New York
Trump sues state over law barring warrantless immigration arrests at courthouses
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The Trump administration sued New York state Thursday over a law that blocks immigration officials from arresting people at New York courthouses, saying it purposely shields dangerous criminals.
The lawsuit in New York’s Northern District is the latest in a series of legal actions targeting state or local policies the administration says interfere with immigration enforcement, authorities said.
“Lawless sanctuary city policies are the root cause of the violence that Americans have seen in California, and New York State is similarly employing sanctuary city policies to prevent illegal aliens from apprehension,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release.
New York’s 2020 Protect Our Courts Act bans federal immigration officials from arresting people who are coming and going from courthouses or in court for proceedings unless they have a warrant signed by a judge. Democratic state Sen. Brad Hoylman, the bill’s sponsor, said at the time the legislation was a rebuke to the first Trump administration’s practice of turning New York courts into “hunting grounds” for federal agents.
He called Thursday’s lawsuit “baseless and frivolous,” noting the law does not apply to federal courts or immigration courts.
“At a time when masked ICE officials are roaming the state and lawlessly detaining New Yorkers without any due process, the law preserves access to justice and participation in the judicial process,” Hoylman said in a statement. The Justice Department’s lawsuit said arrests in or near courthouses are safer for officers and the public because individuals are screened for weapons and contraband before entering the buildings.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is among a group of Democratic governors in Washington on Thursday to face questioning from Congress over policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
A spokesperson said the state is reviewing the lawsuit, “but it appears to be a waste of federal resources.”
“It’s important that witnesses, victims, and ordinary people can make use of our court system and feel safe in our courthouses and other state facilities,” spokesperson Jess D’Amelia said via email. “There is no sanctuary in New York for people who commit crimes. New York State cooperates with federal officials in removing convicted criminals from our state.”
Arizona
Woman with doomsday religious beliefs convicted in her second murder conspiracy case
PHOENIX (AP) — A jury in Phoenix has convicted Lori Vallow Daybell of conspiring to kill her niece’s ex-husband in 2019, marking her second murder conspiracy conviction in Arizona in less than two months.
Daybell was convicted Thursday on a charge of conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux, who was once married to Daybell’s niece, outside his home in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert.
An Arizona jury convicted Daybell in late April of conspiring with her brother, Alex Cox, to kill her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in 2019 at her home in Chandler, another Phoenix suburb.
The mother with doomsday religious beliefs has already been sentenced in Idaho to life in prison for killing her two youngest children and engaging in a plot to kill a romantic rival.
She is scheduled to be sentenced in both Arizona cases on July 25. Each conviction carries a life sentence.
Boudreaux said his ex-wife, Melani Pawlowski, aspired to be like her aunt Lori and that the two began attending religious meetings together in 2018, and soon Pawlowski was arguing that they should stockpile food for the end of the world.
In October 2019, someone in a Jeep outside Boudreaux’s home fired a rifle shot at him, missing him but shattering a window on his car.
Boudreaux recognized the Jeep as the vehicle that Vallow’s daughter, Tylee Ryan, regularly drove before her death.
Vallow Daybell isn’t an attorney but chose to defend herself at both trials in Arizona.
Washington
Officers sue to compel Congress to install a Jan. 6 riot memorial at Capitol
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two of the police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol from a mob of Trump supporters filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to compel Congress to follow one of its own laws and install a memorial to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
The officers claim the failure to install the memorial plaque on the Capitol reflects an effort by President Donald Trump and his congressional allies to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 riot.
“Even those who recognized the violence of the day eventually partnered with the man who both inspired and minimized it,” the suit says.
More than 100 law enforcement officers were injured in the attack. Hundreds of people were convicted of Capitol riot-related crimes, but Trump erased all of the cases in a sweeping act of clemency on his first day back in the White House.
In 2022, Congress passed a law directing the Architect of the Capitol to install a memorial honoring the officers who tried to hold off the mob. The deadline for installing it passed roughly two years ago.
In April, Architect of the Capitol Thomas Austin told a House subcommittee that House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, had not instructed him to install the plaque. The speaker is responsible for any modifications to the House side of the Capitol, Austin noted.
Spokespeople for Austin’s office and Johnson didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs — Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges and former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn — have been outspoken critics of Republicans’ revisionist history of Jan. 6.
“Both men live with psychic injuries from that day, compounded by their government’s refusal to recognize their service,” the suit says.
Hodges was nearly crushed in a door frame during a battle for control of a tunnel entrance. Rioters ripped a gas mask off his face and dislodged his helmet.
Dunn left the Capitol police before running an unsuccessful campaign for a House seat in Maryland last year, losing in the Democratic primary. Dunn, who is Black, has said rioters yelled racial slurs at him during the siege.
Hodges and Dunn joined Rep. Jamie Raskin in the Maryland Democrat’s office on Thursday to discuss the memorial and their lawsuit. Raskin said he placed a poster replica of the plaque outside his office and is encouraging his colleagues to do the same until Johnson complies with the law.
Dunn said they tried applying political pressure and “asking nicely” for the memorial to be installed.
“It didn’t work,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that we had to file a lawsuit to compel Congress to follow their own law, but here we are.”
Raskin, who led Trump’s impeachment over the insurrection, thanked them for taking their campaign to court.
“All you’re asking for is the law to be followed,” he said.
Pennsylvania
A truck driver is convicted in the fatal shooting of an Amish woman in her home
MEADVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A jury convicted a 53-year-old truck driver Thursday of shooting to death a pregnant Amish woman inside her rural Pennsylvania home early last year.
Shawn Christopher Cranston was charged a few weeks after Rebekah Byler, 23, was found dead in the living room of her rural Spartansburg home.
Cranston was convicted in Crawford County of first-degree murder, second-degree murder of an unborn child and related offenses. He is scheduled for sentencing in late July.
“It is hard to fathom conduct more heinous than brutally killing a young expectant mother and her unborn child in her home,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said in an emailed release. “Our homes are supposed to be our safe haven — this defendant violated the sanctity of home to commit these truly evil acts.”
A message seeking comment was left for Cranston’s lawyer, Louis W. Emmi.
Police have said Byler’s children, a 2-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy, were in the home when their mother suffered sharp wounds to her neck and was shot in the head. The boy told investigators a man wearing sneakers had killed his mother. The children were not physically harmed.
Members of the area’s substantial Amish community attended the trial this week.
Investigators have said they began to focus on Cranston within a day of the killing and took several items during a search of his home in Corry, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Spartansburg.
Byler’s husband, Andy Byler, said during an earlier court proceeding that the children told him about the crime when he returned home from looking at possible roofing jobs. She had been doing laundry when he left earlier that day.
“I didn’t really believe it,” Andy Byler testified last year. “I walked in and saw her cap laying inside the door.”
California
Reds pitcher accused in court documents of being drug supplier for the late Tyler Skaggs
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cincinnati Reds left-hander Wade Miley is accused in court documents of providing drugs to the late Tyler Skaggs, a Los Angeles Angels pitcher who died of an accidental overdose in 2019.
Skaggs’ former agent, Ryan Hamill, said in a deposition that Skaggs told him he was using pain pills containing oxycodone, which were provided by Miley.
The deposition is part of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Skaggs’ family against the Angels in California. A former publicist for the Angels, Eric Kay, was convicted in Texas of providing the fentanyl-laced pills that an autopsy said contributed to Skaggs’ death. Kay was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison.
Skaggs died in the team hotel in a Dallas suburb. His body was found hours before what was supposed to be the start of a series between the Angels and Texas Rangers.
Miley is not facing criminal charges, and it’s not the first time his name has come up in relation to Skaggs’ death. During the sentencing phase of Kay’s case, prosecutors used a recording of a conversation between Kay and his mother in which Kay said Miley was one of Skaggs’ drug suppliers.
Matt Harvey, now a retired major league pitcher, testified during Kay’s trial that he provided drugs to Skaggs. Harvey was later suspended for 60 days for violating MLB’s drug policy. He didn’t pitch in the major leagues again. Harvey and three other players also testified they received pills from Skaggs and described the recreational drug use they witnessed while with the Angels.
Harvey and Skaggs were teammates with the Angels in 2019. Skaggs and Miley were teammates with the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2012-13.
Hamill said the conversation in which Skaggs implicated Miley took place in 2013. Hamill had expressed concern to Skaggs’ parents about what he said was erratic behavior from the pitcher in a phone conversation. Hamill said he and Skaggs’ parents confronted Skaggs at home, leading to Skaggs’ admission that he was using drugs and the accusation that Miley was supplying them.
The 38-year-old Miley signed a one-year contract with the Reds on June 4 and has made two starts this season. He had Tommy John surgery on his left elbow in May 2024 and signed a minor league deal with Cincinnati in February.
Miley had an opt-out clause if he didn’t reach the big leagues by June 1. The 14-year veteran executed that clause but remained with Cincinnati while he pursued potential deals with other clubs before re-signing with the Reds.
Trump sues state over law barring warrantless immigration arrests at courthouses
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The Trump administration sued New York state Thursday over a law that blocks immigration officials from arresting people at New York courthouses, saying it purposely shields dangerous criminals.
The lawsuit in New York’s Northern District is the latest in a series of legal actions targeting state or local policies the administration says interfere with immigration enforcement, authorities said.
“Lawless sanctuary city policies are the root cause of the violence that Americans have seen in California, and New York State is similarly employing sanctuary city policies to prevent illegal aliens from apprehension,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release.
New York’s 2020 Protect Our Courts Act bans federal immigration officials from arresting people who are coming and going from courthouses or in court for proceedings unless they have a warrant signed by a judge. Democratic state Sen. Brad Hoylman, the bill’s sponsor, said at the time the legislation was a rebuke to the first Trump administration’s practice of turning New York courts into “hunting grounds” for federal agents.
He called Thursday’s lawsuit “baseless and frivolous,” noting the law does not apply to federal courts or immigration courts.
“At a time when masked ICE officials are roaming the state and lawlessly detaining New Yorkers without any due process, the law preserves access to justice and participation in the judicial process,” Hoylman said in a statement. The Justice Department’s lawsuit said arrests in or near courthouses are safer for officers and the public because individuals are screened for weapons and contraband before entering the buildings.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is among a group of Democratic governors in Washington on Thursday to face questioning from Congress over policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
A spokesperson said the state is reviewing the lawsuit, “but it appears to be a waste of federal resources.”
“It’s important that witnesses, victims, and ordinary people can make use of our court system and feel safe in our courthouses and other state facilities,” spokesperson Jess D’Amelia said via email. “There is no sanctuary in New York for people who commit crimes. New York State cooperates with federal officials in removing convicted criminals from our state.”
Arizona
Woman with doomsday religious beliefs convicted in her second murder conspiracy case
PHOENIX (AP) — A jury in Phoenix has convicted Lori Vallow Daybell of conspiring to kill her niece’s ex-husband in 2019, marking her second murder conspiracy conviction in Arizona in less than two months.
Daybell was convicted Thursday on a charge of conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux, who was once married to Daybell’s niece, outside his home in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert.
An Arizona jury convicted Daybell in late April of conspiring with her brother, Alex Cox, to kill her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in 2019 at her home in Chandler, another Phoenix suburb.
The mother with doomsday religious beliefs has already been sentenced in Idaho to life in prison for killing her two youngest children and engaging in a plot to kill a romantic rival.
She is scheduled to be sentenced in both Arizona cases on July 25. Each conviction carries a life sentence.
Boudreaux said his ex-wife, Melani Pawlowski, aspired to be like her aunt Lori and that the two began attending religious meetings together in 2018, and soon Pawlowski was arguing that they should stockpile food for the end of the world.
In October 2019, someone in a Jeep outside Boudreaux’s home fired a rifle shot at him, missing him but shattering a window on his car.
Boudreaux recognized the Jeep as the vehicle that Vallow’s daughter, Tylee Ryan, regularly drove before her death.
Vallow Daybell isn’t an attorney but chose to defend herself at both trials in Arizona.
Washington
Officers sue to compel Congress to install a Jan. 6 riot memorial at Capitol
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two of the police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol from a mob of Trump supporters filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to compel Congress to follow one of its own laws and install a memorial to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
The officers claim the failure to install the memorial plaque on the Capitol reflects an effort by President Donald Trump and his congressional allies to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 riot.
“Even those who recognized the violence of the day eventually partnered with the man who both inspired and minimized it,” the suit says.
More than 100 law enforcement officers were injured in the attack. Hundreds of people were convicted of Capitol riot-related crimes, but Trump erased all of the cases in a sweeping act of clemency on his first day back in the White House.
In 2022, Congress passed a law directing the Architect of the Capitol to install a memorial honoring the officers who tried to hold off the mob. The deadline for installing it passed roughly two years ago.
In April, Architect of the Capitol Thomas Austin told a House subcommittee that House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, had not instructed him to install the plaque. The speaker is responsible for any modifications to the House side of the Capitol, Austin noted.
Spokespeople for Austin’s office and Johnson didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs — Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges and former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn — have been outspoken critics of Republicans’ revisionist history of Jan. 6.
“Both men live with psychic injuries from that day, compounded by their government’s refusal to recognize their service,” the suit says.
Hodges was nearly crushed in a door frame during a battle for control of a tunnel entrance. Rioters ripped a gas mask off his face and dislodged his helmet.
Dunn left the Capitol police before running an unsuccessful campaign for a House seat in Maryland last year, losing in the Democratic primary. Dunn, who is Black, has said rioters yelled racial slurs at him during the siege.
Hodges and Dunn joined Rep. Jamie Raskin in the Maryland Democrat’s office on Thursday to discuss the memorial and their lawsuit. Raskin said he placed a poster replica of the plaque outside his office and is encouraging his colleagues to do the same until Johnson complies with the law.
Dunn said they tried applying political pressure and “asking nicely” for the memorial to be installed.
“It didn’t work,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that we had to file a lawsuit to compel Congress to follow their own law, but here we are.”
Raskin, who led Trump’s impeachment over the insurrection, thanked them for taking their campaign to court.
“All you’re asking for is the law to be followed,” he said.
Pennsylvania
A truck driver is convicted in the fatal shooting of an Amish woman in her home
MEADVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A jury convicted a 53-year-old truck driver Thursday of shooting to death a pregnant Amish woman inside her rural Pennsylvania home early last year.
Shawn Christopher Cranston was charged a few weeks after Rebekah Byler, 23, was found dead in the living room of her rural Spartansburg home.
Cranston was convicted in Crawford County of first-degree murder, second-degree murder of an unborn child and related offenses. He is scheduled for sentencing in late July.
“It is hard to fathom conduct more heinous than brutally killing a young expectant mother and her unborn child in her home,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said in an emailed release. “Our homes are supposed to be our safe haven — this defendant violated the sanctity of home to commit these truly evil acts.”
A message seeking comment was left for Cranston’s lawyer, Louis W. Emmi.
Police have said Byler’s children, a 2-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy, were in the home when their mother suffered sharp wounds to her neck and was shot in the head. The boy told investigators a man wearing sneakers had killed his mother. The children were not physically harmed.
Members of the area’s substantial Amish community attended the trial this week.
Investigators have said they began to focus on Cranston within a day of the killing and took several items during a search of his home in Corry, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Spartansburg.
Byler’s husband, Andy Byler, said during an earlier court proceeding that the children told him about the crime when he returned home from looking at possible roofing jobs. She had been doing laundry when he left earlier that day.
“I didn’t really believe it,” Andy Byler testified last year. “I walked in and saw her cap laying inside the door.”
California
Reds pitcher accused in court documents of being drug supplier for the late Tyler Skaggs
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cincinnati Reds left-hander Wade Miley is accused in court documents of providing drugs to the late Tyler Skaggs, a Los Angeles Angels pitcher who died of an accidental overdose in 2019.
Skaggs’ former agent, Ryan Hamill, said in a deposition that Skaggs told him he was using pain pills containing oxycodone, which were provided by Miley.
The deposition is part of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Skaggs’ family against the Angels in California. A former publicist for the Angels, Eric Kay, was convicted in Texas of providing the fentanyl-laced pills that an autopsy said contributed to Skaggs’ death. Kay was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison.
Skaggs died in the team hotel in a Dallas suburb. His body was found hours before what was supposed to be the start of a series between the Angels and Texas Rangers.
Miley is not facing criminal charges, and it’s not the first time his name has come up in relation to Skaggs’ death. During the sentencing phase of Kay’s case, prosecutors used a recording of a conversation between Kay and his mother in which Kay said Miley was one of Skaggs’ drug suppliers.
Matt Harvey, now a retired major league pitcher, testified during Kay’s trial that he provided drugs to Skaggs. Harvey was later suspended for 60 days for violating MLB’s drug policy. He didn’t pitch in the major leagues again. Harvey and three other players also testified they received pills from Skaggs and described the recreational drug use they witnessed while with the Angels.
Harvey and Skaggs were teammates with the Angels in 2019. Skaggs and Miley were teammates with the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2012-13.
Hamill said the conversation in which Skaggs implicated Miley took place in 2013. Hamill had expressed concern to Skaggs’ parents about what he said was erratic behavior from the pitcher in a phone conversation. Hamill said he and Skaggs’ parents confronted Skaggs at home, leading to Skaggs’ admission that he was using drugs and the accusation that Miley was supplying them.
The 38-year-old Miley signed a one-year contract with the Reds on June 4 and has made two starts this season. He had Tommy John surgery on his left elbow in May 2024 and signed a minor league deal with Cincinnati in February.
Miley had an opt-out clause if he didn’t reach the big leagues by June 1. The 14-year veteran executed that clause but remained with Cincinnati while he pursued potential deals with other clubs before re-signing with the Reds.
