Tag: judges

MORE LEGAL INSANITY: Obama Judge Blocks Trump Administration from Sending Venezuelan Migrants to Guantanamo Bay

Yet another judge has decided to legislate from the bench to stop President Trump from carrying out his agenda.

As Fox News reported, a federal court in New Mexico issued a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from shipping three Venezuelan immigrants held in the state to Guantánamo Bay as part of Trump’s efforts to rid America of illegal aliens.

The migrants’ lawyers accused the administration of racial profiling, stating in a legal filing that the men “fit the profile of those the administration has prioritized for detention in Guantánamo, i.e., Venezuelan men detained in the El Paso area with (false) charges of connections with the Tren de Aragua gang.”

The attorneys also went on to whine about “the mere uncertainty the government has created surrounding the availability of legal process and counsel access is sufficient to authorize the modest injunction.”

Attorney Jessica Vosburgh, who represents the three individuals, revealed District Court Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales granted the temporary restraining order.

Readers will not be surprised to find out that Gonzales was nominated to the bench by Barack Obama.

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US Judge Hints He May Release Prince Harry’s Immigration Files, as Embattled British Royal Is Suspected of Lying on Visa Application About Past Drug Use

While his ties to England seem to have been severed for the most part, the prodigal son of King Charles, Prince Harry, is now involved in a lawsuit aiming to release his US immigration files to the public—a move that could end up seeing him turned away from his new chosen home.

A US federal judge hinted yesterday (5) that he is ‘likely’ to order the release of Harry’s immigration documents.

These files are expected to reveal if the Duke of Sussex was lawfully issued a visa or if he could now be subject to deportation for lying to US authorities about his admitted past drug use.

US District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Carl J. Nichols decided this during a hearing for a case brought by lawyers at the Heritage Foundation.

The conservative group is suing the Department of Homeland Security to compel the release of Harry’s records.

The New York Post reported:

“’To the maximum extent possible, I’m required to make public everything that can be made public’, Nichols told both parties, adding that he had to take care any disclosures do not violate US privacy laws shielding the Duke.

‘I’m going to take this in stages’, Nichols added at the end of the hearing, indicating that he would allow the government to ‘submit proposed redactions’ in order for him to ‘analyze’ whether Harry properly attested to cocaine, cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms abuse, as detailed in his 2023 memoir ‘Spare’.”

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Robbery Suspect Freed by Weak Judge — in 30 Min He Sex Assaults 3 Women and 2 Girls: Police

One day after a trip through what NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch calls the “revolving door of our criminal justice system,” a man charged with robbery was accused of groping and grabbing five women.

Jason Ayala, 31, was charged with two counts of robbery after allegedly attacking a 61-year-old man and a 51-year-old man on Jan. 12 and then stealing a cell phone from one of them, the New York Post reported on Saturday.

Although the second-degree robbery charges are among those where bail can be set, Judge Robert Rosenthal, appointed by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, put Ayala on the street.

But as the Post told the tale, Ayala was free to do as he pleased, which led him to a public housing project where he began a 30-minute spree that started with him allegedly grabbing the buttocks of a 14-year-old girl in the lobby of the building.

After a walk to a different project, Ayala was accused of grabbing the buttocks of a 35-year-old woman.

Fifteen minutes after the first offense, he had returned to the first housing project. A 49-year-old woman was slapped on the buttocks, with Ayala being accused of the deed.

Five minutes later, Ayala was accused of touching the crotch of a 12-year-old girl and her 32-year-old mother as they rode an elevator.

The mom of the 14-year-old called police, who hauled off Ayala.

“The next day, the day after he was arraigned on the earlier robbery arrest, he victimized five additional females in Manhattan,” Tisch said.

“All of the arrests were for forcibly touching intimate parts and endangerment. He shouldn’t have been out on our streets the next day doing that,” she added.

Earlier this month, Tisch said in a statement that “we must stop the revolving door of our criminal justice system that has allowed too many violent and repeat criminals back onto our streets.”

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Judge Merchan tries to defend himself after Trump sentencing — but he and Bragg are responsible for this monster

On Friday, the sentencing of President-elect Donald Trump saw one of the most impassioned defense arguments given at such a hearing in years … from the judge himself.

Acting Justice Juan Merchan admitted that the case was “unique and remarkable” but insisted that “once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique, and extraordinary than the other 32 cases in this courthouse.”

If so, that is a damning indictment of the entire New York court system. Merchan allowed a dead misdemeanor to be resuscitated by allowing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to effectively prosecute declined federal offenses.

He allowed a jury to convict Trump without any agreement, let alone unanimity, on what actually occurred in the case.

Merchan ruled that the jury did not have to agree on why Trump committed an alleged offense in describing settlement costs as legal costs.

Neither the defendant nor the public will ever know what the jury ultimately found in its verdict.

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Georgia Judge Who Took His Own Life Sent a Cryptic Message to Governor Brian Kemp Before Dying

A new development of sorts has emerged regarding the incident where a Georgia judge shocked the nation after killing himself inside his own courtroom.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, 74-year-old Stephen Yekel was found dead inside Effingham County Court back in late December. He had recently lost a re-election bid, and speculation has swirled about whether this has played a role in the tragedy.

Now, The Daily Mail has revealed that Yekel sent Governor Brian Kemp a message shortly before he killed himself which will raise a few eyebrows given how cryptic and chilling it is.

According to the outlet, the message reads as follows: “Now they will have to appoint someone.”

It’s unclear what the total meaning behind this message was, but Georgia Virtue journalist Jessica Szilagyi, who first obtained the message, speculates that it referenced Yekel’s attempt to overthrow his election loss supposedly.

Yekel’s legal assistant, Charlene Kessler, accused Szilagyi of hacking the court’s emails to obtain the message. The journalist, however, maintains she used legal methods to obtain the message.

It’s not clear at this point who is telling the truth.

Yekel was appointed to the bench by Kemp in June 2022 after serving as a lawyer for more than 45 years. WSAX notes he worked as a special agent for Georgia’s Alcohol & Tobacco Tax Unit and was an investigator at the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office.

The judge previously tried to quit his position before killing himself, but Kemp refused to accept his resignation.

In addition to his loss last November, Yekel suffered personal challenges, including the loss of his best friend and dealing with a wrongful termination lawsuit.

Yekel and his ex-wife Lisa also had financial problems due to a failed daycare business. They divorced last year.

“He did everything he could to avoid bankruptcy,” Lisa Yekel said. “Unfortunately, I had used his life savings to keep the daycare open.”

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Federal Judge Violates Judicial Code While Lecturing Justice Alito on Ethics in New York Times Essay, Forced to Issue Apology for Misconduct

Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor of Massachusetts openly criticized Justice Samuel Alito’s ethics in a New York Times guest essay, violating the sacred trust of impartiality expected from the judiciary.

The conservative advocacy group, the Article III Project, filed a formal complaint against Ponsor, leading to a misconduct finding and a public apology from the senior judge.

The complaint, filed in May 2024, stemmed from an op-ed authored by Judge Ponsor and published in The New York Times.

The article discusses the controversy surrounding Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s display of an upside-down American flag and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his properties, which some media outlets tied to Trump supporters during the events of January 6, 2021. Ponsor declared the flags as symbols of partisanship and questioned Alito’s ethical judgment.

Despite lacking direct evidence of ethical violations or pending cases involving the flags, Ponsor’s essay implied that Alito’s actions warranted recusal from cases related to January 6, casting doubt on the Supreme Court justice’s impartiality.

“To me, the flag issue is much simpler. The fact is that, regardless of its legality, displaying the flag in that way, at that time, shouldn’t have happened. To put it bluntly, any judge with reasonable ethical instincts would have realized immediately that flying the flag then and in that way was improper. And dumb,” Ponsor wrote in the essay.

“The same goes for the flying of an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at Justice Alito’s vacation house along the New Jersey shore. Like the upside-down flag, this flag is viewed by a great many people as a banner of allegiance on partisan issues that are or could be before the court.”

Chief Judge Albert Diaz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a scathing rebuke of Ponsor’s actions.

“The essay expressed personal opinions on controversial public issues and criticized the ethics of a sitting Supreme Court justice. Such comments diminish the public confidence in the integrity and independence of the federal judiciary in violation of Canons 1 and 2A.” said Diaz in the filed reply.

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Biden slammed for commuting sentence of notorious ‘Kids-for-Cash’ judge convicted of imprisoning juveniles for $2.1M kickbacks

The corrupt former Pennsylvania judge convicted of funneling juveniles to for-profit detention facilities in exchange for $2.1 million in kickbacks had his lengthy prison sentence commuted Thursday by President Biden. 

Former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan, the jurist at the center of the so-called “Kids-for-Cash” scandal, was among 1,499 commutations the 82-year-old lame-duck president granted in the largest presidential act of clemency on a single day in modern history, according to the White House. 

The mother of a victim of Conahan’s disturbing crime fumed upon hearing of his commutation. 

“I am shocked and I am hurt,” Sandy Fonzo, whose son committed suicide after he was locked up as part of the scheme orchestrated by Conahan and former judge Mark Ciavarella, said in a statement.  

“Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power,” she added, according to The Citizen’s Voice. “This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer.”

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‘Running a brothel’: Judge killed in chambers by sheriff was part of sextortion scheme where women on house arrest exchanged sex for special treatment, lawyer says

A Kentucky judge who was gunned down in his chambers by a local sheriff was allegedly “running a brothel” out of his courtroom, according to a witness from a separate criminal case, with her claim being played up as a “compelling defense” for the shooting in court.

“He does have some videotapes of some stuff in the judge’s chambers,” alleged witness Sabrina Adkins told police in an audio recording obtained by NewsNation from a criminal case involving one of ex-sheriff Shawn Stines’ old deputies, Ben Fields, who was convicted and sentenced this year to six months in jail — and nearly a decade of probation — for rape, sodomy, perjury and tampering with a prisoner monitoring device, according to The Mountain Eagle.

“Just with girls, sexual and stuff,” Adkins said. “I’ve seen one partly.”

Adkins, a defendant who was placed on house arrest, claimed in the audio recording that the footage she saw showed slain U.S. District Judge Kevin Mullins having sex with women in exchange for special treatment. She filed a federal lawsuit in January 2022 and Stines — a close friend of Mullins’ for roughly three decades — had just been deposed in the ongoing case on Sep. 16, three days before the shooting, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.

“I seen Judge Mullins having sex with a girl … in the judge’s chambers,” Adkins told police during the Fields investigation, noting how she had sex with Fields once in the office.

Adkins outlined what she allegedly went through in the complaint for her civil suit, saying Mullins’ chambers served as a secret haven for Fields and other “higher ups” due to the fact that there weren’t any surveillance cameras present.

“There were no cameras,” the complaint says. It describes how Fields allegedly took off Adkins’ ankle monitor and told her she “would not have to pay the associated fees any longer, but could remain out on home incarceration” if she performed sexual favors for him.

According to the complaint, Fields met Adkins at least six times in Mullin’s chambers to receive those favors.

“During these meetings, Defendant Fields’ behavior escalated from flirtatious comments to forcible kissing, to oral sex, to intercourse with Plaintiff, all of which occurred at the Letcher County Courthouse after hours, in Judge Mullins’ Chambers,” the complaint says. “Plaintiff was coerced and compelled to comply with Defendant Fields’ advances given Defendant Fields’ position of power, and because she could not afford to pay for the ankle monitor and did not want to return to the Letcher County Jail.”

Late last month, Adkins’ claim was brought up in court — as was the Fields case — by Stines’ defense lawyer, Jeremy Bartley, who believes Adkins’ police interview and Stines’ deposition in her civil case are “going to be crucial” in defending the former lawman.

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Jussie Smollett’s conviction for racist, homophobic attack hoax tossed in stunning reversal

Disgraced actor Jussie Smollett had his conviction for lying about a fake racist and homophobic attack in downtown Chicago thrown out by the Illinois Supreme Court on a technicality.

In a shocking twist, the court found that the former “Empire” actor had his Fifth Amendment rights violated by a special prosecutor’s decision to try him after initial charges against him were previously dropped.

It’s the latest turn a case that has captivated the country for nearly six years. Smollett’s lead attorney, Nenye Uche claimed that the devision to prosecute Smollett in the first place was a “travesty of justice.”

Smollett, 42, who is black and gay, claimed two men in Make America Great Again hats assaulted him in the dead of night in January 2019, approaching him out of nowhere in the darkness and declaring “this is MAGA country” before the attack.

According to Smollet, the men yelled homophobic and racial slurs, put a noose around his neck and doused him with bleach, leading to a massive search for suspects by Chicago police that cost the city more than $130,000. 

However, investigators quickly unraveled the elaborate self-victimization ruse, revealing the actor actually hired two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, to stage the attack in a ploy to boost his profile and burnish his tough guy credentials.

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Not So Fast! Judge Halts Infowars Sale To Onion Due To Shady Auction Procedures

A US judge overseeing Alex Jones’ bankruptcy expressed skepticism over Thursday’s purported sale of Jones’ website Infowars to satire publication The Onion, according to the Associated Press.

While reports claimed Infowars was sold at auction to The Onion, US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez at an emergency hearing Thursday said he was concerned over how the auction was conducted, considering one of the parties bid $3.5 million while a court-appointed trustee admitted The Onion’s was not the highest bid.

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