Jessica Leslie, 34, pleaded guilty in a Boston federal court on Monday to a charge of criminal contempt that accused her of willfully disobeying court rules against disclosure of grand jury information, the DOJ said.
Leslie had served on the grand jury as part of the investigation into Read, who was ultimately acquitted of murder in the 2022 death of her boyfriend.
Federal prosecutors said that between Aug. 11, 2022, and March 4, 2024, Leslie disclosed “sealed information to unauthorized individuals, including the names of various witnesses appearing before a federal grand jury, the substance of witness testimony and other evidence presented to the grand jury.”
Leslie agreed to a sentence of incarceration for one day, deemed served, and 24 months of supervised release, court records said. Her sentencing has been scheduled for Sept. 26.
While the charging document did not specify that Leslie was a grand juror in the Read case, sources confirmed the case to ABC News.
Federal prosecutors did not say how they learned Leslie had disclosed secret grand jury information, but sources said authorities had been monitoring social media accounts and other communications during a case that received widespread attention.
Read was originally indicted by a Boston grand jury in June 2022 in the death of her police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe. Prosecutors alleged Read hit O’Keefe with her car outside the home of a fellow police officer after a night of heavy drinking in January 2022 and then left him to die there during a major blizzard.
The first trial ended in a mistrial last year after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
In a second trial that ended in June, Read was found not guilty of the most serious charges against her — murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene after an accident. She was convicted of operating under the influence of liquor and sentenced to one year of probation.
(WASHINGTON) — A New York man was charged with allegedly cyberstalking a family member of the slain former UnitedHealthcare CEO, according to a complaint filed by the Justice Department on Wednesday.
Shane Daley, 40, of Galway, New York, allegedly left four voicemails over the course of multiple days for an unnamed member of Brian Thompson’s family.
Luigi Mangione was charged in the brazen shooting of Thompson in December 2024 that unfolded in the middle of New York City and captured the nation’s attention. Prosecutors say Mangione allegedly targeted Thompson for his role at the healthcare company.
The voicemails allegedly left by Daley, according to the DOJ, are “threatening” and left the member of Thompson’s family scared for her life.
“Your [family member] got lit the f— up cause he’s a f—— asshole,” Daley allegedly said in a voicemail left on Dec. 4, 2024, the same day of Thompson’s killing, according to the complaint.
“Profiting off the f——, off the backs of poor Americans. This s— is gonna keep happening to you f—— pricks. F— you.”
In another voicemail, Daley allegedly shared a hostile message that Thompson’s family member should tell his children.
“Their dad died cause he was a f—— capitalist. $10.2 million a year, f—— insider trading b—-. Making a f—— off of the backs of poor Americans. You all deserve to f—— die and burn and hell. F— you. F— your f—— kids.”
“Brian Thompson was gunned down in midtown Manhattan,” Acting U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III released a statement along with the DOJ complaint, saying, Daley, “…Gleefully welcomed this tragedy and did all that he could to increase the Thompson family’s pain and suffering.”
“My office and its partners will now do all that we can to hold him accountable for this vicious and outrageous conduct,” Sarcone said.
Mangione has been indicted on federal charges accusing him of stalking Thompson outside the Hilton in Midtown Manhattan and then shooting him to death on Dec. 4, 2024.
Thompson was heading to an investors’ conference when he was shot and killed. Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days later.
Mangione pleaded not guilty to the four-count federal indictment in April. He is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York, awaiting trial.
(MILWAUKEE, WI) — Federal prosecutors argued Monday that a court should reject a Wisconsin judge’s attempt to have the obstruction case against her dismissed based on judicial immunity.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, 65, was arrested by the FBI on April 25 and is charged with concealing a defendant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, to prevent his arrest by immigration authorities.
Prosecutors contend that her motion to dismiss the charges ignores “well-established law that has long permitted judges to be prosecuted for crimes they commit,” according to court documents.
“Her state judicial post is not a license to engage in conduct that violates federal criminal law,” wrote Richard Frohling, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
The government’s filing also takes aim at Dugan’s claim that federal agents on April 18 disrupted active proceedings in her courtroom when they showed up in the courthouse seeking to arrest Flores-Ruiz on alleged immigration violations, arguing that it was Dugan “who took it upon herself to interfere with the federal agents’ performance of their responsibilities,” according to the filing.
Prosecutors allege that “Dugan chose to pause an unrelated case, leave her courtroom, disrupt proceedings in a colleague’s courtroom to commandeer her assistance, and then confront agents in the public hallway.”
The filing goes on to allege that Dugan directed agents through a set of double doors to the chief judge’s office even though she knew the chief judge was not in the office. “Dugan quickly returned to her courtroom and, among other things, directed E.F.R.’s attorney to ‘take your client out and come back and get a date’ and then to go through the jury door and ‘down the stairs’ before physically escorting E.F.R. and his attorney into a non-public hallway with access to a stairwell that led to a courthouse exit,” stated the filing, which refers to Flores-Ruiz by his initials. “She did this all just days after thanking a colleague for providing information which explained that ICE could lawfully make arrests in the courthouse hallway.”
The filing is the first time federal prosecutors have alleged that Dugan instructed the man to go “down the stairs,” and the first time they have referenced access to a stairwell leading to an exit.
Video from more than two dozen surveillance cameras at the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, obtained by ABC News through a public records request, shows the man and his attorney did not, in fact, take the stairs after the encounter with the judge but exited a private door that led to a public hallway. From there, the video shows the man and his attorney take the elevator down to the court’s main floor while being followed by federal agents. The videos obtained by ABC News do not have sound.
Flores-Ruiz, who was due to appear before Dugan that day on a battery charge, was captured outside the court building after a brief foot chase.
“Put simply, nothing in the indictment or the anticipated evidence at trial supports Dugan’s assertion that agents ‘disrupted’ the court’s docket; instead, all events arose from Dugan’s unilateral, non-judicial, and unofficial actions in obstructing a federal immigration matter over which she, as a Wisconsin state judge, had no authority,” prosecutors said in the filing.
In the filing, the prosecution argues that even if judicial immunity applied in this case, it would “not help Dugan” because her actions “went well beyond her official role when she endeavored to prevent federal law enforcement officers from executing a valid arrest…in a public area of the Milwaukee County Courthouse.”
Dugan has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and a trial date is set for July 21.
Lawyers for Dugan, in part citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in President Donald Trump’s immunity case, have argued she has judicial immunity for official acts and that her prosecution is unconstitutional.
“The problems with this prosecution are legion, but most immediately, the government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts,” her attorneys wrote in a motion to dismiss filed last month. “Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset. The prosecution against her is barred. The Court should dismiss the indictment.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan in the wake of her arrest, stating in an order that it found it was “in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties.”
A United Airlines plane takeoff from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco, California, United States on August 6, 2025 as United Airlines flights grounded nationwide because of computer problems. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A tech outage led United Airlines to ground flights nationwide Wednesday night, and even with the issue now resolved, over 1,000 flights were delayed and dozens were canceled.
“We are working with customers to get them to their destinations after a technology disruption on Wednesday evening,” the airline said in a statement.
The outage stemmed from an issue with the airline’s weight and balance computer system, United said.
“The underlying technology issue has been resolved, and, while we expect residual delays, our team is working to restore our normal operations,” the airline said.
The airline said the outage began shortly after 6 p.m. ET and was resolved after a few hours.
“Due to a technology issue, we are holding United mainline flights at their departure airports,” the airline said in a statement. “We expect additional flight delays this evening as we work through this issue. Safety is our top priority, and we’ll work with our customers to get them to their destinations.”
Overall, more than 1,000 flights were delayed and more than 40 were canceled, according to FlightAware, a site that tracks air traffic. United said it’s covering meals and hotels for impacted customers.
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement it was aware the airline “experienced a technology issue disrupting their operations.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the issue was specific to United’s operations “and is unrelated to the broader air traffic control system.”
The airline confirmed in a statement to ABC News that the issue was not related to a cyberattack.
The ground stop did not affect United Express flights, and any flight that was already in the air will continue to its destination, according to the airline.
Multiple FAA notices stated that the airline requested ground stops at major hubs, including Newark, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and Houston.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
