Korean Purdue student and daughter of priest released by ICE after 48 hours
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Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Epstein victims accuse Trump administration of trying to protect wealthy, powerful enablers
NEW YORK — Women who allege Jeffrey Epstein abused them have accused the Trump administration, in new court filings, of trying to protect enablers of the well-connected wealth manager and criticized the government for treating victims as pawns 'in political warfare.' In letters filed late Monday with Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Berman — one of the judges who are mulling requests by the government to unseal transcripts from the grand jury proceedings against Epstein and his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell — two women took aim at the Trump administration for its handling of the snowballing scandal. They referenced the memo released last month by the Justice Department and the FBI, in which the government declined to shed light on a trove of records gathered in Epstein investigations and concluded a major review found there was no 'client list' and that Epstein killed himself, contrary to conspiracy theories previously peddled by Trump's appointees. 'I feel like the DOJ's and FBI's priority is protecting the 'third-party,' the wealthy men, by focusing on scrubbing their names off the files of which the victims, 'know who they are'. To learn that our own president has utilized thousands of agents to protect his identity and these high-profile individuals is monumentally mind-blowing,' an anonymous victim wrote in one of the letters. The letter to Berman later added, 'I think what I would request from you, Your Honor, is to consider having an approved third party review these documents to ensure that NO victims' names or likenesses are revealed through this release. It is imperative with the scrutiny over this media frenzy that the victims are completely and entirely protected.' In another letter, a second victim addressed the government: 'What you have done and continue to do is eating at me day after day as you help to perpetuate this story indefinitely. Why not be completely transparent? Show us all the files with only the necessary redactions! Be done with it and allow me/us to heal. You protect yourself and your powerful and wealthy 'friends' (not enemies) over the victims, why? The victims know the truth, we know who are in the files and now so do you.' The second letter urged Berman to let victims' attorneys review what the Justice Department wants to redact from the grand jury transcripts the DOJ is trying to unseal and slammed the government for recently meeting with Maxwell behind bars to get more information. 'I regrettably feel the need to come forward and shed some light on the government's motion to unseal transcripts, documents and exhibits from the 'case' that was never tried. Sad to say, for the victims we never got our day in court. Apparently, Epstein killed himself under whose watch? Oh, was it Trump's DOJ? Hmmm, interesting,' the second letter read. 'I ask you to have our attorneys review the 'suggested' redactions as they are the ones who also know the victims, their names, their truths and their stories unlike the Unites States Government who did not and does not even care to know our truth. They would rather ask a convicted imprisoned sex trafficker/abuser for information.' The Epstein files scandal has only continued to grow as the Trump administration has sought to contain it. Following the memo by the Justice Department and FBI, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's name was included in the government's nonpublic Epstein files and that he'd been informed of such, and that Trump wrote a cryptic message to Epstein on the financier's 50th birthday. Trump has denied writing the birthday missive and is suing The Wall Street Journal. The transcripts from the grand jury proceedings against Maxwell that Trump's appointees are trying to get unsealed contain little information that is not publicly known, the government said in court filings Tuesday. The public record does not include substantive exhibits shown to the grand jurors who indicted Maxwell. Still, the Justice Department is not, for now, trying to make them public, according to the new Manhattan Federal Court filings. Trump's appointees discussed the materials in response to requests for more information from Berman and Judge Paul Engelmayer, who will rule on the motions to unseal grand jury transcripts. They included sealed annotated transcripts from Maxwell's grand jury proceedings, specifically outlining what's not publicly available. In an accompanying letter, the Justice Department conceded 'much of the information' within was revealed at the British former socialite's trial in late 2021 or had otherwise been reported in accounts shared by victims and witnesses publicly. The government filing asked the judges to give the Justice Department until Friday to take a position on whether grand jury exhibits should be unsealed. In an order later Tuesday, Engelmayer granted the request. Engelmayer on Tuesday also ordered the Justice Department to respond to letters submitted from the victims about the disclosure requests. The Epstein grand jury met on June 18, 2019, and July 2, 2019, according to Tuesday's filings. The disgraced financier was arrested on July 6 that year on sweeping sex trafficking charges alleging he had for years abused dozens of teen girls and young women, more than a decade after he evaded justice in a maligned sweetheart deal with federal prosecutors in Florida. He was found dead a month after his arrest on Aug. 10, 2019, in his jail cell at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, with his death ultimately ruled as a suicide. The Maxwell grand jury met on June 29, 2020, July 8, 2020, and March 29, 2021, the Justice Department said in the new filings. She was indicted on July 2, 2020, and found guilty of sex trafficking counts, including one involving a minor, in December 2021. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison following her conviction, a term she had been serving at FCI Tallahassee, Fla., until her surprise transfer last week to a much cushier setup in a dormitory-style prison for women in Bryan, Texas, after meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, who framed the meetup as a truth-seeking mission. Tuesday's filings by the Justice Department said the government had failed to make contact with one victim of Epstein whose name featured in grand jury proceedings about the disclosure requests and would try to contact other victims who weren't identified in transcripts in the coming days. _____
Wall Street Journal
25 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Madoff Feeder Fund's $6 Billion Clawback Attempt Shut Down in Appeals Court
An appeals court has blocked liquidators' yearslong effort to recover about $6 billion from investors who cashed out of a Bernie Madoff feeder fund before the Ponzi scheme collapsed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday that the liquidators of Fairfield Sentry, a British Virgin Islands-based investment vehicle that funneled client money to Madoff Investment Securities, can't claw back redemption payments.
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
ICE agents flee arson attack in Washington state
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have escaped an arson attack at a federal office in Yakima, Washington, according to the Department of Homeland Security. A 'cowardly rioter' on Saturday threw a rock through a window of the ICE field office and then started a 'small fire' at the back of the building, DHS said in a statement Tuesday. No one was injured in the attack and law enforcement is investigating the incident as an act of arson. 'It is unclear if our brave ICE law enforcement were the targets of these violent acts. From comparisons to the modern-day Nazi gestapo to glorifying rioters, the violent rhetoric of sanctuary politicians is beyond the pale,' the DHS statement read. 'Secretary Noem has been clear: Anyone who seeks to harm law enforcement officers will be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.' The Independent has contacted DHS for more information on the incident. A photo, shared by DHS, shows smoke billowing over a fence and flames on the ground. Another image shows broken glass and a dented wall, with a rock lying on the ground. As detentions and deportations have become a fixture of Trump's second term, attacks against immigration authorities have been on the rise. ICE officials have faced a 830 percent increase in assaults from January 21 to July 14 compared with the same period in 2024, DHS announced last month. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin blamed Democrats, naming several high-profile lawmakers, for 'contributing to the surge in assaults of our ICE officers through their repeated vilification and demonization of ICE,' in a statement to The Independent . The New York Post first reported the incident. Last month, 11 people dressed in tactical gear executed what prosecutors called an 'organized attack' outside of an ICE detention center near Fort Worth, Texas. One of the alleged defendants fired 20 to 30 rounds at unarmed correctional officers who had stepped outside the facility, prosecutors say. Another allegedly shot an Alvarado police officer in the neck; he has since been discharged from the hospital. Ten of the 11 now face charges of attempted murder. On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to deliver the 'largest deportation operation in American history.' As the Trump administration set a lofty target of 3,000 arrests per day, ICE's tactics — like plainclothes and masked agents arresting international students on the street — have drawn criticism and rattled communities across the country. Those tactics appear to change based on the state. In red states, about 60 percent of immigration arrests have taken place in prisons and jails, while 70 percent of arrests in blue states took place in the wider community, according to a CNN analysis.
