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Tag: Trials

  • Judge in Trump’s classified files case agrees to redact witness names, granting prosecution request

    Judge in Trump’s classified files case agrees to redact witness names, granting prosecution request

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    WASHINGTON — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump granted a request by prosecutors on Tuesday aimed at protecting the identities of potential government witnesses.

    But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon refused to categorically block witness statements from being disclosed, saying there was no basis for such a “sweeping” and “blanket” restriction on their inclusion in pretrial motions.

    The 24-page order centers on a dispute between special counsel Jack Smith’s team and lawyers for Trump over how much information about witnesses and their statements could be made public ahead of trial. The disagreement, which had been pending for weeks, was one of many that had piled up before Cannon and had slowed the pace of the case against Trump — one of four prosecutions he is confronting.

    The case remains without a firm trial date, though both sides have said they could be ready this summer. Cannon, who earlier faced blistering criticism over her decision to grant Trump’s request for an independent arbiter to review documents obtained during an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, made clear her continued skepticism of the government’s theory of prosecution, saying Tuesday that the case raised “still-developing and somewhat muddled questions.”

    In reconsidering an earlier order and siding with prosecutors on the protection of witness identities, Cannon likely averted a dramatic exacerbation of tensions with Smith’s team, which last week called a separate order from the judge “fundamentally flawed.”

    The issue surfaced in January when defense lawyers filed in partially unredacted form a motion that sought to require prosecutors to turn over a trove of documents that they said would bolster their claim that the Biden administration had sought to “weaponize” the government in charging Trump.

    Defense lawyers asked permission to file the motion, which included as attachments information that they had obtained from prosecutors, in mostly unredacted form. But prosecutors objected to unsealing the motion to the extent that it would reveal the identity of any potential government witness.

    Cannon then granted the defense request for the motion and its exhibits to be filed in unredacted form as long as the personal identifying information of witnesses remained sealed. Smith’s team asked her to reconsider, saying that witnesses could be exposed to threats and harassments if publicly identified.

    In agreeing Tuesday for the witness names to remain redacted, she wrote, “Although the record is clear that the Special Counsel could have, and should have, raised its current arguments previously, the Court elects, upon a full review of those newly raised arguments, to reconsider its prior Order.”

    Still, the order was not a complete win for prosecutors.

    Cannon rejected a request by Smith’s team to seal from pretrial motions the substance of all witness statements, with the exception of information that could be used to identify witnesses.

    “As for legal authority, the cases cited in the Special Counsel’s papers do not lend support to this sweeping request; nor do they appear to have been offered as such,” Cannon wrote. “And based on the Court’s independent research, granting this request would be unprecedented: the Court cannot locate any case — high-profile or otherwise — in which a court has authorized anything remotely similar to the sweeping relief sought here.”

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  • Judge rejects bid by Donald Trump to throw out classified documents case on constitutional grounds

    Judge rejects bid by Donald Trump to throw out classified documents case on constitutional grounds

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    FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A federal judge on Thursday rejected one bid by Donald Trump to throw out his classified documents criminal case, and appeared skeptical during hours of arguments of a separate effort to scuttle the prosecution ahead of trial.

    U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued a two-page order saying that though the Trump team had raised “various arguments warranting serious consideration,” a dismissal of charges was not merited. The case involves boxes of records, some highly classified, that Trump took to his Mar-a-Lago estate when he left the White House.

    Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by the former president, had made clear during more than three-and-a-half hours of arguments that she was reluctant to dismiss one of the four criminal cases against the 2024 presumptive Republican presidential nominee. She said at one point that a dismissal of the indictment would be “difficult to see” and that it would be “quite an extraordinary” step to strike down an Espionage Act statute that underpins the bulk of the felony counts against Trump but that his lawyers contend is unconstitutionally vague.

    The ruling from Cannon is a modest win for special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which in addition to the classified documents case is pursuing a separate prosecution of Trump on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

    But it left unanswered questions over when the case might proceed to trial and only covered one of the two motions argued in court on Thursday. A separate motion about whether Trump was permitted under the Presidential Records Act to retain the documents after he left the White House remains pending, but the judge also seemed disinclined to throw out the case on those grounds.

    “It’s difficult to see how this gets you to the dismissal of an indictment,” she told a Trump lawyer.

    Trump attended Thursday’s arguments, listening intently with his hands sometimes clasped in front of him on the defense table as his attorneys pressed Cannon to throw out the case.

    The hearing was the second this month in the case in Florida, which has unfolded slowly in the courts since prosecutors first brought charges last June. Cannon heard arguments on March 1 on when to schedule a trial date, but has yet to announce one and gave no indication Thursday on when she might do so. Prosecutors have pressed the judge to set a date for this summer. Trump’s lawyers are hoping to put it off until after the election.

    After the hearing, Trump on his Truth Social platform took note of the “big crowds” outside the courthouse, which included supporters with flags and signs who honked their car horns in solidarity with the ex-president. He again said the prosecution is a “witch hunt” inspired by President Joe Biden.

    Some of Thursday’s arguments centered on the 1978 statute known as the Presidential Records Act. The law requires presidential documents to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration, though former presidents may retain notes and papers created for purely personal reasons.

    His lawyers say the act entitled him to designate as personal property the records he took with him to Mar-a-Lago in Florida and that he was free to do with the documents as he pleased.

    “He had original classification authority,” said defense lawyer Todd Blanche. “He had the authority to do whatever he thought was appropriate with his records.”

    Prosecutors countered that those records were clearly presidential, not personal, and included top-secret information and documents related to nuclear programs and the military capabilities of the U.S. and foreign countries. They say the presidential records statute was never meant to permit presidents to retain classified and top-secret documents, like those kept at Mar-a-Lago.

    “The documents charged in the indictment are not personal records, period. They are not,” Harbach said. “They are nowhere close to it under the definition of the Presidential Records Act.”

    Trump’s lawyers separately challenged as overly vague a statute that makes it a crime to have unauthorized retention of national defense information, a charge that forms the basis of 32 of the 40 felony counts against Trump in the case.

    Defense lawyer Emil Bove said ambiguity in the statute permits what he called “selective” enforcement by the Justice Department, leading to Trump being charged but enabling others to avoid prosecution. Bove suggested a recent report by special counsel Robert Hur that criticized President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information did not recommend charges proved his point about the lack of clarity.

    When a law is unclear, Bove told Cannon, “The court’s obligation is to strike the statute and say ‘Congress, get it right.’”

    Jay Bratt, another prosecutor with Smith’s team, disputed that there was anything unclear about the law, and Cannon pointedly noted that striking down a statute would be “quite an extraordinary step.”

    In her subsequent ruling rejecting the defense request, she cited “still-fluctuating definitions of statutory terms/phrases” along with “disputed factual issues” that could be decided by a jury.

    Trump is accused of intentionally holding onto some of the nation’s most sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago — only returning a fraction of them upon demand by the National Archives. Prosecutors say he urged his lawyer to hide records and to lie to the FBI by saying he no longer was in possession of them and enlisted staff to delete surveillance footage that would show boxes of documents being moved around the property.

    Cannon has suggested in the past that she sees Trump’s status as a former president as distinguishing him from others who have held onto classified records.

    After the Trump team sued the Justice Department in 2022 to get his records back, Cannon appointed a special master to conduct an independent review of the documents taken during the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search. That appointment was later overturned by a federal appeals court.

    On Thursday, she wrestled with the unprecedented nature of the case, noted that no former president had ever faced criminal jeopardy for mishandling classified information.

    But, Bratt responded, “there was never a situation remotely similar to this one.”

    Trump is separately charged in a federal case in Washington with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trump has argued in both federal cases that presidential immunity protects him from prosecution, though Cannon has not agreed to hear arguments on that claim in the documents case.

    The U.S Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on Trump’s immunity claim in the election interference case next month.

    Richer reported from Boston.

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    By Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer and Terry Spencer | Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Ammo supplier says he provided no live rounds in fatal shooting of cinematographer by Alec Baldwin

    Ammo supplier says he provided no live rounds in fatal shooting of cinematographer by Alec Baldwin

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    SANTA FE, N.M. — An ammunition supplier testified at trial Monday that he only provided inert dummy rounds to the Western film “Rust” where actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer in 2021, though he also was handling live rounds from another production at that time.

    Albuquerque-based movie firearms and ammunition supplier Seth Kenney took the stand at the trial of “Rust” movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who is charged with involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in the death of cinematagropher Halyna Hutchins.

    Kenney told a jury he cleaned and repackaged ammunition to “Rust” that was previously supplied to a production in Texas, handing off a box of 50 inert dummy rounds containing no gunpower to the “Rust” props supervisor on Oct. 12, 2021.

    Kenney also said he scrubbed the exterior of the rounds and cleaned out residue inside in each of them to ensure the telltale rattle of a metal pellet inside dummy rounds could be heard for safety purposes.

    The outcome of trial may hinge on testimony about the source of six live rounds discovered on the “Rust” set — including the one from Baldwin’s gun. Live ammunition is expressly prohibited on movie sets by the industry and union guidelines.

    Prosecutors say Gutierrez-Reed is to blame for unwittingly bringing live ammunition on set and that she flouted basic safety protocols for weapons handling. She has pleaded not guilty.

    Defense attorneys say their client is being smeared and unfairly scapegoated for problems beyond her control, including Baldwin’s handling of the weapons. On Monday, they highlighted images of Kenney’s “cluttered” business, a storage system without written inventories, and Kenney’s “hazy” recollection of his timeline for receiving live rounds for another production.

    Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer on “Rust,” was separately indicted by a grand jury last month on an involuntary manslaughter charge in connection with the fatal shooting of Hutchins. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled for July.

    Baldwin was pointing the gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on the set outside of Santa Fe when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.

    In Monday’s testimony, Kenney said he provided “Rust” props master Sarah Zachry, who also managed weapons and ammunition for the production, with dummy ammunition retrieved from a props storage truck on the Texas set of the television series “1883.”

    “Did you ever give any live ammunition to Sarah Zachry?” prosecutor Kari Morrissey asked Kenney. He responded, “No.”

    Responding to additional questions, Kenney said Monday that didn’t have any ammunition that looked like the live rounds investigators found on the set of “Rust.”

    At the same time, Kenney acknowledged he stored live rounds that were used in a live-ammunition shooting exercise for actors on “1883,” arranged at a private ranch of series creator Taylor Sheridan.

    Kenney said the live rounds from that shooting exercise were brought back to his shop, stored in a bathroom within a gray plastic container marked “live rounds” on the outside.

    The live rounds were initially provided to “1883” by Gutierrez-Reed’s step-father, the Hollywood sharp shooter and weapons consultant Thell Reed.

    Investigators from the Santa Fe sheriff’s office searched Kenney’s Albuquerque supply shop several weeks after the fatal shooting, seizing live rounds that were sent to the FBI for analysis and comparison with live rounds discovered on the set of “Rust.”

    Defense attorney Jason Bowles has argued that Kenney wasn’t properly investigated for his role as a “Rust” supplier. Bowles on Monday highlighted the fact that the search of Kenney’s business took place about a month after the fatal shooting.

    Kenney’s testimony also delved into his disagreements with Gutierrez-Reed about her job performance on the set of “Rust” in connection with a gun misfire — prior to the fatal shooting.

    Testimony Monday also delved into evidence related to a tampering charge against Gutierrez-Reed. That charge stems from accusations that she handed a small bag of possible narcotics to another crew member after the shooting to avoid detection.

    A crew member from food services testified that she went to Gutierrez-Reed’s hotel room the evening after the fatal shooting to keep the armorer company at the request of a union steward. She said Gutierrez-Reed handed her some white powder in a plastic baggie within another baggie, and that she felt insulted and threw it into a hallway garbage container after leaving the room.

    “In fairness, you probably had five seconds to look at this bag, is that right?” said Bowles, the defense attorney. “You have a belief, but you don’t know for certain, what was in that bag.”

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  • NH man convicted of killing daughter, 5

    NH man convicted of killing daughter, 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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    By KATHY McCORMACK – Associated Press

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  • Jam Master Jay’s business partner says he grabbed a gun and sought whoever had killed the rap star

    Jam Master Jay’s business partner says he grabbed a gun and sought whoever had killed the rap star

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    Rap legend Jam Master Jay lay, mortally wounded, on his studio floor. One of his aides was in pain from a gunshot to the leg. Another was crying and screaming on the floor.

    Dashing in from an adjoining room, Randy Allen took in the bloody scene, grabbed a gun and charged outside to seek whoever had done it, he testified Tuesday at a federal murder trial over the October 2002 shooting of the Run-DMC star in the New York borough of Queens.

    Allen, who was the DJ’s business partner and childhood friend, told jurors he wanted “to try at least to see who it was.” He didn’t see anyone running from the studio, he said, so he stashed the gun in the wheel well of a parked car and ran to a nearby police station for help.

    Allen was the last to testify among five prosecution witnesses who say they were in various parts of the studio when the turntable titan, born Jason Mizell, was killed. But there is more to come in the trial of what has been one of the highest-profile and hardest-to-solve killings in the hip-hop world.

    The defendants, Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington, have pleaded not guilty.

    Allen said he was in the studio’s control room and heard two shots in the adjacent lounge area but didn’t see the attacker or attackers.

    But he said that in the ensuing days, wounded eyewitness and aide Uriel “Tony” Rincon told him that Jordan fired the gun and Washington was there.

    Allen added that Lydia High, who is his sister and was the business manager at Mizell’s record label, told him that Washington ordered her at gunpoint to hit the floor and the shots were fired by a man with a tattooed neck. Jordan has such a tattoo.

    Rincon and High both testified likewise earlier in the trial. But neither they nor Allen told investigators initially, or indeed for years, that the eyewitnesses could identify either man. Allen said he had wanted to leave it up to those two to tell, since he hadn’t seen the shooting himself.

    “The only person you saw with a gun in hand was you, right?” asked one of Jordan’s lawyers, Mark DeMarco.

    Allen said Mizell had been keeping that gun by his side. The witness said he grabbed it “for protection” before running out to look for anyone who might be running away.

    Defense attorneys pointed to a signed statement that Allen gave to police hours after the shooting, in which he said he heard three to six shots and saw a heavyset man in a dark jacket going down the building’s stairs after the shooting.

    Allen said he didn’t recall saying any of that.

    Prosecutors allege that Mizell was killed out of “greed and revenge.” Under their theory, Mizell — known for his anti-drug advocacy with Run-DMC — was arranging to sell a sizeable amount of cocaine in Baltimore, and Washington and Jordan were about to lose out on a piece of the profits.

    Christopher Burrell, a neighborhood friend whom Mizell had taken under his wing in the music business, told jurors Tuesday that he overheard the DJ talking in summer 2002 about “setting up Tinard in Baltimore … to sell drugs or whatever.” Tinard is Washington’s nickname.

    But an admitted dealer who said he was the Baltimore connection on the deal testified Monday that he had ill will toward Washington and told Mizell there was no deal if Washington was involved.

    The defense has not yet had its turn to present evidence.

    Attorneys for Washington, 59, have said prosecutors brought a thin and illogical case against a down-and-out drinker who was anything but angry toward the famous friend who supported him.

    Jordan, 40, who was Mizell’s godson, has said through his lawyers that he was elsewhere when the shooting happened and has alibi witnesses.

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  • Dani Alves faces day two of sexual assault trial in Barcelona. Police say accuser wants ‘justice’

    Dani Alves faces day two of sexual assault trial in Barcelona. Police say accuser wants ‘justice’

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    BARCELONA, Spain — After being escorted in handcuffs into the Barcelona courtroom, Dani Alves sat in silence and listened to a stream of witnesses give testimony during the second day of his sexual assault trial on Tuesday.

    Alves is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the bathroom of an upscale Barcelona nightclub early in the morning of Dec. 31, 2022.

    He has denied any wrongdoing.

    State prosecutors are seeking a nine-year prison sentence for Alves if convicted while the lawyers representing his accuser want 12 years.

    His accuser testified on Monday, the start of the three-day trial, behind closed doors on order of the court. State prosecutors asked for the court to take extra measures to protect her identity after a video circulated on social media last month that allegedly identified the woman.

    In testimony previously given to state prosecutors last year, the woman said she met Alves in a VIP area of the Sutton nightclub after midnight where she had gone with a friend and a cousin. She said she accompanied Alves into a private bathroom where he allegedly slapped her, used insulting language and raped her.

    Alves has said the encounter was consented by her.

    The woman’s friend and cousin testified on Monday that when they saw her after she exited the bathroom she was distraught and told them Alves “hurt her badly” by forcing her to have intercourse without her consent.

    On Tuesday, police officers who attended to the alleged victim testified she was greatly shaken and told them she had been sexually assaulted by Alves. The officers said she had to overcome her fears that “nobody would believe her” before she formally denounced Alves.

    One officer said the woman told him “I don’t want money, I want justice.”

    The nightclub manager, who activated a sexual assault protocol by counseling the woman and calling police, said she told him she entered the bathroom with Alves “voluntarily but later she wanted to leave and he would not let her.”

    Alves’ friend, who was also an employee of the Mexican soccer club Pumas where Alves was playing, also testified. The friend, who accompanied Alves that night, said Alves drank wine and whiskey before going to the nightclub. According to his friend, Alves and the alleged victim danced together and showed “chemistry” before going into the bathroom. He said he hadn’t noticed anything wrong with the woman afterward.

    Alves’ wife, Joana Sanz, told the court that Alves was “smelling of alcohol” when he arrived to their home outside Barcelona early in the morning. Sanz, Alves’ wife since 2017, said that she has not legally requested a divorce, after having said that she wanted one after the scandal broke.

    Alves will have his turn to speak to the three-judge panel on Wednesday.

    The 40-year-old Alves has been in pre-trial jail since being detained on Jan. 20, 2023. His requests for bail were denied because the court considered him a flight risk, despite his offer to hand over his passport and wear a tracking device. Brazil does not extradite its own citizens when they are sentenced in other countries.

    Alves modified his defense several times during the investigative phase while in custody.

    At first, he denied having ever seen the woman when he went dancing on the night in question. Upon his arrest, he then denied any sexual contact with her, only to later admit to a sexual encounter that he said was consented to by the woman. He said he had been trying to save his marriage by not admitting to the sexual encounter initially.

    Alves has been ordered to set aside 150,000 euros ($162,000) to pay his alleged victim if he is found guilty and ordered to pay damages.

    This is the first high-profile sex crime trial since Spain overhauled its legislation in 2022 to make consent, or the lack thereof, central to defining a sex crime in response to an upswell of protests after a gang-rape case during the San Fermin bull-running festival in Pamplona in 2016. The legislation popularly known as the “only yes means yes” law defines consent as an explicit expression of a person’s will, making it clear that silence or passivity do not equal consent.

    Under the law, the crime of sexual assault takes in a wide array of crimes from online abuse and groping to rape, each with different punishments. Rape can carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.

    On arriving at the courtroom under police escort, Alves shrugged his shoulders when asked by reporters if he thought he would be found innocent.

    Alves won major titles with elite clubs including Barcelona, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain. He also helped Brazil win two Copa Americas and an Olympic gold medal at age 38. He played at his third World Cup, the only major title he’s not won, in 2022.

    Alves’ contract with Pumas was terminated immediately after his arrest.

    ___

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

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  • A woman stole a memory card from a truck. The gruesome footage is now key to an Alaska murder trial

    A woman stole a memory card from a truck. The gruesome footage is now key to an Alaska murder trial

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    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A woman with a lengthy criminal history including theft, assault and prostitution got into a truck with a man who had picked her up for a “date” near downtown Anchorage. When he left her alone in the vehicle, she stole a digital memory card from the center console.

    Now, more than four years later, what she found on that card is key to a double murder trial set to begin this week: gruesome photos and videos of a woman being beaten and strangled at a Marriott hotel, her attacker speaking in a strong accent as he urged her to die, her blanket-covered body being snuck outside on a luggage cart.

    “In my movies, everybody always dies,” the voice says on one video. “What are my followers going to think of me? People need to know when they are being serial-killed.”

    About a week after she took the SD card, the woman turned it over to police, who said they recognized the voice as that of Brian Steven Smith, now 52, a South Africa native they knew from a prior investigation, court documents say.

    Smith has pleaded not guilty to 14 charges, including first- and second-degree murder, sexual assault and tampering with evidence, in the deaths of Kathleen Henry, 30, and Veronica Abouchuk, who was 52 when her family reported her missing in February 2019, seven months after they last saw her.

    Henry and Abouchuk were both Alaska Native women who had experienced homelessness. They were from small villages in western Alaska, Henry from Eek and Abouchuk from Stebbins.

    Authorities say Henry was the victim whose death was recorded at the TownePlace Suites by Marriott, a hotel in midtown Anchorage. Smith was registered to stay there from Sept. 2 to Sept. 4, 2019; the first images showing her body were time-stamped at about 1 a.m. on Sept. 4, police said.

    The last images on the card were taken early on Sept. 6 and showed Henry’s body in the back of a black pickup, according to charging documents. Location data showed that at the time the photo was taken, Smith’s phone was in the area of Rainbow Valley Road, along the Seward Highway south of Anchorage, the same area where Henry’s body was found several weeks later, police said.

    As detectives interrogated Smith about the Marriott case, authorities said, he offered up more information to police who escorted him to a bathroom: He had killed another woman, and he went on to identify her — Abouchuk — from a photo and to provide the location of her remains, along the Old Glenn Highway north of Anchorage.

    “With no prompting, he tells the troopers in the bathroom, ‘I’m going to make you famous,’” District Attorney Brittany Dunlop said during a court hearing last week. “He comes back in and says … ‘You guys got some more time? You want to keep talking?’ And then discloses this other murder.”

    Alaska State Troopers in 2018 incorrectly identified another body as that of Abouchuk, because Abouchuk’s ID had been discovered with it, for reasons that remain unclear. But with the information Smith provided, investigators re-examined the case and used dental records to confirm a skull with a bullet wound found in the area Smith identified was Abouchuk’s, authorities have said.

    Smith’s attorney, Timothy Ayer, unsuccessfully sought to have the digital memory card’s evidence — or even mention of it — excluded at trial. The woman who turned in the card initially claimed she had simply found it on the street, and it wasn’t until a second interview that she confessed she had stolen the card from Smith’s truck while he tried to get money from an ATM and she had it for a week before giving it to police, he said.

    For that reason, he argued, prosecutors would not be able to demonstrate the provenance of the 39 photos and 12 videos, establish whether they were originals or duplicates, or say for sure whether they had been tampered with.

    “The state cannot produce a witness to testify that the video fairly and accurately depicts any act that actually happened,” Ayer wrote.

    However, Third Judicial District Judge Kevin Saxby ruled late Friday that the woman can testify about her possession of the card until she handed it over to police and that the recordings can be properly authenticated.

    Henry’s family has not spoken publicly about her death and efforts to reach relatives have not been successful. Abouchuk’s family has not returned messages from The Associated Press.

    “These were two Alaska Native women,” Dunlop, then the assistant district attorney, said in 2019 after Smith was charged. “And I know that hits home here in Alaska, and we’re cognizant of that. We treat them with dignity and respect.”

    Authorities said Smith, who is in custody at the Anchorage Correctional Facility, came to Alaska in 2014 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen the same month Henry was killed.

    In a 2019 letter to the AP, he declined to discuss the case. He added that he was doing well: “I have lost weight, I have much less stress and I am sober.”

    His wife, Stephanie Bissland of Anchorage, and a sister acting as a family spokesperson in South Africa, both declined to comment until after the trial.

    The trial, expected to last three to four weeks, was scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection.

    Prosecutors had suggested the possibility of closing the courtroom to prevent the gruesome videos from being seen by the public. The Associated Press, the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska’s News Source and Alaska Public Media objected to any such move in a letter to the court’s presiding judge.

    Afterward, Saxby said he has no intention of keeping the public from the courtroom, but safeguards will be in place to prevent those in the gallery or watching the trial’s livestream from seeing them.

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  • Rap lyrics can’t be used against artist charged with killing Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay, judge rules

    Rap lyrics can’t be used against artist charged with killing Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay, judge rules

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    New York — The man accused of killing Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay can’t have his rap lyrics used against him at trial, a Brooklyn judge decided Tuesday in a ruling that doubled as a history-filled paean to hip-hop as “a platform for expression to many who had largely been voiceless.”

    The ruling came in response to an attempt by federal prosecutors to introduce lyrics penned by Karl Jordan Jr. as evidence of his role in gunning down Jay, a pioneering artist whose birth name was Jason Mizell. His 2002 death remains one of rap’s most infamous slayings.

    In her 14-page order, Brooklyn Federal Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall traced the evolution of hip-hop over five decades, referencing tracks from over a dozen artists before ultimately finding the lyrics inadmissible.

    “From the genre’s nascence as an oral tradition, rap artists have played the part of storytellers, providing a lens into their lives and those in their communities,” Hall wrote.

    Prosecutors had sought to introduce several lines written by Jordan that described first-person accounts of violence and drug dealing, including: “We aim for the head, no body shots, and we stick around just to see the body drop.”

    Those lyrics didn’t detail the specific crime, Hall wrote, but “merely contain generic references to violence that can be found in many rap songs.”

    She pointed to similar lines written by rappers Nas, Ice Cube and Vince Staples, along with interviews with artists like Fat Joe and Future who have publicly discussed the distance between their art and real lives.

    Diving further into the genre’s past, Hall cited the political activism of artists like A Tribe Called Quest and Queen Latifah, along with the role “gangsta rap” played “as a portal for others to see into America’s urban centers.”

    “The Court cannot help but note that odious themes – including racism, misogyny, and homophobia – can be found in a wide swath of genres other than rap music,” she added in a footnote, even referencing lyrics from the Rolling Stones and Jason Aldean, a controversial county music star.

    The use of rap lyrics in criminal prosecutions has become a contentious subject in several high-profile cases, including the ongoing racketeering trial of Young Thug. In that case the judge allowed the lyrics to be presented at trial — a decision that defense attorneys say amounts to racist “character assassination” meant to poison a jury already skeptical of rap music.

    In her ruling on Tuesday, Hall wrote that courts should be “wary” about allowing the use of hip-hop lyrics against criminal defendants because “artists should be free to create without fear that their lyrics could be unfairly used against them at a trial.”

    She said there could be specific exceptions in cases where lyrics discuss the precise details of a particular crime.

    Jordan and an accomplice, Ronald Washington, are accused of confronting Mizell in his recording studio in 2002, then shooting him in the head. The prosecution argues it was an act of revenge for cutting them out of a drug deal.

    The killing had frustrated investigators for decades, but prosecutors said they made key strides in the case over the last five years, conducting new interviews and ballistic tests and getting witnesses to cooperate.

    Defense lawyers have claimed the government dragged its feet in indicting Washington and Jordan, making it harder for them to defend themselves.

    Both men have pleaded not guilty, as has a third defendant who was charged this past May and will be tried separately.

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  • A trial in Jam Master Jay’s 2002 killing is starting, and testing his anti-drug image

    A trial in Jam Master Jay’s 2002 killing is starting, and testing his anti-drug image

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    NEW YORK — For almost two decades, the 2002 killing of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay stood as one of the hip-hop world’s most infamous and elusive crimes, one of three long-unsolved slayings of major rap stars.

    Now Jay’s case is the first of those killings to go to trial. Opening statements are set for Monday in the federal murder trial of Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington, who were arrested in 2020.

    “A brazen act,” then-Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme said at the time, “has finally caught up with them.”

    Washington and Jordan are accused of gunning down Jay in his recording studio over a drug dispute, a prosecution narrative challenging the public understanding of a DJ known for his anti-drug advocacy. They have pleaded not guilty, as has a third defendant who was charged this past May and will be tried separately.

    Jay, born Jason Mizell, formed Run-DMC in the early 1980s with Darryl “DMC” McDaniels and Joseph Simmons, known as DJ Run and Rev. Run. Together, the hat-wearing, Adidas-loving friends from the Hollis section of Queens built a rap juggernaut that helped the young genre go mainstream.

    They were the first rappers with gold and platinum albums and a Rolling Stone cover. They were the first hip-hop group with a video on MTV, where their subsequent 1986 collaboration with Aerosmith on the classic rockers’ “Walk This Way” would bust through a wall between rap and rock, literally doing so in the accompanying music video. The group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.

    “We always knew rap was for everyone,” Jay said in a 2001 MTV interview. “Anyone could rap over all kinds of music.”

    Embracing rock sounds, rap wordplay and New York attitude, Run-DMC notched hits talking about things ranging from their fame to people’s foibles, including perhaps the only top-100 reference to somebody accidentally eating dog food.

    The group also made clear where they stood on drugs and crime.

    “We are not thugs, we don’t use drugs,” they declared on the platinum-selling 1987 single “It’s Tricky.” The group did an anti-drug public service announcement and shows, called for a day of peace between warring Los Angeles gangs, established scholarships and held voter registration drives at concerts.

    Along the way, Jay opened a 24/7 studio in Hollis and a label, mentoring up-and-comers including 50 Cent.

    Jay was killed at that studio on Oct. 30, 2002. His death followed the drive-by shootings of Tupac Shakur in 1996 and The Notorious B.I.G. in 1997, a trio of hip-hop tragedies that frustrated investigators for decades. A man was charged in September in Shakur’s killing in Las Vegas and has pleaded not guilty; no one has been arrested in The Notorious B.I.G.’s slaying in Los Angeles.

    More than $60,000 in rewards were offered for information on Jay’s death. Theories abounded. Police received enough tips to fill 34 pages, according to a court filing. But the investigation languished as investigators said they ran up against reluctant witnesses.

    Prosecutors have said in court papers that the case took crucial strides in the last five years as they interviewed new people, did more ballistics tests and got important witnesses to cooperate, among other steps.

    But defense lawyers have claimed the government dragged its feet in indicting Washington and Jordan, making it harder for them to defend themselves.

    Authorities say the two men confronted Jay in his studio after being buzzed in. Prosecutors allege Washington brandished a gun and ordered a witness to lie on the floor, and Jordan shot the 37-year-old DJ in the head and another witness in the leg.

    The motive, according to prosecutors: anger that Jay was going to cut Washington out of a plan to distribute 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of cocaine in Maryland. Prosecutors maintain the DJ had been mixed up in kilo-level coke deals since 1996. His family has insisted he wasn’t involved with drugs.

    Investigators were quick to eye Washington, who reportedly had been living on Jay’s couch. Washington already had a record of gun, assault, drug and other convictions, and authorities said he went on a robbery spree after Jay’s death, hopping among motels until being arrested three months later in the hold-ups, authorities said.

    He had told authorities and Playboy magazine in 2003 that he was present during Jay’s killing but the armed men were Jordan and another man. Prosecutors publicly identified him in 2007 as a suspect.

    After being arrested in the shooting — while still in prison for the robberies — he told agents he “never wanted someone else to get in trouble for something he (Washington) had put them up to,” prosecutors said in court papers.

    Lawyers for Washington, 59, have said in court papers that he didn’t match DNA on a wool hat found at the crime scene, and they have raised questions about a witness’ identification of him. A message sent Friday seeking comment on the upcoming trial was not immediately returned by his lead attorney, Susan Kellman.

    Prosecutors have portrayed Jordan in court filings as a veteran drug dealer who boasted about his activities in his own raps, including a video called “Silver Spoon” — filmed in front of a mural of Jay — and a gun-filled clip titled ”Aim for the Head.” Authorities say they have their own videos, too: recordings of him repeatedly selling cocaine to an undercover agent in 2017.

    Jordan, 40, has pleaded not guilty to gun and cocaine charges that will be decided at the murder trial. Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall said in 2020 she is “not going to hold any individual accountable for the lyrics in a rap song that is consumed by our community — and, in fact, it’s consumed by me,” according to the New York Daily News.

    Jordan’s lead lawyer, Mark DeMarco, declined to comment ahead of the trial. In court papers, he has said Jordan “adamantly denied his involvement in the murder” and was at his then-girlfriend’s home when it happened.

    He considered Jay to be family, since the DJ grew up across the street from Jordan’s father, his defense wrote.

    If convicted, Washington and Jordan face at least 20 years in prison. The government has said it would not seek the death penalty.

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  • Jury rules Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defamation

    Jury rules Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defamation

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    E. Jean Carroll and her attorneys Shawn Crowley and Roberta Kaplan react outside the Manhattan Federal Court, after the verdict in the second civil trial after she accused former U.S. President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago, in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024. 

    Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

    A federal jury on Friday said Donald Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll a total of $83.3 million in damages for defaming her in statements he made as president after the writer said he had raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s.

    The massive civil verdict — which comes on top of a $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict that Carroll won against Trump last year — was delivered less than three hours after the nine-member jury began deliberating in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

    Trump was not in court for the reading of the unanimous verdict on compensatory and punitive damages by the anonymous jury at 4:40 p.m. ET.

    But shortly afterward, he said in a social media post that he would appeal it.

    “This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down,” Carroll said in a statement.

    E. Jean Carroll hugs her team after the verdict was read during the second civil trial where Carroll accused former U.S. President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. 

    Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

    Her attorney Roberta Kaplan said, “Today’s verdict proves that the law applies to everyone in our country, even the rich, even the famous, even former presidents. There is a way to stand up to someone like Donald Trump who cares more about wealth, fame, and power than respecting the law.”

    Jurors awarded Carroll $7.3 million for compensatory damages for emotional harm, and another $11 million for compensatory damages to her reputation. Compensatory damages are awarded for actual losses suffered by someone.

    They then awarded her another $65 million in punitive damages after finding that Trump in a June 21, 2019, statement about Carroll had “acted maliciously, out of hatred, ill will or spite, vindictively or out of wanton, reckless, or willful disregard of Ms. Carroll’s right.”

    Trump in those comments and others since then has denied ever meeting Carroll, suggested she made her claim to sell a book, and said she was not “my type.”

    Punitive damages are meant to punish wrongdoing by a defendant.

    Earlier Friday, Carroll’s lawyer in her closing argument had urged jurors to award her a “very large” amount of money, to make the billionaire former president “stop” slandering her.

    “He doesn’t care about the law or truth but does care about money, and your decision on punitive damages is the only hope that he stops,” Kaplan said.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to his supporters, as he departs for his second civil trial after E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, outside a Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024. 

    Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

    “How much will it take to make him stop? You cost him lots and lots of money,” she said.

    Trump in a social media post on his TruthSocial site after the verdict wrote, “Absolutely ridiculous!”

    “I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party,” wrote Trump, who is the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.

    “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”

    Trump so far has not received much help from appeals courts in challenging the two separate lawsuits by Carroll before they went to trial.

    But it is possible that on appeal of the verdicts he could at least win a reduction in the amount of money he owes her.

    Last month, the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s argument that he was immune from damages in the current case because he was president at the time he defamed Carroll.

    The appeals court ruled that Trump had waived the potential defense of presidential immunity for not raising it for years after Carroll first sued him in 2019.

    Trump last year posted $5.6 million as security while he appeals the verdict in the prior sex abuse and defamation case.

    When he appeals the current case’s verdict, he will likely have to post more than $90 million in security.

    Until the appeals are resolved, Carroll will not collect any money from Trump.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump walks out during attorney Roberta Kaplan’s closing argument, during E. Jean Carroll’s second civil trial as Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024, in this courtroom sketch.

    Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

    Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Roberta, told jurors before dismissing them from court: “My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury, and I won’t say anything more about it.”

    Before their deliberations began, Judge Kaplan instructed them that they had to accept as facts that Trump “sexually assaulted” Carroll in the mid-1990s and defamed the writer in 2019.

    “What remains for you to decide,” the judge said, is whether “Mr. Trump acted maliciously when he made his two statements” about Carroll.

    “You must accept as true the facts as I explained to you as they have already been decided,” the judge said, referring to Trump’s sexual assault of Carroll and his slandering of her decades later.

    Trump looked on during the instructions with a frown.

    Earlier, Trump stalked out of the courtroom after Carroll’s lawyer began her closing argument, in which she urged jurors to award monetary damages “large enough that it will finally make him stop” slandering the writer.

    Trump’s dramatic departure came minutes after the judge warned his lawyer Alina Habba that she was risking being tossed into jail before summations began in the case.

    “The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom,” the judge said.

    Trump returned about an hour later, after Carroll’s attorney finished her summation and just before his attorney began her closing argument.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as his attorney Alina Habba, delivers closing arguments during E. Jean Carroll’s second civil trial as Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. 

    Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

    Carroll in a 2019 New York magazine article wrote that in the mid-1990s, Trump had raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue, just up the street from the Trump Tower, where he lived and worked.

    Trump denied her allegation at the time, saying she had made it up.

    Another Manhattan federal court jury last year found he had sexually abused Carroll in the attack and had defamed her in statements he made in late 2022 denying her claims.

    Kaplan ruled later in 2023 that that jury’s verdict meant that jurors in the current trial would have to accept as legally established that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll and had defamed her in his 2022 statements.

    Trump on Friday posted several social media messages attacking Kaplan for rulings in the case, accusing the judge of having “absolute hatred of Donald J. Trump (ME!).” Trump’s Truth social account posted 14 times about Carroll when he was in the courtroom.

    In her closing argument, Carroll’s lawyer Kaplan asked jurors to impose punitive damages on Trump for refusing to stop defaming Carroll even after a jury last year held him liable for doing so and ordered him to pay her $5 million.

    Trump’s comments have sparked death threats and vicious emails and tweets directed at Carroll, the lawyer said.

    Read more CNBC politics coverage

    “The dollar amount has to be very large,” Roberta Kaplan said. “It is at least as much and probably much more than the $12 million” that the lawyer noted an expert witness had testified it could cost to repair Carroll’s reputation after Trump accused her of inventing her claim.

    “Last trial, Donald J. Trump didn’t even bother to show up, but this trial where it is about damages he has been sure to be here and the one thing he cares about his money,” Kaplan said.

    Trump “is worth billions of dollars, he said that under oath, he could pay a million dollars a day for 10 years and still have money in the bank,” Kaplan said.

    “When you begin deliberations I encourage you to step back and think of bigger picture, a former president of the United States who sexually assaulted, defamed and continues to defame.”

    Earlier, Trump’s lawyer Habba, who had already irked Judge Kaplan for showing up late in court, angered him when she persisted in arguing that defense lawyers should be able to show a slide to jurors during their summation that represented some tweets related to Carroll.

    “You are not going to use a slide to represent how many tweets there were, you are not using that slide, period,” Judge Kaplan said.

    When Habba said, “I need to make a record,” referring to putting her argument on the record, the judge issued his warning.

    “You are on the verge of spending time in the lockup, now sit down!” the judge told Habba.

    Kaplan snapped at Habba several more times during her closing argument, at one point telling her that if she continued pressing a particular point “there will be consequences.”

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s attorney Alina Habba delivers closing arguments during E. Jean Carroll’s second civil trial, as Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, U.S., January 26, 2024 in this courtroom sketch.

    Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

    In her summation, Habba said that Carroll “has failed to show she is entitled to any damages at all.”

    “It is Ms. Carroll’s burden, not President Trump’s, to prove that his statements caused harm, and she failed to meet that burden, it is common sense,” Habba said.

    The attorney also suggested that Carroll had made up her claims of receiving “thousands of threats.”

    Carroll had testified that she deleted most of those threats, making them unavailable as evidence.

    “Either Ms. Carroll is lying to you and those messages never existed in the first place or she deleted them and wants you to rely on them, and guess what, they are not here, and she has to give them to you to support her claim for damages, and that is a fact,” Habba said.

    Habba also said that not only did Carroll “not suffer any emotional harm” after publishing her claim in 2019 about Trump raping her, “she was happier than ever.”

    “She told Vanity Fair [magazine] that the support she received walking down the streets was heartwarming,” Habba said. “One of the most carefree and happy times of her life, that she was in a cocoon of love … does this sound like someone whose world has come crashing down, who can’t sleep?”

    “She was enjoying the newfound attention she was receiving,” the lawyer said.

    Before the arguments began and jurors entered the courtroom, the judge issued a warning.

    “During closing arguments, no one is to say anything other than opposing counsel,” said Kaplan. “There are to be no interruptions or audible comments by anyone else and that will apply when I charge the jury and that will apply to counsel then as well.”

    Carroll’s lawyers have complained during the trial about Trump making comments that were audible to jurors while sitting with his attorneys at the defense table.

    Kaplan previously ruled that because of the prior verdict, there was no legal question that Trump defamed Carroll. That ruling left only the question of monetary damages remaining for the jury.

    Trump during his very brief testimony in the trial Thursday said of Carroll’s claim, “I consider it a false accusation.”

    Kaplan struck that testimony, in light of the prior jury’s verdict which found he had sexually abused Carroll.

    Trump earlier this week defeated former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire. Last week, he won the Iowa GOP caucuses.

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  • Donald Trump goes from calm to indignant in newly released deposition video of civil fraud lawsuit

    Donald Trump goes from calm to indignant in newly released deposition video of civil fraud lawsuit

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    NEW YORK — Months before Donald Trump’s defiant turn as a witness at his New York civil fraud trial, the former president came face-to-face with the state attorney general who is suing him when he sat for a deposition last year at her Manhattan office.

    Video made public Friday of the seven-hour, closed-door session last April shows the Republican presidential frontrunner’s demeanor going from calm and cool to indignant — at one point ripping Attorney General Letitia James lawsuit against him as a “disgrace” and “a terrible thing.”

    Sitting with arms folded, an incredulous Trump complained to the state lawyer questioning him that he was being forced to “justify myself to you” after decades of success building a real estate empire that’s now threatened by the court case.

    Trump, who contends James’ lawsuit is part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” was demonstrative from the outset. The video shows him smirking and pouting his lips as the attorney general, a Democrat, introduced herself and told him that she was “committed to a fair and impartial legal process.”

    James’ office released the video Friday in response to requests from media outlets under New York’s Freedom of Information Law. Trump’s lawyers previously posted a transcript of his remarks to the trial docket in August.

    James’ lawsuit accuses Trump, his company and top executives of defrauding banks, insurers and others by inflating his wealth and exaggerating the value of assets on annual financial statements used to secure loans and make deals.

    Judge Arthur Engoron, who will decide the case because a jury is not allowed in this type of lawsuit, has said he hopes to have a ruling by the end of January.

    Friday’s video is a rare chance for the public at large to see Trump as a witness.

    Cameras were not permitted in the courtroom when Trump testified on Nov. 6, nor were they allowed for closing arguments in the case on Jan. 11, where Trump defied the judge and gave a six-minute diatribe after his lawyers spoke.

    Here are the highlights from Trump’s videotaped deposition:

    Telling James and her staff, “you don’t have a case,” Trump insisted the banks she alleges were snookered with lofty valuations suffered no harm, got paid in his deals, and “to this day have no complaints.”

    “Do you know the banks made a lot of money?” Trump asked, previewing his later trial testimony. “Do you know I don’t believe I ever got even a default notice and, even during COVID, the banks were all paid. And yet you’re suing on behalf of banks, I guess. It’s crazy. The whole case is crazy.”

    Banks “want to do business with me because I’m rich,” Trump told James. “But, you know what, they’re petrified to do business because of you.”

    Trump complained New York authorities “spend all their time investigating me, instead of stopping violent crime in the streets.”

    He said they’d put his recently jailed ex-finance chief Allen Weisselberg “through hell and back” for dodging taxes on company-paid perks.

    At a previous deposition in the case, in August 2022, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions more than 400 times. He said he did so because he was certain his answers would be used as a basis for criminal charges.

    Trump said he never felt his financial statements “would be taken very seriously,” and that people who did business with him were given ample warning not to trust them.

    Trump described the statements as “a fairly good compilation of properties” rather than a true representation of their value. Some numbers, he noted, were “guesstimates.”

    Trump claimed the statements were mainly for his use, though he conceded financial institutions sometimes asked for them. Even then, he insisted it didn’t matter legally if they were accurate or not, because they came with a disclaimer.

    “I have a clause in there that says, ’Don’t believe the statement. Go out and do your own work,” Trump testified. “You’re supposed to pay no credence to what we say whatsoever.”

    Trump estimated that his “brand” alone is worth “maybe $10 billion.”

    He called it “the most valuable asset I have” and attributed his political success to the ubiquity of his name and persona.

    “I became president because of the brand, OK,” Trump said. “I became president. I think it’s the hottest brand in the world.”

    After Trump was elected, he put the Trump Organization into a trust overseen by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and longtime finance chief, Weisselberg.

    Trump claimed he did so not because it was required but because he wanted to be a “legitimate president” and avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

    Plus, Trump said, he was busy solving the world’s problems — like preventing North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un from launching a nuclear attack.

    “I considered this the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives,” Trump testified. “I think you would have nuclear holocaust if I didn’t deal with North Korea. I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.”

    In one of his more animated moments, Trump urged his inquisitors to look right out the window for a view of his 40 Wall Street office tower — just across the street from James’ office where he testified.

    Asked how the building was doing, financially, Trump gestured toward the building with his thumb and answered: “Good. It’s right here. Would you like to see it?”

    “I don’t think we’re allowed to open the windows,” state lawyer Kevin Wallace said.

    “Open the curtain,” Trump suggested, bobbing his head around waiting for someone to oblige.

    “No,” Wallace said.

    “Open the curtain, go ahead,” Trump said. “It’s right here. I just looked out the window.”

    “Can’t open it?” defense lawyer Clifford Robert asked, after a beat.

    “I wouldn’t,” Wallace said.

    Trump showed off his knack for superlatives, uttering the words “beautiful” and “incredible” 15 times each and “phenomenal” six times as he described his properties.

    Trump called his Turnberry, Scotland, golf course “one of the most iconic places in the world,” and the renovated villas at his Doral golf resort near Miami “the most beautiful rooms you’ve ever seen.”

    Trump described his 213-acre Seven Springs estate north of New York City as “the greatest house in New York State.”

    His golf courses in Aberdeen, Scotland? “Really incredible.” Jupiter, Florida? “An incredible facility.” Just outside Los Angeles? “An incredible property … an unbelievable property … a phenomenal property that fronts on the ocean.”

    “I don’t want to sell any of them,” Trump testified. “But if I ever sold them — if I ever put some of these things up for sale — I would get numbers that were staggering.”

    He said he could get $1.5 billion for his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and maybe $2.5 billion for Doral.

    Trump suggested he could get “a fortune” from the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV golf league for the Turnberry course, a former British Open site.

    “There would be people that would do anything to own Doral. There are people that would do anything to own Turnberry or Mar-a-Lago or … Trump Tower or 40 Wall Street.”

    __

    Follow Sisak at x.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips

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  • Prince Harry drops libel case against Daily Mail after damaging pretrial ruling

    Prince Harry drops libel case against Daily Mail after damaging pretrial ruling

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    LONDON — LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry dropped his libel lawsuit Friday against the publisher of the Daily Mail tabloid following a punishing ruling in which a judge suggested he might lose at trial.

    Lawyers for the Duke of Sussex notified the High Court in London that he would not continue the suit against Associated Newspapers Ltd., one of several cases he had pending in his high-profile battle with the British press.

    No reason was given, but it came the day he was due to hand over documents in the case and after a punishing ruling last month in which a judge ordered Harry to pay the publisher nearly 50,000 pounds (more than $60,000) in legal fees after he failed to achieve victory without going to trial.

    The action will leave him on the hook to pay the publisher’s legal fees, which the Daily Mail reported to be 250,000 pounds ($316,000). A spokesperson for the duke said it was premature to speculate about costs.

    Harry, 39, the estranged younger son of King Charles III, has broken ranks with the royal family in his willingness to go to court and it has become the main forum in his efforts to hold the news media accountable for hounding him throughout his life.

    Associated Newspapers is one of three tabloid publishers he has sued over claims they used unlawful means, such as deception, phone hacking or hiring private investigators, to try to dig up dirt on him. That case against Associated and another against the publisher of The Sun are headed for trial.

    In the sole case that has gone to trial, Harry scored a big victory last month against the publishers of the Daily Mirror when a judge ruled that phone hacking was “widespread and habitual” at Mirror Group Newspapers, and executives at the papers covered it up. He was awarded 140,000 pounds ($177,000).

    The libel case involved a Mail on Sunday article that said Harry tried to hide his efforts to retain publicly funded protection in the United Kingdom after walking away from his role as a working member of the royal family.

    Harry’s lawyers claimed the article attacked his honesty and integrity by purporting to reveal that court documents “contradicted public statements he had previously made about his willingness to pay for police protection for himself and his family” while in the U.K. He said the article would undermine his charity work.

    The publisher argued the article expressed an honest opinion and caused no serious harm to his reputation.

    In March, Harry sought summary judgment — to win the case without going to trial — and tried to knock out the Mail’s defense but a judge didn’t buy it.

    Justice Matthew Nicklin ruled on Dec. 8 that the publisher was more likely to prevail in its defense showing that statements issued on Harry’s behalf were misleading and that the February 2022 article reflected an “honest opinion” and wasn’t libelous.

    “The defendant may well submit that this was a masterclass in the art of ‘spinning,’” Nicklin wrote, in refusing to strike the honest opinion defense.

    Harry also has a lawsuit pending against the government’s decision to protect him on a case-by-case basis when he visits Britain. He claims that hostility toward him and his wife on social media and relentless hounding by the news media threaten their safety. He cited media intrusion for his decision to leave life as a senior royal and move to the United States

    Harry’s spokesperson said his focus remains on that case and his family’s safety.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of Prince Harry at https://apnews.com/hub/prince-harry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Donald Trump defies judge, gives courtroom speech on tense final day of New York civil fraud trial

    Donald Trump defies judge, gives courtroom speech on tense final day of New York civil fraud trial

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    NEW YORK — Barred from giving a formal closing argument, Donald Trump still seized an opportunity to speak in court at the conclusion of his New York civil fraud trial Thursday, unleashing a barrage of attacks in a six-minute diatribe before being cut off by the judge.

    Trump spoke as the judge was trying to find out if the former president would follow rules requiring him to keep his remarks focused on matters related to the trial. Asked whether he would comply with the guidelines, Trump defied the judge and simply launched into his speech.

    “We have a situation where I am an innocent man,” Trump protested. “I’m being persecuted by someone running for office and I think you have to go outside the bounds.”

    Judge Arthur Engoron — who earlier denied Trump’s extraordinary request to give his own closing statement — let him continue almost uninterrupted for what amounted to a brief personal summation, then cut him off for a scheduled lunch break.

    Trump’s in-court remarks ensured a tumultuous final day for a trial over allegations that he habitually exaggerated his wealth on financial statements he provided to banks, insurance companies and others.

    Adding to the day’s tension, the exchange took place hours after authorities responded to a bomb threat at the judge’s house in New York City’s suburbs. The scare didn’t delay the start of court proceedings.

    Trump, the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has disparaged Engoron throughout the trial, accusing him in a social media post Wednesday night of working closely with the New York attorney general “to screw me.”

    On Wednesday, Engoron had nixed an unusual plan by Trump to deliver his own closing remarks in the courtroom, in addition to summations from his legal team. The sticking point was that Trump’s lawyers would not agree to the judge’s demand that he stick to “relevant” matters” and not try to introduce new evidence or make a campaign speech.

    After two of Trump’s lawyers had delivered traditional closing arguments Thursday, one of them, Christopher Kise, asked the judge again whether Trump could speak. Engoron asked Trump whether he would abide by the guidelines.

    Trump then launched into his remarks.

    “This is a fraud on me. What’s happened here, Sir, is a fraud on me,” Trump said. He later accused the judge of not listening to him. “I know this is boring to you.”

    “Control your client,” Engoron warned Kise.

    Engoron then told Trump he had a minute left, let him speak a little more, and then adjourned.

    In their closing remarks Thursday afternoon, lawyers representing New York state said that Trump and his attorneys had relied on false statements and irrelevant expert testimony to make their case.

    “What we have not heard from defendants are any new facts,” state lawyer Kevin Wallace said in his summation, arguing that Trump’s financial statements were false and “each defendant was acting knowingly and intentionally” to inflate the numbers.

    Trump echoed the bulk of his courtroom speech at a news conference later Thursday that served as counter programming to the state’s closing argument. Trump peppered his remarks at a lower Manhattan office building he owns and could lose control of as a result of the trial with barbs about President Joe Biden, rape accuser E. Jean Carroll and other adversaries.

    The day began with police on Long Island checking out the threat at Engoron’s Long Island home. At 5:30 a.m. Nassau County police said they responded to a “swatting incident” at the house in Great Neck. Nothing amiss was found at the location, officials said.

    Taking the bench a few minutes late, Engoron made no mention of the incident.

    The false report came days after a fake emergency call reporting a shooting at the home of the judge in Trump’s Washington, D.C. criminal case. The incidents are among a recent spate of similar false reports at the homes of public officials.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, sued Trump in 2022 under a state law that gives the state attorney general broad power to investigate allegations of persistent fraud in business dealings. She wants the judge to impose $370 million in penalties.

    Engoron decided some of the key issues before testimony began. In a pretrial ruling, he found that Trump had committed years of fraud by lying about his riches on financial statements with tricks like claiming his Trump Tower penthouse was nearly three times its actual size.

    The trial involves six undecided claims, including allegations of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. Trump’s company and two of his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., are also defendants. Eric Trump was also in court for closing arguments.

    During his closing argument, Kise contended Trump did nothing wrong and didn’t mislead anyone about his wealth.

    “Forty-four days of trial — not one witness came into this courtroom, your honor, and said there was fraud,” Kise said, contending his client “should get a medal” for his business acumen instead of punishment he deemed the “corporate death penalty.”

    “This entire case is a manufactured claim to pursue a political agenda,” Kise said. “It has been press releases and posturing but no evidence.”

    Since the trial began Oct. 2, Trump has gone to court nine times to observe, testify and complain to TV cameras about the case.

    He clashed with Engoron and state lawyers during 3½ hours on the witness stand in November and remains under a limited gag order after making a disparaging and false social media post about the judge’s law clerk.

    Thursday’s arguments were part of a busy legal and political stretch for Trump.

    On Tuesday, he was in court in Washington, D.C., to watch appeals court arguments over whether he is immune from prosecution on charges that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election — one of four criminal cases against him. Trump has pleaded not guilty. On Monday, the presidential primary season kicks off with the Iowa caucus.

    Besides monetary damages, James wants Trump and his co-defendants barred from doing business in New York.

    State lawyers say that by making himself seem richer, Trump qualified for better loan terms from banks, saving him at least $168 million.

    Kise acknowledged that some holdings may have been listed “higher by immaterial” amounts, but he added” “there’s plenty of assets that were undervalued by substantial sums.”

    Engoron said he is deciding the case because neither side asked for a jury and state law doesn’t allow for juries for this type of lawsuit. He said he hopes to have a decision by the end of the month.

    Last month, in a ruling denying a defense bid for an early verdict, the judge signaled he’s inclined to find Trump and his co-defendants liable on at least some claims.

    “Valuations, as elucidated ad nauseum in this trial, can be based on different criteria analyzed in different ways,” Engoron wrote in the Dec. 18 ruling. “But a lie is still a lie.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporters Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow Sisak at x.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips

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  • Judge rescinds permission for former President Donald Trump to give his own closing argument at his civil fraud trial

    Judge rescinds permission for former President Donald Trump to give his own closing argument at his civil fraud trial

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    Judge rescinds permission for former President Donald Trump to give his own closing argument at his civil fraud trial

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  • Jonathan Majors Breaks His Silence After Assault Conviction: “I Was Reckless With Her Heart, Not With Her Body”

    Jonathan Majors Breaks His Silence After Assault Conviction: “I Was Reckless With Her Heart, Not With Her Body”

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    Less than a month after Jonathan Majors was found guilty on two charges—and not guilty on two others—in his domestic assault trial, the actor broke his silence on the verdict.

    Speaking with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, Majors said he was “absolutely shocked and afraid” after being convicted on one count of reckless assault in the third degree and one count of harassment against his now ex-partner Grace Jabbari; he was acquitted on two other counts of intentional assault and aggravated harassment. 

    “I’m standing there and the verdict comes down,” Majors said. “I say, ‘How is that possible? Based off the evidence—based off the prosecution’s evidence, let alone our evidence—how is that possible?’” The verdict was split, and the actor said he plans to appeal.

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    Majors, who did not testify at the trial, had pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment originating from an alleged domestic dispute with Jabbari last March. He was arrested on March 25 after his then girlfriend was taken to a hospital with “minor injuries to her head and neck,” the NYPD said in a statement. Prosecutors said Jabbari was riding in the back of a vehicle with Majors when she grabbed his phone from him after seeing a text message that said, “Wish I was kissing you right now,” sent by a woman listed in the actor’s phone as “Cleopatra.”

    In his latest interview, Majors maintained that he was not responsible for Jabbari’s injuries, which included a fractured finger and cut behind her ear. “You’re confident you didn’t cause them?” Davis asked, to which Majors replied: “I have no question.” When asked how Jabbari got injured if not by him, he responded, “I wish to God I knew. That would give clarity, that would give me some type of peace about it.”

    Majors, who met Jabbari while she was working as a movement coach on the set of his film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, asserted that their relationship was “not healthy” and that he should have “been brave” and “walked away.” He continued, “I was reckless with her heart, not with her body,” later adding, “My hands have never struck a woman, ever.”

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  • Is Georgia's election system constitutional? A federal judge will decide in trial set to begin

    Is Georgia's election system constitutional? A federal judge will decide in trial set to begin

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    ATLANTA — Election integrity activists want a federal judge to order Georgia to stop using its current election system, saying it’s vulnerable to attack and has operational issues that could cost voters their right to cast a vote and have it accurately counted.

    During a trial set to start Tuesday, activists plan to argue that the Dominion Voting Systems touchscreen voting machines are so flawed they are unconstitutional. Election officials insist the system is secure and reliable and say it is up to the state to decide how it conducts elections.

    Georgia has become a pivotal electoral battleground in recent years with national attention focused on its elections. The election system used statewide by nearly all in-person voters includes touchscreen voting machines that print ballots with a human-readable summary of voters’ selections and a QR code that a scanner reads to count the votes.

    The activists say the state should switch to hand-marked paper ballots tallied by scanners and also needs much more robust post-election audits than are currently in place. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, who’s overseeing the long-running case, said in an October order that she cannot order the state to use hand-marked paper ballots. But activists say prohibiting the use of the touchscreen machines would effectively force the use of hand-marked paper ballots because that’s the emergency backup provided for in state law.

    Wild conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines proliferated in the wake of the 2020 election, spread by allies of former President Donald Trump who said they were used to steal the election from him. The election equipment company has fought back aggressively with litigation, notably reaching a $787 million settlement with Fox News in April.

    The trial set to begin Tuesday stems from a lawsuit that long predates those claims. It was originally filed in 2017 by several individual voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election integrity, and targeted the outdated, paperless voting system used at the time.

    Totenberg in August 2019 prohibited the state from using the antiquated machines beyond that year. The state had agreed to purchase new voting machines from Dominion a few weeks earlier and scrambled to deploy them ahead of the 2020 election cycle. Before the machines were distributed statewide, the activists amended their lawsuit to take aim at the new system.

    They argue the system has serious security vulnerabilities that could be exploited without detection and that the state has done little to address those problems. Additionally, voters cannot be sure their votes are accurately recorded because they cannot read the QR code, they say. And the voting machines’ large, upright screens make it easy to see a voter’s selections, violating the right to ballot secrecy, they say.

    Lawyers for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote in a recent court filing that he “vigorously disputes” the activists’ claims and “strongly believes” their case is “legally and factually meritless.”

    Experts engaged by the activists have said they’ve seen no evidence that any vulnerabilities have been exploited to change the outcome of an election, but they say the concerns need to be addressed immediately to protect future elections.

    One of them, University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman, examined a machine from Georgia and wrote a lengthy report detailing vulnerabilities that he said bad actors could use to attack the system. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, in June 2022 released an advisory based on Halderman’s findings that urged jurisdictions that use the machines to quickly mitigate the vulnerabilities.

    During a hearing in May, a lawyer for the state told the judge physical security elements recommended by CISA were “largely in place.” But the secretary of state’s office has said a software update from Dominion is too cumbersome to install before the 2024 elections.

    The fact that the voting system software and data was uploaded to a server and shared with an unknown number of people after unauthorized people accessed election equipment in January 2021 makes it even easier to plan an attack on the system, Halderman has said. That breach at the elections office in rural Coffee County was uncovered and exposed by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

    A sprawling Fulton County racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 others included charges against four people related to Coffee County. Two of them, including Trump-allied lawyer Sidney Powell, have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors.

    In several rulings during the litigation, Totenberg has made clear that she has concerns about the voting system. But she wrote in October that the activists “carry a heavy burden to establish a constitutional violation” connected to the voting system or its implementation.

    David Cross, a lawyer for some of the individual voters, said the judge has only seen a sliver of their evidence so far. He said he believes she’ll find in their favor, but he doesn’t expect to see any changes before Georgia’s presidential primary in March. He said changes might be possible before the general election in November if Totenberg rules quickly.

    “We’re hopeful but we recognize it’s an uphill fight for 2024, just on the timing,” he said, acknowledging the likelihood that the state would appeal any ruling in the activists’ favor.

    Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, was similarly optimistic ahead of trial: “We have the facts and the science and the law on our side, and really the state has no defense.”

    A representative for Raffensperger didn’t respond to multiple requests to interview someone in his office ahead of the trial.

    The activists had planned to call the secretary of state to testify. They wanted to ask why he chose a voting system that uses QR codes that aren’t readable by voters. They also believe his office has failed to investigate or to implement proper safeguards after the Coffee County breach and wanted to ask him about it under oath.

    The judge ordered him to appear over the objections of his lawyers. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled he doesn’t have to testify, citing his status as as top official and saying the plaintiffs didn’t show his testimony was necessary.

    “This trial bears heavily on the public interest, and voters deserve to hear from Secretary Raffensperger in the trial. It’s a travesty that they won’t,” Cross said. “And it’s unfair to our clients who need answers to questions at trial that only he can provide.”

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  • Is Georgia's election system constitutional? A federal judge will decide in trial set to begin

    Is Georgia's election system constitutional? A federal judge will decide in trial set to begin

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    ATLANTA — Election integrity activists want a federal judge to order Georgia to stop using its current election system, saying it’s vulnerable to attack and has operational issues that could cost voters their right to cast a vote and have it accurately counted.

    During a trial set to start Tuesday, activists plan to argue that the Dominion Voting Systems touchscreen voting machines are so flawed they are unconstitutional. Election officials insist the system is secure and reliable and say it is up to the state to decide how it conducts elections.

    Georgia has become a pivotal electoral battleground in recent years with national attention focused on its elections. The election system used statewide by nearly all in-person voters includes touchscreen voting machines that print ballots with a human-readable summary of voters’ selections and a QR code that a scanner reads to count the votes.

    The activists say the state should switch to hand-marked paper ballots tallied by scanners and also needs much more robust post-election audits than are currently in place. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, who’s overseeing the long-running case, said in an October order that she cannot order the state to use hand-marked paper ballots. But activists say prohibiting the use of the touchscreen machines would effectively force the use of hand-marked paper ballots because that’s the emergency backup provided for in state law.

    Wild conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines proliferated in the wake of the 2020 election, spread by allies of former President Donald Trump who said they were used to steal the election from him. The election equipment company has fought back aggressively with litigation, notably reaching a $787 million settlement with Fox News in April.

    The trial set to begin Tuesday stems from a lawsuit that long predates those claims. It was originally filed in 2017 by several individual voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election integrity, and targeted the outdated, paperless voting system used at the time.

    Totenberg in August 2019 prohibited the state from using the antiquated machines beyond that year. The state had agreed to purchase new voting machines from Dominion a few weeks earlier and scrambled to deploy them ahead of the 2020 election cycle. Before the machines were distributed statewide, the activists amended their lawsuit to take aim at the new system.

    They argue the system has serious security vulnerabilities that could be exploited without detection and that the state has done little to address those problems. Additionally, voters cannot be sure their votes are accurately recorded because they cannot read the QR code, they say. And the voting machines’ large, upright screens make it easy to see a voter’s selections, violating the right to ballot secrecy, they say.

    Lawyers for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote in a recent court filing that he “vigorously disputes” the activists’ claims and “strongly believes” their case is “legally and factually meritless.”

    Experts engaged by the activists have said they’ve seen no evidence that any vulnerabilities have been exploited to change the outcome of an election, but they say the concerns need to be addressed immediately to protect future elections.

    One of them, University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman, examined a machine from Georgia and wrote a lengthy report detailing vulnerabilities that he said bad actors could use to attack the system. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, in June 2022 released an advisory based on Halderman’s findings that urged jurisdictions that use the machines to quickly mitigate the vulnerabilities.

    During a hearing in May, a lawyer for the state told the judge physical security elements recommended by CISA were “largely in place.” But the secretary of state’s office has said a software update from Dominion is too cumbersome to install before the 2024 elections.

    The fact that the voting system software and data was uploaded to a server and shared with an unknown number of people after unauthorized people accessed election equipment in January 2021 makes it even easier to plan an attack on the system, Halderman has said. That breach at the elections office in rural Coffee County was uncovered and exposed by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

    A sprawling Fulton County racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 others included charges against four people related to Coffee County. Two of them, including Trump-allied lawyer Sidney Powell, have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors.

    In several rulings during the litigation, Totenberg has made clear that she has concerns about the voting system. But she wrote in October that the activists “carry a heavy burden to establish a constitutional violation” connected to the voting system or its implementation.

    David Cross, a lawyer for some of the individual voters, said the judge has only seen a sliver of their evidence so far. He said he believes she’ll find in their favor, but he doesn’t expect to see any changes before Georgia’s presidential primary in March. He said changes might be possible before the general election in November if Totenberg rules quickly.

    “We’re hopeful but we recognize it’s an uphill fight for 2024, just on the timing,” he said, acknowledging the likelihood that the state would appeal any ruling in the activists’ favor.

    Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, was similarly optimistic ahead of trial: “We have the facts and the science and the law on our side, and really the state has no defense.”

    A representative for Raffensperger didn’t respond to multiple requests to interview someone in his office ahead of the trial.

    The activists had planned to call the secretary of state to testify. They wanted to ask why he chose a voting system that uses QR codes that aren’t readable by voters. They also believe his office has failed to investigate or to implement proper safeguards after the Coffee County breach and wanted to ask him about it under oath.

    The judge ordered him to appear over the objections of his lawyers. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled he doesn’t have to testify, citing his status as as top official and saying the plaintiffs didn’t show his testimony was necessary.

    “This trial bears heavily on the public interest, and voters deserve to hear from Secretary Raffensperger in the trial. It’s a travesty that they won’t,” Cross said. “And it’s unfair to our clients who need answers to questions at trial that only he can provide.”

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  • NY seeks $370 million in penalties in Trump's civil fraud trial. His response: 'They should pay me'

    NY seeks $370 million in penalties in Trump's civil fraud trial. His response: 'They should pay me'

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    NEW YORK — New York state lawyers increased their request for penalties to over $370 million Friday in Donald Trump‘s civil business fraud trial. He retorted, “They should pay me.”

    The exchange came as lawyers for both sides filed papers highlighting their takeaways from the trial in court filings ahead of closing arguments, set for next Thursday. Trump is expected to attend, though plans could change.

    It will be the final chance for state and defense lawyers to make their cases. The civil lawsuit, which accuses the leading Republican presidential hopeful of deceiving banks and insurers by vastly inflating his net worth, is consequential for him even while he fights four criminal cases in various courts.

    The New York civil case could end up barring him from doing business in the state where he built his real estate empire. On top of that, state Attorney General Letitia James is seeking the $370 million penalty, plus interest — up from a pretrial figure of $250 million, nudged to over $300 million during the proceeding.

    The state says the new sum reflects windfalls from wrongdoing, chiefly $199 million in profits from property sales and $169 million in savings on interest rates, as calculated by an investment banking expert hired by James’ office.

    Trump bristled at the proposed penalty, calling it “a disgrace” at a campaign stop in Sioux Center, Iowa.

    “There was no victim. There was no default. There was no damages. No nothing,” he said. In an all-caps post hours earlier on his Truth Social platform, he complained that the attorney general was seeking $370 million and instead “should pay me,” asserting that businesses are fleeing New York.

    (According to the state Labor Department, the number of private sector jobs in New York increased 1% in the year that ended this past November, compared to 1.6% nationally.)

    James’ office argued in a filing Friday that Trump, his company and executives clearly intended to defraud people.

    “The myriad deceptive schemes they employed to inflate asset values and conceal facts were so outrageous that they belie innocent explanation,” state lawyer Kevin Wallace wrote.

    The state alleges Trump and his company ginned up exorbitant values for golf courses, hotels, and more, including Trump’s former home in his namesake tower in New York and his current home at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. The numbers were listed on personal financial statements that netted him attractive rates on loans and insurance, leaving him money to invest in other projects and even his 2016 presidential campaign, James’ office says.

    The defendants, including Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric, deny any wrongdoing. The former president has painted the case as a political maneuver by James, Judge Arthur Engoron and other Democrats, saying they’re abusing the legal system to try to cut off his chances of winning back the White House this year.

    He asserts that his financial statements actually came in billions of dollars low, and that any overestimations — such as valuing his Trump Tower penthouse at nearly three times its actual size — were mere mistakes and made no difference in the overall picture of his fortune.

    He also says the documents are essentially legally bulletproof because they said the numbers weren’t audited, among other caveats. Recipients understood them as simply starting points for their own analyses, the defense says.

    None of Trump’s lenders testified that they wouldn’t have made the loans or would have charged more interest if his financial statements had shown different numbers, and 10-plus weeks of testimony produced “no factual evidence from any witness that the gains were ill-gotten,” attorneys Michael Madaio and Christopher Kise wrote in a filing Friday. Nor, they said, was there proof that insurers were ripped off.

    Separately, defense lawyers argued that claims against Executive Vice Presidents Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. should be dismissed because they never had “anything more than a peripheral knowledge or involvement in the creation, preparation, or use of” their father’s financial statements.

    The sons relied on the work of other Trump Organization executives and an outside accounting firm that prepared those documents, attorneys Clifford Robert and Michael Farina said, echoing the scions’ own testimony.

    Their father also took the stand, disputing the allegations, decrying the case as political and criticizing the judge and the attorney general. James’ office argued in its filing Friday that Trump was “not a credible witness.”

    “He was evasive, gave irrelevant speeches and was incapable of answering questions in a direct and credible manner,” Wallace wrote.

    The verdict is up to the judge because James brought the case under a state law that doesn’t allow for a jury. Engoron has said he hopes to decide by the end of this month.

    He will weigh claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. But he ruled before trial on the lawsuit’s top claim, finding that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud for years. With that ruling, the judge ordered that a receiver take control of some of the ex-president’s properties, but an appeals court has frozen that order for now.

    During the trial, Engoron fined Trump a total of $15,000 after finding that he violated a gag order. The order, imposed after Trump maligned a law clerk, barred all trial participants from commenting publicly on the judge’s staff.

    Trump’s lawyers are appealing the gag order.

    ___

    Contributing were Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Jill Colvin in New York and Hannah Fingerhut in Sioux Center, Iowa.

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