California
Catholic hospital agrees to provide abortions after state sues over miscarriage care
Providence St. Joseph Hospital and the California Attorney General’s office have reached a temporary agreement in a case alleging the Catholic-owned hospital in Humboldt County violated multiple state laws by denying emergency abortion care to pregnant patients.
Last month, Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, alleging it illegally refused to provide emergency abortion care to a woman who was 15 weeks pregnant and hemorrhaging.
According to the stipulated agreement released Tuesday, St. Joseph agrees to fully comply with the state’s Emergency Services Law, which prohibits hospitals from denying patients emergency care.
The hospital will allow physicians to terminate a patient’s pregnancy if not doing so would seriously risk the patient’s health. The hospital also agreed not to transfer a patient to another facility without first providing emergency stabilizing care, including abortion if that is what a patient needs.
St. Joseph and its parent organization Providence admit no liability under the stipulation. The stipulation is subject to court approval and will remain in place while the litigation continues.
Representatives for Providence St. Joseph did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the lawsuit against the hospital, local chiropractor Anna Nusslock alleges that she arrived at the hospital in February bleeding and in severe pain after her water broke prematurely. Nusslock was pregnant with twins. Court documents state that a doctor at Providence St. Joseph Hospital told her internal policy prevented them from treating her because one of her twins had a “detectable heartbeat.”
Nusslock was given a bucket and towels “in case something happens in the car,” court documents filed by the state allege, and told to drive to the next closest hospital 12 miles away.
That hospital, Mad River Community Hospital, will close its labor and delivery unit on Oct. 31, leaving Providence St. Joseph Hospital the only operating maternity ward in Humboldt County.
The lawsuit claims that Nusslock’s condition put her at risk of permanent harm or death from infection and hemorrhage.
Though California has enacted some of the nation’s strongest abortion protections since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe vs. Wade, the state has struggled to navigate religious and personal belief exemptions governing hospitals and anti-abortion pregnancy centers.
This is the first lawsuit filed against a hospital under the Emergency Services Law, according to the attorney general’s office.
Virginia
Jury acquits ex-CIA recruit in assault case
A former CIA officer-trainee was acquitted by a Virginia jury Wednesday of charges that he attacked a female colleague in a stairwell, accusations that spurred a flood of sexual misconduct complaints and reforms at the spy agency.
Prosecutors said Ashkan Bayatpour came up behind a fellow trainee in the stairwell at CIA’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters in 2022, wrapped a scarf around her neck and tried to kiss her while making threatening remarks.
Bayatpour appealed last summer after he was convicted by a judge of the same misdemeanor assault and battery charge. Under Virginia law, the Alabama native and former Navy intelligence officer was entitled to a full jury trial in Fairfax County. The panel deliberated several hours Wednesday before its verdict.
“I’m grateful that a jury of my peers believed me and found me not guilty,” said the 40-year-old Bayatpour, who resigned from the CIA after the earlier conviction in the case. “Being falsely accused for the last two years has been a nightmare. My family and I have had so much of our peace, joy, privacy and security stolen from us, and my focus now is putting my life back together after this ordeal.”
Bayatpour acknowledged in the earlier bench trial that he wrapped the scarf around the woman’s neck but insisted his actions were intended in jest during a 40-minute walk together. The incident, his attorney said, was “a joke that didn’t land the way it was intended to land.”
The woman’s decision to take the case outside the spy agency emboldened at least two dozen female CIA employees to come forward to authorities and Congress over the past two years with their own stories of sexual assault, unwanted touching and what they contend is a campaign to keep them from speaking out.
An AP investigation found that their accusations, some of which go back years, ranged from lewd remarks about sexual fantasies to allegations that a veteran CIA officer at an office party reached up a colleague’s skirt and forcibly kissed her in front of stunned co-workers.
The House Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report this year, faulted the CIA for botching its response to such sexual misconduct allegations. The report, based on interviews with 26 whistleblowers and numerous briefings with CIA officials, found the agency’s investigation of sexual assault or harassment was ineffective and victims were discouraged from making complaints.
The agency said it has since reformed its policies, including making sure officers are aware they can report complaints to law enforcement, and other steps to streamline internal investigations, support victims and quickly discipline those responsible.
Bayatpour’s accuser, Rachel Cuda, was fired after filing a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging the CIA retaliated against her for reporting the incident to local law enforcement and testifying about it in a closed congressional hearing.
Her attorney, Kevin Carroll, said he was disappointed with the trial’s outcome and questioned the defendant’s tactics to clear his name, which he said included trying to shame the complainant with inaccurate, prejudicial and irrelevant allegations.
“This effort to tarnish her reputation is reprehensible, and it is surprising that it was allowed in 2024,” he said.
The AP generally does not identify those who say they have been sexually abused except when the alleged victims publicly identify themselves or consent to their name being published, as Cuda has in this case.
Minnesota
Alleged gang members charged with string of killings in federal crackdown
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal grand jury indicted 11 alleged members of a Minneapolis street gang on charges that include murder, conspiracy and drug trafficking, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Some of the alleged gang members have been charged for their role in seven shootings that killed five people, unsealed court records show. Five people have been charged with firearm murder, while all 11 defendants were charged with conspiracy.
The charges are part of a federal gang crackdown authorities announced in 2023 that has ensnared dozens of members or associates of several Minneapolis gangs. With Wednesday’s announcement, over 90 people have been charged with gang-related offenses since the operation started, prosecutors said.
The alleged members of the Lows gang also stand accused of trafficking fentanyl and possessing illegal guns.
“The Lows are an exceptionally violent criminal street gang that has terrorized north Minneapolis for nearly 20 years. Through threats and violence — shootings and murders — the Lows gang has long sought to establish dominion over large swaths of our city,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said. “My office will continue to respond to gang violence by treating it as the organized criminal activity it is. This indictment is an important step in dismantling a violent street gang that has devastated families and communities in north Minneapolis.”
Luger’s office has built its operation targeting gangs around the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute. The anti-corruption law is used to target organized crime.
Instead of RICO cases, gang-related crimes in Minnesota were traditionally prosecuted on an individual basis, Luger said. In recent years, his office shifted its approach and began building cases against the criminal organizations to which individual gang members belong, he added.
Earlier this month, three other people charged in connection with the federal gang crackdown were convicted under the RICO statute.
New York
Ex-FTX executive spared prison sentence after cooperating against Sam Bankman-Fried
NEW YORK (AP) — An ex-FTX executive who testified against the cryptocurrency firm’s founder at his trial last year was spared a prison sentence Wednesday by a federal judge who credited his substantial cooperation and late arrival in the multibillion dollar fraud.
Nishad Singh, the company’s former engineering director, was sentenced in Manhattan by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who said his cooperation was “remarkable.”
The judge noted that Singh did not learn of the billions of dollars that were misappropriated from FTX customer accounts and investors until two months before the fraud unraveled.
FTX was one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, with celebrity endorsements and a 2022 Super Bowl advertisement before it collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022. A month later, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas, where his companies were based, to face trial.
Singh, 29, testified a year ago at Bankman-Fried’s trial, saying he was “blindsided and horrified” when he saw the extent of the fraud behind the once-celebrated and seemingly pioneering firm.
At sentencing, Singh said he was “overwhelmed with remorse” for his role in the fraud.
“I strayed so far from my values, and words can’t express how sorry I am,” he said.
Bankman-Fried was convicted last November and is serving a 25-year sentence.
The sentencing came a month after Caroline Ellison, another key witness at Bankman-Fried’s trial and a former top executive in his cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to two years in prison. At the time, Kaplan praised her cooperation but said it wasn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.
On Wednesday, Kaplan drew a distinction between the cooperation by Ellison and Singh’s work with prosecutors, saying Ellison had participated in the fraud “from the beginning” and had been aware of all the wrongdoing for years.
“She got plenty of credit for cooperation, but you deserve more,” he told Singh.
Prior to Singh’s sentence being announced, defense attorney Andrew Goldstein urged no prison time for his client, saying Singh did not know about the billions of dollars stolen from customers and investors until two months before FTX collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022, just weeks before key executives were arrested.
Goldstein, a former longtime federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said leniency would encourage future cooperators in other criminal cases to come forward.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos credited Singh with providing information within weeks of the fraud being publicly revealed, saying he helped prosecutors learn about crimes they might otherwise have never discovered, including his own.
Roos said, for instance, that Singh told prosecutors about campaign finance violations that occurred as FTX executives made tens of millions of dollars in donations to political candidates.
The prosecutor also said Singh revealed private conversations with Bankman-Fried that strengthened the government’s case and enabled it to bring charges more quickly against multiple people.
Singh gave prosecutors “documentary evidence the government did not have and likely never would have had,” Roos said.
Catholic hospital agrees to provide abortions after state sues over miscarriage care
Providence St. Joseph Hospital and the California Attorney General’s office have reached a temporary agreement in a case alleging the Catholic-owned hospital in Humboldt County violated multiple state laws by denying emergency abortion care to pregnant patients.
Last month, Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, alleging it illegally refused to provide emergency abortion care to a woman who was 15 weeks pregnant and hemorrhaging.
According to the stipulated agreement released Tuesday, St. Joseph agrees to fully comply with the state’s Emergency Services Law, which prohibits hospitals from denying patients emergency care.
The hospital will allow physicians to terminate a patient’s pregnancy if not doing so would seriously risk the patient’s health. The hospital also agreed not to transfer a patient to another facility without first providing emergency stabilizing care, including abortion if that is what a patient needs.
St. Joseph and its parent organization Providence admit no liability under the stipulation. The stipulation is subject to court approval and will remain in place while the litigation continues.
Representatives for Providence St. Joseph did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the lawsuit against the hospital, local chiropractor Anna Nusslock alleges that she arrived at the hospital in February bleeding and in severe pain after her water broke prematurely. Nusslock was pregnant with twins. Court documents state that a doctor at Providence St. Joseph Hospital told her internal policy prevented them from treating her because one of her twins had a “detectable heartbeat.”
Nusslock was given a bucket and towels “in case something happens in the car,” court documents filed by the state allege, and told to drive to the next closest hospital 12 miles away.
That hospital, Mad River Community Hospital, will close its labor and delivery unit on Oct. 31, leaving Providence St. Joseph Hospital the only operating maternity ward in Humboldt County.
The lawsuit claims that Nusslock’s condition put her at risk of permanent harm or death from infection and hemorrhage.
Though California has enacted some of the nation’s strongest abortion protections since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe vs. Wade, the state has struggled to navigate religious and personal belief exemptions governing hospitals and anti-abortion pregnancy centers.
This is the first lawsuit filed against a hospital under the Emergency Services Law, according to the attorney general’s office.
Virginia
Jury acquits ex-CIA recruit in assault case
A former CIA officer-trainee was acquitted by a Virginia jury Wednesday of charges that he attacked a female colleague in a stairwell, accusations that spurred a flood of sexual misconduct complaints and reforms at the spy agency.
Prosecutors said Ashkan Bayatpour came up behind a fellow trainee in the stairwell at CIA’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters in 2022, wrapped a scarf around her neck and tried to kiss her while making threatening remarks.
Bayatpour appealed last summer after he was convicted by a judge of the same misdemeanor assault and battery charge. Under Virginia law, the Alabama native and former Navy intelligence officer was entitled to a full jury trial in Fairfax County. The panel deliberated several hours Wednesday before its verdict.
“I’m grateful that a jury of my peers believed me and found me not guilty,” said the 40-year-old Bayatpour, who resigned from the CIA after the earlier conviction in the case. “Being falsely accused for the last two years has been a nightmare. My family and I have had so much of our peace, joy, privacy and security stolen from us, and my focus now is putting my life back together after this ordeal.”
Bayatpour acknowledged in the earlier bench trial that he wrapped the scarf around the woman’s neck but insisted his actions were intended in jest during a 40-minute walk together. The incident, his attorney said, was “a joke that didn’t land the way it was intended to land.”
The woman’s decision to take the case outside the spy agency emboldened at least two dozen female CIA employees to come forward to authorities and Congress over the past two years with their own stories of sexual assault, unwanted touching and what they contend is a campaign to keep them from speaking out.
An AP investigation found that their accusations, some of which go back years, ranged from lewd remarks about sexual fantasies to allegations that a veteran CIA officer at an office party reached up a colleague’s skirt and forcibly kissed her in front of stunned co-workers.
The House Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report this year, faulted the CIA for botching its response to such sexual misconduct allegations. The report, based on interviews with 26 whistleblowers and numerous briefings with CIA officials, found the agency’s investigation of sexual assault or harassment was ineffective and victims were discouraged from making complaints.
The agency said it has since reformed its policies, including making sure officers are aware they can report complaints to law enforcement, and other steps to streamline internal investigations, support victims and quickly discipline those responsible.
Bayatpour’s accuser, Rachel Cuda, was fired after filing a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging the CIA retaliated against her for reporting the incident to local law enforcement and testifying about it in a closed congressional hearing.
Her attorney, Kevin Carroll, said he was disappointed with the trial’s outcome and questioned the defendant’s tactics to clear his name, which he said included trying to shame the complainant with inaccurate, prejudicial and irrelevant allegations.
“This effort to tarnish her reputation is reprehensible, and it is surprising that it was allowed in 2024,” he said.
The AP generally does not identify those who say they have been sexually abused except when the alleged victims publicly identify themselves or consent to their name being published, as Cuda has in this case.
Minnesota
Alleged gang members charged with string of killings in federal crackdown
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal grand jury indicted 11 alleged members of a Minneapolis street gang on charges that include murder, conspiracy and drug trafficking, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Some of the alleged gang members have been charged for their role in seven shootings that killed five people, unsealed court records show. Five people have been charged with firearm murder, while all 11 defendants were charged with conspiracy.
The charges are part of a federal gang crackdown authorities announced in 2023 that has ensnared dozens of members or associates of several Minneapolis gangs. With Wednesday’s announcement, over 90 people have been charged with gang-related offenses since the operation started, prosecutors said.
The alleged members of the Lows gang also stand accused of trafficking fentanyl and possessing illegal guns.
“The Lows are an exceptionally violent criminal street gang that has terrorized north Minneapolis for nearly 20 years. Through threats and violence — shootings and murders — the Lows gang has long sought to establish dominion over large swaths of our city,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said. “My office will continue to respond to gang violence by treating it as the organized criminal activity it is. This indictment is an important step in dismantling a violent street gang that has devastated families and communities in north Minneapolis.”
Luger’s office has built its operation targeting gangs around the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute. The anti-corruption law is used to target organized crime.
Instead of RICO cases, gang-related crimes in Minnesota were traditionally prosecuted on an individual basis, Luger said. In recent years, his office shifted its approach and began building cases against the criminal organizations to which individual gang members belong, he added.
Earlier this month, three other people charged in connection with the federal gang crackdown were convicted under the RICO statute.
New York
Ex-FTX executive spared prison sentence after cooperating against Sam Bankman-Fried
NEW YORK (AP) — An ex-FTX executive who testified against the cryptocurrency firm’s founder at his trial last year was spared a prison sentence Wednesday by a federal judge who credited his substantial cooperation and late arrival in the multibillion dollar fraud.
Nishad Singh, the company’s former engineering director, was sentenced in Manhattan by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who said his cooperation was “remarkable.”
The judge noted that Singh did not learn of the billions of dollars that were misappropriated from FTX customer accounts and investors until two months before the fraud unraveled.
FTX was one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, with celebrity endorsements and a 2022 Super Bowl advertisement before it collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022. A month later, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas, where his companies were based, to face trial.
Singh, 29, testified a year ago at Bankman-Fried’s trial, saying he was “blindsided and horrified” when he saw the extent of the fraud behind the once-celebrated and seemingly pioneering firm.
At sentencing, Singh said he was “overwhelmed with remorse” for his role in the fraud.
“I strayed so far from my values, and words can’t express how sorry I am,” he said.
Bankman-Fried was convicted last November and is serving a 25-year sentence.
The sentencing came a month after Caroline Ellison, another key witness at Bankman-Fried’s trial and a former top executive in his cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to two years in prison. At the time, Kaplan praised her cooperation but said it wasn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.
On Wednesday, Kaplan drew a distinction between the cooperation by Ellison and Singh’s work with prosecutors, saying Ellison had participated in the fraud “from the beginning” and had been aware of all the wrongdoing for years.
“She got plenty of credit for cooperation, but you deserve more,” he told Singh.
Prior to Singh’s sentence being announced, defense attorney Andrew Goldstein urged no prison time for his client, saying Singh did not know about the billions of dollars stolen from customers and investors until two months before FTX collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022, just weeks before key executives were arrested.
Goldstein, a former longtime federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said leniency would encourage future cooperators in other criminal cases to come forward.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos credited Singh with providing information within weeks of the fraud being publicly revealed, saying he helped prosecutors learn about crimes they might otherwise have never discovered, including his own.
Roos said, for instance, that Singh told prosecutors about campaign finance violations that occurred as FTX executives made tens of millions of dollars in donations to political candidates.
The prosecutor also said Singh revealed private conversations with Bankman-Fried that strengthened the government’s case and enabled it to bring charges more quickly against multiple people.
Singh gave prosecutors “documentary evidence the government did not have and likely never would have had,” Roos said.
