Virginia Giuffre seeks testimony from Prince Andrew’s former assistant

Attorneys say they have ‘reason to believe’ that Robert Olney has ‘relevant information’ about duke’s relationship with Epstein

Prince Andrew’s longtime accuser Virginia Giuffre is seeking testimony from his former equerry, according to court papers in her sexual abuse lawsuit against the royal.

Giuffre’s attorneys said on Friday that they had “reason to believe” that Robert Olney, the Duke of York’s past assistant, has “relevant information about Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein”.

Continue reading...

Robert Durst: how a murderer’s death keeps his victims from finding closure

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 willing to drop Ghislaine Maxwell perjury charge if no retrial

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...

Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers call for a retrial following juror’s interview

Maxwell’s legal team says they believe a new trial is warranted following revelations about juror

Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell have called for a retrial after a juror said in recent post-trial media interviews that he was a victim of sexual abuse.

Maxwell was found guilty on 29 December of five counts for facilitating the late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of girls, some as young as 14.

With additional reporting from Edward Helmore

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Continue reading...

Elizabeth Holmes: from ‘next Steve Jobs’ to convicted fraudster

Founder of blood-testing company Theranos spun ‘alluring narrative that everyone wanted to believe’

Just six years ago Forbes magazine declared her the “the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire” and the “next Steve Jobs”. Now, Elizabeth Holmes, 37, founder of the collapsed blood testing company Theranos, is facing decades in prison after being found guilty of conspiring to defraud her investors out of billions.

Holmes, a university dropout with no medical training, had fooled regulators and some of the world’s richest people, including Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger and Larry Ellison, into believing she had figured out a way to test for a range of health conditions with just a pinprick of blood.

Continue reading...

Elizabeth Holmes trial: jury finds Theranos founder guilty on four fraud counts

The jury delivered the verdict after announcing they were deadlocked on three of the 11 charges Holmes faced

Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, has been found guilty on four of 11 charges of fraud, concluding a high profile trial that captivated Silicon Valley and chronicled the missteps of the now-defunct blood testing startup.

The jury found Holmes guilty of several charges – including conspiracy to defraud investors – following a dramatic day in which jurors said they remained deadlocked on three of the criminal counts she faced.

Continue reading...

Speculation grows that Maxwell may try to cut a deal for reduced sentence

Experts say any deal depends on whether US government believes it is worth investigating network that may have been involved

Now that the British former socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been convicted in her sex-trafficking trial, speculation is growing that she may try to cut a deal and become a government witness in any broader investigation into the elite social circle of her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell would be aiming for a reduced sentence by naming powerful names when it comes to others who may be involved in Epstein’s crimes.

Continue reading...

Sarah Weddington, attorney who won Roe v Wade abortion case, dies aged 76

Texan lawyer and Linda Coffee won landmark 1973 case, safeguarding right now under threat from US supreme court

Sarah Weddington, an attorney who argued and won the Roe v Wade supreme court case which established the right to abortion in the US, has died aged 76.

Susan Hays, a Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner, announced the news on Twitter on Sunday and the Dallas Morning News confirmed it.

Continue reading...

Trump asks supreme court to block release of 6 January records

An appeals court ruled against the former US president two weeks ago but prohibited documents from being turned over

Donald Trump turned to the supreme court Thursday in a last-ditch effort to keep documents away from the House committee investigating the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol.

A federal appeals court ruled against the former US president two weeks ago, but prohibited documents held by the National Archives from being turned over before the supreme court had a chance to weigh in. Trump appointed three of the nine justices.

Continue reading...

US investigates claim Tesla drivers can play video games while driving

‘Passenger play’ feature has been available since December 2020 – before that, games could only be played in ‘park’ mode

The US has opened a formal investigation into a report that Tesla vehicles allow people to play video games on a center touch screen while they are driving.

The investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covers about 580,000 electric cars and SUVs from model years 2017 through 2022.

Continue reading...

Ghislaine Maxwell trial: jury asks to review transcripts from three accusers

Jurors requested transcripts of testimony on Tuesday morning after deliberations began late on Monday

  • This article contains depictions of sexual abuse

The jury in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial asked on Tuesday to review transcripts of testimony from three accusers.

Jurors in Manhattan federal court sent the judge a note around 10.10am, saying: “We would like the transcripts, testimony of Jane, Annie and Carolyn.”

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Continue reading...

Rod Stewart and his son plead guilty to battery in 2019 Florida altercation case

The singer entered the plea to ‘avoid the inconvenience’ of a high profile court trial. Neither will do jail time or pay any fines

British rock icon Rod Stewart and his son have pleaded guilty to battery in an assault case stemming from a New Year’s Eve 2019 altercation with a security guard at an exclusive Florida hotel.

Court records released on Friday show that the singer and his son, Sean Stewart, 41, entered guilty pleas to misdemeanor charges of simple battery.

Continue reading...

Judge rejects opioid settlement over legal protections for Sackler family

Purdue Pharma deal arranged for the family to be guarded from lawsuits over their role in the US epidemic

A judge has rejected the OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement of thousands of lawsuits over the opioid epidemic because of a provision that would protect members of the Sackler family from facing litigation of their own.

The ruling on Thursday from Judge Colleen McMahon in New York is likely to be appealed by the company, family members and the thousands of government entities that support the plan.

Continue reading...

It’s tough to see Ghislaine Maxwell’s team toy with such sad, broken women | John Sweeney

Justice at work is difficult to watch when big-money lawyers go in hard as they try to discredit witnesses

The slut-shaming – or something very much like it – of the four key witnesses against Ghislaine Maxwell and her late lover, Jeffrey Epstein is, almost, a thing of beauty, a dark wonder to behold. You’ve got to admire the way Maxwell’s multimillion-dollar attorneys break her accusers on the rack of their own human frailty. No one dare call it torture: we’re watching justice at work, the Ghislaine Maxwell defence team way.

In order of appearance witness “Jane” was challenged as a drug user from a wealthy but deeply unhappy home; witness “Kate” was a drug user with a troubled mother; witness Carolyn – to give her some privacy the court accepted her request to use only her real first name – had a single parent mother who was an alcoholic and a drug addict, who became an alcoholic and a drug addict herself, who left school when she was 14, who did not, said her ex-boyfriend Shawn “have the reading ability” to say Ms Maxwell’s first name, Ghislaine. So Carolyn called her Maxwell. Witness Annie Farmer – her full real name, was 16, the child of a divorced single mum but not herself broken, not at all.

Continue reading...

Court rules Trump cannot block release of documents to Capitol attack panel

The former president is expected to appeal the ruling to the supreme court

Donald Trump, the former US president, suffered a major defeat on Thursday when a federal appeals court ruled against his effort to block the release of documents related to the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Trump is expected to appeal to the supreme court.

Continue reading...

How an innocent Black man served time for the rape of author Alice Sebold

Anthony Broadwater spent 16 years in jail as victim of miscarriage of justice but has accepted author’s apology

On 4 November 1981, five Black men in matching light blue shirts filed into a narrow, well-lit room on the third floor of a police station in Syracuse, New York, and turned to face a one-way mirror. On the other side, a 19-year-old white student stepped towards the glass, and tried to identify which of them was her rapist.

The student, Alice Sebold, would go on to a storied literary career. She had been the subject of a horrific attack late one night in May of the same year, dragged into a tunnel from a path in a public park and forced to lie down among broken bottles.

Continue reading...

Conservative US supreme court justices signal support for restricting abortion in pivotal case

Case poses a direct threat to the legal underpinnings of the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion

Conservative justices in the US supreme court have signaled their support for curbing abortion access during oral arguments in the most important reproductive rights case in decades, threatening the future of abortion access across the country.

Campaigners have warned the case poses a direct threat to the legal underpinnings of Roe v Wade, a landmark 1973 decision that guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion. In their lines of questioning on Wednesday, liberal justices warned against abandoning important legal precedent, while conservatives argued for reviewing it.

Continue reading...

El Chapo’s wife Emma Coronel Aispuro sentenced to three years in US prison

Coronel admitted to acting as a courier between Joaquín Guzmán and other members of the Sinaloa cartel while he was in prison

Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of the imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has been sentenced to three years in a US prison, after she pleaded guilty to helping the Sinaloa drug cartel.

Before her sentencing in a federal court in Washington, Coronel, 32, pleaded with US District Judge Rudolph Contreras to show her mercy.

Continue reading...

Jussie Smollett was ‘real victim’ of racist attack, lawyer says as trial begins

Ex-Empire actor is accused of hiring two men to fake an attack in Chicago but new evidence could support Smollett’s defense

Jussie Smollett “is a real victim” of a “real crime,” his attorney said in opening statements at the ex-Empire actor’s trial Monday, rejecting prosecutors’ allegation that he staged a homophobic and racist attack in Chicago.

Defense attorney Nenye Uche said two brothers attacked Smollett in January 2019 because they didn’t like him, and that a $3,500 check the actor paid the men was for training so he could prepare for an upcoming music video, not as payment for staging a hate crime, as prosecutors allege. Uche also suggested a third attacker was involved and told jurors there is not a “shred” of physical and forensic evidence linking Smollett to the crime prosecutors allege.

Continue reading...

‘A long fight’: relief across the US as men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery

‘I never thought this day would come,’ says Ahmaud Arbery’s mother as some say it’s ‘not true justice’

Relief, emotion and a sense of hope came flooding out in Brunswick, on social media, from the White House and across the US as the nation came to terms with the Ahmaud Arbery verdicts and their place in history.

Outside the Georgia courthouse, a joyous, flag-waving crowd repeatedly chanted: “Ahmaud Arbery! Say his name!” as the Arbery family, surrounded by their attorneys, emerged to address them.

Continue reading...