Latest news with #justiceDepartment
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Washington Post
Wrongly deported Salvadoran man charged with human smuggling in 2022
The Justice Department has brought human smuggling charges against a wrongly deported Salvadoran man whose removal to a notorious gang prison ignited a standoff with federal courts, according to an indictment made public Friday. The charges against Kilmar Abrego García, stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, mean he could face prosecution in the United States and possible deportation to another country.
BBC News
25-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
US arrests man for allegedly trying to firebomb embassy in Israel
A dual US and German citizen was arrested on Sunday for allegedly attempting to burn down the US embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, according to the justice department. Officials said they arrested Joseph Neumayer, 28, at John F Kennedy Airport in New York. He was deported by Israeli authorities after he was found with explosive devices in a backpack near the embassy. Mr Neumeyer appeared in court on Sunday and is being held in jail, the justice department said. "This defendant is charged with planning a devastating attack targeting our embassy in Israel, threatening death to Americans, and President Trump's life," said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. The arrest comes just days after a gunman killed two Israeli embassy staff members outside a Jewish museum in Washington DC. Federal officials say Mr Neumayer arrived in Israel in April and on 19 May headed to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv with a dark-colored backpack. The 28-year-old spat on an embassy guard as he walked by, the justice department said. When the guard tried to detain him, Mr Neumayer allegedly ran away, leaving behind a backpack with three Molotov cocktails, small bombs made with flammable liquids that are meant to start fires once they are lit and later found Mr Neumeyer at his hotel where he was arrested, the justice department said. Officials say he had posted on his social media account pledging to "burn down the embassy in Tel Aviv" and had called for "death to America, death to Americans".Officials say Mr Neumeyer also threatened to assassinate Trump in social media posts on another account believed to be connected to Neumeyer was sent back on Sunday to the US, where he was arrested. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted. Last Wednesday, a young couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, were shot dead outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC. Police identified the suspect as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, who they say shouted "free Palestine" after he shot the couple. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is expected to attend a memorial in Israel for the victims on Monday.
Reuters
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
US abandons police reform accords sought over deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor
WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is abandoning efforts to secure court-approved settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville, despite its prior finding that police in both cities routinely violated the civil rights of Black people, a senior official said on Wednesday. Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the department's Civil Rights Division, said her office will seek to dismiss the pending litigation against the two cities and retract the department's prior findings of constitutional violations. "Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda," Dhillon said in a statement. She also announced that the department will be closing out investigations and retracting prior findings of wrongdoing against the police departments in Phoenix, Arizona, Memphis, Tennessee, Trenton, New Jersey, Mount Vernon, New York, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and the Louisiana State Police. The move comes four days before the May 25 five-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer who knelt on his neck as Floyd repeatedly pleaded that he couldn't breathe. Floyd's killing, as well as the killing of Breonna Taylor who was shot to death by Louisville Police executing a no-knock warrant, sparked worldwide protests about racially-motivated policing practices during the final year of President Donald Trump's first term in office. Louisville and Minneapolis were the two most high-profile cities to be investigated during former Democratic President Joe Biden's administration for systemic police abuse, and were the only two cities that agreed in principle to enter into a court-approved settlement with the DOJ known as a consent decree. Minneapolis also separately entered a similar type of settlement with the state of Minnesota to reform its police practices. Congress authorized the Justice Department to conduct civil investigations into constitutional abuses by police, such as excessive use of force or racially-motivated policing, in 1994, as a response to the beating of Rodney King, a Black man, by white Los Angeles police officers. During Biden's presidency, the Civil Rights Division launched 12 such "pattern or practice" investigations into police departments including Phoenix, New York City, Trenton, Memphis and Lexington, Mississippi. But during those four years it failed to enter into any court-binding consent decrees, an issue that legal experts warned could put the department's police accountability work at risk of being undone. Under Dhillon's leadership, the Civil Rights Division has lost more than 100 of its attorneys through deferred resignation agreements, demotions and resignations. "Over 100 attorneys decided that they'd rather not do what their job requires them to do, and I think that's fine," Dhillon told Glenn Beck on his podcast on April 26. Last month, Dhillon demoted senior attorneys who handled police abuse investigations to other low-level assignments, such as handling public records requests or adjudicating internal discrimination complaints. Those moves are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to upend the Civil Rights Division's traditions of pursuing cases to protect the civil rights of some of the country's most vulnerable and historically disenfranchised populations. Since January, it has paused probes of alleged police abuse, launched its first investigation into whether Los Angeles violated gun rights laws, and following Trump's lead, changed the department's stance on transgender rights and probed alleged antisemitism at U.S. colleges involving pro-Palestinian protesters. The department also recently ended a decades-old school desegregation order in Louisiana that came about in the wake of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education case.
Sky News
13-05-2025
- Sky News
Sean Combs trial latest: Singer Cassie, star witness against Diddy, to begin giving evidence
What is Combs on trial for? Sean Combs is facing five felony charges: Racketeering conspiracy Two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion Two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution The rapper was initially charged with three offences - racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Two extra counts - one each of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution - were added earlier in April. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Racketeering broadly means engaging in an illegal scheme or enterprise, and the charge falls under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act (RICO) in the US. According to the US justice department's definition of RICO statute, it is also illegal to "conspire to violate" the laws. The indictment against Combs alleges that between 2008 and 2024, he "led a racketeering conspiracy that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labour, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, among other crimes", the US attorney's office for the Southern District of New York said following his arrest in September.
