(NEW YORK) — Much of what the Justice Department wants a federal judge to unseal from the Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury investigation is already known and, at least so far, the attorney general is seeking to unseal nothing else, according to a new court filing Tuesday.
The Justice Department turned over a version of the Maxwell grand jury transcripts that identifies which information is not already publicly known. That annotated version shows that “much of the information provided during the course of the grand jury testimony — with the exception of the identities of certain victims and witnesses — was made publicly available at trial or has otherwise been publicly reported through the public statements of victims and witnesses,” the filing said.
The Justice Department is asking two federal judges in New York to unseal the grand jury transcripts in the Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein cases. It is not asking the judges to unseal the grand jury exhibits, though the attorney general asked for several more days to consider “its position with respect to unsealing of the grand jury exhibits,” the filing said.
The Epstein grand jury met twice on June 18, 2019, and July 2, 2019, before he was indicted on charges accusing him of sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of minor girls.
The Maxwell grand jury met on June 29, 2020, July 8, 2020, and March 29, 2021, before she was indicted on charges she conspired with Epstein to entice minors to travel so they could engage in illegal sex acts.
Maxwell was convicted and is serving a 20-year prison sentence at an all-female federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, where she was recently moved from a minimum security prison in Tallahassee, Florida.
The Justice Department said it has provided notice of the unsealing motions to all but one of the victims who are referenced in the grand jury transcripts. Federal prosecutors have been unable to contact that remaining victim.
“With respect to victims who are not identified in the grand jury transcripts but who have previously received victim notifications in the Maxwell and Epstein matters, the Government will over the coming days alert those victims to the fact of the unsealing motions,” the filing said.
On Monday, the court placed on the docket letters from anonymous purported Epstein victims criticizing the Trump administration’s approach.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York declined on Monday to grant Sean “Diddy” Combs bail, finding no “exceptional reasons” to release him prior to his October sentencing.
Combs was convicted of transportation to engage in prostitution, which the judge said mandates incarceration. His sentencing is set for Oct. 3.
Judge Arun Subramanian said Combs remains a risk of flight and a danger to the community, pointing to the violence exhibited on 2016 hotel surveillance footage that shows him kicking and dragging Cassie Ventura.
Defense attorneys said Combs transported male escorts not for profit or under duress but to join his “swingers lifestyle,” arguing those unique circumstances warranted release. The judge said that argument “might have traction” in a different case but not one that included evidence of violence, coercion or subjugation in connection with the prostitution.
“The record here contains evidence of all three,” Subramanian said.
“While Combs may contend at sentencing that this evidence should be discounted and that what happened was nothing more than a case of willing ‘swingers’ utilizing the voluntary services of escorts for their mutual pleasure, the Government takes the opposite view: that Cassie Ventura and Jane were beaten, coerced, threatened, lied to, and victimized by Combs as part of their participation in these events,” the opinion said. Combs also argued for release on bail because of the squalor and danger at the Metropolitan Detention Center. But the judge said jail staff “has been able to keep him safe,” even during an incident of threatened violence from an inmate, according to the opinion. The judge’s order did not elaborate on the nature of the threat or what jail staff did to mitigate it.
Combs has been incarcerated at the federal jail in Brooklyn for 11 months.
Following an eight-week federal trial, a jury convicted Combs last month of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted him of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges.
Subramanian denied him bail following the verdict, citing then as well the violence that was “starkly depicted” in the 2016 hotel security footage.
(LOS ANGELES) — Firefighters in Maui are battling a brush fire burning above Kaanapali, Hawaii, on Monday.
The fire is near the old Sugar Cane Train warehouse, the Maui Emergency Management Agency said.
Both lanes of Honoapiʻilani Highway between Puʻukoliʻi Road and Lower Honoapiʻilani Highway have been shut down amid firefighting efforts, according to the agency.
The Maui County Fire Department said in an update on X that the fire “is slowly being contained.”
Officials asked motorists to avoid the area. “Smoke continues to impact the highway, necessitating the continued road closure,” the department said.
The blaze is just a couple of miles north of where the devastating Lahaina wildfires occurred nearly two years ago.
The fires, which became the fifth deadliest in U.S. history, left over 100 people dead, destroyed thousands of structures and parched the local landscape.
(DYER COUNTY, Tenn.) — A 28-year-old man being sought in the homicides of four people in Tennessee has been captured on a home security camera, police said Monday, as the search for the suspect continued.
Austin Robert Drummond was seen late Sunday night in Jackson, Tennessee, according to local police. The sighting was captured on a citizen’s camera system on the 700 block of Pipkin Road, police said.
The suspect is believed to still be in the area, the Jackson Police Department said while warning people to “remain vigilant” and “exercise extra caution.”
The primary suspect, Austin Robert Drummond, is considered armed and dangerous following the killings of 38-year-old Cortney Rose, Rose’s children, 20-year-old Adrianna Williams and 15-year-old Braydon Williams, and Adrianna Williams’ boyfriend, 21-year-old James “Michael” Wilson, according to authorities and family. The victims were killed on Tuesday and found along a road in Lake County, in northwest Tennessee, authorities said.
The same day, Wilson and Williams’ baby was left in a car seat in a “random individual’s front yard” in nearby Dyer County, according to the Dyer County Sheriff’s Office.
A motive for the killings remains under investigation.
Drummond is wanted on four counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated kidnapping, four counts of felon in possession of a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
A total reward of up to $30,000 has been offered for information leading to Drummond’s arrest.
Amid the search, two additional individuals have been arrested on charges linked to the killings, authorities said.
Dyer County, Tennessee, District Attorney Danny Goodman said Dearrah Sanders and Brandon Powell were the latest suspects arrested in connection with the quadruple killing that included three victims from the same family. Goodman made the announcement at the arraignment on Monday of Tanaka Brown, who is charged with being an accessory to the killings after the fact and tampering with evidence.
Sanders is also charged with being an accessory after the fact, while Powell is charged with possession of schedule six drugs and criminal conspiracy, Goodman said. Also arrested in the homicide case was Giovante Thomas, who has been charged with being an accessory after the fact, authorities said.
(SOLVANG, Calif) — Over 1,000 firefighters continue to battle a wildfire in California that has over 72,000 acres, prompted evacuation orders and caused three injuries, according to officials.
The Gifford Fire, which began on Friday afternoon, is situated within the Los Padres National Forest in Solvang, California, impacting those within Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, officials said. As of Monday, the fire has engulfed 72,460 acres and is only 3% contained, according to Cal Fire.
While the flames have been centered around thick brush and rugged terrain, officials said 460 structures are threatened by this wildfire.
On Sunday, officials said the fire “showed significant growth as it aligned with topographical features, especially in grass-dominated areas.”
Evacuation orders and warnings are in effect for areas in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, and Highway 166 has been closed due to flames burning on both sides of the road, officials said.
Three people have been injured by the wildfire, including one civilian who was hospitalized for burn injuries and two contractor employees who were injured in a UTV rollover incident, officials said on Saturday.
An air quality alert in Cuyama, California, and an air quality watch for the rest of Santa Barbara County will remain in effect “until conditions improve,” the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District said on Saturday.
“If you see or smell smoke in the air, be cautious and use common sense to protect your and your family’s health. Everyone, especially people with heart or lung conditions, older adults, pregnant women and children, should limit time spent outdoors and avoid outdoor exercise when high concentrations of smoke and particles are in the air,” the air pollution control district said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, according to Cal Fire.
The fire is located west of the Madre Fire, which burned over 80,000 acres and was fully contained on July 26, officials said.
Two more fires erupted in Southern California on Monday afternoon.
The Rosa Fire in Riverside County started just after noon local time and has burned over 1,200 acres.
In San Bernardino County, the Gold Fire has spread 348 acres with 0% containment.
(NEW YORK) — Two people have died and at least 58 people have been diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease in a cluster that broke out in the Harlem area of New York City last week, officials said on Monday.
The New York City Health Department had reported on Thursday that one person had died and 22 people were sick in the cluster.
“People living or working in the area with flu-like symptoms, such as cough, fever, chills, muscle aches, or difficulty breathing should contact a health care provider immediately,” the department said in a statement on Monday. “It is especially important for people at higher risk — including those ages 50 and older, cigarette smokers, and people with chronic lung disease or compromised immune systems — to get care if they have symptoms.”
Legionnaires’ disease is a type of pneumonia that is caused by the bacteria Legionella, which grows in warm water, health officials said, and people can get Legionnaires’ disease by breathing in water vapor that contains Legionella bacteria.
“Anyone in these zip codes with flu-like symptoms should contact a health care provider as soon as possible,” said Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Michelle Morse. “Legionnaires’ disease can be effectively treated if diagnosed early, but New Yorkers at higher risk, like adults aged 50 and older and those who smoke or have chronic lung conditions, should be especially mindful of their symptoms and seek care as soon as symptoms begin.”
Legionnaires’ disease can be caused by plumbing systems where conditions are favorable for Legionella growth, such as cooling towers, whirlpool spas, hot tubs, humidifiers, hot water tanks and evaporative condensers of large air-conditioning systems, health officials said.
People can get Legionnaires’ disease by breathing in water vapor that contains Legionella bacteria, though officials reminded people that the disease cannot be transmitted from person to person and can be treated with antibiotics.
The respiratory disease takes its name from an outbreak at the Pennsylvania American Legion convention held at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia in July 1976 and the bacterium believed to be responsible is found in soil and grows in water, such as air-conditioning ducts, storage tanks and rivers.
No details about the two people who died have been released by officials as of Tuesday.
(DELPHI, Ind.) — The wife of convicted Delphi, Indiana, double murderer Richard Allen is breaking her silence on the shocking crime that catapulted her small town into the national spotlight.
A new three-part series, “Capturing Their Killer: The Girls on the High Bridge,” is a deep dive into the mysterious case, with interviews from key players including the victims’ friends and relatives. The series also reveals exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage of defense attorneys as they verdict came in, and an interview with Richard Allen’s wife, Kathy Allen, who opens up for the first time about her marriage and her perspective on the killings that captured the nation’s attention.
ABC News Studios’ “Capturing Their Killer: The Girls on the High Bridge” is streaming in its entirety on Hulu from Tuesday, Aug. 5.
A big crime in a small town On Feb. 13, 2017, best friends Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14, were enjoying a day off from school and decided to walk along a hiking trail in their hometown of Delphi.
They were near the Monon High Bridge when they were attacked; their throats were slit and they were dumped in the nearby woods.
When they didn’t come home, their frantic families called the police, who launched a massive search. Their bodies were found the next day.
“The whole town was devastated,” Kathy Allen said. “I felt so badly, especially for the mothers.”
“I don’t know how we got through it,” Libby’s grandmother and guardian, Becky Patty, said. “I do remember we learned how Libby died because the funeral director told us we needed to bring in clothes, and he said, ‘You need to make sure you have a scarf.'”
No arrests were made, but police did have a major clue.
Moments before the murders, Libby posted a photo of Abby on Snapchat showing her on the Monon High Bridge. After crossing the bridge, the girls saw a man behind them — who became known as “bridge guy” — and Libby started a recording on her phone.
As police looked for the suspect, they released footage from Libby’s phone to the public: a grainy image of “bridge guy” and an audio clip of him telling the girls to go “down the hill.”
“The first time I saw the picture of ‘bridge guy,’ it could’ve been anybody,” Kathy Allen said.
‘My husband’s not a monster’ Richard and Kathy Allen married right after high school and their daughter, Brittany, was born in 1994.
“He is a family man,” Kathy Allen said. “Ricky is a wonderful, caring, compassionate father. Non-judgmental, very giving. He has good morals.”
In 2006, the family moved to Delphi, where Richard Allen worked at the local CVS.
On Feb. 13, 2017, Richard Allen had the day off. Kathy Allen said when she got home that evening, her husband was on the couch.
When she saw on the news that night that two girls were missing, she said her husband seemed surprised.
Richard Allen told her he was out on the trail that day. When Kathy Allen asked him if he saw the girls, he said no, she recalled.
“Ricky called the police department to speak to the officers — he was more than willing to help,” she said.
Richard Allen met with an officer, she said — and “then we heard nothing.”
As the Allens’ lives went on, Abby and Libby’s families worked through their grief and pleaded for answers.
More than five years ticked by. Each year, police said they were continuing to follow leads in the mysterious slayings.
Then on Oct. 13, 2022, Kathy Allen said officers knocked on their door and took Richard Allen to the police station for an interview.
When officers descended on their home with a search warrant, she said her husband consoled her as they waited outside.
“Ricky said something like, ‘Well, it’s over, it doesn’t matter anymore,'” she recalled.
On Oct. 26, 2022, Kathy Allen joined her husband in a police interrogation room. She said Richard Allen told her, “You know I’m not capable of something like this.”
“Capturing Their Killer: The Girls on the High Bridge” is the first streaming documentary to feature newly-released interrogation footage.
On Halloween 2022, police announced Richard Allen’s arrest in the double homicide. He admitted he was on the trail that day, but he denied being involved.
“I was floored, quite honestly,” Abby’s mom, Anna Williams, said. “We really had somebody living amongst us that had done this and never let on.”
Kathy Allen was also in disbelief, but adamantly believed her husband.
“My husband’s not a monster. He’s not the monster that people think he is,” she said.
The case against Richard Allen Police said they zeroed in on Richard Allen after discovering a misfiled statement.
In the days after the killings, Richard Allen did self-report being at the crime scene — but that statement “fell in the cracks,” Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett testified at Allen’s trial.
A volunteer file clerk who arranged boxes of information and tips in the case testified that in September 2022 — weeks before Allen’s arrest — she came across a file folder that was not with the others she was managing.
The sheet said that three days after the murders, a person listed as “Richard Allen Whiteman” self-reported being on the trails between 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. on the day of the crime. The self-reporter listed seeing three girls.
The volunteer testified that she wrote a lead sheet and changed the name to Richard Allen. Allen lived on Whiteman Drive, so she said she believed the names were transposed and it was misfiled.
At Richard Allen’s fall 2024 trial, the prosecution’s key physical evidence was a .40-caliber unspent round discovered by the girls’ bodies. Prosecutors argued that police analysis determined that the unspent round was cycled through Richard Allen’s Sig Sauer Model P226. Even though the girls were stabbed, authorities believed their killer used a gun to intimidate them.
Prosecutors also focused on multiple confessions Richard Allen made in jail to his psychologist, corrections officers and his wife.
In one call, according to testimony, he told his wife, “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”
“No, you didn’t,” Kathy Allen said. He replied, “Yes, I did.”
“Why would you say that?” Kathy said. “I know you didn’t. There’s something wrong.”
One psychologist testified that Richard Allen confessed to her that he ordered the girls “down the hill” and intended to rape them, but then he saw something — either a person or a van — and was startled. An Indiana State Police trooper testified that he believed that van belonged to a man who lived near the crime scene; the trooper said the time it would’ve taken the man to drive home from work fits with the timing of the murders.
The defense argued Richard Allen’s mental health deteriorated rapidly while in solitary confinement, which lasted 13 months, and that he was in a psychotic state during the confessions.
Despite the emotional pain of hearing the details of the case, Libby’s mom, Carrie Timmons, said, “I was there for the entire trial, every day.”
“I did that for her,” Timmons said. “It was the least I could do.”
When the case went to the jury, Timmons said the four days of waiting for a verdict “were excruciating.”
Kathy Allen said, “I felt pretty positive that [the jury is] gonna make the right decision, because reasonable doubt was written all over the place. … On my phone conversations with Ricky, I heard some joy in his voice.”
‘The girls are still gone’ In November 2024, Richard Allen was found guilty on all charges: felony murder for the killing of Abby while attempting to commit kidnapping; felony murder for the killing of Libby while attempting to commit kidnapping; murder for knowingly killing Abby; and murder for knowingly killing Libby.
Kathy Allen sobbed when the verdict was read.
“Ricky looked confused, and I wanted to stand there and scream for him,” she said.
The convicted double murderer was sentenced to 130 years in prison.
Judge Fran Gull said to him at sentencing, “I’ve spent 27 years as a judge and you rank right up there with the most heinous crimes in the state of Indiana.”
After sentencing, prosecutor Nicholas McLeland thanked Abby and Libby for helping catch their own killer.
Libby had the “wherewithal to pull out her phone … to know that something wasn’t right” and record the suspect as he walked across the bridge, McLeland said at a news conference, calling it “arguably the biggest piece of evidence that we had — that recording.”
He praised Abby for hiding the phone from the killer so law enforcement could find it.
As Richard Allen begins his life sentence, his wife is still in his corner.
“I want true justice for Abby and Libby, but it should not be at the expense of an innocent person,” Kathy Allen said, holding back tears.
“I’m very hopeful for an appeal,” she said in February. “It was definitely our dream to grow old together, and it still is. I’m looking forward to that. I’m not giving up.”
But for Abby and Libby’s families, the pain persists.
“It still feels much like it did the first day the girls were gone,” Abby’s mom, Anna Williams, said.
“You think hearing ‘guilty’ is gonna be enough, and you think the sentencing is gonna be enough. And it’s just not true,” Williams said. “This doesn’t bring her back. The girls are still gone.”
(NEW YORK) — A man has been missing for over a week after reportedly hiking along one of the most challenging trails in the Grand Canyon, according to the National Park Service.
Thomas Daniel Gibbs, 35, from Freehold, New Jersey, was reported missing on July 28 by his family and friends, according to a press release shared by the National Park Service.
Gibbs was last heard from on July 22 and is believed to have been traveling along the Grandview Trail, which is one of the most difficult paths in the Grand Canyon, according to the National Park Service.
The hiker’s Tesla Cybertruck was discovered in the Grandview Point parking lot on the South Rim of the canyon the same day he was reported missing, officials said.
Gibbs is described as 6 feet, 1 inch tall with brown hair and brown eyes, officials said.
Officials said anyone who was “in the Grandview Trail around July 22 and who may have seen Gibbs or has information on his whereabouts” should contact the NPS Investigative Services Branch Tip line at 888-653-0009. Tips can also be submitted online or via email at nps_isb@nps.gov.
Updates regarding the search for Gibbs will be provided “as soon as they become available,” officials said.
Gibbs’ disappearance comes as a fire continues to burn along the canyon’s North Rim. The Dragon Bravo Fire has now burned over 116,000 acres and is 12% contained as of Sunday, officials said.
ABC News requests for comment sent to Grand Canyon National Park and National Park Service officials did not immediately receive a response.
(DYER COUNTY, Tenn.) — As the search continued on Monday for a 28-year-old man suspected in the homicides of four people in Tennessee, two additional individuals have been arrested on charges linked to the killings, authorities said.
Dyer County, Tennessee, District Attorney Danny Goodman said Dearrah Sanders and Brandon Powell were the latest suspects arrested in connection with the quadruple killing that included three victims from the same family. Goodman made the announcement at the arraignment on Monday of Tanaka Brown, who is charged with being an accessory to the killings after the fact and tampering with evidence.
Sanders is also charged with being an accessory after the fact, while Powell is charged with possession of schedule six drugs and criminal conspiracy, Goodman said. Also arrested in the homicide case was Giovante Thomas, who has been charged with being an accessory after the fact, authorities said.
The primary suspect, Austin Robert Drummond, is considered armed and dangerous following the killings of 38-year-old Cortney Rose, Rose’s children, 20-year-old Adrianna Williams and 15-year-old Braydon Williams, and Adrianna Williams’ boyfriend, 21-year-old James “Michael” Wilson, according to authorities and family. The victims were killed on Tuesday and found along a road in Lake County, in northwest Tennessee, authorities said.
The same day, Wilson and Williams’ baby was left in a car seat in a “random individual’s front yard” in nearby Dyer County, according to the Dyer County Sheriff’s Office.
A motive for the killings remains under investigation.
Drummond is wanted on four counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated kidnapping, four counts of felon in possession of a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
A $17,500 reward has been offered for information leading to Drummond’s arrest.
Investigators believe Drummond is still in the Lake County area. Drummond’s white 2016 Audi was found last week in Jackson, Tennessee, where Drummond has ties, according to officials. A white 1988 Ford pickup truck linked to Drummond was found in Dyer County, Tennessee.
Efrain Villalobos is seen in a photo released by the Los Angeles Police Department. Los Angeles Police Department
(LOS ANGELES) — A man is in custody on attempted murder for allegedly shooting a driver who plowed his car through a crowd in Los Angeles last month, police announced Monday.
The arrest comes more than two weeks after what police called the “chaotic” incident outside the music venue The Vermont in East Hollywood.
Prosecutors allege the driver intentionally drove his vehicle onto a sidewalk and into the crowd gathered outside the club around 2 a.m. local time on July 19, injuring 37 people.
When the vehicle became disabled, bystanders in the crowd dragged the driver outside the car and began to physically assault him, according to police. At some point during the altercation, police said a man shot the driver once in the lower back then fled the scene on foot.
The shooting suspect — Efrain Villalobos, of Lawndale — was arrested on Sunday in the Redondo Beach area, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
He was booked for attempted murder and is being held without bail, police said Monday.
The case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for filing consideration, police said.
The identity of the shooting suspect was unknown in the wake of the incident, with authorities releasing images of the alleged gunman while attempting to identify him.
The LAPD identified Villalobos as the suspect on Friday while warning that he should be considered armed and dangerous.
Amid the search for the suspect, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell called the shooter’s actions “unlawful and dangerous.”
“We understand the emotions involved, but when the threat had ended and the suspect was no longer actively harming others, the use of deadly force was both unlawful and dangerous to everybody present,” McDonnell said at a press briefing last month.
The alleged driver, Fernando Ramirez, was charged with 37 counts of attempted murder and 37 counts of assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the car plowing. The 37 counts represent the 37 victims in the incident, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
Among the victims, eight suffered “great bodily injury,” such as serious fractures and lacerations, according to Hochman.
Ramirez remains in jail on more than $37 million bail, with an arraignment scheduled for Sept. 4.
