Appeals court won’t hear Trump’s request to lift limited gag order in hush money case
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump has all but exhausted his efforts to eliminate the limited gag order in his criminal hush money case, after New York’s highest court on Thursday declined to consider his request to lift the order.
“Appeal dismissed without costs, by the Court sua sponte, upon the ground that no substantial constitutional question is directly involved,” New York’s Court of Appeals said in a brief order.
The former president had been seeking the freedom to publicly criticize anyone associated with the case.
In April, Judge Juan Merchan barred Trump from making public statements about jurors, court staff, and relatives of those involved in the case, after Trump repeatedly targeted Merchan’s daughter on social media.
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election. He has said he will appeal the decision.
Once the trial concluded, Judge Merchan relaxed the part of the gag order that prevented Trump from targeting members of the jury and witnesses in the case.
Sentencing in the case currently scheduled for Nov. 26, after Mercand last week agreed to Trump’s request to delay sentencing until after the presidential election.
(GREENSBORO, N.C.) — A 19-year-old woman has been found dead on a picnic table under a pavilion at a park in North Carolina, police say.
The woman was found on Sunday at approximately 7:27 p.m. when officers from the Greensboro Police Department responded to the 2900 block of Haig Street after a caller expressed concern about “a person lying on a picnic table under a pavilion in the park at that location,” according to a statement from the Greensboro Police Department detailing the incident.
“The caller advised that the person was not moving. The caller said they had heard what they thought were fireworks about an hour earlier,” the statement said. “On closer inspection, the caller reported that the person was not breathing and had injuries that the caller described as gunshot wounds.”
Responding officers immediately went to the scene where they located the victim — later identified as 19-year-old Jakala Marie Goode — and pronounced her deceased at the scene.
Police are investigating Goode’s death as a homicide but did not disclose any potential motives or suspects in the case.
This is the 22nd homicide in Greensboro this year and police are asking for anybody with information to call Greensboro/Guilford Crime Stoppers at 336-373-1000.
All tips to Crime Stoppers are completely anonymous and the investigation is currently ongoing.
(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.”
(INDIANAPOLIS) — A man has been arrested in the 1993 rape and murder of his 19-year-old neighbor in Indiana after he was linked to the case through genetic genealogy, authorities said.
On March 24, 1993, Carmen Van Huss’ father went to her Indianapolis apartment to check on her after she didn’t show up for work. He found his daughter dead on the floor, according to the probable cause affidavit.
She was naked and had multiple puncture wounds to her head, face and body, the document said.
“There were obvious signs of a struggle, including a knocked over table, clothing thrown on the floor, a large pooling of blood near the victim’s head, and blood spatter around the victim’s body,” the probable cause affidavit said.
A resident in the apartment directly below Van Huss told police that, in the early hours of March 23, he heard screams, crying, slamming, banging and “noises and voices of a male arguing that lasted approximately 30 minutes,” the probable cause affidavit said.
In the years that followed, police said they interviewed dozens of people and followed up on hundreds of leads. But the case went cold.
In 2013, the unknown suspect’s DNA was uploaded to CODIS — the nationwide law enforcement DNA database — but there wasn’t a match, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Then, in 2018, police said they submitted a DNA sample from the crime scene to Parabon NanoLabs to try to solve the case with forensic genetic genealogy — a new investigative tool that takes unknown DNA and identifies it by comparing it to family members who voluntarily submitted their DNA samples to a database.
In 2023, police said “various investigative methods and lead information from the genetic genealogy analysis” led to a suspect’s name: Dana Shepherd.
Police determined Shepherd was Van Huss’ neighbor in 1993. Their apartment buildings were connected internally by a shared common area, according to the probable cause affidavit.
In February, police were granted a warrant to obtain DNA from Shepherd, who was now living in Missouri and working at the University of Missouri, the probable cause affidavit said.
When police showed Shepherd the warrant, he “was visibly shaking,” the document said.
In June, testing determined that Shepherd’s DNA matched the DNA on Van Huss’ body and at the crime scene, police said.
Shepherd, 52, was arrested in Missouri last week on charges of murder, felony murder and rape, police said. He has not yet been extradited to Indiana, police said.
“There’s a lot of people that missed Carmen all these years,” Van Huss’ brother, Jimmy Van Huss Jr., said at a news conference Tuesday. “She had a lot of family, a lot of friends. She had cousins that loved her like sisters.”
“She wasn’t able to experience her college graduation or have a wedding or any of life’s events,” he said.
“She was taken from me when I was a freshman in high school. And I’m thankful that, finally, the man that did it is where he needs to be,” he said. “I do have hope that any similar case with DNA can get this same treatment with the genealogy and everything we have available today.”