Iran guardsman charged in alleged plot to kill New York-based Iranian journalist
(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday announced criminal charges against an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general in connection with an alleged failed attempt to assassinate a New York-based Iranian journalist.
Ruhollah Bazghandi, who is based in Iran and beyond the reach of law enforcement, allegedly orchestrated the alleged 2022 plot to kill the journalist, prosecutors said.
The charges name Bazghandi and six other Iranian operatives who federal prosecutors said plotted to kill Masih Alinejad, a prolific journalist and human rights activist who has been critical of the Iranian government.
Since at least July 2022, the Bazghandi network sought to assassinate Alinejad, as directed by individuals in Iran, according to the indictment.
The indictment details how the network of operatives surveilled Alinejad and quotes them talking about her in July 2022.
“I’m close to the place now brother I’m getting even closer,” the indictment quotes one operative as saying.
In response, another said, according to the indictment, “OK my brother dear don’t let her out of your sight. Let’s not delay it my brother dear.”
The operative — Khalid Mehdiyev — was disrupted when he was arrested near the victim’s home on July 28, 2022, while in possession of the assault rifle, along with 66 rounds of ammunition, approximately $1,100 in cash, and a black ski mask, according to the indictment.
Alinejad reacted to the federal charges in a statement on social media Tuesday, saying, “I will not be deterred.”
“Thanks to law enforcement, I am alive to witness the Islamic Republic’s humiliation,” she said. “I am determined to echo the voices of millions of Iranians, especially women, who are facing the same killers within the country.”
She said the alleged assassination plot is a “stark reminder of the brutal lengths to which the Islamic regime will go to silence dissidents, even those far beyond Iran’s borders.”
Alinejad said she has moved 21 times between safe houses in the past three years, following an alleged Iranian plot to lure and kidnap her in 2021.
The FBI released a wanted poster for Bazghandi, who is being sought on charges including murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire.
“Today’s indictment exposes the full extent of Iran’s plot to silence an American journalist for criticizing the Iranian regime,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement on Tuesday. “The FBI’s investigation led to the disruption of this plot as one of the conspirators was allegedly on their way to murder the victim in New York. As these charges show, the FBI will work with our partners here and abroad to hold accountable those who target Americans.”
(PAWLET, Ver.) — A man, his wife and her 13-year-old son were found shot to death at their Vermont home, state police said, with authorities looking for a suspect.
Officers responded to a report of a “suspicious person” early Sunday, Vermont State Police said. The investigation led them to a home in the town of Pawlet, where they found the three victims dead, police said.
State police identified the victims on Tuesday as Brian Crossman Sr., 46, who was a Pawlet government official; his wife, Erica Crossman, 41; and her son and his stepson, Colin Taft, 13.
All three died from gunshot wounds and their deaths have been ruled as homicides by the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s Office, state police said. Brian Crossman was shot in the head and torso, Erica Crossman was shot in the head and her son had multiple gunshot wounds, state police said.
No one is in custody in connection with the homicides, Vermont State Police said Tuesday.
“Initial work by detectives indicates this was an isolated event with no identified threat to the community,” state police said.
No additional details are available at this time amid the ongoing investigation, police said.
Brian Crossman had joined the Pawlet Select Board this year, where he served as a liaison to buildings and development and to the town’s highway department, according to the town’s website.
Flowers were left in his honor at the Pawlet Town Hall ahead of a board meeting Tuesday night, Albany, New York, ABC affiliate WTEN reported.
Pawlet Select Board Chair Mike Beecher remembered him as a “friend and neighbor” and a “hardworking community member.”
“This tragedy that struck him and his family has also hit our community hard, and we are shaken and grieving,” Beecher said in a statement Tuesday. “Our hearts go out to everyone affected by this devastating loss. The town of Pawlet will work to get through this as we always get through hard times, by supporting each other and doing our best to carry on.”
Pawlet, a town of about 1,400 people, is located in western Vermont on the New York state line.
(NEW YORK) — The attorney for two Black men whose racially motivated torture led to the conviction of six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers called for justice amid a new U.S. Department of Justice announced civil rights probe into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD), where five of the former sheriff’s deputies worked.
Malik Shabazz, the lead attorney representing Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, said during a video press conference Monday from his office in Greenbelt, Maryland, that the two men and their legal team “welcome this federal investigation into Rankin County and into Sheriff Bryan Bailey. It is long overdue.”
The investigation into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department “will seek to determine whether RCSD engages in patterns or practices that violate the Constitution and federal law,” according to the DOJ announcement.
The probe is separate from the initial investigation launched by the DOJ last year into the Jan. 24, 2023 torture of Jenkins and Parker, which led to the conviction of five former sheriff’s deputies, as well as a former Richland, Mississippi police officer who was also involved in the incident, on both federal and state charges. The sheriff’s deputies were part of a self-described “Goon Squad” of “officers who were known for using excessive force and not reporting it,” according to the DOJ.
“Those officers have since been convicted and sentenced, but we are launching this civil pattern or practice investigation to examine serious allegations that the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department systematically violates people’s constitutional rights through excessive use of force; unlawful stops, searches, and arrests; and discriminatory policing,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the statement announcing the probe.
Garland added that the allegations against the Rankin County Sheriff’s office include overusing tasers, entering homes unlawfully, using racial slurs, and utilizing “cruel tactics to assault people in their custody.”
In response to a request for comment, an attorney representing Sheriff Bryan Bailey and the RCSD referred ABC News to a statement posted on the RCSD’s Facebook page in response to the DOJ probe announcement.
“We have increased our agency’s transparency by placing our policies and procedures, in addition to our compliments and complaints portal on the Sheriff’s Department website,” the statement says. “We will continue this transparency and will fully cooperate with all aspects of this investigation, while also welcoming DOJ’s input into our updated policies and practices.”
Attorneys Shabazz and Trent Walker, who represent Parker and Jenkins, told ABC News in a joint statement that the DOJ probe into the RCSD is “a first, critical step in cleaning up the Sheriff’s Department and holding Rankin County legally accountable for the years of constitutional violations against its citizenry.”
“The torture and abuse of so many took place because, despite innumerable warnings, Rankin County and Sheriff Bailey belligerently refused to properly monitor and supervise this rogue and violent department,” Shabazz and Walker claimed in the statement.
U.S. Attorney Todd W. Gee for the Southern District of Mississippi said in a statement responding to the DOJ probe announcement that the information the DOJ has gathered regarding the behavior of some members of the RCSD “calls back to some of the worst periods of Mississippi’s history.”
“We do not have to accept the old hatreds and abuse of the past,” Gee said. “And we do not have to accept the false claim that safety comes at the price of illegal force and abuse of power.”
The Mississippi NAACP said in a statement posted to Facebook that the DOJ probe into the sheriff’s office “marks a significant step in addressing concerns raised by the community and advocates regarding potential misconduct within the department,” and that the NAACP “looks forward to Rankin County being held accountable for alleged acts against its population.”
The DOJ civil rights probe comes nearly six months after the federal sentencing in March of former RCSO deputies Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton, Christian Dedmon, Brett McAlpin and Daniel Opdyke, along with Joshua Hartfield, a former Richland, Mississippi police officer, to between 10 and 40 years in prison. The six men also pleaded guilty to state charges stemming from the incident and were sentenced in April to between 10 and 20 years in prison.
All six pleaded guilty to 16 felony charges related to the racially motivated torture and sexual assault of Jenkins and Parker, along with a third Rankin County man, in two unrelated incidents, according to a statement released by U.S. Department of Justice on Aug. 3, 2023. They also pleaded guilty to a subsequent plan to cover up their crimes.
News of the Jan. 24, 2023 incident and the subsequent convictions sparked a firestorm in Mississippi, including calls for Bailey’s resignation from numerous parties, including the Rankin County branch of the NAACP, which launched a petition calling for the sheriff to step down.
Following the sentencing of the former sheriff’s deputies in March, Bailey said in a statement obtained by ABC affiliate WAPT-TV in Jackson, Mississippi that “the safety and security of everyone in Rankin County is a primary concern for this department” and that his office cooperated with the initial DOJ probe into the torture of Jenkins and Parker.
“As the duly elected and acting Sheriff of Rankin County, I will remain committed to the betterment of this county and this sheriff’s department moving forward,” Bailey added.
Jenkins and Parker filed a $400 million federal lawsuit in July 2023 against the former law enforcement officers involved in this case. The lawsuit also names Sheriff Bailey, claiming he “failed to properly train, supervise, control, direct, monitor, and discipline Rankin County Sheriff’s Deputies.”
The former sheriff’s deputies and Bailey denied wrongdoing in an Oct. 2023 filing in response to the suit.
In July, Bailey asked U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III to dismiss him from the lawsuit, claiming he had “qualified immunity” — a doctrine that protects government officials, including law enforcement officers, from personal liability for alleged constitutional violations. But in a July 24 ruling, the judge denied Bailey’s request.
(NEW YORK) — At least 6,300 National Guard troops are racing to get aid to those in need — along with an army of volunteers — in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene as the death toll jumped to more than 160 across six states on Wednesday morning, with hundreds of people still reported missing.
New images from storm-ravaged areas are continuing to emerge on Wednesday in places like Erwin, Tennessee, where ambulances could be seen being towed away near where dozens of people were rescued from a roof of a hospital with dump trucks filled with trees and debris located nearby.
Elsewhere, in North Carolina, dramatic dashcam footage captured the moment a couple narrowly missed being swept up in a landslide in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with those landslides and flooding washing roads and bridges away and making it all but impossible to get access to some of the hardest hit areas.
“We have one suitcase, really,” North Carolina resident and Hurricane Helene survivor, Aaron Smith, told ABC News. “And so trying to figure out four people and a dog out of one suitcase, it’s the most, it’s just surreal.”
Another family in Hendersonville, North Carolina, became completely surrounded by floodwater, waiting for help in chest-high water and unable to get to dry land.
The Mirandas have been forced to use creek water to wash their clothes and have even had to find ice to keep insulin cold in coolers.
Jessica Meidinger said that she knows a witness who saw a neighbor’s house floating away down a river with them still inside — Rod Ashby was rescued Tuesday night but his wife, Kim, is still missing.
“Losing your most loved one when you had her in your arms and now you don’t there’s I don’t imagine there’s much that can compare to that,” Meidinger said. “She’s strong, she’s a breast cancer survivor. It’s hard not to hold on to that hope.”