Wisconsin
Teen charged in parents’ deaths is accused of plotting to kill Donald Trump
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin teenager charged in the deaths of his parents faces wider allegations that he killed them to “obtain the financial means” to assassinate President Donald Trump and overthrow the government, according to a recently unsealed federal warrant.
Nikita Casap, 17, was charged last month by Waukesha County authorities with first-degree murder, theft and other crimes in the deaths of his mother, Tatiana Casap, and his stepfather, Donald Mayer.
Authorities allege the teenager fatally shot them at their home outside Milwaukee in February and lived with the decomposing bodies for weeks before fleeing with $14,000 cash, passports and the family dog. He was arrested last month in Kansas.
Casap, in custody at the Waukesha County jail on a $1 million bond, is due in court next month to enter a plea. County prosecutors have offered a glimpse of the federal allegations, which were outlined in an FBI warrant unsealed Friday.
Federal authorities accuse Casap of planning his parents’ murders, buying a drone and explosives, and sharing his plans with others, including a Russian speaker. His intentions are detailed in a three-page antisemitic manifesto praising Adolf Hitler. The warrant filed at the federal court in Milwaukee also contains excerpts of communications on TikTok and the Telegram messenger app.
“Casap appears to have written a manifest calling for the assassination of the President of the United States. He was in touch with other parties about his plan to kill the President and overthrow the government of the United States,” the search warrant says. “The killing of his parents appeared to be an effort to obtain the financial means and autonomy necessary to carrying out his plan.”
In court, prosecutors alleged Casap was in touch with a person who speaks Russian and shared a plan to flee to Ukraine. Authorities found him in Kansas with money, passports, a car and the family’s dog.
Federal prosecutors alleged Casap’s manifesto outlined his reasons for wanting to kill Trump and included ideas about how he would live in Ukraine.
Citing Casap’s writings, the federal warrant said the teenager wanted to spur governmental collapse by “by getting rid of the president and perhaps the vice president.”
Phone and online messages seeking comment were left Sunday for Casap’s public defender, Nicole Ostrowski. In court last month, she moved to dismiss some of the charges against her client, including theft, arguing that prosecutors had not laid out their case. She’s also noted her client’s age during court proceedings.
“He is young, he is still in high school,” she said on March 12.
County authorities also charged Casap with hiding a corpse, theft and misappropriating identification to obtain money.
Officers found the bodies of Tatiana Casap, 35; and Mayer, 51, on Feb. 28. Family members requested a well-being check after Mayer didn’t report for work and Nikita Casap skipped school for about two weeks.
Authorities believe the parents were killed weeks earlier. Prosecutors said in court that the couple’s bodies were so badly decomposed that they had to be identified through dental records.
New York
Jury selected for Sarah Palin’s libel suit against The New York Times
NEW YORK (AP) — A jury was selected Monday to hear a retrial of Sarah Palin’s claims that The New York Times libeled her in an editorial eight years ago.
Opening statements were scheduled for Tuesday as the onetime Republican vice presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska gets another chance to prove to a federal jury that the newspaper defamed her with the 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. Palin said it damaged her reputation and career.
The Times has acknowledged the editorial was inaccurate but said it quickly corrected the “honest mistake.”
During a jury selection process that lasted less than an hour, Judge Jed S. Rakoff in Manhattan gave jurors a brief description of the case, saying that the plaintiff was Sarah Palin and the defendant was The New York Times, “complete unknowns I’m sure.”
The trial, expected to last up to two weeks, comes after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the case last year.
In February 2022, Rakoff rejected Palin’s claims in a ruling issued while a jury deliberated. The judge then let jurors deliver their verdict, which also went against Palin.
In restoring the lawsuit, the 2nd Circuit said Rakoff’s dismissal ruling improperly intruded on the jury’s work. It also cited flaws in the trial, saying there was erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction and an erroneous response to a question from the jury.
Before jury selection began Monday, the sometimes self-deprecating and humor-prone Rakoff told lawyers that the appeals court “seems to think I got it wrong in a lot of ways.”
He said that on Friday, he “went back and read the entire opinion, painful though it was.”
The retrial occurs as President Donald Trump and others in agreement with his views of news coverage have been aggressive toward media outlets when they believe there has been unjust treatment.
Trump sued CBS News for $20 billion over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and also sued the Des Moines Register over an Iowa election poll that turned out to be inaccurate. ABC News settled a lawsuit with Trump over its incorrect claim the president had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
Kenneth G. Turkel, a lawyer for Palin, left the courthouse Monday without commenting.
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, said Palin’s claim stemmed from “a passing reference to an event in an editorial that was not about Sarah Palin.”
“That reference was an unintended error, and quickly corrected. We’re confident we will prevail and intend to vigorously defend the case,” Stadtlander said in a statement.
Idaho
Strict abortion ban loosened by judge’s ruling on medical exemptions
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An abortion in Idaho is not prohibited if pregnancy complications could cause a woman’s death, even if that death “is neither imminent nor assured,” a state judge said Friday in a ruling that loosens one of the strictest abortion bans in the U.S.
Four women have sued over Idaho’s strict abortion bans. The women, who are represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, aren’t asking for the state’s abortion ban to be overturned. Instead, they want the judge to clarify and expand the exceptions to the strict ban so people facing serious pregnancy complications can receive abortions before they are at death’s door.
A representative for the Idaho attorney general’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the ruling.
The state’s near-total ban currently makes performing an abortion a felony at any stage of pregnancy unless it is “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.”
Judge Jason Scott issued the ruling broadening the medical exception to the ban, allowing doctors to perform an abortion if “good faith medical judgment” shows a patient with an existing medical condition or pregnancy complication faces a risk of dying at some point without an abortion.
The Center for Reproductive Rights said while people in dire circumstances will able to receive abortion care in Idaho, pregnant people with lethal fetal conditions don’t qualify unless the condition also poses a risk to the mother’s life.
“Pregnant Idahoans whose health is in danger shouldn’t be forced to remain pregnant, and we are glad the court recognized that today. But this decision leaves behind so many people, including some of the women who brought this case,” said Gail Deady, a center staff attorney. “No one should have to choose between carrying a doomed pregnancy against their will or fleeing the state if they can.”
The center noted the judge’s ruling also prevents people at risk of death from self-harm due to mental health conditions from accessing abortion care.
“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster hearing this decision,” plaintiff Jennifer Adkins said. “This cruel law turned our family tragedy into an unimaginable trauma. No one wants to learn that your baby has a deadly condition and will not survive, and that your own life is at risk on top of that.”
Connecticut
Driver acquitted in bikers’ deaths pleads guilty to impaired driving
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A commercial truck driver who was acquitted in the 2019 deaths of seven motorcyclists in New Hampshire pleaded guilty and was sentenced Monday for driving under the influence in Connecticut a month before the deadly crash — an offense that should have resulted in his license being revoked.
Volodymyr Zhukovskyy appeared in Hartford Superior Court and entered an Alford plea, which means he did not admit guilt but acknowledged the state had enough evidence to win a conviction at trial. The plea results in a conviction, and he was sentenced to 18 months of probation.
“He clearly understands the significance of this,” Zhukovskyy’s lawyer, John O’Brien, said during the brief court proceeding.
Zhukovskyy, of West Springfield, Massachusetts, was arrested for driving under the influence in East Windsor, Connecticut, on May 11, 2019. Connecticut officials alerted the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, but Zhukovskyy’s license wasn’t immediately suspended due to a backlog of out-of-state notifications about driving offenses.
On June 21, 2019, Zhukovskyy was driving a truck towing a flatbed trailer in Randolph, New Hampshire, that collided with the motorcyclists, killing seven members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, an organization of Marine Corps veterans and their spouses in New England.
A jury in 2022 found him not guilty of multiple manslaughter and negligent homicide charges.
At his trial, prosecutors argued that Zhukovskyy — who had taken heroin, fentanyl and cocaine the day of the crash — repeatedly swerved back and forth before the collision and told police he caused it. But a judge dismissed eight impairment charges and his attorneys said the lead biker was drunk and not looking where he was going when he lost control of his motorcycle and slid in front of Zhukovskyy’s truck.
Zhukovskyy, who came to the U.S. as a child from Ukraine and had permanent residency status, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the 2022 verdict. A judge ordered his deportation last year, but the U.S. has paused repatriation flights to Ukraine due to the war with Russia and authorized temporary protected status for qualified Ukrainians.
Teen charged in parents’ deaths is accused of plotting to kill Donald Trump
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin teenager charged in the deaths of his parents faces wider allegations that he killed them to “obtain the financial means” to assassinate President Donald Trump and overthrow the government, according to a recently unsealed federal warrant.
Nikita Casap, 17, was charged last month by Waukesha County authorities with first-degree murder, theft and other crimes in the deaths of his mother, Tatiana Casap, and his stepfather, Donald Mayer.
Authorities allege the teenager fatally shot them at their home outside Milwaukee in February and lived with the decomposing bodies for weeks before fleeing with $14,000 cash, passports and the family dog. He was arrested last month in Kansas.
Casap, in custody at the Waukesha County jail on a $1 million bond, is due in court next month to enter a plea. County prosecutors have offered a glimpse of the federal allegations, which were outlined in an FBI warrant unsealed Friday.
Federal authorities accuse Casap of planning his parents’ murders, buying a drone and explosives, and sharing his plans with others, including a Russian speaker. His intentions are detailed in a three-page antisemitic manifesto praising Adolf Hitler. The warrant filed at the federal court in Milwaukee also contains excerpts of communications on TikTok and the Telegram messenger app.
“Casap appears to have written a manifest calling for the assassination of the President of the United States. He was in touch with other parties about his plan to kill the President and overthrow the government of the United States,” the search warrant says. “The killing of his parents appeared to be an effort to obtain the financial means and autonomy necessary to carrying out his plan.”
In court, prosecutors alleged Casap was in touch with a person who speaks Russian and shared a plan to flee to Ukraine. Authorities found him in Kansas with money, passports, a car and the family’s dog.
Federal prosecutors alleged Casap’s manifesto outlined his reasons for wanting to kill Trump and included ideas about how he would live in Ukraine.
Citing Casap’s writings, the federal warrant said the teenager wanted to spur governmental collapse by “by getting rid of the president and perhaps the vice president.”
Phone and online messages seeking comment were left Sunday for Casap’s public defender, Nicole Ostrowski. In court last month, she moved to dismiss some of the charges against her client, including theft, arguing that prosecutors had not laid out their case. She’s also noted her client’s age during court proceedings.
“He is young, he is still in high school,” she said on March 12.
County authorities also charged Casap with hiding a corpse, theft and misappropriating identification to obtain money.
Officers found the bodies of Tatiana Casap, 35; and Mayer, 51, on Feb. 28. Family members requested a well-being check after Mayer didn’t report for work and Nikita Casap skipped school for about two weeks.
Authorities believe the parents were killed weeks earlier. Prosecutors said in court that the couple’s bodies were so badly decomposed that they had to be identified through dental records.
New York
Jury selected for Sarah Palin’s libel suit against The New York Times
NEW YORK (AP) — A jury was selected Monday to hear a retrial of Sarah Palin’s claims that The New York Times libeled her in an editorial eight years ago.
Opening statements were scheduled for Tuesday as the onetime Republican vice presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska gets another chance to prove to a federal jury that the newspaper defamed her with the 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. Palin said it damaged her reputation and career.
The Times has acknowledged the editorial was inaccurate but said it quickly corrected the “honest mistake.”
During a jury selection process that lasted less than an hour, Judge Jed S. Rakoff in Manhattan gave jurors a brief description of the case, saying that the plaintiff was Sarah Palin and the defendant was The New York Times, “complete unknowns I’m sure.”
The trial, expected to last up to two weeks, comes after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the case last year.
In February 2022, Rakoff rejected Palin’s claims in a ruling issued while a jury deliberated. The judge then let jurors deliver their verdict, which also went against Palin.
In restoring the lawsuit, the 2nd Circuit said Rakoff’s dismissal ruling improperly intruded on the jury’s work. It also cited flaws in the trial, saying there was erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction and an erroneous response to a question from the jury.
Before jury selection began Monday, the sometimes self-deprecating and humor-prone Rakoff told lawyers that the appeals court “seems to think I got it wrong in a lot of ways.”
He said that on Friday, he “went back and read the entire opinion, painful though it was.”
The retrial occurs as President Donald Trump and others in agreement with his views of news coverage have been aggressive toward media outlets when they believe there has been unjust treatment.
Trump sued CBS News for $20 billion over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and also sued the Des Moines Register over an Iowa election poll that turned out to be inaccurate. ABC News settled a lawsuit with Trump over its incorrect claim the president had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
Kenneth G. Turkel, a lawyer for Palin, left the courthouse Monday without commenting.
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, said Palin’s claim stemmed from “a passing reference to an event in an editorial that was not about Sarah Palin.”
“That reference was an unintended error, and quickly corrected. We’re confident we will prevail and intend to vigorously defend the case,” Stadtlander said in a statement.
Idaho
Strict abortion ban loosened by judge’s ruling on medical exemptions
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An abortion in Idaho is not prohibited if pregnancy complications could cause a woman’s death, even if that death “is neither imminent nor assured,” a state judge said Friday in a ruling that loosens one of the strictest abortion bans in the U.S.
Four women have sued over Idaho’s strict abortion bans. The women, who are represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, aren’t asking for the state’s abortion ban to be overturned. Instead, they want the judge to clarify and expand the exceptions to the strict ban so people facing serious pregnancy complications can receive abortions before they are at death’s door.
A representative for the Idaho attorney general’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the ruling.
The state’s near-total ban currently makes performing an abortion a felony at any stage of pregnancy unless it is “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.”
Judge Jason Scott issued the ruling broadening the medical exception to the ban, allowing doctors to perform an abortion if “good faith medical judgment” shows a patient with an existing medical condition or pregnancy complication faces a risk of dying at some point without an abortion.
The Center for Reproductive Rights said while people in dire circumstances will able to receive abortion care in Idaho, pregnant people with lethal fetal conditions don’t qualify unless the condition also poses a risk to the mother’s life.
“Pregnant Idahoans whose health is in danger shouldn’t be forced to remain pregnant, and we are glad the court recognized that today. But this decision leaves behind so many people, including some of the women who brought this case,” said Gail Deady, a center staff attorney. “No one should have to choose between carrying a doomed pregnancy against their will or fleeing the state if they can.”
The center noted the judge’s ruling also prevents people at risk of death from self-harm due to mental health conditions from accessing abortion care.
“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster hearing this decision,” plaintiff Jennifer Adkins said. “This cruel law turned our family tragedy into an unimaginable trauma. No one wants to learn that your baby has a deadly condition and will not survive, and that your own life is at risk on top of that.”
Connecticut
Driver acquitted in bikers’ deaths pleads guilty to impaired driving
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A commercial truck driver who was acquitted in the 2019 deaths of seven motorcyclists in New Hampshire pleaded guilty and was sentenced Monday for driving under the influence in Connecticut a month before the deadly crash — an offense that should have resulted in his license being revoked.
Volodymyr Zhukovskyy appeared in Hartford Superior Court and entered an Alford plea, which means he did not admit guilt but acknowledged the state had enough evidence to win a conviction at trial. The plea results in a conviction, and he was sentenced to 18 months of probation.
“He clearly understands the significance of this,” Zhukovskyy’s lawyer, John O’Brien, said during the brief court proceeding.
Zhukovskyy, of West Springfield, Massachusetts, was arrested for driving under the influence in East Windsor, Connecticut, on May 11, 2019. Connecticut officials alerted the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, but Zhukovskyy’s license wasn’t immediately suspended due to a backlog of out-of-state notifications about driving offenses.
On June 21, 2019, Zhukovskyy was driving a truck towing a flatbed trailer in Randolph, New Hampshire, that collided with the motorcyclists, killing seven members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, an organization of Marine Corps veterans and their spouses in New England.
A jury in 2022 found him not guilty of multiple manslaughter and negligent homicide charges.
At his trial, prosecutors argued that Zhukovskyy — who had taken heroin, fentanyl and cocaine the day of the crash — repeatedly swerved back and forth before the collision and told police he caused it. But a judge dismissed eight impairment charges and his attorneys said the lead biker was drunk and not looking where he was going when he lost control of his motorcycle and slid in front of Zhukovskyy’s truck.
Zhukovskyy, who came to the U.S. as a child from Ukraine and had permanent residency status, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the 2022 verdict. A judge ordered his deportation last year, but the U.S. has paused repatriation flights to Ukraine due to the war with Russia and authorized temporary protected status for qualified Ukrainians.
