California
4 charged with plotting New Year’s Eve attacks in Southern California, prosecutors say
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal authorities on Monday announced the arrests of four alleged members of an extremist group who are suspected of planning coordinated bombing attacks on New Year’s Eve across Southern California.
The suspects were arrested last week in Lucerne Valley, a desert city east of Los Angeles, where they were suspected of preparing to test improvised explosive devices ahead of the planned bombings, according to the federal criminal complaint filed Saturday.
They are members of an offshoot of a pro-Palestinian group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front, the complaint said. During a news conference Monday, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli described the group as a “radical anti-government” group.
They each face charges including conspiracy and possession of a destructive device, court documents show.
The group is alleged to have been plotting to set off a series of bombings at multiple targets in California beginning on New Year’s Eve and also planned to target Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media.
Officials said the four suspects were arrested near the desert city of Twentynine Palms, California, home to a Marine Corps base.
Essayli said the four are all from the Los Angeles area. He said one of the suspects created a detailed plan to bomb five or more locations across Southern California on New Year’s Eve.
“It included step-by-step instructions to build IEDs...and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles,” Essayli said.
Evidence photos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.
The suspects “all brought bomb-making components to the campsite, including various sizes of PVC pipes, suspected potassium nitrate, charcoal, charcoal powder, sulfur powder, and material to be used as fuses, among others,” the complaint states.
Federal authorities planned a Monday morning news conference to discuss the arrests.
Massachusetts
Brian Walshe found guilty of murdering his wife, who disappeared nearly 3 years ago
BOSTON (AP) — Brian Walshe was found guilty Monday of killing his wife, whose body has never been found after she disappeared from their Massachusetts home on New Year’s Day nearly three years ago.
Ana Walshe, an immigrant from Serbia, was last seen early Jan. 1, 2023, after a New Year’s Eve dinner at the couple’s home. Walshe was convicted of first-degree murder after pleading guilty last month to lesser charges of misleading police and illegally disposing of her body.
There was no reaction in the courtroom as the verdict was read, with Walshe staring straight ahead. He was handcuffed and shackled before being led out of the courtroom.
Prosecutors leaned heavily on searches made by devices connected to Brian Walshe that related to dismembering bodies and cleaning up blood. The search questions included “dismemberment and best ways to dispose of a body,” “how long before a body starts to smell” and “hacksaw best tool to dismember.”
When initially questioned by investigators, Walshe said his wife had been called to Washington, D.C., on New Year’s Day for a work emergency. But witnesses testified there was no evidence she took a ride service to the airport or boarded a flight. He didn’t contact her employer until Jan. 4.
Walshe later admitted that he dismembered her body and disposed of it in dumpster, saying that he did so only after panicking when he found his wife had died in bed. Walshe’s defense team didn’t call any witnesses and have argued he found Ana Walshe dead in bed and panicked.
California
Jury says Johnson & Johnson owes $40 million to 2 cancer patients who used talcum powders
A Los Angeles jury awarded $40 million on Friday to two women who claimed that talcum powder made by Johnson & Johnson caused their ovarian cancer.
The giant health care company said it would appeal the jury’s liability verdict and compensatory damages.
The verdict is the latest development in a longstanding legal battle over claims that talc in Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body power was connected to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that strikes the lungs and other organs. Johnson & Johnson stopped selling powder made with talc worldwide in 2023.
In October, another California jury ordered J&J to pay $966 million to the family of a woman who died of mesothelioma, claiming she developed the cancer because the baby powder she used was contaminated with the carcinogen asbestos.
In the latest case, the jury awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $22 million to Deborah Schultz and her husband. “The only thing they did was be loyal to Johnson & Johnson as a customer for only 50 years,’’ said their attorney, Daniel Robinson of the Robinson Calcagnie law firm in Newport Beach, California. “That loyalty was a one-way street.’’
Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice president of litigation, said in a statement that the company had won “16 of the 17 ovarian cancer cases it previously tried” and expected to do so again upon appealing Friday’s verdict.
Haas called the jury’s findings “irreconcilable with the decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming that talc is safe, does not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer.’’
Johnson & Johnson replaced the talc in its baby powder sold in most of North America with cornstarch in 2020 after sales declined.
In April, a U.S. bankruptcy court judge denied J&J’s plan to pay $9 billion to settle ovarian cancer and other gynecological cancer litigation claims based on talc-related products.
California
$31.5 million settlement reached in lawsuit over girl’s starvation death
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A lawsuit over the death of an 11-year-old California girl who was allegedly tortured and starved by her adoptive family reached a settlement Friday totaling $31.5 million from the city and county of San Diego as well as other groups.
The suit was brought on behalf of the two younger sisters of Arabella McCormack, who died in August 2022. The girls were 6 and 7 at the time. Their adoptive mother, Leticia McCormack, and her parents, Adella and Stanley Tom, are facing charges of murder, conspiracy, child abuse and torture. They pleaded not guilty to all charges, and their criminal case is ongoing.
The lawsuit alleged a systematic failure across the city and several agencies and organizations to not report Arabella McCormack’s abuse.
The settlement includes $10 million from the city of San Diego, $10 million from San Diego County, $8.5 million from Pacific Coast Academy and $3 million from Rock Church, the sisters’ attorney Craig McClellan said. The school oversaw
Arabella McCormack’s homeschooling, and her adoptive mother was an ordained elder at the church.
“The amount is going to be enough to take care of the girls for the rest of the lives,” McClellan said. But it “isn’t going to be enough and never could be enough … to replace their sister, nor is it going to erase the memories of what they went through.”
The lawsuit said county social workers did not properly investigate abuse claims and two teachers at the Pacific Coast Academy failed to report the girl’s condition. It also said a San Diego police officer, a friend of the girl’s adoptive mother, gave the family a wooden paddle they could use to hit their children with.
San Diego sheriff’s deputies responded to a call of a child in distress at the McCormack home Aug. 30, 2022. They found Arabella McCormack severely malnourished with bruises, authorities said. She was taken to a hospital where she died.
Her sisters are now 9 and 11 and living with a foster mother. They are in good health and “doing pretty well considering all things,” McClellan said.
California
LA Angels president testifies he wishes he’d known about drug use before pitcher’s fatal OD
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — The president of the Los Angeles Angels baseball team testified Friday in a wrongful death lawsuit that the fatal overdose of pitcher Tyler Skaggs was tough for the club and he wished he had known sooner about drug use by the player and one of the team’s employees.
John Carpino, president of the Angels since 2009, made the comments during the final moments of defense testimony in a long-running trial in California over whether the MLB team should be held responsible for Skaggs’ death. Carpino told jurors that Skaggs and team communications director Eric Kay, who was convicted of providing Skaggs a fentanyl-laced pill that led to his 2019 death, were both addicts and distributed drugs too.
“Knowing what we know now, I wish we would have heard,” Carpino said.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday in the lawsuit filed by Skaggs’ family contending the team knew or should have known Kay was addicted to drugs and dealing to players. Angels’ lawyers have argued team officials didn’t know Skaggs was taking drugs and any activity involving Skaggs and Kay happened on their own time and in the privacy of the player’s hotel room on a team trip to Texas.
The trial, which began in October, has included testimony from players including Angels outfielder Mike Trout, team employees, and Skaggs’ widow, Carli, and parents.
It’s been six years since 27-year-old Skaggs was found dead in the suburban Dallas hotel room where he was staying as the Angels were supposed to open a four-game series against the Texas Rangers. A coroner’s report said the left-handed pitcher choked to death on his vomit and a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was found in his system.
Kay was convicted in 2022 of providing Skaggs with a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl and sentenced to 22 years in federal prison. His federal criminal trial in Texas included testimony from five MLB players who said they received oxycodone from Kay at various times from 2017 to 2019, the years he was accused of obtaining pills and giving them to Angels players.
During the civil trial, witnesses described Kay’s erratic behavior at the stadium and incidents leading to his attending drug rehabilitation before heading out on the trip to Texas. Kay’s now-ex-wife, Camela Kay told jurors the team failed her husband, who worked lengthy hours, and that during his 2019 hospitalization for a drug overdose, she heard he had pills intended for Skaggs.
Skaggs had been a regular in the Angels’ starting rotation since late 2016 and struggled with injuries repeatedly during that time. He previously played for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
After Skaggs’ death, the MLB reached a deal with the players association to start testing for opioids and to refer those who test positive to the treatment board.
4 charged with plotting New Year’s Eve attacks in Southern California, prosecutors say
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal authorities on Monday announced the arrests of four alleged members of an extremist group who are suspected of planning coordinated bombing attacks on New Year’s Eve across Southern California.
The suspects were arrested last week in Lucerne Valley, a desert city east of Los Angeles, where they were suspected of preparing to test improvised explosive devices ahead of the planned bombings, according to the federal criminal complaint filed Saturday.
They are members of an offshoot of a pro-Palestinian group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front, the complaint said. During a news conference Monday, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli described the group as a “radical anti-government” group.
They each face charges including conspiracy and possession of a destructive device, court documents show.
The group is alleged to have been plotting to set off a series of bombings at multiple targets in California beginning on New Year’s Eve and also planned to target Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media.
Officials said the four suspects were arrested near the desert city of Twentynine Palms, California, home to a Marine Corps base.
Essayli said the four are all from the Los Angeles area. He said one of the suspects created a detailed plan to bomb five or more locations across Southern California on New Year’s Eve.
“It included step-by-step instructions to build IEDs...and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles,” Essayli said.
Evidence photos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.
The suspects “all brought bomb-making components to the campsite, including various sizes of PVC pipes, suspected potassium nitrate, charcoal, charcoal powder, sulfur powder, and material to be used as fuses, among others,” the complaint states.
Federal authorities planned a Monday morning news conference to discuss the arrests.
Massachusetts
Brian Walshe found guilty of murdering his wife, who disappeared nearly 3 years ago
BOSTON (AP) — Brian Walshe was found guilty Monday of killing his wife, whose body has never been found after she disappeared from their Massachusetts home on New Year’s Day nearly three years ago.
Ana Walshe, an immigrant from Serbia, was last seen early Jan. 1, 2023, after a New Year’s Eve dinner at the couple’s home. Walshe was convicted of first-degree murder after pleading guilty last month to lesser charges of misleading police and illegally disposing of her body.
There was no reaction in the courtroom as the verdict was read, with Walshe staring straight ahead. He was handcuffed and shackled before being led out of the courtroom.
Prosecutors leaned heavily on searches made by devices connected to Brian Walshe that related to dismembering bodies and cleaning up blood. The search questions included “dismemberment and best ways to dispose of a body,” “how long before a body starts to smell” and “hacksaw best tool to dismember.”
When initially questioned by investigators, Walshe said his wife had been called to Washington, D.C., on New Year’s Day for a work emergency. But witnesses testified there was no evidence she took a ride service to the airport or boarded a flight. He didn’t contact her employer until Jan. 4.
Walshe later admitted that he dismembered her body and disposed of it in dumpster, saying that he did so only after panicking when he found his wife had died in bed. Walshe’s defense team didn’t call any witnesses and have argued he found Ana Walshe dead in bed and panicked.
California
Jury says Johnson & Johnson owes $40 million to 2 cancer patients who used talcum powders
A Los Angeles jury awarded $40 million on Friday to two women who claimed that talcum powder made by Johnson & Johnson caused their ovarian cancer.
The giant health care company said it would appeal the jury’s liability verdict and compensatory damages.
The verdict is the latest development in a longstanding legal battle over claims that talc in Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body power was connected to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that strikes the lungs and other organs. Johnson & Johnson stopped selling powder made with talc worldwide in 2023.
In October, another California jury ordered J&J to pay $966 million to the family of a woman who died of mesothelioma, claiming she developed the cancer because the baby powder she used was contaminated with the carcinogen asbestos.
In the latest case, the jury awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $22 million to Deborah Schultz and her husband. “The only thing they did was be loyal to Johnson & Johnson as a customer for only 50 years,’’ said their attorney, Daniel Robinson of the Robinson Calcagnie law firm in Newport Beach, California. “That loyalty was a one-way street.’’
Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice president of litigation, said in a statement that the company had won “16 of the 17 ovarian cancer cases it previously tried” and expected to do so again upon appealing Friday’s verdict.
Haas called the jury’s findings “irreconcilable with the decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming that talc is safe, does not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer.’’
Johnson & Johnson replaced the talc in its baby powder sold in most of North America with cornstarch in 2020 after sales declined.
In April, a U.S. bankruptcy court judge denied J&J’s plan to pay $9 billion to settle ovarian cancer and other gynecological cancer litigation claims based on talc-related products.
California
$31.5 million settlement reached in lawsuit over girl’s starvation death
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A lawsuit over the death of an 11-year-old California girl who was allegedly tortured and starved by her adoptive family reached a settlement Friday totaling $31.5 million from the city and county of San Diego as well as other groups.
The suit was brought on behalf of the two younger sisters of Arabella McCormack, who died in August 2022. The girls were 6 and 7 at the time. Their adoptive mother, Leticia McCormack, and her parents, Adella and Stanley Tom, are facing charges of murder, conspiracy, child abuse and torture. They pleaded not guilty to all charges, and their criminal case is ongoing.
The lawsuit alleged a systematic failure across the city and several agencies and organizations to not report Arabella McCormack’s abuse.
The settlement includes $10 million from the city of San Diego, $10 million from San Diego County, $8.5 million from Pacific Coast Academy and $3 million from Rock Church, the sisters’ attorney Craig McClellan said. The school oversaw
Arabella McCormack’s homeschooling, and her adoptive mother was an ordained elder at the church.
“The amount is going to be enough to take care of the girls for the rest of the lives,” McClellan said. But it “isn’t going to be enough and never could be enough … to replace their sister, nor is it going to erase the memories of what they went through.”
The lawsuit said county social workers did not properly investigate abuse claims and two teachers at the Pacific Coast Academy failed to report the girl’s condition. It also said a San Diego police officer, a friend of the girl’s adoptive mother, gave the family a wooden paddle they could use to hit their children with.
San Diego sheriff’s deputies responded to a call of a child in distress at the McCormack home Aug. 30, 2022. They found Arabella McCormack severely malnourished with bruises, authorities said. She was taken to a hospital where she died.
Her sisters are now 9 and 11 and living with a foster mother. They are in good health and “doing pretty well considering all things,” McClellan said.
California
LA Angels president testifies he wishes he’d known about drug use before pitcher’s fatal OD
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — The president of the Los Angeles Angels baseball team testified Friday in a wrongful death lawsuit that the fatal overdose of pitcher Tyler Skaggs was tough for the club and he wished he had known sooner about drug use by the player and one of the team’s employees.
John Carpino, president of the Angels since 2009, made the comments during the final moments of defense testimony in a long-running trial in California over whether the MLB team should be held responsible for Skaggs’ death. Carpino told jurors that Skaggs and team communications director Eric Kay, who was convicted of providing Skaggs a fentanyl-laced pill that led to his 2019 death, were both addicts and distributed drugs too.
“Knowing what we know now, I wish we would have heard,” Carpino said.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday in the lawsuit filed by Skaggs’ family contending the team knew or should have known Kay was addicted to drugs and dealing to players. Angels’ lawyers have argued team officials didn’t know Skaggs was taking drugs and any activity involving Skaggs and Kay happened on their own time and in the privacy of the player’s hotel room on a team trip to Texas.
The trial, which began in October, has included testimony from players including Angels outfielder Mike Trout, team employees, and Skaggs’ widow, Carli, and parents.
It’s been six years since 27-year-old Skaggs was found dead in the suburban Dallas hotel room where he was staying as the Angels were supposed to open a four-game series against the Texas Rangers. A coroner’s report said the left-handed pitcher choked to death on his vomit and a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was found in his system.
Kay was convicted in 2022 of providing Skaggs with a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl and sentenced to 22 years in federal prison. His federal criminal trial in Texas included testimony from five MLB players who said they received oxycodone from Kay at various times from 2017 to 2019, the years he was accused of obtaining pills and giving them to Angels players.
During the civil trial, witnesses described Kay’s erratic behavior at the stadium and incidents leading to his attending drug rehabilitation before heading out on the trip to Texas. Kay’s now-ex-wife, Camela Kay told jurors the team failed her husband, who worked lengthy hours, and that during his 2019 hospitalization for a drug overdose, she heard he had pills intended for Skaggs.
Skaggs had been a regular in the Angels’ starting rotation since late 2016 and struggled with injuries repeatedly during that time. He previously played for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
After Skaggs’ death, the MLB reached a deal with the players association to start testing for opioids and to refer those who test positive to the treatment board.
