Minnesota
Prosecutors say man accused of hiding stolen ruby slippers is dead
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A federal judge dismissed the charges Monday against a Minnesota man accused of hiding a stolen pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in the 1939 musical “The Wizard of Oz” after prosecutors informed the court that he died on Sunday.
Jerry Hal Saliterman, 77, of Crystal, who had been in poor health with lung disease and other ailments, had been scheduled to change his plea to guilty in January but that hearing was postponed indefinitely after he was hospitalized.
Federal prosecutor Matthew Greenley notified the court in a one-page motion Monday that Saliterman died Sunday but did not say how or where. U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz granted the request and dropped the charges.
Defense attorney John Brink confirmed Monday that his client had died but declined to give details. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Fargo, North Dakota, which is handling the case, did not immediately return a phone call seeking further information.
According to court filings, Saliterman was hospitalized in early January “for inability to walk and sepsis,” an infection that can be life-threatening. He attended his arraignment three days later via video from what looked like a hospital room. In an update to the court late last month, Brink told the court that his client had been discharged to a hospice facility and that his prognosis was poor. An accompanying letter from his doctor listed severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease requiring supplemental oxygen and Parkinson’s disease.
Saliterman was in a wheelchair and on oxygen last March when he made his first court appearance. He was charged then with theft of a major artwork and witness tampering for his role in the ruby slippers case.
The sequined red slippers were stolen in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids. Their whereabouts remained a mystery for nearly 13 years until the FBI recovered them in 2018. They fetched a record for movie memorabilia of $32.5 million in December, according to Heritage Auctions. The slippers were one of several pairs Garland wore during the filming. Only three other pairs remain.
Terry Jon Martin, now 78, of Grand Rapids, used a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case to steal them. According to his attorney, an old associate with connections to the mob told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value. But he got rid of the slippers when he learned they were fake, and they ended up with Saliterman. Martin pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced last January to time served because of his poor health.
California
Man wins $50 million in lawsuit over burns from Starbucks tea
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A delivery driver has won $50 million in a lawsuit after being seriously burned when a Starbucks drink spilled in his lap at a California drive-through, court records show.
A Los Angeles County jury found Friday for Michael Garcia, who underwent skin grafts and other procedures on his genitals after a venti-sized tea drink spilled instants after he collected it on Feb. 8, 2020. He has suffered permanent and life-changing disfigurement, according to his attorneys.
Garcia’s negligence lawsuit blamed his injuries on Starbucks, saying that an employee didn’t wedge the scalding-hot tea firmly enough into a takeout tray.
“This jury verdict is a critical step in holding Starbucks accountable for flagrant disregard for customer safety and failure to accept responsibility,” one of Garcia’s attorneys, Nick Rowley, said in a statement.
Starbucks said it sympathized with Garcia but planned to appeal.
“We disagree with the jury’s decision that we were at fault for this incident and believe the damages awarded to be excessive,” the Seattle-based coffee giant said in a statement, adding that it was “committed to the highest safety standards” in handling hot drinks.
U.S. eateries have faced lawsuits before over customer burns.
In one famous 1990s case, a New Mexico jury awarded a woman nearly $3 million in damages for burns she suffered while trying to pry the lid off a cup of coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through. A judge later reduced the award, and the case ultimately was settled for an undisclosed sum under $600,000.
Juries have sided with restaurants at times, as in another 1990s case involving a child who tipped a cup of McDonald’s coffee onto himself in Iowa.
Iowa
Trump administration moves to dismiss lawsuits against Iowa and Oklahoma over immigration laws
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday moved to dismiss lawsuits against Iowa and Oklahoma brought by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice, which challenged the states’ immigration laws making it a crime for someone to be in the state if they are in the U.S. illegally.
Republican governors and lawmakers across the country had accused then-President Joe Biden of failing to enforce federal immigration law and manage the southern border.
In response, Iowa and Oklahoma enacted similar laws that let state and local officials arrest and charge people who have outstanding deportation orders or who previously were removed from or denied admission to the U.S. Both laws followed one enacted in Texas.
The Biden administration sued Texas, Iowa and Oklahoma over the respective laws. Texas’ more expansive law was in effect for only a few confusing hours last March before a federal appeals court put it on hold.
The Iowa and Oklahoma laws have themselves been on hold while courts consider whether they unconstitutionally usurp federal immigration authority.
“The Biden administration’s absurd opposition to (Oklahoma’s law) was particularly frustrating since it was the White House’s gross negligence on border security that had made the state law so necessary in the first place,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement on Friday.
Trump ran for office on a pledge to crack down on illegal immigration and deport many who are living in the U.S. illegally, promises he acted on with executive orders during his first week in office that conflicted with the prior administration’s legal position in the two cases.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird described the Trump administration’s move to dismiss a “major victory” for Iowans.
“Today, President Trump, again, proved that he has Iowa’s back and showcased his commitment to Making America Safe Again by dropping Biden’s ridiculous lawsuit,” Bird said in a statement.
An immigrant rights group also sued Iowa last May over its law, but the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals recently issued a decision that complicates the legal battle now that the Trump administration has withdrawn the federal government’s complaint.
The appellate court said the lawsuit filed by Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice should be dismissed by the district court judge, arguing the U.S. v. Iowa lawsuit made it moot. Rita Bettis Austen, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, said in a statement Friday they intended to continue fighting to keep Iowa’s law from taking effect.
“With today’s DOJ filing, we remain steadfast in our commitment to working to keep this harmful law from being enforced in Iowa,” Bettis Austen said.
Lawyers representing Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice in February filed a petition for rehearing with the appellate court.
Virginia
Judge finds frozen embryos are not divisible property in cancer survivor’s case against ex-husband
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A northern Virginia judge determined embryos are not property that can be divided up, rejecting a previous analysis by the court saying such fertilized eggs could be considered divisible “goods or chattel” based on 19th-century slave law.
Nearly 10 months after closing arguments, Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Dontaè L. Bugg wrote in an opinion letter earlier this month that he would dismiss a cancer survivor’s partition lawsuit against her ex-husband — a legal action that one property owner can take against another. The former wife, Honeyhline Heidemann, sued Jason Heidemann over access to two embryos they froze during a 2015 cycle of in vitro fertilization but agreed to leave in storage during their divorce three years later.
In the bench trial, Honeyhline Heidemann testified the embryos were her last chance to conceive another biological child after a cancer treatment. Jason Heidemann’s attorney argued he did not want to become a biological father to a child by force, even if he wasn’t required to be a parent.
The dispute attracted national attention in 2023 when Judge Richard E. Gardiner — who is no longer assigned to the case for unrelated reasons — referenced slavery-era law when overruling Jason Heidemann’s pleading that the state’s partition statute did not include the embryos. Bugg wrote in his March 7 letter that he took issue with Gardiner’s reliance on state law predating the passage of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery.
Bugg wrote that Virginia lawmakers have since 1865 removed references to slavery to “excise a lawless blight from the Virginia Code, the institution of slavery applicable to fellow citizens, which removal supports that human beings, and by extension embryos they have created, should not as a matter of legislative policy be subject to partition.”
Bugg’s dismissal of the case comes during a growing national debate on whether fetuses are human. Seven states have defined embryos, fertilized eggs or fetuses as a “person,” “human being” or “another” in their homicide code, according to Pregnancy Justice’s unpacking fetal personhood report from last September.
In 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people.
And later that year, U.S. Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would make it a right nationwide for women to access in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatment after then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer forced a vote on the issue.
Before this trial, there was little case law in Virginia governing the treatment of embryos.
Jason Zellman, Honeyhline Heidemann’s attorney, acknowledged in court that the case touched on sensitive issues, but he also suggested Bugg didn’t need to establish any sweeping precedent. Honeyhline Heidemann, who had a daughter with Jason Heidemann through the same in vitro cycle, also testified that she hoped to acquire both remaining frozen embryos, but would also accept if Bugg separated the fertilized eggs between her and the former husband.
Carrie Patterson, Jason Heidemann’s attorney, argued the judge should not conclude that embryos could be sold or divided. Although Virginia courts have the power to direct the sale of property, Patterson also referenced that the American Society for Reproductive Medicine had deemed the sale of fertilized eggs unethical.
Bugg wrote there was no case law suggesting fertilized eggs should be valued, bought or sold — nor did he have evidence there would be a mechanism to carry out such a process given embryos’ nature.
“It is obvious that these two human embryos, if implanted and carried to term, would not result in the same two people,” he wrote. “In fact, the embryos are as unique as any two people that may be selected from the population, including siblings with the same biological parents.”
Prosecutors say man accused of hiding stolen ruby slippers is dead
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A federal judge dismissed the charges Monday against a Minnesota man accused of hiding a stolen pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in the 1939 musical “The Wizard of Oz” after prosecutors informed the court that he died on Sunday.
Jerry Hal Saliterman, 77, of Crystal, who had been in poor health with lung disease and other ailments, had been scheduled to change his plea to guilty in January but that hearing was postponed indefinitely after he was hospitalized.
Federal prosecutor Matthew Greenley notified the court in a one-page motion Monday that Saliterman died Sunday but did not say how or where. U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz granted the request and dropped the charges.
Defense attorney John Brink confirmed Monday that his client had died but declined to give details. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Fargo, North Dakota, which is handling the case, did not immediately return a phone call seeking further information.
According to court filings, Saliterman was hospitalized in early January “for inability to walk and sepsis,” an infection that can be life-threatening. He attended his arraignment three days later via video from what looked like a hospital room. In an update to the court late last month, Brink told the court that his client had been discharged to a hospice facility and that his prognosis was poor. An accompanying letter from his doctor listed severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease requiring supplemental oxygen and Parkinson’s disease.
Saliterman was in a wheelchair and on oxygen last March when he made his first court appearance. He was charged then with theft of a major artwork and witness tampering for his role in the ruby slippers case.
The sequined red slippers were stolen in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids. Their whereabouts remained a mystery for nearly 13 years until the FBI recovered them in 2018. They fetched a record for movie memorabilia of $32.5 million in December, according to Heritage Auctions. The slippers were one of several pairs Garland wore during the filming. Only three other pairs remain.
Terry Jon Martin, now 78, of Grand Rapids, used a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case to steal them. According to his attorney, an old associate with connections to the mob told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value. But he got rid of the slippers when he learned they were fake, and they ended up with Saliterman. Martin pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced last January to time served because of his poor health.
California
Man wins $50 million in lawsuit over burns from Starbucks tea
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A delivery driver has won $50 million in a lawsuit after being seriously burned when a Starbucks drink spilled in his lap at a California drive-through, court records show.
A Los Angeles County jury found Friday for Michael Garcia, who underwent skin grafts and other procedures on his genitals after a venti-sized tea drink spilled instants after he collected it on Feb. 8, 2020. He has suffered permanent and life-changing disfigurement, according to his attorneys.
Garcia’s negligence lawsuit blamed his injuries on Starbucks, saying that an employee didn’t wedge the scalding-hot tea firmly enough into a takeout tray.
“This jury verdict is a critical step in holding Starbucks accountable for flagrant disregard for customer safety and failure to accept responsibility,” one of Garcia’s attorneys, Nick Rowley, said in a statement.
Starbucks said it sympathized with Garcia but planned to appeal.
“We disagree with the jury’s decision that we were at fault for this incident and believe the damages awarded to be excessive,” the Seattle-based coffee giant said in a statement, adding that it was “committed to the highest safety standards” in handling hot drinks.
U.S. eateries have faced lawsuits before over customer burns.
In one famous 1990s case, a New Mexico jury awarded a woman nearly $3 million in damages for burns she suffered while trying to pry the lid off a cup of coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through. A judge later reduced the award, and the case ultimately was settled for an undisclosed sum under $600,000.
Juries have sided with restaurants at times, as in another 1990s case involving a child who tipped a cup of McDonald’s coffee onto himself in Iowa.
Iowa
Trump administration moves to dismiss lawsuits against Iowa and Oklahoma over immigration laws
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday moved to dismiss lawsuits against Iowa and Oklahoma brought by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice, which challenged the states’ immigration laws making it a crime for someone to be in the state if they are in the U.S. illegally.
Republican governors and lawmakers across the country had accused then-President Joe Biden of failing to enforce federal immigration law and manage the southern border.
In response, Iowa and Oklahoma enacted similar laws that let state and local officials arrest and charge people who have outstanding deportation orders or who previously were removed from or denied admission to the U.S. Both laws followed one enacted in Texas.
The Biden administration sued Texas, Iowa and Oklahoma over the respective laws. Texas’ more expansive law was in effect for only a few confusing hours last March before a federal appeals court put it on hold.
The Iowa and Oklahoma laws have themselves been on hold while courts consider whether they unconstitutionally usurp federal immigration authority.
“The Biden administration’s absurd opposition to (Oklahoma’s law) was particularly frustrating since it was the White House’s gross negligence on border security that had made the state law so necessary in the first place,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement on Friday.
Trump ran for office on a pledge to crack down on illegal immigration and deport many who are living in the U.S. illegally, promises he acted on with executive orders during his first week in office that conflicted with the prior administration’s legal position in the two cases.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird described the Trump administration’s move to dismiss a “major victory” for Iowans.
“Today, President Trump, again, proved that he has Iowa’s back and showcased his commitment to Making America Safe Again by dropping Biden’s ridiculous lawsuit,” Bird said in a statement.
An immigrant rights group also sued Iowa last May over its law, but the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals recently issued a decision that complicates the legal battle now that the Trump administration has withdrawn the federal government’s complaint.
The appellate court said the lawsuit filed by Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice should be dismissed by the district court judge, arguing the U.S. v. Iowa lawsuit made it moot. Rita Bettis Austen, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, said in a statement Friday they intended to continue fighting to keep Iowa’s law from taking effect.
“With today’s DOJ filing, we remain steadfast in our commitment to working to keep this harmful law from being enforced in Iowa,” Bettis Austen said.
Lawyers representing Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice in February filed a petition for rehearing with the appellate court.
Virginia
Judge finds frozen embryos are not divisible property in cancer survivor’s case against ex-husband
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A northern Virginia judge determined embryos are not property that can be divided up, rejecting a previous analysis by the court saying such fertilized eggs could be considered divisible “goods or chattel” based on 19th-century slave law.
Nearly 10 months after closing arguments, Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Dontaè L. Bugg wrote in an opinion letter earlier this month that he would dismiss a cancer survivor’s partition lawsuit against her ex-husband — a legal action that one property owner can take against another. The former wife, Honeyhline Heidemann, sued Jason Heidemann over access to two embryos they froze during a 2015 cycle of in vitro fertilization but agreed to leave in storage during their divorce three years later.
In the bench trial, Honeyhline Heidemann testified the embryos were her last chance to conceive another biological child after a cancer treatment. Jason Heidemann’s attorney argued he did not want to become a biological father to a child by force, even if he wasn’t required to be a parent.
The dispute attracted national attention in 2023 when Judge Richard E. Gardiner — who is no longer assigned to the case for unrelated reasons — referenced slavery-era law when overruling Jason Heidemann’s pleading that the state’s partition statute did not include the embryos. Bugg wrote in his March 7 letter that he took issue with Gardiner’s reliance on state law predating the passage of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery.
Bugg wrote that Virginia lawmakers have since 1865 removed references to slavery to “excise a lawless blight from the Virginia Code, the institution of slavery applicable to fellow citizens, which removal supports that human beings, and by extension embryos they have created, should not as a matter of legislative policy be subject to partition.”
Bugg’s dismissal of the case comes during a growing national debate on whether fetuses are human. Seven states have defined embryos, fertilized eggs or fetuses as a “person,” “human being” or “another” in their homicide code, according to Pregnancy Justice’s unpacking fetal personhood report from last September.
In 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people.
And later that year, U.S. Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would make it a right nationwide for women to access in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatment after then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer forced a vote on the issue.
Before this trial, there was little case law in Virginia governing the treatment of embryos.
Jason Zellman, Honeyhline Heidemann’s attorney, acknowledged in court that the case touched on sensitive issues, but he also suggested Bugg didn’t need to establish any sweeping precedent. Honeyhline Heidemann, who had a daughter with Jason Heidemann through the same in vitro cycle, also testified that she hoped to acquire both remaining frozen embryos, but would also accept if Bugg separated the fertilized eggs between her and the former husband.
Carrie Patterson, Jason Heidemann’s attorney, argued the judge should not conclude that embryos could be sold or divided. Although Virginia courts have the power to direct the sale of property, Patterson also referenced that the American Society for Reproductive Medicine had deemed the sale of fertilized eggs unethical.
Bugg wrote there was no case law suggesting fertilized eggs should be valued, bought or sold — nor did he have evidence there would be a mechanism to carry out such a process given embryos’ nature.
“It is obvious that these two human embryos, if implanted and carried to term, would not result in the same two people,” he wrote. “In fact, the embryos are as unique as any two people that may be selected from the population, including siblings with the same biological parents.”
