Shoplifting suspect allegedly kills man in hit-and-run at discount store parking lot: LA sheriff
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(LOS ANGELES) — Authorities in Los Angeles County said they’re searching for the suspect who shoplifted from a discount store before killing a man in a hit-and-run in the store’s parking lot.
The victim was visiting his brother’s shop, Giant Discount Store in South El Monte, when, just after noon on Wednesday, a man came in and stole merchandise, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
The victim chased the shoplifter into the parking lot and the two started fighting, authorities said.
That’s when a second suspect got out of a dark-colored sedan and joined in with the suspect in the fight against the victim, authorities said.
The two suspects then got into the sedan and deliberately drove into the victim, hitting him several times, according to the sheriff’s office.
The victim suffered from blunt force trauma and died at the scene, authorities said.
Jim Yaghoubi said he witnessed the attack that killed his brother, who he identified as Steve Yaghoubi.
His “body under the car was turning all the way from the front tire to the back tire,” Jim Yaghoubi told Los Angeles ABC station KABC.
“I don’t know why this happened, honestly,” he said, overcome with emotion. “I was there at the last minute of his life. I saw his face. I saw his eyes.”
The sheriff’s department urges anyone with information to call its homicide bureau at 323-890-5500.
(NEW YORK) — The rotor of the helicopter from last week’s deadly crash has been retrieved from the Hudson River, four days after the devastating accident that killed all six people on board, according to a statement from the National Transportation Safety Board.
The recovery of the rotor system included the transmission and the roof beam, the NTSB said on Monday night, adding: “They also recovered the tail rotor system.”
The main fuselage, which includes the cockpit and cabin, had already been recovered, the NTSB said.
“Key components of the Bell 206 L-4 helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River last week were recovered Monday, greatly aiding the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the fatal accident,” the statement said, in part.
It credited the efforts to divers from the New York Police Department, the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the Jersey City Office of Emergency Management.
“The evidence will be taken to a secure location for further examination,” the NTSB statement said.
“Recovery efforts are now finished,” it added.
The pilot, Seankese “Sam” Johnson, was taking a family of Spanish tourists — Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife Merce Camprubi Montal, and their children, ages 4, 8 and 10 — on a tour when the chopper crashed on April 10.
Video showed the helicopter plunging into the 5-foot-deep water near Jersey City, New Jersey, without its tail rotor or main rotor blade.
The NTSB is investigating the cause of the crash. The helicopter wasn’t equipped with any flight records, the NTSB said.
New York Helicopter Tours, the company behind the helicopter, has shut down its operations, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA said it will launch an immediate review of the tour operator’s license and safety record.
(LOS ANGELES) — Erik and Lyle Menendez’s long-awaited resentencing hearing was filled with fireworks and flared tempers on Thursday as the brothers’ attorney looks to get them released and Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman tries to keep the brothers behind bars.
In a filing late Wednesday, prosecutors urged the court to obtain a copy of a recently completed risk assessment conducted on the brothers by the California Board of Parole Hearings at the request of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The filing by the district attorney’s office urged the judge to delay the sentencing if the court couldn’t get a copy of the report in time for the hearing.
The Menendez brothers’ attorney, Mark Geragos, spoke to reporters before court Thursday, calling Hochman’s last-minute attempt to delay the resentencing hearing a “Hail Mary.”
During Thursday’s hearing, the prosecution persistently argued the completed risk assessment is relevant.
Geragos called the prosecution’s attempt a “dog and pony show.” The prosecution shot back to the judge, saying Geragos’ comments were degrading, after which Geragos said, “You should be degraded!”
Judge Michael Jesic appeared annoyed by the bickering and said he needed more information about the governor’s office’s risk assessment report and how it can be used by the court.
Jesic said he needed “clarification from the governor’s office, because this is stupid.”
Court is in recess until 4:30 p.m. ET Thursday.
The brothers — who are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez — are fighting to be released after 35 years behind bars.
If the resentencing hearing proceeds, it could take several days. Ten family members are ready to take the stand, ABC News has learned. A prison expert and former inmate may also testify.
This comes one week after Lyle and Erik Menendez had a major win in court when the judge ruled in their favor at a hearing regarding Hochman’s motion to withdraw the resentencing petition submitted by the previous DA, George Gascón, who supported resentencing and the brothers’ release.
In the DA’s three-hour argument last Friday, he argued the brothers — who were listening to the hearing via video — haven’t taken responsibility for their actions and he called their claims of self-defense part of a litany of “lies.” Hochman also dismissed the brothers’ claim that they were sexually abused by their father.
Menendez attorney Mark Geragos fired back, calling Hochman a “’90s Neanderthal” for refusing to believe the brothers.
The judge on Friday denied Hochman’s motion to withdraw and said the brothers’ resentencing hearing will proceed as planned this Thursday and Friday.
Geragos called the decision “probably the biggest day since they’ve been in custody.”
“They’ve waited a long time to get some justice,” he said.
Hochman said in a statement after the ruling, “We concluded that the case was not ripe for resentencing based on the Menendez brothers’ continuing failure to exhibit full insight and accept complete responsibility for the entire gamut of their criminal actions and cover-up, including the fabrications of their self-defense defense and their lies concerning their father being a violent rapist, their mother being a poisoner, and their trying to obtain a handgun for self-defense the day before the murder.”
“Until the Menendez brothers finally come clean with all their lies of self-defense and suborning and attempting to suborn perjury, they are not rehabilitated and pose an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety,” he said.
This potential path to freedom gained momentum in October, when Hochman’s predecessor, Gascón, announced he was in support of resentencing.
Gascón recommended their sentences of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and said they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately with the new sentence.
Gascón’s office said its resentencing recommendations take into account many factors, including rehabilitation in prison and abuse or trauma that contributed to the crime. Gascón — who lost his reelection bid to Hochman in November — praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and help other inmates.
Over 20 Menendez relatives are in support of the brothers’ release. Several of those relatives spoke with ABC News last week, including cousin Diane VanderMolen, who said Erik Menendez asked her to relay a message.
“They are truly, deeply sorry for what they did. And they are profoundly remorseful,” VanderMolen said. “They are filled with remorse over what they did. And through that, they have become pretty remarkable people.”
Besides resentencing, the brothers have two other possible paths to freedom.
Newsom announced in February that he was ordering the parole board to conduct a 90-day “comprehensive risk assessment” investigation into whether Lyle and Erik Menendez pose “an unreasonable risk to the public” if they’re granted clemency and released.
After the risk assessment, which Hochman said in the late Wednesday filing is now complete, Newsom said the brothers will appear at independent parole board hearings in June.
The other path is the brothers’ habeas corpus petition, which they filed in 2023 for a review of two new pieces of evidence not presented at trial: a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin eight months before the murders detailing his alleged abuse from his father, and allegations from a former boy band member who revealed in 2023 that he was raped by Jose Menendez.
Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys for wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia are requesting a conference Tuesday to address what they say is the Trump administration’s “failure to comply” with a court order granting expedited discovery in the case.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis last week slammed Justice Department attorneys over their inaction over Abrego Garcia’s wrongful detention and ordered government officials to testify under oath through expedited discovery.
In a letter to the judge Monday night from both the government and Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, lawyers for Abrego Garcia said that the Trump administration has responded to their discovery requests by producing “nothing of substance” and providing interrogatory responses that are “non-responsive.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said the administration has claimed state secrets privilege and governmental privilege “without any foundation for doing so.”
The attorneys also said they invited government officials to meet and confer several times, but the officials declined to meet until Monday evening, “on the eve of depositions.”
Department of Homeland Security Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara was scheduled to be deposed Tuesday morning, according to the letter.
The government, in the same letter, said they have “put forward a good-faith effort to provide appropriate responses to both Plaintiffs’ Interrogatories and Request for Production.”
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who has been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13.
The Trump administration, while acknowledging that Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in error, has said that his alleged MS-13 affiliation makes him ineligible to return to the United States. His wife and attorney have denied that he is an MS-13 member.
Judge Xinis early this month ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, and the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that ruling, “with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
The government, in Monday’s letter to the judge, said that any requirement for a more detailed response on the legal basis for Abrego Garcia’s confinement “would be wholly inappropriate and an invasion of diplomatic discussions.”
“Upon Abrego’s repatriation to El Salvador, his detention was no longer a matter of the United States’ confinement, but a matter belonging to the government of El Salvador — which has been explained to the Plaintiffs repeatedly,” the government said. “Their insistence on obtaining any information on ‘diplomatic discussions’ is a facially unwarranted and inappropriate intrusion into the diplomatic process — a matter which the Supreme Court specifically reserved to the Government’s province.”
In a separate filing, attorneys for Abrego Garcia included as an exhibit the government’s objections to the plaintiff’s first set of expedited interrogatories, in which the government says that “disclosing the details of any diplomatic discussions regarding Mr. Abrego Garcia at this time could negatively impact any outcome.”
In the exhibit, the government acknowledges the $6 million that has been made available to the government of El Salvador to be used for its “law enforcement needs,” including for the detention of the Venezuelan migrants that were sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison.
“The United States has not provided any specific assistance with respect to the detention of Abrego Garcia or any other Salvadoran national,” the government said.
