Washington
Bannon wins Supreme Court order likely to lead to dismissal of contempt of Congress conviction
WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, on Monday won a Supreme Court order that is expected to lead to the dismissal of his criminal conviction for refusing to testify to Congress.
Prodded by the Trump administration, the justices threw out an appellate ruling upholding Bannon’s conviction for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
The move frees a trial judge to act on the Republican administration’s pending request to dismiss Bannon’s conviction and indictment “in the interests of justice.”
The dismissal would be largely symbolic. Bannon served a four-month prison term after a jury convicted him of contempt of Congress in 2022. A federal appeals court in Washington had upheld the conviction.
The justices also issued a similar order in the case of former Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, who was pardoned by Trump last year.
Sittenfeld had served 16 months in federal prison after a jury convicted him of bribery and attempted extortion in 2022. The high court order allows a lower court to consider dismissing his indictment.
The Justice Department brought the case against Bannon during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, but it changed course after Trump took office again last year.
Bannon had initially argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege. But the House panel and the Justice Department contended such a claim was dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the Capitol riot.
Bannon separately has pleaded guilty in a New York state court to defrauding donors to a private effort to build a wall on the U.S. southern border, as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid jail time. That conviction is unaffected by the Supreme Court action.
New York
Appeals court reinstates $656M judgment against Palestinian Authority and PLO
NEW YORK (AP) — A $656 million judgment against Palestinian authorities has been reinstated by appeals judges, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of Americans killed or wounded in attacks in Israel.
The decision from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes a decade after it first tossed out a verdict against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority on the grounds that U.S. courts couldn’t consider lawsuits against foreign groups over overseas attacks that were not aimed at the United States.
But the appeals court reinstated the judgment in light of a Supreme Court ruling last June upholding a 2019 law enacted by Congress to allow the victims’ lawsuits to go forward against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority.
“We conclude that the original judgment for the plaintiffs should be reinstated. That conclusion is consistent with the plain import of the Supreme Court’s decision,” the judges said in a decision dated March 30.
“Our client families are very relieved that the court has reinstated the judgment without requiring a new trial. They have been waiting for a very long time for justice to be done,” attorney Kent Yalowitz said in an email.
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, another attorney for the plaintiffs, said she was pleased with the decision after 22 years of litigation.
The victims had sued under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which was signed into law in 1992 to open U.S. courts to victims of international terror attacks.
The victims and their families assert that Palestinian agents either were involved in the attacks or incited them.
The Palestinians have consistently argued that the cases shouldn’t be allowed in American courts.
Emails seeking comment were sent to attorneys for the defendants on Sunday.
New York
Lawyers say up to 75 women expected to benefit from Bank of America settlement in Epstein sex abuse
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers say up to 75 women who were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein since 2008 may benefit from a $72.5 million fund set up as part of a settlement Bank of America reached with lawyers representing the women.
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff gave the deal preliminary approval Thursday and set a final approval hearing for Aug. 27. He also ordered lawyers to submit to him by Friday a broader list of publications to be used to notify Epstein victims that the settlement fund exists.
The judge said he wanted to ensure “nobody is left out.”
Lawyers for women abused by Epstein had sued the bank, saying it ignored suspicious financial transactions involving Epstein that occurred while he was abusing girls and women from June 2008 to his arrest in early July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.
Epstein died in August 2019 in a Manhattan federal jail. The death was ruled a suicide.
At the hearing Thursday, attorney David Boies said lawyers for the victims believed between 60 and 75 women will make claims that would make them eligible for payouts from the settlement fund.
He said “there may be more we haven’t identified.”
Rakoff said that “while it’s perhaps extremely likely that the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s monstrous acts can never be fully compensated, the victims are entitled to receive just compensation from any person or entity that knowingly, recklessly or otherwise unlawfully facilitated his sexual trafficking.”
In a statement, the bank said: “While we stand by our prior statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate sex trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs.”
California
12-year-old arrested in death of classmate who was hit in the head by a metal water bottle
A 12-year-old has been arrested in connection with the death of a classmate who was hit in the head with a metal water bottle during an alleged bullying incident at a Los Angeles school, authorities said Friday.
The juvenile, whose age and gender have not been made public, was arrested on suspicion of murder on Thursday, Los Angeles Police Officer Charles Miller said. The arrest stems from the Feb. 25 death of 12-year-old Khimberly Zavaleta Chuquipa.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, which will be responsible for filing charges, said Friday that the case was under investigation.
Khimberly’s family says she was struck in the head on Feb. 17 during a bullying incident at Reseda Charter High School, which also includes a middle school.
Khimberly was in a hallway on the school’s campus when she was struck in the head with a metal water bottle while trying to help her older sister, Sharon Zavaleta, who was being bullied by a group of students, the family said in the wrongful-death claim filed last month against the Los Angeles Unified School District.
She was taken to Valley Presbyterian Hospital, where she was evaluated and released the same day. Three days later, she was taken to UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, where she was placed in an induced coma and underwent emergency brain surgery to try to stop a hemorrhage, the family said. She died Feb. 25.
The sisters had been bullied, harassed and physically attacked for months at school, and their mother reported the incidents to school officials, who failed to stop the abuse, he said.
A spokesperson for LAUSD said the district does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.
Utah
Former death row inmate asks judge to dismiss murder case set for retrial
PROVO, Utah (AP) — A man who spent decades on death row in Utah asked a judge Friday to throw out his aggravated murder case after the state Supreme Court last year ordered a new trial due to misconduct by investigators.
Douglas Stewart Carter, 70, was sentenced to death in 1985 after a jury found him guilty of murdering Eva Olesen, the aunt of a former Provo police chief. No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene, but the jury convicted Carter, a Black man, based on a signed confession and two witnesses who said he had bragged about killing Olesen, a white woman.
Carter argued his confession was coerced. The witnesses — a couple living in the U.S. without legal status — said years later that police and prosecutors offered to pay their rent, coached them to lie in court and threatened them and their son with deportation if they did not implicate Carter.
Judge Derek Pullan reversed the conviction in 2022, and the Utah Supreme Court affirmed that ruling last May, saying “numerous constitutional violations” merited a retrial. Carter has remained in prison while awaiting that trial. The judge scheduled a bond hearing for June.
“Douglas Carter spent over 40 years on death row for a crime which he, and the evidence, says he did not commit. Legally, enough is enough,” his defense team said in a motion filed Friday.
Prosecutors have maintained that Carter’s case should not be dismissed.
Defense attorneys argue in the new motion that an investigator suppressed evidence pointing to other suspects, including the victim’s husband, Orla Olesen. The motion alleges prosecutors were close to filing charges against the husband, but a Provo police lieutenant asked them not to so he could continue investigating. Carter was identified as a suspect soon after, the document alleges.
The Provo Police Department and prosecutors with the Utah County Attorney’s Office did not respond Friday to email and phone messages seeking comment. Prosecutors have not yet filed a response to the motion.
Orla Olesen, who died in 2009, had told police he found his wife dead in their home, partially undressed and with her hands tied behind her back. She had been stabbed 10 times and shot in the back of the head, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said in court filings last week that they were not sure if Provo police still had the tape recording of Orla Olesen’s polygraph test. They also said they state does not have any of the clothes seized from him during the investigation. They did not have information on any other items of his that may have been taken as evidence.
Bannon wins Supreme Court order likely to lead to dismissal of contempt of Congress conviction
WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, on Monday won a Supreme Court order that is expected to lead to the dismissal of his criminal conviction for refusing to testify to Congress.
Prodded by the Trump administration, the justices threw out an appellate ruling upholding Bannon’s conviction for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
The move frees a trial judge to act on the Republican administration’s pending request to dismiss Bannon’s conviction and indictment “in the interests of justice.”
The dismissal would be largely symbolic. Bannon served a four-month prison term after a jury convicted him of contempt of Congress in 2022. A federal appeals court in Washington had upheld the conviction.
The justices also issued a similar order in the case of former Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, who was pardoned by Trump last year.
Sittenfeld had served 16 months in federal prison after a jury convicted him of bribery and attempted extortion in 2022. The high court order allows a lower court to consider dismissing his indictment.
The Justice Department brought the case against Bannon during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, but it changed course after Trump took office again last year.
Bannon had initially argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege. But the House panel and the Justice Department contended such a claim was dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the Capitol riot.
Bannon separately has pleaded guilty in a New York state court to defrauding donors to a private effort to build a wall on the U.S. southern border, as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid jail time. That conviction is unaffected by the Supreme Court action.
New York
Appeals court reinstates $656M judgment against Palestinian Authority and PLO
NEW YORK (AP) — A $656 million judgment against Palestinian authorities has been reinstated by appeals judges, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of Americans killed or wounded in attacks in Israel.
The decision from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes a decade after it first tossed out a verdict against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority on the grounds that U.S. courts couldn’t consider lawsuits against foreign groups over overseas attacks that were not aimed at the United States.
But the appeals court reinstated the judgment in light of a Supreme Court ruling last June upholding a 2019 law enacted by Congress to allow the victims’ lawsuits to go forward against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority.
“We conclude that the original judgment for the plaintiffs should be reinstated. That conclusion is consistent with the plain import of the Supreme Court’s decision,” the judges said in a decision dated March 30.
“Our client families are very relieved that the court has reinstated the judgment without requiring a new trial. They have been waiting for a very long time for justice to be done,” attorney Kent Yalowitz said in an email.
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, another attorney for the plaintiffs, said she was pleased with the decision after 22 years of litigation.
The victims had sued under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which was signed into law in 1992 to open U.S. courts to victims of international terror attacks.
The victims and their families assert that Palestinian agents either were involved in the attacks or incited them.
The Palestinians have consistently argued that the cases shouldn’t be allowed in American courts.
Emails seeking comment were sent to attorneys for the defendants on Sunday.
New York
Lawyers say up to 75 women expected to benefit from Bank of America settlement in Epstein sex abuse
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers say up to 75 women who were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein since 2008 may benefit from a $72.5 million fund set up as part of a settlement Bank of America reached with lawyers representing the women.
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff gave the deal preliminary approval Thursday and set a final approval hearing for Aug. 27. He also ordered lawyers to submit to him by Friday a broader list of publications to be used to notify Epstein victims that the settlement fund exists.
The judge said he wanted to ensure “nobody is left out.”
Lawyers for women abused by Epstein had sued the bank, saying it ignored suspicious financial transactions involving Epstein that occurred while he was abusing girls and women from June 2008 to his arrest in early July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.
Epstein died in August 2019 in a Manhattan federal jail. The death was ruled a suicide.
At the hearing Thursday, attorney David Boies said lawyers for the victims believed between 60 and 75 women will make claims that would make them eligible for payouts from the settlement fund.
He said “there may be more we haven’t identified.”
Rakoff said that “while it’s perhaps extremely likely that the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s monstrous acts can never be fully compensated, the victims are entitled to receive just compensation from any person or entity that knowingly, recklessly or otherwise unlawfully facilitated his sexual trafficking.”
In a statement, the bank said: “While we stand by our prior statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate sex trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs.”
California
12-year-old arrested in death of classmate who was hit in the head by a metal water bottle
A 12-year-old has been arrested in connection with the death of a classmate who was hit in the head with a metal water bottle during an alleged bullying incident at a Los Angeles school, authorities said Friday.
The juvenile, whose age and gender have not been made public, was arrested on suspicion of murder on Thursday, Los Angeles Police Officer Charles Miller said. The arrest stems from the Feb. 25 death of 12-year-old Khimberly Zavaleta Chuquipa.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, which will be responsible for filing charges, said Friday that the case was under investigation.
Khimberly’s family says she was struck in the head on Feb. 17 during a bullying incident at Reseda Charter High School, which also includes a middle school.
Khimberly was in a hallway on the school’s campus when she was struck in the head with a metal water bottle while trying to help her older sister, Sharon Zavaleta, who was being bullied by a group of students, the family said in the wrongful-death claim filed last month against the Los Angeles Unified School District.
She was taken to Valley Presbyterian Hospital, where she was evaluated and released the same day. Three days later, she was taken to UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, where she was placed in an induced coma and underwent emergency brain surgery to try to stop a hemorrhage, the family said. She died Feb. 25.
The sisters had been bullied, harassed and physically attacked for months at school, and their mother reported the incidents to school officials, who failed to stop the abuse, he said.
A spokesperson for LAUSD said the district does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.
Utah
Former death row inmate asks judge to dismiss murder case set for retrial
PROVO, Utah (AP) — A man who spent decades on death row in Utah asked a judge Friday to throw out his aggravated murder case after the state Supreme Court last year ordered a new trial due to misconduct by investigators.
Douglas Stewart Carter, 70, was sentenced to death in 1985 after a jury found him guilty of murdering Eva Olesen, the aunt of a former Provo police chief. No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene, but the jury convicted Carter, a Black man, based on a signed confession and two witnesses who said he had bragged about killing Olesen, a white woman.
Carter argued his confession was coerced. The witnesses — a couple living in the U.S. without legal status — said years later that police and prosecutors offered to pay their rent, coached them to lie in court and threatened them and their son with deportation if they did not implicate Carter.
Judge Derek Pullan reversed the conviction in 2022, and the Utah Supreme Court affirmed that ruling last May, saying “numerous constitutional violations” merited a retrial. Carter has remained in prison while awaiting that trial. The judge scheduled a bond hearing for June.
“Douglas Carter spent over 40 years on death row for a crime which he, and the evidence, says he did not commit. Legally, enough is enough,” his defense team said in a motion filed Friday.
Prosecutors have maintained that Carter’s case should not be dismissed.
Defense attorneys argue in the new motion that an investigator suppressed evidence pointing to other suspects, including the victim’s husband, Orla Olesen. The motion alleges prosecutors were close to filing charges against the husband, but a Provo police lieutenant asked them not to so he could continue investigating. Carter was identified as a suspect soon after, the document alleges.
The Provo Police Department and prosecutors with the Utah County Attorney’s Office did not respond Friday to email and phone messages seeking comment. Prosecutors have not yet filed a response to the motion.
Orla Olesen, who died in 2009, had told police he found his wife dead in their home, partially undressed and with her hands tied behind her back. She had been stabbed 10 times and shot in the back of the head, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said in court filings last week that they were not sure if Provo police still had the tape recording of Orla Olesen’s polygraph test. They also said they state does not have any of the clothes seized from him during the investigation. They did not have information on any other items of his that may have been taken as evidence.
