New York
NYC sues 30 counties over orders banning relocations of asylum seekers
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City sued nearly half the state’s counties Wednesday over their attempts to keep out international migrants, the latest escalation in an ongoing battle between city officials and local leaders.
The suit, filed in state court Wednesday, accuses at least 30 New York counties of seeking to “wall off their borders” to asylum seekers through “xenophobic” executive orders that violate state and federal law.
“These counties have implemented misguided and unlawful executive orders premised on false claims that the prospect of a few hundred asylum seekers sheltered at the city’s expense across multiple counties constitute an emergency and imperil public safety,” said Sylvia Hinds-Radiz, a lawyer for the city.
New York City has struggled to care for an influx of asylum seekers in recent months, converting hotels and houses of worship to shelters as Mayor Eric Adams repeatedly declared that the city had reached its limit on new arrivals. Last month, the city began busing dozens of migrants to a handful of hotels north of the city.
The move triggered a cascade of emergency declarations by local officials, from Long Island to the Canadian border. The orders threatened criminal and financial penalties against New York City and any hotels or other businesses that aided in the relocation of migrants.
Some county officials raised fears of crime or overcrowding, while others said they couldn’t afford to provide care for the migrants if the city stopped paying for the hotel rooms.
“We are not equipped to humanely assist these individuals, which eventually we’re going to have to do,” said Ed Day, the Republican executive of Rockland County, one of the first counties to receive migrants from New York City.
On Tuesday, in a separate lawsuit, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction barring Rockland County and Orange County from enforcing their broad emergency orders that aimed to ban migrants from hotels.
The injunction comes in a suit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of individual asylum seekers, and does not apply to the efforts to ban migrants across the state. It also does not impact an existing order by a state judge that temporarily prevents the city from housing migrants at specific hotels in Orange and Rockland County.
Amy Belsher, a senior staff attorney at the NYCLU, said she hoped the ruling would serve as a precursor for a wider ruling in state court. She said many of the county executive orders were nearly identical.
“They’re unlawful and unconstitutional in the same ways and we’re hopeful that other municipalities will look at this decision and rescind their orders,” Belsher said.
California
Black workers at Tesla factory allege racism, seek class-action
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Tesla may face a class-action lawsuit after 240 Black factory workers in California described rampant racism and discrimination at the electric automaker’s San Francisco Bay Area plant, including frequent use of racial slurs and references to the manufacturing site as a plantation or slave ship.
The testimonies filed Monday in Alameda County Superior Court comes from contractors and employees who worked on the production floor of the factory in Fremont, roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco. The vast majority worked at the site between 2016 to the present. Lawyers suing Tesla, Inc. estimate at least 6,000 workers could be part of the class.
The individual testimonies are part of a 2017 lawsuit brought by Marcus Vaughn, who complained in writing to human resources and to Tesla CEO Elon Musk of a hostile work environment in which he was called slurs by co-workers and supervisors. No investigation was conducted and he was fired for “not having a positive attitude,” according to his lawyers.
The lawsuit is just one of several lawsuits alleging racism, harassment and discrimination at the Fremont plant.
Last year, California regulators sued Tesla in state court, alleging the company turned “a blind eye” to abuses and that Musk told workers to be “thick-skinned” about racial harassment. In April, a federal jury awarded another former Tesla employee $3.2 million for racial abuse he suffered.
Bryan Schwartz, one of Vaughn’s lawyers, said the case has dragged on for years as Tesla sought to force the lawsuit into arbitration. Instead, the California Supreme Court in April allowed Black workers to seek a public injunction in court that would require Tesla to change its work environment.
“To have this scope of egregious harassment right here in Silicon Valley, it’s disgusting,” Schwartz said, adding that it’s shocking that “Tesla has allowed this kind of pervasive harassment to go on as long as it has.”
Attorneys for Tesla did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
All of the declarants said they heard use of one particular racial slur, with more than half saying they heard supervisors and managers use that word, according to a declaration summarizing the statements.
Dozens also said higher-ups direct the racial slur toward them, the summary stated, and nearly half said they experienced or saw other Black workers tasked with more physically laborious work and disciplined more frequently.
Production associate Albert Blakes said in his statement that it was difficult to go to work, knowing he would face racist slurs, references to slavery and offensive graffiti for 12 hours at a time. He said he made a verbal complaint to human resources in late 2021, but never heard back and nothing changed.
“Something needs to be done to hold Tesla accountable for the racism that takes place at the Fremont factory to set an example that this racism is not tolerated in workplaces in California,” he said.
Massachusetts
Teen accused of providing gift cards to support terrorist group
BOSTON (AP) — An 18-year-old Massachusetts man sent gift cards worth a total of $1,670 to someone he thought was a supporter of the Islamic State group that he intended to be used to fund a war on nonbelievers, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
Mateo Ventura, of Wakefield, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Worcester later Thursday on a charge of knowingly concealing the source of material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston said in a statement.
An email seeking comment was left with Ventura’s federal public defender.
Ventura wanted the gift cards to be sold on the dark web for slightly less than face value with the resulting proceeds to be used to support the Islamic State group, prosecutors said.
Between August 2020 and August 2021, Ventura provided about 25 cards with a total face value of $965 to someone he thought was an Islamic State group sympathizer but was actually an undercover FBI agent, according to an FBI affidavit included in court documents. Ventura was still a juvenile at the time.
He provided another $705 in gift cards after turning 18 between January and May, authorities said.
The cards ranged in value from $10 to $100.
Ventura, using an online encrypted messaging application, also expressed a desire to travel overseas and fight with the Islamic State group, according to the affidavit. He even went so far as to buy an airline ticket to Cairo in April, but he never departed and he did not reschedule or cancel his flight, the affidavit says.
Ventura also pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State caliphate and offered to disclose information about future terror attacks to the FBI in exchange for $10 million, according to the affidavit.
If convicted, Ventura faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Arizona
Man convicted of killing 2 young women in early 1990s gets death
PHOENIX (AP) — A man convicted of sexually attacking and fatally stabbing two young Phoenix women in separate killings in the early 1990s was sentenced to death by a judge Wednesday.
Bryan Patrick Miller, 50, was convicted in April on two counts of first-degree murder, kidnapping and attempted sexual assault.
He had waived his right to a jury trial and Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Suzanne Cohen found Miller guilty of killing Angela Brosso in November 1992 on the eve of her 22nd birthday and 17-year-old Melanie Bernas in September 1993.
The judge also ruled in April that Miller was eligible for the death penalty.
Miller did not testify in the double murder trial that began in early October 2022 and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Brosso and Bernas both disappeared while riding their bicycles along the Arizona Canal in north Phoenix, according to authorities.
Police believe the killer knocked Brasso off her bicycle, stabbed her and dragged her off the trail. Her naked body was found decapitated near a bike trail.
Ten months later, police said Bernas’ body was discovered floating in the canal. Bernas was not decapitated, but her bicycle was missing.
Authorities said DNA evidence collected in the aftermath of both crimes showed the attacks were linked to the same suspect and Miller was arrested for the murders in January 2015.
According to police, Miller denied any involvement although he acknowledged living in the vicinity of the killings at the time and said he rode his bike on paths in the area.
It took years before Miller was found mentally competent to stand trial.
In the trial’s sentencing phase, Miller’s attorneys pleaded with Cohen to show mercy and give him life in prison.
But prosecutors said he deserved the death penalty and the murders of the two women were especially brutal, driven by Miller’s sexual sadism.
“The defendant did not just murder them. He brutalized them and he evaded capture for over 20 years,” Cohen said.
Pennsylvania
Man sentenced to prison in 2021 shooting death
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man has been sentenced to at least 3 1/2 years in prison in a shooting death outside a well-known Philadelphia cheesesteak shop almost two years ago.
A Philadelphia judge imposed the sentence Wednesday on Paul Burkert, 38, of Reading, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to voluntary manslaughter and a firearms charge in the July 2021 shooting death of 22-year-old David Padro Jr. outside Pat’s King of Steaks.
Burkert was sentenced to 3 1/2 to 10 years on the firearms charge and three to six years on the manslaughter count.
Jamie Frick, 38, of Newmanstown was sentenced to probation. She had pleaded guilty to simple assault and reckless endangerment in connection with a fight moments before the shooting.
Authorities said the early morning dispute, which was captured on video, began when the victim pulled into a parking spot outside the restaurant and bumped Burkert’s van with his car door. Early reports had incorrectly suggested that the fight began over a football rivalry.
During the fight that followed, Frick hit Padro in the head and Burkert pulled a gun and shot Padro, authorities said. The suspects fled in the van.
Burkert surrendered to police near Independence Mall and Frick was arrested several days later, authorities said.
