Kentucky sheriff accused of fatally shooting judge retires

(NEW YORK) — Sean “Jay-Z” Carter fired back in a court filing Monday after he and Sean “Diddy” Combs were accused of raping a 13-year-old girl at an after-party following the 2000 Video Music Awards, according to an amended civil lawsuit filed Sunday.

Carter filed a motion Monday to deny the plaintiff’s request to remain anonymous, calling for either her identity to be disclosed or the suit to be dismissed.

In the motion, he also accused Texas attorney Tony Buzbee of conducting an “extortionate campaign” against him.

“Mr. Carter deserves to know the identity of the person who is effectively accusing him — in sensationalized, publicity-hunting fashion — of criminal conduct, demanding massive financial compensation, and tarnishing a reputation earned over decades,” the motion states.

In a statement posted to the Roc Nation X account on Sunday, Jay-Z denied the allegations made against him in the Sunday filing.

Jay-Z was added to the lawsuit that was originally filed in October as one of several anonymous complaints by Buzbee.

Many of the lawsuits did not survive because the plaintiffs declined to be named; however, in this case, the judge said the then-13-year-old showed sufficient cause to continue anonymously.

Carter was identified in the original complaint as Celebrity A.

“Another celebrity stood by and watched as Combs and Carter took turns assaulting the minor,” the lawsuit said without naming the celebrity.

The plaintiff alleged she was noticed by a limousine driver who invited her to the after-party where Combs and Carter raped her.

In his statement, Jay-Z claimed Buzbee had sent his lawyer a “demand letter” ahead of the filing.

“My lawyer received a blackmail attempt, called a demand letter, from a ‘lawyer’ named Tony Buzbee. What he had calculated was the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny would make me want to settle,” Jay-Z wrote.

“No sir, it had the opposite effect! It made me want to expose you for the fraud you are in a VERY public fashion. So no, I will not give you ONE RED PENNY!!” he added in the statement.

In his response, the music mogul questioned why the filing was a civil lawsuit rather than a criminal filing.

“Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree? These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case,” Jay-Z wrote.

Jay-Z went on to address the fact that his family, including his children, may be affected by the filing.

“My only heartbreak is for my family. My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people,” he wrote.

In a statement to ABC News Buzbee said, “The pleading speaks for itself. This is a very serious matter that will be litigated in court.”

Buzbee also took to his personal Instagram account on Sunday, saying he would not be “bullied or intimidated,” without mentioning the specific lawsuit, Jay-Z or Diddy by name.

“People will see through this effort to discredit me and my clients and the truth will be revealed,” Buzbee wrote. “I also won’t allow anyone to scare my clients into silence. Sunlight is the best disinfectant and I am quite certain the sun is coming,” he added.

Combs’ legal representatives responded to the filing in a statement to ABC News on Sunday, saying, “This amended complaint and the recent extortion lawsuit against Mr. Buzbee exposes his barrage of lawsuits against Mr. Combs for what they are: shameless publicity stunts, designed to extract payments from celebrities who fear having lies spread about them, just as lies have been spread about Mr. Combs.”

“As his legal team has said before, Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor,” Combs’ representatives said in the statement.

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(CHICAGO) — A woman has been accused of a hate crime after she allegedly targeted a man wearing a “Palestine” sweatshirt at an Illinois Panera Bread, authorities said.

Alexandra Szustakiewicz, 64, was at a Panera in Downers Grove, a Chicago suburb, around noon on Saturday when she saw a man wearing a sweatshirt that said “Palestine” on it, the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office said. She allegedly confronted him and started yelling expletives, prosecutors said.

When a woman who was with the man started taking video of the confrontation, Szustakiewicz allegedly tried to hit the phone out of the woman’s hand, prosecutors said.

Szustakiewicz, a Darien resident, was taken into custody the next day and is accused of committing “a hate crime by reason of perceived national origin,” prosecutors said.

“This type of behavior is not and will never be tolerated in our community,” Downers Grove Chief of Police Michael DeVries said in a statement.

Downers Grove is about 23 miles west of Chicago.

“Every member of society, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or any other individual characteristic, deserves to be treated with respect and civility,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin added.

Szustakiewicz made her first court appearance on Monday on two counts of hate crime and one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct, authorities said.

She is next due in court on Dec. 16.

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(AUSTIN, Texas) — A 28-year-old Texas woman died in 2021 after her abortion care was delayed for over 40 hours as she was having a miscarriage, according to a new story from ProPublica.

Josseli Barnica was told that it would be a “crime” to intervene in her miscarriage because the fetus still had cardiac activity, despite her 17-week pregnancy already resulting in a miscarriage that was “in progress,” according to medical records obtained by ProPublica.

The medical team told Barnica that she had to wait until there was no heartbeat due to Texas’ new abortion ban, Barnica’s husband told ProPublica.

Despite Texas enacting several abortion bans after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it was the first state to restrict the procedure by enacting a law that permitted citizens to sue physicians who provide abortion care after six weeks of pregnancy — before most women know they are pregnant — for $10,000.

Anyone who “aided and abetted” an abortion, by actions such as driving a woman to obtain abortion care, could also be sued.

Forty hours after Barnica had arrived at a Texas hospital, physicians could not detect fetal cardiac activity and she was given medication to speed up her labor, according to the report. She was discharged about eight hours later, according to ProPublica.

She continued bleeding but when she called the hospital she was told that was expected, the story said. When the bleeding grew heavier two days later, she rushed back to the hospital, according to ProPublica.

Three days after she passed the pregnancy, Barnica died of an infection, according to ProPublica.

More than a dozen medical experts who reviewed the medical records told ProPublica that her death was preventable.

“These experts said that there was a good chance she might have survived if she’d been treated earlier,” Kavitha Surana, the reporter who wrote the story for ProPublica, told ABC News Live. “No one can say for sure where the sepsis developed. But 40 hours with your cervix wide open in a hospital, that is not the standard of care to require someone to take that risk.”

After Roe was overturned, a stricter ban went into effect, penalizing doctors found guilty of providing abortions with up to 99 years in prison and fines up to $100,000.

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