2026.6.12 Man pleads guilty to killing a top Minnesota Democrat and her husband while posing as an officer
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota man who pleaded guilty Thursday to killing a top Democratic lawmaker and her husband admitted he spent months identifying elected officials to target and stalked them before driving to their homes in the middle of the night, dressed as a police officer, with the intention of killing them.
The Minneapolis-area attacks last summer by Vance Boelter, 58, sparked the largest police search in state history and reverberated across the country, with elected officials fearing that escalating threats and polarization could lead to more violence. Boelter pleaded guilty so that federal prosecutors would not seek the death penalty; instead, he agreed to serve two consecutive life sentences, plus 40 years.
Boelter, disguised in a tactical uniform and realistic mask, parked his police-style SUV with emergency flashing lights in the driveway of House Speaker Melissa Hortman’s home at around 3:30 a.m. on June 14, 2025. He rang the doorbell, shouting: “Police, welfare check,” according to a plea agreement made public Thursday. Mark Hortman, her husband, answered the door.
Mark Hortman told Boelter that his wife was also in the home, and Boelter said he’d need to see her before he could leave, according to the plea agreement. When Mark Hortman asked, Boelter gave him a fake name and badge number and, when Hortman followed up for his jurisdiction, Boelter hesitated before naming a different Minneapolis suburb, the agreement states. Boelter then immediately took out his gun to shoot Hortman multiple times, according to the agreement.
Boelter then “rushed forward through the front door into the home” and shot Melissa Hortman repeatedly “as she attempted to flee upstairs,” according to the plea agreement. Both Melissa and Mark Hortman were killed.
Boelter had already been to the home of state Sen. John Hoffman that night, shooting and critically injuring him and his wife, Yvette, while their daughter was nearby.
There were brief sobs from the courtroom gallery Thursday where family members of the Hortmans sat alongside John and Yvette Hoffman as the attacks were described in detail. Again and again Boelter simply said “yes,” as his attorney questioned him about his actions, including whether he pressed a pistol to Melissa Hortman’s head and fired.
U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen told reporters after the hearing that the death penalty was only taken off the table after Boelter agreed to the longest possible prison sentence for the six federal charges.
“Political violence is a scourge plaguing America,” Rosen said. “Those that would commit political violence at any level should take heed: the Justice Department will seek and obtain the longest prison terms available for your crimes.”
A statement posted on John Hoffman’s Facebook page said there is no justice for the Hortmans, and “there is not justice when our family and our state will never truly heal. While the legal process may provide accountability, true healing requires something more from all of us.”
The statement called on Minnesotans and Americans to “treat people with respect, to stop de-humanizing each other, and to stop dividing our country with hate and rhetoric.”
Boelter also faces state charges, including two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder as well as charges of impersonating a police officer and animal cruelty. The Hortman family’s golden retriever was gravely injured in the shootings and had to be euthanized. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said Thursday that the federal plea agreement does not affect the state’s case, which had been on hold pending the resolution of the federal case.
Boelter also stopped outside the homes of two other lawmakers in the Minneapolis suburbs that night. At one, he knocked but no one answered. At the other, he was apparently frightened away when a police officer, believing he was a fellow officer, approached him as he sat in his vehicle.
Boelter, wearing his orange jail sweatshirt and sweatpants as he sat in the courtroom between two of his attorneys, listened closely as U.S. District Judge John Tunheim talked through each of the six charges and their maximum sentences. Tunheim accepted the guilty pleas and said he would set a date soon for sentencing.
Boelter was captured near his home in rural Green Isle, about an hour’s drive from Minneapolis, the day after the shootings, which prosecutors have said were politically motivated but which remain in many ways unexplained.
“Dad went to war last night,” Boelter messaged his family that morning. “Words are not going to explain how sorry I am.”
Boelter, an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views who had traveled to Congo as a preacher and missionary, spent much of his life in the food service industry. He had been struggling to earn a living before the shootings, after the failure of a security company he’d founded.
John Hoffman said in a lawsuit filed against Boelter in April that his left arm and hand likely would never fully recover and that he also had permanent injuries to his digestive and urinary systems.
Yvette Hoffman was left with permanent physical weakness, the lawsuit said, while their adult daughter, Hope Hoffman, who was there and called 911 but was not shot, suffered severe psychological trauma.
2026.6.11 Palisades Fire trial begins with L.A. prosecutors blaming man distraught over his New Year’s plans
A New Year’s Day fire led to the destructive Palisades Fire. Jonathan Rinderknecht is charged with three federal crimes.
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2026.6.10 What to know about the evolution of execution methods in the US
Alabama’s plans to execute a death row inmate using nitrogen gas appeared to be thwarted Tuesday by a federal judge permanently blocking the state from using that method, declaring it violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks issued the decision permanently enjoining the state from executing Jeffery Lee by nitrogen gas. Lee was scheduled to be executed Thursday at an Alabama prison.
A spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state is appealing the decision. The case will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has previously let nitrogen executions proceed.
Tuesday’s ruling marks the latest potential shift in the United States’ ever-evolving use of capital punishment. States with the death penalty have a variety of execution methods on the books, including lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas and firing squad.
Here’s a look at the execution methods currently in use and the ones that have fallen out of favor:
Lethal injection remains the primary method in most states
Twenty-eight states and the federal government authorize the use of lethal injection, in which an inmate has one or more deadly drugs injected into their bodies as they are strapped to a gurney, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit center.
But lethal injection has been plagued by problems. States often struggle to obtain the necessary drugs, in part because pharmaceutical manufacturers have banned the use of the lethal injection components for executions.
Some execution teams have struggled or failed to find suitable veins, needles have become clogged or disengaged and in some cases multiple doses of the drugs have been needed to kill the condemned person.
Those problems have prompted some states to experiment with different execution methods. After a botched execution attempt in 2024, Idaho lawmakers made death by firing squad the state’s primary execution method.
Lethal injection was first proposed in New York in the late 1800s, though that state eventually opted to go with electrocution, said Fordham Law School Professor Deborah Denno. The very thing that made lethal injection appealing to death penalty proponents — its relatively sanitized appearance — appalled medical societies around the country, Denno said.
“It’s what people would expect when they walk into a hospital, what you would expect doctors to do who are really concerned that you don’t suffer,” Denno said. “So, you transplant that idea onto a method that’s designed to kill somebody, and that’s a really good marketing tool for the public.”
Firing squads are rarely used, but that may be changing
Six people have been executed by firing squad since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The use of firing squads is rare, but support for the approach appears to be growing in some regions.
Five states — Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah and South Carolina — have authorized the use of firing squads, and Florida and North Carolina both have laws allowing any constitutional method of execution to be used if necessary. Tennessee authorizes the use of methods like firing squads if its primary methods are found unconstitutional.
The U.S. Justice Department announced in April that it is adopting firing squads as a permitted method of execution as President Donald Trump’s administration moves to expedite capital punishment cases.
“Not to get political, but there is a strand in our culture that is showing a greater acceptance of the use of violence in this particular context,” said Denno. “In this country’s history, we’ve never had that many states adopt firing squads ever.”
In firing squad executions, a condemned person is usually bound to a chair and is shot through the heart by execution staffers standing up to 25 feet (7.6 meters) away. The method is meant to quickly stop a person’s heart, but it can be botched.
Attorneys for death row inmates in South Carolina say a man put to death by firing squad last year was conscious and likely suffered in extreme pain for as long as a minute because the bullets struck Mikal Mahdi lower than expected.
Electrocution executions are declining
Nine states authorize the use of electrocution, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee. Since 1976, 163 electrocutions have been carried out. But only 19 have been done since 2000.
In this method, a person is strapped to a chair and has electrodes placed on their head and leg before between 500 and 2,000 volts run through their body. The last electrocution took place in 2020 in Tennessee.
Texas killed 361 inmates by electrocution from 1924 to 1964, according to the state’s Department of Criminal Justice.
Since 1976, 163 people have been executed by electrocution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Electrocution executions have been rife with problems, particularly in Florida, where in some executions the condemned person actually caught on fire or was left with deep burns, Denno said. Two states, Georgia and Nebraska, have rendered electrocution unconstitutional.
Still, at least some death row inmates have chosen electrocution or firing squad when offered the choice between those methods and lethal injection. Those choices likely reflect more about the number of botched lethal injection executions in the U.S. than any endorsement of the other methods, said Denno.
A federal appeals court has raised questions about lethal gas executions
Nitrogen gas has been used in eight executions nationally. Seven of those were in Alabama and one in Louisiana.
Other states that include lethal gas as an authorized method are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wyoming. In lethal gas executions, a condemned person is typically strapped to a chair or gurney in an airtight chamber before it is filled with a lethal gas. A mask is placed over the prisoner’s face and nitrogen gas is pumped in, depriving the person of oxygen and resulting in death. From 1979 to 1999, 11 inmates were executed using cyanide gas.
In 2024, Alabama revived the method, becoming the first state to use nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith.
Smith shook violently for several minutes during the execution, and a lawsuit filed by another death row inmate contends the process was tortuous and “a human experiment that officials botched miserably.”
The federal judge’s ruling in Lee’s case means nitrogen gas is no longer an option for executions in Alabama, but that could change if the state moves forward with its promised appeal, and if the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to consider the matter.
Lawsuits often lead states to switch execution methods
Hanging was the primary method of execution around the world for centuries, said Denno, and that didn’t change in the U.S. until lawmakers became concerned that it might be struck down in the courts.
Data collected by researchers of U.S. executions from 1608 to 2002 found 9,322 people were put to death by hanging. But in capital punishment’s modern era, only three individuals in the U.S. have been executed that way, one each in the years 1993, 1994 and 1996.
“Hangings are really gruesome, and they were also getting increasingly out of control with huge crowds,” said Denno. “That raised a lot of public concern over what this was doing societally, and there was pressure to come up with something more humane. Parallel to all of that, there was concern among some politicians that this could lead to getting rid of the death penalty entirely, so we better come up with something else.”
That same pattern continues today, said Denno.
“States typically change for one of two reasons: One, there’s a series of botches in their particular state and they think the method is going to be constitutionally challenged or it is being constitutionally challenged,” said Denno. “The other reason is that they look at what other states are doing. If you have a bunch of states adopting a new method, and one particular state fears their method may come under challenge, then they’ll switch for that reason.”
2026.6.10 Smug elites ignoring the dangers of so-called ‘asylum seekers’ is getting people killed — just look at Belfast
Belfast has suffered its fair share of horror.
During “the Troubles,” decades of bombings, shootings and riots scarred a city riven by sectarian strife.
But this week, a far more vicious kind of violence visited Belfast: an almost medieval act of wanton savagery that has provoked nausea and rage across Britain and Ireland.
It unfolded in all its grim terror Monday night on a dimly lit North Belfast street.
In shaky footage that has gone viral, we see a local man mercilessly pinned down by a monster with a knife.
The knifeman jabs and stabs his victim, slicing at his face, his neck, his back.
He then punches the air with bloodcurdling delight, clearly taking pleasure in his infliction of untold suffering.
Amazingly, the fiend’s target survived, thanks to the heroism of passers-by.
One used a hurling stick — the wooden bat used in the Irish sport of hurling — to whack the evil stabber’s head.
Eventually the police arrived and dragged the barbarian off his gravely injured prey.
The cops have since released details of the man’s injuries.
They make for bleak reading.
He suffered “significant injuries to his eyes,” they said — in fact, he lost one of them.
He suffered deep gashes around his neck.
Let’s be clear: This was an attempted eye-gouging, an attempted beheading, on the streets of the United Kingdom.
It was the return of the primitive cruelty of the Dark Ages.
Then came the revelation that turned this from a horrific atrocity into a political storm: The grinning knifeman, the aspiring beheader, is a migrant from Sudan.
His name is Hadi Alodid, he is 30 years old, and he slipped through France into Dublin and then up to Belfast, where he claimed asylum.
And there, the lethally gullible British authorities granted him leave to remain.
So behind that bloodletting in Belfast lurks a whole regime of complicity.
Yes, only Alodid is responsible for his apocalyptic violence.
But he was aided and abetted by politicians who have overseen the erosion of our borders.
People were sickened by what they saw in Belfast.
Now they’re furious, too.
They’re fuming about the withering of our sovereignty that has allowed so many men with ill intent to cross into our country.
It’s hard to overstate how broken Britain’s borders are.
Every week, hundreds of men from distant, regressive lands sail illegally into England.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer constantly promises to “Stop the Boats,” but he never does.
Instead, he puts these fighting-age men up in four-star hotels and provides them bed and board.
The state’s catastrophic failure to police the borders has resulted in an explosion of crime.
In London in 2024, a staggering 40% of sexual assaults were committed by foreign nationals.
It’s happening with other offenses, too: Convictions for theft by foreign nationals have risen by almost 80% since 2021, robbery convictions by 19%.
Every week now we read of harsh rapes carried out by brutes who came here illegally.
Like the recent gang rape of a girl on Brighton Beach in the south of England by an Iranian and two Egyptians who arrived on small boats.
They filmed their atrocity. They laughed at their victim.
They expressed no remorse.
Other so-called “asylum seekers” are suspected of running rape gangs.
Some have carried out acts of antisemitic violence.
We need to speak frankly: None of these horrors would have occurred if the government had done what the British people have begged it to do — control the borders.
The women raped, the Jews assaulted, that poor man in Belfast robbed of an eye — all were recklessly endangered by elites who have let our borders go to rack and ruin.
That’s what I see in that sickening image of the Belfast stabber raising his fist in glee: the murderous intent of an evil individual, and the murderous indifference of the state.
Ugly scenes have followed in Belfast.
People have hit the streets to vent their fury.
They’ve burned buses and even set fire to migrant hotels.
This is terrible too.
And yet the finger-wagging of our politicians is hard to stomach — for they ignited this tinderbox of tensions.
We now see just how lethal luxury beliefs can be.
Working-class communities are paying the blood price of the self-righteous activism of their supposed “betters.”
Ordinary people are expected to absorb all the risks that come with letting in thousands of unvetted men, while the elites get to bask in all the fake virtue of saying “Refugees welcome.”
The sacrifice of our sovereignty at the altar of globalism has been catastrophic.
It is getting people killed.
There’s blood on that knife in Belfast — and on the hands of our rulers, too.
2026.6.10 Karmelo Anthony sentenced to 35 years after murder conviction in Texas high school stabbing
Austin Metcalf was fatally stabbed in April 2025 during a districtwide track meet in Frisco, a Dallas suburb.
2026.6.10 Long Island hoarder busted with 130 cats and dogs at ‘deplorable’ home— after daughter calls police on her
A Long Island hoarder was ratted out by her teen daughter who blew the whistle on the deplorable living conditions at the family’s home, leading cops to discover more than 130 cats and dogs inside, police said.
Alena Horbatko, 54, was arrested Monday at her urine-soaked, putrid St. Andrews Lane residence that contained toxic levels of ammonia known to trigger respiratory infections and severe health complications, according to charging documents.
The smell of animal waste permeated the home that Horbatko shared with her two daughters, ages 12 and 18.
Horbatko’s oldest daughter told police that “there is so much stuff you can barely walk” and admitted she “developed breathing issues due to the smell of the home.”
The house of horrors was discovered after the teen called 911 out of concern for her younger sister, reporting that conditions in the house were “deplorable” and in “disarray,” a Glen Cove Police Department spokesperson told The Post.
As of Tuesday, 135 cats and two dogs had been pulled from the home, police said.
Officers entering the house had to don protective gear to brave the air, describing the scene as “overwhelming” and noting that “everywhere you look there were cats,” police said, adding that the flea infestation was equally outstanding.
Food for the animals was “inadequate to provide proper nourishment for the 65 cats” and “contaminated with dirt, feces, and other debris,” according to the criminal complaint.
Water inside the home were “in an unsanitary condition and not suitable for safe consumption,” the complaint also noted.
The two dogs were found “without access to food or water,” and were only left with a “kiddie pool of green, dirty water.”
Authorities and SPCA volunteers are scrambling to house the animals in local shelters, an “immense undertaking” that is putting a major strain on city resources.
Law enforcement hope to have the remaining felines removed by Wednesday to beat the dangerous heat.
At least 43 cats are critically ill and in veterinary care.
Horbatko was arraigned in Glen Cove City Court on Tuesday.
She pleaded not guilty to 67 counts of torturing or injuring an animal, two counts of second-degree reckless endangerment, and one count of acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17.
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office did not state whether additional counts of torturing or injuring an animal were being considered.
Glen Cove police did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the status of the rescue efforts or the health of the animals as of Thursday.
2026.6.10 Charlotte train stabbing federal case delayed over suspect’s mental competency
Charlotte, North Carolina — Proceedings in the federal case against Decarlos Brown Jr. — accused of fatally stabbing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train last year — will be delayed after a judge agreed Brown is not competent to stand trial.
Brown was committed Tuesday to the attorney general’s custody for transport to a secure federal medical facility, where he was ordered to undergo treatment for no more than four months.
“The four-month period – as required by law – will give mental health professionals time to determine whether Mr. Brown is likely to become competent to continue with his federal criminal case,” Brown’s attorneys said in a court filing.
If the four-month period expires and Brown shows strong signs of attaining competency, the court will consider continuing treatment for a “reasonable period,” according to US District Judge Kenneth Bell’s court order.
Brown, 34, could face the death penalty in the killing of Zarutska, who was stabbed from behind with a pocketknife while seated and looking at her phone in an unprovoked attack on August 22, 2025.
President Donald Trump and other administration officials have cited the killing in their criticism of major US cities led by Democrats, which they accuse of being soft on crime. The victim in this case was a Ukrainian refugee, and Brown is a US-born citizen. In November, the Department of Homeland Security launched a dayslong immigration crackdown in Charlotte, prompting confusion and outrage from neighborhoods with large immigrant populations.
Zarutska, a college graduate with a degree in art and restoration, fled the war in Ukraine in 2022. At the time of her death, she was working at a pizzeria and studying to become a veterinary assistant.
2026.6.10 Judge bars Alabama nitrogen gas execution, says method is unconstitutionally cruel
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked Alabama from executing an inmate with nitrogen gas after declaring the method violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
U.S. District Judge Emily Marks issued the ruling hours after an appeals court reversed her initial finding that the method was constitutional. Marks permanently enjoined the state from executing Jeffrey Lee, 49, by nitrogen gas. He was scheduled to be executed Thursday.
The decision, for now, blocks the use of the controversial new execution method that Alabama has championed since 2024. But the issue seems likely bound for the U.S. Supreme Court, which so far has never ruled a state’s execution method to be unconstitutional.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office is appealing the decision, according to a Tuesday night court filing. Marshall’s office did not issue an immediate comment. A spokeswoman for Lee’s legal team said they did not have an immediate comment.
Marks wrote that the appeals court found the method carried “a substantial risk of serious harm.” She also ruled that the state had the ability to switch to Lee’s preferred method, a firing squad. Inmates challenging execution methods are required to suggest an alternative method.
“Therefore, Lee has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment,” Marks wrote.
Marks wrote that her order only blocks the state from executing Lee by nitrogen gas. She noted the state has two other authorized execution methods, lethal injection and the electric chair. She said Lee is “not entitled to an injunction barring the state from executing him using one of those methods.”
Alabama in 2024 began using nitrogen gas to carry out some executions. The execution method involves strapping a respirator to the person’s face and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death from lack of oxygen. Nitrogen has been used in eight executions in the United States — seven times in Alabama and once in Louisiana. Lee was scheduled to be the ninth person executed with nitrogen.
A three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday set the stage for Tuesday’s ruling. The court said the three minutes that it could take for an inmate to lose awareness is an “intolerable” time frame, “given the suffering that would likely take place under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol.”
The decision was welcomed by death penalty opponents and critics of the controversial execution method.
“Three minutes of conscious suffocation is torturous. If that doesn’t violate the constitution, let alone international law, nothing would,” said Bernard Harcourt, a professor at Columbia University Law School. Harcourt represents one of several other Alabama inmates challenging the method as unconstitutional.
The Rev. Jeff Hood, who served as spiritual adviser at two nitrogen executions, said, “I pray that we are witnessing the collapse of this horrific method nationwide.”
Alabama has maintained that the method is constitutional.
In her 26-page ruling, Marks noted the constant litigation over execution methods.
“Were Alabama to adopt firing squad as a method of execution, that method would likely be challenged as well. Indeed, there is likely no method — no matter how humane — that would be immune to constitutional challenge. But the Constitution does not guarantee a painless death, and human life cannot be purposefully extinguished without some risk of pain. The Court, the condemned, and the State must all confront that sobering reality,” Marks wrote.
Lee is currently housed at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. He was convicted of two counts of capital murder for killing Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson while robbing a pawnshop on Dec. 12, 1998. Prosecutors said Lee entered Jimmy’s Pawnshop with a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, the owner of the store, and Thompson, a store employee.
A jury voted 7-5 that Lee should receive a sentence of life imprisonment. However, a judge overrode that recommendation and sentenced Lee to death. Alabama in 2017 ended the practice of judicial override and no longer allows a judge to disregard a jury’s sentencing decision in death penalty cases.
Her loan went up in smoke.
A felonious former celebrity photographer-turned New York City cannabis shop owner allegedly treated a $1.5 million business loan like her personal piggy bank — blowing thousands on travel and lavish meals while getting high at the shop and having sex with a customer, according to newly filed court papers.
Jennifer Tzar — who won funding for her Soho-base dispensary after she was jailed for selling weed illegally in 2011 — is accused of misspending $230,000 of the loan, including on her personal rent and a London spa treatment, according to arbitration documents filed by her lending firm, Fire Escape.
Those allegations include that Tzar gave nearly $22,000 of the loan to her ex-husband to create a “bespoke” clothing store, and handed over $11,000 to her now- ex-boyfriend to do photography and bankrolled her daughter to the tune of $12,000, according to court papers.
In total, the lender claims she spent nearly $78,000 of the loan money on friends and family.
“It is not clear why this was necessary for a cannabis dispensary,” the filing states.
According to the papers, she allegedly also had illegal “out of state” marijuana at the store and “has frequently drunk wine and smoked cannabis while working” there, according to the court documents.
The filing also claims Tzar “engaged in sexual activity with at least one store customer on the premises” and used “repeated inappropriate sexual language” with employees.
“This risks serious legal consequences for the store,” the court papers state.
Her alleged bad behavior came to light during a bitter arbitration fight between Tzar and Fire Escape, which is now trying to enforce a clause allowing them to buy the weed business for just $1, citing fraud and scandal.
Fire Escape CEO Maxwell Heckler, 27, recently opened his own weed shop in the East Village under the Fire Escape brand — and Tzar claims he’s attempting a hostile takeover of her cannabis license.
“[Maxwell] has spent more than two years attempting to manufacture a default, seize control of a successful New York cannabis business, and obtain ownership of a license it was never eligible to hold,” Tzar said in her own Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
Tzar says she recently discovered that Maxwell’s lawyer, Paolo Cammarota, was married to the attorney who previously represented her while the loan was being negotiated — a major conflict of interest that she claims resulted in her lawyer feeding info to the man who’s now trying to take over her shop.
Tzar — a former fashion photographer busted on felony possession of 10 pounds of pot discovered when her SoHo apartment building caught fire a decade ago — is now asking a Manhattan Supreme Court judge to disqualify Cammarota, claiming he and his wife hid their marriage.
Tzar photographed legends like David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, Bruce Springsteen and Snoop Dogg, and shot campaigns for major brands, including Levi’s and Lancôme in the early 2000s.
The lender’s claims “demand relies on a fictional narrative that collapses under even the most basic scrutiny,” Tzar’s filing says, calling the lender’s case “legally and factually unsustainable.”
She says Cabrera-Cammarota steered her toward Heckler without disclosing any preexisting ties, and changed the terms of the deal from a straight-forward equity agreement into a predatory loan, the lawsuit claims.
“Throughout the engagement, Ms. Cabrera-Cammarota used only her maiden name ‘Cabrera’ or ‘Jennifer Cabrera’ in her communications with me,” Tzar said. “I was not aware that she was married to any other lawyer, and I was not aware of the name ‘Cabrera Cammarota PLLC.’”
Cammarota denied the claims — including that his wife is his law partner. Heckler did not respond to a request for comment.
Tzar claims that Fire Escape’s embedded personnel — who were paid a staggering $10,000 a month, per the loan agreement, and included Heckler — tried to shove her out of her biz months before her doors opened in December 2023.
Their conduct “went well beyond the roles I understood them to hold,” including Heckler allegedly calling himself the dispensary’s CFO, attempting to change bank passwords, accessing security cameras and tried to circumvent her access to her then-attorney, Cabrera-Cammarota.
Tzar claims that Fire Escape even intervened to block her pal, musician and “The Simpsons” theme composer, Danny Elfman, from investing another $50,000 in the shop.
Additionally, Tzar claims Cabrera-Cammarota’s approved every expense as legit – including the ones her husband now cites as fraud — in prior court filings.
“The facts will show that this is not a case of default; it is a case of lender misconduct, bad-faith leverage, and an attempted unlawful takeover of a thriving, woman-owned New York cannabis business,” her suit says.
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Brooklyn serial killer Harvey Marcelin won’t get a chance to slay a fourth woman, after a judge sentenced the 88-year-old murderer to life without parole Wednesday.
A jury found Marcelin guilty last month of first-degree murder for beating a Brooklyn woman to death, dismembering her with a saw and then ditching her remains in and around his apartment.
“The cold fact is that every time you were released, you killed someone else, which leads this court to believe that, regardless of your age, if you are ever paroled again, I have no doubt that you would kill again,” Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun said Wednesday.
Marcelin, of East New York, Brooklyn, made Susan Leyden, 68, his third victim on Feb. 27, 2022, bludgeoning her head and using a reciprocal saw from Home Depot to cut apart her body. An e-bike rider found her headless and limbless torso in a a gray and black rolling bag left on a Brooklyn street days later.
“Every single time the defendant has been released from prison, he has shortly thereafter killed a woman,” said Assistant District Attorney Leila Rosini. “There is no hope for rehabilitation…. I believe that the defendant is still a danger to society, that his impulses, his urges, his rage, whatever makes him harm these women, has not gone away.”
Marcelin, who has identified as both male and female over the years, identified as male for the trial, telling the judge to call him Harvey, then clarified, “Mr. Harvey.”
On Wednesday, Marcelin, who wore a brown knit cap and used a wheelchair, maintained his innocence and said he was framed by the star witness against him, Lisa Lindhal.
Lindhal, who was homeless and had a heroin and crack habit, took the stand to describe how she visited Marcelin to do drugs in his squalid apartment, and saw Leyden’s dead body.
“I sincerely wish I could reassemble the embodiment of my Susan Carol Leyden, whom I was crazy over,” Marcelin said, “and whom I witnessed murdered by an evil crackhead, that the prosecutor Rosini unlawfully manipulated, and framed me and railroaded me through a kangaroo court using terrorist tactics against the jury.”
Rosini tightly pursed her lips and shook her head in a clear show of disgust and disbelief as Marcelin spoke, while her co-counsel, Assistant D.A. Viviane Dussek, rolled her eyes.
Marcelin was initially sentenced to life without parole for the 1963 shooting of girlfriend Jacqueline Bonds, after the jury couldn’t agree on imposing the death penalty.
Marcelin shot Bonds in the hallway of an Harlem apartment, then chased her into a bedroom and shot her again, according to court filings.
After a change in state law, Marcelin was released on lifetime parole in 1984.
A year later, he stabbed to death another girlfriend, Anna Laura Serrera Miranda, dumping her remains by Central Park in October 1985. Marcelin pleaded guilty to manslaughter in that case.
When a judge asked, “You kept stabbing her so she would stop screaming?” Marcelin responded, “It was just — I was doing it, you know.”
At a June 25, 2019, parole hearing, Marcelin vowed, “I give you my word, I will never re-offend.”
He broke that vow less than three years later after he became infatuated with Leyden. He created multiple Facebook accounts, all with her photo as his profile picture. Leyden was down on her luck. She lost her jewelry business, became estranged from her daughter, and wound up in a homeless shelter. But she was getting her life back together, prosecutors said.
All that ended on Feb. 27, 2022, when Leyden walked into Marcelin’s apartment on Pennsylvania Ave. to visit him and never came out.
After the e-bike rider found her torso days later on March 3, police discovered black plastic garbage bags in Marcelin’s apartment with Leyden’s thighs, hand, arm and head inside. Marcelin also stuffed part of the victim’s left leg into his electric wheelchair and went shopping before disposing of the limb, prosecutors allege.
The victim’s right leg, left arm and left hand were never recovered.
“The brutality of this shocking crime is almost beyond words,” Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez said Wednesday. “This defendant committed a horrific murder that took Susan Leyden’s life and inflicted unimaginable pain on her family and loved ones.”x1200
2026.6.9 Poker-faced ex-mayor Misty Roberts shuns press, awaits fate for sex with son’s teen pal at boozy bash
2026.6.9 NYC carriage horse collapses and dies in Central Park, traumatizing parkgoers
2026.6.9 Woman in state of ‘paranoia’ falls 10 stories down trash chute in New Jersey apartment complex
2026.6.9 Sleazy foot fetish website owner who allegedly raped models after luring them to NYC hit with federal charges
2026.6.9 NYC landlord gets three life sentences for grisly triple slay — after turning down plea deal
A Queens landlord who “mercilessly slaughtered” his gal pal and two tenants, claiming he was under “a lot of pressure,’’ was hit with three life sentences Tuesday — after balking at a plea deal.
David Daniel, 56, was convicted last month of fatallly slashing the throat of live-in girlfriend Coleen Fields and also killing basement tenants Wayne Thomas and Evette Sweeney at his St. Albans home Nov. 14, 2023.
He told reporters he slaughtered the innocent trio because he had a lot of pressure on him — but he claimed to cops he murdered them because he was “having issues” with his girlfriend and the tenants were behind on their rent, law-enforcement sources have aid.
2026.6.9 California housewife has courtroom meltdown as she learns her fate for killing man in kinky sex act
A California OnlyFans model and high-end escort had a breakdown on the stand Monday as a judge slapped her with a four-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter in the case of a client who died following sexual activity with her.
Michaela Rylaarsdam, 32, pleaded guilty early last month after Michael Dale, 55, died from asphyxiation when she placed duct tape over his mouth and a plastic bag and Saran Wrap over his head during a recorded encounter.
She stood behind a barrier while on the stand in San Diego Superior Court on Monday, where she wailed and cried as she issued an apology to the victim’s family.
Through tears, she said: “It needs to be said, there are no words. There are no words. ‘I’m sorry’ is not enough, and I have a million emotions, but I would say the desire to go back and undo this would be at the top. If I could change this…”
While the death occurred in San Diego County, authorities said the woman, who had reportedly been working in the industry for approximately 10 years, was based in Menifee, Riverside County.
Southern California-based OnlyFans model and married mother of three Michaela Rylaarsdam broke down at her sentencing in the death of the man she inadvertently killed in a BDSM act.
The adult entertainer, 32, was charged with murder but pleaded guilty last month to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter in the April 2023 asphyxiation death of client Michael Dale.
The 56-year-old had allegedly paid $11,000 for Rylaarsdam to use Saran wrap to encase him “like a mummy.”
Rylaarsdam on Monday was sentenced to four years behind bars, during which she tearfully told Dale’s family she had “no words” to describe her “million emotions,” TMZ reports.
“It needs to be said, there are no words. There are no words. ‘I’m sorry’ is not enough,” she said. “I would say the desire to go back and undo this would be at the top.”
People previously reported that Dale also allegedly tasked Rylaarsdam with gluing his eyes shut and gluing women’s boots to his feet, and was discovered with duct tape on his mouth and a plastic bag over his head — which had been there for at least eight minutes.
Escondido Police said that the bag was never part of the request Dale had texted her.
Dale’s new roommate at the time also testified to having heard Dale offer Rylaarsdam more money to stop. She did ultimately call 911 and Dale was declared brain dead at a nearby hospital.
2026.6.9 Man who killed O’Shae Sibley after he danced at a Brooklyn gas station is convicted of manslaughter
NEW YORK (AP) — A jury convicted a man of manslaughter as a hate crime on Monday in the death of O’Shae Sibley, who was killed at a Brooklyn gas station during a confrontation that began with a group of young people shouting racist and anti-gay slurs at the professional dancer and his friends as they vogued to a Beyoncé song.
Dmitriy Popov, 20, who was 17 at the time of the killing, testified at trial that he was just defending himself when he stabbed Sibley, 28, in 2023.
Prosecutors said Popov acted out of hate, taunting and jeering at Sibley, then killing him when he reacted to the provocations.
The verdict on the first-degree manslaughter charge capped a three-week trial in New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.
The jury, which began deliberation a week ago, also convicted Popov of second-degree menacing, second-degree aggravated harassment and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, but acquitted him of a more serious charge of murder as a hate crime, which carried the potential of a life sentence.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a release that it was his “hope that as the LGBTQ+ community celebrates the beginning of Pride Month, this verdict will bring O’Shae’s family, his friends, and the larger community some measure of solace. Hate has no place in Brooklyn.”
He also said Sibley’s dream was of being a dancer and choreographer and his life was “cut short when he was killed by this defendant, who couldn’t stand the sight of O’Shae and his friends just being themselves and living their lives openly as black gay men.”
Defense attorney Mark Pollard said he will appeal the verdict, which was “probably bittersweet for both sides.”
“We’re happy he wasn’t guilty of murder but disappointed he wasn’t acquitted on the rest of the charges,” he said.
The lawyer said his client faces a minimum of eight years in prison on the manslaughter charge and a maximum of 25 years.
Popov is scheduled to be sentenced on June 30.
Sibley and his friends had stopped at the gas station after a beach outing on July 29, 2023. When they were pumping gas, one of them began dancing, drawing the attention of a nearby group of young men and teenagers. Some of the people in that group began taunting and jeering at the dancing men, some of whom were shirtless and wearing bathing suits.
Security camera video, played at the trial, recorded the encounter.
The two groups argued for about two minutes, then started to go their separate ways. Sibley’s group went back to their car. Most of the other men went back inside the gas station — except for Popov.
Witnesses testified at trial that Popov shouted insults as he recorded with his phone. He denied using any bigoted language.
Sibley then confronted Popov again, lunging around a man who tried to step between the pair. Popov testified that Sibley chased him and punched him in the head. The security camera video didn’t show the fatal blow, but Popov testified that he stabbed Sibley with a 5-and-a-half-inch blade as he tried to protect himself.
“I was scared that I was going to get hurt,” Popov testified.
Sibley performed with the Philadelphia-based dance company Philadanco and took classes with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Ailey Extension program in New York. He also used dance to celebrate his LGBTQ+ identity in works such as “Soft: A Love Letter to Black Queer Men,” choreographed by Kemar Jewel.
Sibley’s funeral in his hometown of Philadelphia attracted about 200 people. Politicians and celebrities, including Beyoncé and Spike Lee, paid tribute in social media posts.
Popov was born in the U.S. to a family of Russian origin and was a high school senior at the time of his arrest.x1200
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2026.6.8 Homeless NYC Penn Station stab spree suspect was high during attack, likely mentally ill
The suspect cops say stabbed five men in an unprovoked spree in Manhattan’s Penn Station was high on drugs during the attacks and appears to have mental health issues, police sources said Monday.
The suspect is apparently homeless and has prior arrests in New Jersey for assault and drugs, sources said. His rampage started about 7 p.m. Sunday in the boarding area for New Jersey Transit.
The victim were rushed by medics to Bellevue Hospital with wounds described as non life-threatening. One victim is in serious condition while the others suffered moderate or minor wounds.
The suspect was taken to the same hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Charges against him are pending.
One of the victims, Henry Obadiah, 60, told ABC7 New York he had returned from the Jersey Shore and was leaving Penn Station when he saw “two people tussling with each other.”
“I didn’t think anything of it and I’m walking by and the guy, the crazy guy locked eyes with me and then he just came at me with a roundhouse and got me,” Obadiah said. “I thought it was a punch. He got me right in the face. The first thing I thought I was going to go after him and then I heard this guy in the escalator, he goes, ‘He’s got a knife, he’s got a knife!’”
The other victims are men ages 30, 32, 52 and another 60-year-old man, police sources said.
Amtrak police officers arrested the suspect moments after he attacked his fifth victim. Cops recovered the knife the attacker used.
The suspect has one prior arrest in New York City, in the East Village on June 19th, 2008, for misdemeanor drug possession, a police source said.
He has been arrested six times in New Jersey, between February 2022 and last month on charges including aggravated Assault, weapon possession, narcotics, domestic assault and criminal mischief.
Prior to the stabbings, he entered Penn Station at Seventh Ave and 31st St., a police source said.
Blood was splattered across the hall in the “pit area” of the NJ Transit section of the station, said Adil Kha, 21, who works in a store in the station and saw one man stabbed in the face.
“I saw a guy that was really bleeding badly,” Kha said. “It was all on the floor and someone was calling for help and he just fell down.”
2026.6.8 Penn Station slasher had ‘rage in his eyes,’ victim says while recalling NYC rampage: ‘Wanted to kill me’
The knife-wielding maniac who injured five people in a random rampage at Penn Station had “rage in his eyes,” one of the victims recalled Monday — detailing a horrifying encounter that unfolded so quickly, he didn’t even realize he had been slashed.
“He went at me to kill me! I saw the rage in his eyes,” Henry Obadiah, 60, an accountant who lives in Midtown and was heading home from Long Branch, New Jersey, told The Post of the chilling, Sunday night attack.
Obadiah found himself in the frenzied path of the alleged homeless attacker — identified by law enforcement sources as Hector Deleon, 51 — as he noticed two people tussling while making his way toward the station.
“The crazy guy locked his eyes on me and just roundhoused me! Clocked me right in the face and I was like, ‘What the f–k?’ And I heard the guy on the escalator say, ‘He’s got a knife! He’s got a knife!’
“I didn’t realize I had just been slashed in the face,” he recalled.
Obadiah said he assumed he was just sucker-punched — until he saw the gash on his face when he looked at his reflection on his phone.
“I thought he just punched me. I felt my lip got busted and I saw the blood, but I took a look into my phone and saw the big cut in my face and I just ran up to the cop and said, ‘I just got attacked,’” he said.
Obadiah was one of five victims slashed or stabbed during the rampage in the bustling Midtown transit hub around 7 p.m.
The senseless carnage left at least one victim seriously wounded, two with moderate injuries and two others with minor injuries, FDNY officials said.
Sources said besides Obadiah’s laceration to his cheek, a 52-year-old man and a 60-year-old man suffered cuts to their necks.
A 30-year-old man and a 42-year-old man, a tourist, were also wounded, the sources said.
After Obadiah told the cops he could identify his attacker, he walked with police along a “huge trail of blood” leading to the New Jersey Transit boarding area, where he saw another victim who appeared to be in his 20s seated on the floor holding a bloody towel up to a gushing head wound as strangers tried to attend to him.
“The paramedics showed up shortly thereafter. While they were telling me that they should take me to the hospital, all these cops started running past and screaming, ‘He stabbed someone else! He stabbed someone else!’”
Amtrak police arrested Deleon, who appeared under the influence of still-unidentified drugs, in Penn Station, sources said.
The wild-eyed, disheveled Deleon had a “boot dagger” — or a double-sided blade about six inches in length – that he used to carry out his unhinged spree, sources said.
Deleon had a long criminal record streaked with violence, including an aggravated assault conviction from an eerily similar 2022 attack in which he stabbed a man in the neck with a 6-inch knife, records show.
The apparently unstable con received just two years of probation for that attack – and had been arrested as recently as May in New Jersey on theft and drug paraphernalia possession charges, records show.
Obadiah slammed the state of transit safety in the Big Apple, and the Mamdani administration’s response to it.
“Something has to be done. The city is getting worse and worse and no one seems to care. This administration? Law and order isn’t the priority! The attackers have more rights than the victims. It’s not surprising that this happened and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to change under this administration,” he said.
“Most people are voting for this stuff and they’re voting for, ‘Let’s get rid of the police, the police got to stand down,’ it’s nuts! I want it to change, but not only for me but for the next victim of a crazy homeless guy that decides he had a bad day and he’s going to kill a few people.”
The suspected attacker was said to be hospitalized Monday and had yet to be charged.
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Kellie Williams, 31, showed injuries consistent with a vessel strike while snorkeling near Hollywood Beach on June 3
The body of a woman found on a Florida beach last week has been identified as an American Airlines flight attendant who died after an apparent boat strike while snorkeling, officials said.
Kellie Melinda Williams’ remains were discovered by two fishermen in the surf near Hollywood Beach around 8 p.m. June 3, according to CBS Miami.
Authorities reportedly said the 31-year-old flight attendant “showed injuries consistent with a vessel strike,” and determined her cause of death was blunt force injuries.
“Based on the investigation, it appears the deceased was snorkeling/diving in the area of Dr. Von D Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park during the day of June 3,” Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation (FWC) said in a previous statement to Fox News Digital. “FWC investigators are working in partnership with Hollywood detectives on this case.”
Details regarding the suspected boat involved in Williams’ death or if any suspects have been identified have not been released. Fox News Digital reached out to FWC and Hollywood police for comment.
One witness detailed the scene as the pair of fishermen pulled Williams’ body from the water Wednesday night.
“Two fishermen were fishing right off the beach, and I saw them from my window pulling something, then I saw them drag something onto the shoreline,” Emilio Benitez told NBC6 South Florida. “And it turned out to be a lady’s body.”
Williams’ parents reportedly told the outlet that their daughter had recently gotten married and moved to Florida, adding that she was an avid snorkeler and “great person.”
Williams was a flight attendant based at Miami International Airport, according to the Miami Association of Professional Flight Attendants.
He always had them laughing their heads off.
The hero cop who nabbed the killer behind the legendary 1983 New York Post headline “Headless body in topless bar” died Friday after a long, fittingly colorful life.
Retired New York City Transit Police Detective Frederick “Freddy” Mack, 79, passed away while in hospice care, his daughter Debbie Comstock told The Post on Sunday.
“He was a man full of character,” Comstock, 58, said. “He always had stories and jokes to tell. He was loved by many.”
Perhaps Mack’s biggest story of all unfolded in April 1983, after 25-year-old lowlife Charles Dingle spent a night drinking in Herbie’s Bar in Jamaica, Queens.
A thoroughly sauced Dingle got into an argument with the topless watering hole’s owner, Herbie Cummings, and shot the barkeep in the head, killing him.
Rather than flee the horror, Dingle decided to plumb deeper depths of depravity, tying up four women who were in the bar and eventually raping one of them.
After discovering another woman there was an undertaker, Dingle ordered her to cut off Cummings’ head and put it in a box.
Dingle held two of the women hostage, drunkenly driving them to Manhattan in a stolen gypsy cab until he fell asleep. The women ran off to a nearby subway station and hopped a train to Columbus Circle, where Mack was stationed as a transit detective.
An initially skeptical Mack went to investigate the frantic women’s story, coming face-to-face with the ding-a-ling Dingle, who was just waking up and reaching for his gun.
Mack, who had left his own weapon behind at the station in the rush, didn’t hesitate to take action, said his friend Mike Fanning, a retired NYPD sergeant.
“That’s when he confronted the suspect, wrestled him, took [Dingle’s] gun and then looked in the backseat and saw the head,” Fanning said.
Comstock said she remembers her raconteur father coming home afterward and telling the stranger-than-fiction story at the dinner table. She said he found the bar owner’s severed head in what appeared to be a bakery box.
“That was everyday dinner conversation for us,” she added with a laugh.
The capture of Dingle and the salacious strip-club decapitation inspired The Post’s most iconic front-page headline, “Headless body in topless bar.”
For Mack’s family and friends, his role in New York City history wasn’t actually a surprise.
The Marine Corps veteran-turned-transit detective had an eventful life before and after his brush with Dingle.
Comstock said her dad had also worked as a bat boy for the Dodgers and counted the team’s former manager Tommy Lasorda as a friend — a pairing that Fanning also fondly recalled.
“When [Mack] retired, he did some private investigation work and knew several celebrities,” Fanning said. “Tommy Lasorda always came by to visit him and sign baseballs for the cops.
“Freddie was an excellent investigator and an even better friend. He worked in Transit Major Case working on all the big cases, but he always had time for young cops. He was a dogged detective and a great teacher, very helpful. He was also very funny.”
Mack retired in 1988 after he was struck by a taxi, Comstock said. He moved to Florida, where he worked with a local jail and volunteered with an evangelist group connected with country music legend Charlie Daniels, his daughter said.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Mack volunteered at Ground Zero, Patch reported.
He also recounted his role in capturing Dingle for the Jerry Springer-hosted show “Tabloid” in 2014.
Dingle was sentenced to 25 years to life for his rampage. He tried to deny that he committed the heinous crimes and was refused parole several times before dying behind bars in 2012, prison records show.
Fanning said Mack didn’t volunteer telling the story but wouldn’t hesitate after prodding to rehash the whole bloody affair.
The story became so intertwined with Mack that his fellow cops gave him cake in the shape of a head at his retirement party, Fanning said.
“Later that night when his wife went into the refrigerator to get something, she saw the head and screamed, waking Fred up,” Fanning said.
Comstock laughed when remembering the morbid severed-head cake.
“That is true,” she said. “You would never know what you’d walk into.”
2026.6.7 Florida woman mauled to death by dogs that had allegedly terrorized neighborhood, owner charged in killing
Jodi Cowan had lived on Blue Bonnet Drive for only two weeks before the midnight attack by dogs named Max and Mako
A Florida woman was mauled to death by two dogs that neighbors say had terrorized the community — and now the animals’ owner is in jail.
The dogs are being held by the county’s animal services unit and will be euthanized, authorities said.
And now, neighbors along Blue Bonnet Drive don’t have to worry anymore about the duo that used to “terrorize” them, resident Dominica Midkiff told Fox News Digital.
Jodi Cowan, 50, had only lived on the street for about two weeks, Midkiff said.
At the time of the attack, Cowan was walking her small dog on the dark street after midnight, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey said in a video his office shared on Facebook on May 27.
Meanwhile, the pit bull pair belonging to neighbor Linda Cutler “had once again gotten out of their yard and were roaming the neighborhood,” Ivey said.
A neighbor’s security camera captured the attack in an “extremely troubling and graphic” video, Ivey said.
The video shows Cowan clutching her tiny dog to her chest, shrieking and trying to flee.
The larger dogs, known as Max and Mako, “began to brutally attack and maul Cowan, forcing her to the ground, viciously attacking her, and eventually dragging her across the ground for quite some distance,” Ivey said.
Cowan’s partner, Donnell Smith, heard her screams and raced to stop the attack “by swinging a knife at the dogs and trying to drive them away,” Ivey said.
Smith called 911 while trying to protect his longtime love.
He could be heard on an eight-minute 911 call trying to drive back the barking dogs and render aid to still-conscious Cowan.
“It’s brutal,” said Brevard PIO Tod Goodyear, a former homicide detective with 40 years at the sheriff’s office, told Fox News Digital. “She suffered.”
Cowan was transported to a nearby trauma center. She died about four hours later, Ivey said.
The little dog Cowan died trying to protect escaped unharmed.
“She was a great woman,” Smith told a reporter for WESH 2 News. “She just loved people, loved dogs more than people.”
Dangerous dog law
A sheriff’s office investigation revealed that Cutler knew “her dogs repeatedly got out of her yard and … were attacking humans and … took minimal action to prevent the dogs from getting out of her yard, even after being cited by Animal Services,” Ivey said.
Cutler also knew that her dogs previously “had bitten a neighbor who had to seek medical treatment,” Ivey said.
Since October 2024, neighbors had called the sheriff’s office at least 14 times about Cutler’s animals, agency reports show.
Some callers complained about her dogs roaming the neighborhood. Some callers expressed concern that Cutler’s dogs might be neglected.
Since October 2024, neighbors had called the sheriff’s office at least 14 times about Cutler’s animals, agency reports show.
Some callers complained about her dogs roaming the neighborhood. Some callers expressed concern that Cutler’s dogs might be neglected.
Investigators found food and water at Cutler’s home and documented no signs of neglect, Goodyear said.
In his video address, Ivey fumed at the suggestion that his agency’s animal services unit hadn’t taken appropriate action.
“While you might think that Animal Services has the authority to seize dogs that routinely escape from yards or that have even bitten someone, the unfortunate reality is that they don’t,” Ivey said.
If “it’s not a severe bite, the most action our animal enforcement officers are allowed by law to take is the issuance of a citation and a fine,” he said.
Animal Services officers issued at least five citations to Cutler with hundreds of dollars in fines, Goodyear said. He didn’t have the exact amount.
But even after a second bite, Ivey said in his address, a “dog still can’t be seized by animal enforcement officers, as it is not the number of bites, but the severity of the bite that elevates the potential for the dog to be declared a dangerous dog and the owner go before a magistrate.”
And even then, under Florida’s dangerous dog law, he added, the “dog owner still has the right to keep the dog or dogs by following the court’s ruling that they must have effective fencing, muzzle the dog anytime someone is visiting the residence, [put] signage on all egress points saying a dangerous dog resides there, and have $100,000 insurance policy in the event the dog bites another person.”
In the case of Max and Mako, Ivey said, some people making complaints about the dogs said they “were not aggressive and that they just keep getting out of the fence and need to be returned to their home.”
After a report that one of the dogs had bitten a neighbor, the victim “did not cooperate with law enforcement after repeated calls to do so from our animal enforcement officers,” Ivey said.
“The investigation could not be continued, which prohibited our animal enforcement officers from taking any further action.”
‘Pinned people on their porches’
As puppies, Max and Mako made friends on their romps away from their own yard, Midkiff said.
“The whole neighborhood was friendly with them until they started to turn on people.”
As the puppy brothers grew, Midkiff said, they showed signs of aggression. And as adult dogs, their frequent escapes through or over the yard’s chain-link fence frightened people living nearby.
They “pinned people on their porches as people were trying to leave for work and come home,” Midkiff said. “You never knew where them loose dogs would be and who they were going to terrorize next.”
Just 20 days before they mauled Cowan, Midkiff snapped photos of Max and Mako standing outside her car, watching her intently through the windows.
Midkiff wanted to go inside her home, she said, but she was afraid to leave the safety of the vehicle.
“I waited in my car until they got distracted by something else.”
Cutler arrested
During the investigation after the mauling, Cutler indicated she knew her dogs had been escaping, knew one had bitten someone, and revealed “both dogs were becoming more and more aggressive, even towards her,” Ivey said.
Then, she asked when she could get her dogs back, the sheriff said.
After Cowan’s death, Cutler checked into a hotel on a nearby beach, Ivey said. There, another law enforcement agency responded to a “disturbance” involving Cutler.
Eight days after the mauling, Cutler, 29, was arrested. While being taken into custody, she pretended to have a heart attack, Ivey said.
Cutler was evaluated at a hospital and cleared of any medical issues, Goodyear told Fox News Digital. It’s common, he said, for people to pretend to have life-threatening medical issues when facing arrest.
During his update on the case on social media, Ivey shared a video showing him greeting Cutler as she was walked into the jail. The video shows him telling Cutler, “Hope you enjoyed your time at the beach, because you’re not going to be going back.”
She glares at him and retorts, “What is the purpose of that?”
“A woman’s dead, and two dogs are about to be euthanized because of your uselessness,” Ivey fires back. “So, have a nice visit.”
Cutler is being held without bond because she was already out of jail on another charge, Goodyear said. She could not be reached for comment.
“Being her neighbor has been hell,” Midkiff said. “I am praying Linda Cutler gets 15 years.”
2026.6.7 Missing American student found dead in Japan after dayslong search
Search-and-rescue volunteers in Japan have found the body of an Auburn University student who went missing during a family vacation, his family said, marking a tragic end to a frantic dayslong search across forested mountains.
James “Weston” Higginbotham, 20, was found dead Saturday outside Kyoto, his family announced in a social media post.
Police in Kyoto told CNN Weston’s body was found around 2:35 p.m. Saturday by volunteers searching the mountains in the city’s Yamashina area. No foul play is suspected, police added, noting they will not disclose a cause of death.
“Our family is heartbroken to share that Weston was found deceased by a volunteer search-and-rescue group in a mountainous area outside of Kyoto. The grief we feel is impossible to put into words,” the family wrote.
Weston loved to ‘embed himself in different cultures’
Weston’s mother, Nancy Higginbotham, described him as an ardent protector of the environment and a wanderer who loved to travel and enjoy nature.
“He just loves to go outside and go for a walk at a trail or go for a small hike, no matter what time of day,” she told CNN’s Erin Burnett Friday. “That’s just fun to him.”
As a lover of the natural world, Weston had spent his life protecting it, too. That became more of a focus for him about a year ago, when Weston became vegan. As a junior at Auburn University, Weston had been studying sustainability engineering, she said.
Weston was always educating himself “about the world” and reading books every chance he had, his mother said. On the trip, Weston had been carrying a book about butterflies in his back pocket.
“His goal in life is to travel…and go to all of these amazing mountains and places where he can embed himself in different cultures,” Nancy Higginbotham said.
2026.6.6 Three fathers killed their families this week as domestic violence deaths remain high
The homicide rate is falling, but domestic killings are not. For those who track this kind of violence, the deaths are both predictable and preventable.
In the first two days of June, authorities said, three fathers killed their children and the mothers who raised them. Two used guns. One used a knife. Of the thirteen victims, the youngest was three.
Officials cast the mass killings in Iowa, New York and Florida as “an act of evil,” “the worst of the worst,” and “an unimaginable tragedy,” but Doreen Dodgen-Magee thought of another word: preventable.
2026.6.6 Brendan Banfield sentenced to life in prison for murders of wife, stranger amid affair with his family’s au pair
Brendan Banfield, the Virginia man convicted of killing his wife and a stranger as part of an elaborate plot with the family’s au pair, was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole after facing his victims’ loved ones in court.
“The level of cruelty, calculation and inhumanity in this case reflects something far deeper than anger or impulse – it reflects evil, which is why I carry no burden and find no hesitation in sentencing you to life,” Judge Penney S. Azcarate said as she handed down the sentence.
Banfield and the au pair – who were having an affair – lured Joseph Ryan into the family’s home in February 2023 under the pretense of a sexual encounter to frame him for the killing of Banfield’s wife, Christine, prosecutors argued.
Brendan Banfield and the 26-year-old au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, both took the stand during the double-murder trial and offered conflicting accounts about the killings, with Banfield insisting he shot Ryan after he found the man attacking his wife.
The judge also ordered Banfield, 41, to serve consecutive prison sentences for his convictions on a firearms offense and a child endangerment charge. The latter charge was related to his young daughter, who was in the Herndon, Virginia, home at the time of the murders.
Banfield addressed the court before Azcarate handed down the sentence, maintaining his innocence and arguing prosecutors’ case was flawed.
“I’m not trying to diminish in any way what (Christine’s) life was. She truly was a caring mother, a caring wife, a loving nurse,” he said. “But I am not responsible for her death.”
Family members of Banfield’s victims also addressed the court Friday, with Christine’s older sister recounting countless fond memories growing up alongside her beloved “sissy.”
“Since losing her, those same memories have changed. They’re no longer just joyful, but layered with grief, each one a reminder of both how much I had and how much was taken,” Danielle Hocker said.
Christine was a dedicated mother to her young daughter, Valerie, who will now largely know her mother through stories she hears from others, Hocker said.
“I will be there, never to replace my sister, but to tell Valerie who her mother was, remind her of her big laugh and even bigger heart,” Hocker said. “I will tell Valerie how much she was loved by her mother, and I will forever carry both the grief of losing her too soon and the gratitude of having loved her for 37 years and being loved by her in return.”
Before the sentencing, a lifelong friend of Christine remembered her as a dedicated pediatric nurse, an advocate for rape victims and a selfless friend.
“She always carried everything with the most respect and, again, it was just all about helping people and being a person who somebody could go to and trust,” Lucille Priolo told CNN Trial Correspondent Jean Casarez in an interview last month.
Priolo, who grew up with Christine Banfield on Long Island, New York, described her as “one of the kindest people I have ever been in contact with.”
“Through life, every chapter, we were together, we were friends, and she just always made sure she was that person who was at the door, even without being asked,” Priolo said.
At Friday’s sentencing, members of Ryan’s family remembered their beloved “Joe,” who his mother described as a “kind human being who had a full life of meaning.”
“Brendan will remain known as an abusive father, the brutal murderer of his dedicated and compassionate, beautiful wife, and a narcissistic killer of an innocent man,” Deirdre Fisher said. “My son’s legacy is one of selfless love, while Brendan’s is one of senseless evil.”
Ryan’s aunt does not forgive Banfield, who she said made a “calculated decision” to kill her nephew and then distort the truth to dodge responsibility.
“Today we take back Joe and Christine’s memory from the lies, from the manipulation, and from the man who thought he could control their story even after taking their lives,” Sangeeta Ryan said.
Au pair described the plot to ‘get rid’ of Christine Banfield
Over five days, Fairfax County prosecutors called more than 20 witnesses including Peres Magalhães, who testified for three days about the scheme to “get rid” of Christine Banfield.
Peres Magalhães pleaded guilty in October 2024 to involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting Ryan as part of a plea deal in which she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against her former paramour.
The Brazilian au pair said she started living with the Banfields in October 2021 and began having an affair with the defendant the following August.
Banfield wanted to be with her but did not want to pay for a divorce or share custody of the couple’s daughter, Peres Magalhães said, so he hatched a plan to kill his wife.
Using Christine Banfield’s laptop, the pair created a fake email address and an account on a fetish website to find a man willing to carry out a rape fantasy so they could frame him for her murder, the au pair testified.
Posing as his wife online, Brendan Banfield gave Ryan specific instructions for the baited sexual encounter, prosecutors said.
“Christine will be asleep in bed. Come straight upstairs. Cut off the clothing. Tie her. Rape her. Simple and fun. That was how it was posed,” Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Jenna Sands said in her opening statement.
After Ryan arrived at the family’s home the morning of February 24, 2023, Peres Magalhães and Banfield followed him into the bedroom, the au pair said.
When they entered the room, Ryan looked up at them and appeared “shocked,” she said, before Brendan Banfield shot him and then repeatedly stabbed his wife.
Banfield later took handfuls of his wife’s blood and dripped it on Ryan in an effort to frame him, the au pair said.
When investigators returned to the crime scene roughly eight months after the double homicide, they found a framed photo of Banfield and Peres Magalhães on a bedside table in the room where the murders occurred.
Defendant denied plan to kill his wife
When Brendan Banfield took the stand in his own defense, he pushed back against the au pair’s testimony and adamantly denied any plot to kill Christine Banfield, calling the allegation “absolutely crazy.”
Brendan Banfield said he loved his wife, although he claimed they both had affairs throughout their nearly 20-year relationship. Banfield and Peres Magalhães weren’t actively together at the time of the killings and their relationship wasn’t going to change his marriage, he said.
Banfield testified he returned to the house on the day of the killings after he received a call from a distressed Peres Magalhães and was unable to reach Christine Banfield by phone.
Brendan Banfield, then an IRS investigator, entered the master bedroom with his service weapon drawn and announced himself as “police,” he said. He described seeing Ryan kneeling over his naked wife on the floor before he began stabbing her. Banfield then fired a shot that struck Ryan before Peres Magalhães shot him again with his personal firearm, he said.
Hocker described Banfield’s testimony as “the most self-serving display of narcissism I have ever seen.”
“Hearing him attempt to rewrite her life and her character felt like losing her all over again, piece by piece, in a room where she could not defend herself,” she said in court Friday. “His lies did not just attempt to destroy her reputation – they forced me to relive my grief with anger and helplessness I cannot fully describe.”
Though Peres Magalhães agreed to testify against Banfield if prosecutors recommended a sentence of time served, Judge Azcarate ultimately sentenced her to 10 years in prison – the maximum sentence and well above the joint sentencing recommendation by prosecutors and her attorneys.
“Your actions were deliberate, self-serving and demonstrated a profound disregard for human life,” the judge said. “So let’s get straight: You do not deserve anything other than incarceration and a life of reflection on what you have done to the victim and his family. May it weigh heavily on your soul.”
Christine Banfield’s loved ones, meanwhile, continue to feel her absence, which her sister described as a “missing piece, an emptiness that fills the room.”
“The weight of that feeling makes it hard to move through the day, like walking through water fully clothed,” Hocker said.
Priolo mourns all the future milestones she won’t be able to experience with her lifelong friend, she told Casarez.
“When you say you’re friends with someone for 37 years, that’s not long enough. It really isn’t – not (with) the type of person she was,” Priolo said as she wiped her eyes with tissues. “I wanted longer, and we were cut short of that.”
—
2026.6.6 OJ Simpson-era attorney sees familiar warning signs as Karmelo Anthony case fuels clash over race and justice
Royal Oakes says public opinion is splitting along racial lines just as it did in the 1990s Simpson trial
2026.6.5 Karmelo Anthony witness testifies students repeatedly asked accused killer to leave tent before track stabbing
Anthony has pleaded not guilty and maintains he acted in self-defense in Austin Metcalf’s killing
Jurors in the Karmelo Anthony murder trial returned to court Friday after hearing a heartbreaking 911 call, watching surveillance footage and listening to emotional testimony from coaches and trainers who tried to save Austin Metcalf during the first day of testimony.
Anthony, 19, has pleaded not guilty to murder in the April 2025 stabbing death of Metcalf and maintains he acted in self-defense. The case has drawn national attention and intense public scrutiny since the fatal encounter.
Texas defense attorney and legal analyst Jeremy Rosenthal told Fox News Digital that the trial is now entering the phase where jurors must sort through competing witness accounts and determine which version of events is most credible.
“The defense is accepting part of the burden here because if they want the jury instructed on self-defense, they have to prove up that split-second statement,” Rosenthal said.
Jurors hear Anthony’s statements after arrest
Anthony appeared in court Friday wearing a navy suit, white shirt and green patterned tie. Day 2 testimony began with Frisco ISD school resource officer Eduardo Cortez, who was among the first officers to respond after the stabbing.
Cortez testified that he knew Austin and Hunter Metcalf through athletics and ran from a nearby middle school to the stadium after hearing the call come over the radio.
Cortez told jurors that two students pointed him toward the victim while another adult identified Anthony as the suspect.
Anthony was cooperative and did not attempt to flee. After being handcuffed, Anthony began speaking without being questioned.
“I’m not alleged. I did it,” Anthony told Cortez, according to his testimony.
Cortez said Anthony repeatedly told him, “He put his hands on me. I told him not to.”
Anthony later asked, “Is he going to be OK?” while being placed into a patrol vehicle.
Jurors were shown body-camera footage of the encounter. Cortez testified that Anthony became emotional several times, but appeared most emotional while repeating that Metcalf had put his hands on him.
Cortez also testified that he observed blood on Anthony’s left middle finger and a cut on his hand, though he did not know how the injury occurred.
According to FOX 4, prosecutors also asked Cortez about Frisco ISD’s weapons policy. Cortez testified that weapons are prohibited on school property and agreed that a student bringing a knife to a school event was “unprecedented.”
Officers describe chaotic aftermath
Jurors next heard from Frisco ISD school resource officer Jacob Shalz, who described arriving to what he called a chaotic scene.
A coach directed Shalz to a student witness who showed him where a knife had been found several rows above the scene between the stadium bleachers.
Jurors were shown photographs of a folding knife with a silver or gray handle that appeared partially open, with what appeared to be blood on the blade. Anthony’s blue backpack was found nearby, according to FOX 4.
Body-camera footage shown to jurors captured officers running toward the track as coaches and first responders worked to save Metcalf.
According to FOX 4, voices could be heard in the background saying, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” while another student cried, “That’s my best friend, my brother.”
Several people in the courtroom became emotional as the footage played.
Teammate testifies Anthony provoked confrontation
Following the lunch recess, prosecutors called a 17-year-old Memorial High School student who witnessed the confrontation between Anthony and Metcalf. The witness testified that students repeatedly asked Anthony to leave the Memorial team tent before the encounter escalated, according to FOX 4 and Fox News courtroom reporting.
The student, a teammate of Austin and Hunter Metcalf, told jurors that several students told Anthony he “probably shouldn’t be here” and needed to leave. Anthony was asked to leave the tent about 15 times, the witness testified, according to WFAA.
He testified that Anthony responded by telling Metcalf, “Touch me and find out.”
The witness said there was no effort by students to “gang up” on Anthony and described the physical contact leading up to the stabbing as “minor pushing at most.” When asked by prosecutors who was provoking the confrontation, the student replied, “Karmelo Anthony.”
The witness testified that both Anthony and Metcalf appeared angry and aggressive as the situation unfolded. He also told jurors that Anthony had a backpack on his lap with one hand inside, leading students to believe he was “bluffing” and would not act.
According to the testimony, Metcalf pushed Anthony and Anthony then stabbed him. The witness said he did not initially realize Metcalf had been stabbed until he saw Anthony throw an object into the bleachers, later learning it was a knife. He also testified that he heard Metcalf say, “Oh my God” after the stabbing.
The witness also testified that, in his view, the stabbing was not an act of self-defense. During cross-examination, he said he never saw the knife itself but did observe Anthony’s motion and testified that the incident happened very quickly.
Before the teen witness took the stand, Frisco police criminalist Stephanie Martin testified about evidence collected at the scene, including a knife with a 3.5-inch blade, according to FOX 4.
Witness says Anthony seemed to be looking for fight
Prosecutors later called a second teen witness who testified that he was sitting directly next to Anthony on the bleachers under the Memorial tent before the confrontation, according to Fox News courtroom reporting.
The witness told jurors Anthony’s presence initially seemed “suspicious” and said students were asking who he was. He testified that Anthony was seated knee-to-knee with him on the bleachers and did not speak to him after sitting down.
According to the witness, Austin later told Anthony, “You have nothing in that backpack, you’re from Frisco.” The student also testified that “No one thought there would be a knife at a track meet.”
During questioning, prosecutors asked whether Austin Metcalf appeared to be looking for a fight.
“No, sir,” the witness replied.
When asked whether Anthony appeared to be looking for a fight, the witness answered, “Yes, sir.”
Prosecutors then asked whether the confrontation appeared to be self-defense.
“No, sir,” the witness responded.
The witness separately testified that “it did not look like self-defense.”
Witness describes atmosphere under tent before stabbing
Prosecutors next called a 16-year-old Memorial High School student who testified that he was under the Memorial team tent when Anthony arrived and sat down among the students, according to FOX 4 KDFW’s courtroom reporting.
The witness, who said he knew Austin and Hunter Metcalf through football and track, told jurors he helped set up the tent that morning and described it as a “home base” for Memorial athletes.
When asked what he thought after Anthony sat down, the student testified, “I was questioning why he was here.” He said it was unusual for students to sit under another school’s tent and initially wondered whether Anthony had friends there.
The witness testified that he heard Metcalf ask Anthony why he was there and repeatedly ask him to leave. According to the student, Anthony repeatedly responded that he had something in his bag.
When asked whether either teen became angry during the encounter, the witness said they appeared more frustrated than angry. He testified that Anthony became more aggressive the more he was asked to leave and said he did not understand why the confrontation escalated so quickly.
The teen told jurors he believed Anthony was bluffing because “I would never think someone would have a knife at a track meet.” He also testified that the knife must have already been open because there was no way Anthony could have stabbed Metcalf that quickly.
The witness further testified that it did not appear Austin Metcalf wanted to fight. When prosecutors asked whether anyone was on their feet because they expected a fight to break out, the student replied, “No, sir.”
Third minor witness describes aftermath of stabbing
Prosecutors later called a 17-year-old Memorial High School student who testified while holding a yellow stress ball, according to NBC 5. The witness told jurors that his mother and sister were at the track meet that day and said his father had recently been murdered in California.
The student, a running back on the football team and member of the track team, described Austin Metcalf as a football captain and leader who believed in him.
According to FOX 4 KDFW’s courtroom reporting, the witness testified that he was putting on his shorts under the Memorial team tent when he saw Metcalf speaking with Anthony. He told jurors that Metcalf asked Anthony who he was and described Anthony as trying to provoke him.
When prosecutors asked whether he thought a fight was about to happen, the witness replied, “No, because Austin said, ‘I’m not going to fight you at the track meet.’ Those were his exact words.”
The witness testified that Anthony was the aggressor and that the confrontation did not appear to be an act of self-defense.
He also told jurors that after the stabbing, he got the impression Anthony was trying to “blend in with the crowd.”
According to NBC 5, the witness testified that after the stabbing, he and his sister ran from the area because he wanted to protect her.
During cross-examination, defense attorneys focused on the physical interaction between the two teens and asked the witness to reenact the shove. The student testified that Metcalf shoved Anthony in the shoulder, after which Anthony stood up and stabbed him.
Former Liberty High School student says Anthony was aggressor
Prosecutors later called a recent Liberty High School graduate whose team’s tent was located next to the Memorial High School tent, according to FOX 4 KDFW’s courtroom reporting.
The witness testified that her attention was drawn to the Memorial tent after hearing a verbal argument between Anthony and Metcalf.
She recalled hearing Anthony say, “If you want me to move, you have to move me.”
The witness testified that Anthony appeared more aggressive than Metcalf. Unlike several previous witnesses, she said she believed a fight was about to break out, but did not believe Metcalf wanted to fight.
She also testified that she did not believe the confrontation had anything to do with race.
The former Liberty student became emotional while recalling seeing Metcalf bleeding after the stabbing.
During cross-examination, defense attorneys pointed to differences between portions of her courtroom testimony and statements she previously gave investigators regarding what she personally heard and what she later learned from others.
Witness says he warned Metcalf not to touch Anthony
One of the final witnesses of the day was a 17-year-old Memorial High School student who played football and ran track with Metcalf.
The witness testified that he was friends with Metcalf and recalled seeing Anthony arrive at the Memorial tent, greet another student and remain under the tent.
According to the witness, Metcalf initially asked Anthony to leave the tent politely before the situation escalated. The student testified that Anthony responded by saying, “Touch me, see what happens.”
The witness told jurors that he warned Metcalf not to touch Anthony because Anthony had his hand inside his backpack. He said he believed Anthony was gripping an object inside the bag and testified that he could see tension in Anthony’s wrist and hand. The student added that other students believed Anthony was bluffing.
According to the testimony, Metcalf ultimately used both hands to grab Anthony. The witness also testified that another student appeared to be recording the interaction as it escalated, though no bystander video of the confrontation has surfaced.
During cross-examination, defense attorneys focused on Anthony’s size relative to the other students. The witness acknowledged that Anthony was smaller than him and testified that he, Austin Metcalf and Hunter Metcalf were standing while Anthony remained seated before the confrontation turned physical.
The testimony came as defense attorneys continued highlighting differences among witness accounts regarding where students were positioned, how many hands Metcalf used during the confrontation and who was standing nearby.
Court adjourned shortly after 5 p.m. local time. Testimony is scheduled to resume Saturday morning.
Friday’s testimony followed an emotional opening day that included a frantic 911 call, surveillance footage from the track meet and testimony from coaches and trainers who described desperate efforts to save Metcalf after he was stabbed.
Rosenthal also noted that opening statements can have an outsized impact on jurors.
“Eighty percent of jurors make up their mind at opening statement, and they never change it,” he said, citing trial advocacy studies.
Controversy has engulfed the case, and tensions rose after a jury was selected on Wednesday with no Black jurors.
On Thursday, supporters of both Anthony and Metcalf sparred in a shouting match outside the courthouse, holding signs, yelling profanities and antagonizing each other.
Prosecutors, defense present competing stories
Collin County prosecutor Bill Wirskyke called the stabbing a “provoked unjustified murder” and told jurors, “This case has nothing to do with race. This case is not self-defense.”
Defense attorney Mike Howard argued Anthony reacted in a “split second of fear and chaos” and urged jurors to focus on the evidence rather than the public narrative that has developed around the case.
Jury hears 911 call, sees surveillance footage
Jurors viewed surveillance footage from multiple cameras around Kuykendall Stadium and later listened to a 911 call placed in the moments after the stabbing.
The caller reported that CPR was underway and that an athlete had been stabbed and was losing consciousness.
NBC 5 reported that voices in the background could be heard urging Metcalf to keep fighting, while another person said, “There’s a lot of blood. He’s not breathing.”
The outlet reported that Metcalf’s final gasp for air could be heard on the recording.
As the call played, Metcalf’s family could be heard crying. Anthony had his eyes closed during most of the 7-minute call.
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Rosenthal said the surveillance footage could become one of the most important pieces of evidence presented during the trial.
“In the 21st century, I think jurors really expect there to be some type of video evidence, either surveillance or cell phone,” he said.
“You’ve got a bunch of teenagers and nobody seems to have any cellphone video of this, which is in some ways surprising,” he added. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”
Witnesses describe efforts to save Metcalf
Memorial High School athletic trainer Tiffany Whitaker testified that she rushed to help Metcalf and performed CPR until paramedics arrived.
She said she saw a commotion and heard screaming in the stands, and a student ran up to her saying, “He stabbed him and threw the knife in the stands,” pointing at Anthony.
Whitaker testified that she got in front of Anthony, put her hands up and told coach Vincent Hooper to not let him leave.
She said she performed CPR and used an AED until paramedics arrived and Metcalf was taken to the hospital, where he later died.
The state later called Joshua Rebmann, an Army veteran and football coach who was among the first adults to reach Metcalf.
Rebmann used his military training to try to save the teen before concluding he would not survive.
“Stay with me, Austin. Stay with me, Austin,” he was heard saying in the background of the 911 call, FOX 4 reported. “Come on, Austin. Come on, Austin.”
Jurors were shown the blood-stained jacket Rebmann used while trying to stop the bleeding.
Coaches recount aftermath
Heritage High School coach Vincent Hooper testified that Anthony told him, “He put his hands on me. I stabbed him.”
Hooper also testified that Anthony became emotional after he warned him that if Metcalf died, he would have changed his life forever.
Memorial High School track coach Robert Starr became emotional while describing finding Metcalf wounded.
“You just don’t go into someone else’s tent uninvited,” Starr testified, referring to team tents at track meets.
“Well, you know if he dies, you change your life for the rest of your life,” Hooper said he told Anthony.
“He won’t die,” Anthony replied, according to Hooper.
What to watch next
Rosenthal said one of the key questions moving forward is whether witnesses closest to the confrontation tell a consistent story.
“I sort of view this case like a rock thrown into a pond,” Rosenthal said. “You’ve got the epicenter, and then you’ve got all the ripples out.”
One aspect of the case he finds unusual is the apparent lack of cellphone footage despite the incident occurring at a crowded high school sporting event.
“You’ve got a bunch of teenagers and nobody seems to have any cellphone video of this, which is in some ways surprising,” he said. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”
2026.6.4 Karmelo Anthony trial ignites dueling crowds turning courthouse into shouting match in racially-charged case
The 18-year-old is charged with first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalf during a Frisco track meet
—
An apparently loony, lefty political worker handing out campaign leaflets for a Democratic candidate in Brooklyn was arrested after allegedly punching and beating a 98-year-old man with a broomstick and metal chair in a crazed dispute over the reelection flyers, police said.
Tashara Abel had been stuffing reelection flyers into mailboxes in the lobby of a building at Maple Street and Rogers Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens when the nonagenarian walked in around 4 p.m. Thursday, cops said.
The two began arguing over the handouts for the candidate, Democratic New York State Committee Member Anthony Beckford, who’s in a June 23 primary run, cops and neighbors said. Beckford is running for re-election as a Democratic district leader.
Abel, 27, allegedly repeatedly punched the older man in the neck and struck him with a wooden broom stick and a metal chair about his head and body, according to a criminal complaint filed against her in Brooklyn Criminal Court.
The victim was treated on the scene for minor head injuries and declined to go to the hospital.
Abel fled after the attack but was captured on video entering and leaving the building. Police issued a wanted poster for her and Beckford identified her, authorities said in the complaint.
When police questioned Abel, she stated, “He pushed me first, and I pushed him back,” according to the complaint.
The victim’s wife, who asked not to be identified, told The Post her husband, who turns 99 next month, was “shaken up.”
He had placed a small stick in the door to keep it open while he went into the garage. When he returned, he collided with Abel as she came down the stairs, the wife said.
The activist allegedly picked up the broom and hit her husband twice in the leg, then struck him with the metal chair, the wife claimed.
Abel claimed she didn’t hit the victim.
“I was doing a lit job for the candidates that is running back on the ballot for June 23,” she told The Post. “So his address is on the paper and I went there. I rang, nobody answered. I saw a piece of stick at the door and it opened.”
Once inside, she ran into the nonagenarian, who asked what she was doing, she said.
“I’m just doing my jobs that I’m supposed to be doing,’” she said she told him.
But the victim, the building’s caretaker, demanded she leave, she said.
“That’s when he pushed me with his hands and then, I said, ‘Do not push me,’” she recalled, and claimed he spit in her face as he spoke.
“So I said ‘Don’t do that,’” she recalled. “That’s when he went for the door and pushed the door and everything behind the door fell — the chair, sticks, everything.”
The items were blocking the building’s entrance, she said.
“I kicked the chair out of the way,” she recalled. “I moved the stick out of the way. So this man is lying on me.”
Abel, who said she has two daughters, was charged with three counts of assault, burglary and criminal possession of a weapon, cops said. She was freed on supervised release.
She has no prior arrests, a police source said.
Beckford called the victim to apologize, the victim’s wife said. x1200
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Scandal-plagued far-left congressional hopeful Darializa Avila Chevalier attended an anti-Israeli rally in the Big Apple one day after Hamas’ horrific Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, according to reports.
The 32-year-old radical with a twisted history of bashing Israel joined a hateful Times Square mob on Oct. 8, 2023, that torched the Israeli flag and flashed swastikas after hundreds of Jews were slaughtered by Islamic terrorists in a surprise attack on the Jewish state.
Chevalier, who is gunning for Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s seat in New York’s 13th House District, justified her attendance by declaring she is simply a lifelong advocate of Palestine.
“I can only say I have been advocating for the human rights of Palestinians for my adult life,” the already under-fire democratic socialist told City & State this week.
“And as someone who has seen a pattern, whenever anything happens on the ground (in Israel), there’s always a really outsized reaction that costs thousands of people their lives. And that is what I was worried about. At the core of it all for me is human dignity,” she said.
“And I think so often we get lost in the ‘well on this date, and on that date’ when it’s all cyclical, if we don’t get to the core of how we disregard the human rights and dignity of some people over others.”
2026.6.5 James Handy’s girlfriend’s son seen calmly walking away from where ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ actor was stabbed to death
Chilling surveillance footage shows the suspect in the murder of “Top Gun: Maverick” actor James Handy walking away from the bloody scene before returning and giving himself up to police.
Michael Gledhill, the 44-year-old son of Handy’s girlfriend, was seen on a neighbor’s doorbell camera sauntering down the sidewalk away from the front lawn of a Los Angeles home where the actor was repeatedly stabbed in the chest, according to video obtained by Fox 11 Los Angeles.
Gledhill could then be seen returning to the residence — where he lives with his mother — when Los Angeles police said he flagged officers down and told them he was the man they were looking for, the video shows.
Los Angeles police said officers rushed to the home around 9:30 a.m. Thursday after a 911 caller horrifyingly claimed, “I am the son of man, I just killed the man of sin.”
Handy, 81, was found unconscious and bleeding from a stab wound to the chest outside the home. He was rushed to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Gledhill was arrested and charged with murder. His bail has been set at $2 million, cops said.
The motive for the slaying remains under investigation.
Handy had a long career as a character actor that began in the 1970s. His most recent role was in the Hollywood blockbuster sequel “Top Gun: Maverick,” where he played a bartender named Jimmy.
He also was known for his role in “Jumanji,” the 1995 cult classic starring Robin Williams, in which he played an exterminator.
2026.6.5 What it’s like to go inside New York City’s dank, dangerous, bug-filled sewers
A former urban explorer says the most unpleasant part of exploring New York City’s sewer system was the cockroaches, not the rats, smells or ever-present dangers
NEW YORK — It wasn’t the rats. Or the smells. Or the germs.
No, the most unpleasant part of descending into New York City’s vast sewer system, according to former urban explorer Steve Duncan, was the cockroaches.
“They’re all over the place, crawling on walls, dropping down on you,” Duncan recalled this week. “They were the worst.”
Duncan, 48, who now lives in Maryland, reflected on his years documenting the muck-filled tunnels running under New York after surveillance videos captured small groups of people mysteriously entering and exiting the sewer system in Brooklyn and Queens in recent days.
Police say they’re still investigating the three incidents but don’t believe there’s any threat to the public. Officials stress that it is both illegal and dangerous to enter the city’s 7,400 miles (12,000 kilometers) of sewer pipes.
Duncan believes the groups were likely explorers like him, traversing the large, 19th century sewer mains that run underneath parts of the city.
These relatively cavernous spaces can exceed 6 feet (1.8 meters) in diameter — tall enough for most people to comfortably walk upright — and can feature handmade bricks and elegant arches, he said.
A number, including one near where one of the groups was spotted, trace the paths of naturally occurring waterways that once sustained New York, before industrialization fouled them and forced city builders to convert them to sewers, Duncan said.
“These old streams, they get put underground as cities grow up around them,” he explained. “It’s amazing how much this old natural environment is part of the city today.”
The videos suggest that some of the groups spent up to three hours underground, a length of time that may seem unimaginable, but Duncan said passes quickly as sewer journeys require navigating slippery, humid environments and flowing water that could be a foot (30 centimeters) or deeper in places.
Duncan credits the groups with picking an optimal time for their excursions.
Heavy rainfall days earlier would have mostly cleared the system, and venturing into the tunnels in the early morning hours would mean waste flow would be noticeably less than during peak daytime hours.
“They did their research,” Duncan said.
But invisible dangers lurk in these pathogen-rich environments, he said, recounting how he’d landed in the hospital with badly infected extremities on two separate occasions, which eventually pushed him to retire.
Seasoned explorers will generally bring gas meters to check for dangerous levels of fumes, including potentially flammable hydrogen sulfide, which is produced by decomposition, Duncan said.
As to the smell of all that effluent, it’s not as overpowering as you’d think, Duncan said.
“If it’s a well-functioning sewer, it’s more like a barnyard, or compost pile smell,” he said. “But when it’s bad, it can smell like death.”
Some residents have worried the mysterious explorers captured on video were up to something nefarious. Many were dressed in waterproof hip waders and equipped with headlamps and what appeared to be shovels and other tools.
“Sewers can serve as entry or exit points to buildings, and we have all seen movies in which criminals escape jail through a sewer,” offered Magued Iskander, an engineering professor at New York University. “There must be a reason beyond mere thrill to enter a dirty place like a sewer.”
Others have noted that police have nabbed underground treasure seekers from time to time.
Three men were charged just last year with burglary and other counts after they went searching for gold, jewelry and other valuables in a Brooklyn sewer. A decade earlier, police caught three others as they emerged from a maintenance hole, including a worker with the city Department of Environmental Protection, which manages the sewer system.
If anything, the viral videos underscore just how vulnerable some of the city’s vital infrastructure is, said David Sarni, a retired New York Police Department detective and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
“Is this something that could be exploited by people who look to do harm?” he said. “You have to really take nothing for granted and always think, unfortunately, on that negative side.”
Duncan, who now works in real estate, said neither riches nor malice motivated him and many others of his generation of urban explorers.
On his trips into underground passages in New York, London, Paris and elsewhere during the early 2000s, he rarely found anything of value, save for the odd credit card or tattered wallet.
“These are terrifying places that take a lot of planning and dedication to explore safety,” Duncan said. “You don’t do all of these things for the tiny chance of finding a diamond earring.”
“The real reason is to see something new, or experience the city in a different way,” he continued. “That’s the real lure.”
2026.6.5 Mass shooting after California high school graduation kills teen, wounds 3
Investigators are searching for whoever killed an 18-year-old and wounded three other people shortly after a high school graduation ceremony in California’s Bay Area.
The gunfire erupted Wednesday after the ceremony for Sem Yeto High School, which started at 6 p.m. The alternative school shares a campus with Fairfield High School, about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco.
At about 7:15 p.m., authorities responded to a shooting in the parking lot of Fairfield High School, police said.
“Three victims, ages 11, 20, and 25, sustained non-fatal gunshot injuries. A fourth victim, an 18-year-old, succumbed to their injuries,” Fairfield Police Officer Michelle Belyea said Thursday.
The 11-year-old is recovering at a local hospital, police said.
Police are not publicly identifying the mass shooting victims “pending next-of-kin notification and to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation,” Belyea said.
CNN has asked the school district whether the 18-year-old who was killed had just graduated from Sem Yeto High School minutes earlier.
The shooting is one of at least 168 mass shootings in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are shot.
‘Hundreds of potential witnesses’ but no arrests
About 1,000 people attended the graduation ceremony, “with hundreds of potential witnesses to this tragedy,” Belyea said.
Detectives are “identifying and interviewing these witnesses” and “are working diligently to identify those responsible,” Belyea said. She asked anyone with information to contact Fairfield police.
Authorities did not answer CNN’s questions about whether the attack was targeted or random, or what the motive might be.
“As this is an on-going investigation, no additional information is available for release,” police said in a statement.
Graduation photos, then bullets
The shots rang out as photos were being taken in the school parking lot where students had gathered to congratulate one another and meet up with their families, one witness told CNN.
“While I was taking pictures with a graduate and her family, I heard about five loud popping sounds,” the witness said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“People seemed confused at first and then quickly panicked once they realized something was wrong.”
The witness did not see the shooter, or the direction of the gunfire, but recalled “about five objects on the ground that appeared to be shell casings” and damage to several vehicles.
“What happened was heartbreaking and deeply unsettling. A place where students and families had just come together to celebrate should have been safe.”
Amanda Prieto, who lives near the school, told CNN affiliate KCRA she was on the phone in her backyard when she heard the gunfire. She was “immediately terrified” by the sound of shots from the school her 17-year-old son attends.
“I looked over the fence, and people were just screaming and running through the parking lot,” she told KCRA. “It was horrific.”
A rite of passage marred
Thursday was supposed to be a celebratory last day of school for the 20,000 students in the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District. Instead, it was overshadowed by grief from the tragedy outside Fairfield High.
“Today, our focus is on supporting our students, staff, and families as they process what occurred,” the school district wrote in a letter to the community Thursday. “Caring educators and mental health support is available at our sites. We encourage anyone who needs support to reach out to their schools.”
We are also in direct communication with school district leadership regarding security planning and public safety considerations for all remaining graduation ceremonies
Seniors from Fairfield High, who are set to graduate Friday evening, won’t walk across a stage at their own school.
“Out of respect for our grieving community, we have decided to move tomorrow’s Fairfield High Class of 2026 graduation ceremonies to the Armijo High School Stadium,” the school district said.
The Fairfield Police Department said Thursday it will increase the number of officers assigned to several upcoming graduation ceremonies hosted by the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District, with additional law enforcement resources provided by partners. The department also said it has communicated with school district leadership about security planning and public safety at the events.
“We want our community to know that we are thinking deeply about everyone impacted by last night’s events. Our hearts are with our graduates, their families, and all those who attended the ceremony expecting to celebrate an important milestone together,” the district said.
2026.6.4 New details emerge in case of homeless man accused of sexually assaulting female UCLA students
The homeless madman accused of terrorizing several female students on UCLA’s campus followed his victims into their dormitories and sexually assaulted them in their rooms and hallways, authorities revealed.
Olumuyiwa Akindahunsi, 29, was arrested after allegedly targeting five women during a violent hourlong spree on the Westwood campus on the night of May 28.
He pleaded not guilty Wednesday to multiple felony charges, including attempted kidnapping to commit a forcible rape and assault with the attempt to commit a forcible rape during a burglary, among others.
Akindahunsi’s alleged rampage began around 11:30 pm last Thursday when the first woman was attacked on Bruin Walk and had her phone stolen, according to the LA County District Attorney’s Office.
The suspect next managed get inside a secure dorm by slipping behind two women and following them to their room, where authorities said he assaulted one of the students and sexually assaulted the other.
Both victims were able to escape while the suspect fled to another dorm, where he is accused of confronting a woman walking down the hallway and attempting to kidnap her to commit a sexual assault, prosecutors said.
The student was able to break free and run for help, and the suspect took off again, authorities said.
Just after midnight, a fifth woman encountered the suspect in the hallway of her dorm, where he allegedly sexually assaulted her.
A witness who heard a student crying out for help intervened and chased the suspect.
The witness then directed campus police officers to a parking structure, where Akindahunsi was located and arrested, authorities said.
Investigators said they recovered zip ties, duct tape and paracord nylon rope believed to be connected with the string of disturbing attacks.
If convicted, Akindahunsi could spend up to 32 years to life in state prison.
“Incidents like these are deeply concerning, and the safety and security of our campus community remains our highest priority,” UCLA Chief of Police Craig Valenzuela said.
The terrifying attacks come as UCLA students have voiced growing concerns about safety near campus. Women have reported being screamed at, cat-called and followed along Hilgard Avenue, known as sorority row.
UCLA sororities have even hired private security following an increase in reports involving homeless men allegedly engaging in aggressive behavior, harassment and lewd comments toward female students in the area.
The deranged woman who viciously ripped a Jewish nurse’s hair on a Manhattan subway while spewing antisemitic hate is a onetime promising artist with a long history of mental illness, The Post has learned.
Diana Smith, 45, racked up at least six run-ins with the police for disturbing behavior before she allegedly attacked the 23-year-old woman on a C train Sunday afternoon while screeching “Jews are eating kids,” law-enforcement sources said.
“I’ve seen her before. She does have mental issues, I can tell you that,” a neighbor at her Harlem building said Thursday, noting that she lives alone.
“One time I came out here and she was struggling at the elevator and was talking to herself and opening and shutting the front door, those types of things. I was concerned about her.”
Smith went by the name “Lady Millard” more than a decade ago and still has social media accounts showing her artwork – though the pages have not been updated in years.
She told Mixture Magazine in 2012 her work was largely focused on her father, Millard, who died of cancer when she was 12 years old.
“I get my inspiration from the people that I meet, people that I want to be like,” said Smith, who also worked in fashion design, according to the article.
“I’m also inspired by work of some of the greatest artist that have ever lived like Leonardo DaVinci. He worked with a team of people. I hope to be able to do that soon,” she told the mag.
Smith added that she wanted to “create an industry that could help people.”
But her dream apparently got engulfed by her mental health issues.
Police responded to calls about Smith’s condition six times between 2003 and 2017, with the most recent at the Apple store in SoHo, where a caller said she couldn’t care for herself, leading cops to bring her to a hospital, sources said.
During the earliest reported call, she was taken to a psych ward for mental evaluation, sources said, though the result of that assessment was unclear.
Another call, from 2011, took place on the Williamsburg Bridge, according to the sources, though additional details weren’t immediately available. Some of the other calls involved reports that she had not been taking her medication, or was “acting bipolar,” the sources said.
Smith was arrested for allegedly assaulting a cop during Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in 2011, and was also a victim of domestic violence in in The Bronx in December 2017, sources said.
Her relatives could not be reached Thursday, as Smith remained hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital for mental health issues. She was taken there following her arrest Sunday, the sources said.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said as of Thursday afternoon, she had yet to be arraigned on hate crime charges tied to the ugly incident, where she is accused of pulling the victim’s hair and pushing her to the ground.
Her neighbor said “sometimes she’s lucid, sometimes she’s not.”
“When she’s lucid she carries on a regular conversation. In one of her better moments, I was carrying groceries one time and she held the door for me and was polite,” the man, who did not want to be named, told The Post.
“But yeah, she has mental issues … I pray for her.”
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man accused of killing several women and dumping their bodies in the Portland area was arraigned Wednesday on a fifth murder charge.
Jesse Calhoun’s defense attorney entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf in a Portland courtroom where victims’ family members were present. The hearing, during which Calhoun remained silent, came after he was indicted last week on the most recent second-degree murder charge over the death of Ashley Real, 22, in 2023.
Calhoun has now been charged with five counts of second-degree murder for five victims, along with four counts of abuse of a corpse. The victims’ bodies were found over multiple months in early 2023, sparking concern at the time that a serial killer might be targeting young women in the region.
Calhoun was previously indicted in the deaths of Kristin Smith, 22; Charity Perry, 24; Bridget Webster, 31; and Joanna Speaks, 32.
He remains in custody at the Multnomah County Detention Center. His defense attorneys declined to comment.
Real, Perry, Webster and Smith were found in northwestern Oregon, while Speaks was found near an abandoned barn in southwestern Washington. Their bodies were found in a roughly 100-mile (160-kilometer) radius, including in wooded areas and in a culvert.
Jose Real, Ashley Real’s father, was in tears as he spoke with reporters after the hearing. He recalled memories of watching her grow up and playing with her brother.
“I never thought or imagined that my family would experience something like this,” he said through a Spanish interpreter. “She had a heart of gold.”
Masciell Real, Ashley’s sister, also spoke through tears.
“I think being in that courtroom today and being able to see him, and know that he is behind bars now, it takes the weight off my shoulders knowing that he isn’t around and free to cause any harm to any other women out there,” she said. “But it also doesn’t take away the fact that my sister isn’t here anymore.”
Relatives of other victims were also present.
“We’ve all experienced the worst thing that could ever happen to you, and it’s incredibly hard to see one of the other families hurt the way we do,” said Melissa Smith, mother of Kristin Smith.
Jose Real previously told The Associated Press that he had called police in November 2022 after his daughter showed up crying at his Portland home, saying she had been choked by Calhoun. She had marks on her throat, he said, and he took her to a hospital.
Real said at the time that an initial police report was taken but that the case was then transferred to a different jurisdiction and it was difficult to reach those overseeing it. Details of the attack were first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
His daughter’s body was found in May 2023 by a man who was fishing in a pond southeast of Portland.
Calhoun was arrested in June 2023 on unrelated parole warrants and then indicted in 2024 and 2025 in the other four women’s deaths. The initial indictment came weeks before Calhoun was due to be released from state prison, where he was returned in 2023 to finish serving a four-year term for assaulting a police officer, trying to strangle a police dog, burglary and other charges.
He was initially released in 2021, a year early, because he helped fight wildfires in 2020 under a prison firefighting program. Gov. Tina Kotek revoked the commutation in 2023 when police began investigating him in the deaths.
A trial date has yet to be set.
The bank robber killed after strapping a bomb to body and taking a group of people hostage during a marathon standoff in Bakersfield had a dark criminal history of sex acts involving underage girls after running off during his short military career.
FBI agents shot and killed Anthony Searles-Harris, 41, early Wednesday after he held 10 people hostage for 15 hours inside a Chase bank in the city’s downtown.
In 2014, he was convicted of three heinous sex crimes against minors, including lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 and oral copulation with a minor under 14 with more than a 10-year age difference between offender and victim.
Searles-Harris was originally charged with a whopping 15 crimes, including several counts of making threats.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and forced to register as a sex offender, but a 2017 appeal led to a charge being dropped and he was released the following year.
The pervert’s appeal revealed frightening aspects of the case, including how the convicted pedophile held “sex parties” in the summer of 2011 where he handed out drugs and alcohol to minors.
He recorded a pair of underage females naked in a bathtub and offered them alcohol only if they participated in sex acts. Two male guests then entered the bathroom, court records showed, and the girls stopped because they were “already uncomfortable enough as it was.”
He also appeared to threaten the girls if they told anyone about “what they were doing.”
“[Searles-Harris] warned them that ‘if [they] told anybody what he was doing or what [they] were doing…he would kill [them],’ court records showed. “He also mentioned ‘he had already killed somebody before, he had buried them in his backyard,’ and ‘[they] would end up just like them if [they] said anything.’”
In another instance, he allegedly offered a 13-year-old girl money and drugs “if they ‘made a video’ for him taking a shower” and engaging in a sex act.
Searles-Harris claimed in a nearly two-hour-long YouTube video posted last year that he was framed and was innocent.
During the standoff, one of the key negotiation terms Searles-Harris had was to obtain documents related to his case. Police said he was frustrated with “certain elements” of his case.
Before his arrest, Searles-Harris had a short stint in the US Army career from 2006 to 2007 before he was dishonorably discharged for going AWOL, or Absent Without Leave. It’s unclear what he did in the military.
Law enforcement officials also said in a press conference Wednesday that Searles-Harris is “no stranger to law enforcement and has a criminal history of using weapons to commit violent offenses.”
One possible motivation for the crime was notoriety, officials said. He specifically asked about the FBI’s involvement and appeared to want federal agents working the case.
Witnesses revealed that Searles-Harris offered a chilling statement when he began the robbery.
“It’s a bad day to be at the bank,” he said, according to a witness who spoke to KGET.
A raging woman spewing antisemitic hate ripped out a hunk of a Jewish rider’s hair on a Big Apple subway Sunday and screeched “Jews are eating kids,” according to cops and shocking video.
The suspect, identified by police as Bronx resident Diana Smith, shouted an assortment of vicious remarks against Jews on the crowded C train around 2:15 p.m. in lower Manhattan before she assaulted a 23-year-old Upper West Side woman, police said.
“I was a ragdoll and I couldn’t defend myself – there should have been a human barricade around me,” the young Orthodox Jewish victim, who asked her name be withheld, told The Post.
“No one stepped up until it was too late.”
The victim, a nurse and Montreal native, recalled to The Post she entered the transit system at Jay Street and was riding for one stop when the suspect also hopped on and started speaking to a couple “about the dangers of Jews stealing wealth.”
She then turned to another couple and wildly said, “You could always see the reflection of a Jew,” said the Jewish woman.
“And then she turned towards me, like very targeted, stared me down, and smiled with this very eerie smile that I’ll never forget,” the brave nurse said.
“I decided in that moment I really did not want to show fear in the face of that, so I stared at her right back down, and I said, ‘So you see my reflection?’ and she said, ‘Yeah, and I smell it on you too.’”
Part of the encounter was captured on the victim’s phone, which shows Smith’s ugly rhetoric.
“Jews are eating kids,” she shouted.
The tense moment quickly escalated to violence when Smith allegedly placed a hand on the victim’s throat.
A couple of bystanders attempted to defuse the situation with Smith yelling, “It’s OK for Jews to eat kids, but I can’t choke her down.”
Seconds later the victim’s phone was knocked to the ground and Smith allegedly had her hands wrapped around her throat, kicking and shoving her to the ground, the 23-year-old said.
Her hair was pulled so forcefully that a clump of it was ripped out.
Once the subway reached the Canal Street stop, the Jewish woman rushed out of the car to get cops’ attention while another straphanger pushed the emergency button, leading to the arrest of Smith.
“When I had to identify her, a ton of people were like, ‘Oh, we saw what happened, are you OK?’ And, that was extremely triggering for me, because, of course, I’m not OK. I kept just thinking, I’m not in Nazi Germany,” said the woman, who is only 5-foot-3.
“How is this happening, and how is it that you saw what happened, and just were a bystander?”
The victim said she also suffered a concussion from the hateful attack.
Smith is facing charges of hate crime assault, hate crime criminal obstruction of breathing and aggravated harassment, court records show.
“She’s pure evil, but she was lucid enough to know I was Jewish,” the victim said.
The hateful attack came the same time the Israel Day Parade was marching across 5th Avenue in Manhattan – though Mayor Zohran Mamdani was a notable no-show.
“I don’t think New York is protecting Jews. I don’t think Mamdani not going to the Israel Day Parade is helping,” she said.
The 34-year-old lefty mayor has said he didn’t march because he does not agree with the Israeli government, but has vowed to protect Big Apple Jews and celebrate Jewish culture in other ways.
The city has dealt with a spike in antisemitic crimes since the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, sparking the bloody conflict in Gaza.
2026.6.3 Bakersfield, California hostage standoff ends after FBI kills armed sex offender
Former Army soldier and registered sex offender allegedly held hostages during nearly 16-hour Bakersfield standoff
A registered sex offender and former U.S. Army soldier was fatally shot by FBI agents Wednesday after allegedly strapping explosives onto himself and multiple hostages during a tense, nearly 16-hour standoff at a downtown Bakersfield, California, bank building.
The suspect, identified by FBI Sacramento as Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, 41, was fatally shot at about 4:20 p.m. by FBI personnel and pronounced dead at the scene.
All hostages were unharmed and have since been reunited with their families, according to police.
Searles-Harris served in the U.S. Army from 2006 to 2007 and was dishonorably discharged after going absent without leave (AWOL), according to Sid Patel, special agent in charge of FBI Sacramento.
He had a criminal history of using weapons to commit violent offenses and, in 2014, he was arrested for sex acts with a child under 14. He was a registered sex offender.
The incident unfolded Tuesday after the Bakersfield Police Department received a call at about 1 p.m. with reports of a bomb threat at the Chase Bank building on the corner of Chester Avenue and 17th Street, according to Bakersfield Police Assistant Chief Jeremy Blakemore.
Responding personnel and dispatchers confirmed Searles-Harris had barricaded himself on the second floor of the Kern County Superintendents of School Office in the Chase building and had tied up five of 10 hostages, Patel said.
Searles-Harris told authorities he had explosives attached to him, which the FBI said it could see, and that additional explosives had been attached to some of the hostages, which was confirmed.
The FBI confirmed there were “multiple” IEDs involved and authorities also found some additional “concerning items.”
At about 4 p.m., Searles-Harris released one of the five bound hostages and at approximately 8:30 p.m., he released a second.
It’s unclear if he was aware of the remaining hostages, who authorities say were not tied up.
FBI SWAT teams from Los Angeles and Sacramento arrived at about 9 p.m. and took over the scene at roughly 2 a.m.
“Immediately, [the] FBI jumped into action, mobilizing resources, including launching our CIRG Hostage Rescue Team — FBI’s elite tier 1 tactical unit — who flew across the country in the middle of the night preparing for a high-risk, life-saving mission,” FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News Digital. “FBI Sacramento, FBI Los Angeles, and our teams across the country utilized more than 150 additional FBI personnel including SWAT, crises negotiators, Special Agent Bomb Technicians, and more — where after an intense nearly 15-hour negotiation, FBI HRT teams successfully breached the building around 4:30 a.m. local time, neutralized the subject, and safely recovered all hostages unharmed.”
“This was simply outstanding work by the men and women of the FBI with our partners at the Bakersfield Police Department who executed the mission brilliantly and saved at least 10 lives in a situation that could’ve turned deadly,” the FBI director added.
The FBI said one of the hostages, who was diabetic, had her phone with her and was in communication with authorities until the phone died.
“We knew that this was a loss of life situation for that particular hostage that was taken if we didn’t act sooner [rather] than later,” Sid Patel said. “We also know because of the other circumstances and our trained professionals that, because of his behavior, we had to act at that point in time.”
Blakemore said most of the negotiators’ conversations with Searles-Harris led police to believe that he was “really concerned about his previous case history,” and did not intend to specifically target the Kern County Superintendents of School Office.
“There were specific elements that he was very frustrated [with],” Blakemore said. “He had some concerns related to how his previous case had been handled and what the aftermath of that was — his sentencing and those types of things.”
At one point, Searles-Harris mentioned his daughter to negotiators, according to Sid Patel.
Authorities confirmed they were aware of a YouTube video related to Searles-Harris circulating and confirmed no other suspects were involved.
“He had asked for, early on, the notoriety of having the FBI involved… and FBI negotiators,” Sid Patel said. “My assumption would be [that] by targeting a bank or some federal institution, there’s a greater chance to have … federal intervention.”
JPMorgan Chase provided Fox News Digital with the following statement: “We are grateful to law enforcement for their swift, professional response, and we’re relieved that those who were being held are safe. The branch will remain closed until further notice; we are focused on supporting our employees during this difficult and stressful time, including providing access to resources and assistance.”
2026.6.3 Teen rider accused of stabbing 3 horses at Las Vegas race was ‘stalker,’ injured horse’s owner says
“She had no business being there,” said Arielle Phillips, whose horse, Detail, was attacked.
One of the rodeo riders whose horses were stabbed over the weekend in a Las Vegas barn said Tuesday she came “face-to-face” with the teenager charged with attacking her mare and two other horses.
Arielle Phillips told NBC News she was in a stall with her horse, Detail, late Friday when the 17-year-old “came by twice to try and make conversation by asking me weird questions.”
“She’s this stalker who has been following me on social media for a long time,” said Phillips, who was in Las Vegas to compete in a barrel racing event held by the National Barrel Horse Association. “She obsessed over Detail and obsessed over meeting me. And because she was also competing, I guess this was her chance to meet us.”
Phillips, 34, said she had never responded to any of the suspect’s messages and tried not to get into an extended conversation with her.
“It was weird,” Phillips said. “She had no business being there.”
Just minutes after she said good night to Detail and left the stall, Phillips wrote on Facebook, the teenager “brutally stabbed” the mare six times, “causing Detail to go frantic and get loose, taking off thru the barn aisles, blood pouring everywhere.”
“This girl had the nerve to call my boyfriend’s daughter while I literally just got back into the room after leaving Detail, stating she found Detail with her stall door open,” Phillips wrote. “Impossible! I latch and triple wrap the latch before I leave her stall.”
The 17-year-old was arrested after three horses were reported injured around 2 a.m. Saturday during the Professional’s Choice Vegas Super Show, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement.
“The teen had access to the barn, and investigators believe she may have used a knife to inflict multiple injuries to the horses,” police said. “While the injuries are not considered life-threatening, they are expected to prevent the horses from competing.”
The teenager, whom police did not identify because she is a minor, was booked on suspicion of 12 counts dealing with injuring horses and three counts of felony malicious destruction of private property, police said.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wilson said he is seeking to prosecute the teenager as an adult.
“These allegations involve deliberate acts of extreme cruelty against defenseless animals and have had a significant impact on the victims, the owners, and the broader equestrian community,” Wolfson said in a statement.
“Animal abuse cases are taken extremely seriously by our office,” the statement said. “Nevada law allows certain juvenile offenders to be prosecuted as adults when warranted by the seriousness of the conduct. We believe this case meets that standard.”
Phillips said the two other horses that were injured are named Rocket and Saaul Good, or Sully.
Sully had been attacked just hours after Hailey Krahenbuhl, 20, had ridden the gelding to a first-place finish, according to the National Barrel Horse Association.
Krahenbuhl could not be reached for comment.
Police have not divulged a motive for assaulting the horses.
Earlier, the National Barrel Horse Association said in a statement that the attacks on the horses involved a competitor at the show, which was held over the weekend at the South Point Hotel & Casino.
Phillips wrote in her post that after the suspect called and reported that Detail had fled her stall, she was told to leave the horse alone and that they were on their way.
“I rushed down to find her hosing off Detail’s wounds,” Phillips wrote. “I walked up to Detail, and this mare who loves and trusts me with her life, jumped away in fear as I reached my hand out. My blood boiled in that moment.”
“I immediately suspected this girl,” Phillips wrote.
Phillips said that Detail is recovering but that it will be a while before she fully mends and is ready to compete again.
“Detail is traumatized,” Phillips wrote. “Every time she runs away from the approach of my hand, I burst into tears. This is my best friend. An innocent sweet horse was brutally tortured for no reason.”
2026.6.3 Cheating NJ husband with ‘long-simmering hatred’ for his wife killed her with a barbell: cops
A cheating New Jersey husband allegedly killed his wife of almost 40 years with a barbell — then emailed their kids to blame it on his “long-simmering ‘hatred’” for her, according to police.
Michael A. Kless, 67, allegedly killed Stacy Epstein-Kless, 66, in their Ocean Township home late last month, where she was later found in the basement with the heavy metal weightlifting bar over her throat and neck, according to an arrest affidavit on a first-degree murder charge.
He then emailed his two children to say he was going to kill himself — and included a sick description of the killing that matched evidence from the scene, according to the affidavit.
In his message, he “indicated a long simmering ‘hatred’” for his wife, and said he had been having an intimate relationship with a Central American woman, according to the document.
The children called 911 and police found their mom in the basement.
She was pronounced dead that morning.
Authorities tracked Kless’s vehicle traveling north on the Garden State Parkway.
He then contacted his daughter and said he was at a rest stop in Sayreville trying to overdose on medication, according to NJ.com.
He was found unconscious by police and was hospitalized in critical condition.
Investigators also interviewed members of a work crew who had arrived at Kless’s house earlier that morning for a home repair.
Kless had a scratch and blood on his face, refused to let the workers in and asked for the appointment to be rescheduled, they said.
Michael and Stacy Kless were married in 1987, according to a wedding announcement published in the New York Times.
Ocean Township Mayor John P. Napolitani Sr. told NJ.com he was friends with the couple and described Epstein-Kless as a “kind-hearted” and “loving” grandmother and mother.
Kless is charged with first-degree murder and other weapons offenses. He is to appear in court for a detention hearing on Wednesday.
2026.6.3 Feds raid $35M SoCal mansion of tech boss charged with sending secret shipments to Iranian military, nuclear programs.
Federal agents, in a daring predawn raid Wednesday, pounced on the opulent, $35 million Newport Beach mansion of an Iranian tech boss charged with supplying US computer hardware to Iran’s military and nuclear programs.
The California Post was there as the feds arrested Jamshid Ghomi, 63, of Newport Coast, who was charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and is expected to appear Wednesday afternoon in Santa Ana federal court.
The businessman, who is a dual citizen of Iran and the US, is accused of selling computer hardware to the Iranian government for use in its military and nuclear operations. Prosecutors allege Ghomi made millions on those deals and invented elaborate schemes to hide the transactions.
“Ghomi is accused of aiding our declared enemies by selling US-origin computer networking parts to Iran and earning millions of dollars in violation of US sanction laws,” said Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor Bill Essayli.
“We will hold him accountable by seeking an appropriate prison sentence and by seizing his assets, including his $35 million Newport Beach mansion,” he added.
A Texas high school volleyball coach allegedly fondled a student-athlete in her car after track events — and waited until she turned 18 before having sex, according to court documents.
BreAnn Halcumb, 34, was “hip to hip” with the senior for three months before they first had sex — and she shamelessly tried to blame the student when confronted by the girl’s alarmed parents, according to an affidavit seen by KLTV.
Halcumb’s now-former colleagues at Randolph High School reported the coach to the authorities last month after spotting signs of “suspicious activity” involving the coach and girl.
Halcumb and the girl messaged 160 messages on a school forum between February and April, with school officials describing it as “teenage flirting” in breach of its policy, according to the affidavit.
The last message was sent on April 24, and it included the staffer’s personal phone number.
Halcumb waited for the student to turn 18 on April 30 before having sex on at least two occasions.
Halcumb allegedly fondled the student in her car at a park en route home from a track meet on May 14 where she made a “wrong turn.”
The coach would also go to the student’s home for so-called “nail services” where they had sexual contact, according to the affidavit.
Halcumb allegedly ordered the teen not to tell anyone about their fling — and the student believed the feelings were serious.
The teen also told cops she and Halcumb kissed twice.
Halcumb, who faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, was confronted over her behavior by the girl’s dad on a speakerphone call as he wanted to “understand her perspective” — and she allegedly ‘fessed up and said her behavior was wrong, according to the documents.
She was asked why she didn’t report the situation to school officials, but was unable to give a reason.
During the call, she shamelessly tried to blame the young student by claiming the teen tried to initiate the first kiss.
Halcumb told cops the teen “pushed up on her and tried to kiss her first,” according to court records.
Halcumb left her role at Randolph High School before being arrested.
She had recently taken a new volleyball coaching job at Cedar Creek High School, located in the Bastrop Independent School District.
Officials are “reviewing the matter in accordance with district policies,” executive director of communications Evan Moilan told KSAT.
“The safety of our students, staff, and community is always our highest priority,” Moilan said.
The crazed dad who murdered his wife and five kids in an “act of evil” in Iowa left behind just one 22-year-old son — who fought back tears a day later while offering an astonishing show of grace to his murderous dad.
Johnathan McFarland was the lone family survivor Monday afternoon as his father, Ryan Willis McFarland, wiped out six other family members before killing himself after being heard ranting about death and money.
The student appeared at a vigil Tuesday, sharing a moving tribute to the family he lost — mom Lesa, sister Ryle, 20, brothers Mark, 16, and Ryan Jr., 13, and half-brothers Dakota Whitlow, 32, and Dakota Whitlow, 32, who were all found shot dead in various locations around their hometown of Muscatine.
“It’s hard to even think that this is even real. I’m still in denial,” Johnathan said, pausing to fight the emotion in his voice as a supportive police officer stood by his side.
“I know this is a very tough time, not just for me. I just wanted to say that I will forever love and miss my mom, Lesa, my sister, Riley, my four brothers, Dakota, Austin, Mark and Ryan,” he said.
“And this might hurt some people for me to say … No matter what is being told to me, I will always love and miss my dad, Ryan,” he said of the dad who slaughtered the rest of his closest family.
He said all seven of his loved ones “are gonna forever be always in my heart, my prayers, my thoughts, and I’ll always talk to them,” he said.
“I am also incredibly thankful to have had such an amazing, loving and caring family throughout my entire life. I will forever and always love and miss them dearly,” he said, saying he will continue to honor them.
Cops called the killings an “act of evil” that stemmed from a domestic dispute.
The deranged killer was heard shouting about money outside his home just 10 minutes before the shootings, his neighbor Melissa Weggen told the Quad-City Times.
“I heard him walk by my house, saying, ‘Don’t worry about money. Everything goes away when you die,’” the neighbor chillingly recalled overhearing.
Ryan McFarland had a checkered past, including an armed robbery and the death of a baby under his care.
In the early 2000s, McFarland and Lesa opened Little People Daycare & Preschool, which they operated out of their home until their license was revoked after an 8-month-old baby was found unresponsive in a crib, RadioIowa reported.
The child died in the hospital, and McFarland, who had a lengthy criminal history, was charged in 2011 with felony child endangerment resulting in death and neglect.
As part of a plea deal, the neglect charge was dropped and the child endangerment felony was reduced to a misdemeanor, which enabled McFarland to avoid a maximum 50-year jail term.
McFarland was convicted of armed robbery in Illinois in 1994 and sentenced to seven years in prison, according to WQAD.
Three years later, he pleaded guilty to a theft charge and was hit with an eight-year sentence.
Then in 2019, the onetime aspiring teacher was busted and convicted of fraud after he was found to have messed with the odometers of cars before selling them.
A California judge dismissed charges against a dermatologist accused of poisoning her husband with liquid drain cleaner, ruling that the Orange County District Attorney’s Office had withheld evidence from the grand jury that indicted her.
According to a news release from her attorney, Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick Donahue ruled on Friday that prosecutors had not presented jurors with available exculpatory evidence, and “if the grand jury had been properly informed of the evidence that was withheld, there was a reasonable probability they would not have found probable cause to indict.”
The dermatologist, Yue “Emily” Yu, was accused of putting liquid drain cleaner in her husband’s drink. The dismissal is a procedural ruling, not a finding of innocence.
Prosecutors said they plan to file charges again. Yu has maintained her innocence, and her attorney, Scott Simmons, has said she did nothing wrong and her husband fabricated the allegations to gain an advantage in their divorce.
The district attorney’s office disputed the basis for the ruling, saying the defense had never turned the evidence over to prosecutors. Charges against Yu have been dropped once before.
“We believe in the strength of the evidence in this case, and in the professional conduct of our prosecutors,” Kimberly Edds, director of public affairs for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, said in a statement. “We will continue to litigate this in a court of law as we pursue justice for an individual who was being methodically poisoned by his wife, a licensed medical professional whose intent was to inflict pain on him.”
Defense attorney Simmons praised the dismissal.
“We are proud to have stood by her through this, and we are grateful to Judge Donahue for his thorough and principled analysis,” Simmons said in a statement. “Dr. Yu has maintained her innocence from the beginning. Now she can begin to reclaim what matters most — her family, her patients, and her life.”
Yu also issued a statement through her attorney.
“I have spent four years watching a life I worked hard to build come apart. These years have taken an immense toll — on me, on the people I love, and on the work I have devoted my life to,” Yu said. “But I am very grateful that the court looked closely and recognized that the way these charges came about was deeply flawed. The court’s ruling allows me to begin moving forward.”
Yu’s license to practice medicine in California remains active, according to the Medical Board of California.
Adulterated lemonade caught on camera
Yu was arrested in 2022 and ultimately charged with three felony counts of poisoning, three felony counts of attempted poisoning and one felony count of corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant, according to court documents. She pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Her husband, radiologist Jack Chen, has said he unknowingly drank lemonade his then-wife had laced with drain cleaner.
“I started noticing a chemical taste in my lemonade. Eventually, I developed symptoms that had me see the doctor, who performed an examination and diagnosed me with two stomach ulcers, gastritis, and esophagitis,” Chen said in court documents filed as part of his divorce, restraining order and custody case involving their two children.
After noticing the strange taste, Chen installed cameras in the kitchen to try to determine why his drink tasted strange, the district attorney’s office said.
According to court documents, Chen has videos of three separate occasions of Yu “pouring Drano [sic] taken from under our kitchen sink and pouring it into my lemonade.”
In one of the videos, Chen said his hot lemonade was covered with plastic wrap. He said the video then shows Yu “taking the Drano [sic] from under the sink, removing the covering to pour the Drano [sic], and then replacing the cellophane and putting the Drano [sic] back.”
Chen collected samples of the beverage and turned them over to the Irvine Police Department, according to the district attorney’s office. “The samples were later turned over to the FBI for testing, which confirmed the substance was consistent with liquid drain cleaner,” the office said.
Defense says accusations stem from high-stakes divorce
Simmons previously said the events surrounding the indictment took place in the context of a troubled marriage and a high-stakes divorce case.
“He’s falsely claiming that she’s trying to poison him,” Simmons said. “Instead of calling 911, he calls a divorce lawyer.”
Simmons said Chen never went to the emergency room for treatment and that the medical evidence was inconsistent with him having consumed drain cleaner. He said the family had an ant problem in the kitchen and commonly used Drano mixed with lemonade to bait and kill the ants.
According to Simmons, the judge cited several reasons for the dismissal, including the prosecution’s failure to present the second grand jury with an FBI chemist’s opinion that three samples of Chen’s beverage were “drinkable” and not harmful based on their pH levels.
Steven Hittelman, Chen’s divorce attorney, said his client will continue to cooperate with the district attorney’s office and, in his words, “protect his children and himself through the Family Law court.”
The case has been dismissed once before. In January, prosecutors moved to dismiss the charges so they could conduct further investigation and after a key witness was unable to appear for trial. When the office refiled, prosecutors added attempted poisoning counts and brought the case before a second grand jury.
They’re some real gouda fellas.
A crew of Uzbek wannabe mobsters allegedly pocketed $4.5 million of high-end cheese, cigarettes and other goodies from warehouses across the Northeast — in a scheme straight out of “Goodfellas,” law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
Alleged leader Murodullo “Murad” Khasanov and seven of his cronies were hit with a sweeping conspiracy and grand larceny indictment in Manhattan after a long-running probe that uncovered at least six cargo thefts.
Instead of using the mob’s old-school stickup playbook, the knockoff gangsters used modern technology – hacking into computers and creating a forged paper trail – to fraudulently land hauls without ever needing to point a gun, prosecutors said.
Profits from the stolen goods – which included 25,000 pounds of purloined parmesan, pecorino and Manchego cheeses – allegedly helped Khasanov and his partners live the highlife in ocean-view digs in Brighton Beach and Coney Island, Brooklyn, driving luxury cars and flashing wads of cash at clubs, sources said.
“These guys acted like they watched every mob movie ever made and emulated American gangsters – the Hollywood version,” one law enforcement source said.
“The great American dream, Cosa Nostra style.”
Cops busted a “surprised” Khasanov early Wednesday after raiding his glamorous Surf Avenue high-rise apartment – which boasts a balcony overlooking the slightly less posh Coney Island Boardwalk and Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs flagship – and seizing boxes of records, a computer and phones, sources said.
A downcast Khasanov – along with alleged accomplices Nodir Kobilov and Aleksey Vorobyev – was arraigned later on the charges stemming from the joint probe by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Port Authority police and the NYPD.
The five other alleged thieves have variously been busted previously in the probe, are being held by federal immigration agents or face warrants for their arrests, records show.
Khasanov and his alleged crew entered the US illegally during the Biden administration, and do not speak English, one law enforcement source said.
“These guys can’t speak English … but they are right out of central casting,” the source said.
The ring’s six alleged heists between October 2025 and April hauled in, according to court papers:
$165,000 worth of lamb
$266,000 worth of copper
$295,000 worth of beef
$432,000 worth of cheese
$3.3 million worth of cigarettes
The wiseguy poseurs worked with an unnamed organized crime syndicate to infiltrate the day-to-day shipping process by impersonating legitimate trucking carriers and winning shipment bids, court documents state.
The syndicate would fraudulently score information for specific shipments, while Khasanov would pass along falsified documents to his driver pals, according to the documents.
The drivers would then show up to pickups in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, pose as carriers and make off with the shipments, prosecutors alleged.
“What is very disturbing here is that the victims, the owners of the goods and the legitimate shipping companies had no idea this was occurring until the damage is done,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said at a press conference announcing the busts.
“We believe at least some of the food was meant for grocery stores, like a Costco for example. When food orders go missing and shelves are empty, prices go up.”
The stolen goods were ultimately diverted to New York City, where Khasanov and others would sell them on the black market – or at least try to, court papers allege.
A breathtaking cache of stolen cigarettes originally headed to Tennessee ended up in a Bronx warehouse, where NYPD and Bronx district attorney’s investigators confiscated them in April while serving a search warrant, court papers state.
A trail of evidence – from WhatsApp messages to shipping bills to photographs – all ultimately led to Khasanov and his gang, the papers state.
Several incriminating pics showed Khasanov load looted lamb into his 2025 Range Rover, negotiate the sale of stolen copper at a Brooklyn scrap yard and stand outside the Bronx warehouse filled with pinched cigarettes, according to the docs.
Kobilov and Vorobyev pleaded not guilty during the arraignment and were given supervised release.
But prosecutors argued that Khasanov, who also pleaded not guilty, should be held on $1.5 million cash bail.
His attorney Michael Stanley Mandel tried to downplay his criminal problems, including an Interpol “red-notice” from Uzbekistan, where he’s wanted for fraud.
Mandel’s spiel faltered when he said Khasanov “works in the food sale business,” to which the entire courtroom laughed.
Khasanov was ultimately ordered held behind bars pending a June 11 hearing about his bail application.
A 28-year-old Long Island man died in his father’s arms as his shocked mom looked on following a hookup gone horribly wrong early Monday, officials said.
Kristin Sculley, 22, who is facing second-degree murder charges in the fatal Massapequa stabbing of Robert Carragher, allegedly snuck into the victim’s basement apartment in the middle of the night for a pre-arranged liaison before stabbing the victim to death in his own bed, police said.
In a chilling moment, Sculley flashed a sinister smirk as she was led to court by cops on Tuesday.
“We believe that this female individual made an arrangement,” Nassau County Police Detective Lt. George Darienzo told reporters. “She was an acquaintance of our victim, who made an arrangement to get together that evening.
“The location of the stabbing is initially believed to be in the bedroom at that location,” Darienzo said. “The individual died in his father’s arms. No family should ever have to bear witness to the sudden killing of their son.”
Cops said Sculley allegedly “became angry” and stabbed the victim with a pocket knife.
The two had “a friendship” and knew each other “for several years,” the detective said.
Police were called to the Beaumont Avenue home around 1:30 a.m. Monday and walked into the grisly scene. They said the mortally wounded victim managed to get to his parents.
“He climbed the stairs to seek the assistance of his mother, screaming,” Darienzo said. “His mother and father came to his aid. They attempted to control that bleeding in the kitchen. At that point their son became unresponsive.”
He said there was evidence that the victim and suspect had been doing drugs, but none where found.
Sculley was arraigned on a second-degree murder charge in Hempstead court Tuesday afternoon and ordered held without bail at the Nassau County jail. x1200
A North Carolina high school valedictorian hijacked her graduation speech to rant against Israel and ICE — and was dramatically yanked from the podium, shocking video showed.
Clayton High School senior Leen Hijaz was delivering the commencement speech Thursday when she ditched her pre-approved remarks, unleashing a fiery tirade blasting immigration enforcement and backing the Palestinian cause, according to ceremony footage and district officials.
“Before I leave the stage, I have one last thing to say. Every single person here has a voice; we have the privilege to use it when millions around the world are struggling and suffering to be heard,” Hijaz raged.
“Whether it’s the millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan and so many other countries around the world, or families being torn apart by ICE. These are not just an issue here; they are happening there, they’re happening right here as I speak.
“My point is, we’re not given a voice to stay silent,” she shouted as high school principal Melissa Moore rushed to the stage and cut her off, pulling her by the arm from the microphone, the video showed.
Hijaz then returned to her seat on the stage, smirking and waving to the crowd as she sat down.
The Muslim teen proceeded to whine on TikTok last week, accusing the school of refusing to give her a diploma after the now-viral stunt, moaning that it made her feel “oppressed.”
However, the teen’s diploma has since been “awarded,” Johnston County Public Schools said Tuesday.
“During this year’s Clayton High School graduation, a student departed from her approved remarks,” school leaders told The Post in a statement.
“School administrators intervened in order to maintain the integrity and focus of the program in real time. This action was not about limiting a student’s voice, but about ensuring that a school-sponsored event remained consistent with its intended purpose.”
2026.6.2 Video shows massive drug-smuggling tunnel connecting U.S. and Mexico
Four people have been arrested and charged with trafficking more than $45 million in cocaine through an elaborate 2,000-foot-long tunnel between border cities in Mexico and California, complete with electricity, reinforced walls, ventilation and a rail system, according to federal officials.
The tunnel was discovered as part of a monthslong investigation into a warehouse for a supposed discount store, Buy 4 Less, located near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, right across the border from Tijuana, Mexico, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
By the end of the operation, more than a ton of cocaine and the sophisticated tunnel underneath the store were found, officials said.
“For these defendants, it wasn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. It was lights and sirens,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement.
The U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Tunnel Task Force began surveilling the purported Buy 4 Less store in December 2025 when, federal officials said, a new group of apparent employees was seen in and around the store.
Federal officials keeping an eye on the store noted, “During the surveillance, the activity around the Buy 4 Less location did not appear to be consistent with a normal retail location. For example, investigators observed minimal foot traffic from customers coming in and out of the Buy 4 Less store.”
The employees were allegedly seen taking apparently empty suitcases — based on how they were handled, according to the Department of Justice — across the border into Tijuana by car and sometimes even by hand.
However, federal agents didn’t move in on the location until May 29, when they allegedly spotted “large, heavy items” being placed into a white van at the store. The truck left the location and was parked on a street a short distance away, officials said.
A man on a bicycle was then allegedly observed riding up to the van, taking a key out of a secret spot near the gas cap, and driving the van back-to-back with another van, officials said. A large truck also drove up to the vans and deep freezers loaded with packages were transferred between the vehicles, according to the Justice Department.
San Diego County sheriff’s deputies then moved in and busted the operation, according to the DOJ. At the same time, agents allegedly watched another truck being loaded with packages at the Buy 4 Less store, officials said. That truck was also pulled over by authorities shortly after leaving the parking lot.
In the end, federal officials said more than 2,269 pounds of cocaine were found between three vehicles that were pulled over.
The DOJ was granted a warrant to investigate the Buy 4 Less store, upon which they found the exit of the tunnel concealed under the floor of a storage room in the building, officials said. The tunnel was as much as 55 feet deep and extended just over 1,000 feet to the U.S.-Mexico border. It continued on the Mexico side of the border for another more than 800 feet, the DOJ said.
Gregorio Epifanio Hernandez Lopez, 29, from San Diego; Jose Jimenez, 32, from San Diego; Antonio Cortez, 18, of Mexico; and Brandon Escalante Sandoval, 26, of Mexico, were arrested and charged with distribution of a controlled substance. Hernandez Lopez is also facing charges of constructing, financing, or using unauthorized tunnels and importation of a controlled substance. All four men face a maximum of life in prison if convicted.
“This investigation and seizure represent a significant blow to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel,” Kevin Murphy, acting special agent in charge for HSI San Diego, said in a statement. “The discovery and dismantlement of this sophisticated cross-border tunnel, along with the seizure of more than a ton of cocaine, underscore the commitment and collaboration of Homeland Security Investigations and our Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) partners.”
A deranged illegal immigrant stabbed his upstairs neighbor 50 times inside their Long Island apartment building – all because her high heels made too much noise, prosecutors said Tuesday as he pleaded not guilty to slaughtering two women.
Rony Yahir Alvarenga Rivera, 22, allegedly told cops that he first hacked neighbor Eddy Raquel Hernandez Castillo to death on April 30 because the racket she made drove him nuts inside his basement apartment.
“He told her he was annoyed by the noise that she was making, wearing high heels and talking loudly on the phone,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly told reporters. “When he was arrested, his clothes were full of blood.”
”He gave a confession to not only the Lynbrook Police Department, but he waived Miranda [rights] and he gave a full confession to the Nassau County Police Department,” Donnelly said.
Rivera, an immigrant from El Salvador, entered the US illegally as an unaccompanied 12-year-old in 2016, according to federal authorities.
Nassau prosecutors said the accused killer later told detectives that he knew he would get caught after the grisly slashing – so he planned a second fatal attack.
Shortly after midnight on May 1, Rivera allegedly drove to his job at a Lynbrook Wendy’s and waited outside by a dumpster for nearly a half hour before he ambushed coworker Ana Maria de Aguila Cordova, a 42-year-old mother of three, when she came out to take out the trash.
Rivera had a “beef” with Corodova and felt “disrespected” by her, and stabbed her upwards of 30 times during the bloody assault, the DA’s office said.
The maniac then called the cops on himself from a 7-Eleven in Lynbrook shortly before 3 a.m. and allegedly told police, “I killed someone tonight.”
Rivera then allegedly confessed to both slayings, but pleaded not guilty as he was arraigned on first-degree and second-degree murder and other charges in Mineola court on Tuesday.
He was ordered held without bail and is due back in court on July 8.
2026.6.2 Police investigate Iowa man suspected of shooting 6 of his relatives and then himself
MUSCATINE, Iowa (AP) — Authorities in Iowa are investigating the fatal shootings of six people who they believe were killed by a relative who took his own life when confronted by police Monday.
Police were called Monday to a home in Muscatine, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Cedar Rapids, where they found four people fatally shot, Muscatine Police Chief Anthony Kies said during a news conference.
Officers later found the suspect, 52-year-old Ryan Willis McFarland, of Muscatine, on a trail in the city, Kies said.
“While talking to Ryan Willis McFarland, he took his own life,” he said.
Two other men who also are believed to be relatives of McFarland were later found fatally shot elsewhere in the city, according to Kies. One man was found in his home and the other was discovered dead inside a business, he said.
Authorities have yet to release the names of the victims and any details about them.
“Today I simply do not have the words,” said Kies. “This act of evil and what it has done to our community.”
The city’s police department is continuing to investigate the shootings, working to process the crime scenes and conduct interviews. Police have asked anyone with information to contact its major crimes unit.
Kies confirmed that McFarland had a criminal record, but wouldn’t share any details.
The actor and musician said the 31-year-old man who she says tried to force his way into her Hollywood Hills home had been surveilling the property since at least late April.
A Los Angeles County court granted pop superstar Sabrina Carpenter a temporary restraining order Monday against a man she alleges has been stalking her and tried to get into her home.
The court prohibited William Applegate, 31, from being within 100 yards of Carpenter or her sister Sarah Carpenter and the latter’s partner, who also live in the Hollywood Hills home, according to Monday’s order.
Carpenter filed a request for a civil harassment restraining order against Applegate in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday. The request alleges Applegate went up to Carpenter’s front door and tried to forcibly open it on May 23, an escalation of alleged stalking behavior that had been occurring at least around April 20.
“His pattern of stalking, trespassing, and surveillance has caused me severe and ongoing emotional distress, and I am in fear [of] what he may do if he is not restrained by his Court,” Carpenter wrote in her declaration requesting the restraining order.
NBC News was unable to find contact information for Applegate on Monday, and it was unclear whether he has a lawyer. The Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The request alleges Applegate tried to open Carpenter’s front door on May 23. When a security guard confronted him, Applegate struck the man, according to a declaration in support of the restraining order from a Los Angeles police detective.
Images from a Ring security camera show a man, whom the restraining order request identifies as Applegate, at Carpenter’s front door and being confronted by a security guard with a flashlight.
According to court documents, the security guard told Applegate to leave, but he refused and said that he knew Carpenter and that she was expecting him, a claim the documents called “outrageous and entirely false.”
Applegate refused to leave until police officers arrived, according to the detective, a threat management expert. The detective wrote that Applegate “developed a disturbing and irrational fixation on” Carpenter.
After he was arrested on suspicion of trespassing, a misdemeanor, the man returned to the neighborhood the next two days, Carpenter said in her declaration.
He parked his Toyota Prius nearby and reclined his seat so it was more difficult to see him, she said, while he conducted what she alleged was “deliberate surveillance” and “harassment.” He left once police officers responded, Carpenter said.
After that, Carpenter’s security personnel determined the man had been parking in the neighborhood and getting “progressively closer” to her home since roughly April 20, according to the request.
“His delusional insistence that he knows me and was expected by me is indicative of a dangerous, delusional, and irrational fixation on me,” Carpenter wrote in her declaration.
The restraining order also covers Carpenter’s workplace and vehicle and says Applegate may not harass, intimidate, threaten, contact or stalk her.
The police department submitted its case for trespassing and other allegations from the May 23 incident to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office so it can determine whether charges should be filed, the police detective wrote in his declaration supporting a restraining order. A court hearing for that matter is scheduled for June 18, he said.
2026.6.2 A chilling, apparently random stabbing on a MARTA train leaves a 66-year-old woman dead
A 25-year-old man has been charged with murder after police say he stabbed a woman to death on an Atlanta commuter train in an apparently random attack.
John Elijah Matthews was arrested around noon on Saturday, moments after he stepped off the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority train at the Oakland City Station, said MARTA Police Chief Scott Kreher. First responders tried to resuscitate Margaret Swan, 66, but she died at the scene, he said.
Matthews waived a bond hearing set for Monday morning, and a defense attorney named in his court documents did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. Matthews has not yet had the opportunity to enter a plea.
Kreher said video from the train depicted an unprovoked and chilling attack on an apparent stranger, and that Swan was stabbed up to 20 times.
“There’s no evidence at this time to suggest they knew each other — this was merely a random act of violence,” Kreher said.
“He walked over, stood next to her, and within 30 seconds he had killed her,” using a small pocket knife, Kreher said. “He looked at her, didn’t say anything to her, pulled out a knife.”
Other people were on the train at the time, Kreher said, but the suspect did not approach any of them.
“He finished attacking her, and he just stood there and waited for the train to stop in Oakland City. He got off the train car, went over on the platform, and just sat down. He didn’t even try to run or hide,” Kreher said.
A statement from MARTA said the transit authority is committed to protecting riders and responding quickly to incidents. MARTA has 12,000 security cameras in its system, as well as a dedicated police force of 280 officers.
“This was a senseless and heartbreaking loss,” the MARTA statement said. “We mourn with Margaret Swan’s loved ones and extend our deepest sympathies during this incredibly difficult time.”
Kreher said the police force had already planned to step up security by putting officers on six-day workweeks starting Saturday for the FIFA World Cup. But after the stabbing, they decided to implement the longer workweek immediately.
There were 1,357 assaults, including 29 fatalities, on mass transit riders in the U.S. from Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2025, according to the Federal Transit Administration. But that was a drop compared to the two previous years, when more than 1,500 people were assaulted, and more than 40 died in each year.
Last month, a man with a machete who attacked three people at a major New York City subway station was shot and killed by police. The three stabbing victims had injuries that were not expected to be life-threatening.
Almost a dozen people were injured in a stabbing attack on a train traveling through eastern England last November.
A young Ukrainian refugee was fatally stabbed on a commuter train in Charlotte, North Carolina, last year, and the man charged with her murder has not yet been found competent to stand trial. The death of Iryna Zarutska, 23, sparked sharp criticism from President Donald Trump and others who said local officials were not doing enough to prevent violent crime.
2026.6.1 Judge torches upstate NY dad who laughed in court about executing young son, girlfriend with shotgun
The cold-blooded upstate New York dad who callously laughed in court while confessing to the murders of his 11-year-old son and girlfriend got a blistering tongue-lashing from the furious judge last week — before being hit with a hefty prison term.
David Huff, 43, was sentenced Friday to 40 years to life behind bars after flashing a smug grin and chuckling while admitting he shotgunned his girlfriend, Yeraldith Tschudy, 23, and his son, Jeremiah Huff, inside his stepfather’s Syracuse home in March 2025.
“Your actions are reprehensible, and you deserve to be incarcerated for the rest of your life,” Onondaga County Judge Ted Limpert raged in court, according to Syracuse.com.
“Even a sentence of life is not long enough for you.”
Jeremiah’s mother, Samantha Gallup-Peltier, also tore into Huff while remembering her slain son.
“You are destined for the seventh circle of hell,” she tearfully blasted in court.
“Children are supposed to trust their parents will protect them from harm, not become the source of it.”
Huff used a 12-gauge shotgun when he opened fire at his stepfather’s Roney Road residence around 9:30 p.m. March 17, 2025, killing Tschudy and his son before also allegedly shooting his stepdad.
Gallup-Peltier was the first to dial 911 after getting a disturbing call from her son just before the killings.
Huff fled before police arrived and was arrested by state authorities the next morning while walking on West Seneca Turnpike, not far from the grisly scene.
Limpert’s searing rebuke came over a month after the twisted dad tried to justify his disturbing courtroom antics at the April 28 appearance, insisting he had a “joke stuck” in his head as he pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder.
“You find this funny?” the judge asked the laughing killer, the outlet reported.
Huff flippantly replied while still giggling, “No, it’s a joke stuck in my head … Go on,” before later telling the judge, “I’m guilty of all that. Whatever you guys say, I’m guilty of.”
Defense attorney Shaun Chase claimed Friday that Huff was on the hallucinogenic drug ecstasy or “Molly” when he carried out the double killings.
The last-ditch effort came after Chase conceded that multiple experts found any mental incapacity stemmed from Huff’s voluntary abuse of booze or drugs.
The conviction followed months of delays while the defense waited for a medical expert to assess Huff’s mental health.
It’s not clear which substances, if any, Huff was using or his level of intoxication on the night of the murders, prosecutors said.
Huff was found competent to stand trial but opted to plead guilty.
A South Carolina jury on Monday found a store owner not guilty of murder in the 2023 shooting of a Black 14-year-old.
The jury returned the verdict for Chikei Rick Chow. Chow, 61, who is Asian, shot Cyrus Carmack-Belton in the back after chasing him from his convenience store in Columbia, but maintained he acted to defend his son. The killing sent waves of anguish and grief through the African American community in Richland County, where nearly half the population is Black.
After the verdict was read, sobs and cries of distress could be heard coming from Carmack-Belton’s family seated in the gallery. Chow sat silently frozen before slowly bowing his head onto his interlocked hands.
Prosecutors and a defense lawyer in closing arguments painted different pictures of the 2023 shooting. Prosecutors said Chow acted in anger because he wrongly thought the teen had stolen four bottles of water from the store. A defense lawyer said Chow fired to defend his son only after the teen pointed a gun at him.
“This case is not about a shoplifter. This case is about a father who sees a gun pointed at his son and had to make a decision,” defense attorney Shaun Kent told jurors during closing arguments. The defense attorney said Andy Chow testified that Carmack-Belton pointed a gun at him.
Prosecutors acknowledged Carmack-Belton had a semiautomatic pistol, but they say it fell on the ground during the chase, and he never threatened anyone with it. Prosecutors said Chow chased the teen more than 130 yards from the store.
Solicitor Byron E. Gipson told jurors that Chow “chased a kid down, shot him in the back.”
During closing arguments, Gipson placed a bottle of water before jurors. Gipson said that Chow “at the end of the day, believed that a human is not more than that.”
Gipson said multiple witnesses testified that they didn’t see anything in Carmack-Belton’s hands and didn’t see him point a gun as he ran from the store.
“Nobody testified that happened that doesn’t have the last name Chow,” Gipson said.
The fatal shooting prompted vigils and protests outside the store. Empty water bottles were arranged to spell out “Cyrus” at one 2023 vigil.
2026.6.1 NYC manhole ‘mole people’ have plundered sewer for lost treasures for decades
Treasures abound beneath city streets for anyone brave or crazy enough to explore the murky depths of the Big Apple’s sprawling 7,500-mile sewer system — all in search of a wayward wallet or piece of jewelry that may have fallen through a grate above.
Those temptations were put on full display last week by two separate incidents caught on camera Friday night, where troops of people were seen emerging from manhole covers across Brooklyn after sneaking around the steamy depths in what police said were likely scavenging operations.
The ever-present threat of arrest and obvious risks to personal safety are apparently no deterrent for these intrepid subterranean explorers — for whom no gemstone is too grimy and no coin too crud-covered to add to their loot pouches — with numerous such incidents capturing the city’s attention over the years.
One happening made headlines In 2015, when part-time city Department of Environmental Protection worker Marquis Evans, then 21, led two pals down a Brooklyn manhole in search of “gold, jewelry and guns” in city sewers, cops said at the time.
The trio took several such belowground “scavenger hunt” excursions before the law caught up with Evans and his friends Damien Nieves and David Hannibal. They were slapped with criminal trespassing charges after spending four hours searching for them.
“God knows what they were looking for,” then-Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said following the arrests.
“I know damn sure I wouldn’t be crawling through the sewers of New York, but these three evidently were up to something down there.”
A decade later, the allure of scooping up lost valuables was also the motivation for a different threesome who were arrested for descending into the Brooklyn sewers in April 2025.
One of the men, Willer Green, told police at the time, “The reason we went down there is that people lose their gold down there. We got to sell it to make money.”
And the allure of the sewers has apparently always been around — a spate of New York Times articles from the 1800s described claims of jewels being pulled from their depths, while tales of criminals tossing drugs and other stashes into storm drains has filled movies and crime stories over the years.
The age of internet streaming has ratcheted the call of the sewer up another level, with videos from urban explorers cropping up online over the years to give first-person perspectives down the dark depths of subway tunnels and slimy city drain systems.
After the 2015 incident, former Commissioner Bratton said there was little that could be done to prevent foolhardy people from prying up the city’s nearly 200-pound manhole covers and descending into the dangerous tunnels below.
“Entering a sewer without proper authorization and training is illegal, incredibly irresponsible and dangerous,” he said at the time, according to the Times. “The reality is we cannot be everywhere protecting everything from everybody.”
No arrests have been made in the latest spate of Brooklyn sewer treasure hunters, where separate groups of men were seen climbing out of two manhole covers in Gravesend and Williamsburg.
Footage from the Gravesend incident obtained by Flatbush Scoop showed a man prying back a manhole cover from McDonald Ave. around 2 a.m. and stashing it between nearby cars — when seven men proceeded to file out of the ground one at a time.
They each had flashlights and appeared to be wearing boots and overall waders, and milled together around a trio of cars while they stripped off their filthy attire.
The individuals tossed their clothes — and whatever they found in the ground — into the cars, before driving off.
Sources told The Post it was likely that these tunnels were likely up to nothing more than their scavenging predecessors had gotten up to — citing coins, wallets, scrap metal, jewelry or other valuables as their probable targets.
The source noted that urban scavenging of that nature is a more common practice in other countries, but is far from unheard of in New York.
2026.6.1 A key hearing for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk will be public, judge rules
A Utah judge has declined a request from the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk to restrict access to parts of his July preliminary hearing.
PROVO, Utah — Reporters and the public will be allowed to attend a key upcoming hearing for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk, after a Utah judge on Monday denied a defense request to restrict access.
Tyler Robinson’s defense had asked Judge Tony Graf to close portions of the preliminary hearing on July 6-10, when prosecutors must show they have enough evidence to warrant a trial. It will mark the most significant presentation of evidence to date in a case that has so far focused on matters of media access.
Robinson’s lawyers have tried to guard against media coverage that they say sometimes misrepresents their client as his case has drawn tremendous public attention. The 23-year-old from southwestern Utah is charged with aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 assassination of Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus.
Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if Robinson is convicted. He has not yet entered a plea.
Prosecutors argued that the preliminary hearing should remain open, but they agreed with the defense that media should be restricted from viewing or copying some exhibits that could be used in a future trial. They plan to introduce forensic analyses, surveillance video, recordings of witness statements, autopsy findings and alleged messages from Robinson admitting to the crime.
Authorities have said DNA consistent with Robinson’s was found on the trigger of the rifle used to kill Kirk, the fired cartridge casing, two unfired cartridges and a towel used to wrap the rifle. Prosecutors also have said Robinson left a note for his romantic partner that read, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”
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Outside anti-ICE agitators have traveled across the country to stoke violence outside Delaney Hall — the embattled immigration detention center in New Jersey, officials said Monday.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made the revelation on Monday, saying that hooligans from as far away as Portland, Oregon, have wreaked havoc outside the Newark facility.
Twenty-one protesters were arrested for allegedly assaulting federal officers outside Delaney Hall between May 26 and May 29. At least another 20 were arrested on Sunday alone.
Mullin on Monday praised the New Jersey state police after the state reluctantly dispatched officers to help the feds reign in the unruly mob after a week of anarchy.
“We see over and over again in these sanctuary cities and sanctuary states where law enforcement officers, they want to do their job, that’s why they signed up to do their job. So often, you have radical left leadership that doesn’t allow them to do so,” Mullin said at a press conference on Monday.
“But when they did show up [at Delaney Hall], they quickly realized these aren’t peaceful protesters that the radical left politicians were telling you about,” he added.
Mullin called the protesters “well-organized” and “well-supplied” — hours after federal officers tore down a volunteer camp stocked with supplies intended for detainees’ families and loved ones.
Portland has seen repeated anti-ICE demonstrations since June 2025. Protests flared monthly since then, and in March, one dim-wit accidentally set himself on fire while trying to burn an American flag outside a city immigration facility.
Mullin didn’t identify any other states the agitators may have traveled from, or how many have been arrested in total. The Post reached out to DHS for more information.
So far, at least two agitators, both native to the tristate area, have been charged for their alleged misconduct.
Brendan John Geier, a 26-year-old from Madison, New Jersey, allegedly sank his teeth into federal law enforcement officers during a demonstration last week. He was previously accused of distributing child pornography while he was in college.
Nicholas Matthew Scelfo, a 27-year-old Brooklynite, was charged for allegedly threatening to kill an agent and his family during a heated confrontation at Delaney Hall on May 27.
“I’ll kill your whole f–king family. Your whole f–king family is dead. Your children, your wife, all dead,” the agitator was heard shouting at federal agents in video footage captured by witnesses.
“I have your face, motherf–ker. You’re dead. Dead,” he added.
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It’s a picture-perfect idea.
A Long Island beach is marking what would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday Monday with a special tribute to celebrate the iconic 1949 photo shoot there that kick-started her career.
Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joe Saladino unveiled a plaque Friday at Tobay Beach commemorating the Hollywood legend’s iconic stop on Long Island.
“Tobay Beach wasn’t just a quiet escape; it was the place where a legend was launched,” the special plaque reads.
Saladino, standing near where the gorgeous then-23-year-old posed in a sexy swimsuit with an umbrella, said Monroe “visited New York City and was looking to catapult her career.
“We wanted to forever memorialize this iconic moment,” he said.
Photographer André de Dienes chose the Nassau County shore “to capture her youth, her beauty and her great personality” at a time that the Los Angeles native “was just starting and getting some minor film roles,” Saladino said.
Monroe, who at the time was still Norma Jean Mortenson, declared, “Let’s make history!” in front of the Atlantic Ocean’s crashing waves — and soon made good on her vow.
“Hollywood Studios quickly took notice,” Saladino said of the star’s meteoric rise in the 1950s.
“They looked at her youthfulness, her innocence, vulnerability, and her effortless beauty came across vividly through the camera lens.”
Monroe tragically died in 1962 at age 36 of a drug overdose.
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