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Tag: Juries

  • A jury awards $9 million to a player who sued the US Tennis Association over sexual abuse by a coach

    A jury awards $9 million to a player who sued the US Tennis Association over sexual abuse by a coach

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    ORLANDO, Fla. — A tennis player was awarded $9 million in damages by a jury in federal court in Florida after accusing the U.S. Tennis Association of failing to protect her from a coach she said sexually abused her at one of its training centers when she was a teenager.

    The lawsuit, filed by Kylie McKenzie in March 2022, said Anibal Aranda, who was employed by the sport’s national governing body for about seven years and later fired, used his position as a USTA coach to get access to vulnerable female athletes and commit sexual battery against them.

    “I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. I feel validated,” McKenzie said in a statement emailed Tuesday by one of her lawyers, Amy Judkins. “It was very hard, but I feel now that it was all worth it. I hope I can be an example for other girls to speak out even when it’s difficult.”

    The AP generally doesn’t name people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but McKenzie agreed to let her identity be used in news coverage about her lawsuit.

    Her lawsuit said the USTA negligently failed to protect her from sexual assaults and was negligent in keeping Aranda as a coach after he sexually assaulted a USTA employee.

    As a junior player, McKenzie — who is now 25 — reached a career-high ranking of No. 33 in 2016. The year before, she compiled a 20-6 record in junior competition, including victories over Sofia Kenin, who would go on to win the championship at the 2020 Australian Open, and Tamara Zidansek, later a semifinalist at the 2021 French Open.

    The U.S. District Court jury awarded McKenzie $3 million in compensation and added $6 million in punitive damages on Monday.

    “We are very pleased with the jury’s decision to award Ms. McKenzie for her pain and suffering but more importantly we believe the jury’s decision to award punitive damages sends the correct message to all sports organizations that they must take necessary steps to protect the athletes under their banner,” Judkins wrote.

    Spokesman Chris Widmaier said the USTA would appeal.

    “We are sympathetic to the plaintiff and what she endured. We do not — and have never — disputed her allegations against a coach,” Widmaier said.

    He said the USTA was “deeply troubled” by the decision, including that “the court ruled that the USTA was liable because one of its employees — a non-athlete — had an obligation to report her own experience with this coach to the USTA; an incident that was unknown until after the USTA removed the coach. This sets a new and unreasonable expectation for victims, one that will deter them from coming forward in the future.”

    Widmaier said Tuesday that a review of the USTA’s safeguarding policies and procedures is ongoing. Two lawyers at a Washington-based firm were enlisted to look into how the USTA keeps athletes safe from abuse and how it responds to reports of misconduct.

    ___

    AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

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  • Man who shot ex-Saints star Will Smith receives 25-year prison sentence for manslaughter

    Man who shot ex-Saints star Will Smith receives 25-year prison sentence for manslaughter

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    NEW ORLEANS — The man who fatally shot retired NFL star Will Smith during a confrontation following a car crash in 2016 received a 25-year prison sentence Thursday in a New Orleans courtroom.

    It was the second time Cardell Hayes, 36, had faced sentencing in Smith’s death. He was convicted of manslaughter in December 2016 and later sentenced to 25 years. But the jury vote had been 10-2 and the conviction was later tossed after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed such non-unanimous verdicts.

    After a new trial, Hayes was convicted by a unanimous jury in January, rejecting defense arguments that Hayes had fired in self-defense, thinking that a drunken and belligerent Smith had retrieved a gun from his SUV.

    “This court has struggled with this case since the time I got it,” said state District Judge Camille Buras, who presided in both trials. Before sentencing Hayes, she acknowledged the strong support he received from friends and family, and testimony that he had been a model prisoner. But she noted that both Hayes and a companion were armed when they exited Hayes’ car after the crash. And she said Smith was unarmed as he retreated to his car “perhaps to arm himself, perhaps not.”

    Smith was shot eight times — seven times in the back — during the confrontation.

    Buras also noted the damaging force with which Hayes’ Hummer rammed Smith’s SUV on the night of the crash. Surveillance video from the night of the shooting showed Smith’s Mercedes SUV possibly bumping Hayes’ Hummer, then driving off. Hayes followed them. He has said he did not intend to ram Smith’s car and the jury acquitted him on a charge related to the ramming at the 2016 trial.

    Prosecutors had asked for the 25-year sentence, saying Hayes, while he has expressed sorrow, has never acknowledged wrongdoing. Defense lawyer Sarah Chervinsky didn’t directly ask for a specific sentence but noted strong community and family support for Hayes and, at one point in her argument, said “five years is enough.”

    Smith’s daughter Lisa, now a teenager, was among those who spoke in court before the sentencing. She said her mother had to relearn to walk after the shooting and she lamented not having her father around for major life events.

    “Mr. Hayes, you ruined my life,” she said. “You took my father away from me.”

    In testimony in support of Hayes, his mother, Dawn Mumphrey, expressed sorrow for the loss of Smith. “Our lives are forever changed as well,” she said, her voice shaking. She tearfully looked at the judge. “I ask for your mercy,” she said.

    Hayes has long said he fired in self-defense. During his first trial, he testified that he heard a “pop” before he started shooting and that he did not shoot at Smith’s wife, Racquel, who was hit in the legs.

    Evidence showed Smith was intoxicated at the time of the confrontation. But there was no witness or forensic evidence to back up Hayes’ claim that Smith had wielded or fired a weapon. At the January retrial, defense attorney John Fuller did not call Hayes to testify, but insisted prosecutors had failed to prove Hayes didn’t fire in self-defense.

    Hayes was released on bond in 2021 after having served more than four years of the original sentence. He was out of prison during multiple retrial delays, some due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But he was taken back into custody following the unanimous Jan. 27 verdict and had been awaiting sentencing at the New Orleans jail.

    The overturned verdicts from the 2016 jury also included an attempted manslaughter conviction in the wounding of Racquel Smith. Hayes was acquitted of that charge at January’s second trial.

    Hayes has already served more than four years in prison, for which he will receive credit. He has also been subject to strict supervision and home confinement. It was not immediately clear whether and how that would count toward his sentence. Buras said she would discuss that with prison officials.

    Before Thursday’s sentencing, about two dozen of Hayes’ family and friends formed a circle and prayed in the wide courthouse hallway.

    Smith, a 34-year-old father of three, was a defensive leader on the Saints team that lifted spirits in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. He helped carry the team to a winning season in 2006 and a Super Bowl victory in 2010. Smith attended Ohio State University and helped the Buckeyes win the 2002 national championship.

    Hayes, who owned a tow truck business, once played semi-pro and is the father of a teenager and a 2-year-old child.

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  • Jury urged to convict former Colorado deputy of murder in Christian Glass shooting

    Jury urged to convict former Colorado deputy of murder in Christian Glass shooting

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    DENVER — Prosecutors on Wednesday urged jurors to convict a former Colorado sheriff’s deputy of murder and other charges for shooting and killing a 22-year-old man in distress after they say the deputy needlessly escalated a standoff with him.

    The 2022 death of Christian Glass in a small mountain community drew national attention and prompted calls for police reforms focused on crisis intervention. A second officer indicted in Glass’ death previously pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Another six officers who were on scene have also been charged with failing to intervene.

    Glass called 911 for help after his SUV became stuck on a dirt road in the mountain town of Silver Plume. He told a dispatcher he was being followed and made other statements suggesting he was paranoid, hallucinating or delusional, and experiencing a mental health crisis, according to the indictments.

    When former Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Buen and other officers arrived, Glass refused to get out of his vehicle. Officers’ body camera footage showed Glass making heart shapes with his hands to the officers and praying: “Dear Lord, please, don’t let them break the window.”

    In closing arguments in Buen’s trial, prosecutors said Buen decided from the start that Glass needed to get out of the vehicle and shouted commands at him 46 times over about 10 minutes. The prosecution contends Buen did not have any legal justification to force Glass out, not even if it was a suspected case of driving under the influence.

    After being hit with bean bag rounds and Tasers failed to make Glass exit, Glass took a knife he had offered to surrender at the beginning of the encounter and flung it out a rear window broken by a bean bag toward another officer, Randy Williams, according to Buen’s indictment. At that point, Buen fired five times at Glass.

    Glass just reacted after being treated “like an animal in a cage being poked and prodded,” and the knife never touched Williams, District Attorney Heidi McCollum said in court in Idaho Springs.

    The defense argued Buen was trying to protect Williams when he fired, that the shooting was legally justified and that he should be acquitted. Buen’s lawyer, Carrie Slinkard, faulted prosecutors for not looking into whether Glass had behavioral or psychological issues that could explain his behavior, whether drugs had played a role, or whether both factors could have contributed.

    Buen is charged with second-degree murder, official misconduct and reckless endangerment.

    Glass’ mother, Sally Glass, has said her son suffered from depression, had recently been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and was “having a mental health episode” during his interaction with the police.

    Chief Deputy District Attorney Stephen Potts, who described Glass as a “terrified boy”, said it did not matter what prompted the crisis.

    “He was in a crisis of some kind. Is this how we expect people in crisis to be treated? he said shortly before jurors began deliberating.

    Last year, Glass’ parents won a $19 million settlement that included such policy changes as crisis intervention training for Colorado law enforcement officers responding to people in distress.

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  • Arizona judge declares mistrial in the case of a rancher accused of fatally shooting a migrant

    Arizona judge declares mistrial in the case of a rancher accused of fatally shooting a migrant

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    PHOENIX — An Arizona judge declared a mistrial Monday in the case of a rancher accused of fatally shooting a Mexican man on his property near the U.S.-Mexico border.

    The decision came after jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision after more than two full days of deliberation in trial of George Alan Kelly, 75, who was charged with second-degree murder in the Jan. 30, 2023, shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea.

    “Based upon the jury’s inability to reach a verdict on any count,” Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink said, “This case is in mistrial.”

    The Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office can still decide whether to retry Kelly for any charge, or drop the case all together.

    A status hearing was scheduled for next Monday afternoon, when prosecutors could inform the judge if they plan to refile the case. Prosecutors did not immediately respond to emailed requests for additional comment.

    Kelly was charged with second-degree murder in killing of Cuen-Buitimea, 48, who lived just south of the border in Nogales, Mexico.

    Prosecutors said Kelly recklessly fired nine shots from an AK-47 rifle toward a group of men, including Cuen-Buitimea, about 100 yards (90 meters) away on his cattle ranch. Kelly has said he fired warning shots in the air, but he didn’t shoot directly at anyone.

    Court officials took jurors to Kelly’s ranch as well as a section of the border. Fink denied news media requests to tag along.

    After Monday’s ruling, Consul General Marcos Moreno Baez of the Mexican consulate in Nogales, Arizona, said he would wait with Cuen-Buitimea’s two adult daughters on Monday evening to meet with prosecutors from Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office to learn about the implications of a mistrial.

    “Mexico will continue to follow the case and continue to accompany the family, which wants justice.” said Moreno. “We hope for a very fair outcome.”

    Kelly’s defense attorney Brenna Larkin did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment after the ruling was issued. Larkin had asked Fink to have jurors keep deliberating another day.

    Kelly had earlier rejected an agreement with prosecutors that would have reduced the charge to one count of negligent homicide if he pleaded guilty.

    Kelly was also charged with aggravated assault that day against another person in the group of about eight people, including a man from Honduras who was living in Mexico and who testified during the trial that he had gone into the U.S. that day seeking work.

    The other migrants weren’t injured and they all made it back to Mexico.

    Cuen-Buitimea lived just south of the border in Nogales, Mexico. He had previously entered the U.S. illegally several times and was deported, most recently in 2016, court records show.

    The nearly monthlong trial coincided with a presidential election year that has drawn widespread interest in border security.

    Fink had told jurors that if they could not reach a verdict on the second-degree murder charge, they could try for a unanimous decision on a lesser charge of reckless manslaughter or negligent homicide. A second-degree murder conviction would have brought a minimum prison sentence of 10 years.

    The jury got the case Thursday afternoon, deliberated briefly that day and then all of Friday and Monday.

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  • Retired general’s testimony links private contractor to Abu Ghraib abuses

    Retired general’s testimony links private contractor to Abu Ghraib abuses

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    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — An Army general who investigated the abuse of prisoners 20 years ago at Iraq‘s infamous Abu Ghraib prison testified Tuesday that a civilian contractor instructed prison guards to “soften up” detainees for interrogations.

    The retired general, Antonio Taguba, told jurors that the contractor, Steven Stefanowicz, even tried to intimidate the general as he investigated the Abu Ghraib abuses.

    “He would lean on the table staring me down. He did not answer questions directly,” Taguba said. “He was trying to intimidate me.”

    Taguba’s testimony was the strongest evidence yet that civilian employees of the Virginia-based military contractor CACI played a role in the abuse of Abu Ghraib inmates.

    Three former inmates at the prison are suing CACI in federal court in Alexandria, alleging that the company contributed to the tortuous treatment they suffered. The trial, delayed by more than 15 years of legal wrangling, is the first time that Abu Ghraib inmates have been able to bring a civil case in front of a U.S. jury.

    The lawsuit alleges that CACI is liable for the three plaintiffs’ mistreatment because the company provided civilian interrogators to the Army who were assigned to Abu Ghraib and conspired with the military police who were serving as prison guards to torture the inmates.

    In a report Taguba completed in 2004, he recommended that Stefanowicz be fired, reprimanded and lose his security clearance for “allowing and/or instructing” military police to engage in illegal and abusive tactics.

    “He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,” Taguba’s report concluded.

    In testimony Tuesday, Taguba said he personally questioned Stefanowicz for about an hour as part of his investigation.

    “He was a very coy type of personality,” Taguba said of Stefanowicz, often referred to as “Big Steve” by Abu Ghraib personnel.

    Taguba said his investigation was focused on military police, and his probe of civilian interrogators’ role was limited. But he felt obligated to delve into it, he said, because he received credible testimony from the military police that the civilians were playing an important role in what occurred.

    The MPs told Taguba that they weren’t getting clear instructions from within their own military chain of command, and that Stefanowicz and other civilian personnel ended up filling the void. Taguba said the military chain of command was unclear, and that various commanders were not cooperating with each other, all of which contributed to a chaotic atmosphere at the prison.

    Taguba said he was several weeks into his investigation before he even understood that civilians were carrying out interrogations at Abu Ghraib. He said he and his staff heard multiple references to CACI but initially misunderstood them, believing that people were saying “khaki” instead.

    On cross-examination, Taguba acknowledged the limits of his investigation. A second report, completed by Maj. Gen. George Fay, looked more directly at the role of military intelligence and civilian contractors at Abu Ghraib.

    Taguba also acknowledged that his report contained several errors, including misidentifying a CACI employee as an employee of another contractor, and another civilian contractor as a CACI employee.

    CACI’s lawyers emphasized that Stefanowicz was never assigned to interrogate any of the three plaintiffs in the case.

    As Taguba testified about Stefanowicz, a lawyer asked him if he was indeed intimidated by the CACI contractor.

    “Not on your life,” Taguba responded.

    The jury also heard Tuesday from one of the three plaintiffs in the case, Asa’ad Hamza Zuba’e, who testified remotely from Iraq through an Arabic interpreter. Zuba’e said he was kept naked, threatened with dogs, and forced to masturbate in front of prison guards.

    CACI’s lawyers questioned his claims. Among other things, they questioned how he could have been threatened with dogs when government reports showed dogs had not yet been sent to Iraq at the time he said it happened.

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  • Asbestos victim’s dying words aired in wrongful death case against Buffet’s railroad

    Asbestos victim’s dying words aired in wrongful death case against Buffet’s railroad

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    HELENA, Mont. — Thomas Wells ran a half-marathon at age 60 and played recreational volleyball until he was 63. At 65 years old, doctors diagnosed him with mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive lung cancer linked to asbestos exposure.

    “I’m in great pain and alls I see is this getting worse,” the retired middle school teacher from Oregon said in a video deposition recorded in March 2020, four months after his cancer diagnosis. He died a day later.

    Portions of Wells’ deposition were replayed Monday in a federal courtroom for a jury hearing a wrongful death case against Warren Buffett’s BNSF Railway.

    The estates of Wells and a second mesothelioma victim accuse the railroad and its corporate predecessors in a lawsuit of polluting Libby, Montana, with asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from a nearby mine that was transported through the remote town’s rail yard in boxcars for much of last century.

    BNSF attorneys have denied the claims and are scheduled to lay out their defense beginning Tuesday. They’ve said that railroad officials were unaware the shipments were hazardous.

    A cleanup of the contaminated rail yard in downtown Libby was largely completed in 2022.

    The trial is the first alleging BNSF exposed community members in Libby to asbestos fibers that can cause lung scarring and mesothelioma. It comes almost 25 years after federal authorities arrived in the community not far from the U.S.-Canada border following news reports about toxic asbestos dust causing widespread deaths and illnesses among mine workers and their families.

    Numerous other lawsuits from asbestos victims have been filed against BNSF.

    The W.R. Grace & Co. mine that operated on a mountaintop outside Libby produced contaminated vermiculite that health officials say has sickened more than 3,000 people and led to several hundred deaths.

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2009 declared the first-ever public health emergency during a Superfund cleanup in Libby. It’s one of the deadliest sites under the federal pollution program. The agency banned remaining industrial uses of asbestos last month.

    Wells said in the 2020 deposition that he believed he was sickened while working for the U.S. Forest Service in the Libby area for about six months each in 1976-78 and again in 1981. He never went to the vermiculite mine, he said, but described wind kicking up dust along the railroad tracks at the rail yard.

    “It was dusty. You know, you’d wash the car and pretty soon you have to wash the car again,” Wells said.

    The second plaintiff, Joyce Walder, played in the same area in her youth before dying of mesothelioma at 66.

    Mine operator W.R. Grace repeatedly told the railroad’s corporate predecessors that the product it was shipping through Libby was safe, according to BNSF attorney Chad Knight. Local officials also believed the vermiculite was safe, and the railroad couldn’t legally reject the loads, he said.

    “You have to go back and look at what the information was at the time,” Knight told jurors during opening statements last week. “The materials coming from the mine were being used all over town. No one suspected there was anything unsafe about the products.”

    Knight has also sought to cast doubt on whether the BNSF rail yard was the source of the plaintiffs’ medical problems, since asbestos dust was prevalent in the Libby area when the mine was operating.

    Tainted vermiculite was used in Libby’s high school track, a baseball field next to the rail yard, as a soil amendment in home gardens and as insulating material in homes across the U.S.

    The plaintiffs’ attorneys showed jurors several insurance claims for tons of asbestos that leaked out of rail cars in the 1970s and did not make it to its destination, and an example of a placard that was put on a rail car in the late 1970s saying it contained asbestos fibers and to avoid creating dust.

    Residents of Libby have described encountering vermiculite along BNSF tracks where children in the community often played.

    When kicked up by wind or a passing trains, asbestos fibers from that vermiculite “can remain airborne for hours if not days depending on conditions,” said plaintiffs expert Steven Compton, who directs the private laboratory MVA Scientific Consultants in Georgia.

    Thomas Wells’ son Sean Wells described his father during Friday testimony as a “wonderful teacher” and “just the best dad,” who he could talk to about anything and coached their sports teams.

    “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my dad and wish I could pick up the phone and call him,” Sean Wells said. “He wasn’t only our dad. … He was our best friend. We did everything together.”

    Walder died in October 2020 — less than a month after her diagnosis.

    She grew up in Libby and could have been exposed to the microscopic, needle-shaped asbestos fibers while fishing and floating on a river that traveled past a spot where a conveyor belt loaded vermiculite onto train cars, according to court records. Additional exposure may have also come from playing around a baseball field near the rail yard, walking along the railroad tracks and spending time at the home of a friend who lived near the rail yard. She also returned to Libby to visit family.

    After her diagnosis Walder underwent chemotherapy and surgery. In a follow-up appointment Walder’s family was told the cancer had come back even worse.

    “I hope no one has to see the light of hope pass from a parent’s or loved one’s eyes, because that is something you will never forget,” Walder’s daughter, Chandra Zechmeister, testified Monday.

    ___

    Brown reported from Billings, Mont.

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  • Trump arrives at court for the start of jury selection in his historic hush money trial

    Trump arrives at court for the start of jury selection in his historic hush money trial

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump arrived Monday at a New York court for the start of jury selection in his hush money trial, marking a singular moment in American history as the former president and current White House hopeful answers to criminal charges.

    It’s the first criminal trial of any former U.S. commander-in-chief and the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial. Because he is also the presumptive nominee for this year’s Republican ticket, the trial will produce the head-spinning split-screen of a presidential candidate spending his days in court and, he has said, “campaigning during the night.”

    There could be some legal arguments and housekeeping matters before jury selection begins. When it does, scores of people are due to be called into the courtroom to start the process of finding 12 jurors, plus six alternates.

    Trump’s notoriety would make the process of picking a jury a near-herculean task in any year, but it’s likely to be especially challenging now, unfolding in a closely contested presidential election in the city where Trump grew up and catapulted to celebrity status before winning the White House.

    Judge Juan M. Merchan has written that the key is “whether the prospective juror can assure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”

    The trial amounts to a historic courtroom reckoning for Trump, whose norm-shattering presidency was shadowed from start to finish by investigations and who now faces four separate indictments charging him with crimes ranging from hoarding classified documents to plotting to overturn an election.

    Yet the political stakes are less clear given that a conviction would not preclude him from becoming president and because the allegations in this case have been known to the public for years and are seen as less grievous than the conduct behind the three other cases against him.

    No matter the outcome, Trump is looking to benefit from the proceedings, presenting himself as the victim of politically motivated prosecutions designed to derail his candidacy. He’s lambasted judges and prosecutors for years, a pattern of attacks that continued up to the moment he entered court on Monday, when he said: ‘“This is political persecution. This is a persecution like never before.”

    Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

    Prosecutors say he was trying to conceal an alleged effort to keep salacious — and, he says, bogus — stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign.

    The charges center on $130,000 in payments that Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen. He had paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from going public, a month before the election, with her claims of a sexual encounter with the married mogul a decade earlier.

    Prosecutors say the payments to Cohen were falsely logged as legal fees in order to cloak their actual purpose. Trump’s lawyers say the disbursements indeed were legal expenses, not a cover-up.

    Trump himself casts the case, and his indictments elsewhere, as a broad “weaponization of law enforcement” by Democratic prosecutors and officials. He maintains they are orchestrating sham charges in hopes of impeding his presidential run.

    After decades of fielding and initiating lawsuits, the businessman-turned-politician now faces a trial that could result in up to four years in prison if he’s convicted, though a no-jail sentence also would be possible.

    The trial of an ex-president and current candidate is a moment of extraordinary gravity for the American political system, as well as for Trump himself. Such a scenario would have once seemed unthinkable to many Americans, even for a president whose tenure left a trail of shattered norms, including twice being impeached and acquitted by the Senate.

    The scene inside the courtroom may be greeted with a spectacle outside. When Trump was arraigned last year, police broke up small skirmishes between his supporters and protesters near the courthouse in a tiny park, where a local Republican group has planned a pro-Trump rally Monday.

    Trump’s attorneys lost a bid to get the hush-money case dismissed and have since repeatedly sought to delay it, prompting a flurry of last-minute appeals court hearings last week.

    Among other things, Trump’s lawyers maintain that the jury pool in overwhelmingly Democratic Manhattan has been tainted by negative publicity about Trump and that the case should be moved elsewhere.

    An appeals judge turned down an emergency request to delay the trial while the change-of-venue request goes to a group of appellate judges, who are set to consider it in the coming weeks.

    Manhattan prosecutors have countered that a lot of the publicity stems from Trump’s own comments and that questioning will tease out whether prospective jurors can put aside any preconceptions they may have. There’s no reason, prosecutors said, to think that 12 fair and impartial people can’t be found amid Manhattan’s roughly 1.4 million adult residents.

    The process of choosing those 12, plus six alternates, will begin with scores of people filing into Merchan’s courtroom. They will be known only by number, as he has ordered their names to be kept secret from everyone except prosecutors, Trump and their legal teams.

    After hearing some basics about the case and jury service, the prospective jurors will be asked to raise hands if they believe they cannot serve or be fair and impartial. Those who do so will be excused, according to Merchan’s filing last week.

    The rest will be eligible for questioning. The 42 preapproved, sometimes multi-pronged queries include background basics but also reflect the uniqueness of the case.

    “Do you have any strong opinions or firmly held beliefs about former President Donald Trump, or the fact that he is a current candidate for president, that would interfere with your ability to be a fair and impartial juror?” asks one question.

    Others ask about attendance at Trump or anti-Trump rallies, opinions on how he’s being treated in the case, news sources and more — including any “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” that might “slant” a prospective juror’s approach to the case.

    Based on the answers, the attorneys can ask a judge to eliminate people “for cause” if they meet certain criteria for being unable to serve or be unbiased. The lawyers also can use “peremptory challenges” to nix 10 potential jurors and two prospective alternates without giving a reason.

    “If you’re going to strike everybody who’s either a Republican or a Democrat,” the judge observed at a February hearing, “you’re going to run out of peremptory challenges very quickly.”

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  • Jury convicts movie armorer of involuntary manslaughter in fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin

    Jury convicts movie armorer of involuntary manslaughter in fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin

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    SANTA FE, N.M. — A jury convicted a movie weapons supervisor of involuntary manslaughter on Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”

    The verdict against movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed assigned new blame in the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021 after an assistant director last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm.

    Gutierrez-Reed aso had faced a second charge, of tampering with evidence, stemming from accusations that she handed a small bag of possible narcotics to another crew member after the shooting to avoid detection. She was found not guilty on that count.

    Immediately after the verdict was read out in court, the judge ordered the 24-year-old armorer placed into the custody of deputies. Lead attorney Jason Bowles said afterward that Gutierrez-Reed will appeal the conviction, which carries a penalty of up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

    Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on “Rust,” was indicted by a grand jury in January on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. He was pointing a gun at Hutchins on a movie set outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, when the gun went off, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.

    The trial in Santa Fe was a preamble to the actor’s scheduled trial in July on the single charge of involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin has pleaded not guilty. Messages seeking comment about Wednesday’s verdict from Baldwin’s spokeswoman and a lawyer were not immediately returned.

    Prosecutors said earlier at trial that Gutierrez-Reed unknowingly brought live ammunition onto the set of “Rust” at a ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe, arguing that rounds lingered for at least 12 days until the fatal shooting.

    In closing arguments, prosecutor Kari Morrissey described “constant, never-ending safety failures” on the set of “Rust” and Gutierrez-Reed’s “astonishing lack of diligence” with gun safety.

    “We end exactly where we began — in the pursuit of justice for Halyna Hutchins,” Morrissey had told jurors before they began deliberating. “Hannah Gutierrez failed to maintain firearms safety, making a fatal accident willful and foreseeable.”

    Prosecutors contended that the armorer repeatedly skipped or skimped on standard gun-safety protocols that might have detected the live rounds. “This was a game of Russian roulette every time an actor had a gun with dummies,” Morrissey said.

    Defense attorneys said the problems on the set extended far beyond Gutierrez-Reed’s control, including the mishandling of weapons by Baldwin. At trial they cited sanctions and findings by state workplace safety investigators.

    Prosecutors did not come close to proving where the live rounds originated and failed to fully investigate an Albuquerque-based ammunition supplier, the defense said at trial.

    Bowles, the defense attorney, had told jurors that no one in the cast and crew thought there were live rounds on set and Gutierrez-Reed could not have foreseen that Baldwin would “go off-script” when he pointed the revolver at Hutchins. Investigators found no video recordings of the shooting.

    “It was not in the script for Mr. Baldwin to point the weapon,” Bowles said. “She didn’t know that Mr. Baldwin was going to do what he did.”

    To drive the point home, Bowles played a video outtake in which Baldwin fired a revolver loaded with blanks — including a shot after a director calls “cut.”

    On the day of the shooting, Bowles said, Gutierrez-Reed alone was segregated in a police car away from others, becoming a convenient scapegoat.

    “You had a production company on a shoestring budget, an A-list actor that was really running the show,” Bowles said. “At the end, they had somebody they could all blame.”

    Dozens of witnesses had testified during the 10-day trial, from FBI experts in firearms and crime-scene forensics to a camera dolly operator who described the fatal gunshot and watching Hutchins go flush and lose feeling in her legs before death.

    The prosecution painstakingly assembled photographic evidence it said traced the arrival and spread of live rounds on set, and argued that Gutierrez-Reed repeatedly missed opportunities to ensure safety and treated basic gun protocols as optional.

    The defense had cast doubt on the relevance of photographs of ammunition, noting FBI testimony that live rounds can’t be fully distinguished from dummy ones on sight.

    Bowles began his closing arguments by highlighting testimony from “Rust” armorer Sarah Zachry saying that, in a panic in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, she threw out ammunition from guns used by actors other than Baldwin. That undermined all evidence about the sources of ammunition, the defense argued.

    Prosecutors said six live rounds found on set bear mostly identical characteristics and don’t match live rounds seized from the movie’s supplier in Albuquerque. Defense attorneys said the cluttered supply office was not searched until a month after the shooting, undermining the significance of physical evidence.

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  • NH man convicted of killing daughter, 5

    NH man convicted of killing daughter, 5

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    MANCHESTER, N.H. — A man was convicted of second-degree murder by a jury Thursday in the death of his 5-year-old daughter, who police believe was killed nearly two years before she was reported missing in 2021 and whose body was never found.

    Adam Montgomery, 34, did not attend the trial and wasn’t present when jurors returned their verdict. He had proclaimed his innocence, saying in court last year in an unrelated case that he loved Harmony Montgomery “unconditionally.”

    “I am grateful to the judge, jury, and Department of Justice for delivering justice for Harmony,” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement. “Adam Montgomery is a monster and deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison.”

    His attorneys earlier acknowledged his guilt on two lesser charges, that he “purposely and unlawfully removed, concealed or destroyed” her corpse and falsified physical evidence, but said he didn’t kill his daughter. The jury also convicted him of assaulting Harmony Montgomery in 2019 and of tampering with the key prosecution witness, his estranged wife and stepmother of his daughter, Kayla Montgomery.

    Investigators believe Harmony Montgomery was slain in December 2019, though she wasn’t reported missing for almost two years. Kayla Montgomery testified that the body was hidden in the trunk of a car, a cooler, a ceiling vent, and a workplace freezer before Adam Montgomery disposed of it.

    Adam Montgomery had custody of the girl. Her mother, who was no longer in a relationship with him, said the last time she saw Harmony Montgomery was during a video call in April 2019. She eventually went to police, who announced they were looking for the missing child on New Year’s Eve 2021.

    Photos of the girl were widely circulated on social media. Police eventually determined she had been killed.

    Kayla Montgomery is serving an 18-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to perjury charges related to the investigation into the child’s disappearance and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. She testified that that her husband killed Harmony Montgomery on Dec. 7, 2019, while the family lived in their car after being evicted from their home.

    Kayla Montgomery testified that her husband repeatedly punched Harmony Montgomery in the face and head because he was angry that she was having bathroom accidents in the car.

    The couple noticed the girl was dead hours later when the car broke down, at which time Adam Montgomery put her body in a duffel bag, Kayla Montgomery had testified.

    For the next three months, she testified, Adam Montgomery moved the body from container to container and place to place. According to his wife, the locations included the trunk of a friend’s car, a cooler in the hallway of his mother-in-law’s apartment building, the ceiling vent of a homeless shelter and a workplace freezer.

    Adam Montgomery’s attorneys said that he didn’t kill his daughter, and that the only person who knew how she died — his wife — was lying.

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    By KATHY McCORMACK – Associated Press

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  • Ex-aide to former Illinois House Speaker Madigan gets 2.5 years for perjury

    Ex-aide to former Illinois House Speaker Madigan gets 2.5 years for perjury

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    CHICAGO — A federal judge in Chicago sentenced a former chief of staff to longtime Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan to two and a half years in prison Monday for lying under oath to a grand jury to protect his once-powerful boss.

    U.S. District Judge John F. Kness imposed the sentence on Timothy Mapes, 69, of Springfield. A jury in U.S. District Court in Chicago last year convicted Mapes of making false declarations before a grand jury and attempted obstruction of justice.

    “I don’t understand why. You were immunized by the grand jury, and all you had to do was go in and tell the truth,” Judge John Kness said. “You knew the testimony was false. … I can’t ignore that finding.”

    Mapes is to report to prison in mid-June to begin his sentence, the judge said.

    Kness said in court he felt a sense of loyalty had potentially motivated Mapes’ deception, but said that such a feeling was a mistake.

    “Your loyalty was misguided, and now you will pay the price for that,” he said.

    Prosecutors told jurors that Mapes lied repeatedly when he testified in 2021 to a grand jury investigating Madigan and others. They said he specifically lied when he said he couldn’t recall any relevant details about Madigan’s ties to Michael McClain, who was a Madigan confidant.

    One witness, a legislator, told jurors that Madigan, Mapes and McClain formed a mighty triumvirate — with Madigan at its head — in the Illinois House for years, controlling which bills got through the legislative body.

    Government evidence included wiretapped phone recordings and audio of Mapes testifying before the grand jury.

    “He did everything he could to obstruct the process … to minimize his participation, to act as if he was clueless,” prosecutor Julia Schwartz said of Mapes during closing arguments.

    During his closings, defense attorney Andrew Porter said Mapes would have had no motivation to lie to protect his old boss after Madigan had forced him to resign in 2018 amid allegations of harassment, which Mapes denied.

    “Why would he fall on his sword for a guy who kicked him to the curb three years before?” Porter asked.

    Federal jurors last May convicted four defendants of bribery conspiracy involving the state’s largest electric utility. Prosecutors said McClain, two former ComEd executives and a former utility consultant arranged contracts, jobs and money for Madigan’s associates to ensure proposed bills boosting ComEd profits became law.

    A year before Madigan was indicted and amid speculation that he was a federal target, Madigan resigned from the Legislature as the longest-serving state House speaker in modern U.S. history.

    The indictment accused Madigan of reaping the benefits of private legal work that was illegally steered to his law firm, among other things. He has denied any wrongdoing.

    Madigan lost the speakership and resigned his House seat in 2021, a year before being indicted along with McClain in a separate racketeering case alleging Madigan sold his office for personal gain. That trial is set to begin in October.

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  • Grand jury indicts farmworker charged in Northern California mass shootings

    Grand jury indicts farmworker charged in Northern California mass shootings

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    SAN FRANCISCO — A farmworker charged with killing seven people last year in back-to-back shootings at two Northern California mushroom farms was indicted by a grand jury in an effort by prosecutors to move the case along, authorities said.

    Chunli Zhao was in court Tuesday to be arraigned on seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder, but his arraignment was continued until Feb. 29, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said in an email.

    Zhao was charged last year in the Jan. 23, 2023, killings of seven people in Half Moon Bay. He pleaded not guilty last February. But the case has dragged on with a preliminary hearing not set until March, and that has now been vacated, Wagstaffe said.

    The grand jury indictment supersedes the criminal complaint and bypasses the need for a preliminary hearing, skipping one step in the legal process and advancing the case, he said.

    “I know that extensive delays impose a very negative impact on victims’ families and we try to move cases along when the case seems to be dragging on. That is why we sought to seek the Grand Jury Indictment,” Wagstaffe said.

    The next step is for Zhao to enter a plea on the grand jury indictment charges at the February hearing, he said.

    Prosecutors say Zhao began the shooting rampage at California Terra Garden after his supervisor there demanded he pay a $100 repair bill for his forklift after he was involved in a crash with a co-worker’s bulldozer. They say he killed four co-workers and wounded another one before driving to Concord Farms, a mushroom farm he was fired from in 2015. There, he shot to death three former co-workers.

    Zhao admitted to the shootings during a jailhouse media interview days after the killings and told KNTV-TV he was bullied and worked long hours on the farms.

    The killings shed light on the substandard housing the farms provided to their workers. After the shooting, San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller visited the housing at California Terra Garden, where some of its workers lived along with their families, and he described it as “deplorable” and “heartbreaking.”

    Muller, who represents Half Moon Bay and other agricultural towns, posted photos on social media showing a shipping container and sheds used as homes.

    Terra Garden’s owners agreed to build new permanent homes on a separate area of the farm for its employees and their families and provide them affordable housing during the year it would take to construct them. But a year after the shooting, permanent housing has not yet been built, the Mercury News reported.

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  • Judge says Trump can wait a week to testify at sex abuse victim's defamation trial

    Judge says Trump can wait a week to testify at sex abuse victim's defamation trial

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    NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump can wait a week to testify at a New York defamation trial where he could face millions of dollars in damages after a jury concluded that he sexually abused a columnist in the 1990s, a federal judge said Sunday.

    Judge Lewis A. Kaplan issued a one-page order saying Trump could testify on Jan. 22 even if the trial that starts Tuesday is over by Thursday, except for testimony by the Republican front-runner in this year’s presidential race.

    He said he previously denied Trump’s request to delay the start of the trial by a week so Trump could attend the funeral Thursday of his mother-in-law because it would disrupt and inconvenience prospective jurors, lawyers, court staff and security, who were notified of the trial date seven months ago.

    The judge also noted that he has learned that Trump, even while seeking to postpone the trial, had scheduled an evening campaign appearance on Wednesday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He said Trump’s lawyers notified the judge on Friday that Trump planned to attend the trial.

    A jury to be chosen Tuesday prior to opening statements will hear evidence pertaining to $10 million in compensatory damages and millions more in punitive damages requested by attorneys for columnist E. Jean Carroll.

    Carroll, 80, won a $5 million sex abuse and defamation judgment in May from a civil jury that heard her testify that Trump attacked her sexually in the dressing room of a luxury department store in midtown Manhattan in spring 1996 after they had a chance meeting that was lighthearted before turning violent.

    Trump did not attend that trial and has repeatedly said he never knew Carroll and believed she made up her claims to promote a 2019 memoir in which she first made them publicly and to damage him politically.

    The jury rejected Carroll’s claim that Trump raped her as rape is defined by New York state law but agreed that he sexually abused her in the department store and defamed her with statements he made in October 2022.

    This month’s trial, long delayed by appeals, stems from defamatory comments the judge said Trump made about Carroll in 2019 and last May, a day after the jury announced its verdict.

    Kaplan ruled last year that the trial starting Tuesday only will pertain to damages because the prior jury’s findings about sexual abuse and defamation can be accepted for purposes of the new trial.

    Earlier on Sunday, Trump attorney Alina Habba objected to restrictions on Trump’s testimony requested by an attorney for Carroll, saying that despite instructions already given by the judge, Trump can “still offer considerable testimony in his defense.”

    She noted that someone seeking punitive damages in a defamation case in New York state must show that libelous statements were made out of hatred, ill will or spite and said Trump should be allowed to offer evidence and testimony about whether hatred or ill will was behind his comments to reporters.

    Habba said Trump also can testify about the circumstances of his comments and how they related to comments in Carroll’s “continuous parade of interviews and publicity.”

    Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, asked the judge in a letter on Friday to put restrictions on Trump if he testifies so that he does not “sow chaos” or “poison these proceedings.”

    Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, said she feared Trump would try to flout the judge’s instructions that Trump not contend in his testimony, as he frequently has with public statements on the campaign trail, that Carroll fabricated her claims against him.

    In a ruling earlier this month, the judge alluded to the fact that what the jury concluded Trump did to Carroll constitutes rape in some states when he wrote that “the fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused — indeed, raped — Ms. Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case.”

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  • Prosecutors say there's no need for a second trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried

    Prosecutors say there's no need for a second trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried

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    NEW YORK — A second trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on charges not in the cryptocurrency fraud case presented to a jury that convicted him in November is not necessary, prosecutors told a judge Friday.

    Prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in a letter that evidence at a second trial would duplicate evidence already shown to a jury. They also said it would ignore the “strong public interest in a prompt resolution” of the case, particularly because victims would not benefit from forfeiture or restitution orders if sentencing is delayed.

    They said the judge can consider the evidence that would be used at a second trial when he sentences Bankman-Fried on March 28 for defrauding customers and investors of at least $10 billion.

    Bankman-Fried, 31, who has been incarcerated since several weeks before his trial, was convicted in early November of seven counts, including wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and three conspiracy charges. He could face decades in prison.

    Last spring, prosecutors withdrew some charges they had brought against Bankman-Fried because the charges had not been approved as part of his extradition from the Bahamas in December 2022. They said the charges could be brought at a second trial to occur sometime in 2024.

    However, prosecutors at the time said that they would still present evidence to the jury at the 2023 trial about the substance of the charges.

    The charges that were temporarily dropped included conspiracy to make unlawful campaign contributions, conspiracy to bribe foreign officials and two other conspiracy counts. He also was charged with securities fraud and commodities fraud.

    In their letter to Kaplan, prosecutors noted that they introduced evidence about all of the dropped charges during Bankman-Fried’s monthlong trial.

    They said authorities in the Bahamas still have not responded to their request to bring the additional charges at a second trial.

    A conviction on the additional charges would not result in a potential for a longer prison sentence for Bankman-Fried, prosecutors said.

    “Proceeding with sentencing in March 2024 without the delay that would be caused by a second trial would advance the public’s interest in a timely and just resolution of the case,” prosecutors wrote. “The interest in avoiding delay weighs particularly heavily here, where the judgment will likely include orders of forfeiture and restitution for the victims of the defendant’s crimes.”

    Defense lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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  • Man accused of texting death threats to Ramaswamy faces similar charges involving 2 more candidates

    Man accused of texting death threats to Ramaswamy faces similar charges involving 2 more candidates

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    CONCORD, N.H. — A New Hampshire man who was released from jail after he was accused of sending text messages threatening to kill a presidential candidate now faces two more charges that he threatened the lives of different candidates.

    Tyler Anderson, 30, of Dover, was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on three counts of sending a threat using interstate commerce. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 5.

    A message seeking comment was sent to his lawyer.

    Anderson was arrested on Dec. 9 and was released Dec. 14. A federal judge set forth several conditions for his release, including that he avoid contact with any presidential candidate and their political campaigns. Anderson, who is receiving mental health treatment, must also take all of his prescribed medications. Guns in his home, belonging to a roommate, must be removed.

    The U.S. Attorney’s office did not name the candidates. When Anderson was arrested, a spokesperson for Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said that the texts were directed at his campaign. According to court documents, Anderson received a text message from the candidate’s campaign notifying him of a breakfast event in Portsmouth. The campaign staff received two text messages in response. One threatened to shoot the candidate in the head, the other threatened to kill everyone at the event and desecrate their corpses.

    Anderson had told the FBI in an interview that he had sent similar texts to “multiple other campaigns,” according to a court document.

    The latest charges say similar texts were sent to two different candidates before the Ramaswamy messages, on Nov. 22 and Dec. 6.

    On Nov. 22, a campaign received texts threatening to “impale” and “disembowel” a candidate. On Dec. 6, texts were sent to another candidate’s campaign with threats to shoot the candidate in the head and conduct a mass shooting.

    A court document filed when Anderson was arrested included a screenshot of texts from Dec. 6 threatening a mass shooting in response to an invitation to see a candidate “who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is.” Republican Chris Christie calls his events “Tell it Like It Is Town Halls.”

    A spokesperson for the Christie campaign had thanked law enforcement officials for addressing those threats.

    Each charge provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.

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  • Jury dismisses lawsuit claiming LSU officials retaliated against a former athletics administrator

    Jury dismisses lawsuit claiming LSU officials retaliated against a former athletics administrator

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    BATON ROUGE, La. — A jury on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit accusing top Louisiana State University officials of retaliating against an athletics administrator for reporting alleged inappropriate sexual behavior by a head coach.

    After six days of testimony, a panel of five women and three men rejected the suit’s claims, The Advocate reported. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan of New Orleans presided over the trial after all of the federal judges in Baton Rouge recused themselves.

    Then-athletics administrator Sharon Lewis filed the federal lawsuit in 2021. She was fired the following year.

    Coach Les Miles guided the 2007 LSU team to a national title but was fired by the university in 2016. He lost his coaching job at Kansas in 2021, after LSU released a report that revealed school officials there considered firing him in 2013 because of his alleged behavior with female student workers. Miles has denied allegations of improper behavior.

    The university had hired the Husch Blackwell law firm to conduct the report after a national newspaper scrutinized LSU’s handling of sexual assault cases implicating two former football players.

    Lewis’ lawsuit said she was denied pay raises and subjected to verbal abuse after going to officials with the allegations against Miles — including her accusation that he told her there were “too many Black girls” employed in athletics and that a female student had accused him of “getting on top of her” on his office couch.

    Lewis, a former heptathlete who won a national track championship while competing at LSU as a student, spent nearly 21 years working in the Tigers football program. Then-coach Nick Saban hired her as a recruiting coordinator in 2001 and she climbed the ladder to be associate athletic director for football recruiting and alumni operations in August 2020.

    Lewis, 56, alleged that LSU’s board of supervisors allowed athletics department officials to retaliate against her for reporting alleged violations of Title IX and for lodging a 2021 complaint against the university with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She also said she was subjected to a hostile work environment.

    Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at universities that receive federal funding, and mandates that most university employees report those violations when they receive actual knowledge of them.

    During closing arguments Wednesday, Lewis’ attorneys asked jurors to award her more than $6.3 million in compensatory damages and another $300,000 for emotional damages, The Advocate reported.

    Her lead attorney, Larry English, reiterated a mantra he used to start the trial, telling jurors LSU fostered a “culture of fear, retaliation and violence” that victimized women in the athletics department.

    “The undisputed evidence in this case shows that when people were charged with protecting women in the athletics department, they instead engaged in a hustle to protect the football coaches and their seven-figure salaries to continue winning football games,” he said.

    LSU countered that Lewis was not preyed upon, subjected to a hostile workplace or discriminated against because of her gender. Attorney Michael Victorian told jurors that the statutory period for any of the claims ended in mid-2020, so all of her “baseless allegations” about sexual misconduct and harassment during Miles’ coaching tenure were not pertinent to the case.

    “Sharon Lewis and her attorneys are trying to get you to fall for an emotional trick. That’s why they’re trying to trigger your sympathy,” he said. “It’s an emotional sleight of hand, ladies and gentlemen. That is the definition of a hustle.”

    In a statement, LSU said it was pleased that the jury ruled in its favor.

    “The simple truth is that Ms. Lewis was never retaliated or discriminated against. She was let go along with 41 other football staff members and coaches after a new head coach was hired,” the university said. “As an institution, over the past three years we have built a robust and nationally recognized Title IX office with more than 12 experts who are committed to educating and protecting our entire LSU community while moving swiftly and holding any offenders fully accountable. This will continue to be a priority for us.”

    Lewis, surrounded by family members and her legal team, did not answer questions from reporters after leaving the courthouse but English told The Advocate his team is exploring legal options moving forward.

    “We’re obviously disappointed. We think the evidence was compelling,” he said. “We felt like we put on a great case. But we’re in a system where the jury makes a decision … and the jury has spoken.”

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  • Google to pay $700M in antitrust settlement reached with states before recent Play Store trial loss

    Google to pay $700M in antitrust settlement reached with states before recent Play Store trial loss

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    Google has agreed to pay $700 million and make several other concessions to settle allegations that it had been stifling competition against its Android app store — the same issue that went to trial in a another case that could result in even bigger changes.

    Although Google struck the deal with state attorneys general in September, the settlement’s terms weren’t revealed until late Monday in documents filed in San Francisco federal court. The disclosure came a week after a federal court jury rebuked Google for deploying anticompetitive tactics in its Play Store for Android apps.

    The settlement with the states includes $630 million to compensate U.S. consumers funneled into a payment processing system that state attorneys general alleged drove up the prices for digital transactions within apps downloaded from the Play Store. That store caters to the Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones.

    Like Apple does in its iPhone app store, Google collects commissions ranging from 15% to 30% on in-app purchases — fees that state attorneys general contended drove prices higher than they would have been had there been an open market for payment processing. Those commissions generated billions of dollars in profit annually for Google, according to evidence presented in the recent trial focused on its Play Store.

    Consumers eligible for a piece of the $630 million compensation fund are supposed to be automatically notified about various options for how they can receive their cut of the money.

    Another $70 million of the pre-trial settlement will cover the penalties and other costs that Google is being forced to pay to the states.

    Google also agreed to make other changes designed to make it even easier for consumers to download and install Android apps from other outlets besides its Play Store for the next five years. It will refrain from issuing as many security warnings, or “scare screens,” when alternative choices are being used.

    The makers of Android apps will also gain more flexibility to offer alternative payment choices to consumers instead of having transactions automatically processed through the Play Store and its commission system. Apps will also be able to promote lower prices available to consumers who choose an alternate to the Play Store’s payment processing.

    Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb hailed the settlement as a victory for the tens of millions of people in the U.S. that rely on Android phones to help manage their lives. “For far too long, Google’s anticompetitive practices in the distribution of apps deprived Android users of choices and forced them to pay artificially elevated prices,” Schwalb said.

    Wilson White, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, framed the deal as a positive for the company, despite the money and concessions it entails. The settlement “builds on Android’s choice and flexibility, maintains strong security protections, and retains Google’s ability to compete with other (software) makers, and invest in the Android ecosystem for users and developers,” White wrote in a blog post.

    Although the state attorneys general hailed the settlement as a huge win for consumers, it didn’t go far enough for Epic Games, which spearheaded the attack on Google’s app store practices with an antitrust lawsuit filed in August 2020.

    Epic, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, rebuffed the settlement in September and instead chose to take its case to trial, even though it had already lost on most of its key claims in a similar trial targeting Apple and its iPhone app store in 2021.

    The Apple trial, though, was decided by a federal judge instead of the jury that vindicated Epic with a unanimous verdict that Google had built anticompetitive barriers around the Play Store. Google has vowed to appeal the verdict.

    But the trial’s outcome nevertheless raises the specter of Google potentially being ordered to pay even more money as punishment for its past practices and making even more dramatic changes to its lucrative Android app ecosystem.

    Those changes will be determined next year by U.S. District Judge James Donato, who presided over the Epic Games trial. Donato also still must approve Google’s Play Store settlement with the states.

    Google faces an even bigger legal threat in another antitrust case targeting its dominant search engine that serves as the centerpiece of a digital ad empire that generates more than $200 billion in sales annually. Closing arguments in a trial pitting Google against the Justice Department are scheduled for early May before a federal judge in Washington D.C.

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  • Marvel, Disney drop actor Jonathan Majors after he's convicted of assaulting his former girlfriend

    Marvel, Disney drop actor Jonathan Majors after he's convicted of assaulting his former girlfriend

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    NEW YORK — Jonathan Majors was convicted Monday of assaulting his former girlfriend after a trial that he hoped would vindicate him and restore his status as an emerging Hollywood star. It did just the opposite: Marvel Studios and the Walt Disney Co. dropped him hours after the verdict.

    A Manhattan jury found Majors, 34, guilty of one misdemeanor assault charge and one harassment violation stemming from his March confrontation with then-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. She said he attacked her in a car and left her in “excruciating” pain; his lawyers said Jabbari was the aggressor.

    Majors, who was acquitted of a different assault charge and of aggravated harassment, looked slightly downward and showed no immediate reaction as the verdict was read. He declined to comment as he left the courthouse.

    Marvel and Disney immediately dropped the “Creed III” star from all upcoming projects following the conviction, said a person close to the studio spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

    Before his arrest, Majors had been on track to become a central figure throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing the antagonist role of Kang. Majors had already appeared in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and the first two seasons of “Loki.” He was to star in “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” dated for release in May 2026.

    Majors, whose credits include “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” “Devotion” and “Da 5 Bloods,” had been one of the fastest-rising stars in Hollywood. The Yale School of Drama graduate also starred as a troubled amateur bodybuilder in “Magazine Dreams,” which made an acclaimed debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January and was set to open in theaters this month. Ahead of Majors’ trial, Disney-owned distributor Searchlight Pictures removed “Magazine Dreams” from its release calendar.

    Majors’ sentencing was set for Feb. 6. He faces the possibility of up to a year in jail for the assault conviction, though probation or other non-jail sentences also are possible.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that the trial “illustrated a cycle of psychological and emotional abuse, and escalating patterns of coercion.”

    The dispute between Majors and Jabbari began in the backseat of a chauffeured car and spilled into the streets of Manhattan.

    Jabbari, a 30-year-old British dancer, accused Majors of hitting her in the head with his open hand, twisting her arm behind her back and squeezing her middle finger until it fractured.

    Majors’ lawyers alleged that she flew into a jealous rage after reading a text message — from another woman — on his phone. They said Jabbari had spread a “fantasy” to take down the actor, who was only trying to regain his phone and get away safely.

    But as Majors sought vindication from the jury, the trial also brought forth new evidence about his troubled relationship with Jabbari, whom he met on the set of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” two years ago.

    Prosecutors shared text messages that showed the actor begging Jabbari not to seek hospital treatment for an earlier head injury. One message warned “it could lead to an investigation even if you do lie and they suspect something.”

    They also played audio of Majors declaring himself a “great man,” then questioning whether Jabbari could meet the high standards set by the spouses of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama. Majors’ attorneys countered that Jabbari had surreptitiously recorded her boyfriend as part of a plot to “destroy” his career.

    Over four days of tearful testimony, Jabbari said Majors was excessively controlling and prone to fits of explosive rage that left her afraid “physically quite a lot.” She broke down on the witness stand as a jury watched security footage of him pushing her back into the car after the backseat confrontation. Prosecutors described it the video as showing Majors “manhandling” her and shoving her into the vehicle “as if she was a doll.”

    Majors arrived in the courtroom each morning carrying a gold-leaf Bible, accompanied by family members and his current girlfriend, actress Meagan Good. Expressionless for much of the testimony, he wiped away tears as his attorney, Priya Chaudhry, urged jurors to “end this nightmare for Jonathan Majors.”

    Majors did not take the stand. But Chaudhry said her client was the victim of “white lies, big lies, and pretty little lies” invented by Jabbari to exact revenge on an unfaithful partner.

    The attorney cited security footage, taken immediately after the shove, that showed Majors sprinting away from his girlfriend as she chased him through the night. Jabbari then followed a group of strangers she’d met on the street to a dance club, where she ordered drinks for the group and did not appear to be favoring her injured hand.

    “She was revenge-partying and charging Champagne to the man she was angry with and treating these strangers to fancy Champagne she bought with Jonathan’s credit card,” Chaudhry alleged.

    The next morning, after finding Jabbari unconscious in the closet of their Manhattan penthouse, Majors called police. He was arrested at the scene, while Jabbari was transported to a hospital to receive treatment for the injuries to her ear and hand.

    “He called 911 out of concern for her, and his fear of what happens when a Black man in America came true,” Chaudhry said, accusing police and prosecutors of failing to take seriously Majors’ allegations that he was bloodied and scratched during the dispute.

    In her closing arguments, prosecutor Kelli Galaway said Majors was following a well-worn playbook used by abusers to cast their victims as attackers.

    “This is not a revenge plot to ruin the defendant’s life or his career,” Galaway said. “You were asked why you are here? Because domestic violence is serious.”

    ___

    This story has been corrected to reflect that the maximum one year jail penalty is for the assault conviction, not the harassment conviction.

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  • Federal jury decides Google’s Android app store benefits from anticompetitive barriers

    Federal jury decides Google’s Android app store benefits from anticompetitive barriers

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    A federal court jury has decided that Google’s Android app store has been protected by anticompetitive barriers that have damaged smartphone consumers and software developers, dealing a blow to a major pillar of a technology empire

    ByMICHAEL LIEDTKE AP technology writer

    December 11, 2023, 3:14 AM

    File – Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney leaves a courtroom at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Nov. 14, 2022. A federal court jury is expected to begin its deliberations Monday, Dec. 11, 2023, in an antitrust trial focused on whether Google’s efforts to thwart competition against its app store for Android smartphones has also been illegally gouging consumers and stifling innovation. The case was filed by Epic Games, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

    The Associated Press

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal court jury has decided that Google’s Android app store has been protected by anticompetitive barriers that have damaged smartphone consumers and software developers, dealing a blow to a major pillar of a technology empire.

    The unanimous verdict reached Monday came after just three hours of deliberation following a four-week trial revolving around a lucrative payment system within Google’s Play store. The store is the main place where hundreds of millions of people around the world download and install apps that work on smartphones powered by Google’s Android software.

    Epic Games, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, filed a lawsuit against Google three years ago, alleging that the internet powerhouse has been abusing its power to shield its Play Store from competition in order to protect a gold mine that makes billions of dollars annually. Just as Apple does for its iPhone app store, Google collects a commission ranging from 15% to 30% on digital transactions completed within apps.

    Apple prevailed in a similar case that Epic brought against the iPhone app store, but the 2021 trial was decided by a federal judge in a ruling that is under appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court.

    But the nine-person jury in the Play store case apparently saw things through a different lens, even though Google technically allows Android apps to be downloaded from different stores — an option that Apple prohibits on the iPhone.

    Just before the Play store trial started, Google sought to avoid having a jury determine the outcome, only to have its request rejected by U.S. District Judge James Donato. Now it will be up to Donato to determine what steps Google will have to take to unwind its illegal behavior in the Play Store. The judge indicated he will hold hearings on the issue during the second week of January.

    Epic CEO Tim Sweeney broke into a wide grin after the verdict was read and slapped his lawyers on the back and also shook the hand of a Google attorney, who he thanked for his professional attitude during the proceedings.

    Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the trial’s outcome.

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  • A federal court jury has decided that Google's Android app store has been protected barriers that unfairly harm rivals

    A federal court jury has decided that Google's Android app store has been protected barriers that unfairly harm rivals

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    A federal court jury has decided that Google’s Android app store has been protected barriers that unfairly harm rivals

    ByThe Associated Press

    December 11, 2023, 7:18 PM

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal court jury has decided that Google’s Android app store has been protected barriers that unfairly harm rivals.

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  • Jonathan Majors' accuser recounts night of assault, actor's 'violent temper' that left her fearful

    Jonathan Majors' accuser recounts night of assault, actor's 'violent temper' that left her fearful

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    NEW YORK — Jonathan Majors’ former girlfriend testified Tuesday that the actor was prone to fits of explosive rage, an escalating pattern that she said ultimately led to her assault in the backseat of a car and his career-halting arrest this past spring.

    During hours of tearful testimony, Grace Jabbari traced the downfall of her relationship with Majors, who she described as a “kind and loving” partner increasingly unable to control his “violent temper.” She said he hurled household objects at walls and often threatened to take his own life, at times referring to himself as a “monster.”

    “It felt like I was walking around on eggshells,” said Jabbari, a 30-year-old professional dancer from the United Kingdom. “I had to be perfect.”

    The troubled romance came to a head on the evening of March 25th, as the couple were riding back to Manhattan from a dinner already marred by a heated argument over Majors’ recent outbursts, she told the jury. During the drive, Jabbari was leaning on his shoulder when he received a “romantic” text message sent by a woman named Cleopatra.

    After she snatched the phone out of his hands, she said Majors twisted her arm behind her back in a position that left her in “excruciating” pain. “Next I felt a really hard blow across my head,” she said, pantomiming the motion of an open hand making contact with the back of her skull.

    “He’s very strong. I couldn’t move,” Jabbari continued. “It feels very loud when you’re hit in the head and just shocking.”

    Majors eventually pried the phone from her hands and took off through the streets of Lower Manhattan as Jabbari chased him, according to a video compilation taken from various surveillance cameras that was shown to jurors.

    The testimony came on the second day of the trial against Majors, a rising Hollywood film actor whose portrayal of the comic book supervillain “Kang the Conqueror” was set to anchor the next phase of the Marvel cinematic universe.

    The fate of those films and others starring Majors remains uncertain since his arrest in March for allegedly assaulting Jabbari in the back of the car. An attorney for Majors has maintained that she was the instigator of the confrontation and suggested that race – Majors is Black; Jabbari is white – may have factored into his arrest and prosecution.

    The actor avoided eye contact with his former girlfriend for much of the day’s testimony on Tuesday, scribbling notes to his lawyer or thumbing through his gold-leafed Bible as she recounted how he quickly toggled from emotionally sensitive to abusive.

    “It was confusing,” she said, “because I felt scared of him, but quite dependent on him.”

    In the summer of 2022, while struggling with a grueling diet and exercise regimen for his role as a bodybuilder in the film “Magazine Dreams,” Majors became “full of rage and aggression” without explanation, Jabbari said.

    He lashed out at her, she recalled, throwing objects during one argument that left dents in the walls and sent her ducking for cover in their West Hollywood home.

    A few months later, while filming in England, Majors allegedly blew up on Jabbari again after she came home from a bar “tipsy” with a friend. In a recording played for the court, Majors can be heard berating his girlfriend for not living up to the standards set by other spouses of famous men, like Coretta Scott King and Michelle Obama.

    “I’m a great man. A great man!” Majors declared. “There needs to be a great woman who makes sacrifices.”

    On Tuesday, Jabbari also addressed a series of videos – likely to be a subject of cross-examination by Majors’ lawyers – that showed her partying in a Manhattan nightclub hours after the alleged assault.

    Speaking to jurors, Jabbari said she had met a group of “generous” strangers on a corner after chasing Majors out of the vehicle following the attack.

    “The worst thing in my head would’ve been to go back to the empty apartment we shared in that moment,” Jabbari said. Acknowledging that she can be seen on videos smiling, dancing, and taking shots with the new friends, she added: “I was having the nicest time I could’ve had within the situation.”

    Jabbari is expected to return to the stand on Wednesday.

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