Guilty plea expected in secret Chinese police station case
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(NEW YORK) — A guilty plea is expected Wednesday in the case of a secret Chinese police station operating in lower Manhattan.
The suspects in the case, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, were accused by prosecutors last year of working on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security in violation of the Espionage Act.
Chen is expected to plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. Lu is due in court next in February.
At the time the case was charged in April 2023, the FBI called it in an example of China’s “audacious activities” on U.S. soil.
The location in Chinatown claimed to be a nonprofit organization helping Chinese-Americans but federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, who brought the case, said it “appears to have had a more sinister use.”
Prosecutors said the secret police station was set up by Chinese counterintelligence operatives to harass and intimidate dissidents living in the United States.
(NEW YORK) — A Florida man who prosecutors alleged attacked police with an explosive device during the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol — and whose case was dropped following President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardons and commutations issued Monday, was arrested Wednesday on pending federal gun charges, according to court records.
Daniel Ball, 39, was taken into custody Wednesday morning, according to an arrest warrant, on a separate indictment returned by federal prosecutors in Florida last summer that charged him for unlawfully possessing a gun as a felon.
He had at least three previous felony convictions — one dating back to 2017 for domestic violence battery by strangulation and two in October of 2021 — nine months after the Jan. 6 riot, for resisting law enforcement and battery on a law enforcement officer.
Ball was among the few defendants being held pretrial in connection with his Jan. 6 case, after prosecutors accused him of using an explosive device to assault officers trying to protect the Capitol in the Lower West End Tunnel.
Ball further was allegedly seen on video joining rioters in an unsuccessful attempt to break through a police line, before retreating to throw “dangerous weapons” at the line of officers, according to court records.
A federal judge ordered Ball detained in May of 2023 after determining he posed a serious ongoing danger to the general public if released, and to members of law enforcement in particular.
Ball has not entered a plea to the weapons charge and ABC News has reached out to an attorney listed as representing him for comment.
(LOS ANGELES) — Less than 24 hours after President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden and criticized his prosecution as a “miscarriage of justice,” prosecutors in special counsel David Weiss’ office defended the integrity of their work in a court filing and fiercely rebutted the president’s allegation that their charges were motivated by politics.
“In total, eleven different [federal] judges appointed by six different presidents, including his father, considered and rejected the defendant’s claims, including his claims for selective and vindictive prosecution,” wrote prosecutor Leo Wise in a ten-page filing Monday.
President Biden on Sunday issued a blanket pardoned to his son, who earlier this year was convicted earlier on federal gun charges and pleaded guilty to tax-related charges, and was due to be sentenced in both cases later this month.
In Monday’s filing, prosecutors urged the federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case in California not to dismiss his indictment, and instead close the docket — which would allow the record to continue to exist.
“The government does not challenge that the defendant has been the recipient of an act of mercy. But that does not mean the grand jury’s decision to charge him, based on a finding of probable cause, should be wiped away as if it never occurred,” Wise wrote. “It also does not mean that his charges should be wiped away because the defendant falsely claimed that the charges were the result of some improper motive.”
Mark Osler, an expert in presidential pardons at the University of St. Thomas, said Weiss’ overture raises “a technical issue — either way, the case goes away — but an important one.”
“[Prosecutors] want the indictment to remain on the record,” he told ABC News.
Without directly addressing President Biden’s criticism of the case as selective and unfair, the filing highlighted how Hunter Biden’s lawyers made “every conceivable argument” to dismiss the case and failed to provide evidence that prosecution was vindictive.
“The court similarly found his vindictive prosecution claims unmoored from any evidence or even a coherent theory as to vindictiveness,” the filing said. “And there was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case. The defendant made similar baseless accusations in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. Those claims were also rejected.”
(NEW YORK) — Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is waiving extradition and will be transported to New York in short order.
Mangione was remanded to the custody of the NYPD, said his Pennsylvania defense attorney, Thomas Dickey.
“This is in his best interest, and we’re moving forward,” Dickey said.
A special edition of “20/20” airing Dec. 19 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC looks at the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the manhunt that led to the arrest of Luigi Mangione, who went from the Ivy League to alleged killer.
The news comes after Mangione appeared in court in Blair County, Pennsylvania, on Thursday morning.
Spectators gathered outside the Blair County courthouse on Thursday ahead of Mangione’s appearance.
One held a sign reading “Deny, Defend, Depose,” echoing the words written on shell casings and a bullet at the murder scene.
Adam Giesseman, who had a sign that said “Free Luigi” and “Murder for Profit is Terrorism,” told ABC News, “Our country is broken.”
Another waiting spectator, who only gave her first name, Natalie, voiced frustration that the insurance system is “set up for profit over people’s health.”
“It’s unfortunate that this happened, and I’m not glorifying it in any way — but it’s brought attention to the issue that affects all Americans,” she said.
Mangione faces an 11-count indictment by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and is also expected to face federal charges out of the Southern District of New York, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
SDNY and the FBI’s New York field office both declined to comment.
Federal charges could make Mangione eligible for the death penalty. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of the state charges.
Mangione’s New York lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said in a statement, “The federal government’s reported decision to pile on top of an already overcharged first-degree murder and state terror case is highly unusual and raises serious constitutional and statutory double jeopardy concerns.”
“We are ready to fight these charges in whatever court they are brought,” Agnifilo added.
Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said, “The state case will proceed in parallel with any federal case.”
Mangione, 26, is accused of gunning down Thompson outside a Hilton hotel on Dec. 4 as the UnitedHealthcare CEO headed to an investors conference. Prosecutors alleged Mangione waited nearly an hour for Thompson to arrive.
A Manhattan grand jury upgraded charges against Mangione to include first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
The killing in the heart of Midtown Manhattan was “intended to evoke terror,” Bragg said.
In New York, Mangione is also charged with two counts of second-degree murder, one of which is charged as killing as an act of terrorism; two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree; four counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree; one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree; and one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree.
In Pennsylvania, where Mangione was arrested on Dec. 9 after nearly a week on the run, he faces charges including allegedly possessing an untraceable ghost gun. Mangione had a 9 mm handgun with a 3D-printed receiver, a homemade silencer, two ammunition magazines and live cartridges when apprehended, prosecutors said.
ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
