Suspect accused of killing Laken Riley waives jury in murder trial
Courtesy of Augusta University
(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.
Caroline Ellison, former chief executive officer of Alameda Research LLC, exits court in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Caroline Ellison, a key witness in the FTX case, is set to be sentenced on Tuesday for her role in one of the largest financial frauds in history.
Ellison, 29, a former crypto executive, had pleaded guilty to multiple charges in connection with the federal fraud and conspiracy case involving the crypto trading platform. She cooperated with prosecutors and was a key witness during the trial last year of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, her former boyfriend.
Ellison — who was the co-chief executive of Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s companion hedge fund — testified over three days during the trial, telling the court that she committed fraud with her former on-again-off-again boyfriend and at his direction.
Bankman-Fried was ultimately found guilty on all counts for defrauding FTX customers out of $8 billion.
Ahead of her sentencing in New York Tuesday afternoon, Ellison’s attorneys urged Judge Lewis Kaplan to be lenient, arguing Ellison “unflinchingly acknowledged her own wrongdoing, without minimization, blame shifting or self-pity.”
“She time and again proved herself an enormously credible and important cooperating witness” against Bankman-Fried, they added.
Federal prosecutors agreed Ellison provided “extraordinary cooperation that was crucial to the Government’s successful prosecution” of Bankman-Fried.
“Although she did not blow the whistle on any misconduct before FTX’s collapse, she came clean prior to FTX’s declaring bankruptcy to her employees on November 9, 2022,” prosecutor Danielle Sassoon wrote in a letter to the judge. “Ellison approached her cooperation with remarkable candor, remorse, and seriousness.”
Ellison faces 110 years in prison, according to court filings.
Prosecutors declined to make a specific sentencing recommendation. Defense attorneys suggested a sentence in line with a recommendation from probation officials of time served plus three years supervised release.
“Caroline poses no risk of recidivism and presents no threat to public safety. It would therefore promote respect for the law to grant leniency in recognition of Caroline’s early disclosure of the crimes, her unmitigated acceptance of responsibility for them, and—most importantly—her extensive cooperation with the government,” defense attorney Anjan Sahni wrote in a letter to the judge.
Sahni outlined Ellison’s “complex” relationship with Bankman-Fried that began when the two met at Jane Street Capital in 2015 when she was an intern and he was a junior trader. He said their “on-again-off-again, sometimes-secret relationship” had “warped” her moral compass and led her to take actions “that she knew to be wrong, helping him steal billions.”
Bankman-Fried was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison. Judge Kaplan also ordered that he forfeit $11 billion that the government can use to compensate victims.
The former crypto billionaire has filed an appeal to overturn his conviction.
Two former FTX executives who also pleaded guilty in the case — former director of engineering Nishad Singh and co-founder Gary Wang — are set to be sentenced in October and November, respectively.
(NEW YORK) — Nearly four years after he allegedly shot and killed an unarmed Black man who was dropping off Christmas money to a friend, the murder trial of former police officer Adam Coy was getting underway on Monday.
Coy, who is white, was fired from the Columbus Police Department about a week after the 2020 fatal shooting of 47-year-old Andre Hill.
About a month after the shooting, the 46-year-old Coy was arrested and indicted on charges of murder, reckless homicide, felonious assault and two counts of dereliction of duty. Coy has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He has not made any public comments on the case.
If convicted, Coy, who is free on $1 million bail, could face a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The trial was scheduled to begin Monday in Franklin County Court of Common Pleas in Columbus with the start of jury selection.
Opening statements in the long-awaited trial, which was postponed indefinitely in April 2023 after Coy was diagnosed with cancer and underwent treatment, could get underway as early as Tuesday.
The shooting unfolded around 2 a.m. on Dec. 22, 2020, when Coy and another officer, Amy Detweiler, were called to a home in the Northwest Side neighborhood of Columbus to investigate a nonemergency noise complaint from a neighbor reporting a man sitting for a prolonged amount of time in an SUV outside the residence with the engine running, according to police officials and prosecutors.
Coy allegedly drew his gun and shined a flashlight into the open garage as Hill emerged from the garage holding a cellphone, according to police body camera footage released by the Columbus Police Department.
An autopsy determined that Hill was shot four times, suffering wounds to his chest and legs.
Neither Coy nor Detweiler turned their body-worn cameras on until after the shooting, but Coy’s camera had a “look-back” function that automatically activated and recorded 60 seconds of the episode without sound, including capturing the shooting.
The body camera footage also showed that as Hill lay dying on the floor of the garage, none of the officers who responded to the incident immediately provided first aid.
National civil rights attorney, Benjamin Crump, who is representing Hill’s family, alleged that the officers waited up to 15 minutes before before they started giving Hill first aid.
After officers on the scene turned their body cameras on, a woman came out of the house and told officers that Hill was a guest.
“He was bringing me Christmas money. He didn’t do anything,” she was heard telling the officers, who ordered her back inside.
Officer Detweiler, who is expected to testify in Coy’s trial, told investigators that before the shooting she and Coy were standing outside the house attempting to determine why Hill was at the location, according to records in the case released to the public on Dec. 29, 2020. Detweiler told investigators, according to the records, that she and Coy had their weapons drawn when Hill emerged from the garage, but that Hill did not appear to pose any threat before he was shot.
“Officer Detweiler stated Mr. Hill was walking towards her with a cell phone raised in his left hand,” according to the investigation records. “Officer Detweiler stated she did not observe any threats from Mr. Hill.”
Detweiler told investigators that Hill didn’t say a word as he approached her and Coy. She told investigators that Coy suddenly yelled out, “There’s a gun in his other hands, there’s a gun in his other hand” before opening fire, according to investigators.
Detweiler said she did not see a weapon in Hill’s hands and no firearms were found in Hill’s possession after the shooting, according to records.
Coy told investigators he thought he saw a firearm on Hill before shooting the man, officials said.
As protesters took to the streets of Columbus in the days following the shooting demanding Coy be fired and charged with murder, Columbus Public Safety Director Ned Pettus Jr. announced he had terminated Coy, a 19-year veteran of the police force, writing in his ruling that “known facts do not establish that this use of deadly force was objectively reasonable.”
Pettus found that Coy didn’t try to deescalate the situation before shooting Hill. After the shooting, Coy didn’t render aid or ensure that others did, according to Pettus.
The dereliction of duty charges Coy is facing at trial stems from him not turning on his body camera before the shooting and not warning Detweiler of the potential danger he believed Hill posed, prosecutors said.
After Coy was indicted, his attorney, Mark Collins, told ABC Columbus affiliate WSYX-TV that the charges against Coy, particularly the murder charge, did not make sense, saying it suggests his client knowingly intended to kill Hill.
“The knowing element, to cause serious physical harm with a deadly weapon, and someone died, that’s the concept, however, police officers are trained a certain way to take an action and to stop a threat,” Collins said at the time. “So that kind of doesn’t make sense.”
In May 2021, the City of Columbus agreed to a $10 million wrongful death settlement with Hill’s family, the highest amount ever paid by the city.
The indictment of Coy came just days after the Columbus City Council also passed Andre’s Law, which was named after Hill and requires Columbus police officers to turn on their body cameras when responding to calls and to immediately render first aid after a use-of-force incident.
(ASHE COUNTY, N.C.) — There have been threats against Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees responding to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, according to a local sheriff.
“Recently in the mountain region, there have been threats made against them,” Ashe County Sheriff Phil Howell posted on Facebook regarding the alleged threats against FEMA employees. “This has not happened in Ashe County or the surrounding counties,” Howell added. “Out of an abundance of caution, they have paused their process as they are assessing the threats.”
Ashe County is located about three hours northeast of Asheville, NC, which was hard-hit by Helene. Sheriff Howell did not specify in his post who allegedly made the threats.
Threats to FEMA employees have been consistent during the Hurricane response, along with misinformation, federal authorities told ABC News.
Search and rescue efforts in the affected areas continue, a federal source told ABC News. However, while FEMA assesses potential threat information, disaster survivor assistance teams are currently working at fixed locations and secure areas instead of going door to door, out of an abundance of caution, the source said, adding that FEMA will monitor threat information and make adjustments to this posture on a regular basis in coordination with local officials.
A FEMA spokesperson told ABC News that the agency continues to support communities impacted by Helene and to help survivors apply for assistance.
“For the safety of our dedicated staff and the disaster survivors we are helping, FEMA has made some operational adjustments,” the spokesperson said. “Disaster Recovery Centers will continue to be open as scheduled, survivors continue to register for assistance, and we continue to help the people of North Carolina with their recovery.”
Sheriff Howell said that FEMA locations in Ashe County are open this week.
“Stay calm and steady during our recovery, help folks and please don’t stir the pot,” he said.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told ABC News Friday during a press briefing that threats to FEMA employees are a “shame” and a “distraction.”
“We continuously monitor the social media, channels, other outlets where we’re seeing this information, because we want to make sure we’re providing for the safest environment for our employees, and making sure that they know that their safety is first and foremost for us as they go out into these communities,” Criswell said in response to a question from ABC News.
FEMA hires people from local communities when disaster hits, Criswell said, noting that “many” leave their families behind to go and help communities who are impacted by disaster.
