Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead, 46, was convicted in March of wire fraud, attempted wire fraud, attempted extortion and making false statements to federal law enforcement agents, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Miller-Whitehead, a bishop at the Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries church in Canarsie, made headlines in July 2022 when armed assailants robbed him and his wife of $1 million worth of jewelry during a livestreamed service, police said.

“Lamor Whitehead is a con man who stole millions of dollars in a string of financial frauds and even stole from one of his own parishioners,” Williams said. “He lied to federal agents, and again to the Court at his trial. Today’s sentence puts an end to Whitehead’s various schemes and reflects this Office’s commitment to bring accountability to those who abuse their positions of trust.”

To read this article in its entirety, visit NBC News

Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday the committee obtained information from Crow that Thomas took three trips, and at least six flights, on Crow’s private jet in 2017, 2019 and 2021. The panel also found evidence of private jet travel during trips to Indonesia and California that Thomas recently disclosed in an amendment to a 2019 financial disclosure report.

The Democratic-led Judiciary panel launched the investigation last year after several reports that Thomas had for years received undisclosed expensive gifts, including international travel, from Crow. The committee has since pushed the Supreme Court to adopt a stronger ethics code as trips by Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito came to light, along with six-figure book deals received by other justices.

The new information “makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment,” Durbin said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from the court on the Senate report. In the past, Thomas has maintained that he is not required to disclose the many trips he and his wife took that were paid for the Texas megadonor because Crow and his wife Kathy are “among our dearest friends,” Thomas said in an April 2023 statement that he was advised by colleagues on the nation’s highest court and others in the federal judiciary that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

Members of the group initially entered the US at the southern border and requested asylum under US immigration law. It’s unclear whether they entered at the same time and place.

By the time intelligence collected on overseas ISIS targets connected the men to the terror group, they had already been vetted by immigration authorities and allowed into the country, officials said.

Though there is no hard evidence indicating they were sent to the US as part of a terror plot, at least some of the Tajik nationals had expressed extremist rhetoric in their communications, either on social media or in direct private communications that US intelligence was able to monitor, three officials said.

That discovery set off a flurry of emergency investigative efforts by federal agents and analysts across the country, sources said, including physical and electronic surveillance of the men — a counterterrorism operation reminiscent of the years immediately following 9/11, when the FBI investigated numerous homegrown plots.

After a period of surveillance, federal officials in recent days faced a difficult decision: whether to continue surveilling the men in order to determine if they were part of any potential plot or wider terrorist network, or to move in and take them off the street. Rather than risk the worst-case scenario of a potential attack, senior US officials decided to move in and have the men apprehended by ICE agents, one source told CNN.

The men remain in federal custody on immigration charges and will eventually be deported following the counterterror investigation into them.

Tajiks recruited by ISIS

Of particular concern to US officials was that the men hail from Tajikistan, a corner of Central Asia that in recent years has been a source of steady recruitment by ISIS-K, the Afghanistan-based affiliate of the Islamic terrorist group. ISIS-K is led primarily by Tajiks, who have carried out a series of recent attacks in Europe on behalf of the group, including the Crocus Hall attack in Moscow in March that killed more than 100 people.

To read this article in its entirety, visit CNN

Mark Prieto, 58, had seven guns when he was arrested on May 14 while driving east from Arizona through New Mexico, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona said in a news release Tuesday. He faces charges of firearms trafficking, transfer of a firearm for use in a hate crime and possession of an unregistered firearm, the release said.

The indictment against Prieto alleges he discussed his plans between January and May with two people whom he believed “shared his racist beliefs,” unaware they were working with the FBI, the US Attorney’s Office said. He then sold an AK-style rifle and an AR-style rifle to one of those individuals within the span of a month, all while under FBI surveillance, the release said.

Prieto was targeting a concert scheduled for May 14 and May 15 at State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta, according to a statement of probable cause attached to the federal complaint. While it does not specify whose concert Prieto allegedly targeted, a schedule for the venue shows Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny was slated to perform there on those dates.

After his arrest, Prieto denied he was going to Atlanta, but he did admit to knowing the two people who were working with the FBI, and told agents he had no intentions of carrying out the attack, the federal complaint states. CNN has reached out to Prieto’s public defender in New Mexico for comment.

If convicted, the charges of firearms trafficking and transfer of a firearm for use in a hate crime each carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the US Attorney’s Office said. A conviction for possession of an unregistered firearm carries a sentence of up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine.

Indictment outlines monthslong undercover operation

One of the individuals Prieto confided in was an undercover FBI agent, while the other was a confidential source who’d spoken with Prieto more than a dozen times at different gun shows over the last three years, according to the complaint. That source told the FBI in late 2023 that Prieto had made comments advocating for a mass shooting targeting “blacks, Jews, or Muslims,” the complaint says.

To read this article in its entirety, visit CNN

The suspect, Smiley Martin, was facing a murder charge, according to CNN affiliate KCRA. He was also charged with two felony firearms possession counts related to the April 2022 shooting that police say involved at least five shooters and left behind a chaotic crime scene littered with more than 100 shell casings. Two other people, including Martin’s brother, were also arrested in connection with the incident.

Martin’s attorney, Norman Dawson, said he was alerted of his death early Saturday.

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office announced on social media that a 29-year-old man had been found unresponsive in his cell around 2:15 a.m. Saturday, but despite life-saving efforts was ultimately pronounced dead. Though the agency did not name Martin as the inmate, it said the man had been in custody since Martin’s arrest date of April 20, 2022.

To read this article in its entirety, visit CNN

The possibility that the disqualification fight could stretch to October, as well as an ongoing question about how the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on presidential immunity could impact the prosecution, makes it extremely unlikely Trump will go on trial for election subversion in Georgia before Election Day.

Attorneys were informed of the tentative date after the case was officially docketed Monday with the appeals court, according to a notice obtained by CNN.

Briefs from defense attorneys in the case are due in 20 days.

While the court tentatively set an oral argument day, it is not guaranteed. A party to the case has to request an oral argument and the court then decides whether to grant that request. The panel could also decide to forgo oral arguments and rule on the matter based on filed briefs.

A panel of three judges – Todd Markle, Trenton Brown and Benjamin Land – is set to consider the case.

While the case against Trump and his codefendants is still allowed to proceed in the lower court, no trial date has been set.

A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The University of Virginia will pay $9 million in a settlement related to a 2022 campus shooting that killed three football players and wounded two students, a lawyer representing some of the victims and their families said Friday.

But some of the families are calling for more: The immediate release of an independent probe into the shooting that was completed last year. Its focus included efforts by the university to assess the potential threat of the student who was eventually charged with murder as well as recommendations from what was learned.

Kimberly Wald, an attorney who represents some of the families, said the university should have removed the alleged shooter from campus before the attack because he displayed multiple red flags through erratic and unstable behavior.

“This settlement today is only one small step for these families — there is much to be done,” said Wald, an attorney with the Miami-based Haggard Law Firm. “If there is one lesson, even one lesson that we can learn from that report, we need to know it now … We need to protect lives now.”

University officials postponed the report’s release last year over concerns that it could affect the alleged shooter’s upcoming trial.

“We are committed to providing it as soon as we can be sure that doing so will not interfere in any way with the criminal proceeding,” UVA President Jim Ryan said last fall.

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

A judge convicted Darien Harris in 2014 in connection with a fatal shooting at a South Side gas station in 2011. He was 12 years into a 76-year prison sentence when he was freed in December after The Exoneration Project showed that the eyewitness had advanced glaucoma and lied about his eyesight issues. Harris was 30 years old when he went free.

Harris filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in April alleging police fabricated evidence and coerced witnesses into making false statements, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday. He told the newspaper that he is still struggling to put his life back together.

“I don’t have any financial help. I’m still (treated like) a felon, so I can’t get a good job. It’s hard for me to get into school,” he said. “I’ve been so lost. … I feel like they took a piece of me that is hard for me to get back.”

A message The Associated Press left on the city’s Law Department main line seeking comment Monday wasn’t immediately returned. The department provides attorneys for the city, its departments and its employees.

Harris was an 18-year-old high school senior when he was arrested. The legally blind eyewitness picked Harris out of a police lineup and identified him in court. The eyewitness testified that he was riding his motorized scooter near the gas station when he heard gunshots and saw a person aiming a handgun. He also added that the shooter bumped into him.

Harris’ trial attorney asked the witness if his diabetes affected his vision. He said yes but denied he had vision problems. But the man’s doctor deemed him legally blind nine years before the incident, court records show.

A gas station attendant also testified that Harris wasn’t the shooter.

The Exoneration Project has helped clear more than 200 people since 2009, including a dozen in Chicago’s Cook County in 2023 alone.