Murder victim ‘speaks’ beyond the grave in AI generated video at sentencing
Brian A. Jackson/South Florida Sun Sentinel
(NEW YORK) — The family of an Arizona man killed in a road rage incident nearly four years ago brought him back last week as an AI-generated image to face the man responsible for his killing give an impact statement to the judge.
The video message created by Christopher Pelkey’s sister that used his likeness and voice during the May 1 sentencing was the first time the technology was used in an Arizona court at a sentencing, according to records.
Pelkey was killed in November 2021 by Gabriel Paul Horcasitas, who was ultimately convicted of manslaughter charges. The AI-generated Pelkey spoke to Horcasitas in court and sought forgiveness.
“In another life, we probably could have been friends,” the avatar said in the video. “I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives. I always have and I still do.”
Stacey Wales, Pelkey’s sister, told ABC affiliate KNXV that the slain victim’s friends and family “agreed this capture was a true representation of the spirit and soul of how Chris would have thought about his own sentencing as a murder victim.”
Wales said she wrote the script for the video and noted that her brother was a forgiving, God-fearing man.
Dozens of other family members also provided victim impact statements and expressed anger over Horcasitas’ actions.
Prosecutors asked the judge for Horcasitas to be sentenced to nine and a half years in prison, but Judge Todd Lang ultimately issued a 10 and a half year sentence. Lang said he was moved by the AI-generated video.
“I loved that AI, thank you for that. As angry as you are, as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness,” the judge said during the sentencing. “I feel that that was genuine.”
Horcasitas’s attorney, Jason Lamm, told ABC News that he was not given advanced notice about the video. He argued in court that Pelkey was the one who instigated the road rage incident and what the judge heard was a “kinder, more gentle” version of Pelkey.
“I appreciate the fact that victims have the right to address the court, and this was a cathartic endeavor for Stacey Wells, but this was cringe,” Lamm told ABC News.
He said he has filed a notice of appeal for his client and that the use of the AI-generated video will likely be one of the points of contention.
“This will be a bellwether case not just for Arizona but also courts around the country to rule on the use of AI in victim impact statements,” Lamm said.
Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann Timmer provided a statement to KNXV about the use of AI in court cases.
“AI has the potential to create great efficiencies in the justice system and may assist those unschooled in the law to better present their positions. For that reason, we are excited about AI’s potential. But AI can also hinder or even upend justice if inappropriately used,” she said in her statement.
“A measured approach is best. Along those lines, the court has formed an AI committee to examine AI use and make recommendations for how best to use it. At bottom, those who use AI—including courts—are responsible for its accuracy,” she added.
Aristide Economopoulos For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — As testimony begins in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ criminal trial, his fate is in the hands of a jury that represents the city that allowed Combs to rise from working-class roots to the pinnacle of global cultural fame.
Twelve New Yorkers were sworn in as jurors, along with six alternates — who do not yet know of their alternate status — on Monday.
The jurors range in age from 30 to 74, with an average age of 52, and come from across the Southern District of New York, including five jurors from Manhattan, three from the Bronx and four from Westchester. Eight of the jurors are men, and four are women.
Each juror has some kind of college degree – including two master’s degrees and one PhD. The jurors work in a diverse array of fields, with an architect and scientist sitting alongside a deli clerk and massage therapist.
With allegations about Combs well publicized in the past year, at least seven of the jurors said they heard about the case before they arrived for jury selection last week, though they each vowed to remain unbiased and to rely only on the evidence presented at trial.
Here’s what we know about the New Yorkers who will decide Combs’ racketeering and sex trafficking case:
The 12 jurors
Male, 69, massage therapist: He works as a massage therapist, has a BFA in Acting and lives alone in Manhattan. He told the judge overseeing the case that an immediate family member was a victim of domestic violence, but that experience would not bias him as a juror.
Male, 31, investment analyst: He works as an investment analyst, lives in Manhattan and is an active member of his church. While he vowed to be a fair juror, he flagged that he has a moral objection to capital punishment. He said he saw the video of Combs assaulting his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, and is aware of the allegations against Combs.
Male, 51, scientist: He has a PhD in Molecular Biology and works as a scientist. He told the judge overseeing the case that he is vaguely aware of the allegations against Combs based on news reports.
Female, 30, deli clerk: She works as a deli clerk, generally doesn’t watch the news and lives with her family in the Bronx. She said she enjoys listening to hip-hop music and reggae.
Female, 42, nursing home aide: She works in a nursing home, lives in Manhattan, has two children and prefers getting her news by “word of mouth.” She said she got a ticket 15 years ago for carrying an open container of alcohol and said she is generally familiar with the allegations against Combs.
Male, 41, clerk at correctional facility: He works as a clerk in a correctional facility, said he enjoys listening to ’90s hip-hop and lives in the Bronx. He said he was familiar with the basic allegations of the case but his preexisting knowledge would not prevent him from being a fair juror. He said he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fraud after the medical practitioner he used after a car accident was accused of insurance fraud. He got a one-year conditional discharge.
Male, 68, retired: He is retired but used to work for a bank, lives in Westchester and has adult children. He said he enjoys listening to Indian music and playing cricket and volleyball.
Male, 68, retired: He is a retired lineman for a telephone company who enjoys listening to classic rock. He lives with his family in Westchester. He said he was familiar with some of the names associated with the case because he watched Combs’ reality television series, “Making the Band,” when it originally aired in the early aughts. Despite having a distaste for “looking at violence on video,” he said he watched the Ventura assault video.
“I seen a video of Mr. Combs and it seems like this person was in this video and harm was being done to her in the video on TV,” he said. “I didn’t exactly know the reason why he was doing that. But I don’t think that would impede me from making a decision as far as if he went any further with it or what. I didn’t see too much of it.”
Female, 43, physician’s assistant: She works as a physician’s assistant, lives in Westchester with her family and listens to R&B and hip-hop. She is part of both a community-based organization for women in Harlem and a social-justice public theater.
Male, 39, social worker: He works as a preventative social worker for a child care organization, frequently handling domestic violence cases. He is also a licensed security guard. He lives with his family in the Bronx, likes listening to R&B and Afrobeats, gets his news from YouTube, and likes watching sports.
Male, 67, bank analyst: He works as an analyst for a bank, lives in Westchester and has three adult children, including one who works as a security guard. He said he once served on a jury for a criminal case in the Bronx, but the jury did not reach a verdict.
Female, 74, treatment coordinator: She works as a treatment coordinator for an organization dedicated to serving the disabled, lives alone in Manhattan and enjoys classical music. She has a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
6 alternate jurors
Male, 57, architect: He works as an architect, lives in Westchester and is active in the Boy Scouts. He said he is familiar with the allegations against Combs based on media reports but generally does not pay attention to “celebrity media.”
“I’m old enough to have heard a lot of stories before trial and then when the evidence is actually presented, things are, you know — the truth comes out,” he said.
Male, 35, unemployed: He is unemployed but used to work as a window cleaner, enjoys watching crime shows and listens to metal and R&B music. He said he was familiar with the basic allegations against Combs despite not watching the news.
“He was accused of like the sex trafficking, but that was about it,” he said.
Male, 40, physician: He is a physician who lives in Manhattan with his wife. He said he previously read an article written by someone who said Combs threatened her but does not think that information is relevant to the trial.
Female, 71, nonprofit employee: She works for a dance nonprofit, lives with her spouse in Manhattan and enjoys classical music.
Female, 24, site operator: She works as a site operator for a coffee service company, lives in the Bronx and is married, though her spouse lives in West Africa. She listens to hip-hop, rap, soul and West African music. She said she is aware of the Ventura video but said he could still be a fair juror.
“There are both sides to every story. I don’t know the full story, so I can’t be completely one-sided,” she said.
Male, 37, officer at international organization: He works as an administrative officer with an international government organization and has a master’s degree in international relations. He enjoys rock, pop and classical music. He said he was familiar with the allegations in the case despite not liking “celebrity kinds of cases.”
“No one likes hearing about prostitution and things like that. I mean, no one is not like pro-prostitution, and things like that, or other drug charges, and things like that. You know, they’re not good allegations. But I could still be objective and fair,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Harvey Weinstein was back in court on Wednesday with less than a week before the start of his second New York sex assault trial. His trial is expected to last four to six weeks once testimony begins, prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Wednesday.
Jury selection begins Tuesday and is expected to last as long as five days, Judge Curtis Farber said.
Prospective jurors will be told about the nature of the case and the significant media attention it has received and must decide whether those things are an impediment to their ability to be fair and impartial, Farber said.
Weinstein, 73, sat at the defense table in a wheelchair as he has dealt with multiple health issues in the last year, including emergency heart surgery in September and being diagnosed with leukemia in October.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of forcibly performing oral sex on a woman in 2006. He will also be retried for two other alleged sexual assaults after his conviction on those charges was overturned on appeal in April 2024.
The judge gave the attorneys 40 minutes to question each group of potential jurors after defense attorney Arthur Aidala asked for additional time.
“You have a shtick,” Farber deadpanned before granting the exuberant criminal defense lawyer an extra 10 minutes to question jurors.
Jurors will be told Weinstein has no obligation to testify in his own defense. If, however, he does, Farber decided there would be certain limits on the kinds of things he can be asked about his prior record.
Weinstein will stand trial on a new sexual assault charge at the same time he is retried on two other sexual assault charges after his earlier conviction was overturned.
In 2020, he was found guilty of criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape, receiving 23 years in prison.
His conviction was overturned after the appeals court found the judge in his first trial “erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes.”
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Army met its annual recruiting target of 61,000 in the first week of June, four months ahead of the scheduled Sept. 30 deadline, after putting in place new initiatives to boost recruitment.
It marks a stunning turnaround for a service that failed to meet its recruiting goals in 2022 and 2023 and struggled in the years since to meet its annual targets.
“The U.S. Army has successfully met its fiscal year 2025 recruiting goals for active duty, signing contracts with more than 61,000 future Soldiers — a full four months before the end of the fiscal year,” the U.S. Army said in a statement. “This achievement represents a significant turning point for the Army and indicates a renewed sense of patriotism and purpose among America’s youth.”
Dan Driscoll, the secretary of the Army, said in a statement that he is “incredibly proud” of the service’s recruiters and drill sergeants.
“Their colossal efforts and dedication to duty helped the U.S. Army accomplish our FY25 annual recruiting goal a full four months ahead of schedule,” Driscoll added. “The U.S. Army is focused on lethality, taking care of our Soldiers, and transforming for a dangerous future — young people across the country want to be part of the U.S. Army, and these results clearly demonstrate that.”
The fiscal 2025 recruiting target was 10% higher than the 55,000 recruits targeted in fiscal 2024, and the Army statement added that “recent recruiting momentum has seen average contracts per day exceeding last year’s levels by as much as 56% during the same period.”
This is the first time since June 2014 that the Army has met its annual recruiting goal so early. The Army said recruiting efforts will continue and that additional recruits will be placed in the Delayed Entry Program in which recruits delay their start dates so the Army can begin the following recruiting year with recruits in hand.
The Army’s surge in recruitment numbers parallels the recruiting surge the other military services are experiencing, something that both President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have attributed to a change in attitude brought about by the Trump administration’s end of policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
However, the services’ recruiting turnarounds began last year before the November election following the implementation of new initiatives to help boost recruiting. The Army’s recruiting turnaround is being attributed to the establishment of an academic and physical fitness preparatory course for potential recruits, the professionalization of the recruiting force and an increase in recruiting bonuses.
In an interview with the Associated Press in January, then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said the Army was on pace to meet its target of 61,000 for the year as well as have more than 20,000 additional young people signed up for the DEP.
“Concerns about the Army being, quote, woke, have not been a significant issue in our recruiting crisis,” she said. “They weren’t at the beginning of the crisis. They weren’t in the middle of the crisis. They aren’t now. The data does not show that young Americans don’t want to join the Army because they think the army is woke — however they define that.”
Instead, Instead the Army’s recruiting success was a result of new initiatives, such as the Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course established in August 2022 that provided 1 in every 4 of Army recruits among the 55,000 who signed up for Army service in 2024. In the interview with the Associated Press, Wormuth said data showed the course might account for as much as a third of this year’s recruiting totals.
The program was established following the Army’s failure to meet its recruiting goals in 2022 and 2023 as a recognition that the Army was turning away potential recruits who had a strong desire to serve in the U.S. military but fell just short of meeting their academic and physical fitness requirements.
Potential recruits who did not meet those requirements were sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for up to 90 days for academic and physical fitness training to help them get ready for a new round of testing so they could become recruits.
The Army’s success with the program in 2024 was reflected not only in successfully meeting that year’s goal but also in placing 14,000 recruits in the DEP. The Navy has replicated the Army’s preparatory course and implemented its own training system for potential recruits who initially fall short.
The Army is also moving away from rotating soldiers into assignments as recruiters and professionalizing the career field so it includes those who are motivated to stay in the field.
Recruiting bonuses have been a key way of incentivizing service members to join the military for the last two decades, and those numbers rose significantly during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan particularly to meet in-demand work specialties.
The Army lists recruiting bonuses that could total as much as $50,000 for eligible recruits who would enlist for hard-to-fill jobs and for meeting certain criteria, according to the Army’s recruiting site.
Statistics for this recruiting year are not yet available, but Army statistics from 2024 show that “ 24,185 recruits received an average bonus of $16.9K.”
Those same statistics show that since 2020, the Army’s annual recruiting class has become increasingly diverse, with more minorities joining the active duty service since then and the number of women rising to pre-2020 levels.
For example, the number of white recruits in fiscal 2024 decreased to 40.5% from the 52.7% who joined in 2020 while the number of Black and Hispanic recruits increased.
That trend was reflected in 2024’s total recruiting effort, where 26.1% of recruits were Hispanic, the highest number ever, and the number of Black recruits increased by 6% over the previous year to 25.8% of the total.
