ATLANTA (AP) — The special grand jury in Atlanta that has been investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia has finished its work, bringing the case closer to possible criminal charges against Trump and others.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who was overseeing the panel, issued a two-page order Monday dissolving the special grand jury, saying it had completed its work and submitted a final report. The lengthy investigation has been one of several around the country that threaten legal peril for Trump as he mounts a third bid for the White House.

The decision whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury will be up to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Willis spokesperson Jeff DiSantis said the office had no comment on the completion of the panel’s work.

McBurney wrote in his order that the special grand jury recommended that its report be made public. He scheduled a hearing for Jan. 24 to determine whether all or part of the report should be released and said the district attorney’s office and news outlets would be given an opportunity to make arguments at that hearing.

Since June, the special grand jury has heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including numerous close Trump associates such as the former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani andSen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Assorted high-ranking Georgia officials have also testified, among them Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Last month, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection asserted in its final report that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. The report concluded an extraordinary 18-month investigation into the former president and the violent attack.

Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments but instead can issue a final report recommending actions to be taken.

Willis opened the investigation in early 2021, shortly after a recording surfaced of a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger. During that call, the president suggested the state’s top elections official could “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the state.

“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump had said. “Because we won the state.”

Since then it has become clear that Willis has been focusing on several different areas: phone calls made to Georgia officials by Trump and his allies; false statements made by Trump associates before Georgia legislative committees; a panel of 16 Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors; the abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021; alleged attempts to pressure a Fulton County election worker; and a breach of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county.

Lawyers for Giuliani confirmed in August that prosecutors told them he could possibly face criminal charges in the case. The 16 Republican fake electors have also been told they are targets of the investigation, according to public court filings. It is possible that others have also been notified they are targets of the investigation.

Trump and his allies have consistently denied any wrongdoing, with the former president repeatedly describing his call with Raffensperger as “perfect” and dismissing Willis’ investigation as a “strictly political Witch Hunt!”

Willis took the unusual step in January 2022 of requesting that a special grand jury be seated to aid the investigation. She noted that a special grand jury would have subpoena power which would help compel testimony from witnesses who were otherwise unwilling to participate in the investigation.

In a letter asking the court to impanel the special grand jury, Willis wrote that her office had received information indicating a “reasonable probability” that Georgia’s 2020 election, including the presidential race, “was subject to possible criminal disruptions.” Her request was granted and the special grand jury was seated in May.

The Justice Department has also been conducting a wide-ranging investigation into efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election, as well as into the fundraising practices of Trump’s political action committee.

On Monday, a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said Giuliani had received a subpoena weeks ago that sought, among other things, information about possible retainer agreements with Trump and sources of money he had received. As a lawyer for Trump, Giuliani was involved in post-election efforts to challenge the results of the presidential contest.

CNN earlier reported the subpoena.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Mentions of Donald Trump have been rare at the first few trials for people charged with storming the U.S. Capitol, but that changed Tuesday: The latest Capitol riot defendant to go on trial is blaming his actions on the former president and his false claims about a stolen election.

Dustin Byron Thompson, an Ohio man charged with stealing a coat rack from the Capitol, doesn’t deny that he joined the mob on Jan. 6, 2021. But his lawyer vowed to show that Trump abused his power to “authorize” the attack.

Describing Trump as a man without scruples or integrity, defense attorney Samuel Shamansky said the former president engaged in a “sinister” plot to encourage Thompson and other supporters to “do his dirty work.”

“It’s Donald Trump himself spewing the lies and using his position to authorize this assault,” Shamansky told jurors Tuesday during the trial’s opening statements.

Justice Department prosecutor Jennifer Rozzoni said Thompson knew he was breaking the law that day.

“He chose to be a part of the mayhem and chaos,” she said.

Thompson’s lawyer sought subpoenas to call Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as witnesses at his trial this week. A judge rejected that request but ruled that jurors can hear recordings of speeches that Trump and Giuliani delivered at a rally before the riot.

Thompson’s jury trial is the third among hundreds of Capitol riot prosecutions. The first two ended with jurors convicting both defendants on all counts with which they were charged.

In a February court filing, Shamansky said he wanted to argue at trial that Thompson was acting at the direction of Trump and “his various conspirators.” The lawyer asked to subpoena others from Trump’s inner circle, including former White House strategist Steve Bannon, former White House senior adviser Stephen Miller and former Trump lawyers John Eastman and Sidney Powell.

Prosecutors said Thompson can’t show that Trump or Giuliani had the authority to “empower” him to break the law. They also noted that video of the rally speeches “perfectly captures” the tone, delivery and context of the statements to the extent they are “marginally relevant” to proof of Thompson’s intent on Jan. 6.

Thompson’s lawyer argued that Trump would testify that he and others “ orchestrated a carefully crafted plot to call into question the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.” Shamansky claimed that Giuliani incited rioters by encouraging them to engage in “trial by combat” and that Trump provoked the mob by saying that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Shamansky said Thompson, who lost his job during the COVID-19 pandemic, became an avid consumer of the conspiracy theories and lies about a stolen election.

“This is the garbage that Dustin Thompson is listening to day after day after day,” Shamansky said. “He goes down this rabbit hole. He listens to this echo chamber. And he acts accordingly.”

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ruled in March that any in-person testimony by Trump or Giuliani could confuse and mislead jurors.

More than 770 people have been charged with federal crimes arising from Jan. 6. Over 250 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. Thompson is the fifth person to be tried on riot-related charges.

On Monday, a jury convicted a former Virginia police officer, Thomas Robertson, of storming the Capitol with another off-duty officer to obstruct Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Last month, a jury convicted a Texas man, Guy Reffitt, of storming the Capitol with a holstered handgun.

A judge hearing testimony without a jury decided cases against two other Capitol riot defendants at separate bench trials. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden acquitted one of them of all charges and partially acquitted the other.

Thompson has a co-defendant, Robert Lyon, who pleaded guilty to riot-related charges in March.

Thompson, then 36, and Lyon, then 27, drove from Columbus, Ohio, to Silver Spring, Maryland, stayed overnight at a hotel and then took an Uber ride into Washington, D.C., on the morning of Jan. 6. After then-President Donald Trump’s speech, Thompson and Lyon headed over to the Capitol.

Thompson was wearing a “Trump 2020” winter hat and a bulletproof vest when he entered the Capitol and went to the Senate Parliamentarian’s Office, where he stole two bottles of liquor and a coat rack worth up to $500, according to prosecutors.

Thompson and Lyon traded text messages during the riot.

“Some girl died already,” Lyon said in one text, an apparent reference to a law enforcement officer’s fatal shooting of a rioter, Ashli Babbitt

“Was it Pelosi?” Thompson replied.

“I’m taking our country back,” Thompson later texted Lyon.

Around 6 p.m. on Jan. 6, Thompson and Lyon were sitting on a sidewalk and waiting for an Uber driver to pick them up when Capitol police officers approached and warned them that they were in a restricted area. As they started to leave, Thompson picked up a coat rack that appeared to be from the Capitol, the FBI said. Thompson ran away when the officers told him to put down the rack, dropping it as he fled. Lyon stayed behind and identified himself and Thompson to police.

That night, Thompson received a text from his wife that said, “I will not post bail.”

The FBI said agents later searched Lyon’s cellphone and found a video that showed a ransacked office and Thompson yelling: “Wooooo! ’Merica Hey! This is our house!” A surveillance video also captured Thompson leaving a Capitol office with a bottle of bourbon, the FBI said.

Thompson is charged with six counts: obstructing Congress’ joint session to certify the Electoral College vote, theft of government property, entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.

Lyon pleaded guilty to theft of government property and disorderly conduct. Both counts are misdemeanors punishable by a maximum of 1 year imprisonment. Walton is scheduled to sentence Lyon on June 3.

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NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. judge refused to throw out Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking conviction Friday, despite a juror’s failure to disclose before the trial began that he’d been a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

Maxwell, a British socialite, was convicted in December of helping the millionaire Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse several teenage girls.

U.S. Judge Alison J. Nathan declined to order a new trial weeks after questioning the juror under oath in a New York courtroom about why he failed to disclose his personal history as an abuse survivor on a questionnaire during the jury selection process.

The juror had said he “skimmed way too fast” through the questionnaire and did not intentionally give the wrong answer to a question about sex abuse.

“I didn’t lie in order to get on this jury,” he said.

In an opinion certain to trigger a higher court appeal, Nathan said the juror’s failure to disclose his prior sexual abuse during the jury selection process was highly unfortunate, but not deliberate.

The judge also concluded the juror “harbored no bias toward the defendant and could serve as a fair and impartial juror.”

Had the juror answered the questions correctly, Maxwell’s lawyers had said they potentially could have objected to the man’s presence on the jury on the grounds that he might not be fair to a person accused of a similar crime.

The U.S. attorney’s office declined comment Friday. Messages were left with Maxwell’s attorneys.

Maxwell, 60, was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges after a monthlong trial that featured testimony from four women who said she played a role in setting them up for abuse by Epstein.

Epstein killed himself in August 2019 as he awaited trial at a federal jail in New York on related sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell says she’s innocent.

After the trial’s conclusion, the juror, identified in court papers only as Juror No. 50, gave interviews with several media outlets describing deliberations, and disclosing that he’d been abused as a child. He said he persuaded some fellow jurors that a victim’s imperfect memory of abuse doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Potential jurors in the case had been were required to fill out a 50-page questionnaire including a question that asked: “Have you or a friend or family member ever been the victim of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or sexual assault?”

The juror checked “No.”

The juror said in one of the interviews that he didn’t remember being asked that question, which was No. 48 on the form.

Defense lawyers for Maxwell asked the judge to immediately order a new trial, but she said she could not do so without questioning the juror.

After Nathan questioned the juror in early March, lawyers on both sides submitted written arguments. Prosecutors said the juror made an “honest mistake” and that it was “crystal clear” that Maxwell received a fair trial.

Maxwell’s lawyers disagreed.

“Excusing Juror 50’s false answers because he believes his concealed history of sexual abuse did not affect his ability to serve as a fair and impartial juror does not satisfy the appearance of justice,” they argued. “Only a new trial would.”

But Nathan rejected that reasoning, writing that the juror’s claims that he remained impartial toward Maxwell rang true.

When questioned about it, he answered “frankly and honestly, even when the answers he gave were the cause of personal embarrassment and regret,” she said. “His tone, demeanor and responsiveness gave no indication of false testimony.”

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A second day of jury deliberations will took place on November 20th in the trial of a convicted felon and his sidekick accused of trying to kill Riverside County sheriff’s deputies in separate attacks in San Jacinto. Andre Marsalis Sanchez, 27, and David Alexander Almeras, 25, could each face life in prison on charges stemming from the 2015 attacks.
Almeras is charged with attempted murder of a peace officer, carjacking, shooting at an occupied vehicle, assault with a firearm, possession of an assault rifle and a sentence-enhancing allegation of criminal street gang activity.

Sanchez is charged with two counts each of attempted murder of a peace officer and assault with a firearm, as well as one count of shooting at an occupied vehicle, possession of an assault weapon and a sentence-enhancing gang allegation.

The prosecution and defense made their closing arguments Tuesday morning at the Banning Justice Center, after which Riverside County Superior Court Judge Sam Shouka sent jurors behind closed doors to begin weighing testimony from the three-week trial.
The defendants are each being held in lieu of $1 million bail at separate detention facilities.
According to sheriff’s investigators, on the morning of April 11, 2015, Almeras carjacked a San Jacinto man at knifepoint, taking his Toyota sedan. Sanchez jumped in the car while the victim ran to call 911, investigators said.

Shortly after 11 p.m., a deputy patrolling the area of De Anza Road and Palm Avenue spotted the stolen Toyota and immediately began a pursuit, signaling the driver to pull over, according to Deputy District Attorney Lorie Ronce, who spoke to City News Service after the men’s 2016 preliminary hearing. The prosecutor said detectives learned later that, by the time of the chase, Sanchez was driving the vehicle and was evidently alone.

“During the attempted traffic stop, the defendant stopped the car and opened fire on the deputy pursuing him,” Ronce said. “Based on the evidence, it’s believed that (Sanchez) fired 13 rounds from an AK-47.” The deputy ducked for cover and was struck by flying glass from the patrol car’s windshield but was not hit by a bullet.

The patrol unit was disabled, and the pursuit was terminated. The Toyota was located less than an hour later, wrecked outside a residence, but there was no sign of the assailant.
Two days later, Almeras and Sanchez were allegedly spotted in a Dodge pickup truck, blowing through stop signs near San Jacinto in the late-night hours, according to sheriff’s investigators.

A deputy signaled the men to stop along Summerchase Road, but the pair
sped away, investigators alleged. “During the pursuit, the deputy heard four volleys of gunfire,” Ronce said. “He began a snaking maneuver and increased his unit’s distance from the truck to prevent being struck.”

Ronce said the pickup went onto the Soboba Indian Reservation, where Almeras then lived.
A sheriff’s helicopter crew was able to take over the pursuit and watched as the defendants abandoned the truck and hopped into a car driven by an unidentified accomplice, who drove them back off the reservation, according to the prosecution. Investigators said the chopper crew followed the car to the intersection of Jordan and Second streets, where the defendants allegedly bailed out and fled into a home.
Deputies surrounded the property a short time later and negotiated the men’s peaceful surrender.

According to Ronce, the pair were allegedly in possession of a .223 semi-automatic rifle and a 20-gauge pump shotgun. The rifle was allegedly used to fire at the pursuing patrolman. Sanchez has a prior felony conviction, though court documents did not specify the nature of the offense. Almeras has multiple unrelated misdemeanor and felony cases pending.

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Last month, the same jury convicted Villanueva of two counts of first-degree murder and found true a special circumstance allegation of taking multiple lives, making the defendant eligible for a death sentence.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Mac Fisher scheduled a sentencing hearing for Sept. 20 at the Riverside Hall of Justice.

According to prosecutors, the 6-foot, 2-inch, the 300-pound defendant had been in a relationship with Barrasa in the late 1990s, and in the fall of 2015, he persuaded her to join him at his brother’s residence in Salida, Northern California.
Deputy District Attorney Anthony Orlando said the defendant and Barrasa lived together at the property over the ensuing six months, and during that time, Villanueva became abusive, inflicting injuries to the victim’s arms and legs and cutting away some of her hair.
Barrasa left the property at the end of April 2016, heading to Fontana to stay with a friend. Within a week of her leaving, Villanueva went searching for the victim and arrived in the Inland Empire on May 7.

Several days later, he located Barrasa at her friend’s residence. “The defendant expressed that Barrasa had his heart, which Barrasa responded to by laughing,”
Orlando said.

“However, Barrasa seemed happy after talking with the defendant.”
Despite being happy to see him, the victim told friends that she was concerned about Villanueva’s behavior, and at least one witness recalled the woman hesitating to get into his car on the night of May 11, 2016, according to the prosecutor.

Shortly before 2 a.m. on May 12, Barrasa’s body was located in Villanueva’s sedan, which appeared to have crashed on eastbound Interstate 10, near Tipton Road, in Whitewater. She had been stabbed 34 times with a screwdriver, with the wounds, patterned like an X across her upper body, according to Orlando.

California Highway Patrol officers encountered Villanueva a quarter-mile west of the scene, walking in the freeway center median. When they attempted to question him, the defendant took off running and resisted officers when they caught up to him, prompting them to deploy a Taser to gain control and handcuff him.

Villanueva was immediately jailed and charged with Barrasa’s murder. He was paired with Carlin in Housing Unit 17 at the Smith Correctional Facility.
Other inmates described Villanueva as extremely moody and sometimes physically aggressive — a deep contrast with Carlin, who was “Happy-go-lucky” and generally liked by the men in his cell block, according to a trial brief prepared by the prosecution.

One inmate told sheriff’s investigators that in the days leading up to Carlin’s murder, Villanueva had suggested his cellmate was a child molester, even though the elder man was charged with felonious assault and making criminal threats — not sexual offenses. Villanueva also conveyed to the same inmate that he wanted to “choke” Carlin.

The prosecutor said that on the afternoon of Sept. 17, 2016, Villanueva knotted a bed sheet and used it to strangle the victim, trying to make it appear as though the senior had hung himself while sitting on the bedside commode.
Villanueva was charged with the murder and was relocated to a high-security unit at the Riverside jail.

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