Jan. 6 rioter whose case was tossed after Trump pardon arrested on pending weapons charges
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(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.
(NEW YORK) — As Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty Monday to state murder and terrorism charges in the brazen killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, supporters of the suspect continued to donate tens of thousands of dollars for a defense fund established for him, leaving law enforcement officials worried Mangione is being turned into a martyr.
Several online defense funds have been created for Mangione by anonymous people, including one on the crowdfunding website GiveSendGo that as of Tuesday morning had raised over $200,000.
The GiveSendGo defense fund for the 26-year-old Mangione was established by an anonymous group calling itself “The December 4th Legal Committee,” apparently in reference to the day Mangione allegedly ambushed and gunned down Thompson in Midtown Manhattan as the executive walked to his company’s shareholders conference at the New York Hilton hotel.
“We are not here to celebrate violence, but we do believe in the constitutional right to fair legal representation,” the anonymous group said in a statement.
The crowdfunding campaign prompted donations from thousands of anonymous donors across the country, many of them leaving messages of support for Mangione, including one person who called themselves “A frustrated citizen” and thanked Mangione for “sparking the awareness and thought across this sleeping nation.”
In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for GiveSendGo said the company “operates with a principle of not preemptively determining guilt or innocence.”
“Our platform does not adjudicate legal matters or the validity of causes. Instead, we allow campaigns to remain live unless they violate the specific terms outlined in our Terms of Use. Importantly, we do allow campaigns for legal defense funds, as we believe everyone deserves the opportunity to access due process,” the GiveSendGo spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added, “We understand the concerns raised by such campaigns and take these matters seriously. When campaigns are reported, our team conducts a thorough review to ensure they comply with our policies. While other platforms may choose a different approach, GiveSendGo’s core value is to provide a space where all individuals, no matter their situation, can seek and receive support, with donors making their own informed decisions.”
Other crowdfunding sites such as GoFundMe have taken down campaigns soliciting donations for Mangione’s defense.
“GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit fundraisers for the legal defense of violent crimes,” the crowdfunding website said in a statement. “The fundraisers have been removed from our platform and all donors have been refunded.”
Amazon and Etsy have removed from their websites merchandise featuring Mangione, including T-shirts and tote bags reading “Free Luigi” and the phrase “Deny, Defend, Depose,” words police said were etched in the shell casings discovered at the scene of Thompson’s homicide.
“Celebrating this conduct is abhorrent to me. It’s deeply disturbing,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told ABC News senior investigative reporter Aaron Katersky in an interview last week. “And what I would say to members of the public, people who, as you described, are celebrating this and maybe contemplating other action, that we will be vigilant and we will hold people accountable. We are at the ready.”
When Mangione appeared in court Monday for his arrangement, more than two dozen young women, who had waited in the frigid cold outside the courthouse, said they were there to support the defendant.
Most of the women wore face masks and a few appeared visibly emotional as Mangione entered the courtroom.
“This is a grave injustice, and that’s why people are here,” one of the women, who said she arrived at the courthouse at 5 a.m., told ABC News.
Other supporters outside the courthouse chanted, “Free, free Luigi” and “Eat the rich,” and held signs reading, “People over profits” and “Health over wealth.”
Manhattan grand jury indicted Mangione last week on 11 charges, including first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism. Mangione is also facing federal charges that could get him the death penalty if convicted.
Mangione’s attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, raised concerns in court Monday that her client is being used by police and New York City Mayor Eric Adams as “political fodder.”
Angifilo also slammed last week’s extradition of Mangione back to Manhattan to face charges, calling Adams’ presence amid the massive display of force used in the transfer “the biggest staged perp walk I have seen in my career.”
“What was the New York City mayor doing at this press conference — that is utterly political,” she said, before referencing the mayor’s own criminal case. “The New York City mayor should know more than anyone the presumption of innocence.”
Retired FBI special agent Richard Frankel said suspects have received unsolicited support in previous politically charged violent crimes.
“We saw it with the Unabomber,” said Frankel, an ABC News contributor, referring to Ted Kaczynski, the mathematician-turn-domestic terrorist who blamed technology for a decline of individual freedom and mailed handcrafted explosives to targeted individuals between 1978 and 1995.
Frankel said Eric Rudolph, who detonated a bomb in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Olympic Games and carried out three additional bombings as he eluded capture for five years, also attracted supporters.
“In my opinion, they’re supporting individuals who have committed potentially terrorist acts, but it’s a politically charged act,” Frankel said.
Referring to the Thompson killing, Frankel added, “You can be up in arms about the health care industry, but you can’t threaten or actually hurt members of the health care industry.”
Most recently, Marine veteran Daniel Penny was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who was acting erratically on a New York City subway, after supporters donated more than $3 million to his legal defense fund.
Law enforcement officials have expressed concern that Mangione is being turned into a martyr. Someone this week pasted “wanted posters” outside the New York Stock Exchange naming other executives.
A recent bulletin released by the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center, a multi-agency law enforcement intelligence-sharing network based in Philadelphia, included a photo of a banner hanging from an overpass reading, “Deny, Defend, Depose,” which are the same words etched on shell casings police said were recovered from the Thompson homicide scene.
“Many social media users have outright advocated for the continued killings of CEOs with some aiming to spread fear by posting ‘hit lists,'” the bulletin, obtained by ABC News, reads.
(NEW YORK) — Svetlana Dali, the woman who stowed away on a Delta Air Lines flight to France, was arrested by the FBI upon her return to New York, an official confirmed.
She returned to John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday, once again flying Delta, but this time escorted by U.S. law enforcement, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
The TSA confirmed that its inspectors, along with other law enforcement officials, were there to meet Dali at the gate for questioning when she deplaned.
The stowaway’s name was confirmed Tuesday by her daughter and ex-husband, although authorities had yet to verify her identity at the time of her return to the U.S.
Dali had previously been described only as a Russian national who had been caught traveling without proper documentation on Delta Flight 264. The flight was scheduled to fly between New York City and Paris on Nov. 26.
According to a statement from the French Interior Ministry, “She was not admitted to French territory due to lack of a valid travel document (visa) and was placed in the waiting area for the time necessary for her re-routing to the United States since she held a valid US residence permit.”
Dali will be making her initial appearance in Brooklyn Federal Court on Thursday, officials have confirmed.
However, the charges against her have not been made public as of the time of her arrest.
It is therefore unknown if the appearance is related to the civil case that the TSA told ABC News it was preparing against Dali.
“TSA opens a civil case against any passenger when there is evidence that TSA regulations may have been violated,” the spokesperson said in a statement on Monday.
Upon Dali’s reentry to New York on Wednesday night, Delta issued a statement thanking French and U.S. authorities for assisting in the incident.
“Our review affirms that Delta’s security infrastructure, as part of our Safety Management System framework, is sound and that deviation from standard procedures is the root cause of this event,” the statement said.
“We are thoroughly addressing this matter and will continue to work closely with our regulators, law enforcement and other relevant stakeholders,” it continued. “Nothing is of greater importance than safety and security.”
Details about how she was able to originally sneak onto an international flight remain under investigation.
Christopher Looft and Ayesha Ali contributed to this report.
Photo by MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told embassy officials in Guatemala this week that it was “not our intention” to uproot families deployed overseas with USAID, despite the agency issuing a 30-day mandate for their return.
“I know it’s hard to ask for patience. I know it’s hard to ask for trust,” Rubio said, according to a partial transcript of his meet-and-greet with embassy staff that was obtained by ABC News.
Rubio, who was tapped to serve as the acting director of the aid agency, also seemed to acknowledge the administration’s haphazard approach to cutting USAID — which handles foreign aid, disaster relief and international development programs — saying it was undertaken “in a manner that we would have preferred to be different, but we’re forced to do because of impediments that we would confront.”
Elon Musk, the head of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, said earlier this week he was “in the process” of “shutting down” the agency with the backing of President Donald Trump, as part of efforts to trim the size of the federal government and eliminate waste.
The Trump administration on Wednesday placed all direct-hire employees at USAID on administrative leave starting Friday, with plans to recall all foreign-based USAID employees back to the U.S. within 30 days.
In the transcript of Rubio’s meeting with Guatemalan embassy staff, he says that the ambassador to Guatemala “handed” him a list of USAID programs in the country that he said “align with our U.S. goals and our interests.” That list was the result of an all-night scramble by staff who were directed to compile it shortly after the secretary arrived in the country, according to an embassy official.
Rubio said that document “gave us the idea that we should ask the same exercise be conducted by every Mission around the world so that intelligent decisions can be made” regarding which programs to keep, before the end of Thursday.
The directive has quickly resulted in pushback from some USAID staff stationed abroad, who say the Thursday deadline set by State Department leadership will be extremely difficult for most posts to meet, and that it may be part of a strategy to avoid lawsuits from agency employees that could slow down its dismantling.
“Absolutely impossible,” one USAID employee told ABC News. “Clearly, the 90-day foreign aid review has been compressed to two days.”
Rubio’s remarks came in response to concerns from Haven Cruz-Hubbard, the USAID mission director for Guatemala, who asked about the administration’s efforts to curb foreign aid. Rubio insisted that “the United States is not walking away from foreign aid. It’s not.”
“I want to tell you that this is not about politics, but foreign aid is the least popular thing Government spends money on,” Rubio said, according to the transcript. “And I spent a lot of time in my career defending it and explaining it, but it’s harder and harder to do across the board — it really is.”
Rubio’s private comments generally reflect what he’s said publicly about the cuts to foreign aid — but his sentiments seemed more sympathetic toward the workers whose careers and livelihoods hang in the balance.
“For those of us in charge of doing the work of foreign policy, we understand [foreign aid] is essential,” he said.
The New York Times was first to report on the partial transcript.
