Texas
City council candidate who protested ICE shooting faces charge of ‘riot participation’
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas city council candidate was arrested Saturday morning on a misdemeanor charge for “riot participation” in connection with behavior authorities said they observed at a protest against the shooting of a Venezuelan man by a federal immigration officer.
Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and special agents took Misael Ramos, 40, into custody around 8:45 a.m. Saturday on an outstanding warrant “stemming from his actions” during a Sunday protest, the agency’s media department wrote in an unsigned email. Protesters on Sunday had been demonstrating against the shooting of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in Austin.
Ramos, who is running for city council in Austin, “was captured on camera taking construction barricades, sandbags, and other items and attempting to obstruct traffic,” the department said. The department also provided photos and video it said captured “some of Ramos’ actions” at the scene.
Ramos, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, denies any wrongdoing and will contest the charge, his campaign said in a news release.
“I didn’t see any riots,” said Ramos’ attorney, Edmund “Skip” Davis. “I saw people out there chanting and protesting.”
Ramos was released from custody during a news conference outside the county jail Saturday, with the crowd erupting in cheers. Ramos thanked those for being there, saying it was “one of the craziest mornings I have had in a long time.” He spoke of his surprise arrest and criticized federal immigration raids in the community.
“When we fight,” he said, to which those gathered replied, “we win!”
Garces Perez was shot Sunday and then taken to a detention center after an encounter with an immigration officer. An attorney for Garces Perez has said he was an asylum seeker and had a valid work permit.
“Like the hundreds of Austinites who were shocked to hear news that an ICE officer shot someone in the back, Misael quickly joined people at the scene of the incident to offer his condemnation of the incident and show solidarity by holding the line in the protest, chanting, and amplifying the incident through campaign channels,” Ramos’ campaign manager, Jeffrey Clemmons, said in a statement.
Kristen Dark, a spokeswoman for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed in an email that Ramos was booked into the agency’s custody around 9:30 Saturday morning on a charge of riot participation.
Garces Perez was making a DoorDash delivery Sunday afternoon when ICE officers in an unmarked truck sideswiped his car twice, his attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch has said. He was shot and taken to a hospital, then released into ICE custody with a bullet still in his back, she said.
ICE and DHS haven’t said what led to the shooting beyond that Garces Perez was “the subject of a targeted vehicle stop.”
North Carolina
Assault and kidnapping retrial for Word of Faith religious group leader set
An assault and kidnapping case against a leader of a secretive North Carolina religious group appears to be finally returning to the courtroom more than nine years after her first trial ended without a verdict.
Word of Faith Fellowship leader Brooke Covington was first tried in 2017 on second-degree kidnapping and simple assault charges. Prosecutors said she held down and beat a one-time member of the group more than 13 years ago.
That case ended in a mistrial after the jury foreman brought his own research into deliberations. Covington has maintained she is innocent.
In the meantime, the COVID-19 outbreak, a move to remove the original prosecutor that ended with the suspension of the law license of the attorney making the request, deaths or retirements of lawyers on both sides and handing the trial to a new prosecutor in a new jurisdiction have all delayed a new trial.
Covington’s trial was set to begin Monday in Buncombe County, according to court records. Both the new prosecutor and Covington’s lawyer didn’t respond to messages seeking details about the trial.
Matthew Fenner joined Word of Faith as a teenager in 2010 with his mother. He was at a service on the church’s compound in Spindale, North Carolina, when members including Covington started what the church called a “blasting” session on him, according to Fenner. Members held him down and choked and beat him for two hours while others prayed to expel “homosexual demons,” Fenner said.
Word of Faith is a nondenominational Protestant church that was founded in 1979 by Sam and Jane Whaley in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains between Charlotte and Asheville. Members consider Jane Whaley a prophet.
In 2017, The Associated Press published a series of stories about Word of Faith that detailed former church members’ allegations of abuse. The AP spoke to dozens of former congregants around the world, listened to hours of secretly recorded conversations with church leaders, and reviewed hundreds of pages of law enforcement, court and child welfare documents.
Whaley has denied that she or other church leaders ever abused Word of Faith members. She has also said that any discipline would be protected by the Constitution’s freedom of religion tenet.
The church said the allegations made to the AP were false and made by “certain former members” out to target the church and that it does not condone abuse.
The case was turned over to a special prosecutor after Fenner’s lawyer accused District Attorney Ted Bell of siding with Word of Faith in his handling of the case.
Attorney Andrew LaBreche said Bell didn’t investigate new evidence or witnesses and made a deal to drop the felony kidnapping charge against Covington.
Bell provided text messages and other evidence he refused to talk to Word of Faith members when they tried to steer conversations toward the assault cases.
Superior Court Judge William Stetzer not only denied LaBreche’s request to remove the prosecutor, but in his order said LaBreche’s “repeated acts of dishonesty and the significant harm to the legal profession” led the judge to suspend his law license for three years. He also awarded Bell legal fees.
LaBreche is appealing the ruling, and his suspension has been delayed until his case can be heard.
Illinois
Prosecutor accused of misconduct in ‘Broadview Six’ case resigns, says US attorney ‘scapegoated’ her
CHICAGO (AP) — A prosecutor who has been accused of misconduct over a failed attempt to bring felony charges against six protesters of the federal immigration crackdown in Chicago has resigned, saying she was being treated as a scapegoat after the case fell apart.
In a scathing letter Thursday to Andrew Boutros, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, prosecutor Sheri Mecklenburg wrote that she was “retiring under protest.”
“You have forced me to choose between remaining silent while my professional reputation is destroyed and prematurely surrendering my cherished career,” Mecklenburg wrote in the letter obtained by The Associated Press. “I choose the latter.”
Mecklenburg accused Boutros of “laying responsibility at my feet for a felony prosecution that you personally directed over my objection that the case was better suited to misdemeanor charges.”
“I was a convenient target to be scapegoated and publicly vilified,” she wrote.
Boutros’ office did not immediately return a request for comment on the letter. Joel Bertocchi, an attorney for Mecklenburg, declined to comment.
During protests last fall against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the Chicago area, Boutros’ office moved to press felony charges against six people for allegedly conspiring to impede an officer during a protest at an immigration detention facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview.
A grand jury twice refused to indict the group after Mecklenburg, an attorney on the case, presented them with evidence.
In the following months, the charges fell apart, and in May, Boutros dismissed the case altogether. It was among a string of cases in which the Trump administration leveled charges at anti-immigration enforcement protesters that did not ultimately stick.
The protesters, who have come to be known as the “Broadview Six,” have accused Mecklenburg of prosecutorial misconduct in her interactions with jury members, and have asked U.S. District Judge April M. Perry to consider sanctions on her. Perry is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case Oct. 1.
In a motion filed Thursday, Mecklenburg informed the court of her retirement and asked to appear as an independent party in the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office had previously barred her from filing “anything on her behalf” and told her she “could be disciplined or terminated if she did so,” the motion read.
Terence Campbell, an attorney for Andre Martin, one of the former defendants, said Mecklenburg’s “forced resignation letter raises a number of serious factual disputes” between her account and that of Boutros’ office about why the case was brought.
Italy
U.S. construction giant agrees to $35M settlement for workers building consulate
MILAN (AP) — The U.S. company building the new American consulate in Milan has agreed to a nearly 31-million-euro ($35 million) settlement that includes back pay and damages to foreign workers who prosecutors allege were paid less than $2 an hour, officials said Monday.
The settlement was signed by the Milan prosecutors, Alabama-based multinational Caddell Construction and the court-appointed administrator that took over the construction site following the investigation into exploitative labor practices.
Caddell remains under administration, and the criminal investigation against the company and two of its managers in Italy is continuing, prosecutors said.
Unions helping the workers welcomed the settlement, describing it as the largest of its kind in Europe.
Nearly 300 workers identified so far will receive on average 50,000 euros ($57,000), with some receiving up to 90,000 euros ($102,000) in unpaid wages and damages for emotional distress, said Luca Stanzione, the secretary general of the Milan branch of CGIL, a major trade union confederation.
The CGIL’s construction union has been actively helping dozens of workers involved in the case.
Of the total, about 19.7 million euros is earmarked for direct payments to workers, with the remainder covering obligations to Italy’s social security authorities and labor inspectorate.
Most of the workers involved were from India, where they were recruited. The AP also spoke to workers who were recruited from a Caddell embassy project in Africa.
Milan prosecutors say that the workers were constantly exploited. After being promised a fair wage during recruitment, their pay stubs showed that they received less than $2 an hour and that food and housing had been illegally deducted from their wages. The minimum wage for construction workers in Milan starts at 13.19 euros (over $15) an hour.
The building site was put under judicial administration to restore legal operations. The new Milan consulate campus is being built on a 10-acre (40,000-square meter) site at a former shooting range, and will replace the current consulate that is located in a high rise.
Separately, dozens of workers have been granted unemployment benefits, while 265 have received special residence permits and applications for the remaining workers are being processed, according to the Labor Ministry.
City council candidate who protested ICE shooting faces charge of ‘riot participation’
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas city council candidate was arrested Saturday morning on a misdemeanor charge for “riot participation” in connection with behavior authorities said they observed at a protest against the shooting of a Venezuelan man by a federal immigration officer.
Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and special agents took Misael Ramos, 40, into custody around 8:45 a.m. Saturday on an outstanding warrant “stemming from his actions” during a Sunday protest, the agency’s media department wrote in an unsigned email. Protesters on Sunday had been demonstrating against the shooting of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez in Austin.
Ramos, who is running for city council in Austin, “was captured on camera taking construction barricades, sandbags, and other items and attempting to obstruct traffic,” the department said. The department also provided photos and video it said captured “some of Ramos’ actions” at the scene.
Ramos, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, denies any wrongdoing and will contest the charge, his campaign said in a news release.
“I didn’t see any riots,” said Ramos’ attorney, Edmund “Skip” Davis. “I saw people out there chanting and protesting.”
Ramos was released from custody during a news conference outside the county jail Saturday, with the crowd erupting in cheers. Ramos thanked those for being there, saying it was “one of the craziest mornings I have had in a long time.” He spoke of his surprise arrest and criticized federal immigration raids in the community.
“When we fight,” he said, to which those gathered replied, “we win!”
Garces Perez was shot Sunday and then taken to a detention center after an encounter with an immigration officer. An attorney for Garces Perez has said he was an asylum seeker and had a valid work permit.
“Like the hundreds of Austinites who were shocked to hear news that an ICE officer shot someone in the back, Misael quickly joined people at the scene of the incident to offer his condemnation of the incident and show solidarity by holding the line in the protest, chanting, and amplifying the incident through campaign channels,” Ramos’ campaign manager, Jeffrey Clemmons, said in a statement.
Kristen Dark, a spokeswoman for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed in an email that Ramos was booked into the agency’s custody around 9:30 Saturday morning on a charge of riot participation.
Garces Perez was making a DoorDash delivery Sunday afternoon when ICE officers in an unmarked truck sideswiped his car twice, his attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch has said. He was shot and taken to a hospital, then released into ICE custody with a bullet still in his back, she said.
ICE and DHS haven’t said what led to the shooting beyond that Garces Perez was “the subject of a targeted vehicle stop.”
North Carolina
Assault and kidnapping retrial for Word of Faith religious group leader set
An assault and kidnapping case against a leader of a secretive North Carolina religious group appears to be finally returning to the courtroom more than nine years after her first trial ended without a verdict.
Word of Faith Fellowship leader Brooke Covington was first tried in 2017 on second-degree kidnapping and simple assault charges. Prosecutors said she held down and beat a one-time member of the group more than 13 years ago.
That case ended in a mistrial after the jury foreman brought his own research into deliberations. Covington has maintained she is innocent.
In the meantime, the COVID-19 outbreak, a move to remove the original prosecutor that ended with the suspension of the law license of the attorney making the request, deaths or retirements of lawyers on both sides and handing the trial to a new prosecutor in a new jurisdiction have all delayed a new trial.
Covington’s trial was set to begin Monday in Buncombe County, according to court records. Both the new prosecutor and Covington’s lawyer didn’t respond to messages seeking details about the trial.
Matthew Fenner joined Word of Faith as a teenager in 2010 with his mother. He was at a service on the church’s compound in Spindale, North Carolina, when members including Covington started what the church called a “blasting” session on him, according to Fenner. Members held him down and choked and beat him for two hours while others prayed to expel “homosexual demons,” Fenner said.
Word of Faith is a nondenominational Protestant church that was founded in 1979 by Sam and Jane Whaley in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains between Charlotte and Asheville. Members consider Jane Whaley a prophet.
In 2017, The Associated Press published a series of stories about Word of Faith that detailed former church members’ allegations of abuse. The AP spoke to dozens of former congregants around the world, listened to hours of secretly recorded conversations with church leaders, and reviewed hundreds of pages of law enforcement, court and child welfare documents.
Whaley has denied that she or other church leaders ever abused Word of Faith members. She has also said that any discipline would be protected by the Constitution’s freedom of religion tenet.
The church said the allegations made to the AP were false and made by “certain former members” out to target the church and that it does not condone abuse.
The case was turned over to a special prosecutor after Fenner’s lawyer accused District Attorney Ted Bell of siding with Word of Faith in his handling of the case.
Attorney Andrew LaBreche said Bell didn’t investigate new evidence or witnesses and made a deal to drop the felony kidnapping charge against Covington.
Bell provided text messages and other evidence he refused to talk to Word of Faith members when they tried to steer conversations toward the assault cases.
Superior Court Judge William Stetzer not only denied LaBreche’s request to remove the prosecutor, but in his order said LaBreche’s “repeated acts of dishonesty and the significant harm to the legal profession” led the judge to suspend his law license for three years. He also awarded Bell legal fees.
LaBreche is appealing the ruling, and his suspension has been delayed until his case can be heard.
Illinois
Prosecutor accused of misconduct in ‘Broadview Six’ case resigns, says US attorney ‘scapegoated’ her
CHICAGO (AP) — A prosecutor who has been accused of misconduct over a failed attempt to bring felony charges against six protesters of the federal immigration crackdown in Chicago has resigned, saying she was being treated as a scapegoat after the case fell apart.
In a scathing letter Thursday to Andrew Boutros, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, prosecutor Sheri Mecklenburg wrote that she was “retiring under protest.”
“You have forced me to choose between remaining silent while my professional reputation is destroyed and prematurely surrendering my cherished career,” Mecklenburg wrote in the letter obtained by The Associated Press. “I choose the latter.”
Mecklenburg accused Boutros of “laying responsibility at my feet for a felony prosecution that you personally directed over my objection that the case was better suited to misdemeanor charges.”
“I was a convenient target to be scapegoated and publicly vilified,” she wrote.
Boutros’ office did not immediately return a request for comment on the letter. Joel Bertocchi, an attorney for Mecklenburg, declined to comment.
During protests last fall against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the Chicago area, Boutros’ office moved to press felony charges against six people for allegedly conspiring to impede an officer during a protest at an immigration detention facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview.
A grand jury twice refused to indict the group after Mecklenburg, an attorney on the case, presented them with evidence.
In the following months, the charges fell apart, and in May, Boutros dismissed the case altogether. It was among a string of cases in which the Trump administration leveled charges at anti-immigration enforcement protesters that did not ultimately stick.
The protesters, who have come to be known as the “Broadview Six,” have accused Mecklenburg of prosecutorial misconduct in her interactions with jury members, and have asked U.S. District Judge April M. Perry to consider sanctions on her. Perry is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case Oct. 1.
In a motion filed Thursday, Mecklenburg informed the court of her retirement and asked to appear as an independent party in the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office had previously barred her from filing “anything on her behalf” and told her she “could be disciplined or terminated if she did so,” the motion read.
Terence Campbell, an attorney for Andre Martin, one of the former defendants, said Mecklenburg’s “forced resignation letter raises a number of serious factual disputes” between her account and that of Boutros’ office about why the case was brought.
Italy
U.S. construction giant agrees to $35M settlement for workers building consulate
MILAN (AP) — The U.S. company building the new American consulate in Milan has agreed to a nearly 31-million-euro ($35 million) settlement that includes back pay and damages to foreign workers who prosecutors allege were paid less than $2 an hour, officials said Monday.
The settlement was signed by the Milan prosecutors, Alabama-based multinational Caddell Construction and the court-appointed administrator that took over the construction site following the investigation into exploitative labor practices.
Caddell remains under administration, and the criminal investigation against the company and two of its managers in Italy is continuing, prosecutors said.
Unions helping the workers welcomed the settlement, describing it as the largest of its kind in Europe.
Nearly 300 workers identified so far will receive on average 50,000 euros ($57,000), with some receiving up to 90,000 euros ($102,000) in unpaid wages and damages for emotional distress, said Luca Stanzione, the secretary general of the Milan branch of CGIL, a major trade union confederation.
The CGIL’s construction union has been actively helping dozens of workers involved in the case.
Of the total, about 19.7 million euros is earmarked for direct payments to workers, with the remainder covering obligations to Italy’s social security authorities and labor inspectorate.
Most of the workers involved were from India, where they were recruited. The AP also spoke to workers who were recruited from a Caddell embassy project in Africa.
Milan prosecutors say that the workers were constantly exploited. After being promised a fair wage during recruitment, their pay stubs showed that they received less than $2 an hour and that food and housing had been illegally deducted from their wages. The minimum wage for construction workers in Milan starts at 13.19 euros (over $15) an hour.
The building site was put under judicial administration to restore legal operations. The new Milan consulate campus is being built on a 10-acre (40,000-square meter) site at a former shooting range, and will replace the current consulate that is located in a high rise.
Separately, dozens of workers have been granted unemployment benefits, while 265 have received special residence permits and applications for the remaining workers are being processed, according to the Labor Ministry.
