Court Digest

California
Reality TV couple sues Los Angeles after losing home in wildfires

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Reality TV couple Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt are suing the city of Los Angeles after losing their Pacific Palisades home in the wildfires that have torn through Southern California in recent weeks.

The couple, who rose to stardom on “The Hills,” a spin-off of “Laguna Beach,” filed the lawsuit Tuesday along with more than 20 other property owners and residents who were affected by the Palisades Fire. The complaint blames Los Angeles and its municipal water department for the water issues that hampered firefighting efforts and says it ultimately led to the damage to their properties.

The Eaton and Palisades fires, ignited by strong winds during one of the region’s driest years on record, have killed 28 people and destroyed more than 12,000 structures, putting them among the most destructive fires in California history.

There has been intense scrutiny over hydrants running dry and problems with water pressure, leading to a barrage of lawsuits against the city and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for an independent investigation into the LA water utility over the issues.

The complaint filed by the couple and others mentions that the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which services the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, was offline and had been out of commission since February 2024 while awaiting repairs. The hydrants in the neighborhood were connected to three tanks that held 1 million gallons (3.7 million liters) of water each and went dry within 12 hours, the complaint said, citing Janisse Quiñones, the water utility’s chief executive and chief engineer.

Without water from the reservoir, firefighters had to primarily rely on the water tanks, which were not designed to fight such a large fire, the complaint said.
The city and water utility did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

While the repairs to the reservoir were requested in January 2024, the water utility told the Los Angeles Times they would not be completed until April or May 2025.

The lawsuit called the Palisades Fire an “inescapable and unavoidable consequence” of the water system operated by the city and water utility.

“The system necessarily failed, and this failure was a substantial factor in causing Plaintiffs to suffer the losses alleged in this complaint,” it said.

The plaintiffs cite the principle known as “ inverse condemnation,” which is the same mechanism that requires utilities to pay for wildfire damages caused by their equipment.


New York
County agrees to redraw voting lines lawsuit said disenfranchised residents of color

EAST MEADOW, N.Y. (AP) — A New York county has agreed to redraw its voting map after a lawsuit claimed its political boundaries disenfranchised residents of color.

Nassau County reached a settlement Thursday in which the suburban region, located just east of New York City borough of Queens, would create six voting districts in which Black, Latino and Asian residents constitute a majority of eligible voters.

The county’s Republican-controlled legislature approved a voting map in 2023 in which residents of color constituted a majority of eligible voters in just four of the county’s 19 districts.

But the New York Civil Liberties Union and other groups sued in state court, arguing the map diluted the electoral power of residents of color, who make up more than one-third of eligible voters.

They said the political map, based off the 2020 census, split minority communities or combined them with others that were starkly different.

That, the groups argued, has prevented the election of officials more representative of the county’s diversity. Whites make up about 56% of the county’s nearly 1.4 million people, but they comprise nearly 80% of its governing body.

“This map is a big step towards equality and fairness in our community’s democracy,” Lisa Ortiz, a plaintiff in the case, said in statement Thursday. “After years of having our votes and voices diluted and ignored, we finally have an equal voice at the polls.”

The new voting map will take effect for legislative elections this coming November and remain in effect after the 2030 census, when maps will be redrawn to reflect updated census counts, the New York Civil Liberties Union and other groups said.

The local Republican Party said it remains committed to “fair and competitive” districts and is confident it will retain its majority in the legislature.

The lawsuit against Nassau County was among at least four filed under the state’s Voting Rights Act, which was enacted in 2022 in response to a wave of voting restrictions passed in many Republican-led states following the 2020 election.


Texas
Bar association drops lawsuit against AG Ken Paxton over 2020 election challenge

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The State Bar of Texas is dropping efforts to discipline Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton over allegations that his failed efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election amounted to professional misconduct.

The decision, revealed Wednesday in court filings, ends a yearslong attempt to potentially sanction Paxton over making false claims of fraud when he filed a lawsuit that questioned Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Republican President Donald Trump.

The move comes a month after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Paxton’s top deputy could not be sanctioned over similar accusations. A disciplinary commission for the state bar cited that December ruling in moving to drop its lawsuit against Paxton.

A spokesperson for the State Bar of Texas declined to comment Thursday. Spokespeople for the attorney general did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Paxton has long attacked the accusations against him as baseless and politically motivated.

The disciplinary commission accused Paxton of making false claims of fraud to the U.S. Supreme Court in his lawsuit challenging the election. The bar association pursued its own lawsuit against Paxton in 2022, and at the time, the committee said it sought to punish Paxton through disciplinary action as an attorney and not as a public official.

The bar complaint alleged that Paxton “misrepresented” facts to the Supreme Court in the suit seeking to overturn Biden’s victory. The suit was backed by Trump. The high court threw out the lawsuit.

The state bar disciplinary group’s punishments against an attorney can range from a written admonition to a suspension or disbarment.

The potential sanctions were among several legal clouds that had hung over Paxton. Last year, Paxton reached a deal to end criminal accusations of securities fraud, and the Texas Senate in 2023 acquitted him of corruption accusations in an impeachment trial.


New York
Man convicted of stalking Chinese ex-official gets prison in U.S.

NEW YORK (AP) — A man who taped a sinister note to a Chinese ex-official’s door in New Jersey was sentenced Wednesday to 16 months in prison. He was convicted of participating in what U.S. authorities called a Beijing-driven pressure campaign targeting expatriates.

Zheng Congying was one of three men convicted at the first trial highlighting U.S. claims that China’s government harasses and intimidates dissidents and critics on foreign soil. Beijing denies doing so and says its “Operation Fox Hunt” is an effort to bring fugitives home to face justice.

A federal court jury in Brooklyn found Zheng and co-defendants Michael McMahon and Zhu Yong guilty of playing various roles in seeking out Xu Jin, a former official in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and pressing him to return to his homeland. There, he would face bribery allegations that he denies.

Zheng knocked on Xu’s New Jersey door, circled the home to peer inside and left a note that read, in translation: “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!”

Zheng’s lawyer, Paul Goldberger, said during the trial that Zheng later regretted what he’d done and tried to retrieve the letter. Prosecutors suggested he went back to the house just to see whether the note had been received.

The defendants didn’t testify, but their lawyers said the three believed they were aiding a private company or individuals, not the Chinese government.

Zheng, a Chinese citizen, was convicted of stalking and stalking conspiracy but acquitted of other charges. A message seeking comment on his sentencing was sent to his lawyer.

Zhu was sentenced last week to two years in prison. McMahon, a retired U.S. police sergeant, is due to be sentenced later this winter.

Three other people pleaded guilty in the case. Five others also were charged, but they’re believed to be in China and haven’t come to the U.S. to appear in court.


Alabama
Man charged with 11 homicides pleads not guilty

An Alabama man charged with homicide in two separate mass shootings pleaded not guilty in state court on Wednesday.

Damien McDaniel, 22, is accused of killing 11 people between July and September of last year in Birmingham, Alabama — which would account for over 7% of all homicides in the city in 2024. McDaniel is also accused of wounding 29 others during that time period.

McDaniel’s lawyer John Robbins said that he hasn’t “seen a shred of evidence,” and he added that even if he had he would be barred from publicizing the details of the ongoing case.

“We’re putting together a very good team to handle the defense, and we want to make sure this process is fair and that we protect his rights,” Robbins told AL.com.

Eight of the 11 capital murder charges are related to two separate mass shootings in Birmingham in 2024. One shooting took place outside of a Birmingham nightclub in July and left four people dead and 10 others wounded. Another man, Hatarius Woods, 27, was also charged with capital murder in connection with the July mass shooting.

The other took place outside of a different Birmingham nightclub in September where four people were fatally shot and 17 others were injured. A spokesperson for the Birmingham police department said that there were “multiple shooters” in the September mass shooting, and that the investigation is ongoing.

Birmingham had three total mass shootings in 2024.

McDaniel is also accused of three separate fatal shootings that took place on three separate days in August and September — culminating in 11 total homicides.

There were 151 homicides in 2024, according to the Birmingham Police Department, the highest number of people killed since 1933, when there were 148 homicides.

“These individuals started back in July, and they did not stop from September,” Birmingham Police Department spokesperson Truman Fitzgerald said at a news conference in November where he announced McDaniel’s indictment on charges related to July’s mass shooting. “We often say on these crime scenes that we have a few select criminals that add to this crime and give Birmingham a bad name.”