Man accused of fatally burning woman on subway is due in court
Witthaya Prasongsin/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The man charged with setting a woman on fire and killing her as she slept on a New York City subway car is due in court on Friday.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, made his first court appearance on Tuesday and was held without bail. He has not entered a plea.
Zapeta-Calil was arrested on Monday and charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and first-degree arson.
Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday, the unidentified victim was asleep on a stationary F train in Brooklyn when a man approached her and lit her clothes on fire with a lighter, police said.
Authorities do not believe the two knew each other and did not have a previous interaction, police said.
The suspect left the subway car after the incident, but images of him were captured on officers’ body cameras because the suspect stayed at the scene, sitting on a nearby bench, according to police. Those images were released as police requested the public’s assistance in identifying the man.
Three high school students recognized him and contacted police, authorities said.
Zapeta-Calil was taken into custody in a subway car at Manhattan’s Herald Square on Sunday evening. Police said he was found with a lighter in his pocket.
Zapeta-Calil, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, according to a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He told authorities he does not know what happened, but he identified himself in the surveillance images.
Erik Menendez, left, and is brother Lyle, in front of their Beverly Hills home, Nov. 30, 1989 Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — Erik and Lyle Menendez’s infamous case was back in front of a judge Monday, with their aunts appealing to the judge on their behalf, during a status hearing regarding the brothers’ habeas corpus petition, which was filed last year for a review of new evidence not presented at trial.
The hearing was delayed 40 minutes due to challenges with trying to get Lyle and Erik Menendez to be available in court via video. After several attempts, the brothers were able to listen to the proceedings on the phone.
A lottery drawing was held for 16 public seats in the courtroom. Dozens of members of the public arrived early in the morning to wait for a chance to witness the hearing.
Judge Michael Jesic allowed testimony Monday from two of the brothers’ aunts — their mother’s sister, Joan VanderMolen, and their father’s sister, Terry Baralt — due to health concerns.
The aunts “both made impassioned pleas with the judge to send the brothers home,” defense attorney Mark Geragos told reporters after the hearing, calling it a “moving experience.”
The aunts testified about “all of the good things” the brothers have done in prison, Geragos said.
Jesic pushed back another scheduled hearing regarding the brothers’ resentencing recommendation from Dec. 11 to Jan. 30 and Jan. 31.
Jesic said he needs time to go through 17 boxes of files on the case and said he wants to give the newly elected Los Angeles district attorney ample time to get up to speed.
“By Jan. 30 or 31, we’re hoping that by the end of that, or sometime sooner, that we will, in fact, get the brothers released,” Geragos said.
Two new pieces of evidence are at the center of the brothers’ habeas corpus petition.
One is allegations from a former member of the boy band Menudo, who revealed last year that he was raped by the brothers’ father, Jose Menendez.
The second piece is a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin eight months before the murders detailing his alleged abuse from his father. The cousin testified about the alleged abuse at trial, but the letter — which would have corroborated the cousin’s testimony — wasn’t found until several years ago, according to the brothers’ attorney.
The case began in 1989, when Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, fatally shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in the family’s Beverly Hills home. The defense claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father, but prosecutors alleged they killed for money.
The first trial, which had separate juries for each brother, ended in mistrials. In 1996, after the second trial — during which the judge barred much of the sex abuse evidence — the brothers were convicted and both sentenced to two consecutive terms of life without parole.
As the habeas corpus petition moves through the courts, the brothers have two other potential paths to freedom.
One path is through resentencing. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced last month he was recommending the brothers’ sentence of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately with the new sentence.
The DA’s office said its resentencing recommendations take into account many factors, including rehabilitation in prison, and abuse or trauma that contributed to the crime. Gascón praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and help other inmates.
Shortly after Gascón’s announcement, he lost his race for reelection to Nathan Hochman. The incoming DA, who is set to take office on Dec. 2, said he plans to read through the evidence — including confidential prison files and interviews with family, lawyers and law enforcement — before showing his support for resentencing.
The other possible path to freedom is the brothers’ request for clemency, which they’ve submitted to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Last week, Newsom said he’ll defer to Hochman’s “review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”
ABC News’ Alex Stone, Matt Gutman and Ashley Riegle contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Peach and Blossom are the two lucky turkeys from Minnesota who escaped a fowl fate of ending up on someone’s Thanksgiving table this year when they were pardoned Monday by President Biden at the White House.
“This event marks the official start of the holiday season here in Washington,” Biden said to what he said was a crowd of 2,500 gathered on the South Lawn. “It’s also my last time to speak here as your president during this season and give thanks and gratitude. So let me say to you, it’s been the honor of my life. I’m forever grateful.”
“May we use this moment to take time from our busy lives and focus on what matters most: our families,” Biden said. “My dad used to have an expression, family is the beginning, the middle and the end, our friends and our neighbors. The fact that we are blessed to live in America, the greatest country on Earth — and that’s not hyperbole. We are. No matter what, in America we never give up. We keep going, we keep the faith.”
These birds were plucked for the presidential flock and went through rigorous training to ride the gravy train to the White House for the honor, according to John Zimmerman, chairman of the National Turkey Federation.
Zimmerman’s 9-year-old son Grant and other young trainers made sure their feathers wouldn’t be ruffled by the spotlight.
“Preparing these presidential birds has taken a lot of special care,” Zimmerman said Sunday during a news conference introducing the two turkeys. “We’ve been getting them used to lights, camera and even introducing them to a wide variety of music — everything from polka to classic rock.”
Peach and Blossom, weighing 41 and 40 pounds, respectively, where hatched back in July. They traveled to Washington this week and were treated to a suite at the Willard InterContinental hotel before their big day on Monday, as is tradition.
Biden said the birds were named after the Delaware state flower: the Peach Blossom.
The president joked Peach lived by the motto “keep calm and gobble on.” Blossom’s mantra, he said, was “no foul play, just Minnesota nice.”
Biden at times was interrupted by gobbles, responding by saying one was making a “last-minute plea.”
After the pardons, the two turkeys were headed back to Waseca, Minnesota, to live out the remainder of the feathery lives as “agricultural ambassadors” at Farmamerica, an agricultural interpretive center.
“And today, Peach and Blossom will join the free birds of the United States of America,” Biden said.
The turkey pardon at the White House is an annual tradition that is usually “cranned” full of a cornucopia of corny jokes.
The history of the turkey pardon
The origin of the presidential turkey pardons is a bit fuzzy. Unofficially, reports point all the way back to Abraham Lincoln, who spared a bird from its demise at the urging of his son, Tad. However, that story might be more folklore than fact.
The true start of what has evolved into the current tradition has its roots in politics and dates back to the Harry Truman presidency in 1947.
Truman ruffled feathers by starting “poultry-less Thursdays” to try and conserve various foods in the aftermath of World War II, but Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day all fell on Thursdays.
After the White House was inundated with live birds sent as part of a “Hens for Harry” counter-initiative, the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board presented Truman with a bird as a peace offering — although the turkey was not saved from a holiday feast.
President John F. Kennedy began the trend of publicly sparing a turkey given to the White House in November 1963, just days before his assassination. In the years following, the event became a bit more sporadic, with even some first ladies such as Pat Nixon and Rosalynn Carter stepping in to accept the guests of honor on their husband’s behalf.
The tradition of the public sparing returned in earnest during the Reagan administration, but the official tradition of the poultry pardoning at the White House started in 1989, when then-President George H.W. Bush offered the first official presidential pardon. In the more than three decades since, at least one lucky bird has gotten some extra gobbles each year.
(NEW YORK) — A Bronx man who helped Daniel Penny restrain Jordan Neely on a New York City subway car last year ”jumped in and tried to help” so Penny could release his chokehold, according to the man’s testimony Wednesday at Penny’s manslaughter and negligent homicide trial.
Eric Gonzalez, who is seen on video holding Neely by the wrist, boarded the subway at Broadway-Lafayette and noticed Penny holding down Neely “with his legs around his waist and his arm around his neck.”
Gonzalez testified he did not know why Penny, a former Marine, was restraining Neely but he heard people yelling for police to be called. He also said he noticed “Jordan Neely’s clothing was that of a vagrant, as if he was homeless, dirty, ripped off.”
Gonzalez said he waved his hands in front of Penny’s face to get his attention.
“I said, ‘I will grab his hands so you can let go,’” Gonzalez told the jury. “Just giving him a different option to hold his arm — well, to restrain him until the police came.”
Asked by prosecutor Dafna Yoran to clarify, Gonzalez said: “If I held his arm down, he could let go of his neck.”
“And why is it you wanted him to let go of his neck?” Yoran asked. “Didn’t think anything at the moment. I was just giving him an alternative to let him go,” Gonzalez responded.
The testimony came as the trial entered a fourth week. Penny has said he put Neely in the chokehold to protect subway riders.
Prosecutors said it would have been “laudable” except Penny held on too long, well past the point when Neely posed any kind of threat.
Gonzalez said he saw Neely’s body go limp and let go of him before Penny did the same.
“I tried to shake Jordan Neely to get a response out of him, feel for a pulse, and then I walked away,” Gonzalez said.
