Menendez brothers resentencing decision to come this week: DA
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(LOS ANGELES) — After it was announced last week that Erik and Lyle Menendez might have their case reevaluated, based on the emergence of new evidence, the Los Angeles district attorney on Tuesday clarified that the decision would likely come by the end of the week.
In an unrelated news conference on Tuesday evening, LA District Attorney George Gascon answered a prompt for an update on the brothers’ potential resentencing by saying, “As I said 10 days ago, I would make a decision within 10 days or so. I plan to make the decision by the end of this week.”
He concluded by saying, with some finality: “Yes, the end of this week.”
The Menendez brothers have served more than 30 years in prison for gunning down their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.
The brothers were sentenced to life in prison at their second trial after the first was declared a mistrial.
They have never denied committing the crime; it is the motivation for the crime that has divided opinions over the decades.
Erik was 18 and Lyle was 21 at the time of the murders. At their first trial, their attorney argued that they killed their parents in self-defense.
She argued that the brothers feared their parents would kill them if they disclosed the years of alleged molestation they had suffered at their father’s hands.
The newest legal filing expands upon the abuse that the brothers allegedly endured from José Menedez.
New evidence includes a letter that Erik wrote to his cousin prior to the murders, detailing what his father was doing to him, according to the brothers’ attorneys.
Another potential victim has also come forward: Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, who has alleged that he was abused by José Menendez when he was 14.
Additionally, the passage of time has helped to cast their motive in a new light. A growing base of supporters argue that the Menendez brothers are victims themselves, and the crimes they committed out of a traumatic response should be reconsidered with a 21st-century lens on the psychology of male sexual assault.
Currently, the next court date for the Menendez brothers is scheduled for Nov. 26, 2024.
(GEORGIA) — Former President Donald Trump sat down with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner on Tuesday night in front of an all-female audience in Cummings, Georgia, where he addressed several issues aimed at appealing to women voters including the child tax credit, the economy and reproductive rights — calling himself the “father of IVF.”
Speaking in front of a friendly audience of more than 100 women of all ages, Trump attempted to court suburban women in Georgia’s Forsyth County — a reliably-red county where Democrats have made gains in recent years.
Recently, Trump has worked to connect with women voters — the largest voting bloc in the 2024 election — by suggesting they’ll be “safer” under a Trump administration, that he will be a “protector” of women and they “will no longer be thinking about abortion” if he wins the White House.
During the event, which aired Wednesday morning, Trump was asked about his positions on abortion access and in vitro fertilization — key voter issues after the Supreme Court overruled Roe vs. Wade in 2022. Trump himself often brags about his role in the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule the case that secured the constitutional right to abortion.
“Oh, I want to talk about IVF. I’m the father of IVF,” Trump blurted.
Sen. Katie Britt, who introduced the IVF Protection Act, explained IVF to the former president, according to Trump.
“Within about two minutes, I understood we’re totally in favor of IVF. I came out with a statement within an hour, a really powerful statement with some experts, really powerful,” he said, adding that “we really are the party for IVF. We want fertilization.”
Trump reiterated his position on abortion where he suggested he has turned the power back to the states.
“It’s back in the states, where they can have the vote of the people. It’s exactly where they want to be. Remember this, this issue has torn this country apart for 52 years. So we got it back in the states, we have a vote of the people, and it’s working its way through the system, and ultimately it’s going to do the right thing,” Trump said.
At one point, Trump suggested that some states have to redo their abortion laws, referencing rape, incest and exceptions.
“Actually called himself the ‘father of IVF’ and if what he meant is taking responsibility, then yeah, he should take responsibility for the fact that one in three women in America lives in a Trump abortion ban state. What he should take responsibility for is that couples who are praying and hoping and working towards growing a family have been so disappointed and harmed by the fact that IVF treatments have now been put at risk,” Harris told reporters.
Trump’s comment was also quickly picked up by women championing the abortion-rights movement such as EMILY’s List and Planned Parenthood Action Fund where they called it “deeply out of touch with the vast majority of the American people.”
“Let’s call this charade what it is: a last-ditch attempt to deceive voters,” said Jessica Mackler, president of EMILYs List, calling it an “insult to women everywhere that he thinks they’ll fall for his bogus attempt to rebrand on abortion.”
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said Trump “cannot be trusted — not with our bodies, our lives, or our futures.”
Trump also doubled down on his rhetoric where he suggested to Maria Bartiromo on Fox News that “the bigger problem is the enemy from within” when answering a question on whether he thought the November election would be peaceful.
Trump’s comments in the previous week suggest that the military would handle his political adversaries if he became president. Faulkner played the video clip during the town hall, to which Trump replied, “if we have to.”
He continued, doubling down on his rhetoric, “I thought it was a nice presentation” and saying he wasn’t “unhinged” as Harris claimed during an Erie, Pennsylvania, rally earlier this week.
“It is the enemy from within, and they’re very dangerous,” Trump said to Faulkner.
At one point in the town hall, Faulkner described the Democrats’ prebuttal of the event, mentioning the family of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died of complications following her abortion in the state — with a ProPublica report saying her death was a direct result of the state’s six-week abortion ban.
Thurman’s family was on a press call with Sen. Raphael Warnock, and when Faulkner asked about that call, Trump — instead of acknowledging the Thurman family and Amber Thurman’s death — quipped that the Fox News town hall he was currently participating in would “get better ratings.”
(ATHENS, Ga.) — The suspect accused of killing 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus has waived his right to a jury trial.
The judge granted the defense’s motion for a bench trial for the suspect, Jose Ibarra, during a hearing in Athens-Clarke County on Tuesday.
The bench trial is scheduled to begin on Friday before Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who will render a verdict in the case.
Jury selection had been scheduled to start in the case on Wednesday.
When asked by Haggard if he understood the waiver of jury trial, and if it was “freely, knowingly and intelligently signed and considered,” Ibarra said yes.
The defense also said they agree with their client’s decision to waive a jury trial, and confirmed that the form had been translated appropriately into Spanish by a court interpreter for Ibarra.
Last month, Haggard denied the defense’s motion for a change of venue in the high-profile case.
Riley, a student at Augusta University, was found dead in a wooded area on the Athens campus on Feb. 22 after she didn’t return from a run. The indictment alleges Ibarra killed her by “inflicting blunt force trauma to her head and by asphyxiating her” and seriously disfigured her head by striking her “multiple times” with a rock.
Additional charges in the 10-count indictment include aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. The latter charge alleged that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — a jacket and gloves — involving the offense of malice murder.
He was also charged with a peeping tom offense. The indictment alleges that on the same day as Riley’s murder, he spied through the window of a different person who lived in an apartment on campus. The judge last month also denied a motion seeking to sever that charge from the case.
Ibarra was denied bond following his arrest on Feb. 23 and is being held at the Clarke County Jail.
Police have said they do not believe Ibarra — a migrant from Venezuela who officials said illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 — knew Riley and that this was a “crime of opportunity.” Her death has become a rallying cry for immigration reform from many conservatives, including now President-elect Donald Trump.
(NEW YORK) — Officials say two migrant teens were victims in a New York City stabbing, one fatally, after the teens were asked if they spoke English and they responded that they didn’t.
Officials say a trio of men approached the teens around 7:40 p.m. Thursday night, when one of the men asked if the teens spoke English. When the teens said they did not, they were attacked, according to police.
Police say they responded to a 911 call for an assault in Lower Manhattan. Upon arrival, officers found a 17-year-old male with a stab wound to the chest and an 18-year-old male with a stab wound to the left arm.
Emergency medical services responded and transported both teens to the NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue location, according to officials.
The 17-year-old male, now identified by officials as Yeremi Colino, succumbed to his injuries and the 18-year-old male is in stable condition, the NYPD reports.
The surviving victim believed he was stabbed with a screwdriver, police said. A knife was recovered at the scene, according to police, who say they will test it for forensics.
The three suspects fled the stabbing on foot. They are described as being in their 20s with dark complexions.
One was wearing a green jacket, white pants and white sneakers. Second was wearing red pants and a red hooded sweatshirt with a black jacket, also had a black backpack. Third was wearing red sweatpants, red hooded sweatshirt, black jacket and blue and white sneakers.
There are no arrests at this time, and the investigation remains ongoing, according to police.
