Month: August 2022

The nurse accused of killing five people last week when her Mercedes plowed into traffic at a busy Windsor Hills intersection had been involved in 13 previous crashes, Los Angeles County prosecutors alleged Monday in charging her with murder.

Authorities revealed new details about Thursday’s crash and about the driver, Nicole Lorraine Linton, 37, whose permanent address is in Texas and who is currently renting a room in Los Angeles while working as a traveling registered nurse.

Prosecutors said they are reviewing multiple previous crashes linked to Linton — both in and out of California — including one in 2020 that involved bodily injury in which two cars were totaled. They provided few additional details, however.

Linton’s attorney, Halim Dhanidina, asked the court Monday to continue her arraignment to October because he is reviewing her out-of-state history of “documented profound mental health issues.” Dhanidina did not elaborate on those issues but said the Windsor Hills crash could be linked to them.

Here’s what we know:

the crash

California Highway Patrol officers investigate a fiery crash where multiple people were killed near a Windsor Hills gas station on Thursday.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Surveillance video just before Thursday’s deadly crash shows a dark-colored Mercedes barreling down La Brea Avenue at high speed as dozens of cars cross on Slauson Avenue in Windsor Hills. Prosecutors say Linton was behind the wheel.

The Mercedes does not appear to slow before running a red light shortly after 1:30 pm The light had been red for nine seconds before the car barreled through the intersection, slamming into multiple cars, prosecutors said. The Mercedes burst into flames and hurtled into a light pole, where it came to rest. After the crash, a streak of fire burned on the ground, and billowing smoke could be seen from miles away.

Prosecutors say Linton was speeding as fast as 90 mph.

At least six vehicles were involved in the crash, according to California Highway Patrol investigators. In addition to the fatalities, eight people were injured.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón said there is no evidence of any alcohol use by Linton at this point.

In announcing charges against her Monday, he declined to discuss what led to the crash, saying it was still under investigation and he was “not going to get into the details.”

The aftermath

Candles, balloons and flowers at a street memorial to victims of a deadly crash at the intersection of La Brea and Slauson avenues in Windsor Hills.

(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

The impact of the crash and fire caused it killed 23-year-old Asherey Ryan; her 11-month-old child, Alonzo Quintero; her boyfriend, Reynold Lester; and their unborn child. Ryan was 8½ months pregnant when she was killed. The boy she was carrying had been named Armani Lester, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Two additional women killed in the crash have yet to be identified.

Linton was hospitalized with moderate injuries for several days before being taken into police custody.

Photographs posted online after the crash appear to show Linton sitting on the curb with a bloody arm. She seems to be wearing hospital scrub pants and a shirt that has writing on the breastplate and sleeve.

Images from the scene show massive front-end damage to the Mercedes, which rammed headfirst into a light pole. A law enforcement source told The Times that Linton suffered a broken foot and broken wrist in the collision, but the car’s advanced air bag systems for a front-end collision seem to have protected her from the worst of the impact.

A specialized CHP accident investigation team is extracting data from the Mercedes’ computers that capture speed, braking and acceleration.

The charges

Linton was charged Monday with six counts of murder and five counts of gross vehicular manslaughter. The vehicular manslaughter charges are for the deaths of the four adults and the baby, who was about two weeks shy of his first birthday. Ryan’s unborn child cannot be included in those charges.

Linton faces up to life in prison if convicted of all charges.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Natalie Stone denied her bail, which previously had been set at $9 million, at the request of the district attorney’s office, which said she is a flight risk. Linton was set to leave LA and travel to Hawaii for work, prosecutors said.

CNN
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A federal appeals court on Tuesday signed off on a House Ways and Means Committee request to obtain former President Donald Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service.

The 3-0 ruling from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is a blow to Trump, who has argued for years in court against releasing his tax returns to any investigators. A trial-level judge he appointed while president previously rejected his arguments in the case.

But Trump still could appeal, making the litigation unlikely to end at this time. The court said the judgment would not be issued for seven days, giving Trump time to appeal. This litigation is separate from the House select committee’s investigation into the January 6 riot.

The majority opinion, written by Circuit Judge David Sentelle, said that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal’s request for the records was within the scope of his committee’s inquiry, and the court also rejected Trump’s argument claiming that the request had a retaliatory motive, making it invalid.

Neal has requested the returns under a law that allows disclosure of an individual’s tax returns to the committee – a request that the Trump administration had rebuffed.

The appeals court on Tuesday said that Trump did not prevail in his argument that as a former President his records should not be turned over.

“In this case, the need for the Trump Parties’ information to inform potential legislation overrides the burden to the Executive Branch largely because that burden is so tenuous,” Sentelle, a Reagan appointee, wrote in the opinion.

Judge Karen Henderson, a George HW Bush appointee and Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, also agreed with the decision, though Henderson wrote that she believed there should be more scrutiny on a request like this that would have implications for the presidency.

The case stems lawsuit Neal filed in 2019 seeking a court order compelling the IRS, then under the Trump administration, to turn over Trump’s tax returns

The litigation moved at a slow pace that outlasted Trump’s presidency, and in July of last year, the Justice Department signaled it was switching positions in the case in favor of the committee obtaining the returns. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, last December granted requests from the department and the House to dismiss the case, prompting Trump’s appeal to the DC Circuit.

This story has been updated with additional details.

A spokesman for the DA’s office declined to comment.

But in a separate court filing, DA Fani Willis said the doctor’s note came a day after Giuliani tweeted a smiling photo of himself with an entertainment reporter in New Hampshire.

After the doctor clarified that Giuliani wasn’t cleared for air travel — Thomas said Giuliani had been driven to New Hampshire — the DA’s office said it offered to pay for train or bus fare. It also said that it had obtained evidence that Giuliani had purchased airline tickets to Italy and Switzerland for late July dates shortly after his medical procedure — though it doesn’t specify whether Giuliani used the tickets.

“Based on the foregoing, the District Attorney respectfully requests that the Court deny Rudolph William Louis Giuliani’s motion and order him to comply with … (court orders) commanding his appearance before the special grand jury instantor,” Willis wrote.

Giuliani was ordered to testify last month by New York State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber after he failed to show at a July 13 hearing in which he was scheduled to argue why the court shouldn’t honor the Georgia subpoena.

Farber wrote that Giuliani was required to appear before the Fulton grand jury beginning on Aug. 9, “and on any such other dates as this Court may order.”

Publicly addressing the development for the first time, Thomas said that Giuliani had received notice of his New York hearing the day before his scheduled appearance, as he was recovering from his procedure, and set it aside without looking at the date. By the time I have reviewed the document the court date had already passed.

McBurney signed off on Giuliani’s subpoena in early July, noting that he was “a necessary and material witness” to the criminal investigation, which is examining whether Trump or his allies committed any state crimes when they tried to overturn Georgia’s 2020 elections. It was one of a half-dozen subpoenas aimed at compelling the testimony of Trump’s top allies and legal advisers.

The grand jury has indicated it’s interested in testimony Giuliani gave before Georgia legislators in three separate hearings in late 2020. Giuliani screened edited surveillance video of ballots being tabulated at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, which he described as a “powerful smoking gun” of widespread election fraud

Giuliani’s claims were quickly debunked by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, but he continued to share the video and doubled down on his comments in the weeks after. He was later suspended from practicing law in New York, in part because of his testimony from him in Georgia.

His subpoena says there’s evidence that Giuliani was “part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

Giuliani was also reportedly a central figure in the Trump campaign’s quest to appoint a slate of “alternate” Republican voters in swing states like Georgia that Joe Biden won, another area of ​​interest to the special grand jury.

Giuliani also called Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, in late 2020. Ralston testified before the special grand jury last month.

Giuliani’s lawyer recently asked the DA’s office whether his client was a target of the investigation.

“Obviously if Mr. Giuliani is a target of the investigation, the parties would have to have other discussions regarding his appearance before the Grand Jury at any time,” Thomas wrote.

The DA’s office recently indicated it is considering Georgia’s 16 GOP electors targets of the investigation, though McBurney ruled that one, state Sen. Burt Jones, could not be examined by the Fulton DA’s office due to a conflict of interest on Willis’ end.

Giuliani could ultimately try and cite attorney-client or executive privilege to avoid answering questions from jurors or prosecutors.

To look ahead:

tuesday: Lawyers for Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani will argue before a Fulton judge that their client should have his testimony before the special grand jury delayed due to a recent medical procedure.

wednesday: Attorneys for US Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) will appear before an Atlanta-based federal judge to try and quash his subpoena to testify because of legislative privilege.

next week: John Eastman and Jenna Ellis, two attorneys affiliated with the Trump campaign, will challenge their subpoenas in front of local judges in their respective home states of New Mexico and Colorado.