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(TAMPA, Fla.) — Detroit Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold faces multiple felony charges in Florida for allegedly orchestrating a kidnapping in which three men were robbed and beaten at gunpoint, authorities said.

The 23-year-old NFL player is one of seven people arrested in connection with the “targeted armed robbery” in Tampa, police said. 

Arnold is accused of “coordinating and directing” the codefendants to “lure” the three men to an apartment, where they were allegedly beaten in retaliation for the alleged theft of more than $200,000 worth of his personal property from an Airbnb he had stayed at with friends days earlier in Largo, according to the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office.

The men, all in their late teens, were allegedly beaten and pistol-whipped by two of the co-defendants, while a third streamed the assault to Arnold and other suspects who were traveling to the apartment, police said. Investigators uncovered a group chat in which Arnold and another suspect allegedly gave directions during the assault, police said.

After arriving at the apartment, Arnold allegedly directed the other suspects to go inside, at which point the victims were robbed during the ongoing assault, police said.

Nearly two hours after arriving at the apartment, the victims were escorted out by armed suspects and left in their vehicle, police said. Arnold is not said to have entered the apartment or interacted with the victims, based on the police statement.

The incident occurred on Feb. 4, three days after multiple items belonging to Arnold and others were stolen from an Airbnb he had rented, according to police. On Feb. 3, Arnold and others reported a loss totaling more than $250,000 to the Largo Police Department, police said. 

Arnold allegedly suspected that two of the three victims were responsible for the theft, though investigators ultimately determined that none of them were involved, Tampa police said. 

“Investigators believe, based on evidence gathered, that Arnold was the primary conspirator,” the Tampa Police Department said in a statement Wednesday.

The victims reported the incident to Tampa police and “positively identified the suspects,” police said. The three victims had “visible injuries from being battered,” police said.

Cell phone evidence and “corroborating testimony” from the co-defendants also “helped establish Arnold’s role in planning and directing the crimes,” the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office said.

Arnold surrendered to authorities Wednesday night, prosecutors said. He was booked on four counts of armed robbery and four counts of kidnapping, online jail records show. He faces a potential sentence of up to life in prison if convicted on the charges, prosecutors said.

He remains held on no bond following his initial appearance in Hillsborough County court on Thursday. His pretrial detention hearing has been scheduled for Monday. The Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office said it plans to argue that Arnold should remain behind bars until his trial.

Among the six codefendants arrested in connection with the case, four men are being held without bond, while two women pleaded guilty on Wednesday to robbery and kidnapping charges, according to the state attorney’s office. As part of their plea agreements, they are required to testify truthfully in proceedings related to the case, the office said. 

“No one has the right to take the law into their own hands. A dispute over missing property does not justify kidnapping, violence, or retaliation,” Hillsborough County State Attorney Suzy Lopez said in a statement. “This arrest is the result of months of investigative work and collaboration between the Tampa Police Department and our prosecutors. We will continue to pursue justice for the three victims by holding everyone accountable for their roles in this crime.”

Arnold’s sports management team said he “categorically denies any involvement in the matters underlying the allegations made against him and maintains his innocence.”

“There is no credible evidence linking Mr. Arnold to these allegations,” Denise White, CEO of EAG Sports and Entertainment Agency, said in a statement to ABC News. “Instead, the government appears to be relying on testimony from multiple convicted felons who have admitted their own involvement and may have substantial incentives to shift blame in an effort to lessen their sentences.”

The Lions said in a statement to ABC Detroit affiliate WXYZ that they are “aware of the legal situation” involving Arnold and “will not comment at this time out of respect for the ongoing legal process.”

Arnold, a native of Tallahassee, Florida, played at the University of Alabama and was a first-round pick in the 2024 draft.

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(MECHANICVILLE, N.Y.) — Police in an upstate New York town said Thursday that a grandmother is suspected in the deaths of four of her grandchildren, her daughter and herself inside their apartment building.

Officers in Mechanicville, New York, said they discovered the victims’ bodies inside an apartment on Tuesday after neighbors reported not seeing them for days.

The grandmother was identified as Amy Steadman, 64. Police identified the victims as her daughter Sarah Myers, 44, and Myers’ four children: Harper Harmon, 13, Hudson Harmon, 11, Gavin Harmon, 10, and Gracelynn Harmon, 10, according to police.

While the investigation into the deaths and motive is ongoing, Mechanicville Police Department Chief William Rabbitt told reporters Thursday that the evidence so far indicates that Steadman may have been involved.

Rabbitt said that investigators recovered evidence inside the apartment “to indicate intentional poisoning,” including “numerous prescription and over-the-counter medications.”

“Evidence recovered during the investigation, including a handwritten note and other circumstantial evidence, strongly suggests that Amy Steadman was involved in the deaths,” he added.

The chief said there was no evidence that an outside individual was involved.

Toxicology tests are still ongoing, according to Rabbitt.

While the chief declined to provide more details into the ongoing investigation, he noted that one of the children “suffered fatal sharp force injuries.”

Rabbitt said Steadman and Myers and her family all lived in the same apartment complex in Mechanicville, which is roughly 18 miles north of Albany.

The children’s father lives in Utah, the chief said.

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(NEW YORK) — Twelve individuals have been charged in what the Justice Department is calling a vast conspiracy to smuggle contraband into 10 federal prisons across the country through a coordinated drone operation.

The 17-count indictment, unsealed Wednesday, alleges that starting in September 2023, those charged allegedly used six drones to drop contraband at least 38 times into 10 federal prisons from Atlanta to Mississippi.

ABC News reported last year on the escalating security threat that drones pose to prisons.

The Bureau of Prisons has a drone alert system that notifies prison staff when a drone is nearby, according to court documents.

Some of the individuals charged in the indictment unsealed Wednesday were inmates at prisons around the country and used cellphones to schedule drops at various prisons. 

The contraband was allegedly stored at what is referred to in court records as “The Lab.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge is again directing the Justice Department to formally address whether the Trump administration’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is dead, as the agency has claimed.

The order, filed Wednesday by District Judge Leonie Brinkema, comes after the Justice Department refused to issue a signed declaration verifying the $1.8 billion fund was not moving forward.

In her order, Brinkema said she is not satisfied with the DOJ’s contention that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent testimony before Congress is proof enough that the fund is dead.

“That the defendants have refused to accord a genuine degree of trustworthiness to their representations about the Fund not going forward is particularly concerning because of the President’s consistent support for the Fund and Acting Attorney General Blanche’s acknowledgement that the Fund remains ‘important,'” Brinkema wrote. 

She is demanding that the DOJ file papers issuing another response in the coming weeks and hinted in her order that Blanche may have to answer questions about his plans for the fund in a deposition. 

The $1.776 billion fund was announced in May by the Justice Department to compensate those who allege they were wrongly targeted under the Biden administration.

It was proposed in exchange for President Donald Trump agreeing to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS as well as two civil claims for $230 million related to the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate — sparking accusations of self-dealing and a bipartisan uproar over the possible use of taxpayer money to pay rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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The man wanted by the FBI in a string of shootings in the Kansas City, Missouri, area is believed to have been found dead, according to police.

Oscar Sanchez-Munoz, 22, allegedly shot at a car in Wyandotte County, Kansas, on June 11, authorities said, and then on June 16, he allegedly shot at five cars along Interstate 70 in Kansas City, Missouri. The June 16 shootings killed one person and wounded four, police said.

On the night of June 16, Sanchez-Munoz barricaded himself inside a house in Independence, Missouri, east of Kansas City, and engaged in a standoff with police, authorities said. In the middle of the night, the house went up in flames, and once firefighters put out the blaze and police entered the house, Sanchez-Munoz was not there, authorities said.

The manhunt for Sanchez-Munoz had been underway ever since, with the FBI offering a $25,000 reward.

On Wednesday afternoon, Sanchez-Munoz’s relatives, who were going through the damage at the house in Independence, called detectives to say they noticed the smell of decomposition in the basement, and when they moved some items aside, they saw what they thought was a body, police said.

Responding officers found a body in clothes consistent with what Sanchez-Munoz was wearing the night of the shootings, police said.

“Based on clothing description, and last known location, detectives preliminarily believe this deceased person in the residence is Sanchez-Munoz,” police said in a statement.

The medical examiner will confirm the identity and determine the cause and manner of death, police said.

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(OAHU, Hawaii) — The United States Coast Guard and local officials are conducting a search for a 49-year-old man and his 16-year-old son who went missing Tuesday morning after leaving for a hike on the eastern coast of Oahu, a Coast Guard press release said.

Family members said the pair left their hotel at around 7 a.m. Tuesday to hike the Hanauma Bay Rock Bridge Trail, according to officials. Passersby found a backpack containing the man’s belongings near the trail at 8:45 a.m. and notified the Honolulu Police Department, the release said.

Police, the Honolulu Fire Department, Honolulu Ocean Safety Department and the Coast Guard launched a joint search operation late Tuesday morning after confirmation that the father and son were missing, ABC News Honolulu affiliate KITV reported.

The names of the father and son have not been released.

The agencies searched along the trail and surrounding areas, and deployed fire department helicopters and rescue boat, safety department jet skis and Coast Guard resources, the fire department said.

The mission was suspended at 5:30 p.m. local time Tuesday due to adverse weather conditions and was scheduled to resume Wednesday morning, fire officials said.

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(CLEVELAND) — A man suspected of shooting two people with blowgun darts in back-to-back broad daylight attacks this week in the same Cleveland, Ohio, neighborhood, has been arrested, police said on Wednesday.

The 42-year-old suspect, whose name was not immediately released, was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of felony assault following a two-day manhunt, according to the Cleveland Police Department.

One of the victims was shot multiple times with blow darts and had to undergo surgery, according to police.

The bizarre attacks unfolded around 4 p.m. local time on Monday in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood of west Cleveland, police said in a statement to ABC News on Wednesday morning.

A woman targeted in the first incident alleged the suspect, whom she recognized from the neighborhood, verbally insulted her and struck her in the face with his hand in an unprovoked attack, according to the police statement.

The victim alleged that a short time later, the suspect confronted her again in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store, according to the police report. The man allegedly pulled out a blow-dart gun and fired it repeatedly at the woman, striking her with needle-like darts at least five times, according to police.

“Upon arrival, officers located a 56-year-old woman who had been struck with several long-needle darts,” police said.

She was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, where she underwent surgery to remove one of the darts that pierced her liver, according to police.

While at the hospital with the first victim, police received a report that a second person had been shot with a blowdart gun in the same Clark-Fulton neighborhood near the busy intersection of West 25th Street and Clark Ave., according to police.

Officers who responded to the scene in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood discovered a 40-year-old man suffering from wounds in the blowgun dart attack, police said.

“The victim stated that he was in the area of West 25th Street when an unknown male shot him with a blow dart. He reported running from the area and calling 911,” according to the police report.

The victim was treated at a hospital for his injuries, police said.

A search was immediately launched, according to police. On Wednesday, officers arrested the suspect after spotting him in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood, according to the police statement.

During the arrest, officers recovered a blowgun as evidence, police said.

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(NEW YORK) — On prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, bettors can put money on dozens of election-related bets in Maryland, from the winner of the upcoming gubernatorial race to the margin of victory in the state’s 6th Congressional District. 

For most Americans, the Maryland elections are fair game — races in the state are already generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in trading volume on the major prediction markets. But not for residents of Maryland, which is one of a handful of states that ban election betting. And Jared DeMaranis, the state’s election administrator, plans to enforce it. 

“If we have credible information about illegalities and it’s not within our civil citation authorities, we will of course refer those matters to the office of the state prosecutor for enforcement,” DeMaranis told ABC News. “This is going to be a growing issue and something that we need to stop in its infancy.” 

Federal regulators and the courts have given Americans the green light to wager on elections, prompting a frenzy of wagering on the outcomes of races, the likelihood of candidates dropping out, the amount of voter turnout, and more. But more than half of U.S. states have existing laws on the books that limit or restrict the practice, according to research from the Pew Research Center — and now state leaders are sorting out how exactly to enforce those rules. 

Maryland, Texas and Arizona are among those states with laws explicitly banning election betting. And in Wisconsin, residents cannot cast ballots in elections in which they have placed a “bet or wager depending upon the result of the election,” according to state law. 

Ann Jacobs, the chair of the Wisconsin Election Commission, said Wisconsinites who bet on an election and then vote in it could have their vote challenged or face voter fraud charges. Jacobs acknowledged that it would be a difficult rule to enforce, but stood by the spirit of the law. 

“The policy behind saying, ‘You can bet or you can vote, but you can’t do both,’ is 100% a sound policy,” Jacobs said. “We want people to vote based on their belief that the person they are voting for is going to be the best for their community … it just makes sense.” 

Arizona officials have focused their efforts on the platforms themselves. The state’s attorney general filed criminal charges against Kalshi earlier this year claiming the platform operated an illegal, unlicensed gambling business and accepted unlawful wagers from Arizona residents.

In April, a federal judge blocked Arizona from continuing its criminal case. The injunction followed a lawsuit against the state by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the federal regulator overseeing prediction markets — which argued that prediction markets fall under federal oversight rather than state gambling regulations.

The Arizona attorney general’s office declined to comment on the active case or how it will address potential election betting this season. 

Officials in Texas, another state with a law banning election betting, did not respond to inquiries from ABC News. But Christopher McGinn, the executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said he and other administrators are engaged in early discussions about how to handle prediction markets, particularly the likelihood that individuals with a financial stake in the outcome of an election may have “more incentive to attempt to manipulate [elections], or spread misinformation.”

Prediction market advocates believe election-related event contracts strengthen political forecasting and can predict outcomes with greater accuracy than traditional polls. But many election experts warn that election wagering could threaten to compromise the integrity of elections or incentivize offenders to profit from insider information. 

“I can’t think of all of the ways that people might try to make money off of election outcomes, but I’m sure there are enterprising people who will come up with all kinds of things,” said Rick Hasen, an expert in election law at the University of California-Los Angeles. “We don’t want to start thinking of elections as a financial incentive. The potential for manipulation is too great.” 

Legalized election betting in the U.S. is a new phenomenon. In 2024, Kalshi prevailed in a lawsuit that allowed it to offer event contracts for politics and elections. More recently, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposed new rules that classified elections “as contests, not gaming,” further clearing the way for platforms to offer election-related wagers. 

Those developments present state officials with a challenge: How can they enforce state-level bans on election betting without support from federal regulators or the platforms themselves? The answer for some, including Maryland, is to pursue the individuals. 

“Right now, it’s on the person. The person that places the wager on the platform is doing the illegality,” said DeMaranis, the Maryland elections chief, adding that lawmakers will eventually “need to clarify the role of those platforms to make sure they’re liable for offering monetary incentives on elections.” 

Matthew Wein, a former Homeland Security official, said a similar dynamic emerged with social media giants over the past decade. In the absence of a crackdown on platforms, authorities were left to pursue users “for doing things they shouldn’t have been doing on the platforms, but not against the platforms themselves.” 

“And this seems to be heading in the same direction with prediction markets,” said Wein, who now authors a gambling newsletter called “Secure Stakes.” 

A Polymarket spokesperson said states with election betting bans “run counter to the established framework for regulating prediction markets.”

“We look forward to addressing these claims through the appropriate legal process,” the spokesperson said.

A Kalshi spokesperson said the company’s services are “federally regulated and have stock-market-grade systems for identifying and addressing market manipulation.” 

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., lawmakers continue to scrutinize prediction market platforms. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., have introduced legislation that would prohibit event contracts on election outcomes, which they said “spreads civic cynicism and distrust in our democratic institutions.” 

DeMaranis said he has struggled to instill a sense of urgency among the nation’s election officials, many of whom he said have never heard of prediction markets.

The effort, he said, has left him feeling like the “canary in the coal mine.” 

“It’s about the integrity and public trust of the electoral process,” DeMaranis said. “When you have people that are engaging in election-related wagering, the integrity of the entire process now comes into question.” 

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(HUNT, Texas) — Camp Mystic, the Christian all-girls sleepaway camp, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, according to court records. 

The Chapter 11 filing comes nearly a year after a deadly flood killed 25 girls and two teen counselors at the camp’s Guadalupe River location, which is located in the Texas Hill Country.

According to the Wednesday filing, Camp Mystic has a debt exceeding $10 million. 

In April, Camp Mystic said it had planned to welcome more than 800 girls to its Cypress Lake location this summer before withdrawing its application.

Families of the flood victims and some officials, including Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, had called on the Texas Department of State Health Services to block Camp Mystic’s license for the summer.

Patrick contended the camp shouldn’t reopen until the flood was fully investigated.

The parents of one of the deceased campers — 8-year-old Cile Steward, whose body has yet to be recovered after she was swept away in the Guadalupe River — have also been vocal about the camp not reopening while their daughter remains missing.

Casey Garrett, a Houston attorney hired by the state legislature to investigate the deadly flood, presented a review of the camp’s policies in April based on interviews with approximately 150 people, including campers, counselors, the camp’s owners and the victims’ families.

The attorney said there was inadequate training or drills for counselors and campers regarding a flood threat.

A written report of the investigation’s findings is expected later this year, The Associated Press reported.

The Texas Rangers have also opened a criminal investigation of Camp Mystic, Patrick said.

Families of the victims have also filed a lawsuit against the camp.

In a previous statement to ABC News in response to the lawsuits filed by families, Camp Mystic said, “We continue to pray for the grieving families and ask for God’s healing and comfort.”

Jeff Ray, legal counsel for Camp Mystic, said in a statement, “We intend to demonstrate and prove that this sudden surge of floodwaters far exceeded any previous flood in the area by several magnitudes, that it was unexpected and that no adequate warning systems existed in the area.”

“We disagree with several accusations and misinformation in the legal filings regarding the actions of Camp Mystic and Dick Eastland, who lost his life as well. We will thoroughly respond to these accusations in due course,” Ray added.

-ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — Frank Carone, a former chief of staff to ex-New York Mayor Eric Adams, was arrested on Wednesday morning along with his brother Anthony and two others as part of a federal bribery case, according to federal investigators.

While serving as chief of staff, Carone allegedly, “agreed to accept a series of bribe payments” as part of a scheme to “exploit the city’s migrant crisis for profit,” according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court.

In 2022, during the influx of migrants into New York, the city needed to rent entire hotels to accommodate asylum-seekers using emergency contracts.

Carone allegedly accepted $120,000 in bribes from two co-defendants, Crystal Chen and Yan Po Zhu, in exchange for steering a multimillion-dollar emergency contract to a Microtel in Long Island City, Queens, that they controlled, federal prosecutors alleged.

To conceal the bribes, the payments were allegedly funneled through an account that Carone’s brother, Anthony, controlled, the indictment said. 

“In total, Zhu and Chen paid approximately $120,000 to F. Carone in exchange for an Emergency Shelter Contract for the Microtel, which was laundered through the Law Firm #2 account by A. Carone and his co-defendants,” the indictment said.

The indictment included photographs of Zhu and Carone socializing at Zhu’s Long Island home in June 2022, a time when the indictment said Zhu and Chen’s efforts to secure an Emergency Shelter Contract through other means were stalling. 

“Zhu leveraged his burgeoning personal relationship with the defendant, Frank V. Carone,” the indictment said.

The city ultimately awarded Microtel a nearly $7 million contract, even though it was smaller than another Long Island City hotel under consideration. 

The indictment quoted an unnamed city employee who allegedly “lamented that replacing the professional’s staff’s recommendations with the Microtel ‘meant a loss of 75 units,’ which would necessitate opening more locations to make up the difference.”

The defendants are charged with 13 counts, including conspiracy, federal program bribery and obstruction.

Carone helped with Adams’ transition into office in January 2022 and served as the mayor’s chief of staff until December that year, when he departed the administration.

As he departed, he said that in his position it had been an “honor keeping the trains running for this administration,” according to a press release at the time.

Arthur Aidala, an attorney representing Carone, said in a statement to ABC News that Carone was notified that he was under federal investigation three years ago and denied the allegations.

“Frank Carone was part of an administration that publicly challenged what it viewed as the previous White House’s dangerous immigration policies and their harmful impact on New York City,” Aidala said in a statement to ABC News. “Following an extensive three-year investigation that examined numerous aspects of Mr. Carone’s personal and professional life, prosecutors ultimately brought these charges.”

“Mr. Carone maintains his innocence and looks forward to addressing these allegations through the legal process. He is confident that the facts will demonstrate that he acted lawfully and appropriately at all times,” Aidala added.

Attorney information for the other defendants was not immediately available.

Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for former Mayor Adams, said in a statement that his “prayers are with [Carone’s] family”

“Frank Carone has dedicated decades of his life to public service, the legal profession, and helping countless individuals, businesses, and charitable organizations throughout New York,” he said.

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