Participants in an interfaith memorial ceremony enter the New Mexico Islamic Center mosque to commemorate four murdered Muslim men, hours after police said they had arrested a prime suspect in the killings, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US August 9, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Hay
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ALBUQUERQUE, NM, Aug 10 (Reuters) – Muslims in New Mexico interviewed on Wednesday said they felt shock and shame at the arrest of a Muslim immigrant from Afghanistan in connection with the murders of four Muslim men.
Police on Tuesday said they detained 51-year-old Muhammad Syed. A motive for the killings remains unclear, but police said he may have acted on personal grudges, possibly with intra-Muslim sectarian overtones.
Syed denied being involved with any of the four killings when questioned by police, according to the New York Times.
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“We’re in complete total disbelief. Speechless. You know, kind of embarrassed to say he was one of our own,” said Mula Akbar, an Afghan-American businessman who said he had helped Syed settle in the city.
“His hatred of Shi’ites might have had something to do with it,” Akbar said.
Syed was from the Sunni branch of Islam and prayed together at Albuquerque’s Islamic Center of New Mexico (ICNM) mosque with most of the victims, three of whom were from the Shi’ite branch of Islam. All four victims were of Afghan or Pakistani descent. One was killed in November, the other three in the last two weeks.
Syed, who made his first appearance in court Wednesday, was formally charged with killing Aftab Hussein, 41, on July 26 and Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, on Aug. 1.
Police said on Tuesday they were working with prosecutors on potential charges for the murders of Naeem Hussain, 25, a truck driver killed on Friday, and Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, shot dead on Nov. 7, 2021, outside the grocery store he ran with his brother in southeast Albuquerque.
It was not immediately clear if Syed had retained a lawyer.
Police declined to comment on rumors Syed was angry one of his daughters had eloped and married a Shi’ite man.
The daughter told CNN that her husband was friends with two of the men who were killed, Aftab Hussein and Naeem Hussain. The woman, who CNN did not name out of concern for her safety, said her father was not happy when she married in 2018 but had become accepting more recently.
“My father is not a person who can kill somebody. My father has always talked about peace. That’s why we are here in the United States. We came from Afghanistan, from fighting, from shooting,” she told CNN.
Palestinian-American Samia Assed said the Muslim community of around 4,000 in Albuquerque had worked to do to prevent violence they left behind in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“This took me back to 9/11 when I just wanted to hide under a rock,” said the human rights activist after she hosted an interfaith memorial at the ICNM, Albuquerque’s oldest and largest mosque.
“For this to happen it’s like setting us back 100 years,” she said.
The mosque is nonsectarian, serves mainly Sunnis from over 30 countries and has never before experienced violence of this kind, according to congregants interviewed by Reuters.
Syed is a truck driver, has six children, is from Pashtun ethnicity and arrived in the United States as a refugee about six years ago from Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, said Akbar, a former US diplomat who worked on Afghan issues and helped found the Afghan Society of New Mexico.
Syed developed a record of criminal misdemeanors over the last three or four years, including a case of domestic violence, police said.
Video from February 2020 showed him slashing the tires of a vehicle at the ICNM believed to be owned by the family of the first known victim, Ahmadi, according to the mosque’s president, attorney Ahmad Assed.
“We’re in a surreal time trying to make sense of these senseless killings we’ve suffered,” he said.
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Reporting by Andrew Hay in Albuquerque; Editing by Donna Bryson, Howard Goller and Rosalba O’Brien
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ALBUQUERQUE, NM, Aug 9 (Reuters) – A Muslim immigrant from Afghanistan has been arrested as the prime suspect in the serial killings of four Muslim men that rattled the Islamic community of New Mexico’s largest city, police said on Tuesday.
After days bolstering security around Albuquerque-area mosques, seeking to allay fears of a shooter driven by anti-Muslim hate, police said on Tuesday they had arrested 51-year-old Muhammad Syed, one among the city’s Islamic immigrant community.
Authorities said the killings may have been rooted in a personal grudge, possibly with intra-Muslim sectarian overtones.
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All four victims were of Afghan or Pakistani descent. One was killed in November, and the other three in the last two weeks.
A search of the suspect’s Albuquerque home uncovered “evidence that shows the offender knew the victims to some extent, and an inter-personal conflict may have led to the shootings,” police said in a statement announcing the arrest.
Investigators are still piecing together motives for the killings of the four men, Deputy Commander Kyle Hartsock of the Albuquerque Police Department said at a news conference.
In response to reporters’ questions, Hartsock said sectarian animus by the suspect toward his fellow Muslim victims may have played a role in the violence. “But we’re not really clear if that was the actual motive, or if it was part of a motive, or if there is just a bigger picture that we’re missing,” he said.
Syed has a record of criminal misdemeanors in the United States, including a case of domestic violence, over the last three or four years, Hartsock said.
Police credited scores of tips from the public in helping investigators locate a car that detectives believed was used in at least one of the killings and ultimately track down the man they called their “primary suspect” in all four slayings.
Syed was formally charged with two of the homicides: those of Aftab Hussein, 41, and Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, killed on July 26 and Aug. 1, respectively, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina told the briefing.
Participants in an interfaith memorial ceremony enter the New Mexico Islamic Center mosque to commemorate four murdered Muslim men, hours after police said they had arrested a prime suspect in the killings, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US August 9, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Hay
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The latest victim, Nayeem Hussain, 25, a truck driver who became a US citizen on July 8, was killed on Friday, hours after attending the burial of the two men slain in July and August, both of them of Pakistani descent.
The three most recent victims all attended the Islamic Center of New Mexico, Albuquerque’s largest mosque. They were all shot near Central Avenue in southeastern Albuquerque.
The first known victim, Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, a native of Afghanistan, was killed on Nov. 7, 2021, while smoking a cigarette outside a grocery store and cafe that he ran with his brother in the southeastern part of the city.
BULLET CASINGS
Police said the two killings with which Syed was initially charged were tied together based on bullet casings found at the two murder scenes, and the gun used in those shootings was later found in his home.
According to police, detectives were preparing to search Syed’s residence in southeastern Albuquerque on Monday when he drove from the residence in the car that investigators had identified to the public a day earlier as a “vehicle of interest.”
Albuquerque and state authorities have been working to provide extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer as the investigation proceeded in the city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of a total population of 565,000.
The ambush-style shootings of the men have terrified Albuquerque’s Muslim community. Families went into hiding in their homes, and some Pakistani students at the University of New Mexico left town out of fear.
Imtiaz Hussain, whose brother worked as a city planning director and was killed on Aug. 1, said news of the arrest reassured many in the Muslim community.
“My kids asked me, ‘Can we sit on our balcony now?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ and they said, ‘Can we go out and play now?’ and I said, ‘Yes,'” he said.
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Reporting by Andrew Hay in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Rami Ayyub in Washington; Tyler Clifford in New York and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Cynthia Osterman, Daniel Wallis and Raju Gopalakrishnan
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WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday tried to turn the news that the FBI had searched his Florida estate to his benefit, citing the investigation in text messages and emails soliciting political donations from his supporters.
The unprecedented search marked a significant escalation of the federal investigation continues into whether Trump illegally removed records from the White House as he was leaving office in January 2021. Trump to publicly flirt with running again for president in 2024 but has not said clearly whether he will do so
Trump tried to paint the search of his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach as a politically motivated move by President Joe Biden’s administration even as the former president plays a key role in Republican primaries ahead of the November midterm elections that will determine control of the US Congress.
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“They are trying to stop the Republican Party and me once more,” Trump said in a fundraising email on Tuesday. “The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt, must be exposed and stopped.”
Trump launched his Save America political action committee days after losing the 2020 election to Biden. It has more than $100 million in the bank, a formidable war chest. read more
His Republican allies in Congress vowed to launch an investigation of the search itself if they recapture control of the House or Senate in November. House Republicans including Representative Jim Banks were set to meet with Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club on Tuesday. read more
The Justice Department and FBI have declined to comment on or even confirm the search, which Trump disclosed in a statement on Monday.
‘WITHERING SCRUTINY’
The FBI could not have conducted the search without the approval of a judge who confirmed there was probable cause. The request almost certainly also would be approved by FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, and his boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, who was appointed by Biden.
A White House official said Biden was not given advance notice of the search.
“This search warrant in my estimation probably underwent more withering scrutiny than any search warrant in the history of the Department of Justice,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who oversaw prosecutions of national security offenses.
A view of former US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home after Trump said that FBI agents raided it, in Palm Beach, Florida, US August 9, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello
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The FBI earlier this year visited Trump’s property to investigate boxes in a locked storage room, according to a person familiar with the visit. FBI agents and a Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, spent a day reviewing materials, the source said.
Corcoran did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The search is only an investigative step and does not mean that Trump will face automatically criminal charges, or that he would be found guilty of any wrongdoing.
It is a criminal offense to conceal or destroy government records. Any person convicted of violating a US law called the Government Records Act would be barred from holding federal office and would face a prison term of up to three years.
Legal experts said it is unclear if the disqualification provision is constitutional. The US Constitution sets forth the qualifications for being a president, senator or US representative. Previous Supreme Court rulings have held that Congress cannot limit the list of eligible officeholders.
That means if Trump were to be convicted, he would likely challenge any attempt to disqualify him from serving in office again, perhaps to a US Supreme Court whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices he appointed.
“It is not certain that the bar set forth in the Government Records Act is constitutional,” said Mitchell Epner, a lawyer at the firm Rottenberg Lipman Rich and former federal prosecutor. “It is absolutely there and it would be in all likelihood something that would end up being litigated.”
The documents probe is one of several investigations that have focused on Trump since he left office, weeks after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an unsuccessful bid to overturn his election loss. Trump continues to falsely claim that the election was stolen through widespread voting fraud. read more
Trump remains the Republican Party’s most influential voice, though recent polling shows Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rising in stature as a potential 2024 candidate.
But Trump has weathered many political scandals and observers said this FBI search could bolster his standing with Republican voters.
“The Biden administration is only adding rocket fuel to Trump’s campaign prospects and energizing his supporters who want him to run again,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist in Washington. “There should be more transparency around the decision to have this FBI raid because it looks overly political and allows Trump to say he’s being unfairly attacked.”
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Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York, additional reporting by Brian Ellsworth, Jim Oliphant, Luc Cohen, David Morgan and Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Alistair Bell
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Aug 8 (Reuters) – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is alleging that her Republican political opponent in the November elections orchestrated a conspiracy with a state lawmaker and a lawyer to break into voting equipment in a hunt for evidence to prove former president Donald Trump’s false voter -fraud claims.
The charge that Nessel’s Republican challenger, Matt DePerno, was involved in a potential felony is outlined in a petition filed by Nessel, a Democrat, seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor to continue the investigation. The petition notes that DePerno has emerged as “one of the prime instigators of the conspiracy,” creating a conflict of interest for her office de ella to take the case further.
Reuters exclusively reported on Sunday that DePerno led a team that gained unauthorized access to voting equipment in Richfield Township. The news organization linked the Trump-backed Republican candidate to the incident by matching the serial number on the compromised machine to a photograph in a report submitted by DePerno in a failed lawsuit alleging voter fraud.
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The Richfield tabulator is among five such machines that the attorney general said were accessed without authorization, including a separate incident in Roscommon County and other breaches in Missaukee County’s Lake Township and Barry County’s Irving Township. The incidents occurred between early March and late June of 2021, the attorney general said.
DePerno did not respond to requests for comment, but said on Twitter that Nessel’s investigation was politically motivated. His tweet from him included a fundraising plea for donations to help him “fight back.”
“My opponent called for me to be arrested for the ‘crime’ of investigating voter fraud in 2020,” DePerno said in a tweet. His campaign called Nessel’s actions “unethical” in a statement.
Nessel declined a request for an interview and her communications director, Amber McCann, did not answer questions about when DePerno became a suspect in his investigation and why the office did not request a special prosecutor earlier. McCann said in a statement that the office “reviews facts and follows evidence” during investigations.
It remains unclear when the conflict of interest emerged. DePerno announced his candidacy against Nessel in July 2021 and received the Republican Party’s endorsement in April. Nessel announced her investigation into voting breaches in February.
The investigation into a Republican attorney general candidate in a voting-system breach comes amid a national effort by backers of Trump’s stolen-election falsehoods to win state offices that could prove critical in deciding any future contested elections.
Nessel’s petition says DePerno plotted to illegally access voting equipment with Republican State Rep. Daire Rendon and Stefanie Lambert, a lawyer who helped high-profile Trump allies file an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to overturn Michigan’s election results. The trio “orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators” in three township offices and a county office, the petition said. In one case, Rendon allegedly told the Roscommon County clerk, falsely, that the state House of Representatives was conducting an investigation into election fraud.
The machines were taken to “hotels and/or AIRBNB’s” in Oakland County, in metropolitan Detroit. There, technical experts “broke into the tabulators and performed ‘tests’ on the equipment,” the petition says. In at least one instance, the petition notes, DePerno “was present at a hotel room during such ‘testing.’”
Rendon and Lambert did not respond to requests for comment.
The attorney general’s petition listed a series of crimes for potential prosecution, including malicious destruction of property, fraudulent access to a computer, and conspiracy. A conspiracy charge could be punished with up to five years in prison under Michigan state law.
The attorney general’s petition said her office had sought approval for criminal charges from the state Criminal Trials and Appeals Division. The office asked that a special prosecutor take over the handling of that request and any subsequent prosecutions. The Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, an autonomous entity within the attorney general’s office, will decide if a special prosecutor is warranted.
Nessel’s petition also names Dar Leaf, the sheriff in rural Barry County, as a participant in the scheme, alleging that he asked the Irving Township clerk to cooperate with “investigators” involved in the conspiracy. In a story last month, Reuters detailed the alleged involvement of Leaf, a far-right backer of Trump’s stolen-election falsehoods and a prominent figure in the extremist “constitutional sheriffs” movement. He said in an interview that no one in his department was involved in taking the tabulator and that he did not authorize anyone to do so.
Leaf did not respond to a request for comment on Nessel’s allegations.
The technical team that examined the voting equipment removed from government offices included James Penrose, a former analyst for the National Security Agency who has assisted prominent Trump allies in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, the attorney general’s petition said. It also included Doug Logan, head of Cyber Ninjas, the now-defunct company hired to do a widely criticized partisan audit of the 2020 voting results in Maricopa County, Arizona. Others involved in examining the machines were Jeff Lenberg, a computer security consultant, and Ben Cotton, founder of the digital forensics firm CyFIR LLC.
Penrose, Lenbert and Cotton all worked with DePerno on his lawsuit alleging election fraud in Michigan’s Antrim County. None responded to requests for comments. Logan also did not respond to a request for comment.
Nessel’s petition names all four members of the technical team as targets for possible charges, along with DePerno, Rendon, Lambert and Leaf, the Barry County sheriff. Another person named as a target is Ann Howard, a Michigan lawyer who allegedly coordinated the printing of fake ballots to be run through the tabulators during their examination of her.
Howard declined to comment.
Nessel’s allegations mark a dramatic turn in an investigation that the attorney general launched in February at the request of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, who had received information on at least two of the breaches. Benson, a Democrat, said in a statement to Reuters: “There must be consequences for those who broke the law to undermine our elections in order to advance their own political agendas.”
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Reporting by Peter Eisler and Nathan Layne; edited by Brian Thevenot
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Aug 7 (Reuters) – The Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general led a team that gained unauthorized access to voting equipment while hunting for evidence to support former President Donald Trump’s false election-fraud claims, according to a Reuters analysis of court filings and public records .
The analysis shows that people working with Matthew DePerno – the Trump-endorsed nominee for the state’s top law-enforcement post – examined a vote tabulator from Richfield Township, a conservative stronghold of 3,600 people in northern Michigan’s Roscommon County.
The Richfield security breach is one of four similar incidents being investigated by Michigan’s current attorney general, Democrat Dana Nessel. Under state law, it is a felony to seek or provide unauthorized access to voting equipment.
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DePerno did not respond to a request for comment.
The involvement of a Republican attorney general nominee in a voting-system breach comes amid a national effort by backers of Trump’s fraud falsehoods to win state offices that could prove critical in deciding any future contested elections.
In Arizona last week, three Trump-backed candidates who claim the 2020 election was stolen won Republican primary elections for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, the top official overseeing elections. In Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano has vowed to decertify any election he considers fraudulent through his appointed secretary of state. Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania are all presidential election battlegrounds.
Trump lavished praise on DePerno before a large audience this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas. “He’s going to make sure that you are going to have law and order and fair elections,” Trump said, pumping his fist as DePerno stood up in the audience and waved. “That’s an important race.”
Reuters established the connection between Michigan’s DePerno and the Richfield voting-system breach by matching the serial number of the township’s tabulator to a photograph in a publicly released report written by a member of DePerno’s team. The photograph showed a printed record of a vote-tabulator’s activity, which also included a string of ten digits. Reuters confirmed that those numbers matched the serial number of a Richfield vote tabulator through public records obtained from the township. State officials had previously identified Richfield as the site of a voting-equipment security breach.
DePerno had submitted the report as evidence in a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in a different Michigan county, Antrim. The report claimed that Dominion and ES&S election equipment was vulnerable to hacking and vote-rigging.
Reuters asked an election-security expert to review the materials. Kevin Skoglund, president and chief technologist for the nonpartisan Citizens for Better Elections, an election-security advocacy organization, said the matching numbers indicate that DePerno’s team had access to the Richfield Township tabulator or its data drives.
DePerno led the “Michigan Antrim County Election Lawsuit & Investigation Team,” which included himself, Detroit attorney Stefanie Lambert, private investigator Michael Lynch, and James Penrose, a former analyst for the National Security Agency, according to promotional material for a July 2021 fundraising event in California sponsored by a conservative group that advertised appearances by DePerno’s team members Penrose, who had assisted other prominent Trump allies in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, authored the report that Reuters tied to a tabulator involved in the Richfield Township security breach.
Lambert, Lynch and Penrose did not respond to requests for comment.
The previously unreported link to GOP attorney general candidate DePerno and his associates comes as Democratic incumbent Nessel advances her probe, which she launched in February 2022. Nessel is seeking re-election, which would create a conflict of interest if her political opponent became a suspect in her office’s investigation.
The attorney general’s office declined to comment on the specifics of its investigation but said Nessel would “take appropriate steps to remove herself and her department should a conflict arise.”
Those steps include requesting a special prosecutor to look into the election breaches, according to a letter from the attorney general advising the secretary of state of the request. The request was sent to the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, an autonomous entity within the attorney general’s office that would decide whether a special prosecutor is warranted.
Nessel’s office started investigating the voting-system security breaches after a request from Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. In a February statement, Benson said that “at least one unnamed third party” had gained access to tabulation machines and data drives from Richfield Township and Roscommon County.
Jake Rollow, a spokesperson for the secretary of state, said the office does not believe DePerno’s team had legal approval to access ES&S voting equipment. Rollow declined to comment further on the attorney general’s investigation but emphasized its importance. “To ensure Michigan’s elections are secure in the future, there must be consequences now for the people who illegally accessed the state’s voting machines,” he said.
ES&S did not respond to requests for comment.
SEIZING ON A GLITCH
Voting and vote-counting equipment is subject to strict chain-of-custody requirements to ensure accuracy and guard against fraud. Access to tabulators is tightly restricted, and any machine compromised by an unauthorized person is typically taken out of commission.
The four cases being investigated by Nessel are among at least 17 incidents identified by Reuters nationwide in which Trump supporters gained or attempted to gain unauthorized access to voting equipment. Michigan accounts for 11 of them, reflecting how conspiracy theorists sought to capitalize on an error in the initial reporting of 2020 results in Antrim County to allege widespread fraud in the state, without evidence.
A state review of the Antrim County incident found that a failure to properly update software caused a computer glitch that resulted in county officials initially reporting Joe Biden as the winner of the reliably Republican county. The officials quickly acknowledged and corrected the mistake, and Trump’s victory was affirmed by a hand tally of every vote cast.
DePerno seized on the confusion, filing a lawsuit making the unfounded claim that tabulators made by Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems had been rigged to flip votes from Trump to Biden in Antrim County.
“No evidence of machine fraud or manipulation in the 2020 election has ever been presented in Michigan or any other state, and courts in Michigan and elsewhere have dismissed such claims as baseless,” Dominion spokesman Tony Fratto said.
In early December 2020, 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer granted DePerno’s legal team permission to take forensic images of Antrim County voting equipment to search for evidence of election fraud. The court order was limited to Antrim, where only Dominion equipment was used. The order did not extend to other jurisdictions or machines made by other voting-system providers.
Yet DePerno’s team submitted two reports in April 2021 to the court that revealed they had also examined equipment made by Election Systems & Software (ES&S).
The report written by Penrose, dated April 9, contained a photograph of a “summary tape” with information about a tabulator’s activity on election night, such as when results were submitted to the county. Among other things, the tape showed a sequence of figures: 0317350497.
That is the serial number for one of two ES&S DS200 tabulators Richfield Township used during the 2020 vote, according to copies of documents obtained by Reuters through a public-records request.
Skoglund, the election-security specialist consulted by Reuters, said the matching numbers indicate that the report’s author had access to either Richfield’s tabulator or a data drive containing the results and other information on the machine.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the Penrose photograph is output from that same DS200 — that he had physical hands-on access,” Skoglund told Reuters.
A second person familiar with the workings of ES&S voting equipment examined the records obtained by Reuters and concurred that the tabulator tape shown in the Penrose report matches the machine with the same serial number.
MORE MACHINES
The Penrose report was part of a series of submissions from DePerno’s team that failed to convince Judge Elsenheimer. At an April 12, 2021 hearing, the judge shut down DePerno’s attempt to subpoena several Michigan counties for access to election data and equipment.
DePerno gave an interview later the same day to two right-wing websites, Gateway Pundit and 100 Percent Fed Up. DePerno said that Penrose had examined an ES&S machine. I added that the team had also looked at Dominion equipment “outside of Antrim County.” The attorney said he didn’t consider Elsenheimer’s ruling a dead-end.
“Maybe there will be some county somewhere that decides to come forward and cooperate. That would be nice,” DePerno told the websites.
In reality, DePerno’s associates had already taken possession of voting machines from local officials in Richfield Township in Roscommon County and Lake Township in Missaukee County, according to police records and text messages acquired through public records requests.
Lynch, the private investigator who worked with DePerno on his Antrim county case, exchanged texts with Lake Township clerk Korinda Winkelmann on March 20, 2021. Lynch asked for help accessing a Dominion device she had provided to him, according to the messages, obtained by Reuters through a public-records requests. Winkelman shared with Lynch an operational manual and a password for the device, while also speculating on how election systems might be rigged.
Lynch had no authorization to examine the machine, and the incident remains under state investigation. Winkelmann did not respond to requests for comment.
Elsenheimer dismissed the Antrim suit in May 2021, a decision that was affirmed this year by the Michigan Court of Appeals. DePerno’s fraud claims have been widely debunked. A Republican-led Michigan Senate committee issued a scathing report in June 2021 that called DePerno’s various allegations “demonstrably false.”
In September 2021, Trump endorsed DePerno as the Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general, praising his pursuit of “fair and accurate elections” and his ongoing effort to “reveal the truth about the Nov. 3 presidential election scam.”
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Reporting by Nathan Layne; additional reporting by Peter Eisler; edited by Brian Thevenot
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott holds a news conference with state agencies and local officials at Uvalde High School, three days after a gunman killed nineteen children and two adults in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, US May 27, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello
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NEW YORK, Aug 5 (Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Friday he has started to send buses carrying migrants to New York City in an effort to push responsibility for border crossers to Democratic mayors and US President Joe Biden, to Democrat.
The first bus arrived early on Friday at the city’s Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan. Volunteers were putting groups of migrants in taxis headed to a nearby intake center, where they said some would be processed for admission to city homeless shelters.
Abbott, who is running for a third term as governor in November elections, has sent more than 6,000 migrants to Washington since April in a broader effort to combat illegal immigration and call out Biden for his more welcoming policies. read more
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Abbott said New York City Mayor Eric Adams could provide services and housing for the new arrivals.
“I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief,” Abbott said in a statement.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, another Republican, has followed Abbott’s lead and bused another 1,000 to Washington.
US border authorities have made record numbers of arrests under Biden although many are repeat crossers. Some migrants who are not able to be expelled quickly to Mexico or their home countries under a COVID-era policy are allowed into the United States, often to pursue asylum claims in US immigration court.
New York City Mayor Adams’ office has in recent weeks criticized the bussing efforts to Washington, saying some migrants were making their way to New York City and overwhelming its homeless shelter system.
On Friday the mayor’s Press Secretary Fabien Levy said Abbott was using “human beings as political pawns,” calling it “a disgusting, and an embarrassing stain on the state of Texas.”
Levy said New York would continue to “welcome asylum seekers with open arms, as we always have, but we are asking for resources to help do so,” calling for support from federal officials.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has also said her city’s shelter system has been taxed by migrant arrivals and last month called on the Biden administration to deploy military troops to assist with receiving the migrants, a request that has frustrated White House officials. read more
A US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had declined a request for the DC National Guard to help with the transportation and reception of migrants in the city because it would hurt the troops’ readiness.
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Reporting by Sofia Ahmed in New York and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Daniel Wallis
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Aug 5 (Reuters) – Lawyers for parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting began presenting evidence on Alex Jones’s wealth as they seek punitive damages on top of $4.1 million awarded by a Texas jury for the US conspiracy theorist’s false claims that the massacre was a hoax.
Forensic economist Bernard Pettingill on Friday testified on behalf of the parents of slain 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, who say they suffered years of harassment after Jones spread falsehoods about the killing of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012.
“He promulgated some hate speech and some misinformation but he made a lot of money and he monetized that,” Pettingill said, describing Jones as a “very successful man.”
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A 12-person jury on Thursday said Jones must pay the parents $4.1 million in compensatory damages for spreading conspiracy theories about the massacre. That verdict followed a two-week trial in Austin, Texas, where Jones’ radio show and webcast Infowars are based.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis testified that Jones’ followers harassed them for years in the false belief that the parents lied about their son’s death.
Jones sought to distance himself from the conspiracy theories during his testimony, apologizing to the parents and acknowledging that Sandy Hook was “100% real.”
Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems LLC, declared bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals.
The bankruptcy declaration paused a similar defamation suit by Sandy Hook parents in Connecticut where, as in Texas, he has already been found liable.
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Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Howard Goller and Mark Porter
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WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) – US prosecutors on Thursday charged four current and former Louisville, Kentucky, police officers for their roles in the botched 2020 raid that killed Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was in her home, in a case that sparked nationwide protests.
The charges represented the Justice Department’s latest effort to crack down on abuses and racial disparities in policing, following a wave of controversial police killings of Black Americans.
Former Louisville Metropolitan Police Department Detective Joshua Jaynes and current Sergeant Kyle Meany were charged with civil rights violations and obstruction of justice for using false information to obtain the search warrant that authorized the botched March 13, 2020, raid that killed Taylor in her home, the Justice Department said. Current Detective Kelly Goodlett was charged with conspiring with Jaynes to falsify the warrant and then cover up the falsification.
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A fourth officer, former Detective Brett Hankison, was charged with civil rights violations for allegedly using excessive force, US Attorney Merrick Garland said.
“Breonna Taylor should be alive today,” Garland told a news conference. “The Justice Department is committed to defending and protecting the civil rights of every person in this country. That was this department’s founding purpose, and it remains our urgent mission.”
The death of Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was one in a trio of cases that fueled a summer of protests against racial injustice and police violence two years ago, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Today was a huge step toward justice,” lawyers for the Taylor family said in a statement following the news.
Louisville police on Thursday began the process of firing Meany and Goodlett, the department said in a statement. Hankison and Jaynes were previously fired by the department.
The Justice Department is also conducting an investigation into whether the Louisville Metro Government and Louisville police engaged in a pattern or practice of abusing residents’ civil rights.
Protesters celebrate after the announcement that the FBI arrested and brought civil rights charges against four current and former Louisville police officers for their roles in the 2020 fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, in Louisville, Kentucky, US, August 4, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud
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NO KNOCK RAID
Louisville police were investigating alleged drug trafficking when they broke down the door of Taylor’s home in a “no-knock” raid, leading her boyfriend, who was carrying a legally owned firearm, to shoot at the officers, who then fired 22 shots into the apartment, killing Taylor, prosecutors said.
Hankison, prosecutors said, moved away from the door, firing 10 shots into Taylor’s apartment through a window and a glass door that were covered with blinds and curtains.
Hankison told a Kentucky grand jury that he opened fire once the shooting started. As he saw flashes light up the room, he said, he mistakenly believed one of the occupants was firing an assault-style rifle at his colleagues from him. Instead, mostly what he heard was other police firing their weapons. read more
Prosecutors said Jaynes and Goodlett met in a garage days after the shooting to agree on a false story to cover for the false evidence they had submitted to justify the botched raid.
Lawyer Stew Mathews, who represented Hankison at a trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court where he was acquitted in March of wanton endangerment, said he had spoken Thursday morning with the former detective as he was on his way to surrender to the FBI.
Mathews said the federal charges looked similar to the previous state charges Hankison had faced. Until Thursday, Hankison had been the only officer to face charges in connection with the raid.
“I’m sure Brett will be contesting this just like he did the other indication,” Mathews said.
Lawyer Thomas Clay, who represents Jaynes, could not be immediately reached for comment. It was not immediately clear if Meany and Goodlett had attorneys.
The killing of Taylor, along with other high-profile 2020 killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, sparked nationwide protests.
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Reporting by Scott Malone in Washington and Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Marla Dickerson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Aug 4 (Reuters) – A Texas judge denied Alex Jones’s motion for a mistrial on Thursday as jury deliberations summarized in a defamation case over the US conspiracy theorist’s false claims about the Sandy Hook mass shooting.
The mistrial request followed the disclosure during the two-week-long trial that Jones’s lawyer accidentally sent two years of the US conspiracy theorist’s text messages to the plaintiffs.
Federico Andino Reynal, an attorney for Jones, told Judge Maya Guerra Gamble that attorneys for the plaintiffs should have immediately destroyed the records. An attorney for the parents, Mark Bankston, used the texts to undercut Jones’ testimony during cross-examination on Wednesday.
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Jones, founder of the Infowars radio show and webcast, is on trial to determine the amount of damages he owes for spreading falsehoods about the killing of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012 .
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of slain six-year-old Jesse Lewis, are seeking as much as $150 million from Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems LLC, for what their lawyer has called a “vile campaign of defamation.”
Heslin told jurors on Tuesday that Jones’ falsehoods had made his life “hell” and led to a campaign of harassment and death threats against him by people who believed he lied about his son’s death.
Jones previously claimed that the mainstream media and gun-control activists conspired to fabricate the Sandy Hook tragedy and that the shooting was staged using crisis actors.
Jones, who later acknowledged that the shooting took place, told the Austin jury on Wednesday that it was “100% real.”
Gamble issued a rare default judgment against Jones in the case in 2021.
Free Speech Systems declared bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast of Infowars that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals.
Jones faces a similar defamation suit in Connecticut state court, where he has also been found liable in a default judgment.
The Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, 20, used a Remington Bushmaster rifle to carry out the massacre. It ended when Lanza killed himself with the approaching sound of police sirens.
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Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Amy Stevens and Howard Goller
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
