Texas
Judge bars deportation of witness in fatal ICE shooting of Mexican homebuilder
A federal judge has barred the deportation of a witness in the fatal shooting of a Mexican homebuilder by federal immigration officers during a traffic stop in Houston.
Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego was one of three passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Araujo Salgado when Araujo Salgado was shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on July 7 while they were driving to work at a construction site.
Araujo Salgado’s killing sparked protests and calls for an independent investigation. Within the next week, a federal immigration officer in Maine fatally shot a Colombian man, and a Mexican man in Florida died after being hit by a truck while fleeing immigration officers.
Rojas Pliego must remain in the Southern District of Texas while his habeas petition is pending, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison wrote in an order on Monday. Rojas Pliego says he is being held unconstitutionally in ICE custody, court records show.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said the agency “will comply with the court order.”
Rojas Pliego had entered the U.S. decades ago and had not gained legal status, according to his stepdaughter, Griselda Silva.
Rojas Pliego and the two other passengers, also currently in ICE custody, have disputed DHS’ account of the shooting, according to their attorneys. DHS has said that Araujo Salgado was attempting to run over an ICE officer. A federal prosecutor in Texas has said that ICE officers were targeting two Guatemalan men who were potentially subject to deportation and driving a van similar to Araujo Salgado’s.
Araujo Salgado, a 52-year-old father of three, had been living in the country for 35 years and was close to obtaining legal status, according to his family, and has no known criminal record.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office has said it is helping Araujo Salgado’s three passengers apply for a special visa, known as a U visa, for witnesses who are assisting law enforcement with an investigation. It remains unclear if U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, overseen by DHS, will grant visas for the three men.
One of the other men, Daniel Tirado Pantoja, also filed a habeas petition Monday, according to federal court records.
Araujo Salgado’s brother, Victor Salgado, is scheduled to appear for an immigration hearing later this week, according to his attorney, Ruby Powers. She requested that his habeas petition, which has not yet been filed, remain sealed due to a threat of “retaliation or intimidation” to his family and friends, court records show.
The FBI executed a search warrant to investigate possible illicit substances in Araujo Salgado’s vehicle and alleged that several small bags inside the van were filled with a white substance that appeared to be methamphetamine.
Victor Salgado’s attorney said the white substance was a salt mixture that the men used as electrolytes to stay hydrated while doing manual labor in the grueling Texas heat.
Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, an attorney for Rojas Pliego and Tirado Pantoja, did not respond to a request for comment.
Louisiana
Special prosecutor drops all felony criminal charges against State Attorney General Murrill
A special prosecutor on Wednesday dismissed felony criminal charges against Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who was indicted on accusations of threatening the jobs of New Orleans officials who fought a Republican-led overhaul of courts in the heavily Democratic city.
The case was put on hold almost immediately after the July 2 indictment, when the Louisiana Supreme Court said the local court and special prosecutor did not follow procedures surrounding the indictment. The dismissal by special prosecutor Laurie White came a day after New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams, Mayor Helena Moreno and five City Council members sent a letter urging her to drop the case.
“This case should have NEVER been started because there was NO crime,” Murrill, a Republican, said in a statement posted on social media. “This outcome will not deter my efforts to get to the bottom of this. The irresponsible and illegal actions that led to this abuse of the criminal justice system need to never happen again.”
Orleans Parrish online court records showed White submitted the letters from the City Council members and the prosecutor to a judge before dismissing each county. The case against Murrill was then ordered “closed.” White did not immediately response to an emailed request for comment sent to her office.
At the center of the case are deepening rifts between leaders of a state that is heavily Republican and Democrats who control Louisiana’s most prominent city.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry had promised a swift pardon, saying Murrill would not have her reputation tarnished by an “Orleans Kangaroo court.”
Moreno, a Democrat, was among those who had accused the state’s top law enforcement official in May of making threats against public officials.
The initial 16-count indictment handed up by a New Orleans grand jury accused Murrill, the state’s first female attorney general, of intimidation and malfeasance.
For months, political tensions intensified between Louisiana Republicans and New Orleans officials over a new law that abolished a court clerk office won by an exoneree, Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly three decades in prison. The change consolidated that job with another clerk’s office, which Republican supporters said would make the local judicial system more efficient.
New Orleans leaders opposed the change. In May, the City Council set a special election that would have given Duncan a chance to win the newly combined job. Murrill responded by warning local officials in letters that they could lose their offices for violating state “usurper” laws, which forbid support for an unauthorized officeholder.
New York
June 1 trial date set for Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in his U.S. drug trafficking case
NEW YORK (AP) — A June 1 trial date was set Wednesday for Nicolás Maduro to face drug trafficking charges along with his wife as his lawyers continue to object to the U.S. military action that snatched the Venezuelan president from power and deposited him in New York.
Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail since U.S. forces seized them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid and brought them to New York in early January.
Neither spoke during Wednesday’s 15-minute hearing. Both have pleaded not guilty. They face potential life prison sentences if a jury agrees that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein set the trial date at the request of lawyers on both sides. Under the approved schedule, defense lawyers will begin filing motions in early September to challenge the indictment.
President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the raid as a “surgical law enforcement operation” in a criminal case first brought six years ago. Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.
U.S. prosecutors say Maduro carried out a conspiracy to move thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug kingpins.
“I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country,” he said in Spanish at his arraignment in January.
Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he expects to contest the legality of Maduro’s “military abduction.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, Pollack said he will first challenge the indictment on sovereign immunity grounds because if that is successful, Maduro won’t have to continue litigating the case afterward.
The lawyers have said there are complex legal defenses that the court must address before a trial can begin.
Maduro and Flores have not asked to be released on bail.
Judge bars deportation of witness in fatal ICE shooting of Mexican homebuilder
A federal judge has barred the deportation of a witness in the fatal shooting of a Mexican homebuilder by federal immigration officers during a traffic stop in Houston.
Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego was one of three passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Araujo Salgado when Araujo Salgado was shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on July 7 while they were driving to work at a construction site.
Araujo Salgado’s killing sparked protests and calls for an independent investigation. Within the next week, a federal immigration officer in Maine fatally shot a Colombian man, and a Mexican man in Florida died after being hit by a truck while fleeing immigration officers.
Rojas Pliego must remain in the Southern District of Texas while his habeas petition is pending, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison wrote in an order on Monday. Rojas Pliego says he is being held unconstitutionally in ICE custody, court records show.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said the agency “will comply with the court order.”
Rojas Pliego had entered the U.S. decades ago and had not gained legal status, according to his stepdaughter, Griselda Silva.
Rojas Pliego and the two other passengers, also currently in ICE custody, have disputed DHS’ account of the shooting, according to their attorneys. DHS has said that Araujo Salgado was attempting to run over an ICE officer. A federal prosecutor in Texas has said that ICE officers were targeting two Guatemalan men who were potentially subject to deportation and driving a van similar to Araujo Salgado’s.
Araujo Salgado, a 52-year-old father of three, had been living in the country for 35 years and was close to obtaining legal status, according to his family, and has no known criminal record.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office has said it is helping Araujo Salgado’s three passengers apply for a special visa, known as a U visa, for witnesses who are assisting law enforcement with an investigation. It remains unclear if U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, overseen by DHS, will grant visas for the three men.
One of the other men, Daniel Tirado Pantoja, also filed a habeas petition Monday, according to federal court records.
Araujo Salgado’s brother, Victor Salgado, is scheduled to appear for an immigration hearing later this week, according to his attorney, Ruby Powers. She requested that his habeas petition, which has not yet been filed, remain sealed due to a threat of “retaliation or intimidation” to his family and friends, court records show.
The FBI executed a search warrant to investigate possible illicit substances in Araujo Salgado’s vehicle and alleged that several small bags inside the van were filled with a white substance that appeared to be methamphetamine.
Victor Salgado’s attorney said the white substance was a salt mixture that the men used as electrolytes to stay hydrated while doing manual labor in the grueling Texas heat.
Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, an attorney for Rojas Pliego and Tirado Pantoja, did not respond to a request for comment.
Louisiana
Special prosecutor drops all felony criminal charges against State Attorney General Murrill
A special prosecutor on Wednesday dismissed felony criminal charges against Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who was indicted on accusations of threatening the jobs of New Orleans officials who fought a Republican-led overhaul of courts in the heavily Democratic city.
The case was put on hold almost immediately after the July 2 indictment, when the Louisiana Supreme Court said the local court and special prosecutor did not follow procedures surrounding the indictment. The dismissal by special prosecutor Laurie White came a day after New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams, Mayor Helena Moreno and five City Council members sent a letter urging her to drop the case.
“This case should have NEVER been started because there was NO crime,” Murrill, a Republican, said in a statement posted on social media. “This outcome will not deter my efforts to get to the bottom of this. The irresponsible and illegal actions that led to this abuse of the criminal justice system need to never happen again.”
Orleans Parrish online court records showed White submitted the letters from the City Council members and the prosecutor to a judge before dismissing each county. The case against Murrill was then ordered “closed.” White did not immediately response to an emailed request for comment sent to her office.
At the center of the case are deepening rifts between leaders of a state that is heavily Republican and Democrats who control Louisiana’s most prominent city.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry had promised a swift pardon, saying Murrill would not have her reputation tarnished by an “Orleans Kangaroo court.”
Moreno, a Democrat, was among those who had accused the state’s top law enforcement official in May of making threats against public officials.
The initial 16-count indictment handed up by a New Orleans grand jury accused Murrill, the state’s first female attorney general, of intimidation and malfeasance.
For months, political tensions intensified between Louisiana Republicans and New Orleans officials over a new law that abolished a court clerk office won by an exoneree, Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly three decades in prison. The change consolidated that job with another clerk’s office, which Republican supporters said would make the local judicial system more efficient.
New Orleans leaders opposed the change. In May, the City Council set a special election that would have given Duncan a chance to win the newly combined job. Murrill responded by warning local officials in letters that they could lose their offices for violating state “usurper” laws, which forbid support for an unauthorized officeholder.
New York
June 1 trial date set for Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in his U.S. drug trafficking case
NEW YORK (AP) — A June 1 trial date was set Wednesday for Nicolás Maduro to face drug trafficking charges along with his wife as his lawyers continue to object to the U.S. military action that snatched the Venezuelan president from power and deposited him in New York.
Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail since U.S. forces seized them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid and brought them to New York in early January.
Neither spoke during Wednesday’s 15-minute hearing. Both have pleaded not guilty. They face potential life prison sentences if a jury agrees that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein set the trial date at the request of lawyers on both sides. Under the approved schedule, defense lawyers will begin filing motions in early September to challenge the indictment.
President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the raid as a “surgical law enforcement operation” in a criminal case first brought six years ago. Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.
U.S. prosecutors say Maduro carried out a conspiracy to move thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug kingpins.
“I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country,” he said in Spanish at his arraignment in January.
Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he expects to contest the legality of Maduro’s “military abduction.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, Pollack said he will first challenge the indictment on sovereign immunity grounds because if that is successful, Maduro won’t have to continue litigating the case afterward.
The lawyers have said there are complex legal defenses that the court must address before a trial can begin.
Maduro and Flores have not asked to be released on bail.
Washington
Appeals court upholds White House adviser Peter Navarro’s contempt of Congress convictions
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld White House adviser Peter Navarro’s convictions for defying a subpoena for records from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters.
Navarro couldn’t prove Trump had shielded him from the subpoena’s requirements by invoking executive privilege, according to the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“In short, Dr. Navarro has acknowledged that even if executive privilege had been invoked, that would not have excused his categorical failure to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena,” D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett wrote.
Navarro already has served a four-month prison sentence for his contempt of Congress conviction. He was a White House trade adviser during Trump’s first term in office and is serving in a similar role during the Republican’s second term.
In a book published in 2021, Navarro took credit for a plan to delay the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Ultimately, the mob’s attack on the Capitol interrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College results.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack issued a subpoena for him to turn over documents and appear for a March 2022 deposition. He didn’t comply with the subpoena’s demands.
Navarro has maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. But the courts, including the D.C. Circuit panel, concluded that Navarro couldn’t prove Trump had actually invoked it.
Abhishek Kambli, an attorney for Navarro, suggested that they aren’t giving up on their appeal. Kambli described the panel’s decision as “one step in a battle to correct decades of incorrect (D.C. circuit) precedent.”
“He intends to move swiftly with his appeal because his case affects every senior presidential advisor, regardless of political party, who believes in good faith they cannot comply with a congressional subpoena based on executive privilege,” Kambli said in a statement.
In September 2023, a jury in Washington convicted Navarro of two counts of contempt of Congress. In early 2024, Navarro reported to a federal prison in Miami.
Only hours after his release from prison, Navarro spoke on stage at the Republican National Convention, telling the crowd that “I went to prison so you won’t have to.” He continued to pursue an appeal after serving his sentence.
Navarro’s appeal also was heard by Judges Cornelia Pillard and J. Michelle Childs. Millett and Pillard were nominated to the court by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. Childs was nominated by Biden. Navarro was sentenced by District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama nominee.
Appeals court upholds White House adviser Peter Navarro’s contempt of Congress convictions
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld White House adviser Peter Navarro’s convictions for defying a subpoena for records from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters.
Navarro couldn’t prove Trump had shielded him from the subpoena’s requirements by invoking executive privilege, according to the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“In short, Dr. Navarro has acknowledged that even if executive privilege had been invoked, that would not have excused his categorical failure to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena,” D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett wrote.
Navarro already has served a four-month prison sentence for his contempt of Congress conviction. He was a White House trade adviser during Trump’s first term in office and is serving in a similar role during the Republican’s second term.
In a book published in 2021, Navarro took credit for a plan to delay the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Ultimately, the mob’s attack on the Capitol interrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College results.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack issued a subpoena for him to turn over documents and appear for a March 2022 deposition. He didn’t comply with the subpoena’s demands.
Navarro has maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. But the courts, including the D.C. Circuit panel, concluded that Navarro couldn’t prove Trump had actually invoked it.
Abhishek Kambli, an attorney for Navarro, suggested that they aren’t giving up on their appeal. Kambli described the panel’s decision as “one step in a battle to correct decades of incorrect (D.C. circuit) precedent.”
“He intends to move swiftly with his appeal because his case affects every senior presidential advisor, regardless of political party, who believes in good faith they cannot comply with a congressional subpoena based on executive privilege,” Kambli said in a statement.
In September 2023, a jury in Washington convicted Navarro of two counts of contempt of Congress. In early 2024, Navarro reported to a federal prison in Miami.
Only hours after his release from prison, Navarro spoke on stage at the Republican National Convention, telling the crowd that “I went to prison so you won’t have to.” He continued to pursue an appeal after serving his sentence.
Navarro’s appeal also was heard by Judges Cornelia Pillard and J. Michelle Childs. Millett and Pillard were nominated to the court by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. Childs was nominated by Biden. Navarro was sentenced by District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama nominee.
