conspiracy

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Monday pushed back against a torrent of misinformation on social media sites claiming that mail-in ballots for the state’s Nov. 4 special election are purposefully designed to disclose how people voted.

Weber, the state’s top elections official, refuted claims by some Republicans and far-right partisans that holes on ballot envelopes allow election officials to see how Californians voted on Proposition 50, the ballot measure about redistricting that will be decided in a special election in a little over three weeks.

“The small holes on ballot envelopes are an accessibility feature to allow sight-impaired voters to orient themselves to where they are required to sign the envelope,” Weber said in a statement released Monday.

Weber said voters can insert ballots in return envelopes in a manner that doesn’t reveal how they voted, or could cast ballots at early voting stations that will open soon or in person on Nov. 4.

Weber’s decision to “set the record straight” was prompted by conspiracy theories exploding online alleging that mail ballots received by 23 million Californians in recent days are purposefully designed to reveal the votes of people who opposed the measure.

“If California voters vote ‘NO’ on Gavin Newscum’s redistricting plan, it will show their answer through a hole in the envelope,” Libs of TikTok posted on the social media platform X on Sunday, in a post that has 4.8 million views. “All Democrats do is cheat.”

GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz earlier retweeted a similar post that has been viewed more than 840,000 times, and Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator, called for the November special election to be suspended because of the alleged ballot irregularities.

The allegation about the ballots, which has been raised by Republicans during prior California elections, stems from the holes in mail ballot envelopes that were created to help visually impaired voters and allow election workers to make sure ballots have been removed from envelopes.

The special election was called for by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats in an effort to counter President Trump urging GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts before next year’s midterm election to boost GOP ranks in the House and buttress his ability to enact his agenda during his final two years in office.

California Democrats responded by proposing a rare mid-decade redrawing of California’s 52 congressional boundaries to increase Democratic representation in Congress. Congressional districts are typically drawn once a decade by an independent state commission created by voters in 2010.

Nearly 600,000 Californians have already returned mail ballots as of Monday evening, according to a ballot tracker created by Political Data, a voter data firm that is led by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed congressional boundaries on the November ballot.

Republican leaders in California who oppose the ballot measure have expressed concern about the ballot conspiracy theories, fearing the claims may suppress Republicans and others from voting against Proposition 50.

“Please don’t panic people about something that is easily addressed by turning their ballot around,” Roxanne Hoge, the chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, posted on X. “We need every no vote and we need them now.”

Jessica Millan Patterson, the former chair of the state GOP who is leading one of the two main committees opposing Proposition 50, compared not voting early to sitting on the sidelines of a football game until the third quarter.

“I understand why voters would be concerned when they see holes in their envelopes … because your vote is your business. It’s the bedrock of our system, being able to [vote by] secret ballot,” she said in an interview. “That being said, the worst thing that you could do if you are unhappy with the way things are here in California is not vote, and so I will continue to promote early voting and voting by mail. It’s always been a core principle for me.”

The deluge of conspiracy theories began almost the moment authorities revealed the text messages allegedly sent by the suspected assassin of right-wing American activist Charlie Kirk.

After prosecutors in the US state of Utah published alleged text exchanges between 22-year-old Tyler Robinson and his romantic partner on Tuesday, countless social media users, including numerous prominent influencers, cast doubt on their authenticity.

Some outright claimed that the texts, in which Robinson appears to confess to killing Kirk, had been fabricated by authorities.

Many of the posts suggested that the language and tone of the exchanges did not match someone of Robinson’s age, and the account of the shooting was too forthcoming and detailed to be believable.

Notably, at a time of extreme political polarisation in the US, the conspiracy theorising united figures on the left and right.

Matt Walsh, a right-wing commentator and podcast host with millions of followers on X and YouTube, suggested the exchanges had been scripted to absolve Robinson’s transgender partner of any involvement in the shooting.

“This feels like a strategy they cooked up from watching too much TV,” Walsh said on X.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox has said that the partner, described as a “male transitioning to female”, had no advance knowledge of the crime and has been cooperating fully with authorities.

Steven Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s former adviser, said on his podcast that he was “not buying” the texts, describing them as “too stilted, too much like a script”.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Majid Padellan, a progressive influencer who goes by Brooklyn Dad Defiant on social media, said he did not believe for “one second” that the texts had been written by Robinson.

“I didn’t know him personally, but I know that no 22 year old writes text messages like this,” Padellan said on X.

“This feels like that Steve Buscemi skateboard meme ‘How do you do, fellow kids?”’

Liberal commentator Joanne Carducci, who posts under the moniker JoJoFromJerz, noted that the official narrative around the assassination had prompted rare agreement across the ideological divide.

“No one is buying these text messages. No one on the left or the right,” Carducci said on X.

“We cannot agree on a damn thing anymore. But we agree on this. If that doesn’t speak volumes, nothing does.”

The Utah County Attorney did not respond to a request for comment about the claims online.

Speculation and conspiracy theories have become a routine feature of the reaction to high-profile acts of violence in the US in the polarised and trigger-happy landscape of social media and online forums.

After a gunman shot dead a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband in June, right-wing conspiracy theorists claimed that the shooting had been perpetrated by a left-wing extremist or carried out on behalf of the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz.

The alleged gunman, Vance Boelter, espoused staunchly conservative views on issues including abortion and LGBTQ rights.

The 2022 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas; the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida; and the 2017 Las Vegas shooting all spawned right-wing conspiracy theories, including the claim that the attacks had been staged to give the US government a pretext to curtail gun rights.

While many conspiracy theories have been driven by a particular ideological faction, Kirk’s assassination is the latest event to fuel unfounded claims with “cross-ideological appeal”, said Eric Oliver, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who studies conspiracy theories.

Claims about Robinson fit the mould of theories about the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the pharmaceutical industry, which also cut across partisan and ideological lines, Oliver said.

“People are also really emotionally charged by this, both on the left and the right, and will often gravitate to stories that rationalise their fear, rage, or feelings of powerlessness,” Oliver told Al Jazeera.

The “extraordinary circumstances” of Kirk’s murder, including a relative lack of information about Robinson, had also left a vacuum that was being filled by people “already suspicious of anything either the government does or this administration does”, Oliver added.

The transcripts of Robinson’s alleged texts released by prosecutors provided some of the clearest indications yet of a possible motive for assassinating Kirk, who was lauded by conservatives but seen as an inflammatory figure on the left for his right-wing stances on immigration, abortion and transgender rights, among other issues.

Robinson allegedly told his partner that he had “had enough” of Kirk’s “hatred” and “some hate can’t be negotiated out”.

Authorities previously announced that they recovered bullet casings inscribed with a number of politically-charged and internet subculture-influenced messages, including “Hey fascist! Catch!”

Prosecutors, who allege Kirk was targeted over his “political expression”, have charged Robinson with aggravated murder and six other charges.

That the released details of Robinson’s alleged communication with his partner after Kirk’s assassination have only further fuelled conspiracies is not surprising, suggest experts.

“Many people have a worldview in which conspiracies are going on all the time and explain our social and political circumstances – those people believe lots and lots of conspiracy theories and exist on both the right and left,” said Joseph Uscinski, a professor of political science at the University of Miami, whose research focuses on conspiracy theories.

And though conspiracy theorising has become rampant on social media, the platforms themselves are not the problem, Uscinski said.

“People have worldviews; some of those worldviews make conspiracy theories easy to believe, whether those people are on social media or not,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Conspiracy theories existed long before social media and may have been more prominent then. We have to remember that people seek out content on social media that they like; they are not necessarily persuaded by social media content as much as they are attracted to content that tells them what they already believe.”

Gilbert Arenas and Skip Bayless have made news lately for reasons they would rather forget. Now, they will attempt to put an entertaining spin on NFL news in a digital program launching Tuesday and airing three times a week.

Arenas, a Van Nuys Grant High product who played 11 seasons in the NBA, will rebrand his current channel. Bayless, who had long runs on ESPN’s “First Take” and FS1’s “Undisputed,” will be featured on “The Arena: Gridiron” along with former NFL coach Jay Gruden and former NFL cornerback Aqib Talib.

Arenas was arrested July 30 and charged along with five others with conspiracy for allegedly running illegal poker games at his Encino mansion, court records show. Arenas, 43, rented out the mansion “for the purposes of hosting high-stakes illegal poker games,” according to a news release issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

The three-time All-Star guard — who went by the nickname “Agent Zero” according to federal authorities — was charged with conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business, operating an illegal gambling business and making false statements to federal investigators.

Among the others charged was Yevgeni Gershman, 49, a.k.a. “Giora,” of Woodland Hills, who the U.S. attorney’s office described as “a suspected organized crime figure from Israel.” Arenas pleaded not guilty and was released on a $50,000 bond.

Bayless has also been sifting through court filings. He is a defendant along with Fox Sports, broadcaster Joy Taylor and executive Charlie Dixon in a lawsuit by former FS1 hairstylist Noushin Faraji, who alleged that Bayless offered her $1.5 million for sex.

Faraji filed a request to dismiss the lawsuit this month in L.A. Superior Court, which legal experts said is an indication that a settlement has been reached.

Bayless told the Athletic that he isn’t bothered by the criminal charges against Arenas.

“I’ve talked to Gil,” he said. “He has no concerns. I mean, he’s obviously concerned, but he believes he did nothing at all wrong, except rent out his space, and I believe in him.”

Underdog, a five-year-old gaming and media firm, will own and produce the show. Arenas’ two digital basketball programs under “Gil’s Arena” have become one of Underdog’s biggest draws.

Shifting to football prompted the addition of Bayless, whose spirited back-and-forth on social media with Arenas grew into a professional relationship.

“I’m back in the saddle in the debate arena,” Bayless said. “I live for this. I love this.”

A GUNMAN who allegedly killed two police officers could be hiding in a cave as his family handed themselves in.

A major manhunt is still underway for Dezi Bird Freeman, 56, who allegedly gunned down “execution style” three officers who were conducting a search warrant at a property in Porepunkah, Australia, on Tuesday morning.

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Police sources told the Herald Sun it was a “straight-out execution” when Freeman allegedly opened fire with a shotgun as officers entered a bus where he and his family live.

A 59-year-old detective, just days from retirement, and a 35-year-old senior constable were killed in the horror attack.

A third officer, meanwhile, was shot in the thigh and is undergoing surgery in a Melbourne hospital.

The remaining seven members of the 10-officer team were unharmed.

On Wednesday, the search for the alleged killer continued as his family, who were feared to have been kidnapped by Freeman handed themselves in to authorities late on Tuesday.

Freeman’s whereabouts, meanwhile, remain unknown with cops believing he may have fled into the nearby dense bush.

The 45-year-old is well known to police, having been in and out of court for driving and traffic offences, defying police orders, and verbally abusing a judge in a roadside drug-test case last year.

In 2021, he was arrested at an anti-government protest. He has also previously compared police to Nazis.

Australian outlets are reporting that Freeman is a self-declared “sovereign citizen” – part of a fringe movement that rejects the authorities of Australian laws and government.

Often called “SovCits”, adherents have been Australia for decades, with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) previously describing them as mostly harmless.

But the movement has gained traction in recent years, fuelled by pandemic-era mistrust, and a 2023 AFP briefing note warned it has “an underlying capacity to inspire violence”.

Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush confirmed that ten officers went to the Porepunkah property around 10.30am on Tuesday to execute a search warrant when shots were fired.

He said: “They were fired upon. The two deceased officers are still at the scene. A third officer was seriously injured and is currently in surgery in hospital.”

Bush said the other officers on scene were uninjured, but stressed the incident was “still active and ongoing”.

“We have deployed all specialist resources into the area to arrest the person responsible… [they] are currently there looking for this person.”

That includes homicide detectives, the Armed Crime Squad, the Fugitive Squad and specialist police units.

Ambulance Victoria confirmed one person with serious lower-body injuries was flown to hospital in a stable condition.

The attack unfolded in Porepunkah, a small Alpine town of about 1,000 residents, located 186 miles north-east of Melbourne.

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The local primary school was placed into lockdown and the Alpine shire council closed all public facilities “effective immediately”.

Alpine shire mayor Sarah Nicholas said it had been an “unsettling” and “emotional” afternoon for the small community.

“Today has been a day of deep sorrow and shock for our community… We are grieving together,” she said in a statement, paying tribute to the officers killed and offering “thoughts, love and unwavering” support to their families.

“We hold our police in the highest regard. They serve with courage, compassion, and dedication, and their loss is felt profoundly across our region,” she added.

Nicholas also thanked teachers at the nearby school for keeping children calm during the lockdown, and locals for heeding police instructions. She closed with a plea: “Please stay safe.”

Prime minister Anthony Albanese said: “Our thoughts are with the police for the work they do, each and every day.

“The men and women who wear the uniform of the police force, take risks each and every day.”

Premier Jacinta Allan told parliament: “Victoria police officers and all of our first responders show extraordinary bravery and courage every single day. They are the best of us.”

A large police operation remains underway in Porepunkah, with about 50 officers and a police dog reported at the scene.

The local airfield has been shut to the public to allow emergency access.

Meanwhile, locals are being warned to stay indoors, with PCC Bush saying: “I want to further assure the rural community around Bright that we will do everything to bring this person into custody so that your community is safe.

“Can I please ask you just to stay at home, not go out and about at the moment, until this operation is concluded?

“I’m leaving now to head to the area to support our officers and support the operation.”

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Aug. 22 (UPI) — A former chief adviser to New York Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with accepting more than $75,000 in bribes in what the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office describes as “a wide-ranging series of bribery conspiracies.”

The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, announced Thursday four separate indictments against Ingrid Lewis-Martin, charging her with four fourth-degree conspiracy counts and four second-degree counts of receiving bribes for perpetrating schemes that leveraged her former position in Adams’ office.

“We allege that Ingrid Lewis-Martin engaged in classic bribery conspiracies that had a deep and wide-ranging impact on city government,” Bragg said in a statement.

“Hardworking city employees were undermined, businesses and developers who followed the law were pushed aside and the public was victimized by corruption at the highest levels of government.”

The charges add to an indictment filed against her in December over allegedly receiving more than $100,000 from real estate advisers in exchange for influencing the Department of Buildings in their favor.

Like the December indictment, two of the four unveiled Thursday also charge her adult son, Glenn Martin II.

Prosecutors alleged in one of the indictments that of the $75,000 in bribes Lewis-Martin was paid, $50,000 was received by her son in cash from a diverted New York City contract as well as benefits. She also allegedly received the benefit of an appearance on a TV show.

That indictment alleges the mother-son pair conspired to steer contracts for asylum seeker shelter sites to developer Tian Ji Li’s preferred property owners, with Li allegedly receiving 10% of each contract.

One such contract involving a New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation allegedly netted Li $1.2 million.

The indictment also accuses Lewis-Martin of fast-tracking city approvals for V Show, a karaoke bar being developed by Li.

The second indictment alleges Lewis-Martin conspired to have the city withdraw its approval for a Brooklyn street redesign involving protected bike lanes on behalf of the owners of Broadway Stages. In exchange, Lewis-Martin allegedly received $2,500 and $10,000 in catering services.

Lewis-Martin, Martin II and Jessie Hamilton, deputy commissioner for Real Estate Services, were charged in the third indictment for fast-tracking development projects and steering city contracts in exchange for home renovations.

The final indictment only charges Lewis-Martin. That scheme allegedly saw her obtain approval for a residential renovation project in exchange for thousands of dollars in catering services.

“As charged, Ingrid Lewis-Martin influenced city agency decision making in a wide range of areas, from construction to street design, to serve the interests of co-defendants who paid her bribes,” Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber of the Department of Investigation said in a statement.

Strauber said she has notified relevant agencies and requested their review of permits and design determinations mentioned in the indictments.

Lewis-Martin was initially arrested and charged amid upheaval in Adams’ office last year, as the mayor was under federal investigation that led to him being charged with conspiracy in September.

The charges, however, were dismissed in April after the Justice Department moved to drop the case.

A former Walmart employee who tried to intervene as Border Patrol agents arrested an undocumented custodial worker in Pico Rivera in June was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday.

Adrian Martinez, 20, was indicted by a Santa Ana jury on the charge of conspiracy to impede a federal officer tied to the events of June 17, which unfolded at the height of the Trump administration’s immigration raids in the Los Angeles area. Martinez’s violent arrest was caught on video and quickly went viral.

According to the three-page indictment, Martinez confronted Border Patrol agents as they tried to arrest the custodial worker in the parking lot of a shopping center and blocked the agents’ vehicle with his own. Prosecutors allege that he positioned himself with a growing crowd to surround the agents’ vehicle and prevent it from leaving the area.

Martinez then allegedly grabbed a large trash can and moved it in front of the agents’ vehicle, blocking them from being able to pass.

According to the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A., Martinez faces up to six years in prison if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in downtown L.A. on Thursday.

“Make no mistake: There are serious, life-altering consequences for impeding law enforcement,” acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said in a news release Wednesday.

Martinez’s lawyers released a statement noting that “just as in other cases arising out of recent illegal and inhumane ICE raids, the U.S. Attorney’s Office had to travel out of Los Angeles county to secure this indictment.”

The Times previously reported on Essayli’s struggles to secure indictments in protest cases.

“Although we are disappointed that Adrian’s case has not been dismissed, we always anticipated being required to litigate this case post-indictment,” the Miller Law Group, which represents Martinez, said in its statement.

The lawyers also criticized Essayli for posting on X, “before we had even officially been notified of the outcome of the indictment” and using it “to maliciously spread falsehoods and fearmonger at our client’s expense.”

In a June interview with the Times, Martinez said he was on break when he spotted the custodial worker, “getting grabbed very aggressively, getting manhandled,” by the agents. Martinez said he drove over, told the agents that their actions weren’t right and they should leave the worker alone.

Surveillance and spectator video captured at the scene and looped in social media feeds show an agent rushing Martinez and shoving him to the ground. Martinez gets back up, there is more shoving, and he exchanges angry words with a masked officer carrying a rifle. Then other agents swarmed him, pushed him back down and dragged him to their truck.

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Agents ultimately arrested both the custodial worker and Martinez.

In the June interview with the Times, Martinez said after his arrest he was taken to a parking structure, where he was told he’d been arrested for assaulting a federal officer by striking an agent in the face and breaking his glasses. Martinez, who weighs around 150 pounds, said the agents arresting him pointed to the colleague he was being accused of attacking, who looked “like a grizzly bear.”

“I don’t even remember you,” Martinez recalled saying. “It just seemed like they were trying to get me to say like, ‘yes, you assaulted him,’ but I knew I didn’t.”

The next day, Essayli posted a photo on X of Martinez, still in his blue Walmart vest. Martinez, he wrote, had been arrested “for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent in the face.”

Martinez was charged in a June 19 criminal complaint with conspiracy to impede a federal officer. The complaint makes no reference to a punch and neither does Wednesday’s indictment.

Bloomberg Law previously reported that Essayli had rejected office supervisors’ advice not to charge Martinez for assaulting a federal officer and that an an FBI agent felt there was insufficient evidence and declined to sign a complaint attesting probable cause to a judge.

Within a day, the outlet reported, another agent signed off on the charge of conspiracy to impede.

In an interview a week after his arrest, Martinez wore a brace on his right leg, where he’d suffered a contusion, and said he’d been bruised and scratched all over his body.

Walmart later terminated Martinez, citing “gross misconduct,” according to a separation notice reviewed by the Times.

“I was just speaking up for a man,” Martinez said. “How can I go from that to this?”

“People have the right to speak up for themselves and for someone else,” he added. “You don’t have to get treated like this, thrown on the floor and manhandled because of that.”

WASHINGTON — Uproar over the Trump administration’s handling of files from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation continues to grip Washington, prompting the Justice Department on Tuesday to schedule an unusual meeting with Epstein’s top confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell, and the House Oversight Committee to move to subpoena her testimony amid bipartisan calls for transparency in the case.

The renewed focus on Maxwell comes amid persistent questions over Trump’s years-long friendship with Epstein, the late and disgraced financier whose sprawling sex-trafficking ring victimized more than 200 women and girls.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for her role in perpetuating one of the most expansive sex-trafficking rings in modern U.S. history.

It is the first time the Justice Department has approached Maxwell’s counsel for a meeting, according to the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, who wrote in a statement that he would take the meeting himself “to ask: What do you know?”

“No one is above the law — and no lead is off-limits,” said Blanche, formerly one of Trump’s personal attorneys.

And yet, Republicans and Democrats alike are expressing suspicion over the Justice Department’s moves, questioning whether its outreach to Maxwell could be an effort to cut a cooperation agreement with a figure holding unique insights on the president’s friendship with Epstein.

Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, called Trump “the ultimate dealmaker” earlier this month, and said this week that Maxwell’s team is “grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case.”

“Ghislaine Maxwell is a federal prisoner right now. Obviously, she wants a pardon, so she will probably sing from whatever hymnal Donald Trump tells her to sing from,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told CNN this week.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced a binding resolution that would compel the release of FBI files related to the Epstein investigation, drawing a rebuke from Trump on social media Tuesday. And Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), a longtime ally of the president, told reporters that he did not trust what the Justice Department was telling the public about the case.

“No, I don’t. I don’t. I don’t trust them,” he said. “I’m big on clarity and transparency, and that’s a good reason people don’t trust government in either party.”

Burchett motioned in the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday to have the panel proceed with a subpoena for Maxwell to appear for public testimony, a move that was adopted by voice vote.

But to prevent a bipartisan vote on releasing the files from moving on the House floor, House Speaker Mike Johnson planned to send the chamber home for summer recess a day early, telling reporters that there was no purpose in Congress pushing the administration “to do something they’re already doing.”

Epstein, a wealthy financier with a deep bench of powerful friends, died in a New York City prison in August 2019 facing federal charges over a child sex-trafficking conspiracy.

The New York City medical examiner and the inspector general of the Justice Department both ruled Epstein’s death was a suicide. But suspicions of conspiracy have surrounded his case and his untimely death due to his known association with some of the country’s most powerful men.

Photos of Trump, Epstein and Maxwell are widely available, and Trump has acknowledged their friendship in the past.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with.”

“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” he said. “No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump sent a raunchy 50th birthday card to Epstein that included a sketch of a naked woman, featuring breasts and a squiggly “Donald” signature mimicking pubic hair. The sketch also included a note that read, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Maxwell compiled the album, according to the report.

Trump has begged and scolded his supporters to move on from the controversy, despite stoking conspiracies around the existence of a list of Epstein’s clients throughout the 2024 presidential election.

“I would say these files were made up by [former FBI Director James] Comey and [former President] Obama, made up by the Biden” administration, Trump now says, “and we went through years of that with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.”

These are salad days for the likes of Joseph Uscinski, who spends his time peering down rabbit holes and poking in the dark spaces where weird and woolly things grow.

There are loads of conspiracy theories out there, the granddaddy of them all being the conjecture surrounding John F. Kennedy’s assassination. But most tend to fade and be forgotten, said Uscinski, who teaches political science at the University of Miami, where he studies public opinion and mass media, with a focus on conspiracies.

“Only a select few will attract a large number of believers, have movies made… get talked about by politicians,” Uscinski said.

The Jeffrey Epstein saga has all the elements of one of those top-shelf intrigues, with an added Shakespearean twist — a president whose political rise has been fueled by outlandish conspiracy theories and now faces a backlash from some of his most faithful devotees, as he tries to wriggle free from a deceitful web of his own design.

Delicious, especially if you enjoy your schadenfreude served piping hot.

The known facts are these:

Epstein was an eye-poppingly wealthy financier, luxe man-about-Manhattan and convicted sex offender who sexually trafficked women and girls. In 2008, he agreed to an exceedingly lenient plea deal with federal prosecutors that resulted in a 13-month prison sentence, with freedom granted 12 hours a day, six days a week, under a work-release program.

A decade later, an investigative reporter at the Miami Herald identified scores of alleged survivors of sexual abuse by Epstein and some of his associates. In 2019, a new federal criminal case was brought against him. About a month after being arrested, Epstein was found dead in his cell at a jail in New York City. Investigators ruled Epstein’s death a suicide.

An A-list fixture of the upper-crust social scene, Epstein has been linked in court documents with a galaxy of celebrities from the worlds of Hollywood, business and politics. It’s an article of faith among some true believers — particularly within the MAGA movement — that a secret list of those serviced by Epstein’s sexual enterprise exists somewhere in the bowels of the federal government, hidden by agents of the hated, anti-Trump “deep state.”

In a Fox News interview in February, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said a list of Epstein’s clients was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” with its public release seemingly just a matter of time.

Then, like one of Trump’s threatened tariffs, the list — or “list” — abruptly vanished. There was no such thing, the Justice Department announced earlier this month, along with a finding that Epstein had, in fact, killed himself and was not, as some assert, murdered by forces wishing to silence him.

A piqued president urged everyone to move on and forget about Epstein. “Somebody that nobody cares about,” sniffed Trump, who moved in many of the same social circles as Epstein but now downplays their yearslong friendship.

All in all, conspiratorial catnip.

“Saying there are files and then saying there aren’t files… setting up some expectation for revelations and then insisting that actually there’s nothing there” has only deepened the well of suspicion, said Kathryn Olmsted, a UC Davis conspiracy expert who’s studied past instances of government deflection and deception involving the CIA and FBI, among others.

Unlike some of the crackpot stuff she’s heard — like Bill and Hillary Clinton murdering Joan Rivers to cover up Michelle Obama’s transgender identity — the conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein have at least some grounding in reality.

“He was very rich and powerful and he associated with some of the most powerful and richest people in the world, including members of both the Democratic and Republican parties,” Olmsted said. “And he was trafficking girls. There’s an actual crime at the heart of this. It’s not just something that people have made up out of thin air.”

That’s the thing that gives the Epstein conspiracy theories their distinctly frothy frisson: a blending of vital ingredients, one very old and the other comparatively new.

False allegations of child abuse date back to the blood libel of the Middle Ages and the assertion that Jews tortured and murdered Christian children as part of their ceremonial worship. From there, a through line can be traced all the way to the 2016 “Pizzagate” conspiracy, which claimed that Hillary Clinton and her top aides were running a child-trafficking ring out of a Washington pizza parlor.

Truly vile stuff.

Take that ancient trope and marry it to a modern lack of faith in the federal government and its institutions and you’re gifted with an endless source of lurid speculation.

“The number of threads that you can pull out of [the Epstein] fabric are many,” said retired University of Utah historian Robert Goldberg, another conspiracy expert. “And they’re going to be long.”

Democrats, for their part, are eagerly fanning the controversy, as a way to undermine Trump and drive a wedge in his granite-firm base.

“He said he was going to release [the complete Epstein files] and now he’s saying there’s nothing to see here and appears to be wanting to sweep the whole thing under the rug,” Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who played a prominent role in the Jan. 6 congressional hearings, taunted on MSNBC. “There is overwhelming bipartisan, popular demand, congressional demand, to release all of this stuff.”

Indeed, Trump need only look in one of his gilded mirrors to see what’s driven years of fevered Epstein obsession.

“He built a coalition of people who have these beliefs,” said the University of Miami’s Uscinski. “And I think he’s learned that once you build a coalition of conspiracy theorists, you can’t get them to [stop believing]. They came to him because he was telling them what they want. He can’t turn around and do the opposite now.”

Oh, what a tangled web we weave…

This week, reality TV show star Spencer Pratt posted multiple videos on social media savaging a proposed state bill on wildfire rebuilding. In one, Pratt told his 2 million TikTok followers that he consulted an artificial intelligence engine about Senate Bill 549. He said it told him the legislation would allow L.A. County to buy burned-out lots in Pacific Palisades and convert them to low-income housing, strip away local zoning decisions and push dense reconstruction. He urged people to oppose it.

“I don’t even think this is political,” Pratt said. “This is a common sense post.”

None of what Pratt said is in the bill. But over the last week, such misinformation-fueled furor has overwhelmed the conversation in Los Angeles, at the state Capitol and on social media about wildfire recovery. Posts have preyed on fears of neighborhood change, mistrust of government authorities and prejudice against low-income housing to assert, among other things, that the wildfires were set intentionally to raze the Palisades and replace the community with affordable housing.

The chatter has unmoored debate over a major rebuilding proposal from L.A. County leaders. Under the plan, a new local authority would be able to buy burned lots, rebuild homes and offer them back at discounted rates to the original owners. The idea is to give property owners struggling to rebuild another option to stay in their communities. There are no changes to any rules that require zoning amendments or approvals for individual housing developments.

State Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), the author of SB 549, which creates the local authority, said he understands legitimate policy disagreements over the new powers granted in the bill.

But those discussions have been overshadowed, he said.

“It’s become this total meme among the right-wing blogosphere and, unfortunately, picked up by some lazy-ass journalists that don’t bother to read the bill that say this bill seeks to turn the entire Palisades into low-income housing,” Allen said.

Some of his own friends who lost homes in the Palisades, Allen said, have been texting him asking why he’s trying to force low-income housing into the neighborhood.

“People are saying I want to put a train line in there,” Allen said. “It’s insane.”

The frenzy, in part, is due to an issue of timing. Last month, a 20-member expert commission impaneled by L.A. County proposed the local authority as a key recommendation for rebuilding after January’s Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed 18,000 homes and other properties.

Commission leaders then approached Allen about writing a bill that would allow for its implementation. Allen wanted to do it, but deadlines for introducing new legislation had long passed.

Instead, Allen took SB 549, which had nothing to do with wildfire rebuilding but was still alive in the Legislature, and added the rebuilding authority language to it. This is a common legislative procedure used when putting forward ideas late in the year.

Allen decided as well to keep the original language in the bill, which called for significant spending on low-income housing in an unrelated financing program. Multiple news articles conflated the two portions of the bill, which added to the alarm.

The version of SB 549 with the wildfire rebuilding authority in it had its first hearing in a legislative committee on Wednesday. Allen spent much of the hearing acknowledging the confusion around it.

Misinformation over the rebuilding authority was fueled by a separate announcement California Gov. Gavin Newsom made this month.

State housing officials carved out $101 million from long-planned funding allocations for low-income housing and dedicated it to building new developments in Los Angeles.

The money will be used to subsidize low-income apartment buildings throughout the county with priority given to projects proposed in and around burn zones, that are willing to reserve a portion to fire survivors and are close to breaking ground.

The fires exacerbated the region’s housing crisis. Higher rents persist in nearby neighborhoods and low-income residents continue to struggle. Newsom cast the announcement as assisting them in regaining their footing.

“Thousands of families — from Pacific Palisades to Altadena to Malibu — are still displaced and we owe it to them to help,” Newsom said when unveiling the spending.

Like the proposed rebuilding authority, the funding does not change any zoning or other land-use rules. Any developer who receives the dollars would need separate governmental approval to begin construction.

Nevertheless, social media posters took the new money and the proposed new authority and saw a conspiracy.

“Burn it. Buy it. Rebuild it how they want,” said a July 15 post from X user @HustleBitch_, who has nearly 124,000 followers. “Still think this wasn’t planned?

Newsom called the situation another example of “opportunists exploit[ing] this tragedy to stoke fear — and pit communities against each other.”

“Let’s be clear: The state is not taking away anyone’s property, instituting some sort of mass rezoning or destroying the quality and character of destroyed neighborhoods. Period,” Newsom said in a statement to The Times. “Anyone claiming otherwise is either misinformed or deliberately lying. That’s not just wrong — it’s disgraceful.”

Not all of the debate about the rebuilding authority is based on false information.

Allen and local leaders acknowledged the need for more consensus over its role, especially given the sensitivities around recovery. Still unresolved were the authority’s governing structure, and whether it would encompass the Palisades or be limited to Altadena and other unincorporated areas.

Pratt lost his Palisades home in the fire and has sued the city, alleging it failed to maintain an adequate water supply and other infrastructure. In social media videos this week, Pratt said he and other residents didn’t trust the county with increased power over rebuilding when he believed leaders failed to protect the neighborhood in the first place.

“We’re a fire-stricken community, not a policy sandbox,” Pratt said. “We do not support the county becoming a dominant landowner in the Palisades.”

Representatives for Pratt could not be reached for comment.

By the end of Wednesday, Allen conceded defeat on SB 549. There were many legitimate hurdles to the bill passing before the Legislature adjourns in mid-September, he said. Notably, a representative for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told the legislative committee that she was opposed to the bill because the city had yet to be convinced of its efficacy.

But the misinformation surrounding the bill made it even harder to envision its success, he said. Allen decided to hold the bill and have it reconsidered when the Legislature convenes again in January.

“If we’re going to do this, I want the time to do it right,” he said.

NEW YORK — As his supporters erupt over the Justice Department’s failure to release much-hyped records in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation, President Donald Trump’s strategy has been to downplay the issue.

His problem? That nothing-to-see-here approach doesn’t work for those who have learned from him that they must not give up until the government’s deepest, darkest secrets are exposed.

Last week, the Justice Department and the FBI abruptly walked back the notion that there’s an Epstein client list of elites who participated in the wealthy New York financier’s trafficking of underage girls. Trump quickly defended Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and chided a reporter for daring to ask about the documents.

The online reaction was swift, with followers calling the Republican president “out of touch” and demanding transparency.

On Saturday, Trump used his Truth Social platform to again attempt to call supporters off the Epstein trail amid reports of infighting between Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino over the issue. He suggested the turmoil was undermining his administration — “all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”

That did little to mollify Trump’s supporters, who urged him to release the files or risk losing his base. At least one follower responded to Trump’s post by saying it seemed as though the president was just trying to make the issue go away — but assured him it wouldn’t.

The political crisis is especially challenging for Trump because it’s one of his own making. The president has spent years stoking dark theories and embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts him as the only savior who can demolish the “deep state.”

Now that he’s running the federal government, the community he helped build is coming back to haunt him. It’s demanding answers he either isn’t able to or does not want to provide.

“The faulty assumption Trump and others make is they can peddle conspiracy theories without any blowback,” said Matt Dallek, a political scientist at George Washington University. “The Epstein case is a neat encapsulation that it is hard to put the genie back in the bottle.”

A problem that’s not going away

Last week’s two-page statement from the Justice Department and the FBI saying they had concluded that Epstein did not possess a client list roiled Trump’s supporters, who pointed to past statements from several administration officials that the list ought to be revealed.

Bondi had suggested in February that such a document was sitting on her desk waiting for review, though last week she said she had been referring generally to the Epstein case file and not a specific client list.

Conservative influencers have since demanded to see all the files related to Epstein’s crimes, even as Trump has tried to put the issue to bed.

Far-right commentator Jack Posobiec said at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit on Saturday that he would not rest “until we go full Jan. 6 committee on the Jeffrey Epstein files.”

Trump’s weekend post sought to divert attention by calling on supporters to focus instead on investigating Democrats and arresting criminals rather than “spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein.” His first-term national security advisor, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, pleaded with him to reconsider.

“@realdonaldtrump please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR is not going away,” Flynn wrote, adding that failing to address unanswered Epstein questions would make facing other national challenges “much harder.”

Other Trump allies continue to push for answers, among them far-right activist Laura Loomer, who has called for Bondi to resign. She told Politico’s Playbook newsletter on Sunday that a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the handling of the files on Epstein, who was found dead in his federal jail cell in 2019 about a month after he was arrested.

Experts who study conspiracy theories warned that more sunlight does not necessarily make far-fetched narratives disappear.

“For some portion of this set of conspiracy theory believers, no amount of contradictory evidence will ever be enough,” said Josephine Lukito, who studies conspiracy theorists at the University of Texas at Austin.

Trump and his colleagues set their own trap

The president and many figures in his administration — including Bondi, Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel — earned their political capital over the years in part by encouraging disproven conspiracy theories on a range of topics, from elections to vaccines.

Now, they’re tasked with trying to reveal the evidence they’d long insisted was there — a challenge that’s reached across the government.

Last week, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin posted on X what seemed like an endorsement of a notorious conspiracy theory that the contrails left by aircraft are releasing chemicals for potentially nefarious reasons. But a second post from Zeldin underscored the fine line the Trump administration is trying to walk by linking to a new page on the EPA website that essentially debunked the theory.

The value of conspiratorial fabrications is that they help people get political power, said Russell Muirhead, who teaches political science at Dartmouth College. He said Trump has exploited that “more ably than anybody probably in American history.”

But the Epstein case brings unique challenges, he said. That’s because it’s rooted in truth: A wealthy and well-connected financier did spend years abusing large numbers of young girls while escaping justice.

As a result, Trump needs to come forward with truth and transparency on the topic, Muirhead said. If he doesn’t, “large segments of his most enthusiastic and devoted supporters are going to lose faith in him.”

A potentially costly distraction

As right-wing outrage over Epstein dominates the political conversation, Democrats and other Trump rivals have been taking advantage.

Several Democratic lawmakers have called for the release of all Epstein files and suggested Trump could be resisting because he or someone close to him is featured in them. Conservatives expressed concerns that Trump’s approach on Epstein could hurt them in the midterms.

“For this to go away, you’re going to lose 10% of the MAGA movement,” right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon said during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit on Friday.

There’s also the challenge of governing.

Bondi and Bongino had a tense exchange last week at the White House over a story about Epstein, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

And Loomer, who is close to Trump, said Friday she was told that Bongino was “seriously thinking about resigning.” Bongino showed up at work Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel issues. The FBI declined to comment.

Patel also took to social media Friday to dismiss what he called “conspiracy theories” that he himself would be leaving the administration.

Dallek, the George Washington University professor, said it’s alarming that the country’s top law enforcement officials are feuding over a conspiracy theory.

“It’s possible at some time voters are going to notice the things they want or expect government to do aren’t being done because the people in charge are either incompetent or off chasing rabbits,” he said. “Who is fulfilling the mission of the FBI to protect the American people?”

Swenson and Riccardi write for the Associated Press. Riccardi reported from Denver. AP writers Eric Tucker, Melissa Goldin and Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.

ATLANTA — President Trump and other Republicans have long criticized states that take weeks to count their ballots after election day. This year has seen a flurry of activity to address it.

Part of Trump’s executive order on elections, signed in March but held up by lawsuits, takes aim at one of the main reasons for late vote counts: Many states allow mailed ballots to be counted even if they arrive after election day.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month said it would consider whether a challenge in Illinois can proceed in a case that is among several Republican-backed lawsuits seeking to impose an election day deadline for mail ballots.

At least three states — Kansas, North Dakota and Utah — passed legislation this year that eliminated a grace period for receiving mailed ballots, saying they now need to be in by election day.

Even in California, where weekslong vote counting is a frequent source of frustration and a target of Republican criticism, a bill attempting to speed up the process is moving through the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

Order asserts federal law prohibits counting late ballots

The ballot deadline section of Trump’s wide-ranging executive order relies on an interpretation of federal law that establishes election day for federal elections. He argues this means all ballots must be received by that date.

“This is like allowing persons who arrive 3 days after Election Day, perhaps after a winner has been declared, to vote in person at a former voting precinct, which would be absurd,” the executive order states.

It follows a pattern for the president, who has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of such ballots even though there is no evidence they are the source of widespread fraud. The issue is tied closely to his complaints about how long it takes to count ballots, his desire for results on election night and his false claims that overnight “dumps” of vote counts point to a rigged election in 2020, when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

But ballots received after election day, in addition to being signed and dated by the voter, must be postmarked by the U.S. Postal Service indicating they were completed and dropped off on or before the final day of voting.

Accepting late-arriving ballots has not been a partisan issue historically. States as different as California and Mississippi allow them, while Colorado and Indiana do not.

“There is nothing unreliable or insecure about a ballot that comes back after election day,” said Steve Simon, the chief election official in Minnesota, which has an election day deadline.

In his executive order, most of which is paused by the courts, Trump directs the attorney general to “take all necessary action” to enforce federal law against states that include late-arriving ballots in their final counts for federal elections. He also directs the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to condition federal funding on compliance.

Trump’s rhetoric motivates Republican states

Republicans in five states have passed legislation since the 2020 election moving the mail ballot deadline to election day, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks election legislation.

Earlier this year, GOP lawmakers in Kansas ended the state’s practice of accepting mail ballots up to three days after election day, a change that will take effect for next year’s midterms. Problems with mail delivery had prompted Kansas to add the grace period in 2017.

Kansas state Sen. Mike Thompson, a Republican who chairs the committee that handles election legislation, compared the grace period to giving a football team extra chances to score after the game clock expires.

“We need this uniform end to the election just so that we know that all voters are operating on the same time frame,” he said.

A history of complaints in California

California has long been a source of complaints about the amount of time it takes for ballots to be counted and winners declared.

“The rest of the country shouldn’t have to wait on California to know the results of the elections,” U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the Committee on House Administration, said during an April hearing.

He said California’s “lax election laws” were to blame for the delays.

The nation’s most populous state has the largest number of registered voters in the country, some 22.9 million, which is roughly equivalent to the number of voters in Florida and Georgia combined.

California also has embraced universal mail voting, which means every registered voter automatically receives a ballot in the mail for each election. The deadline for election offices to receive completed ballots is seven days after election day as long as they are postmarked by election day.

A survey of some 35,000 Los Angeles County voters during last fall’s election found that 40% waited until election day to return their ballot.

Election officials say the exhaustive process for reviewing and counting mail ballots combined with a large percentage of voters waiting until the last minute makes it impossible for all results to be available on election night.

California Democrats consider changes to speed the count

Under state law, election officials in California have 30 days to count ballots, conduct a post-election review and certify the results.

Dean Logan, Los Angeles County’s chief election official, told Congress in May that his team counted nearly 97% of the 3.8 million ballots cast within a week of election day in 2024. Jesse Salinas, president of the state clerks’ association, said his staff in Yolo County, near Sacramento, already works 16-hour days, seven days a week before and after an election.

Assemblyman Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) introduced legislation that would keep the state’s 30-day certification period but require county election officials to finish counting most ballots within 13 days after the election. They would be required to notify the state if they weren’t going to meet that deadline and give a reason.

“I don’t think that we can stick our heads in the sand and pretend like these conspiracies aren’t out there and that this lack of confidence doesn’t exist, in particular among Republican voters in California,” said Berman. “There are certain good government things that we can do to strengthen our election system.”

He acknowledged that many counties already meet the 13-day deadline in his bill, which awaits consideration in the state Senate.

“My hope is that this will strengthen people’s confidence in their election system and their democracy by having some of those benchmarks and just making it very clear for folks when different results will be available,” Berman said.

Cassidy writes for the Associated Press. AP writer John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

Los Angeles County prosecutors on Wednesday charged 19 people with conspiring to murder a rapper who allegedly angered a member of the Mexican Mafia, a prison-based syndicate of Latino gang members.

According to a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accused Mexican Mafia member Manuel “Snuffy” Quintero issued an order in 2022 to kill Nelson Abrego, who performs under the name Swifty Blue.

In the complaint, prosecutors described a sprawling conspiracy that played out over TikTok messages and recorded jail calls, drawing in prisoners from Kern County, jail inmates in downtown Los Angeles and gang members in Paramount, the southeast Los Angeles County city that both Quintero and Abrego call home.

Quintero, 49, was arrested Wednesday and has yet to enter a plea. It wasn’t clear from court records whether he has a lawyer. A longtime member of the Paramount Varrio gang, Quintero has served prison time for assault, manufacturing methamphetamine and false imprisonment, court records show.

Manuel Quintero, shown in a Feb. 15, 2014 photograph from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, has been identified by law enforcement officials as a member of the Mexican Mafia.

(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)

On New Year’s Eve in 2022, an alleged subordinate of Quintero, Giuseppe “Clever” Leyva, told an informant he’d notified gang members in Paramount, Compton and downtown L.A. that they had instructions to attack Abrego “on sight,” the complaint says.

Leyva, 34, is now in custody on an unrelated federal case that charges him with selling drugs and guns in Imperial County. He pleaded guilty to trafficking methamphetamine in March and has yet to be sentenced. His attorney in the federal case didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

After the informant asked if “Snuffs is mad” at the rapper, Leyva allegedly said of Abrego: “F— him.”

It’s unclear why Quintero was angry with Abrego, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In a 2024 interview with The Times, the rapper declined to discuss any potential issues with the Mexican Mafia or “jailhouse politics.”

Abrego previously said his music resonates with people because “everybody wants to be a gangster.”

“Whether you’re a lawyer, a police or a kid going to school, everybody wants to be big, bad and tough,” he said in 2024.

Eight months after he spoke to the informant, the complaint says, Leyva warned another person in a TikTok message to stay away from the rapper.

“Let me give u a lil 411 s u won’t get mis guided with the internet,” he wrote, according to the complaint. “With Swifty his career is done.”

“I talked to him tried to guide him but he didn’t listen,” Leyva allegedly continued, adding that now the rapper was “getting his blues” in Men’s Central Jail.

In November 2023, Abrego was jailed on a gun possession charge. Onesimo “Vamps” Gonzalez, held two cells down from the rapper, called his mother and told her to ask an associate if “the one who sings” was “still good,” according to the complaint.

Gonzalez’s mother hung up. When her son called back, she allegedly said, “He’s no good.”

Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles.

(Al Seib/Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

Both Gonzalez and his mother are charged in the conspiracy. Gonzalez was already in custody; Dominga Gonzalez, 66, was arrested Wednesday at her Bellflower home, according to a statement from the FBI.

Two days after mother and son spoke, another jail inmate, Jonathan “Dreamer” Quevedo, called a man imprisoned in Kern County who was using a contraband cell phone, according to the complaint.

After mentioning “Swifty Blue,” Quevedo allegedly asked Jacob “Eagle” David if he recalled a “raza rapper” who was “in the shower.”

Prosecutors believed this was a reference to Jaime Brugada Valdez, a rapper known as MoneySign Suede who was stabbed to death in the showers at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad in 2023.

“The end result should be the same,” allegedly replied David, who was imprisoned for carjacking and robbery.

The next day, the complaint says, David instructed Quevedo to tell the attackers: “Handle that s— with prejudice… You know how that’s like a court term? Well, this s— [is] with prejudice.”

Quevedo allegedly confirmed it was “already in motion.”

When inmates were let out of their cells at 5:50 the next morning to take a shower, Adrian “Slick” Bueno, Andrew “Largo” Shinaia and Jude “Crazy” Valle entered Abrego’s cell, the complaint says. While Michael “Weasel” Ortiz obstructed a nearby camera, Bueno, Shinaia and Valle beat the rapper and “sliced” him, prosecutors charged.

About five hours later, Quevedo called a woman from jail and asked her to tell David in state prison that “old boy got his rap session,” according to the complaint.

“They didn’t really get a good show,” Quevedo allegedly said. “Expect them to be performing in probably the 4000 floor” — another area of the jail — “here soon.”

The attempt on Abrego’s life was unsuccessful, and by March 2024, the complaint says, Leyva told Joshua “Demon” Euan in a TikTok message the rapper was recording a live stream outside his family home “as we speak.”

Euan drove to the house at 1 a.m. and sent Leyva a photograph of a gun in the cup-holder of a car, according to the complaint. “He ain’t here,” he wrote to Leyva.

Later, Euan allegedly told Leyva he sent people to vandalize Abrego’s family home. According to the complaint, he sent photographs of graffiti that read, “Swifty Blue 187,” a reference to the California penal code section for murder.

Euan, 37, eluded arrest Wednesday and remains at large, according to the FBI.

A man described by law enforcement as one of Southern California’s most prominent street racing influencers has been charged by Los Angeles County prosecutors with 16 counts of conspiracy for organizing a number of so-called “street takeovers.”

Erick Romero Quintana, 22, pleaded not guilty during a brief court appearance Thursday in downtown L.A. He faces at least a decade in prison after authorities charged him with running the Instagram account @privatemeetz, which blasted out the locations of 16 different takeover events across South L.A. to its more than 60,000 followers from December 2022 to November 2023, according to a criminal complaint filed last month.

At one of those events, a 24-year-old girl died after a spinning car careened into the crowd.

Street racing events have long proved to be a deadly part of Southern California’s broader car culture. A Times investigation found that at least 179 people were killed in street racing related incidents between 2000 and 2017. While people often think of street races as the quarter-mile one-on-one speed contests highlighted by the early installments in the “Fast & The Furious” film franchise, so-called “sideshows” or “takeovers” can often prove dangerous too.

At takeover events, racers and spectators rush to an intersection and block traffic, while motorists perform stunts in a small space with little room between the asphalt they’re skidding across and the audience itself. Drivers often perform “burnouts” or “doughnuts,” trying to see how many times they can spin their car in a circle, or compete to see who can skid to a stop closest to a fixed object without crashing into it.

The charges filed against Quintana represent a novel approach to target people involved in the racing scene who aren’t drivers. Sgt. Arnold Castellanos, a member of the LAPD’s Street Racing Task Force, said the first-of-its-kind prosecution is a necessary step.

“Street takeovers have evolved into so much more than just cars doing donuts. Over time ‘car clubs’ have formed, these car clubs ‘compete’ against each other to see who has the better drivers and can ‘bully’ other drivers out of the pit,” Castellanos said. “This has escalated tensions and has resulted in the car clubs acting like gangs.”

Quintana is due back in court in July. Each conspiracy count carries a minimum prison sentence of 16 months.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said the charges against Quintana are the beginning of a broader effort to rein in street racers. Hochman noted that the takeovers can attract large and unruly crowds, which commit secondary crimes in the areas where they take place. He pointed to the large mob that smashed their way into a Compton bakery and robbed it after a takeover last year.

“People like Quintana are the ones bringing together the street racers and the spectators, they are as responsible and accountable for the crimes being committed as all the other participants in the conspiracy,” Hochman said.

Quintana’s attorney, Bart Kaspero, said he was “puzzled” by law enforcement’s approach to the case. While he didn’t dispute that Quintana was behind the account or that he posted locations of takeovers, he said his client didn’t attend the events or drive at any of them. He likened the prosecution to charging someone who handed out fliers to a party where a crime was committed.

“To target the guy who just announced where the meetings are, is a bit of overkill,” he said.

Kaspero described his client as a mere “car enthusiast” and rejected police and prosecutors’ depictions of street takeovers as havens of criminality, or the idea that his client should have known something bad would happen at the events he allegedly organized.

“I think it’s safe to say most people that are there are there for a spectacle,” Kaspero said.

Hochman said it would be impossible for Quintana to argue he didn’t know something dangerous might happen at a takeover event, considering he allegedly organized 15 additional takeovers after a woman died the Christmas Day event he posted locations for in Hyde Park.

Castellanos said Quintana’s account would post Instagram stories with “symbols or abbreviations which coincided with intersections allowing for all to respond in a flash mob fashion and overwhelm the location.” He said people like Quintana exploit the “carnage” that happens at takeover events to gain online clout, hoping they will gain enough of a following to monetize their accounts.

Castellanos said people who attend takeovers have a “Grand Theft Auto” mentality — invoking the popular video game franchise where players can turn pixelated versions of Los Angeles, Miami and New York into violent lawless playgrounds — “where individuals believe they are untouchable and do not fear law enforcement or the criminal justice system.”