Vance speaks out after man allegedly breaks windows at his Ohio home
Vice President JD Vance speaks on the final day of Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest conference at the Phoenix Convention Center on December 21, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Caylo Seals/Getty Images)
(CINCINNATI) — A man was taken into custody after allegedly breaking windows at Vice President JD Vance’s home in Ohio, the Secret Service said on Monday.
The suspect, 26-year-old William Defoor of Cincinnati, allegedly damaged the victim’s car and four windows at the house, according to the arrest report.
“The residence was unoccupied at the time of the incident, and the Vice President and his family were not in Ohio,” the Secret Service said.
The suspect was physically detained by Secret Service personnel just after midnight. He’s been charged with vandalism, obstruction of a official business and criminal trespass, according to the Hamilton County Sheriff’s office.
Vance spoke out on social media, expressing his gratitude to the Secret Service and Cincinnati police for responding quickly.
“As far as I can tell, a crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows,” Vance said.
Vance and his wife, Usha, purchased the home for about $1.4 million in 2018 in Cincinnati’s East Walnut Hills neighborhood, which sits along the Ohio River and east of downtown, according to the Hamilton County Auditor’s Office.
An undated photo from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein is part of a collection of images released Dec. 18, 2025, by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. (House Oversight Committee Democrats)
(WASHINGTON) — Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are seeking testimony from private investigators who removed and stored a trove of evidence from the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion before it was searched by police in 2005, according to letters reviewed by ABC News.
With the Department of Justice appearing to have never obtained the evidence — which included three desktop computers and more than two dozen phone directories — lawmakers want to interview the men about the removal of what could have been key evidence for police and prosecutors in their probe into Epstein’s sex trafficking.
“[T]he Committee requests that you make yourself available for a transcribed interview to provide insight into the contents, removal, storage, and location of the materials removed from Mr. Epstein’s Palm Beach home,” Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Robert Garcia of California wrote in letters that were sent to the three private investigators, who were working for Epstein.
“The Committee also seeks information regarding the reason for the removal of these materials, the potential withholding of these materials from law enforcement, and any other information regarding the activities and crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and any of his co-conspirators,” Garcia wrote.
ABC News last month reported about the removal of the potential evidence, which may have shielded Epstein from legal scrutiny and contributed to how he was able to largely evade justice for more than a decade.
The Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) issued a report in 2020 that faulted Alexander Acosta — then the top federal prosecutor in Miami — for agreeing to a plea deal with Epstein on charges in Florida before securing the missing computers, including one that was believed to have video footage from Epstein’s home surveillance cameras.
“There was good reason to believe the computers contained relevant — and potentially critical — information; and it was clear Epstein did not want the contents of his computers disclosed,” the OPR report said.
In letters first obtained by ABC News, Garcia formally requested that private investigators Paul Lavery, Stephen Kiraly and William Riley appear separately for voluntary transcribed interviews. The deadline for the investigators to respond is April 9.
According to the letters, Epstein’s longtime attorney Darren Indyke — who sat for a deposition before the Oversight panel last week — told lawmakers that the evidence was likely never turned over to law enforcement.
“After Epstein’s conviction, after he served jail time, through conversations with defense counsel I became aware that there were computer hard drives in the possession of private investigators,” Indyke said in his deposition. “I just don’t know how they came into possession, but I knew of the existence of hard drives.”
Documents released earlier this year by the Department of Justice shed new light on the removal of the potential evidence. According to a 2005 memo from private investigator William Riley to one of Epstein’s criminal defense lawyers, Lavery visited Epstein’s Palm Beach home to remove “items of potential evidentiary value” less than two weeks before police raided the mansion in October 2005.
Lavery removed more than 100 pieces of potential evidence, according to an index released by the DOJ, including the three computers, 29 bound telephone directories and a listing of nearby masseuses, as well as a trove of sexually explicit materials. Among the removed materials was a photo with a handwritten message saying, “You better never forget about me” from an unknown woman who signed her name “Class of 2005.”
When the Palm Beach Police Department searched Epstein’s home two weeks later, investigators noted that multiple computers from the property “were conspicuously absent” from the home, including one linked to Epstein’s surveillance system.
While federal prosecutors attempted to recover the evidence while investigating Epstein in the late 2000s — including subpoenaing Riley for testimony — law enforcement agreed to abandon the effort when Epstein agreed to the 2008 plea deal that allowed him to avoid a lengthy jail sentence. Documents released by the Department of Justice indicate Epstein’s attorneys continued to keep tabs on the evidence to ensure the materials were not disclosed to attorneys for Epstein’s victims in civil litigation.
In 2009, Riley confirmed that he would continue to store the materials in a “safe and secure location,” though the evidence’s location in the following decade remains unclear.
“If at any time, you are unable to maintain possession of those materials or have any concern whatsoever that Mr. Epstein’s possession may be compromised in any manner, please advise me immediately such that we can take the necessary actions to protect and preserve those materials as is required in the Non-Prosecution Agreement,” an attorney for Epstein wrote in a letter memorializing the conservation about the evidence.
Billing records of the private detective agency owned by Riley and Kiraly, both former Miami police officers, show that the firm’s invoices for Epstein and his attorneys spanned several years and included recurring charges for a storage facility, according to records included in the DOJ’s release of Epstein files.
Riley and Lavery did not respond to requests for comment last month. Reached by phone, Kiraly said he would not discuss anything related to Epstein.
Garcia told ABC News “it’s incredibly troubling” that Epstein’s computers and hard drives were in possession of private investigators and may have never been seen by any law enforcement agency.
“This idea that now these private investigators have this enormous amount of information that has not been accessible to us on the committee or in Congress or the American public is pretty significant,” Garcia said. “They’re an important part of our investigation.”
House Democrats, in the letters, requested that the investigators “preserve all relevant materials” in their possession, including hard drives, storage devices, backup archived data, cloud-based storage accounts, financial records, videos, photos, audio recording and all communications.
The committee also requested any records “reflecting the transfer, custody, or handling of the above materials; and any physical items that were taken from Jeffrey Epstein’s home.”
While Garcia’s invitation is for voluntary testimony, if the men do not cooperate, the committee could vote to subpoena them, or the Republican chairman of the Committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, could also unilaterally compel them to testify.
“We are bringing in anyone that has any information that would be helpful to our investigation and hopefully we’ll be able to get the truth to the American people and provide some type of justice for the victims,” Comer said after a recent deposition with Epstein’s accountant Richard Kahn.
Marie Villafaña, the former assistant U.S. attorney who pushed to indict Epstein during the investigation in Florida, previously said if the evidence on the missing computers “had been what we suspected it was … [i]t would have put this case completely to bed,” according to the OPR report.
Acosta said he had “no recollection” of the efforts to obtain the computers, and objected to the report’s conclusion that he should have given greater consideration to pursuing the evidence before entering the deal with Epstein, the report said.
Savannah Guthrie and mother Nancy Guthrie on Thursday, June 15, 2023 — (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie is speaking out in her first interview nearly two months after her mother, Nancy Guthrie, was kidnapped from her Tucson, Arizona, home.
Authorities say Nancy Guthrie, 84, was abducted from her house in the early hours of Feb. 1. They have released surveillance images from outside Nancy Guthrie’s house, but the person who took her remains unidentified.
In an emotional interview with her friend and former co-host Hoda Kotb, Savannah Guthrie said, “We are in agony.”
“It is unbearable,” she said. “And to think of what she went through.”
Savannah Guthrie said thoughts of the terror her mother experienced wakes her up each night.
“I wake up every night in the middle of the night. Every night,” she said through tears. “And in the darkness, I imagine her terror. And it is unthinkable. But those thoughts demand to be thought. And I will not hide my face. That she needs to come home now.”
“Someone needs to do the right thing,” she stressed.
The full interview with Savannah Guthrie will be released on Thursday and Friday, Kotb said.
Kotb has been filling in for Savannah Guthrie on “Today” since the abduction.
Anyone with information is urged to call 911, the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900.
ABC News’ Matt Claiborne contributed to this report.
Jeffrey Epstein is seen in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, December 19, 2025 (U.S. Justice Department)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday declined to appoint a special master to oversee the Justice Department’s production of the remaining Epstein files, despite “legitimate concerns” about whether the DOJ is faithfully complying with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The Dec. 19 deadline the law imposed for the release of all files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has come and gone, and at least two members of Congress say the Justice Department is still in possession of as many as two million potentially relevant documents.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York said last week they’re still reviewing and redacting material from the investigations into Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to comply with court orders about protecting victims.
Several Epstein victims wrote letters supporting legislators’ push for a neutral monitor.
In his opinion released Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer said the “questions raised by the Representatives and the victims are undeniably important and timely” and raise “raise legitimate concerns about whether DOJ is faithfully complying with federal law.”
However, the judge concluded he lacks jurisdiction to supervise the Justice Department’s compliance with the Epstein Act.
“The Representatives have not articulated how the criminal statutes under which Maxwell was charged would empower the Court to enforce the EFTA,” Engelmayer wrote.
The opinion also said the members of Congress — Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. — have no role in the matter.
“The Representatives do not seek to opine on any live issue before the Court,” Engelmayer wrote. “And the appointment of a neutral to supervise DOJ’s compliance with the EFTA is far afield from any matter pending before the Court.”
Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November, following blowback the Trump administration received seeking the release of materials related to their probe of Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019. President Donald Trump signed the act into law on Nov. 19.
Materials released to date include a trove of photographs and court records, including a complaint to the FBI about Epstein that was filed years before he was first investigated for child sex abuse, and documents containing previously unknown details about plans for Epstein’s 2019 arrest.
The files released so far, however, have yet to show evidence of wrongdoing on the part of famous, powerful men, against the expectations of many of those who have been pushing for the files’ release.
