Washington
DOJ files misconduct complaint against judge handling deportation case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Monday filed a misconduct complaint against the federal judge who has clashed with President Donald Trump’s administration over deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Escalating the administration’s conflict with U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media that she directed the filing of the complaint against Boasberg “for making improper public comments about President Trump and his administration.”
The complaint stems from remarks Boasberg allegedly made in March to Chief Justice John Roberts and other federal judges saying the administration would trigger a constitutional crisis by disregarding federal court rulings, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Associated Press.
The comments “have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,” the complaint says, adding that the administration has “always complied with all court orders.” Boasberg is among several judges who have questioned whether the administration has complied with their orders.
The meeting took place days before Boasberg issued an order blocking deportation flights that Trump was carrying out by invoking wartime authorities from an 18th century law.
The judge’s verbal order to turn around planes that were on the way to El Salvador was ignored. Boasberg has since found probable cause that the administration committed contempt of court.
The comments were supposedly made during a meeting of the Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s governing body. The remarks were first reported by the conservative website The Federalist, which said it obtained a memo summarizing the meeting.
Boasberg, the chief judge in the district court in the nation’s capital, is a member of the Judicial Conference. Its meetings are not public.
The complaint calls for an investigation, the reassignment of the deportations case to another judge while the inquiry is ongoing and sanctions, including the possible recommendation of impeachment, if the investigation substantiates the allegations.
Trump himself already has called for Boasberg’s impeachment, which in turn prompted a rare response from Roberts rejecting the call.
The complaint was filed with Judge Sri Srinivasan, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
More than 250 Venezuelans who were deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, were sent home to Venezuela earlier this month in a deal that also free 10 U.S. citizens and permanent residents who had been held by Venezuela.
But the lawsuit over the deportations and the administration’s response to Boasberg’s order remains in his court.
Texas
County votes to release Uvalde school shooting records, ending legal battle
HOUSTON (AP) — Leaders of the county where 19 students and two teachers were killed in the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, voted Monday to release records related to the massacre, ending a yearslong legal battle over disclosure of the information.
Uvalde County commissioners voted 2-1 to release the records and to stop appealing a 2022 lawsuit that a group of media organizations, including The Associated Press, had filed seeking to make the information public.
The decision by commissioners came a week after the Uvalde district’s school board voted to release its records related to the deadly rampage, one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.
The group of media organizations had sued both the county and the school district for the release of the records.
County commissioners and the school district voted to release the records after a Texas appeals court on July 16 upheld a judge’s ruling that had ordered the information be made public.
Both the county and the school district have not said when the records will be released.
“For me, the appellate court’s decision to uphold (the judge’s) ruling to hand over the video coverage was just confirmation for me that … what are we hiding?” Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza told AP after Monday’s meeting.
“I’m very happy that we’re gonna release the information.”
One county commissioner, Mariano Pargas Jr., who was the acting police chief on the day of the school shooting, abstained from the vote.
Family members of the victims had also pushed to make the records public.
Jesse Rizo, the uncle of 9-year-old victim Jackie Cazares, asked commissioners on Monday to release the records.
Rizo is also a member of the school board. During the board’s July 21 meeting, he apologized for the delay in releasing the records.
“Will it answer everything? No. Will it give you closure? I don’t think anything ever will give you that type of closure. Will it hopefully make you heal or allow you to heal? I pray that it does,” Rizo said last week.
Records from the county that are expected to be released include incident and 911 reports concerning Robb Elementary and other locations; video footage; ballistics and evidence logs; and reports of law enforcement interactions with the shooter and his mother.
Records from the school district expected to be released include body-worn and security camera footage from Robb Elementary; student files for the shooter; and records involving Pete Arredondo, the former Uvalde schools police chief who was later indicted over his role in the slow response to the shooting.
Arredondo and former school officer Adrian Gonzales have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child abandonment and endangerment. They are set to face trial on Oct. 20.
Several officers involved, including Arredondo, were fired, and separate investigations by the Department of Justice and state lawmakers faulted law enforcement for botching their response to the massacre.
Uvalde city officials released their records in August 2024. The Texas Department of Public Safety is still fighting a separate lawsuit filed by media organizations for the release of that agency’s records related to the school shooting.
Alabama
Five jail medical staff indicted in 2023 death of mentally ill inmate
Five medical employees at an Alabama jail have been indicted in connection with the death of a mentally ill man who died of hypothermia after being held for two weeks in a concrete cell.
The indictment unsealed Tuesday brings the total number of people charged related to the 2023 death of Tony Mitchell after his incarceration at the Walker County Jail up to 25.
A former jail medical supervisor, a jail health services administrator and three jail licensed practical nurses, are each charged with one count of conspiracy against rights and one count of deprivation of rights, according to the indictment.
During his incarceration, the jail’s medical staff failed to provide Mitchell “with constitutional conditions of confinement” despite the fact that some corrections officers approached the jail’s medical supervisor with concerns about Mitchell’s deteriorating health, the indictment read.
Walker County outsourced the jail’s medical care to QCHC Inc., a company which employed the indicted staff, according to a civil suit filed by Mitchell’s mother. The claims against the Walker County Sheriff’s department employees were settled in July, but the claims against Quality Correctional Health Care and it’s staff remain still pending.
Quality Correctional Health Care is contracted in 10 other jails across the state, according to the indictment from Tuesday. An attorney listed for the company in the civil case didn’t respond to a phone call and an email sent on Tuesday.
Only two people indicted on Tuesday had attorneys listed when the indictments were unsealed. Those two attorneys didn’t respond to an email on Tuesday morning.
Mitchell’s death on Jan. 26, 2023, put a spotlight on conditions and allegations of abuse at the jail in Jasper, Alabama.
Mitchell, 33, died after being brought from the jail to a hospital emergency room with a body temperature of 72 degrees (22 degrees Celsius).
He had been taken into custody two weeks earlier on Jan. 12 after a relative asked authorities to do a welfare check on him because he appeared to be having a mental breakdown. The Walker County sheriff’s office said Mitchell was arrested after firing a shot at deputies and running into the woods.
Prosecutors wrote in the indictment that for much of his two-week detention Mitchell was held in a concrete cell that serves as the jail’s drunk tank with “no blanket, mattress, or clothing, and was routinely left naked on the bare concrete floor.” He was routinely covered in feces and was not provided with regular opportunities to shower or use a toilet, prosecutors wrote.
The indictment is part of a sweeping probe into Mitchell’s death that has ensnared jail leadership, sheriff’s deputies and jail medical staff. The 25 indictments and plea deals depict a rampant culture of abuse and corruption that went beyond Mitchell’s treatment.
At least one other nurse pleaded guilty in October last year. The plea deal said the nurse “had no interest in providing care to someone he thought was unworthy of it and because he feared job ramifications if he offered care against the perceived ‘prevailing culture.’”
Separate indictments unsealed on Monday charged six employees, including the jail captain and supervisor, with numerous federal deprivation of rights and conspiracy, alleging the officers “unlawfully punish detainees in the jail for the detainees’ perceived misbehavior.”
At least one plea states that, at the time of Mitchell’s death, officers intentionally kept the conditions in the jail “as filthy as possible” to convince county commissioners to increase salaries and jail budget.
Texas
Man pleads guilty to stalking WNBA star Caitlin Clark and gets 2 1/2 years in prison
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A 55-year-old Texas man who told police he was in "an imaginary relationship" with WNBA star Caitlin Clark was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to stalking and harassing the Indiana Fever guard.
Michael Lewis, of Denton, Texas, reached a deal with Marion County prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to one felony count of stalking and one misdemeanor count of harassment. He will get credit for time served.
Lewis also was ordered to stay away from Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Hinkle Fieldhouse, Fever events and Indiana Pacers organization events, as well as to have no contact with Clark. He also will not be allowed internet access during his sentence.
Lewis was arrested on Jan. 12 after authorities alleged he sent hundreds of "threats and sexually explicit messages" to Clark between Dec. 12, 2024, and Jan. 11, 2025.
Lewis, who prophesied during Monday's courtroom proceedings that the end of the world was coming, also was recommended to get mental health treatment.
The FBI tracked the IP addresses of Lewis' messages to a hotel in downtown Indianapolis as well as the Indianapolis Public Library. Indianapolis police then made a welfare check on Lewis, according to court documents, and he told officers that he was in "an imaginary relationship" with Clark and that he came to Indianapolis on vacation.
The messages to Clark continued after the initial visit by police.
Clark, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, has been limited to 13 games this season because of injuries and is currently sidelined with a strained right groin.
DOJ files misconduct complaint against judge handling deportation case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Monday filed a misconduct complaint against the federal judge who has clashed with President Donald Trump’s administration over deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Escalating the administration’s conflict with U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media that she directed the filing of the complaint against Boasberg “for making improper public comments about President Trump and his administration.”
The complaint stems from remarks Boasberg allegedly made in March to Chief Justice John Roberts and other federal judges saying the administration would trigger a constitutional crisis by disregarding federal court rulings, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Associated Press.
The comments “have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,” the complaint says, adding that the administration has “always complied with all court orders.” Boasberg is among several judges who have questioned whether the administration has complied with their orders.
The meeting took place days before Boasberg issued an order blocking deportation flights that Trump was carrying out by invoking wartime authorities from an 18th century law.
The judge’s verbal order to turn around planes that were on the way to El Salvador was ignored. Boasberg has since found probable cause that the administration committed contempt of court.
The comments were supposedly made during a meeting of the Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s governing body. The remarks were first reported by the conservative website The Federalist, which said it obtained a memo summarizing the meeting.
Boasberg, the chief judge in the district court in the nation’s capital, is a member of the Judicial Conference. Its meetings are not public.
The complaint calls for an investigation, the reassignment of the deportations case to another judge while the inquiry is ongoing and sanctions, including the possible recommendation of impeachment, if the investigation substantiates the allegations.
Trump himself already has called for Boasberg’s impeachment, which in turn prompted a rare response from Roberts rejecting the call.
The complaint was filed with Judge Sri Srinivasan, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
More than 250 Venezuelans who were deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, were sent home to Venezuela earlier this month in a deal that also free 10 U.S. citizens and permanent residents who had been held by Venezuela.
But the lawsuit over the deportations and the administration’s response to Boasberg’s order remains in his court.
Texas
County votes to release Uvalde school shooting records, ending legal battle
HOUSTON (AP) — Leaders of the county where 19 students and two teachers were killed in the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, voted Monday to release records related to the massacre, ending a yearslong legal battle over disclosure of the information.
Uvalde County commissioners voted 2-1 to release the records and to stop appealing a 2022 lawsuit that a group of media organizations, including The Associated Press, had filed seeking to make the information public.
The decision by commissioners came a week after the Uvalde district’s school board voted to release its records related to the deadly rampage, one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.
The group of media organizations had sued both the county and the school district for the release of the records.
County commissioners and the school district voted to release the records after a Texas appeals court on July 16 upheld a judge’s ruling that had ordered the information be made public.
Both the county and the school district have not said when the records will be released.
“For me, the appellate court’s decision to uphold (the judge’s) ruling to hand over the video coverage was just confirmation for me that … what are we hiding?” Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza told AP after Monday’s meeting.
“I’m very happy that we’re gonna release the information.”
One county commissioner, Mariano Pargas Jr., who was the acting police chief on the day of the school shooting, abstained from the vote.
Family members of the victims had also pushed to make the records public.
Jesse Rizo, the uncle of 9-year-old victim Jackie Cazares, asked commissioners on Monday to release the records.
Rizo is also a member of the school board. During the board’s July 21 meeting, he apologized for the delay in releasing the records.
“Will it answer everything? No. Will it give you closure? I don’t think anything ever will give you that type of closure. Will it hopefully make you heal or allow you to heal? I pray that it does,” Rizo said last week.
Records from the county that are expected to be released include incident and 911 reports concerning Robb Elementary and other locations; video footage; ballistics and evidence logs; and reports of law enforcement interactions with the shooter and his mother.
Records from the school district expected to be released include body-worn and security camera footage from Robb Elementary; student files for the shooter; and records involving Pete Arredondo, the former Uvalde schools police chief who was later indicted over his role in the slow response to the shooting.
Arredondo and former school officer Adrian Gonzales have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child abandonment and endangerment. They are set to face trial on Oct. 20.
Several officers involved, including Arredondo, were fired, and separate investigations by the Department of Justice and state lawmakers faulted law enforcement for botching their response to the massacre.
Uvalde city officials released their records in August 2024. The Texas Department of Public Safety is still fighting a separate lawsuit filed by media organizations for the release of that agency’s records related to the school shooting.
Alabama
Five jail medical staff indicted in 2023 death of mentally ill inmate
Five medical employees at an Alabama jail have been indicted in connection with the death of a mentally ill man who died of hypothermia after being held for two weeks in a concrete cell.
The indictment unsealed Tuesday brings the total number of people charged related to the 2023 death of Tony Mitchell after his incarceration at the Walker County Jail up to 25.
A former jail medical supervisor, a jail health services administrator and three jail licensed practical nurses, are each charged with one count of conspiracy against rights and one count of deprivation of rights, according to the indictment.
During his incarceration, the jail’s medical staff failed to provide Mitchell “with constitutional conditions of confinement” despite the fact that some corrections officers approached the jail’s medical supervisor with concerns about Mitchell’s deteriorating health, the indictment read.
Walker County outsourced the jail’s medical care to QCHC Inc., a company which employed the indicted staff, according to a civil suit filed by Mitchell’s mother. The claims against the Walker County Sheriff’s department employees were settled in July, but the claims against Quality Correctional Health Care and it’s staff remain still pending.
Quality Correctional Health Care is contracted in 10 other jails across the state, according to the indictment from Tuesday. An attorney listed for the company in the civil case didn’t respond to a phone call and an email sent on Tuesday.
Only two people indicted on Tuesday had attorneys listed when the indictments were unsealed. Those two attorneys didn’t respond to an email on Tuesday morning.
Mitchell’s death on Jan. 26, 2023, put a spotlight on conditions and allegations of abuse at the jail in Jasper, Alabama.
Mitchell, 33, died after being brought from the jail to a hospital emergency room with a body temperature of 72 degrees (22 degrees Celsius).
He had been taken into custody two weeks earlier on Jan. 12 after a relative asked authorities to do a welfare check on him because he appeared to be having a mental breakdown. The Walker County sheriff’s office said Mitchell was arrested after firing a shot at deputies and running into the woods.
Prosecutors wrote in the indictment that for much of his two-week detention Mitchell was held in a concrete cell that serves as the jail’s drunk tank with “no blanket, mattress, or clothing, and was routinely left naked on the bare concrete floor.” He was routinely covered in feces and was not provided with regular opportunities to shower or use a toilet, prosecutors wrote.
The indictment is part of a sweeping probe into Mitchell’s death that has ensnared jail leadership, sheriff’s deputies and jail medical staff. The 25 indictments and plea deals depict a rampant culture of abuse and corruption that went beyond Mitchell’s treatment.
At least one other nurse pleaded guilty in October last year. The plea deal said the nurse “had no interest in providing care to someone he thought was unworthy of it and because he feared job ramifications if he offered care against the perceived ‘prevailing culture.’”
Separate indictments unsealed on Monday charged six employees, including the jail captain and supervisor, with numerous federal deprivation of rights and conspiracy, alleging the officers “unlawfully punish detainees in the jail for the detainees’ perceived misbehavior.”
At least one plea states that, at the time of Mitchell’s death, officers intentionally kept the conditions in the jail “as filthy as possible” to convince county commissioners to increase salaries and jail budget.
Texas
Man pleads guilty to stalking WNBA star Caitlin Clark and gets 2 1/2 years in prison
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A 55-year-old Texas man who told police he was in "an imaginary relationship" with WNBA star Caitlin Clark was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to stalking and harassing the Indiana Fever guard.
Michael Lewis, of Denton, Texas, reached a deal with Marion County prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to one felony count of stalking and one misdemeanor count of harassment. He will get credit for time served.
Lewis also was ordered to stay away from Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Hinkle Fieldhouse, Fever events and Indiana Pacers organization events, as well as to have no contact with Clark. He also will not be allowed internet access during his sentence.
Lewis was arrested on Jan. 12 after authorities alleged he sent hundreds of "threats and sexually explicit messages" to Clark between Dec. 12, 2024, and Jan. 11, 2025.
Lewis, who prophesied during Monday's courtroom proceedings that the end of the world was coming, also was recommended to get mental health treatment.
The FBI tracked the IP addresses of Lewis' messages to a hotel in downtown Indianapolis as well as the Indianapolis Public Library. Indianapolis police then made a welfare check on Lewis, according to court documents, and he told officers that he was in "an imaginary relationship" with Clark and that he came to Indianapolis on vacation.
The messages to Clark continued after the initial visit by police.
Clark, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, has been limited to 13 games this season because of injuries and is currently sidelined with a strained right groin.
