Georgia
Woman sues fertility clinic, saying she gave birth to another patient’s baby
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Krystena Murray became pregnant after undergoing in vitro fertilization two years ago, and said she was unaware until she gave birth that the fertility clinic had made a fateful mistake.
In December 2023, Murray delivered a healthy baby boy. But she also knew immediately that it didn’t develop from one of her own lab-fertilized eggs. The baby was Black, while Murray and her sperm donor are both white. She says she later learned doctors had transferred another patient’s embryo instead of her own.
Regardless, Murray resolved to raise the child. But after reporting the mix-up to the fertility clinic, she says, its staff tracked down and notified the baby’s biological parents. They demanded custody, Murray said, and she gave up the 5-month-old boy to avoid a legal fight she couldn’t win.
Murray, 38, of Savannah filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday against Coastal Fertility Specialists, alleging the clinic’s negligence in mixing up her embryos with the other couple’s caused her ongoing pain and anguish.
“I have never felt so violated and the situation has left me emotionally and physically broken,” Murray told reporters during a virtual news conference. “I spent my entire life wanting to be a mom. I loved, nurtured and grew my child and I would have done literally anything to keep him.”
Coastal Fertility Specialists operates a clinic in Savannah and four others in neighboring South Carolina. The medical practice apologized in an emailed statement for what it called “an unprecedented error that resulted in an embryo transfer mix-up.” It said the staff has adopted new safeguards to prevent similar mistakes from happening in the future.
“This was an isolated event with no further patients affected,” the statement said. “We are doing everything we can to make things right for those affected by this incident.”
Murray said everything seemed normal when she began treatment in early 2023. She did injections to stimulate production of eggs, which were later harvested and fertilized in a lab using a donor’s sperm. She said she became pregnant the second time an embryo was implanted in her uterus.
But her lawsuit says the clinic’s “extreme and outrageous” mistake caused Murray to be “turned into an unwitting surrogate, against her will, for another couple.” She’s seeking unspecified monetary damages.
Her attorney, Adam Wolf, said Murray still doesn’t know what happened to her own embryos. It’s still unclear how the mix-up occurred, he said.
Wolf’s law firm has represented more than 1,000 patients taking action against fertility clinics, often for mistakes such as embryos being lost or damaged from being dropped on the ground or being stored in malfunctioning freezers. He said transferring the wrong embryo to a patient appears to be rare.
“Fertility clinics engage in vitally important work,” Wolf said, adding: “With that amazing work comes a real responsibility. And when fertility clinics make mistakes like this, the consequences are life-altering.”
Murray recalled the day she gave birth and how her joy quickly gave way to confusion and fear.
If this child couldn’t be hers genetically, she wondered, whose child was he? And could they take him away?
That fear kept Murray from posting pictures of the baby on social media, her lawsuit says, or even showing him to friends and family initially. Soon after she gave birth, Murray kept her newborn covered in a blanket to avoid questions at a funeral she attended.
Murray took a DNA test early last year that confirmed the baby didn’t come from one of her embryos. Wolf said his firm notified Coastal Fertility Specialists soon after because Murray hoped the clinic would improve its procedures and safeguards.
The clinic determined who the child’s biological parents were, Wolf said, and let them know Murray had given birth after receiving one of their embryos.
Murray said the couple sued her for custody last year. She volunteered to give up the baby, she said, after her lawyers told her she had no chance of winning in court.
That was last May, when the baby was 5 months old. Murray said she hasn’t seen him since.
“I considered the consequences of IVF going in,” Murray said, including the risks of bleeding, infection, sterility and possibly death.
“Never once did I consider I might birth someone else’s child and have them taken from me,” she said. “And I feel like that should be something that women are aware of as an actual possibility.”
Washington
Trump administration halts support for representing unaccompanied children in immigration court
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Tuesday stopped support for legal representation in immigration court for children who enter the United States alone, a setback for those fighting deportation who can’t afford a lawyer.
The Acacia Center for Justice says it serves 26,000 migrant children under its federal contract. The Interior Department gave no explanation for the stop-work order, telling the group only that it was done for “causes outside of your control” and should not be interpreted as a judgment of poor performance. The halt remains in effect until further notice.
The Interior Department and Health and Human Services Department, which oversees unaccompanied migrant children, did not respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.
Acacia says it runs the legal aid program through a network of 85 organizations nationwide that represent children under 18.
The halt comes shortly after the Justice Department briefly stopped support for other contacts to provide legal information and guidance to people facing deportation. It restored funding after being sued by advocacy groups.
People fighting deportation may hire attorneys at their own expense, but the government does not provide them. Groups that rely on federal support to represent children said the most vulnerable would suffer most under the decision to halt work on the $200 million contract.
“Expecting a child to represent themself in immigration court absurd and deeply unjust,” said Christine Lin, director of training and technical assistance at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies.
Florida
Man charged with attempted murder after shooting 2 men he thought were Palestinians
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man has been charged with two counts of attempted murder after opening fire on two men in Miami Beach who he thought were Palestinians.
According to an arrest report, Mordechai Brafman shot at the men 17 times in the “unprovoked” attack, telling officers that while driving his truck, he “saw two Palestinians” and opened fire on their car, thinking he had killed the pair. But the men survived, one suffering a shot to the shoulder and the other grazed by a bullet.
Brafman, 27, is being held without bond on second-degree attempted murder charges at a county jail in Miami, records show. He has also been ordered to stay away from the victims, an Israeli father and son who were vacationing in South Florida, according to the Miami Herald.
Brafman’s attorney Dustin Tischler has said his client was experiencing a “severe mental health crisis” at the time of the shooting, which caused him to “fear for his life.”
“It is believed that his ability to make sound judgments was significantly compromised,” Tischler said in a statement to The Associated Press, adding that Brafman is seeking “necessary treatment” while cooperating with law enforcement.
The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, has called for federal hate crime charges against Brafman, saying his alleged bias against Palestinians should warrant the charges regardless of the victims’ ethnicity.
Connecticut
Man pleads guilty in 2022 stray-bullet shooting of Olympian’s mom
WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man has pleaded guilty to murder in the stray-bullet killing of a Puerto Rican Olympic athlete’s mother.
Jasper Greene of New Haven was one of three men charged in the death of Mabel Martinez Antongiorgi on April 9, 2022. The 56-year-old woman was sewing in her home in Waterbury, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Hartford, when a bullet flew through a wall and hit her in the head.
Martinez Antongiorgi’s daughter Yarimar Mercado Martinez competed for the family’s native Puerto Rico at the 2016 and COVID-19-delayed 2020 Games. The athlete was in Brazil for another competition when her mother was killed.
As part of his plea deal, Greene faces a 35-year sentence for murder, but has the right to argue for 30 years at his June 3 sentencing, according to a Waterbury Superior Court clerk. The single murder charge carries a mandatory 25-year minimum sentence in Connecticut. Other charges against Greene were dropped as part of the agreement.
According to trial testimony, the fatal shooting stemmed from a dispute that one of the suspects, Franklin Robinson, 41, had with a man who said hello to his girlfriend. Robinson, Greene and another man shot up a car parked on Martinez Antongiorgi’s street, thinking the man was inside it. The third suspect, Levi Brock, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in the case, including murder, and is awaiting trial.
Another bystander was wounded but survived.
Massachusetts
Karen Read asks federal judge to block her retrial on two charges in boyfriend’s death
BOSTON (AP) — Lawyers for Karen Read on Tuesday asked a federal judge to prevent her retrial on two charges related to the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend.
Read, who is accused of ramming into John O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm in January 2022, faces a second trial in April on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene of a crime.
Her attorneys argue she was framed to protect other law enforcement officers involved in O’Keefe’s death. After a mistrial in June, they have tried to block a second trial on some of the charges based on jurors who later indicated they were deadlocked only on the manslaughter count.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court last week cleared the way for a new trial on all three charges. But Read’s attorneys filed a motion in federal court Tuesday arguing that a retrial will violate her constitutional protection against double jeopardy.
A federal judge gave the state until Feb. 26 to respond and scheduled a hearing for March 5.
Woman sues fertility clinic, saying she gave birth to another patient’s baby
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Krystena Murray became pregnant after undergoing in vitro fertilization two years ago, and said she was unaware until she gave birth that the fertility clinic had made a fateful mistake.
In December 2023, Murray delivered a healthy baby boy. But she also knew immediately that it didn’t develop from one of her own lab-fertilized eggs. The baby was Black, while Murray and her sperm donor are both white. She says she later learned doctors had transferred another patient’s embryo instead of her own.
Regardless, Murray resolved to raise the child. But after reporting the mix-up to the fertility clinic, she says, its staff tracked down and notified the baby’s biological parents. They demanded custody, Murray said, and she gave up the 5-month-old boy to avoid a legal fight she couldn’t win.
Murray, 38, of Savannah filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday against Coastal Fertility Specialists, alleging the clinic’s negligence in mixing up her embryos with the other couple’s caused her ongoing pain and anguish.
“I have never felt so violated and the situation has left me emotionally and physically broken,” Murray told reporters during a virtual news conference. “I spent my entire life wanting to be a mom. I loved, nurtured and grew my child and I would have done literally anything to keep him.”
Coastal Fertility Specialists operates a clinic in Savannah and four others in neighboring South Carolina. The medical practice apologized in an emailed statement for what it called “an unprecedented error that resulted in an embryo transfer mix-up.” It said the staff has adopted new safeguards to prevent similar mistakes from happening in the future.
“This was an isolated event with no further patients affected,” the statement said. “We are doing everything we can to make things right for those affected by this incident.”
Murray said everything seemed normal when she began treatment in early 2023. She did injections to stimulate production of eggs, which were later harvested and fertilized in a lab using a donor’s sperm. She said she became pregnant the second time an embryo was implanted in her uterus.
But her lawsuit says the clinic’s “extreme and outrageous” mistake caused Murray to be “turned into an unwitting surrogate, against her will, for another couple.” She’s seeking unspecified monetary damages.
Her attorney, Adam Wolf, said Murray still doesn’t know what happened to her own embryos. It’s still unclear how the mix-up occurred, he said.
Wolf’s law firm has represented more than 1,000 patients taking action against fertility clinics, often for mistakes such as embryos being lost or damaged from being dropped on the ground or being stored in malfunctioning freezers. He said transferring the wrong embryo to a patient appears to be rare.
“Fertility clinics engage in vitally important work,” Wolf said, adding: “With that amazing work comes a real responsibility. And when fertility clinics make mistakes like this, the consequences are life-altering.”
Murray recalled the day she gave birth and how her joy quickly gave way to confusion and fear.
If this child couldn’t be hers genetically, she wondered, whose child was he? And could they take him away?
That fear kept Murray from posting pictures of the baby on social media, her lawsuit says, or even showing him to friends and family initially. Soon after she gave birth, Murray kept her newborn covered in a blanket to avoid questions at a funeral she attended.
Murray took a DNA test early last year that confirmed the baby didn’t come from one of her embryos. Wolf said his firm notified Coastal Fertility Specialists soon after because Murray hoped the clinic would improve its procedures and safeguards.
The clinic determined who the child’s biological parents were, Wolf said, and let them know Murray had given birth after receiving one of their embryos.
Murray said the couple sued her for custody last year. She volunteered to give up the baby, she said, after her lawyers told her she had no chance of winning in court.
That was last May, when the baby was 5 months old. Murray said she hasn’t seen him since.
“I considered the consequences of IVF going in,” Murray said, including the risks of bleeding, infection, sterility and possibly death.
“Never once did I consider I might birth someone else’s child and have them taken from me,” she said. “And I feel like that should be something that women are aware of as an actual possibility.”
Washington
Trump administration halts support for representing unaccompanied children in immigration court
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Tuesday stopped support for legal representation in immigration court for children who enter the United States alone, a setback for those fighting deportation who can’t afford a lawyer.
The Acacia Center for Justice says it serves 26,000 migrant children under its federal contract. The Interior Department gave no explanation for the stop-work order, telling the group only that it was done for “causes outside of your control” and should not be interpreted as a judgment of poor performance. The halt remains in effect until further notice.
The Interior Department and Health and Human Services Department, which oversees unaccompanied migrant children, did not respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.
Acacia says it runs the legal aid program through a network of 85 organizations nationwide that represent children under 18.
The halt comes shortly after the Justice Department briefly stopped support for other contacts to provide legal information and guidance to people facing deportation. It restored funding after being sued by advocacy groups.
People fighting deportation may hire attorneys at their own expense, but the government does not provide them. Groups that rely on federal support to represent children said the most vulnerable would suffer most under the decision to halt work on the $200 million contract.
“Expecting a child to represent themself in immigration court absurd and deeply unjust,” said Christine Lin, director of training and technical assistance at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies.
Florida
Man charged with attempted murder after shooting 2 men he thought were Palestinians
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man has been charged with two counts of attempted murder after opening fire on two men in Miami Beach who he thought were Palestinians.
According to an arrest report, Mordechai Brafman shot at the men 17 times in the “unprovoked” attack, telling officers that while driving his truck, he “saw two Palestinians” and opened fire on their car, thinking he had killed the pair. But the men survived, one suffering a shot to the shoulder and the other grazed by a bullet.
Brafman, 27, is being held without bond on second-degree attempted murder charges at a county jail in Miami, records show. He has also been ordered to stay away from the victims, an Israeli father and son who were vacationing in South Florida, according to the Miami Herald.
Brafman’s attorney Dustin Tischler has said his client was experiencing a “severe mental health crisis” at the time of the shooting, which caused him to “fear for his life.”
“It is believed that his ability to make sound judgments was significantly compromised,” Tischler said in a statement to The Associated Press, adding that Brafman is seeking “necessary treatment” while cooperating with law enforcement.
The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, has called for federal hate crime charges against Brafman, saying his alleged bias against Palestinians should warrant the charges regardless of the victims’ ethnicity.
Connecticut
Man pleads guilty in 2022 stray-bullet shooting of Olympian’s mom
WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man has pleaded guilty to murder in the stray-bullet killing of a Puerto Rican Olympic athlete’s mother.
Jasper Greene of New Haven was one of three men charged in the death of Mabel Martinez Antongiorgi on April 9, 2022. The 56-year-old woman was sewing in her home in Waterbury, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Hartford, when a bullet flew through a wall and hit her in the head.
Martinez Antongiorgi’s daughter Yarimar Mercado Martinez competed for the family’s native Puerto Rico at the 2016 and COVID-19-delayed 2020 Games. The athlete was in Brazil for another competition when her mother was killed.
As part of his plea deal, Greene faces a 35-year sentence for murder, but has the right to argue for 30 years at his June 3 sentencing, according to a Waterbury Superior Court clerk. The single murder charge carries a mandatory 25-year minimum sentence in Connecticut. Other charges against Greene were dropped as part of the agreement.
According to trial testimony, the fatal shooting stemmed from a dispute that one of the suspects, Franklin Robinson, 41, had with a man who said hello to his girlfriend. Robinson, Greene and another man shot up a car parked on Martinez Antongiorgi’s street, thinking the man was inside it. The third suspect, Levi Brock, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in the case, including murder, and is awaiting trial.
Another bystander was wounded but survived.
Massachusetts
Karen Read asks federal judge to block her retrial on two charges in boyfriend’s death
BOSTON (AP) — Lawyers for Karen Read on Tuesday asked a federal judge to prevent her retrial on two charges related to the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend.
Read, who is accused of ramming into John O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm in January 2022, faces a second trial in April on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene of a crime.
Her attorneys argue she was framed to protect other law enforcement officers involved in O’Keefe’s death. After a mistrial in June, they have tried to block a second trial on some of the charges based on jurors who later indicated they were deadlocked only on the manslaughter count.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court last week cleared the way for a new trial on all three charges. But Read’s attorneys filed a motion in federal court Tuesday arguing that a retrial will violate her constitutional protection against double jeopardy.
A federal judge gave the state until Feb. 26 to respond and scheduled a hearing for March 5.
