(NEW YORK) — A company and six of its executives were charged Wednesday in New York with allegedly operating a sham safety school that said it certified thousands of construction workers as properly trained when, in fact, it had not, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors said the alleged fraud cost at least one worker, Ivan Frias, his life in 2022 in a fall from the 15th floor of a job site on the Upper West Side.
According to the indictment, Valor Security and Investigations purported to have trained 20,000 construction workers between December 2019 and April 2023, claiming the workers were fully trained in “safety training, safety inspections, safety plans and security services” after 40 hours of instruction.
Instead, Valor allegedly issued “thousands and thousands of safety certificates and cards without providing any training at all,” according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, charging between $300 and $600 for a bogus site safety training card.
“New York City construction workers have one of the most dangerous jobs in the city,” Bragg said Wednesday. “Fraud has dire consequences. Fraud can mean life or death.”
Construction workers have been required by law to receive safety training since 2017.
Valor, its president, Alexander Shaporov, and five other employees are charged with enterprise corruption, according to the indictment. Nineteen alleged brokers, including two master plumbers, were charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument. The plumbers’ licenses have been suspended.
The defendants were all arrested Wednesday morning and are expected to appear in court later the same day. It was not immediately clear whether any had obtained lawyers.
Prosecutors said they obtained text messages and emails that quote Shaporov allegedly telling his employees on one occasion to “make one up” for 40 purported trainees who lacked the requisite safety cards.
Frias died in November 2022 when he fell from the 15th floor of a construction site on West End Avenue. According to the indictment, Valor allegedly falsely certified that Frias had completed 10 hours of safety training, including eight hours of fall protection.
“I think every New Yorker has a right to be a little disgusted,” New York City Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo said Wednesday, adding the department would consider revoking Valor’s license to issue safety cards.
Oddo said any construction worker who received a card from Valor should seek retraining.
(WASHINGTON) — Serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech, Idaho’s longest-serving death row inmate, was spared from death on Wednesday after the medical team assigned to administer a lethal injection failed to establish an IV line, preventing the execution from proceeding, officials said.
The 73-year-old Creech was to be executed at Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Boise, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last-minute request to stay his execution.
“Mr. Creech will be returned to his cell and witnesses will be escorted out of the facility,” the Idaho Department of Corrections said in a statement. “As a result, the death warrant will expire. The State will consider next steps.”
The surprise twist came after Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan issued a decision Wednesday morning denying Creech’s request for a stay of execution, clearing the way for prison authorities to carry out the ultimate punishment.
Attorneys for Creech had filed a certiorari petition that the High Court halt the execution to give the panel time to review the decision by the Idaho Supreme Court denying Creech’s appeals.
“The application for a stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied,” the ruling said. “The edition for a write of certiorari is denied.”
Days before the execution, Idaho Gov. Brad Little said he had “zero intention” of halting the execution at Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Boise.
“Thomas Creech is a convicted serial killer responsible for acts of extreme violence,” Little said in a statement issued on Jan. 29. “His lawful and just sentence must be carried out as ordered by the court. Justice has been delayed long enough.”
In the petition to the Supreme Court, Creech’s attorneys argued that his due process rights were violated by the Idaho Supreme Court.
“Mr. Creech has identified a substantial need for guidance from the Court on an issue of great national importance and he has brought a strong vehicle for it to do so,” Creech’s attorney wrote in the petition, asking for “clarity on [the] question of when a state’s post-conviction regime affords little meaningful review to legitimate federal constitutional claims that it violates due process.”
The petition added, “There are strong reasons to suspect that at least some states have gone too far in limiting post-conviction review, thus calling for the Court’s intervention.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco also denied Creech’s latest appeal in a ruling issued Saturday, prompting attorneys for the condemned man to take their argument to the Supreme Court.
Prior to the death chamber glitch, Idaho Department of Corrections issued a statement Wednesday morning saying it is prepared to move forward with Creech’s execution.
“Last night, Mr. Creech visited with his wife throughout the evening. Additionally, his religious advisor spent an hour with him this morning. Mr. Creech had fried chicken, mash potatoes with gravy, corn, rolls, and ice cream for his last meal. Mr. Creech has remained cooperative in the days leading up to the execution,” the corrections department statement read.
Creech, according to prosecutors, has been convicted of five murders in three states, including three committed in Idaho.
In a 1993 opinion issued by the U.S. Supreme Court denying an appeal filed by Creech, late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that “Creech admitted to killing or participating in the killing of at least 26 people.”
“The bodies of 11 of his victims — who were shot, stabbed, beaten, or strangled to death — have been recovered in seven states,” she said.
The last murder Creech pleaded guilty to occurred in 1981 at an Idaho maximum security prison when he killed 23-year-old David Dale Jensen, a disabled fellow inmate, by beating him to death with a sock filled with batteries, according to prosecutors. At the time of Jensen’s slaying, Creech was serving two life sentences for a double murder he committed in Idaho and had been convicted of murders in California and Oregon.
Creech argued in his recent appeal that his due process rights were violated by the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole and the Ada County, Idaho, Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
At the commutation hearing in October, Ada County deputy prosecutor Jill Longhurst told the commission that Creech is a “sociopath” who has “utter disregard for human life.”
“Mr. Creech is a serial killer, and in 1981 said he would kill again, and he did,” Longhurst told the commission. “Thomas Creech is the most prolific serial killer in Idaho.”
Creech’s execution came despite pleas to spare him from the most unlikely advocates — prison staffers who have cared for him behind bars.
A former prison nurse, a former prosecutor, prison guards and even the judge who sentenced Creech to death all filed declarations backing his request for clemency, which was denied in a 3-3 vote on Jan. 29 by the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole.
Judge Robert Newhouse of the Fourth Judicial District Court in Boise, who sentenced Creech to death in 1983, said in his declaration to the commission that Creech should serve the rest of his life in prison and that executing him would “just be an act of vengeance.”
(NEW YORK) — The New York City judge who oversaw former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial received an envelope containing a white powder Wednesday, prompting an emergency response from police and fire officials, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
The envelope was addressed to Justice Arthur Engoron, who imposed a nearly half-billion dollar judgment against Trump.
Two court officers were the only ones exposed to the substance, which is not believed to be harmful, the sources said.
The letter was received in the operations office of the downtown Manhattan courthouse, the sources said.
The judge was never in any danger, sources said.
Engoron received multiple threats before, during and after Trump’s civil fraud trial, including a bomb threat at his Long Island home on the day of closing arguments.
Engoron imposed a limited gag order on Trump’s statements to protect court staff.
A similar gag order is being sought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for Trump’s criminal trial, which is set to begin next month at a courthouse two blocks away.
Carl Juste/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(TALLAHASSEE) — Hundreds of transgender and nonbinary Floridians and allies are expected to march through the state capital in Tallahassee Wednesday in opposition to years-long legislative efforts targeting gender-diverse communities.
“As we march through the streets of Florida, let our collective voice echo: We will not be erased, legislated against, or silenced,” said Cielo Sunsarae, executive director of the Queer Trans Project.
Sunsarae continued, “To those who seek to strip away our rights, remember this: our existence is non-negotiable, our power unstoppable, and our unity unbreakable.”
The “Let Us Live March” is taking place as lawmakers in the Florida House prepare to consider HB 1639, which would require transgender people to have their sex assigned at birth listed on their driver’s licenses and ID cards, instead of listing their gender identity.
The bill would also require health plans to cover what critics call “conversion therapy,” the text of the bill says “therapeutic services to treat a person’s perception that his or her sex is inconsistent with such person’s sex at birth by affirming the insured’s sex.”
The bill also would force health plans that cover gender-affirming care to cover “detransition” procedures.
“It removes it from that subjective issue that is going on socially to something concrete medically,” said Rep. Douglas Bankson, the bill’s sponsor, according to local news outlet Bay News 9. “If someone were to be incapacitated or unable to communicate, it’s important for first responders for when seconds matter to know the underlying characteristics of their physiology.”
Critics say the ban on changes to gender markers could lead to confusion, harassment, and discrimination against transgender people. For example, they say if records list a trans person as a gender they don’t live by, it could be difficult to identify them.
“Politicians are not only trying to censor and erase the very existence of trans individuals, but they are also forcing individuals to choose between their gender identity or lawfully driving,” said Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel at the ACLU of Florida.
Local legislators State Sen. Shevrin Jones and House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell will be among those criticizing the state’s actions in Wednesday’s march and rally.
“Real leaders look out for the safety and well-being of ALL people, not just some,” said Jones in a May 2023 statement on anti-LGBTQ legislation in the state. “The people of Florida are looking for results and action from their elected officials, not division and attacks on our freedoms.”
In a 2022 ABC News/Ipsos poll, 62% of those surveyed opposed “legislation that would prohibit classroom lessons about sexual orientation or gender identity in elementary school.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials have continuously implemented legislation and policies that impact the LGBTQ community in the administration’s self-proclaimed war against “woke” beliefs.
This includes the 2022 Parental Rights in Education which restricts the inclusion of LGBTQ content in schools, bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, a trans bathroom ban and more.
DeSantis signed the legislation to allow “kids to be kids.”
“I feel very strongly as governor but also just as a dad of a 6, a 5, and a 3-year-old that we need to let our kids just be kids and we have a very crazy age that we live in — there’s a lot of nonsense that gets floated around. And what we’ve said in Florida is, we are going to remain a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy,” DeSantis said.
(WASHINGTON) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are seeking to pause the enforcement of the penalties in his civil fraud trial, telling the court that he intends to post a bond of only $100 million — well short of the $464 million judgement ordered by Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron.
Engoron’s judgment ordered Trump to pay a $355 million fine, plus interest, and blocked him from running any New York-based company, including his own, for three years.
In a court filing Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers argued that the penalties are “unprecedented and punitive.”
“The exorbitant and punitive amount of the Judgment coupled with an unlawful and unconstitutional blanket prohibition on lending transactions would make it impossible to secure and post a complete bond,” defense lawyers wrote in the filing. “Appellants nonetheless plan to secure and post a bond in the amount of $100 million.”
In the filing, Trump’s lawyers said that posting a bond to cover the entire judgment would not only be impossible but also unnecessary given the preexisting oversight provided by the Trump Organization’s independent monitor. According to the filing, the current oversight coupled with the $100 million bond ensures that New York Attorney General Letitia James could collect the judgment if needed.
“Those assets are not going anywhere, nor could they given the oversight of the Monitor and the practical realities of the existence of the very public Judgment,” the filing said.
In their motion for a stay, defense attorneys Clifford Robert and Alina Habba called Engoron’s order “draconian” and said the punishments would unfairly impede Trump’s family real estate business.
“The extraordinary relief Supreme Court has granted is punitive, patently improper, unsupported by the evidence, and/or unavailable under the Executive Law, and is premised upon claims this Court ruled are time-barred,” the motion said.
The filing cited “the Attorney General’s public threats that she will seize Appellants’ real property forthwith to satisfy the Judgment,” a reference to remarks New York Attorney General Letitia James made during an interview with ABC News.
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James told ABC News last week.
“Supreme Court’s staggering $450 million judgment not only ignores this Court’s controlling decision in this very case, but also violates the Excessive Fines and Due Process Clauses of the U.S. and New York Constitutions,” the defense motion said.
“This untenable Judgment therefore threatens the entire New York business community, as it will render profitable, arms-length transactions between sophisticated commercial parties meaningless and subject to arbitrary, post hoc review by the Attorney General and the courts,” the motion argued.
Engoron, in his ruling earlier this month, found Trump, his adult sons, and two former Trump Organization executives liable for a decade of fraudulent business activity in which they used “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate Trump’s net worth in order get more favorable loan terms. He ordering the defendants to pay a total of $464 million in disgorgement and pre-judgment interest.
Trump’s attorneys requested the stay pending their appeal of Engoron’s ruling, which they filed Monday.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Idaho serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech’s last-minute request for a stay of execution.
Associate Justice Elena Kagan issued the decision to deny Creech’s request Wednesday morning, clearing the way for prison authorities to carry out his execution by lethal injection.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — At least nine tornadoes were reported across Illinois, Michigan and Ohio as a storm barreled through the Midwest overnight.
Wind gusts reached 82 mph near Chicago, and hail was larger than golf balls in DuPage County, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.
2024 off to a somewhat decadent start for me in Northern Illinois! Atkinson, Illinois 2/27/24! #wxtwitter. Hopefully I can out and do this more this season. pic.twitter.com/8MyiQP3R32
On Wednesday morning, the severe thunderstorm threat is ongoing for the Ohio Valley, West Virginia and Kentucky, where a few thunderstorms are possible.
By Wednesday afternoon, the strong thunderstorms and gusty winds will move east, stretching from the Tennessee River Valley to the Northeast.
Up to 3 inches of rain is forecast for West Virginia and New England.
The heaviest rain will reach the Interstate 95 corridor Wednesday evening.
(NEW YORK) — The New York Police Department is pushing back after an official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement claimed the Venezuelan suspect arrested for Laken Riley’s murder was previously arrested and released by NYPD in 2023.
Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, obstructing an emergency call and concealing the death of another.
“There is no arrest on file with the name provided in 2023,” NYPD said in a statement on Tuesday.
He was denied bond during an initial court appearance on Saturday and is being held at the Clarke County Jail.
NYPD’s Tuesday release came in response to a statement on Sunday from ICE, which said Ibarra had been arrested on Sept. 8, 2022, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “after unlawfully entering the United States near El Paso, Texas.”
“He was paroled and released for further processing,” ICE said. “On Sept. 14, 2023, [Jose] Ibarra was arrested by the New York Police Department and charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation,” the statement continued.
“He was released by the NYPD before a detainer could be issued. On Feb. 23, 2024, ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] Atlanta encountered Ibarra pursuant to his arrest by the University of Georgia Police Department and being charged with murder and other crimes. ERO Atlanta lodged a detainer.”
An ICE spokesperson on Tuesday stood by the agency’s record keeping, but could not explain the dispute. ICE first said Ibarra was arrested and released by NYPD before federal officials could ask for his detention.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp addressed the Athens-Clarke Chamber of Commerce on Monday, calling Riley’s death “preventable.”
“First of all, [the family is] devastated. They are heartbroken. Marty and I both can understand. Our daughters are at the University of Georgia, and they work out in that same area [as Laken Riley],” Kemp said. “They’re also mad like I am that this happened. It was preventable because we just have a nightmare in this country with mass migration and then have people that are here illegally breaking our laws and they’re not telling anybody and reporting this to us.”
The 22-year-old nursing student was found in a wooded area on campus on Thursday with “visible injuries,” the university said. She died from blunt force trauma, according to University of Georgia Police Department Chief Jeffrey Clark.
Police do not believe he knew the victim and do not have a motive, according to the chief.
“I think this was a crime of opportunity, where he saw an individual and bad things happened,” Clark said.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Quinn Owen contributed to this report.
(SANTA FE, N.M.) — Jurors in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Hannah Gutierrez saw footage of the “Rust” armorer being interviewed by law enforcement hours after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on the set of the Western.
“I wish I would have checked it more,” Gutierrez said of the Colt .45 revolver while being questioned at the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico on Oct. 21, 2021, in footage shown to jurors Tuesday on the fourth day of her trial.
Actor Alec Baldwin was practicing a cross-draw in a church on the set when the gun fired a live round, striking Hutchins and director Joel Souza, who suffered a non-life-threatening injury.
Gutierrez told investigators she was “flabbergasted” by the shooting and that she had checked all six rounds in the prop gun, which was a fully functioning firearm.
“I do check the dummies,” she said. “I check all of them. They all showed that they were not hot, I guess you could say.”
Gutierrez told investigators that she had spent the morning loading prop guns with dummies. After lunch, she was outside the church due to COVID-19 restrictions when she said she heard one shot go off inside.
She said she went inside and was “yelled” at, so ran out. She said she checked the gun, and one round was missing, but the “rest were fine.”
“One of the dummies had somehow been discharged,” she told investigators in the footage.
One of the investigators showed Gutierrez a photo a deputy had texted her from the hospital of the projectile removed from Souza’s shoulder.
“They were thinking it could be an actual live round at this point,” the investigator told Gutierrez.
“Does that look like it would have been a live round to you?” she asked the armorer.
“That looks like a blank one,” Gutierrez initially responded, before later saying, “That might be a regular live round, though.”
“That’s what they were thinking — it could be a live round,” the investigator said.
“Holy f—,” Gutierrez responded.
Gutierrez contended that she had checked the six rounds in the firearm to see if they rattled — indicating they were dummy rounds.
“If it didn’t rattle, I wouldn’t have put it in,” she said. “I checked all six of them for a rattle.”
Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office Cpl. Alexandra Hancock testified on the stand Tuesday that one of the dummy rounds in the firearm had a hole on the side to indicate it was a dummy.
“It would not have rattled, which is contrary to her statement of, if it wouldn’t have had rattled, I wouldn’t put it in,” Hancock said.
Hours before the shooting, several members of the camera department walked off the set in protest of poor working conditions. When asked about that during the interview, Gutierrez said the set was “toxic” but didn’t think anyone was “that malicious.”
“I feel like this is a really f—ed-up accident,” she said, the footage showed.
Asked where the ammunition for the set came from, Gutierrez told the investigator they got boxes of dummies from Seth Kenney, owner of PDQ Arm and Prop in Albuquerque.
During a second interview with the sheriff’s office in November 2021, Gutierrez “disclosed” that she and another supplier also provided ammunition for the set, Hancock testified.
During the November interview, part of which was shown to jurors on Tuesday before breaking for the day, Gutierrez said she brought in “loose dummies” she had from a prior film set that had been in her car for two weeks.
Ammunition from PDQ did not match any of the live ammunition found on the “Rust” set, Hancock testified.
Gutierrez, 26, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence charges. Prosecutors allege she handed off a small bag of cocaine after her interview with law enforcement following the shooting. The defense has argued there is no proof that cocaine was in the bag and that she was charged with the offense “in an effort to cause unfair prejudice” to the defendant during the trial.
Prosecutors have claimed that the armorer did not always adhere to “essential” safety procedures on set and unwittingly brought the live bullets onto the set.
Defense attorney Jason Bowles said during opening statements last week that the production and state have made Gutierrez a “scapegoat” in the tragic shooting.
“Just because there was a tragedy does not mean that a crime was committed,” he said.
He claimed that the production created a “chaotic scene” by giving Gutierrez props duties that took away from her job as lead armorer. He said she wasn’t given sufficient time to train the crew on the firearms, including Baldwin, whom he argued was inappropriately handling the gun by pointing it at the crew, and has denied that she brought the live bullets on set.
Baldwin has also been charged with involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death. He has pleaded not guilty.
Earlier Tuesday, firearms expert Lucien Haag testified for the state that for the revolver to fire, the hammer would have needed to be fully cocked and the trigger pulled — matching testimony from FBI firearms expert Bryce Ziegler on Monday.
Baldwin has said he did not pull the trigger on the gun.
His trial has been scheduled to start in July.
“We look forward to our day in court,” Baldwin’s attorneys, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel, said following his indictment in January.
“Devastating” wildfires in Texas have prompted a disaster declaration for dozens of counties and evacuation orders in parts of the Texas Panhandle.
Gov. Greg Abbott declared a disaster declaration for 60 counties on Tuesday due to “widespread wildfire activity throughout the state.”
The declaration will ensure that fire response resources are quickly deployed to “areas in the Texas Panhandle being impacted by devastating wildfires,” Abbott said in a statement Tuesday.
According to an internal situation report from DHS/CISA, the “wildfires in northern Texas and western Oklahoma prompted a precautionary evacuation of non-essential personnel at the Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant in Amarillo, TX. All special materials are safe and unaffected. There are no reported impacts to early voting in either state.”
“The Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant in Carson County evacuated all nonessential personnel and paused operations until further notice due to the ongoing wildfires,” according to the report obtained by ABC News. “All weapons and special materials are safe and unaffected. The facility is approximately 13 miles from the Windy Deuce Fire.”
Additionally, the agency reports “the Smokehouse Creek fire crossed into northwestern Oklahoma, resulting in a hospital and nursing home evacuation in Shattuck, OK. Several state and local highways are also affected by the fires.”
The Texas A&M Forest Service had said it responded to 13 wildfires on Monday, with conditions on Tuesday ideal for more wildfire activity.
“Several large wildfires ignited under warm, dry and windy conditions across the Texas Panhandle,” the agency said on social media earlier Tuesday. “Today, strong winds will likely impact these wildfires and the potential for new ignitions remains.”
Fires continued to impact mainly the central and eastern portions of the Panhandles on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
Among the blazes, the Smokehouse Creek Fire in Hutchinson County has burned 250,000 acres and is 0% contained as of Tuesday evening, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. There was “extreme fire behavior” associated with the wildfire on Tuesday, with wind gusts up to 60 mph and flames as high as 20 feet in grass, a spokesperson for the agency told ABC News.
The Windy Deuce Fire in Moore County has burned an estimated 38,000 acres and was 20% contained as of Tuesday evening, fire officials said.
“Fire behavior continues to be very active under the influence of high winds,” the Texas A&M Forest Service said on social media.
More than 40 houses were damaged in Fritch, a city located in Hutchinson and Moore counties, since Monday, the city said. Parts of the city have been evacuated.
Mandatory evacuations are in effect for several towns and communities in the Amarillo region, including Skellytown, Wheeler, Allison and Briscoe, the National Weather Service said Tuesday evening. Voluntary evacuations are in effect for Pampa, it said.
Abbott warned that the wildfires could grow in the coming days as high temperatures and windy conditions continue.
“Texans are urged to limit activities that could create sparks and take precautions to keep their loved ones safe,” he said.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
