Feds charge 20-year-old suspect in California courthouse attack that left five injured
U.S. Attorney
(SANTA MARIA, Calif.) — The man who allegedly threw an explosive device inside a California courthouse where he was set to be arraigned, which left five injured, has been federally charged, officials announced on Friday.
Santa Barbara resident Nathaniel James McGuire, 20, was charged with maliciously damaging a building by means of explosive, the U.S. District Attorney’s office announced.
McGuire allegedly lunged through the Santa Maria Courthouse doors on Wednesday, tossed a small bag past the weapons screening station, and the bag exploded as it hit the floor outside of the local arraignment room, according to the criminal complaint. When McGuire entered the courthouse, he yelled “Liberty or death,” according to the DA’s office.
McGuire left on foot after the explosion and was quickly detained by Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies while he was trying to access a red Ford Mustang car parked outside the building, according to police. McGuire allegedly yelled that the government had taken his guns and that everyone needed to fight, rise up, and rebel, the complaint said.
In a recorded interview with investigators, McGuire said he arrived at the courthouse with the intention to kill deputies working the security desk inside the courthouse, the complaint alleged.
McGuire allegedly told investigators he was going back to the car to get a shotgun, a lever action rifle, and Molotov cocktails and he planned on reentering the courthouse to kill a judge, the complaint said.
A search of the car revealed a shotgun, a rifle, more ammunition, a suspected bomb and 10 Molotov cocktails, according to the complaint. Law enforcement later rendered the bomb safe.
“This defendant’s alleged misconduct was chilling. Not only did he injure five people and traumatize many more, but he possessed a cache of weapons that would have allowed him to wreak even greater destruction had he not been stopped,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada.
The suspect’s alleged motivation in the explosion “appeared to have stemmed from a recent arrest” by the sheriff’s office, Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office Undersheriff Craig Bonner said during a press briefing Wednesday evening.
In that case, McGuire was arrested for alleged firearms violations on July 28, Bonner said. Deputies had seized a “loaded and concealed revolver that was in McGuire’s pants pocket and was not registered to him,” Bonner said.
If convicted on his federal charge, McGuire faces a minimum sentence of seven years in prison and a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison, according to the complaint.
K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Pool/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(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.”
Destroyed houses and buildings along the Broad River in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Oct. 1, 2024 in Bat Cave, North Carolina. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
(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.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends a news conference on November 14, 2023, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by a federal grand jury, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Federal agents appeared Thursday morning at Gracie Mansion and seized the mayor’s phone, Alex Spiro, a lawyer for the mayor, told ABC news.
“He has not been arrested and looks forward to his day in court,” Spiro said, adding, “They send a dozen agents to pick up a phone when we would have happily turned it in.”
In a speech addressed to New Yorkers on Wednesday, Adams vowed to fight what he called the “entirely false” indictment with “every ounce of my strength and my spirit.”
“I always knew that If I stood my ground for all of you that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said.
Adams is the city’s first sitting mayor to be indicted.
The exact charges remain sealed as of Wednesday night, but the initial investigation expanded from campaign finance to bid-rigging and more, sources said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Adams is not expected to appear in court until next week, sources told ABC News.
Adams, a former police captain who was elected as mayor of NYC less than three years ago, has spent nearly a year under the cloud of federal investigations.
Federal authorities have been investigating the possibility of corruption at City Hall, issuing subpoenas for Adams and members of his inner circle.
Two weeks ago, Adams accepted the resignation of Edward Caban, his handpicked police commissioner, after authorities issued a subpoena for his phones. The mayor’s chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, also stepped down.
This week, New York City Public Schools Chancellor David Banks announced plans to retire at the end of the year. Banks had also turned his phone over to federal authorities.
Banks’ younger brothers, Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety, and Terence Banks, also had their phones seized. David Banks’ fiancée, Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor, had her phone seized as well.
Since being elected as New York City’s 110th mayor, Adams has been vocal about always following the rules and said he has known of no “misdoings” within his administration.
“If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit,” Adams said in a statement Wednesday night.
Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller who is running for mayor next year, released a statement on X following the news of the indictment.
“First and foremost, this is a sad day for New Yorkers. Trust in public institutions — especially City Hall — is essential for our local democracy to function and for our city to flourish. The hardworking people of New York City deserve a city government and leadership they can trust. Right now, they don’t have it,” Lander said.
Lander called for Adams to step down from his position as mayor.
“The most appropriate path forward is for him to step down so that New York City can get the full focus its leadership demands,” Lander said.
If Adams were to heed the calls to resign, the New York City Public Advocate, Jumaane Williams, would become acting mayor. Lander follows Williams in the line of succession.
Earlier Wednesday, Democratic House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called for Adams’ resignation, saying, “For the good of the city, he should resign.”
“I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. “The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration.”
