Man in critical condition after being pushed onto New York City subway tracks: Police
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(NEW YORK) — A man was left in critical but stable condition after he was pushed onto the subway tracks at the 18th Street Station in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
The 45 -year-old victim was pushed onto the southbound 1 train tracks by an unknown individual, according to the NYPD.
The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical but stable condition.
The suspect fled the scene but was later caught, police said.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Operation Bear Claw reveals suspects allegedly wore bear costume to commit insurance fraud. Image via California Department of Insurance
(LOS ANGELES) — Four individuals were arrested Wednesday for allegedly attempting to defraud their insurance companies by claiming a bear had damaged their vehicles — when in fact it was a person in a bear costume attacking the cars.
The suspects were all Los Angeles-area residents, according to a statement released Wednesday afternoon by the California Department of Insurance.
The suspects varying in age, were Ararat Chirkinian, 39, of Glendale; Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, of Glendale; Ruben Tamrazian, 26, of Glendale; and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village.
The statement said that all four were charged with conspiracy and insurance fraud.
Suspects claimed on Jan. 28, 2024, that a bear entered their 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost and caused interior damage, according to the Department of Insurance. They provided video footage of the incident, stating that it had occurred during their visit to Lake Arrowhead.
Upon reviewing the footage, the Department of Insurance said that it suspected fraud. Officials said that they believed right away that the bear in question was actually a person in a bear costume.
Initiating an investigation — named Operation Bear Claw — the department learned that two other claims had been filed to different insurance companies with similar details: the same location and the same date.
Similar to the claim that originally drew the unit’s attention, the two other reports stated that a bear had attacked their cars: a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, according to the statement.
Each of the two other claims had submitted video footage as part of their evidence. And in both of those videos, the department said it believed that they were looking at the same bear costume.
However, the department said that it sought an outside opinion on the case before making a final determination. Investigators reached out to a biologist from the California Department of Wildlife, who then independently reviewed the evidence for Operation Bear Claw.
The biologist stated that “it was clearly a human in a bear suit,” according to the statement.
Authorities were able to execute a search warrant for the people involved in the alleged insurance fraud scheme.
Officials confirm that a bear costume was found in one of the suspects’ homes.
At the time of the arrests, officials reported that the insurance companies had already paid out some of the claims, totaling $141,839.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is prosecuting the case.
(ATHENS, Ga.) — The suspect accused of murdering Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus was found guilty on all charges Wednesday, including malice murder and felony murder.
Prosecutors called the evidence against the suspect “overwhelming,” while the defense raised the theory that the defendant could be an accomplice but not the killer during closing arguments in his trial.
Jose Ibarra, 26, was accused of killing the 22-year-old nursing student while she was out for a run after prosecutors said she “refused to be his rape victim.” Jose Ibarra, an undocumented migrant, was charged with malice murder and felony murder in connection with her death, which became a rallying cry for immigration reform from many conservatives, including President-elect Donald Trump.
Jose Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial and the case was presented over four days in the Athens-Clarke County courtroom to Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who rendered the verdict on Wednesday.
Sobbing could be heard in the courtroom as he read the guilty verdicts on each charge.
Before announcing his verdict, Haggard told the courtroom that he wrote down two statements from the attorneys during closing arguments.
One was a statement by the prosecutor, who said the “evidence was overwhelming and powerful.”
The other was one by the defense attorney, who said that the judge is “required to set aside my emotions.”
“That’s the same thing we tell jurors,” he said. “That’s the way I have to approach this, and I did. Both of those statements are correct.”
Court is on recess until 12:30 p.m. ET, at which point Haggard said he is ready to move ahead with sentencing.
Jose Ibarra faces a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors called 28 witnesses while laying out what they said was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Jose Ibarra killed Riley, who died by blunt force head trauma and asphyxia.
Special prosecutor Sheila Ross told the court Jose Ibarra encountered Riley while she was on her morning jog on Feb. 22 while he was out “hunting” for women on the Athens campus.
Ross said Riley “fought for her life” in a struggle that caused Jose Ibarra to leave forensic evidence behind. Digital and video evidence also pointed to him as the only killer, she said.
“The evidence in this case has been overwhelming, and the evidence in this case has spoken loud and clear — that he is Laken Riley’s killer, and that he killed her because she would not let him rape her,” Ross said during her closing argument on Wednesday.
A forensics expert testified that Jose Ibarra’s DNA was found under Riley’s right fingernails, and that his two brothers, who lived with him in an apartment near the campus, were excluded as matches.
When Jose Ibarra was questioned by police a day after the murder, he had visible scratches on his arms, officers said. He also had scratches on his neck and back, which Ross said could have only been left by Riley.
“In order to not find him guilty, you would have to disbelieve your own eyes,” Ross said.
“She marked him. She marked him for everyone to see. She marked him for you to see,” Ross told the judge.
Prosecutors argued Jose Ibarra hindered Riley from making a 911 call, and said his thumbprint was left on her phone. Data from his Samsung phone and the Garmin watch Riley was wearing on her run showed the devices overlapped and were in close proximity in the forest where she was found dead, an FBI analyst testified.
Jose Ibarra was captured on Ring footage discarding a bloody jacket and disposable gloves near his apartment about 15 minutes after Riley died, prosecutors said. The individual’s face can’t be seen in the video, but Jose Ibarra’s roommate testified that it was him. The defendant’s brother, Diego Ibarra, also identified him as the person in the video while being questioned by police a day after the murder.
Riley’s DNA was found on the jacket and gloves, the forensics expert said. Jose Ibarra’s DNA was also found on the jacket, while his two brothers were excluded as matches, the expert said.
“That is what we call consciousness of guilt in our business — he threw away those items because he knew he had killed her, and he threw them away because he didn’t want anyone to find him,” Ross said.
Her DNA was also found on an Adidas cap he was seen wearing in the video, the expert said. That cap was not discarded, Ross surmised, because Jose Ibarra could not see that there was actually blood on it.
Jose Ibarra was also seen in different clothes from the dumpster Ring footage discarding unidentifiable items in a bag that was never recovered by police hours after the killing. Ross surmised that the bag contained the clothes he was wearing earlier, which were also similar to ones he was wearing in a selfie posted on Snapchat earlier that morning.
“His digital evidence of posting selfies of himself wearing what is basically his rapist gear an hour before he leaves his house that condemns him, he has condemned himself,” Ross said.
The defense called three witnesses, including a neighbor who said Diego Ibarra had threatened her the night of Riley’s murder.
The defense said they had planned to call two additional witnesses — including Diego Ibarra, who is in federal custody awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to possessing a fraudulent green card, however, his attorney did not wish for him to testify.
“While the evidence in this case is voluminous, it is circumstantial,” defense attorney Kaitlyn Beck told the judge.
Beck told the judge they advised Jose Ibarra to have a bench trial “trusting that your honor could and believing that your honor would set aside the emotions in this case and simply consider the evidence.”
She argued there is doubt about what was tested and said the judge should be “skeptical” of the DNA evidence.
She presented an “alternative theory” that Diego Ibarra was actually Riley’s murderer, and that Jose Ibarra was an accomplice in covering up the evidence.
“Maybe it was him throwing away the jacket, as Diego said, maybe he was covering up for his brother,” Beck said.
“Under that theory, of course, Jose would be guilty of tampering, but that theory does not prove that he was present or involved in the murder of Laken Riley,” she said.
She said since three gloves were discarded, which “suggests that there are multiple pairs of hands wearing those gloves.”
On rebuttal, Ross called the defense’s theory “desperate” and a “mischaracterization of the evidence.”
“There is no reasonable explanation for all of this evidence other than he is guilty of every single count in this indictment,” Ross said.
Diego Ibarra told officers during questioning that he was asleep at the time the killing occurred. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation testified earlier Wednesday that there was no evidence to contradict that statement.
Jose Ibarra, a migrant from Venezuela who officials said illegally entered the U.S. in 2022, waived his right to testify during the trial. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges, including malice murder and felony murder.
Additional charges in the 10-count indictment included aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. The latter charge alleged that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — the jacket and gloves — involving the offense of malice murder.
Jose Ibarra was also charged with a peeping tom offense. Prosecutors said that in the hours before Riley’s murder, he spied through the window of a UGA graduate student, and said the incident “shows his state of mind” that day.
The student testified that she called police after hearing someone trying to open her door.
Ross said the person at the student’s apartment was wearing clothes similar to the ones Jose Ibarra had on in the Snapchat selfie posted earlier that morning, including the Adidas cap.
(NEW YORK) — A man was arrested Wednesday for threatening utility workers who were restoring power in Hillsborough County, Florida, following mass outages caused by Hurricane Milton, according to officials.
Crews were working on a road repair when the man allegedly verbally threatened them and drove his vehicle toward them in an intimidating manner.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has identified the suspect as 57-year-old Kenneth Ray Velasco.
When the incident occurred, a power line crew was working on a road that was closed for repairs, creating a traffic delay. The man was in his vehicle and grew impatient.
He backed into a utility pole and fence, causing an estimated $1,000 in damage, according to official reports, and then attempted to flee the scene.
When the linemen tried to prevent him from leaving, he drove toward them in a deliberate manner that caused them to jump out of the way and also threatened to shoot them, officials said.
“Linemen have been working tirelessly to restore power after the storm,” said Sheriff Chad Chronister. “For this person to threaten their lives and deliberately endanger them, all because of a traffic delay, shows a disturbing lack of regard for the safety of others and the critical work being done.”
Velasco was pulled over in a traffic stop and charged with aggravated assault and felony criminal mischief for vandalism of property, according to the sheriff’s office.
He was arrested without incident, officials said.
“We’re grateful no one was seriously hurt, and this suspect will face the full extent of the law for his egregious crimes,” the sheriff said.
As of Wednesday evening, nearly 20,000 residents of Hillsborough County are without power.
The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.
