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Tag: Indictments

  • Things to know about the bribery prosecution of ex-Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez

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    NEW YORK — Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez is already in prison. His wife is headed there next.

    The onetime political power couple’s criminal prosecution culminated Thursday with a judge sentencing Nadine Menendez to 4½ years behind bars. Her punishment came three months after her husband, a New Jersey Democrat, started his 11-year prison sentence.

    The unusual facts of the case — including gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz — and breast cancer surgery that led to Nadine Menendez facing trial a year later than her husband teed up a surprising scenario: The then-senator’s lawyers tried to pin the blame on her. But at her sentencing, Nadine Menendez said Bob Menendez was a manipulative liar who “strung me like a puppet.”

    Here’s a look at how their cases have played out:

    Federal authorities investigated the senator for several years before a 2022 raid on the couple’s home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, turned up $480,000 in cash, gold bars worth an estimated $150,000 and a Mercedes-Benz convertible that prosecutors said were bribes.

    At the time Menendez was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position he resigned after he, his wife and three New Jersey businessmen were hit with bribery charges in September 2023.

    Prosecutors lated added a charge alleging that he conspired with his wife and the businessmen for him to act as an agent of Egypt. As a member of Congress, Menendez was prohibited from being an agent of a foreign government. Authorities said it was the first time the charge was brought against a sitting member of Congress, signaling that U.S. national security was at stake.

    It was the second federal case against Menendez after a jury deadlocked in 2017 on corruption charges in New Jersey. Prosecutors did not seek to retry him.

    He had held public office continuously since 1986, serving as a state legislator before 13 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2006 then-New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine appointed Menendez to the Senate seat he vacated when he became governor.

    Unusual upbringings and family traditions. Neither testified at trial, but both asserted through their lawyers that there were innocent explanations for the loot.

    Bob Menendez’s lawyers said stashing tens of thousands of dollars in cash in the home — including inside jackets and boots — stemmed from lessons learned by his family when it lost its life savings except for cash hidden in their home when they left Cuba.

    They said he emerged from poverty and the trauma of his father’s suicide when he was 23 to become “the epitome of the American Dream,” rising from mayor of Union City, New Jersey, to serve decades in Congress. By his January sentencing, his lawyer said he had become a joke known by some as “Gold Bar Bob.”

    Nadine Menendez’s lawyers said her family had a tradition of keeping gold bars in their homes that were gifts after fleeing war-torn Lebanon when she was a child. They said she treasured jewelry and other objects not for their monetary value but because of their connections to relatives.

    Jose Uribe was accused of giving Nadine Menendez the Mercedes-Benz in exchange for Bob Menendez pressuring the New Jersey attorney general’s office to stop investigating some of Uribe’s associates. He pleaded guilty, testified against the others and is set to be sentenced Oct. 9.

    Wael Hana, a longtime friend of Nadine Menendez, and Fred Daibes, a prominent real estate developer, were tried alongside Bob Menendez and convicted of bribery and other charges. Hana was sentenced to eight years in prison, and Daibes got seven years.

    Among other things, Hana was accused of providing cash to Nadine Menendez to save her Englewood Cliffs home after she missed nearly $20,000 in mortgage payments. In return, they said, Bob Menendez began helping Hana preserve a business monopoly he had arranged with the Egyptian government to certify that imported meat met religious requirements.

    Daibes paid bribes — including cash and gold — in exchange for Bob Menendez attempting to persuade a federal prosecutor to go easy on him in a bank fraud case, prosecutors said. Menendez also helped him secure a $95 million investment from a Qatari investment fund, prosecutors said.

    The alleged crimes, spanning from 2018 until charges were revealed in 2023, began almost as soon as the woman then known as Nadine Arslanian began dating the senator in 2018. They were married in 2020.

    Nadine Menendez remained publicly silent as her husband’s lawyers heaped much of the blame for the alleged crimes on her during his trial, alleging that she instigated and carried out many of the crucial bribery-related acts as her husband went about his senatorial duties.

    They said her desperate financial situation led her to seek help from relatives and friends and keep quiet about cash and gold in her closet.

    At her sentencing Thursday, Nadine Menendez told the judge that her husband’s lawyers filled her in before that trial on their strategy to blame on her. Their reasoning, she said, was that if he was acquitted, her case would go away because she was not a politician.

    Judge Sidney Stein agreed that she was wrongly maligned at the earlier trial, telling her, “You are not the person they tried to depict.”

    In a presentencing letter to the judge, Bob Menendez also said his wife was unfairly blamed and she was “not the person who Prosecutors, or for that fact, what the Defense Attorneys made her out to be.”

    Nadine Menendez does not have to report to prison until next summer. She asked the judge to make sure she can visit her husband in the meantime.

    As she left court Thursday, she was asked if she wants a divorce. She said no.

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  • Former executive of Mars candy subsidiary pleads guilty to stealing $28M from company

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    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A former executive for a subsidiary of candymaker Mars Inc. pleaded guilty Thursday to fraud and tax charges in connection with his theft of $28 million from the company, federal prosecutors said.

    Paul Steed, 58, appeared in federal court in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He also agreed to pay $28.4 million in restitution to Mars and owes another $10 million in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Attorney for Connecticut David Sullivan said in a statement.

    Steed, of Stamford, Connecticut, who is free on $5 million bail, did not immediately return messages left at phone numbers and emails listed for him in public records. His lawyer, former U.S. Attorney for Connecticut Deirdre Daly, did not immediately return phone and email messages Thursday.

    A dual U.S. and Argentine citizen, Steed was once a respected sugar market expert for Mars Wrigley, where his last position was global price risk manager. The company is a subsidiary of McLean, Virginia-based Mars Inc., the maker of M&M’s, Snickers, Skittles, Altoids mints and Doublemint gum, as well as other food products and pet food.

    A federal indictment accused him of stealing from Mars beginning in about 2013 through various schemes, including diverting funds to companies he set up. Steed sent the lion’s share of the stolen funds, more than $26 million, to one of his companies, MCNA LLC, which was created to mimic an actual Mars company, Mars Chocolate North America, prosecutors said.

    Authorities say they have seized more than $18 million from Steed’s bank accounts, and Steed has agreed to forfeit the money. The government is also seeking to liquidate a home in Greenwich, Connecticut, that Steed allegedly purchased using $2.3 million of the stolen cash. Prosecutors say Steed sent another $2 million to Argentina, where he has relatives and owns a ranch.

    Steed pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and one count of tax evasion. Sentencing is set for Dec. 9.

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  • Indictment charges church leaders with swindling millions in military benefits

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    SAVANNAH, Ga. — Leaders of a Georgia-based church with congregations in five states have been charged by federal prosecutors with swindling millions of dollars in veterans benefits from parishioners serving in the military.

    An indictment unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Savannah charges House of Prayer Christian Churches of America founder Rony Denis and seven other church leaders with conspiring to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, as well as other federal crimes.

    Authorities say church leaders exploited soldiers and other congregation members by enrolling them in seminary programs that drained their G.I. Bill education benefits. They also say church officials used parishioners’ names on fraudulent mortgage applications to buy homes that the church then rented to congregation members.

    “The defendants are accused of exploiting trust, faith, and even the service of our nation’s military members to enrich themselves,” Paul Brown, the agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta office, said in a news release.

    Prosecutors say they don’t even know the real name of Denis, alleging he assumed that name after stealing another person’s identity in 1983. He founded House of Prayer roughly two decades ago. The church is headquartered in Hinesville, a southeast Georgia city that is home to thousands of veterans and Army soldiers serving at neighboring Fort Stewart. The congregation there grew to as many as 300 members, the indictment says.

    House of Prayer branched out, opening up to a dozen churches in five states, often near military bases, according to prosecutors. It also established affiliated Bible seminaries in Hinesville as well as Fayetteville, North Carolina; Killeen, Texas; and Tacoma, Washington.

    The indictment says the church focused on recruiting military service members to join their congregations and pressured them to spend their G.I. Bill education benefits on enrollment in its seminary programs.

    The seminaries in all four states earned House of Prayer leaders $23.5 million in G.I. Bill payments for tuition, fees, books and housing costs from 2013 and 2021, according to the indictment.

    Charges against Denis and others stem from just $3.2 million of those benefit payments made to House of Prayer’s two seminaries in Georgia. That is because the programs operated in Georgia under a religious exemption granted by state regulators. Prosecutors say that exemption prohibited the Georgia seminaries from receiving federal funding — including G.I. Bill benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

    The indictment says church officials lied to Georgia regulators in annual forms saying the seminaries received no federal money.

    Steven Sadow, listed in court records as an attorney for Denis, did not immediately return an email message seeking comment Thursday.

    A group called Veterans Education Success wrote to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in 2020, saying former students had complained that the House of Prayer seminaries had drained their benefits while providing them with little education. FBI agents served search warrants on several House of Prayer churches in 2022, according to local news outlets.

    The indictment says church officials also used its members as straw buyers to conceal the leaders’ purchase of rental properties. Prosecutors say church leaders falsified loan applications and closing documents and forged powers of attorney to buy and transfer homes that were rented to congregation members.

    The indictment says House of Prayer received $5.2 million in rent payments between 2018 and 2020, with some of that money being used to pay for Denis’ two homes as well as church leaders’ credit card bills.

    Denis was also charged with helping falsify his federal income tax returns for 2018, 2019 and 2020. On Wednesday, FBI agents and Columbia County sheriff’s deputies arrested the church founder at his mansion in Martinez west of Augusta, WRDW-TV reported.

    In a separate case, federal prosecutors also indicted Bernadel Semexant, a pastor at the House of Prayer church in Hinesville. The indictment unsealed Wednesday charges Semexant with sex abuse of a girl between the ages of 12 and 15. William Joseph Turner, listed in court records as the pastor’s attorney, did not immediately return an email message.

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  • Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom’s latest legal bid to halt deportation from New Zealand is rejected

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    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A New Zealand court has rejected the latest bid by internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom to halt his deportation to the United States on charges related to his file-sharing website Megaupload.

    Dotcom had asked the High Court to review the legality of an official’s August 2024 decision that he should be surrendered to the U.S. to face trial on charges of copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering. It was the latest chapter in a protracted 13-year battle by the U.S. government to extradite the Finnish-German millionaire from New Zealand.

    The Megaupload founder had applied for what in New Zealand is called a judicial review, in which a judge is asked to evaluate whether an official’s decision was lawful.

    A judge on Wednesday dismissed Dotcom’s arguments that the decision to deport him was politically motivated and that he would face grossly disproportionate treatment in the U.S. In a written ruling, Justice Christine Grice also rejected Dotcom’s claim that New Zealand’s police were wrong to charge his business partners, but not him, under domestic laws — which likely yielded laxer sentences than if the men had been tried in the U.S.

    The latest decision could be challenged in the Court of Appeal, where a deadline for filing is Oct. 8. It wasn’t immediately clear if Dotcom would do so.

    One of his lawyers, Ron Mansfield, told Radio New Zealand that Dotcom’s team had “much fight left in us as we seek to secure a fair outcome,” but didn’t elaborate further. Neither Dotcom nor Mansfield responded to a request for comment from The Associated Press on Thursday.

    New Zealand’s government hasn’t disclosed what will happen next in the extradition process or divulged an expected timeline for Dotcom to be surrendered to the United States.

    The saga stretches back to the January 2012 arrest by New Zealand authorities of Dotcom in a dramatic raid on his Auckland mansion along with other company officers at the request of the FBI. U.S. prosecutors said Megaupload raked in at least $175 million, mainly from people who used the site to illegally download songs, television shows and movies, before the FBI shut it down earlier that year.

    Lawyers for Dotcom and the others arrested argued that it was the users of the site, founded in 2005, who chose to pirate material, not its founders. But prosecutors said the men were the architects of a vast criminal enterprise, with the Department of Justice describing it as the largest criminal copyright case in U.S. history.

    He has been free on bail in New Zealand since February 2012.

    Dotcom and his business partners fought the FBI’s efforts to extradite them for years, including by challenging New Zealand law enforcement’s actions during the investigation and arrests. In 2021, however, New Zealand’s Supreme Court ruled that Dotcom and two other men could be surrendered.

    Under New Zealand law, it remained up to the country’s justice minister to decide if the extradition should proceed. The minister, Paul Goldsmith, ruled in August 2024 that it should.

    But by then, Dotcom was the only person whose fate remained in question. Two of his former business partners, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, pleaded guilty to charges against them in a New Zealand court in June 2023 and were sentenced to two and a half years in jail.

    In exchange, U.S. efforts to extradite them were dropped. Part of Dotcom’s latest legal bid challenged the police decision not to extend a plea deal under New Zealand laws to him too.

    Grice rejected that, saying the choice to only charge Ortmann and van der Kolk in New Zealand was “a proper exercise of the Police’s discretion.” The jurist also dismissed Dotcom’s claim that Goldsmith’s extradition decision was politically motivated.

    Prosecutors earlier abandoned their extradition bid against a fourth Megaupload officer, Finn Batato, who was arrested in New Zealand. Batato returned to Germany, where he died from cancer in 2022.

    In November 2024, Dotcom said in a post on X that he had suffered a stroke. He wrote on X in July that he was making “good progress” in his recovery but still suffered from speech and memory impairments.

    Goldsmith’s decision that Dotcom should be extradited was made before the stroke. But Grice said the minister had considered other “significant health conditions” Dotcom faced and wasn’t wrong to conclude that these shouldn’t prevent him from being deported.

    “I am pleased my decision has been upheld,” Goldsmith said Thursday in a written statement.

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  • Longtime head of Mexican megachurch is indicted in New York on federal sex trafficking charges

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    NEW YORK — The longtime head of a Mexican megachurch who is serving more than 16 years in a California prison for sexually abusing young followers has been charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking for allegedly victimizing members of the church for decades, federal authorities said Wednesday.

    A New York grand jury returned the indictment alleging that Naasón Joaquín García, 56, and five others, including his 79-year-old mother, exploited the church for decades, enabling the systemic sexual abuse of children and women for the sexual gratification of García and his father, who died in 2014.

    García is the head of La Luz del Mundo (The Light of the World), which claims to have 5 million followers in more than 50 countries. Believers consider him to be the “apostle” of Jesus Christ.

    The newly unsealed indictment said the criminal activity included the creation of photos and videos of child sexual abuse and had begun after the church was founded a century ago by Garcia’s grandfather, who died in 1964. Garcia’s father, Samuel Joaquin Flores, led the church from then until his death.

    The indictment said the sexual abuse went on for so many decades that many of the grandfather’s victims were mothers of girls and women abused by García’s father and many of the father’s victims were the mothers of girls and women abused by García.

    The indictment listed 13 female victims anonymously and specifically, describing when they were allegedly attacked while they were under the age of consent. Some victims, it said, were as young as 13.

    The church is based in Guadalajara, Mexico, and there are church locations throughout the United States, including in California, New York, Nevada, Texas, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., according to the indictment.

    In a court document seeking detention of all indicted without bail, prosecutors said sex trafficking of women and children occurred as a result of the case in the U.S., Mexico, Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere.

    García was taken into federal custody early Wednesday in Chino, California, where he is serving a sentence after pleading guilty in 2022 to two state counts.

    In a statement, attorney Alan Jackson, representing García, called the indictment the result of “a reckless campaign of government overreach.”

    He said the charges were “a rehashing of old, recycled claims that have been made before, scrutinized before, and ultimately debunked and disproven before.”

    “We categorically deny these charges,” Jackson said, adding that the defense will expose them as “desperate, unfounded, recycled and driven by ulterior motives.”

    Federal authorities said García used his spiritual sway to have sex with girls and young women who were told it would lead to their salvation — or damnation if they refused. His efforts were enabled by others, including his mother, who helped groom the girls to be sexually abused, they said.

    Prosecutors said García also directed girls, boys and women to engage in group sex with each other, often in his presence, for his sexual gratification.

    Sometimes, they added, he required the children to wear masks so they would not realize they were having incestual sex.

    Besides García, his mother, Eva García De Joaquín, was taken into custody in Los Angeles. A third defendant, Joram Nunez Joaquín, was arrested in Chicago, authorities said. Three others were at large and were believed to be in Mexico, where authorities said extraditions would be sought.

    The indictment said De Joaquín on at least one occasion held down a girl so that her husband — García’s father — could rape her.

    Nunez Joaquín falsely held himself out as a lawyer working on behalf of the church as he tried to prevent sexual abuse victims from reporting the abuse to law enforcement, the indictment said.

    A message seeking comment was sent to the law firm representing Nunez Joaquín. It was not immediately clear who would represent De Joaquín at a Los Angeles court appearance Wednesday.

    According to the indictment, two of the defendants and others tried to destroy evidence and prevent victims of the sexual abuse from speaking to law enforcement after García was arrested.

    It said they pressured victims to sign false declarations disclaiming that any abuse occurred, drafted and distributed sermons stating that all sexual abuse victims were lying and reinforced church doctrine that doubting the apostle was a sin punishable by eternal damnation.

    The indictment said church followers were required to forward a portion of their income to the church, a portion of which would fund the García family’s extravagant lifestyle, which included luxury cars, watches, designer clothing and first-class travel worldwide.

    In a release, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said García and the others “exploited the faith of their followers to prey upon them.”

    He added: “When they were confronted, they leveraged their religious influence and financial power to intimidate and coerce victims into remaining silent about the abuse they had suffered.”

    Ricky J. Patel, the head of the New York office of Homeland Security Investigations, said the charges resulted from a “yearslong investigation that spanned the country and involved the support of dozens of courageous victims.”

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  • Woman charged in traffic deaths of 2 Marquette lacrosse players was drunk, prosecutors say

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    MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin driver involved in a traffic crash last week that killed two Marquette University lacrosse players was drunk at the time, authorities alleged Wednesday in charging her with vehicular homicide.

    Amandria Brunner, 41, of West Allis, faces two counts of homicide by an intoxicated use of a vehicle while having a prior intoxicant-related conviction She faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted of both counts.

    According to a criminal complaint, the crash happened on Friday in Milwaukee when Brunner tried to turn left in front of an SUV that was taking six Marquette men’s lacrosse players to a thrift store. Scott Michaud, a 19-year-old sophomore goalie and biomedical sciences major from Springboro, Ohio, and 20-year-old Noah Snyder, a sophomore attackman and business student from Irving, New York, were pronounced dead at the scene.

    A witness told police that she helped Brunner out of her pickup truck and noticed Brunner smelled of alcohol and kept trying to put gum in her mouth. Police also found an open beer can in her truck, according to the criminal complaint.

    Brunner’s blood, which was drawn about two hours after the crash, had a blood alcohol content of 0.133, which exceeds the state’s legal limit to drive of 0.08.

    An analysis of the crash recorder in Brunner’s truck found that she had been stopped for about three seconds before she pulled into the intersection with the accelerator depressed almost all the way to the floor, according to the complaint. She was traveling just under 12 mph (19 kph) when she struck the SUV, and she never braked.

    Brunner was convicted of operating while intoxicated in November 2003, the complaint says.

    Online court records indicated Brunner was in custody in the Milwaukee County Jail on Wednesday. Records did not list an attorney for her.

    Michaud and Snyder were named to the Big East’s all-academic team last year for maintaining grade-point averages of at least 3.0. Snyder played in 13 of Marquette’s 14 games last season, making three starts in the midfield and collecting nine goals and seven assists.

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  • New Orleans mayor to appear in court on corruption charges tied to alleged affair

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    NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is scheduled to appear in federal court Wednesday for the first time since the Democrat was indicted on corruption charges stemming from an alleged romantic relationship with her bodyguard.

    She is expected to enter a plea in response to conspiracy, fraud and obstruction charges in what prosecutors described as a yearslong scheme to conceal an affair with her bodyguard as the two traveled, wined and dined together on taxpayers’ dime.

    Cantrell’s bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, has already pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud and making false statements after he was indicted in July 2024. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday for the additional charges.

    Cantrell, the first female mayor in New Orleans’ 300-year history, was elected twice but now becomes the city’s first mayor to be charged while in office in a state with a reputation for public corruption. She has only four months before she leaves office under term limits.

    The mayor once known for her outspoken persona has kept quiet about the charges in the weeks since the 18-count indictment against her and Vappie was announced in mid-August. She did not acknowledge the indictment during public appearances to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina late last month.

    Cantrell was already receding into the background of city affairs over the past year and offered no apparent resistance to President Donald Trump’s suggestion earlier this month to send the National Guard and federal agents to New Orleans even as other Democrats bristled.

    She’s also been cast as a pariah by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, who announced on Sept. 3 that Cantrell was suspended from involvements in federal transactions with HUD. The City Council issued a statement last week saying it had reassured the Housing Authority of New Orleans and the Office of Community Development that other city officials could sign federal contracts instead.

    At times, she and her allies have said the blowback she is experiencing is tinged by double standards she faces as a Black woman. Cantrell said earlier this year, before to the indictment, that she has faced “very disrespectful, insulting, in some cases kind of unimaginable” treatment.

    Cantrell and Vappie used WhatsApp for more than 15,000 messages, where they professed their love and plotted to harass a citizen who helped expose their relationship, delete evidence, make false statements to FBI agents “and ultimately to commit perjury before a federal grand jury,” acting U.S. Attorney Michael Simpson said. Vappie’s 14 trips with Cantrell cost taxpayers $70,000, not including Cantrell’s own travel costs, according to the indictment.

    In a WhatsApp exchange, the indictment says, Vappie recalled accompanying Cantrell to Scotland in October 2021 on a dreamy trip “where it all started.”

    Cantrell, whose husband died in 2023, has denied having anything more than a professional relationship with Vappie. She lashed out at associates who raised questions about the amount of time she spent with her bodyguard, including on wine-tasting trips and in a city-owned apartment, court records show.

    Cantrell joins the ranks of more than 100 people brought up on corruption charges in Louisiana in the past two decades, said Rafael Goyeneche, a former prosecutor who is president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a watchdog group.

    ___

    Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Georgia judge to toss landmark racketeering charges against ‘Cop City’ protesters

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    ATLANTA — A Georgia judge on Tuesday said he will toss the racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of a yearslong conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics pejoratively call “Cop City.”

    Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer said he does not believe Republican Attorney General Chris Carr had the authority to secure the 2023 indictments under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO. Experts believe it was the largest criminal racketeering case ever filed against protesters in U.S. history.

    Farmer said during a hearing that Carr needed Gov. Brian Kemp ‘s permission to pursue the case instead of the local district attorney. Prosecutors earlier conceded to the judge that they did not obtain any such order.

    “It would have been real easy to just ask the governor, ‘Let me do this, give me a letter,’” Farmer said. “The steps just weren’t followed.”

    Five of the 61 defendants were also indicted on charges of domestic terrorism and first-degree arson. Farmer said Carr also didn’t have the authority to pursue the arson charge, though he believes the domestic terrorism charge can stand.

    Farmer said he plans to file a formal order soon and is not sure whether he would quash the entire indictment or let the domestic terrorism charge stand, though he said he expects the prosecution to appeal regardless.

    Deputy Attorney General John Fowler told Farmer that he believes the judge’s decision is “wholly incorrect.”

    The long-brewing controversy over the training center erupted in January 2023 after state troopers who were part of a sweep of the South River Forest that killed an activist who authorities said had fired at them. Numerous protests ensued, with masked vandals sometimes attacking police vehicles and construction equipment to stall the project and intimidate contractors into backing out.

    The defendants faced a wide variety of allegations — everything from throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers, to supplying food to protesters who were camped in the woods and passing out fliers against a state trooper who had fatally shot the protester known as “Tortuguita.” Each defendant faced up to 20 years in prison on the RICO charge.

    Carr, who is running for governor, had pursued the case, with Kemp hailing it as an important step to combat “out-of-state radicals that threaten the safety of our citizens and law enforcement.”

    But critics had decried the indictment as a politically motivated, heavy-handed attempt to quash the movement.

    Emerging in the wake of the 2020 racial justice protests, the “Stop Cop City” movement gained nationwide recognition as it united anarchists, environmental activists and anti-police protesters against the sprawling training center, which was being built in a wooded area that was ultimately razed in DeKalb County.

    Activists argued that uprooting acres of trees for the facility would exacerbate environmental damage in a flood-prone, majority-Black area while serving as an expensive staging ground for militarized officers to be trained in quelling social movements.

    The training center, a priority of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, opened earlier this year, despite years of protests and millions in cost overruns, some of which was due to the damage protesters caused, and police officials’ needs to bolster 24/7 security around the facility.

    But over the past two years, the case had been bogged down in procedural issues, with none of the defendants going to trial. Farmer and the case’s previous judge, Fulton County Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams, had earlier been critical of prosecutors’ approach to the case, with Adams saying the prosecution had committed “gross negligence” by allowing privileged attorney-client emails to be included among a giant cache of evidence that was shared between investigators and dozens of defense attorneys.

    Prosecutors had repeatedly apologized for the delays and missteps, but lamented the difficulty of handling such a sprawling case, though Farmer pointed out that it was prosecutors who decided to bring this “61-person elephant” to court in the first place.

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  • Police say man killed retired Auburn University professor at a public park

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    AUBURN, Ala. — A retired veterinary professor at Auburn University was killed over the weekend while walking her dog at a popular park in Auburn, Alabama, authorities said.

    Julie Gard Schnuelle, 59, was attacked and killed Saturday morning in Kiesel Park, located about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from campus, according to the Auburn Police Department. She had gone to the park to walk her dog, WRBL reported.

    The sprawling park has a popular dog park and 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of walking trails.

    Police said Gard Schnuelle’s body was found in a wooded area within the park and that her red Ford F-150 truck was missing.

    Lee County Coroner Daniel Sexton told The Associated Press that Gard Schnuelle died from multiple sharp force injuries.

    Police on Sunday arrested Harold Rashad Dabney III and charged him with two counts of capital murder. Court documents indicated investigators believe Dabney killed Gard Schnuelle during an attempted kidnapping and theft. He is being held without bond.

    Police did not immediately indicate what led them to Dabney other than to say they responded to a report of a suspicious person and officers made observations that “led them to believe Dabney had involvement with the homicide.”

    Andrew Stanley, a defense attorney appointed to represent Dabney, declined to comment Monday, noting they were in the early stages of the case.

    Gard Schnuelle, a large animal veterinarian, was a 1996 graduate of the veterinary school and was a faculty member from 2003 until her retirement in 2021, serving as a professor of theriogenology. She had recently served as Area Veterinarian in Charge with the U.S. Department of Agriculture for Alabama and Mississippi. She remained active with the veterinary school even after her retirement.

    “Dr. Gard Schnuelle was a beloved educator, mentor, researcher and colleague whose passion for teaching, dedication to students, and commitment to theriogenology earned the respect and admiration of all who knew her,” Auburn University said in a statement.

    “Dr. Gard Schnuelle’s legacy of compassion, scholarship and service will continue to inspire generations of veterinarians,” the statement also read.

    Gard Schunuelle’s dog was found safe and returned to her family, WRBL reported.

    Flowers were placed at the gate to the popular park as a memorial. Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said there is both anger and a “profound sadness” in the community.

    “Her death through a violent crime at a location that so many enjoy and felt safe in has devastated all who knew her and the community as a whole,” Jones said.

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  • Google hit with $3.5B fine from European Union in ad-tech antitrust case

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    LONDON — European Union regulators on Friday hit Google with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.5 billion) fine for breaching the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services, marking the fourth such antitrust penalty for the company.

    The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, also ordered the U.S. tech giant to end its “self-preferencing practices” and take steps to stop “conflicts of interest” along the advertising technology supply chain.

    EU regulators had previously threatened a breakup of the company but held off on that threat for the time being.

    Google said the decision was “wrong” and that it would appeal.

    “It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

    The decision was long overdue, coming more than two years after the European Commission announced antitrust charges against Google.

    The commission had said at the time that the only way to satisfy antitrust concerns about Google’s lucrative digital ad business was to sell off parts of its business. However, this decision made only a brief mention of possible divestment and comes amid renewed tensions between Brussels and the Trump administration over trade, tariffs and technology regulation.

    Top EU officials had said earlier that the commission was seeking a forced sale because past cases that ended with fines and requirements for Google to stop anti-competitive practices have not worked, allowing the company to continue its behavior in a different form.

    It’s the second time in a week that Google has avoided a breakup.

    Google is also under fire on a separate front in the U.S., where prosecutors want the company to sell off its Chrome browser after a judge found the company had an illegal monopoly in online search.

    On Tuesday, a U.S. federal judge found that Google had illegal monopoly in online search and ordered a shake-up of its search engine but rebuffed the government’s attempt to break up the company by forcing a sale of its Chrome browser.

    But the EU indicated that breakup option is not totally off the table. Google has 60 days to tell the Commission its proposals to end its conflicts of interest, and if the regulators aren’t satisfied they will propose an “appropriate remedy.”

    “The Commission has already signaled its preliminary view that only the divestment by Google of part of its services would address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest, but it first wishes to hear and assess Google’s proposal,” it said in a press release.

    The commission’s penalty follows a formal investigation that it opened in June 2021, looking into whether Google violated the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own online display advertising technology services at the expense of rival publishers, advertisers and advertising technology services.

    Its investigation found that Google “abused” its dominant positions in the ad-technology ecosystem, the commission said.

    Online display ads are banners and text that appear on websites and are personalized based on an internet user’s browsing history.

    Mulholland said, “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.”

    Google is facing pressure on other fronts.

    In a separate U.S. case, the Justice Department asked a federal judge in May to force the company to sell off its AdX business and DFP ad platform — tools that are also at the heart of the EU case. They connect advertisers with publishers who have ad space to sell on their sites. The case is scheduled to move to the penalty phase, known as remedy hearings, in late September.

    Authorities in Canada and Britain are also targeting the company over its digital ad business.

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  • Zizians group member to be arraigned on murder charge in Vermont border agent’s death

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    BURLINGTON, Vt. — A member of the cultlike Zizians group accused of killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent is set to make her first court appearance since prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty against her.

    Teresa Youngblut, 21, of Seattle, is among a group of radical computer scientists focused on veganism, gender identity and artificial intelligence who have been linked to six killings in three states. She’s accused of fatally shooting agent David Maland in Vermont on Jan. 20, the same day President Donald Trump was inaugurated and signed a sweeping executive order lifting the moratorium on federal executions.

    Youngblut initially was charged with using a deadly weapon against law enforcement and discharging a firearm during an assault with a deadly weapon, crimes that were not punishable by the death penalty. But the Trump administration signaled early on that more serious charges were coming as part of its push for more federal executions, and a new indictment released last month charged her with murder of a federal law enforcement agent, assaulting other agents with a deadly weapon and related firearms offenses.

    Youngblut is scheduled to be arraigned on the new charges Friday afternoon.

    At the time of the shooting, authorities had been watching Youngblut and her companion, Felix Bauckholt, for several days after a Vermont hotel employee reported seeing them carrying guns and wearing black tactical gear. She’s accused of opening fire on border agents who pulled the car over on Interstate 91. An agent fired back, killing Bauckholt and wounding Youngblut.

    The pair were among the followers of Jack LaSota, a transgender woman also known as Ziz whose online writing attracted young, highly intelligent computer scientists who shared anarchist beliefs. Members of the group have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on a California landlord in 2022, the landlord’s subsequent killing earlier this year, and the deaths of one of the members’ parents in Pennsylvania.

    LaSota and two others face weapons and drug charges in Maryland, where they were arrested in February, while LaSota faces additional federal charges of being an armed fugitive. Another member of the group who is charged with killing the landlord in California had applied for a marriage license with Youngblut. Michelle Zajko, whose parents were killed in Pennsylvania, was arrested with LaSota in Maryland, and has been charged with providing weapons to Youngblut in Vermont.

    Vermont abolished its state death penalty in 1972. The last person sentenced to death in the state on federal charges was Donald Fell, who was convicted in 2005 of abducting and killing a supermarket worker five years earlier. But the conviction and sentence were later thrown out because of juror misconduct, and in 2018, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

    ___

    Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

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  • Ex-pilot accused of trying to cut a passenger flight’s engines reaches plea deals

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    PORTLAND, Ore. — A former Alaska Airlines pilot accused of trying to cut the engines of a passenger flight in 2023 while riding off-duty in the cockpit has reached plea agreements with state and federal prosecutors, his attorney said Thursday.

    Attorney Noah Horst declined to discuss details of the agreements ahead of change-of-plea hearings his client, Joseph Emerson, faces Friday in state and federal court in Oregon. He said that Emerson reached the plea agreements because he wants to take responsibility for his actions and hopes to avoid further time behind bars.

    Emerson was subdued by the flight crew after trying to cut the engines of a Horizon Air flight from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco on Oct. 22, 2023, while he was riding in an extra seat in the cockpit. The plane was diverted to Portland, where it landed safely with more than 80 people on board.

    Emerson told police he was despondent over a friend’s recent death, had taken psychedelic mushrooms about two days earlier, and hadn’t slept in over 40 hours. He has said he believed he was dreaming at the time and that he was trying to wake himself up by grabbing two red handles that would have activated the plane’s fire suppression system and cut off fuel to its engines.

    He was charged in federal court with interfering with a flight crew. A state indictment in Oregon separately charged him with 83 counts of endangering another person and one count of endangering an aircraft.

    He previously pleaded not guilty to all the charges, but on Friday was expected to plead guilty to the federal charge and no-contest to the state charge, which carries the same legal effect as a guilty plea.

    Emerson was released from custody in December 2023 pending trial, with requirements that he undergo mental health services, stay off drugs and alcohol, and keep away from aircraft. In the meantime, he has founded a nonprofit focused on pilot mental health.

    The averted disaster renewed attention on cockpit safety and the mental fitness of those allowed in them.

    ___

    Johnson reported from Seattle.

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  • Final preparations for trial of man accused of attempting to assassinate Trump

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    FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A man charged with trying to assassinate President Donald Trump last year in South Florida is set to represent himself during a pretrial conference on Tuesday, as final preparations are made for trial.

    Barring any delays, jury selection is scheduled to begin Sept. 8 in Fort Pierce federal court for the case against Ryan Routh. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon signed off on Routh’s request to represent himself in July but said court-appointed attorneys need to remain as standby counsel.

    The trial will begin nearly a year after prosecutors say a U.S. Secret Service agent thwarted Routh’s attempt to shoot Trump as he played golf. Routh, 59, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.

    Prosecutors have said Routh methodically plotted to kill Trump for weeks before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.

    Law enforcement obtained help from a witness who prosecutors said informed officers that he saw a person fleeing. The witness was then flown in a police helicopter to a nearby interstate where Routh was arrested, and the witnesses confirmed it was the person he had seen, prosecutors have said.

    The judge on Tuesday unsealed prosecutor’s 33-page list of exhibits that could be introduced as evidence at the trial. It says prosecutors have photos of Routh holding the same model of semi-automatic rifle found at Trump’s club.

    The document also lists numerous electronic messages sent from a cellphone investigators found in Routh’s car. One message dated about two months before his arrest is described as Routh requesting a “missile launcher.” It says that in August 2024, the month before his arrest, Routh sent messages seeking “help ensuring that (Trump) does not get elected” and offering to pay an unnamed person to use flight tracking apps to check the whereabouts of Trump’s airplane.

    The exhibit list cites evidence from Routh’s phone of an electronic “chat about sniper concealment” during President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. And it lists internet searches for how long gunpower residue stays on clothing and articles on U.S. Secret Service responses to assassination plots.

    Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told The Associated Press.

    In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, North Carolina, he had a 2002 arrest for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch-long fuse.

    In 2010, police searched a warehouse Routh owned and found more than 100 stolen items, from power tools and building supplies to kayaks and spa tubs. In both felony cases, judges gave Routh either probation or a suspended sentence.

    In addition to the federal charges, Routh also has pleaded not guilty to state charges of terrorism and attempted murder.

    ___

    AP journalist Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed.

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  • Crash victims’ families prepare to make what could be their final plea for Boeing’s prosecution

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    Families who lost loved ones in two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jetliners may get their last chance to demand the company face criminal prosecution Wednesday. That’s when a federal judge in Texas is set to hear arguments on a U.S. government motion to dismiss a felony charge against Boeing.

    U.S. prosecutors charged Boeing with conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with the crashes that killed 346 people off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia. Federal prosecutors alleged Boeing deceived government regulators about a flight-control system that was later implicated in the fatal flights, which took place less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019.

    Boeing decided to plead guilty instead of going to trial, but U.S. District Chief Judge Reed O’Connor rejected the aircraft maker’s plea agreement in December. O’Connor, who also will consider whether to let prosecutors dismiss the conspiracy charge, objected to diversity, equity and inclusion policies potentially influencing the selection of an independent monitor to oversee the company’s promised reforms.

    Lawyers representing relatives of some of the passengers who died cheered O’Connor’s decision, hoping it would further their goal of seeing former Boeing executives prosecuted during a public trial and more severe financial punishment for the company. Instead, the delay worked to Boeing’s favor.

    The judge’s refusal to accept the agreement meant the company was free to challenge the Justice Department’s rationale for charging Boeing as a corporation. It also meant prosecutors would have to secure a new deal for a guilty plea.

    The government and Boeing spent six months renegotiating their plea deal. During that time, President Donald Trump returned to office and ordered an end to the diversity initiatives that gave O’Connor pause.

    By the time the Justice Department’s criminal fraud section briefed the judge in late May, the charge and the plea were off the table. A non-prosecution agreement the two sides struck said the government would dismiss the charge in exchange for Boeing paying or investing another $1.1 billion in fines, compensation for the crash victims’ families, and internal safety and quality measures.

    The Justice Department said it offered Boeing those terms in light of “significant changes” Boeing made to its quality control and anti-fraud programs since entering into the July 2024 plea deal.

    The department also said it thought that persuading a jury to punish the company with a criminal conviction would be risky, while the revised agreement ensures “meaningful accountability, delivers substantial and immediate public benefits, and brings finality to a difficult and complex case whose outcome would otherwise be uncertain.”

    Judge O’Connor has invited some of the families to address the court on Wednesday. One of the people who plans to speak is Catherine Berthet, whose daughter, Camille Geoffrey, died at age 28 when a 737 Max crashed shortly after takeoff from Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.

    Berthet, who lives in France, is part of a group of about 30 families who want the judge to deny the government’s request and to appoint a special prosecutor to take over the case.

    “While it is no surprise that Boeing is trying to buy everyone off, the fact that the DOJ, which had a guilty plea in its hands last year, has now decided not to prosecute Boeing regardless of the judge’s decision is a denial of justice, a total disregard for the victims and, above all, a disregard for the judge,” she said in a statement.

    Justice Department lawyers maintain the families of 110 crash victims either support a pre-trial resolution or do not oppose the non-prosecution agreement. The department’s lawyers also dispute whether O’Connor has authority to deny the motion without finding prosecutors acted in bad faith instead of the public interest.

    While federal judges typically defer to the discretion of prosecutors in such situations, court approval is not automatic.

    In the Boeing case, the Justice Department has asked to preserve the option of refiling the conspiracy charge if the company does not hold up its end of the non-prosecution deal over the next two years.

    Boeing reached a settlement in 2021 that protected it from criminal prosecution, but the Justice Department determined last year that the company had violated the agreement and revived the charge.

    The case revolves around a new software system Boeing developed for the Max. In the 2018 and 2019 crashes, the software pitched the nose of the plane down repeatedly based on faulty readings from a single sensor, and pilots flying then-new planes for Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines were unable to regain control.

    The Transportation Department’s inspector general found that Boeing did not inform key Federal Aviation Administration personnel about changes it made to the MCAS software before regulators set pilot training requirements for the Max and certified the airliner for flight.

    Acting on the incomplete information, the FAA approved minimal, computer-based training for Boeing 737 pilots, avoiding the need for flight simulators that would have made it more expensive for airlines to adopt the latest version of the jetliner.

    Airlines began flying the Max in 2017. After the Ethiopia crash, the planes were grounded worldwide for 20 months while the company redesigned the software.

    In the final weeks of Trump’s first term, the Justice Department charged Boeing with conspiring to defraud the U.S. government but agreed to defer prosecution and drop the charge after three years if the company paid a $2.5 settlement and strengthened its ethics and legal compliance programs.

    The 2021 settlement agreement was on the verge of expiring when a panel covering an unused emergency exit blew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight over Oregon at the beginning of last year. No one was seriously injured, but the potential disaster put Boeing’s safety record under renewed scrutiny.

    A former Boeing test pilot remains the only individual charged with a crime in connection with the crashes. In March 2022, a federal jury acquitted him of misleading the FAA about the amount of training pilots would need to fly the Max.

    ___

    Leff reported from London. Yamat reported from Las Vegas.

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  • 2 civilians indicted for their role in a Pearl Harbor fuel spill that sickened 6,000 people in 2021

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    HONOLULU — A grand jury has indicted two civilian workers on charges they caused the Navy to provide the Hawaii Department of Health with false information about jet fuel that spilled from a Pearl Harbor storage facility before it later seeped into drinking water and sickened 6,000 people over Thanksgiving in 2021.

    The indictments are the first to result from the fuel spill that angered Hawaii residents, lawmakers and military service members and their families. The military decided to close the aging World War II-era fuel tanks after the spill.

    A Navy investigation in 2022 found shoddy management and human error caused the leak at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. The Defense Department’s inspector general last year found Navy officials lacked sufficient understanding of the risks of maintaining massive fuel storage tanks on top of a Pearl Harbor drinking water well. The Navy issued written reprimands to three retired military officers for their roles in the fuel spill.

    The indictment returned Thursday alleges John Floyd and Nelson Wu provided the Navy with inaccurate information about a May 2021 spill that occurred six months before the fuel got in the drinking water. The indictment says they caused the Navy to mislead the Hawaii Department of Health about how much fuel leaked from one of the tanks and reassured officers that their information was accurate.

    This caused the Navy to tell the department in the months after May that 1,618 gallons (6,125 liters) leaked instead of 20,000 gallons (75,700 liters) and failed to report that it was unable to find 18,000 gallons (68,000 liters), prosecutors say. The indictment alleges Floyd and Wu redacted data from records provided. Floyd and Wu were each indicted on one count of conspiracy and one count of making false statements.

    The federal public defender’s office, which is representing Floyd, didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Wu’s attorney, Alen Kaneshiro said he didn’t have a comment at this time.

    The Navy’s investigation found fuel gushed from a ruptured pipe on May 6, 2021. Most of it flowed into a fire suppression drain system, where it sat unnoticed for six months until a cart rammed a sagging line holding the liquid and caused fuel to pour out. Crews believed they mopped up most of this fuel but they failed to get it all and some flowed into a drain and drinking water well that supplied water to 90,000 people at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

    Fuel leaks at Red Hill had occurred before, including in 2014, prompting the Sierra Club of Hawaii and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply to ask the military to move the tanks to a place where they wouldn’t threaten Oahu’s water. But the Navy refused, saying the island’s water was safe.

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  • NYC doctor who sexually abused patients in hospital gets 24-year prison sentence

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    NEW YORK — A doctor who sexually abused sedated patients at a New York City hospital and raped women who were unconscious at his home has been sentenced to 24 years in prison.

    Zhi Alan Cheng admitted abusing seven women, including three female patients he was treating at New York-Presbyterian Queens hospital, the Queens district attorney’s office said. He had pleaded guilty in June to four counts of rape and three counts of sexual abuse and was sentenced Thursday.

    Prosecutors also alleged Cheng abused an eighth woman who was a patient at the hospital. He entered an Alford plea on that charge, meaning that he did not admit guilt but acknowledged that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict.

    Most of the victims had no memory of the abuse and were sedated. One of the women woke up in the middle of an assault after she had been sedated for a gastrointestinal procedure, prosecutors said.

    Cheng, 35, was arrested in 2022 after a female acquaintance discovered a video of him abusing her at his home while she was passed out. Searches of his home and devices uncovered video evidence of the doctor abusing women at his home and workplace, according to prosecutors. They also discovered liquid anesthesia.

    Cheng has been barred from practicing medicine. Prosecutors have said that New York-Presbyterian officials cooperated in the criminal investigation.

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  • New trial for 3 Memphis ex-officers convicted in connection with the beating death of Tyre Nichols

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    MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A judge ordered a new trial Thursday for three former Memphis police officers who were convicted of federal charges in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, after defense lawyers argued that another judge who presided over their trial was biased against the men.

    U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman issued the order for a new trial for Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, who were found guilty in October 2024 of obstruction of justice through witness tampering in the beating death of Nichols after he fled a traffic stop.

    Two other officers, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr., also were charged, but they pleaded guilty before the federal trial.

    Lipman took over the case in June after U.S. District Judge Mark S. Norris, who presided over the case and the trial, recused himself days before the sentencings for the five officers.

    In a statement shared by his judicial office Thursday, Norris said, “Because of the code of judicial conduct, I cannot make a statement on this matter.”

    On Jan. 7, 2023, officers yanked Nichols from his car and then pepper-sprayed and hit the 29-year-old Black man with a Taser. Nichols fled, and when the five officers, who also are Black, caught up with him, they punched, kicked and hit him with a police baton. Nichols called out for his mother during the beating, which took place steps from his home.

    He died three days later.

    Video of the beating captured by a police pole camera also showed the officers milling about, talking and laughing as Nichols struggled with his injuries.

    It prompted intense scrutiny of police in Memphis, nationwide protests and renewed calls for police reform.

    Norris was confirmed as a U.S. district judge in West Tennessee in October 2018 after being nominated by President Donald Trump.

    The Collierville Republican had served as the Tennessee Senate majority leader since 2007. He was first elected to the body in 2000, and his district included Tipton County and part of Shelby County.

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  • Funeral home owner who stashed decaying bodies set to be sentenced for corpse abuse

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    DENVER — It’s been two years since nearly 200 decaying bodies were discovered throughout a fetid, room temperature building in rural Colorado. On Friday, the man responsible, a funeral home owner, is set to be sentenced in state court for 191 counts of corpse abuse.

    Jon Hallford and his wife, Carie, ran a morbid racket for four years out of their Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs: assuring people they were handling their loved ones’ cremations only to stash the bodies in a bug-infested building and then giving them dry concrete resembling ashes.

    Jon Hallford is already headed to prison after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges. Friday’s sentencing hearing will focus on state charges related to mistreatment of the bodies. Family members will have the chance to describe the anguish of learning a loved one slowly decayed among piles of others.

    “To me it’s the heart of the case. It’s the worst part of the crime,” said Tanya Wilson, who is traveling from Georgia to speak at the sentencing. She hired the funeral home to cremate her mother and later discovered the supposed ashes the family spread in Hawaii weren’t from her mother’s body, which had been wasting away in the building in Penrose, a small town 35 miles from Colorado Springs.

    A plea agreement calls for Hallford to receive a 20-year prison sentence for the corpse abuse charges.

    Wilson said she and some other families want Judge Eric Bentley to reject the agreement because Hallford’s state sentence is expected to run concurrently with his 20-year federal sentence, meaning he could be freed many years earlier than if the sentences ran consecutively.

    “The scale of this is staggering. Why does the state believe they deserve a plea deal?” Wilson asked. “There needs to be accountability.”

    If the judge rejects the agreement, Hallford would not be immediately sentenced and the case would likely go to an arraignment, the first step toward a criminal trial, said Kate Singh with the Fourth Judicial District District Attorney’s Office.

    Colorado has struggled to effectively oversee funeral homes and for many years had some of the weakest regulations in the nation. It’s had a slew of abuse cases, including an estimated 20 decomposing corpses discovered this week at a funeral home in Pueblo.

    Carie Hallford is accused of the same crimes as her husband and also pleaded guilty. Her sentencing on the corpse abuse charges has not been scheduled.

    The couple was accused of letting 189 bodies decay. In two other instances the wrong bodies were buried. Four remains have yet to be identified, Singh said.

    The Hallfords got a license for their funeral home in 2017, and authorities said the bodies started piling up by 2019. Many languished for years in states of decay, some decomposed beyond recognition, some unclothed or on the floor in inches of fluid from the bodies.

    As the gruesome count grew, Jon and Carie Hallford were also defrauding the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 era aid.

    With the money from families and the federal government, the Hallfords bought ritzy items from stores like Tiffany & Co., a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth $120,000 combined, laser body sculpting and $31,000 in cryptocurrency.

    In 2023, a putrid smell poured from the building and the police turned up. Investigators swarmed the building, donning hazmat suits and painstakingly extracting the bodies. Hallford and his wife were arrested in Oklahoma, where Jon Hallford had family, more than a month later.

    Families learned that their cathartic moments of grief — spreading a mother’s ashes in Hawaii or cradling a son’s urn in a rocking chair — were tainted by a deception. It was as if those signposts of the grieving process had been torn away, unraveling months and years of working through their loved ones’ deaths.

    Some had nightmares of what their relatives’ decayed bodies must have looked like. Others were anguished by the fear their family members’ souls were trapped, unable to go free.

    A mother, Crystina Page, demanded to watch as her son’s body, rescued from the Return to Nature building, was cremated for real. Wilson, who had thought she already spread her mother’s ashes in Hawaii, said the family cremated her mother’s remains after they were recovered by authorities. She is waiting for the court cases to conclude before returning to Hawaii again to spread the ashes.

    The Hallfords pleaded guilty in the federal case to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Jon Hallford has appealed his federal prison sentence. Carie Hallford faces a December sentencing in that case.

    ___

    Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

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  • Canadian government will not appeal sexual assault acquittal of 5 hockey players, lawyer says

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    LONDON, Ontario — A lawyer for one of five former world junior hockey players acquitted of sexual assault charges last month says the Canadian government will not appeal the judge’s ruling.

    Daniel Brown, who represents Alex Formenton, said in an email Thursday he had been informed of that decision.

    Formenton, Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote were all acquitted of sexual assault. McLeod was also acquitted of a separate charge of being a party to the offense of sexual assault.

    The defense deemed the ruling a “resounding vindication,” while the complainant’s lawyer called it devastating.

    Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia found the complainant’s testimony was not credible or reliable and that there were “troubling aspects” in how she delivered some of her evidence about the 2018 encounter. The judge said the complainant tended to blame others for inconsistencies in her narrative and exaggerated her level of intoxication that night.

    The NHL said at the time of the ruling the players — none of whom is currently on an NHL roster or has an active contract — remained ineligible to play in the league while it reviews the judge’s findings, adding in a statement that the allegations in the case were disturbing, even if not determined to be criminal.

    The Players’ Association said the five should have the opportunity to return to the ice, adding that the league’s eligibility ruling was “inconsistent” with discipline procedures in the collective bargaining agreement.

    ___

    AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL

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  • Prosecutors say Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ request for acquittal or new trial should be swiftly rejected

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    NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors are urging a federal judge to quickly reject Sean “Diddy” Combs ’ request that he throw out a jury verdict or order a new trial after a jury convicted the music maven of two prostitution-related charges.

    Prosecutors said in papers filed shortly before midnight Wednesday that Combs masterminded elaborate sexual events for two ex-girlfriends between 2008 and last year that involved hiring male sex workers who sometimes were required to cross multiple state lines to participate.

    A jury in July exonerated the Bad Boy Records founder of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges that carried the potential penalty of a mandatory 15 years in prison up to life behind bars. But it convicted him of two lesser Mann Act charges that prohibit interstate commerce related to prostitution.

    The Mann Act charges each carry a potential penalty of 10 years behind bars. Combs has been denied bail despite his lawyers’ arguments that their client should face little to no additional jail time for the convictions. Prosecutors said he must serve multiple years behind bars.

    Combs has been in a federal jail in Brooklyn since his September arrest at a Manhattan hotel. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 3.

    Prosecutors wrote that Combs’ attorneys were mistaken when they contended in a submission to the judge late last month that the Mann Act was unduly vague and violates his due process and First Amendment rights.

    “Evidence of the defendant’s guilt on the Mann Act counts was overwhelming,” prosecutors wrote.

    They noted that the multiday, drug-fueled sexual marathons that Combs demanded of his girlfriends involved hiring male sex workers and facilitating their travel across multiple states for what became known as “freak-offs” or “hotel nights.”

    Prosecutors said he then used video recordings he made of the sexual events to threaten and coerce the girlfriends to continue participating in the sometimes weekly or monthly sexual meetings.

    “At trial, there was ample evidence to support the jury’s convictions,” prosecutors said.

    They said Combs “masterminded every aspect” of the sexual meetups, paying escorts to travel across the country to participate and directing the sexual activity that took place between the men and his girlfriends “for his own sexual gratification” while sometimes joining in.

    Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, an R&B artist who dated Combs from 2008 through 2018, testified during the trial that Combs sometimes demanded the sexual meetups with male escorts every week, often leaving her too exhausted to work on her music career. She said she participated in hundreds of “freak-offs.”

    A woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane” said she participated in “hotel nights” when she dated Combs from 2021 to last September and that the events sometimes lasted multiple days and required her to have sex with male sex workers, even when she was not well.

    Both women testified that Combs had threatened to release videos he made of the encounters as a way of controlling their behavior.

    “During these relationships, he asserted substantial control over Ventura and Jane’s lives. Specifically, he controlled and threatened Ventura’s career, controlled her appearance, and paid for most of her living expenses, taking away physical items when she did not do what he wanted,” prosecutors wrote.

    “The defendant similarly paid Jane’s $10,000 rent and threatened her that he would stop paying her rent if she did not comply with his demands,” they said.

    In their submission requesting acquittal or a new trial, Combs’ lawyers argued that none of the elements normally used for Mann Act convictions, including profiting from sex work or coercion, existed.

    “It is undisputed that he had no commercial motive and that all involved were adults,” the lawyers said. “The men chose to travel and engage in the activity voluntarily. The verdict confirms the women were not vulnerable or exploited or trafficked or sexually assaulted.”

    The lawyers said that Combs, “at most, paid to engage in voyeurism as part of a ‘swingers’ lifestyle” and argued that “does not constitute ‘prostitution’ under a properly limited definition of the statutory term.”

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