(LOS ANGELES) — A California family is desperate for news after their mother was kidnapped outside her home in Mexico more than five weeks ago and has not been seen or heard from since.
Maria del Carmen Lopez, 63, a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, was kidnapped in Pueblo Nuevo in the state of Colima on Feb. 9, according to the FBI, which is conducting a joint investigation with law enforcement authorities in Mexico.
Her family told ABC Los Angeles station KABC that witnesses described seeing a white van drive onto her property.
“There was an exchange of words,” her daughter, Zonia Lopez, told KABC in an emotional interview this week. “She was refusing to get into the van.”
Another individual reportedly got out of the vehicle and helped pull the mother of seven into the van and then they drove off, according to her family. The woman’s family has been unable to get ahold of her since.
“We all started calling her, to see if she would pick up her phone or answer a message, and we have not heard from her,” Zonia Lopez told KABC.
“At this point, we need answers, we need to find my mother,” she told the station.
The FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office announced this week it is offering up to a $20,000 reward for information leading to her location.
The State Department advises U.S. citizens not to travel to the state of Colima due to “widespread” violent crime and kidnapping.
The Lopez family — which said investigators informed them their mother’s case may be part of an organized kidnapping — is not losing hope.
“Us knowing how strong she is, and that she’s fully thinking of us seven, and if we’re bringing out that energy to her and we maintain those thoughts, we know we’re going to have our mom,” Zonia Lopez told KABC.
Maria del Carmen Lopez is described as a Hispanic female with blonde hair and brown eyes who is 5’2″ and weighs approximately 160 pounds.
Anyone with information about her physical location should contact their local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate.
(HOUSTON) — The announcement that Texas state officials are taking over leadership of Houston Independent School District later this year is drawing concerns from some community members and educators about state government overreach and the decision’s impact on schools.
Some experts are calling the move a major “blow” to Texas’ largest public school district, marking a turning point in education policy that follows years of controversial decisions in the state, including legislation on race, parental rights and gender-affirming care.
“Texas has the ninth largest economy in the world,” Kevin Malonson, executive director of nonprofit Teach Plus Texas told ABC News. “As Texas thinks, so goes the rest of the country.”
The state’s Education Agency is enforcing one of the largest school district takeovers in the history of the U.S., with some educators, who are already facing high attrition levels and staffing challenges, saying they’re uncertain about their futures. Teachers told ABC News they are worried the takeover could prompt school closures, among other reforms in the nation’s eighth largest school district.
“A lot of teachers that were thinking about leaving or retiring are going to do so, so it [the takeover] has caused an instability within the teaching force in our school district,” Houston Education Association (HEA) President Michelle Williams told ABC News.
“The uncertainty is really just everything driving teachers to make decisions about what they’re going to do – whether they’re going to break the contract or stick it out,” Williams said.
But Mike Morath, the state’s commissioner of education, told ABC affiliate KTRK in Houston that the intervention was “necessary.” He said TEA is appointing a new Board of Managers for the school district because of academic failures by Wheatley High School.
Wheatley violated the state’s 2015 law – HB 1842 – that mandated an “intervention” and sanction of a public school that has received an academically unsuccessful performance rating for at least two consecutive school years, Morath said.
“What that law requires is if that threshold is ever met, that the commissioner of education is required, it’s not discretionary, is required to either order a closure of that school or order a board of managers for the whole district,” Morath told KTRK. “It’s not in the best interest of kids at Wheatley to close Wheatley, so that leaves us with the board of managers,” he said.
Due to the school’s underwhelming performance, the law was triggered in 2019. Morath wrote in a recent letter to the superintendent and board of trustees, “the district obtained an injunction” that prevented TEA from taking that required intervention action.
Earlier this year, the Texas Supreme Court delivered an opinion that vacated this long-standing injunction, and it was formally dissolved on March 1.
The job description for the school district’s Board of Managers states a desire for the new board to improve academic outcomes for students, but the district claims it has already made recent improvements.
“In the last 19 months, we have already seen vast improvements,” HISD Superintendent Millard House II wrote in a statement earlier this week. “Because of the hard work of our students, teachers, and staff, we have lifted 40 of 50 schools off the D or F TEA accountability ratings list,” he said.
Malonson said the move breaks from precedent in the state. He said Texas normally opposes state mandates, instead it would leave decisions up to the school districts.
“Texas is all about local control,” Malonson told ABC News. “That’s the elephant in the room. This flies in the face of everything Texas is about as far as local control. And it’s not just people at the state level that talk about local control, it’s the districts, it is – that is a thing – that is as Texas as Texas can be.”
As Houston residents have seen the TEA intervention unravel for more than three years, some are worried that TEA can’t be trusted, Malonson said.
“All they hear is TEA is coming in to take over, TEA is the boogeyman, for a lot of people,” he said. “Literally, this is a state takeover of your school district. It is going to make you anxious.”
But, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, went even further saying the impact of this decision could reverberate around the country because Houston is the “most diverse” city in the nation. The Houston representative is calling for a federal civil rights investigation.
“This proposed takeover is devastating,” Rep. Jackson-Lee told ABC News. “I need them [the Department of Education] to seek more information and investigate this situation. I need them to determine whether there is due process, whether children are protected by equal protection of the law, whether the civil rights of the children are violated. And frankly, I need them to assess whether a title six complaint is warranted.”
More than 80% of HISD students are Black and Hispanic, according to school district data. Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.
The U.S. Department of Education told ABC News it has been in contact with Jackson-Lee’s office regarding the matter and it values and encourages community input in education decisions.
“We cannot prejudge the effect of state and local decisions that have not yet been implemented,” a spokesperson for the department said in regards to the state’s announcement.
Michelle Williams has taught at HISD for over a decade. She’s most concerned about closures or her school being turned over to the charter system, but she also believes TEA’s move is political.
“It’s partisan politics playing with [the] education of 196,000 students,” Williams told ABC News. “We’re a democratic city that constantly has pushed back against the governor [Republican Greg Abbott]. During the pandemic, HISD was one of the school districts that instituted a mask mandate with the state saying that we cannot institute a mask mandate. So we have done some things that have pushed back on the political atmosphere.”
As the process plays out, Malonson cautions against immediate reactions before the appointment of the new board on June 1st.
“Today, tomorrow, even next week, not a whole lot of stuff is going to happen,” Malonson said. “I’m certain that there is a hefty amount of skepticism and fear about, like, just what TEA is going to do.”
He added, “So I think for the morale of the city, being the largest district in the city, the largest in the state. I think it’s going to be a blow to the morale of the city and people are just going to be wondering what happens next.”
(NEW YORK) — A man was charged Friday with transmitting a threat after he allegedly threatened to kill police officers at a St. Patrick’s Day parade just outside of New York City.
Ridon Kola’s alleged online threats were made toward officers and the mayor of Yonkers, New York, who are set to participate in Yonkers’ parade on Saturday, according to prosecutors.
Kola allegedly wrote, “I will crucify Yonkers cops and their bosses all along McLean ave. It will be a horror scene,” according to the criminal complaint.
Kola lives around the end of the parade route, according to the complaint.
After Kola was questioned by authorities, his “conduct escalated as he continued to assure police his threats would be carried out,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.
A Yonkers city official said no changes will be made to Saturday’s parade, though officers will be present to ensure everyone is safe.
“I want to commend our Yonkers Police Department, FBI, NYPD, Joint Terrorism Task Force, and all agencies involved in thwarting this threat,” Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano said in a statement.
“Yonkers is proud to host one of New York’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parades and threats like this will not intimidate us from celebrating the many contributions of our Irish American community,” the mayor added.
Kola’s online posts also “demonstrate support of radical Islamic extremism and terrorist attacks, including at least one terrorist attack committed on a public holiday,” according to the criminal complaint.
In a “recent threatening post,” Kola showed himself with an ax, according to the complaint.
Kola is expected to appear in federal court in White Plains, New York, on Friday.
(LONG BEACH, Calif.) — California health officials have shut down an elementary school in Long Beach after at least 136 students and staff reported symptoms of norovirus as of Thursday, according to the city’s health department.
“Despite stringent control measures, there has been evidence of ongoing transmission and, as a result, the school will be temporarily closed until Wednesday so that deep cleaning — an outbreak management strategy — can be thoroughly conducted,” the Long Beach Health Department told ABC News.
Norovirus is a highly contagious virus that is the most common cause of viral gastroenteritis, which is an inflammation of the inside lining of the gastrointestinal tract, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although it’s often referred to as a “stomach bug” or “stomach flu,” norovirus illness is not related to influenza.
All school and child care operations at Carver Elementary will remain closed Friday through Tuesday, the district said. The school will not implement virtual classes while it is closed, but teachers are allowed to give students work to be completed at home.
A health screening process will be implemented when students return to school on Wednesday morning, according to the district.
“Health officials have determined that this length of closure is the most effective way to stop the further spread of this common virus,” the Long Beach Unified School District said in a letter to families.
“Norovirus is a very contagious virus that causes sudden vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and abdominal pain. Norovirus spreads primarily through direct and indirect contact with an ill person’s feces (poop) or vomit,” the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services said in a letter to families.
Direct and indirect contact can include changing diapers, caring for or sharing foods or utensils with a sick person, touching contaminated areas, surfaces or objects, and then touching their mouth or food before washing their hands, according to the health department.
Symptoms begin 12 to 48 hours after a person has come into contact with the virus and symptoms can last up to three days, health officials said.
Infected individuals are contagious as soon as they feel sick and can remain contagious up to two weeks. There is no specific treatment for norovirus, however, drinking fluids is important to replace fluids lost from vomiting and diarrhea, according to health officials.
On Wednesday, parents were told to notify the school of any students who continued experiencing symptoms of norovirus and to keep those students home, the district said.
Parents must also monitor students and staff must self-monitor every day before going to school.
“Students and staff with symptoms of norovirus must not go to school or work and must stay home until symptoms have resolved AND you stay symptom free for 48 hours (72 hours for cafeteria staff),” the department said.
(WASHINGTON) — A new court filing claims that most of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 surveillance footage aired last week by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which he used to downplay the seriousness of the attack, was aired without the approval of the U.S. Capitol Police — despite Carlson’s claims to the contrary.
Capitol Police general counsel Thomas DiBiase said in a sworn affidavit filed in D.C. federal court Friday that despite DiBiase’s requests to a senior Republican staffer that he review every clip from the USCP’s internal system that would be made public, he was shown and approved “only one clip” that Carlson ultimately aired on his show last Monday and Tuesday.
“Since that clip was substantially similar to a clip used in [former President Donald Trump’s second] Impeachment Trial and was publicly available, I approved the use of the clip,” DiBiase said. “The other approximately 40 clips, which were not from the Sensitive List [of cameras deemed the most sensitive], were never shown to me nor anyone else from the Capitol Police.”
The statement from DiBiase directly contradicts a statement Carlson made on his show that his team had coordinated with Capitol Police on what was appropriate to air.
“Before airing any of this video, we checked first with the Capitol Police,” Carlson said last Monday. “We are happy to say the reservations were minor and for the most part they were reasonable.”
But sources told ABC News that just hours before Carlson went on the air, Capitol Police were informed that they would not have an opportunity to review the footage beforehand as they had expected they would be able to do.
DiBiase said that he emphasized the USCP’s desire to review every clip during numerous conversations with the staff director for the Committee on House Administration, which controls congressional operations and security.
According to the affidavit, the handover of video to Carlson’s team was a departure from the processes followed by the now-disbanded House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack and the Justice Department’s separate ongoing criminal probe into the riot.
“I informed the staff director that this was the same process followed by the Select Committee and the prosecutors in all of the criminal cases: that we were shown and had to approve of every clip before it was made public. This was followed in all cases by both the Select Committee and the prosecutors,” DiBiase said.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has stood by his decision to grant Carlson access to the raw security footage, telling reporters that he has no regrets about the arrangement. But he has repeatedly refused to answer questions about Carlson’s comments on the show, in which he defended the protesters and said they were correct to “believe that the election they had just voted in had been unfairly conducted.”
Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger said in an internal memo to U.S. Capitol Police last Tuesday that the commentary on Carlson’s show was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the January 6 attack.”
Five people died during or after the attack, including four protesters and one police officer, and approximately 140 officers suffered injuries, according to the Department of Justice.
DiBiase’s affidavit was filed in court in the case of William Pope, a Kansas man charged for his participation in the Jan. 6 attack, who has accused prosecutors of violating his rights by not allowing him to access footage relevant to his defense. Prosecutors have disputed his claims.
McCarthy said last week that the Jan. 6 committee never asked Capitol Police about the footage before airing it during their public hearings. But as ABC News has previously reported, according to sources, Capitol Police did have the opportunity to review clips before the committee aired them publicly.
(NEW YORK) — Sidney Holmes, who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 400 years, was exonerated after 34 years in prison. Lamar Johnson was wrongfully convicted of a shooting without physical evidence connecting him to the incident and sentenced to life in prison. Leon Benson has been freed after 25 years of a more than 60-year sentence for a crime he maintains he did not commit.
These men are just a few in the more than a dozen people have been exonerated so far this year, due to wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, false confessions, police failure to disclose evidence and more.
These exonerations have been recorded by the National Registry of Exonerations since 1989, an exoneration-tracking project hosted by University of California Irvine, University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law.
There have been at least 3,287 exonerations recorded by the National Registry of Exonerations since 1989.
More than 29,100 years have been “lost” in prison due to “wrongful convictions” that have been uncovered thus far, according to the registry.
“We’ve all been raised to believe that our system is a great system that works well, that we identify the right people, we convict the right people, we give people the right sentences,” said attorney Marissa Boyers Bluestine, assistant director at the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, in an interview with ABC News.
“It has been a very hard awakening for a lot of people to realize that that’s just not always the case,” she said.
The registry found that the most often cited factors for wrongful convictions are: witness misidentification, false accusation, false confession, faulty forensic evidence, inadequate legal defense, police misconduct and prosecutorial misconduct.
In some cases, the methods used to collect evidence in the past have since been proven to be scientifically unreliable, according to experts. This was the case with Sidney Holmes, whose armed robbery conviction was recently overturned in part because of misidentification, which was partly due to outdated photo and live lineup practices commonly used by law enforcement in the 1980s, officials say.
Black people represent 53% of the 3,200 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations, despite making up just 13.6% of the American population. Black people represent 38% of the incarcerated population, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
“Innocent Black Americans are seven times more likely than white Americans to be falsely convicted of serious crimes,” the registry said in a 2022 report.
According to Bluestine, the only way to overturn someone’s conviction is to have “something new, something different that wasn’t heard by the trial court.”
“That’s why it takes 10, 15, 30 years to undo those convictions because we have to wait for that evidence to become available to change how we’re seeing a conviction,” she said.
The list of exonerated people is long. Here are just some of the wrongfully convicted cases that have been overturned so far in 2023:
Sidney Holmes
Holmes, 57, served more than 34 years of a 400-year prison sentence before the Broward State Attorney’s Office Conviction Review Unit (CRU) in Florida reinvestigated the case and determined he did not commit armed robbery.
The CRU found that there is “no evidence” connecting Holmes to the robbery besides a flawed identification of him and the vehicle involved in the robbery.
The CRU found that witness identification of Holmes was likely a “misidentification,” partly due to the photo and live lineup practices commonly used by law enforcement at the time, which are “scientifically unreliable,” according to the state attorney’s office.
Lamar Johnson
In Missouri, Lamar Johnson spent roughly 28 years behind bars for a murder he said he did not commit. He was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in 1994, according to Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner’s motion to vacate his conviction. Johnson was sentenced to life in prison.
Gardner asserted that Johnson was innocent and erroneously convicted, citing Johnson’s alibi and a lack of physical evidence connecting Johnson to the murder.
According to Gardner, the identification of Johnson was the state’s “only direct evidence.”
Judge David Mason vacated Johnson’s conviction in February.
“Today the courts righted a wrong – vacating the sentence of Mr. Lamar Johnson following his wrongful conviction in 1995,” said Gardner in a Feb. 14 statement on the decision. “Most importantly, we celebrate with Mr. Johnson and his family as he walks out of the courtroom as a free man.”
Leon Benson
Leon Benson was convicted of first-degree murder in 1999, and spent roughly 25 years in prison before the Marion County Superior Court Judge Shatrese M. Flowers in Indiana threw out his conviction in early March.
A joint re-investigation by the University of San Francisco School of Law Racial Justice Clinic and the Conviction Integrity Unit of the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office revealed that “evidence buried in the police file by the lead detective pointed to another man as the murderer.”
Researchers found that conflicting testimony and the missing evidence identified someone else in the 1998 shooting death of Kasey Schoen in Indianapolis.
“Truth never dies,” Benson said, according to a press release from the University of San Francisco. “It is only rediscovered.”
(HOUSTON) — A 17-year-old boy has been arrested in the fatal shooting of a transgender woman as Houston police continue to search for a second suspect.
Marisela Castro, 39, was found lying in the road outside a home shortly before 2 a.m. on July 29, 2022, according to Houston police.
Castro and another person had just gotten out of her car when she was shot, police said.
The two suspects fled in Castro’s car before ditching the vehicle nearby, police said.
Houston police announced on Thursday that a 17-year-old, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, is now in custody on a capital murder charge. But police believe the 17-year-old was not the one who shot Castro and authorities say they’re still searching for the unidentified second suspect.
Police would not comment on a possible motive.
Houston police asked anyone with information to call its homicide division at 713-308-3600 or submit a tip anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
(NEW YORK) — Hours of body camera footage was released Thursday in the fatal police shooting of Najee Seabrooks, a New Jersey anti-violence activist who called 911 during an apparent mental health crisis.
Seabrooks, 31, of Paterson, was shot five hours after police responded to his home on March 3, according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, which released redacted footage and 911 calls made by Seabrooks amid its investigation into the deadly incident.
The fatal shooting of Seabrooks, who worked for the anti-violence organization Paterson Healing Collective, has sparked protests and calls for reform.
According to the state attorney general’s office, officers from the Paterson Police Department responded to Seabrooks’ apartment around 7:43 a.m. “in response to a 911 call from an individual in distress” and found him locked inside a bathroom.
Members of Seabrooks’ family told officers he had been “hallucinating and behaving erratically” and may have been “experiencing a bad reaction to something he had smoked,” the state attorney general’s office said. In 911 calls, Seabrooks can be heard asking for someone to help escort him to his car because he’s received threats.
Seabrooks told police that “people are trying to kill me, I need an escort,” though the officers at the scene determined there were no threats, the attorney general’s office said.
Seabrooks told officers he had two knives and a gun and at one point can be heard saying “that he was going to die in the bathroom and take one of the officers with him,” the attorney general’s office said.
Throughout the incident, additional officers, crisis negotiators, members of the department’s emergency response team and emergency medical services responded to the apartment as police and family members attempted to get Seabrooks to come out of the bathroom to receive help, authorities said.
“At various times during the encounter officers deployed approximately 15 less than lethal sponge-tipped projectiles some of which struck Mr. Seabrooks, but were not effective in subduing him,” the attorney general’s office said.
As armed officers stood outside the bathroom door, Seabrooks at one point remarked they were going to shoot him.
“Nobody’s going to shoot you,” an officer says.
The officers told him to “drop the knives” and to come out of the bathroom to get help.
At approximately 12:35 p.m., Seabrooks could be seen coming out of the bathroom while holding a knife in his hand. An officer can be heard yelling “drop it” right before two members of the Emergency Response Team — identified as Officer Anzore Tsay and Officer Jose Hernandez — opened fire, striking him.
Seabrooks was transported to a local hospital and pronounced dead at 12:51 p.m., authorities said.
The investigation into Seabrooks’ death is ongoing. Once completed, it will be presented to a grand jury to determine if any officers involved should be charged, the attorney general’s office said.
Representatives of Seabrooks’ family reviewed the footage prior to its public release, according to the attorney general’s office.
In the wake of the fatal shooting, the Paterson Healing Collective had called for the release of body camera footage of the incident. It has also called for the officers involved in the shooting to be placed on administrative leave, and the creation of a non-carceral crisis response team and a civilian complaint review board that could have “investigatory and subpoena power.”
(NEW YORK) — The family of Irvo Otieno, a man who died in police custody earlier this month, reacted to the recent death of the Virginia man during a Thursday news conference.
Three days after being arrested on March 3, Otieno was transported to Central State, a psychiatric hospital in Petersburg, Virginia from Henrico County jail after reportedly suffering a mental health crisis. The same day on March 6, Otieno was pronounced dead.
On Thursday, family attorneys Ben Crump and Mark Krudys, alongside family members of Otieno, viewed videos from the day leading up to his death.
According to attorneys for the family at the press conference, there were seven deputies who held Otieno down for around 11 to 12 minutes, eventually causing him to suffer from asphyxia.
“You see in the majority of the video that he seems to be in between lifelessness and unconsciousness, but yet you see him being restrained so brutally with a knee on his neck,” Crump said during the conference. “The weight of seven individuals on his body while he’s face down, handcuffed with leg irons. … It is so unnecessary, it’s so unjustifiable.”
Caroline Ouko, Otieno’s mother, described during the conference that her son was having a mental health crisis and was initially transported to Henrico Doctors’ Hospital on March 3, a hospital farther than the family’s residence. While in the hospital, Otieno was arrested and taken to Henrico Police Department without the ability to see his family, according to his mother.
“Even though Irvo was going through mental illness, what I saw today was heartbreaking America. It was disturbing. It was traumatic. My son was tortured,” Ouko said. “Mental illness should not be your ticket to death. There was a chance to rescue him, there was a chance to stop what was going on. And I don’t understand how all systems failed him.”
Although the Henrico County Sheriff’s Office is conducting an independent review of the incident alongside an investigation by Virginia State Police, the attorneys call the Department of Justice to intervene.
Seven deputies from the Henrico County Sheriff’s Office were arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of the 28-year-old on Wednesday and during their court appearance, Dinwiddie County Attorney Ann Baskervill alleged that Otieno had been victim to hours of assaults prior to his death.
Krudys told the press that Otieno had been subject to previous brutality in his cell while he was handcuffed before he was taken to Central State.
“He’s naked. He’s lost. … There’s feces on the ground. It is so inhumane,” Krudys said. “We also saw a glimpse of the video where it’s like an animal being carried by legs and arms, with his pants falling off him, into the vehicle.”
Henrico County Sheriff Alisa A. Gregory released a statement the week after Otieno’s death, extending her “deepest sympathies and condolences” to Otieno’s family and friends.
“The events of March 6, at their core, represent a tragedy because Mr. Otieno’s life was lost. This loss is felt by not only those close to him but our entire community,” Gregory said in the statement.
Otieno’s older brother emotionally spoke during the press conference, telling the public that after viewing the footage, he’d “witnessed a homicide.”
“What I saw was a lifeless human being, without any representation. No regard to his human life,” he said. “At what point do we stop preserving life? At one point do we consider mental illness a crime? Can someone explain to me why my brother is not here right now?”
The seven deputies arrested were Randy Joseph Boyer, 57; Dwayne Alan Bramble, 37; Jermaine Lavar Branch, 45; Bradley Thomas Disse, 43; Tabitha Renee Levere, 50; Brandon Edwards Rodgers, 48; and Kaiyell Dajour Sanders, 30.
Each of the seven deputies appeared in court on Wednesday.
A lawyer for Branch spoke in court Wednesday, saying the officer allegedly “did not administer any blows to the deceased, or violence towards him, other than simply trying to restrain him.”
Branch’s lawyer, Cary Bowen, told ABC News by phone that Cabell Baskervill was trying to fashion the case as something that is “malicious.”
“There was no weapon used. There was no pummeling or anything like that. I think everybody agrees,” Bowen said. “And the way she was casting it was that they ended up suffocating. He couldn’t breathe. And she’s acting like the guy didn’t resist and he wasn’t manic or bipolar or whatever. Just a nice guy who they’re picking on.”
Three more individuals were arrested Thursday: Darian M. Blackwell, 23; Wavie L. Jones, 34; and Sadarius D. Williams, 27.
No plea deals have been entered as of Thursday. The three additional people involved in the arrest will appear in court on Tuesday.
“He was murdered,” Ouko said. “They smothered the breath out of my baby. They murdered my baby. … Why did they do that? What right did they have to do that?”
(WILMINGTON, Del.) — Attorneys representing Hunter Biden filed his answer and counterclaims alleging invasion of privacy in response to a defamation lawsuit brought by the Delaware-based computer repairman who they say triggered the infamous laptop controversy in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election.
The step represents a major escalation in the younger Biden’s increasingly aggressive legal posture toward some of his most vocal critics and those who allegedly trafficked his personal information.
The suit, filed in a Delaware federal court, targets John Paul Mac Isaac, a computer repairman who in April 2019 purportedly obtained and later disseminated data from a laptop allegedly belonging to the president’s son. The counterclaim is in response to a defamation lawsuit filed by Mac Isaac against Hunter Biden and others in October 2019, which is ongoing.
“[Hunter] Biden had more than a reasonable expectation of privacy that any data that he created or maintained … would not be accessed, copied, disseminated, or posted on the Internet for others to use against him or his family or for the public to view,” according to the countersuit.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden challenged Mac Isaac’s claim that the laptop and an external hard drive became his property when Hunter Biden failed to retrieve them within 90 days of leaving them at the repairman’s Wilmington, Delaware, shop for servicing, citing the fine print of a repair order allegedly signed by Hunter Biden at the time.
“Contrary to Mac Isaac’s Repair Authorization form, Delaware law provides that tangible personal property is deemed abandoned” when the rightful owner has failed to “assert or declare property rights to the property for a period of 1 year,” lawyers for Biden wrote in legal documents.
The counterclaim adds that “other obligations must then also be satisfied before obtaining lawful title, such as the court sending notice to the owner and the petitioner posting notice in five or more public places, and advertising the petition in a newspaper.”
Hunter Biden is seeking a jury trial and unspecified “compensatory damages” from Mac Isaac. A lawyer for Mac Isaac did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Friday’s counterclaim is the latest turn in an increasingly offensive legal tack from the younger Biden, who until recently had largely avoided public confrontations about his business dealings.
In recent months, a revamped legal team led by well-known criminal defense attorney Abbe Lowell has penned a flurry of cease-and-desist letters on Hunter Biden’s behalf, and has threatened litigation against some of his most vocal critics, including Mac Isaac.
The computer repairman emerged as a central figure in the drama surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop in the waning days of the 2020 presidential campaign, when images, emails, and text messages allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden emerged in public and galvanized the national conversation as voters took to the polls.
According to accounts given by Mac Isaac and his attorney, on April 12, 2019, Hunter Biden arrived at Mac Isaac’s computer repair shop with three damaged devices and asked if the data could be recovered. Days later, Mac Isaac said, he asked Hunter Biden to return to the shop to retrieve the devices and pay an $85 service fee. Mac Isaac has said he never heard back from Hunter Biden, and the invoice was never paid.
After 90 days, according to Mac Isaac and his attorney, the abandoned laptop became Mac Isaac’s property, pursuant to the work order agreement Hunter Biden allegedly signed when he first visited Mac Isaac’s shop.
Mac Isaac subsequently turned the laptop and external hard drive over to the FBI in December 2019, and later sought to share information from the devices with then-President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who made the contents of the devices available to other Trump allies and some news outlets in the weeks prior to the 2020 presidential election.
ABC News has not reviewed nor verified the contents of the laptop or hard drive.
Mac Isaac initially sued Hunter Biden for defamation, alongside Rep. Adam Schiff, Politico, and CNN, in Delaware state court. Earlier this month the case was moved to the U.S. District Court in Delaware, where Hunter Biden filed his counterclaim.
In their countersuit, attorneys for Hunter Biden disputed Mac Isaac’s claim to have acted both legally and responsibly with data found on the laptop and hard drive.
“Reputable computer companies and repair people routinely delete personal data contained on devices that are exchanged, left behind or abandoned,” the lawyers wrote. “They do not open, copy, and then provide that data to others, as Mac Isaac did here.”
In addition to providing copies to the FBI and Giuliani, Mac Isaac sought to distribute copies of the contents of the laptop and hard drive to several allies of the former president, including Republican lawmakers, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, he said.
The countersuit draws heavily from Mac Isaac’s own writings and public commentary regarding his intentions in sharing the data, accusing the repairman of being motivated by his preference of Donald Trump over Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Lawyers for Hunter Biden wrote that “Mac Isaac intended and knew, or clearly should have known, that people to whom he provided the data that he believed to belong to Mr. Biden would use it against then-candidate Joseph Biden and to assist then-President Trump.”
This new legal offensive comes as congressional scrutiny of President Biden’s family ramps up and federal prosecutors press forward in their yearslong probe of Hunter Biden’s tax affairs and overseas business endeavors.
Hunter Biden has repeatedly said he is cooperating with federal investigators and remains “100% certain” that he will be cleared of any wrongdoing. President Biden has said he and his son never discussed his foreign business dealings, and there are no indications that the federal investigation involves the president in any way. The White House has repeatedly sought to distance the president from the Justice Department probe.
