(NEW YORK) — The Trump Organization and former President Donald Trump’s one-time attorney Michael Cohen agreed Friday to settle a million-dollar dispute, just days before a jury trial was scheduled to start.
Cohen had accused the Trump Organization of failing to pay his legal fees of about $1 million.
The two sides announced the settlement agreement during a court hearing Friday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
Jury selection in the case was to have started Monday.
In the suit, Cohen alleged the Trump Organization broke an agreement to cover his legal bills when he appeared at congressional hearings and participated in investigations, including the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller about Russian election interference.
Trump has countersued Cohen in Florida, alleging that Cohen breached a fiduciary duty to maintain secrecy about his time working for Trump. That lawsuit is ongoing.
Cohen is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution in Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the case.
(NEW YORK) — Two men have been arrested following three attacks on women in Manhattan’s Riverside Park this week, according to New York City police.
The first attack was at about 4:40 p.m Tuesday, when a woman was approached by a man who grabbed her breasts, “made explicit statements” and then fled on a bicycle, the NYPD said at a news conference Friday.
Hours later, around 10 p.m. Tuesday, a woman was jogging in Riverside Park when she was grabbed from behind and pushed to the ground, police said. A man pulled down her shorts and made similar “explicit statements,” police said. The woman screamed and the suspect then fled on a bicycle, according to police.
The third incident was at about 4 a.m. Thursday, when a woman walking in the park was tackled to the ground, police said. The victim tried to call 911 but the suspect took her phone and fled on a bicycle, according to police.
On Thursday afternoon, police officers were canvassing when they spotted a man fitting the description of a suspect in the Thursday morning attack, police said.
The 39-year-old “made incriminating statements” when he was taken into custody, police said. The victim’s phone was found in a search at his home and he was identified in a lineup, police said. That suspect, who has no prior arrests, was charged with attempted rape, robbery, sexual abuse and assault in connection with the Thursday morning attack, police said.
Then, on Thursday night, police said they used surveillance video to track the movements of a second suspect. The 21-year-old suspect was taken into custody and “identified himself in the two [Tuesday] incidents, plus a third forcible touching incident” in June on the Upper West Side, police said.
All three victims identified him in a lineup, police said. He faces charges including assault, attempted rape and forcible touching, police said.
Police called it a “highly unusual case to have two separate stranger attempted rapes in a particular location.”
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge has dealt a blow to former President Donald Trump’s push to indefinitely delay his classified documents trial.
The former president will now stand trial in May of next year on charges that he mishandled classified material, according to a court filing Friday.
Judge Aileen Cannon scheduled the trial for May 20, a compromise date later than prosecutors had sought but sooner than the indefinite delay requested by Trump.
Trump’s attorneys had argued that the extraordinary nature of the case meant there should be no reason to expedite the trial, while prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith’s office contended there was no reason for a delay.
“There is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion, and the Defendants provide none,” prosecutor David Harbach wrote in his filing.
The judge, however, said the special counsel’s proposed trial date of December was too soon, given the complexity of the case and the sheer volume of evidence.
“By conservative estimates, the amount of discovery in this case is voluminous and likely to increase in the normal course as trial approaches,” her decision said.
“[E]ven accepting the Government’s contested submission that nothing in this case presents a ‘novel question of fact or law,’ the fact remains that the Court will be faced with extensive pre-trial motion practice on a diverse number of legal and factual issues, all in connection with a 38-count indictment,” the judge added.
The trial will take place at the federal court in Ft. Pierce, Florida, according to the judge’s order. The next hearing in the case is tentatively scheduled for August 25.
Trump pleaded not guilty in June to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities.
He has denied all charges and denounced the probe as a political witch hunt.
Trump’s court calendar is rapidly filling with dates that coil around the nation’s political calendar as he again runs for president.
If the May court date holds, it means Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money case against Trump, currently scheduled for March 24, will go to trial first. Trump in April pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election.
He is first scheduled to stand trial in October in a $250 million civil lawsuit brought by the New York Attorney General, who has accused the Trump family of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.
In January, Trump is scheduled to stand trial in E. Jean Carroll’s remaining defamation lawsuit, the date for which coincides with the Iowa caucuses.
Trump has denied all charges and has said the probes are part of a politically motivated witch hunt.
(NEW YORK) — New York City detectives have made significant progress in the investigations into two attacks on women on Manhattan’s West Side, according to police sources.
The first attack was around 10 p.m. Tuesday, when a 38-year-old jogger was pushed to the ground and sexually assaulted in Riverside Park, police sources said. The man fled on a dark bicycle, sources said.
Then, on Thursday morning, a 33-year-old woman was knocked to the ground as she walked away from a man who was trying to engage her in conversation at the entrance of Riverside Park South, at West 59th Street and the West Side Highway, sources said.
The man pulled her by the arm, knocking her down, sources said. When she reached for her phone to call police, the man grabbed her phone and fled, according to sources.
Police are expected to release more information on the cases Friday.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, and the State Department’s Assistant Secretary for East Asia Daniel Kritenbrink’s email accounts were breached by China-based hackers in the massive cyberattack that began in May and was discovered in mid-June, according to U.S. officials familiar with the investigation into the matter.
The hackers are not believed to have gained access to any classified information, but this revelation — which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal — adds to the fallout.
Secretary Blinken’s account is not believed to have been breached. The hack was uncovered shortly before his trip to China where he was accompanied by Kritenbrink.
“For security reasons, we will not be sharing additional information on the nature and scope of this cybersecurity incident at this time. The Department continuously monitors and responds to activity of concern on our networks,” a State Department spokesperson said. “Our investigation is ongoing, and we cannot provide further details at this time.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The Hawaiian Islands are home to paradise, both above and beneath the ocean’s surface.
However, nestled on the floor of the Pacific Ocean exists an underwater ecosystem so valuable to life on both land and sea, that its loss would spark a ripple effect of demise around the world.
Coral reefs are known as the rainforest of the sea and the foundation of the ocean, and they are dying almost everywhere they are found. Hawaii is one of the places on earth that would feel the loss of live coral the most.
The live coral provides flood protection benefits to more than 6,800 people living on the Hawaiian Islands and $836 million in averted damages and economic activity, a report by the U.S. Geological Survey found.
With each 1-meter loss in reef height, the flood plain would increase across Hawaii by 33 square kilometers, putting about 9,200 more people in peril of flooding, and affecting more than $1.3 billion in property and economic activity, according to the report.
As climate change amplifies global warming, the corals are bearing the brunt of the damage.
Why are the coral reefs in Hawaii in decline?
All over the world, mass bleaching events are erasing the once vibrant hues of corals, as too-warm water causes algae to expel from the organisms’ tissues, leaving them a grayish white color. Ocean acidification, caused primarily by an uptick in carbon dioxide absorption from the atmosphere, is reducing the calcification rates of corals, leaving the framework for the rock formations unstable.
The corals reefs of Hawaii are currently classified as “fair” but in decline, with significant bleaching events taking place in the region in 2014 and 2015, Danny DeMartini, co-founder and director of science for Kuleana, a Hawaii-based coral restoration nonprofit, told ABC News.
Damage to the Hawaiian corals is “widespread,” especially in areas, such as bays, where there is limited water flow and temperatures heat up quickly, DeMartini said.
Reefs are essential to both marine and land-dwelling species, as about 25% of all marine life depend on coral reefs. The stress of recent bleaching events caused some of our fish populations and certain reefs to drop by up to 50% in the last 10 years, DeMartini said.
The aspiration to protect the land and sea are embedded in Hawaiian culture, and native Hawaiians consider themselves as custodians of the environment, said actress and singer Auli’i Cravalho, who has partnered with cat food brand Sheba, which uses fish products in its products, to raise awareness surrounding the immediate need to protect and preserve coral reefs worldwide.
Cravalho, whose lineage traces back to kings and queens that once ruled the Hawaiian Islands, grew up in Kohala, a small town on the Big Island, where she saw first-hand the impact climate change has had on the coral reefs surrounding her home.
“I’m used to it being plentiful with fish and very colorful,” she told ABC News. “And over the years, I’ve noticed that it has significantly degraded.”
When the bleaching first occurs, there is a window of time in which the corals can rebound if they do not remain in that state of stress for too long, Heather Starck, executive director of the Coral Reef Alliance, an environmental nonprofit dedicated to coral reef conservation, told ABC News.
But the likelihood of reducing ocean temperatures in the near future is unlikely, forecasts show.
Marine researchers were already expecting a warmer-than-usual ocean surface temperatures due to an upcoming El Nino event this year, Starck said.
The planet is undergoing an unprecedented warming event. For the better part of a month, regions all over the world have experiencing record-breaking, dangerous heat on land.
Oceans are not faring much better.
About 40% of all the oceans around the world are currently experiencing a heat wave, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
June marked the highest average global ocean surface temperatures ever recorded, and temperatures are not expected to cool in the coming weeks, the NOAA announced on Thursday.
Nearly the entire Pacific Ocean is measuring at higher-than-normal temperatures, including the equatorial Pacific, the Northeast Pacific, the Northwest Pacific in the Kuroshio extension region and the Sea of Japan and the Southwest Pacific just southeast of New Zealand, according to NOAA.
Other factors affecting corals and ocean health in Hawaii
Hawaii is also experiencing other stressors, such as wastewater pollution, sedimentation from runoff from streams and overfishing, Starck said.
Rubbish also often washes ashore due Hawaii’s position in the North Pacific Gyre, as ocean circulation brings garbage to the coastlines, DeMartini said.
There are currently more than 88,000 cesspools throughout Hawaii, which discharges 53 million gallons of untreated sewage into the ground each day, according to the state.
Tourists who visit the Hawaiian islands are also decimating the destinations they seek in paradise.
The most popular coral reefs on the Hawaiian islands are likely being degraded by the very visitors they attract, a study published in Nature Sustainability in January found. The degradation typically happens in the form of diver contact and elevated pollution levels in areas that tourists frequent, researchers from Princeton University found.
“Hawaii is a really popular place to go snorkeling and diving, and so when those other stressors are happening on top of sea surface warming, then it can leave the corals really vulnerable to actually dying off,” Starck said.
Efforts to conserve the biodiversity in Hawaii are being made on several fronts.
Studies have shown coral that undergo bleaching events in areas that have better water quality — better managed fisheries and better managed tourism — have a better chance of bouncing back, Starck said.
In 2016, the state of Hawaii banned the construction of new cesspools. The next year, the state passed a law requiring that all cesspools be converted and closed by the year 2050.
Kuleana, a Hawaiian word that translates loosely to “responsibility,” has embarked in the utilization of pilot restoration techniques that can be affordable and scalable that we can take to all different communities on the islands to help recover, DeMartini said. One of them involves planting small structures onto the reef to accelerate the growth rate of the corals, and therefore restoring opportunity for the ecosystem to thrive and marine life to live and feed there, DeMartini said.
Since Kuleana was founded and began its restoration projects in 2019, coral growth has increased from 2% to 70%, and fish populations have increased by 260%, Cravalho said.
Like her alter ego Moana, Disney’s Polynesian princess with a special affinity for the ocean, Cravalho has dedicated her voice to protecting her home from environmental destruction. A passion for microbiology since her school days has transformed to her using her celebrity to amplify the environmental advocacy needed to preserve the Hawaiian Islands and other natural habitats around the world.
Gently informing people to avoid touching the coral, clean up after themselves at the beach and prevent extra waste by drinking from reusable water bottles can sometimes make the biggest difference, Cravalho said.
In the future, marine planners will need to prepare meticulously when a bleaching event is forecast to prevent further loss of live coral, Starck said.
Actions such as reducing anchoring, allowing fewer people near the reefs and targeted water quality improvements could be the difference in whether the coral are able to survive acute stressor events, she added.
“If we can just get that more into the planning, I think they will do much better in the long term,” Starck said. “So, there is a hope in the story.”
The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — After his home was raided by cops last year, despite no criminal charges, rapper Afroman said he decided to turn his emotions over the incident into his art.
“The best thing I came up with was to write songs about my experience and try to sell them and make some money to pay for the destruction that they brought to my house,” the “Because I Got High” singer told ABC News Live.
But now, he’s facing a court battle over that song’s music video, which features footage of the Aug. 21, 2022, incident taken from his security cameras, because the police say it ruined their officers’ reputations.
Afroman, whose real name is Joseph Edgar Foreman, contends that he was in his right to express his frustration with what unfolded at his home in Winchester, Ohio.
Deputies from the Adams County Sheriff’s Department pulled up in tactical gear, broke down his door and went through his rooms and belongings, including his collection of cars, during a search warrant.
The warrant claimed the deputies were investigating drug and kidnapping allegations and alleged that the police received a tip from a confidential informant who had seen large amounts of weed and money at the property and claimed Afroman kept women locked in his basement.
No one was found inside the residence and the rapper was never charged.
Afroman, who wasn’t at home at the time of the incident, said he saw the raid from live security camera footage on his phone.
“I felt powerless,” he said.
Afroman claimed the head officer involved in the incident denied his request for help to fix the damage to his home.
“So I got to start from right there and figure out what’s my move,” he said.
Afroman wrote three songs about the incident, including one titled “Will You Help Me Repair My Door,” and released music videos that featured the security footage.
Three months after the songs were released, Afroman said he received a letter from the sheriff’s office claiming they were suing him over the videos and songs claiming the officers “suffered humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment, and loss of reputation after the music videos were released.”
Their claim demanded they should receive the proceeds that Afroman made using their image.
The Adams County Sheriff’s Department declined to comment citing ongoing litigation.
Robert Klinger, the attorney representing the officers, said in a statement to ABC News, “I intend to argue my client’s case in the Adams County Court, not in the court of public opinion or the press.”
Channa Llyod, an ABC News legal contributor, said the case does raise serious questions about what are the boundaries of privacy in a court of law.
“Officers acting in their job, executing their job functions, is typically not going to rise to the level of a violation of privacy,” she said.
(BUCKS COUNTY, Penn.) — Rescuers will assess Friday morning whether or not they can continue the search for a 2-year-old girl and her 9-month-old brother who were washed away with their mother in a flash flood in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, after severe weather on Wednesday halted efforts to find the children, officials said.
Search operations included K-9s from the Philadelphia Police Department and heavy equipment, the Upper Makefield Township Police Department wrote on Facebook, adding: “We will assess in the morning as to whether we can continue our search to bring Mattie and Conrad home.”
As rescue crews on Thursday resumed the search for 2-year-old Matilda “Mattie” Sheils and her 9-month-old brother, Conrad Sheils, who have been missing since their family was caught in the deluge over the weekend while driving near Upper Makefield Township, President Joe Biden made his first public comments about five lives lost in the flash flood, including the missing children’s mother.
“I want to say we’re praying for those who lost their lives in the flooding in Bucks County. The idea that there’s not global warming, I think can’t be denied by anybody anymore,” Biden said during an event in Philadelphia to tout his economic agenda. “Anyway, we’re grateful for the first responders who continue to look for a 2-year-old, Mattie, and her baby brother, Conrad. By the grace of God, maybe something will come of it.”
Efforts to locate the children resumed Thursday morning after severe weather paused the search all day Wednesday.
“We are in the process of getting dog teams and having the dive unit check the conditions of the river to see if they can get into the water today,” the Upper Makefield Township Police Department said in a statement released Thursday.
As of noon Thursday, K-9 teams from the Philadelphia Police Department were back searching the flood zone and heavy equipment had been brought in to help thoroughly comb through what police described as “extremely large debris piles,” the Upper Makefield Police Department said in a statement.
Divers are prepared to enter a creek that spilled its banks during Saturday’s flooding and the nearby Delaware River as soon as conditions allow them to commence an underwater search, police said.
“Unfortunately, we do not anticipate that occurring today,” the police department said in its statement.
The children have been missing since Saturday afternoon when they and their family were caught in the flash flood while driving on Route 532 to a barbecue, authorities said.
The children’s mother, 32-year-old Katie Seley, died after she grabbed Mattie and Conrad and tried to escape their vehicle but ended up being swept away in the violent weather event, officials said.
Seley was among five people killed in the storm. Her body was recovered on Sunday.
Rescue crews are expected to scale back the search after more than 100 emergency personnel scoured the flooded area along Hough’s Creek between Saturday afternoon when the children and their mother were reported missing to Tuesday evening, Chief Tim Brewer of the Upper Makefield Fire Company said. He said crews have used cadaver dogs in ground searches of the creek’s banks and have deployed sonar equipment and drones to search the creek, a tributary that leads to the Delaware River.
“We have searched the entire flood zone more than a dozen times,” Brewer said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, adding that the search covered roughly 117 acres.
Brewer said the focus of the search is switching to a “dive rescue operation.”
“That will mean underwater assets mainly in the creek and we will work out from there. We still have K-9 assets in place, but we are going to begin to scale down,” said Brewer, adding that crews have searched and re-searched the area.
“Tracking logs are over 160 miles, meaning we have backtracked several times,” Brewer said.
The tragedy unfolded around 5:30 p.m. Saturday when more than 7 inches of rain fell within 45 minutes, causing Hough’s Creek to spill its banks and generating a “wall of water” that took drivers on Route 532, also known as Washington Crossing Road, by surprise, Brewer said. He said 11 cars were washed away in the flash flood and at least one was found 1.5 miles from where it was swept into the creek.
The missing children and their family are from South Carolina and were in Pennsylvania visiting friends and relatives when disaster struck.
Mattie and Conrad’s father, Jim Sheils, and their grandmother grabbed ahold of the missing siblings’ 4-year-old brother and escaped their car as it and other vehicles were being washed away, according to officials. The father, grandmother and 4-year-old were found alive, officials said.
“They were caught in a flash flood,” Brewer said. “The wall of water came to them, not the other way around.”
Besides Katie Seley, four other people were confirmed dead in the Bucks County flooding. They were identified by the Bucks County Coroner’s Office as Enzo Depiero, 78, and Linda Depiero, 74, both of Newtown Township, Pennsylvania; Susan Barnhardt, 53, of Titusville, New Jersey; and Yuko Love, 64, of Newtown Township.
The coroner’s office said all of the victims died from drowning.
(FRANKLIN, N.J.) — A school bus monitor is facing charges after a 6-year-old girl with special needs died following an incident on a bus ride in New Jersey, prosecutors said.
The child, who uses a wheelchair, was being transported on a school bus to an extended school year program at a local school in Franklin Township on Monday morning when she became unresponsive, prosecutors said.
During the ride, “a series of bumps in the road caused the 6-year-old to slump in her wheelchair seat making the 4-point harness which secured her to the chair to become tight around her neck, ultimately blocking her airway,” the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement on Thursday.
The school bus monitor who secured the child to the chair was seated toward the front of the bus at the time and “was utilizing a cellular telephone while wearing earbud headphone devices in both ears,” the office said.
“The investigation revealed that this was in violation of policies and procedures,” the office said.
Police responded to a school in Franklin Township shortly after 9 a.m. and administered CPR to the unresponsive child, prosecutors said. She was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Following an investigation, the school bus monitor — identified by prosecutors as 27-year-old Amanda Davila of New Brunswick — was arrested on Wednesday and charged with second-degree manslaughter and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, prosecutors said.
She was being held in Somerset County Jail pending a detention hearing, which is scheduled to occur possibly on Tuesday, the prosecutor’s office said. It is unclear if she has an attorney who can speak on her behalf. Attempts by ABC News to reach Davila for comment were unsuccessful.
Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office Police Chief Francisco Roman told ABC News they are not releasing the child’s name at the wishes of her family. An autopsy report is pending, he said.
In an interview with New York ABC station WABC, her parents said the girl was diagnosed with a rare chromosome disability called Emanuel syndrome.
“She did not deserve this, to be taken away from us in such a way that had nothing to do with her condition,” her mother, Najmah Nash, told the station.
The child was nonverbal, her father told WABC.
“My daughter, she can’t speak, she’s helpless,” her father, Wali Williams, told the station. “She can’t even take the harness off on her own, she can’t even take the seat belt off. The only thing she can do is move her arms.”
The bus monitor was employed by Montauk Bus Company, according to Franklin Township Public Schools. ABC News has reached out to the bus company for comment.
“Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with this student’s family and friends,” Franklin Township Public Schools Superintendent John Ravally said in a letter to the school community.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — On the second day of a hearing over a lawsuit filed against the state of Texas, an anti-abortion doctor who practices in the state testified Thursday in support of the ban, stating “the law is clear” and that if doctors believe they cannot provide proper care, it’s because they misunderstand the law.
Meanwhile, two physicians who practice medicine outside the state testified for the plaintiffs, arguing that Texas’ abortion laws are confusing and would make it difficult to provide necessary care to patients.
They were joined by a physician in Texas who was pregnant herself and delivered emotional testimony about having to go out of state to get an abortion.
The hearing is part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of 15 women in the state of Texas alleging that the state’s abortion laws put their lives in jeopardy.
The testimony was given during a court hearing that began Wednesday as part of plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order on abortion bans, permitting women to receive lifesaving emergency abortions.
Lawyers are asking the court to provide a “remedy applied to patients whose life, health or fertility is at risk from an emergent medical condition,” Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead attorney on the case, said during opening statements Wednesday.
Dr. Austin Dennard, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and an OB-GYN who had to travel out of state to receive abortion care for a nonviable pregnancy, took the stand Thursday. Dennard — who is currently pregnant again — testified that she and her husband made the “very difficult decision” to abort a pregnancy in 2017 after the fetus was diagnosed with a very rare genetic disorder.
In emotional testimony, Dennard testified that she found out she was pregnant in June 2022.
At her second ultrasound appointment, Dennard — who was nervous because she had a miscarriage months before — said she realized that her baby had acrania, a fatal condition in which a fetus does not have a skull, leaving brain tissue exposed to amniotic fluid, as soon as she saw the ultrasound.
“I immediately realized that there was something catastrophically wrong,” Dennard said.
“I was devastated. We were trying so hard. I had been hoping and praying for another baby and just had envisioned having a third and realizing that this pregnancy was not going to end with another little toddler running around my house. That’s hard,” Dennard said.
At a second ultrasound, a maternal fetal medicine specialist then diagnosed the fetus with anencephaly — but there was still a cardiac heartbeat.
“I think I was crying at that time. And she came over and just gave me a big hug and said, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you’re going through this torture when you got the diagnosis of anencephaly,'” Dennard said.
Dennard testified that anencephaly is a fatal, severe defect for the fetus that poses a risk to the health of the mother as well.
“[The babies live] seconds, minutes, maybe a day. They essentially just gasp for air until they pass away,” Dennard said.
Dennard said she made the decision to travel to get an abortion out of state and described what it felt like to not have access to care in Texas and be forced to carry a nonviable pregnancy.
“I felt like my pregnancy was not my own, that it belonged to the state because I no longer had a choice of what I could do. I felt abandoned. I couldn’t believe that after spending my entire life in the state, being a sixth generation Texan, practicing medicine in the state, that the state had completely turned their back on me,” Dennard said.
“And for them my only choice was to continue the pregnancy, putting my life at risk and my mental and emotional health at risk for a fetus that was never going to survive. So I had a lot of big feelings about it,” Dennard said.
Dennard testified that her emotional recovery takes longer time than her physical recovery and said the grief of losing a child “never really goes away.”
She said she considered going public with her story earlier but did not do so initially out of fear and because she was not ready.
In cross-examination, a representative for the state asked Dennard about her age and whether her pregnancy was higher risk because she was “over 35.” She then asked Dennard if she would have been “considered geriatric” due to her age, to which Dennard responded, sarcastically, “Well that’s a nice word,” adding, “Geriatric is not a medical term.”
Testimony from out of state physicians
The two physicians who testified Thursday practice medicine in Oregon and Massachusetts, but said they would find it difficult to practice medicine in Texas under the bans.
“My opinion is that the laws as they’re currently written — the medical exceptions — they’re confusing. And that confusion and lack of clarity is keeping physicians from being able to exercise their good faith judgment in the treatment of patients,” said Dr. Ali Shahbizraja, an emergency medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“It, also, is pretty evident that the fact is that the consequences of those laws are severe, personally, to the physicians themselves. And as a consequence of that, they are going to they’re going to, in patients where there’s a gray zone and there’s a lack of clarity, they’re going to err on the side of not treating,” Shahbizraja said.
Shahbizraja testified that this appeared to be the case when physicians were treating patients who are plaintiffs in this lawsuit.
“It’s making it hard to determine when physicians can act and exercise that in good faith clinical judgment, and that’s clear based on the patient’s understanding of their discussions with their physicians in their affidavits,” Shahbizraja said.
Another expert agreed and said wording of the laws would scare physicians.
“Given that physicians in Texas are practicing under the abortion ban — where if they’re prosecuted they carry risk of losing their license, their livelihood and time in jail — they’re going to practice the most conservatively as possible,” Dr. Aaron Caughey, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Oregon Health & Science University, testified in court Thursday.
“It is hard to create a list that would delineate all the conditions that would meet a medical indication for abortion. I gave some examples above to give a sense of how you might think about it. But creating an exhaustive list, I believe, would be an impossible task,” Caughey said.
Caughey also testified to the care the women who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit could have received in the absence of Texas’ bans.
Texas OB-GYN testifies for the state
Dr. Ingrid Skop, a Texas OB-GYN, testified as an expert witness for the state Thursday, arguing that abortion care hadn’t changed in Texas despite the state’s ban on the procedure. Skop works for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion group, and has shared her views on abortion publicly in the past.
She said many physicians in Texas are confused about the new abortion law and are misinterpreting it because they don’t understand it, which has led to “suboptimal care.”
“The law is quite clear,” Skop said. “The fault lies with the physicians are not being given guidance by the organizations that usually will give them guidance — the medical societies and the hospital societies.”
“They should have known they could intervene,” she added in reference to reports of women who have been in life-threatening situations after not being able to get an abortion in Texas. “They should not have waited until women were on the verge of death and going to the ICU to intervene.”
Skop also argued that, in situations where a fetus cannot be saved, she believes induction is more appropriate than performing a procedure such as dilation and curettage.
“A much more holistic way to progress through the grieving process than to dismember your child and not have a way to grieve.”
She added that palliative care and hospice care, including perinatal palliative care should be provided.
Skop added that life-threatening complications often occur close to viability, which she said is around 22 weeks gestation, and “the child is able to survive.”
She said doctors can use their judgment in determining if the medical exception applies in a patient’s case, but conceded the Texas Medical Board could clarify the law and help physicians understand when abortions are medically necessary.
Closing arguments
In closing arguments, the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the bans are “dehumanizing” and are putting patients through “torture.”
“Far from furthering life, Texas abortion bans harm the life of pregnant people and the lives of their children,” Duane, the Center’s attorney, said during closing.
Meanwhile, the state argued that the medical exception under the Texas abortion ban passed rational basis review, which is a judicial review to determine if a law is constitutional.
The state also said that because two plaintiffs who testified Wednesday — Amanda Zurawski and Samantha Casiano — had their fertility compromised and Dennard’s current pregnancy is past viability, they don’t risk being harmed by the ban.
District Judge Jessica Mangrum told the attorney in the case it would likely take her “several weeks” to rule, adding, “It will take some time because it’s necessary to fully and fairly evaluate what you’ve put in front of this court.”
In a press conference after the hearing, Duane said, “This is not about the right to an abortion. This is about basic human rights.”
Wednesday’s hearing
Thursday’s testimony follows emotional testimony from three of the women filing the suit who detailed the harm they experienced due to the state’s abortion ban. All three plaintiffs gave their testimony through tears, with one of the plaintiffs even getting sick on the stand when recalling continuing her pregnancy after not being offered care.
The plaintiffs who testified were Amanda Zurawski, who developed sepsis and nearly died after being refused an abortion when her water broke at 18 weeks; Ashley Brandt, who had to travel to Colorado for abortion care after one of the twins she was carrying was diagnosed with a fatal condition; and Samantha Casiano, who was not offered abortion care and had to carry a nonviable pregnancy to term and give birth to a baby who died four hours later.
A fourth plaintiff, Dr. Damla Karsan, an OB-GYN who practices in Texas, also testified Wednesday.
The suit alleges that Texas’ abortion bans have denied the plaintiffs and countless other pregnant people necessary and potentially lifesaving medical care because physicians in the state fear liability, according to the suit.
Texas has several abortion laws in place, prohibiting all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, except in medical emergencies, which the laws do not define. One of the bans — called SB 8 — prohibits abortions after cardiac activity is detected, which kept several plaintiffs from accessing care despite their pregnancies being nonviable, according to the suit.
Under Texas’ bans, it is a second-degree felony to perform or attempt an abortion, punishable by up to life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. The law also allows private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion.
The suit is the first to be filed by women impacted by the abortion bans since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, ending federal protections for abortion rights.
The lawsuit is filed against the state of Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton — who was recently impeached — and the Texas Medical Board.
