Two people reported critically injured in Nevada shooting, which happened early on Saturday morning
Fourteen people were shot before dawn on Saturday at a hookah lounge in Las Vegas. Police said one man died and two people suffered critical injuries.
The shooting happened at about 3.15am and preliminary information indicated there was a party during which two people got into an altercation and exchanged gunfire, striking multiple people, said police captain Dori Koren.
Continue reading...Brandon Toseland has been charged after Las Vegas police discovered the woman and her daughter – and the body of her son
On Tuesday, a 7-year-old girl arrived at her Las Vegas elementary school with a stash of sticky notes in her hand, which she gave to her teacher. The notes, from her mother, were a cry for help.
The woman wrote that she was being held captive by her boyfriend and feared that her 4-year-old son, who she had not seen for weeks, was dead, according to her attorney. After the teacher notified authorities, police went to the home of Brandon Toseland, where they found the body of Mason Dominguez in Toseland’s freezer.
Continue reading...Judge says Scotty David, who may have failed to disclose childhood abuse during jury selection, must return for court hearing
A juror in Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial who might not have disclosed childhood sexual abuse during jury selection for the high-profile case will now be questioned publicly as Maxwell’s team seeks a retrial, court papers released on Thursday said.
One newly released document also includes the written questionnaire that Juror No 50 completed during the selection process. In response to the question “Have you or a friend ever been the victim of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or sexual assault?” the juror marked the “no” box.
Continue reading...Jury reaches decision after several hours on charges against Greg and Travis McMichael and William ‘Roddie’ Bryan
The three men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery were found guilty of federal hate crimes on Tuesday, for violating Arbery’s civil rights and targeting him because he was Black.
A jury of eight white people, three Black people and one Hispanic person, reached its decision after several hours of deliberation on the charges against father and son Greg and Travis McMichael and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan.
Continue reading...Palm Beach county sheriff says Sondra Wiener, 87, and 90-year-old husband Marvin Wiener found dead on Thursday
The sister of the Wall Street fraudster Bernie Madoff and her husband were found dead in Florida in what investigators said was an apparent murder-suicide.
The Palm Beach county sheriff’s office on Sunday identified the couple as 87-year-old Sondra Wiener of Boynton Beach and her 90-year-old husband, Marvin Wiener.
Continue reading...San Francisco district attorney says it was possibly a rights violation and could deter sexual assault victims from speaking out
San Francisco police used DNA collected as part of a rape exam to link a woman to a crime, possibly violating her constitutional rights, the city’s district attorney alleged on Monday.
The department’s crime lab entered the DNA profiles of potentially thousands of sexual assault victims over “many years” to a database that is used to identify suspects, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. District attorney Chesa Boudin, who said his office first learned of the practice last week, told the newspaper such use of victims’ DNA could violate the California’s Victims’ Bill of Rights as well as constitutional laws related to unreasonable searches and seizures.
Continue reading...Lawyers want new trial after juror Scotty David gave interviews in which he said he had been sexually abused as a child
Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers cannot keep sealed their detailed legal arguments about a juror in her trial who might not have disclosed childhood sex abuse during jury selection, a judicial decision issued Friday said.
Judge Alison Nathan wrote: “[The] defendant’s motion to temporarily seal, in their entirety, all documents related to the motion for a new trial, is denied.”
Continue reading...Harassment often goes unreported, meaning metrics don’t always convey experiences – especially for women and people of color
Around 9.30am on 15 January of this year, Michelle Go was waiting for a train at Times Square subway station. Go, 40, a senior manager at Deloitte, was on her way to work. As she was checking her phone, a man shoved her from behind as a train roared into the station. She was hit by the incoming train and killed.
Go’s murder prompted shock and outrage. She was of Asian descent, at a time when anti-Asian hate crimes have been surging across New York City, including in the subways. The chief suspect in her killing, Martial Simon, has two violent felonies on his record and a warrant out for allegedly violating his parole. He reportedly had a history of severe mental illness, including schizophrenia, and had cycled between hospitals and jails over the years; the New York Times reported he was unhoused. Although police said there was no indication that Go’s death was an anti-Asian hate crime, prosecutors said they were examining “every piece of evidence to determine if defendant’s actions were motivated by racial bias”.
Continue reading...Harris, a Chicago native, was first arrested in September 2020 on a charge of production of child sexual abuse images
Jerry Harris, the former star of the Netflix documentary series Cheer, pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal charges of receiving child sexual abuse images and soliciting sex from minors that could keep him in prison for decades.
During a change of plea hearing in federal court in Chicago, Harris pleaded guilty to one count of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and one count of receiving child abuse images, a US attorney’s office spokesman said.
In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International.
Continue reading...Husband and wife, a rapper on TikTok, are accused in the US’s biggest-ever cryptocurrency theft case
The US justice department has announced the unraveling of its biggest-ever cryptocurrency theft case, seizing a record-shattering $3.6bn in bitcoin in a saga that has captivated the internet.
US officials said on Tuesday the recovered sum was linked to the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange whose systems were breached by hackers nearly six years ago.
Continue reading...Police are accused of a cover-up in Ronald Greene’s death – and now the governor has had to deny political interference. Mona Hardin, Greene’s mother, says enough is enough
Thursday marked 1,000 days since Ronald Greene died on a roadside in northern Louisiana. And the 1,000th day, too, that Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, has awaited answers from state and federal authorities.
“It’s hard to sleep,” Hardin told the Guardian in an interview. “But it’s something I have to push myself through. It has destroyed my family, because of what we saw and what we know.”
Continue reading...Lawyers say Maxwell was denied her constitutional right after juror revealed in post-trial interview he was victim of sexual abuse
Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal team has argued in court papers that the juror who might not have disclosed prior sexual abuse during the jury selection process “violated” her right to a fair trial.
Maxwell’s attorneys have implored Alison Nathan, the judge, “to right a grievous wrong that deprived Ms Maxwell of a fundamental constitutional right – her right to be tried by a fair and impartial jury”. They are requesting a retrial.
Continue reading...Kevin Dugar claimed his innocence for years. A letter he received while incarcerated changed everything
Kevin Dugar got a letter from his brother.
It was fall 2013, and Kevin hadn’t seen his identical twin Karl in years – they were both serving time in different Illinois prisons. A murder conviction all but guaranteed Kevin, 36, would remain incarcerated well into his 70s.
Continue reading...Killings took place two weeks apart but neither received national coverage, prompting questions about whose stories are told
Three recent killings in the Los Angeles area have put the spotlight on the disparate impact of American gun violence on Black women and the lack of attention their stories receive, as the country reckons with some of the most intense spates of gun violence in years.
Both killings took place on weekends, a mere two weeks apart. On 8 January, California officials found the body of Tioni Theus, a 16-year-old girl who was found shot at a busy onramp of the 110 freeway. On 23 January, sisters Breahna Stines and Marneysha Hamilton were among four people shot dead during a mass shooting at a birthday party in Inglewood.
Continue reading...The boyfriend of Gabby Petito admitted killing her in a notebook discovered near his body in a Florida swamp, the FBI announced on Friday.
It was the first time authorities squarely pinned the blame for Petito’s death on Brian Laundrie, though he was the prime suspect all along.
Continue reading...California law mandates that his conviction will be vacated and the charges over the murder of his missing first wife will be dismissed
In the final months of Robert Durst’s life, it seemed as if the walls were at last closing in on the disgraced multimillionaire and real estate heir. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a longtime friend in September, and shortly after, New York officials charged him with the murder of his missing first wife.
But his death in a California hospital on Monday has upended the cases against the 78-year-old. The murder case over the death of his ex-wife Kathleen McCormack Durst will come to a halt and, thanks to a legal technicality, the murder conviction for the killing of his friend Susan Berman will soon be voided.
Continue reading...Prosecutors make offer ahead of sentencing in effort to bring swift closure for the victims as Maxwell’s team push for new trial
If Ghislaine Maxwell is not granted a retrial in her Manhattan federal court sex trafficking case, prosecutors are prepared to drop pending perjury counts when she is sentenced, they said in a 10 January letter.
Prosecutors said they were prepared to dismiss the perjury counts in an effort to bring swift closure for the victims and prevent them from being re-traumatized at a possible second trial.
Continue reading...Durst died in a California hospital while serving a life sentence for the murder of Susan Berman, after appearing frail at his trial
Robert Durst, the convicted murderer and disgraced multimillionaire real estate heir, has died. He was 78.
Durst died in a California hospital while serving a life sentence for the murder of Susan Berman, his friend and confidante who prosecutors say helped him cover up the killing of his first wife.
Continue reading...Judge rules William ‘Roddie’ Bryan can seek parole after 30 years while Travis and Gregory McMichael cannot
A judge in Georgia sentenced Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan to life in prison on Friday for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was running through their mostly white neighborhood in February 2020 when they chased him down and killed him.
Under Georgia law, murder carries a mandatory life sentence unless prosecutors seek the death penalty. For the judge, Timothy Walmsley, the main decision was whether to grant father and son Greg McMichael, 66, and Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbor, Bryan, 52, a chance to earn parole.
Continue reading...Maxwell’s lawyers say they will request retrial after unidentified juror told reporters he was sexually abused as a child
A juror who sat at the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell last month and has now told reporters he was sexually abused as a child has retained a lawyer, the trial judge said on Thursday.
The unidentified juror’s public interviews led defense lawyers in the case to say they will request a new trial.
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