Seattle police arrest armed man during New Year’s Eve celebration

(NEW YORK) — A police officer who searched accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione’s backpack when he was apprehended at an Pennsylvania McDonald’s took the stand on Monday for the fourth day of a crucial pretrial hearing in which Mangione’s defense lawyers are trying to exclude from trial critical evidence that they say was illegally seized from his backpack without a warrant.

“Holly Jolly Christmas” was playing in the Altoona McDonald’s on Dec. 9, 2024, when officer Christy Wasser — a 19-year Altoona Police Department veteran — searched Mangione’s backpack, immediately pulling out a pocketknife and a loaf of bread, five days after Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk.

When Mangione was formally placed under arrest at 9:58 a.m., Wasser testified that she “walked over and picked up his backpack.”

Two minutes into the search, Wasser was seen on body camera video extracting “wet, grey underwear” from the backpack. “And when I opened it up, it was a magazine,” she testified.

Prosecutor Joel Seidemann asked it was “fully loaded,” and Wasser responded, “Yes.”

Wasser also said she discovered a phone in a Faraday bag, designed to conceal its signal.

An officer was heard suggesting that the bag be brought to the police station to check for bombs. Wasser was heard joking that she preferred to check it at the McDonald’s because she “didn’t want to pull a Moser” — a sarcastic reference, she said, to a former Altoona officer who brought a bomb to the police station.

At 10:03 a.m. an officer was heard on the camera footage mentioning a search warrant. A different officer was heard saying that one was not needed at that stage.

Defense lawyers have argued Wasser’s actions violated Mangione’s constitutional rights and should justify excluding any of the evidence found in the bag, including the alleged murder weapon and writings that prosecutors say amount to a confession.

“[The officer] did not search the bag because she reasonably thought there might be a bomb, but rather this was an excuse designed to cover up an illegal warrantless search of the backpack,” defense attorneys argued in a court filing. “This made-up bomb claim further shows that even she believed at the time that there were constitutional issues with her search, forcing her to attempt to salvage this debacle by making this spurious claim.”

Although Wasser’s initial search of the backpack uncovered the magazine, she missed the loaded handgun, silencer, and journal that were buried deeper in the bag, she testified.

Wasser testified that she only discovered the two items about 15 minutes later, when she conducted a further search after driving from the McDonald’s to the Altoona police station.

“There’s a weapon!” she’s heard shouting on the video footage to the other officers in the intake area, as Mangione was being searched just feet away with his ankles shackled.

“Is that the first time you opened that zipper section on the side?” Seidemann asked Wasser on the witness stand.

“Yes, sir,” she affirmed.  

With Mangione just feet away from her in the station’s intake area, she testified it would be “unwise” to continue the search near Mangione.

“Were the defendant’s hands free at the time you took out the gun?” asked Seidemann.

“Yes,” she testified.

Body camera footage showed Wasser and Deputy Chief Derek Swope take the weapon over to a nearby hallway — behind a locked door — where she cleared the gun. She mumbled — at times inaudibly — when she explained the situation to Swope on the video.

“We just checked the bag … to make sure there were no bombs or anything,” she said on the body camera footage.

As the search continued, Wasser quickly uncovered a silencer buried beneath other items in the bag. She also found a journal allegedly belonging to Mangione.

“Holy s—,” Swope can be heard saying in the body camera footage.

Wasser testified that she was cautious when checking the back because the nature of Mangione’s alleged crime “greatened [her] concern.”

“I just wanted to make sure there was nothing that could harm anybody,” she testified.

“Did any of your supervisors say, ‘Stop — go get a search warrant?'” asked Seidermann.  

“No,” she said.

The stationhouse backpack search also turned up a slip of paper with a crude, handwritten map of Pittsburgh, Wasser testified, as well as what Seidemann described as possible escape routes.

The note said, “Keep momentum, FBI slower overnight” and “Break CAM continuity.” Another line read, “3+ hrs off cam, exit diff method (ex: megabus, rail)” and a note saying “check reports for current situation.” The note also said, “bus to Penn station,” “change hat” and “either taxi … or cross river.”

Wasser was also heard on body camera footage saying she pulled hair clippers from Mangione’s bag.

Earlier in the body camera video — when she was still searching the bag at the McDonald’s while “The Twelve Days of Christmas” blared in the background — prosecutors highlighted an exchange between officers and a supervisor about whether a warrant was necessary. One officer remarked that a warrant might be needed “because of the severity of the case,” but their supervisor interjected to say that no warrant was required because the incident was a “search incident to arrest” — a warrantless search conducted of an area within the arrestee’s immediate surroundings.

Prosecutor Nichole Smith of Pennsylvania’s Blair County District Attorney’s office also testified, outlining the chain of custody of items seized from Mangione after he was apprehended.

Smith recalled a lieutenant from the Altoona Police Department calling her at 9:53 a.m. to advise her “that he had the individual responsible for the CEO shooting” at McDonald’s. Smith said she was in court at the time and interrupted the proceeding to inform her boss, Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks.

Smith said she and Weeks advised Altoona police to charge Mangione with forgery, carrying a firearm without a license, tampering with records for identification, possessing instruments of a crime and providing false identification to law enforcement.

Smith described a search warrant that obtained a court’s permission to seize Mangione’s belongings, including items in his backpack, and transfer them to the NYPD.

“Certain items in that bag were not inherently contraband, so we wanted to ensure that the court had approved,” Smith testified. “When they search the bag and they discover, for instance, the firearm, the ammunition and the suppressor, when he does not have a valid permit to carry those items concealed, they become contraband.”

Handwritten notes that police said they also discovered in Mangione’s backpack were not relevant to the local charges in Pennsylvania. Ordinarily, they would have been put aside and saved. The warrant allowed those items to be transferred as possible evidence in the New York case.

Defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo objected to Seidemann referring to the writings as an alleged “manifesto” and Thompson’s killing as an “execution.” Judge Gregory Carro said it was fine for the ongoing suppression hearing but said, “You’re certainly not going to do that at trial.”

Last week, during the first week of the hearing, prosecutors called six witnesses, including the police officers who first confronted Mangione and the corrections officers who were tasked with constantly monitoring him before his transfer from a cell in Pennsylvania to New York.

Last week’s testimony shed new light on the events leading up to and following Mangione’s arrest, with the two officers who initially confronted Mangione recounting their experiences for the first time.

“It’s him. I have been seeing all the pictures. He is nervous as hell. I ask him, ‘Have you been in New York,’ he’s all quiet,” Altoona police officer Joseph Detwiler testified on Tuesday.

Prosecutors also showed in court never-before-seen security camera footage that captured the chilling moments after Mangione allegedly shot and killed Thompson in the predawn cold of New York City’s early winter. The videos provided the public with a clearer picture of the shooting and emergency response, as well as clues about the case prosecutors have built against the alleged killer.  

At least three people were in the immediate vicinity of the shooting, including a woman just feet away from the suspect. The woman’s identity and whether she has spoken with police are not known.

The video also shows the suspect — after firing multiple shots — walk toward the victim, glance down at him, cross the street, then run toward a nearby alleyway. A woman holding a cup of coffee outside the famed New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue is seen flinching after hearing the first gunshot, after which she sees Thompson stumble, then appears to look straight at the gunman before running off.

Seconds later, a man inside the hotel exits, sees Thompson on the ground, then appears to point to a nearby alleyway where the suspect fled. 

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(WASHINGTON) — After the Department of Justice released thousands of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a tranche on Friday that included a number of decades-old photographs of former President Bill Clinton, a spokesperson for Clinton on Monday called on all of the files relating to Clinton to be released.

In a statement, Clinton spokesperson Angel Ureña accused the DOJ of using the selective release of Epstein documents to imply wrongdoing where there is none, challenging the department to immediately release any remaining materials mentioning or showing Bill Clinton in the files.

Ureña, a spokesperson for Clinton, wrote on Monday that the content and method of how the Department of Justice has released files makes it “clear” that “someone or something is being protected.”

“We do not know whom, what or why,” Ureña wrote. “But we do know this: We need no such protection.”

“Accordingly, we call on President Trump to direct Attorney General Bondi to immediately release any remaining materials referring to, mentioning, or containing a photograph of Bill Clinton,” Ureña added.

Ureña alleged that if the Department of Justice does not do so, it would confirm suspicions that the Department is releasing data selectively to “to imply wrongdoing about individuals who have already been repeatedly cleared by the very same Department of Justice, over many years, under Presidents and Attorneys General of both parties.”

The initial release of the files on Friday contained numerous old photos of Epstein traveling with Clinton, including pictures of Clinton lounging in a jacuzzi and one of him swimming with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking of minors and other offenses.

The images were released without any context or background information.

On Friday, Ureña had written in a statement, “The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.”

The Department of Justice has defended both its process and timing in releasing the files, saying in a statement on Sunday that more than 200 lawyers were working “around the clock” to review files for release.

“The Department of Justice is committed to transparency and redacting only what is legally required,” the department said in a statement. “The Department is required by law to redact identifying information about the victims, minors, or potential victims, as well as privileged material. NO redactions have been or will be made to protect famous individuals or politically exposed persons.”

A law signed by President Donald Trump in November required all the files related to federal investigations into the disgraced financier to be released by Friday, Dec. 19. The department has been releasing files since that deadline, but did not fully meet that deadline in releasing all Epstein-related materials, and what has been released so far is a fraction of the files. 

The DOJ has faced backlash from victims and from lawmakers for the slow rollout of the files. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in an appearance on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, defended the department’s slow release of the files, saying they wanted to continue to review documents to “protect victims.”

“It’s very simple and very clear: the statute also requires us to protect victims, and so the reason why we are still reviewing documents and still continuing our process is simply that — to protect victims… we’re going through a very methodical process with hundreds of lawyers looking at every single document and making sure that victims’ names and any of the information from victims is protected and redacted,” Blanche said.

Some of Epstein’s victims and their lawyers have also said redactions in the files released have not been sufficient and that some victims’ identities have been exposed. On Sunday, two attorneys who represent more than 200 survivors of Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell told ABC News that they had been hearing from clients who have seen their names or other identifying information in un-redacted documents in the DOJ’s disclosure.

Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing and denies having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. No Epstein survivor or associate has ever made a public allegation of wrongdoing or inappropriate behavior by Clinton in connection with his prior relationship with Epstein.

The former president traveled with Epstein several times, according to flight logs from Epstein’s private jets that were made public during civil litigation against Epstein. Those logs showed that Clinton and his entourage had taken four international sojourns in 2002 and 2003 on the financier’s Boeing 727 to locations including Bangkok, Brunei, Rwanda, Russia, China and elsewhere.

President Donald Trump, on Monday, was asked whether he was surprised by the number of photos of Clinton in the files. 

Trump said he has always gotten along with Bill Clinton and added, “I hate to see photos come out of him, but this is what the Democrats, mostly Democrats and a couple of bad Republicans are asking for. So, they’ve given their photos of me too. Everybody was friendly with this guy [Epstein]. Either friendly or not friendly, but you know, he was around. He was all over Palm Beach and other places.”

(Trump himself has denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s alleged crimes and said at the time of Epstein’s arrest in 2019 that they hadn’t spoken in 15 years; he has also spoken about kicking Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago.)

The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released photos earlier this month, prior to the Department of Justice’s releases, that also showed Epstein or Maxwell with Clinton and others, including Trump, Woody Allen, Bill Gates, Steve Bannon, former Prince Andrew and billionaire Richard Branson, among others.  

The context, time frame and location of the photographs are unclear.

ABC News’ James Hill and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — A judge in New York has set a tentative date of March 3 for Harvey Weinstein’s re-trial on a charge of raping Jessica Mann.

A defense lawyer said Thursday that Weinstein would consider pleading guilty to the charge — third-degree rape — however, Weinstein made a statement in court insisting that he has never attacked anyone.

If Weinstein ultimately stands trial again, it would be the third time he goes on trial in Manhattan. His initial conviction was overturned on appeal. His second trial ended in a conviction on the Mimi Haley count, an acquittal on the Kaja Sokola count and a mistrial on the Mann count.

Earlier on Thursday, Judge Curtis Faber rejected Weinstein’s bid for a new trial in Haley’s case, ruling juror complaints about decorum in the deliberation room were adequately addressed.

The defense had argued two jurors subsequently claimed they were pressured to convict, but Farber said Thursday, “The Court’s response to the jurors’ complaints appropriately balanced the competing interests of investigating the allegations while avoiding any unnecessary taint of the deliberating jury.”

Weinstein, 73, remains in custody at Rikers Island in New York City after nearly six years of confinement. A representative for the disgraced Hollywood producer said he is “medically fragile and in legal limbo.”

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