Judge grants James Comey’s request to delay his seashell trial
Author James Comey, former FBI Director, speaks at the Barnes & Noble Upper West Side on May 19, 2025 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge on Tuesday granted former FBI Director James Comey’s request to delay his criminal trial for allegedly threatening to kill President Donald Trump by posting a photo of seashells.
U.S. District Judge Louise Wood Flanagan scheduled the trial to begin on Oct. 21.
The former FBI director’s arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 30.
Prosecutors did not object to the request to delay the proceedings.
Comey was charged with threatening to kill Trump by posting a photo on Instagram of seashells on a beach arranged in the numbers “86 47.” Citing the slang meaning of “86” as to “nix” or “get rid” of something, allies of the president allege that the post was a veiled threat against Trump, who is the 47th president.
Following backlash over the post, Comey removed the photo from Instagram and said he was unaware that the post could be associated with violence.
Critics of Trump say the indictment is another effort by the administration to punish the president’s perceived enemies after a judge last year threw out an indictment against Comey on unrelated charges.
“Well, they’re back. This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina Beach a year ago,” Comey said in a video posted online after the seashell indictment was unsealed. “And this won’t be the end of it, but nothing has changed with me. I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go.”
At a press conference announcing the charges last month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued that Comey’s post crossed the line between First Amendment-protected speech and speech that warrants prosecution.
“It’s not a very difficult line to look at, and it’s not, in my mind, a difficult line for one to cross over, one way or the other,” Blanche said. “We cannot, you are not allowed to threaten the President of the United States of America. That’s not my decision. That’s Congress’s decision, and a statute that they passed that we charge multiple times a year.”
Dr. Stephen Kornfeld speaks with ABC News, May 15, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — The American doctor who was on the MV Hondius cruise ship and initially tested positive for hantavirus has since tested negative and says “there’s no evidence that I’ve had hantavirus.”
A doctor from the biocontainment unit in Nebraska said the initial test was most likely a falsely positive, based on further testing.
Dr. Stephen Kornfeld — the only American to test positive for hantavirus — came down with flu-like symptoms on the cruise ship, and on Monday he was admitted to the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s biocontainment unit following a positive test, officials said.
The Bend, Oregon, resident has since tested negative and was cleared to relocate to Nebraska’s quarantine unit, where 15 other passengers from the cruise ship who do not have symptoms are being monitored.
“I physically feel great — I have felt great for many, many days,” Kornfeld told ABC News. “Emotionally I feel wonderful. It’s nice to be negative for hantavirus.”
The medical director of Nebraska’s biocontainment unit, Dr. Angela Hewlett, told ABC News’ Victor Oquendo, “I suspect that the initial test was a false positive.”
“If we had seen evidence of previous exposure or previous infection to hantavirus with our serology test, then that would have been a little more indicative of maybe he had had an illness and he was fortunately getting better,” Hewlett explained. “We didn’t see any evidence of that and so it looks like he has not had this illness at all thus far.”
Kornfeld said the initial test was taken after he came down with a flu-like illness on the ship.
“I got sick just a few days after the gentleman who had hantavirus got sick — he ultimately passed away from it. And my illness certainly wasn’t as severe, but it was a typical viral illness with sweats and fatigue and cough, sore throat, and a lot of upper respiratory symptoms,” he said. “I just attributed it to the ship flu, and I think in retrospect, it was.”
“I’m fairly confident he never had hantavirus, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t necessarily have an exposure,” Hewlett said.
“In fact, I had a lot of exposure when I was the ship’s doctor,” Kornfeld said. “I’m still in the incubation period. The virus may still be in me and I may develop symptoms of the virus.”
He said he is following protocol by isolating himself in Nebraska’s quarantine unit.
“I will keep track of my symptoms,” he said. “And if I get any symptoms, then I’ll be tested. Because getting new symptoms does not mean it’s hantavirus — I could come down with another virus, like a cold or something similar.”
Kornfeld said he is weighing whether to complete the entire 42-day quarantine in Nebraska or to finish from his home in Oregon. If he does go home, he said it would not be on a commercial aircraft.
“I think everybody in this unit is sort of having that discussion with their own health system and with their family. Some will probably stay here the entire time, some may ultimately go home,” he said.
“I’m thinking that I may eventually want to go home … it would be very safe to send us home and then we could complete the quarantine in a much more familiar situation,” he said, adding, “everybody here is committed to completing their quarantine.”
Colin Gray, the father of Apalachee High School shooting suspect Colt Gray, sits in the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, on September 6, 2024, in Winder, Georgia. (Brynn Anderson-Pool/Getty Images)
(ATLANTA) — A Georgia jury found Colin Gray guilty Tuesday on charges including second-degree murder and manslaughter, stemming from a 2024 mass shooting allegedly committed by his teenage son with a rifle he gifted him as a Christmas present.
The jury found the 55-year-old Gray guilty of 27 counts. Two other counts were dropped. The jury deliberated fewer than two hours before returning its verdicts.
Gray is the first parent in the United States convicted of murder due to the alleged acts of their child after prosecutors in various U.S. states in recent years have attempted to hold parents criminally liable in connection to their children’s deadly actions.
Colin Gray was charged with multiple counts of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and cruelty to children. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Gray’s son, Colt Gray, now 16, allegedly killed two students and two teachers and injured eight students in a Sept. 4, 2024, mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta.
Colt Gray has been charged as an adult and is awaiting a separate trial on multiple counts of felony murder and aggravated assault. He has pleaded not guilty.
During the two-week trial, Barrow County prosecutors presented evidence that Colin Gray had been warned that his son had an affinity for mass shooters and was aware that Colt kept a shrine in his bedroom dedicated to the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Instead of getting his son psychological help, Colin Gray allegedly gave the boy an AR-15-style weapon as a Christmas present that he ultimately used to carry out the mass shooting at Apalachee High School, prosecutors alleged.
On Friday, Colin Gray took the witness stand in his own defense and broke down while being questioned about whether he noticed any “red flags” that would have led him to believe the boy was capable of committing a mass shooting.
“I struggle with it every day,” Colin Gray testified. “He’s a good kid, you know? He wasn’t perfect, but to do something, uh, that heinous, like I don’t, I don’t know if anybody would see that type of evil.”
During his testimony, Gray confirmed that he gave his son the AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas present, telling jurors the gift came with rules.
“This is a weapon that I want you to shoot when we go to the range, and if you keep doing really good in school, going to school and doing all the things you should, you graduate and you’re 18, this will be your gun,” Colin Gray said he told his son.
The landmark guilty verdict comes after several parents across the country have been charged and convicted in connection with mass shootings carried out by their children.
In December 2023, Robert Crimo Jr. pleaded guilty to seven counts of misdemeanor reckless conduct – one count for each person killed by his son, Robert Crimo III – during a mass shooting at a Fourth of July Parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. As part of a plea deal, Crimo Jr. was sentenced to 60 days in jail and two years of probation.
Crimo’s son, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder and attempted murder in April 2025 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In 2021, Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first parents convicted in the United States of charges stemming from a mass school shooting committed by their child. Ethan Crumbley, then 16, pleaded guilty in October 2022 to charges he murdered four students and injured several others in a November 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Jennifer and James Crumbley were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials after prosecutors presented evidence of an unsecured gun at their home and their indifference toward their son’s mental health. They were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.
Luigi Mangione appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 16, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday pushed back Luigi Mangione’s federal trial from September to October, giving an additional month’s separation between his state and federal trials.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said the federal trial jury selection will begin Oct. 5, with the presentation of evidence beginning Oct. 26.
“What is happening at 100 Centre [the state courthouse] inevitably affects how we structure things here so the defendant can get a fair trial,” Garnett said.
Garnett said she did not want to be “held hostage” by the state prosecution, but she said she had “some pause” about the “utility” of having potential jurors fill out questionnaires in the glare of the state trial.
“There’s really no way around taking into account the events in the state case involving the same defendant,” Garnett said.
Mangione, who was shackled at the ankles, wore a beige smock over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He kept an arm casually propped on the back of his seat during the brief hearing.
The defense had asked for Mangione’s federal trial to be delayed to January 2027. Prosecutors objected to any rescheduling, arguing a delay prejudices the government.
Mangione is due back in federal court on June 5.
Mangione pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges after he was arrested for allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan in December 2024.
Mangione, 27, faces the possibility of life in prison if he’s convicted in either case. Garnett previously threw out the federal charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty and the judge overseeing the state prosecution, Gregory Carro, previously tossed out an enhancement to the state murder charges that said Mangione’s alleged conduct amounted to terrorism.
Carro has said he would rule on the defense motions to exclude evidence by May 18.
