Teacher arrested for allegedly putting 5-year-old boy in headlock
(NEW YORK) — A teacher in New York City has been arrested and charged after police say he allegedly put a 5-year-old boy in a headlock on Monday, police said.
The incident occurred at approximately 1:30 p.m. inside of PS 153 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Elementary School in the Hamilton Heights area of Manhattan in New York City, according to ABC News’ New York station WABC-TV.
“46-year-old Anthony Wicks was charged with assault and acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17, according to police,” WABC confirmed.
The 5-year-old child was subsequently taken to NewYork-Presbyterian / Columbia University Irving Medical Center and is expected to survive, WABC said, though no details were given about what injuries the child may have suffered or how severe they might have been.
It is not immediately known what instigated the alleged assault and the investigation remains open.
(NEW YORK) — A former Minneapolis police officer convicted in the death of George Floyd was released from prison Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed to ABC News.
Thomas Lane, 41, pleaded guilty in May 2022 to state charges of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to dismiss charges against him for aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder.
He was sentenced to three years in prison for the state charges.
Previously, in February 2022, a federal jury convicted Lane — as well as two other former officers — for violating Floyd’s civil rights when they failed to intervene in his murder in May 2020.
He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for the federal charges.
Lane served the two sentences concurrently at FCI Englewood in Colorado. His sentence on federal charges expired earlier this year, according to a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson, while his sentence on state charges ended Tuesday.
Lane will spend the next year on supervised release, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Corrections told ABC News.
Derek Chauvin — the officer who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, killing him — was convicted on murder charges and sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison.
In a move unrelated to Lane, Chauvin was moved to a federal prison in Big Springs, Texas, on Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the situation. Chauvin was stabbed at a federal prison in Phoenix last November.
In the wake of Floyd’s murder, protests against racial injustice and police brutality broke out across the U.S. and even internationally, drawing millions.
“Thomas Lane served his time and paid his debt to society. I wish him well in his re-entry into his community,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement to Duluth ABC affiliate WDIO-TV.
(BOSTON) — The family of a Boston police officer whose death is at the center of the Karen Read murder case has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her and two Massachusetts bars they went to before his death.
John O’Keefe III, 46, was found dead the morning of Jan. 29, 2022, outside a home in Canton, Massachusetts, police said. The civil lawsuit, filed Monday, alleged that his girlfriend, Read, struck him with her car while intoxicated and left him for dead.
The lawsuit, which includes O’Keefe’s brother, parents and niece as plaintiffs, is suing Read and two bars — C.F. McCarthy’s and Waterfall Bar and Grille — for unspecified damages, alleging wrongful death and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Read’s attorney told ABC News her defense team is not commenting on the lawsuit at this time.
A representative for C.F. McCarthy’s had no comment when contacted by ABC News. ABC News was unable to reach the owner of Waterfall Bar and Grille.
The lawsuit comes after a judge declared a mistrial last month in the case against Read, who was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. She had pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors alleged she hit O’Keefe with her car and left him to die in the middle of a snowstorm after the two got into an argument earlier in the day.
Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial in the case on July 1 after the jury said it was unable to reach a unanimous consensus on the fifth day of deliberations. The Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said they planned to retry the case, and the new trial has been scheduled to start on Jan. 27, 2025.
Cannone last week denied a request to dismiss two of Read’s charges — second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident — in the retrial. Read’s attorneys had argued in court filings that retrying her on the charges would violate double jeopardy protections because, based on subsequent statements from four jurors, the jury had reached a unanimous decision to acquit Read on the charges.
In her ruling released on Friday, Cannone concluded that double jeopardy was not at issue “because the defendant was not acquitted of any charges and defense counsel consented to the court’s declaration of a mistrial.”
Read has strenuously denied the allegations, and her lawyers alleged that a fellow police officer was involved in O’Keefe’s death and colluded with others in a cover-up.
The lawsuit alleges Read and O’Keefe’s relationship had been “deteriorating” in the months leading up to his death, during which time Read “picked fights, experienced jealousy and had delusions of unfaithfulness.”
Read was served seven alcoholic drinks over roughly an hour and a half while at C.F. McCarthy’s with O’Keefe on the night of Jan. 28, 2022, and “showed signs of intoxication,” the lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit then alleges she carried out her drink and went to Waterfall, where she was served one shot and one mixed alcoholic drink, before leaving with O’Keefe shortly after midnight and driving him to a residence in Canton.
The lawsuit alleges the two had an argument and she “drove her SUV and hit” O’Keefe, then fled the scene and went to O’Keefe’s home. The lawsuit claims Read returned to the residence later that morning and observed him “laying on the ground, buried in the snow, where she had earlier left him to die.” O’Keefe suffered trauma injuries before becoming hypothermic, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit alleges the two bars negligently service alcohol to an intoxicated person, and that Read “intended the reckless conduct that resulted in [O’Keefe’s] injuries/death.”
The lawsuit also alleges Read “intentionally and/or recklessly inflicted severe emotional distress” on O’Keefe’s then-14-year-old niece, who was under his care. Read allegedly returned to his home, woke the teen up and told her something had happened to her uncle, that “she hit her uncle or a snow plow hit her uncle,” according to the lawsuit.
(PHOENIX) — Donald Trump’s former attorney Jenna Ellis has reached a cooperation agreement with officials in Arizona as part of the state’s “fake elector” case, the Arizona attorney general’s office announced Monday.
The state is dropping the charges against Ellis in exchange for her cooperation, officials said.
Ellis was facing nine felonies as part of the case.
She pleaded not guilty in Maricopa County court in June for her alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona.
As part of her cooperation deal, Ellis has agreed to provide information and materials to law enforcement officials as well as to testify “at any time and place,” according to a copy of her cooperation agreement that was released by officials.
Ellis also sat for a recorded proffer session with the attorney general’s office on June 17, according to the agreement.
“This agreement represents a significant step forward in our case,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. “I am grateful to Ms. Ellis for her cooperation with our investigation and prosecution. Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the State in proving its case in court.”
This spring, Ellis was one of eighteen individuals indicted by Mayes’ office over their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. A number of former and current aides to Trump were among those indicted, including Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows.
Trump was not charged in the case.
The deal marks the second cooperation agreement for Ellis, who previously pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in Georgia last year after she was indicted in Fulton County alongside Donald Trump and 17 others over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
Appearing in a Georgia courtroom in October, Ellis tearfully denounced her work on behalf of Trump during the 2020 election.
“If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump, in these post-election challenges,” Ellis told the judge in that case. “I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.”
ABC News later exclusively obtained video of Ellis’ proffer session with Fulton County prosecutors.
In addition to Ellis, Georgia defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Scott Hall also took cooperation deals in that case.