Judge says he needs more time to determine a punishment and orders Alexander Jerich to write 25-page essay on 2016 massacre
A Florida judge has ordered a man who defaced an LGBTQ+ Pride mural to write a 25-page essay about the 2016 Pulse gay nightclub shooting.
Last June, the city of Delray Beach in south Florida unveiled a rainbow mural at an intersection on the fifth anniversary of the attack, in which a gunman killed 49 people at the club in Orlando.
Continue reading...New York judge holds former president in contempt of court for failing to comply with a subpoena for documents
A New York judge has held Donald Trump in contempt and fined him $10,000 a day, following the former president’s failure to hand over documents to prosecutors investigating his business practices.
Letitia James, the New York state attorney general, had asked for the contempt finding this month stating that Trump had not complied with a subpoena requiring him to produce documents and information.
Continue reading...Police arrived at the venue to find wedding guests being treated for ‘symptoms consistent with that of someone who has used illegal drugs’
A Florida bride and her wedding caterer have been criminally charged after serving food laced with marijuana to their wedding guests, sickening them and sending several to hospital.
Danya Shea Svoboda, 42, and Jocelyn Montrinice Bryant, 31, who catered her wedding, face charges of violating Florida’s anti-tampering laws, delivery of marijuana and culpable negligence.
Continue reading...The man was identified from video he had posted on social media that appeared to show gunshots fired
A gunman opened fire on random victims from a sniper’s nest on the upper floor of an apartment building near an elite prep school in Washington, wounding four people before taking his own life as police burst into his dwelling.
Police said on Friday evening the suspect, Raymond Spencer, 23, of suburban Fairfax, Virginia, was initially identified from video he had posted on social media that appeared to show gunshots fired from the vantage point of an upper-floor window, with the misspelled label: “Shool shooting!”
Continue reading...The star ‘became irate’ after being asked to leave a private residence and reportedly threw a chair, which struck a woman
Fantastic Beasts star Ezra Miller has been arrested on suspicion of assault in Hawaii, just weeks after police on the Big Island arrested the actor for disorderly conduct and assault.
The star, 29, also known for playing the Flash in Justice League films, “became irate” after being asked to leave a private residence and reportedly threw a chair, which struck a woman on the forehead, according to a statement from the Hawaii police department.
Continue reading...The California native pleads guilty to scheme that triggered three-week search before she resurfaced on Thanksgiving day in 2016
Sherri Papini, the California woman whose disappearance made national headlines and sparked a massive search before she reappeared on Thanksgiving day in 2016, pleaded guilty on Monday to faking her own kidnapping and lying to the FBI.
The 39-year-old from Redding, in the state’s far north, did not offer any explanation for the elaborate hoax or why she claimed two “Hispanic women” had kidnapped her at gunpoint and chained her to a pole for three weeks while depriving her of food, beating and branding her.
Continue reading...Frank James, who allegedly shot 10 people on a subway train, openly talked about struggling with mental illness
Days after a man who openly talked about struggling with mental illness allegedly shot up a subway train in Brooklyn, the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, called for his state to continue prioritizing an increase in the number of available psychiatric hospital beds.
Adams on Sunday said he understood the medical community’s shifting its focus to fighting the deadly coronavirus during the last two years, but at this point in the pandemic, it needed to pivot to addressing shortages in psychiatric services.
Continue reading...He was found guilty on charges that he injected the men with methamphetamine in exchange for sex, leading to overdoses
The wealthy political activist and Democratic donor Ed Buck was sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges that he supplied and personally injected gay men with methamphetamine in exchange for sex, leading to two deaths and multiple other overdoses.
Buck, 67, was found guilty in July by a federal jury on all nine counts, including having a drug house, distributing methamphetamine and enticing men to travel for prostitution.
Continue reading...After an arrest in the Brooklyn subway shooting, Tahhan has become a social media star. But there’s plenty of credit to go round
In the aftermath of the Brooklyn subway shooting, social media has found its latest star.
Zack Tahhan, 21, was quickly anointed as a hero on Wednesday following the arrest of Frank R James, the suspect in the attack that injured 29. But the real story, it seems, was more complicated – and Tahhan wasn’t the day’s only hero.
Continue reading...Lawyer for man charged with stealing a coat rack from the Capitol has vowed to show Trump abused his power to ‘authorize’ attack
Mentions of Donald Trump have been rare at the first few trials for people charged with storming the US Capitol, but that has changed: the latest Capitol riot defendant to go on trial is blaming his actions on the former president and his false claims about a stolen election.
Dustin Byron Thompson, an Ohio man charged with stealing a coat rack from the Capitol, doesn’t deny that he joined the mob on 6 January 2021. But his lawyer vowed Tuesday to show that Trump abused his power to “authorize” the attack.
Continue reading...Papini will plead guilty to lying to authorities and mail fraud over 2016 incident that led to three-week search
Sherri Papini, the northern California woman charged last month with faking her kidnapping in 2016, accepted a plea bargain with prosecutors on Tuesday and acknowledged she had made up the story that prompted a frantic search and international headlines.
Her defense attorney William Portanova said his client would plead guilty to charges of lying to a federal officer and mail fraud.
Continue reading...Biden says ‘we’re not letting up until we find the perpetrator’ as manhunt under way for shooter
A gunman wearing a gas mask filled a crowded New York subway car with thick black smoke from a canister and opened fire on morning rush-hour passengers, injuring more than 20, including 10 with gunshot wounds.
A manhunt was under way on Tuesday after the shooter, described as a heavy-built Black male about 5ft 5in tall, wearing a green construction-type vest and hooded grey sweatshirt, fled the scene of the shooting. Officers were searching for a U-Haul truck with an Arizona license plate as of Tuesday afternoon, police told multiple media outlets, and the vehicle was later found.
Continue reading...Democrat Brian Benjamin pleads not guilty to several charges, as arrest creates political crisis for governor Kathy Hochul
New York’s lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, resigned on Tuesday in the wake of his arrest in a federal corruption investigation, the state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, said.
The development created a political crisis for Hochul seven months after she selected Benjamin as a partner to make a fresh start in an office rocked by scandal after Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned amid allegations of bullying and sexual harassment.
Continue reading...Family members of official killed in ‘senseless and tragic’ robbery and shooting in community near Atlanta
A Georgia coroner went to a shooting range owned by his family on Friday evening and found his parents and son had been shot dead in a robbery, officials said.
In a brief telephone interview with the Guardian on Sunday, Richard Hawk confirmed his 19-year-old son Luke Hawk, father Tommy Hawk and mother Evelyn Hawk were killed at the shooting range, which was owned by his father.
Continue reading...Three people have been arrested since the early Sunday violence unfolded but the motive is still unknown
Police have said at least five people fired weapons in a weekend shooting in Sacramento, California, that killed six people and injured a dozen others and prompted calls for lawmakers to address the scourge of gun violence in the US.
Officials said on Wednesday that while the motive was still unknown, investigators think “ gang violence is at the center of this tragedy” and that “gangs and gang violence are inseparable from the events that drove these shootings”.
Continue reading...Smiley Martin, 27, brother of first suspect Dandrae Martin, facing gun-related charges but neither brother charged with homicide
Police in Sacramento arrested a second person in connection with Sunday’s mass shooting in a bustling stretch of California’s capitol. Six people were killed in the shooting and at least 12 were injured.
On Tuesday the department announced Smiley Martin, who was also injured in the shooting, would be booked in Sacramento’s county jail once his medical care is complete. Martin, 27, is facing charges of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun. His brother Dandrae Martin, 26, was arrested on Monday and charged with assault and illegal firearm possession offenses.
Continue reading...Maxwell repeatedly requested a new trial after a juror on her case failed to disclose childhood sexual abuse during jury selection
Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid for a new trial has been denied, the judge in her Manhattan federal court sex-trafficking case said on Friday.
The daughter of the late British media baron Robert Maxwell repeatedly requested a new trial after a juror in the case failed to disclose childhood sexual abuse during jury selection.
Continue reading...Dominic Taddeo, 64, pleaded guilty in 1992 to killing three men in 1980s mob wars for Rochester, New York, crime family
A New York mobster who killed three people and attempted to kill two others has escaped from federal custody after recently being moved to a halfway house, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Dominic Taddeo, a hitman from a Rochester-area crime family, pleaded guilty in 1992 to racketeering charges that included the killings of three men during mob wars in the 1980s.
Continue reading...A study found that more than 2m counterfeit pills were confiscated in the last quarter of 2021 alone
Over the past four years, the number of counterfeit pills containing fentanyl that have been seized by US law enforcement jumped by 4,850%, according to a new study, underscoring how an alarming surge in the deadly drug is putting people at increasing risk for accidental overdose.
The study by a consortium of academic researchers, led by New York University, was released on Thursday. Using a first-of-its-kind, real time analysis of federal data, it found that more than 2m fake pills were seized by officials in the last quarter of 2021 alone – up from 42,000 in the first quarter of 2018. Researchers also found that the number of individual seizures involving fentanyl pills increased by 834%.
Continue reading...Jose Manuel Perez from California allegedly smuggled reptiles, including baby crocodiles and Mexican beaded lizards, since 2016
A Southern California man is accused of smuggling more than 1,700 reptiles – including baby crocodiles and Mexican beaded lizards – into the US since 2016, authorities said Thursday.
Jose Manuel Perez, also known as “Julio Rodriguez”, was taken into custody on 25 February at the San Ysidro border crossing with Mexico.
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