Court Digest

Colorado
State Supreme Court will hear appeal of ruling that Trump can stay on ballot
DENVER (AP) — The Colorado Supreme Court Tuesday agreed to hear appeals from both a liberal group that sought to disqualify Donald Trump and the former president himself after a state judge ruled that Trump “engaged in insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, but can still appear on the state’s ballot.

Oral arguments will take place Dec. 6, the court announced.

The appeals were filed Monday night. The ruling by District Court Judge Sarah Wallace on Friday — which said Trump is not covered by the Constitution’s ban on insurrectionists holding office — was the latest in a series of defeats for the effort to end Trump’s candidacy with Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

A group in Michigan has filed an appeal with that state’s Supreme Court.

The constitutional provision has only been used a handful of times since the years after the Civil War. It was created to prevent former Confederates from returning to government positions.

The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filing on behalf of a group of Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters, argued that Wallace was wrong in ruling that it’s not clear the provision was intended to apply to presidents.

The section prevents those who took an oath to support the Constitution from serving in Congress, the Electoral College “or as an officer of the United States.” It does not specifically mention the presidency.

Based on common sense alone, the appeal states, “there would be no reason to allow Presidents who lead an insurrection to serve again while preventing low-level government workers who act as foot soldiers from doing so. And it would defy logic to prohibit insurrectionists from holding every federal or state office except for the highest and most powerful in the land.”

Trump, meanwhile, appealed Wallace’s finding that he did engage in insurrection and questioned whether a state court judge like her, rather than Congress, should settle the issue.

The case will be heard by the seven justices on the state court, all of whom were appointed by Democrats.

Colorado officials have urged a final decision by Jan. 5, 2024, when they must finalize their primary ballot. The next step after Colorado’s high court would be the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on Section 3.

Trump has slammed the lawsuits as “election interference” by Democratic “dark money” groups.

Wisconsin
Man agrees to plead guilty to firebombing anti-abortion group office in 2022
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A man accused of firebombing an anti-abortion office in Wisconsin last year has agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of damaging property with explosives.

Online court records show Hridindu Roychowdhury, of Madison, filed a signed plea agreement Monday in the Western District of Wisconsin. He will face up to 20 years in prison but prosecutors have agreed to recommend the judge reduce his sentence because he has accepted responsibility for the crime. A judge is set to consider whether to accept the agreement at a hearing on Dec. 1.

According to court documents, someone broke a window at the Madison office of Wisconsin Family Action on May 8, 2022, six days after news outlets reported that the U.S. Supreme Court was set to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

The reports sparked abortion rights supporters to mount protests across the country. Two Catholic churches in Colorado were vandalized in the days leading up to the Madison firebombing. And someone threw Molotov cocktails into an anti-abortion organization’s office in a suburb of Salem, Oregon, several days later.

The U.S. Supreme Court did indeed overturn Roe v. Wade a little more than a month later, putting Wisconsin’s 1849 ban on abortion back in play. A Dane County judge this past August ruled that the state’s ban doesn’t apply to medical abortions, prompting Planned Parenthood to resume offering abortions in the state weeks later.

Someone threw two Molotov cocktails through the broken window, setting a book case on fire, and spraypainted “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either” on the office’s outside wall.

Firefighters extinguished the fire. Investigators pulled Roychowdhury’s DNA as well as two other people’s DNA from the Molotov cocktails and the broken window. DNA that investigators pulled from a half-eaten burrito that Roychowdhury threw away matched one of the profiles. Court documents do not say whether investigators have used the two unknown DNA profiles to identify anyone.

Police arrested Roychowdhury at Boston International Airport in March 2023. He had a one-way ticket to Guatemala, according to prosecutors.

Roychowdhury’s attorneys, Joseph Bugni and Alex Vlisides, didn’t immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment.

Maine
Lottery winner sues mother of his child, saying she told relatives about his winning
LEBANON, Maine (AP) — A man who won one of the largest lottery payments in U.S. history has filed a federal lawsuit against the mother of his child in an attempt to keep his identity concealed.

The man won a $1.35 million Mega Millions jackpot earlier this year after purchasing a lottery ticket at a gas station in Lebanon, Maine. He has sued his child’s mother in U.S. District Court in Portland with a complaint that she violated a nondisclosure agreement by “directly or indirectly disclosing protected subject matter” about his winnings, court papers state.

The court papers state that the defendant in the case disclosed the information to the winner’s father and stepmother. Both the winner and the defendant in the case are identified only by pseudonyms.

Court filings state that the winner lives in Maine and the defendant lives in Massachusetts. The defendant has until Dec. 6 to respond to the lawsuit.

Records did not list an attorney for the defendant in the case. The winner’s attorney, Gregory Brown of Knoxville, Tennessee, told the Portland Press Herald that neither he nor his client would discuss the lawsuit.

The complaint states that the winner and the defendant entered into the nondisclosure agreement shortly after the purchase of the winning ticket. The lawsuit states that the winner is seeking an injunction from a judge and at least $100,000 in damages.

New York
Accuser sues Bill Cosby for alleged abuse in 1980s
NEW YORK (AP) — A woman who worked as a stand-in at “The Cosby Show” in the 1980s said in a lawsuit Tuesday that Bill Cosby drugged and sexually abused her after offering to mentor her in her acting career.

It is the latest in a string of lawsuits filed against Cosby under New York’s expiring Adult Survivors Act, which has given victims of sexual abuse a one-year window for claims that would otherwise be barred by time limits. That window closes on Thanksgiving.

The anonymous accuser said that soon after meeting Cosby while working on his show, he started offering style tips and performing acting exercises with her in his dressing room. When he invited her to his home, she accepted, she said, in part because of “Cosby’s wholesome image as `America’s Dad,’” according to the lawsuit.

Once there, she said she blacked out during an acting exercise after drinking wine apparently laced with an intoxicant. She awoke “partially undressed and vomiting into a toilet,” according to the lawsuit in state Supreme Court in New York.

An unidentified actor on the show later expressed to her that Cosby “could do whatever he wanted to do with impunity at `The Cosby Show,’” according to the lawsuit, which seeks damages for battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment.

NBCUniversal, along with Kaufman Astoria Studios and The Carsey-Werner Company, are accused in the lawsuit of negligence related to Cosby’s alleged behavior. Representatives of the companies did not immediately respond to emailed messages seeking comment Tuesday evening.

A spokesperson for Cosby, 86, declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, but suggested that look-back windows in place in New York and elsewhere should be closed because they were being abused to go after wealthy celebrities.

“When will it stop and who will be the next man to be victimized by these look-back windows?” spokesperson Andrew Wyatt wrote in an email.

Cosby has been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment by more than 60 women, including several who have filed lawsuits over the past year under the Adult Survivors Act. He has denied all allegations involving sex crimes.

Cosby was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era and spent nearly three years at a state prison near Philadelphia before a higher court overturned the conviction and released him in 2021.


Maryland
Judge denies ex-detective’s compassionate release request
BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge has denied a compassionate release request filed by a former Baltimore police officer convicted in 2018 as part of the department’s Gun Trace Task Force corruption scandal.

Daniel Hersl, the oldest member of the deeply corrupt and now-disbanded Baltimore police unit, was sentenced to 18 years behind bars after a jury found him guilty of racketeering and robbery.

Last month, he filed the request for release, saying he was recently diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes, liver, lungs and more. He said a prison doctor concluded he has less than 18 months to live, and asked for home detention.

Hersl, 53, was one of eight indicted members of the once-lauded Gun Trace Task Force, which was created to get illegal guns off the streets of a city plagued by violent crime. But instead, members robbed drug dealers, planted narcotics and firearms on innocent people and assaulted random civilians. More than a dozen officers have been convicted in the scandal since 2017. Hundreds of cases that hinged on their testimony were later dropped.

Prosecutors said Hersl “devalued” people he dealt with as an officer and “abused his power to prey on them.” They said he also ripped off taxpayers by committing rampant overtime fraud, including an entire month that he spent refurbishing his house while on the clock.

In his order Monday denying Hersl’s request, U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III noted the seriousness of the ex-detective’s crimes, saying they “irreparably damaged … the reputation of the Baltimore City Police Department and all of the many law abiding public servants therein.”

“A message certainly needs to be sent that if you commit criminal conduct or otherwise engage in a racketeering conspiracy you will be held accountable and punished,” Russell wrote.

In a last-minute court filing Monday, Hersl’s attorney, William Purpura, quoted recent emails from Hersl in which he complains of “constant pain” and says he hopes to “make the trip home to spend time with my son & family before my days are done.”

Russell said the federal Bureau of Prisons will continue to manage Hersl’s medical care and allow him visits with his family during his ongoing incarceration.