Arizona
Uber found liable in sexual assault case and ordered to pay $8.5M
A federal jury has ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to a woman who says one of its drivers raped her during a 2023 trip.
Uber has faced criticism for its safety record, much of it spanning from thousands of incidents of sexual assault reported by both passengers and drivers. Because drivers on the ridesharing platform are categorized as gig workers — working as contractors, rather than company employees — Uber has long maintained that its not liable for their misconduct.
Thursday’s verdict, reached in Arizona, “validates the thousands of survivors who have come forward at great personal risk to demand accountability against Uber,” said Sarah London, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiff — who said the company has put the “focus on profit over passenger safety.”
Uber said it plans to appeal the jury’s decision, and noted that the jury did not find the company to be negligent, nor that its safety systems were “defective.”
The verdict “affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety,” spokesperson Andrew Hasbun said in a statement. He also referenced the fact that the jury did not award the full amount initially requested from the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The lawsuit stems from an Uber ride in November 2023, when the plaintiff was heading to her hotel after celebrating her upcoming graduation from flight attendant training at her boyfriend’s home in Arizona. Partway through the ride, the complaint alleged, the driver stopped the car, entered the back seat and raped the woman.
The lawsuit argued that Uber had long known that its drivers were assaulting passengers, and that it didn’t implement the safety measures needed to stop this from happening.
Uber has previously faced similar allegations of not having sufficient guardrails to protect rider safety. But Uber maintains that sexual assault reports have decreased substantially over the years. According to company reports, 5,981 incidents of sexual assault were reported in U.S. rides between 2017 and 2018 — compared to 2,717 between 2021 and 2022 (the latest years with data available), which Uber says represented 0.0001% of total trips nationwide.
Uber has taken multiple steps to try to fix its problems with safety, including teaming up with Lyft in 2021 to create a database of drivers ousted from their ride-hailing services for complaints over sexual assault and other crimes.
Still, critics stress that there’s more work to be done — and have increasingly called on ridesharing companies to take responsibility for assaults.
The Associated Press does not name people who have said they were sexually abused, unless they come forward publicly or have given consent through their attorneys.
New Mexico
Actor Timothy Busfield indicted on 4 counts of sexual contact with a child
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — “West Wing” and “Field of Dreams” actor Timothy Busfield has been indicted by a grand jury on four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child, a New Mexico prosecutor announced Friday.
The allegations are tied to Busfield’s work as a director on the set of the TV series “The Cleaning Lady” in recent years.
Busfield has denied the allegations, initially filed in court by police, and a defense attorney on Friday said he would “fight these charges at every stage.”
Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman announced the indictment in a social media post.
Busfield had turned himself in to authorities in January and was later released from jail on his own recognizance by a judge who found no pattern of criminal conduct or similar allegations involving children in Busfield’s past.
Busfield is best known for appearances on “The West Wing,” “Field of Dreams” and “Thirtysomething.”
Larry Stein, an attorney for Busfield, did not comment on the sexual contact charge in the indictment but said the grand jury declined to endorse grooming charges sought by prosecutors.
He said in a statement that a detention hearing already “exposed fatal weaknesses in the state’s evidence — gaps that no amount of charging decisions can cure.”
An investigator with the Albuquerque Police Department said a boy reported that Busfield touched him on his private areas over his clothing on one occasion when he was 7 years old and another time when he was 8, according to the initial criminal complaint from police. The boy’s twin told authorities he was also touched by Busfield, but he didn’t say anything right away because he didn’t want to get in trouble, the complaint said.
At a detention hearing last month, Busfield’s attorneys pointed out that the children initially said during interviews with police that Busfield didn’t touch them inappropriately. Busfield’s attorneys then accused the boys’ parents of coaching their children toward incriminating statements after the boys lost lucrative roles on the show.
Maine
U.S. asks court to toss lawsuit alleging Army failed to stop state’s deadliest mass shooting
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The U.S. government wants a judge to dismiss a lawsuit from survivors and relatives of the victims of Maine’s deadliest mass shooting, who say the Army failed them by not intervening before the killings.
The families allege the government was negligent in failing to act on warning signs displayed by the shooter, an Army reservist.
Eighteen people were killed when the 40-year-old reservist opened fire at a bowling alley and a bar and grill in Lewiston in October 2023. An independent commission appointed by Maine’s governor later concluded that there were numerous opportunities for intervention by both Army officials and civilian law enforcement.
In a filing Thursday in Maine federal court, the government urged a judge to toss the lawsuit, saying the court lacks the authority to hear the case and that the families’ claims don’t meet the legal standard to move forward.
The lawsuit alleges that the Army was negligent when it failed to properly investigate the shooter’s mental condition. But the government says the shooter was “solely responsible” for the attack and the government should not be held liable for his actions.
Attorneys for 100 survivors and victims’ family members announced the filing of the lawsuit last year. They then refiled their lawsuit in September following a U.S. Department of Defense watchdog report that faulted the Army for a high rate of failure to report violent threats by service members.
“Unfortunately, the government’s motion was predictable and expected. The government’s motion is a lengthy denial of any legal responsibility for broken promises to protect the community it pledges to defend. We look forward to filing our response,” said Travis Brennan and Ben Gideon, attorneys for the families, in a Friday statement.
The lawsuit faults the Army, U.S. Department of Defense and Keller Army Community Hospital for negligence, and names the U.S. government as the defendant. The lawsuit said the defendants failed to “respond to warning signs and an explicit threat to commit a mass shooting” by the shooter, Robert Card.
Card was found dead by suicide two days after the shootings.
The attorneys have said the Army did not act despite being aware of Card’s mental health decline. Card’s mental health spiral led to his hospitalization and left him paranoid, delusional and expressing homicidal ideations, plaintiffs said. He even produced a “hit list” of those he wanted to attack, they said.
The Lewiston shootings led to new guns laws in Maine, a state with a long tradition of hunting and gun ownership. The laws prompted legal action on the part of gun rights advocates in the state and remain a contentious topic more than two years later.
Texas
Doctor indicted on charges he falsified records to block patients’ liver transplants
A Houston doctor has been indicted on charges of falsifying medical records for five patients, making them ineligible to receive a liver transplant, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.
Dr. John Stevenson Bynon Jr. was indicted by a grand jury in Houston last month on five counts of false statements relating to health care matters.
Bynon is accused of making false statements in his role as director of abdominal organ transplantation and surgical director for liver transplantation at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston.
Of the five patients detailed in an indictment made public on Thursday, three died and two others were able to get liver transplants at different hospitals.
Patients, their families, and other members of their medical care team were unaware Bynon allegedly made false statements in their medical records, according to court records.
“Dr. Bynon is alleged to have betrayed the most sacred duty of a medical professional — to heal,” U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei said in a statement. “He stole years and hope from those who trusted him most by falsifying records and preventing patients from receiving organ transplants.”
Samy Khalil, Bynon’s attorney, told reporters outside the federal courthouse after the doctor’s initial court appearance Thursday afternoon that Bynon is a talented organ transplant surgeon who has performed over 2,000 transplants over his 40-year career.
“Nothing he did was unlawful. Everything that he did was lawful and in good faith,” Khalil said. “We look forward to clearing his name in a court of law and educating, frankly, the government on the medical concepts that undergird this totally, totally misguided prosecution.”
Memorial Hermann Health System and UTHealth Houston, who employs Bynon, did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.
The indictment and a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston did not detail a motive for why Bynon allegedly altered patient records. Angela Dodge, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
After the accusations against Bynon were first made public in April 2024, Memorial Hermann shut down its liver and kidney transplant program. Memorial Hermann reactivated its transplant program a year later.
The families of several patients who died while waiting for liver transplants have sued Bynon in Houston civil court, wanting to know if their loved ones were denied liver transplants due to Bynon’s actions. The lawsuits remain pending.
The indictment alleges Bynon changed the records of five patients from March 2023 to March 2024.
One patient was ineligible to receive a donor organ offer for approximately 149 days and died in February 2024 under Bynon’s care, according to the indictment.
Another patient was ineligible to receive a donor organ offer for approximately 69 days and died in December 2023 during a surgery to receive a new liver.
A third patient who required an “urgent liver transplantation” died in December 2023, two days after Bynon allegedly entered false donor matching criteria for the patient that “severely restricted” or made the patient “functionally ineligible to receive a lifesaving donor organ offer,” according to the indictment.
Two other patients received successful liver transplants after going to other hospitals.
If convicted, Bynon faces up to five years in federal prison for each count.
In February 2025, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which manages the country’s organ donation program, declared Memorial Hermann to be a member not in good standing. The designation is the most severe action that the transplantation network can take and tells the public that one of its members has shown a serious lapse in patient safety or quality of care.
Uber found liable in sexual assault case and ordered to pay $8.5M
A federal jury has ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to a woman who says one of its drivers raped her during a 2023 trip.
Uber has faced criticism for its safety record, much of it spanning from thousands of incidents of sexual assault reported by both passengers and drivers. Because drivers on the ridesharing platform are categorized as gig workers — working as contractors, rather than company employees — Uber has long maintained that its not liable for their misconduct.
Thursday’s verdict, reached in Arizona, “validates the thousands of survivors who have come forward at great personal risk to demand accountability against Uber,” said Sarah London, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiff — who said the company has put the “focus on profit over passenger safety.”
Uber said it plans to appeal the jury’s decision, and noted that the jury did not find the company to be negligent, nor that its safety systems were “defective.”
The verdict “affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety,” spokesperson Andrew Hasbun said in a statement. He also referenced the fact that the jury did not award the full amount initially requested from the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The lawsuit stems from an Uber ride in November 2023, when the plaintiff was heading to her hotel after celebrating her upcoming graduation from flight attendant training at her boyfriend’s home in Arizona. Partway through the ride, the complaint alleged, the driver stopped the car, entered the back seat and raped the woman.
The lawsuit argued that Uber had long known that its drivers were assaulting passengers, and that it didn’t implement the safety measures needed to stop this from happening.
Uber has previously faced similar allegations of not having sufficient guardrails to protect rider safety. But Uber maintains that sexual assault reports have decreased substantially over the years. According to company reports, 5,981 incidents of sexual assault were reported in U.S. rides between 2017 and 2018 — compared to 2,717 between 2021 and 2022 (the latest years with data available), which Uber says represented 0.0001% of total trips nationwide.
Uber has taken multiple steps to try to fix its problems with safety, including teaming up with Lyft in 2021 to create a database of drivers ousted from their ride-hailing services for complaints over sexual assault and other crimes.
Still, critics stress that there’s more work to be done — and have increasingly called on ridesharing companies to take responsibility for assaults.
The Associated Press does not name people who have said they were sexually abused, unless they come forward publicly or have given consent through their attorneys.
New Mexico
Actor Timothy Busfield indicted on 4 counts of sexual contact with a child
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — “West Wing” and “Field of Dreams” actor Timothy Busfield has been indicted by a grand jury on four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child, a New Mexico prosecutor announced Friday.
The allegations are tied to Busfield’s work as a director on the set of the TV series “The Cleaning Lady” in recent years.
Busfield has denied the allegations, initially filed in court by police, and a defense attorney on Friday said he would “fight these charges at every stage.”
Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman announced the indictment in a social media post.
Busfield had turned himself in to authorities in January and was later released from jail on his own recognizance by a judge who found no pattern of criminal conduct or similar allegations involving children in Busfield’s past.
Busfield is best known for appearances on “The West Wing,” “Field of Dreams” and “Thirtysomething.”
Larry Stein, an attorney for Busfield, did not comment on the sexual contact charge in the indictment but said the grand jury declined to endorse grooming charges sought by prosecutors.
He said in a statement that a detention hearing already “exposed fatal weaknesses in the state’s evidence — gaps that no amount of charging decisions can cure.”
An investigator with the Albuquerque Police Department said a boy reported that Busfield touched him on his private areas over his clothing on one occasion when he was 7 years old and another time when he was 8, according to the initial criminal complaint from police. The boy’s twin told authorities he was also touched by Busfield, but he didn’t say anything right away because he didn’t want to get in trouble, the complaint said.
At a detention hearing last month, Busfield’s attorneys pointed out that the children initially said during interviews with police that Busfield didn’t touch them inappropriately. Busfield’s attorneys then accused the boys’ parents of coaching their children toward incriminating statements after the boys lost lucrative roles on the show.
Maine
U.S. asks court to toss lawsuit alleging Army failed to stop state’s deadliest mass shooting
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The U.S. government wants a judge to dismiss a lawsuit from survivors and relatives of the victims of Maine’s deadliest mass shooting, who say the Army failed them by not intervening before the killings.
The families allege the government was negligent in failing to act on warning signs displayed by the shooter, an Army reservist.
Eighteen people were killed when the 40-year-old reservist opened fire at a bowling alley and a bar and grill in Lewiston in October 2023. An independent commission appointed by Maine’s governor later concluded that there were numerous opportunities for intervention by both Army officials and civilian law enforcement.
In a filing Thursday in Maine federal court, the government urged a judge to toss the lawsuit, saying the court lacks the authority to hear the case and that the families’ claims don’t meet the legal standard to move forward.
The lawsuit alleges that the Army was negligent when it failed to properly investigate the shooter’s mental condition. But the government says the shooter was “solely responsible” for the attack and the government should not be held liable for his actions.
Attorneys for 100 survivors and victims’ family members announced the filing of the lawsuit last year. They then refiled their lawsuit in September following a U.S. Department of Defense watchdog report that faulted the Army for a high rate of failure to report violent threats by service members.
“Unfortunately, the government’s motion was predictable and expected. The government’s motion is a lengthy denial of any legal responsibility for broken promises to protect the community it pledges to defend. We look forward to filing our response,” said Travis Brennan and Ben Gideon, attorneys for the families, in a Friday statement.
The lawsuit faults the Army, U.S. Department of Defense and Keller Army Community Hospital for negligence, and names the U.S. government as the defendant. The lawsuit said the defendants failed to “respond to warning signs and an explicit threat to commit a mass shooting” by the shooter, Robert Card.
Card was found dead by suicide two days after the shootings.
The attorneys have said the Army did not act despite being aware of Card’s mental health decline. Card’s mental health spiral led to his hospitalization and left him paranoid, delusional and expressing homicidal ideations, plaintiffs said. He even produced a “hit list” of those he wanted to attack, they said.
The Lewiston shootings led to new guns laws in Maine, a state with a long tradition of hunting and gun ownership. The laws prompted legal action on the part of gun rights advocates in the state and remain a contentious topic more than two years later.
Texas
Doctor indicted on charges he falsified records to block patients’ liver transplants
A Houston doctor has been indicted on charges of falsifying medical records for five patients, making them ineligible to receive a liver transplant, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.
Dr. John Stevenson Bynon Jr. was indicted by a grand jury in Houston last month on five counts of false statements relating to health care matters.
Bynon is accused of making false statements in his role as director of abdominal organ transplantation and surgical director for liver transplantation at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston.
Of the five patients detailed in an indictment made public on Thursday, three died and two others were able to get liver transplants at different hospitals.
Patients, their families, and other members of their medical care team were unaware Bynon allegedly made false statements in their medical records, according to court records.
“Dr. Bynon is alleged to have betrayed the most sacred duty of a medical professional — to heal,” U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei said in a statement. “He stole years and hope from those who trusted him most by falsifying records and preventing patients from receiving organ transplants.”
Samy Khalil, Bynon’s attorney, told reporters outside the federal courthouse after the doctor’s initial court appearance Thursday afternoon that Bynon is a talented organ transplant surgeon who has performed over 2,000 transplants over his 40-year career.
“Nothing he did was unlawful. Everything that he did was lawful and in good faith,” Khalil said. “We look forward to clearing his name in a court of law and educating, frankly, the government on the medical concepts that undergird this totally, totally misguided prosecution.”
Memorial Hermann Health System and UTHealth Houston, who employs Bynon, did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.
The indictment and a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston did not detail a motive for why Bynon allegedly altered patient records. Angela Dodge, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
After the accusations against Bynon were first made public in April 2024, Memorial Hermann shut down its liver and kidney transplant program. Memorial Hermann reactivated its transplant program a year later.
The families of several patients who died while waiting for liver transplants have sued Bynon in Houston civil court, wanting to know if their loved ones were denied liver transplants due to Bynon’s actions. The lawsuits remain pending.
The indictment alleges Bynon changed the records of five patients from March 2023 to March 2024.
One patient was ineligible to receive a donor organ offer for approximately 149 days and died in February 2024 under Bynon’s care, according to the indictment.
Another patient was ineligible to receive a donor organ offer for approximately 69 days and died in December 2023 during a surgery to receive a new liver.
A third patient who required an “urgent liver transplantation” died in December 2023, two days after Bynon allegedly entered false donor matching criteria for the patient that “severely restricted” or made the patient “functionally ineligible to receive a lifesaving donor organ offer,” according to the indictment.
Two other patients received successful liver transplants after going to other hospitals.
If convicted, Bynon faces up to five years in federal prison for each count.
In February 2025, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which manages the country’s organ donation program, declared Memorial Hermann to be a member not in good standing. The designation is the most severe action that the transplantation network can take and tells the public that one of its members has shown a serious lapse in patient safety or quality of care.
