Washington
Judge refuses to block Trump administration from building border wall along tribe’s reservation
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge refused on Friday to block the Trump administration from taking steps to build 62 miles of international border wall along part of a Native American tribe’s reservation without its consent.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., denied the Tohono O’odham Nation’s request for a court-ordered halt to border wall construction on its 2.8-million-acre reservation. Leon ruled the tribe hasn’t established that a border wall will change its reservation boundaries without congressional authority.
The judge also rejected the tribe’s claim that the planned border wall would illegally trespass on its reservation.
“And in any event, I find that the Government’s interests in securing the border, enforcing immigration laws, and ensuring public safety outweigh any surviving irreparable harms at this juncture,” Leon wrote.
The tribe released a statement late Friday strongly disagreeing with the decision.
“Too many critical issues were not adequately addressed, such as inevitable impacts construction will have on the Nation’s land and the permanent destruction of sacred sites,” Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon M. Jose said. “The Nation will consider all possible options for moving forward, as this issue is simply too important to the O’odham.”
The O’odham reservation in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona abuts 62 miles of the Mexico border. The tribe has over 37,000 members, including thousands who live in Mexico.
Building the border wall would led to “significant devastation” on the reservation, including the destruction of mountain peaks that are sacred to the O’odham, tribe attorneys said.
“It would fray the ties between O’odham communities and families on opposite sides of the border, interfere significantly with O’odham religious rituals and practices, and destroy plant and animal resources sacred to the O’odham,” the lawyers wrote.
In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt issued a proclamation reserving a 60-foot strip of public land along the U.S.-Mexico border for a buffer zone called the “Roosevelt Reservation,” which was formed a decade before the reservation’s establishment.
Tribe attorneys say it is “fanciful at best” to suggest that border wall construction can be confined to a 60-foot-wide corridor.
During a July 22 hearing, Leon appeared to be skeptical that U.S. laws tip in favor of the tribe’s bid for a preliminary injunction, calling it an “extraordinary” request. Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, said he couldn’t find a previous court ruling under comparable circumstances.
United Kingdom
BBC asks a U.S. court for help in getting testimony from the Trump family in defamation suit
LONDON (AP) — The BBC asked a U.S. court for help in getting documents and testimony from members of U.S. President Donald Trump ‘s family in connection with his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster, a court document showed.
Lawyers for the BBC argued that Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr. have “personal knowledge” and likely have records relevant to elements of Trump’s claims against the broadcaster, according to a filing Friday in federal court in Florida.
The broadcaster has been unable to serve subpoenas because the three have Secret Service protection and other security personnel around them, the filing says.
Trump filed the lawsuit in December seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing it of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.
The allegations center on the way a 2024 documentary edited a speech Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington. The lawsuit accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech” to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”
It added that the editing was “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
The BBC has apologized to Trump for the misleading edit, but said it had not defamed him.
The latest court filing said that Trump’s family members had knowledge of issues that were relevant to Trump’s argument “that it would be materially false to imply that he incited violence” on Jan. 6, 2021.
It cited that Donald Trump, Jr. and Ivanka Trump were both present in the Oval Office when Trump was still revising his speech, adding that Donald Trump, Jr. spoke directly with his father after violence had broken out at the Capitol.
The filing says the BBC asked Trump to accept the subpoenas on his daughter and son-in-law’s behalf or to direct the Secret Service to allow the subpoenas to be served, but he refused. The broadcaster asked the court to allow the subpoenas to be served by email and certified mail.
The judge has given Trump’s legal team until Friday to respond to the BBC’s request.
Trump’s legal team said that “the BBC is simply trying to distract away from their own obvious liability.”
“The BBC intentionally defamed President Donald J. Trump, and now the BBC is seeking to harass him, his family, and supporters by abusing the deposition process,” according to the team.
A trial has been provisionally set for February in the case.
Last week, a federal judge in Florida granted Trump a temporary reprieve from an order that he provide details of his business empire’s financial performance as part of the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman agreed to put that order on hold while he considers an amended complaint from Trump that would narrow his claim that he suffered damage to both business and reputation.
New York
Judge says former Knick couldn’t prove he was assaulted at game
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge sided with Madison Square Garden in its lengthy legal battle with Charles Oakley on Friday, saying that the former New York Knicks All-Star had not proven he was assaulted when he was removed from a game he attended in 2017.
Oakley was handcuffed and arrested after an altercation with security while sitting near owner James Dolan during a game against the Los Angeles Clippers. Oakley initially brought a number of claims against MSG that were dismissed in February 2020. After appeal, Oakley’s assault-and-battery claim remained.
But Judge Richard J. Sullivan of the Southern District of New York ruled that Oakley “has produced no evidence to support his claim that he was assaulted by MSG security guards.”
MSG had pointed to video evidence and previous testimony that Oakley was not assaulted.
“For more than nine years, Mr. Oakley’s lawyers have pursued claims they knew were false. Those claims have now been dismissed by the Court in their entirety — for the third time,” MSG said in a statement. “We are pursuing legal action against Douglas Wigdor, and his unscrupulous law firm, to hold them accountable for years of frivolous litigation and their blatant abuse of the judicial system.”
Oakley was a beloved Knicks forward in the 1990s, and he remains one of the few former players who has remained absent from MSG during the team’s recent playoff runs, culminating with this year’s NBA championship.
His removal from the game was a jarring scene, but Sullivan ruled that Oakley hadn’t proven it was done with excessive force.
“Ample evidence — including videos from multiple angles and the unanimous testimony of every witness (even, to some extent, Oakley himself) — shows that Oakley had a reasonable opportunity to depart the Garden, that he instead resorted to physical violence, and that he was never pushed to the ground,” Sullivan wrote.
The judge added that “no rational jury could conclude that Oakley reasonably feared himself at risk of wrongful physical contact — let alone that MSG intended to stir such an apprehension.”
Wigdor still hopes a jury will get a chance to rule.
New Mexico
Ex-high-ranking Democratic legislator convicted in federal fraud case
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A former high-ranking New Mexico Democratic legislator has been convicted of dozens of federal charges stemming from a yearslong scheme to divert money from public schools to a friend’s company in exchange for kickbacks.
Jurors reached the verdict Friday, following a trial that included testimony from Sheryl Williams Stapleton’s former colleagues, investigators and tax experts. Williams Stapleton, who declined to testify, could face decades in federal prison when sentenced. Her attorney said all options were being considered, including an appeal.
A grand jury indicted Williams Stapleton, 69, in March 2024 on more than three dozen counts that included bribery, mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the federal government.
Those were on top of money laundering, racketeering and other charges filed in 2021 by state prosecutors. A trial in that case is scheduled for October.
A former state House majority leader and an administrator with the state’s largest public school district, in Albuquerque, Williams Stapleton was first elected in 1994. She resigned from the House two days after search warrants were served at her home during summer 2021, and Albuquerque Public Schools fired her.
Prosecutors said the district paid more than $3 million to Robotics Management Learning Systems LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based company at the center of the state and federal cases. Most of that money came from federal funds meant for vocational education programs.
As the school district’s career and technical education director, Williams Stapleton made sure money for those programs went to Robotics, which was owned by her friend and co-defendant Joseph Johnson, prosecutors said.
Williams Stapleton was accused of ushering the company’s invoices through the procurement process. Johnson was accused of providing blank checks to Williams Stapleton, who in turn wrote about 230 checks totaling $1,152,506 “for her own benefit,” according to the indictment.
Johnson testified Tuesday that he was unaware that Williams Stapleton withdrew more than $1 million from his company’s checking accounts between 2013 and 2020. He claimed that he lost focus on the business after his son was killed in a car crash in 2016.
Johnson told jurors that he relied on his office manager and that she was the one who mailed the blank checks to Williams Stapleton. Johnson was found guilty of similar charges as Williams Stapleton, including bribery and money laundering.
Williams Stapleton’s attorney, Ryan Villa, told jurors that his client stole money from Johnson’s company but did not steal from state and federal taxpayers as alleged by prosecutors.
Prosecutors also presented evidence that both Williams Stapleton and Johnson failed to report thousands of dollars in payments from Robotics on their federal income tax returns.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Federici said at the start of the trial that about 73% of the more than $3 million the company received from the school district and federal vocational training funds was profit. He said the co-defendants split that for their own use.
Investigators found that most of the money in Robotics’ checking account came from federal education funds the company obtained through contracts with the school district. Prosecutors presented video from a stakeout of the company’s Albuquerque post office box that showed Williams Stapleton checking the company’s mail.
Judge refuses to block Trump administration from building border wall along tribe’s reservation
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge refused on Friday to block the Trump administration from taking steps to build 62 miles of international border wall along part of a Native American tribe’s reservation without its consent.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., denied the Tohono O’odham Nation’s request for a court-ordered halt to border wall construction on its 2.8-million-acre reservation. Leon ruled the tribe hasn’t established that a border wall will change its reservation boundaries without congressional authority.
The judge also rejected the tribe’s claim that the planned border wall would illegally trespass on its reservation.
“And in any event, I find that the Government’s interests in securing the border, enforcing immigration laws, and ensuring public safety outweigh any surviving irreparable harms at this juncture,” Leon wrote.
The tribe released a statement late Friday strongly disagreeing with the decision.
“Too many critical issues were not adequately addressed, such as inevitable impacts construction will have on the Nation’s land and the permanent destruction of sacred sites,” Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon M. Jose said. “The Nation will consider all possible options for moving forward, as this issue is simply too important to the O’odham.”
The O’odham reservation in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona abuts 62 miles of the Mexico border. The tribe has over 37,000 members, including thousands who live in Mexico.
Building the border wall would led to “significant devastation” on the reservation, including the destruction of mountain peaks that are sacred to the O’odham, tribe attorneys said.
“It would fray the ties between O’odham communities and families on opposite sides of the border, interfere significantly with O’odham religious rituals and practices, and destroy plant and animal resources sacred to the O’odham,” the lawyers wrote.
In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt issued a proclamation reserving a 60-foot strip of public land along the U.S.-Mexico border for a buffer zone called the “Roosevelt Reservation,” which was formed a decade before the reservation’s establishment.
Tribe attorneys say it is “fanciful at best” to suggest that border wall construction can be confined to a 60-foot-wide corridor.
During a July 22 hearing, Leon appeared to be skeptical that U.S. laws tip in favor of the tribe’s bid for a preliminary injunction, calling it an “extraordinary” request. Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, said he couldn’t find a previous court ruling under comparable circumstances.
United Kingdom
BBC asks a U.S. court for help in getting testimony from the Trump family in defamation suit
LONDON (AP) — The BBC asked a U.S. court for help in getting documents and testimony from members of U.S. President Donald Trump ‘s family in connection with his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster, a court document showed.
Lawyers for the BBC argued that Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr. have “personal knowledge” and likely have records relevant to elements of Trump’s claims against the broadcaster, according to a filing Friday in federal court in Florida.
The broadcaster has been unable to serve subpoenas because the three have Secret Service protection and other security personnel around them, the filing says.
Trump filed the lawsuit in December seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing it of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.
The allegations center on the way a 2024 documentary edited a speech Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington. The lawsuit accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech” to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”
It added that the editing was “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
The BBC has apologized to Trump for the misleading edit, but said it had not defamed him.
The latest court filing said that Trump’s family members had knowledge of issues that were relevant to Trump’s argument “that it would be materially false to imply that he incited violence” on Jan. 6, 2021.
It cited that Donald Trump, Jr. and Ivanka Trump were both present in the Oval Office when Trump was still revising his speech, adding that Donald Trump, Jr. spoke directly with his father after violence had broken out at the Capitol.
The filing says the BBC asked Trump to accept the subpoenas on his daughter and son-in-law’s behalf or to direct the Secret Service to allow the subpoenas to be served, but he refused. The broadcaster asked the court to allow the subpoenas to be served by email and certified mail.
The judge has given Trump’s legal team until Friday to respond to the BBC’s request.
Trump’s legal team said that “the BBC is simply trying to distract away from their own obvious liability.”
“The BBC intentionally defamed President Donald J. Trump, and now the BBC is seeking to harass him, his family, and supporters by abusing the deposition process,” according to the team.
A trial has been provisionally set for February in the case.
Last week, a federal judge in Florida granted Trump a temporary reprieve from an order that he provide details of his business empire’s financial performance as part of the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman agreed to put that order on hold while he considers an amended complaint from Trump that would narrow his claim that he suffered damage to both business and reputation.
New York
Judge says former Knick couldn’t prove he was assaulted at game
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge sided with Madison Square Garden in its lengthy legal battle with Charles Oakley on Friday, saying that the former New York Knicks All-Star had not proven he was assaulted when he was removed from a game he attended in 2017.
Oakley was handcuffed and arrested after an altercation with security while sitting near owner James Dolan during a game against the Los Angeles Clippers. Oakley initially brought a number of claims against MSG that were dismissed in February 2020. After appeal, Oakley’s assault-and-battery claim remained.
But Judge Richard J. Sullivan of the Southern District of New York ruled that Oakley “has produced no evidence to support his claim that he was assaulted by MSG security guards.”
MSG had pointed to video evidence and previous testimony that Oakley was not assaulted.
“For more than nine years, Mr. Oakley’s lawyers have pursued claims they knew were false. Those claims have now been dismissed by the Court in their entirety — for the third time,” MSG said in a statement. “We are pursuing legal action against Douglas Wigdor, and his unscrupulous law firm, to hold them accountable for years of frivolous litigation and their blatant abuse of the judicial system.”
Oakley was a beloved Knicks forward in the 1990s, and he remains one of the few former players who has remained absent from MSG during the team’s recent playoff runs, culminating with this year’s NBA championship.
His removal from the game was a jarring scene, but Sullivan ruled that Oakley hadn’t proven it was done with excessive force.
“Ample evidence — including videos from multiple angles and the unanimous testimony of every witness (even, to some extent, Oakley himself) — shows that Oakley had a reasonable opportunity to depart the Garden, that he instead resorted to physical violence, and that he was never pushed to the ground,” Sullivan wrote.
The judge added that “no rational jury could conclude that Oakley reasonably feared himself at risk of wrongful physical contact — let alone that MSG intended to stir such an apprehension.”
Wigdor still hopes a jury will get a chance to rule.
New Mexico
Ex-high-ranking Democratic legislator convicted in federal fraud case
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A former high-ranking New Mexico Democratic legislator has been convicted of dozens of federal charges stemming from a yearslong scheme to divert money from public schools to a friend’s company in exchange for kickbacks.
Jurors reached the verdict Friday, following a trial that included testimony from Sheryl Williams Stapleton’s former colleagues, investigators and tax experts. Williams Stapleton, who declined to testify, could face decades in federal prison when sentenced. Her attorney said all options were being considered, including an appeal.
A grand jury indicted Williams Stapleton, 69, in March 2024 on more than three dozen counts that included bribery, mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the federal government.
Those were on top of money laundering, racketeering and other charges filed in 2021 by state prosecutors. A trial in that case is scheduled for October.
A former state House majority leader and an administrator with the state’s largest public school district, in Albuquerque, Williams Stapleton was first elected in 1994. She resigned from the House two days after search warrants were served at her home during summer 2021, and Albuquerque Public Schools fired her.
Prosecutors said the district paid more than $3 million to Robotics Management Learning Systems LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based company at the center of the state and federal cases. Most of that money came from federal funds meant for vocational education programs.
As the school district’s career and technical education director, Williams Stapleton made sure money for those programs went to Robotics, which was owned by her friend and co-defendant Joseph Johnson, prosecutors said.
Williams Stapleton was accused of ushering the company’s invoices through the procurement process. Johnson was accused of providing blank checks to Williams Stapleton, who in turn wrote about 230 checks totaling $1,152,506 “for her own benefit,” according to the indictment.
Johnson testified Tuesday that he was unaware that Williams Stapleton withdrew more than $1 million from his company’s checking accounts between 2013 and 2020. He claimed that he lost focus on the business after his son was killed in a car crash in 2016.
Johnson told jurors that he relied on his office manager and that she was the one who mailed the blank checks to Williams Stapleton. Johnson was found guilty of similar charges as Williams Stapleton, including bribery and money laundering.
Williams Stapleton’s attorney, Ryan Villa, told jurors that his client stole money from Johnson’s company but did not steal from state and federal taxpayers as alleged by prosecutors.
Prosecutors also presented evidence that both Williams Stapleton and Johnson failed to report thousands of dollars in payments from Robotics on their federal income tax returns.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Federici said at the start of the trial that about 73% of the more than $3 million the company received from the school district and federal vocational training funds was profit. He said the co-defendants split that for their own use.
Investigators found that most of the money in Robotics’ checking account came from federal education funds the company obtained through contracts with the school district. Prosecutors presented video from a stakeout of the company’s Albuquerque post office box that showed Williams Stapleton checking the company’s mail.
