Judge holds Giuliani in contempt for failing to turn over property to 2 Georgia election workers
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(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Monday held Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court for failing to turn over personal property and information to two Georgia election workers he was found to have defamed.
Judge Lewis Liman sided with Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who said Giuliani has “not turned over a single dollar” to satisfy the $148 million judgment against the former New York City mayor.
The election workers said Giuliani failed to relinquish “a signed Joe DiMaggio shirt, signed Reggie Jackson picture, signed Yankee Stadium picture, or many of the various household goods or furnishings that he valued at $20,000 and which public photographs show he possessed in his New York Apartment.”
Giuliani was found liable in 2023 for defaming Freeman and Moss by falsely accusing them of tampering with the 2020 presidential vote in Georgia.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump is asking a federal appeals court to reconsider overturning a jury’s verdict that found he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and awarded her $5 million in damages.
After the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined last month that Trump failed to prove he deserved a new trial, lawyers for Trump on Tuesday requested an en banc hearing, in which the full court would hear the case rather than a select panel.
A New York jury in 2023 awarding Carroll $5 million in damages after it found Trump liable for sexually abusing her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and for defaming her in 2022 when he denied the allegations.
Last year, another jury ordered Trump to pay an additional $83 million in damages for his defamatory statements about Carroll.
Trump argued the trial court in 2023 erred when it allowed two women to testify about Trump allegedly assaulting them, as well as permitting Carroll’s lawyers to show the jury part of the now-infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted about grabbing women.
“To have any chance of persuading a jury, Carroll’s implausible, unsubstantiated allegations had to be — and repeatedly were — propped up by the erroneous admission of highly inflammatory propensity evidence,” wrote Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, and D. John Sauder, who have all been picked by Trump for top Justice Department posts in his incoming adminstration.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial court’s decisions, if left uncorrected, could set a damaging precedent of allowing “inflammatory propensity evidence in a wide range of future cases.”
Trump’s request for an en banc hearing is his final appellate option before possibly turning to the Supreme Court.
(SPOKANE, Wash.) –A 40-year-old man attacked a priest during a church service in Spokane, Washington, on Tuesday night, according to officials.
Around 350 to 400 people had gathered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in downtown Spokane on Tuesday for the second night of novena, a tradition of gathering for prayer for nine days or nine weeks, when the man, identified as Joshua James Sommers, allegedly attacked the priest.
Security camera footage shows Sommers leaving his pew, rushing up to the altar near the end of the service and attempting to strike Rev. David Gaines in the face. Gaines was able to pin down Sommers, with other staff and churchgoers running up to help.
In the footage, Sommers lets out screams, and Gaines continues to say, “It’s OK, just calm down.”
Security guards quickly came to assist, and the Spokane Police Department was also notified immediately of the incident, according to the church. Gaines was not harmed in the attack.
Father Darrin Connall, who was kneeling at the altar when the attack occurred, told ABC News the church has not seen “anything quite this serious.”
“All of us were pretty shaken,” Connall said. “You don’t expect to see something like that when you’re gathering together to pray and worship.”
Once Sommers was escorted out by police, Connall said the entire group stopped the service and prayed for him.
“Whatever demons he was struggling with needed to be healed,” Connall said.
Sommers was arrested on misdemeanor assault charges, and also has a previous record of harming others. In 2023, Sommers was charged with third-degree assault after attacking an employee at a mental health facility. Sommers, who was a patient at this facility, allegedly punched the employee multiple times and stole their keys to try and escape, according to the affidavit on those charges.
Sommers appeared in court Wednesday on assault charges, along with the outstanding warrant from his previous assault. He will return to court later this month and remains behind bars.
ABC News’ Irving Last and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report.
Photo by DAVID PASHAEE/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — The destruction caused by the Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County, which has destroyed more than 14,117 acres across the region in the last week, is threatening Altadena’s rich and diverse history that captures the plight, success and perseverance of the local communities of color.
The Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy, a nonprofit founded by Indigenous groups who have called the now-greater Los Angeles basin their home for thousands of years, was given back some of its land at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Altadena in 2022. However, the Eaton Fire has left part of the recently acquired land significantly damaged.
The organization credits traditional ecological knowledge for having “nurtured the land” and aided in its protection, with plans to continue recovering the land with native plants and practices.
“Our immediate focus is on assessing the full extent of the damage, supporting our neighbors, and collaborating with local partners to ensure community recovery,” said the organization in a statement. “We will provide ongoing updates as we work toward healing and rebuilding the Conservancy and surrounding areas.”
Los Angeles County is battling wildfires across 45 square miles of the densely populated county, leaving thousands of structures damages, thousands of residents displaced and at least. 25 people dead.
The destruction has also impacted decades of progress for other communities of color in the region who settled in Altadena, which is now 41% white, 27% Hispanic, 18% Black and 17% multiracial.
In the 1960s, a combination of urban renewal, white flight and the political movements of the time caused rapid demographic shifts in the Altadena region, according to Altadena Heritage.
The end of widespread discriminatory redlining practices made Altadena a place where Black, Hispanic and Indigenous residents looking for a home could find a bargain.
The town became home to several iconic Black figures, including Sidney Poitier, the first Black actor to win an Oscar, prominent author Octavia Butler, artist Charles White, abolitionist Ellen Garrison Jackson Clark and others.
Veronica Jones, president of the Altadena Historical Society, says Altadena offered “more opportunities away from what the city [of Pasadena] offered children of color at that time.”
Many of those who lost homes in the fire are from families that have been in Altadena for generations.
One of those residents is Kim Jones. For Jones, Altadena has been her family’s home for four generations; she says her family moved to Altadena due to racism and segregation in the South in the ’60s.
Jones says speaking about the heartbreak of losing everything is her attempt to be “the family historian” now that the material memories are gone.
She said her grandmother, who had a home on Lincoln Avenue, was one of the first Black families in the neighborhood.
Kendall Jones, Kim’s son, lost memories of his father, who passed away two years ago, in the blaze.
“Part of me is devastated that all that is gone and the memories of him, but at the same time, I’m also hopeful that my family can rebuild and move past this because no matter what, we’re still alive and no one got hurt, and that’s the most important thing,” he told ABC News.
Kim Jones said her 52 years of memories were in the house – “I have pictures from my childhood. Kendall has pictures. My mother had a tiny cabinet and dishes that were her grandmother’s. Jewelry. I had photos from my grandmother, who had lived with them before she passed.”
Earnestine Brown-Turner also lost her home in the blaze. She had evacuated to her daughter’s Los Angeles home, which is in an evacuation warning zone. When Brown-Turner was packing to evacuate, she took little with her and expected to return with her home intact.
When she and her family came back, everything was gone: “We kind of still had the hope as we were driving up the neighborhood, but there was no neighborhood left,” said Imani Brown-Turner.
The Brown-Turner family had memories from enslaved family members, including quilts and photos. Those are all gone.
As residents process the grief of losing everything they had, concerns about the future hang heavy over their heads. The region had already been experiencing signs of gentrification ahead of the destructive blaze.
Veronica Jones noted that the homes in Altadena now sell for hefty price tags, as Altadena becomes a desired area for new residents at the base of the beautiful San Gabriel mountains.
“The area is starting to be revitalized again,” said Kim Jones. “We want to come back. We want to come back and rebuild.”
As families prepare to rebuild their homes from scratch, she fears some residents will be preyed upon for quick sales of their land: “But there’s no quick sale. There’s no quick sale because California is expensive to live in. I want my family home to be a family home for the next generation and the generation after that.”