Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’ conviction upheld by US appeals court
(NEW YORK) — A U.S. appeals court has upheld the conviction of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who is serving more than 11 years in prison for defrauding investors with false claims about her company’s blood-testing technology.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the fraud convictions, sentences and $452 million restitution order for Holmes and her second in command, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization is urging New York prosecutors to pursue hate crime charges against five suspects arrested in what authorities described as a prolonged “torture” killing of a transgender man.
The group, GLAAD, issued a statement calling on Ontario County District Attorney James Riffs to consider hate crime charges in the homicide of Sam Nordquist, whose body was found in a field in Benton, New York, in Yates County last week.
Riffs said the five suspects in Norquist’s killing were arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder under the state’s depraved indifference statute.
In a statement to ABC News on Wednesday morning, Ritts’ office said that prosecutors filed a certification with the Hopewell Town Court “indicating that the Grand Jury of the County of Ontario voted at least one felony charge against all 5 defendants charged in connection with the death of Sam Nordquist.”
The suspects arrested in the case were identified by New York State Police as Precious Arzuaga, 38, of Canandaigua, New York; Jennifer “Brooklyn” Quijano, 30, of Geneva, New York; Kyle Sage, 33, of Rochester, New York; Patrick Goodwin, 30, also of Canandaigua; and Emily Motyka, 19, of Lima, New York.
The statement from Ritts’ office says the felony charge in the indictment against the suspects will be disclosed once it is filed in Ontario County Court.
“As this is an ongoing investigation and law prohibits us from disclosing any additional information at this time. This is the only update we can provide today,” according to the statement.
A criminal complaint filed in the case alleged that the suspects sexually assaulted Nordquist with a “table leg and broomstick.” The complaint further alleges that the suspects subjected Nordquist to “prolonged beatings by punching, kicking and striking [Nordquist] with numerous objects, including but not limited to sticks, dog toys, rope, bottles, belts, canes and wooden boards.”
According to the complaint, the torture allegedly took place in room 22 at Patty’s Lodge in Hopewell, New York, in Ontario County between Jan. 1 and Feb. 2.
In a joint statement released on Sunday, the state police and Ritts addressed whether investigators are pursuing hate crime charges against the suspects.
“At this time we have no indication that Sam’s murder was a hate crime,” the joint statement reads. “To help alleviate the understandable concern his murder could be a hate crime, we are disclosing that Sam and his assailants were known to each other, identified as LGBTQ+, and at least one of the defendants lived with Sam in the time period leading up to the instant offense.”
Authorities said they released the information after getting “multiple inquiries from across our community, New York State and the entire nation.”
In the statement, officials noted that under the New York State penal code, a hate crime is defined as an offense committed “in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, gender identity or expression, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct.”
In response, GLAAD released a statement Tuesday, saying, “While we are encouraged to see law enforcement act swiftly to investigate this horrific act, we caution investigators from ruling out hate crime charges.”
“Anti-LGBTQ hate can be perpetuated by anyone, regardless of their relationship to the victim or their own gender identity or sexual orientation,” GLAAD said.
Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, added, “Our hearts are broken over the loss of Sam Nordquist.”
“Sam was more than just a statistic — he was a son, a brother, a friend, and and bright light in the lives of those who knew him,” Ellis said in a statement. “His life was stolen from him after enduring unspeakable cruelty. We stand in solidarity with Sam’s family, friends, and community as they demand justice. We refuse to let Sam’s story fade into silence. We demand accountability, we demand justice, and we demand a world where transgender people are safe, respected, and able to live freely.”
Nordquist’s family filed a missing person report with the New York State Police on Feb. 9, after last hearing from Nordquist on Jan. 1, according to a missing-person flyer issued by the Missing People in America organization.
According to the flyer, Nordquist’s family said he left Minnesota on Sept. 28, 2024, with a round-trip plane ticket to New York. The family, according to the flyer, alleged that Nordquist met a woman online who convinced him to visit her.
The family claimed Nordquist was planning to fly back to Minnesota within two weeks, but never boarded his return flight.
“I don’t understand why someone would do that to another person,” Kayla Nordquist, Sam’s sister, told Saint Paul, Minnesota, ABC affiliate KSTP-TV. “Sam was amazing and would give the shirt off his back to anyone.”
When asked at a news conference on Friday about the missing-person flyer, Capt. Kelly Swift, a New York State Police investigator, declined to comment.
Swift would not disclose details of the abuse, saying the investigation is in its early stages. However, she said, Nordquist was “subjected to repeated acts of violence and torture in a manner that ultimately led to his death.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement Sunday that she had directed the State Police to provide any support and resources to Ritts’ office “as they continue their investigation, including into whether this was a hate crime.” The statement further said that Hochul had directed the New York State Division of Human Rights Hate and Bias Prevention Unit to offer assistance and support “to all community members affected by this terrible act of violence,” adding, “There must be justice for Sam Nordquist.”
Hochul also said that she had instructed the New York State Office of Victim Services to offer support to Nordquist’s family.
“The charges against these individuals are sickening and all New Yorkers should join together to condemn this horrific act,” Hochul said in the statement. “We are praying for Sam Nordquist’s family, community and loved ones who are experiencing unimaginable grief.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James also said in a statement, “This is beyond horrifying, and those responsible for this terrible act must be held accountable.”
(ATLANTA, Ga.) — The Georgia Court of Appeals has disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from her prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump and his co-defendants in their election interference case.
“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the court ruled.
The indictment against Trump and his co-defendants still stands, the court said.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last year to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
Defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Scott Hall subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Thursday’s ruling leaves the question of who takes over the case — and whether it continues — to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia. That decision may be delayed if Trump or Willis continues their appeal to the state’s highest court, Georgia’s Supreme Court.
The case has been on pause after Trump and his co-defendants launched an effort to have Willis disqualified from the case over her relationship with fellow prosecutor Nathan Wade. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee declined to disqualify Willis, leading Trump to appeal that decision.
The appeals court ruled to disqualify Willis and her entire office from the case because “no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the ruling said.
“The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring,” the order said, reversing Judge McAfee’s original decision.
Wade, who had been the lead prosecutor in the case, resigned as special prosecutor in March after McAfee issued his ruling that either Willis or Wade must step aside from the case due to a “significant appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship between the DA and the prosecutor.
While the appeals court disqualified Willis and her office, it did not find enough evidence to justify “the extreme sanction” of tossing the entire indictment against Trump and his co-defendants, as Trump had sought in his appeal.
“While this is the rare case in which DA Willis and her office must be disqualified due to a significant appearance of impropriety, we cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment under the appropriate standard,” the ruling said.
Judge Clay Land — one of the three judges on the appeals panel — dissented from the decision, arguing that reversing the trial court “violates well-established precedent, threatens the discretion given to trial courts, and blurs the distinction between our respective courts.”
Land argued that the appearance of impropriety — rather than a true conflict of interest — is not enough to reverse Judge McAfee’s decision not to disqualify Willis.
“For at least the last 43 years, our appellate courts have held that an appearance of impropriety, without an actual conflict of interest or actual impropriety, provides no basis for the reversal of a trial court’s denial of a motion to disqualify,” he wrote.
In his dissent, Land emphasized that the trial court found that Willis did not have a conflict of interest and rejected the allegations of impropriety stemming from her relationship with Wade, including the allegation that she received a financial benefit from his hiring.
“It was certainly critical of her choices and chastised her for making them. I take no issue with that criticism, and if the trial court had chosen, in its discretion, to disqualify her and her office, this would be a different case,” he wrote. “But that is not the remedy the trial court chose, and I believe our case law prohibits us from rejecting that remedy just because we don’t like it or just because we might have gone further had we been the trial judge.”
(NEW YORK) — In the days since President Donald Trump assumed office, many people online have begun expressing alarm to find they were unwittingly following Trump on Instagram and Facebook.
Across social media, posts have proliferated by people concerned after discovering they were automatically following accounts for Trump, as well as Vice President JD Vance, first lady Melania Trump and the White House.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, denied claims they forced users to follow the accounts.
The accounts are managed by the current presidential administration, and switch over when a new administration takes office, a spokesperson for Meta said.
Former President Joe Biden’s account remains archived under another handle, @potus46archive.
“People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a post on Threads. “Those accounts are managed by the White House so with a new administration, the content on those Pages changes. This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition.”
Stone also addressed concerns that people were unable to follow the accounts, saying, “It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands.”
The company made the same transition in 2021, handing the Facebook and Instagram accounts for the president, vice president, first lady and White House from Trump’s administration to that of President Joe Biden.
The same process took place in 2017, when President Barack Obama’s administration passed its accounts on to the Trump administration.
“In 2017, we worked with both the Obama Administration and incoming Trump Administration to make sure the transition of their Facebook and Instagram accounts was seamless on January 20th, and we expect to do the same here,” Meta, then known as Facebook, told Reuters in 2020.
Instagram users also expressed concern they were temporarily unable to search for the words “Democrat” or “Democrats.”
Meta said they were aware of the issue, and said it was a glitch affecting “a number of different hashtags on Instagram — not just those on the left.”
“We’re working quickly to resolve this,” Stone, the Meta spokesperson, said in another post.
The online uproar comes on the heels of the inauguration, where Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — along with several other high-profile tech CEOs — were in attendance.
Meta announced earlier this month they would end fact-checking on their platforms, which was put in place after the 2016 election.
Critics have accused the recent move of being a partisan effort to appease Trump, who has repeatedly slammed the company for alleged anti-conservative bias.
In a video posted by the company, Zuckerberg said fact-checking had proven to be “too politically biased” and had destroyed “more trust than they’ve created.”
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg added.
