HARRISBURG, Pa. — A yearlong investigation into suspected fraudulent voter registration forms submitted ahead of last year’s presidential election produced criminal charges Friday against six street canvassers and the man who led their work in Pennsylvania.
The allegations of fraud appeared to be motivated by the defendants’ desire to make money and keep their jobs and was not an effort to influence the election results, said Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, a Republican.
Guillermo Sainz, 33, described by prosecutors as the director of a company’s registration drives in Pennsylvania, was charged with three counts of solicitation of registration, a state law that prohibits offering money to reach registration quotas. A message seeking comment was left on a number associated with Sainz, who lives in Arizona. He did not have a lawyer listed in court records.
The six canvassers are charged with unsworn falsification, tampering with public records, forgery and violations of Pennsylvania election law. The charges relate to activities in three Republican-leaning Pennsylvania counties: York, Lancaster and Berks.
“We are confident that the motive behind these crimes was personal financial gain, and not a conspiracy or organized effort to tip any election for any one candidate or party,” Sunday said in a news release. Prosecutors said the forms included all party affiliations.
In a court affidavit filed with the criminal charges on Friday, investigators said Sainz, an employee of Field+Media Corps, “instituted unlawful financial incentives and pressures in his push to meet company goals to maintain funding which in turn spurred some canvassers to create and submit fake forms to earn more money.”
The chief executive of Field+Media Corps, based in Mesa, Arizona, said last year the company was proud of its work to expand voting but had no information about problematic registration forms. A message seeking comment was left Friday for the CEO, Francisco Heredia. The Field+Media Corps website did not appear to be operative.
Field+Media was funded by Everybody Votes, an effort to improve voter registration rates in communities of color. The affidavit said Everybody Votes “fully cooperated” with the investigation and noted its contract with Field+Media prohibited payments on a per-registration basis.
“The investigation confirmed that we hold our partners to the highest standards of quality control when collecting, handling and delivering voter registration applications,” Everybody Votes said in a statement e-mailed by a spokesperson.
Sainz, who managed Pennsylvania operations from May to October 2024, is accused of paying canvassers based on how many signatures they collected. The police affidavit said Sainz told agents with the attorney general’s office earlier this month he was unaware of any canvassers paid extra hours if they reached a target number of forms.
“Sainz had to be asked the question multiple times before he stated he was not aware of this and that ‘everyone was an hourly worker,’ ” investigators wrote.
One canvasser said she created fake forms to boost her pay and believed others did, too, according to the police affidavit. Another told investigators that most of the registration forms he collected were “not real.” A third reported that when she realized she was not going to reach a daily quota, “she would make up names and information,” police wrote, “due to fear of losing her job.”
The investigation began in late October 2024, when election workers in Lancaster flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. Authorities said they appeared to contain false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses and other problematic details.
The suggestion of criminal activity related to the election came as the battleground state was considered pivotal to the presidential election, and then-candidate Donald Trump seized on the news. At a campaign event, he declared there was “cheating” involving “2,600” votes. The actual issue in Lancaster was about 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter registration forms, not ballots or votes.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — An employee allegedly stole 47 vehicles from an Avis Budget site at an upstate New York airport and rented them out around the region, police said Friday.
The car rental company reported to authorities that the vehicles, worth more than $1 million, were stolen from its location at Syracuse Hancock International Airport between June and August.
An investigation by airport police found that a 31-year-old Avis Budget employee led the theft scheme, which involved renting out the purloined vehicles at other locations around Onondaga County, authorities said. Police declined to release details of how the vehicles were stolen.
Police are looking for the employee, who no longer works for Avis Budget and is wanted on grand larceny and scheme to defraud charges. Several other people have been arrested in connection with the case, officials said.
Authorities said 42 of the 47 stolen cars have been recovered.
A spokesperson for Avis Budget did not immediately return an email message Friday.
NEW YORK — Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested Thursday along with more than 30 other people accused of participating in schemes involving illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia, authorities said.
Rozier is accused of participating in an illegal sports betting scheme using private insider NBA information, officials said. Billups, a Denver native who starred for the Nuggets during a long playing career, is charged in a separate indictment alleging a wide-ranging scheme to rig underground poker games that were backed by Mafia families, authorities said.
Both men face money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy charges and were expected to make initial court appearances later Thursday.
In the first case, six defendants are accused of participating in an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about NBA athletes and teams, said Joseph Nocella, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. He called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”
The second case involves 31 defendants in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games, Nocella said. The defendants include former professional athletes accused of using technology to steal millions of dollars in underground poker games in the New York area that were backed by Mafia families, he said.
“My message to the defendants who’ve been rounded up today is this: Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out,” Nocella said.
A message seeking comment was left Thursday morning with Billups. A message was also left with Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty. Trusty previously told ESPN that Rozier was told that an initial investigation determined he did nothing wrong after he met with NBA and FBI officials in 2023, the sports network reported.
In the sports betting scheme, players sometimes altered their performance or took themselves out of games early, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. In one instance, Rozier, while playing for the Hornets, told people he was planning to leave the game early with a “supposed injury,” allowing them to place wagers that raked in thousands of dollars, Tisch said.
The indictment of Rozier and others says there are nine unnamed co-conspirators, including a Florida resident who was an NBA player, an Oregon resident who was an NBA player from about 1997 to 2014 and an NBA coach since at least 2021, as well as a relative of Rozier. Billups played in the NBA from 1997 to 2014 and currently resides in Portland as the Trail Blazers’ head coach.
Rozier and other defendants “had access to private information known by NBA players or NBA coaches” that was likely to affect the outcome of games or players’ performances and provided that information to other co-conspirators in exchange for either a flat fee or a share of betting profits, the indictment says.
The NBA placed Billups and Rozier on immediate leave Thursday and released a statement: “We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today. Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups are being placed on immediate leave from their teams, and we will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities. We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”
Rozier was in uniform as the Heat played the Magic on Wednesday evening in Orlando, Florida, in the season opener for both teams, though he did not play in the game. He was taken into custody in Orlando early Thursday morning. The team did not immediately comment on the arrest.
The case was brought by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn that previously prosecuted ex-NBA player Jontay Porter. The former Toronto Raptors center pleaded guilty to charges that he withdrew early from games, claiming illness or injury, so that those in the know could win big by betting on him to underperform expectations.
Billups was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year. The five-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA point guard led the Detroit Pistons to their third league title in 2004 as NBA Finals MVP.
The Denver-born phenom graduated from George Washington High School and played basketball at CU before being selected with the No. 3 overall pick in the 1997 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics. Known as Mr. Big Shot nationally and the King of Park Hill locally in Denver, Billups also played for Toronto, Denver, Minnesota, the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Clippers. Billups won the Joe Dumars Trophy, the NBA’s sportsmanship award, in 2009 while playing for his hometown Nuggets.
The 49-year-old Billups is in his fifth season as Portland’s coach, compiling a 117-212 record. The Trail Blazers opened the season Wednesday night at home with a 118-114 loss to Minnesota. Billups’ brother, Rodney, is currently the Nuggets’ director of player development and an assistant coach on David Adelman’s staff.
A game involving Rozier that has been in question was a matchup between the Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans on March 23, 2023. Rozier played the first 9 minutes and 36 seconds of that game — and not only did not return that night, citing a foot issue, but did not play again that season. Charlotte had eight games remaining and was not in playoff contention, so it did not seem particularly unusual that Rozier was shut down for the season’s final games.
In that game, Rozier finished with five points, four rebounds and two assists in that opening period — a productive quarter but well below his usual total output for a full game.
Posts still online from March 23, 2023, show that some bettors were furious with sportsbooks that evening when it became evident that Rozier was not going to return to the Charlotte-New Orleans game after the first quarter, with many turning to social media to say that something “shady” had gone on regarding the prop bets involving his stats for that night.
A prop is a type of wager that allows gamblers to bet on whether a player will exceed a certain statistical number, such as whether the player will finish over or under a certain total of points, rebounds or assists.
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Durkin Richer reported from Washington, and Reynolds reported from Miami. Associated Press writers David Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, and Larry Lage in Detroit contributed to this report.
ESSEX — The town’s police chief said a backpack cushioned its 11-year-old wearer when a car struck the electric scooter the child was riding. Now police are on the lookout for the driver.
DETROIT — DETROIT (AP) — The state of Michigan has acquired a life ring that washed ashore 50 years ago from the Edmund Fitzgerald, a rare artifact that strangely became part of a settlement in a lawsuit that had nothing to do with the famous shipwreck.
Taxpayers are paying $600,000 to settle the lawsuit by Larry Orr, who accused a state police officer of violating his rights during a sexual abuse investigation that was discredited, court records show.
Orr, in turn, agreed to give up the life ring, which he owned. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Grand said it was an “unusual settlement conference” when lawyers appeared in court on Oct. 8 and put the deal on the record.
The Associated Press reached out to the state police this week to try to learn why it wanted the life ring and who had authorized Lt. David Busacca’s attorney to bargain for it.
“Upon learning the details of the settlement, we are not comfortable with the life preserver being included and will be reaching out to Mr. Orr’s attorney,” spokesperson Shanon Banner said in an email Thursday.
Banner wouldn’t answer follow-up questions. The state already has the orange ring.
Orr found it on the Lake Superior shore after the Fitzgerald sank during an incredible storm in November 1975. All 29 men on the ore vessel died. Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot memorialized the disaster with an iconic ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
Orr had planned to auction the ring, figuring it might attract more attention around the 50th anniversary in a few weeks, said his attorney Shannon Smith.
Busacca apparently knew that Orr had one, and it was suddenly brought up during talks to settle Orr’s lawsuit against him, Smith said.
She said it probably represented half the value of the $600,000 deal reached over allegations of police misconduct.
“Are we at a mediation for a wrongful prosecution or an estate sale?” Smith said she wondered.
Busacca’s lawyer, Audrey Forbush, declined to comment when reached by AP. Orr, who is in his 70s, also declined to comment.
The life ring had been on loan to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula until Orr retrieved it this year.
“They’re pretty unusual,” museum director Bruce Lynn said. “I don’t honestly have any idea how many are out there.”
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Fifteen months after Sonya Massey, a Black woman who had called 911 for help, was killed in her home, the former police officer who fired the fatal shot is set to go on trial.
Sean Grayson, 31, a former deputy for the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department in central Illinois, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder.
The trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday with opening statements. If convicted of murder, Grayson faces a sentence of 45 years to life in prison. Prosecutors dismissed single counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct.
On July 6, 2024, Massey, a 36-year-old single mother of two teenagers who struggled with mental health issues, called emergency responders over a suspected prowler. When Grayson, who is white, and another deputy entered her Springfield home to report finding no one, Grayson noticed a pan of hot water on the stove and ordered it removed.
According to body-camera video that is certain to play a key role in the trial, Grayson and Massey joked about how the deputy backed away as she moved the pan before Massey said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Grayson later told sheriff’s investigators he thought Massey’s statement meant she intended to kill him, yelled at her to drop the pot and in the subsequent commotion, fired three shots, striking her just below the eye.
A jury of 10 women and five men, including three alternates, will hear testimony that’s predicted to end next week. The questioning of prospective jurors on Monday by Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser and defense attorney Daniel Fultz focused on attitudes toward law enforcement during a volatile time in America.
Witnesses scheduled to testify for both the state and defense are reported to be experts in police training, generally accepted police practices, use of force, body camera video, use of video in investigations and the review of incidents involving the use of force.
The national attention the case has garnered prompted Sangamon County Circuit Judge Ryan Cadagin to move the trial from Springfield to Peoria, 167 miles (269 kilometers) southwest of Chicago.
Eight children were killed in domestic violence incidents across Colorado in 2024 — the highest number since the state began tracking annual domestic violence deaths eight years ago, according to a report released Tuesday by the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board.
The youngest child to die was 3-month-old Lesley Younghee Kim, who was found dead with her mortally injured mother in a Denver home in July 2024.
“It’s a wakeup call, I hope, for people in Colorado,” said Whitney Woods, executive director of the Rose Andom Center, which helped compile the board’s report. “This is a real problem.”
Seventy-two people died in domestic violence incidents statewide in 2024. That’s up 24% from the 58 domestic violence deaths in 2023 but remains below pandemic-era peaks, when 94 people died in 2022 and 92 people died in 2021.
The pandemic years also saw elevated numbers of children killed, with four children killed in 2021 and six in 2022. Across the other years, no more than three children died in any given year, the board’s reports show.
Five of the eight children killed in 2024 died amid custody disputes between their parents, the report found.
“These findings highlight custody litigation as a high-risk period for families experiencing domestic violence and point to the urgent need for stronger safeguards within family court proceedings,” the report concluded. The legislatively-mandated board, chaired by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, began tracking domestic violence statewide in 2017 and makes annual recommendations for policy changes aimed at preventing deaths.
The fatality review board last year recommended that the state’s child and family investigators and parental responsibilities evaluators go through training on domestic violence, particularly around understanding the dynamics of domestic violence and how to evaluate the risk of lethality during the custody process. The Colorado Judicial Department is still developing such training, with work continuing in 2026, the report noted.
“That is to my mind a call to action,” Weiser said. “And we are working with the court system on this right now — how do we make sure our family courts and the general system for addressing domestic violence provides protection, support, services, so that we don’t see these deaths happen?”
The increase in domestic violence deaths came even as statewide homicides declined 17% to a five-year low. Roughly one in six homicide victims in Colorado in 2024 died during domestic violence incidents. Domestic violence victims account for 18% of all homicide victims statewide, the highest proportion in five years, the annual review found.
“That is really alarming in this line of work, for us,” Woods said.
The increase in domestic violence homicides amid the drop in overall homicides “suggests that while broader public safety interventions may be reducing general violence, they are not having the same impact on (domestic violence fatalities),” the report found.
The increase also comes at a time when many organizations aimed at preventing domestic violence and supporting survivors are facing funding shortfalls and uncertainty, Woods noted.
Among the 72 people killed in 2024, 38 were victims of domestic violence, 26 were perpetrators of domestic violence and eight — all of the children — were considered ‘collateral victims.’ The victims were overwhelmingly female and the perpetrators overwhelmingly male.
Across all 72 deaths, guns were used 75% of the time. The second most common type of attack was asphyxiation, which was involved in 8% of all deaths, followed by a knife or sharp object, used in 7% of deaths.
“Occasionally, people will make comments like, ‘If someone wants to kill someone they can kill them with a knife,’” Weiser said. “I think it’s fair to say access to firearms makes it far more likely that a domestic violence perpetrator will kill somebody.”
Removing guns from a suspect when domestic violence begins can be an effective prevention strategy, Woods said.
The report makes a number of recommendations aimed at preventing domestic violence deaths, including passing a new state law that would require police officers to take guns (those in plain sight or discovered during a lawful search) from domestic violence suspects at the time of arrest and hold onto those guns for 48 hours or until the suspect first appears in court. Suspects could then retrieve their guns if they were allowed to legally posses them.
“By empowering officers to disarm abusers immediately at the scene, the proposed law would provide urgent protection for victims and responding officers, create a period to reduce the chance of lethal escalation, and provide a tool for law enforcement to fill the relinquishment gap,” the report reads.
The report also recommends adjusting Colorado’s laws around third-degree assault, suggests law enforcement should give resources to both people involved in a domestic violence incident even when there is not enough evidence to make an arrest, and widening the scope of material gathered by local fatality review boards.
Police investigated 129 complaints in September, according to the newspaper on this day in 1940. Among those were 28 arrests for drunkenness, four reports of sidewalk defects, 23 calls due to lights being out, and 27 calls for lights left…
PARIS—Former President Nicolas Sarkozy began a five-year prison sentence on Tuesday, marking an unprecedented downfall for a French ex-head of state who rose to power as a political outsider with blunt law-and-order rhetoric.
A motorcade of police escorted the 70-year-old from his home in the tony 16th arrondissement to the gates of Paris-La Santé prison in the heart of the French capital. There, guards took him into custody, leading him down to a basement office where he underwent a search and had his fingerprints taken. He then received an inmate number and had his mug shot taken before guards brought him to his cell in the isolation ward.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The murder trial of an Illinois sheriff’s deputy charged with killing Sonya Massey, a Black woman shot in her home last year after calling police for help, is set to begin Monday.
Sean Grayson, 31, responding to a call about a suspected prowler, fired on the 36-year-old Massey in her Springfield home early on July 6, 2024, after confronting her about how she was handling a pan of hot water Grayson had ordered removed from her stove.
Jurors will report Monday and the trial could continue into next week.
In addition to first-degree murder, Grayson is charged with aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty.
Widespread attention on Grayson’s shooting of Massey prompted Sangamon County Circuit Judge Ryan Cadagin to move the trial from Springfield, 200 miles (322 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. Jurors will instead come from Peoria and surrounding areas, an hour’s drive north, and will hear the case in their local courthouse.
Grayson, who is white, faces a sentence of 45 years to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.
After Grayson and another deputy checked the area around Massey’s house, body camera video shows Grayson knocked on her door to report they had found nothing suspicious. He entered the house to obtain details for a report, noticed a pan on the stove and ordered its removal. Massey picked it up.
She laughingly asked Grayson why he was backing away; he said he was trying to avoid the “hot, steaming water.” Massey responded, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Grayson wrote in an incident report, “I interpreted this to mean she was going to kill me.”
According to body camera video, Grayson pulled his 9 mm pistol and yelled at Massey to drop the pot. She apologized then put the pan down and ducked behind a counter, but in the confusion, as Grayson yelled, it appears she picked it up again. Grayson fired three times, hitting Massey once just below the left eye.
Massey, a single mother of two teenagers who had a strong religious faith, was beset by mental health problems. When she answered Grayson’s knock minutes before the shooting, she said, “Don’t hurt me,” and then, as she was questioned and Grayson asked her if she was all right, she repeatedly said, “Please God.”
Earlier that same week, Sonya Massey had admitted herself to a 30-day inpatient mental health program in St. Louis but returned two days later without explanation.
County records indicate that in the days leading up to the shooting, three 911 calls were made by Massey or on her behalf. In one, her mother, Donna Massey, told authorities her daughter was suffering a “mental breakdown.” Donna Massey also told the dispatcher, “I don’t want you guys to hurt her.”
Grayson was not aware of the calls or Massey’s background. County officials have since said there’s no practical way to determine and communicate such information for police responding to emergency calls.
As his background was scrutinized, Massey’s family and others questioned why Grayson, who had been a Sangamon County deputy sheriff for 14 months, had been hired at all.
In his early 20s, he was ejected from the Army for a drunken-driving arrest in which he had a weapon in his car. He was convicted of a DUI again within the year.
Before joining the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department, Grayson had four policing jobs in six years — the first three of which were part-time.
There was no indication Grayson had been fired from any job, but evaluations from past employers documented concerns about him. One department reported that while Grayson worked hard and had a good attitude, he struggled with report writing, was “not great with evidence — left items laying around office” and was “a bragger.”
Jack Campbell, the Sangamon County sheriff, was forced to retire six weeks after the shooting. He insisted though that none of Grayson’s issues disqualified him from working as a deputy.
In August, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law requiring that prospective police officers permit the release of all personal and employment background records to any law enforcement agency considering hiring them. Legislative sponsors of the measure acknowledged it doesn’t prevent candidates with checkered paths from being hired but provides greater transparency.
A Saturday morning traffic stop by a Gloucester Police sergeant resulted in the arrest of three people on charges of trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine, and the seizure of a hangun and more than 1,600 pills.
Those arrested and the charges are:
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Two experienced and well-trained firefighter/paramedics have joined the Gloucester Fire Department as lateral transfers from the Amesbury Fire Department.
Nicholas Meyers and Tyler Rogers, both Gloucester natives and Gloucester High School graduates, were sworn in Tuesday by City Clerk Grace E. Poirier.
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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A fourth person was arrested and charged Friday in connection with a shooting that killed two people and injured 12 others in a crowded downtown nightlife district in Alabama’s capital city in early October, police said.
Kemontae Hood, 21, is charged with one count of capital murder and 12 counts of assault, according to Montgomery police.
Hood is the fourth person charged in the Oct. 4 shooting that unfolded just before midnight in a crowded section of the city’s downtown filled with bars, hotels and restaurants. Police also arrested an unnamed juvenile last Friday, as well as Dantavious McGhee, 19, on Monday on capital murder charges and Javorick Whiting, 19, on Thursday on an attempted murder charge.
It was not immediately known if Hood or the others had lawyers who could comment for them. Online jail records don’t list attorneys for them.
A 43-year-old woman and a 17-year-old boy were killed, police said. Investigators said they determined that multiple people fired weapons in a crowd just after the Tuskegee-Morehouse College football game had ended blocks away, after a day celebrating the two historically Black schools’ longstanding rivalry. At the time, five of the wounded had life-threatening injuries and seven had non-life-threatening injuries.
Investigators have not said what led to the shooting, but they said the initial gunfire targeted one of the 14 victims, prompting multiple people to pull their own weapons and start firing back. Seven of the 14 victims were under 20, and the youngest was 16. At least two of the victims were armed.
Multiple weapons and shell cases were recovered from the scene, and more arrests are expected, police said.
Amazon’s Ring brand is entering into a new partnership with surveillance company Flock Safety to make it possible for law enforcement to request footage from smart doorbell owners. The move is part of a pivot back to collaborating with police, after Ring spent several years distancing itself and its products from law enforcement agencies.
As part of the partnership, “public safety agencies” using Flock’s Nova platform or FlockOS will be able to use Ring’s previously announced “Community Requests” program to receive footage captured by the camera of a Ring customer. Agencies investigating an event that might have been captured on camera will have to provide details like the “specific location and timeframe of the incident, a unique investigation code, and details about what is being investigated” before the request is passed on to relevant users. Throughout the process, the identity of Ring users is kept anonymous, as is whether they agree to share footage. The entire process is also entirely optional.
Amazon and Ring’s approach to working with law enforcement has varied over the years. While Ring reportedly removed the ability for police to make warrantless video requests in 2024, there were documented cases of the company providing access to law enforcement in years prior. This pivot back towards a more police-friendly stance might have been prompted by Ring founder Jamie Siminoff returning to the Amazon-subsidiary in April 2025. Now Amazon is reportedly pitching its cloud and AI services to law enforcement agencies and Ring is looking to work with Flock and other surveillance companies.
That might not bother the average Ring customer who already planned to opt out of sharing, but there’s reasons to be concerned that Amazon is budding up with Flock. 404 Media reports the company’s surveillance tools have been used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to find and detain people, without a formal contract. Navy and Secret Service employees also reportedly had access to Flock’s network. That doesn’t implicate Ring in anything, but it does make the connection between the two camera networks feel more fraught.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina inmate who killed a man, burned his eyes with cigarettes and then painted “catch me if u can” on the wall with the victim’s blood more than 20 years ago has been scheduled to be executed next month.
The state Supreme Court issued the death warrant Friday for Stephen Bryant, 44. The court denied a request from Bryant’s lawyers, who asked for a delay because they work with the federal court system and the U.S. government is shut down.
While Bryant is being put to death Nov. 14 for one killing, prosecutors said he also shot and killed two other men he was giving rides to as they were reliving themselves on the side of the road during a few weeks that terrorized Sumter County in October 2004.
Bryant will be the 50th person executed in South Carolina since the state restarted the death penalty in 1985 and the seventh inmate put to death in less than 14 months since the state was able to obtain a drug for lethal injection and reopen the death chamber after an unintentional 13-year pause.
Bryant will have until Oct. 31 to choose if he wants to die by lethal injection, firing squad or in the electric chair. Since the long pause, four inmates have chosen lethal injection and two have died by bullets.
A total of 38 men have been executed so far this year in the U.S., with an inmate scheduled to die Friday by lethal injection in Arizona. At least five other executions are set in the U.S. during the rest of 2025.
Bryant admitted to killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen after stopping by his secluded home in rural Sumter County and saying he had car trouble.
Tietjen was shot several times. Candles were lit around his body. Someone took a potholder made by his daughter when she was child, dipped the corner in blood and wrote “victem 4 in 2 weeks. catch me if u can” on the wall, authorities said.
Tietjen’s daughter called him several times, getting more worried when he didn’t answer. On the sixth call, she testified a strange voice answered.
The person on the other end told her she had the right number. Then she demanded to speak to her father.
“And he said ‘you can’t, I killed him.’ And I said, ‘this isn’t funny, who are you?’ He said, ‘I’m the prowler. And I said, ‘excuse me, who are you?’ He said, ‘I’m the prowler,” Kimberly Dees testified before a judge who determined Bryant’s sentence.
Prosecutors said Bryant also killed two men — one before and one after Tietjen. He gave the men rides and when they got out to urinate on the side of lonely, rural roads he shot them in the back.
As deputies frantically looked for the killer, many of the 100,000 people in Sumter County lived in fear over the random attacks. Officers stopped nearly everyone driving on dirt roads and told people to be leery of anyone they did not know asking for help.
Bryant’s lawyers said he was troubled in the months before the killing, begging a probation agent and his aunt to get him help because he couldn’t stop thinking about being sexually abused by four male relatives when he was a child.
“He was very upset. He looked like he was being tortured. It’s like his soul was just laid wide open. In his eyes you could see he was hurting and suffering and he was living the abuse over again as it was coming out,” aunt Terry Caulder testified.
Bryant tried to help himself through the pain by using meth and smoking joints he sprayed with bug killer, his defense attorneys said.
The six inmates executed in South Carolina since September 2024 have argued the state’s methods are cruel and unusual punishments, but have not been able to stop their deaths.
With the firing squad, attorneys for the inmates say the three volunteers with rifles nearly missed the heart of the second man killed, Mikal Mahdi. They suggested Mahdi was in agonizing pain for three or four times longer than experts say he would have been if his heart had been hit directly.
Condemned inmates have also scrutinized the lethal injection procedures, which appear to now use two doses of the powerful sedative pentobarbital. They said inmates drown in a rush of fluid into their lungs but are paralyzed and cannot react.
Witnesses to the four executions have not seen any signs of struggle and report the prisoners appear to have lost consciousness in about a minute.
BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey is citing progress with the state’s efforts to crack down on street “takeovers” fueled on social media by drag racing enthusiasts.
On Thursday, Healey announced that state and local enforcement officials have thwarted attempted car “meet ups” in the state over the past week through online investigations that resulted in arrests and hundreds of traffic citations.
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — President Donald Trump, members of his administration and conservative influencers painted a bleak portrait of Portland, Oregon, at a roundtable event at the White House Wednesday, alleging that the city has been besieged by violence perpetrated by “antifa thugs” and that it is essentially a war zone.
“It should be clear to all Americans that we have a very serious left-wing terror threat in our country, radicals associated with the domestic terror group antifa that you’ve heard a lot about lately,” Trump said.
But the reality on the ground in Portland is far from the extremes described at the White House.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
The protests
TRUMP: “In Portland, Oregon, antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our offices and laid siege to federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of federal law.”
THE FACTS: There have been nightly protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland for months, peaking in June when police declared one demonstration a riot. There have also been smaller clashes since then: On Labor Day, some demonstrators brought a prop guillotine — a display the U.S. Department of Homeland Security blasted as “unhinged behavior.”
The protests at the ICE facility, which is outside downtown, have largely been confined to one city block and have attracted a range of participants. During the day, a handful of immigration and legal advocates mill about and offer copies of “know your rights” flyers. Daytime marches to the building have also included older people and families with young children. At night, other protesters arrive, often using megaphones to shout obscenities at law enforcement.
While the administration claims protesters are antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for decentralized far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.
The building was closed for three weeks from mid-June to early July because of damage to windows, security cameras, gates and other parts of the facility, federal officials said in court filings submitted in response to a lawsuit brought by Portland and Oregon seeking to block the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard. The building’s main entrance and ground-floor windows have been boarded up.
Protesters have also sought to block vehicles from entering and leaving the facility. Federal officials argue that this has impeded law enforcement operations and forced more personnel and resources to be sent from other parts of the country.
However, in the weeks leading up to the Trump administration’s move to federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard on Sept. 28, most nights drew a couple dozen people, Portland police correspondence submitted to the court shows.
Since June, Portland police have arrested at least 45 people, with the majority of those arrests taking place in June. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have charged at least 31 people with crimes committed at the building, including assaulting federal officers; 22 of those defendants had been charged by early July.
Is Portland on fire?
TRUMP: “The amazing thing is, you look at Portland and you see fires all over the place. You see fights, and I mean just violence. It’s just so crazy. And then you talk to the governor and she acts like everything is totally normal, there’s nothing wrong.”
THE FACTS: Fires outside the building have been seen on a handful of occasions. In June, a man was arrested after he lit a flare and tossed it onto a pile of materials stacked against the vehicle gate, according to federal prosecutors, who said the fire was fully extinguished within minutes.
More recently, social media videos of the Labor Day protest showed a small fire lit on the prop guillotine. And in early October, following the announcement of the National Guard’s mobilization, videos on social media showed a protester holding an American flag on fire — and conservative influencer Nick Sortor stomping the fire out.
There have also been some high-profile confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters. In late September, conservative media figure Katie Daviscourt was hit in the face with a flagpole and suffered a laceration, police logs show. In early October, Sortor, who has more than 1 million followers on X, was arrested along with two other protesters following an altercation. Local prosecutors ultimately declined to charge him after finding that one of the protesters had pushed him and that “any physical contact he had with other persons was defensive in nature.”
While Portland police correspondence submitted to the court notes a few instances of “active” energy and disturbances between protesters and counterprotesters, many entries describe low energy and “no issues” in the weeks leading up to the National Guard’s mobilization.
A new tongue-in-cheek website has also launched in recent days: isportlandburning.com shows multiple live cameras in the city and near-real-time data from the city’s fire department.
Shops and sewers
TRUMP: “I don’t know what could be worse than Portland. You don’t even have sewers anymore. They don’t even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows. But most of the retailers have left.”
THE FACTS: This is false. Portland does have sewers — its sewer and stormwater system “includes more than 2,500 miles of pipes, nearly 100 pump stations, and two treatment plants,” according to the city’s website. The largest sewer pipe is the East Side Big Pipe, which has an inside diameter of 22 feet, while the smallest are only six inches in diameter.
Local and state officials have suggested that many of Trump’s claims appear to rely on images from 2020. Portland famously erupted in more than 100 days of large-scale unrest and violent protests after George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police that year. Police were unable to keep ahead of splinter groups of black-clad protesters who broke off and roamed the downtown area, at times breaking windows, spraying graffiti and setting small fires.
But Portland has largely recovered from that time. Under a new mayor and police chief, the city has reduced crime, and the downtown — which has more than 600 retail shops, many with glass storefronts — has seen a decrease in homeless encampments and increased foot traffic. This summer was reportedly the busiest for pedestrian traffic since before the coronavirus pandemic, and a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that homicides from January through June decreased by 51% this year compared to the same period in 2024.
Gov. Tina Kotek said she told Trump during a phone call that “we have to be careful not to respond to outdated media coverage or misinformation that is out there.”
Accusation of a cover-up
KRISTI NOEM, Homeland Security Secretary: “I was in Portland yesterday and had the chance to visit with the governor of Oregon, and also the mayor there in town, and they are absolutely covering up the terrorism that is hitting their streets.”
THE FACTS: Noem did visit Portland on Tuesday and met with Kotek and Mayor Keith Wilson. Both officials disagree with Noem’s narrative.
Kotek has repeatedly said that “there is no insurrection in Portland,” including in conversations with Trump and Noem, and that the city does not need “military intervention.” She has also continually called for any protests to be peaceful and said that local law enforcement can “meet the moment.” After Trump threatened to send the National Guard to Portland, Wilson said in a statement that the city has protected freedom of expression while “addressing occasional violence and property destruction.”
Observations on the ground in Portland support Kotek’s statement. While the nightly protests at the ICE facility have been disruptive for nearby residents — a charter school relocated this summer to get away from crowd-control devices — life has continued as normal in the rest of the city. There is no evidence of the protests in other areas of the city, including the downtown area about two miles away.
Portland residents have taken to social media to push back against the Trump administration’s statements about their city with the hashtag #WarRavagedPortland, posting photos and videos that show protesters in inflatable unicorn and frog costumes, along with people walking their dogs, riding their bikes and shopping at farmers markets.
SAN DIEGO — SAN DIEGO (AP) — The father of a Marine who was arrested by immigration authorities when visiting his pregnant daughter at Camp Pendleton has a criminal record that includes charges of domestic violence and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday.
Esteban Rios was deported to Mexico in 1999, removed from the United States again in 2005 and ordered deported by an immigration judge in 2020 after entering the country illegally a third time, the department said.
The statement was the first detailed account that Homeland Security provided since the Marine, Steve Rios, said last week that his father was detained after visiting the Southern California military base, released with ankle monitors and detained again when reporting days later to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, as ordered.
Homeland Security initially did not provide details when asked several times by The Associated Press on Tuesday for information on any criminal record Esteban Rios had, saying only that “criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.” The department said it had no other information to release.
On Thursday — one day after AP published a story on Esteban Rios, and two days after it sought details from the department — DHS released the detailed account of his criminal record. The department also accused the AP of having “deliberately obscured the facts,” despite the agency having not provided AP with the information it accused the news organization of obscuring.
Steve Rios of Oceanside, California, told San Diego station KNSD that his parents inspired him to enlist in the Marines. He said they came to the U.S. from Mexico more than 30 years ago and have washed cars and cleaned houses for his whole life.
“It was just making them proud, right? I’ve seen all the struggles they’ve gone through,” Steve Rios told the station. “The least I could do, right, and serve this country and try to, you know, put some time in.”
Steve Rios said he and his parents were picking up his younger sister and her husband, who is also a Marine, at Pendleton on Sept. 28, as they have done that every weekend for the past few months while she is expecting her first child. After stopping at the gate, ICE officials arrived to detain both parents, later releasing them with ankle monitors. He said his father was deported Oct. 10.
The Rios family told the station the parents had no criminal record, had pending green card applications sponsored by Steve and authorization to work.
In response to inquiries from AP, Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, issued a statement Tuesday that read, “Under President (Donald) Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem, if you break the law — including domestic violence and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — you will face the consequences. Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.”
The statement did not say anything about Esteban Rios, including whether he was arrested or charged with any crime or if he had any immigration history.
When AP followed up to ask if Esteban Rios and his wife had criminal histories, Luis Alani, a communications strategist at ICE, wrote, “By statute, ICE has no information on these aliens. To clarify, there is no information we can release.”