The Site Where Van Gogh Made His Final Painting Will Remain Private Property, a Court Rules
A lengthy legal dispute over a patch of land in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, that is believed to be the place where Vincent van Gogh made one of his final paintings, has come to an end, with a court ruling in favor of the French couple that owns the land.
Auvers-sur-Oise's mayor, Isabelle Mézières, has for five years argued that the embankment was public property, but earlier this month, an appeals court in Versailles sided with Jean-François and Hélène Serlinger, the owners of a residence that includes where van Gogh made Tree Roots (1890).
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The judge affirmed that the site does belong to a part of the public road, as the mayor has argued, and ordered the municipality to cover €2,000 in legal expenses.
The Serlingers purchased the property at 48 Rue Daubigny in 2013. At the time of the purchase, the couple was unaware of the site's significance within van Gogh's oeuvre.
In 2020, Van Gogh Institute director Wouter van der Veen learned of the plot of land after comparing an early 20th-century image that matched the roots in Van Gogh's painting to the work itself, which was created in the the days before his suicide in a nearby wheat field. The unfinished painting is now housed in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Mézières has criticized the ruling, insisting that the site is culturally significant to the French town. In a statement published to Facebook, she said the roots are part of the town's history and pledged to appeal the decision. 'These roots are not a commodity—they belong to the people of Auvers,' she wrote.
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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, newly returned to US, appears in court on charges of trafficking migrants
Mistakenly deported Salvadoran native Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared in a Tennessee courtroom Friday, hours after he was brought back to the United States to face criminal charges for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S. More than two months after the Trump administration admitted it mistakenly deported Abrego Garcia from Maryland to his native El Salvador, a federal grand jury has indicted him for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the United States. A two-count indictment, which was filed under seal in federal court in Tennessee last month and unsealed Friday, alleges Abrego Garcia, 29, participated in a yearslong conspiracy to haul undocumented migrants from Texas to the interior of the country. The return of Abrego Garcia from his native El Salvador follows a series of court battles in which the Trump administration repeatedly said it was unable to bring him back, drawing the country toward the brink of a constitutional crisis when the administration failed to heed the Supreme Court's order to facilitate his return. He made his initial court appearance Friday evening in the Middle District of Tennessee, answering "Yes, I understand" in Spanish when U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes asked him if he understood the charges against him. Judge Homes set a hearing for June 13, where Abrego Garcia will be arraigned on charges and the judge will take up the government's motion to hold him in pre-trial detention on the grounds that he "poses a danger to the community and a serious risk of flight" He will remain in federal custody in Tennessee pending next week's hearing. "If convicted at trial, the defendant faces a maximum punishment of 10 years' imprisonment for 'each alien' he transported," said the government's motion for detention, which also contained an allegation -- not included in the indictment -- that one of Abrego Garcia's co-conspirators told authorities that Abrego Garcia participated in the murder of a rival gang member's mother in El Salvador. Abrego Garcia's attorney, in an online press briefing, called the charges against his client "an abuse of power." "They'll stop at nothing at all -- even some of the most preposterous charges imaginable -- just to avoid admitting that they made a mistake, which is what everyone knows happened in this case," said attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg. "Mr. Garcia is going to be vigorously defending the charges against him," the attorney said. The decision to pursue the indictment against Abrego Garcia led to the abrupt departure of Ben Schrader, a high-ranking federal prosecutor in Tennessee, sources briefed on Schrader's decision told ABC News. Schrader's resignation was prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons, the sources said. Schrader, who spent 15 years in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nashville and was most recently the chief of the criminal division, declined to comment when contacted by ABC News. The alleged conspiracy spanned nearly a decade and involved the domestic transport of thousands of noncitizens from Mexico and Central America, including some children, in exchange for thousands of dollars, according to the indictment. Abrego Garcia is alleged to have participated in more than 100 such trips, according to the indictment. Among those allegedly transported were members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, sources familiar with the investigation said. Abrego Garcia is the only member of the alleged conspiracy charged in the indictment. Attorney General Pam Bondi, at a Friday afternoon press conference, thanked Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for "agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the United States." "Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant and they agreed to return him to our country," Bondi said. Bondi said that if Abrego Garcia is convicted of the charges, upon the completion of his sentence he will be deported back to his home country of El Salvador. "The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring," Bondi said. "They found this was his full time job, not a contractor. He was a smuggler of humans and children and women. He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found, smuggling people throughout our country." In a statement to ABC News, Abrego Garcia's attorney said that he's going to keep fighting to ensure Abrego Garcia receives a fair trial. "From the beginning, this case has made one thing painfully clear: The government had the power to bring him back at any time. Instead, they chose to play games with the court and with a man's life," Sandoval-Moshenberg said. "We're not just fighting for Kilmar -- we're fighting to ensure due process rights are protected for everyone. Because tomorrow, this could be any one of us -- if we let power go unchecked, if we ignore our Constitution." Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who had been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison -- despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution -- after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13. His wife and attorneys deny that he is an MS-13 member. The Trump administration has acknowledged in court filings that Abrego Garcia's removal to El Salvador in March was in error, because it violated a U.S. immigration court order in 2019 that shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to his native country, according to immigration court records. An immigration judge had determined that Abrego Garcia would likely face persecution there by local gangs that had allegedly terrorized him and his family. The administration argued, however, that Abrego Garcia should not be returned to the U.S. because he is a member of the transnational Salvadoran gang MS-13, a claim his family and attorneys have denied. In recent weeks, Trump administration officials have been publicizing Abrego Garcia's interactions with police over the years, despite a lack of corresponding criminal charges. After Abrego Garcia's family filed a lawsuit over his deportation, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that ruling on April 10. Abrego Garcia was initially sent to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison but was believed to have later been transferred to a different facility in the country. The criminal investigation that led to the charges was launched in April as federal authorities began scrutinizing the circumstances of a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, according to the sources. Abrego Garcia was pulled over for speeding in a vehicle with eight passengers and told police they had been working construction in Missouri. According to body camera footage of the 2022 traffic stop, the Tennessee troopers -- after questioning Abrego Garcia -- discussed among themselves their suspicions that Abrego Garcia might be transporting people for money because nine people were traveling without luggage, but Abrego Garcia was not ticketed or charged. The officers ultimately allowed Abrego Garcia to drive on with just a warning about an expired driver's license, according to a report about the stop released last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Asked what circumstances have changed since Abrego Garcia was not taken in custody during that traffic stop in Tennessee, Bondi replied, "What has changed is Donald Trump is now president of the United States, and our borders are again secure, and thanks to the bright light that has been shined on Abrego Garcia -- this investigation continued with actually amazing police work, and we were able to track this case and stop this international smuggling ring from continuing." Asked by ABC News' Pierre Thomas asked whether this should be seen as resolving the separate civil case in Maryland in which a federal judge ordered the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said, "There's a big difference between what the state of play was before the indictment and after the indictment. And so the reason why he is back and was returned was because an arrest warrant which was presented to the government and in El Salvador. So there's, there's a big difference there as far as whether it makes the ongoing litigation in Maryland moot. I would think so, but we don't know about this. He just landed today." As ABC News first reported last month, the Justice Department had been quietly investigating the Tenessee traffic stop. As part of the probe, federal agents in late April visited a federal prison in Talladega, Alabama to question Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, a convicted felon who was the registered owner of the vehicle Abrego Garcia was driving when stopped on Interstate 40 east of Nashville, sources previously told ABC News. Hernandez-Reyes was not present at the traffic stop. Hernandez-Reyes, 38, is currently serving a 30-month sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a prior felony conviction for illegal transportation of aliens. After being granted limited immunity, Hernandez-Reyes allegedly told investigators that he previously operated a "taxi service" based in Baltimore. He claimed to have met Abrego Garcia around 2015 and claimed to have hired him on multiple occasions to transport undocumented migrants from Texas to various locations in the United States, sources told ABC News. When details of the Tennessee traffic stop were first publicized, Abrego Garcia's wife said her husband sometimes transported groups of fellow construction workers between job sites. "Unfortunately, Kilmar is currently imprisoned without contact with the outside world, which means he cannot respond to the claims," Jennifer Vasquez Sura said in mid-April. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who flew to El Salvador and met with Abrego Garcia shortly after his deportation, said Friday that the Trump administration had "relented" regarding his return. "After months of ignoring our Constitution, it seems the Trump Admin has relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and due process for Kilmar Abrego Garcia," Van Hollen posted on X. "This has never been about the man -- it's about his constitutional rights & the rights of all." Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally as a teenager in 2012, according to court records. He had been living in Maryland for the past 13 years, and married Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, in 2019. The couple has one child together.
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Getting away with murder: These fugitives fled prisons – and were never caught
The New Orleans jail breakout and the time it has taken to capture all 10 conjures images of previous newsworthy escapes involving the likes of gangster John Dillinger, serial killer Ted Bundy and Mexican cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. While those notorious criminals were eventually apprehended or killed by law enforcement, which typically nabs more than 90% of escapees, a relative few eluded searches and remained at large, presumably until their dying days. Here's a look at some of those instances: The ingenious plot by Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin in 1962 probably stands as the nation's most famous prison break, memorialized in the 1979 film "Escape from Alcatraz" and countless tourist visits to the former maximum-security penitentiary in a San Francisco Bay island. President Donald Trump even wants to restore it. Morris, a convicted bank robber who had attempted to flee from other prisons, was regarded as the mastermind of a plan that featured dummy heads with real hair left on the cell beds to fool guards and a raft made out of raincoats to carry the escapees to freedom. Nobody knows whether they made it alive or perished in the cold, treacherous bay waters. Their bodies were never found, so their legend lives on. Like true crime? Check out Witness: A library of true crime stories Glen Stewart Godwin was serving a sentence of more than 25 years for a stabbing murder when he escaped in June 1987 from the Folsom State Prison outside Sacramento, California, a maximum-security facility that had yielded only two previous breakouts in a quarter century. Godwin found his way to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where later that year he was arrested for drug dealing. The FBI says he was convicted and sent to a prison in Guadalajara, where in 1991 he was accused of killing another inmate. Later that year he escaped and hasn't been tracked down. "Godwin is fluent in Spanish and may be traveling throughout Central and South America, and Mexico," says the FBI, adding that Godwin goes by several aliases. "He is thought to use illegal drugs and be involved in narcotics distribution." If alive, Godwin would be 66 now. The FBI is still offering $20,000 for information leading to his arrest. William Leslie (Les) Arnold was just 16 in 1958 when he killed his parents for not letting him use their car and buried them in the backyard of the family's home in Omaha, Nebraska. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison, arousing few suspicions of an attempt to escape until he and a fellow inmate – James Edward Harding – made their getaway in 1967 with the help of a former convict on the outside who provided them supplies. After cutting through window bars, they scaled a 12-foot fence topped by barbed wire. The fugitives reached Chicago and split up there, but while Harding was caught the next year in Los Angeles, Arnold was not to be found alive. The U.S. Marshals Service, which solved the cold case in 2023 with DNA evidence, said Arnold worked in Chicago for a while before moving to California and later to Australia. "Arnold obtained an alias and was married within three months of escaping," the service said. "But investigators learned he eventually made his way to Australia, with his second wife, had a family and worked as a businessman until his death in 2010. At that time he had been living under the name John Vincent Damon." Joanne Chesimard, who changed her name to Assata Shakur, is a New Yorker who in 2013 became the first woman to be added to the FBI's list of Most Wanted Terrorists. The bureau's reward for information leading to her arrest sits at $1 million. Chesimard was a member of the militant Black Liberation Army when a group she was traveling with was stopped for a vehicle violation by two New Jersey Police troopers in May 1973, at a time when she was the subject of arrest warrants for felonies that included bank robbery. A shootout ensued, killing a police officer and injuring the second trooper. Chesimard was convicted of first-degree murder and several other charges in 1977, and sentenced to life in prison. Two years later, three men who visited Chesimard at a New Jersey prison pulled out guns, took two guards as hostages and commandeered a prison van to flee with her. The FBI says Chesimard lived underground for years before a 1984 move to Cuba, where she is believed to still reside. Glen Stark Chambers was facing execution for the 1975 fatal beating of his girlfriend in Sarasota, Florida, when later that year he and two other inmates escaped by rappelling down from the third floor of a county jail building after stringing together bed sheets. Chambers was caught after three days. He later had his sentence reduced to life in prison, but that didn't keep him from conceiving ways to flee. In 1990, when he was helping build furniture at the shop of a state prison in Polk City, Florida, Chambers convinced fellow inmates to put him in a box that was loaded onto a truck headed to Daytona. He escaped enroute without the driver noticing. Authorities said he was later seen in Florida and Alabama, but never captured. If alive, he would be 73 now. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Getting away with murder: These prison escapees were never caught
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Queens dogs stolen after bizarre botched robbery
What started as a robbery caper in Queens quickly turned into a dognapping disaster, cops said. A desperate dog lover is trying to track down his precious purloined pooches days after an armed thieves tried to rob him and his friend on a Queens street, but ended up swiping the man's pets. The 31-year-old victim managed to get away from the would-be captors, but the suspects got hold of the victim's phone — and the keys to his apartment. Hours later, the crooks let themselves into the victim's home, and walked off with about $6,000 worth of clothes — and two French bulldogs, cops said. 'I was thinking I was going to die,' the dog owner, who wished not to be named, told the Daily News. Police have released surveillance images of the two crooks in the hopes that someone recognizes them. The thieves did not know either the dog owner or his friend, but were trying to maximize their score by forcing one victim to reach out to the other, a police source with knowledge of the case said. The ordeal began Saturday along Crane St., a small, one-block-long stretch in Long Island City, when the two suspects approached the dog owner's 27-year-old friend, who was on a bike, and forced him into a car at gunpoint, cops said. After punching him several times, the crooks took his iPhone and about $800, then used the phone to text the dog owner, who the bike rider was heading over to meet. A short time later, the unsuspecting dog owner appeared. He was also forced into the car, where he was beaten and robbed. But he managed to escape, just as one of the robbers was trying to bind him with zip ties, he recalled. 'I grabbed the gun and started punching and fighting one of them,' he said about his ordeal. 'The other guy jumped into the car and we were all fighting for the gun. They were screaming, 'Shoot him! Shoot him!'' The dog owner managed to get out of the car and run across the street. 'They panicked and sped off,' he said. 'I dropped my phone and my keys.' As for his friend, he said the robbers later pushed him out of the car in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The dog owner went to his sister's house to decompress after the robbery. But by the time he got home, he realized he had been robbed again, he said. The thieves managed to figure out that the dog owner lived on the block where the robbery occurred and took something far more valuable to him than his phone. They took his two best friends. The thieves pretended to be delivering food in the building to get past the doorman as they made their way up to his apartment. They left with the dogs shortly before their victim returned home, the victim said. 'We just missed each other by minutes. They were caught on video,' the dog owner said. No arrests have been made. 'I find it difficult to talk about them because it makes me want to cry,' he added. 'I feel like I failed my dogs, I haven't been able to eat because I think of my dogs not being fed.' Gone are Cookie Monster, a 4-year-old male bulldog, and Pinky, a 3-year-old female. Their owner has been posting pictures on local streets and all across social media. 'I've been doing as much as I can,' he said. 'I just want my kids back.' Cops recovered surveillance images of the two suspects. One is described as between 20 and 25, around 5-foot-8 and about 180 pounds. He was last seen wearing a Chicago Bulls cap, a black surgical mask and a black sweater. His partner is in his late 20s, around 6 feet tall and about 220 pounds. He was last seen wearing a gray baseball cap and a gray sweater. Anyone with information regarding their whereabouts is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
