crashes his automobile through the Northwest Gate and drives it close to the North Portico. He threatens to blow himself up with explosives he has strapped to his body, which later turn out to be flares. After four hours of negotiation, Fields surrenders to officials.

    November 26, 1975 – Gerald Gainous Jr. makes his way over the fence, hides for two hours on the grounds undetected and is able to get within five feet of Susan Ford, President Gerald Ford’s daughter. Gainous jumps the fence three more times within the next year.

    July 25, 1976 – Chester Plummer Jr. climbs over the White House fence carrying a metal pipe and starts running toward the White House. A guard chases him, yelling at him to stop. When he doesn’t, the guard shoots and kills him. Plummer’s motive is not discovered.

    October 1978 – A barefoot man wearing a karate uniform and carrying a Bible with a knife hidden inside, scales the White House fence. He slashes two officers before White House guards are able to subdue him. The suspect, Anthony Henry, reportedly wanted to convince President Jimmy Carter to remove the phrase “In God We Trust” from US currency.

    January 20, 1985 – Robert Latta, a meter-reader from Denver, follows the Marine Band into the White House before President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration ceremony. Latta wanders around the mansion for about 15 minutes before being arrested in the dining room.

    September 12, 1994 – A man flying a stolen Cessna plane enters the prohibited airspace around the White House and crashes on the lawn just south of the Executive Mansion. The pilot, identified as Frank Eugene Corder, dies in the crash.

    October 29, 1994 – Francisco Martin Duran, armed with a semiautomatic rifle, fires at least 29 rounds at the White House from the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue. Duran is later convicted of attempting to kill President Bill Clinton.

    May 23, 1995 – Leland W. Modjeski is shot by the Secret Service after climbing over a security fence and running toward the White House with a handgun that was later determined to be unloaded.

    February 7, 2001 – Robert Pickett, an accountant who was fired from the IRS in the 1980s, fires shots outside the White House. Secret Service agents shoot him in the leg after a standoff lasting more than 10 minutes at the White House fence. President George W. Bush was not endangered, White House officials say later.

    January 18, 2005 – Lowell Timmers, of Cedar Springs, Michigan, threatens to blow up his van in front on the White House, two days before Bush’s second inauguration, saying he has an explosive substance in the vehicle. The FBI, Secret Service and other authorities evacuate nearby buildings and shut down several blocks. Four hours pass before Timmers, who had demanded that his son-in-law be released from jail, surrenders.

    April 9, 2006 – Brian Lee Patterson from New Mexico jumps the White House fence and makes it well inside the grounds before being stopped. It is the fourth time he has jumped the fence.

    November 24, 2009 – A publicity-seeking Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, sneak into a White House dinner. The uninvited guests finesse their way through a security checkpoint staffed by uniformed Secret Service officers, according to congressional testimony by the agency’s director Mark Sullivan. Sullivan apologizes for the breach, saying agents violated protocol by allowing the Salahis to enter without verifying that they were on the guest list.

    November 11, 2011 – A gunman fires an assault rifle at the White House, hitting the residential wing of the building at least seven times. Secret Service supervisors fail to recognize the danger, dismissing the gunfire as a gang-related shootout rather than an attack on the White House, according to the Washington Post. Four days later, a housekeeper and a White House usher spot bullet holes in the residence. Five days after the shooting, the gunman, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez is arrested at a Pennsylvania hotel. In 2014, Ortega-Hernandez is sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

    October 3, 2013 – An unarmed woman is shot and killed by a Secret Service agent and a Capitol police officer after she drives toward a security checkpoint near the White House, hits a barricade and speeds away. The woman is a 34-year-old mother battling postpartum depression, according to her sister. Her one-year-old daughter, seated in the back of the car during the chase, is unharmed.

    September 11, 2014 – A man wearing Pokemon gear and carrying a plush doll of the character Pikachu makes it over the White House fence and onto the north lawn, where he is apprehended. He is later identified as Jeffrey Grossman.

    September 19, 2014 – After jumping the White House fence, 42-year-old Omar Gonzalez, of Copperas Cove, Texas, gets through the North Portico doors with a three-and-a-half-inch folding knife in his pants pocket, according to the Secret Service. In early accounts of the incident, the Secret Service claims the intruder didn’t get past the portico doors. Days later, the Washington Post reveals the man had actually made his way past the front entrance, through the main hall and into the East Room, where he was apprehended.

    October 22, 2014 – Dominic Adesanya, 23, of Bel Air, Maryland, jumps the White House fence and barely makes it onto the lawn before he is subdued as he fights off two police dogs, according to the Secret Service. Adesanya, who suffers from mental health problems, had been arrested in a previous White House breach, his father later says.

    January 26, 2015 – The Secret Service locks down the White House shortly after 3 a.m. after an officer spots a drone flying above the White House grounds before crashing on the southeast side of the complex. An employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a government entity with mapping and national security duties, later calls the Secret Service and admits that he was operating the drone for fun.

    April 19, 2015 – Jerome R. Hunt, of Hayward, California, climbs the fence on the south side of the White House complex while carrying a suspicious package, later deemed harmless, and is cornered by security dogs.

    November 26, 2015 – The Secret Service stops a man draped in an American flag after he jumps a White House fence during a Thanksgiving celebration at the executive mansion.

    April 1, 2016 – A man tosses a backpack over the north fence and then jumps over, himself, and is immediately arrested. His name is not released to the public.

    March 10, 2017 – A man carrying a backpack with mace and a letter for President Donald Trump makes it onto the grounds and roams for more than 15 minutes before he is discovered and arrested by a Secret Service officer near the south entrance. The suspect, identified in court records as Jonathan T. Tran, 26, of California, tells the agency’s officers that he was there to see the president.

    March 21, 2017 – Marci Anderson Wahl of Everett, Washington, jumps a fence on the south side but gets stuck. Officers find her hanging by her shoelaces, which were “caught on top of the fence,” according to a police report. Wahl is arrested two more times within the next week, near the Treasury Building and in Lafayette Park.

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  • European Parliament vice president expelled by party amid corruption probe involving Gulf nation | CNN

    European Parliament vice president expelled by party amid corruption probe involving Gulf nation | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Eva Kaili, one of the European Parliament’s vice presidents, has been expelled by her political party in Greece amid a corruption probe.

    The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), one of Greece’s main opposition parties, said in a statement Friday: “Following the latest developments and the investigation by Belgian authorities into corruption of European officials, MEP Eva Kaili is expelled from PASOK-Movement of change by decision of President Nikos Androulakis.”

    Kaili’s political group within the European Parliament, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, also announced on Friday they were suspending Kaili from the group with immediate effect “in response to the ongoing investigations.”

    This comes as Belgium’s federal prosecutor confirmed to Belgian public service broadcaster RTBF on Friday that one of the parliament’s 14 vice presidents had been taken in for questioning as part of a probe into corruption involving the European Parliament and a country from the Persian Gulf.

    In a statement, the prosecutor said that for two years, Belgian federal police inspectors “suspected a country from the Persian Gulf of influencing economic and political decisions of the European parliament,” according to RTBF.

    The Belgian police suspect that the country transferred “consequential sums of money” or “important gifts” to significant actors within the European Parliament, according to RTBF.

    The federal prosecutor did not identify the vice president but said they were one of four individuals taken in for questioning.

    “Among the arrested persons (is) an elderly European parliamentarian,” the prosecutor said.

    Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates all surround the Persian Gulf.

    Searches carried out as part of the inquiry resulted in the seizure of roughly 600,000 Euros ($632,000) in cash, according to RTBF. Computer materials and phones were also seized as part of the sixteen searches which took place in the Belgian areas of Ixelles, Schaerbeek, Crainhem, Forest and Brussels.

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  • Former Minneapolis police officer who helped restrain George Floyd sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison | CNN

    Former Minneapolis police officer who helped restrain George Floyd sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A former Minneapolis police officer who assisted in the fatal restraint of George Floyd was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison Friday for his role in the killing.

    J. Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter on the day his state trial was to begin last October, agreeing to the plea in exchange for the state dropping a count of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder in the May 25, 2020, death that triggered international protests against police brutality.

    Kueng appeared remotely from the US Bureau of Prisons Elkton facility in Lisbon, Ohio, where he’s serving a three-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights. He did not address the court.

    “Nothing your honor, thank you,” he said when asked if he had any remarks.

    There was no formal victim impact statement.

    “The sentencing of Alexander Kueng for his role in the murder of George Floyd delivers yet another piece of justice for the Floyd family,” attorneys Ben Crump, Antonio Romanucci and Jeff Storms, who represent Floyd’s family, said in a statement.

    “While the family faces yet another holiday season without George, we hope that moments like these continue to bring them a measure of peace, knowing that George’s death was not in vain.”

    Harrowing video taken by a bystander showed Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, desperately pleading for the officers restraining him to let him breathe before he lost consciousness and died.

    Kueng was among four officers who were fired and criminally charged after Floyd’s death. The city of Minneapolis agreed last year to pay Floyd’s estate $27 million to settle a lawsuit with his family.

    “I really can’t come close to comprehending what the family and friends of George Floyd have had to go through,” prosecutor Matthew Frank told the court before sentencing.

    “It’s not just watching a video of your loved one dying and seeing it on TV over and over again. Throughout these two and a half years, throughout all the court proceedings, we think of them often and we wish them the best in healing and moving forward.”

    Frank said Floyd was a “crime victim” and Kueng “was not simply a bystander in what happened that day.”

    “Mr. Kueng was an active part of this,” he added.

    Defense attorney Thomas Plunkett said police leaders “failed” both Floyd and Kueng by not adequately training officers.

    Kueng received credit for 84 days time served. He will be prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition for the rest of his life, Judge Peter Cahill ruled.

    His sentencing Friday was delayed several hours because of technical issues with the web conference.

    Kueng, who helped restrain Floyd as Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, and another officer, Tou Thao, who fended off angry witnesses pleading for police to get off Floyd, were both convicted of federal charges in the killing. They were found guilty on charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights and of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin during the restraint.

    Kueng was sentenced to three years and Thao was sentenced to 3 ½ years. Keung will serve his state sentence concurrently with his federal sentence.

    The two former cops began serving those sentences in October, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

    Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in state court and was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison in June 2021.

    In federal court, Chauvin pleaded guilty to depriving Floyd of his rights and an unrelated civil rights violation was sentenced to 21 years in prison. He is serving the sentences concurrently.

    Thomas Lane, the fourth officer, who held Floyd’s legs during the arrest, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in the summer and was sentenced to three years in prison in September. He is serving that concurrently with a two-and-a-half year federal sentence in Colorado.

    Kueng initially was to go on trial in October with Thao.

    Thao, according to his attorney, Robert Paule, agreed to a trial by stipulated evidence, meaning he waived his right to a trial by jury and the court would decide Thao’s fate after reviewing evidence presented by both parties.

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  • Buffalo grocery store mass shooter willing to plead guilty to federal charges if death penalty off the table, attorneys say | CNN

    Buffalo grocery store mass shooter willing to plead guilty to federal charges if death penalty off the table, attorneys say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The gunman who killed 10 people and wounded three in a racist attack at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, would be willing to plead guilty to federal charges – including hate crimes – if prosecutors agree to take the death penalty off the table, his attorneys said Friday.

    Attorneys representing Payton Gendron made their statements during a court hearing on Friday, seven months after Gendron used an illegally modified semiautomatic rifle to carry out the mass shooting.

    Gendron, a 19-year-old White man, had faced multiple federal hate crime charges, which carry the potential for the death penalty, in addition to several firearms charges. He had pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

    He pleaded guilty in a state court last month to one count of a domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, 10 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons possession charge in the mass shooting at Tops Friendly Markets on May 14. Those charges come with a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole.

    “Just as Payton Gendron entered a plea of guilty to the indictment in county court, he is prepared to enter a plea of guilty in federal court in exchange of the same sentence, which is the sentence of life in prison, without parole,” said his defense attorney Sonya Zoghlin.

    Magistrate Judge Kenneth Schroeder in court on Friday balked at giving attorneys more time to review the voluminous evidence connected with the case since Gendron has already pleaded guilty to state charges.

    Gendron’s defense team said in court they plan to take the first steps to meet with the US Attorney in Buffalo and the Assistant Attorney General from Washington so that they can make a formal presentation to as to why Gendron should not get the death penalty.

    The first meetings are scheduled after the new year, attorneys said in court on Friday.

    “There’s a lot to go through and I think that mitigation presentation, obviously, is highly important for them, in addition to the facts of the case, so that’s why we consented this time,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi.

    Judge Schroeder scheduled the next hearing for March 10, during which attorneys will give an update on how much of the evidence they’ve been able to review and if they can work out a deal with prosecutors.

    Meanwhile, Gendron will be sentenced on his state conviction on similar charges in February.

    The victims, including customers, employees and an armed security guard, ranged in age from 20 to 86. Eleven of the 13 people shot were Black and two were White, officials said.

    Social media posts and a lengthy document written by the gunman reveal he had been planning his attack for months and had visited the Tops supermarket several times previously. He posted that he chose Tops because it was in a particular ZIP code in Buffalo that had the highest percentage of Black people close enough to where he lived in Conklin, New York.

    The document outlined his goals for the attack, according to Flynn: “To kill as many African Americans as possible, avoid dying and spread ideals.”

    Gendron shot four people outside the grocery store and nine more inside before surrendering to Buffalo Police officers who responded to the scene, according to an indictment.

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said following the attack that the AR-15 style rifle used in the shooting was legally purchased in New York State, but was modified with a high-capacity magazine, which is not legal in the state.

    The earlier guilty plea ensured there will be no state trial and Gendron will not appeal, defense attorney Brian Parker said.

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  • Michael Flynn appears before Atlanta grand jury probe into Trump’s election subversion | CNN Politics

    Michael Flynn appears before Atlanta grand jury probe into Trump’s election subversion | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former national security adviser Michael Flynn is appearing Thursday before an Atlanta-area special grand jury probing efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

    CNN spotted Flynn, who was escorted by a small entourage, walk up the stairs of the Superior Court of Fulton County shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday.

    Last month, a judge in Florida ordered Flynn to testify, saying the former Trump administration official “is indeed material and necessary in the special grand jury proceeding in the state of Georgia.”

    Flynn’s attorneys had argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is overseeing the investigation, “overstepped her authority,” so he should not be required to travel to Atlanta to testify because there is an “utter lack of facts” to support that Flynn is a necessary witness.

    Fulton County prosecutors want the grand jury to hear from Flynn about a December 18, 2020, meeting he had with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others associated with the Trump campaign, according to a court filing.

    During the heated Oval Office meeting, Flynn and Powell floated outrageous suggestions about overturning the election, CNN previously reported. The meeting occurred just three weeks after Trump pardoned Flynn near the end of his tenure.

    Prosecutors in Georgia are also interested in hearing from Flynn about his December 2020 interview on the conservative media outlet Newsmax, where he said that Trump “could order – within the swing states, if he wanted to – he could take military capabilities, and he could place them in those states and basically re-run an election in each of those states,” according to a court filing.

    Flynn invoked his Fifth Amendment right during a deposition earlier this year before the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021.

    In 2017, Flynn lost his job as national security adviser under Trump and pleaded guilty in federal court after lying to the FBI and then-Vice President Mike Pence while serving in the Trump White House.

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  • A Virginia superintendent is fired after a state report into handling of sexual assaults at school is issued | CNN

    A Virginia superintendent is fired after a state report into handling of sexual assaults at school is issued | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Virginia school superintendent was fired Tuesday, a day after a report from the state accused him of lying about a sexual assault involving a student in May 2021.

    The special grand jury report, conducted by the office of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, also criticized former school superintendent Dr. Scott Ziegler and other school officials for mishandling the investigation of an October sexual assault allegedly by the same student that year.

    The superintendent said of the May sexual assault “to my knowledge we don’t have any records of assaults occurring in our restrooms,” at a June 2021 school board meeting, according to the report. At the time, Ziegler said he misunderstood the question.

    The Loudoun County Public School Board voted unanimously to fire Ziegler Tuesday night, but provided no reason for the firing, school spokesman Wayde Byard told CNN.

    “The Special Grand Jury’s report contains important recommendations and information,” Miyares said in a statement to CNN Wednesday. “I’m glad to see that the school board is taking the report seriously, and hope it results in positive change for the LCPS community.”

    CNN has attempted to reach Ziegler for comment. Byard would not comment further regarding allegations into LCPS mishandling of the sexual assault cases outlined in the special grand jury report.

    A teenage student had been arrested for sexual battery and abduction of another student at a Loudoun County public school in October 2021, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said, according to the report.

    The teenager also allegedly sexually assaulted another student in May 2021, according to the report. In that assault, the grand jury report alleged that the sexual assault occurred in a women’s bathroom while the perpetrator was wearing a skirt.

    “National outrage focused on Loudoun County because the student was labeled as gender fluid, LCPS had recently passed a transgender policy to conform with the Virginia Department of Education’s model policy,” said the report.

    CNN could not find evidence substantiating that the student identified as transgender or gender-fluid.

    The 2021 Virginia Department of Education’s Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools outlined that transgender students should be allowed to use bathrooms and staff should use the personal pronouns that were most consistent with their gender identity.

    In 2022, under Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Department of Education replaced the policy with an updated one stating that students should use bathrooms according to his or her sex.

    On his first day in office on January 15, Youngkin passed an executive order authorizing an investigation of Loudoun County Public Schools by the Attorney General. Youngkin had mentioned the sexual assault cases at Loudoun schools several times while campaigning for governor.

    “The special grand jury’s report on the horrific sexual assaults in Loudoun has exposed wrongdoing, prompted disciplinary actions, & provided families with the truth. I will continue to empower parents & push for accountability on behalf of our students,” Youngkin tweeted Wednesday.

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  • The latest on Donald Trump’s many legal clouds | CNN Politics

    The latest on Donald Trump’s many legal clouds | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump has been campaigning in between his many different court appearances for much of the year.

    But his decision to attend the first day of his $250 million civil fraud trial in New York created another opportunity to appear on camera from inside a courtroom when the judge allowed photographers to document the moment before proceedings got underway.

    Keeping track of the dizzying array of civil and criminal cases is a full-time job.

    He is charged with crimes related to conduct:

    • Before his presidency – a hush money scheme that may have helped him win the White House in 2016.
    • During his presidency – his effort to stay in the White House by overturning the 2020 election.
    • After his presidency – his treatment of classified material and alleged attempts to hide it from the National Archives.

    Trump denies any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty in all of the criminal cases. He alleges a “witch hunt” against him. But each trial has its own distinct storyline to follow.

    Here’s an updated list of developments in Trump’s very complicated set of court cases, beginning with the one playing out in Manhattan this week.

    The civil fraud trial, unlike Trump’s multiple criminal indictments, does not carry the danger of a felony conviction and jail time, but it could very well cost him some of his most prized possessions, including Trump Tower.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the $250 million lawsuit in September 2022, alleging that Trump and his co-defendants committed repeated fraud in inflating assets on financial statements to get better terms on commercial real estate loans and insurance policies.

    Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his adult sons are liable for fraud for inflating the value of his golf courses, hotels and homes on financial statements to secure loans.

    The trial portion of the case, playing out in court in Manhattan, will assess what damages will be levied against Trump and how Engoron’s decision to strip Trump of his New York business licenses will play out.

    In May, a federal jury in Manhattan found Trump sexually abused former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and awarded her about $5 million.

    A separate civil defamation lawsuit will only need to decide how much money Trump has to pay her. That case for January 15 – the same day Iowa Republicans will hold their caucuses, the first date on the presidential primary calendar.

    In August, Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the aftermath of the 2020 election. The former president was arraigned in a Washington, DC, courtroom, where he pleaded not guilty.

    The case is based in part on a scheme to create slates of fake electors in key states won by President Joe Biden.

    In late September, Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trump’s request that she recuse herself from the case. Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee, has overseen civil and criminal cases related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection and has repeatedly exceeded what prosecutors have requested for convicted rioters’ prison sentences.

    Chutkan set the trial’s start date for March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday, when the largest batch of presidential primaries will occur. The trial marks the first of Trump’s criminal cases expected to proceed.

    Trump has been charged in Manhattan criminal court with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his role in a hush money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels late in the 2016 presidential campaign.

    The former president pleaded not guilty at his April arraignment in Manhattan.

    Prosecutors, led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accuse Trump of falsifying business records with the intent to conceal $130,000 in payments to Daniels made by former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to guarantee her silence about an alleged affair.

    Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels.

    The trial was originally scheduled to begin in late March 2024, but Judge Juan Merchan has suggested the date could move. The next court date is scheduled for February.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is using racketeering violations to charge a broad criminal conspiracy against Trump and 18 others in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.

    The probe was launched in 2021 following Trump’s call that January with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the president pushed the Republican official to “find” votes to overturn the election results.

    The August indictment also includes how Trump’s team allegedly misled state officials in Georgia; organized fake electors; harassed an election worker; and breached election equipment in rural Coffee County, Georgia.

    One co-defendant, bail bondsman Scott Hall, has pleaded guilty to five counts in the case.

    Fulton County prosecutors have signaled they could offer plea deals to other co-defendants.

    Willis this week issued a subpoena to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a Trump ally, who in turn demanded an immunity deal in exchange for testimony.

    Trial for two co-defendants is expected to begin this month and could last three to five months. A trial date has not been set for Trump, who has pleaded not guilty.

    Federal criminal court in Florida: Mishandling classified material

    Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges brought by Smith over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Smith added three additional counts in a superseding indictment.

    The investigation centers on sensitive documents that Trump brought to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after his White House term ended in January 2021.

    The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.

    Trump was also caught on tape in a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president discussed holding secret documents he did not declassify.

    Smith’s additional charges allege that Trump and his employees attempted to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage sought by the grand jury investigating the mishandling of the records.

    Trial is not expected until May, after most presidential primaries have concluded.

    There are other cases to note:

    Trump’s namesake business, the Trump Organization, was convicted in December by a New York jury of tax fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records in what prosecutors say was a 15-year scheme to defraud tax authorities by failing to report and pay taxes on compensation provided to employees.

    Manhattan prosecutors told a jury the case was about “greed and cheating,” laying out a scheme within the Trump Organization to pay high-level executives in perks such as luxury cars and apartments without paying taxes on them.

    Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to his role in the tax scheme. He was released after serving four months in jail at Rikers Island.

    Several members of the US Capitol Police and Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police are suing Trump, saying his words and actions incited the 2021 riot.

    The various cases accuse Trump of directing assault and battery; aiding and abetting assault and battery; and violating Washington laws that prohibit the incitement of riots and disorderly conduct.

    In August, Trump requested to put on hold the lawsuit related to the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, citing his various criminal trials. The estate of Sicknick, who died after responding to the attack on the Capitol, is suing two rioters involved in the attack and Trump for his alleged role in egging it on.

    Other lawsuits have been put on hold while a federal appeals court considers whether Trump had absolute immunity as the sitting president.

    Former top FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who was fired in 2018 after the revelation that he criticized Trump in text messages, sued the Justice Department, alleging he was terminated improperly.

    In summer 2017, former special counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election after an internal investigation revealed texts with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page that could be read as exhibiting political bias.

    Strzok and Page were constant targets of verbal attacks by Trump and his allies, part of the larger ire the then-president expressed toward the FBI during the Russia investigation. Trump repeatedly and publicly called for Strzok’s ouster until he was fired in August 2018.

    Trump is set to be deposed this month as part of the case, according to Politico.

    A federal judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, several ex-FBI officials and more than two dozen other people and entities that he claims conspired to undermine his 2016 campaign with fabricated information tying him to Russia.

    “What (Trump’s lawsuit) lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote.

    Trump appealed the decision, but Middlebrooks also ruled that the former president and his attorneys are liable for nearly $1 million in sanctions for bringing the case.

    Trump launched a Hail Mary bid in July to revive the sprawling lawsuit, relying on a recent report from special counsel John Durham that criticized the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe.

    Trump’s former lawyer Cohen sued Trump, former Attorney General William Barr and others, alleging they put him back in jail to prevent him from promoting his upcoming book while under home confinement.

    Cohen was serving the remainder of his sentence for lying to Congress and campaign violations at home, due to Covid-19 concerns, when he started an anti-Trump social media campaign in summer 2020. Cohen said that he was sent back to prison in retaliation and that he spent 16 days in solitary confinement.

    A federal judge threw out the lawsuit in November. District Judge Lewis Liman said he was empathetic to Cohen’s position but that Supreme Court precedent bars him from allowing the case to move forward.

    Trump sued journalist Bob Woodward in January for alleged copyright violations, claiming Woodward released audio from their interviews without Trump’s consent.

    Woodward and publisher Simon & Schuster said Trump’s case is without merit and moved for its dismissal.

    Woodward conducted several interviews with Trump for his book “Rage,” published in September 2020. Woodward later released “The Trump Tapes,” an audiobook featuring eight hours of raw interviews with Trump interspersed with the author’s commentary.

    Trump-filed lawsuits: The New York Times, Mary Trump and CNN

    The former president is suing his niece and The New York Times in New York state court over the disclosure of his tax information.

    A New York judge dismissed The New York Times from Trump’s lawsuit regarding disclosure of his tax returns and ordered Trump to pay the newspaper’s legal fees. Trump is still suing his niece Mary Trump for disclosure of the tax documents. She had tried to sue him for defrauding her out of millions after the death of his father, but the suit was dismissed.

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  • Former Theranos COO sentenced to nearly 13 years | CNN Business

    Former Theranos COO sentenced to nearly 13 years | CNN Business

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    CNN Business
     — 

    Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the former chief operating officer of failed blood testing startup Theranos, was sentenced Wednesday to nearly 13 years in prison for fraud. It marks an end to the stunning downfall of a high-flying Silicon Valley company that resulted in the rare convictions of two tech executives.

    “There is an unfortunate saying in Silicon Valley: ‘Fake it ‘til you make it.’ Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani stretched this idea to a place much farther than the law allows and in so doing put vast amounts of investor dollars at risk,” said Stephanie Hinds, US Attorney for the Northern District of California, in a statement. “Significantly, today the court also made clear that Sunny Balwani’s decision to deceive doctors and patients also put the health of patients at risk. Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani now will be justly punished for their illegal conduct.”

    Hinds added, “Let this story be a cautionary tale for entrepreneurs in this district: Those who use lies to cover up the shortfalls of their promised accomplishments risk substantial jail time.”

    The sentencing comes weeks after Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos and Balwani’s ex-girlfriend, was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.

    Theranos raised $945 million from an A-list cohort of investors with its promise to test for a wide range of conditions using just a few drops of blood. At its peak, the company was valued at $9 billion.

    The company began to unravel after a Wall Street Journal investigation in 2015 reported that Theranos had only ever performed roughly a dozen of the hundreds of tests it offered using its proprietary technology, and with questionable accuracy. It also came to light that Theranos was relying on third-party manufactured devices from traditional blood testing companies rather than its own technology. Theranos ultimately dissolved in September 2018.

    Holmes and Balwani were first indicted together four years ago on the same 12 criminal charges pertaining to defrauding investors and patients about Theranos’ capabilities and business dealings in order to get money. Their trials were severed after Holmes indicated she intended to accuse Balwani of sexually, emotionally and psychologically abusing her throughout their decade-long relationship, which coincided with her time running the company. (Balwani’s attorneys have denied her claims.)

    In July, Balwani was found guilty on all 12 charges he faced, which included ten counts of federal wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Holmes was found guilty in January on four charges relating to defrauding investors, and found not guilty on three additional charges concerning defrauding patients and one charge of conspiracy to defraud patients.

    Like Holmes, Balwani faced up to 20 years in prison as well as a fine of $250,000 plus restitution for each count.

    In a recent court filing, prosecutors noted that Balwani was convicted not only of defrauding investors but also defrauding patients. They recommended a 15-year prison sentence for him, as well as an order for Balwani to pay $804 million in restitution. In a separate filing, attorneys for Balwani requested a sentence of probation, noting he had no criminal history.

    Before joining Theranos, Balwani had a career as a software executive. Balwani, nearly 20 years older than Holmes, first met her in 2002 before she dropped out of Stanford. He served as an informal adviser to Holmes in Theranos’ earliest days and the two became romantically involved. Balwani guaranteed a “multimillion-dollar loan” to the startup in 2009, court filings show, and took on a formal role as president and chief operating officer. Holmes and Balwani largely kept their romantic relationship hidden while working together.

    During her trial, Holmes claimed Balwani tried to control nearly every aspect of her life — including disciplining her eating, her voice and image, and isolating her from others. She testified that while he didn’t control her interactions with investors, business partners and others, “he impacted everything about who I was, and I don’t fully understand that.”

    Holmes is expected to appeal her conviction but was ordered to turn herself into custody on April 27, 2023.

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  • Two men, one a descendant of Holocaust survivor, indicted in connection with threat to attack NYC synagogue | CNN

    Two men, one a descendant of Holocaust survivor, indicted in connection with threat to attack NYC synagogue | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A grand jury indicted two men – one of whom is Jewish and a descendant of a Holocaust survivor – in connection with an online threat last month to attack a synagogue in New York City.

    Christopher Brown and Matthew Mahrer were both indicted on charges of conspiracy and weapons possession. Brown also was charged with a felony count of making terroristic threats as a hate crime, and possession of a weapon as a crime of terrorism, among other charges.

    Mahrer, who previously made bail, appeared on Wednesday in Supreme Court in New York, with family members present. He is Jewish and his grandfather is a Holocaust survivor, defense attorney Brandon Freycinet said in court, adding that his client would not want to harm his own people.

    Both defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges on Wednesday. Brown faces up to 25 years in prison and Mahrer faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge.

    The two were arrested by Metropolitan Transportation Authority officers as they were entering Penn Station in Manhattan on November 19, according to NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell.

    The suspects allegedly possessed a firearm, high-capacity magazine, a military-style hunting knife, a Nazi swastika arm patch, a ski mask and a bulletproof vest, officials said.

    “A horrific tragedy was averted thanks to the diligence, hard work and coordination between my Office and our local, state and federal law enforcement partners,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement Wednesday. “The increase in antisemitic attacks and threats cannot and will not be tolerated. Manhattanites and all New Yorkers should know that we continue to vigorously prosecute hate crimes every day and are using every tool at our disposal to address hate and bias.”

    New York state leads the nation in antisemitic incidents, with at least 416 reported in 2021, including at least 51 assaults – the highest number ever recorded by the Anti-Defamation League in New York. There were 12 assaults reported in 2020, the ADL said in an audit last week.

    A total of 2,717 antisemitic incidents were reported last year across the nation – a 34% increase compared to 2,026 in 2020, according to the ADL. The ADL has been tracking such incidents since 1979 – and its previous reports have found antisemitism in America has been on the rise for years.

    The indictment comes the same day that Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, held a roundtable on antisemitism at the White House during which he warned of an “epidemic of hate facing our country.”

    A statement of facts from the prosecution and the criminal indictment offer a timeline of the men’s actions and allege that they drove from New York to Pennsylvania to get a firearm.

    The documents state Brown sent out a series of disturbing tweets from November 12 to November 17, including one saying, “Gonna ask a Priest if I should become a husband or shoot up a synagogue and die.”

    Call records show Brown and Mahrer communicated with each other on the phone, and on November 18 they went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, the documents state. Surveillance footage showed that Brown was wearing a backpack that police later found contained a knife, a Swastika armband and a ski mask, the documents state.

    The two men then met with a third person and, in a recorded phone call with a prison inmate, said they were driving to Pennsylvania to get a firearm, the indictment states. Brown sent Mahrer $650 and Mahrer then sent $700 to this third person, the documents say.

    Later that night, surveillance footage shows Brown and Mahrer walking into the Upper West Side building where Mahrer lives, the documents say. Mahrer is seen on video wearing a camouflage backpack that police later recovered; the backpack contained a firearm, a large-capacity ammo feeding device and 19 rounds of ammunition, according to the documents.

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  • Warnock honored 5 civil rights ‘martyrs’ in his victory speech. Here are their stories | CNN

    Warnock honored 5 civil rights ‘martyrs’ in his victory speech. Here are their stories | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election is being celebrated by supporters across the nation with many political observers crediting the work of voting rights groups for the consequential win.

    Warnock delivered a victory speech to a fiery crowd in Atlanta on Tuesday night that touched on the power of faith, his deep Georgia roots and the perseverance of voters in the face of Republican-led voter suppression efforts. Election officials said a record number of voters showed up for early voting last week. And Black voters have been largely credited for Warnock’s win, signaling that Georgia is no longer a reliably red state.

    In his speech, Warnock also honored the Black and White unsung heroes of the civil rights movement who died fighting for equal voting rights, making wins like his possible.

    “Tonight, I want to pay tribute to all those, over so many years, who have put their voices, and their lives on the line, to defend that right,” Warnock said. “Martyrs of the movement like (Michael) Schwerner, (James) Chaney and (Andrew) Goodman, Viola Luizzo, James Reeb. And those who stood up and spoke up like Fannie Lou Hamer. John Lewis, who walked across a bridge knowing that there were police waiting to brutalize him on the other side. Yet, by some stroke of destiny mingled with human determination he walked across that bridge in order to build a bridge to a more just future.”

    While Hamer and Lewis have been widely discussed by historians and journalists, Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman, Luizzo and Reeb are lesser known. But that doesn’t negate the significance of their work toward equality. All of them were killed by white supremacists or Ku Klux Klan members.

    Here is what you should know about five “martyrs” of the movement:

    Liuzzo was a 39-year-old wife and mother of five of from Detroit who was killed by Ku Klux Klansmen in Selma on March 25, 1965.

    Historical records show Liuzzo, a White woman, had been committed to fighting for economic justice and civil rights.

    She was an active member of the Detroit NAACP chapter and the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit. Family members say she decided to travel to Selma in 1965 after seeing televised news reports of peaceful protesters being beaten and tear-gassed by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

    In Selma, Liuzzo marched and helped transport demonstrators in her car. She was ambushed and shot to death by KKK members while driving Leroy Moton, a Black man, to Montgomery. Within 24 hours of Liuzzo’s death, President Lyndon Johnson announced the arrests of the KKK members. They were all acquitted by Alabama courts, however a federal grand jury found them guilty of violating Liuzzo’s civil rights and they were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

    In 1991, a marker honoring Liuzzo was erected at the site where she was killed on U.S. Highway 80, about 20 miles east of Selma

    Rev. James J. Reeb, 38, was attacked by a White mob in Selma in 1965 and he died from his injuries days later.

    Reeb, a White Unitarian minister who lived in Boston, died after traveling to Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to answer Martin Luther King Jr’s call to clergy to join demonstrations for voting rights in the aftermath of “Bloody Sunday.”

    The 38-year-old minister was beaten by a group of White men on March 9, 1965 as he and two other White clergymen left an integrated Selma restaurant after having dinner. He was hit in the head and died two days later at a Birmingham hospital.

    His killing gained nationwide attention, prompted vigils in his honor and is believed to have contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

    “The world is aroused over the murder of James Reeb. For he symbolizes the forces of goodwill in our nation. He demonstrated the conscience of the nation. He was an attorney for the defense of the innocent in the court of world opinion. He was a witness to the truth that men of different races and classes might live, eat, and work together as brothers,” King said as he delivered a eulogy for Reeb in 1965.

    Three White men were indicted with murder in Reeb’s killing but their cases resulted in acquittals.

    Andrew Goodman, left, James Chaney, center, and Michael Shwerner, right, were killed in the summer of 1964.

    Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. The killings were among the most notorious of the civil rights era, and were the subject of the 1988 movie “Mississippi Burning.”

    The three men, who registered African Americans to vote, had just visited the victims of the burning of a Black church in Neshoba County when a sheriff’s deputy took them into custody for speeding. The men were driving a car with license plates registered to the Congress of Federated Organizations (COFO), one of the most active civil rights groups in Mississippi, according to an FBI file on the case.

    After their release from the county jail, a Ku Klux Klan mob tailed their car, forced it off the road and shot them to death. Their bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam, after an extensive FBI investigation.

    Chaney was a 21-year-old Black volunteer with COFO. Goodman, a White 20-year-old, was a college student and new volunteer from New York. Schwerner, a White 24-year-old former social worker, was an established civil rights organizer who was “particularly reviled by the Klan for his work,” according to the FBI file.

    The killings fueled the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the next year.

    In 1967, prosecutors convicted eight defendants for violating the federal criminal civil rights conspiracy statute, namely the victims’ right to live. None served more than six years in prison.

    No murder charges were filed at the time but nearly 40 years later, Edgar Ray Killen, a part-time Baptist minister and the plot leader, was found guilty of manslaughter in 2005 and sentenced to three consecutive 20-year sentences. Killen died in 2018.

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