New York
State should pay Cuomo’s legal fees in suit, judge rules
NEW YORK (AP) — New York state should pay former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s legal bills as he defends himself against a lawsuit accusing him of sexually harassing a state trooper, a judge ruled Friday.
Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations, filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Letitia James in August arguing she violated state law by denying him public assistance for his defense. Cuomo said the trooper’s allegations stem from a time when “he was acting within the scope of his employment or duties.”
The unidentified trooper filed a lawsuit last year, asking a federal court to find that Cuomo and others violated her civil rights. She was on Cuomo’s security detail and had told investigators he allegedly subjected her to sexual remarks and on occasion ran his hand or fingers across her stomach and her back. The lawsuit seeks damages for “severe mental anguish and emotional distress.”
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shlomo Hagler said it is for a judge or jury to determine if Cuomo sexually harassed the state trooper, and that his state-funded defense can’t be denied, according to the New York Post.
“From the very beginning, every action Tish James has taken concerning Governor Cuomo has amounted to a politicized abuse of power and every time one of them goes before a court of law, it unravels,” Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said in a prepared statement.
A spokesperson for the attorney general said in a prepared release that “while we disagree with the judge’s decision, we respect it. We are reviewing the decision and any potential next steps.”
Cuomo resigned in August of 2021 after numerous women accused him of sexual harassment, saying he had subjected them to unwanted kisses or touches, made insinuating remarks about their looks and sex lives or created a hostile work environment.
Cuomo has denied all of those allegations.
Rhode Island
Guilty verdict in 2013 killing of Vietnam vet out for a run
WARWICK, R.I. (AP) — The man charged with killing a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran and retired postal worker who was out for his morning run in a Rhode Island park nearly a decade ago was found guilty on Friday by a judge who rejected the suspect’s mental illness defense.
Michael Soares, 37, was charged with first-degree murder in the May 2013 stabbing and beating death of John “Jack” Fay, whose body was found in a trash barrel in Warwick City Park.
The case stumped investigators until 2019 when DNA recovered from a hammer found near the scene was linked to DNA that one of Soares’ relatives had contributed to a geneological database.
Soares has been held without bail since his February 2019 arraignment. He originally pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea at the beginning of his jury-waived trial on Jan. 4 to not guilty by reason of insanity.
Psychiatrists for both the defense and the prosecution testified that Soares was schizophrenic. The defense psychiatrist said Soares thought someone was going to kill him and people could read his mind.
The prosecution’s psychiatrist, however, noted that Soares tried to hide the body and flee the country after the killing, indicating he was aware that what he had done was wrong.
Washington
Man who claimed he had bomb near Capitol pleads guilty
WASHINGTON (AP) — A man who caused evacuations and an hourslong standoff with police on Capitol Hill when he claimed he had a bomb in his pickup truck outside the Library of Congress pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of threatening to use an explosive.
Floyd Ray Roseberry, of Grover, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to the felony charge in Washington federal court. He faces up to 10 years behind bars and is scheduled to be sentenced in June.
An email seeking comment was sent to his attorney on Friday.
Roseberry, 52, drove a black pickup truck onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress in August 2021 and began shouting to people in the street that he had a bomb. He later made the same bomb threats to police officers and professed a litany of antigovernment grievances as part of a bizarre episode that he livestreamed for a Facebook audience.
Police later said they did not find a bomb but did collect possible bomb-making materials. Roseberry surrendered after about five hours.
During an initial court appearance, Roseberry told the judge he had not taken his “mind medicine” and the judge ordered a mental competency hearing.
A psychiatrist found that medication that Roseberry had been taking wasn’t effectively treating his diagnosed bipolar disorder. A magistrate judge later ruled that the new treatment had been effective and Roseberry was competent to stand trial.
Pennsylvania
Trial ordered in slaying of man who tried to stop robber
WASHINGTON, Pa. (AP) — A man has been ordered to stand trial in the slaying of a bystander killed while trying to stop a bank robber in western Pennsylvania almost a decade ago.
At a preliminary hearing Friday in Washington County, a judge ruled that prosecutors had enough evidence to try 39-year-old Keith Wilk of Pittsburgh on charges of homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and firearms crimes, according to the (Washington) Observer-Reporter.
Vincent Kelley, 46. of Washington, Pennsylvania, was shopping at a supermarket in South Strabane Township on Father’s Day in 2013 when a man held up a teller at a bank branch in the store. Kelley chased the robber and was shot five times after he leaped into the back seat of the getaway car, authorities said.
An ex-girlfriend testified that Wilk had told her that he was responsible for the slaying, and after the couple broke up last year she went to authorities. Last month, a DNA sample from an umbrella the robber used matched samples from the defendant, prosecutors said.
Relatives and friends of Kelley were in court for last week’s hearing, and Diane Margie, who raised Kelley, said the family is thankful that someone has been charged after so long. “It’s bittersweet,” Margie said. “But my son will get his justice.”
An email seeking comment was sent Sunday to a public defender representing Wilk.
