New York
Judge says he’ll rule in May on Luigi Mangione’s fight to exclude evidence from murder trial
NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione’s pretrial hearing wrapped up Thursday with a judge saying he plans to rule in May on what evidence prosecutors will be able to use in his New York trial for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Prosecutors rested their case after calling nearly 20 witnesses over three weeks, many of them police officers involved in Mangione’s December 2024 arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Mangione’s lawyers opted not to call any witnesses.
Carro gave Mangione’s lawyers until Jan. 29 and prosecutors until March 5 to make written submissions summarizing their arguments. The judge said he’ll rule on May 18.
Mangione, 27, is seeking to exclude items including a gun and notebook found in his backpack that prosecutors say tie him to Thompson’s Dec. 4, 2024, shooting in Manhattan. Prosecutors say the 9 mm handgun matches the one used to kill Thompson and the notebook contains an entry describing his intent to “wack” a health insurance executive.
Mangione’s lawyers contend that anything found in Mangione’s backpack should be excluded from his trial because police didn’t have a search warrant and lacked the grounds to justify a warrantless search.
Prosecutors say the search was legal because it was conducted in conjunction with an arrest and officers were checking to make sure there were no dangerous items in the bag that could be harmful to them or the public. Police eventually obtained a warrant, prosecutors said.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. The pretrial hearing applies only to the state case. His lawyers are making a similar push to exclude the evidence from his federal case, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Mangione was arrested after customers spotted him eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, a Pennsylvania city of about 44,000 people some 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. The restaurant’s manager told a 911 dispatcher customers thought “he looks like the CEO shooter from New York.”
Florida
Man pleads not guilty in 1997 killing of young mother once linked to Gilgo Beach murders
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A retired Army veteran and state trooper from Florida pleaded not guilty Thursday in the 1997 killing of a young mother that had long been tied to an infamous string of murders near New York’s Gilgo Beach.
Andrew Dykes, 66, formally entered the plea during his arraignment in Nassau County court in Mineola in the killing of Tanya Denise Jackson.
He didn’t speak further in court before he was ordered held in custody until his next court date on Jan. 16.
Dykes’ lawyer, Joseph Lo Piccolo, said after the brief hearing that he expected his client would challenge the DNA evidence prosecutors say link him to the killing. He also described Dykes as a “law-abiding” citizen these past 30 years.
“He’s a father. He led a life that many would respect in law enforcement, in the military,” Lo Piccolo said.
Prosecutors said Dykes had met Jackson while the two had been stationed at a military base in Texas.
The two had a relationship while Dykes was still married and had a child, Jackson’s 2-year-old daughter, Tatiana Marie Jackson, who was also found killed on Long Island.
Dykes, who was not charged Thursday in the toddler’s killing, was arrested earlier this month in Tampa and held in a Florida jail until his extradition to New York.
Tanya Jackson was found in a state park on Long Island in 1997, her body dismembered and long unidentifiable beyond a tattoo of a peach.
Her daughter’s body and some more of Jackson’s remains were found years later elsewhere on Long Island.
Investigators in 2011 had been combing an ocean parkway near Gilgo Beach as part of a sprawling investigation into mostly female sex workers who had disappeared in the area when they found the Jacksons’ remains.
A total of 10 sets of human remains were found in the sand along the parkway overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Police have long said some of the remains were likely victims of a serial killer but that there was also evidence the remote area had been a dumping ground for more than one murderer.
Rex Heuermann, a married father who lived near Gilgo Beach, was eventually charged in seven of the killings, but not the slayings of the long unidentified mother and her toddler.
The Long Island architect has maintained his innocence as he remains in custody awaiting trial.
In April, Nassau County police revealed they had identified the mother, who investigators had nicknamed “Peaches” for her tattoo, as Jackson through advanced DNA and genealogy research.
They said the 26-year-old Alabama native and veteran of the Gulf War had been living in Brooklyn with her daughter at the time of her disappearance and was largely estranged from her family.
Police had said the toddler’s father, who they did not name at the time, had been cooperating with the investigation and was not considered a suspect.
Washington
Drug cartel member accused of faking his death sentenced to 11-plus years in jail
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Mexican drug cartel member accused of faking his death to avoid capture was sentenced Thursday to more than 11 years in U.S. prison for his money laundering role in one of his home country’s largest and most violent narcotics trafficking organizations.
Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa was living in California under a phony identity when he was arrested in November 2024. The father of his longtime girlfriend is Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, the fugitive Jalisco New Generation boss known as El Mencho.
Gutierrez-Ochoa was wanted in Mexico on suspicion of kidnapping two Mexican Navy members in 2021 to secure the release of El Mencho’s wife after she had been arrested by Mexican authorities, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s affidavit.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington sentenced Gutierrez-Ochoa to 11 years and eight months in federal prison. Howell said the violent cartel, known by its Spanish-language acronym CJNG, also is a “dangerous force” in the United States.
“It’s a dangerous way to make a living,” Howell said. “It’s a dangerous way to live.”
Gutierrez-Ochoa told the judge that he accepts responsibility for his “mistake.”
“I regret all of this,” he said through a translator. “Never again will I make a mistake like this in my life.”
Justice Department prosecutors recommended a 14-year prison sentence for the 28-year-old Gutierrez-Ochoa, who pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to launder millions of dollars in drug trafficking proceeds. Prosecutors described him as a dangerous, trained operative who was secretly embedded in the U.S. to do the CJNG cartel’s bidding.
“The CJNG kills, tortures, and corrupts to traffic staggering quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs into the United States and elsewhere — all for profiting and enrichment, which in turn fund the cycle of violence, ravaging countless lives and communities,” prosecutors wrote.
Gutierrez-Ochoa’s lawyers asked for a seven-year prison sentence. They said he was remorseful and accepted responsibility for his criminal conduct.
“Mr. Gutierrez’s rehabilitation is not performative,” they wrote. “It reflects a young man who now fully understands the magnitude of his mistakes and who seeks to rebuild his life with integrity.”
El Mencho told associates that he killed Gutierrez-Ochoa for lying, but Gutierrez-Ochoa actually faked his death and fled from Mexico to Riverside, California, authorities have said. Gutierrez-Ochoa and his girlfriend, a U.S. citizen, lived “a CJNG-sponsored life of abundance” in a $1.2 million home purchased with laundered cartel money, according to prosecutors.
The State Department has offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of El Mencho.
In February, President Donald Trump’s administration designated CJNG as a foreign terrorist organization, giving authorities new tools to prosecute cartel associates.
Howell has sentenced other CJNG leaders.
José González Valencia, a brother-in-law of El Mencho, was sentenced in June to 30 years in a prison after pleading guilty to a drug trafficking conspiracy charge. El Mencho’s son, Rubén Oseguera, known as El Menchito, was sentenced in March to life in prison after a jury convicted him of conspiring to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for U.S. importation and using a firearm in a drug conspiracy.
Washington
Rubio hits 2 more International Criminal Court judges with sanctions over investigating Israeli officials
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has imposed sanctions on two more International Criminal Court judges over their role in investigating Israeli officials for possible war crimes during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that he had designated Judges Gocha Lordkipanidze of Georgia and Erdenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia for penalties that can include a freezing of assets in U.S. jurisdictions and a ban on travel to the United States.
The two are the latest in a series of ICC judges and staffers to have been targeted by the Trump administration for approving or advancing criminal complaints about Israel and the United States, which aren’t members of the court. The Republican administration had previously imposed sanctions on the former ICC chief prosecutor and nine judicial and support staff members, including lawyers and investigators.
“The ICC has continued to engage in politicized actions targeting Israel, which set a dangerous precedent for all nations,” Rubio said in a statement. “We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject U.S. and Israeli persons to the ICC’s jurisdiction.”
The Hague-based ICC reacted quickly to the announcement, saying in a statement that it “deplores” the move.
“These sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution which operates pursuant to the mandate conferred by its states parties from across regions,” it said. “Such measures targeting judges and prosecutors who were elected by the states parties undermine the rule of law. When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk.”
The statement said the court, which has 18 judges, would continue to carry out its mandate “with independence and impartiality.”
The Trump administration’s actions come after a panel of ICC judges last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Netanyahu condemned the warrant against him, saying Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions” by the court. Gallant said the decision “sets a dangerous precedent against the right to self-defense and moral warfare and encourages murderous terrorism.”
Judge says he’ll rule in May on Luigi Mangione’s fight to exclude evidence from murder trial
NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione’s pretrial hearing wrapped up Thursday with a judge saying he plans to rule in May on what evidence prosecutors will be able to use in his New York trial for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Prosecutors rested their case after calling nearly 20 witnesses over three weeks, many of them police officers involved in Mangione’s December 2024 arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Mangione’s lawyers opted not to call any witnesses.
Carro gave Mangione’s lawyers until Jan. 29 and prosecutors until March 5 to make written submissions summarizing their arguments. The judge said he’ll rule on May 18.
Mangione, 27, is seeking to exclude items including a gun and notebook found in his backpack that prosecutors say tie him to Thompson’s Dec. 4, 2024, shooting in Manhattan. Prosecutors say the 9 mm handgun matches the one used to kill Thompson and the notebook contains an entry describing his intent to “wack” a health insurance executive.
Mangione’s lawyers contend that anything found in Mangione’s backpack should be excluded from his trial because police didn’t have a search warrant and lacked the grounds to justify a warrantless search.
Prosecutors say the search was legal because it was conducted in conjunction with an arrest and officers were checking to make sure there were no dangerous items in the bag that could be harmful to them or the public. Police eventually obtained a warrant, prosecutors said.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. The pretrial hearing applies only to the state case. His lawyers are making a similar push to exclude the evidence from his federal case, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Mangione was arrested after customers spotted him eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, a Pennsylvania city of about 44,000 people some 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. The restaurant’s manager told a 911 dispatcher customers thought “he looks like the CEO shooter from New York.”
Florida
Man pleads not guilty in 1997 killing of young mother once linked to Gilgo Beach murders
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A retired Army veteran and state trooper from Florida pleaded not guilty Thursday in the 1997 killing of a young mother that had long been tied to an infamous string of murders near New York’s Gilgo Beach.
Andrew Dykes, 66, formally entered the plea during his arraignment in Nassau County court in Mineola in the killing of Tanya Denise Jackson.
He didn’t speak further in court before he was ordered held in custody until his next court date on Jan. 16.
Dykes’ lawyer, Joseph Lo Piccolo, said after the brief hearing that he expected his client would challenge the DNA evidence prosecutors say link him to the killing. He also described Dykes as a “law-abiding” citizen these past 30 years.
“He’s a father. He led a life that many would respect in law enforcement, in the military,” Lo Piccolo said.
Prosecutors said Dykes had met Jackson while the two had been stationed at a military base in Texas.
The two had a relationship while Dykes was still married and had a child, Jackson’s 2-year-old daughter, Tatiana Marie Jackson, who was also found killed on Long Island.
Dykes, who was not charged Thursday in the toddler’s killing, was arrested earlier this month in Tampa and held in a Florida jail until his extradition to New York.
Tanya Jackson was found in a state park on Long Island in 1997, her body dismembered and long unidentifiable beyond a tattoo of a peach.
Her daughter’s body and some more of Jackson’s remains were found years later elsewhere on Long Island.
Investigators in 2011 had been combing an ocean parkway near Gilgo Beach as part of a sprawling investigation into mostly female sex workers who had disappeared in the area when they found the Jacksons’ remains.
A total of 10 sets of human remains were found in the sand along the parkway overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Police have long said some of the remains were likely victims of a serial killer but that there was also evidence the remote area had been a dumping ground for more than one murderer.
Rex Heuermann, a married father who lived near Gilgo Beach, was eventually charged in seven of the killings, but not the slayings of the long unidentified mother and her toddler.
The Long Island architect has maintained his innocence as he remains in custody awaiting trial.
In April, Nassau County police revealed they had identified the mother, who investigators had nicknamed “Peaches” for her tattoo, as Jackson through advanced DNA and genealogy research.
They said the 26-year-old Alabama native and veteran of the Gulf War had been living in Brooklyn with her daughter at the time of her disappearance and was largely estranged from her family.
Police had said the toddler’s father, who they did not name at the time, had been cooperating with the investigation and was not considered a suspect.
Washington
Drug cartel member accused of faking his death sentenced to 11-plus years in jail
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Mexican drug cartel member accused of faking his death to avoid capture was sentenced Thursday to more than 11 years in U.S. prison for his money laundering role in one of his home country’s largest and most violent narcotics trafficking organizations.
Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa was living in California under a phony identity when he was arrested in November 2024. The father of his longtime girlfriend is Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, the fugitive Jalisco New Generation boss known as El Mencho.
Gutierrez-Ochoa was wanted in Mexico on suspicion of kidnapping two Mexican Navy members in 2021 to secure the release of El Mencho’s wife after she had been arrested by Mexican authorities, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s affidavit.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington sentenced Gutierrez-Ochoa to 11 years and eight months in federal prison. Howell said the violent cartel, known by its Spanish-language acronym CJNG, also is a “dangerous force” in the United States.
“It’s a dangerous way to make a living,” Howell said. “It’s a dangerous way to live.”
Gutierrez-Ochoa told the judge that he accepts responsibility for his “mistake.”
“I regret all of this,” he said through a translator. “Never again will I make a mistake like this in my life.”
Justice Department prosecutors recommended a 14-year prison sentence for the 28-year-old Gutierrez-Ochoa, who pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to launder millions of dollars in drug trafficking proceeds. Prosecutors described him as a dangerous, trained operative who was secretly embedded in the U.S. to do the CJNG cartel’s bidding.
“The CJNG kills, tortures, and corrupts to traffic staggering quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs into the United States and elsewhere — all for profiting and enrichment, which in turn fund the cycle of violence, ravaging countless lives and communities,” prosecutors wrote.
Gutierrez-Ochoa’s lawyers asked for a seven-year prison sentence. They said he was remorseful and accepted responsibility for his criminal conduct.
“Mr. Gutierrez’s rehabilitation is not performative,” they wrote. “It reflects a young man who now fully understands the magnitude of his mistakes and who seeks to rebuild his life with integrity.”
El Mencho told associates that he killed Gutierrez-Ochoa for lying, but Gutierrez-Ochoa actually faked his death and fled from Mexico to Riverside, California, authorities have said. Gutierrez-Ochoa and his girlfriend, a U.S. citizen, lived “a CJNG-sponsored life of abundance” in a $1.2 million home purchased with laundered cartel money, according to prosecutors.
The State Department has offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of El Mencho.
In February, President Donald Trump’s administration designated CJNG as a foreign terrorist organization, giving authorities new tools to prosecute cartel associates.
Howell has sentenced other CJNG leaders.
José González Valencia, a brother-in-law of El Mencho, was sentenced in June to 30 years in a prison after pleading guilty to a drug trafficking conspiracy charge. El Mencho’s son, Rubén Oseguera, known as El Menchito, was sentenced in March to life in prison after a jury convicted him of conspiring to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for U.S. importation and using a firearm in a drug conspiracy.
Washington
Rubio hits 2 more International Criminal Court judges with sanctions over investigating Israeli officials
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has imposed sanctions on two more International Criminal Court judges over their role in investigating Israeli officials for possible war crimes during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that he had designated Judges Gocha Lordkipanidze of Georgia and Erdenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia for penalties that can include a freezing of assets in U.S. jurisdictions and a ban on travel to the United States.
The two are the latest in a series of ICC judges and staffers to have been targeted by the Trump administration for approving or advancing criminal complaints about Israel and the United States, which aren’t members of the court. The Republican administration had previously imposed sanctions on the former ICC chief prosecutor and nine judicial and support staff members, including lawyers and investigators.
“The ICC has continued to engage in politicized actions targeting Israel, which set a dangerous precedent for all nations,” Rubio said in a statement. “We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject U.S. and Israeli persons to the ICC’s jurisdiction.”
The Hague-based ICC reacted quickly to the announcement, saying in a statement that it “deplores” the move.
“These sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution which operates pursuant to the mandate conferred by its states parties from across regions,” it said. “Such measures targeting judges and prosecutors who were elected by the states parties undermine the rule of law. When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk.”
The statement said the court, which has 18 judges, would continue to carry out its mandate “with independence and impartiality.”
The Trump administration’s actions come after a panel of ICC judges last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Netanyahu condemned the warrant against him, saying Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions” by the court. Gallant said the decision “sets a dangerous precedent against the right to self-defense and moral warfare and encourages murderous terrorism.”
