California
Next step for Elizabeth Holmes: Bid for a new trial
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes on Monday was set to play one of her last cards to avoid a prison sentence when a federal judge questions a key prosecution witness who expressed post-trial regrets about testimony that helped convince a jury to convict her for investor fraud.
That witness, former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, made an uninvited visit to Holmes’ Silicon Valley home in August. While he didn’t speak to Holmes directly, Rosendorff told her partner William Evans that “he tried to answer the questions honestly but that the prosecutors tried to make everyone look bad” and felt “he had done something wrong,” according to Evans’ recollection of the conversation filed with the court.
Prosecutors have scoffed at the notion that Rosendorff’s attempt to see Holmes casts any doubts on his testimony.
U.S. District Judge Edward said during a Zoom hearing Friday that he intends to ask Rosendorff a few questions about why he visited Holmes’ home and whether the visit was driven by any doubts about the testimony he gave under oath during six days of the trial last year.
Davila emphasized that he expected the hearing to be brief and limited in scope after quashing a subpoena from Holmes’ lawyers seeking any non-privileged communications about his testimony. “This is not going to be a fishing expedition,” Davila said Friday.
Holmes, 38, is facing up to 20 years in prison for misleading investors about the progress her once-heralded startup Theranos was making with new blood-testing methods. She was supposed to be sentenced Monday, but the judge postponed that hearing once the Rosendorff questions arose. The judge set a new sentencing date for Holmes on Nov. 18.
New York
Kevin Spacey wins partial dismissal of Anthony Rapp’s claims
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge dismissed Monday one of the legal claims Kevin Spacey faces from actor Anthony Rapp, who says Spacey made a sexual advance on him in his apartment in the 1980s when he was 14 years old.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan threw out the claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress after lawyers for Rapp finished their presentation of evidence. Kaplan said elements of the claim duplicate Rapp’s claim that he was a victim of assault and battery.
Spacey’s lawyer argued for dismissal of the case on the grounds that Rapp’s attorneys had failed to prove his claims.
Kaplan said the trial can proceed with assault and battery claims asserted by Rapp, a 50-year-old regular on “Star Trek: Discovery” on television. He was part of the original Broadway cast of “Rent.”
Spacey, 63, is expected to testify later Monday. Spacey was an Oscar-winning actor popular on the Netflix series “House of Cards” when claims by Rapp and others in 2017 abruptly derailed his career.
Rapp was performing in “Precious Sons” on Broadway in 1986 when he met Spacey, then 26.
Rapp testified that he was watching television on a bed in Spacey’s apartment after a party when a fully clothed Spacey entered the room, lifted him up like a groom carries a bride, laid him across the bed and climbed partially on top of him.
Rapp said he wriggled free and briefly went into a bathroom before fleeing the apartment, but not before Spacey followed him to the door and asked if he was sure he wanted to leave.
The Associated Press does not usually name people alleging sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, as Rapp has done.
Arkansas
Landmark trial begins over state’s ban on trans youth care
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The nation’s first trial over a state’s ban on gender-confirming care for children begins in Arkansas this week, the latest fight over restrictions on transgender youth championed by Republican leaders and widely condemned by medical experts.
U.S. District Judge Jay Moody will hear testimony and evidence starting Monday over the law he temporarily blocked last year prohibiting doctors from providing gender-confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18 years old. It also prevents doctors from referring patients elsewhere for such care.
If the law takes effect, doctors who violate the ban could lose their licenses or face other professional disciplinary measures and could be sued.
The families of four transgender youth and two doctors who provide gender-confirming care want Moody to strike down the law, saying it is unconstitutional because it discriminates against transgender youth, intrudes on parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children and infringes on doctors’ free speech rights. The trial is expected to last two weeks.
“As a parent, I never imagined I’d have to fight for my daughter to be able to receive medically necessary health care her doctor says she needs and we know she needs,” said Lacey Jennen, whose 17-year-old daughter has been receiving gender-confirming care.
Arkansas was the first state to enact such a ban on gender-confirming care, with Republican lawmakers in 2021 overriding GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto of the legislation. Hutchinson, who had signed other restrictions on transgender youth into law, said the prohibition went too far by cutting off the care for those currently receiving it.
Multiple medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, oppose the bans and experts say the treatments are safe if properly administered.
But advocates of the law have argued the prohibition is within the state’s authority to regulate medical practices.
“This is about protecting children,” Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said. “Nothing about this law prohibits someone after the age of 18 from making this decision. What we’re doing in Arkansas is protecting children from life-altering, permanent decisions.”
A similar law has been blocked by a federal judge in Alabama, and a Texas judge has blocked that state’s efforts to investigate gender-confirming care for minors as child abuse. Children’s hospitals around the country have faced harassment and threats of violence for providing gender-confirming care.
“This latest wave of anti-trans fever that is now spreading to other states started in Arkansas and it needs to end in Arkansas,” said Holly Dickson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August upheld Moody’s preliminary injunction blocking the ban’s enforcement. But the state has asked the full 8th Circuit appeals court to review the case.
