(NEW YORK) — Rudy Giuliani’s association with former President Donald Trump has cost him his law license.
Giuliani has been disbarred, according to a decision handed down Tuesday by the Appellate Division First Department in New York.
The ruling is a consequence of Giuliani’s “demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers, and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The Manhattan district attorney’s office said Tuesday it would not oppose former President Donald Trump’s request to file a motion arguing that his conviction should be tossed, a move that will almost certainly delay Trump’s sentencing, which is currently set for July 11.
“Although we believe defendant’s arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” assistant district attorney Josh Steinglass wrote in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan.
Prosecutors asked for two weeks to respond to the defense motion.
On Monday, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling that President Donald Trump has some presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken to overturn results of the 2020 election, Trump’s attorneys sent a letter to Judge Merchan asking to have his New York conviction thrown out, according to sources.
Trump will be arguing that his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records be thrown out because of the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity.
Judge Merchan has yet to rule on Trump’s request to file his motion or made any determination about the sentencing date.
(NEW YORK) — A grand jury in Palm Beach County on July 19, 2006, heard from two alleged underage victims of Jeffrey Epstein, two police officers and an investigator with the state’s attorney’s office in a proceeding that lasted less than four hours, according to newly unsealed transcripts released by a judge in Florida.
During the testimony of the two alleged victims, each was confronted with questions about whether they understood that they had engaged in prostitution and could be charged with a crime, according to the newly released transcripts.
“It was just atrocious the way they handled it,” said Spencer Kuvin, an attorney who represented one of the alleged underage victims who testified. “They basically tanked their own case.”
The previously secret testimony was made public on Monday in response to a motion from the Palm Beach Post, joined by numerous other news agencies. Earlier this year, the Florida legislature passed a new law tailored to ensure that the Epstein documents were made public because of the intense public interest in understanding how the grand jury returned an indictment of Epstein on just a single charge of solicitation of prostitution. The transcript of the grand jury proceedings, however, does not indicate what charging options were presented to grand jurors before they reached their decision.
The grand jury was convened in 2006 by then State’s Attorney Barry Krischer, who had for months resisted efforts by the Palm Beach Police Department to charge Epstein with multiple felonies for his alleged sexual exploitation of underage girls.
The opening witness before the grand jury was Palm Beach Police Detective Joseph Recarey, who led the investigation of Epstein and interviewed more than a dozen alleged underage victims. Recarey recounted the onset of the investigation when the stepmother of a 14-year-old girl reported that her daughter had received $300 to massage an older man on Palm Beach Island.
Prosecutors then called that teen girl, who had since turned 15. She testified that she went once to Epstein’s mansion the previous year. She said she was asked by Epstein’s assistant to strip down to her underwear and to wait for Epstein to enter the room. She said she massaged Epstein and then, at his request, agreed to allow him to use a vibrator on her for an extra $100. She admitted that she lied and told Epstein that she was 18. Her parents found out about her trip to Epstein’s, she said, because she had gotten into an altercation at school and the money was found in her purse.
During her testimony, prosecutors asked the girl about her drug and alcohol use, body piercings and postings on her MySpace page in which she boasted of shoplifting and lied about her age and her income, claiming to make $250,000.
“Yeah, it’s a joke,” she testified. “Like, all my friends do that, cause it’s kind of funny and random and stupid.”
A juror then asked the witness if she had “any idea deep down inside of you that…what you’re doing is wrong?”
“Yeah, I did,” she answered.
“And you’re well aware that what you’re doing to your own reputation,” the juror asked.
“Yes, I do,” she recalled.
A prosecutor, Lanna Belohlavek, then asked the 15-year-old witness: “You aware that you committed a crime?”
“Now I am. I didn’t know it was a crime when I was doing it,” she replied. “Now, I guess it’s prostitution or something like that.”
Reading those exchanges on Monday, Kuvin — who represented the witness during the Epstein investigation — said he was appalled but not surprised.
“It just reaffirmed what we always knew was happening is that the state attorney was afraid to prosecute him, and that they tanked their own case by attacking their own witnesses during the grand jury proceeding,” he said. “It was almost like the grand jury proceeding was an attempt to prosecute the teenagers and ignore Epstein.”
In subsequent testimony, Detective Recarey, who died in 2018, recounted the now familiar deviant scheme in which Epstein enlisted his assistants and his alleged victims to recruit other underage girls to his homes for illicit massages. Recarey told the grand jury that two alleged victims had intercourse with Epstein without their consent while under the age of 18.
One alleged victim, Recarey testified, had gone to Epstein’s mansion over 100 times, and had received $200 each time, and gifts, including a rented car for her use. He testified that on one occasion, Epstein had intercourse with her without her consent.
“She screamed no,” Recarey said when asked by a grand juror if the victim had asked Epstein to stop.
Epstein stopped, apologized and paid her $1000, Recarey testified.
Belohlavek then questioned Recarey about the money the alleged victim made from all her visits to Epstein’s home.
“That day she took a thousand dollars. Let’s say it’s only $200 for a hundred times; she’s – we’re talking a lot of money she got, at a minimum, plus a car,” the prosecutor said. “Did you ask her what she did with all that money?”
“I did ask her and she didn’t want to tell me,” Recarey replied. “She said that it was too personal.”
“After you – she’s just described all these sex acts to you? Okay,” Belohlavek replied.
The only other alleged victim to testify before the grand jury said she went to Epstein’s mansion about 10 times, starting when she was 16.
“He was well aware of my age from the very beginning,” she said.
The sexual activity escalated gradually, she testified, until her last encounter when Epstein initiated intercourse. It was the day before her 18th birthday, she said. She testified that she did not want to have intercourse with him but did not ask him to stop.
The young girl said she was reluctant to testify and didn’t really know if she wanted to see Epstein prosecuted.
“You understand that you in effect were committing prostitution yourself,” a prosecutor asked.
“Yes,” the witness replied.
The final witness of the day was an investigator with the state’s attorney’s office who was guided through testimony covering the backgrounds of the alleged teen victims, including shoplifting, arrests, drinking and drug use. The investigator was also questioned about the MySpace pages of the alleged 14-year-old victim. Much of that information had been provided to the prosecutor by Epstein’s defense attorneys in an attempt to dissuade the office from bringing charges.
“And does her website also include pictures of her in skimpy attire, drinking alcohol and sexually provocative photos?” the witness was asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
Following this grand jury’s indictment on one charge of solicitation of prostitution — with no mention of minor victims — Epstein was arrested, booked and released on bond. The outcome of the grand jury incensed then Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, who publicly apologized to the victims and turned over the case to the FBI. Two years later, federal prosecutors crafted a deal with Epstein that allowed him to escape federal prosecution in exchange for his guilty plea to the original grand jury indictment plus one additional charge of soliciting a minor into prostitution. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in a private wing of the Palm Beach County stockade. Epstein was also allowed liberal work release, which permitted him to spend up to 16 hours a day at his office in West Palm Beach.
Following Epstein’s 2019 arrest in New York, Krischer pushed back on claims that his handling of the case more than a decade earlier had forced federal prosecutors to enter into that infamously lenient deal with Epstein.
“No matter how my office resolved the state charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office always had the ability to file its own federal charges,” Krischer said in a statement at the time.
(UTICA, N.Y.) — As the family of a 13-year-old boy who was killed by police in Utica, New York, demanded justice, the city’s police chief alleged Monday that the teenager had a realistic-looking replica gun still in his hand when he was shot.
The boy, identified as Nyah Mway, was shot once in the chest by a Utica police officer on Friday night after he and a friend were stopped on a street by officers investigating a robbery pattern, officials said.
“This is very heartbreaking for the family because they lost a child,” Mway’s uncle, Lay Htoo, told ABC News, adding that his nephew recently graduated from the eighth grade.
Htoo said the shooting has devastated his family, who moved to Utica eight years ago after escaping civil unrest in Myanmar and spending time in a refugee camp in Thailand.
He said the family came to America to avoid violence only now to be confronted by it.
Htoo questioned why police shot his nephew after he had been thrown to the ground by an officer and, based on video recorded by a bystander and posted on social media, punched.
“They don’t really have to take out their guns and shoot him,” said Htoo, adding that he thinks police could have used a stun gun on his nephew.
But Utica Police Chief Mark Williams said investigators reviewed the police body camera video frame by frame and discovered the officers had reason to fear for their safety.
“We were able to break down those images you saw of a person with a gun. In one of those images that we found is when he [Mway] was on the ground he still had the gun in his hand,” Williams said in an interview with ABC affiliate station WSYR in Syracuse.
Williams added, “Despite our efforts to be transparent, people weren’t ready for the facts, and I can appreciate that. All they see is a dead 13-year-old and nobody feels good about it.”
The three officers were identified by the department as Patrick Husnay, a six-year-veteran of the force; Bryce Patterson, a four-year veteran of the department; and Andrew Citriniti, who joined the force two-and-a-half years ago after serving as a Oneida County Sheriff’s deputy.
Husnay is the officer who shot and killed Mway, according to police officials.
Williams said the incident marked his department’s first fatal officer-involved shooting since September 2022.
The chief said he is now concerned for the safety of the officers involved in the fatal incident, particularly Husnay.
“Within less than 12 hours, people were posting images of his photo, his home address,” said Williams, adding that the police department is providing protection for the officers.
The shooting unfolded just after 10 p.m. ET on Friday in a west Utica residential neighborhood.
At the time of the incident, Husnay, Pattetson and Citriniti — members of the police department’s Crime Prevention Unit — were assisting in the investigation of at least two recent robberies involving suspects described as Asian males who brandished a black in color firearm at victims, according to a police statement.
Williams said police have not confirmed if Mway and his friend were involved in the robberies.
“Based on the listed identifying factors from the robbery, officers approached Nyah Mway and the other juvenile as they matched the robbery suspects’ descriptions and were in the immediate vicinity of the previous robbery at nearly the same time of day,” according to the police statement.
Police justified the stop, saying that one of the boys was walking in the roadway where sidewalks are provided, a violation of New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law.
According to publicly released police body camera footage from all three officers involved in the incident, Patterson approached Mway on the sidewalk and asked him to take his hands out of his pockets. The footage showed Mway holding up his hands and then putting them back in his pockets, prompting Patterson to repeat his order.
“Can I pat you down [to] make sure you have no weapons on you?” Patterson asked Mway, the body camera video shows.
But before Patterson could search Mway, the teen bolted to his left and began running down the street with Patterson and the other two officers chasing him, according to the video.
The footage seemed to show Mway turn around and allegedly point a gun at Patterson and the other officers. The officers can be heard on the video yelling that Mway had a gun and repeatedly ordered him to “drop it!”
Mway appeared to trip and fall to the ground and as he tried to get back up, Patterson grabbed him and tackled him, according to body camera footage.
“He pulled it on me. He turned around just like this,” Patterson later told a supervisor, demonstrating how Mway allegedly aimed a gun at him, according to his body-worn camera footage.
As Patterson was on top of Mway wrestling with him, Husnay drew his weapon and fired, hitting the teenager in the chest, according to the video and the police statement.
As officers began to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Mway, Husnay is seen in the body-camera footage recovering a gun he initially identified as a black Glock 22 handgun lying in the grass next to where Mway fell.
Police later said the gun was a replica Glock 17 pellet gun. Williams said Monday that the gun looked like the real handgun and even had the word Glock printed on it.
During an interview at the scene with a supervisor, Husnay said he was the only officer to fire his weapon. He said he discharged “one round straight towards the ground,” according to his body camera video which stayed on as he was being questioned.
“Is it possible the suspect fired rounds at you?” the police supervisor asked Husnay, according to the video.
Husnay responded, “I don’t know.”
Mway was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Williams said the three officers involved in the incident are on paid administrative leave, which is routine for officer-involved shooting investigations.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James said her agency’s Office of Special Investigation is conducting an independent investigation of the shooting.
The shooting immediately drew an angry response from the community. A large crowd attending a vigil for Mway on Saturday, and chanted “No justice, no peace.”
Williams conceded that the shooting has damaged the trust his police department has established over the years with the Karen ethnic minority community in the Utica area, estimated to be about 8,000 strong. He said he hopes to restore that trust by being as transparent about the incident as possible.
“Justice doesn’t happen as swiftly as we all would like it,” Williams said Monday, adding that the probe by the state Attorney General’s Office could take up to a year. “There has to be an investigation. We have to be partial to all the information, not just one video that was put out there.”
(NEW YORK) — Hours after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling that President Donald Trump has some presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken to overturn results of the 2020 election, Trump on Monday sought to have his conviction thrown out in his New York criminal hush money case, according to sources.
Trump’s lawyers said the hush money verdict should be tossed because the jury saw evidence during trial that they believe should have been protected by presidential immunity, according to a letter to Judge Juan Merchan that was described by sources to ABC News.
The defense sought additional time to make their argument — a move that could delay Trump’s sentencing, which is currently scheduled for July 11.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office and a representative from Trump’s legal team declined to comment to ABC News.
A jury in May took less than ten hours to convict Trump of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in an effort to boost his chances in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, wired Daniels $130,000 and Trump reimbursed him in monthly installments disguised as routine legal expenses, prosecutors said.
Trump’s defense team previously invoked a presidential immunity argument in an unsuccessful effort to limit evidence and delay the trial.
In March, defense lawyers sought to exclude a government ethics form that disclosed Trump’s reimbursement to Cohen, as well as a series of tweets from 2018 that prosecutors alleged were part of a “pressure campaign” against Cohen.
“Under these appropriate standards, President Trump’s social media posts and public statements — while acting as President and viewed in context — fell within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duty, to which communicating with the public on matters of public concern was central,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the March motion that the judge rejected ahead of the trial.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Marshals Service rescued and located 200 missing or endangered children over a six-week period, the agency announced on Monday.
“Operation We Will Find You 2” focused on several hot spot cities such as Phoenix, Arizona, and Miami, Florida, where there were kids missing, it said.
“Whenever a child is missing, whether we cannot explain how they went missing, whether we think it was a family abduction, or whether it’s a runaway, they are at risk of being in danger and at risk of being trafficked, at risk of being hurt, we need to take it very, very seriously,” U.S. Marshals Service Director Ronald Davis told reporters on Monday.
The Marshals worked with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to help find and locate the children it was tasked with finding.
The number of children rescued is still “just scratching the surface,” Davis said.
With technical assistance from NCMEC, 123 children were removed from dangerous situations, and 77 were found in safe locations, the agency said.
“Our kids are our most precious asset,” he said. “We need to make sure that all of them have an opportunity to grow in a safe environment. I think that is our obligation.”
Davis said the Marshals Service has run the operation six times previous to this one and, so far, it’s located 546 children in 2024, which is a higher number than last year at this time, but lower than the nearly 950 children recovered in 2021.
Michelle DeLaune, the president of NCMEC, said his organization is “incredibly grateful” for the work of the Marshals Service in locating the missing children.
The Phoenix area saw the most children rescued over the six-week period, officials said.
(NEW YORK) — Five people, including two children, were killed Sunday in a plane crash in upstate New York, police said.
The victims were family members from Georgia. They were headed back to Atlanta after a trip to Cooperstown, New York, for a baseball tournament, police said.
The victims were Roger Beggs, 76; Laura VanEpps, 43; Ryan VanEpps, 42; James R. VanEpps, 12; and Harrison VanEpps, 10, according to police.
On Sunday at approximately 2 p.m., state police said authorities were dispatched for a possible plane crash near Lake Cecil Road in Masonville, New York.
Officials said the downed plane — a single-engine aircraft called the Piper Malibu Mirage — was discovered after a multi-agency search of the area using drones, ATVs and helicopters.
The plane initially departed from Alfred S. Nader Regional Airport in Oneonta, New York, and was traveling to West Virginia to refuel with its ultimate destination being Cobb County International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, police said.
The cause of the crash has not yet been determined.
The New York State Police Bureau of Criminal of Investigation, Collision Reconstruction Unit, and Forensic Identification Unit are working in conjunction with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Board (NTSB) on the investigation.
(DEDHAM, Mass.) — The judge in the Karen Read murder trial has declared a mistrial after the jury said it was unable to reach a unanimous consensus on the fifth day of deliberations Monday.
Read was charged with killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in January 2022.
Prosecutors allege she hit O’Keefe with her car and left him to die in the middle of a snowstorm after the two got into an argument earlier in the day. Read has strenuously denied the allegations, and her lawyers alleged that a fellow police officer was involved in O’Keefe’s death and colluded with others in a cover-up.
She had pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
After jurors told the court earlier Monday they had been unable to attain a consensus, Judge Beverly Cannone read them the Tuey-Rodriguez instructions and had them return to their deliberations. Per Tuey-Rogriguez, the judge would be forced to declare a mistrial if the jury returned once more undecided.
In a note to the court Monday afternoon, the jury said it was unable to reach a unanimous consensus despite an exhaustive deliberation process.
“Despite our rigorous efforts we find ourselves at an impasse,” the note, as read aloud by Cannone, said. “The deep division is not due to lack of consideration but to a severe adherence to our personal beliefs and moral compasses. To continue to deliberate would be futile.”
In response, Cannone stated, “Your service is complete. I am declaring a mistrial.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — A helmet-mounted indoor visualization and navigation device that allows first responders to see through dark smoke could soon be available to fire departments around the country, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The Department’s Science and Technology Directorate is opening applications for fire departments around the country to apply for the technology developed by an Austin, Texas, startup Qwake Technologies. The technology was developed by Qwake along with the DHS through a 2020 contract to develop fire safety technology.
The device is called C-THRU, according to the Department.
“We know improved equipment and technology for first responders will help save lives and protect firefighters,” said Dr. Dimitri Kusnezov, DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology. “Through collaborative partnerships with industry, S&T supports the development of devices like C-THRU that address challenges we know exist for first responders, and we’re leveraging emerging technology to meet their most urgent needs.”
There are 400 prototype devices available for fire departments to apply for.
The device is hands-free, light-weight and has a high-speed thermal camera, mounted to the device and similar to those firefighters currently use, which captures surroundings.
MORE: Canadian wildfire smoke could again impact US, experts said “Along with providing a clearer, real-time view of an environment, C-THRU also helps reorient firefighters with navigation for backtracking that provides turn-by-turn guidance,” according to a press release from the department.
“If a firefighter does become lost in a burning building, a mayday function can be activated, which alerts other C-THRU wearers in the area to find the distressed first responder. Similar to a smartphone, the system will continuously improve with over-the-air software updates.”
(NEW YORK) — Hunter Biden on Monday sued Fox News and its parent company over their production of a fictional miniseries that attorneys for the president’s son called “an effort to harass, annoy, alarm, and humiliate him, and tarnish his reputation.”
The miniseries, called “The Trial of Hunter Biden,” is described by Fox as a mock trial that seeks to show “how a possible Hunter Biden trial might look,” and includes several sexually graphic images of Hunter Biden.
In their suit, filed Monday in New York state court, attorneys for Hunter Biden accuse the network of “politically motivated attacks against the President and his family” and the “unlawful commercial exploitation of Mr. Biden’s image, name, and likeness.”
They accused the network of unlawful dissemination of an intimate image, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and unjust enrichment. The complaint requests a jury trial, compensatory and punitive damages, and the disgorgement of any profits from “The Trial of Hunter Biden.”
“This entirely politically motivated lawsuit is devoid of merit,” a Fox News spokesperson said in response to the suit. “The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024. The program was removed within days of the letter, in an abundance of caution, but Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon.”
“Consistent with the First Amendment, FOX News has accurately covered the newsworthy events of Mr. Biden’s own making, and we look forward to vindicating our rights in court,” the Fox spokesperson said.
Attorneys for Biden framed their suit as an “analogous situation” to the recent suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which ultimately concluded with a $787.5 million settlement agreement.
“Like in the Dominion case, Fox knew its conduct was unlawful but it did it anyway,” according to the complaint.
Hunter Biden’s legal team first threatened to sue Fox in April over the miniseries. Fox removed “The Trial of Hunter Biden” from its platform days later, “however, promotional reels and clips of the mocu-series have not been removed by Fox,” Biden’s lawsuit claims.
To file the suit, Hunter Biden enlisted the law firm Geragos & Geragos, whose principal, Mark Geragos, has represented A-listers like Michael Jackson, singer Chris Brown, and actress Winona Ryder.
Geragos also has experience representing family members of presidents: He negotiated a plea deal in 2001 for Roger Clinton Jr., the brother of former President Bill Clinton, for driving under the influence.
Hunter Biden was found guilty last month on three counts related to his 2018 purchase of a firearm while allegedly addicted to drugs. He faces a separate trial on tax charges in September.
