Arizona
Man gets prison for making bomb threat to state election office
PHOENIX (AP) — A Massachusetts man has been sentenced to three years and six months in federal prison for making an online threat to bomb then-Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ election office in February 2021, the U.S. Justice Department said.
James Clark, 40, of Falmouth, pleaded guilty in August in U.S. District Court in Phoenix to sending a communication containing a bomb threat to an election official.
The threat was one of many made against Hobbs, a Democrat, after she certified the 2020 presidential election that then-Republican President Donald Trump claimed without evidence had been stolen.
Democrat Joe Biden won the election in Arizona by about 10,000 votes, or just 0.3% of the nearly 3.4 million ballots cast statewide. Hobbs was elected governor of Arizona in 2023.
An email request for comment was left Wednesday by The Associated Press with Clark’s court-appointed federal public defender in Phoenix.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement Tuesday announcing Clark’s sentence.
“Those using illegal threats of violence to intimidate election workers should know that the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable,” Garland said.
The FBI arrested Clark in 2022 after tracing a message sent through an online form maintained by the secretary of state’s election department. It warned that Hobbs had to resign “or the explosive device impacted in her personal space will be detonated.”
Prosecutors said the threat prompted authorities to search Hobbs’ home, car and office at the State Capitol Executive Tower in Phoenix and to briefly evacuate the governor’s office in the same building.
The case is part of a U.S. Justice Department task force that investigates threats of violence against election officials, workers and volunteers.
Hawaii
Police: Suspect in acid attack on woman plotted with an inmate to carry out attack
HONOLULU (AP) — A man accused of dousing a woman with acid in Hawaii last year allegedly tried to cast doubt on himself as a suspect by plotting with a fellow inmate to carry out a second, similar attack, authorities said.
While incarcerated on an attempted murder charge for the April 7, 2023 attack, Paul Cameron plotted with another inmate, Sebastian Mahkwan, and arranged for Mahkwan’s bail so that he could be released to carry out a separate attack, according to a superseding grand jury indictment Tuesday.
The motive was to cast doubt on Cameron as a suspect in the first attack, said Honolulu police Lt. Deena Thoemmes.
Cameron was at Oahu Community Correctional Center in Honolulu after being indicted for last year’s attack in a parking lot in Mililani, a Honolulu suburb. Mahkwan was in the same jail awaiting trial on drug and assault charges.
From jail, Cameron called someone to arrange for bail for Mahkwan, telling that person he trusts Mahkwan because he’s his boyfriend, but described him as a coworker in a phone call to his mother, according to the superseding indictment.
Cameron arranged for the title and keys of his motorcycle to be given to a bail bondsman as collateral for Mahkwan’s $8,000 bail, the new indictment said.
On January 22, Mahkwan was released on bail. He listed Cameron as a reference on his bail bond application and agreement, the indictment says.
The next day, Mahkwan allegedly doused a woman with acid while she walked near Ala Moana Center, a Honolulu mall. She suffered severe burns to her face and body.
“The indictment details a diabolical plot that resulted in a complete stranger – an innocent woman – being gravely wounded,” Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm said.
A corrections officer found an envelope during an inspection of the kitchen common area of the jail that contained documents with detailed instructions on committing an act like the one Cameron was charged with and details on where to get acid, the indictment says.
The woman in the first incident told Hawaii News Now he attacked her because she wouldn’t date him.
Phone messages left by The Associated Press for lawyers of both men were not immediately returned Wednesday.
They were being held without bail.
West Virginia
Multiple-transfer athletes can play next fall while a lawsuit continues, the NCAA says
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — With college basketball’s portal season about to tip off, athletes who have transferred multiple times can compete in the next academic year if they meet conditions while a lawsuit continues against the NCAA, the organization said Wednesday.
The NCAA issued the guidance as an update to a document previously circulated to its member schools about its redshirt rule as it pertained to the lawsuit filed by a coalition of states. In December, multiple-transfer athletes who were denied the chance to compete immediately were allowed by a federal judge in West Virginia to play through the remainder of this academic year.
NCAA rules allow underclassmen to transfer once without having to sit out a year. But an additional transfer as an undergraduate generally requires the NCAA to grant a waiver allowing the athlete to compete immediately. Without it, the athlete would have to sit out for a year at the new school.
Last January, the NCAA implemented stricter guidelines for granting those waivers on a case-by-case basis.
On Wednesday, the NCAA said while it is not certain whether the preliminary injunction issued by the judge will remain in place during the 2024-25 season, athletes who transfer again during or after the current academic year won’t be subject to the requirement that they sit out one year. However, transfer window notification rules must be followed.
The transfer window for men’s and women’s basketball runs from March 18 to May 1.
The NCAA also said athletes would “continue to be subject to all other existing eligibility legislation and to any eligibility standards required for competition that may be developed or modified for the 2024-25 academic year.”
The lawsuit is scheduled for a jury trial in June 2025 in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Wisconsin
Court upholds conviction of 20-year-old in death of younger cousin
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the reckless homicide conviction of a 20-year-old in the 2018 death of his younger cousin.
Damian Hauschultz of Mishicot was 14 when his 7-year-old cousin Ethan Hauschultz was beaten, forced to carry a 44-pound log and buried in the snow as punishment at their Manitowoc County home. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Ethan died from hypothermia and blunt force injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
In 2021, a judge sentenced Damian Hauschultz to 20 years in prison and 10 years of extended supervision.
Hauschultz appealed his guilty plea, arguing the court should not have denied his motion to suppress statements he made to authorities that he claimed were made without knowledge of his Miranda rights. He also argued his statements were involuntary because he was a minor at the time.
The court disagreed and upheld his conviction Wednesday.
Damian Hauschultz’s parents were Ethan’s court-appointed guardians.
His mother, Tina McKeever-Hauschultz, served a five-year prison term for her role in the events leading up to the boy’s death and failing to prevent it. She was released to extended supervision in January.
Another adult in the family is awaiting trial on multiple counts including felony murder and child abuse for allegedly ordering the punishment.
Virginia
US could end legal fight against Titanic expedition
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The U.S. government could end its legal fight against a planned expedition to the Titanic, which has sparked concerns that it would violate a law that treats the wreck as a gravesite.
Kent Porter, an assistant U.S. attorney, told a federal judge in Virginia Wednesday that the U.S. is seeking more information on revised plans for the May expedition, which have been significantly scaled back. Porter said the U.S. has not determined whether the new plans would break the law.
RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia company that owns the salvage rights to the wreck, originally planned to take images inside the ocean liner’s severed hull and to retrieve artifacts from the debris field. RMST also said it would possibly recover free-standing objects inside the Titanic, including the room where the sinking ship had broadcast its distress signals.
The U.S. filed a legal challenge to the expedition in August, citing a 2017 federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the site as a memorial. More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The U.S. argued last year that entering the Titanic — or physically altering or disturbing the wreck — is regulated by the law and agreement. Among the government’s concerns is the possible disturbance of artifacts and any human remains that may still exist on the North Atlantic seabed.
In October, RMST said it had significantly pared down its dive plans. That’s because its director of underwater research, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, died in the implosion of the Titan submersible near the Titanic shipwreck in June.
The Titan was operated by a separate company, OceanGate, to which Nargeolet was lending expertise. Nargeolet was supposed to lead this year’s expedition by RMST.
RMST stated in a court filing last month that it now plans to send an uncrewed submersible to the wreck site and will only take external images of the ship.
“The company will not come into contact with the wreck,” RMST stated, adding that it “will not attempt any artifact recovery or penetration imaging.”
RMST has recovered and conserved thousands of Titanic artifacts, which millions of people have seen through its exhibits in the U.S. and overseas. The company was granted the salvage rights to the shipwreck in 1994 by the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia.
U. S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith is the maritime jurist who presides over Titanic salvage matters. She said during Wednesday’s hearing that the U.S. government’s case would raise serious legal questions if it continues, while the consequences could be wide-ranging.
Congress is allowed to modify maritime law, Smith said in reference to the U.S. regulating entry into the sunken Titanic. But the judge questioned whether Congress can strip courts of their own admiralty jurisdiction over a shipwreck, something that has centuries of legal precedent.
In 2020, Smithgave RMST permission to retrieve and exhibit the radio that had broadcast the Titanic’s distress calls. The expedition would have involved entering the Titanic and cutting into it.
The U.S. government filed an official legal challenge against that expedition, citing the law and pact with Britain. But the legal battle never played out. RMST indefinitely delayed those plans because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Smith noted Wednesday that time may be running out for expeditions inside the Titanic. The ship is rapidly deteriorating.
Man gets prison for making bomb threat to state election office
PHOENIX (AP) — A Massachusetts man has been sentenced to three years and six months in federal prison for making an online threat to bomb then-Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ election office in February 2021, the U.S. Justice Department said.
James Clark, 40, of Falmouth, pleaded guilty in August in U.S. District Court in Phoenix to sending a communication containing a bomb threat to an election official.
The threat was one of many made against Hobbs, a Democrat, after she certified the 2020 presidential election that then-Republican President Donald Trump claimed without evidence had been stolen.
Democrat Joe Biden won the election in Arizona by about 10,000 votes, or just 0.3% of the nearly 3.4 million ballots cast statewide. Hobbs was elected governor of Arizona in 2023.
An email request for comment was left Wednesday by The Associated Press with Clark’s court-appointed federal public defender in Phoenix.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement Tuesday announcing Clark’s sentence.
“Those using illegal threats of violence to intimidate election workers should know that the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable,” Garland said.
The FBI arrested Clark in 2022 after tracing a message sent through an online form maintained by the secretary of state’s election department. It warned that Hobbs had to resign “or the explosive device impacted in her personal space will be detonated.”
Prosecutors said the threat prompted authorities to search Hobbs’ home, car and office at the State Capitol Executive Tower in Phoenix and to briefly evacuate the governor’s office in the same building.
The case is part of a U.S. Justice Department task force that investigates threats of violence against election officials, workers and volunteers.
Hawaii
Police: Suspect in acid attack on woman plotted with an inmate to carry out attack
HONOLULU (AP) — A man accused of dousing a woman with acid in Hawaii last year allegedly tried to cast doubt on himself as a suspect by plotting with a fellow inmate to carry out a second, similar attack, authorities said.
While incarcerated on an attempted murder charge for the April 7, 2023 attack, Paul Cameron plotted with another inmate, Sebastian Mahkwan, and arranged for Mahkwan’s bail so that he could be released to carry out a separate attack, according to a superseding grand jury indictment Tuesday.
The motive was to cast doubt on Cameron as a suspect in the first attack, said Honolulu police Lt. Deena Thoemmes.
Cameron was at Oahu Community Correctional Center in Honolulu after being indicted for last year’s attack in a parking lot in Mililani, a Honolulu suburb. Mahkwan was in the same jail awaiting trial on drug and assault charges.
From jail, Cameron called someone to arrange for bail for Mahkwan, telling that person he trusts Mahkwan because he’s his boyfriend, but described him as a coworker in a phone call to his mother, according to the superseding indictment.
Cameron arranged for the title and keys of his motorcycle to be given to a bail bondsman as collateral for Mahkwan’s $8,000 bail, the new indictment said.
On January 22, Mahkwan was released on bail. He listed Cameron as a reference on his bail bond application and agreement, the indictment says.
The next day, Mahkwan allegedly doused a woman with acid while she walked near Ala Moana Center, a Honolulu mall. She suffered severe burns to her face and body.
“The indictment details a diabolical plot that resulted in a complete stranger – an innocent woman – being gravely wounded,” Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm said.
A corrections officer found an envelope during an inspection of the kitchen common area of the jail that contained documents with detailed instructions on committing an act like the one Cameron was charged with and details on where to get acid, the indictment says.
The woman in the first incident told Hawaii News Now he attacked her because she wouldn’t date him.
Phone messages left by The Associated Press for lawyers of both men were not immediately returned Wednesday.
They were being held without bail.
West Virginia
Multiple-transfer athletes can play next fall while a lawsuit continues, the NCAA says
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — With college basketball’s portal season about to tip off, athletes who have transferred multiple times can compete in the next academic year if they meet conditions while a lawsuit continues against the NCAA, the organization said Wednesday.
The NCAA issued the guidance as an update to a document previously circulated to its member schools about its redshirt rule as it pertained to the lawsuit filed by a coalition of states. In December, multiple-transfer athletes who were denied the chance to compete immediately were allowed by a federal judge in West Virginia to play through the remainder of this academic year.
NCAA rules allow underclassmen to transfer once without having to sit out a year. But an additional transfer as an undergraduate generally requires the NCAA to grant a waiver allowing the athlete to compete immediately. Without it, the athlete would have to sit out for a year at the new school.
Last January, the NCAA implemented stricter guidelines for granting those waivers on a case-by-case basis.
On Wednesday, the NCAA said while it is not certain whether the preliminary injunction issued by the judge will remain in place during the 2024-25 season, athletes who transfer again during or after the current academic year won’t be subject to the requirement that they sit out one year. However, transfer window notification rules must be followed.
The transfer window for men’s and women’s basketball runs from March 18 to May 1.
The NCAA also said athletes would “continue to be subject to all other existing eligibility legislation and to any eligibility standards required for competition that may be developed or modified for the 2024-25 academic year.”
The lawsuit is scheduled for a jury trial in June 2025 in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Wisconsin
Court upholds conviction of 20-year-old in death of younger cousin
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the reckless homicide conviction of a 20-year-old in the 2018 death of his younger cousin.
Damian Hauschultz of Mishicot was 14 when his 7-year-old cousin Ethan Hauschultz was beaten, forced to carry a 44-pound log and buried in the snow as punishment at their Manitowoc County home. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Ethan died from hypothermia and blunt force injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
In 2021, a judge sentenced Damian Hauschultz to 20 years in prison and 10 years of extended supervision.
Hauschultz appealed his guilty plea, arguing the court should not have denied his motion to suppress statements he made to authorities that he claimed were made without knowledge of his Miranda rights. He also argued his statements were involuntary because he was a minor at the time.
The court disagreed and upheld his conviction Wednesday.
Damian Hauschultz’s parents were Ethan’s court-appointed guardians.
His mother, Tina McKeever-Hauschultz, served a five-year prison term for her role in the events leading up to the boy’s death and failing to prevent it. She was released to extended supervision in January.
Another adult in the family is awaiting trial on multiple counts including felony murder and child abuse for allegedly ordering the punishment.
Virginia
US could end legal fight against Titanic expedition
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The U.S. government could end its legal fight against a planned expedition to the Titanic, which has sparked concerns that it would violate a law that treats the wreck as a gravesite.
Kent Porter, an assistant U.S. attorney, told a federal judge in Virginia Wednesday that the U.S. is seeking more information on revised plans for the May expedition, which have been significantly scaled back. Porter said the U.S. has not determined whether the new plans would break the law.
RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia company that owns the salvage rights to the wreck, originally planned to take images inside the ocean liner’s severed hull and to retrieve artifacts from the debris field. RMST also said it would possibly recover free-standing objects inside the Titanic, including the room where the sinking ship had broadcast its distress signals.
The U.S. filed a legal challenge to the expedition in August, citing a 2017 federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the site as a memorial. More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The U.S. argued last year that entering the Titanic — or physically altering or disturbing the wreck — is regulated by the law and agreement. Among the government’s concerns is the possible disturbance of artifacts and any human remains that may still exist on the North Atlantic seabed.
In October, RMST said it had significantly pared down its dive plans. That’s because its director of underwater research, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, died in the implosion of the Titan submersible near the Titanic shipwreck in June.
The Titan was operated by a separate company, OceanGate, to which Nargeolet was lending expertise. Nargeolet was supposed to lead this year’s expedition by RMST.
RMST stated in a court filing last month that it now plans to send an uncrewed submersible to the wreck site and will only take external images of the ship.
“The company will not come into contact with the wreck,” RMST stated, adding that it “will not attempt any artifact recovery or penetration imaging.”
RMST has recovered and conserved thousands of Titanic artifacts, which millions of people have seen through its exhibits in the U.S. and overseas. The company was granted the salvage rights to the shipwreck in 1994 by the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia.
U. S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith is the maritime jurist who presides over Titanic salvage matters. She said during Wednesday’s hearing that the U.S. government’s case would raise serious legal questions if it continues, while the consequences could be wide-ranging.
Congress is allowed to modify maritime law, Smith said in reference to the U.S. regulating entry into the sunken Titanic. But the judge questioned whether Congress can strip courts of their own admiralty jurisdiction over a shipwreck, something that has centuries of legal precedent.
In 2020, Smithgave RMST permission to retrieve and exhibit the radio that had broadcast the Titanic’s distress calls. The expedition would have involved entering the Titanic and cutting into it.
The U.S. government filed an official legal challenge against that expedition, citing the law and pact with Britain. But the legal battle never played out. RMST indefinitely delayed those plans because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Smith noted Wednesday that time may be running out for expeditions inside the Titanic. The ship is rapidly deteriorating.
