Ohio police search for suspect after dentist, wife found murdered at home
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Ohio authorities are searching for a suspect after a dentist and his wife were found murdered inside their home earlier this week.
Columbus Police Patrol officers responded to the home of Spencer Tepe, 37, and Monique Tepe, 39, on Tuesday morning after a welfare check was requested, according to an incident report viewed by ABC News.
When officers arrived, they found the couple suffering from apparent gunshots wounds. Paramedics arrived and the pair were declared dead shortly after, police said.
Spencer Tepe had multiple gunshot wounds while Monique Tepe had at least one gunshot wound to the chest, according to local ABC News affiliate WSYX.
Police did not find obvious signs of forced entry and no firearms were recovered at the home. Currently, the deaths are not believed to be a murder-suicide, WSYX reported.
Two small children were also found in the residence unharmed, according to the incident report.
The welfare check was requested after Spencer Tepe did not show up for work at Athens Dental Deport. The owner, Dr. Mark Valrose, called 911, telling dispatchers Tepe was always on time for work.
“I’m on vacation, but this individual, Spencer, works with me, and he did not show up to work this morning. And we cannot get a hold of him or his family,” Valrose told dispatchers, according to audio of a 911 call reviewed by ABC News. “He’s been reliable, and we cannot get in touch with him, his wife, his family, anybody that lives in that house.”
Police records indicate that authorities were initially contacted at 9:03 a.m. and that an officer responded to the home at 9:22 a.m. but received no answer and left, WSYX reported.
A person called police at 9:58 a.m., reporting that they heard children inside and nobody was answering the door, according to audio reviewed by ABC News.
A third 911 call was placed after the same person reported that they could see Spencer Tepe’s body inside the home and that he appeared dead, according to the audio call.
Columbus Police scanner audio shared by Broadcastify indicates that the 911 caller believed they heard one of the children yelling before calling again to report the body in the house.
The Tepes were married in 2021 and were one month shy of celebrating their five-year anniversary, Spencer Tepe’s brother-in-law, Rob Misleh, told WSYX.
Authorities are asking anyone with information to contact the Columbus Police Homicide Unit at (614) 645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at (614) 461-TIPS (8477).
Cancer patient Ofelia Torres holds up her baby photos, some of the include her father Ruben Torres-Maldonado. He will be released from immigration detention as early as Thursday. (ABC News)
(CHICAGO) — Chicago immigration judge Eva Saltzman on Thursday set a $2,000 bond for Ruben Torres-Maldonado, whose 16-year-old daughter Ofelia Torres is battling stage 4 cancer. Torres-Maldonado will be released from immigration detention as early as Thursday.
During the hearing, the judge not only ruled for him to be released, but also said he is now eligible to apply for a cancellation of removal based on the hardship his family would endure if he’s forced to leave the country. If his application is denied, he could still face deportation.
Despite the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier claiming Torres-Maldonado was a “criminal illegal alien” who has a history of driving offenses, Saltzman said she had no reason to believe that he posed a risk to the public.
“I see that you have very strong family ties and community ties in the United States and that you’ve hired an attorney which shows me that you take these proceedings very seriously,” the judge said. “And I see nothing in the record that would indicate to me that you pose a danger to the community.”
Torres-Maldonado also noted during the hearing that he has a valid license and insurance.
“I wish you much luck in the future, and I wish your daughter a full recovery,” the judge said.
DHS didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment about the judge’s order.
In an interview with ABC News last week, 16-year-old Ofelia Torres recalled receiving a strange phone call on Oct. 18. She said her mom had just put on sterile gloves and was helping to drain the ascites — a buildup of fluid — in her abdomen when it came.
“The first call that came through was Walgreens, and so we just declined the call. It was probably just my medication,” Torres said. “Another call came through and it said prison slash jail and I was like ‘Why is the prison calling me?’ But in my head, I kind of knew, I think they got my dad.”
Since learning that federal immigration agents arrested Torres-Maldonado at a Home Depot in Niles, Illinois, on Oct. 18, Ofelia has made it her mission to continue fighting her stage 4 cancer diagnosis and her father’s possible deportation too.
ABC News interviewed the teen at her home in Chicago last week as part of a “Nightline” story on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement mission in the state. Dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz” by the administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) campaign targeting undocumented people in Chicago and greater Illinois.
Torres-Maldonado is one of more than 2,800 undocumented immigrants that the Trump administration says it has apprehended in the Chicago area since they announced the operation in early September.
At a recent press conference, attorney Kalman Resnick, who is representing Torres-Maldonado, said federal agents surrounded his client’s vehicle, smashed the window of his truck and “dragged” him into a vehicle at gunpoint.
ICE is under the supervision of the DHS. In a statement sent to ABC News before the hearing, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin alleged that Torres-Maldonado backed into a government vehicle while attempting to flee.
“His criminal history shows he has a history of habitual driving offenses and has been charged multiple
times with driving without insurance, driving without a valid license, and speeding,” McLaughlin said.
Torres denied the government’s claims that her father is a criminal.
“I’ve gotten a parking ticket, am I a criminal?” she said. “Sometimes we break a law without even knowing, does that make us criminal? I don’t know.”
Torres was diagnosed with metastatic aviolar rhabdomyosarcoma — an aggressive form of cancer — last December. The teen said she tried to keep her diagnosis private for several months, but told ABC News she is speaking out to defend her father. She said Torres-Maldonado instilled in her a sense of gratitude for the country they call home.
“I need the world to know my dad’s story and if that means letting the world know I have cancer, so be it. I don’t care,” she said. “I need my dad.”
The immigration crackdown in Chicago has come under scrutiny from advocates and legal experts including Mark Fleming, associate director of Federal Litigation for the National Immigrant Justice Center, who told ABC News that many of the arrests and detainments have been unlawful.
So far, the human rights organization National Immigrant Justice Center has presented over 800 cases that they claim were unlawful under a consent decree — a court-ordered agreement between parties that resolves a dispute — limiting DHS’ ability to hold someone who entered into the country unlawfully without a bond hearing.
Fleming told ABC News the organization has 280 more cases that his legal team will soon present before a judge.
“It’s truly unprecedented. We are lead counsel in a class action lawsuit that has a consent decree that dictates when and how DHS, Department of Homeland Security, whether it’s Border Patrol or Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, can stop and arrest people without warrants,” Fleming said.
“Regardless of what you feel about immigration or the levels of immigration or the level of enforcement — those are fair debates for us to have. What is deeply troubling here is the lawlessness, the violence, the cruelty, the carelessness with which they are doing this operation,” he later added.
Torres said despite how her father was treated, she has “nothing but love” for the federal agents who arrested her father.
“That’s all I have for everyone in this world. Love in my heart,” she said. “To the ICE agents who smashed my dad’s window, to the ICE agent who pointed a gun at my dad, I’m not mad at you … I just want you to know that that was not the right thing to do.”
– ABC News’ Ashley Schwartz Lavares, Jessica Hopper, Sally Hawkins, John Kapetaneas and WLS’s Tom Jones contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump said Friday evening he has signed a commutation releasing scandal-plagued former congressman George Santos from prison “immediately.”
Santos, 37, was less than three months into serving a seven-year sentence in federal prison after being convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The ex-lawmaker was released from prison just before 11 p.m. on Friday night and was picked up by his family, according to a statement from his lawyer, Joe Murray.
“Once they arrived, [Santos] walked right out and hopped into their car and drove home,” Murray said.
In a social media post, Trump said Santos, whom he called “somewhat of a ‘rogue,'” had the “Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!”
“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!” Trump said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which successfully prosecuted Santos, had no comment.
According to the clemency grant, a photo of which was posted on X by U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, Trump granted Santos an “immediate commutation of his entire sentence to time served with no further fines, restitution, probation, supervised release, or other conditions.”
An attorney for Santos told ABC News while en route to the federal prison that they expect he will be released Friday night but are waiting for official word.
The attorney said that Martin and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche were extremely helpful in getting the commutation across the finish line, and noted that several members of Congress, including Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Tim Burchett, were very aggressive in campaigning for his release.
Santos pleaded guilty to a series of fraud crimes and was sentenced in April to 87 months in prison — the maximum he faced — and two years of supervised release.
The commutation comes days after the South Shore Press published a “passionate plea” from Santos to Trump, in which he expressed his support and asked that the president “allow me the opportunity to return to my family, my friends, and my community.”
“During my short tenure in Congress, I stood firmly behind your agenda — 100% of the time,” Santos wrote in the letter, published Monday. “I championed policies that strengthened our economy, defended our borders, and restored America’s standing on the world stage. I did it proudly, Sir, because I believed — and still believe — in the mission you set out to accomplish for the American people.”
Santos said in the letter that he was being held in “complete isolation” following an alleged death threat.
“Mr. President, I have nowhere else to turn. You have always been a man of second chances, a leader who believes in redemption and renewal. I am asking you now, from the depths of my heart, to extend that same belief to me,” he wrote.
Rep. Greene, who had recently called on Trump to commute Santos’ sentence, thanked the president for doing so on Friday, saying on X that the former congressman was “unfairly treated and put in solitary confinement, which is torture!!”
Santos pleaded guilty in August 2024, in which he admitted to claiming relatives had made contributions to his campaign when, in fact, they had not. Santos conceded he was trying to meet the fundraising threshold to qualify for financial help from the National Republican Congressional Committee.
He also stipulated that he committed other fraud, including charging donor credit cards without authorization and convincing donors to give money by falsely stating the money would be used for TV ads. He also stipulated he stole public money by applying for and receiving unemployment benefits during the pandemic to which he was not entitled.
As part of his plea deal, he agreed to pay nearly $600,000 in restitution and forfeiture.
Santos was expelled from Congress in December 2023, just under a year after assuming office to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
His expulsion from Congress followed accusations of ethics violations and other wrongdoing in a scathing report by the House Ethics Committee that claimed he was a fabulist and fraudster who used the prestige of political office to bilk tens of thousands of dollars out of other people.
Several New York House Republicans — who led the charge to expel George Santos from the House — criticized Trump’s commutation.
“George Santos didn’t merely lie — he stole millions, defrauded an election, and his crimes (for which he pled guilty) warrant more than a three-month sentence. He should devote the rest of his life to demonstrating remorse and making restitution to those he wronged,” New York GOP Rep. Nick LaLota, who represents a district on Long Island, said in a post on X.
New York GOP Rep. Andrew Garbarino, who is the current chair of the Homeland Security Committee and sat on the committee that investigated Santos, said in a statement that “less than three months” in prison is “not justice.”
Several House Democrats also condemned Trump’s move.
“Donald Trump has time to free serial fraudster George Santos from prison. But he can’t be bothered to address the Republican healthcare crisis crushing working class Americans. The extremists are insulting you every single day,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a post on X.
(NEW YORK) — The Powerball jackpot has soared to one of the largest in the lottery game’s history.
The current jackpot is estimated to be $1.6 billion ahead of Monday night’s drawing. That would make it the fourth-largest in Powerball history and the fifth-largest among U.S. lottery jackpots.
The estimated cash value of the current jackpot is $735.3 million.
Both figures are before taxes.
A player who wins the Powerball jackpot can choose between the lump sum payment or an annuity option, in which one immediate payment is received followed by 29 annual payments that increase by 5% each year.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, according to Powerball.
The game’s jackpot was last won in September, when two tickets in Missouri and Texas split the $1.787 billion prize — Powerball’s second-largest jackpot ever.
The game’s largest prize ever was $2.04 billion, won on Nov. 7, 2022, in California.
Tickets are $2 per play and are sold in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Monday night’s drawing is at 10:59 p.m. ET.
