
Harvey Weinstein doesn't plan to testify at sex crimes retrial
NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein doesn't plan to testify at his New York sex crimes retrial, his lawyer said Sunday. That means jurors soon will get the case against the former movie studio boss who propelled the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct.
The trial will move on to closing arguments Tuesday without testimony from Weinstein, Aidala said Sunday night. The court handles other cases on Mondays.

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Toronto Star
an hour ago
- Toronto Star
Judge says migrants sent to El Salvador prison must get a chance to challenge their removals
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration must give more than 100 migrants sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador prison a chance to challenge their deportations. U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven't been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges.


Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Judge says migrants sent to El Salvador prison must get a chance to challenge their removals
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration must give more than 100 migrants sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador prison a chance to challenge their deportations. U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven't been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges. The judge wrote that 'significant evidence' has surfaced indicating that many of the migrants imprisoned in El Salvador are not connected to the gang 'and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.' Boasberg gave the administration one week to come up with a manner in which the 'at least 137' people can make those claims, even while they're formally in the custody of El Salvador. It's the latest milestone in the monthslong legal saga over the fate of deportees imprisoned at El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center. After Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in March and prepared to fly planeloads of accused gang members to El Salvador and out of the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, Boasberg ordered them to turn the planes around. This demand was ignored. Boasberg has found probably cause that the administration committed contempt of court after the flight landed. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a taunting message on social media — reposted by some of Trump's top aides — that read 'Oopsie, too late.' The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that anyone targeted under the AEA has the right to appeal to a judge to contest their designation as an enemy of the state. Boasberg said he was simply applying that principle to those who'd been removed. Boasberg said the administration 'plainly deprived' the immigrants of a chance to challenge their removals before they were put on flights. Therefore, he says the government must handle the migrants cases now as if they 'would have been if the Government had not provided constitutionally inadequate process.' In a remarkable passage, Boasberg wrote that he accepted the administration's declaration, filed under seal, providing details of the government's deal with El Salvador to house deportees and how that means the Venezuelans are technically under the legal control of El Salvador and not the United States. But, he said, believing those representations was 'rendered more difficult given the Government's troubling conduct throughout this case.' He noted the Supreme Court had to act again in the saga, to halt an apparent effort to get around that requirement with a late-night flight from Texas in April. He also noted parallels with another case where the Trump administration admitted it mistakenly deported a Maryland man to El Salvador and has been ordered by a judge, appellate judges and the U.S. Supreme Court to 'facilitate' his return.


Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Judge blocks private prison operator from housing ICE detainees at shuttered Kansas center
LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A judge on Wednesday barred a major U.S. private prison operator from housing immigrants facing possible deportation in a shuttered Kansas City area detention center unless it can get a permit from frustrated city officials. Leavenworth County Judge John Bryant agreed after a packed hearing to grant the city of Leavenworth's request for a temporary restraining order against CoreCivic, one of the nation's largest private prison operators. CoreCivic had claimed in legal filings that halting the opening of the 1,033-bed facility on the northwest outskirts of the Kansas City area would cost it $4.2 million in revenue each month. City officials said they anticipated the arrival of detainees apprehended by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was imminent under a Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigration. Leavenworth isn't the first city where controversy has surrounded the reopening of a private prison as an ICE detention facility. In Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka sued the state's top federal prosecutor on Tuesday over his recent arrest on a trespassing charge at a federal immigration detention facility in that state, saying the Trump-appointed attorney had pursued the case out of political spite. Scott Peterson, the city manager for Leavenworth, said he didn't know if the case in Kansas marked the first time a municipality had prevailed in court. 'I would point out that maybe the reason we have seen some success here today is this is not about immigration,' Peterson said. 'This is not about private prisons. This is about land use.' In late 2021, CoreCivic stopped housing pretrial detainees for the U.S. Marshals Service in the Leavenworth facility after then-President Joe Biden called on the Justice Department to curb the use of private prisons. In the months leading up to the closure, the American Civil Liberties Union and federal public defenders urged the White House to speed up the closure, citing inmate rights violations there along with stabbings, suicides and even one homicide. But with President Donald Trump pushing for mass deportations under a wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration, the facility that CoreCivic now calls the Midwest Regional Reception Center is in demand again. It is located just 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of the Kansas City International Airport. As part of his crackdown, Trump has vowed to sharply increase detention beds nationwide from the budgeted 41,000 beds this year. Tennessee-based CoreCivic initially applied for a special use permit from the city in February but then withdrew that application the next month, arguing in court filings that it didn't need the permit and that the process would take too long. 'It became clear to CoreCivic that there was not a cooperative relationship,' said Taylor Concannon Hausmann, an attorney for the private prison operator, speaking in court. The city sued CoreCivic, the lawsuit claiming that CoreCivic impeded the city police force's ability to investigate sexual assaults and other violent crimes. The lawsuit contended that the permitting process was needed to safeguard itself from future problems. 'Just follow our rules,' an attorney for the city, Joe Hatley, said in court. 'Go get a permit.' The first version of the lawsuit, filed in March in federal court, was tossed out in May on technical grounds. But Bryant sided with Hatley in the case refiled the same month in state court, finding that the proper procedures weren't followed. Concannon Hausmann, CoreCivic's attorney, declined to comment as the crowd filtered out of the courtroom Wednesday. Norman Mallicoat held a sign reading, 'CoreCivic Doesn't Run Leavenworth' as he left. 'I see this as basically a large company trying to bully a small city into getting what it wants and not having to follow the rules and ordinances of the city,' Mallicoat said.