Romanian oligarch hired Hunter Biden to influence US policy, special counsel says
(WILMINGTON, Del.) — Prosecutors in special counsel David Weiss’ office are accusing Hunter Biden of accepting payments from a Romanian businessman who was attempting to “influence U.S. government agencies,” while his father Joe Biden was vice president.
If true, the allegation would mark the closest prosecutors have come to tying President Joe Biden to his son’s overseas business endeavors — a matter congressional Republicans have spent years scrutinizing.
The special counsel’s claim, in a court filing Wednesday in the younger Biden’s federal tax case, stems from Hunter Biden’s work on behalf of Gabriel Popoviciu, a wealthy Romanian who prosecutors say hired the president’s son for legal work in late 2015.
Popoviciu was at the time facing corruption charges in his home country.
At Hunter Biden’s upcoming tax trial, “the government will introduce the evidence … that [Hunter Biden] and Business Associate 1 received compensation from a foreign principal who was attempting to influence U.S. policy and public opinion and cause the United States to investigate the Romanian investigation of [Popoviciu] in Romania,” prosecutors wrote in Wednesday’s filing.
According to prosecutors, Hunter Biden and his business associate “were concerned that lobbying work might cause political ramifications for the defendant’s father,” so the deal was structured in a way that “concealed the true nature of the work he was performing.”
The special counsel’s office made a passing reference to Hunter Biden’s work with Popoviciu in their December indictment. However, Wednesday’s filing was the first to suggest that Hunter Biden was compensated in a lobbying capacity.
Prosecutors said Hunter Biden and two business partners split more than $3 million in payments from Popoviciu between November 2015 and 2017.
A representative for Hunter Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Hunter Biden faces three felony tax charges and additional misdemeanors for allegedly failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2020. The back taxes and penalties were previously paid in full by a third party, identified by ABC News as Hunter Biden’s attorney and confidant, Kevin Morris.
The trial, in California, is scheduled to begin in early September.
(LAS VEGAS) — A former Nevada politician was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on Wednesday of killing journalist Jeff German in September 2022.
As the jury’s foreperson read out the guilty verdict, former Clark County public administrator Robert Telles looked down and shook his head.
Telles was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after a minimum of 20 years served.
In a press conference after the verdict was announced, Clark County District Attorney Steven Wolfson thanked the jury for their work on the case.
“Today’s verdict should send a message, and that message is a clear message that any attempts to silence the media, or to silence or intimidate a journalist, will not be tolerated,” Wolfson said.
Prosecutors said former Clark County public administrator Robert Telles, 47, stabbed the Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter to death after German exposed corruption in his office, destroying both his political career and his marriage. German’s story detailed an allegedly hostile work environment in Telles’ office — including bullying, retaliation and an “inappropriate relationship” between Telles and a staffer — all of which Telles denied.
Telles was arrested days after German was found dead outside his Las Vegas home. Police said DNA evidence found in Telles’ home tied him to the crime scene, and a straw hat and sneakers — which the suspect was seen wearing in surveillance footage — were found cut up in his home. His DNA was also found on German’s hands and fingernails, police said.
He had pleaded not guilty to murder.
In her opening statement, Chief Deputy District Attorney Pamela Weckerly walked through the timeline of the murder and how Telles came to be pinpointed as the suspect.
“In the end, this case isn’t about politics,” Weckerly said. “It’s not about alleged inappropriate relationships. It’s not about who’s a good boss or who’s a good supervisor or favoritism at work — it’s just about murder.”
Telles took the stand in his own trial on Aug. 21, “unequivocally” maintaining his innocence and insisting he was “framed” in a sweeping conspiracy by a real estate company that he said he was investigating for alleged bribery.
“Somebody framed me for this, and I believe that it is Compass Realty, and I believe it’s for the work that I’ve done against them,” Telles told the court.
In a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in January, Compass Realty owner Takumba Britt denied Telles’ conspiracy claims, calling him a “desperate man who has been charged with violently murdering a beloved local journalist” who would “do and say anything to escape answering for this charge.”
Wolfson also hit back against Telles’ conspiracy claims after the jury announced its verdict.
“There was no conspiracy,” Wolfson said. “The only conspiracy was between him and his evil mind.”
When police took Telles into custody, he had what they said were non-life-threatening, self-inflicted stab wounds. His defense attorney, Robert Draskovich, said the suicide attempt was not out of guilt, but because Telles’ “life was coming apart.”
Draskovich echoed Telles’ claims of a conspiracy against him, saying in his opening statement the “old guard” in the public administrator’s office had been upset by Telles’ efforts to root out internal corruption. He also claimed that, because of German’s track record of investigating corrupt figures, there were other people who may have wanted him dead.
“There were others that had far more motive to make it look like [Telles] was the killer, and to conduct this killing because Jeff German was a good reporter — he would ultimately get to what the truth was,” Draskovich said.
Ahead of sentencing on Wednesday, German’s three siblings addressed the court, speaking about what their oldest brother meant to them.
“Jeff was our leader — he was the older brother we all leaned on,” his brother, Jay German, said.
The siblings remembered him as a “wonderful” uncle, a “fearless” journalist and a lover of football and sitcoms.
His sister, Jill Zwerg, who said German was “like a second father,” recalled how he bought a whole round of champagne for the bar when she told me she’d gotten engaged.
“He’s so deeply missed every day,” Zwerg said through tears.
Telles’ wife and ex-wife also spoke, tearfully asking the jury not to sentence him to life in prison without parole.
“I would love at some point to give my children the chance to have their father back,” his wife, Mary Ann Ismael, said.
Telles wept as his mother, Rosalinda Anaya, took the stand.
“I accept the verdict, but if you could — please — give my son the chance of parole,” Anaya said. “His family is still very young and I would like for him to someday be back with them again.”
Before sending the jury off to deliberate on sentencing, Draskovich urged jurors not to hand down a life sentence.
“Give him the opportunity — give his children the opportunity — decades from now, to have their father back,” Draskovich said.
But prosecutors argued a life sentence — either with or without parole — was necessary in such a case. Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Chris Hamner said Telles “decided to be judge, jury, and literally executioner” of German “because he simply wasn’t happy about what was being written about him.”
“When you think about the situation he was in, the world wasn’t going to end. He simply lost an election,” Hamner said. “The way Robert Telles chose to handle this was devastating, and it was his choice and his choice alone.”
German was the only journalist killed in the United States in 2022, with a total of at least 67 journalists killed worldwide that year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo previously described the case against Telles as “unusual,” and said that “the killing of a journalist is particularly troublesome.”
“It is troublesome because it is a journalist. And we expect journalism to be open and transparent and the watchdog for government,” Lombardo said. “And when people take it upon themselves to create harm associated with that profession, I think it’s very important we put all eyes on and address the case appropriately such as we did in this case.”
In a statement published by the paper, Las Vegas Review-Journal executive editor Glenn Cook praised the verdict “as a measure of justice” for German, as well as for “slain journalists all over the world.”
“Jeff was killed for doing the kind of work in which he took great pride: His reporting held an elected official accountable for bad behavior and empowered voters to choose someone else for the job,” Cook wrote. “Robert Telles could have joined the long line of publicly shamed Nevada politicians who’ve gone on with their lives, out of the spotlight or back in it. Instead, he carried out a premeditated revenge killing with terrifying savagery.”
“Let’s also remember that this community has lost much more than a trusted journalist,” Cook added. “Jeff was a good man who left behind a family who loved him and friends who cherished him. His murder remains an outrage. He is missed.”
(ASHBURN, Va.) — A suspect has been identified in a burglary reported at a Trump for President 2024 campaign office in Virginia, authorities said Wednesday.
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said it has secured a warrant for the arrest of Toby Shane Kessler, 39, on the charge of burglary in connection with a break-in reported at the office in Ashburn on Sunday night.
The sheriff’s office said it is working with other law enforcement agencies to locate Kessler, who they said does not have a fixed address and has a California driver’s license.
The burglary occurred at approximately 8:11 pm on Sunday and was captured by surveillance cameras inside the office, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators determined the suspect “forced entry into a back door of the location and spent a brief period of time inside before leaving,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release.
“He appears to have left nothing behind, and it is still unclear what, if anything, he took with him,” the sheriff’s office said, adding the investigation is ongoing.
The suspect was captured in the surveillance footage wearing dark clothing, a dark cap and a backpack. The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office asked anyone who believes they have seen Kessler to contact them at 571-918-1869.
“Mr. Kessler has a history of criminal behavior and appears to have been in the Washington metropolitan area at least since 2018,” the sheriff’s office said.
The campaign office, which is leased, also serves as the headquarters of the Virginia 10th District Republican Committee, the sheriff’s office said.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares’ press secretary, Chloe Smith, said Tuesday that their office was monitoring the situation.
“It’s outrageous that anyone would break into a political office,” Smith said in a statement to ABC News. “Criminal acts are not tolerated in Virginia.”
(PITTSBURGH) — Helen Comperatore and her daughters are remembering Corey Comperatore, the volunteer fire chief who was killed when he died protecting his family during the gunfire at Donald Trump’s political rally last month in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“He definitely was a hero. He saved his wife, he saved his child and he was just the best guy,” Helen Comperatore, Corey’s surviving wife, told ABC News’ Pittsburgh affiliate WTAE. “He was just the best.”
Corey’s daughter Allyson recalls the moment shots rang out, a memory which she says is still vivid and painful.
“I was the one that my dad threw down,” said Allyson. “That was when he was shot. He ended up falling onto me. I was, like, confused. And I went, “dad?” And when I turned is whenever he fell down.”
“That’s when I started screaming,” Allyson continued. “I was instantly like, I was trying to keep him from bleeding. And somebody had thrown down a towel. So somebody behind us must have seen what was going on, and I was just, I was holding it there and just screaming for anybody to help.”
Helen says she still struggles with what happened that day.
“I’m angry. You know, obviously, my husband took a bullet for [Donald Trump],” Helen said. “That, unfortunately, was the plan that day.”
Corey Comperatore’s family say that they want him to be remembered as more than the person killed in the assassination attempt of the former president.
“He isn’t just the guy that got shot at the rally,” said Corey’s other daughter, Kaylee. “He was a husband, a father, a son, an uncle. And he was the glue to our family. He was our strength. He was everything to us and that is what got taken from this world.”