HONOLULU (AP) — A Maui doctor was charged Wednesday with second-degree attempted murder after he allegedly tried to kill his wife by pushing her off a hiking trail and hitting her multiple times on the head with a rock, Honolulu police said.
A text message was sent to Gerhardt Konig’s cellphone seeking comment, but there was no immediate response. It was not clear whether he had an attorney, and phones rang unanswered at the Honolulu public defender’s office.
Police said a 36-year-old woman reported the incident Monday morning and was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Two witnesses called 911 and helped the police with their investigation.
Konig fled the scene, prompting an hourslong search and the closure of a state park, police said. Officers arrested him just after 6 p.m. following a brief foot chase and he remained in custody Wednesday.
The couple were hiking on the Pali Puka trail, which traverses a ridge with dramatic ocean and mountain views. The trailhead is a short drive from downtown Honolulu.
Konig is an anesthesiologist at Maui Health, which operates hospitals and clinics in Maui County and is an affiliate of Kaiser Permanente. Maui Health said in a statement to media organizations that he was suspended pending investigation.
Maui Health’s online directory previously listed Konig as a provider, according to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, but his name was no longer in it Wednesday.
Kaiser Permanente said in a statement that Konig is not an employee, but is employed by an independent entity contracted to provide medical services at Maui facilities, including Kaiser’s Wailuku clinic. Kaiser said it has suspended his credentials and his ability to treat patients, pending investigation.
NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. airman has been charged with coercing a 9-year-old girl to share sexually explicit images of herself, after he posed as a 13-year-old on the gaming site Roblox.
David Ibarra, 31, was arraigned Wednesday in a New York federal court after being arrested in February in Anchorage, Alaska, where he was serving on active duty in the Air Force, prosecutors said in a statement.
A judge ordered him to be held pending trial on charges including sexual exploitation of a child. Ibarra’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ibarra was serving as an air transportation specialist Senior Airmen, which mainly manage cargo, according to an Air Force spokesperson.
Prosecutors say the girl, who lives on Long Island, a suburban region east of New York City, met the man on TikTok in August and he asked her to communicate with him on Roblox, telling her he was a 13-year-old boy living in Texas.
He allegedly got the girl to text him from her phone and eventually directed her to create explicit videos and images, while sending her money via Apple Pay.
Ibarra paid her $191 in a series of 17 transactions, prosecutors allege.
The girl’s mother eventually became aware of the messages. Posing as an older sister, she garnered more information about the sender by texting him from her own phone, and he ultimately sent her a selfie revealing part of his face, according to the indictment.
Investigators used Ibarra’s El Paso, Texas-based phone number and searched his iCloud account to confirm his identity, according to prosecutors.
Under interrogation the 31-year-old allegedly admitted to paying the girl for the images, saying he thought the victim was 12. Prosecutors say he acknowledged coercing other girls into sending explicit images as well, including one in New Jersey.
A once-powerful former North Dakota lawmaker was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for traveling to Europe with the intent to pay for sex with a minor.
Former state senator Ray Holmberg’s attorney, Mark Friese, confirmed the sentence to The Associated Press but declined to comment after the hearing, which KFGO radio reported included seven hours of testimony, victim statements and an apology from the shackled 81-year-old.
Holmberg pleaded guilty last year in U.S. District Court in Fargo, North Dakota, to one count of traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual activity.
KFGO reported that during Wednesday’s hearing, the defense and prosecution agreed that Holmberg should serve about three years because of his age and poor health, but federal Judge Daniel Hovland said Holmberg is still a threat to underage boys. Hovland called Holmberg’s character “egregious and despicable” and said that a 37-month sentence wouldn’t deter others.
While Holmberg denied actually having sex with anyone under 18, Hovland said he can “read between the lines,” the radio station reported.
Prosecutors said Holmberg traveled at least 14 times from 2011 to 2021 to Prague, Czech Republic, to pay for sex with adolescent-age boys. In court last year, Holmberg admitted to paying young male masseuses, some of whom he had sexual contact with at an alleged brothel. But he claimed not to know for certain how old they were.
Holmberg served 45 years in the North Dakota Senate. He resigned in 2022 after The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead reported on his many text messages with a man in jail in connection with child sexual abuse material. Holmberg chaired two powerful legislative panels, including the Senate’s budget-writing committee.
Records previously obtained by The Associated Press show that Holmberg made dozens of trips throughout the U.S. and to other countries since 1999. Destinations included cities in more than 30 states as well as Canada, Puerto Rico and Norway. At least one of Holmberg’s trips to Prague was state-funded through a teacher exchange program, the Klemetsrud Puhl wrote in court filings last week.
NEW YORK (AP) — The young chief executive of a startup that claimed to have helped millions of college students apply for financial aid deployed a “brazen fraud” to sell the company to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $175 million, a prosecutor said Wednesday in a closing argument to a jury in New York.
Charlie Javice, who appeared on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list in 2019, is accused of dramatically exaggerating the customer base of her company, which operated under the name Frank.
She and another former top executive face conspiracy and fraud charges.
Frank was created to simplify filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a complex government form used by students to apply for financial aid for college or graduate school.
Javice founded the company when she was in her mid-20s and was the subject of numerous media profiles that lauded her for building a system that would help financially needy students navigate a thicket of rules and eligibility requirements to get tuition aid.
The company once seemed like a pioneer among businesses that cater to college-age students, who banks encourage to open checking or credit card accounts in the hopes they’ll become lifelong customers.
Access to Frank’s client list is one of the things JPMorgan Chase was after when it entered into talks to buy the company in 2021.
At the time, Javice was claiming Frank had over 4.25 million clients. In reality, it had around 400,000, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Chiuchiolo told the jury.
Citing emails, text messages and other evidence, Chiuchiolo said Javice repeatedly lied to JPMorgan in the summer of 2021 to secure a buyout that would earn her $45 million.
When JPMorgan Chase sought to verify the client list, Javice first approached her company’s head of engineering, asking if he could produce “synthetic data” to show the company had over 4 million customers, the prosecutor said.
But the employee refused, saying he “would not do anything illegal,” Chiuchiolo said.
Javice eventually hired an outside data scientist for $105,000 to create a data set showing over 4.2 million students, prosecutors said.
Javice did not testify during the five-week trial. The Miami Beach, Florida, resident was arrested in April 2023 and is free on bail. The jury was expected to begin deliberations Thursday.
DECATUR, Ala. (AP) — The murder trial of an Alabama police officer who fatally shot an armed Black man in his front yard hangs in the balance as a judge considers whether the officer is shielded by state self-defense immunity laws.
Morgan County circuit court judge Charles Elliott’s decision will largely hinge upon whether the officer had the legitimate authority to be at the man’s house in the first place.
Mac Marquette, 25, is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Steve Perkins shortly before 2 a.m. on Sept. 29, 2023, while accompanying a tow-truck driver to repossess Perkins’ truck at his home in Decatur.
The northern Alabama city of 60,000 people was roiled with protest after Perkins’ death, and the judge had to issue warnings to silence outcries in the packed courtroom during the immunity hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Alabama’s “stand your ground” law grants immunity from prosecution to any individual who uses deadly force as long as they are in a place they have a right to be and reasonably believe they are in danger.
Prosecutors didn’t contest the defense’s claim that Perkins briefly pointed his gun towards Marquette before the officer fired 17 shots, killing Perkins, based on body camera footage shown in court Tuesday. The footage considered was from the two officers who accompanied Marquette and the tow-truck driver — video from Marquette’s body camera wasn’t entered into evidence on Tuesday.
The contention was about whether Marquette had a right to be there in the first place. If the judge decides that Marquette was operating outside of the scope of his duties as an officer, then Marquette will not be shielded by self-defense laws and his trial will proceed in April.
Alabama law requires a court order if there is a “breach of the peace” in the initial attempt to seize the vehicle, and law enforcement is prohibited from assisting the repossession without a judge’s authorization. Combs was authorized by Perkins’ creditor to repossess the vehicle but not a judge.
Defense attorneys said that Marquette and the two other officers who were dispatched with him had an obligation to accompany the tow-truck driver, Caleb Combs, on his second effort to repossess Perkins’ truck. Combs called officers after Perkins pointed a gun at his chest in the initial vehicle seizure attempt.
Officers testified that the decision to accompany the tow-truck driver was approved by their superiors because these types of “standby” operations to “keep the peace” are routine for patrol shifts. Officers also said that it is a well established tactic to approach houses from out of sight.
Chief assistant district attorney Garrick Vickery said “there was no reason” for officers to be at Perkins’ house without a court order.
Vickery also argued that officers weren’t keeping the peace because they intentionally positioned themselves out of Perkins’ eyesight.
