Neo-Nazi group leader sentenced to 20 years in prison for planned Maryland power grid attack
Brandon Russell, 30, was convicted by a jury earlier this year. Prosecutors presented evidence detailing his longstanding affiliation with white supremacist causes and his recent efforts to organize 'sniper attacks' on electrical substations around Baltimore.
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Toronto Sun
12 minutes ago
- Toronto Sun
Husband suspected wife of poisoning him before she killed 3 relatives with toxic mushrooms
Published Aug 08, 2025 • 3 minute read Erin Patterson leaves a court in Melbourne, Australia, on April 15, 2025. Photo by James Ross / AAP Image via AP, File MELBOURNE, Australia — The husband of a woman convicted of killing three people with a meal laced with deadly mushrooms suspected his wife had been poisoning him more than a year before the fatal meal, an Australian court has heard. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account A judge on Friday lifted a gag order on pretrial evidence that triple murderer Erin Patterson, 50, had wanted kept secret while she attempts to overturn her convictions. The evidence included the suspicions of Patterson's estranged husband Simon Patterson that she had previously attempted to kill him. Husband says he feared estranged wife would poison him Simon Patterson testified at a pretrial hearing that he had declined the lunch invitation out of fear. 'I thought there'd be a risk that she'd poison me if I attended,' the husband told the court months before the trial in testimony that was not presented to jurors. Simon Patterson, husband of Erin Patterson, walks from the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court in Morwell, Victoria, on May 1, 2025. Photo by James Ross / AAP Image via AP, File Simon said while he had stopped eating food prepared by his wife, from whom he had been estranged since 2015, he never thought others would be at risk. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Erin Patterson was convicted by the Victoria state Supreme Court last month of murdering her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson at her home in Leongatha with a lunch of beef Wellington pastries containing toxic death cap mushrooms. She was also found guilty of attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Heather's husband, who survived the meal but spent weeks in the hospital. Erin Patterson was initially charged with attempting to murder her husband by inviting him to the lunch in July 2023. He had accepted the invitation then cancelled. She was also initially charged with three counts of attempting to murder him on three occasions around Victoria between November 2021 and September 2022. She had denied all charges. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Prosecutors dropped all charges relating to the husband before her trial began in April. Simon Patterson testified before the trial that he suspected his wife had deliberately made him seriously ill with dishes including penne bolognese pasta, chicken korma curry and a vegetable curry wrap. No poisons were ever found. The three alleged poisonings occurred during family camping trips. Simon shared his poisoning suspicions with his doctor, who encouraged him to create a spreadsheet listing what he had eaten around the time he became sick. The court on Friday also released video of Erin Patterson's police interview, recorded a week after the fatal lunch. In the interview, Detective Stephen Eppingstall told her that both her female victims were dead and their husbands were critically ill. Eppingstall asked her why she had invited them to lunch. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Erin Patterson replied that she wanted to maintain her relationship with the estranged husband's parents because her own parents had died. Don and Gail Patterson had remained supportive and had been the only grandparents to her two children, she said. 'I love them a lot. They've always been really good to me and they always said to me that they would support me with love and emotional support, even though Simon and I were separated, and I really appreciated that,' Erin Patterson said. Read More Disclosures come as Patterson plans to appeal Justice Christopher Beale ruled for lawyers representing media who sought to overturn the gag order, ordering that the evidence that jurors had not seen would be made public. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Erin Patterson's lawyers wanted all the evidence that was not deemed admissible at her trial kept secret until an appeals court decided whether to overturn her convictions. Their reasons included that media interest in the case was unprecedented. Defence lawyer Colin Mandy argued that reporting of the suppressed evidence as well as references to it in books, podcasts and a planned television mini-series would 'leave an indelible impression on the minds of potential jurors in the event that there is a retrial.' A hearing will begin on Aug. 25 to determine what sentence she will get. She faces a potential life sentence for each of the murders and 25 years for attempted murder. Prosecutor Jane Warren told Beale on Friday 'a lot' of victim impact statements would be presented at that two-day sentencing hearing. Once Erin Patterson is sentenced, she will have 28 days to lodge an appeal against the sentence, the convictions, or both. Her lawyers say they will appeal against her convictions.
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Faith leaders rally to support immigrants facing deportation in Southern California
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Outside a Southern California immigration court, the Rev. Oona Casanova Vazquez sat beside a nervous Peruvian national as he waited for a judge to call his name — talking, smiling, even handing him a mint. Vazquez, lead pastor of the South Bay Church of the Nazarene in Torrance, has been spending her Thursdays this summer with other faith leaders and church volunteers observing court proceedings and handing out leaflets about the Trump administration's immigration enforcement. 'I come here to stand and bear witness to these people who have more courage than I have,' she said. 'They walk through these doors knowing they could be detained. I'm here to offer them strength and to let them know they are valued and prayed over.' Since early June, the Trump administration has significantly ramped up immigration arrests and raids, especially in Southern California, taking people into custody at businesses, farms and public spaces like parking lots. Fear has spread in the region's immigrant communities, especially among those without legal status. Many faith leaders and groups — including the Catholic Church, which has millions of adherents in the region — have come out in support. While clergy in collars have registered a moral presence and show of support in the courts, numerous churches and nonprofits have mobilized to deliver food and medicine to those afraid to leave their homes. Some churches are offering rent assistance to members who have lost or quit their jobs out of fear. Congregations are streaming worship services so people won't need to take a risk by coming to services, which are no longer immune from immigration raids. Department of Homeland Security officials have maintained there will be no safe spaces for those who are in the country illegally, have committed crimes, or tried to undermine immigration enforcement. They have consistently said their efforts are intended to safeguard public safety and national security. People in the country illegally can avoid arrest taking the government's offer of $1,000 and a free flight to their home country, said department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. 'We encourage every person here illegally to use the CBP Home app and take advantage of this offer and preserve the opportunity to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream,' she said. Offering support in immigration court Clergy say the immigrants they are seeing in immigration court are not criminals, but working people trying to follow the process and protect their families. The Rev. Terry LePage, a member of Irvine United Congregational Church in Orange County, said she has seen people whose cases have been dismissed get immediately picked up by immigration officials in courthouse hallways and taken away in vans. 'You see a family broken up, a life go down the drain in front of your eyes,' she said. 'I cry a lot these days. But I know I am where God needs me to be. I'm able to bear this pain, which is very small compared to theirs.' Laura Siriani, archdeacon with the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, led a midday prayer vigil outside the courthouse July 31. About 25 people participated. 'When we can pray together and learn about what's happening to our neighbors, it energizes us,' she said. 'We have to speak out and be the voice of those who have none.' Jennifer Coria, an immigration organizer with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, a group that holds prayer vigils across Southern California, trains pastors and lay leaders in 'what to do and what not to do' in court and how to relay information from detainees to loved ones, she said. Coria said the volunteers don't ask people how they came into the country; their goal is simply to support individuals trying navigate the system. The Rev. Scott Santarosa, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, helped start an interfaith program in the Diocese of San Diego called Faithful Accompaniment In Trust and Hope to support migrants seeking asylum. He said volunteers, including himself, feel 'gutted' and helpless as they see people being arrested in the hallways and taken away. In his 2,300-strong parish, where six of seven Masses are in Spanish, the priest estimates that up to 40% of worshippers may be in the country illegally. Santarosa takes inspiration from the story of Christ rescuing the Apostle Peter when his faith wavers, he said. 'We're being asked to do the impossible,' he said. 'No one likes to be powerless. But we are being asked by the Spirit to come and stand with people in this difficult moment and be powerless with them.' At Our Lady of Soledad Catholic Church in the Coachella Valley, about 7,000 gather for Mass every weekend. The Rev. Francisco Gomez says about 20% of his parish members are in the U.S. without legal status; some have been for decades, and have children and grandchildren. He worries about parishioners becoming isolated because of fear. They're within the Diocese of San Bernardino, where Bishop Albert Rojas gave parishioners a dispensation from attending Mass after immigration detentions on two properties. Gomez wants to let the community know 'the church is not going away.' 'We're here. What happens to any one of us is going to happen to all of us.' Helping with food and other essentials Last month, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles launched its Family Assistance Program to deliver groceries, meals, medicine and other essentials. Monsignor Timothy Dyer, pastor of the largely-Latino St. Patrick Catholic Church in South Los Angeles, helped start the program, which is helping about 150 families with essentials such as rent, food, diapers and toilet paper. 'The community is rallying around these people,' he said. 'This is what a church ought to be.' Pastor Ara Torosian, who ministers to Farsi speakers at Cornerstone Church of West Los Angeles, a multiethnic Protestant congregation, came to the U.S. in 2005 as a refugee after being arrested for smuggling Bibles into Iran. He said he came through Catholic Charities and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society programs, which have been gutted under the Trump administration, leaving no legal pathways for religious minorities fleeing persecution in Iran. Torosian's congregants were among those detained in a wave of immigration arrests after the Iran-Israel war in June. The pastor said his congregants came as asylum-seekers under the Biden administration and had work permits. While a couple he had baptized and married in his church were arrested at their home, another family — a couple and their young daughter — were arrested during an immigration court appearance. The couple remains in detention awaiting Farsi translators, but the family of three was released with ankle monitors, Torosian said. 'We were all in tears when they came back to the Sunday service,' he said. The pastor is raising money to help these families with rent while their cases proceed. He worries about keeping up the rent assistance, given his church's limited resources, and is asking members living in the U.S. without legal status not to come to church. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. 'This is heartbreaking in a country like America,' he said. 'We are praying that the situation will change.' ___ Associated Press video journalist Krysta Fauria in Los Angeles contributed reporting. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Angry fans attacked Sevilla's facility after a loss in May. Police are now making arrests
SEVILLE, Spain (AP) — Four people have been arrested for their alleged roles in a May 10 attack on Sevilla's training facilities following the soccer team's loss to Celta Vigo. The players stayed overnight at the complex because of security concerns created by a large group of fans who forced their way into the Jose Ramon Cisneros Palacios training ground. Supporters, many of whom concealed their faces, broke down a metallic gate at an entrance for cars into the training grounds and caused damage inside the property. The club had condemned what it called 'organized vandalism.' Sevilla, which barely avoided relegation last season, had lost 3-2 at Vigo and the violence kicked off after the team bus arrived at the grounds. Spanish sports daily Marca reported Friday that the National Police made four arrests and that the investigation was ongoing. There was no other information about identities, charges, or court dates. Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. ___ AP soccer:
