17-year-old girl identified as victim killed in shooting at Mall of Louisiana, officials say
Crime scene barrier tape (Getty Images/Tetra Images)
(BATON ROUGE, La.) — A 17-year-old girl, Martha Odom, has been identified as the victim killed in a shooting at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge, officials said Friday, and a 17-year-old suspect is in custody.
Five others were wounded when gunfire broke out during a fight between two groups in the food court on Thursday afternoon, police said.
One of the injured, a 43-year-old man, remains in the hospital in critical condition, Baton Rouge Police Chief T.J. Morse said.
Lafayette’s Ascension Episcopal School described Odom, a senior at the school, as a “joyful presence whose kindness and infectious enthusiasm brought light to all who knew her.”
The school said two students were wounded and two others were witnesses.
One suspect in the shooting, 17-year-old Markel Lee, turned himself in on Friday, and faces charges including first-degree murder and multiple counts of attempted murder, Morse said at a news conference.
Morse said police are asking for the public’s help to find a second suspect wanted in connection with the shooting.
The five people detained on Thursday have been released pending further investigation, Morse said.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry called the shooting a “deeply troubling act of violence” that appears to have been driven by “neighborhood gang disputes that seem to want to spill out in our public places, putting innocent people in danger and taking the life of an innocent young lady.”
“This conduct is not going to be tolerated in this state,” he said at the news conference.
An employee at the mall at the time of the shooting told ABC Baton Rouge affiliate WBRZ, “I heard a loud ‘pop’ and then another ‘pop.’ … I turn around and I see people dropping to the floor and then I saw the gun. … And he was turning around, shooting randomly.”
“I called security and said, ‘Shots fired in the food court, people are down, people are hit.’ And then the cops came and it was just total chaos … blood was everywhere,” she said.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” she said.
The Mall of Louisiana is closed on Friday “out of respect for the victims.”
“Our deepest sympathies are with everyone who was impacted by the senseless act of violence that took place here today,” the mall said in a statement.
Tony Herbert (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Eric Adams may no longer be mayor of New York City, but the alleged corruption in his administration is extending beyond his time in City Hall.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors charged Tony Herbert, a former official in the Office of the Mayor, with bribery in connection with two separate pay-to-play schemes.
Herbert was arrested Tuesday morning and due in court later in the day for arraignment.
In the first alleged scheme, the indictment said Herbert solicited and received $11,000 in cash from a security company executive in exchange for pressuring other city officials to give the company security contracts at public housing projects.
In the second, the indictment said Herbert took $5,000 in kickbacks from the director of a funeral home in exchange for approving financial assistance for burial services for low-income families.
“To prevent these schemes from coming to light, Anthony Herbert, the defendant, filed false financial disclosure forms that omitted his receipt of thousands of dollars from both the Security Company Executive and the Funeral Home Director,” the indictment said.
Federal prosecutors said Herbert allegedly abused positions he held from 2022 to 2025 in both the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit and as citywide public housing liaison.
The indictment quoted Herbert allegedly telling the security executive, “This is what we do, bro. This is what we do. I mean it’s, ain’t nobody gonna do it for us.”
Herbert is charged with bribery, honest services wire fraud, extortion under color of official right, federal program fraud and wire fraud.
“New Yorkers deserve honest and competent public officials,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “As alleged, at a time when Anthony Herbert was serving as City Hall’s liaison to the City’s public housing residents, he engaged in blatant pay-to-play schemes to enrich himself.”
In addition to the pay-to-play schemes, Herbert is charged with submitting a fraudulent loan application for a purported baked good business to obtain a $20,000 loan under the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program.
Adams was indicted in October 2024 on federal corruption charges, to which he pleaded not guilty. His case was dismissed in April and he later dropped his reelection bid.
Ballots arrive at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operation Center on election night on November 5, 2024 in Fairburn, Georgia. Megan Varner/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Federal authorities are expected to unseal the affidavit they filed in support of their search of a Fulton County, Georgia, election office last month, after a federal judge ordered the document be unsealed by the end of the day Tuesday.
FBI agents on Jan. 28 seized 700 boxes containing ballots and other materials associated with the 2020 election from the county’s Elections Hub and Operations Center after obtaining a search warrant. President Donald Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, that contributed to his election loss.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee, a Trump nominee, on Sunday ordered the government to unseal the affidavit that was filed in support of the search warrant, subject to “the redaction of the names of non-governmental witnesses.”
In his ruling, Boulee noted that the government did not oppose the unsealing of the affidavit, which could provide more information on the search and the investigation that lead to it.
The ruling came after Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts filed a motion seeking the unsealing of the affidavit, as well as the return of the election documents that were seized.
Pitts said in a statement he was “pleased” with the judge’s ruling.
“Fulton County will continue to pursue every legal option to seek the return of election records and to defend our elections from possible takeover,” Pitts said. “Even in the midst of this unprecedented legal action, we will not allow our staff to be deterred or distracted from preparations for the 2026 election, which will be once again free, fair, transparent and legally compliant.”
While the judge on Sunday ordered the release of the affidavit that was the basis for the search warrant, the warrant itself authorized the FBI to search for “All physical ballots from the 2020 General Election” in addition to tabulator tapes from voting machines and 2020 voter rolls, according to a copy of the warrant that was obtained by ABC Atlanta affiliate WSB following the raid.
The warrant said the material “constitutes evidence of the commission of a criminal offense.”
The warrant listed possible violations of two statutes — one which requires election records to be retained for a certain amount of time, and another which outlines criminal penalties for people, including election officials, who intimidate voters or to knowingly procure false votes or false voter registrations.
Lawyer Barry Pollack speaks during a press conference, June 26, 2024, in Canberra, Australia. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — As Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife were arraigned this week on narco-terrorism charges, the key legal players in the case included a 92-year-old judge and the attorney for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The case with international implications will feature high-profile defense attorneys and will be presided over by the most senior U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges. The next court date is set for March 17.
The Judge
U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein was appointed to the federal bench in 1998 by former President Bill Clinton and was confirmed by the Senate through unanimous consent.
Known by colleagues and lawyers as a no-nonsense jurist with an independent streak, Hellerstein presided over the 2019 federal civil trial of Harvey Weinstein, brought by 16 women who accused the former movie mogul of sexual assault.
In a major July 2020 ruling, Hellerstein, who turned 92 last month, tossed a $19 million settlement in the Weinstein civil case, saying that it failed to adequately compensate the accusers.
In his decision, Hellerstein slammed the settlement proposal as unfair, noting that accusers who had merely met Weinstein would receive compensation equal to those who were allegedly sexually assaulted by him.
“What is there to make me believe that a person who just met Harvey Weinstein has the same claim as the person who is raped by Harvey Weinstein?” the judge asked during a hearing on the settlement.
Additionally, the judge said it was “obnoxious” that the settlement proposal would have included money to cover the legal fees for Weinstein and other directors of his former company.
Hellerstein has also ruled against President Donald Trump, whose Justice Department is prosecuting Maduro, in multiple instances.
In 2023 and 2024, Hellerstein rejected requests by Trump’s attorneys to move a case charging him with falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to adult movie star Stormy Daniels from state court to federal court.
“Trump has failed to show that the conduct charged by the Indictment is for or relating to any act performed by or for the President under color of the official acts of a President,” Hellerstein wrote in his ruling.
Trump was eventually convicted in state court on 34 felony counts.
In April 2025, Hellerstein blocked the Trump administration from deporting migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, ruling that migrants being held in the Southern District of New York could not be deported without them first receiving notice and an opportunity for a hearing.
Maduro’s attorney
Barry Pollack, Maduro’s attorney, has more than 30 years of experience as a lawyer and has represented high-profile clients.
During Maduro’s arraignment on Monday, Pollack signaled that that he could assert that he is entitled, as a foreign leader, to protection against prosecution.
“He is the head of a sovereign state,” Pollack said in court, adding that there are “issues about the legality of his military abduction.”
Among the attorney’s past clients is Julian Assange. In June 2024, Pollack negotiated a plea agreement for the WikiLeaks founder who was charged with violating the Espionage Act for publishing classified information he obtained from Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst.
Under the plea agreement that Pollack hammered out with the Department of Justice, Assange was freed from prison in June 2024 after pleading guilty to a single felony count of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information.
Pollack — a partner in the Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler law firm in New York City and Washington, D.C. — also won the freedom of Martin Tankleff, a Long Island, New York, teenager who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents in 1988. Tankleff was released from prison in 2008 after Pollack successfully filed an appeal, arguing there was insufficient evidence to convict him.
Pollack also defended Michael Krautz, former accountant for the Enron Corp., who was charged along with other company executives with fraud and conspiracy to falsify business records stemming from overstated earnings of the company’s now-defunct subsidiary Enron Broadband Services.
Krautz was acquitted of the charges in 2006, just days after Enron founder Kenneth Lay and CEO Jeffrey Skilling were convicted on similar charges in one of the biggest business scandals in U.S. history.
“Barry’s unwavering commitment to his clients, the defense function, and the Constitution serves as inspiration to criminal defense lawyers across the nation,” Christopher W. Adams, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said in 2021, as the organization honored Pollack with its Robert C. Heeney Memorial Award.
Maduro also added constitutional law expert Bruce Fein to his legal defense team, according to a notice on the court docket on Tuesday. Fein has written critically about the Trump administration’s deportation policies and the president’s use of pardons.
Maduro’s wife’s lawyer
Houston-based defense attorney Mark Donnelly, a former federal prosecutor, has been retained by Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores.
Donnelly is the former senior advisor to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas and was a federal prosecutor for 12 years before going into private practice. He is now a partner in the Houston law firm Parker Sanchez & Donnelly.
“With over 100 jury trials under his belt, Mark not only is extremely comfortable in the courtroom, but also has the knowledge and experience to guide clients through all phases of representation,” his bio on his law firm’s website says.
According to the bio, Donnelly spent eight years as a prosecutor in the Harris County, Texas, District Attorney’s Office, where he led investigations into elected officials and others charged with violating the public trust.
In 2023, the Texas House of Representatives recruited Donnelly to assist in the historic investigation and impeachment trial of then-state Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton, who was accused of bribery and abusing his office to protect a donor accused of making false statements to secure business loans.
Paxton, a Republican, was acquitted in September 2023.
Donnelly is a proficient Spanish speaker and was once designated as a bilingual assistant prosecutor for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
“We look forward to reviewing and challenging the evidence the government has,” Donnelly said in a statement to Houston Public Media about representing Flores. “While we would love to present our side now, we will wait to do so in court at the appropriate time. The first lady is aware that there is a long road ahead and is prepared.”
