(PALM COAST, FL) — A toddler found wandering in the middle of a Florida street with a heavily soiled diaper ended up leading police to a home with extremely hazardous living conditions with the father passed out intoxicated in his bed, police say.
The incident occurred on Sunday when the Flagler County Sheriff’s Department in Florida responded to multiple emergency reports concerning a 2-year-old child “walking in the middle of the street in pajamas with a heavily soiled diaper,” according to a statement from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday.
Prior to the incident, witnesses say that they observed a child in the front yard of a nearby home and that they took the child to the residence where they found the child’s father, 44-year-old Ross Judy of Palm Coast, “passed out in his bed intoxicated,” police said.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Department responded to the home and, during their investigation, they found “dangerous tools and garbage in the interior and exterior of the home along with animal feces, filth, and an emaciated dog with an ear that was almost rotted off and fur missing from its body,” authorities said.
“The residence was in deplorable living conditions with several alcoholic beverage containers, bugs swimming in toilet water, and a sink piled high with several inches of cigarette ash to the point the sink was no longer visible,” according to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Department. “Pill bottles were scattered throughout a spare room and on top of living room shelves along with exposed razors and hypodermic needles, which were all accessible to the child.”
“No child should be living in deplorable conditions with an adult who obviously doesn’t care about their wellbeing,” said Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly in a written statement following the incident. “The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office has no tolerance for anyone endangering children or animals. I am thankful to our residents who ‘saw something and said something’ so that our deputies could intervene.”
Judy was arrested and charged with child neglect without great bodily harm and abandon animal to die, sick, diseased or Infirm.
The suspect was taken to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility and is currently being held on a $4,000 bond, authorities said.
The Florida Department of Children and Families and Palm Coast Animal Control are also investigating this incident, and their investigation is currently ongoing.
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon is attempting to reduce the size of its civilian workforce by between 50,000 to 60,000 employees through voluntary workforce reductions, though it remains unclear if it will be able to meet that goal without possibly having to carry out forced reductions in the civilian workforce.
The Defense Department is currently carrying out a voluntary process to reach its goal of a 5% to 8% reduction of its 878,000 civilian employees — a number that equates to 50,000 to 60,000 employees, a senior defense official told reporters on Tuesday.
“The number sounds high, but I would focus on the percentage, a 5% to 8% reduction is not a drastic one,” said the official, who added that the percentage is one that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “is confident can be done without negatively impacting readiness in order to make sure that our resources are allocated in the right direction.”
The voluntary process includes employees who have chosen to resign through what is known as the “Fork in the Road,” a freeze on hiring new employees to replace those who are departing and the dismissal of 5,400 probationary employees who have less than one or two years’ experience in their current jobs.
About 21,000 civilian employees have had their voluntary resignation requests approved under what the Pentagon calls the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), which allows employees to resign but continue to be paid through the end of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
The senior defense official declined to disclose how many civilian employees in total had sought to opt into the Deferred Resignation Program.
ABC News has previously reported that 31,000 civilian employees had offered to resign under the Trump administration initiative with some of the requests being denied.
The hiring freeze means that the average 6,000 employees who join the Pentagon every month are also not coming into the workforce as other employees leave.
The Defense Department had also begun the termination of 5,400 probationary civilian employees — which has now been paused by a temporary restraining order imposed by a federal judge.
The official stressed that the 5,400 probationary employees had not been selected for termination “blindly based on the time they had been hired.” The Department has 54,000 total probationary employees, a term that refers to employees who have less than one or two years’ experience in their current jobs.
Instead, the official said the 5,400 were employees who “were documented as significantly underperforming in their job functions and or had misconduct on the record.” It is unclear if all of the 5,400 probationary employees targeted for termination fell into those categories.
“The fact that someone was a probationary employee did not directly mean that they were going to be subject to removal,” said the official.
The official declined to offer what “reduction in force” steps the Pentagon might undertake should the voluntary efforts not reach the goal of reducing the workforce by 50,000 to 60,000 employees.
“I won’t get ahead of the Secretary,” the official said. “It’ll be the Secretary’s prerogative to designate how and when he might use any of the other tools that would be available to him to achieve the stated reduction targets.”
There has been speculation that military service members may be asked to fill in for some of the civilian jobs that are being vacated or will not be filled by the hiring freeze, but the official said the goal is not to affect military readiness.
“We are confident we could absorb those removals without detriment to our ability to continue the mission, and so that’s how we can be confident that we don’t need to worry about any resulting impact on the uniformed force,” the official said.
The official acknowledged that some military veterans would be among the civilians who would be leaving the department, but did not provide an estimate of how many.
“Some of those people will be veterans that served in uniform previously, we’re certainly again looking at case by case as we plan workforce reduction,” said the official. “There are so many critical skills and experience that veterans have to offer, and that’s part of the analysis when we consider who is contributing to the core mission functions and who should be retained.”
(WASHINGTON) — The National Archives on Tuesday released thousands of pages of declassified records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 23 directing the release of the remaining records, saying it was in the “public interest” to do so.
On Monday Trump announced to reporters that the administration would begin releasing the records on Tuesday, prompting a scramble inside the Justice Department to free up attorneys to assist with the declassification process.
Congress voted in 1992 to require the government to release and declassify all assassination-related records by 2017, but that deadline was repeatedly pushed back by Trump and President Joe Biden due to national security concerns.
Tuesday’s release represents a small, outstanding tranche of the more than six million pages of records collected by the National Archives — the majority of which have already been declassified and are available online or in person for review, according to the agency.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic) — Joshua Riibe, the Minnesota college student who was with University of Pittsburgh student Sudiksha Konanki the night she went missing on a spring break trip to the Dominican Republic, said in court that he’s “ready to go home and go back to my life.”
The 22-year-old Iowa native — who has not been charged with a crime — said Konanki’s family hugged him and thanked him.
“Her mother gave me a hug and said, ‘Thank you for saving my daughter the first time,”‘ Riibe said in court Tuesday. “It was really tough.”
Riibe’s court appearance was for a habeas corpus hearing that was requested by his lawyers, who believe the 22-year-old is being detained illegally.
Prosecutors claimed in court that Riibe is a witness and is not detained.
Authorities have confiscated Riibe’s passport, and Riibe said in court that police have followed him to meals and watched him eat. Riibe’s attorneys asked to get his passport returned and to get the ability to leave the hotel without surveillance.
“I can’t go anywhere. And I really want to be able to go home, talk to my family, give them hugs, tell them I miss them,” Riibe said. “I understand I’m here to help, but it’s been 10 days and I can’t leave.”
Riibe’s father traveled to the Dominican Republic to support him. When asked by reporters if he would be able to take his son home, he replied, “I don’t even know where he’s at right now.”
“I’m just doing what I can, and at this point there’s nothing more I can do,” Riibe said during his appearance in court.
Following the court appearance on Tuesday, it was determined that Riibe will no longer be under police surveillance. However, Dominican Republic officials are not yet returning his passport.
The judge is expected to rule on the habeas corpus request on March 28.
Authorities have said they believe 20-year-old Konanki died by drowning in Punta Cana early on March 6, officials told ABC News. Her missing persons case is being treated as an accident, sources said.
Riibe — who met Konanki that night — told prosecutors the two went swimming and kissed in the ocean. He said they were then hit by a wave and pulled into the ocean by the tide, according to a transcript provided to ABC News from two Dominican Republic sources.
Riibe said he held Konanki and tried to get them out of the water.
“I was trying to make sure that she could breathe the entire time — that prevented me from breathing the entire time and I took in a lot of water,” he said.
“When I finally touched the sand, I put her in front of me. Then she got up to go get her stuff since the ocean had moved us,” Riibe told the prosecutor. “She was not out of the water since it was up to her knee. She was walking at an angle in the water.”
“The last time I saw her, I asked her if she was OK. I didn’t hear her response because I began to vomit with all the water I had swallowed,” he said. “After vomiting, I looked around and I didn’t see anyone. I thought she had taken her things and left.”
Riibe said he passed out on a beach chair and woke up hours later and returned to his hotel room.
Konanki’s family has sent a formal request to Dominican police requesting they declare their daughter dead, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. The parents noted Riibe was cooperating with the investigation and they acknowledged there was no evidence of foul play, the sources said.
(NEW YORK) — Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil called himself a “political prisoner” in a new letter dictated from the Louisiana detention center where he remains held following his arrest on Columbia University’s campus.
“I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law,” Khalil stated in the letter, which was dictated over the phone to his family and obtained by ABC News from his legal team on Tuesday.
Khalil, a leader of the encampment protests at Columbia last spring, was detained on March 8. He was taken from his student apartment building to 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, and then to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to his legal team. Officials from President Donald Trump’s administration have said Khalil was detained for his purported support of Hamas — a claim his legal team has rejected.
Khalil’s lawyers said that during his detainment, plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents said his student visa had been revoked — even though Khalil is in the U.S. on a green card. He has not been charged with a crime.
A federal judge has blocked Khalil’s removal from the U.S. while weighing a petition challenging his arrest.
He is set to appear before an immigration judge on March 27.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(CAPE CANAVERAL, FL) — The two NASA astronauts whose return to Earth was delayed for months have just splashed down to Earth.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission, carrying astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, successfully landed off the coast of Florida after undocking from the International Space Station and traveling approximately 17 hours on its return mission to Earth, according to SpaceX.
The splashdown occurred at approximately 5:57 p.m. ET off the Tallahassee, Florida, coast.
When the spacecraft entered the atmosphere, its heat shield generated temperatures that reached more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to SpaceX.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were also onboard the craft as it undocked at about 1:05 a.m. ET.
Williams and Wilmore had in June 2024 performed the first astronaut-crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. What was expected to be a weeklong trip to the ISS instead turned into a nine-month stay. The Boeing Starliner that was expected to carry them home after about 10 days experienced issues, leaving the pair at the station for months.
Their return spacecraft early on Tuesday maneuvered in space, moving above and behind the station, before firing a series of departure burns that sent it back toward Earth.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Matthew Glasser and Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — An Albany woman pleaded guilty on Tuesday to mailing drug-soaked documents to inmates in correctional facilities in New York, according to federal prosecutors.
Authorities said Maya McIntosh, 33, sold the illicit documents on social media — and disguised them as legal paperwork when she sent them.
McIntosh, 33, pleaded guilty to “conspiracies to manufacture, distribute and possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance and controlled substance analogue, distribution and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance and controlled substance analogue, and unlawful possession and use of a means of identification,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York said in a press release on Tuesday.
Officials said McIntosh ordered chemicals used to create MDMB-4en-PINACA, a synthetic cannabinoid, in liquid form and then “sprayed and soaked the liquid onto copy paper and business envelopes,” the attorney’s office said.
The documents were placed in U.S. Priority Mail Express envelopes and addressed to inmates at various correctional facilities in New York, prosecutors said.
McIntosh disguised the envelopes as legal mail by “stamping the names of actual attorneys in the return address portion of the envelopes” without the lawyers’ knowledge or permission, according to prosecutors.
This method allowed for the drug-soaked documents to appear as if they were sent by lawyers and “contained legitimate legal paperwork instead of a controlled substance,” the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Officials said McIntosh used social media to sell the sheets and envelopes, with customers paying her to mail the documents to inmates at correctional facilities, the prosecutors said.
McIntosh is believed to have sent the drug-soaked papers between January 2023 through July 2024, prosecutors said.
McIntosh faces up to 20 years of imprisonment in each count, a maximum fine of $1 million on the drug counts, a fine of $250,000 on the remaining counts and a term of supervised release of at least three years and up to life, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
The United States Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations are continuing to investigate the case.
Karl Merton Ferron/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Many of the noncitizens who were deported pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act on Saturday did not have criminal records, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said in a sworn filing overnight.
In a sworn declaration, ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert Cerna argued that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
The declaration was included in the Trump administration’s recent motion to vacate Judge James Boasberg’s temporary restraining order blocking deportations pursuant to the AEA.
“While it is true that many of the [Tren de Aragua gang] members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat,” Cerna said.
The admission that many of the men lacked criminal records – and were deported on the assumption that they might be terrorists – comes as top Trump administration officials insist that the men were violent criminals, with President Donald Trump labeling them “monsters.”
Cerna wrote that some of the men have been convicted or arrested for crimes including murder, assault, harassment, and drug offenses, writing that ICE personnel “carefully vetted each individual alien to ensure they were in fact members of TdA.”
To determine whether a noncitizen was a “member of TdA,” he said law enforcement allegedly used victim testimony, financial transactions, computer checks, and other “investigative techniques.”
“ICE did not simply rely on social media posts, photographs of the alien displaying gang-related hand gestures, or tattoos alone,” Cerna said.
According to Cerna, a review of ICE databases suggested that “numerous individuals removed” had been arrested or convicted outside of the U.S. At least five of the men were subject to INTERPOL notices for alleged crimes including rape, kidnapping, child, abduction, corruption, and possession of illegal firearms.
Cerna also noted that some of the men were arrested or encountered during federal law enforcement raids while they were in the U.S., though the declaration did not note if the men were ever charged or convicted for any crimes.
The identities and status of the deported men have not been disclosed by the Trump administration, making it unknown what portion of the over 200 noncitizens had criminal records in the U.S. or abroad.
Department of Justice lawyers said the judge’s temporary restraining orders “are an affront to the President’s broad constitutional and statutory authority to protect the United States from dangerous aliens who pose grave threats to the American people.
Judge Boasberg on Tuesday ordered the government to file under seal to the court by Wednesday at noon details regarding two aircraft that the administration did not return to the U.S. following the judge’s verbal order last week.
(MEXICO) — The FBI extradited an alleged senior leader of the MS-13 gang who was on the agency’s “10 most wanted” list with the help of the Mexican government, FBI Director Kash Patel said Tuesday.
Patel said Mexican authorities arrested Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales — who Patel said is believed to be a “key senior leader” of the gang. Roman-Bardales is being extradited to the United States, Patel added.
Patel touted the arrest as a “major victory.”
“He was arrested in Mexico and is being transported within the U.S. as we speak, where he will face American justice,” Patel wrote in a post on X. “This is a major victory both for our law enforcement partners and for a safer America.”
Roman-Bardales, 47, has been charged with several offenses for “his alleged role in ordering numerous acts of violence against civilians and rival gang members, as well as his role in drug distribution and extortion schemes in the United States and El Salvador,” the FBI said.
A federal arrest warrant was issued for Roman-Bardales in a New York court in 2022 after he was charged with conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists; narco-terrorism conspiracy; racketeering conspiracy; and alien smuggling conspiracy.
Mexican authorities got intelligence that Roman-Bardales was in Baxtla, Mexico. Mexican law enforcement was deployed to the area, where Roman-Bardales was identified and arrested, the FBI said.
Patel thanked Mexican partners for their help in bringing Roman-Bardales to the U.S.
“This crucial step enhances the safety of communities across America,” Patel said.
The arrest comes as President Donald Trump and his administration target gangs such as MS-13.
He discussed his efforts during his address to a joint session of Congress last month, mentioning the deaths of Jocelyn Nungaray — who was killed by two undocumented men from Venezuela — and Laken Riley — who was killed by an undocumented immigrant.
“All three savages charged with Jocelyn and Laken’s murders were members of the Venezuelan prison gang — the toughest gang, they say, in the world — known as Tren de Aragua. Two weeks ago, I officially designated this gang, along with MS-13 and the bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations. They are now officially in the same category as ISIS, and that’s not good for them,” Trump said in his joint address to Congress.
Also, Trump’s administration is working to deport gang members from the U.S. Over the weekend, the Trump administration handed over more than 200 alleged gang members — including two top members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang — to El Salvadoran authorities. The move has raised questions as to whether the deportations could be in violation of a federal judge’s order temporarily blocking the removal of Venezuelans pursuant to the administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
(ALBUQUERQUE) — A 13-year-old boy has been arrested for murder after police said he and two other juveniles intentionally ran down a bicyclist in New Mexico last year in a fatal hit-and-run that was filmed from inside the vehicle.
Police said they are still searching for the two other children — a 15-year-old boy who also faces a murder charge and a 12-year-old boy — in connection with the incident.
The victim, 63-year-old Scott Habermehl, was riding in a bike lane the morning of May 29, 2024, while commuting to work when he was struck in a hit-and-run, police said.
Police said there were no witnesses who saw the vehicle flee, and investigators were unable to find any surveillance footage of the incident.
Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said the case likely would have gone unsolved — until video taken from inside the vehicle of the incident was posted on social media.
The video, which police released on Tuesday, is “extremely disturbing,” Medina said.
“You hear the discussion of, they see the guy on the bike, and they make the decision that they’re going to strike him, they’re just going to bump him, and they murdered this individual,” Medina said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
“We’ve all looked at it, and it is just horrific that this could be done to another human being,” he said.
Police got a new lead on the case in February, after two juveniles reported the video, one to a parent and the other to a middle school official in Albuquerque, according to Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock with the Albuquerque Police Department’s criminal investigation division.
“The video had been posted to Instagram showing three individuals in a car purposely running over a cyclist,” Hartsock said during the press briefing.
Officers determined the video was from the May 29, 2024, hit-and-run, and were able to identify the three individuals in the car, which is believed to have been stolen, police said. They were “literally laughing about what they had just done as they fled,” Hartsock said.
In the video, someone can be heard asking, “Are you guys recording it?”
The back passenger, who police said is believed to be the 15-year-old, says to “just bump him, brah” after the car accelerates.
“Like bump him?” the driver responds.
“Yeah, just bump him. Go like 15, 20,” the back passenger says.
The video released by police ends just before the collision.
The three juveniles are believed to be friends, Medina said. Authorities believe the 13-year-old was driving the car at the time.
Police obtained murder arrest warrants for the two teenagers late last week, Hartsock said.
The 13-year-old was taken into custody on Monday and booked into a juvenile detention center, police said. He had been on juvenile probation following an arrest by Albuquerque police last year, police said. He was arrested on an open count of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the scene of an accident involving great bodily harm or death and unlawful possession of a handgun by a person, police said.
Police are asking for the public’s help in locating the two other juveniles. Hartsock urged the 15-year-old, who faces the same charges as the other teen, to turn himself in.
The 12-year-old is a missing person out of Torrance County and is listed as a runaway, police said. He is too young to be charged and booked into a correctional facility, police said.
“We hope that the rest of the system is able to deal with this individual and make sure there’s consequences for what they have done, and make sure that they’re rehabilitated if it’s possible,” Medina said.
The 12-year-old was seen holding a firearm in the video, according to police. Medina said it is unclear what happened to the weapon.
The boy was 11 at the time of the incident, Medina said, calling the young age “surprising.”
“All of us that have kids in here, think of your 11-year-old out doing this. It is just mind-boggling,” Medina said.
The chief said they believe they have tracked down the vehicle involved in the incident.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller called the incident “unimaginable.”
“It’s something that, on the one hand, is incredibly heartbreaking because of their age and how they’re caught up in the cycle of violence,” he said at the briefing. “On the other hand, this is absolutely terrifying.”
The juveniles are not believed to have known the victim, Medina said, noting, “It seems random.”
Habermehl worked at Sandia National Labs and is survived by his wife and two sons, according to his obituary.
“Scott took great joy in sharing his hobbies with his sons, whether it was playing baseball in the yard, biking through the Bosque, hiking in his beloved Rocky Mountains, or skiing with them in the backcountry,” the obituary stated.
Medina asked for privacy for the family at this time.
“They, in a way, suffered the first time, feeling that this individual was the victim of a motor vehicle death,” he said. “Now, with the new information that’s come out, I’m sure it ripped open new wounds.”
Keller remembered Habermehl as a “stand-up member of the Sandia Labs community” who was “well-accomplished and loved by folks in his community out in Corrales.”
The mayor commended the police department on its investigation.
“Now we know what happened, we can at least tell the truth about what happened to Scott,” Keller said. “That truth involves a truth we all have to hold ourselves accountable to, which is we each have a role to play. And in this case, there are dozens and dozens of ways, dozens of cracks that this child, these children, fell through. But that is never an excuse.”
“We have to commit to do more and all of us have an answer of what we think would improve this criminal justice system, and for us, we know that our first step is actually to catch these remaining two individuals,” he continued.
