South Carolina
Republican House member charged with distributing child sexual abuse material
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A Republican South Carolina House member who prosecutors say used the screen name “joebidennnn69” has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children.
RJ May was arrested Wednesday at his Lexington County home after a lengthy investigation and was scheduled to appear in federal court on Thursday.
An indictment says the three-term Republican used several online names including “joebidennnn69” to exchange files on the Kik social media network.
The indictment didn’t contain any additional details on the charges, which carry prison terms of five to 20 years upon conviction.
May is a political consultant who has angered fellow House Republicans by running campaigns for candidates running against GOP incumbents in primaries.
After his election in 2020, May helped create the Freedom Caucus, a group of the House’s most conservative members who have run their own candidate against the Republican House speaker and refuse to join the Majority Caucus because they say it requires a loyalty pledge.
The mainstream House Republicans aren’t the true conservative heart of the GOP, the group said.
The Freedom Caucus released a statement Wednesday night saying they kicked May out of their group after his arrest.
May was one of the House’s more vocal members after he arrived, frequently criticizing bills and discussing conservative amendments.
“We as legislators have an obligation to insure that out children have no harm done to them,” May said in January 2024 on the House floor during a debate on transgender care for minors.
His oldest son charmed the House in April 2021 when May brought him to visit for his third birthday and the boy practiced his parade wave around the chamber.
But that stopped in October, when federal prosecutors filed court papers saying the investigators seized a number of electronic devices from May, and they anticipated filing a criminal indictment.
The documents provided no further details, but speculation has grown about the case. Many have distanced themselves from May, who during the current session could largely be seen at his corner desk in the back of the 124-seat chamber, mixing with very few colleagues.
Massachusetts
Harvard researcher charged with smuggling frog embryos to be released from federal custody
BOSTON (AP) — A judge released a Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher charged with smuggling frog embryos into the United States on bail Thursday.
Kseniia Petrova, 30, has been in federal custody since February.
Petrova was returning from a vacation in France, where she had stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples for research.
She was later questioned about the samples while passing through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint at Boston Logan International Airport.
She told The Associated Press in an interview in April that she did not realize the items needed to be declared and was not trying to sneak anything into the country. After an interrogation, Petrova was told her visa was being canceled.
Petrova was briefly detained by immigration officials in Vermont, where she filed a petition seeking her release. She was later sent to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana.
The Department of Homeland Security had said in a statement on the social media platform X that Petrova was detained after “lying to federal officers about carrying substances into the country.” They allege that messages on her phone “revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them.”
In May, Petrova was charged with smuggling in Massachusetts as a federal judge in Vermont set the hearing date on her petition. That judge later ruled that the immigration officers’ actions were unlawful, that Petrova didn’t present a danger, and that the embryos were nonliving, nonhazardous and “posed a threat to no one.”
The judge released Petrova from ICE custody, but she remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service on the smuggling charge.
Colleagues and academics have testified on Petrova’s behalf, saying she is doing valuable research to advance cures for cancer.
Colorado
Funeral homeowner who left corpse in hearse for a over a year sentenced to 18 months
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado funeral homeowner who pleaded guilty to leaving a woman’s corpse in the back of a hearse for over a year and improperly stashing the cremated remains of at least 30 people has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, the Denver District Attorney’s Office announced.
Miles Harford, 34, pleaded guilty in April to one felony count of abuse of a corpse and one misdemeanor count of theft. He faced other counts, including forgery and theft, that were dismissed as part of his plea agreement.
His 18-month sentence is the maximum sentence under Colorado law for the charges.
“Nothing will ever undo the terrible pain that Miles Harford caused so many families, but it is our hope that this sentence will provide the family and friends of the deceased with some measure of justice,” Denver District Attorney John Walsh said in a statement Monday. “Harford systematically and shockingly violated his professional and moral obligations, and, for that, he is now being held accountable.”
Harford was arrested last year after the body of a woman named Christina Rosales, who died of Alzheimer’s at age 63, was found in the back of his hearse, covered in blankets. Her remains had been there for about 18 months. Authorities said he had provided the Rosales family with the cremated remains of a different person that he misrepresented as Rosales.
Police also found the cremated remains of other people stashed in boxes throughout Harford’s rental property, including in the crawlspace.
Prosecutors said he treated the bodies and remains “in a way that would outrage normal family sensibilities.”
Harford’s sentencing follows years of other gruesome funeral home cases in Colorado, including one where the owners were accused of storing nearly 200 bodies in a decrepit building and giving families fake cremated remains.
Alabama
Former veterans commissioner sues governor for defamation and wrongful termination
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The former head of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Gov. Kay Ivey of wrongful termination and defamation.
W. Kent Davis, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, filed the lawsuit that accuses the governor of illegally firing him last year. The lawsuit contends the dismissal was retaliation for statements and actions that the governor did not like.
Ivey last year said she was using her “supreme executive power of this state” to fire Davis. Ivey’s office hand-delivered the letter to Davis’ lawyer about 45 minutes after the State Board of Veterans Affairs, in a 3-2 vote, rejected Ivey’s request to remove Davis.
A lawyer for Davis said only the board, which hired Davis, had the ability to fire him.
“We think it’s pretty clear that she did not have the authority to fire him. He did not work at the pleasure of the governor,” Kenny Mendelsohn, a lawyer representing Davis, said.
A spokesperson for Ivey indicated the governor stood by the decision.
“We are very confident Governor Ivey’s necessary actions will stand any court test there may be,” spokesperson Gina Maiola wrote in an email.
Davis and Ivey’s office had a public falling out last year that centered on an American Rescue Plan grant. During the dispute, Davis had filed an ethics complaint against the state mental health commissioner, after the Department of Mental Health cancelled a related agreement to administer the grants. The Alabama Ethics Commission dismissed the complaint.
“I don’t think anybody in this room doubts what the real reason here is. This is retaliation for that ethics complaint,” Davis said.
The governor had accused Davis of failing cooperate with her office and other agency heads and of mishandling an American Rescue Plan grant program. Ivey in an Oct. 18 letter to Davis said the ethics complaint was frivolous and a weaponization of the dispute process.
Davis said his office acted properly and the governor’s actions and statements have interfered with his ability to find other employment.
Arkansas
Families file suit challenging law that requires Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Seven Arkansas families filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging an upcoming state requirement that public school classrooms have posted copies of the Ten Commandments, saying the new law will violate their constitutional rights.
The federal lawsuit challenges a measure Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law earlier this year, similar to a requirement enacted by Louisiana and one that Texas’ governor has said he’ll sign.
The Arkansas law takes effect in August and requires the Ten Commandments to be prominently displayed in public school classrooms and libraries.
“Permanently posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library — rendering them unavoidable — unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture,” the lawsuit said.
The suit was filed on behalf of the families by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The lawsuit names four school districts in northwest Arkansas — Fayetteville, Bentonville, Siloam Springs and Springdale — as defendants.
A spokesperson for Fayetteville schools said the district would not comment on pending litigation, while the other three districts did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Attorney General Tim Griffin said his office was reviewing the lawsuit and considering options.
Attorneys for the families, who are Jewish, Unitarian Universalist or nonreligious, said they planned to ask the federal judge in Fayetteville for a preliminary injunction blocking the law’s enforcement. The attorneys say the law violates longstanding Supreme Court precedent and the families’ First Amendment rights.
“By imposing a Christian-centric translation of the Ten Commandments on our children for nearly every hour of every day of their public-school education, this law will infringe on our rights as parents and create an unwelcoming and religiously coercive school environment for our children,” Samantha Stinson, one of the plaintiffs, said in a news release.
Louisiana was the first state to enact such a requirement, and a federal judge blocked the measure before it was to take effect Jan 1. Proponents of Louisiana’s law say that ruling only applies to the five school boards listed in the suit, but The Associated Press is unaware of any posters being displayed in schools as the litigation continues.
Republican House member charged with distributing child sexual abuse material
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A Republican South Carolina House member who prosecutors say used the screen name “joebidennnn69” has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children.
RJ May was arrested Wednesday at his Lexington County home after a lengthy investigation and was scheduled to appear in federal court on Thursday.
An indictment says the three-term Republican used several online names including “joebidennnn69” to exchange files on the Kik social media network.
The indictment didn’t contain any additional details on the charges, which carry prison terms of five to 20 years upon conviction.
May is a political consultant who has angered fellow House Republicans by running campaigns for candidates running against GOP incumbents in primaries.
After his election in 2020, May helped create the Freedom Caucus, a group of the House’s most conservative members who have run their own candidate against the Republican House speaker and refuse to join the Majority Caucus because they say it requires a loyalty pledge.
The mainstream House Republicans aren’t the true conservative heart of the GOP, the group said.
The Freedom Caucus released a statement Wednesday night saying they kicked May out of their group after his arrest.
May was one of the House’s more vocal members after he arrived, frequently criticizing bills and discussing conservative amendments.
“We as legislators have an obligation to insure that out children have no harm done to them,” May said in January 2024 on the House floor during a debate on transgender care for minors.
His oldest son charmed the House in April 2021 when May brought him to visit for his third birthday and the boy practiced his parade wave around the chamber.
But that stopped in October, when federal prosecutors filed court papers saying the investigators seized a number of electronic devices from May, and they anticipated filing a criminal indictment.
The documents provided no further details, but speculation has grown about the case. Many have distanced themselves from May, who during the current session could largely be seen at his corner desk in the back of the 124-seat chamber, mixing with very few colleagues.
Massachusetts
Harvard researcher charged with smuggling frog embryos to be released from federal custody
BOSTON (AP) — A judge released a Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher charged with smuggling frog embryos into the United States on bail Thursday.
Kseniia Petrova, 30, has been in federal custody since February.
Petrova was returning from a vacation in France, where she had stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples for research.
She was later questioned about the samples while passing through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint at Boston Logan International Airport.
She told The Associated Press in an interview in April that she did not realize the items needed to be declared and was not trying to sneak anything into the country. After an interrogation, Petrova was told her visa was being canceled.
Petrova was briefly detained by immigration officials in Vermont, where she filed a petition seeking her release. She was later sent to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana.
The Department of Homeland Security had said in a statement on the social media platform X that Petrova was detained after “lying to federal officers about carrying substances into the country.” They allege that messages on her phone “revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them.”
In May, Petrova was charged with smuggling in Massachusetts as a federal judge in Vermont set the hearing date on her petition. That judge later ruled that the immigration officers’ actions were unlawful, that Petrova didn’t present a danger, and that the embryos were nonliving, nonhazardous and “posed a threat to no one.”
The judge released Petrova from ICE custody, but she remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service on the smuggling charge.
Colleagues and academics have testified on Petrova’s behalf, saying she is doing valuable research to advance cures for cancer.
Colorado
Funeral homeowner who left corpse in hearse for a over a year sentenced to 18 months
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado funeral homeowner who pleaded guilty to leaving a woman’s corpse in the back of a hearse for over a year and improperly stashing the cremated remains of at least 30 people has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, the Denver District Attorney’s Office announced.
Miles Harford, 34, pleaded guilty in April to one felony count of abuse of a corpse and one misdemeanor count of theft. He faced other counts, including forgery and theft, that were dismissed as part of his plea agreement.
His 18-month sentence is the maximum sentence under Colorado law for the charges.
“Nothing will ever undo the terrible pain that Miles Harford caused so many families, but it is our hope that this sentence will provide the family and friends of the deceased with some measure of justice,” Denver District Attorney John Walsh said in a statement Monday. “Harford systematically and shockingly violated his professional and moral obligations, and, for that, he is now being held accountable.”
Harford was arrested last year after the body of a woman named Christina Rosales, who died of Alzheimer’s at age 63, was found in the back of his hearse, covered in blankets. Her remains had been there for about 18 months. Authorities said he had provided the Rosales family with the cremated remains of a different person that he misrepresented as Rosales.
Police also found the cremated remains of other people stashed in boxes throughout Harford’s rental property, including in the crawlspace.
Prosecutors said he treated the bodies and remains “in a way that would outrage normal family sensibilities.”
Harford’s sentencing follows years of other gruesome funeral home cases in Colorado, including one where the owners were accused of storing nearly 200 bodies in a decrepit building and giving families fake cremated remains.
Alabama
Former veterans commissioner sues governor for defamation and wrongful termination
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The former head of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Gov. Kay Ivey of wrongful termination and defamation.
W. Kent Davis, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, filed the lawsuit that accuses the governor of illegally firing him last year. The lawsuit contends the dismissal was retaliation for statements and actions that the governor did not like.
Ivey last year said she was using her “supreme executive power of this state” to fire Davis. Ivey’s office hand-delivered the letter to Davis’ lawyer about 45 minutes after the State Board of Veterans Affairs, in a 3-2 vote, rejected Ivey’s request to remove Davis.
A lawyer for Davis said only the board, which hired Davis, had the ability to fire him.
“We think it’s pretty clear that she did not have the authority to fire him. He did not work at the pleasure of the governor,” Kenny Mendelsohn, a lawyer representing Davis, said.
A spokesperson for Ivey indicated the governor stood by the decision.
“We are very confident Governor Ivey’s necessary actions will stand any court test there may be,” spokesperson Gina Maiola wrote in an email.
Davis and Ivey’s office had a public falling out last year that centered on an American Rescue Plan grant. During the dispute, Davis had filed an ethics complaint against the state mental health commissioner, after the Department of Mental Health cancelled a related agreement to administer the grants. The Alabama Ethics Commission dismissed the complaint.
“I don’t think anybody in this room doubts what the real reason here is. This is retaliation for that ethics complaint,” Davis said.
The governor had accused Davis of failing cooperate with her office and other agency heads and of mishandling an American Rescue Plan grant program. Ivey in an Oct. 18 letter to Davis said the ethics complaint was frivolous and a weaponization of the dispute process.
Davis said his office acted properly and the governor’s actions and statements have interfered with his ability to find other employment.
Arkansas
Families file suit challenging law that requires Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Seven Arkansas families filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging an upcoming state requirement that public school classrooms have posted copies of the Ten Commandments, saying the new law will violate their constitutional rights.
The federal lawsuit challenges a measure Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law earlier this year, similar to a requirement enacted by Louisiana and one that Texas’ governor has said he’ll sign.
The Arkansas law takes effect in August and requires the Ten Commandments to be prominently displayed in public school classrooms and libraries.
“Permanently posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library — rendering them unavoidable — unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture,” the lawsuit said.
The suit was filed on behalf of the families by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The lawsuit names four school districts in northwest Arkansas — Fayetteville, Bentonville, Siloam Springs and Springdale — as defendants.
A spokesperson for Fayetteville schools said the district would not comment on pending litigation, while the other three districts did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Attorney General Tim Griffin said his office was reviewing the lawsuit and considering options.
Attorneys for the families, who are Jewish, Unitarian Universalist or nonreligious, said they planned to ask the federal judge in Fayetteville for a preliminary injunction blocking the law’s enforcement. The attorneys say the law violates longstanding Supreme Court precedent and the families’ First Amendment rights.
“By imposing a Christian-centric translation of the Ten Commandments on our children for nearly every hour of every day of their public-school education, this law will infringe on our rights as parents and create an unwelcoming and religiously coercive school environment for our children,” Samantha Stinson, one of the plaintiffs, said in a news release.
Louisiana was the first state to enact such a requirement, and a federal judge blocked the measure before it was to take effect Jan 1. Proponents of Louisiana’s law say that ruling only applies to the five school boards listed in the suit, but The Associated Press is unaware of any posters being displayed in schools as the litigation continues.
