Arkansas
Former officer charged with assault in beating of handcuffed inmate in car
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A former Arkansas police officer who was caught on video beating a handcuffed inmate in the back of his patrol car last year has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault.
Former Jonesboro Police Officer Joseph Tucker Harris, 29, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of felony charges of aggravated assault, filing a false report, and misdemeanor third-degree battery. Harris was released from a county detention center on $15,000 bond.
Harris was fired in August after he was caught on his patrol car camera punching, elbowing and slamming a car door against the head of detainee Billy Lee Coram, who was being transferred from a local hospital back to jail in Craighead County.
A phone number was not listed for Harris, and it was not clear if he had an attorney in the case. An attorney who represents Harris in a federal lawsuit filed by Coram did not respond to an email late Wednesday afternoon.
The federal lawsuit Coram filed against Harris, the city of Jonesboro and Jonesboro’s police chief over the beating is scheduled to go to trial in May 2026. Coram’s lawsuit claims his constitutional rights were violated.
In a roughly 12-minute video, Coram is wearing a hospital gown and choking himself with a seatbelt wrapped around his neck as the car is moving. After the car pulls over, Harris opens the door and punches and elbows Coram several times in the face as he unwinds the belt.
Harris later slams the car door against Coram’s head. According to the federal lawsuit, Coram had been taken to the hospital after ingesting a baggie of fentanyl and had run away from the hospital when he panicked. He had wrapped the seatbelt around his neck to try and gag himself to dislodge the fentanyl he believed was still in his system, the lawsuit said.
New York
Lawsuit says ex-Yankee Mariano Rivera failed to protect a girl from sexual abuse at a church camp
NEW YORK (AP) — New York Yankees legend Mariano Rivera and his wife are accused in a lawsuit of failing to protect a young girl who was was sexually abused by an older child during a summer camp trip sponsored by their church.
In a lawsuit filed this month, lawyers for the girl allege that the Hall of Fame pitcher and his wife Clara Rivera, a pastor at the Refuge of Hope Church, flew from New York to Florida to investigate after the girl’s mother expressed concerns about her daughter’s safety during the 2018 trip.
But rather than take action, the couple “isolated and intimidated” the victim into remaining “silent about her negative experiences,” including the abuse, the lawsuit says.
Joseph A. Ruta, an attorney for the Riveras, said in a statement that any allegations that they “knew about or failed to act on reports of child abuse are completely false.” He said the couple only learned of the allegations in 2022 after receiving a letter from an attorney requesting a financial settlement.
“The Riveras are known throughout New York for their charitable work and especially for their commitment to serving underprivileged children,” Ruta said. “It’s unfortunate they are being targeted by false allegations.”
The lawsuit doesn’t name the accuser, but it says she was born in 2007, which would have made her 10 or 11 years old in 2018.
That summer, according to the complaint, Clara Rivera persuaded a congregant to allow her daughter to attend a camp at the Ignite Life Center, a church in Gainesville, Florida.
While staying in an unsupervised dorm room, the girl was repeatedly sexually abused by an older female camper, according to the suit. In a police report filed in 2022, the girl said there were 15 instances of inappropriate touching over a two-week period, both in her bunk and a shower.
Though the girl did not report the abuse, her mother grew worried about her safety after the two spoke on the phone call, the complaint states. The mother then outlined her concerns to Clara Rivera, who agreed to investigate, according to the suit.
During that trip, the couple “received information that should have given them concern,” the lawsuit says, but chose instead to remain silent to “avoid the potential scandal of child sexual abuse in its programs.” The suit doesn’t specifically state what the Riveras were told by the girl or her mother.
The girl later returned to New York and continued her active participation in the church. But later that summer, during a barbecue for congregants at the Riveras’ home in Rye, New York, she was again abused by the same person, the complaint states.
“They failed to mitigate the risks, and upon learning that she had been a victim, took no steps to protect her or get criminal justice,” the attorney who filed the lawsuit, Adam Horowitz, told The Associated Press by phone. “They continued to expose her again to the same risk at her home.”
In 2021, the girl was again sexually assaulted, this time by a male youth leader at Refuge of Hope, according to the lawsuit. The abuse in that case was discovered by the girl’s mother, who found months of electronic communications between the two, the lawsuit contends.
Afterward, the girl and her mother filed police reports in New York and Florida regarding the abuse in 2018 and 2021. Horowitz said he didn’t believe that criminal charges were brought in any of the cases. The lawsuit was filed against the Refuge of Hope church, not against the Riveras themselves.
Prosecutors in New York and Florida didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about whether they looked into the allegations.
A lawyer for Ignite Life Center did not respond to an inquiry. The church recently settled lawsuits brought by three people — also represented by Horowitz — who said they were abused as teenagers by a volunteer at Ignite Life Center. Two others affiliated with the church have been charged with lewd and lascivious battery against minors.
Hawaii
Native Hawaiian brothers say police framed them for tourist’s murder in 1991
HONOLULU (AP) — Two Native Hawaiian brothers who were convicted in the 1991 killing of a woman visiting Hawaii allege in a federal lawsuit that local police framed them “under immense pressure to solve the high-profile murder” then botched an investigation last year that would have revealed the real killer using advancements in DNA technology.
Albert “Ian” Schweitzer, who had been incarcerated for more than two decades for the killing of Dana Ireland, was released in 2023 based on new evidence. Ireland, 23, a tourist from Virginia, was visiting a remote part of the Big Island when she was found along a fishing trail, raped and beaten and barely alive. She died at a hospital.
Schweitzer was one of three men who spent time behind bars over her killing, but he always maintained his innocence. His brother Shawn Schweitzer took a deal to plead guilty to manslaughter and kidnapping — and receive credit for about a year served and five years of probation — after a jury convicted his brother in 2000.
The brothers’ lawsuit insists they “had nothing to do with the crime” and that investigators never found physical evidence linking them to Ireland’s murder.
The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Honolulu. It names as defendants Hawaii County, the county police chief, as well as former detectives and a prosecutor who handled the case. Both the county and the police chief say they won’t comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit alleges the misconduct continued into last year, when advancements in DNA technology led to the identification of a new possible suspect who killed himself after police took a DNA swab from him.
Police took no steps to arrest 57-year-old Albert Lauro Jr., who lived less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from where Ireland’s body was found, even when they knew DNA connected him to the crime scene evidence, lawyers for the Schweitzers said.
“Instead, Defendants released Mr. Lauro, allowing a man who had been hiding a secret for more than two decades to return home free to do whatever he wanted to do,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for claims including denying the brothers their constitutional right to due process, conspiracy and malicious prosecution.
William Harrison, one of the Honolulu attorneys for the brothers, said Wednesday a separate effort is ongoing to seek compensation from the state for their wrongful convictions. Ian Schweitzer is entitled to $50,000 for every year spent in prison as a result of his wrongful conviction, Harrison said, noting Shawn Schweitzer spent a year in jail.
California
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sues man who claimed to have incriminating sex tapes, says they didn’t exist
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against a man they said had falsely claimed to possess videos implicating the music mogul in sexual assaults on eight celebrities.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York City, accuses Courtney Burgess and his lawyer, Ariel Mitchell, of fabricating “outrageous lies” as part of an effort to potentially profit off of the media frenzy around Combs, who was indicted in September on sex trafficking charges.
Combs also sued Nexstar Media, saying its cable news network, NewsNation, aired Burgess’ allegations without looking into whether they were true. The videos, the lawsuit claimed, simply don’t exist.
“These defendants have willfully fabricated and disseminated outrageous lies with reckless disregard for the truth,” said Erica Wolff, an attorney for Combs. “Their falsehoods have poisoned public perception and contaminated the jury pool. This complaint should serve as a warning that such intentional falsehoods, which undermine Mr. Combs’s right to a fair trial, will no longer be tolerated.”
Burgess and Mitchell did not immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press requesting comment. A phone call to Mitchell was not answered. A spokesperson for Nexstar Media Group declined to comment.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking charges lodged against him after his September arrest. He has remained incarcerated, awaiting a May 5 trial, after judges refused to grant him bail.
After Combs was arrested, Burgess began giving interviews with reporters, social media personalities and true crime podcasters in which he claimed to have been given flash drives with incriminating evidence by the late actor and model Kim Porter, a longtime partner of Combs and mother of four of his children.
But the videos Burgess claims to possess have never become public. Some people close to Porter told The New York Times for a story published in November that they had never heard of Burgess and doubted his claims. Burgess has acknowledged that he doesn’t know Combs personally.
Federal prosecutors have not publicly identified Burgess as being involved in the criminal case.
In interviews, Burgess said law enforcement seized the videos from his home. Mitchell also told reporters Burgess handed over the drives to the federal government.
The lawsuit said both claims were “completely false.”
“No such video was ever turned over to the government because no such video exists,” the lawsuit said.
Former officer charged with assault in beating of handcuffed inmate in car
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A former Arkansas police officer who was caught on video beating a handcuffed inmate in the back of his patrol car last year has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault.
Former Jonesboro Police Officer Joseph Tucker Harris, 29, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of felony charges of aggravated assault, filing a false report, and misdemeanor third-degree battery. Harris was released from a county detention center on $15,000 bond.
Harris was fired in August after he was caught on his patrol car camera punching, elbowing and slamming a car door against the head of detainee Billy Lee Coram, who was being transferred from a local hospital back to jail in Craighead County.
A phone number was not listed for Harris, and it was not clear if he had an attorney in the case. An attorney who represents Harris in a federal lawsuit filed by Coram did not respond to an email late Wednesday afternoon.
The federal lawsuit Coram filed against Harris, the city of Jonesboro and Jonesboro’s police chief over the beating is scheduled to go to trial in May 2026. Coram’s lawsuit claims his constitutional rights were violated.
In a roughly 12-minute video, Coram is wearing a hospital gown and choking himself with a seatbelt wrapped around his neck as the car is moving. After the car pulls over, Harris opens the door and punches and elbows Coram several times in the face as he unwinds the belt.
Harris later slams the car door against Coram’s head. According to the federal lawsuit, Coram had been taken to the hospital after ingesting a baggie of fentanyl and had run away from the hospital when he panicked. He had wrapped the seatbelt around his neck to try and gag himself to dislodge the fentanyl he believed was still in his system, the lawsuit said.
New York
Lawsuit says ex-Yankee Mariano Rivera failed to protect a girl from sexual abuse at a church camp
NEW YORK (AP) — New York Yankees legend Mariano Rivera and his wife are accused in a lawsuit of failing to protect a young girl who was was sexually abused by an older child during a summer camp trip sponsored by their church.
In a lawsuit filed this month, lawyers for the girl allege that the Hall of Fame pitcher and his wife Clara Rivera, a pastor at the Refuge of Hope Church, flew from New York to Florida to investigate after the girl’s mother expressed concerns about her daughter’s safety during the 2018 trip.
But rather than take action, the couple “isolated and intimidated” the victim into remaining “silent about her negative experiences,” including the abuse, the lawsuit says.
Joseph A. Ruta, an attorney for the Riveras, said in a statement that any allegations that they “knew about or failed to act on reports of child abuse are completely false.” He said the couple only learned of the allegations in 2022 after receiving a letter from an attorney requesting a financial settlement.
“The Riveras are known throughout New York for their charitable work and especially for their commitment to serving underprivileged children,” Ruta said. “It’s unfortunate they are being targeted by false allegations.”
The lawsuit doesn’t name the accuser, but it says she was born in 2007, which would have made her 10 or 11 years old in 2018.
That summer, according to the complaint, Clara Rivera persuaded a congregant to allow her daughter to attend a camp at the Ignite Life Center, a church in Gainesville, Florida.
While staying in an unsupervised dorm room, the girl was repeatedly sexually abused by an older female camper, according to the suit. In a police report filed in 2022, the girl said there were 15 instances of inappropriate touching over a two-week period, both in her bunk and a shower.
Though the girl did not report the abuse, her mother grew worried about her safety after the two spoke on the phone call, the complaint states. The mother then outlined her concerns to Clara Rivera, who agreed to investigate, according to the suit.
During that trip, the couple “received information that should have given them concern,” the lawsuit says, but chose instead to remain silent to “avoid the potential scandal of child sexual abuse in its programs.” The suit doesn’t specifically state what the Riveras were told by the girl or her mother.
The girl later returned to New York and continued her active participation in the church. But later that summer, during a barbecue for congregants at the Riveras’ home in Rye, New York, she was again abused by the same person, the complaint states.
“They failed to mitigate the risks, and upon learning that she had been a victim, took no steps to protect her or get criminal justice,” the attorney who filed the lawsuit, Adam Horowitz, told The Associated Press by phone. “They continued to expose her again to the same risk at her home.”
In 2021, the girl was again sexually assaulted, this time by a male youth leader at Refuge of Hope, according to the lawsuit. The abuse in that case was discovered by the girl’s mother, who found months of electronic communications between the two, the lawsuit contends.
Afterward, the girl and her mother filed police reports in New York and Florida regarding the abuse in 2018 and 2021. Horowitz said he didn’t believe that criminal charges were brought in any of the cases. The lawsuit was filed against the Refuge of Hope church, not against the Riveras themselves.
Prosecutors in New York and Florida didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about whether they looked into the allegations.
A lawyer for Ignite Life Center did not respond to an inquiry. The church recently settled lawsuits brought by three people — also represented by Horowitz — who said they were abused as teenagers by a volunteer at Ignite Life Center. Two others affiliated with the church have been charged with lewd and lascivious battery against minors.
Hawaii
Native Hawaiian brothers say police framed them for tourist’s murder in 1991
HONOLULU (AP) — Two Native Hawaiian brothers who were convicted in the 1991 killing of a woman visiting Hawaii allege in a federal lawsuit that local police framed them “under immense pressure to solve the high-profile murder” then botched an investigation last year that would have revealed the real killer using advancements in DNA technology.
Albert “Ian” Schweitzer, who had been incarcerated for more than two decades for the killing of Dana Ireland, was released in 2023 based on new evidence. Ireland, 23, a tourist from Virginia, was visiting a remote part of the Big Island when she was found along a fishing trail, raped and beaten and barely alive. She died at a hospital.
Schweitzer was one of three men who spent time behind bars over her killing, but he always maintained his innocence. His brother Shawn Schweitzer took a deal to plead guilty to manslaughter and kidnapping — and receive credit for about a year served and five years of probation — after a jury convicted his brother in 2000.
The brothers’ lawsuit insists they “had nothing to do with the crime” and that investigators never found physical evidence linking them to Ireland’s murder.
The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Honolulu. It names as defendants Hawaii County, the county police chief, as well as former detectives and a prosecutor who handled the case. Both the county and the police chief say they won’t comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit alleges the misconduct continued into last year, when advancements in DNA technology led to the identification of a new possible suspect who killed himself after police took a DNA swab from him.
Police took no steps to arrest 57-year-old Albert Lauro Jr., who lived less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from where Ireland’s body was found, even when they knew DNA connected him to the crime scene evidence, lawyers for the Schweitzers said.
“Instead, Defendants released Mr. Lauro, allowing a man who had been hiding a secret for more than two decades to return home free to do whatever he wanted to do,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for claims including denying the brothers their constitutional right to due process, conspiracy and malicious prosecution.
William Harrison, one of the Honolulu attorneys for the brothers, said Wednesday a separate effort is ongoing to seek compensation from the state for their wrongful convictions. Ian Schweitzer is entitled to $50,000 for every year spent in prison as a result of his wrongful conviction, Harrison said, noting Shawn Schweitzer spent a year in jail.
California
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sues man who claimed to have incriminating sex tapes, says they didn’t exist
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against a man they said had falsely claimed to possess videos implicating the music mogul in sexual assaults on eight celebrities.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York City, accuses Courtney Burgess and his lawyer, Ariel Mitchell, of fabricating “outrageous lies” as part of an effort to potentially profit off of the media frenzy around Combs, who was indicted in September on sex trafficking charges.
Combs also sued Nexstar Media, saying its cable news network, NewsNation, aired Burgess’ allegations without looking into whether they were true. The videos, the lawsuit claimed, simply don’t exist.
“These defendants have willfully fabricated and disseminated outrageous lies with reckless disregard for the truth,” said Erica Wolff, an attorney for Combs. “Their falsehoods have poisoned public perception and contaminated the jury pool. This complaint should serve as a warning that such intentional falsehoods, which undermine Mr. Combs’s right to a fair trial, will no longer be tolerated.”
Burgess and Mitchell did not immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press requesting comment. A phone call to Mitchell was not answered. A spokesperson for Nexstar Media Group declined to comment.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking charges lodged against him after his September arrest. He has remained incarcerated, awaiting a May 5 trial, after judges refused to grant him bail.
After Combs was arrested, Burgess began giving interviews with reporters, social media personalities and true crime podcasters in which he claimed to have been given flash drives with incriminating evidence by the late actor and model Kim Porter, a longtime partner of Combs and mother of four of his children.
But the videos Burgess claims to possess have never become public. Some people close to Porter told The New York Times for a story published in November that they had never heard of Burgess and doubted his claims. Burgess has acknowledged that he doesn’t know Combs personally.
Federal prosecutors have not publicly identified Burgess as being involved in the criminal case.
In interviews, Burgess said law enforcement seized the videos from his home. Mitchell also told reporters Burgess handed over the drives to the federal government.
The lawsuit said both claims were “completely false.”
“No such video was ever turned over to the government because no such video exists,” the lawsuit said.
