Former NYPD detective pleads guilty to sending inappropriate texts to victims, having sex with woman he arrested
A NYPD civilian supervisor illegally used her access to private police databases to supply attorneys with names of car accident victims in exchange for thousands in cash and gifts. (Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A former NYPD detective pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of misconduct and receipt of unlawful gratuities after he sent inappropriate messages to two women and had sex with a woman shortly after she was arrested.
Matthew Lambert resigned from the NYPD in December 2025. He was sentenced to two years’ probation and is no longer eligible to be a police officer elsewhere in New York state.
“The defendant’s disturbing conduct is unacceptable for a member of law enforcement,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a statement announcing the guilty plea.
In March 2024, while investigating a missing package, Lambert texted the victim, “Not to be inappropriate, but do people tell you that you look way younger than you are.” He also sent a message saying, “Celebration drinks when this is over?” and “If you say no, I’m still gonna work hard on your case. I promise.”
The woman eventually blocked Lambert’s phone number. Lambert and his lawyer did not answer questions going into and out of court.
During a separate investigation, Lambert texted an assault victim, “You are absolutely beautiful. I was shocked when I met you. I mean no disrespect to you and your relationship. I’m saying this in a respectful way. If that’s even possible.”
In May 2024, Lambert arrested a woman for petit larceny and told her he could “probably” issue her a desk appearance ticket and release her from custody.
Lambert also showed her a picture of his penis and, as they walked out of the station house, said, “I told you I was going to get you out,” prosecutors said.
Later that day, Lambert texted the woman, “If you want I could come say hello. Up to you. You tell me if you want me to.”
Lambert drove to the woman’s house, and they had sex in his car. Afterward, he sent additional texts, including “You’re so cool,” and “Thanks for hanging out.”
“In addition to sending extremely inappropriate messages to victims while he was investigating their cases, he abused his power to engage in a sexual encounter with a woman he had arrested just hours earlier. This is not how anyone should be treated – whether a victim, witness, or person accused of a crime,” Bragg said.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies during a hearing of the House Committee on Ways and Means on Capitol Hill on April 16, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was pressed on cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), vaccine messaging and the firing of the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during a hearing on Tuesday.
The hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health marked the final session of four budget hearings before House lawmakers.
Research cuts
Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Tex., said she was concerned about the loss of federal aid for health research in the Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2027.
“Secretary Kennedy, do you understand that cutting federally funded research as this budget does, will cede U.S. leadership on biomedical research to China and create national security and global competitiveness challenges for the United States?” Fletcher asked Kennedy.
Kennedy acknowledged that he shared Fletcher’s concerns, as the biggest proposed cuts are to NIH and Administration for a Healthy America (AHA) programs.
“I don’t want to cut NIH programs, [Office of Management and Budget Director] Russ Vought doesn’t want to cut NIH programs, but we have a $35 trillion debt,” Kennedy said.
“We have been asked to cut across the board at HHS, 12% of our $100 million budget and so we’re making cuts that are painful,” he told Fletcher.
Vaccine messaging
Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Tex., described Kennedy as the most “anti-vax” figure in his lifetime. He suggested that Kennedy’s history of rhetoric denouncing vaccines is correlated with an uptick in measles cases.
Two unvaccinated school-aged children died last year from measles — the first U.S. deaths from measles in a decade.
Kennedy has long sown doubt in the safety and effectiveness of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine. Despite being a required vaccine in all states to attend public school, rates have been steadily decreasing over the last decade, CDC data shows.
It comes as vaccine exemptions have risen sharply, with at least 138,000 kindergarteners exempt from one or more vaccines during the most recent school year, CDC data shows.
However, in recent weeks, some reports have suggested Kennedy is staying away from vaccine-skeptic rhetoric ahead of the midterm elections.
Veasey and others pressed Kennedy on whether the alleged messaging strategy was directed by the White House. Kennedy denied that it was.
“Is Susie Wiles or anyone in the White House instructing you or suggesting that you stop talking about your controversial vaccine skepticism?” Veasey asked.
“No,” Kennedy replied.
CDC leadership
Kennedy defended firing former CDC director Susan Monarez in a lengthy exchange with Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif.
Ruiz criticized Kennedy for ousting Monarez because she allegedly “refused” to approve what Ruiz called the dismantling of the childhood vaccination schedule.
Kennedy aggressively pushed back on the congressman’s characterization.
“That’s not true,” Kennedy said. “What she testified to wasn’t true.”
Kennedy and Monarez both appeared in front of Senate committees last year to address the ousting.
At a Senate hearing in September 2025, Monarez said she was fired by Trump and Kennedy for “holding the line on scientific integrity.”
Kennedy, in a hearing before a different Senate panel earlier that month, disputed Monarez’s version of events. He denied telling Monarez to accept vaccine recommendations without scientific evidence, and claimed she was fired in part because she told him she was untrustworthy.
During Monday’s hearing, Kennedy claimed that his reasoning for the firing had nothing to do with vaccines and that his department is committing $1 billion to vaccine research through the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute.
Ruiz claimed Kennedy’s vaccine-skeptic views run contrary to the view of President Donald Trump’s new CDC director nominee, Dr. Erica Schwartz.
During her time with the Coast Guard, Schwartz instituted a disease surveillance program and vaccination programs and wrote the first health protection policies for the force, including anthrax and smallpox vaccination policies.
Kennedy said he vetted Schwartz’s position on vaccines before she was nominated by Trump to lead the CDC. However, Kennedy said he did not speak “to the president directly” before Trump made the nomination.
Kennedy rejected the claim that his and Schwartz’s views were not aligned, but would not commit to following all recommendations of the new CDC director nominee.
“Mr. Secretary, if Dr. Schwartz is confirmed, will you commit on the record today to implement whatever vaccine guidance she issues without interference?” Ruiz asked.
“I’m not going to make that kind of commitment,” Kennedy replied.
Kennedy later repeated, as he has in his previous budget hearings, that he had a “good reason” for firing Monarez.
“I fired Susan Monarez because I asked her an outright question, ‘Are you trustworthy?’ and she said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Can I trust you?’ and she said, ‘No,'” Kennedy said. “That’s why she got fired, not because of her vaccine issues.”
ABC News’ Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
A Carnival Cruise ship is docked at the PortMiami as the company becomes one of the first to be sued under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse on May 02, 2019, in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
In February, after the teen was charged as a juvenile, the 16-year-old was permitted to live with his uncle instead of being held in custody. But in April, when the case was moved to adult court, prosecutors said the teen should be detained.
“We do not know what triggered him,” prosecutors argued in court Wednesday. “Who will be the next object he will become fixated on?”
The teen’s lawyers have countered that he’s a child who has been cooperative with the investigation and has shown no indication of hurting anyone in the months since his stepsister’s killing.
The suspect arrived at court Wednesday with his father and his uncle and was seen wearing an ankle monitor. The judge ruled he’s only allowed to leave his house with his uncle and will be electronically monitored by authorities.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres said Wednesday that U.S. Marshals should examine options for potential detainment in the Tampa area.
Prosecutors allege the teenager “sexually assaulted and intentionally killed” his 18-year-old stepsister, Anna Kepner, during the family’s November vacation on a Carnival cruise. Anna Kepner died from mechanical asphyxiation, officials said.
Prosecutors are alleging more details about the night Kepner died from Wednesday’s hearing as well as a newly unsealed transcript from a February detention hearing.
Closed-circuit television on the cruise captured many of the movements of Kepner and her stepbrother, as well as the movements of their 13-year-old sibling who was sharing their room, prosecutors said in the Feb. 6 transcript.
The night Kepner died, the suspect was seen entering their shared cabin around 7:35 p.m., the transcript said. At about 7:38 p.m., Kepner was seen entering the cabin — the last time cameras would capture her alive, prosecutors said.
At approximately 7:51 p.m., the 13-year-old sibling entered the cabin and quickly exited, prosecutors said.
The suspect was not seen leaving the cabin again until 10:13 p.m., when he is “looking left and right down the hallway, appearing to check if there is anyone in the hallway,” prosecutors said. He’s seen between 10:23 p.m. and 10:49 p.m. “entering and exiting the cabin approximately two more times,” prosecutors said, and he put a privacy sign on the door at 10:53 p.m.
The video showed the 13-year-old and the suspect coming and going a few more times, prosecutors said. At 12:09 a.m., when the 13-year-old tried to get into the room, the suspect prevented him, and made the 13-year-old wait outside for a few minutes, prosecutors said.
University Of Washington Campus, The Quad With Flowering Cherry Trees In Spring (Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(SEATTLE)– The transgender University of Washington student who was killed in a student housing building suffered over 40 stab wounds to the head, neck, shoulder, arms and hands, according to the probable cause statement.
Juniper Blessing, 19, was found covered in blood in the laundry room of the Nordheim Court building on Sunday night, according to court documents.
The suspect, 31-year-old Christopher Leahy, surrendered to police on Wednesday and was booked for first-degree murder, documents said.
“Our family has been shattered,” Blessing’s family said in a statement released by the Human Rights Alliance. “Juniper was simply the most amazing human being we have ever known — highly intelligent, extremely talented, and deeply sensitive to the needs of others. Juniper’s loss not only devastates us but diminishes the world.”
“A gifted singer with a transcendent voice, Juniper was admitted to New Mexico School for the Arts, where they studied from 2020 until 2024,” the family said. “Weather was a love of Juniper’s since early childhood, and at the University of Washington they intended to study Atmospheric Science while continuing to study voice and pursuing minors in Music and Philosophy. They loved Seattle and Santa Fe, where they worked as an usher during summers at the Santa Fe Opera.”
“Juniper was courageously living their life as who they were until it was cut tragically short,” the family said.
According to court documents, another Nordeim Court resident told police that shortly before 10 p.m. Sunday, a man followed her when she used her card to access the building and laundry room.
She said the man told her he was waiting for his laundry. Surveillance video shows them in the laundry room and the suspect “appears to be visually searching the room for cameras,” court documents said, before he left the room.
A video from 10 p.m. shows Blessing in the laundry room, and the suspect “comes back into the laundry room and stares directly into the camera,” documents said.
The suspect “appears to follow the path of the cord with his eyes and head from the camera around the wall above the doorway,” documents said. “He then turns to exit the laundry room, something clatters to the ground and he pauses. He continues out of the laundry room at 10:00:27 p.m.”
“Blessing is seen cleaning the lint tray, appears to add more time to the dryer, then stands up and deposits the lint into the garbage at the end of the bank of dryers. … The video stops at 10:01:01 p.m.,” documents said.
Seattle police released the images of the suspect in the laundry room, documents said. A man named Patrick Leahy contacted police saying the suspect in the image was “without a doubt” his brother, Christopher Leahy, according to the documents, and a friend also reached out to police identifying Christopher Leahy as the man in the photo.
Christopher Leahy’s attorney called the Bellevue Police Department on Wednesday night to say he was turning himself in, documents said. Christopher Leahy came to the department with his parents and was taken into custody, the documents said.
Christopher Leahy made his first court appearance on Thursday and is due back in court on Monday, according to ABC Seattle affiliate KOMO. He has not entered a plea.
