Ousted Venezuelan President Maduro returns to court, judge says he won’t dismiss case

(NEW YORK) — Kouri Richins, a Utah woman accused of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl, who self-published a children’s book on grieving following his death, has been found guilty of murder following a weekslong trial.

The Summit County jury began deliberating late Monday afternoon before reaching a verdict after about three hours. She was found guilty on all five counts, including aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder.

Kouri Richins looked down and remained still while the judge read out each guilty verdict. Her sentencing has been scheduled for May 13.

During closing arguments earlier Monday, prosecutors alleged that the mom of three was obsessed with appearing “privileged, affluent and successful” and killed her husband to help pay the debts of her floundering home flipping business and to get a “fresh start.”

The defense, meanwhile, said the case was “sloppy” and “driven by bias” and argued that the state failed to prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.

Kouri Richins, 35, was charged with aggravated murder in connection with the 2022 death of her husband, Eric Richins, following a lengthy investigation. Prosecutors allege she spiked his drink with a lethal dose of fentanyl that she purchased illicitly after asking two people for the “Michael Jackson drug.”

“Kouri Richins was a suburban mother, real estate agent. She does not know a lot about the illicit street drug world, but she knows Michael Jackson died from taking drugs,” prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said during closing arguments on Monday. “She doesn’t know how to order a street drug, but she knows she wants the Michael Jackson stuff. She knows she wants it because it is lethal. It is fatal. It kills. And she wanted lethal, fatal death.”

Her charges also include attempted aggravated murder, with prosecutors alleging she gave her husband a sandwich laced with fentanyl on Valentine’s Day two weeks before his death in an initial, failed attempt to kill him.

Kouri Richins was also accused of committing insurance fraud by taking out a $100,000 insurance policy on his life with his forged signature and then submitting a claim following his alleged murder.

She pleaded not guilty and has maintained her innocence.

Her husband, 39-year-old Eric Richins, was found dead in bed on March 4, 2022. An autopsy determined that he died from fentanyl intoxication, and the level of fentanyl in his blood was approximately five times the lethal dosage, according to the charging document. The medical examiner determined the fentanyl was “illicit fentanyl,” not medical grade, according to the charging document.

Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins purchased illicit fentanyl pills shortly before the Valentine’s Day incident and again before his death, at which point she allegedly asked for stronger drugs.

‘Downward financial death spiral’: Prosecutor
During his closing argument, Bloodworth said Kouri Richins was in “financial desperation” due to her realty company’s debts and needed a significant influx of cash immediately. He alleged she believed she would have financially benefited from her husband’s death — without realizing that his assets were in a trust for their children.

Bloodworth said October 2021 was the “beginning of the downward financial death spiral” of Kouri Richins’ realty business, and that she had a growing debt picture nearing $8 million.

He alleged Kouri Richins intended to cause her husband’s death as early as December 2021, when she was booked a vacation with her boyfriend for April 2022.

“Kouri Richins did not book that trip thinking Eric Richins would be alive in April, she booked it knowing he would not,” Bloodworth said.

Bloodworth referred to evidence that he alleged showed she intended to cause her husband’s death. A witness testified during the trial that in December 2021 Kouri Richins said to her that “in many ways it would be better” if Eric Richins “were dead.” In February 19, 2022, days after the alleged attempted murder attempt, prosecutors said Kouri Richins texted her boyfriend, “If he could just go away and you could just be here! Life would be so perfect!!”

Bloodworth said Kouri Richins tried to cover up her alleged role in her husband’s death, starting with the 911 call.

“Listen to how she tells the 911 dispatcher where she was when Eric died. She is distancing herself,” Bloodworth said before the call was played again for jurors. “Rather than, ‘He’s not breathing. He has no pulse. I have to figure out what to do. I need help,’ she’s saying, ‘Hey, look, I was not there. I was in my son’s room.’ That’s her alibi. She’s distancing herself from the time and the place that she murdered Eric.”

Bloodworth also said the call shows that the 911 operator asked Kouri Richins to perform CPR on her husband for 6 minutes before she purportedly did. “She is not immediately trying to revive him,” he said. 

Bloodworth said Kouri Richins deleted her texts and phone logs with multiple people, including her former housecleaner, Carmen Lauber, who testified about obtaining illicit drugs at Kouri Richins’ request in the weeks prior to Eric Richins’ death. He argued that Kouri Richins was worried about being investigated and her deleted messages in the wake of her husband’s death, as evidenced by searches on her phone such as, “can cops force you to do a lie detector test” and “can deleted text messages be retrieved from an iPhone.”

When the toxicology report showed that Eric Richins died from a fentanyl overdose, Bloodworth argued that Kouri Richins then needed to “explain” the presence of the drug — and that she allegedly planned to do so by claiming she got them for her husband at his request.

Bloodworth argued that Eric Richins did not die of an accidental overdose, citing testimony from his friends and family who said he did not use illicit drugs. He also argued that he did not die by suicide and had “every reason to live” — foremost being his three young sons.

“The evidence proves that Kouri Richins murdered, attempted to murder Eric Richins and that she committed two counts of insurance fraud and forgery,”  he said. “The evidence does not support any other explanation.”

Defense argues case had ‘confirmation bias’
Defense attorney Wendy Lewis argued during her closing that the case was impacted by confirmation bias from the start.

“Instead of looking at the evidence to determine what happened, the state has, they determined what happened, and then they found the evidence to support it,” Lewis said.

Lewis argued that there was “no evidence” that there was fentanyl in Eric Richins’ drink the night he died and that investigators failed to look into his recent trip to Mexico, which the defense had insinuated could have been the source of the fentanyl, or to test an old prescription bottle that was on his nightstand.

Lewis raised questions about the testimony of Lauber, who testified pursuant to several grants of immunity.

“Carmen Lauber was not able to tell you that she bought fentanyl. She agreed on the stand that it was the detectives that first put the word fentanyl in her mouth, in her head. She was told by detectives in this case that she bought fentanyl. ‘Eric died of fentanyl. You bought drugs. You bought fentanyl,'” Lewis said. “She took that story and she ran with it because she had everything to lose.”

On the affair, Lewis said Kouri Richins broke things off with her boyfriend and they never went on the trip. On the phone searches, Lewis argued that Kouri Richins was worried because she was innocent.

“Of course she’s worried. An innocent person would be worried. Anyone would be worried if they just found out that they are a suspect in a homicide investigation,” Lewis said. “She would have been scared to death.”

Lewis touched on Kouri Richin’s money troubles, acknowledging that the house flipping business was “struggling,” but argued that Eric Richins was “worth so much more to Kouri alive.”

She claimed that Kouri Richins was being judged for how she grieved.

“They want you to look at a woman in the worst moment of her life and to judge her grief,” Lewis said. “There is no wrong way to grieve.”

Lewis told the jury that if they believe Kouri Richins “accidentally obtained fentanyl,” and that Eric Richins then took those pills voluntarily and died, she argued that it is “not aggravated murder” and that they “must find Kouri Richins not guilty.”

On the alleged insurance scheme, Lewis argued that the state has not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that there was any fraud or forgery.

“The state has not proven their case,” Lewis said. “They don’t have the evidence that Kouri Richins killed her husband, so instead, they have tried to show you as much evidence as they possibly can to convince you she’s the sort of person who would.”

Prior to delivering its closing argument, the defense submitted a motion for mistrial, alleging that the state’s closing was full of “wild speculation,” dehumanized Kouri Richins and inappropriately commented on her demeanor. The motion was denied.

In his rebuttal, Bloodworth acknowledged that much of the evidence in the case is circumstantial.

“People do not video themselves poisoning their spouse,” he said. “But circumstantial evidence is just as good as direct evidence.”

Bloodworth argued that there was “plenty of proof to convict” Kouri Richins based on Lauber’s corroborated testimony. He also argued that much of the defense’s argument is based around trying to explain a letter found in Kouri Richins’ jail cell that prosecutors said appears to outline testimony for her brother instructing him to say that her husband got fentanyl from Mexico.

“All the evidence in this case proves that Kouri Richins murdered her husband, the father of her three children, Eric Richins,” he said. “There is no other rational explanation.”

“And despite all the evidence, Kouri Richins doubles down and blames Eric,” he continued.

Kouri Richins did not testify during the three-week trial and the defense called no witnesses.

During his testimony, the lead detective in the case said that Kouri Richins paid a ghostwriter for her children’s book.

A month prior to her arrest in May 2023, the mom of three young sons appeared on a “Good Things Utah” segment on Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX to promote the book. In the segment, Kouri Richins said her husband of nine years died “unexpectedly” and that his death “completely took us all by shock.

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(NEW YORK) — Scientists are getting a better understanding of why spotted lanternflies, the invasive species wreaking havoc in the Northeast every spring, have been thriving since their invasion into the U.S.

The flying insect, identified by its distinctive spotted wings, originated in Asia and likely arrived in the U.S. around 2014 through a single introduction, after which it began to multiply exponentially, Kristen Winchell, an associate professor of biology at New York University, told ABC News.

Ever since, the lanternflies have swarmed urban regions in the Northeast, while wildlife experts have encouraged people who come across them to squish them immediately to further prevent their spread.

Researchers say they now have a better idea of how the insects have managed to adapt and spread so quickly in the U.S.

New genomic analyses of the insect indicates that the spotted lanternflies likely adapted to urban settings in Shanghai, China – including heat, pollution and pesticides – which is allowing them to thrive in the Northeast U.S. corridor, according to a paper published in The Royal Society journal. The insects showed adaptations in genes associated with stress response, according to the paper.

“They were adapting to thrive in urban environments in the native range, and that primed them then to be successful in whatever the next urban environment they landed in,” said Winchell, who co-authored the paper.

Researchers believe the lanternflies arrived in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in a shipment of stone from South Korea via their native range in urban Shanghai, Fallon Meng, a doctoral candidate at NYU’s Department of Biology, told ABC News.

Their egg masses have easily survived the harsh Northeast winters, so they would have “no problem” surviving in a climate-controlled shipping container, Winchell said.

Lanternflies have been spotted as far north as Boston, Mass., and Providence, R.I., although how much farther north they can survive is yet to be determined, Winchell said.

Spotted lanternflies were able “take over” an unfamiliar ecosystem and a new climate despite the low genetic diversity from the single introduction, Winchell said. They are genetically similar across their 125-mile range in the U.S., the research found.

“The loss of genetic diversity in this population, which should theoretically constrain any sort of adaptation or variation in traits in the invasive environment, should possibly limit their spread,” Winchell said.

The insects have also been known to hitch rides on trains and ferries, as well as humans’ backpacks, Winchell said, adding that researchers expect them to spread west next, toward Chicago.

“The females carry a lot of eggs, and so it just takes one to lay a successful clutch of eggs,” Winchell said.

Spotted lanternflies feed on tree sap using piercing mouthparts. The piercing doesn’t necessarily damage the trees, but their excrement, which is high in sugar, stains the trees and blocks photosynthesis, which eventually suffocates the trees, the researchers said.

Tree of Heaven, an invasive species in the U.S. that’s native to Asia, is their tree of choice, but they have the potential to impact apple orchards, maple trees and vineyards in the Northeast.

They can also sequester toxins from the Tree of Heaven, which makes them toxic to certain animals that may eat them, which in turn negatively impacts the food chain.

Invasive management efforts in cities may be necessary to curb further spread of the spotted lanternfly, according to the paper. In the meantime, researchers said, the the advice to stomp on them when you see then still stands.

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(BALTIMORE) — An officer responding to a report of a burglary at a residence in Baltimore was injured when a suspect opened fire on authorities from inside the home, according to police.

The shooting suspect is dead, according to the Baltimore Police Department.

The incident occurred shortly before noon Tuesday at a residence on the 6200 block of Park Heights Avenue, according to police.

“When officers arrived, they were immediately met with gunfire from the suspect firing from inside of a house,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said during a press briefing.

A 36-year-old officer was shot in the leg and transported to an area hospital, where he is in stable condition, officials said.

Responding SWAT officers “neutralized” the shooting suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene, Worley said.

A firearm was recovered from the home, he said.

During the incident, a woman jumped out of the window of the residence, Worley said. The suspect also held a gun to the head of a second woman at the window before he was shot, Worley said, referring to it as a “hostage” situation that was quickly resolved.

“He was firing on our officers. As soon as our SWAT team got there, was able to take cover and our SWAT sniper was able to take the shot, he took the shot,” Worley said.

The suspect was related to the people in the house, Worley said. Both women have been transported to a hospital, he said.

The police department’s special investigations response team is investigating, the commissioner said.

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