Latest news with #Allentown
Bloomberg
5 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Rep. Mackenzie on Constituents' Reaction to Tax Bill
Bloomberg Markets Balance of Power Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA) discusses what he is hearing from his constituents as he is back in Pennsylvania for the August Recess. He talks about how his constituents feel about the Trump Tax Bill, tariffs, and if steel manufacturing could come back to Allentown, Pennsylvania. He speaks with Kailey Leinz and Joe Mathieu on the late edition of Bloomberg's 'Balance of Power.' (Source: Bloomberg)
Forbes
2 days ago
- Forbes
Cop Who Tried To Run Over Protestor Faces First Amendment Lawsuit
A protester has filed a First Amendment lawsuit against police officers in Allentown, Pennsylvania, after they repeatedly attempted to intimidate him, including driving a car down a public sidewalk. To vindicate his right to film police officers, Phil Rishel has partnered with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and sued the officers in federal court last week. 'The retaliation over my speech confirms that there is a huge issue with the culture of the Allentown Police Department,' Phil said in a press release. 'These officers have a disdain for the rights of the people they're sworn to protect — and I hope my lawsuit changes things for the better.' Phil Rishel has filed a First Amendment lawsuit against police officers in Allentown, Pennsylvania. On March 26, 2024, Phil was filming outside of a police parking garage in Allentown on a public sidewalk. Noticing Phil, Officer Dean Flyte pointed towards a 'No Trespassing' sign, before heading back inside. 'Yeah, that's a nice sign. Too bad it doesn't apply to the public sidewalk,' Phil quipped. Moments later, Flyte reappeared, this time in his police cruiser, and tried to exit the garage. But the officer botched the turn and instead hit the garage's sidewall. Phil laughed and mocked Flyte for his driving. Undeterred, Flyte activated his lights and siren and started to slowly drive down the sidewalk towards Phil. Phil fled. He found cover behind a concrete planter on the sidewalk. Flyte left the car and once again went back inside the garage, before re-emerging with a supervisor, Sgt. Christopher Stephenson. Sgt. Stephenson ordered Phil and threatened to arrest him if he walked down a public sidewalk. So Phil decided to leave for the day. The very next day, Phil returned to the same police parking garage to continue filming outside. This time, according to FIRE's lawsuit, Sgt. Joseph Iannetta 'berated and tried to intimidate' Phil and outright told him, 'You need to be institutionalized.' Soon after Phil's interaction with Iannetta, Sgt. Stephenson appeared and threatened to cite Phil because he was filming police officers. Phil also filmed the sergeant who claimed, on camera, that 'one person is not a protest' and 'filming is not a First Amendment right.' (He's wrong on both counts.) Stephenson charged Phil with both loitering and disorderly conduct for 'verbally abusing, harassing, and screaming obscenities on the public street.' But in June 2024, the Lehigh County Magisterial District Court dismissed the charges of disorderly conduct, correctly noting that swearing or giving the middle finger are constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. The court did find Phil was guilty of loitering, but even this charge was later overturned on appeal. Prior to filing his lawsuit with FIRE, Phil shared his footage documenting his experience with the Allentown officers with Lackluster Media. The video went viral in February, earning more than 1 million views. What happened to Phil is part of a much larger pattern. In its complaint, FIRE details multiple cases where Allentown police officers were caught on film 'violating citizens' constitutional rights,' with cell phone cameras 'providing an important check against police brutality and misconduct.' Over the past decade, the city has paid out more than $2 million to victims of police misconduct. Accordingly, Phil and FIRE are also suing the City of Allentown for its alleged 'deliberate indifference' in failing to properly train and educate its police officers about respecting the First Amendment. 'Citizens trying to hold police officers accountable should not be punished,' said FIRE Attorney Zach Silver. 'Public officials, including police officers, must uphold the law and respect citizens' right to record police and to use harsh language, not bully them into silence.'
CBS News
24-07-2025
- CBS News
Man charged with murder after woman shot in the head inside her home in Allentown, Pennsylvania
A Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, man faces many charges, including murder, after a woman was shot and killed inside her home in Allentown, police announced on Tuesday. Adam Makowka, 27, of South Whitehall, Pennsylvania, was charged with criminal homicide, attempted criminal homicide and aggravated assault, police said in the release. Officers responded to a woman shot inside her home on the 700 block of Turner Street early Tuesday morning. They found a woman with gunshot wounds, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. The woman was later identified as Jerkera Battle, 22, by Lehigh County Coroner Daniel Buglio on Wednesday. The coroner said the cause of death is a gunshot wound to the head and ruled the death a homicide. Makowka was identified as a suspect through investigation and was found outside Allentown with help from Lansdowne police in Delaware County. Makowka was taken into custody, awaiting extradition to Lehigh County, police said. Allentown police, Lehigh County Homicide Task Force, the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office and the Lehigh County Coroner's Office are conducting an investigation. The incident remains an ongoing investigation.
CBS News
23-07-2025
- CBS News
Pennsylvania man pleads guilty to raping 12-year-old, sentenced to at least 21 years in prison
An Allentown, Pennsylvania, man was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to rape and sexual assault charges, the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office said. Joshua Mickey Martel, 32, pleaded guilty to two cases of child rape, human trafficking, and statutory sexual assault, according to the DA's office. Martel will spend a minimum of 21 years in prison after negotiating a plea deal. Judge Robert L. Steinberg ordered him to serve 21 to 50 years behind bars. Martel will also have to register as a sex offender for life. In the one case, the DA's office said that Martel raped a 12-year-old girl after her mother sold her for money and drugs inside an Allentown motel room. In April 2024, the 12-year-old told investigators that her mother took her and her siblings to a motel to meet Martel on the 1000 block of Airport Road in Allentown. According to the DA's office, the 12-year-old saw Martel give her mother money and drugs before leaving her in the room alone with Martel. The DA's office said the 12-year-old's mother is also charged in the case, but she won't be identified in order to protect her daughter. She was charged with rape of a child, sexual exploitation of a child and other offenses, according to the DA's office. Martel also pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in a separate incident in May 2024, according to the DA's office. The DA's office said that police found Martel inside the same Allentown motel on Airport Road with the 13-year-old after he had sent an Uber to her middle school. The 13-year-old told police she was sexually assaulted by Martel. The cases were investigated by Allentown police and the Lehigh County DA's office.
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Yahoo
What we know about claim ICE deported Chilean grandad Luis Leon to Guatemala
In July 2025, following reports in The Morning Call, a news site based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a claim circulated online that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Luis Leon, an 82-year-old grandfather from Allentown, while he tried to replace his Green Card at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office and deported him to Guatemala. One summary (archived) of The Morning Call's report on X had more than 6.5 million views at the time of this writing. The claim also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Reddit (archived) and TikTok (archived). Snopes readers also wrote in to ask if the claim was true. However, we could not independently confirm the details of Leon's alleged deportation as reported by The Morning Call. Since the publication of Leon's story, the Guatemalan Institute of Migration, the Guatemalan immigration service, said (archived) in a statement that no persons matching the "name, age and nationality" in reports about Leon's alleged deportation had entered Guatemala. Attempts to contact Leon's family to confirm reported details proved unsuccessful. We reached out to ICE to ask whether its agents arrested and deported Leon on the dates reported. We also reached out to the Embassy of Chile in Guatemala to ask if it could confirm whether Leon, who is reportedly from Chile, was in Guatemala and how he got there. We await replies to our queries. ICE told The Morning Call on July 18 that an investigation into Leon's alleged deportation was ongoing. The Timeline According to The Morning Call's report citing Leon's granddaughter Nataly, ICE agents arrested Leon on June 20, 2025, at a USCIS office on 41st Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Leon had gone to the office to replace a lost permanent resident card, or green card. The card allows the holder to live and work permanently in the U.S. but does not grant them U.S. citizenship. Nataly told The Morning Call agents arrested Leon and held his wife at the office for hours. Nobody in Leon's family knew where he was. "A few days" later, a woman contacted Leon's family claiming to be an immigration attorney and said she knew where Leon was but refused to tell the family. On July 9, 20 days after ICE officers reportedly arrested Leon, that same woman contacted Leon's family and said he was dead, according to The Morning Call. Also on this date, Michele Downing of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, joined several other speakers at a Lehigh County Board of Commissioners meeting denouncing ICE immigration enforcement actions in the county. Downing said (time code 01:24:13) that Leon was her "friend's grandfather." His name is Luis, and he came here from Chile. He was born there in 1942, and he fled political torture with his wife and his small children to come here in 1987. Four kids and 16 grandkids later, about a month ago, my friend's granddad misplaced his Green Card. So, when immigration called him to come and pick up his new green card he went with his 79-year-old wife to pick it up, and they were both detained. She was released seven hours later and he was never seen again and has never had so much as a traffic ticket in his entire life. Despite reporting medical conditions, and despite obtaining an immigration attorney with every penny they had saved, I received a phone call this morning from Immigration and Customs that he was found deceased at 4 o'clock this morning. It was unclear where Downing got her information about Leon, which varied slightly from The Morning Call's. Downing said Leon was 83 years old, while The Morning Call reported Leon's age as 82 years old. Both were possible if Leon was born in 1942, as Downing said. Snopes reached out to Downing to ask how she knew about Leon and will update if we receive a reply. Downing also added details not included in The Morning Call's report, claiming that she personally spoke to "Immigration and Customs" who confirmed Leon's death. According to The Morning Call, the woman who told Leon's family he was dead claimed to be an immigration attorney. We asked ICE to confirm if one of its agents or lawyers called Leon's family or Downing on July 9. The Morning Call said in its July 20 article that Leon told his family he arrived in Guatemala on July 1. If true, this would further cast doubt on ICE telling Leon's family on July 9 that he had died, as Leon would have been out of ICE's custody by that date. Regardless, by July 20, Leon's brother in Chile had reportedly located Leon at a Guatemala City hospital who were treating him for pneumonia and, through a Chilean government contact, confirmed with an unidentified U.S. official that Leon arrived in Guatemala via a detention center in Minnesota. According to The Morning Call, the hospital in question could not confirm whether Leon was one of its patients due to privacy concerns. Leon's family would travel to see him in Guatemala, a July 20 report said. Snopes could not independently confirm Leon's route to Guatemala. Leon did not appear in ICE's Online Detainee Locator System through a name search. However, since Leon had reportedly left the U.S., ICE likely removed his information from the system. In February 2025, Guatemalan President Dr. Bernardo Arévalo said during a news conference that his government would receive 40% more deportation flights of "national returnees as well as deportees from other nationalities for their ulterior repatriation." However, the Guatemalan Institute of Migration said in a July 20 statement, "Guatemala coordinates with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) on the reception of persons deported from the United States of America, which does not include South American nationalities." It also said there was "no person matching the name, age and nationality mentioned by the media" who entered Guatemala on the dates in question, referring to reports such as The Daily Call's. provided Spanish to English translations of the Guatemalan Institute of Migration's statement. Green Card | USCIS. 8 Jul. 2025, Migración Guate. "#Comunicado | Migración Guate, Informa:" Facebook, 20 Jul. 2025, Online Detainee Locator System. Accessed 21 Jul. 2025. "Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo at a Joint Press Availability." United States Department of State, Accessed 21 Jul. 2025. Sheehan, Daniel Patrick. "Is ICE Running Rampant at Lehigh County Courthouse? Protesters Say so, and Demand the County Act." The Morning Call, 10 Jul. 2025, Sheehan, Daniel Patrick, and Elizabeth DeOrnellas. "Allentown Grandfather's Family Was Told He Died in ICE Custody. Then They Learned He's Alive — in a Hospital in Guatemala, They Say." The Morning Call, 18 Jul. 2025, ---. "Update: Family Says Allentown Grandfather in Guatemala after ICE Arrest. but Country Says It Has No Records of Him." The Morning Call, 20 Jul. 2025, Solve the daily Crossword
