New York
Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend drops assault and defamation lawsuit
NEW YORK (AP) — Jonathan Majors ‘ ex-girlfriend has dropped her assault and defamation lawsuit against the once-rising Hollywood star after reaching a settlement.
Lawyers for Majors and Grace Jabbari agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice, according to a joint filing in Manhattan federal court Thursday.
Jabbari’s lawyer said Friday that the suit was “favorably settled” but declined to elaborate.
“Grace Jabbari has exhibited tremendous courage throughout this very long and difficult process,” attorney Brittany Henderson said in a statement. “We hope that she can finally put this chapter behind her and move forward with her head held high.”
Representatives for Majors didn’t respond to emails seeking comment Friday.
Jabbari, in her lawsuit filed in March, accused the 35-year-old Marvel and “Creed III” star of subjecting her to escalating incidents of physical and verbal abuse during their relationship, including assault, battery, defamation and infliction of emotional distress.
The British dancer filed the suit months after Majors was convicted of misdemeanor assault and harassment in connection with an altercation in Manhattan.
During a fight that began in the backseat of a chauffeured car before spilling out into the streets, Jabbari said Majors hit her head with his open hand, twisted her arm behind her back and squeezed her middle finger until it fractured.
Majors claimed Jabbari had flown into a jealous rage and was the aggressor and that he was only trying to regain his phone and get away safely.
Majors avoided jail time but was ordered by a judge in April to complete a yearlong counseling program.
Following the guilty verdict, Majors was immediately dropped by Marvel Studios, which had cast him as Kang the Conqueror, a role envisioned as the main villain in the entertainment empire’s movies and television shows for years to come.
Majors and Jabbari had met in 2021 on the set of Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” in which Majors played Kang and Jabbari served as a movement coach.
Majors has slowly reemerged on the Hollywood scene in recent weeks.
His long-shelved film “Magazine Dreams” was acquired for theatrical release last month.
The bodybuilder drama had garnered early Oscar buzz for Majors, but was dropped by its distributors following his conviction last December.
Then earlier this month, Majors and fellow actor Meagan Good announced their engagement at the Ebony Power 100 Gala in Los Angeles.
Washington
High court allows multibillion-dollar class action to proceed against Facebook parent
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta’s bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company’s appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users’ personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump ‘s first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company’s shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia. Investors say the company misled them about its dependence on selling computer chips for the mining of volatile cryptocurrency.
Georgia
Woman convicted of killing her toddler sentenced to life in prison
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia woman convicted of killing her 20-month-old son and dumping his body in a trash bin was sentenced Thursday to life in prison.
Leilani Simon was spared the maximum punishment of life without a chance of parole. Her sentencing hearing in Chatham County Superior Court came a month after a trial jury found Simon guilty of malice murder and 18 other charges in the death of her son, Quinton Simon.
Simon called 911 the morning of Oct. 5, 2022, to report her son was missing from his indoor playpen at their home outside Savannah. After police spent days searching the home and surrounding neighborhood, Chatham County Police Chief Jeff Hadley said that investigators believed the child was dead. He also named Simon as the sole suspect.
Police and FBI agents focused their investigation on a landfill two weeks after the boy was reported missing. They sifted through trash for more than a month before finding human bones, which DNA tests confirmed belonged to Quinton.
Murder carries an automatic life sentence under Georgia law. Because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, the main decision for Judge Tammy Stokes was whether to grant Simon a chance of someday being released on parole. The judge imposed another 10 years in prison for concealing the child’s death.
Simon did not testify at her sentencing hearing. She did speak to give consent for the judge to release her son’s remains to her family. Authorities had kept them in case further forensic tests were ordered.
“My son’s been through enough,” Simon said. “I want my baby home.”
Kentucky
Ex-sheriff indicted on murder charge in slaying of judge
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A former Kentucky sheriff was indicted Thursday in the slaying of a judge who was gunned down in his courthouse chambers two months ago, shocking a tiny Appalachian community.
Shawn “Mickey” Stines was indicted on one count of murder of a public official by a Letcher County grand jury, prosecutors said. Stines was sheriff of the southeastern Kentucky county when authorities say he walked into District Judge Kevin Mullins’ chambers in Whitesburg, spoke with the judge and then opened fire on Sept. 19.
Mullins, 54, who held the judgeship for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines surrendered without incident. Stines pleaded not guilty to murder and has been held in another Kentucky county jail.
Stines, 43, stepped down as sheriff more than a week after the shooting and his replacement, Billy Jones, was sworn in on Oct. 1. Jones was a former resource officer at a high school in Letcher County.
Prosecutors did not comment after the indictment was returned Thursday in Letcher County. Attorneys for Stines did not immediately respond to a phone call and an email seeking comment.
Police have given no motive for the shooting involving two prominent members of the county bordering Virginia. Whitesburg is 146 miles (235 kilometers) southeast of Lexington, Kentucky.
Video showing the judge being gunned down was played at a court hearing last month. The video, with no audio, showed a man identified by police as Stines pulling out a gun and shooting the judge as he sat at his desk. The man walked around the desk, pointed the gun at the judge — who had fallen to the floor — and fired again, it showed. Some people in the courtroom gallery sobbed as the video was played.
Mullins died from multiple gunshot wounds, a Kentucky State Police detective said at the hearing.
The detective testified that Stines tried calling his daughter on Mullins’ phone and his own phone just before the shooting. Investigators found no weapon on Mullins or in his chambers, the detective said.
On the day of the shooting, Mullins and Stines met for lunch with several other people at a restaurant near the courthouse, the detective said during the hearing.
Stines’ defense team said they left the hearing with more questions than answers and said they were conducting their own “parallel investigation.”
Stines could potentially face the death penalty for the murder charge.
Arizona
Family gets $4M settlement for 2021 jailhouse death of man
PHOENIX (AP) — Nearly four years after a man died while restrained in a Phoenix jail cell, his family will be awarded a $4 million settlement, county officials have decided.
In their federal civil rights lawsuit, the family of 31-year-old Akeem Terrell alleged that police had used unreasonable force during his arrest nearly four years ago, and he was suffering a mental health crisis as law-enforcement officers tried to subdue him.
The suit said Terrell was taken into custody after he refused to leave a New Year’s Day party in 2021 after suffering a psychotic episode.
Up to seven Phoenix police officers were on top of Terrell in a jail isolation cell and holding him down as they changed his handcuffs, according to the lawsuit.
Terrell’s family said body camera footage showed officers walking out of the cell, leaving him motionless and face down on the cell floor.
The suit also alleged that police delayed summoning medical care for the 6-foot-2-inch, 433-pound Terrell.
He was later pronounced dead at a hospital, according to Jesse Showalter, a lawyer for Terrell’s family.
Terrell had a history of mental illness and “was expressing paranoid thoughts” before his arrest, according to the lawsuit.
The county’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to a $4.05 million settlement for Terrell’s family.
Two months ago, the Phoenix City Council voted 8-1 to approve an $800,000 settlement for its police officers’ involvement in Terrell’s death.
Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend drops assault and defamation lawsuit
NEW YORK (AP) — Jonathan Majors ‘ ex-girlfriend has dropped her assault and defamation lawsuit against the once-rising Hollywood star after reaching a settlement.
Lawyers for Majors and Grace Jabbari agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice, according to a joint filing in Manhattan federal court Thursday.
Jabbari’s lawyer said Friday that the suit was “favorably settled” but declined to elaborate.
“Grace Jabbari has exhibited tremendous courage throughout this very long and difficult process,” attorney Brittany Henderson said in a statement. “We hope that she can finally put this chapter behind her and move forward with her head held high.”
Representatives for Majors didn’t respond to emails seeking comment Friday.
Jabbari, in her lawsuit filed in March, accused the 35-year-old Marvel and “Creed III” star of subjecting her to escalating incidents of physical and verbal abuse during their relationship, including assault, battery, defamation and infliction of emotional distress.
The British dancer filed the suit months after Majors was convicted of misdemeanor assault and harassment in connection with an altercation in Manhattan.
During a fight that began in the backseat of a chauffeured car before spilling out into the streets, Jabbari said Majors hit her head with his open hand, twisted her arm behind her back and squeezed her middle finger until it fractured.
Majors claimed Jabbari had flown into a jealous rage and was the aggressor and that he was only trying to regain his phone and get away safely.
Majors avoided jail time but was ordered by a judge in April to complete a yearlong counseling program.
Following the guilty verdict, Majors was immediately dropped by Marvel Studios, which had cast him as Kang the Conqueror, a role envisioned as the main villain in the entertainment empire’s movies and television shows for years to come.
Majors and Jabbari had met in 2021 on the set of Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” in which Majors played Kang and Jabbari served as a movement coach.
Majors has slowly reemerged on the Hollywood scene in recent weeks.
His long-shelved film “Magazine Dreams” was acquired for theatrical release last month.
The bodybuilder drama had garnered early Oscar buzz for Majors, but was dropped by its distributors following his conviction last December.
Then earlier this month, Majors and fellow actor Meagan Good announced their engagement at the Ebony Power 100 Gala in Los Angeles.
Washington
High court allows multibillion-dollar class action to proceed against Facebook parent
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta’s bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company’s appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users’ personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump ‘s first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company’s shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia. Investors say the company misled them about its dependence on selling computer chips for the mining of volatile cryptocurrency.
Georgia
Woman convicted of killing her toddler sentenced to life in prison
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia woman convicted of killing her 20-month-old son and dumping his body in a trash bin was sentenced Thursday to life in prison.
Leilani Simon was spared the maximum punishment of life without a chance of parole. Her sentencing hearing in Chatham County Superior Court came a month after a trial jury found Simon guilty of malice murder and 18 other charges in the death of her son, Quinton Simon.
Simon called 911 the morning of Oct. 5, 2022, to report her son was missing from his indoor playpen at their home outside Savannah. After police spent days searching the home and surrounding neighborhood, Chatham County Police Chief Jeff Hadley said that investigators believed the child was dead. He also named Simon as the sole suspect.
Police and FBI agents focused their investigation on a landfill two weeks after the boy was reported missing. They sifted through trash for more than a month before finding human bones, which DNA tests confirmed belonged to Quinton.
Murder carries an automatic life sentence under Georgia law. Because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, the main decision for Judge Tammy Stokes was whether to grant Simon a chance of someday being released on parole. The judge imposed another 10 years in prison for concealing the child’s death.
Simon did not testify at her sentencing hearing. She did speak to give consent for the judge to release her son’s remains to her family. Authorities had kept them in case further forensic tests were ordered.
“My son’s been through enough,” Simon said. “I want my baby home.”
Kentucky
Ex-sheriff indicted on murder charge in slaying of judge
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A former Kentucky sheriff was indicted Thursday in the slaying of a judge who was gunned down in his courthouse chambers two months ago, shocking a tiny Appalachian community.
Shawn “Mickey” Stines was indicted on one count of murder of a public official by a Letcher County grand jury, prosecutors said. Stines was sheriff of the southeastern Kentucky county when authorities say he walked into District Judge Kevin Mullins’ chambers in Whitesburg, spoke with the judge and then opened fire on Sept. 19.
Mullins, 54, who held the judgeship for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines surrendered without incident. Stines pleaded not guilty to murder and has been held in another Kentucky county jail.
Stines, 43, stepped down as sheriff more than a week after the shooting and his replacement, Billy Jones, was sworn in on Oct. 1. Jones was a former resource officer at a high school in Letcher County.
Prosecutors did not comment after the indictment was returned Thursday in Letcher County. Attorneys for Stines did not immediately respond to a phone call and an email seeking comment.
Police have given no motive for the shooting involving two prominent members of the county bordering Virginia. Whitesburg is 146 miles (235 kilometers) southeast of Lexington, Kentucky.
Video showing the judge being gunned down was played at a court hearing last month. The video, with no audio, showed a man identified by police as Stines pulling out a gun and shooting the judge as he sat at his desk. The man walked around the desk, pointed the gun at the judge — who had fallen to the floor — and fired again, it showed. Some people in the courtroom gallery sobbed as the video was played.
Mullins died from multiple gunshot wounds, a Kentucky State Police detective said at the hearing.
The detective testified that Stines tried calling his daughter on Mullins’ phone and his own phone just before the shooting. Investigators found no weapon on Mullins or in his chambers, the detective said.
On the day of the shooting, Mullins and Stines met for lunch with several other people at a restaurant near the courthouse, the detective said during the hearing.
Stines’ defense team said they left the hearing with more questions than answers and said they were conducting their own “parallel investigation.”
Stines could potentially face the death penalty for the murder charge.
Arizona
Family gets $4M settlement for 2021 jailhouse death of man
PHOENIX (AP) — Nearly four years after a man died while restrained in a Phoenix jail cell, his family will be awarded a $4 million settlement, county officials have decided.
In their federal civil rights lawsuit, the family of 31-year-old Akeem Terrell alleged that police had used unreasonable force during his arrest nearly four years ago, and he was suffering a mental health crisis as law-enforcement officers tried to subdue him.
The suit said Terrell was taken into custody after he refused to leave a New Year’s Day party in 2021 after suffering a psychotic episode.
Up to seven Phoenix police officers were on top of Terrell in a jail isolation cell and holding him down as they changed his handcuffs, according to the lawsuit.
Terrell’s family said body camera footage showed officers walking out of the cell, leaving him motionless and face down on the cell floor.
The suit also alleged that police delayed summoning medical care for the 6-foot-2-inch, 433-pound Terrell.
He was later pronounced dead at a hospital, according to Jesse Showalter, a lawyer for Terrell’s family.
Terrell had a history of mental illness and “was expressing paranoid thoughts” before his arrest, according to the lawsuit.
The county’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to a $4.05 million settlement for Terrell’s family.
Two months ago, the Phoenix City Council voted 8-1 to approve an $800,000 settlement for its police officers’ involvement in Terrell’s death.
