Man who leaped over bench and attacked judge heading to trial
(LAS VEGAS) — The man who went viral in January for leaping over a Las Vegas, Nevada, courtroom bench and attacking the presiding judge is set to return to court for trial this week, with jury selection beginning Tuesday.
Deobra Redden, 31, is facing nine charges for assaulting Judge Mary Kay Holthus, including battery on a protected person resulting in substantial bodily harm and attempted murder of a victim 60 years of age or older, according to Clark County records.
At the time of the attack, Holthus was preparing to deliver Redden’s sentence in his attempted battery case when he leaped over the bench and tackled her off her chair.
Video from the incident shows Redden repeatedly punching the judge while yelling expletives.
Holthus stated in the arrest report that Redden slammed her head against the wall and pulled some of her hair out.
Additionally, two marshals who were alerted to the incident by a panic alarm were sent to the wrong courtroom, prolonging the attack, according to the report.
In an interview with “Good Morning America” in January, Michael Lasso, the then 27-year-old law clerk who stepped in to help Holthus, said “this was something you usually don’t see in court.”
“I was just in shock and just reacted,” Lasso, who was hailed as a “hero” for jumping into action, said at the time.
“I don’t even want to think about what could have happened if I wasn’t there,” Lasso added.
During his arraignment in August, Redden pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity with his defense arguing he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and was in a “delusional state,” his attorney, Carl Arnold, said during the hearing.
Arnold alleged that Redden was not taking medication leading up to the day of the hearing. “So basically, he was out of his mind and not in control of what he was doing,” Arnold said at the time.
Redden has three prior felony convictions and is currently serving a prison sentence for the original attempted battery charge that led to January’s hearing, according to records.
(NEW YORK) — The two astronauts who went up to the International Space Station (ISS) on Boeing’s Starliner may have to come home on a different spacecraft, NASA officials said during a press conference Wednesday.
Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams, who performed the first crewed test flight of Starliner, have been in space for more than 60 days. When they launched on June 5, they were only supposed to be on the ISS for about a week.
Boeing and NASA officials have been resistant to exploring the option to bringing the crew home on another method but Kenneth Bowersox, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, said the team is considering it.
“We don’t just have to bring a crew back on Starliner for example. We can bring them back on another vehicle,” he said. “In the case that we have with the Starliner crew flight test, the option to either bring the crew home on Starliner or to bring the crew home on another vehicle, we could take either path.”
Bowersox said there is currently more “consensus” needed among the team, but they are also getting “more serious about evaluating our other options.”
Wilmore and Williams are “integrated” with the Expedition 71 crew aboard the ISS and Bowersox said that, although it’s helpful to have extra hands onboard the station, they are using up more supplies meant for the ISS crew.
Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said NASA is considering sending SpaceX’s Dragon Crew-9, set to launch to the ISS in September, with only two of the four astronauts assigned to it.
The spacecraft would carry extra spacesuits for Wilmore and Williams. However, the two would remain on the ISS until February 2025, when Crew-9 is set to return to Earth. Stich said the proposed plan has not formally been approved yet.
“Our prime option is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner. However, we have done the requisite planning to make sure we have other options open,” Stich said.
Stich added that Starliner does not currently have the ability to autonomously undock from the ISS. To do that, the Starliner software would need to be updated and the Boeing flight control team would need to undergo additional training.
In a statement to ABC News, Boeing said it was confident in Starliner’s ability to bring the astronauts home.
“[Crew Flight Test] is currently a crewed mission, and we still believe in Starliner’s capability and its flight rationale,” the statement read. “If NASA decides to change the mission, we will take the actions necessary to configure Starliner for an uncrewed return.”
Starliner is part of the largerCommercial Crew Programat NASA, which was testing if Boeing’s spacecrafts could be certified to perform routine missions to and from the ISS.
Wilmore and Williams were originally scheduled to return on June 14 but have since had their return delayed multiple times.
Starliner has been plagued by issues even before launch. The flight test was originallytentatively scheduled for May 6, but was scrubbed after a problem with an oxygen valve on a rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA), which manufactures and operates the rockets that launch spacecraft into orbit.
A new launch date had been set for May 25, but asmall helium leak was discovered in the service module, which contains support systems and instruments for operating a spacecraft.
Helium leaks and a thruster issue then threatened to delay Starliner’s docking. Five days after docking at the ISS, NASA and Boeing said the spacecraft was experiencingfive “small” helium leaksand, at the time, said enough helium was available for the return mission.
Last month, teams at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico performed ground tests of Starliner’s thruster, putting it through similar conditions the spacecraft experienced on its way to the ISS, to see how it would react upon undocking.
(WASHINGTON) — The FBI continued to mishandle tips regarding sexual abuse against children even after the agency promised reforms in the wake of its botched handling of assault allegations against former USA Olympics gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, according to a Justice Department watchdog report released Thursday.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s findings were a result of an extensive audit undertaken in the 16 months after his office released its scathing 2021 report that detailed the FBI’s failures in acting on multiple credible abuse claims against Nassar by athletes under his care. While the report details how the FBI updated its policies and training to handle such tips in the wake of the Nassar report, it found multiple instances where bureau employees failed to properly act on the allegations.
Of nearly 4,000 child sexual abuse cases opened by the FBI between October 2021 and February 2023, the IG’s office reviewed 327 and found 42 cases where investigators had to flag it to the FBI for their “immediate attention,” according to the report.
For those 13% of the cases audited by the IG, the report said, investigators had concerns that varied from a lack of recent investigative activity or referrals to appropriate agencies, leads that were not properly followed up on and, in some instances, clear violations of FBI policy regarding handling sexual abuse claims.
In one specific instance identified in the report, FBI agents failed to follow up on an allegation involving abuse against a minor by a registered sex offender, which led to the offender victimizing at least one additional minor “for a period of approximately 15 months,” the report said.
“After we raised this incident to the FBI’s attention, the FBI took appropriate action, and the subject was indicted on federal charges,” Horowitz said in a taped video statement.
The report further found significant issues regarding FBI agents’ obligation to report allegations of sexual abuse against children to various entities immediately after they are received.
In 47% of incidents reviewed by the IG, they found no evidence that FBI employees complied with mandatory reporting requirements to state and local law enforcement agencies, and in 50% of cases, they found no evidence that they reported the allegations to social services agencies, according to the report.
“Additionally, we found that FBI employees didn’t always comply with FBI policies put in place to protect victims,” the report said. “For example, in the incidents we reviewed, we found 40 percent of the active child sexual abuse allegations did not include evidence that the FBI responded within 24 hours.”
A central issue identified in the IG report was a surge in recent years of claims of child sexual abuse that have caused a strain on FBI resources.
One agent who spoke to the IG said they had been assigned approximately 60 such cases and that the risk of them “falling through the cracks” was in large part due to high agent workloads. But, according to the IG, FBI Headquarters denied requests from all but one of 15 field offices that requested an increase in the number of special agents dedicated to investigating child abuse threats in 2022, and further denied requests from seven of those field offices when they again appealed for help.
In a letter responding to the report released Thursday, the FBI said they “recognize further action is necessary to ensure our corrective measures have the full intended effect of improving the FBI’s handling of allegations of hands-on sex offenses.”
But the bureau also argued that “most of the incidents” flagged by the IG’s office appeared to reflect failures in documentation rather than clear failures in proper investigative actions being taken.
“Ensuring the safety and security of children is not just a priority for the FBI; it is a solemn duty that we are committed to fulfilling with the highest standards,” the FBI said in a statement. “The FBI’s efforts combating crimes against children are among the most critical and demanding undertakings we do. The FBI deeply values the trust the public places in us to protect the most vulnerable members of society. We are committed to maintaining the public’s trust by implementing the necessary improvements to ensure the important changes we made to our Violent Crimes Against Children program in 2018 and 2019 have the intended effect of promoting the highest level of compliance and effectiveness.”
Crimes against children are among the top priorities for the FBI, but the bureau continues to be challenged by an increasing number of sexual abuse tips and has previously failed to take necessary investigative measures, an FBI official acknowledged to reporters on Thursday.
“It’s staggering,” the official said, referring to the growing number of reports as an “overwhelming situation.”
“Any mistake or deficiency is unacceptable and the FBI recognizes that,” the official said.
Thursday’s report is likely to draw further criticism of the bureau and FBI Director Christopher Wray, who in the wake of the Nassar report issued a personal apology to the gymnasts abused by Nassar.
“I am sorry that so many people let you down over and over again and I am especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed, and that is inexcusable,” Wray said in September 2021 congressional testimony. “It never should have happened, and we are doing everything in our power to make sure it never happens again.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin said in a statement Thursday that he intends to hold a hearing with the FBI in the coming weeks.
“The FBI’s failures enabling Larry Nassar’s abuse of young victims continue to remain a stain on the Bureau,” Durbin said. “Today’s report shows that new policies implemented by the FBI to address these egregious failures are effectively being ignored, leading to similar abuses as seen in the Nassar investigation. It’s shameful that the FBI is continuing to fail victims.”
Nassar pleaded guilty in 2017 in connection with crimes against several victims and was sentenced to 60 years behind bars for child pornography and other charges. He again pleaded guilty in 2018 and was sentenced to an additional 40 to 175 years for multiple counts of sexual assault of minors.
(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — A 20-year-old woman was found dead following a multiday search in the Grand Canyon, marking the third reported death in the national park within a week, the National Park Service said.
The body of Leticia A. Castillo, 20, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was located by park personnel below Twin Overlooks on Tuesday, NPS said.
“Park rangers recovered the body which was located approximately 150 ft. below the rim,” the NPS said in a press release Thursday.
Her body was transported to the rim and transferred to the Coconino County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Castillo is believed to have entered the Grand Canyon on or around Aug. 3, according to NPS.
The NPS and the Coconino County medical examiner are investigating the incident.
No additional details have been released.
The incident marked the third recovery for a death in the Grand Canyon since July 31, park officials said.
A 20-year-old man accidentally fell 400 feet to his death from a scenic overlook at the Grand Canyon on July 31, officials said.
A man also died after attempting a BASE jump in the Grand Canyon on Aug. 1, officials said.
BASE is an acronym for building, antenna, span and earth. The recreational sport, which involves jumping from a fixed object and using a parachute to descend to the ground, is prohibited in all areas of Grand Canyon National Park, the NPS said.
“Despite facing inclement weather and hazardous terrain, the team has undertaken significant risks to complete these missions,” NPS said of the three recoveries.