Suspect in deadly hit-and-run at Maryland child’s birthday party ID’d
Stock image of police lights. Douglas Sacha/Getty Images
(BLADENSBURG, Md.) — A 66-year-old man has been identified by police as the alleged driver who plowed into a child’s front-yard birthday party over the weekend in Bladensburg, Maryland, killing a woman and leaving 13 others injured, including eight children.
The suspect, Joseph Sunday of Washington, D.C., was arrested on Monday, according to the Bladensburg Police Department.
Sunday was charged with two counts of negligent manslaughter with a vehicle and failure to remain at the scene of an accident where a death occurred, according to the police department.
The crash unfolded around 10 p.m. on Saturday when a car traveling in reverse in a Bladensburg residential neighborhood plowed into a crowd gathered on the front lawn of a home for a child’s birthday party, according to police.
The vehicle crashed into a party tent set up on the lawn, police said. The driver jumped out of the car and ran from the scene, but later surrendered to police, authorities said.
It remains under investigation what caused the driver to crash unto the party, including whether the suspect was impaired at the time of the crash, according to Bladensburg police officials.
The woman killed in the crash was identified by police as 31-year-old Ashley Hernandez Gutierrez of Washington, D.C.
Five adults and eight children, ranging in age from 1 to 17, were hospitalized with injuries, according to police. One young girl and a toddler were initially treated for critical injuries, according to Prince George’s County Fire and EMS Department.
(EVANSTON, Ill.) — Officials in Illinois are searching for a Northwestern University professor who was reported missing after leaving home to go on a walk, according to the Evanston Police Department.
Nina Kraus, a 72-year-old professor at the university’s school of communication, was last seen on Monday after she left her Evanston home to go on a walk at approximately 9 a.m. local time, officials said. Her family reported her missing the same day, officials said.
“The University is hopeful that with the community’s help, we can find Professor Kraus and assure her safety,” Northwestern said in a press release on Monday.
She was last seen wearing long pants and a windbreaker, and was believed to be carrying a dark backpack, officials said.
Kraus is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, weighs approximately 140 pounds and has long silver hair, police said.
On Tuesday, police said they would be flying drones along the waterfront of Lake Michigan as part of the investigation.
According to her faculty bio, Kraus’ is a “scientist, inventor and amateur musician who studies the biology of auditory learning.”
“My research on sound and the brain aims to understand how our life in sound, for better or worse, alters the processing of sound in the brain, makes us us, and affects the world we live in,” Kraus wrote in her bio.
Officials said anyone with information on Kraus’ whereabouts should contact police at 847-866-5000.
U.S. President Donald Trump. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A New York appeals court has thrown out a half billion-dollar civil fraud judgment against President Donald Trump, his family and his company.
After a three-month civil trial last year, a New York judge found Trump liable for committing a decade of business fraud by inflating his net worth to secure better business deals.
Judge Arthur Engoron, in a written decision in February, found that Trump and his co-defendants engaged in frauds that “leap off the page and shock the conscience” including wrongly claiming that Trump’s penthouse was three times its actual size and valuing his Mar-a-Lago estate as a personal residence, rather than a social club.
“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again,” Engoron wrote, claiming that Trump and his co-defendants were “incapable of admitting the error of their ways.”
The former president has long criticized the case as politically motivated, including during an impromptu closing statement he delivered in court last year where he declared himself an “innocent man.”
“I’ve been persecuted by someone running for office,” Trump said, referring to New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case. “This statute is vicious. It doesn’t give me a jury. It takes away my rights.”
In his February decision, Engoron temporarily barred Trump and his sons from leading New York-based companies and ordered Trump to pay a fine of more than $454 million. As of this month, Trump owes more than $480 million based on interest accrued on the judgement.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and argued that the alleged victims in the case were sophisticated counterparties who eagerly agreed to go into business with the Trump Organization and profited from the deals. Those arguments formed the crux of his appeal, filed in July, in which his lawyers argued that James violated the statute of limitations, misapplied the relevant law, and encouraged an exclusive penalty.
During a hearing in September, several of the judges on the appellate panel appeared receptive to Trump’s arguments seeking to reverse or reduce the his penalty, questioning the size of the massive judgment and the application of the fraud statute used to bring the case.
Since Trump’s reelection win in November, his lawyers have implored James to drop the case, calling for “unity” following the election and citing the dismissal of Trump’s federal criminal cases. Lawyers for James have rejected the request, arguing that Trump’s return to the White House does not impact his civil cases.
“The ordinary burdens of civil litigation do not impede the President’s official duties in a way that violates the U.S. Constitution,” New York Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale wrote in a letter to Trump’s lawyer.
Trump owed more than $550 million between three civil judgments, including a $83.3 million judgment in damages for defaming former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll and a $5 million judgment awarded after a jury found he sexually abused Carol in the 1990s.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(FORT PIERCE, Fla.) — The notoriety surrounding the man who is accused of trying to kill Donald Trump on his golf course last year is affecting efforts to pick a jury in his criminal case.
One hundred and twenty potential jurors are in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida, Tuesday for the second day of jury selection in the criminal trial of Ryan Routh, who is representing himself despite not being a lawyer and having limited legal experience.
At least one potential juror told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that she could not be fair because of her affinity for Trump and her preexisting knowledge of the case.
“I am MAGA,” said the juror, who recalled seeing the news of the attempted assassination. “I feel it would be very hard to sway how I feel.”
The juror, an older woman who works in the insurance industry, is all but guaranteed to be removed from the pool of prospective jurors as each side questions the prospects to determine their fitness to serve.
As of Tuesday morning, 21 prospective jurors had signaled that they have scheduling issues or financial concerns that would merit their removal from consideration.
Judge Cannon — who oversaw and dismissed one of Trump’s criminal cases — said she hopes to have a jury finalized by Wednesday afternoon, with the trial expected to take approximately three weeks.
The jury selection process so far has gone slowly, with Routh requesting to ask potential jurors questions that Cannon deemed “politically charged” and irrelevant.
Among the questions Judge Cannon has barred Routh from asking are those involving jurors’ stance on Palestine, their opinion of Trump’s proposed acquisition of Greenland, and what they would do if they were driving and they saw a turtle in the middle of the road — which Routh said could speak to jurors’ character and mindset.
After a full day of jury selection on Monday, prosecutors successfully challenged twenty potential jurors due to concerns that they could not judge the case fairly, with Routh agreeing to all but one of the removals. Routh signaled he plans to challenge seven of the jurors.
Prosecutors allege that after planning his attack for months, Routh hid in the bushes of Trump’s Palm Beach golf course with a rifle in the predawn hours of Sept. 15.
With Trump just one hole away from Routh’s position, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle poking out of the tree line and fired at him, causing him to flee, according to prosecutors. Routh was subsequently arrested after being stopped on a nearby interstate.
Routh has pleaded not guilty to five criminal charges that risk sending him to prison for life, including attempting to kill a presidential candidate and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.
