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Tag: law enforcement and corrections

  • Escaped Pennsylvania killer Danilo Cavalcante has been captured. Here’s what happens next | CNN

    Escaped Pennsylvania killer Danilo Cavalcante has been captured. Here’s what happens next | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The convicted murderer who escaped a Pennsylvania prison late last month is once again behind bars, now facing additional charges, after a nearly two-week manhunt that captured national attention and put the surrounding community on edge.

    Danilo Cavalcante, 34, was sleeping when police found him in the woods of South Coventry Township on Wednesday morning, lying on top of a rifle he had stolen from a nearby resident days earlier, a law enforcement source told CNN.

    A helicopter flying above the search area had picked up on a heat signal on the ground, and a tactical team swooped in after a storm cleared out. Cavalcante tried to flee by crawling through thick underbrush with the rifle in hand, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said.

    A police dog was released on him, biting him and preventing him from using the rifle before police took him into custody, capping a dramatic dayslong manhunt, according to Bivens.

    Cavalcante is now being held in a Pennsylvania maximum security prison, State Correctional Institution – Phoenix, in Montgomery County, where he’s to serve a life sentence for his previous murder conviction.

    He now also has been charged with felony escape, and is due to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on September 27, court records show.

    An attorney has not been listed on court documents for Cavalcante and the public defender’s office declined to comment at this time. Pennsylvania authorities updated the spelling of Cavalcante’s first name to Danilo in court documents Wednesday.

    The inmate, who was convicted last month of first-degree murder for the killing of his former girlfriend and sentenced to life in prison, escaped from Chester County Prison in a rural area some 30 miles west of Philadelphia on August 31.

    He managed to evade authorities for 13 days, hunkering down in wooded areas, moving at night, and in the early days, surviving off stream water and a watermelon he found at a farm, authorities said.

    During his time on the run, Cavalcante slipped through search perimeters, was spotted inside homes, stole a dairy van, changed his appearance, showed up at the doorsteps of people he knew years ago, stole a firearm and got shot at by a homeowner.

    When he was captured in South Coventry Township – roughly 20 miles from the facility he escaped from – Cavalcante had the appearance of someone who was in the woods for an extended period of time, and looked to have been stressed, Bivens said Wednesday.

    “Which is exactly what we were trying to do all along,” Bivens said. “The whole point was to keep him stressed, keep him moving, and keep him off his game.”

    More than 20 officers in tactical gear and camouflage uniforms took Cavalcante into custody Wednesday, escorting him to an armored vehicle. He was handcuffed with blood on his face and wearing a Philadelphia Eagles hoodie, video showed.

    His capture came as he planned to leave the country, according to Robert Clark, supervisory deputy US marshal for Pennsylvania’s eastern district.

    “His endgame was to carjack somebody and to head north up to Canada and he intended to do that in the next 24 hours,” Clark told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday.

    Clark, who did not speak with Cavalcante, cited what deputy marshals told him about an interview that the prisoner had with law enforcement officials after his capture.

    “He said the law enforcement presence where he was, was immense and he felt that he needed to leave,” Clark said.

    About 500 law enforcement officers – including members of the Pennsylvania State Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI and US marshals – had set up a perimeter in South Coventry Township this week to search for Cavalcante from the ground and the air.

    Clark told CNN Cavalcante was forthcoming with investigators after his capture, and “answered everything that was given to him” and “had no hesitation.”

    “Everything we thought about Cavalcante in his flight, was true,” Clark said. “He was a desperate man, he was actively avoiding apprehension.”

    Escaped inmate Danilo Cavalcante is shown after being captured on Wednesday

    Cavalcante left the prison by “crab-walking” between two walls, scaling a fence and traversing across razor wire and then disappeared into the forest.

    Police faced challenges finding him within the initial search perimeter in the densely wooded area, even after he was sighted several times in the area of a botanical garden and elsewhere in Chester County.

    “Shortly after he escaped from the prison, he had hunkered down in an area that was very, very secluded, very, very wooded and he didn’t move for the first couple days,” Clark said, citing Cavalcante’s post-capture interview with investigators. “He survived on a watermelon that he found at a farm, he drank stream water, he was hiding his fecal matter under leaves and foliage so that law enforcement couldn’t track him.”

    But officers came close to him several times.

    Cavalcante told investigators that officers searching for him nearly stepped on him three times – or came within yards of him – as he hid in the woods, Clark said without indicating when these near-encounters happened.

    “Three times, he described that law enforcement officials almost stepped on him within 7 or 8 yards,” Clark said. “That just proves to you how thick the vegetation and the foliage was.”

    Cavalcante decided to leave that area when he saw the increasing law enforcement activity there, Clark said.

    He had been surveilling the locations where he stole a truck from a dairy farm on Saturday, as well as a property where he stole the rifle this week, Clark said.

    The rifle Cavalcante took from an open garage Monday night added a heightened sense of danger to the search, and prompted authorities to urge residents to stay inside and lock their doors.

    “Our nightmare is finally over,” Chester County District Attorney Deb Ryan said Wednesday morning.

    Ryan said one of the first calls she made after Cavalcante’s capture was to the family of the woman he killed, 33-year-old Deborah Brandão. Prosecutors say Cavalcante stabbed Brandão 38 times in front of her two young children in Pennsylvania in April 2021.

    Her family had been “barricaded inside their homes not feeling safe anywhere” since his escape, Ryan said.

    “They were shrieking with joy and happiness that he’s incarcerated,” Ryan said. “They have lived their own personal nightmare.”

    Brandão’s sister, Sarah Brandão, said in a typed statement after Cavalcante’s capture that her family is “profoundly grateful for the support and hard work performed” by law enforcement.

    The escape and days that followed evoked the feeling of losing her sister again, Sarah said.

    “The past two weeks were extremely painful and terrifying, as they brought back all the feelings of losing my sister and the idea that this criminal could hurt us again,” the statement, which was translated into English, reads.

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  • A 4-year-old police dog named Yoda detained fugitive Danilo Cavalcante, bringing an end to the exhaustive, nearly 2 week-long manhunt | CNN

    A 4-year-old police dog named Yoda detained fugitive Danilo Cavalcante, bringing an end to the exhaustive, nearly 2 week-long manhunt | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Moments after law enforcement officials spotted convicted murderer Danilo Cavalcante’s head peeking through the underbrush, they released a police dog who bit and subdued Cavalcante, leading to his apprehension nearly two weeks after he escaped prison, officials said.

    The dog, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois male named Yoda, was from one of two tactical teams that moved in on Cavalcante at around 8 a.m. in a wooded Pennsylvania area, ending an intensive manhunt that drew hundreds of law enforcement officials to the area without any shots fired during the arrest.

    Yoda was a significant force in the takedown, preventing Cavalcante from using a stolen rifle in his possession that lay within arms-reach, said Lt. Colonel George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police during a news conference Wednesday.

    “He was just essential as far as the tracking and searching, as were numerous other K-9s that were here,” Robert Clark, supervisory deputy US Marshal for Pennsylvania’s eastern district, told CNN on Wednesday. “All these K-9 resources were utilized from different tactical teams from the area, and they were just incredible resources.”

    US Marshal describes manhunt that led to escaped inmate’s capture

    Cavalcante escaped from Chester County Prison on August 31, leaving the surrounding community gripped with fear as he evaded capture despite being spotted numerous times.

    The 34-year-old was convicted last month in the 2021 killing of his former girlfriend, Deborah Brandão. He is also wanted in a 2017 homicide case in Brazil, a US Marshals Service official said.

    Cavalcante was captured in Chester County, swarmed by at least 20 law enforcement officers, Bivens said. Yoda joined the search from the US Border Patrol Tactical Unit stationed out of Michigan, Clark told CNN.

    Authorities say it took about five minutes from when authorities began moving in to apprehend Cavalcante, with Yoda’s help.

    Danilo Cavalcante is seen lying in the woods surrounded by officers and Yoda, a US Border Patrol BORTAC K9, on Wednesday.

    The fugitive was sleeping when police finally located him, lying on top of a rifle he had stolen from a nearby resident late Monday night. Officers took Cavalcante by surprise, and he tried to flee by crawling through the thick underbrush with the stolen rifle in hand, Bivens said.

    The tactical teams made the decision to deploy Yoda – knowing Cavalcante was armed – before upgrading to deadly force, according to Clark. Only the crown of Cavalcante’s head was visible when Yoda moved in on him, Clark said.

    Yoda is a “bite and hold” police dog, Clark said, trained to hold down an individual until commanded to release the hold. The dog bit Cavalcante on his scalp and then bit him again in the “lower extremity area” to keep him down, Clark said.

    “When the dog got to him, he then went flat with the dog on him – the dog was able to detain him there,” Bivens said. “I was told the rifle was within arm’s length.”

    Cavalcante then “continued to resist” and was “forcibly taken into custody” by the officers, Bivens said.

    Police dogs play “a very important role” in tracking down and safely capturing an individual, Bivens said during the news conference.

    “Far better that we’re able to release a patrol dog like this and have them subdue the individual than have to use lethal force,” Bivens said.

    Escaped inmate Danilo Cavalcante is shown after being captured on September 13, 2023.

    It’s standard practice for K-9s to move first, going quickly and directly to a suspect on command, Bivens told CNN.

    The dogs are trained to take a person “off guard” to prevent them from escaping or using any weapons in their vicinity. Their training grants officers a few extra seconds to approach the suspect and apprehend them without lethal force, Bivens added.

    “They don’t just keep biting and releasing or trying to cause additional injury,” Bivens said, referring to how K-9 dogs are trained.

    “They simply grab onto and try and hold that person in place until officers can get there,” he added, noting police dogs are not meant to be released at a distance or without supervision. “There are officers close by who can then move in, the handler can Immediately pull the dog back off… and then officers take over from there.”

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  • The MGM Resorts back online after cybersecurity issue | CNN Business

    The MGM Resorts back online after cybersecurity issue | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    MGM Resorts has shut down some of its systems as a result of a “cybersecurity issue,” according to a company social media post on Monday.

    Late Tuesday, the company posted an update, saying that its resorts’ dining, entertainment, and gaming “are currently operational.” The statement also thanked guests for their patience, saying “our guests remain able to access their hotel rooms.”

    However, the statement did not specify the status of its systems, whether these operations were being handled manually, or whether some properties are still accepting cash only.

    As of Tuesday morning, the MGM Resorts website was still offline, with an apology message and a list of phone numbers for guests to reach their specific hotel concierge desk.

    Justin Heath, a guest at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, told CNN on Monday that visitors were unable to charge purchases to their rooms, that digital hotel room keys were not working and that restaurants were taking only cash.

    In MGM’s initial Sunday statement, the company explained that after detecting the cybersecurity issue, “we quickly began an investigation with assistance from leading external cybersecurity experts,” the company said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    MGM Resorts (MGM) says it’s working with law enforcement and “took prompt action to protect our systems and data, including shutting down certain systems.”

    An FBI spokesperson told CNN they are aware of the incident but declined further comment on the matter.

    CNN has reached out to MGM Resorts for more information. MGM Resorts International manages several properties across the U.S., including Aria, Bellagio, Cosmopolitan, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand Las Vegas, and New York-New York in Las Vegas. Other domestic properties are located in Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, and New York. The company also has resort locations in China.

    It is unclear whether the cybersecurity incident was conducted by threat actors seeking to exfiltrate sensitive information or to cause damage and disruption to MGM systems. For investigators, the nature of the attack is often key to helping identify whether it originated from criminals seeking to steal information for financial gain, or nation-state actors gathering information for intelligence purposes.

    Casinos have been prime targets for both traditional cybercriminal enterprises as well as foreign governments.

    In 2017, researchers announced a North American casino had been the target of data exfiltration by cybercriminals who compromised a fish tank connected to company’s internet connection.

    In 2014, the Sands Las Vegas Corporation fell victim to a damaging cyberattack by the Iranian government, according to the US Director of National Intelligence.

    CNN’s Danielle Sills contributed to this report

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  • A man walked into an FBI office and admitted to killing a woman more than 4 decades ago in Boston, officials say | CNN

    A man walked into an FBI office and admitted to killing a woman more than 4 decades ago in Boston, officials say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Authorities say they were able to solve a Boston cold case from 44 years ago after an Oregon man walked into an FBI office and confessed to killing and raping a woman in 1979.

    John Michael Irmer, 68, was arraigned in a Boston courtroom Monday and charged with murdering 24-year-old Susan Marcia Rose on October 30, 1979, according to a news release from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.

    In August, Irmer walked into a Portland FBI field office where he revealed to agents he met a woman with red hair at a Boston skating rink around the time of Halloween in 1979 and killed her, the DA’s office said.

    Irmer said they walked into 285 Beacon Street, a building under renovation at the time, grabbed a hammer and hit the woman on the head, killing her. He told FBI agents he raped her after she had died, the news release said.

    After the admission, authorities were able to confirm Rose, who had red hair, was found murdered on Beacon Street, a historic thoroughfare near the heart of the city, the DA’s office said. Her cause of death was ruled to be multiple blunt injuries to the head with fractures of the skull and lacerations of the brain.

    The DA’s office said investigators were able to match a DNA sample from Irmer with samples collected from the murder scene.

    Another man was tried and found not guilty of Rose’s murder in 1981, the press release stated. No information was immediately available about the prior case.

    During Monday’s arraignment, Assistant District Attorney John Verner said that while Irmer was confessing to Rose’s murder, he also admitted to committing another murder in a southern state. Verner said authorities were looking into the admission.

    Additionally, Verner said Irmer told police he had served “about 30 years” in prison for another killing in California.

    Attorney Steven J. Sack, who represented Irmer in court Monday, said he doesn’t contest bail. He said Irmer came to court “without a fight to face these charges.”

    Irmer is in custody and is currently being held without bail.

    “Nearly 44 years after losing her at such a young age, the family and friends of Susan Marcia Rose will finally have some answers,” District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement. “This was a brutal, ice-blooded murder made worse by the fact that a person was charged and tried—and fortunately, found not guilty—while the real murderer remained silent until now. No matter how cold cases get resolved, it’s always the answers that are important for those who have lived with grief and loss and so many agonizing questions.”

    The Suffolk County’s Attorney Office told CNN they are not commenting on Irmer’s case at this time.

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  • Michigan State University football coach Mel Tucker suspended without pay amid investigation into reported accusation of sexual harassment | CNN

    Michigan State University football coach Mel Tucker suspended without pay amid investigation into reported accusation of sexual harassment | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Michigan State University announced Sunday it has suspended head football coach Mel Tucker without pay, less than a day after USA Today reported he has been under investigation about alleged sexual harassment.

    Vice president and director of athletics Alan Haller said at a news conference Tucker is the subject of an ongoing investigation that began in December. An investigative report was submitted in July and a formal hearing will take place the week of October 5, Haller said.

    According to the USA Today report, published Saturday night, Tucker is alleged to have made sexual comments and masturbated while on a phone call with Brenda Tracy, an advocate and rape survivor.

    Tracy reported the call to the university’s Title IX office, USA Today reported. “The idea that someone could know me and say they understand my trauma but then re-inflict that trauma on me is so disgusting to me, it’s hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” Tracy told USA Today. “It’s like he sought me out just to betray me.”

    In a letter to investigators, Tucker characterized his and Tracy’s relationship as “mutually consensual and intimate,” according to USA Today.

    “I am not proud of my judgment and I am having difficulty forgiving myself for getting into this situation, but I did not engage in misconduct by any definition,” he wrote, according to USA Today.

    CNN has not independently verified the details of the report.

    An attorney for Tracy, Karen Truszkowski, said no police report was filed. She declined to share any documents or comment further.

    “As you can imagine, this is a delicate issue and I have to balance the public interest with protecting my client,” Truszkowski said.

    CNN also reached out to Tucker’s agent following the announcement of his suspension but has not heard back.

    Tracy started the nonprofit Set The Expectation, where she speaks to athletes about ending sexual violence, according to her website. Tracy was raped in 1998 by four college football players, leading to her advocacy.

    She served as an honorary captain for Michigan State’s spring football game in 2022, and the football team posted a photo on Instagram of Tucker and Tracy together.

    “We are excited to welcome (Tracy) back to campus as our honorary captain for Saturday’s spring game!” the team wrote.

    Tucker, a longtime coach in college and the NFL over the past two decades, became Michigan State’s head coach in 2020. In his second season, the team went a sterling 11-2, and he signed a massive 10-year, $95 million contract that made him one of the highest paid coaches in all of college football. Last year, though, the team finished a disappointing 5-7, including blowout losses to rivals Michigan and Ohio State.

    During Tucker’s suspension, secondary coach Harlon Barnett will fill in as acting head coach, Haller announced, and former MSU head coach Mark Dantonio will become an associate head coach. The Spartans play the Washington Huskies at home this Saturday.

    The long shadow of Larry Nassar

    The investigation comes as the university has continued to face scrutiny over its past handling of sexual abuse allegations against Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor who abused hundreds of young girls and women.

    At Nassar’s sentencing in Michigan in 2018, dozens of women came forward with stories of his abuse and the ways Michigan State University ignored their claims and enabled his actions. The university agreed to pay $500 million to settle lawsuits brought by 332 victims.

    Nassar was sentenced in Michigan to up to 175 years in prison after pleading guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct. A total of 156 women gave victim impact statements in court.

    An attorney for a group of Nassar’s victims sued Michigan State University in July, alleging the school’s board of trustees held “illegal secret votes” to prevent the release of thousands of documents in the case, according to the court filing. A spokesperson for the university declined to comment at the time.

    The university pushed back on comparisons between the two cases.

    “This morning’s news might sound like the MSU of old; it was not,” interim president Teresa K. Woodruff said Sunday afternoon. “It is not because an independent, unbiased investigation is and continues to be conducted.”

    Woodruff made note of counseling resources available for anyone who may be affected by this news and mentioned the Center for Survivors and Office for Civil Rights on campus.

    “If you have heard or experienced or know of behavior that does not seem appropriate, please know that you have the support and resources here at MSU,” Woodruff said.

    Kenny Jacoby, the USA Today reporter who broke the story, told CNN’s Poppy Harlow and Phil Mattingly on “CNN This Morning” on Monday how the Nassar case has left a long shadow on campus.

    “There is deep mistrust on the MSU campus from students, from employees, from alumni and in the East Lansing community after the betrayal that was the Larry Nassar scandal,” Jacoby said. “They repeatedly missed opportunities to stop one of the most prolific sexual abusers in American history.

    “So when MSU takes this long to suspend the coach without pay – people tend to think of that as they’re covering this up, and that doesn’t sit well with most of these people.”

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  • British PM raised ‘strong concerns’ over Chinese interference after parliament employee arrested | CNN

    British PM raised ‘strong concerns’ over Chinese interference after parliament employee arrested | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he raised his “very strong concerns” to China’s premier regarding potential Chinese interference in British democracy after a parliament employee was arrested on suspicion of spying for China.

    Speaking to journalists at the G20 summit in New Delhi on Sunday, Sunak said he used a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang to raise several concerns including over “any interference in our parliamentary democracy.”

    This comes after two men were arrested under the UK’s Official Secrets Act amid reports that a parliamentary researcher with alleged links to senior Conservative Party politicians including security minister Tom Tugendhat was arrested on suspicion of spying for Beijing.

    UK newspaper, The Sunday Times broke the story on Sunday, reporting that the researcher was arrested alongside another man on March 13.

    According to a statement from London’s Metropolitan Police, police arrested a man in his 30s in Oxfordshire, southern England, and a man in his 20s in Edinburgh, Scotland.

    “The investigation is being carried out by officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, which has responsibility for investigations relating to allegations of Official Secrets Act and espionage-related offences,” the statement said.

    After being brought to a police station in south London, the two men were released on police bail until a date in early October, according to the statement.

    China’s embassy in London denied the spying accusations.

    “The claim that China is suspected of ‘stealing British intelligence’ is completely fabricated and nothing but malicious slander,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

    “We firmly oppose it and urge relevant parties in the UK to stop their anti-China political manipulation and stop putting on such self-staged political farce,” the statement added.

    According to the Sunday Times reporting, the arrested parliamentary researcher was also linked to the chairperson of the British government’s foreign affairs committee, Alicia Kearns.

    Posting on Saturday on X, formerly known as Twitter, Kearns declined to comment on the alleged ties, remarking: “While I recognise the public interest, we all have a duty to ensure any work of the authorities is not jeopardised.”

    A cross party group focused on relations with China, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) said in a statement on Saturday on X that it was “appalled at reports of the infiltration of the UK Parliament by someone allegedly acting on behalf of the People’s Republic of China.”

    “It is for authorities to reveal the name of the person accused, and IPAC is united in hoping that justice is done expeditiously,” the alliance continued.

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  • Convicted killer who escaped Pennsylvania prison was spotted overnight and changed his appearance, police say | CNN

    Convicted killer who escaped Pennsylvania prison was spotted overnight and changed his appearance, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Danelo Cavalcante, the convicted killer who escaped from a Pennsylvania prison, was seen overnight Saturday, according to state police, who said the fugitive had “changed his appearance” as the manhunt enters its 11th day.

    “He is now clean-shaven and wearing a yellow or green hooded sweatshirt, black baseball cap, green prison pants, and white shoes,” Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement early Sunday, adding he was spotted near in northern Chester County near Phoenixville.

    Cavalcante, 34, is also said to be driving a 2020 white Ford Transit van with Pennsylvania plates and a refrigeration unit on top, according to police. The van had been reported stolen by a local dairy farm, the Chester County District Attorney’s Office said.

    Nearly 400 officers have joined the round-the-clock search operation for Cavalcante, who fled Chester County Prison on August 31 by “crab walking” between two walls, scaling a fence and traversing razor wire.

    The sighting Saturday is just the latest: Police Lt. Col. George Bivens, who is leading the search, told reporters Friday there had been “probably eight or nine” other credible sightings since Cavalcante’s escape. Two sightings on Friday were confirmed within the general perimeter where tactical teams, K-9 dogs and a helicopter are scouring for any sign of the fugitive, according to Pennsylvania State Police Trooper James Grothey.

    Cavalcante’s escape came about two weeks after he was convicted of first-degree murder for the 2021 killing of his former girlfriend, Deborah Brandão, 33, in Chester County. Authorities said Cavalcante stabbed Brandão 38 times in front of her two children, who are now in the care of her sister.

    Cavalcante is also wanted in a 2017 homicide case in Brazil, his native country, a US Marshals Service official has said.

    The inmate’s escape from the prison about 30 miles west of Philadelphia has instilled fear within his victim’s family and distressed nearby residents like Ryan Drummond, who told CNN he saw Cavalcante in his Pocopson Township home the night of September 1.

    Describing it as an “acute moment of terror,” Drummond said he heard noise in his house and noticed an old French door off the side of their deck was slightly ajar.

    “That’s when my stomach dropped,” he told CNN’s Michael Smerconish.

    Drummond told his wife to call 911, he said, and saw Cavalcante “walking methodically” out of the kitchen into his living room before leaving the house via the French door.

    Cavalcante was seen in or around Chester County’s Longwood Gardens – about 3 miles from the prison – several times last week. On September 2, the fugitive was seen on surveillance video about 1.5 miles from the prison, authorities said. On Monday, a security camera recorded the fugitive at Longwood Gardens, authorities said.

    An area resident then reported seeing Cavalcante on Tuesday in a creek bed on the resident’s property. On Wednesday, a trail camera image showed Cavalcante in or around Longwood Gardens, but officials learned about this sighting Thursday evening, according to Bivens.

    Guests were asked to leave the botanical gardens Thursday as the entire venue closed for the manhunt. Police swarmed the botanical gardens, but did not catch the killer.

    Despite Cavalcante’s elusive streak, Bivens said he is confident the fugitive will be caught.

    “We’ve got a large perimeter secured,” he said Friday. “That is a pretty secure perimeter that we can push hard against with the tactical team.”

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  • Mother charged nearly 40 years after her newborn baby was found dead in remote woods | CNN

    Mother charged nearly 40 years after her newborn baby was found dead in remote woods | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A woman was charged in her newborn girl’s death nearly 40 years after the abandoned baby was found dead in a remote wooded area in New Jersey, according to the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office.

    On Christmas Eve 1984, officers discovered the baby’s body wrapped in a towel inside a plastic bag off a road in Mendham Township after two boys reported finding her that morning, a news release stated.

    The baby’s umbilical cord was still attached, according to the release issued Thursday. The medical examiner determined the infant, whose death was ruled a homicide, was alive at birth and died less than 24 hours later.

    The girl, whose identity was unknown, was named “Mary” after being baptized by a reverend of St. Joseph Church in Mendham Township, where she was buried, the prosecutor’s office said.

    Investigators were recently able to identify Baby Mary’s biological parents using “new technology, law enforcement networking in three states and old-fashioned police work,” the prosecutor’s office said.

    Baby Mary’s biological mother, who police did not name because she was a juvenile in 1984, was a South Carolina resident when she gave birth to the child, the prosecutor’s office said.

    The biological father died before being identified, and police say there is no evidence he was aware of either the woman’s pregnancy or the baby’s birth and death.

    Authorities filed a juvenile delinquency complaint against the mother in April and charged her with one count of manslaughter, an offense which would be a second-degree crime if committed by an adult, according to the release.

    “This arrest is the culmination of decades of effort, across multiple generations of law enforcement,” Morris County Prosecutor Robert J. Carroll said.

    “The death and abandonment of this baby girl is a tragic loss and even after nearly 40 years, remains just as heartbreaking,” Carroll said. “Justice may not take the form the public has imagined all these years, but we believe with this juvenile delinquency complaint, justice is being served for Baby Mary. Nothing can right this terrible wrong.”

    Police said New Jersey’s Safe Haven Infant Protection Act, which did not exist at the time of the child’s abandonment, can help parents and families to give up an infant safely, legally and anonymously.

    The act, which allows parents or their representatives to surrender a newborn 30 days old or younger at an emergency room, ambulance, police or fire station, became law in August 2000.

    “I want young parents to know that there is help available,” Morris County Sheriff James Gannon said in the release. “The baby will be accepted with no questions asked.”

    Every Christmas Eve for the past 35 years, community members and law enforcement have held a remembrance service at the Baby Mary’s grave “to ensure she is never forgotten,” Mendham Township Police Chief Ross Johnson said.

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  • Rudy Giuliani files new legal challenge to Georgia election interference case | CNN Politics

    Rudy Giuliani files new legal challenge to Georgia election interference case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Rudy Giuliani has filed a new legal challenge against the criminal charges he’s facing in Georgia over his attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election.

    The former Trump attorney on Friday asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to quash the indictment, or at least to set a hearing on the matter. Giuliani argued in the filing that there were “deficiencies” in the indictment that render it invalid, and that prosecutors are violating his rights against “double jeopardy” by how they structured the racketeering conspiracy allegations.

    The indictment is “a conspiratorial bouillabaisse consisting of purported criminal acts, daily activities, and constitutionally protected speech,” the filing argues.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Giuliani last month with 13 crimes, including violating the state’s racketeering law (known as RICO), soliciting public officials to violate their oath of office, conspiring to commit forgery, and making false statements.

    State prosecutors argue that Giuliani participated in a “criminal enterprise” by peddling false claims about voter fraud to state legislators and by orchestrating the fake electors scheme. He pleaded not guilty, as have the other 18 defendants in the sweeping case.

    In the weeks since his indictment, Giuliani has railed against Willis, saying in a recent podcast that she is “so damn stupid” and “doesn’t even know what the RICO statute is.”

    The former New York City mayor held a fundraiser Thursday to help with his growing legal bills. CNN previously reported that he owes millions of dollars in legal expenses.

    Giuliani also is an unindicted co-conspirator in Trump’s federal election subversion case. And he faces defamation suits from Dominion and Smartmatic, voting technology companies that he falsely said rigged the 2020 election. In a separate case, a judge ruled that he defamed two Georgia election workers, and a jury will decide what he owes damages.

    The Georgia election workers who won a defamation lawsuit against Giuliani for his bogus fraud claims in the 2020 election say they are entitled to another $104,000 in attorneys’ fees stemming from the discovery disputes that arose in the case.

    It will be up to US District Judge Beryl Howell to approve the amount Giuliani must pay.

    The ask would be in addition to the nearly $90,000 in sanctions the judge previously ordered for Giuliani in the case.

    Last month, Howell determined that Giuliani had lost the lawsuit brought by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss after he failed to provide information sought in subpoenas.

    A trial to determine the amount of damages for which Giuliani will be held liable will be set for later this year or early 2024.

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  • Danny Masterson sentenced to 30 years to life in prison in rape case | CNN

    Danny Masterson sentenced to 30 years to life in prison in rape case | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Actor Danny Masterson was sentenced on Thursday to 30 years to life in prison after he was convicted on two counts of rape in a Los Angeles courtroom in June, according to Deputy D.A. Reinhold Mueller of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.

    CNN has reached out to representatives for Masterson for comment.

    The “That ’70s Show” star, 47, was found guilty in June on two of three counts of rape. The jury was deadlocked on the third count.

    Masterson was taken into custody following the verdict earlier this year, and on Thursday received the maximum penalty for the crimes.

    Masterson had pleaded not guilty to raping three women at his home in separate incidents between 2001 and 2003.

    The sentence on Thursday stems from the second trial in the case, which began on April 24 and went to jury on May 17. Masterson was represented by defense lawyers Shawn Holley and Philip Cohen. Deputy D.A. Ariel Anson and Deputy D.A. Mueller prosecuted the case.

    The first trial began in October 2022, and a mistrial was declared the following month after the jury remained deadlocked, the District Attorney told CNN at the time.

    Alison Anderson, the attorney representing two of the three accusers, told CNN in a statement on Thursday following the sentencing that her clients “have displayed tremendous strength and bravery, by coming forward to law enforcement and participating directly in two grueling criminal trials.”

    Masterson is best known for his role as Steven Hyde on “That ’70s Show,” which aired for eight seasons on Fox from 1998 to 2006, and co-starred Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Laura Prepon, Topher Grace and Wilmer Valderrama.

    Kutcher and Masterson also starred in Netflix’s “The Ranch” beginning in 2016, but Netflix and the producers wrote Masterson off the show amid the rape allegations. At the time, Masterson said he was “obviously very disappointed” by the decision in a statement to CNN.

    News of the allegations date back to March 2017, when journalist and former Village Voice editor Tony Ortega wrote on his site “The Underground Bunker” that Masterson was being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department.

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  • Terror suspect on the run after escaping London prison | CNN

    Terror suspect on the run after escaping London prison | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A serving member of the British Army awaiting trial on terror charges escaped from prison in London on Wednesday, the city’s Metropolitan Police said.

    Daniel Abed Khalife went missing from Wandsworth prison, in the southwest of the British capital, shortly before 8 a.m. UK time. He had been awaiting trial for terror offenses and alleged breaches of the Official Secrets Act.

    Khalife is a soldier accused of planting fake bombs at a military base, according to the PA Media news agency.

    “Police are issuing an urgent appeal to the public to help trace a 21-year-old man who has escaped from prison,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

    “Khalife was on remand at HMP Wandsworth, awaiting trial in relation to terrorism and Official Secrets Act offences,” it continued. “From our initial enquiries, it is believed he escaped from the prison at approximately 07:50hrs.”

    According to the Met statement, Khalife was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, red and white checkered trousers and brown steel toe cap boots.

    He is of slim build, has short brown hair and is around 6ft 2ins tall.

    Police believe that he most likely remains in the London area at this time, although he may have traveled further afield.

    Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “We have a team of officers who are making extensive and urgent enquiries in order to locate and detain Khalife as quickly as possible.”

    “I also want to reassure the public that we have no information which indicates, nor any reason to believe, that Khalife poses a threat to the wider public, but our advice if you do see him is not to approach him and call 999 straight away,” Murphy added, referring to the UK’s emergency services phone line.

    British airports and ports are also experiencing disruption after counter-terrorism police alerted the country’s airports and ports to Khalife’s escape.

    Manchester Airport was facing delays of up to 30 minutes on Wednesday afternoon after introducing extra security checks, according to PA Media.

    Meanwhile, Port of Dover Travel posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Due to a police matter, there are currently enhanced checks on outbound traffic at the Port of Dover and other portals within the UK.

    “Please be advised this is currently resulting in some delays at the port.”

    UK prison escapes are a rare occurrence. Data from the British government shows that there was just one escape across England and Wales in 2021-22, none in the proceeding period, and only a handful in the years prior to that.

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  • The daughter of the woman killed by Pennsylvania prison escapee Danelo Cavalcante told police he said he was going ‘to do something bad’ to their lives | CNN

    The daughter of the woman killed by Pennsylvania prison escapee Danelo Cavalcante told police he said he was going ‘to do something bad’ to their lives | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The prisoner who is now the subject of a massive manhunt after escaping from a Pennsylvania prison last week had killed his ex-girlfriend in a brutal 2021 stabbing in front of her two young children, authorities say.

    Danelo Souza Cavalcante, a 34-year-old who was convicted just last month in the killing, escaped from the Chester County Prison some 30 miles west of Philadelphia on Thursday morning, sparking a search involving hundreds of officers.

    Investigators believe he escaped the facility by climbing onto the roof and fleeing from there, a law enforcement source told CNN.

    The manhunt’s range expanded Tuesday morning after he was spotted in trail camera footage in Chester County, just south of the perimeter authorities originally believed him to be in. Two school districts canceled classes amid the search.

    Cavalcante is a Brazil native who is roughly 5 feet tall with long, curly black hair and brown eyes, authorities have said. He is extremely dangerous and desperate not to get caught, officials have warned, and they’ve urged residents in areas near the prison to keep their doors locked, stay inside, check on each other and check their security cameras.

    Cavalcante also is wanted in a 2017 homicide case in Brazil, according to the US Marshals Service.

    Authorities are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

    Here’s what we know about him.

    Prosecutors say Deborah Brandão, Cavalcante’s ex-girlfriend, was outside her home with her two children on April 18, 2021.

    Cavalcante arrived, grabbed her by her hair, “threw her to the ground, and stabbed her 38 times in virtually every vital organ … causing her to bleed to death,” the Chester County district attorney’s office said in a Facebook post.

    Deborah Brandão is seen here in an undated picture.

    Brandão’s 7- and 4-year-old children ran to neighbors asking for help and Cavalcante fled, the district attorney’s office said.

    The 7-year-old girl told police that when Cavalcante began stabbing Brandão, he said he was going to kill her, court records show.

    He was arrested several hours later in Virginia, prosecutors said. Authorities believe he was attempting to flee to Mexico with the intention of heading later to Brazil, District Attorney Deb Ryan has said.

    Schuylkill Township police were dispatched to the home at roughly 4:17 p.m. on the day of the killing, and found Brandão on the ground “with multiple stab wounds to the chest,” the district attorney’s office said.

    A neighbor attempted lifesaving procedures on Brandão while they waited for emergency medical services to arrive, but she was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after.

    She was 33.

    After the stabbing, Brandão’s 7-year-old daughter told police Cavalcante showed up at their house and “said he was going to do something bad to their lives and pulled two knives out from a black bag that was behind his back,” according to a probable cause affidavit.

    The daughter said she was screaming and Cavalcante threw a rock at her, hitting her leg, police wrote in the affidavit.

    After running to the neighbor for help, the girl looked outside and saw Cavalcante leave in a black car, the documents said.

    Brandão had filed a protection from abuse order against Cavalcante in December 2020, according to the probable cause affidavit. The order alleges he had a history of assaulting Brandão and previously pulled a knife on her.

    “This was a senseless tragedy that has impacted countless people due to the defendant’s cold, calculated, and heinous actions,” Ryan, who led Cavalcante’s prosecution, said last month.

    “Ms. Brandão’s children are now left motherless and she will never have the opportunity to watch her children grow up, finish school, or have families of their own,” the district attorney said.

    Brandão’s daughter testified in the case and “helped obtain justice for her mother,” the district attorney said. The girl also identified Cavalcante in a photograph shortly after the killing and told police, “That’s him, that’s the guy that killed my mom. Please get him and put him in prison,” the affidavit shows.

    On August 16, 2023, Cavalcante was convicted of first-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime in the killing, according to the district attorney’s office. Just days later, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the office said.

    Attorneys for Cavalcante told jurors during the trial that he was provoked and “snapped” when he attacked Brandão, and said he acted in the heat of passion, according to the Chester County newspaper Daily Local.

    Officials are searching for 34-year-old Danelo Cavalcante, who broke out of the Chester County Prison at around 8:50AM Thursday, according to the Chester County District Attorney's office.

    ‘His depravity knows no bounds’: Chester County DA on escaped murderer

    While officers continued their search for Cavalcante over the weekend, authorities urged residents in Pocopson Township, which is next to the prison, to stay in their homes.

    Danelo Cavalcante is seen in this image from surveillance footage released by Pennsylvania State Police.

    “Lock your doors. Lock your cars. He is still considered an extremely dangerous individual,” Ryan, the district attorney, said in a Saturday news conference.

    “People need to be on high alert. … He has killed someone. He’s alleged to have killed another person. So people need to take every precaution possible: Lock your doors, keep your eyes on your kids and keep your eyes on your neighbors and your friends,” Ryan had said a day earlier. “Everyone needs to be on high alert.”

    Since his escape, there have been “several credible sightings” of him in an area within the township, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said in a Tuesday morning news conference.

    Surveillance footage on Monday also captured Cavalcante in Longwood Gardens, a popular tourist attraction just south of the area authorities were searching near the prison, prompting the search area to shift, Bivens said.

    The escapee also appeared to have obtained some items, including a backpack, a “duffel-sling type pack” and a hooded sweatshirt, Bivens said.

    Bivens added that residents in the area should be alert, use caution and be aware of their surroundings.

    “We’re asking them to lock their vehicles, if they don’t ordinarily do that,” he added. “And pay attention to what’s going on, pay attention to your neighbors, anything that’s unusual there. … But really, it’s vigilance that we’re looking for from people right now.”

    “He’s clearly in escape mode, but he’s desperate,” Bivens said. “His history is that he’s a dangerous individual. … If we identify that he’s in a very specific area, my recommendation then would be, ‘Stay in your homes.’”

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  • Cuba says ‘human trafficking network’ is sending its nationals to fight for Russia in Ukraine | CNN

    Cuba says ‘human trafficking network’ is sending its nationals to fight for Russia in Ukraine | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Cuba says it has uncovered a human trafficking network operating from Russia that is recruiting Cubans to fight for their longstanding ally in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

    Cubans living in Russia and “even some in Cuba” had been trafficked and “incorporated into the military forces taking part in the war in Ukraine,” the Cuban foreign ministry said Monday in a statement.

    The ministry gave few details about the alleged trafficking operations, but said that authorities were working to “neutralize and dismantle” the network.

    There were no reports of any arrests of people allegedly involved in the trafficking operation. In September, reports surfaced on social media of Cubans who said they were serving in Russia’s armed forces but that they had been tricked into joining the war effort and mistreated when they refused to fight. CNN was not able to independently verify those allegations, and it is not clear how many Cubans may be fighting for Russia.

    Cuba stressed in its statement that it “is not part of the war in Ukraine.” The Kremlin has not commented on the allegations.

    The report comes amid efforts by Russia to boost its forces in Ukraine, which have suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, and with the future of the mercenary Wagner Group in doubt.

    Moscow announced a plan earlier this year to increase the strength of the Russian armed forces by 30% to 1.5 million servicemen. In July, the Russian state Duma voted to extend the military draft age to include citizens from 18 to 30 years old, up from 27.

    For much of the conflict, the official Russian army has been bolstered by mercenaries contracted to Wagner. But after the death of the group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his troops in an aborted mutiny against Moscow in June, it is unclear whether Russia will rely on Wagner forces to wage its war in Ukraine.

    Cuba was a major ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and relations between Havana and Moscow have remained cozy since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    Cuba has been a staunch defender of Russia’s war on the country, blaming the US and NATO for the conflict. As Cuba grapples with its worse economic crisis in decades, Russia has supplied the communist-run island with badly needed food and shipments of crude oil. Since the war began the two nations have signed a flurry of agreements promising increased Russian foreign investment in Cuba.

    In a rare interview in May, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told Russian state-controlled network RT that Cuba condemned “the expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders,” echoing one of the Kremlin’s justifications for its brutal war.

    Diaz-Canel visited Moscow in November last year to attend the unveiling of a statue of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also traveled to Cuba on separate trips this year and hailed the relations between the two countries.

    There are historical precedents of Cubans fighting alongside and on behalf of Russia.

    In several conflicts in Africa during the Cold War, “the deal was the Cubans would supply the soldiers, the Soviets would supply the weapons,” Sergei Radchenko, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told CNN.

    Thousands of Cuban fighters intervened in support of communist forces in Angola in 1975, as well as in Ethiopia in 1977, alongside Soviet troops and using Soviet equipment.

    “Having Cuban mercenaries – you might call them mercenaries, or at that time it was revolutionary fighters – is a longstanding precedent as far as Cuba and the Cuban-Russian relationship is concerned,” said Radchenko. In Cuba, those military interventions – often fighting South African-trained mercenaries – are celebrated as having played a crucial role in ending apartheid in South Africa.

    However, Radchenko said, the statement issued by Cuba’s foreign ministry “sounds like something very different,” due to the suggestion of coercion.

    Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said he was not surprised that Russia is seeking Cuban mercenaries to wage its war.

    “This is the typical Russian modus operandi of getting mercenaries to do their fighting for them – particularly in desperate states,” Sabatini told CNN, adding that Cuba “is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.”

    What was surprising, he said, was the reaction of the Cuban government, which suggests that Russia “touched a nerve.”

    “The Cuban government is fiercely loyal to its allies,” Sabatini said. “That they would call this out is an indication that they truly feel humiliated and exploited by what is an ally taking advantage of their citizens – at a time of desperate need.”

    Russia has offered foreign fighters more than $2000 a month to fight in Ukraine, a fortune in Cuba where doctors do not earn that much in an entire year. Russia has also reportedly offered citizenship to foreigners willing to take up arms.

    “It’s particularly insulting, too, because the way you are rewarding these mercenaries is giving them a chance to flee their country,” said Sabatini. “That hurts.”

    In May, the Russian regional newspaper Ryazan Vedomosti reported that Cuban immigrants living in Russia had joined the Russian army.

    “Several citizens of the Republic of Cuba went to serve in the Russian army. According to them, the Cubans want to help our country carry out tasks in the zone of a special military operation, and some of them would like to become citizens of Russia in the future,” said the article.

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  • CNN Exclusive: Special counsel election probe continues with focus on fundraising, voting equipment breaches | CNN Politics

    CNN Exclusive: Special counsel election probe continues with focus on fundraising, voting equipment breaches | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Special counsel Jack Smith is still pursuing his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election a month after indicting Donald Trump for orchestrating a broad conspiracy to remain in power, a widening of the probe that raises the possibility others could still face legal peril.

    Questions asked of two recent witnesses indicate Smith is focusing on how money raised off baseless claims of voter fraud was used to fund attempts to breach voting equipment in several states won by Joe Biden, according to multiple sources familiar with the ongoing investigation.

    In both interviews, prosecutors have focused their questions on the role of former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.

    According to invoices obtained by CNN, Powell’s non-profit, Defending the Republic, hired forensics firms that ultimately accessed voting equipment in four swing states won by Biden: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.

    Powell faces criminal charges in Georgia after she was indicted last month by Atlanta-area district attorney Fani Willis, who alleges that Powell helped coordinate and fund a multi-state plot to illegally access voting systems after the 2020 election.

    Powell pleaded not guilty to the charges.

    Those charges center around a voting system breach in Coffee County, Georgia, a rural, Republican district that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2020. Willis’ indictment describes the breach, and Powell’s alleged involvement, as central to the broader conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

    Powell has also been identified by CNN as one of Trump’s un-indicted co-conspirators listed in Smith’s federal election indictment.

    New details about Smith’s ongoing investigation indicate federal prosecutors are scrutinizing a series of voting breaches following the 2020 election that state investigators have been probing for more than a year.

    Exactly how this recent line of inquiry fits into Smith’s ongoing criminal investigation remains unclear. Smith’s grand jury in Washington, DC, is set to expire on Sept. 15 but it can be extended beyond then.

    The special counsel’s office declined to comment.

    According to sources, witnesses interviewed by Smith’s prosecutors in recent weeks were asked about Powell’s role in the hunt for evidence of voter fraud after the 2020 election, including how her nonprofit group, Defending the Republic, provided money to fund those efforts.

    Powell promoted Defending the Republic as a non-profit focused on funding post-election legal challenges by Trump’s team as it disputed results in key states Biden had won. Those challenges and fundraising efforts underpinning them were all based on the premise that evidence of widespread voter fraud was already in hand.

    But according to documents reviewed by CNN and witness testimony obtained by the House select committee that investigated January, 6, 2021, the group was used to fund a desperate search to retroactively back-up baseless claims that Trump’s lawyers had already put forward in failed lawsuits challenging the results in several states.

    A series of invoices and communications obtained by election integrity groups including The Coalition for Good Governance and American Oversight show Defending the Republic contributed millions of dollars toward the push to access voting equipment in key states.

    In a court filing after her indictment in Georgia, Powell denied involvement in the Coffee County breach but acknowledged that “a non-profit she founded” paid the forensics firm hired to examine voting systems there.

    Powell did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Smith’s team has specifically asked witnesses about certain conspiracy theories pushed by Powell including that Dominion Voting Systems had ties to former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and featured software he used to rig his own election. The software company has previously said the turnout in those Venezuelan elections, not the voting system, was manuipulated.

    One witness who met with Smith’s team earlier last month, former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, spoke at length about how Trump allies accessed voting systems in Antrim County, Michigan, shortly after Election Day. Kerik also discussed the origins of a theory that voting machines could switch votes from one candidate to another, according to his lawyer Tim Parlatore.

    Kerik also acknowledged the breach of voting systems in Coffee County during his interview with federal prosecutors, Parlatore told CNN, adding that while his client raised the topic, the conversation did not delve into specifics.

    Kerik and another witness who met with Smith’s team in recent weeks were both asked if Powell was ever able to back-up her various claims of fraud, including conspiracy theories that foreign countries had hacked voting equipment.

    Both were also asked about Defending the Republic and how it was used as a source of funding efforts to find evidence of voter fraud, sources told CNN.

    In addition, special counsel prosecutors have also heard from other witnesses about efforts to breach voting equipment in other states.

    In April, an FBI agent and a prosecutor from Smith’s special counsel’s office interviewed a Pennsylvania resident named Mike Ryan, who used to work for a wealthy Pennsylvania Republican donor named Bill Bachenberg.

    coffee county election office vpx

    Inside the election office involved in latest Trump indictment

    During his interview, which Ryan described to CNN, Ryan says he told federal investigators that Bachenberg worked with Powell and other Trump lawyers to access voting systems in Pennsylvania and other states after the 2020 election.

    Bachenberg, who helped organize Pennsylvania’s fake electors, was subpoenaed by the House select committee last year but there is no public indication he testified. Ryan says he told federal investigators that after the 2020 election Bachenberg was in direct contact with Trump and a host of the former president’s most prominent allies – including lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman – participating in strategy calls about efforts to overturn the election results in multiple states.

    It is unclear if Bachenberg has been contacted by Smith’s team or the FBI. Bachenberg did not reply to requests for comments from CNN.

    Breaches in Pennsylvania and Michigan

    Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson also told CNN that she’s spoken to investigators at both the state and federal level about the push to access voting systems.

    Benson says when she met with Smith’s team earlier this spring, she, like Kerik, was asked specifically about efforts related to Antrim County, Michigan, where Powell and a lawyer named Stefanie Lambert helped fund a team of pro-Trump operatives who accessed voting systems shortly after Election Day in 2020.

    Stefanie Lambert listens during a court hearing in Detroit, Michigan, in October 2022.

    The operatives then produced a report claiming votes were flipped from Trump to Biden in Antrim County. That report was then used as supposed evidence to support the dozens of failed lawsuits that Powell filed on Trump’s behalf alleging voter fraud. The report was since debunked.

    “I believe the investigation at the federal level is broad and is meticulous and is looking at all the ways in which democracy was attacked in 2020. And so I would expect everything is on the table, every law that was violated,” Benson told CNN last month referring to the special counsel’s interest in efforts to access voting systems.

    Lambert was charged last month by state prosecutors in Michigan for her alleged involvement in a conspiracy to access voting machines there. Lambert is also linked to a breach in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, where she provided legal representation for the county itself after two Republican county officials secretly allowed a forensics firm to copy voting machine data in an effort to help Trump overturn his 2020 loss in the state.

    The breach is currently the subject of an ongoing probe being conducted by a prosecutor selected by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

    Lambert and Bachenberg both received copies of voting system data from Fulton County during the breach, according to the recent civil lawsuit that names both individuals.

    Lambert has also been identified by CNN as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Georgia indictment, which alleges she worked with Powell to secure voting system data that was copied from Coffee County and was tasked with helping collect invoices from the forensics firm hired through Defending the Republic.

    In a statement to CNN, Lambert did not elaborate on her ties to Bachenberg but defended her election-related work, saying, “I am a zealous advocate for my clients. I haven’t broken any laws.”

    Emails obtained by American Oversight indicate Bachenberg was involved in discussions about funding for the Arizona audit and helped facilitate a similar review in Pennsylvania.

    In a September 2021 email containing a summary of the final report on the controversial election audit conducted in Arizona, Bachenberg wrote that “PA will be one of the next domino’s [sic] to fall.”

    That same month, Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate launched a “forensic investigation” of the state’s 2020 election results.

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  • Ohio police release video of fatal police shooting of pregnant 21-year-old Ta’Kiya Young | CNN

    Ohio police release video of fatal police shooting of pregnant 21-year-old Ta’Kiya Young | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Newly released police body camera footage shows an officer firing through the windshield of a pregnant woman’s car after she was accused of shoplifting at a grocery store in a Columbus, Ohio, suburb last week.

    Ta’kiya Young, 21, was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

    The video shows a Blendon Township police officer approaching Young’s driver’s side window outside a Kroger in Westerville and repeatedly telling her to get out of the car.

    A second officer, who is also wearing a body camera, then steps in front of the vehicle.

    “They said you stole something….get out of the car,” the officer at the window says, telling Young not to leave.

    “I didn’t steal sh*t,” Young can be heard saying as the two argue back and forth with her window slightly ajar.

    Police previously said a grocery store employee had notified police officers a woman who had stolen bottles of alcohol was in a car parked outside the store.

    “Get out of the f**king car,” the officer standing in front of the car says, with his gun drawn and his left hand braced on the hood of the car, the video shows.

    Young can then be seen turning the wheel of the car as the officer next to her window continues to urge her to exit the vehicle.

    “Get out of the f**king car,” the officer in front of the car repeats as the vehicle begins to move slowly forward, the video shows.

    A few seconds elapse and then the officer standing in front of the hood fires into the vehicle.

    After the shot is fired, the officers run alongside the car yelling at the driver to stop.

    The car rolls onto a sidewalk between two brick columns and into a building.

    Police then call for backup and work to break the window to get to the driver, who appears to be slumped over to one side.

    The body camera footage released by the Blendon Township Police Department blurred the faces of the officers. The footage is also edited and spliced together.

    Young was pregnant at the time of her death and the fetus did not survive, the Franklin County Coroner’s Office previously said. Her cause of death is pending.

    Police say the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is conducting an independent investigation of the incident.

    The BCI probe could take “several weeks or months,” according to Steve Irwin, the press secretary for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, which includes BCI. After investigators finish the examination, their findings will be forwarded to the county prosecutor who will make a decision on pursuing any potential charges, he said.

    “Having viewed the footage in its entirety, it is undeniable that Ta’Kiya’s death was not only avoidable, but also a gross misuse of power and authority,” lawyers representing Young’s family said in a news release.

    “After seeing the video footage of her death, this is clearly a criminal act and the family demands a swift indictment of this officer for the killings of both Ta’Kiyah and her unborn daughter,” they said.

    Police say the officers haven’t “waived their rights as victims” in this incident and are withholding their identities, according to a news release from Blendon Township police.

    “When Ms. Young drove her car directly at Officer #1, striking him, Officer #1 became a victim of attempted vehicular assault,” police said in a news release.

    “When Ms. Young pulled away from Officer #2 while his hand and part of his arm was still in the driver’s side window, Officer #2 became a victim of misdemeanor assault,” they said in the news release.

    Authorities said the officers worked quickly to help Young after the shooting, saying EMS was called 10 seconds after she was taken out of the car. The officer who fired the shot also grabbed a trauma kit and applied a chest seal to her wound in under two minutes after she was removed from the vehicle.

    The officer who fired his weapon is still on administrative leave, but the second officer who was at the window is back at work. Chief John Belford said after he reviewed the videos, he didn’t see a reason to keep the second officer on leave.

    “I returned him to duty, as our staffing is already very limited,” he said, noting both officers would still be subject to a “full administrative review” after the BCI investigation.

    “Last week, there was a tragedy in our community,” Belford said in a statement. Due to potential pending litigation, he says the department is “very limited in what we can say.”

    “We’re being as transparent and forthcoming as we can, given these significant legal constraints.” He cited an ongoing BCI investigation and potential “personnel actions” regarding the officer who opened fire.

    The local police union said others would make any decisions regarding whether either officer is charged in the incident. But, Brian Steel, executive vice president of Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge #9, noted “a weapon is not just a firearm. A weapon is also a 2000-pound vehicle that somebody puts in gear and is driving at you.”

    “I understand why it could be justified but, again, I don’t make that decision,” Steel said at a news conference Friday, adding he was assuming the officer believed he could not get out of the way of the vehicle quickly enough.

    The Blendon Township Police Department’s use of force policy says when it’s “feasible,” officers should take “reasonable steps” to get out of the way of an approaching vehicle instead of firing a weapon.

    “An officer should only discharge a firearm at a moving vehicle or its occupants when the officer reasonably believes there are no other reasonable means available to avert the imminent threat of the vehicle, or if deadly force other than the vehicle is directed at the officer or others,” the policy says.

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  • Retired teacher sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia after tweeting criticism | CNN

    Retired teacher sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia after tweeting criticism | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Saudi court has sentenced a retired teacher to death over his comments online, say his brother and advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

    Muhammad al-Ghamdi, a 54-year-old retired Saudi teacher, was sentenced “following 5 tweets criticizing corruption and human rights violations,” his brother Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi tweeted last week.

    According to Human Rights Watch, Muhammad al-Ghamdi was arrested last year and given little access to a lawyer before his conviction in July “under article 30 of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism law for ‘describing the King or the Crown Prince in a way that undermines religion or justice,’ article 34 for ‘supporting a terrorist ideology,’ article 43 for ‘communication with a terrorist entity,’ and article 44 for publishing false news ‘with the intention of executing a terrorist crime.’”

    “Repression in Saudi Arabia has reached a terrifying new stage when a court can hand down the death penalty for nothing more than peaceful tweets,” Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a Tuesday statement.

    According to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 92 people this year so far. In 2022, UK-based human rights organization ALQST cataloged 148 executions in Saudi Arabia – more than twice the number of executions it recorded in 2021.

    The death sentence comes amid an “escalating crackdown” on free speech in the country, said Lina Alhathloul, ALQST head of monitoring and advocacy and sister of released Saudi political prisoner Loujain al-Hathloul.

    “They are sending a clear and sinister message – that nobody is safe, and even a tweet can get you killed,” she said.

    Al-Ghamdi’s brother Saeed, a well-known Saudi Islamic scholar and government critic living in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom, said he believe the severity of the sentence is designed to punish him as well.

    “The Saudi authorities asked me several times to return to Saudi Arabia, but I refused to do so. It is very probable that this death sentence against my brother is in retaliation for my activity. Otherwise, his charges wouldn’t have carried such a severe penalty,” he said.

    CNN reached out to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Interior for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.

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  • One inmate killed in ongoing incident at Fulton County Jail | CNN

    One inmate killed in ongoing incident at Fulton County Jail | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    One inmate has been killed in an ongoing mass stabbing incident at the Fulton County Jail, Natalie Ammons with the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office told CNN via email.

    The situation is active, according to the department.

    The US Department of Justice launched a civil rights investigation in July into the jail for the dilapidated and unsanitary conditions, as well as violence against detainees.

    Former President Donald J. Trump and 18 other co-defendants were booked into the same jail earlier this month, but only one – Harrison Floyd – was held there. He was released Wednesday.

    This is a developing story and will be updated.

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  • Trump pleads not guilty in Georgia election subversion case | CNN Politics

    Trump pleads not guilty in Georgia election subversion case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty in the sprawling Fulton County election interference case, according to a new court filing.

    Trump had been scheduled to be arraigned in person on Wednesday. Georgia law allows criminal defendants to waive their in-person appearance and enter a formal plea through court filings.

    His arraignment marks the fourth time that Trump has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges since leaving the presidency. In this case, Trump is charged with racketeering in his alleged efforts to upend the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

    Several of the former president’s co-defendants have also waived their in-court appearances and have pleaded not guilty, including Sidney Powell and Trevian Kutti. Defendants who do not waive their appearance will attend court as scheduled on September 6.

    Though no official date for Trump to go to trial in Georgia has been set, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, has asked the judge overseeing the case last week to schedule a trial for all 19 defendants for October 23, 2023.

    In response, lawyers for Trump said they oppose the proposed date and have previewed the likelihood of pre-trial disputes that will drag the proceedings. Several co-defendants, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, have sought to move their cases from Georgia state court to federal court, a more advantageous legal spot and a move that also would have the effect of delaying the proceedings.

    Trump faces more than a dozen charges, some of which relate to efforts to put forth fake electors to falsely claim that the then-president won Georgia in 2020. He surrendered last week and agreed to a $200,000 bond and other release conditions, including not using social media to target the co-defendants and witnesses in the case.

    He has also been indicted in three other cases: one related to a hush-money payment to an adult-film star in 2016 in Manhattan, another involving the alleged mishandling of classified national defense documents and a third federal investigation related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    This story has been updated with additional background information.

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  • Dollar General shares tumble after it cuts forecasts, blaming a spending slump and theft | CNN Business

    Dollar General shares tumble after it cuts forecasts, blaming a spending slump and theft | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Dollar General slashed its sales and profit outlook for the year on Thursday, blaming headwinds including weaker consumer spending on non-essential purchases and increasing theft.

    Dollar General shares tumbled nearly 17% in pre-market trading Thursday.

    The discount store’s challenges are yet another sign of American consumers pulling back on shopping as inflation remains well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

    “One of the key reasons for this is because Dollar General’s core customers are feeling the acute pressure of the cost-of-living-crisis,” Neil Saunders, retail analyst and managing director at GlobalData, said in a report Thursday.

    “This has been exacerbated by cuts in SNAP payments as temporary pandemic benefits came to an end. As a result, lower-income shoppers are cutting back on non-consumable and indulgent purchases from the chain in a bid to save money,” he said. “Unfortunately, this dynamic will not change any time soon as, if anything, finances will tighten over the second half of the year.”

    The discount retailer now expects sales for the full year to rise between 1.3% to 3.3%, down from its previous forecast of a 3.5% to 5% increase. It expects full-year earnings to decline 22% to 34% from its previous estimate of a flat-to-8% decrease.

    The retailer said its same-store sales (or sales at stores open at least a year) are expected to range from a decline of about 1% to an increase of 1% for the year, compared to its previous expectation of a 1% to 2%. increase.

    For its second quarter, Dollar General logged a 1% drop in its same-store sales. It said weaker customer traffic to its stores hurt sales in the period, combined with budget-conscious shoppers pulling back on higher-priced discretionary purchases such as home items and clothing in favor of lower-priced everyday necessities.

    The Consumer Price Index rose 3.2% for the year through July, adding pressure on shoppers looking for bargains.

    In addition, food stamp recipients started to receive about $90 a month less in benefits, on average, starting in March, as a pandemic hunger relief program comes to an end nationwide three years after Congress approved it.

    Meanwhile, close on the heels of Dick’s Sporting Goods sounding the alarm on store theft eating into its profit this year, Dollar General also flagged an increase in product theft, among other factors, hurting its profit.

    The company said “an increase in expected inventory shrink for the second half of 2023” factored into its lower guidance. Shrink is an industry term encompassing inventory losses caused by external theft, including organized retail crime, employee theft, human errors, vendor fraud, damaged or mismarked items and other losses.

    Retailers large and small say they are struggling to contain an escalation in store crimes — from petty shoplifting to organized sprees of large-scale theft that clear entire shelves of products. Target warned earlier this year that it was bracing to lose half a billion dollars because of rising theft. It reported a large number of incidents of shoplifting and organized retail crime in its stores nationwide.

    At the same time, it’s not clear that store crime is growing significantly more serious. Within the industry, at least one major player has argued that the problem is being overhyped.

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  • UNC graduate student arrested on murder charge in fatal shooting of faculty member, police say | CNN

    UNC graduate student arrested on murder charge in fatal shooting of faculty member, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The suspect in the fatal shooting of a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday is a graduate student at the school, UNC police said in a news release Tuesday.

    Tailei Qi, the grad student, is in custody on charges of first-degree murder charge and having a gun on education property, according to police.

    The victim was identified as Zijie Yan, an associate professor in the department of Applied Physical Sciences who had worked for UNC since 2019.

    Qi was a grad student in the same department and Yan was his faculty adviser, according to Qi’s UNC biographical page, which has been deleted but is available on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Qi entered the school in 2022 and listed his previous education as Louisiana State University and Wuhan University, the page said.

    Police still are looking for the weapon and the motive behind the fatal shooting.

    The early afternoon shooting sent the university of more than 30,000 students into lockdown for hours. The suspect was detained about 90 minutes after the gunfire interrupted activities at the school’s Caudill Laboratories, a chemistry studies building.

    “We want to ensure that we gather every piece of evidence to determine exactly what happened here today and why it happened,” UNC Police Chief Brian James said at a news conference Monday evening. “It is too early in this investigation to know a motive for the shooting.”

    Qi will have his first court appearance in Hillsborough at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, said prosecutor Jeff Nieman, whose district covers Orange and Chatham counties.

    Detectives looking for motive and firearm

    Emergency responders gather on South Street near the Bell Tower on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus on Monday.

    Detectives won’t get clues into the motive until they speak with the suspect, James said. Investigators have not found the firearm that was used in the shooting and it’s not known whether it was legally obtained, James said.

    No one else was injured, officials said.

    “This loss is devastating and the shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted in our campus community. We will work to rebuild that sense of trust and safety within our community,” UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said.

    James said it was unclear whether the victim and the assailant knew each other.

    “That will hopefully be uncovered through interviews of the suspect as well as any witnesses that may be available,” he said.

    Classes and campus activities were canceled Monday and Tuesday, officials said. This is the second week of fall semester classes at the flagship university of the 17-member UNC system.

    After 911 calls about the shooting came in shortly after 1 p.m., university police issued an alert advising students to go inside immediately, close windows and doors and to wait until further notice, according to an email. A witness on campus told CNN they were locked down in their building and saw armed officers searching campus.

    Video from CNN affiliate WRAL showed a large number of police vehicles at the campus with their emergency lights flashing. At times, people walked out of nearby buildings in a single-file line with their arms in the air.

    Police detained one person before the suspect’s arrest but they determined “very quickly” it was not the gunman, James said.

    The suspect was taken into custody shortly after 2:30 p.m., Guskiewicz said. The university continued in lockdown for a couple hours after the suspect was detained because authorities were working to confirm they had the right person and trying to find the firearm that was used, James told reporters.

    The university has a student body of about 32,000, along with more than 4,000 faculty and 9,000 staff members.

    The FBI is assisting in evidence gathering, officials said.

    Forty-nine school shootings have happened in the US this year, including the UNC shooting – 34 have been reported on K-12 campuses and 15 on university and college campuses – according to a CNN tally.

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