(WASHINGTON) — A Washington state man who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 was sentenced Wednesday to seven years and three months in prison.
Taylor James Johnatakis was convicted in November on seven charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting police officers.
Johnatakis led rioters in attacking the police line outside the Capitol, according to federal prosecutors.
“Specifically, using his megaphone, Johnatakis directed rioters to move up to the police line and yelled at the rioters to ‘pack it in! pack it in!'” a press release states. “Johnatakis then instructed the crowd through the megaphone that they were going to push the bike racks ‘one foot’ at a time and counted, ‘one, two, three, GO!!'”
At least one officer was injured in the fray, prosecutors said.
During his trial, Johnatakis represented himself, frustrating Judge Royce Lamberth with his erratic behavior. He argued his case by claiming to be a “sovereign citizen,” The Associated Press reported, which the judge called “gobbledygook.”
Johnatakis also asked the judge questions during his sentencing, including “Does the record reflect that I repent in my sins?” — to which Lamberth replied he was not taking questions, the AP reported.
In a letter after Wednesday’s hearing, Lamberth said every decision on how to sentence Jan. 6 rioters “aims to discourage these defendants from future violence, dissuade others from taking inspiration from the Capitol riot, and express the community’s moral disapproval of this conduct.”
He hit back at the idea that Johnatakis was simply exercising his freedom of speech, saying his actions were “neither First Amendment-protected activity nor civil disobedience.”
“A society in which everyone does what is right by his own lights, where adherence to the law is optional, would be a society of vigilantism, lawlessness, and anarchy,” he wrote.
Lamberth said Johnatakis’ remarks throughout the course of the trial made clear he “does not accept responsibility for his actions and does not show true remorse.”
“In any angry mob, there are leaders and there are followers,” he wrote. “Mr. Johnatakis was a leader. He knew what he was doing that day.”
Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Two brothers who helped fund former President Donald Trump’s now-public social media company pleaded guilty Wednesday to insider trading.
Michael Shvartsman and Gerald Shvartsman made millions by trading in shares of Digital World Acquisition Corporation before it merged with Trump Media, according to federal prosecutors in New York.
Michael Shvartsman, 52, of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, and Gerald Shvartsman, 45, of Aventura, Florida, were arrested on securities fraud charges last July.
They each pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of securities fraud.
Each of them faces up to 20 years in prison when they’re sentenced in July, but prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of about three years.
“Michael and Gerald Shvartsman admitted in court that they received confidential, inside information about an upcoming merger between DWAC and Trump Media, and used that information to make profitable, but illegal, open-market trades,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “Insider trading is cheating, plain and simple.”
Prosecutors said the brothers placed an associate on DWAC’s board of directors, who funneled them valuable information about the merger plan with Trump Media that the brothers then used to trade. Together, they made $22 million in illegal profits, prosecutors said.
There was no evidence that former President Trump was aware of the brothers’ conduct, and he was not part of the case.
Trump Media went public last month and is now trading on the Nasdaq exchange.
(CINCINNATI) — Dangerous tornadoes tore through the central U.S. Tuesday night, including Kentucky, where one person was killed, according to the governor.
Over the last two days, more than 20 tornadoes were reported across states including Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and Missouri.
In Kentucky, where wind gusts topped 100 mph, the reported twisters flattened buildings, ripped off roofs and littered streets with debris.
In Campbell County, Kentucky, just outside of Cincinnati, a young man died in a car accident during the strong storms, Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference Wednesday.
No major injuries have been reported, Beshear said.
Jordan Yuodis, spokesperson for Anchorage Middletown Fire and EMS in Kentucky, told ABC News, “Within a matter of what seemed like minutes, [the weather] went from about 70-75 degrees and sunny to suddenly pitch black and debris flying.”
Shortly after 5:15 p.m., officials activated the outdoor warning sirens, Yuodis said. “Within minutes, we started receiving 911 calls of homes damaged, people trapped in their homes, roads being shut down,” he said.
“We responded to multiple homes where the roofs had been completely taken off,” Yuodis said. “The roof from one house went across the street and ended up into another home.”
“Thanks to the timely forecasts and warnings provided by the National Weather Service, people were able to seek shelter, which, to our knowledge, has been effective,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said Tuesday night. “I’m pleased to report that as of now, there are no reported injuries or fatalities. … There is definitely roof damage, significant damage to homes.”
A state of emergency is in effect in Kentucky.
On Wednesday afternoon and evening, scattered, severe thunderstorms are possible all along the East Coast.
Two separate tornado watches are in effect: one in North Florida and Central Florida and another in the Mid-Atlantic.
(LUSAKA, Zambia) — An elderly American tourist was killed after an “aggressive” bull elephant attacked a vehicle during a game drive in Zambia, the safari operator said.
The incident took place Saturday morning at Kafue National Park in Zambia, a Lusaka police spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.
“An aggressive bull elephant charged the vehicle carrying six guests and a guide who were on a game drive from Lufupa Camp,” Wilderness, the company operating the safari, said in a statement to ABC News Wednesday.
The 80-year-old woman was injured during the “unexpected” incident and transferred to a hospital in South Africa, where she later died, according to Wilderness. Four other people received treatment for minor injuries after the incident, the company said.
“The six guests were on the game drive when the vehicle was unexpectedly charged by the bull elephant,” Keith Vincent, Wilderness’ chief executive officer, said in the statement, adding, that the safari guide’s vehicle was “blocked” by the terrain at the time of the attack.
“Our guides are all extremely well trained and experienced, but sadly in this instance the terrain and vegetation was such that the guide’s route became blocked and he could not move the vehicle out of harm’s way quickly enough,” Vincent said.
Following the attack, Kafue National Park management was immediately called to assist and a helicopter was dispatched to the scene, according to Vincent. Local police, Zambia’s Department of National Parks & Wildlife and other authorities are involved in the investigation, he said.
Wilderness is cooperating with the investigation, Vincent said.
“This is a tragic event and we extend our deepest condolences to the family of the guest who died,” he said in the statement. “We are also, naturally, supporting those guests and the guide involved in this distressing incident.”
The elderly woman’s remains will be repatriated to her family in the U.S. with support from local Zambian authorities and the U.S. Embassy in Lusaka, according to the statement.
Last month, a similar bull elephant attack took place in Pilanesberg National Park, South Africa.
Videos of the March 18 incident show a bull elephant lifting a 22-seat safari truck up several times with his trunk before letting it drop. There were no deaths reported in that incident.
Hendry Blom, a bystander who caught the incident on camera, told ABC News: “We were definitely scared, especially for the people in the truck because we thought they might die.”
ABC News’ Victoria Beaule contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Wednesday urged a judge to reject an attempt by former President Donald Trump to delay his criminal hush money trial, scheduled to begin in less than two weeks, due to the large amount of pretrial publicity.
Prosecutors argued that much of the publicity Trump’s attorneys complained about is of his own making.
“[D]efendant’s own incessant rhetoric is generating significant publicity, and it would be perverse to reward defendant with an adjournment based on media attention he is actively seeking,” assistant district attorney Matthew Colangelo wrote in response to Trump’s motion.
Trump’s attorneys argued that “potential jurors in Manhattan have been exposed to huge amounts of biased and unfair media coverage relating to this case” — but prosecutors said a thorough jury selection process can yield an impartial jury.
“Defendant thus fails to demonstrate that the publicity surrounding this case is prejudicial at all, much less so inflammatory as to jeopardize the fundamental fairness of the trial,” Colangelo said.
This is Trump’s eighth attempt to delay the start of the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the former president was trying to hide long-denied allegations of an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels from voters ahead of the 2016 election.
(NEW YORK) — The Powerball jackpot in Wednesday night’s drawing is one of the largest in the game’s history.
The jackpot is an estimated $1.09 billion — which would make it the fourth-largest in Powerball history and the ninth-largest lotto jackpot ever when factoring in Mega Millions grand prizes.
Wednesday night’s Powerball jackpot has an estimated cash value of $527.3 million.
Wednesday’s drawing comes after a Mega Millions player won the eighth-largest jackpot ever last week. A ticket in New Jersey claimed the $1.128 billion Mega Millions prize.
If a player wins, they can choose between a lump-sum, pre-tax payment of $527.3 million or annual payouts of $1.09 billion, also pre-tax — starting with one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments that increase by 5% each year.
The Powerball jackpot crossed the billion-dollar threshold last week. There have been 39 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner. The last winner was on Jan. 1, when a ticket in Michigan won $842.4 million, according to the lottery.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, according to Powerball.
Powerball tickets are $2 per play. Tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The drawing will be held Wednesday at 10:59 p.m. ET.
(NEW YORK) — A hiker who was stranded on the side of a cliff in the San Francisco Bay Area is speaking out exclusively to ABC News for the first time since being rescued.
Cody Cretini said he had been on a beach walk with his girlfriend on Easter when he decided to take a shortcut up a hill.
“I decided to climb the cliff, you know, be brave, be adventurous,” Cretini said. “And so I started climbing and about 40 or 50 feet up, I get to a spot where all the rocks start crumbling and like, every rock that I grab just gets removed from the cliff.”
Cretini’s girlfriend rushed to get help as the 22-year-old became trapped, dangling more than 50 feet above the Pacific Ocean.
“When help arrived, I knew that I only had to hold on a little bit longer and that it was almost over,” Cretini said.
But the rescue mission would last for almost an hour and Cretini said he started to get tired. At one point, Cretini said he was holding on by just one hand and his feet that didn’t fully fit on a rock.
“My muscles were tired. I was cramping and I knew if I fell … it wasn’t going to be good,” Cretini said.
The helicopter teams said they feared Cretini could slip at any moment.
“My fear is he was going to let go,” Larry Matelli, a deputy sheriff and tactical flight officer for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office, told ABC News. “And I realized as soon as he did, he was going to start sliding. So I was giving him clear instructions. ‘Do not let go. Do not let go.’ And I was able to feed the rescue device around him.”
Rescuers had to use night vision to find Cretini, who was barely visible as he hung above crashing waves.
“This one had a very technical nature to it in that the victim, you know, was ‘Spider-Manned’ onto the cliff. He didn’t have a ledge to get any pitches on,” Nigel Cooper, a pilot for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office, told ABC News.
Cretini emerged from the harrowing experience with just a few scrapes and bruises and said he’s grateful to the rescue teams.
“The helicopter and the person who, like, grabbed me and saved me, don’t know where I’d be without them,” Cretini said. “Like, I definitely needed them there. They really helped a lot.”
(NEW YORK) — A hiker who was stranded on the side of a cliff in the San Francisco Bay Area is speaking out exclusively to ABC News for the first time since being rescued.
Cody Cretini said he had been on a beach walk with his girlfriend on Easter when he decided to take a shortcut up a hill.
“I decided to climb the cliff, you know, be brave, be adventurous,” Cretini said. “And so I started climbing and about 40 or 50 feet up, I get to a spot where all the rocks start crumbling and like, every rock that I grab just gets removed from the cliff.”
Cretini’s girlfriend rushed to get help as the 22-year-old became trapped, dangling more than 50 feet above the Pacific Ocean.
“When help arrived, I knew that I only had to hold on a little bit longer and that it was almost over,” Cretini said.
But the rescue mission would last for almost an hour and Cretini said he started to get tired. At one point, Cretini said he was holding on by just one hand and his feet that didn’t fully fit on a rock.
“My muscles were tired. I was cramping and I knew if I fell … it wasn’t going to be good,” Cretini said.
The helicopter teams said they feared Cretini could slip at any moment.
“My fear is he was going to let go,” Larry Matelli, a deputy sheriff and tactical flight officer for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office, told ABC News. “And I realized as soon as he did, he was going to start sliding. So I was giving him clear instructions. ‘Do not let go. Do not let go.’ And I was able to feed the rescue device around him.”
Rescuers had to use night vision to find Cretini, who was barely visible as he hung above crashing waves.
“This one had a very technical nature to it in that the victim, you know, was ‘Spider-Manned’ onto the cliff. He didn’t have a ledge to get any pitches on,” Nigel Cooper, a pilot for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office, told ABC News.
Cretini emerged from the harrowing experience with just a few scrapes and bruises and said he’s grateful to the rescue teams.
“The helicopter and the person who, like, grabbed me and saved me, don’t know where I’d be without them,” Cretini said. “Like, I definitely needed them there. They really helped a lot.”
(NEW YORK) — Dangerous tornadoes tore through the central U.S. Tuesday night, including Kentucky, where reported twisters flattened buildings, ripped off roofs and littered streets with debris.
In the last 48 hours, at least 20 tornadoes were reported across nine states: Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Missouri.
Many schools across Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana announced closures or early dismissals Tuesday as the storms moved in.
In Kentucky, where wind gusts topped 100 mph, Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, saying there were “reports of substantial damage to a number of structures.”
Jordan Yuodis, spokesperson for Anchorage Middletown Fire and EMS in Kentucky, told ABC News, “Within a matter of what seemed like minutes, [the weather] went from about 70-75 degrees and sunny to suddenly pitch black and debris flying.”
Shortly after 5:15 p.m., officials activated the outdoor warning sirens, Yuodis said.
“Within minutes, we started receiving 911 calls of homes damaged, people trapped in their homes, roads being shut down,” he said.
“We responded to multiple homes where the roofs had been completely taken off,” Yuodis said. “The roof from one house went across the street and ended up into another home.”
“Thanks to the timely forecasts and warnings provided by the National Weather Service, people were able to seek shelter, which, to our knowledge, has been effective,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said Tuesday night. “I’m pleased to report that as of now, there are no reported injuries or fatalities. … There is definitely roof damage, significant damage to homes.”
On Wednesday, the line of storms is targeting the Interstate 95 corridor from Florida to New Jersey.
The tornado threat is lower, but isolated tornadoes are still possible in North Carolina and Virginia. Damaging winds are expected in Florida and South Carolina.
In this Aug. 21, 2017, file photo, the moon transits the sun during the 2017 total solar eclipse, as seen from Weiser, Idaho. (Kyle Green/Idaho Statesman via TNS via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — When millions of people look to the skies on April 8 to witness the total solar eclipse, scientists will be studying how the phenomenon will affect plant and animal activity on Earth.
The eclipse may last just mere minutes for those in the path of totality, but the effect it has on the natural world will be profound, researchers told ABC News.
Plants and animals will begin to react in the lead-up to totality as the light begins to dim, said Angela Speck, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
“Once it gets to about 75%, 80% eclipsed, there’s enough sunlight missing that animals will start to react,” she said.
About 20 minutes from totality, birds will start to flock. Some will quiet down. Farm animals, like cows and chickens, will walk back to the barn because they think it’s now nighttime, previous research as shown.
Then, once totality hits, the behavior will start to change again, Speck said.
Previous research has shown that bees stop buzzing during totality and returned to their hives. Then, when the sunlight re-appeared, the bees seemed disoriented, according to a paper published in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America after the 2017 eclipse.
“This transition out of it is probably something that they’re not expecting, and I think that could be a period of confusion,” Brent Pease, an assistant professor at South Illinois University’s School of Forestry and Horticulture, told ABC News. “It’s hard to exactly say what these individuals or animals are experiencing.”
A study conducted by the University of Missouri-Columbia during the 2017 eclipse found that some plants closed up during totality and others followed the sun as the moon moved over it.
Based on reports dating all the way back to the 1500s, researchers can expect breeding birds to quiet down during the eclipse, Pease said. This is likely a defense mechanism, to avoid detection from predators during dark periods, he added.
The driver behind most of these effects is a big change in light stimuli, Pease said.
Birds think it’s “bedtime,” Speck said.
Crepuscular nocturnal insects, such as crickets, will begin to vocalize as the light dissipates, Pease said.
“Crickets respond very quickly to changes in light sources,” he said.
There is also evidence that spiders will begin to engage in web maintenance — typically a nighttime behavior for them to catch potential meals overnight, Pease explained.
One interesting case occurred with the Galapagos tortoise, a study published in the National Library of Medicine in 2020 found. The typically slow and lethargic species were observed to get the urge to mate during the 2017 eclipse, the researchers observed.
While various studies have already been done, researchers will continue to study the impact of a total solar eclipse — especially given how long it will be until the next solar eclipse occurs.
At Southern Illinois University, scientists will be studying insects and birds in the regions based on soundscapes made during the eclipse, Pease said.
The project, part of the NASA-funded Eclipse Soundscapes project, relies on citizen science reporting for the breadth of its data, with more than 200 participants in 64 counties in the Midwest, Pease said.
“We’re increasing scientific engagement around the really exciting event, and we’re really kind of increasing scientific accessibility,” Pease said.
It will be another 350 years before a total solar eclipse passes through southern Illinois, Pease said, emphasizing the importance of the research that’s taking place on April 8.
What is not clear is what happens to nocturnal animals when the eclipse occurs, Speck said. There are several bat caves in the San Antonio region that will be examined, Speck said.
For this eclipse, there will be several accredited zoos on the path of totality, allowing researchers to observe animal behavior more closely, Speck noted.
Those on the path of totality can also expect the temperature to drop significantly, Speck said. Depending on the humidity, temperatures could drop up to 10 degrees in the minutes the sun is completely covered in regions that are experiencing dry conditions.
“There’s a lot of experiments on just understanding how the atmosphere is changing as we switch off the sun,” Speck said.
Amphibians often react quickly to changes in light that cause changes in temperature — even “micro” changes in temperature, Pease said.
Researchers expect the vast majority of the impacts to be temporarily, lasting just minutes.
“We’ve got hundreds of years of information about what might be happening with the wildlife communities,” Pease said. “But the exciting thing here is all of those hundreds of years of information are just qualitative. Now we’re at a point where we have the conservation technology and the computing power to quantitatively assess very precisely exactly how things are changing and how these changes might dissipate with distance from the path of totality.”
