$1 million bond reduced for teen charged with murder in track meet stabbing
Frisco Police Department
(FRISCO, Texas) — The $1 million bond has been reduced for the 17-year-old student charged with murder in the stabbing of another student at a Texas high school track meet.
Karmelo Anthony, a student at Frisco Centennial High School, was detained following the deadly stabbing, which occurred at a Frisco Independent School District stadium on April 2 during a track and field championship involving multiple schools in the district.
Austin Metcalf, 17, an 11th grader at Frisco Memorial High School, died after police said another student stabbed him during an altercation in the bleachers at the meet.
Anthony was initially held on $1 million bond. During a hearing on Monday, a Collin County judge set his bond at $250,000, online court records show.
Should he post bond, he has been ordered to be on house arrest, be supervised by a parent or designated adult at all times and have no contact with Metcalf’s family, according to court records. He also needs prior court approval to leave the house and must check in with the court bailiff weekly until the case is indicted into a different court, the court records show.
Judge Angela Tucker said she considered several factors in setting the new bond amount, including Anthony’s age, lack of past criminal history and close ties to the community, Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA reported.
Members of both teens’ families attended the hearing, according to WFAA.
Anthony is newly represented by Dallas defense attorney Mike Howard, who asked for $150,000 bond, according to WFAA. The prosecution argued the Anthony family was able to pay the $1 million bond through funds raised through the platform GiveSendGo, according to WFAA. The fundraiser had more than $416,000 in donations as of Monday afternoon. Anthony’s father told the court the family doesn’t have access to those funds yet, WFAA reported.
ABC News has reached out to Howard for comment.
The Dallas-based social justice organization Next Generation Action Network, which is advocating for Anthony, said the reduced bond “gives Karmelo and his family a much-needed window of relief and a chance to prepare for the road ahead.”
“The Next Generation Action Network is currently working with the Anthony family to get the bond processed and will keep the community updated regarding his release,” the organization said in a statement on X.
The stabbing occurred under the Memorial High School tent in the stadium bleachers at approximately 10 a.m. on April 2, according to the arrest report.
Responding officers said they spoke to multiple witnesses, including one who reported the altercation began after Metcalf told Anthony to move out from under their team’s tent, according to the arrest report.
The witness reported that Anthony allegedly reached inside his bag and said, “Touch me and see what happens,” according to the arrest report.
Metcalf grabbed Anthony to move him, according to a witness, and Anthony allegedly pulled out what the witness described as a black knife and “stabbed Austin once in the chest and then ran away,” the arrest report stated.
Anthony allegedly confessed to the killing and officers say he told them he was protecting himself, according to the arrest report.
Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES) — Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for MLB star Shohei Ohtani, is set to be sentenced Thursday on federal charges related to stealing nearly $17 million from the Dodgers player, nearly a year after the gambling controversy first surfaced.
Mizuhara, 40, admitted to fraudulently transferring the money from Ohtani’s account for more than two years to pay his gambling debts, including impersonating the athlete on two dozen occasions in calls to the bank, according to a plea agreement in the case.
Prosecutors called the scheme “deep” and “extensive” fraud and that Ohtani was “harmed substantially” by Mizuhara’s actions.
Mizuhara pleaded guilty last year to one count of bank fraud, which carries a maximum of 30 years in prison, and one count of subscribing to a false tax return, which carries up to three years in prison. A sentence of 48 months was recommended by the probation officer.
Mizuhara, a permanent resident of the U.S., also faces a risk of deportation back to his native Japan upon completion of the federal sentence, prosecutors said.
Mizuhara asks judge for mercy
In a three-page letter to Judge John Holcomb filed ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Mizuhara asked for a “merciful and not punitive” sentence and set out to explain why he committed the fraud.
He described mounting financial stresses that he said led him to use an online sports betting website run by Mathew Bowyer starting in 2021. He said that due to his “ignorance to the gambling industry,” he did not realize it was an illegal gambling business until early 2024.
“Being desperate for money at the time, I stupidly thought this might be an opportunity to help myself out financially and started to use his website for sports betting. And before I knew it, the results were the complete opposite,” Mizuhara wrote. “My gambling debt had grown so much that I could not find any way to pay it but to use Shohei’s money … I felt terribly guilty about putting my hands on his money but this was the only solution I could think of at the time.”
Mizuhara also said that the offseason was “physically and mentally” harder while detailing some of his errands for Ohtani, such as driving him to trainings, taking his dog to the vet and fixing his bicycle — saying he had “almost no true days off.”
“I felt like I was getting severely underpaid but I was afraid to speak up for myself as I was on a one year contract every year and I didn’t want to upset them and end up getting fired,” he wrote.
Mizuhara said he hopes to use his experience to help others dealing with gambling problems. He also outlined the impact a prison sentence would have on his wife.
“I understand that I have made a decision that will impact my entire life and I am not making excuses for what I have done. I am not trying to justify my actions in any way. I am asking that you will look at me as a man and believe change can happen,” he said. “I don’t believe an apology will fix my wrong. I am prepared [to] accept my consequences. I am asking for a little mercy from the court concerning my sentence you will hand down.”
He lastly said he is “truly sorry” for violating Ohtani’s trust in him.
Defense, government make case for sentence
Mizuhara’s attorney asked the judge to impose an 18-month sentence, arguing in a memorandum that the interpreter was devoted to his work for Ohtani but suffers from a “longstanding gambling addiction, which was uniquely exacerbated by his grueling work and exposure to high-stakes bookmakers in the world of professional athletes.”
Mizuhara “made a terrible mistake as a result of his serious gambling addiction, an anomaly in an otherwise law-abiding life in which he was dedicated to his career as an interpreter for Mr. Ohtani and other baseball players,” his attorney, Michael Freedman, wrote.
The defense attorney also said Mizuhara’s reputation here and in Japan has been “irretrievably stained” and that he “will continue to suffer as a result of harm to his reputation and career in the global press and through certain deportation.”
Prosecutors, meanwhile, asked the court to impose a prison sentence of 57 months while disputing what they called “unsupported claims” by the defense on the extent of Mizuhara’s gambling problem and the financial problems he had said led him to Bowyer’s illegal sports betting business.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Mitchell wrote in a response to the defense’s sentencing filings that the government could find no proof of a long-standing gambling addiction, and that Mizuhara did not have “such a ‘tremendous debt’ that it forced him to steal millions of dollars from Mr. Ohtani, as he claims.”
Mitchell also questioned whether Mizuhara is “truly remorseful or whether they are just sorry they were caught” and highlighted portions of Mizuhara’s letter to the judge, in which he detailed his offseason duties for Ohtani.
“The government does not question defendant’s work ethic, but only his characterization of the work and his true intention,” Mitchell wrote. “Instead of using this opportunity to apologize and show true remorse, he has used it, in a public filing, to complain about his work and Mr. Ohtani.”
In addition to the prison sentence, the government asked for three years of supervised release, restitution of $16,975,010 to Ohtani and $1,149,400 to the IRS.
Sentencing comes nearly year after firing
Mizuhara worked with the Angels as Ohtani’s interpreter and then in the same capacity with the Dodgers, until the team fired him nearly a year ago, in March 2024, after the gambling controversy surfaced.
Ohtani addressed the scandal at the time during a press briefing, saying in a prepared statement through an interpreter, “I am very saddened and shocked that someone who I trusted has done this.”
Mizuhara pleaded guilty to the federal charges in June 2024.
According to the plea agreement, from November 2021 to March 2024, Mizuhara transferred nearly $17 million from the account to associates of the bookmaker in more than 40 wires without Ohtani’s permission.
Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers prior to last year, the richest deal in sports history.
Bowyer pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges for running an illegal gambling business that took unlawful sports bets from hundreds of customers, including Mizuhara, the Department of Justice said. He is scheduled to be sentenced in April.
Mizuhara also admitted in the plea agreement to falsely claiming that his total taxable income for 2022 was $136,865 when, in fact, he failed to report an additional $4.1 million in income.
“The source of the unreported income was from his scheme to defraud the bank,” the DOJ said, noting that he owes approximately $1,149,400 in additional taxes for the tax year 2022, plus additional interest and penalties.
His sentencing has been postponed several times after the defense asked for more time to prepare and for a forensic psychologist to complete a report about Mizuhara’s gambling.
This video — which was given to investigators, who are now reviewing it — shows the plane reach the ground, erupt in flames, bounce on the runway and then overturn.
The aircraft came to a stop upside-down on the snow covered Toronto runway.
The 76 passengers and four crew evacuated the plane, which originated in Minneapolis.
Everyone survived, but at least 21 people were taken to hospitals. As of Tuesday morning, 19 have been released, according to Delta.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is leading the investigation. Investigators from the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are assisting.
The CRJ 900 aircraft was operated by Endeavor Air.
“Our most pressing priority remains taking care of all customers and Endeavor crew members who were involved,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said. “We’ll do everything we can to support them and their families in the days ahead, and I know the hearts, thoughts and prayers of the entire Delta community are with them. We are grateful for all the first responders and medical teams who have been caring for them.”
(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency faces its first major legal hurdle this afternoon when a federal judge in Washington, D.C., considers blocking the newly formed arm of the federal government from accessing sensitive records from the Treasury Department.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is hearing arguments Wednesday over whether she should issue a temporary restraining order prohibiting DOGE from accessing or using Treasury Department data as part of DOGE’s effort to trim the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump.
The hearing follows a lawsuit filed by three federal unions that alleged DOGE employees violated federal privacy laws when they accessed data from the Treasury Department, including the names, social security numbers, birthdays, bank account numbers, and addresses of taxpayers.
“The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” the lawsuit alleged.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the Service Employees International Union, and the Alliance for Retired Americans alleged that Musk and DOGE — with the consent of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — unlawfully accessed the sensitive records without providing any legal justification, public reasoning, or legal procedure to collect taxpayer data.
According to the lawsuit, DOGE’s “full, continuous, and ongoing access” of sensitive data risks the security of millions of Americans.
“People who must share information with the federal government should not be forced to share information with Elon Musk or his ‘DOGE.’ And federal law says they do not have to,” the lawsuit says.
The plaintiffs requested a temporary restraining order preventing the Treasury Department from providing DOGE sensitive information as well as enjoining DOGE employees from using any of the records they might have already obtained.
