Texas
Judge: Woman’s lawsuit after being jailed over abortion may move forward
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A Texas woman who was jailed and charged with murder after self-managing an abortion in 2022 can move forward with her lawsuit against the local sheriff and prosecutors over the case that drew national outrage before the charges were quickly dropped, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton denied a motion by prosecutors and the sheriff to dismiss the lawsuit during a hearing in the border city of McAllen. Lizelle Gonzalez, who spent two nights in jail on the murder charges and is seeking $1 million in damages in the lawsuit, did not attend the hearing.
Texas has one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans and outlaws the procedure with limited exceptions. Under Texas law, women seeking an abortion are exempt from criminal charges, however.
Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez and other defendants have argued their positions provide them immunity from civil lawsuits.
Rick Navarro, an attorney for the defense, argued that it was “at worst a negligence case” during the hearing. Ramirez has previously told The Associated Press that he “made a mistake” in bringing charges.
Tipton asked Gonzalez’s attorneys whether they could prove the prosecutors knew of the exception.
“What we intend to show is that negligence doesn’t explain this oversight. It is the role and function of prosecutors to be aware of the elements of the statutes that they are charging,” said David Donatti, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas who is representing Gonzalez.
Gonzalez was indicted in 2022 after she took the drug misoprostol while 19 weeks pregnant. She was treated at a Texas hospital, where doctors later performed a caesarian section to deliver a stillborn child after they detected no fetal heartbeat.
Her lawsuit filed in March also named the county, which runs the small hospital where Gonzalez was treated, claiming that hospital staff violated patient privacy rights when they reported the abortion. An amended complaint alleged that the sheriff’s office interviewed Gonzalez and arrested her later under direction from the prosecutors.
The charges were dropped just days after the woman’s arrest. In February, Ramirez agreed to pay a $1,250 fine under a settlement reached with the State Bar of Texas. Ramirez also agreed to have his license held in a probated suspension for 12 months.
Wednesday’s decision will allow the case to move forward.
Minnesota
School settles with professor who was fired for showing image of the Prophet Muhammad
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A former adjunct professor on Monday settled a federal religious discrimination lawsuit against a private Minnesota school after she was pushed out for showing a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in class.
Details of the settlement between Hamline University and Erika López Prater are unknown. Online court records show the terms of the agreement are sealed.
David Redden, a lawyer for López Prater, on Tuesday declined to comment “other than to say that the matter was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties.”
The university did not immediately return a phone call and email from The Associated Press seeking comment Tuesday.
López Prater had sued Hamline University in 2023 following her dismissal the year before. Her team of attorneys had argued that the school would have treated her differently if she were Muslim.
The controversy began when López Prater showed a 14th-century painting depicting the Prophet Muhammad to her students as part of a lesson on Islamic art in a global art course.
She had warned them beforehand in the class syllabus and given them an opportunity to opt out. She also reportedly gave a trigger warning before the lesson in which the image was shown.
A student who attended the class — Aram Wedatalla, then-president of Hamline’s Muslim Student Association — has said she heard the professor give a “trigger warning,” wondered what it was for “and then I looked and it was the prophet,” the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
Wedatalla complained to the university, saying the warning didn’t describe the image that would be shown. In Islam, portraying the Prophet Muhammad has long been taboo for many.
The university declined to renew López Prater’s contract, and then-president Fayneese Miller described López Prater as “Islamophobic” for showing the image.
Miller later conceded that she should not have used that term and that she mishandled the episode, which sparked a debate over balancing academic freedom with respect for religion.
She announced her retirement months after the school’s faculty overwhelmingly called for her resignation, saying her response to the controversy was a violation of academic freedom.
Indiana
Mistrial declared in case of Indiana man accused of fatally shooting five, including pregnant woman
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A judge declared a mistrial in the case of an Indianapolis man accused of fatally shooting five people, including a pregnant woman, after a witness verbally confronted the defendant in front of the jury.
Marion County Superior Judge Chris Miller declared the mistrial Tuesday in the trial of Raymond Ronald Lee Childs III, who faces six counts of murder in the January 2021 slayings in an Indianapolis home.
Childs, 20, was arrested a day after the attack and accused of killing his father, stepmother, two teenage relatives, a heavily pregnant young woman and her unborn son.
The mistrial came after a key witness in the case, Elanso Valez, testified that in the hours after the killings, he had picked up Childs and drove him around Indianapolis. He said Childs later covered his eyes and wept while laying on a bed at Valez’s home in Plainfield, just west of Indianapolis.
“Y’all remember that?” Valez asked Childs from the witness stand, WXIN-TV reported.
The defense and prosecution teams quickly sought to cut Valez off, and the judge tried to intercede from the bench, but Valez continued, asking: “Why did you do it, Raymond?”
The judge admonished Valez for his comments in front of the jurors and sent them from the courtroom so he could speak with attorneys and then each juror individually.
Miller then declared a mistrial, saying he’s “firmly convinced that Mr. Childs cannot get a fair trial.” He set a status conference for Monday with the attorneys.
The killings followed an argument over Childs, who was 17 at the time, staying out late, according to court records. Prosecutors said Childs methodically went from room-to-room, shooting the victims.
The attack killed Childs’ father, Raymond Childs Jr., 42; his stepmother, Kezzie Childs, 42; the couple’s daughter, Rita Childs, 13; son Elijah Childs, 18; and Elijah’s 19-year-old girlfriend Kiara Hawkins, who died at a hospital along with her unborn son.
Childs’ 15-year-old brother also was shot but survived after fleeing the house to escape the gunfire.
Minnesota
Man pleads guilty to bribing a juror with a bag of cash in fraud case
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — One of five people charged with attempting to bribe a Minnesota juror with a bag of $120,000 in cash in exchange for an acquittal in a fraud case pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday.
Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of bribery of a juror, admitting that he recruited a woman to offer the juror money as part of an elaborate scheme that officials said threatened foundational aspects of the judicial system.
Four other defendants charged in the bribery scheme have pleaded not guilty.
The bribe attempt surrounded the trial of seven defendants in one of the country’s largest COVID-19-related fraud cases. The defendants were accused of coordinating to steal more than $40 million from a federal program that was supposed to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nur is one of five people who were convicted in the initial fraud case. More than $250 million in federal funds were taken overall in the scheme, and only about $50 million has been recovered, authorities say.
Court documents and prosecutors’ oral reading of the plea agreement revealed an extravagant scheme in which the accused researched the juror’s personal information on social media, surveilled her, tracked her daily habits and bought a GPS device to install on her car. Authorities believe the defendants targeted the woman, known as “Juror #52,” because she was the youngest and they believed her to be the only person of color on the panel.
The four others charged with crimes related to the bribe are Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Said Shafii Farah, Abdulkarim Shafii Farah and Ladan Mohamed Ali.
According to the indictment, the bribery plan was hatched in mid-May. In court Tuesday, Nur admitted to recruiting Ali, who is accused of delivering the bribe money to the juror’s home. She flew from Seattle to Minneapolis on May 17 to meet with Nur and allegedly agreed to deliver the bribe money to the home of “Juror #52” in exchange for $150,000, prosecutors said.
She returned to Minneapolis two weeks later on May 30 and a day later attempted to follow the woman home as she left a parking ramp near the courthouse.
Ali is accused of falsely telling Nur that she had approached the juror at a bar. She claimed the juror wanted $500,000 in exchange for returning a not guilty verdict, but in reality, Ali had never spoken to the juror, prosecutors said.
On June 2, Abdiaziz Farah instructed Nur to meet at Said Farah’s business to pick up the bribe money, according to the indictment. When Nur arrived at the business, Said Farah gave him a cardboard box containing the money and told Nur to “be safe.” Nur gave the money to Ali after picking her up in a parking lot later in the day.
That night, Ali knocked on the door and was greeted by a relative of the juror. Ali handed the gift bag to her and explained there would be more money if the juror voted to acquit.
The juror called police after she got home and gave them the bag, according to an FBI affidavit. Federal authorities launched an investigation including raids of several of the defendants’ homes.
Maine
Former candidate for governor disbarred over possessing images of child sexual abuse
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A wealthy attorney who came close to being elected governor has been disbarred following the completion of his sentence for possessing thousands of images of child sexual abuse, officials said.
A judge on Monday signed off on the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar recommendation that 77-year-old Eliot Cutler should no longer practice law. Cutler did not oppose the board’s decision, which was made months ago. He was previously disbarred in New York.
The criminal case marked a dramatic fall for Cutler, who launched a Washington-based environmental law firm after serving as an aide to Sen. Edmund Muskie and as the top energy and environmental adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
Running as an independent for governor, Cutler narrowly lost — by less than 2 percentage points — to Republican Paul LePage in 2010 and then lost again by a wider margin in 2014.
Cutler was sentenced under a plea agreement in which he received a four-year term but was required to serve only nine months. He received time off for good behavior and was released earlier this year.
Judge: Woman’s lawsuit after being jailed over abortion may move forward
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A Texas woman who was jailed and charged with murder after self-managing an abortion in 2022 can move forward with her lawsuit against the local sheriff and prosecutors over the case that drew national outrage before the charges were quickly dropped, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton denied a motion by prosecutors and the sheriff to dismiss the lawsuit during a hearing in the border city of McAllen. Lizelle Gonzalez, who spent two nights in jail on the murder charges and is seeking $1 million in damages in the lawsuit, did not attend the hearing.
Texas has one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans and outlaws the procedure with limited exceptions. Under Texas law, women seeking an abortion are exempt from criminal charges, however.
Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez and other defendants have argued their positions provide them immunity from civil lawsuits.
Rick Navarro, an attorney for the defense, argued that it was “at worst a negligence case” during the hearing. Ramirez has previously told The Associated Press that he “made a mistake” in bringing charges.
Tipton asked Gonzalez’s attorneys whether they could prove the prosecutors knew of the exception.
“What we intend to show is that negligence doesn’t explain this oversight. It is the role and function of prosecutors to be aware of the elements of the statutes that they are charging,” said David Donatti, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas who is representing Gonzalez.
Gonzalez was indicted in 2022 after she took the drug misoprostol while 19 weeks pregnant. She was treated at a Texas hospital, where doctors later performed a caesarian section to deliver a stillborn child after they detected no fetal heartbeat.
Her lawsuit filed in March also named the county, which runs the small hospital where Gonzalez was treated, claiming that hospital staff violated patient privacy rights when they reported the abortion. An amended complaint alleged that the sheriff’s office interviewed Gonzalez and arrested her later under direction from the prosecutors.
The charges were dropped just days after the woman’s arrest. In February, Ramirez agreed to pay a $1,250 fine under a settlement reached with the State Bar of Texas. Ramirez also agreed to have his license held in a probated suspension for 12 months.
Wednesday’s decision will allow the case to move forward.
Minnesota
School settles with professor who was fired for showing image of the Prophet Muhammad
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A former adjunct professor on Monday settled a federal religious discrimination lawsuit against a private Minnesota school after she was pushed out for showing a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in class.
Details of the settlement between Hamline University and Erika López Prater are unknown. Online court records show the terms of the agreement are sealed.
David Redden, a lawyer for López Prater, on Tuesday declined to comment “other than to say that the matter was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties.”
The university did not immediately return a phone call and email from The Associated Press seeking comment Tuesday.
López Prater had sued Hamline University in 2023 following her dismissal the year before. Her team of attorneys had argued that the school would have treated her differently if she were Muslim.
The controversy began when López Prater showed a 14th-century painting depicting the Prophet Muhammad to her students as part of a lesson on Islamic art in a global art course.
She had warned them beforehand in the class syllabus and given them an opportunity to opt out. She also reportedly gave a trigger warning before the lesson in which the image was shown.
A student who attended the class — Aram Wedatalla, then-president of Hamline’s Muslim Student Association — has said she heard the professor give a “trigger warning,” wondered what it was for “and then I looked and it was the prophet,” the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
Wedatalla complained to the university, saying the warning didn’t describe the image that would be shown. In Islam, portraying the Prophet Muhammad has long been taboo for many.
The university declined to renew López Prater’s contract, and then-president Fayneese Miller described López Prater as “Islamophobic” for showing the image.
Miller later conceded that she should not have used that term and that she mishandled the episode, which sparked a debate over balancing academic freedom with respect for religion.
She announced her retirement months after the school’s faculty overwhelmingly called for her resignation, saying her response to the controversy was a violation of academic freedom.
Indiana
Mistrial declared in case of Indiana man accused of fatally shooting five, including pregnant woman
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A judge declared a mistrial in the case of an Indianapolis man accused of fatally shooting five people, including a pregnant woman, after a witness verbally confronted the defendant in front of the jury.
Marion County Superior Judge Chris Miller declared the mistrial Tuesday in the trial of Raymond Ronald Lee Childs III, who faces six counts of murder in the January 2021 slayings in an Indianapolis home.
Childs, 20, was arrested a day after the attack and accused of killing his father, stepmother, two teenage relatives, a heavily pregnant young woman and her unborn son.
The mistrial came after a key witness in the case, Elanso Valez, testified that in the hours after the killings, he had picked up Childs and drove him around Indianapolis. He said Childs later covered his eyes and wept while laying on a bed at Valez’s home in Plainfield, just west of Indianapolis.
“Y’all remember that?” Valez asked Childs from the witness stand, WXIN-TV reported.
The defense and prosecution teams quickly sought to cut Valez off, and the judge tried to intercede from the bench, but Valez continued, asking: “Why did you do it, Raymond?”
The judge admonished Valez for his comments in front of the jurors and sent them from the courtroom so he could speak with attorneys and then each juror individually.
Miller then declared a mistrial, saying he’s “firmly convinced that Mr. Childs cannot get a fair trial.” He set a status conference for Monday with the attorneys.
The killings followed an argument over Childs, who was 17 at the time, staying out late, according to court records. Prosecutors said Childs methodically went from room-to-room, shooting the victims.
The attack killed Childs’ father, Raymond Childs Jr., 42; his stepmother, Kezzie Childs, 42; the couple’s daughter, Rita Childs, 13; son Elijah Childs, 18; and Elijah’s 19-year-old girlfriend Kiara Hawkins, who died at a hospital along with her unborn son.
Childs’ 15-year-old brother also was shot but survived after fleeing the house to escape the gunfire.
Minnesota
Man pleads guilty to bribing a juror with a bag of cash in fraud case
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — One of five people charged with attempting to bribe a Minnesota juror with a bag of $120,000 in cash in exchange for an acquittal in a fraud case pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday.
Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of bribery of a juror, admitting that he recruited a woman to offer the juror money as part of an elaborate scheme that officials said threatened foundational aspects of the judicial system.
Four other defendants charged in the bribery scheme have pleaded not guilty.
The bribe attempt surrounded the trial of seven defendants in one of the country’s largest COVID-19-related fraud cases. The defendants were accused of coordinating to steal more than $40 million from a federal program that was supposed to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nur is one of five people who were convicted in the initial fraud case. More than $250 million in federal funds were taken overall in the scheme, and only about $50 million has been recovered, authorities say.
Court documents and prosecutors’ oral reading of the plea agreement revealed an extravagant scheme in which the accused researched the juror’s personal information on social media, surveilled her, tracked her daily habits and bought a GPS device to install on her car. Authorities believe the defendants targeted the woman, known as “Juror #52,” because she was the youngest and they believed her to be the only person of color on the panel.
The four others charged with crimes related to the bribe are Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Said Shafii Farah, Abdulkarim Shafii Farah and Ladan Mohamed Ali.
According to the indictment, the bribery plan was hatched in mid-May. In court Tuesday, Nur admitted to recruiting Ali, who is accused of delivering the bribe money to the juror’s home. She flew from Seattle to Minneapolis on May 17 to meet with Nur and allegedly agreed to deliver the bribe money to the home of “Juror #52” in exchange for $150,000, prosecutors said.
She returned to Minneapolis two weeks later on May 30 and a day later attempted to follow the woman home as she left a parking ramp near the courthouse.
Ali is accused of falsely telling Nur that she had approached the juror at a bar. She claimed the juror wanted $500,000 in exchange for returning a not guilty verdict, but in reality, Ali had never spoken to the juror, prosecutors said.
On June 2, Abdiaziz Farah instructed Nur to meet at Said Farah’s business to pick up the bribe money, according to the indictment. When Nur arrived at the business, Said Farah gave him a cardboard box containing the money and told Nur to “be safe.” Nur gave the money to Ali after picking her up in a parking lot later in the day.
That night, Ali knocked on the door and was greeted by a relative of the juror. Ali handed the gift bag to her and explained there would be more money if the juror voted to acquit.
The juror called police after she got home and gave them the bag, according to an FBI affidavit. Federal authorities launched an investigation including raids of several of the defendants’ homes.
Maine
Former candidate for governor disbarred over possessing images of child sexual abuse
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A wealthy attorney who came close to being elected governor has been disbarred following the completion of his sentence for possessing thousands of images of child sexual abuse, officials said.
A judge on Monday signed off on the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar recommendation that 77-year-old Eliot Cutler should no longer practice law. Cutler did not oppose the board’s decision, which was made months ago. He was previously disbarred in New York.
The criminal case marked a dramatic fall for Cutler, who launched a Washington-based environmental law firm after serving as an aide to Sen. Edmund Muskie and as the top energy and environmental adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
Running as an independent for governor, Cutler narrowly lost — by less than 2 percentage points — to Republican Paul LePage in 2010 and then lost again by a wider margin in 2014.
Cutler was sentenced under a plea agreement in which he received a four-year term but was required to serve only nine months. He received time off for good behavior and was released earlier this year.
