Latest news with #CourthouseNews
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan pleads not guilty to federal obstruction charges
May 15 (UPI) -- Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges related to her alleged interference with an ICE arrest. U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries accepted Dugan's not guilty plea to one charge each of obstructing an official proceeding and concealing a person from arrest and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest. Dries set the next hearing in the case for July 9 and a start date for the trial on July 21. Neither Dugan, nor attorney Steve Biskupic commented on whether they believed the case would go to trial. Dugan's lawyers submitted a motion to dismiss her case Wednesday which cited judicial immunity and federal overreach as reasons her case should be dismissed, as per the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, under which her legal team purports that federal agents cannot enter a state courthouse and arrest a sitting judge. "Even if, contrary to what the trial evidence would show, Judge Dugan took the actions the complaint alleges, these plainly were judicial acts for which she has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. Judges are empowered to maintain control over their courtrooms specifically and the courthouse generally," the dismissal notice, posted online by Courthouse News, stated. "Criminalizing the official acts of a state court judge controlling her courtroom would implicate all the concerns that motivated the 10th Amendment." Dugan was indicted on the two counts on Tuesday, related to the April 18 incident in which she allegedly misdirected federal agents to allow Eduardo Flores-Ruiz to evade arrest over his immigration status as she presided over a domestic abuse case he was involved in. She is charged with confronting federal agents in the court's hallway and escorting Flores-Ruiz out of her courtroom, although he was ultimately taken into immigration enforcement custody after a foot chase. Dugan was then arrested on April 25 as FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency believed she "intentionally misdirected federal agents" away from Flores-Ruiz. Dugan was temporarily removed from the bench by the Wisconsin Supreme Court after her arrest.
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Yahoo
Transgender vegan murder cult member freaks out in court
A member of a radical transgender vegan cult suspected in several murders was dragged out of a California courtroom, claiming jail guards were trying to detransition them. And they wanted to kill them. Alexander Leatham, 29, who identifies as a transgender woman, is reportedly part of the Zizian cult. However, according to Courthouse News, they were attending a hearing in Solano County, Calif., when they freaked out and began ranting in court. Leatham exploded: 'I am not suicidal. I have never been suicidal. If I am killed in police custody, it was murder!' They are in the hot seat for allegedly attempting to murder her landlord in 2022. The landlord was later murdered, allegedly by Zizian members. Leatham claimed she was being forcibly detransitioned with hormone therapy. They added that it was all part of a 25-year conspiracy against transgender people. At a hearing in March, Leatham screamed again and again: 'This is a show trial to coordinate the genocide of transgender people!' Leatham was then locked in what cops call a 'quiet room' similar to what's found in many daycares for unruly toddlers. Courthouse News wrote: 'Her muffled shouting could be heard in the next room for the rest of the hearing.' Zizians were an unknown quantity before Jan. 20, when two suspected members were involved in a shootout with Border Patrol Agent David Maland near the Canadian border. Authorities said that Teresa 'Milo' Consuelo Youngblut and former Waterloo University student and German national Felix 'Ophelia' Bauckholt were pulled over by Maland. Youngblut allegedly started shooting, and the border agent returned fire, killing Bauckholt, but Maland was mortally wounded. Cops say the two cult members got their guns from fellow Zizian Michelle Zakjow, 32, who identifies as a trans man. Zakjow had been wanted for the double murder of his parents in Pennsylvania. One month later, detectives traced Zakjow to Delaware, where they were arrested, along with fellow cultie Daniel Blank and the bizarre sect's leader, Jack 'Ziz' LaSota. Ziz, 34, is a trans blogger and computer engineer from Berkeley, California. Police have painted the cult leader as a modern-day Charles Manson. The group has been linked to six murders in three states. Pennsylvania state police sources told the New York Post they have enough evidence to arrest Zakjow for the murders of his parents. As for Leatham, they and fellow cult members Suri Dao and Emma Borhanian are accused of attacking their landlord, Curtis Lind, 82, in 2022. Lind told cops he was inspecting a leak in Dao's trailer when he was clobbered in the back of the head. When he woke up, he had more than 50 stab wounds that detectives believe were inflicted by a samurai sword, which was stuck in his torso and the trio of Zizians standing over him. But the old man wasn't going down without a fight and managed to grab his gun, wounding Leatham and killing Borhanian. Prosecutors said it was self-defence. Another Zizian named Maximilian Snyder later finished off Lind to prevent him from testifying against the cult members. Snyder allegedly stabbed Lind to death in an ambush. bhunter@ @HunterTOSun
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Soulja Boy Ordered to Pay $4 Million to Jane Doe in Sexual Assault Case
Soulja Boy was ordered to pay $4 million to a Jane Doe who accused him of sexual battery and abuse during their two-year relationship. According to Courthouse News, a jury decided that the rapper, whose real name is DeAndre Way, was liable in his civil case for claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress, sexual harassment and non-payment of wages. He was cleared on claims of false imprisonment and constructive discharge. Way 'smiled calmly' as the verdict was read. More from Variety A 'Taste' of Tyga: 'Being in the Game Over 10 Years and Still Dropping Hits Is Everything' Queen Radio Recap: Nicki Minaj Drops New Music, Talks Tyga With Soulja Boy Soulja Boy Praises 'Saturday Night Live' Parody Legal representatives for Doe and Way did not immediately respond to Variety's request for comment. Doe sued Way in Jan. 2021, accusing him of raping and kidnapping her while working as his personal assistant starting in 2018. She claimed that within the first month of employment, Way sent her photos of his penis and they initiated a romantic relationship that turned violent and toxic. During the trial, she testified that he locked her in a room without food for as long as two days. Way denied abusing Doe, stating that he never formally hired her and offered her a place to stay in exchange for rolling blunts. He described their relationship as consensual yet at times contentious. Throughout the trial, photographs of Doe's bruises and text messages between the two were key pieces of evidence, with Way explaining that threatening texts like 'Die bitch. Shoulda killed your stupid ass' were not meant to be violent. His lawyers also argued that the photographs of bruises didn't establish that Way had inflicted them on her, and that she was suing for a payday. During closing arguments on Monday, Doe's attorneys asked the jury to award her $73.6 million. 'If you don't believe my client, don't give her a dollar,' said her lawyer, Ron Zambrano. 'But if you do believe her, give her everything. 'He raped her,' he added. 'He punched her. He kicked her. He cut her. He pointed a Draco gun at her. He locked her in her room… He told her, 'I hope you die slow.'' Way's attorney Rickey Ivie painted Doe as an extortionist driven by greed. 'She wanted to be paid,' he said. 'Which is what this case is all about. Because it's not about the truth.' Way was previously sued for assault and kidnapping in 2021 and, two years later, was ordered to pay $471,800 to an ex-girlfriend. She claimed that he had kidnapped her and held a gun to her head at his home after a party in Feb. 2019. Another woman also accused Way of assaulting her in 2021, alleging that he put a gun to her head and kicked her in the stomach while she was pregnant. She said she suffered a miscarriage after the incident. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week What's Coming to Disney+ in April 2025 The Best Celebrity Memoirs to Read This Year: From Chelsea Handler to Anthony Hopkins
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Democrats Who Walked Out in Middle of Trump's Speech to Congress
Democratic resistance to Donald Trump's agenda was remarkably quiet on Tuesday, barely managing to make it on camera during the president's official State of the Union address. While Trump rattled on about all the myriad ways in which his administration is working to undermine and dismantle federal agencies, Representatives Jasmine Crockett and Maxwell Frost stood up to leave the lower chamber. As Crockett approached the door to exit, she took off her jacket and revealed the back of her shirt, which read 'RESIST,' reported The Hill's Mychael Schnell. Frost, who had also removed his coat, had on a black shirt that read 'no kings live here,' per Courthouse News's Benjamin Weiss. A cohort of Democrats stood up and followed them, according to Punchbowl News's Jake Sherman, similarly turning their backs to Trump as they removed their coats to reveal t-shirts that also read 'RESIST.' Other protests by Democratic lawmakers were more profound. Texas Representative Al Green made waves from the onset of Trump's opening remarks, interrupting the president by yelling that he had 'You have no mandate to cut Medicaid! That got him ousted by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called on the sergeant of arms to remove the 77-year-old from the chamber. Democrats spent days deciding how to protest Trump's address. A small faction decided not to attend. That included Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Patty Murray, the latter of whom on Monday said that the true state of the union saw Trump 'spitting in the face of the law.'
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Homeland Security confirmation is latest leap in a life of risks for Kristi Noem
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem delivers her 2025 State of the State address to lawmakers at the Capitol in Pierre on Jan. 14, 2025. Photo by Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's confirmation as a Trump cabinet secretary probably surprised some people who thought her career ended nine months ago with a notoriously disastrous book release. It's no surprise to Noem, who's been thwarting predictions of her demise since her first statewide race 15 years ago. The biggest story of that campaign was a revelation of 20 speeding tickets on her driving record. It turned out to be the first of many scandals, controversies and negative headlines Noem would overcome on her climb to national prominence. Following Senate confirmation Saturday, Noem resigned from her position as governor and was succeeded by her lieutenant governor, Republican Larry Rhoden, who became the state's 34th chief executive and will fill the remainder of Noem's term through 2026. Noem now heads to Washington, D.C., to lead an agency that oversees two of the most important issues to Trump and his millions of supporters: border security and immigration enforcement. It's a high-risk appointment that could end in failure, or serve as a launching pad for a Republican presidential primary run in 2028 when Trump will be unable to seek office again due to term limits. In other words, it's the kind of leap that the 53-year-old Noem has been taking ever since a family tragedy sparked her interest in politics more than three decades ago. 'My whole life,' Noem said in her infamous book last year, 'is about taking risks.' Noem inherited much of her risk-taking personality from her late father, Ron Arnold, a lifelong farmer and rancher. She remembers him as a hard-charging man of action, like a John Wayne movie character come to life. 'Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be just like him,' she wrote in her earlier book, 'Not My First Rodeo.' One day in 1994, Arnold climbed to the top of a grain bin to break up a moldy crust atop the grain. An unseen cavity under the crust gave way, and he was sucked under multiple tons of corn. He suffocated while rescuers made frantic efforts to save him. As Noem's family grieved, they were confronted with a federal estate tax bill of about $170,000 on her father's $2 million estate. Much of the estate's value was tied up in land, cattle, stored grain and equipment, plus loan debt, making it difficult for the family to pay the bill. Tax experts said Arnold could've avoided that outcome with an appropriately structured will. Noem called that 'fake news' in 2017, telling a Courthouse News reporter, 'For a decade after a tragic farming accident took my dad's life, the death tax impacted nearly every decision our family made.' Noem's anger about the estate tax eventually motivated her to enter politics. She won a seat in the state House of Representatives in 2006 and served from 2007 until 2010. That year, she entered a crowded Republican U.S. House field and won the primary election. She went on to beat Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin by 2 percentage points in the general election, overcoming the speeding-ticket revelation along the way. In Congress, Noem voted for legislation to weaken the estate tax, including the Tax Cut and Jobs Act that passed during Trump's first term in 2017. Among the law's provisions is a doubled estate tax exemption, so that individual estates worth up to $13.99 million can now avoid the tax. The law is scheduled to expire at the end of this year, but Trump and congressional Republicans hope to extend it. Noem said she was 'instrumental' in crafting the 2017 legislation. The impact on her political stature was evident in a photo of a White House event celebrating the bill's passage. Among dozens of members of Congress standing behind Trump, she scored a prime spot near the middle of the frame, over the shoulders of the vice president and the Senate majority leader. After four terms in the U.S. House, Noem turned her attention back to South Dakota in 2018, where the state's then-governor was term-limited. Noem's husband, Bryon, and her three children had remained in South Dakota throughout her time in Congress, while she flew back and forth frequently and slept on a pullout bed in her congressional office. 'Whenever Bryon and the kids were in town, we blew up air mattresses and threw down quilts and basically had slumber parties as a family,' Noem wrote in her first book. She defeated South Dakota's attorney general in a Republican gubernatorial primary, and then attracted Trump to the state for a fundraiser in the fall. That helped propel her to a three-point general election victory over Democratic legislator Billie Sutton, a popular former rodeo cowboy. My whole life is about taking risks. – South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, in her book, 'No Going Back' Noem took office in January 2019 as South Dakota's first female governor. A little more than a year into her first term, South Dakota detected its first COVID-19 cases. Noem often says, as she did last week in her State of the State speech, that South Dakota was 'the only state that never forced a business or church to close.' That simple description obscures a complicated reality. In the early weeks of the pandemic, Noem advised South Dakota schools to close for the remainder of the 2020 school year, and they complied. Beyond that, her early approach to pandemic restrictions was ambiguous. In March 2020, she issued an executive order listing 20 things South Dakotans 'should' do: People 'should' engage in social distancing, businesses 'should' prevent customers from congregating in close quarters, health-care facilities 'should' postpone elective surgeries, and so on. Reporters asked Noem to explain whether she was issuing orders or making suggestions. She refused to clarify and fell back on the word 'should' 13 times during a 12-minute press conference. 'I am telling them what they should be doing in this state,' she said during one exchange. As the pandemic wore on and the country fractured over conflicting views about the usefulness of shutdowns and mask mandates, Noem grew vocally opposed to both and became a national lightning rod. She racked up social media followers and began appearing on right-leaning news talk shows, where she boasted about the comparative strength of South Dakota's economy thanks to her hands-off approach. Meanwhile, the state's COVID-19 death rate soared so high that it briefly ranked among the world's worst. In July 2020, Noem leveraged her relationship with Trump to win authorization for a fireworks show at Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The National Park Service had stopped allowing fireworks there more than a decade earlier, due in part to concerns about embers sparking wildfires in the surrounding forest. Trump flew in and spoke at the event, which was attended by thousands of people and was broadcast live by national media outlets. The event drew praise as a defiant example of resistance to pandemic restrictions, and criticism as an irresponsibly large gathering at a time when health officials were encouraging social distancing. Noem doubled down a month later by encouraging people from around the country to attend the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which ignited a similarly divisive response and more national coverage. By the fall of 2020, Noem's national profile had risen so much that she was traveling the country campaigning for Trump's reelection. He lost, but she went on to win her own reelection in 2022 by a comfortable margin, setting the stage for yet another Trump visit to South Dakota in 2023. Noem announced her endorsement of Trump at that rally, fueling speculation that she could be his running mate in 2024. Talk of Noem as a vice presidential candidate ended abruptly in April. The Guardian obtained an advance copy of her second book, 'No Going Back,' and revealed passages she wrote about fatally shooting a misbehaving hunting dog and an unruly goat. The Dakota Scout, a South Dakota media outlet, challenged Noem's claim in the book that she had met North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and she retracted it. Noem became a subject of national scorn and ridicule for weeks. In interview after interview during a national book tour, she said her decisions to shoot the dog and the goat were evidence that she could do difficult things. She said the 'fake news' was leaving out important facts and spinning the stories in a negative light. 'Most politicians will run from the truth,' Noem told Fox News. 'They will shy away and hide from making tough decisions. I don't do either of those.' When pressed to explain how an ultimately retracted anecdote about meeting Kim Jong Un got into her book, she repeatedly said she took it out 'as soon as it was brought to my attention' (she'd been assisted by a ghostwriter). When pressed further, she refused to elaborate, saying she wouldn't discuss her conversations with world leaders. Late-night television hosts had a field day cracking jokes about Noem in their monologues. 'Saturday Night Live' mocked her. Yet, less than three months later, she was given a speaking slot during the Republican National Convention. The week after Trump won the general election, he announced Noem as his pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security. She'd spent much of the prior year positioning herself as an outspoken critic of the Biden administration's border policies. That included deploying National Guard troops to assist Texas with border security and calling a joint session of the Legislature to deliver a speech about it. In that speech last year, Noem claimed Mexican drug cartel activity was rampant on Native American reservations in South Dakota. Her repeated use of similar rhetoric eventually motivated leaders of all nine Native American tribes in the state to ban her from their lands (at least one tribe recently retracted its ban). The tribal banishments were among many controversies Noem endured during her time as governor. Other memorable dustups included accusations that she misused a state airplane for personal and political purposes, improperly intervened to help her daughter obtain an appraiser's license, and mismanaged a flood that ravaged a small community while she flew away to a political fundraiser. She also suffered multiple published allegations of an extramarital affair with former Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, which she denied. Her first book included a statement of the philosophy that's gotten her through those and other difficulties, and the attitude she'll bring to Washington. 'My mom will tell you that from the time I was a little girl, every battle I got in was an epic struggle for victory,' Noem wrote. 'Surrender was not an option.' Like Minnesota Reformer, South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@
