(NEW YORK) — A local news helicopter operated by WPVI-TV, an ABC-owned television station in Philadelphia, crashed Tuesday night in a wooded area in southern New Jersey, killing two people onboard, the station said.
Chopper 6 crashed with a pilot and photographer onboard sometime after 8 p.m. in Washington Township, WPVI reported.
Both were killed in the crash, the station said.
The names of those onboard have not been released. The two were returning from an assignment at the Jersey Shore, the station said.
(NEW YORK) — A Colorado teenager has been charged with providing material support to ISIS, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
Acting on a tip from a social media company, the FBI encountered Humzah Mashkoor when he was 16 years old, and just under a year later, they arrested him for allegedly attempting to board a flight in Denver to join ISIS, the Justice Department said in its criminal complaint.
Undercover FBI agents soon began communicating with Mashkoor, who used the social media name “Humzah Afghan,” the complaint said.
“Mashkoor frequently expressed support for ISIS,” the complaint reads.
In one instance, he shared videos online of people getting executed, the department claimed in the court filing.
He allegedly told the undercover officer he was born in the United States, went to Afghanistan and then came back to the U.S. after his family had to leave.
“He indicated a desire to return to Afghanistan, where he has family in Nangarhar and other areas under Taliban control. Mashkoor stated that he previously supported the Taliban but started ‘looking more into’ ‘the dawlah’ after they ‘b0mbed the airport and took those Taliban and us soldiers and sent them to jahanam,’” the complaint says.
Authorities said they took his statements to mean he supported ISIS after the bombing of Kabul Airport in 2021.
“Are you ready?” he allegedly wrote to an undercover FBI agent regarding his planned return to Afghanistan. “Once we go there’s no turning back… We leave behind everything… Our family’s… Our homes… Our friends… For the sake of Allah. … Life won’t be easy, we will be strangers moving from place to place… Hated by the whole worlds.”
In the fall of 2022, Mashkoor also allegedly told undercover officers he would do anything ISIS told him to do.
“I am prepared to do anything which they require me to do . . . I just want to be used as soon as possible, gun attcks … I have no training, I used to have some practice with guns with I was younger. But that is it,” Mashkoor allegedly said.
Also, according to the complaint, in October 2022, he allegedly took the oath to join ISIS.
The Justice Department alleges that throughout 2023, and leading up to his 18th birthday, Mashkoor made statements about traveling to join ISIS. He allegedly discussed marrying someone who shared the same beliefs.
He planned to donate “all of his money” to ISIS in cryptocurrency before he turned 18.
He was scheduled to travel on Dec. 11, but instead, he postponed his travel to Dec. 18, which is when he was arrested.
ABC News could not immediately locate a legal representative for Mashkoor, and no lawyer was listed in the court record.
(NEW YORK) — A nationwide swatting spree targeting nearly 200 Jewish institutions over the weekend appears to have been a coordinated effort by an entity based outside the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top spokesperson said in a confidential memo to partner law enforcement agencies.
The communication, written by Assistant FBI Director Cathy Milhoan, and obtained by ABC News, says, “At this time, based on similar language and specific email tradecraft used, it appears the perpetrators of these threats are connected. Additionally, these threats appear to be originating from outside of the United States.”
Milhoan continued, “To date, none of these email threats have involved any actual explosive devices or credible risk of harm to congregants.”
More than 30 of the 56 FBI field offices are investigating the threats, which violated multiple federal laws, according to Milhoan.
A “record number” of 199 swatting incidents and false bomb threats were tracked between Friday and Saturday by the Secure Community Network, a non-profit that advises U.S. Jewish institutions on safety and security.
The non-profit tracked the swatting spree across multiple states, including 93 in California, 62 in Arizona, 15 in Connecticut, five in Colorado, and four in Washington state, according to a press release.
According to SCN, swatting incidents are up over 540% from 2022, with more than 449 swatting incidents and bomb threats taking place this year.
October and November have seen a 290% rise since last year, “with a record 772 incidents logged,” according to SCN’s press release.
“The safety of all faith-based communities is one of the FBI’s highest priorities. Once again, thank you for your partnership and your collaboration to keep our communities safe,” Milhoan ended the letter.
(NEW YORK) — A California man has been charged with murder in connection with a road rage shooting that killed a 4-year-old boy last week, prosecutors said.
Byron Burkhart, 29, is accused of pulling up alongside a vehicle and firing eight shots into the car while driving on the Sierra Highway in Lancaster on Friday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office said.
Gor Adamyan, 4, was traveling with his parents when he was shot once while sitting in the backseat of the car, prosecutors said. He was transported to a local hospital where he died. His mother and father were uninjured.
Burkhart was charged on Tuesday with one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder, one count of shooting at an occupied vehicle, and five counts of possession of a firearm by a felon, the district attorney’s office said.
“Our hearts ache for the tragic loss of a young life in such a devastating and senseless act of road rage,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Gascón said in a statement. “A family is facing unimaginable pain during what should be a joyous time this holiday season.”
The victim vehicle’s camera allegedly captured Burkhart’s vehicle’s license plate during the incident, prosecutors said.
He was booked at the Los Angeles County Jail on Sunday and is scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 22. Prosecutors said they will ask that he be held on $5.075 million bail.
If convicted as charged, Burkhart will face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Burkhart was traveling with his girlfriend at the time of the incident, prosecutors said.
Alexandria Gentile, 27, was also booked at the Los Angeles County Jail on suspicion of murder in connection with the shooting, the sheriff’s department said in a statement to ABC News. She was released Tuesday afternoon, online jail records show. The district attorney’s office has not announced any charges against her.
The MSC Meraviglia cruise ship leaves the port of New York, on Dec. 9, 2023. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Passengers of a cruise who were expecting a sunny getaway in the Bahamas this week were instead sailed to a much colder climate due to severe weather.
The MSC Meraviglia was forced to sail from Brooklyn, New York, to ports in New England and Canada on Saturday instead of its original destination in the Bahamas “due to unseasonable and rapidly worsening weather that would have made it impossible to safely reach the southern Atlantic Ocean from New York City,” the MSC cruise line said in a statement to ABC News.
The move came after heavy storms struck the East Coast and the Bahamas causing flooding, power outages and several deaths.
“The only alternative would have been to take the more extreme step of canceling the cruise — and thousands of people’s vacations — outright,” MSC said.
“The complexities involved in obtaining last-minute berths for unplanned stops and provisioning the ship along its new route left sailing to Canada and New England as the only viable option,” the cruise line added.
MSC also said it offered passengers a choice of sailing to the new destinations or canceling for future credit, “which allows them to put the full value paid for this cruise toward another at their convenience.”
The MSC Meraviglia is slated to arrive in the Port of Saint John in Canada on Thursday, the port wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The cruise ship can accommodate up to 5,624 passengers and 1,608 crew members, the cruise line says on its website. It was unclear how many passengers were aboard the rerouted Bahamas cruise.
Chris Gray Faust, executive editor of review site Cruise Critic, told ABC News this kind of scenario and decision to change the cruise’s itinerary is “not necessarily out of the question,” and that some other cruise lines were reportedly impacted by the inclement weather.
Faust said that cruise lines typically have a “contract of carriage” clause that doesn’t guarantee the ports the ship will travel to and allows the cruise operator to change the itinerary for various issues, including weather.
“Generally weather in December is fairly stable in Florida and the Bahamas, but it has been rough last weekend in particular,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Two men were charged with illegally procuring American technology for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ drone program, according to court documents unsealed by the Justice Department.
Iranian national Hossein Hatefi Ardakani and co-defendant Gary Lam, who was based in China and Hong Kong, were charged in D.C. federal court with procuring microelectronics for the IRGC’s program from 2014 to 2015, according to court documents.
Ardakani and his co-conspirators used a “web of foreign companies to accomplish their obfuscation and evasion efforts,” the Justice Department alleged. It is unclear how many co-conspirators were alleged to have been involved.
In one instance, according to the charges, Ardakani and Lam “caused an unwitting French company to purchase from a U.S. company several pieces of analog-to-digital converters with applications in wireless and broadband communications, radar and satellite subsystems, multicarrier, multimodal cellular receivers, antenna array positioning and infrared imaging.” The technology was shipped to Hong Kong, then “reexported to Iran,” according to the court documents.
The case was primarily investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, DOJ said.
“Ardakani and his co-conspirators crafted a sophisticated web of front companies to obscure the illicit acquisition of U.S. and foreign technology to procure components for deadly UAVs,” said Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Krol of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New England. “These very components have been found in use by Iran’s allies in current conflicts, including in Ukraine. The disruption of these criminal networks by Homeland Security Investigations means that hundreds of thousands of critical UAV components will never again be used for malign purposes.”
The pair are charged with conspiracy to export U.S. goods to Iran and to defraud the United States, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. They are also charged with unlawfully exporting and attempting to export goods to Iran, as well as conspiracy to engage in international money laundering. Each of those charges carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
In a separate announcement, the Justice Department said officials had seized more than $800,000 from companies tied to the IRGC’s unnamed aircraft program, and the Treasury Department announced Ardakani was hit with sanctions from the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — The ACLU of Texas filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday challenging the state’s new law that authorizes Texas law enforcement to detain and arrest migrants suspected of crossing the southern border illegally.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the County of El Paso and advocacy groups Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and American Gateways. It names Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, and Bill Hicks, a district attorney for the 34th District of Texas, as defendants.
By creating new state crimes, including one of “illegal entry,” SB 4 allows local and state law enforcement officials to arrest migrants suspected of crossing into the state illegally from Mexico and allows judges to direct migrants to be transported to ports of entry and ordered to return to Mexico, regardless of nationality. The state crime carries a penalty of up to six months in jail for first offenses and up to 20 years for repeat offenders.
The law is the latest attempt by Abbott, a hardline Republican opponent of the Biden administration’s immigration polices, to enact and enforce immigration laws.
“President Biden has repeatedly refused to enforce federal immigration laws already on the books and do his job to secure the border,” Abbott said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed Tuesday. “In his absence, Texas has the constitutional authority to secure our border through historic laws like SB 4. Texas will take this fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary to protect Texans from President Biden’s dangerous open border policies.”
Representatives for McGraw and Hicks did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
“The goal of Senate Bill 4 is to stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas,” Abbot said at a signing ceremony set up against the backdrop of the border wall in Brownsville, Texas.
For months, immigration advocates have claimed that the new law could cause widespread racial profiling and the imprisonment of migrants who may have crossed into the country in between ports of entry, but have the legal right to stay while their asylum claims are processed.
The law does not allocate funding or mandate training for law enforcement officials who will now be tasked with enforcing immigration law. Immigrant rights advocates have said this would leave the fate of a migrant’s path to asylum in the hands of untrained officers.
“There is no U.S. federal analogue to a lone officer in their own discretion escorting someone to the border and saying get out. That is a very scary prospect that is categorically different from what the federal government does. In addition to that, in the federal system people would be able to present their claims to an immigration officer and an immigration judge,” David Donatti, a senior staff attorney with the Texas ACLU, told ABC News in November after the bill was passed by the Texas House of Representatives.
In the filing, the lawyers representing the county of El Paso, which has grappled with constant migrant surges, say SB 4 would pose a threat to mixed status families who are an “integral part of the El Paso community” and pay an approximate $591.8 million in taxes. The county also claims it would overburden its county jail, the main detention facility for undocumented immigrants by adding an additional 8,000 arrests per year.
“Given that number of anticipated arrests, the County will incur nearly $24 million per year in additional costs to simply house these additional defendants. The County estimates it will need to authorize and spend a further $162 million to build additional jail and bed space,” the complaint obtained by ABC News says.
The lawsuit claims Las Americas, which provides legal services to migrants in federal immigration detention, would be prevented from reaching people who may have a legal basis to stay in the country because of the law’s expedited removal process.
“In intention or effect, the state will preclude the communities Las Americas serves from ever coming into contact with the federal immigration process. To continue to pursue its mission, Las Americas will need to develop an entirely new system of tracking, counseling, and representing individuals held in state and county jails and prisons to ensure that they are screened and advised of their eligibility for federal immigration relief, and are assisted in applying for relief,” the filing says.
Immigration advocates have previously voiced concerned that if parents are arrested, they may be separated from their children.
The lawsuit claims SB 4 violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, which states that immigration falls under the federal government’s responsibilities, not the states.
“This is an extreme law that will make communities in Texas less safe. Generally speaking, the federal government — not individual states — is charged with determining how and when to remove noncitizens for violating immigration laws,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez told ABC News in a statement.
“The law is incredibly extreme,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC News’ Mary Bruce on Tuesday about SB 4. “It does not make communities in Texas safer.”
She added, “Communities should not, should not be individually targeted and put into … harm’s way and this is what we’re seeing.”
At the bill signing ceremony, Abbott praised former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and claimed these polices helped lower illegal entries. The governor endorsed the former president for his 2024 presidential run.
“Now under President Biden, he has eliminated all of those policies and has done nothing to halt illegal immigration. Joe Biden’s deliberate inaction has decimated America,” Abbott said.
Abbott signed two other immigration-related bills on Monday. One bill earmarked $1.5 billion in funding for his border security initiative Operation Lone Star and to build more barriers along the border. Another bill increased the minimum sentence for smuggling immigrants.
On Monday, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the Department of Justice to intervene before the law takes effect on March 5, 2024.
“This bill is set to be the most extreme anti-immigrant state bill in the United States; it is clearly preempted by federal law and when it goes into effect will likely result in racial profiling, significant due process violations, and unlawful arrests of citizens, lawful permanent residents, and others,” the lawmakers wrote.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York has ordered a vast unsealing of court documents in early 2024 that will make public the names of scores of Jeffrey Epstein’s associates.
The documents are part of a settled civil lawsuit alleging Epstein’s one-time paramour Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre. Terms of the 2017 settlement were not disclosed.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted of sex trafficking and procuring girls for Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
Anyone who did not successfully fight to keep their name out of the civil case could see their name become public — including Epstein’s victims, co-conspirators and innocent associates.
Judge Loretta Preska set the release for Jan. 1, giving anyone who objects to their documents becoming public time to object. Her ruling, though, said that since some of the individuals have given media interviews their names should not stay private.
The documents may not make clear why a certain individual became associated with Giuffre’s lawsuit, but more than 150 people are expected to be identified in hundreds of files that may expose more about Epstein’s sex trafficking of women and girls in New York, New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and elsewhere. Some of the names may simply have been included in depositions, email or legal documents.
Some of the people have already been publicly associated with Epstein. For instance, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is publicly named in the judge’s order. Certain minor victims will remain redacted.
Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, was convicted in 2021 of conspiring with Epstein to recruit, groom and abuse minors. In February, she asked the court to overturn her conviction and 20-year prison sentence.
Prosecutors subsequently urged a federal appeals court in June to uphold the conviction.
From 1994 to 2004, Maxwell and Epstein worked together to identify girls, groom them and then entice them to travel and transport them to Epstein’s properties in New York, Florida, New Mexico, and elsewhere, prosecutors said. The girls — some of whom were as young as 14 years old — were then sexually abused, often under the guise of a “massage,” they said.
Giuffre alleged in her lawsuit against Maxwell that Maxwell recruited her at the age of 16 to years of sexual servitude to Epstein. She also accused Maxwell and Epstein of directing her, between 2000 to 2002, to have sex with a number of their prominent associates, most famously Britain’s Prince Andrew. The lawsuit was settled in May 2017, just before a trial was to begin.
Prince Andrew had repeatedly denied the allegations and attacked Giuffre’s credibility and motives. He agreed to settle a sexual assault lawsuit from Giuffre last year for an undisclosed sum.
“Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre’s character, and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks,” according to a letter filed from Giuffre’s lawyer. “It is known that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked countless young girls over many years. Prince Andrew regrets his association with Epstein, and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others.”
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Maine police are searching for two people who went missing after their car was swept away in floodwaters during the powerful storm that pummeled the Northeast on Monday.
The incident unfolded just before 5 p.m. Monday on Route 2 in Mexico, which is about 75 miles north of Portland, the Maine State Police said.
Four people were in the car when it was swept into the Swift River’s rising floodwaters, police said.
Three people escaped from the car, and two of them were rescued, police said. The third person who escaped the car, as well as the fourth person who remained in the car, are missing, police said.
The two rescued people were hospitalized to be treated for hypothermia, police said. Their conditions were not immediately clear..
Police said multiple roads in Mexico remain closed and some residential areas are completely closed off. Police said boats have been deployed to help trapped residents.
Police urged the public “to respect road closures and to avoid entering into flooded roadways.”
At least three people died during the massive storm that hammered the Northeast with rain and wind on Monday.
In upstate Greene County, New York, a driver died after their car was swept away in floodwaters, according to the Greene County Sheriff’s Office.
In Windham, Maine, a man was struck and killed by a tree while he was on his roof trying to remove debris, Windham police said.
In Plymouth County, Massachusetts, an 89-year-old man was killed by a fallen tree that trapped him in a trailer, according to the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office.
(NEW YORK) — Indianola Police Sgt. Greg Capers is speaking out in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Good Morning America after a grand jury cleared him in the shooting of an unarmed 11-year-old boy inside his home.
Capers spoke out in an exclusive interview with co-anchor DeMarco Morgan that will air on Good Morning America and “ABC News Live,” with the full interview airing Tuesday on GMA3.
“People have their own opinion, and unless they’re in our shoes, you never know exactly what you may run into or encounter on a day’s time, within your 12-hour schedules,” Capers said when asked what he thinks about people who believe he acted poorly.
He continued, “You just never know what you may run into. Spur of the moment, it’s a split decision that has to be made.”
When asked if he has thought about the little boy since that day, Capers responded: “All the time. All the time.”
Michael Carr, an attorney with the Police Benevolent Association representing Capers, told ABC News that his client is “truly sorry” for what happened and has called the incident unfortunate. Carr said Capers remains under administrative nonpaid leave, although he said the mayor of Indianola will consider re-instating Capers to the police force.
Capers shot Aderrien Murry in the chest on May 20 while responding to a domestic dispute. Aderrien has said he had called 911 when his mother’s ex-boyfriend showed up at their home. Aderrien’s mother, Nakala Murry, said she asked Aderrien to call the police.
Aderrien’s family alleged that Capers arrived at the home with his firearm drawn and that he fired at Aderrien without warning as the boy emerged from the room after he and his family members were ordered to leave their house.
“I came out of the room like this,” Aderrien said with his hands above his head as he reflected on the incident in a May interview on GMA3.
Aderrien’s family filed both a federal civil lawsuit and a criminal complaint against the officer following the incident. The complaint alleges that Aderrien was hospitalized for five days with a collapsed lung, lacerated liver and fractured ribs from the gunshot wound in his chest.
On Dec. 14, a Sunflower County grand jury found that Capers did not engage in criminal conduct in the shooting following an investigation by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, according to the state Office of the Attorney General.
“The shooting was not intentional, it was not reckless, and [Capers] wishes none of this happened. It was a pure accident,” Carr separately told Good Morning America in a June interview.
After the grand jury declined to indict Capers, Aderrien’s attorney said the family “is determined to seek accountability and justice through both state and federal court civil suits.”
“While the grand jury has spoken, we firmly believe that there are unanswered questions and that the shooting of Aderrien Murry was not justified,” said attorney Carlos E. Moore. “We are committed to seeking justice for Aderrien and his family, and we will persist in our efforts to ensure accountability through the civil legal process.”
ABC News has requested the body camera footage, which is currently under judicial seal.
