prosecutor

The man accused of opening fire on the lobby of a Sacramento ABC television station cited the government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case as a motive and promised several members of the Trump administration would be “next,” according to a federal court filing made public Monday.

Anibal Hernandez-Santana, 64, is charged with multiple weapons offenses and interfering with a radio or communication station for firing several bullets at the window of ABC10’s offices in Sacramento around 1 p.m. on Friday, according to a criminal complaint.

Hernandez-Santana was arrested the same day as the shooting. During a search of his car, detectives found a note that read “For hiding Epstein & ignoring red flags,” according to the complaint filed by prosecutors in the Eastern District of California.

The note referenced FBI Director Kash Patel, his second-in-command Dan Bongino and U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, reading “They’re next. — C.K. from above.”

Sacramento Dist. Atty. Thien Ho said he believed the “C.K.” portion of the note was a reference to Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was killed by a sniper in Utah this month. In an interview on Monday, Ho said police also found a book titled “The Cult Of Trump” in Hernandez-Santana’s vehicle.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento said she could not comment beyond what was contained in court documents.

Patel said “targeted acts of violence are unacceptable and will be pursued to the fullest extent of the law,” in a post on X.

Hernandez-Santana was born in Puerto Rico and was not registered as a Republican or Democrat, according to voting records. The Trump administration has faced increasing criticism from both sides of the political spectrum to disclose more information about those who did business with Epstein, the financier charged with trafficking young girls to rich and powerful men before his death by suicide in a federal lockup in 2019.

Hernandez-Santana was a retired lobbyist, according to Ho, who said the shooting was clearly “politically motivated.”

Hernandez-Santana first registered as a lobbyist in 2001. His clients included an environmental justice group, the California Catholic Conference and the California Federation of Teachers, according to state lobbying records.

The day of the shooting, Ho said, a protest was scheduled to take place outside ABC10’s offices over their parent company’s decision to suspend late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments he made about the way Republicans have reacted to Kirk’s killing. Kimmel’s suspension was lifted Monday and he is expected to return to the air Tuesday,

Ho said it was clear the TV station was not a “random target.”

“When it comes to public safety it’s not about going right or left, it’s about moving forward … clearly he was motivated by current political events,” Ho said.

Hernandez-Santana did not have a significant criminal history and was not known to local law enforcement before the incident, according to the prosecutor.

Prosecutors said Hernandez-Santana fired four times at the ABC station, once near the building and three additional times at a window in the station’s lobby, according to court records. No one was injured, but there were employees inside at the time.

In addition to the message invoking members of Trump’s Cabinet, Sacramento Police detectives also found a day planner that contained a handwritten note to “Do the Next Scary Thing,” on the date of the attack, court records show.

In a court filing seeking to deny Hernandez-Santana bail, federal prosecutors said the note referencing Patel, Bongino and Bondi “indicates that he may have been planning additional acts of violence.”

Ho has also charged Santana-Hernandez with assault with a firearm and shooting at an inhabited dwelling. He was expected to make court appearances in both cases on Monday. It was not immediately clear whether he has an attorney.

Santana-Hernandez faces five years in federal prison and an additional 17 years in state prison if convicted as charged, according to Ho.

“When someone brazenly fires into a news station full of people in the middle of the day, it is not only an attack on innocent employees but also an attack on the news media and our community’s sense of safety,” Ho said in a statement.

Times staff writer Laura Nelson and researcher Cary Schneider contributed to this report.

A judge has rejected Erik and Lyle Menendez’s petition for a new trial, ruling that additional evidence that they suffered sexual abuse at their father’s hands would not have changed the outcome of the trial that has put them in prison for more than 35 years for gunning down their parents.

The ruling, handed down by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan on Monday, is the latest blow to the brothers’ bid for release. Both were denied parole during lengthy hearings in late August.

A habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of the brothers in 2023 argued they should have been able to present additional evidence at trial that their father, Jose Menendez, was sexually abusive.

The new evidence included a 1988 letter that Erik Menendez sent to his cousin, Andy Cano, saying he was abused into his late teens. There were also allegations made by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the boy band Menudo, who claimed Jose Menendez raped him.

The brothers have long argued they were in fear for their lives that their father would keep abusing them, and that their parents would kill them to cover up the nightmarish conditions in their Beverly Hills home.

Prosecutors contended the brothers killed their parents with shotguns in 1989 to get access to their massive inheritance, and have repeatedly highlighted Erik and Lyle’s wild spending spree in the months that followed their parents’ deaths. .

“Neither piece of evidence adds to the allegations of abuse the jury already considered, yet found that the brothers planned, then executed that plan to kill their abusive father and complicit mother,” Ryan wrote. “The court finds that these two pieces of evidence presented here would have not have resulted in a hung jury nor in the conviction of a lesser instructed offense.”

Ryan agreed with Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman that the petition should not grant the brothers a new trial because the abuse evidence would not have changed the fact that the brothers planned and carried out the execution-style killings in the family living room.

Ryan wrote the new evidence would not have resulted in the trial court proceeding differently because the brothers could not show they experienced a fear of “imminent peril.”

A spokesperson for the group of more than 30 Menendez relatives who have been fighting for the brothers’ release did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office was not immediately available for comment.

The gruesome killings occurred after the brothers used cash to buy the shotguns and attacked their parents while they watched a movie in the family living room.

Prosecutors said Jose Menendez was struck five times with shotgun blasts, including in the back of the head, and Kitty Menendez crawled on the floor wounded before the brothers reloaded and fired a final, fatal blast.

The petition rejected this week was one of three paths the Menendez legal team has pursued in seeking freedom for the brothers. Another judge earlier this year resentenced them to 50 years to life for the murders, making them eligible for parole after they were originally sentenced to life in prison.

Both were denied release at their first parole hearing, but could end up before the state panel again in as soon as 18 months. Clemency petitions are also still pending before Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The first trial ended with hung juries for each brother. In the second, allegations of abuse and supporting testimonies were restricted, and Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1996.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Prosecutors, other attorneys and observers assembled in a federal courtroom Thursday for the start of opening statements in the trial of a man charged with trying to assassinate President Trump while he played golf in South Florida last year, when he was campaigning for a second term.

Ryan Routh is representing himself after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon agreed to let him dismiss his court-appointed attorneys. They are, however, standing by in the courtroom if needed.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.

Until this week, Routh has appeared at hearings shackled at the wrists and ankles and dressed in a tan jail jumpsuit. But with jurors present, Routh has been unrestrained and dressed in a sport coat and tie. Cannon has said that Routh will be allowed to address jurors and witnesses from a podium, but he will not have free rein of the courtroom.

A panel of 12 jurors and four alternates was sworn in Wednesday, at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla. There are four white men, one Black man, six white women, and one Black woman on the jury, and the alternates are two white men and two white women. The panel was selected from a pool of 180 potential jurors.

The trial begins nearly a year after prosecutors say a Secret Service agent thwarted his attempt to shoot the Republican presidential nominee. It’s expected to run two or three weeks. The trial’s start comes as police search for the gunman who killed conservative influencer Charlie Kirk at a campus in Utah on Wednesday in what political leaders are calling an assassination.

Prosecutors have said Routh, 59, methodically plotted for weeks to kill Trump before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.

Just nine weeks earlier, Trump had survived another attempt on his life while campaigning in Pennsylvania. That gunman had fired eight shots, with one bullet grazing Trump’s ear, before being shot by a Secret Service counter sniper.

Cannon is a Trump-appointed judge who drew scrutiny for her handling of a criminal case accusing Trump of illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. The case became mired in delays as motions piled up over months, and was ultimately dismissed by Cannon last year after she concluded that the special counsel tapped by the Justice Department to investigate Trump was illegally appointed.

Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told the Associated Press.

In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, N.C., he was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch fuse.

Fischer writes for the Associated Press.

LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan judge dismissed criminal charges Tuesday against a group of people who were accused of attempting to falsely certifying President Trump as the winner of the 2020 election in the battleground state, a major blow to prosecutors as similar cases in four other states have been muddied with setbacks.

District Court Judge Kristen D. Simmons said in a court hearing that the 15 Republicans accused will not face trial. The case has dragged through the courts since Michigan Atty. Gen. Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced the charges over two years ago.

Simmons said she saw no intent to commit fraud in the defendants’ actions. Whether they were “right, wrong or indifferent,” they “seriously believed” there were problems with the election, the judge said.

“I believe they were executing their constitutional right to seek redress,” Simmons said.

Each member of the group, which included a few high profile members of the Republican Party in Michigan, faced eight charges of forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The top felony charges carried a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

Supporters, friends and family crowded in the hallway outside the courtroom cheered when the judge said the cases would be dismissed. Defendants leaving the courtroom cried and hugged friends and family. One woman wept as she hugged another and said, “We did it.”

Investigators said the group met at the Michigan GOP headquarters in December of 2020 and signed a document falsely stating they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified electors.” President Joe Biden won Michigan by nearly 155,000 votes, a result confirmed by a GOP-led state Senate investigation in 2021.

Electors are part of the 538-member Electoral College that officially elects the president of the United States. In 48 states, electors vote for the candidate who won the popular vote. In Nebraska and Maine, elector votes are awarded based on congressional district and statewide results.

One man accused in the Michigan case had the charges against him dropped after he agreed to cooperate with the state attorney general’s office in October 2023. The other 15 defendants pleaded not guilty and have maintained that their actions were not illegal.

Judge Simmons took nearly a year to say whether there was sufficient evidence to bring the cases to trial following a series of lengthy preliminary hearings.

Prosecutors in Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme. None of the cases have neared the trial stage and many have been bogged down by procedural and appellate delays.

In Nevada, the state attorney general revived a case against a group of allegedly fake electors last year, while a judge in Arizona ordered a similar case back to a grand jury in May. In Wisconsin last month, a judge declined to dismiss felony charges against three Trump allies connected to a plan to falsely cast electoral ballots for Trump even though Biden won the state in 2020.

The Georgia prosecution is essentially on hold while Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Atlanta, who brought the charges against President Trump and others appeals her removal from the case. Technically, Trump is still a defendant in the case, but as the sitting president, it is highly unlikely that any prosecution against him could proceed while he’s in office.

The effort to secure fake electors was central to the federal indictment against Trump that was abandoned earlier this year shortly before Trump took office for his second term.

Volmert writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A federal magistrate judge on Thursday angrily accused Justice Department prosecutors of trampling on the civil rights of people arrested during President Trump’s law enforcement surge in the nation’s capital.

Judge Zia Faruqui, a former federal prosecutor, said leaders of U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office have tarnished its reputation with how they are handling the deluge of cases. He said Pirro’s office is routinely bringing cases that don’t belong in federal court and needlessly keeping people in jail for days while they evaluate charges.

“It’s not fair to say they’re losing credibility. We’re past that now,” Faruqui said. He later added, “There’s no credibility left.”

The judge lambasted Pirro’s office during a hearing at which he agreed to dismiss the federal case against a man accused of threatening to kill Trump while in police custody. The defendant, Edward Alexander Dana, spent more than a week in jail before a federal grand jury refused to indict him.

It is extraordinarily rare for a grand jury to balk at returning an indictment, but it has happened at least seven times in five cases since Trump’s surge started nearly a month ago. Faruqui said it is ironic that an occupying force is at the mercy of the occupants” serving on the grand juries.

Pirro has been critical of Faruqui, one of four magistrates at the district court in Washington. On Thursday, the top federal prosecutor for Washington responded to Faruqui’s latest remarks by saying the judge “has repeatedly indicated his allegiance to those who violate the law and carry illegal guns.”

“This judge took an oath to follow the law, yet he has allowed his politics to consistently cloud his judgment and his requirement to follow the law,” she said in a statement. “America voted for safe communities, law and order, and this judge is the antithesis of that.”

Faruqui said there is no precedent for what is happening at the courthouse over the last few weeks. He said Trump administration officials are frequently touting the arrest figures on social media with seemingly no regard for how the arrests are affecting people’s lives.

“Where are the stats on the people illegally detained?” he asked.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Conor Mulroe said prosecutors from Pirro’s office are working around the clock on the influx of new cases.

“You are busy because you all have created this mess,” he told Mulroe. “I’m not saying it’s your problem. It’s your office’s problem.”

Mulroe was the only representative of Pirro’s office who attended Thursday’s hearing. Faruqui questioned why Pirro or her top deputies “don’t have the dignity to come here” and defend their charging decisions.

“That’s what leaders do,” he said.

The White House says over 1,800 people have been arrested since the operation started Aug. 7. Over 40 cases have been filed in district court, which hears the most serious federal offenses, including assault, gun and drug charges.

Dana was jailed for about a week after his arrest on Aug. 17. A different judge ordered his release on Aug. 25. On Thursday, Pirro’s office opted to drop the federal case against Dana but charge him with misdemeanors, including destruction of property and attempted threats, in D.C. Superior Court.

Dana’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Elizabeth Mullin, said prosecutors should have known that this case didn’t belong in federal court.

“A 15-year-old would know,” she said. “It was obvious from the outset.”

Dana was arrested on suspicion of damaging a light fixture at a restaurant. An officer was driving Dana to a police station when he threatened to kill Trump, according to a Secret Service agent’s affidavit. Dana also told police that he was intoxicated that night. Mullin said Dana’s “hyperbolic rambling” didn’t amount to a criminal threat.

Faruqui ordered prosecutors to file a brief explaining why they didn’t immediately inform him of its charging decisions in Dana’s case. The judge apologized to Dana “on behalf of the court” and suggested that Pirro’s office also owes Dana an apology.

Pirro said in an earlier statement that a grand jury’s refusal to indict somebody for threatening to kill the president “is the essence of a politicized jury.”

“The system here is broken on many levels,” she said. “Instead of the outrage that should be engendered by a specific threat to kill the president, the grand jury in D.C. refuses to even let the judicial process begin. Justice should not depend on politics.”

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

A late Tennessee sheriff who inspired “Walking Tall,” a Hollywood movie about a law enforcement officer who took on organized crime, killed his wife in 1967 and led people to believe she was murdered by his enemies, authorities said last week.

Authorities acknowledged that the finding will probably shock many who grew up as Buford Pusser fans after watching “Walking Tall,” which immortalized him as a tough but fair sheriff with zero tolerance for crime. The 1973 movie was remade in 2004, and many officers joined law enforcement because of his story, according to Mark Davidson, the district attorney for Tennessee’s 25th Judicial District.

There is enough evidence that if Pusser, a McNairy County sheriff who died in a car crash seven years after his wife’s death, were alive today, prosecutors would present an indictment to a grand jury for the killing of Pauline Mullins Pusser, Davidson said. Investigators also uncovered signs that she suffered from domestic violence, he said.

Prosecutors worked with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which began reexamining decades-old files on Pauline’s death in 2022 as part of its regular review of cold cases, agency director David Rausch said. Agents found inconsistencies between Buford Pusser’s version of events and the physical evidence, received a tip about a potential murder weapon and exhumed Pauline’s body for an autopsy.

“This case is not about tearing down a legend. It is about giving dignity and closure to Pauline and her family and ensuring that the truth is not buried with time,” Davidson said in a news conference streamed online. “The truth matters. Justice matters. Even 58 years later. Pauline deserves both.”

Evidence does not back up sheriff’s story

The case dates to Aug. 12, 1967. Buford Pusser got a call in the early-morning hours about a disturbance. He reported that his wife volunteered to ride along with him as he responded. The sheriff said that shortly after they passed New Hope Methodist Church, a car pulled up and fired several times into the vehicle, killing Pauline and injuring him. He spent 18 days in the hospital and required several surgeries to recover. The case was built largely on his own statement and closed quickly, Rausch said.

During the reexamination of the case, Dr. Michael Revelle, an emergency medicine physical and medical examiner, studied postmortem photographs, crime scene photographs, notes made by the medical examiner at the time and Buford Pusser’s statements. He concluded that Pauline was more likely than not shot outside the car and then placed inside it.

He found that cranial trauma suffered by Pauline didn’t match crime scene photographs of the car’s interior. Blood spatter on the hood outside the car contradicted Buford Pusser’s statements. The gunshot wound on his cheek was in fact a close-contact wound and not one fired from long range, as she sheriff had described, and was probably self-inflicted, Revelle concluded.

Pauline’s autopsy revealed she had a broken nose that had healed before her death. Davidson said statements from people who were around at the time she died support the conclusion that she was a victim of domestic violence.

Brother says investigation gave him closure

Pauline’s younger brother, Griffon Mullins, said the investigation gave him closure. He said in a recorded video played at the news conference that their other sister died without knowing what happened to Pauline, and he is grateful he will die knowing.

“You would fall in love with her because she was a people person. And of course, my family would always go to Pauline if they had an issue or they needed some advice, and she was always there for them,” he said. “She was just a sweet person. I loved her with all my heart.”

Mullins said he knew there was some trouble in Pauline’s marriage, but she wasn’t one to talk about her problems. For that reason, Mullins said, he was “not totally shocked” to learn of the investigators’ findings.

Asked about the murder weapon and whether it matched autopsy findings, Rausch recommended reading the case file for specifics.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation plans to make the entire file, which exceeds 1,000 pages, available to the public by handing it over to the University of Tennessee at Martin once it finishes with redactions. The school will create an online, searchable database for the case. Until then, members of the public can make appointments to review it in person or can purchase a copy, said university Chancellor Yancy Freeman Sr.

McAvoy writes for the Associated Press.

The federal public defender’s office in Los Angeles filed a motion Friday to disqualify acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, arguing that President Trump’s pick to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Southern California is unlawfully occupying his post.

Essayli, a former Riverside County assemblyman, was appointed by U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in April, and his term was set to expire in late July unless he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate or a panel of federal judges. But the White House never moved to nominate him to a permanent role, instead opting to use an unprecedented legal maneuver to shift his title to “acting,” extending his term another nine months without any confirmation process.

The federal public defender’s office filed a motion seeking to dismiss an indictment against their client and to disqualify Essayli and attorneys working under him “from participating in criminal prosecutions in this district,” according to a motion filed Friday morning.

The defendant, Jaime Ramirez, was indicted on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

In a 63-page motion filed in Ramirez’s case, James Anglin Flynn and Aya A. Sarsour , deputy federal public defenders, argued that the Trump administration circumvented limitations that Congress has imposed on temporary service in offices like that of the U.S. attorney.

Essayli’s term was supposed to expire on July 29. At that point the White House had not formally nominated him before the U.S. Senate, and local federal judges had taken no action to confirm Essayli, or anyone else, to the position. At the eleventh hour, the White House named Essayli as “acting” U.S. Attorney, allowing him to hold the post for 210 more days without confirmation hearings.

“Mr. Essayli “was not lawfully acting as the United States Attorney in any capacity” on August 8 when the government obtained the indictment,” against Ramirez the deputy federal public defenders wrote in their motion. “And he has no such lawful authority today.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In their motions, Flynn and Havens pointed out that the Trump administration has used similar strategies to keep political allies in power in U.S. Attorney’s offices in Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico and the Northern District of New York. But legal challenges are mounting. Last week, a federal judge ruled that Alina Habba has been illegally occupying her seat in New Jersey since early July, although that order was put on hold pending appeal.

Habba was nominated for the post earlier this year but did not receive Senate or judicial confirmation. Instead, local federal judges chose Desiree Leigh Grace, a veteran Republican prosecutor within the office, to replace Habba. Bondi responded by firing Grace and naming Habba acting U.S. Attorney, sparking confusion over who actually held the post and all but paralyzing the federal criminal court system in the Garden State.

On Tuesday, the federal public defender’s office in Nevada filed a motion to do one of two things: dismiss an indictment that acting U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah brought against one of its clients, or disqualify the U.S. attorney’s office entirely. The 59-page motion specifically challenged Chattah, stating that she is not lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney.

Echoing Judge Matthew W. Brann’s ruling on Habba, the Nevada public defenders argued that Chattah was not first assistant as federal law required when the U.S. attorney seat became vacant.

The motion also argues that Chattah was illegally kept in office past the 120 day limit and can’t exercise the powers of the office without Senate confirmation.

“The Court should dismiss the indictment; at a minimum, it should disqualify Ms. Chattah from this prosecution, as well as attorneys operating under her direction; and the judges of this district should exercise their authority to appoint a proper interim U.S. Attorney,” the Nevada motion read.

Last month, in the final days before Chattah’s interim appointment ended, more than 100 retired state and federal judges wrote Nevada’s chief federal district judge to urge him not to appoint her once her term expired. The group said Chattah’s history of “racially charged, violence-tinged, and inflammatory public statements” was disqualifying.

The letter called Chattah’s interim appointment “a troubling pattern by the Trump administration of bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in confirming U.S. Attorneys.”

According to the letter, as of July, Trump had submitted formal nominations for only nine of his administration’s 37 interim appointees.

“If this pattern persists, by late fall, more than one-third of the 93 U.S. Attorneys will have evaded Senate review this year alone,” the letter read. “Yet, the constitutional role of the Senate is vital regarding the appointment of U.S. Attorneys.”

Each of Trump’s controversial picks has demonstrated fealty to the president. Chattah has long upheld Trump’s lie that he actually won the 2020 election. Habba — who once served as Trump’s personal attorney and has no prosecutorial experience — promised to turn New Jersey “red,” breaking with longstanding norms of federal prosecutors eschewing partisan politics. She’s also filed criminal charges against two Democratic lawmakers in the state over scuffles with immigration officers at a Newark detention facility.

Since taking office, Essayli has doggedly pursued Trump’s agenda, championing hard line immigration enforcement in Southern California, often aping the president’s language verbatim at news conferences. His tenure has sparked discord in the office, with dozens of prosecutors quitting in the face of his belligerent, scream-first management style.

A Times investigation last month found that his aggressive pursuit of charges against people protesting immigration enforcement in Southern California has led to weak cases being rejected again and again by grand juries. A number of others have been dismissed.

Even if Trump had formally nominated him to serve a full term as U.S. attorney, it is unlikely he would have ever appeared on the Senate floor. California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff are both opposed to Essayli’s appointment and could have derailed any nomination by withholding what is known as their “blue slip,” or acknowledgment of support for a nominee.

The procedural blockades have drawn Trump’s ire, and the president has challenged Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley to do away with honoring the “blue slip” tradition. Grassley has held firm, but Trump has threatened litigation.

Legal experts called the White House’s move to keep Essayli in office unprecedented last month, and warned it could impact criminal cases.

“These laws have never been used, as far as I can see, to bypass the Senate confirmation process or the judicial one,” Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor in L.A. who now serves as a professor at the Loyola Law School of Los Angeles, told The Times last month. “The most serious consequences are if you’re going to end up with indictments that are not valid because they weren’t signed by a lawful U.S. attorney.”

A Hollywood producer bilked film and business partners out of $12 million, claiming he was using their money to work on movies or other legitimate enterprises, but instead using it to buy expensive cars, houses and even a surrogate, prosecutors alleged Wednesday.

David Brown worked for years as a producer of indie Hollywood productions, burnishing his credentials as a producer of the film festival darling “The Fallout,” starring Jenna Ortega, which won the narrative feature competition at South by Southwest, as well as of “The Apprentice,” the movie about the rise of Donald Trump.

But even as Brown seemed to be putting together a successful producing career, federal prosecutors said, he was also defrauding numerous victims by siphoning funds that belonged to production companies and transferring the money to himself or businesses he controlled.

In an email to The Times for a 2023 article that documented the trail of fraud allegations that dogged him, Brown said he had made mistakes in the past, but denied defrauding anyone.

“I had to work really hard to get where I am today,” he said. “I had to overcome a lot. I had to fight for my place. … I’m not some bad guy.”

Brown was indicted Wednesday on 21 counts of wire fraud, transactional money laundering and aggravated identity theft. He had his first court appearance in South Carolina.

Prosecutors alleged that Brown, who lived in Sherman Oaks, used a series of tactics to defraud his business partners out of their money.

He convinced one victim to put money into a company called Film Holdings Capital, which was supposed to finance film projects. But Brown instead took the person’s money and used it for “maintaining his lifestyle and repaying prior victims … in a Ponzi-like scheme,” prosecutors said.

In other instances, Brown used production company funds to pay Hollywood Covid Testing, a company he controlled, “for services never rendered or already paid for,” prosecutors said.

He also told one victim that they could pool money and make a business flipping houses. He contributed little to the business and used some of the victim’s money for other purposes, prosecutors said.

Brown made sure to conceal his checkered past from potential business partners. He tried not to let them know about the 2023 article in The Times, or about the extensive litigation filed against him, according to federal prosecutors.

The 2023 article — for which The Times interviewed more than 30 people — detailed a series of allegations against Brown from his film partners, including that he forged Kevin Spacey’s signature and told film investors that Spacey had agreed to act as a main character in a film for just $100,000. But Spacey had not signed on to the film and did not even know what it was, his former manager told The Times. Brown denied forging Spacey’s signature.

Brown used the money he stole from his victims to make extravagant purchases, prosecutors said.

He bought a 2025 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon and three Teslas, including a 2024 Cybertruck, prosecutors alleged. He used the funds to make mortgage payments on his home and to remodel the home and used about $100,000 to install a pool, prosecutors said.

He even bought a house for his mother using the ill-gotten cash, prosecutors alleged.

On top of that, Brown also allegedly used stolen money to pay $70,000 for surrogacy, private school tuition for his child and other services.

In all, he stole more than $12 million from his victims, prosecutors alleged.

Brown is in federal custody in South Carolina and will enter a plea to the charges at his arraignment in the coming weeks, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California.

WASHINGTON — A watchdog investigation into former special counsel Jack Smith over his prosecutions of President Trump is based on an “imaginary and unfounded” premise, Smith’s lawyers wrote in a letter obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The letter marks the first response by Smith and his legal team to news that the Office of Special Counsel, an independent watchdog office, had launched an investigation into whether Smith engaged in improper political activity through his criminal inquiries into Trump.

The attorneys told Jamieson Greer, the acting head of the office, that his investigation into Smith was “wholly without merit.”

“Mr. Smith’s actions as Special Counsel were consistent with the decisions of a prosecutor who has devoted his career to following the facts and the law, without fear or favor and without regard for the political consequences, not because of them,” wrote Smith’s lawyers, Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski.

The Office of Special Counsel, which is totally distinct from the Justice Department special counsel position that Smith held for more than two years starting in November 2022, confirmed the investigation following a request from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who asked it to examine Smith’s activities for potential violations of the Hatch Act, a federal law that bans certain public officials from engaging in political activity.

Cotton had alleged that Smith sought to interfere in the 2024 presidential election through his prosecutions and sought to effectively fast-track the cases toward resolution, including by asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on a key legal question before a lower court had a chance to review the issue.

But Smith’s lawyers say that argument is contradicted by the facts and note that no court ruling or other authority prohibits prosecutors from investigating allegations of criminal conducts against candidates for office. Politics, they say, played no part in the decision to bring the cases.

“A review of the record and procedural history demonstrates the opposite — Mr. Smith was fiercely committed to making prosecutorial decisions based solely on the evidence, he steadfastly followed applicable Department of Justice guidelines and the Principles of Federal Prosecution, and he did not let the pending election influence his investigative or prosecutorial decision-making,” Smith’s lawyers wrote.

“The predicate for this investigation,” they added, “is imaginary and unfounded.”

Smith, who was appointed special counsel under the Biden administration, brought two cases against Trump, one accusing him of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the other of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Both were brought in 2023, well over a year before the 2024 presidential election, and indictments in the two cases cited what Smith and his team described as clear violations of well-established federal law.

Both cases were abandoned by Smith after Trump’s November win, with the prosecutor citing longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the indictment of a sitting president.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the estate of Jeffrey Epstein on Monday as congressional lawmakers try to determine who was connected to the disgraced financier and whether prosecutors mishandled his case.

The committee’s subpoena is the latest effort by both Republicans and Democrats to respond to public clamor for more disclosure in the investigation into Epstein, who was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019. Lawmakers are trying to guide an investigation into who among Epstein’s high-powered social circle may have been aware of his sexual abuse of teenage girls, delving into a criminal case that has spurred conspiracy theories and roiled top officials in President Trump’s administration.

The subpoena, signed by Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the oversight committee, and dated Monday, demands that Epstein’s estate provide Congress with documents including a book that was compiled with notes from friends for his 50th birthday, his last will and testament, agreements he signed with prosecutors, his contact books, and his financial transactions and holdings.

Comer wrote to the executors of Epstein’s estate that the committee “is reviewing the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell, the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Mr. Epstein’s death, the operation of sex-trafficking rings and ways for the federal government to effectively combat them, and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials.”

The Justice Department, trying to distance Trump and Epstein, last week began handing over to lawmakers documentation of the federal investigation into Epstein. It has also released transcripts of interviews conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend. But Democrats on the committee have not been satisfied with those efforts, saying that the some 33,000 pages of documents they’ve received are mostly already public.

“DOJ’s limited disclosure raises more questions than answers and makes clear that the White House is not interested in justice for the victims or the truth,” Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

Pressure from lawmakers to release more information is likely to only grow when Congress returns to Washington next week.

A bipartisan group of House members is attempting to maneuver around Republican leadership to hold a vote to pass legislation meant to require the Justice Department to release a full accounting of the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — A federal judge ruled Thursday that President Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.

The court, saying the administration used “a novel series of legal and personnel moves,” held that Habba’s term as the interim U.S. attorney ended in July, and the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep her in the role without getting confirmation from the U.S. Senate didn’t follow procedures required by federal law.

“Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not,” Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote.

The opinion says that Habba’s actions since July “may be declared void.”

Brann, a President Obama appointee, said he’s putting his order on hold pending an appeal. It wasn’t immediately clear if that meant Habba would remain in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office.

A message seeking comment was sent to Habba’s office Thursday. The Justice Department said it intends to appeal the ruling.

Brann’s decision comes in response to a filing on behalf of New Jersey defendants challenging Habba’s tenure and the charges she was prosecuting against them. They sought to block the charges against them, arguing that Habba didn’t have the authority to prosecute the case after her 120-day term as interim U.S. attorney expired in July.

The defendants’ motion to block Habba, a onetime White House advisor to President Trump and his former personal defense attorney, is another high-profile chapter in her short tenure.

She made headlines when Trump named her U.S. attorney for New Jersey in March. She said the state could “turn red,” a rare, overt political expression from a prosecutor, and said she planned to investigate the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general.

She then brought a trespassing charge, which was eventually dropped, against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka stemming from his visit to a federal immigration detention center. Habba later charged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver with assault stemming from the same incident, a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress other than for corruption. She denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

Volatility over her tenure unfolded in late July when the four-month temporary appointment was coming to a close and it became clear that she would not get support from home state Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, effectively torpedoing her chances of Senate approval.

The president withdrew her nomination. Around the same time, federal judges in New Jersey exercised their power under the law to replace Habba with a career prosecutor when Habba’s temporary appointment lapsed, but Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi fired that prosecutor and renamed Habba as acting U.S. attorney.

In his opinion, Brann questioned the legal moves the administration conducted to keep Habba in place.

“Taken to the extreme, the President could use this method to staff the United States Attorney’s office with individuals of his personal choice for an entire term without seeking the Senate’s advice and consent,” he wrote.

The Justice Department has said in filings that the judges acted prematurely and that the executive has the authority to appoint his preferred candidate to enforce federal laws in the state.

Trump had formally nominated Habba as his pick for U.S. attorney on July 1, but Booker and Kim’s opposition meant that under long-standing Senate practice known as senatorial courtesy, the nomination would stall out.

A handful of other Trump picks for U.S. attorney are facing a similar circumstance.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota man accused of killing a top Democratic state lawmaker and wounding another while pretending to be a police officer is now facing new and upgraded state charges under a fresh indictment announced Thursday, just a week after he pleaded not guilty in federal court.

Vance Boelter now faces two charges of first-degree murder, four counts of attempted first-degree murder and charges of impersonating a police officer and animal cruelty for shooting one family’s dog. Hennepin County Atty. Mary Moriarty said the charges “reflect the weight of Mr. Boelter’s crimes.”

But the state case continues to take a backseat to the federal case against Boelter, where he faces potentially more serious consequences. He was indicted July 15 on six federal counts of murder, stalking and firearms violations. The murder charges could carry the federal death penalty, although prosecutors haven’t decided yet whether to pursue that option. The maximum penalty on the state charges is life in prison because Minnesota doesn’t have the death penalty.

Boelter pleaded not guilty in federal court Aug. 7.

Moriarty had requested the state prosecution proceed first, but federal prosecutors are using their authority to press their case, according to Daniel Borgertpoepping, Hennepin County attorney’s office’s public information officer.

“When Boelter returns to state custody, we will be prepared to prosecute him — to hold him accountable to our community,” Moriarty said. “We will do everything in our power to ensure that he is never able to hurt anyone again.”

Shocking case of political violence

The full extent of the political violence that officials said Boelter, 58, intended to inflict in the early hours of June 14 after months of planning alarmed the community. The Green Isle, Minn., resident was arrested a day later following a massive search involving local, state and federal authorities.

“The damage done to the victims — those with us, those who were taken from us and to our entire community — has opened wounds that will never heal,” Moriarty said in a statement.

The Hennepin County attorney’s office initially issued a warrant charging Boelter with two counts of second-degree murder for allegedly posing as a police officer and fatally shooting former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home.

Boelter, authorities said, wore a uniform and a mask and yelled that he was police and told these lawmakers that he was an officer.

Authorities originally charged Boelter with two counts of attempted second-degree murder, alleging he shot state Sen. John Hoffman, a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette. But officials said when the charges were filed to secure the warrant that they would likely be updated to first-degree murder charges. They also added two additional attempted murder charges Thursday.

Moriarty said the Hoffmans managed to push Boelter out of their home, shutting the door before the gunman fired nine times through the door, striking the senator nine times and his wife eight times. Both survived. Their adult daughter nearby was not hit.

Other lawmakers targeted

Federal prosecutors already revealed details of their investigation showing Boelter had driven to two other legislators’ homes in the roughly hour and a half timeline. Moriarty charged Boelter with trying to kill one of those lawmakers because he went to her door in the same way he approached the Hortmans’ and Hoffmans’ homes and tried to get inside. She said it doesn’t matter that Rep. Kristin Bahner wasn’t home. Moriarty said Boelter rang Bahner’s door for two full minutes while yelling it is the police and trying to open the door himself.

The state case against Boelter shows an application for public defender was filed June 16, but one has yet to be assigned. Public defenders are typically assigned in Minnesota at a defendant’s first appearance, which Boelter did not have before being taken into federal custody, Borgertpoepping said in a text message.

Controversial prosecutor

Moriarty announced last week that she would not seek reelection next year.

Moriarty, a former public defender, was elected in 2022 as the Minneapolis area and the country were still reeling from the murder of George Floyd, a Black man pinned under the knee of a white officer for 9 1/2 minutes. She promised to make police more accountable and change the culture of a prosecutors’ office that she believed had long overemphasized punishment without addressing the root causes of crime.

Moriarty faced controversy during her tenure because she said she wanted to move away from punishment as the purpose of prosecution and focus on issues that lead people to engage in violence. But her critics say she has downplayed the concerns of crime victims and damaged public trust in her office.

Vancleave and Funk write for the Associated Press. Funk reported from Omaha and AP writer Hannah Fingerhut contributed to this report from Des Moines.

NEW YORK — A Brooklyn construction magnate was sentenced Friday to a year of probation for working with a Turkish government official to funnel illegal campaign contributions to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, resolving one of two related federal cases after the mayor’s criminal charges were dropped.

Erden Arkan, 76, told Manhattan federal Judge Dale Ho that he regretted his “poor judgments” in engaging in the straw donor scheme, which helped Adams fraudulently obtain public money for his 2021 mayoral bid under the city’s matching funds program.

Ho cited Arkan’s age and otherwise clean record in imposing the sentence, telling the Turkish-born businessman that his immigrant success story “exemplifies the American dream.”

“I hope that you don’t let this one mistake define you,” Ho told Arkan.

Arkan faced up to six months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, but prosecutors and the federal probation officer agreed that no prison time was warranted. In addition to probation, he must also pay a $9,500 fine and $18,000 in restitution.

Arkan pleaded guilty in January to a conspiracy charge in Manhattan federal court. Weeks later, President Trump’s Justice Department pressured prosecutors to drop their underlying case against Adams, ultimately getting it dismissed.

In court Friday, Arkan’s lawyer Jonathan Rosen blasted the government for continuing to pursue his case after getting Adams’ charges dismissed.

“To put it mildly, this is a very unusual case. In fact, it is unprecedented,” Rosen argued.

In February, Justice Department leadership ordered Manhattan federal prosecutors to drop Adams’ case, arguing that it was hindering the Democratic mayor’s ability to assist the Republican administration’s immigration crackdown.

Ho, who also oversaw the mayor’s case, dismissed his charges in April. In a written opinion, he agreed it was the only practical outcome but also criticized what he said was the government’s “troubling” rationale for wanting the charges thrown out.

While Adams was spared, prosecutors continued to pursue related cases against Arkan and a former aide to the mayor, Mohamed Bahi.

Bahi, who served as City Hall’s chief liaison to the Muslim community, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to soliciting straw donations for Adams’ mayoral campaign from employees of a different Brooklyn construction company at a December 2020 fundraiser.

Arkan acknowledged in his January plea that he knowingly violated the law by reimbursing employees of his construction firm for their donations to Adams’ campaign.

In brief remarks Friday, he apologized to city taxpayers who bankroll the matching funds program, telling Ho: “I love this city. I dedicated my life to making it better. It pains me that I have harmed it.”

According to prosecutors, Adams personally solicited donations from Arkan and a Turkish consular official at an April 2021 dinner. The following month, Arkan held a fundraiser at the headquarters of his construction company, KSK, in which 10 employees donated between $1,200 and $1,500 to the campaign. They were later reimbursed by Arkan, making them illegal straw donations.

Adams then used those funds to fraudulently obtain public money under the city’s matching funds program, which provides a generous match for small-dollar donations, prosecutors allege.

A well-known member of New York’s Turkish community, Arkan’s ties to Adams first emerged in November 2023 after federal investigators searched the businessman’s home, along with the home of Adams’ chief fundraiser and his liaison to the Turkish community.

Adams pleaded not guilty to bribery and other charges after a 2024 indictment accused him of accepting illegal campaign contributions and travel discounts from a Turkish official and others — and returning the favors by, among other things, helping Turkey open a diplomatic building without passing fire inspections.

At a Feb. 19 hearing that precipitated the dismissal of his case, Adams told Ho: “I have not committed a crime.” The first-term mayor, a former police captain, skipped the June Democratic primary and is currently running for reelection as an independent.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.

L.A. County prosecutors tried to force City Councilman Curren Price’s wife to testify before a grand jury and served subpoenas on several members of his City Hall staff earlier this year, three sources told The Times.

The grand jury was convened in March, according to three sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because grand jury proceedings are secret under California law. Price’s attorney, Michael Schafler, also confirmed the existence of a grand jury proceeding in a new court filing on Thursday.

The convening of a grand jury, coupled with news that prosecutors filed additional charges against Price earlier this week, marks a significant uptick in the district attorney’s office’s focus on the veteran councilman. Price was first charged in 2023 after voting in favor of multiple measures that prosecutors allege would financially benefit his wife, real estate consultant Del Richardson.

Documents made public Thursday also show the district attorney’s office considered Richardson a “suspect” in the criminal investigation into her husband as recently as 2022.

The councilman has denied all wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.

Richardson ultimately did not testify before the grand jury, though it was not clear why, according to two of the sources. No criminal charges were filed against Richardson. The district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to questions about that decision Thursday.

“I would not expect Del Richardson to be charged because she has done nothing wrong,” said Richardson’s attorney, Adam Kamenstein. “She is also completely confident that her husband, Councilman Price, will soon be fully vindicated, and she looks forward to being able to put this matter behind them.”

Price now faces 12 criminal counts in total accusing him of grand theft by embezzlement, perjury and violating state conflict of interest laws. Prosecutors allege Price repeatedly voted in favor of measures to sell buildings or support grants for developers or agencies that had previously contracted with his wife’s consulting firm, Del Richardson & Associates.

Price has also been accused of bilking the city out of $33,000 in medical premiums by listing his wife as a beneficiary of his city-issued healthcare plan between 2013 and 2017, before they were legally married.

In documents made public Thursday morning, a summary of the district attorney’s office’s investigation written in 2022 described Richardson as a “suspect” in the case.

An investigator wrote that Richardson committed perjury and aided and abetted in Price’s alleged embezzlement by seeking to recoup healthcare costs from the city of Inglewood, where Price formerly served as a councilman, between 2015 and 2017, according to the summary document. Price and Richardson were not legally married at the time as Price did not divorce his first wife until 2018, prosecutors allege.

Prosecutors served subpoenas on several members of Price’s City Hall staff and several former employees of Del Richardson & Associates, which Richardson sold to the Greenwood Seneca Foundation several years ago, the sources said.

The purpose of the grand jury was also unclear, as two of the sources said questions asked by prosecutors were not focused on the charges already filed against Price.

In a motion seeking to dismiss all charges filed Thursday morning, Schafler questioned the legality of the grand jury proceedings.

Schafler said the grand jury hearings “appear to impermissibly have been for the primary purpose of discovery and preparing for the preliminary hearing and trial in this action, which had already been pending since June 2023.”

Grand juries are held in secret and transcripts of such proceedings only become public if an indictment is returned against the target of the hearing. Price has not been indicted.

The district attorney’s office said it could not comment on grand jury proceedings without court authorization.

“The Grand Jury process involves two types of Grand Juries: Investigative and Indicting. An Investigative Grand Jury investigates and does not seek an Indictment,” the office said in a statement.

It was not clear which type of grand jury was convened in Price’s case. It is rare for prosecutors to fail to convince a grand jury to return an indictment.

In a motion seeking to dismiss charges in 2023, Price’s attorney argued prosecutors could not prove that past payments to Richardson’s company had any influence on the councilman’s voting record. Many of the votes that prosecutors zeroed in on passed easily, with Price’s vote making no difference to their success or failure.

Under California law, criminal cases can proceed from the filing of charges to a trial by two pathways. More often than not, defendants face a preliminary hearing where a judge must decide if prosecutors have enough evidence to prove there is probable cause for a defendant to stand trial.

Prosecutors can also seek an indictment before a grand jury, a move that limits what counterarguments defense attorneys can put forth and protects witnesses from cross-examination. In recent years, L.A. County prosecutors have convened grand juries to indict disgraced porn star Ron Jeremy on a litany of rape allegations and to review manslaughter charges against Torrance police officers.

Price appeared in court on Thursday morning to answer the two new charges filed against him earlier this week. On Tuesday, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said that between 2019 and 2021, Price voted in support of grants and funding for L.A. Metro and the city’s housing authority after Richardson’s firm was paid more than $800,000 combined by both agencies.

Joined by about two dozen supporters who sat in the back rows of the courtroom, Price pleaded not guilty to the new charges. His attorney said he would file a motion to dismiss those charges later on Thursday.

Prosecutors said the councilman’s staff “flagged the conflict of interest prior to the votes” that prompted the new charges.

Price’s spokeswoman, Angelina Valencia, did not respond directly to that allegation. But she said the councilman’s office has always “carried out a multi-layered process to identify and address potential conflicts of interests, work that is highly complex and requires thorough review.”

“Each month, our legislative team reviews hundreds of Council and Committee votes, cross-checking for potential conflicts,” she said.

Schafler has repeatedly argued that Price did not knowingly violate conflict of interest laws.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A failed political candidate was sentenced to 80 years in federal prison Wednesday for his convictions in a series of drive-by shootings at the homes of state and local lawmakers in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

A jury convicted former Republican candidate Solomon Peña earlier this year of conspiracy, weapons and other charges in the shootings in December 2022 and January 2023 on the homes of four Democratic officials in Albuquerque, including the current state House speaker.

Prosecutors, who had sought a 90-year sentence, said Peña has shown no remorse and had hoped to cause political change by terrorizing people who held contrary views to him into being too afraid to take part in political life.

Peña’s lawyers had sought a 60-year sentence, saying their client maintains that he is innocent of the charges. They have said Peña was not involved in the shootings and that prosecutors were relying on the testimony of two men who bear responsibility and accepted plea agreements in exchange for leniency.

“Today was a necessary step toward Mr. Peña’s continued fight to prove his innocence,” said Nicholas Hart, one of Peña’s attorneys. “He looks forward to the opportunity to appeal, where serious issues about the propriety of this prosecution will be addressed.”

The attacks took place as threats and acts of intimidation against election workers and public officials surged across the country after President Donald Trump and his allies called into question the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Prosecutors said Peña resorted to violence in the belief that a “rigged” election had robbed him of victory in his bid to serve in the state Legislature.

The shootings targeted the homes of officials including two county commissioners after their certification of the 2022 election, in which Peña lost by nearly 50 percentage points. No one was injured, but in one case bullets passed through the bedroom of a state senator’s 10-year-old daughter.

Two other men who had acknowledged helping Peña with the attacks had previously pleaded guilty to federal charges and received yearslong prison sentences.

L.A. County prosecutors plan to file additional corruption charges this week against City Councilman Curren Price, who is already facing multiple counts of grand theft and perjury for allegedly voting in favor of projects his wife had a financial interest in, multiple sources told The Times.

The charges were expected to be made public Thursday during a pretrial hearing in downtown L.A., according to three people with knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about an ongoing criminal case.

In June 2023, Price was charged with 10 counts of grand theft by embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest. Prosecutors said Price’s wife — Del Richardson, founder of the consulting company Del Richardson & Associates — received “payments totaling more than $150,000 between 2019 and 2021 from developers before [Price] voted to approve projects.”

The perjury charges stem from a claim that Price didn’t list his wife’s income on disclosure forms. Prosecutors also accused Price of theft by embezzlement for bilking the city out of tens of thousands of dollars by placing Richardson on his city-issued healthcare plan between 2013 and 2017, before they were legally married.

Price’s attorney, Michael Schafler, called the new charges “nothing more than an attempt to pile on to a weak case.”

“They have gone back as much as 6 years, combing through thousands and thousands of votes, to find a couple more allegedly conflicted votes, hoping that the public will overlook the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that Councilmember Price was aware of the alleged conflicts when he voted for the agenda items,” Schafler said in a statement.

The original criminal complaint was filed roughly four years after a Times investigation found Price had repeatedly cast votes that affected housing developers and other firms listed as clients of his wife’s consulting company.

The new charges relate to similar conduct related to votes that Price cast, according to two of the sources. One of the sources said the votes related to contracts for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the city’s housing authority.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said a press release would be issued later on Tuesday.

In an October 2023 motion seeking to dismiss the charges, Price’s legal team argued prosecutors failed to show the payments to Richardson had any influence on the councilman’s votes. Many of the votes described in the criminal complaint were also approved by an overwhelming majority of the council, meaning Price did not swing any one decision that could financially benefit Richardson.

Schafler also argued the embezzlement charges are invalid because Price did not have control over the funds used to pay for Richardson’s healthcare, which is a required element of the crime under California law. Price’s conduct might meet the definition of grand theft, Schafler wrote in 2023, but the statute of limitations for that crime had long expired.

A judge rejected Schafler’s motion. Price is expected to face a preliminary hearing later this year.

Price, who was first elected in 2013, must leave office due to term limits at the end of 2026. Several candidates have already launched campaigns to replace him in a district that stretches from the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown to 95th Street in South L.A.

Times Staff Writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

James Arthur McDonald Jr., an investor and financial analyst who frequently appeared on CNBC, was sentenced to five years in prison for defrauding investors in a multimillion-dollar scheme, the United States Attorney’s Office said on Monday.

McDonald, 53, a former San Gabriel Valley resident, was the CEO and chief investment officer of two Los Angeles-based companies: Hercules Investments LLC and Index Strategy Advisors Inc.

In late 2020, McDonald adopted a “risky short position” betting against the U.S. economy following the presidential election, with the idea that the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the election would trigger a major sell-off in the stock market, according to the Justice Department. However, when the expected market drop did not happen, Hercules’ clients lost between $30 million and $40 million.

McDonald “solicited millions of dollars’ worth of funds from investors” for the purposes of raising capital for Hercules at the start of 2021 after clients complained to the firm’s employees about their losses. However, in doing so, McDonald “misrepresented how the funds would be used” and failed to disclose the firm’s massive losses.

According to the Justice Department, McDonald obtained $675,000 from “one victim group” and then misappropriated most of the money including spending $174,610 at a Porsche dealership and transferring an additional $109,512 to the landlord of a home he was renting in Arcadia.

McDonald also defrauded clients at Index Strategy Advisors, his other firm, said the Justice Department, using less than half of $3.6 million he raised for trading purposes on personal and other expenditures.

McDonald commingled clients’ funds with his personal bank account and used the money to buy luxury cars, pay his rent, make credit card payments, pay off Hercules operating expenses and “to make Ponzi-like payments” to Index Strategy clients — including paying some of those clients using funds from other clients.

Prosecutors claimed that McDonald caused his victims more than $3 million in losses.

“To his victims, [McDonald] seemed to embody the American Dream,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “But looks can be deceiving, and as [McDonald’s] victims learned, their trust had been betrayed.”

In November 2021, McDonald failed to appear before the Securities and Exchange Commission to testify about the allegations he had defrauded investors, and remained a fugitive until last June when he was found at a residence in Port Orchard, Wash.

At the time of his arrest, law enforcement found a fake Washington, D.C., driver’s license with his photograph and the name “Brian Thomas.”

In April 2024, a U.S. District judge found McDonald and Hercules liable for violating federal securities law and ordered them to pay millions in disgorgement and civil penalties.

McDonald pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud in February.

He will be ordered to pay restitution in this case before a United States district judge at a later date.

Aug. 3 (UPI) — The Senate has confirmed former Fox News TV host and Donald Trump supporter Jeanine Pirro as the top U.S. federal prosecutor.

Pirro, a former New York state district attorney and county judge, was confirmed along party lines 50-45 Saturday. She was among a host of staunch Trump backers who claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump due to fraudulent voting. There was no evidence to support that claim.

Pirro said in a statement that she was “blessed” to have been confirmed by lawmakers and said in a statement to “get ready for a real crime fighter.”

Pirro used her platform as a host of the Fox New “Justice with Jeanine” host to purvey a baseless conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from Trump, and later became co-host of the Fox show “The Five.”

In 2021, Pirro was among five defendants named in a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, accusing the network of knowingly promoting false claims about the company’s voting machines used to tabulate votes in the election.

Fox eventually settled the lawsuit with Dominion for $785 million and acknowledged that claims about a fraudulent election were false.

President Donald Trump nominated Pirro in May, calling her a “powerful crusader for victims of crime,” and, in a social media post, a person who “excelled in all ways.”

“Jeanine is incredibly well qualified for this position,” Trump wrote in the post.

At the end of Trump’s first term, he pardoned Pirro’s husband, Albert Pirro, Jr., who had been convicted in 2000 on charges of fraud and tax evasion.

Criticism of the nomination was swift and exacting. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., saying “blind obedience to Donald Trump is nearly unrivaled among his ardent supporters.”

“For an important prosecutorial position like this one, the country has a right to demand a serious and principled public servant,” Schiff added. “Jeanine Pirro is not it.”

The Senate adjourned for a monthlong recess Saturday having failed to advance dozens of other Trump nominees.

Trump reacted on social media, telling Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to “Go to Hell!”

Former Fox News host Pirro secures Senate confirmation with 50-45 vote, becoming US attorney general for the nation’s capital.

The United States Senate has confirmed former Fox News television personality Jeanine Pirro as the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, filling the post after President Donald Trump withdrew his controversial first pick, conservative activist Edward Martin Jr.

Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, was confirmed on Saturday, with a vote of 50-45. Before becoming the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia in May, she co-hosted the Fox News show The Five on weekday evenings, where she frequently interviewed Trump.

Trump yanked Martin’s nomination after a key Republican senator said he could not support him due to Martin’s outspoken support for rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Martin now serves as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney.

Other hires from cable news include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who co-hosted Fox & Friends Weekend, and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, a former reality TV show competitor and Fox Business co-host.

Pirro briefly entered politics in ill-fated attempts to run for the US Senate and for the New York attorney general, losing the latter race to Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

She began earning wider public exposure by hosting a weekday television show, Judge Jeanine Pirro, from 2008 to 2011. In 2011, she joined Fox News Channel to host Justice with Judge Jeanine, which ran for 11 years, and today, she is a co-host of the network’s show, The Five.

Pirro has also authored several books, including Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy, which was published in 2018. The Washington Post described the book as “sycophantic” in its support for Trump.

After promoting unfounded conspiracy theories alleging election fraud in 2020, Pirro was named a defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which said that Fox had broadcast false statements about the company.

Fox News settled the case for nearly $800m.

Last month, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to send Pirro’s nomination to the Senate floor after Democrats walked out to protest Emil Bove’s nomination to become a federal appeals court judge.

Pirro, a 1975 graduate of Albany Law School, has significantly more courtroom experience than Martin, who had never served as a prosecutor or tried a case before taking office in January. She was elected as a judge in New York’s Westchester County Court in 1990, before serving three terms as the county’s elected district attorney.

In the final minutes of his first term as president, Trump issued a pardon to Pirro’s ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who was convicted in 2000 on conspiracy and tax evasion charges.

WASHINGTON — The Senate has confirmed former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital, filling the post after President Trump withdrew his first pick, conservative activist Ed Martin Jr., who has defended the Jan. 6 rioters.

Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, was confirmed 50 to 45. Before becoming the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in May, she co-hosted the Fox News show “The Five” on weekday evenings, where she frequently interviewed Trump.

Trump yanked Martin’s nomination after a key Republican senator said he could not support him due to Martin’s outspoken support for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, many of them maiming police officers while trying to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat. Martin now serves as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney. Trump pardoned all of those convicted of crimes related to Jan. 6.

In 2021, voting technology company Smartmatic USA sued Fox News, Pirro and others for spreading false claims that the company helped “steal” the 2020 presidential election from Trump. The company’s libel suit, filed in a New York state court, sought $2.7 billion from the defendants. A similar lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems resulted in the cable network agreeing to a $787-million settlement.

Last month, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to send Pirro’s nomination to the Senate floor after Democrats walked out to protest Emil Bove’s nomination to become a federal appeals court judge.

Pirro, a 1975 graduate of Albany Law School, has significantly more courtroom experience than Martin, who had never served as a prosecutor or tried a case before taking office in January. She was elected as a judge in New York’s Westchester County Court in 1990 before serving three terms as the county’s elected district attorney.

In the final minutes of his first term as president, Trump issued a pardon to Pirro’s ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who was convicted in 2000 of conspiracy and tax evasion crimes.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.