Tag: judges

Judge Extends Restraining Order Against James O’Keefe, Asks Him to Surrender All Firearms

On Wednesday, a judge extended a restraining order against James O’Keefe until May 11 and asked him to surrender his firearms.

James was served with a restraining order while he was livestreaming at his West Palm Beach, Florida, headquarters on Tuesday.

The Palm Beach Sheriff’s Deputy served James with a domestic violence restraining order.

The domestic violence restraining order was from Matthew Tyrmand, a former Project Veritas board member.

“Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department just served me with a domestic violence restraining order from Matthew Tyrmand. The former board member from Project Veritas who said he wants to murder me,” James O’Keefe said.

“Despite admitting multiple times on hidden camera wanting me dead, Matthew Tyrmand filed a restraining order against ME in Miami Dade County,” O’Keefe said.

“Saying such things as: “I would kill him [O’Keefe]. Because he is one of the most evil people I’ve ever known.,”” he said.

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Federal Judge STRIPS Citizenship from Chinese Couple Who Sold Out America to China

A federal judge has revoked the U.S. citizenship of a married couple who conspired to steal sensitive American medical technology and funnel it to China.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge James E. Simmons Jr. ordered the denaturalization of Li Chen and Yu Zhou, ruling that the pair illegally obtained their citizenship after engaging in serious criminal conduct that disqualified them from ever becoming Americans in the first place.

Chen and Zhou weren’t just any immigrants—they were highly educated researchers working inside Nationwide Children’s Hospital, entrusted with cutting-edge medical research.

Instead, prosecutors say they:

  • Stole proprietary exosome medical technology
  • Profited financially from the theft
  • Funneled sensitive intellectual property to China
  • Received funding tied to the Chinese government

The couple ultimately pleaded guilty to:

  • Conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets
  • Conspiracy to commit wire fraud

According to the DOJ press release:

On March 30, Judge James E. Simmons Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California entered an order revoking the naturalized U.S. citizenship of husband and wife Li Chen and Yu Zhou, finding they illegally procured their naturalization. Chen and Zhou each previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which the court determined constituted crimes involving moral turpitude that prevented them from having the good moral character necessary to naturalize. The court additionally found that both Chen and Zhou were ineligible to naturalize because they committed unlawful acts that adversely reflected on their moral character for which there were no extenuating circumstances.

“Gaining citizenship after committing serious crimes against the American people is an unacceptable abuse of our immigration system,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “These latest denaturalizations illustrate this Department of Justice’s focus on ensuring that citizenship remains a privilege to obtain, not a right to abuse.”

“Naturalization is not a right — it’s a privilege given by the generous people of this nation,” said Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Divison. “When the generosity of America’s immigration process is abused, our system works to correct such abuse. Full stop.”

Chen, a Chinese national, entered the United States in 2007 on an H-1B Specialty Occupation visa sponsored by Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH). In 2011, after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved a Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker as an alien of extraordinary ability, Chen adjusted her immigration status to permanent resident. Zhou, also a Chinese national, entered the United States in 2005 as an exchange visitor. In 2008, Zhou arrived in the United States again on an H-1B Specialty Occupation visa sponsored by NCH, and he adjusted his immigration status to permanent resident in 2011 as the derivative spouse of his wife, Chen. Chen naturalized in 2016, and Zhou naturalized in 2017.

In 2019, both Chen and Zhou were arrested for criminal conduct involving the theft of medical trade secrets used in the course of their employment as NCH research scientists focused on exosome isolation. Each indictment alleged that the couple personally benefitted from their theft and sale of NCH trade secrets by establishing their own company and by acquiring shares in another company that utilized the stolen trade secrets. In addition, both Chen and Zhou received funding from the People’s Republic of China’s State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs. In total, Defendants jointly received nearly $1.5 million in transactions resulting from their exchange of exosome isolation intellectual property. Chen was subsequently sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and Zhou was sentenced to 33 months in prison and three years of supervised release, with over $2.6 million in restitution ordered to be paid jointly and severally between them.

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Obama Judge Blocks Trump’s Executive Order Aimed at Ending Federal Funding For NPR, PBS

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Trump’s executive order aimed at ending federal funding for NPR and PBS.

US District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee lashed out at President Trump and said he targeted PBS and NPR for their viewpoints.

Last year, President Trump ended taxpayer subsidization of ‘biased media.

“National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) receive taxpayer funds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options. Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence,” the Trump White House previously announced.

“At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage. No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize,” the White House said.

“The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS. Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens,” the White House said.

“I therefore instruct the CPB Board of Directors (CPB Board) and all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS,” Trump said.

On Tuesday, Judge Randolph Moss blocked President Trump’s executive order ending taxpayer subsidization to PBS and NPR.

“It is difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the President does not like and seeks to squelch,” Judge Moss wrote.

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Federal Judge Orders Trump Administration to Halt Construction on Privately Funded White House Ballroom – Trump Responds

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the privately funded Trump White House ballroom construction project to be halted.

US District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, temporarily halted construction on the ballroom.

The judge said Congress has to approve the construction project.

AP reported:

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to suspend its construction of a $400 million ballroom where it demolished the East Wing of the White House.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington granted a preservationist group’s request for a preliminary injunction that temporarily halts President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project.

Last summer, the Trump Administration announced a White House Ballroom construction project:

For 150 years, Presidents, Administrations, and White House Staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed. President Donald J. Trump has expressed his commitment to solving this problem on behalf of future Administrations and the American people.

The White House is one of the most beautiful and historic buildings in the world, yet the White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders and other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away from the main building entrance. The White House State Ballroom will be a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people — a significant increase from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House.

In recent weeks, President Trump has held several meetings with members of the White House Staff, the National Park Service, the White House Military Office, and the United States Secret Service to discuss design features and planning.

President Trump has chosen McCrery Architects as lead architect, which is well-known for their classical architectural design and based in our nation’s capital. CEO Jim McCrery said: “Presidents in the modern era have faced challenges hosting major events at the White House because it has been untouched since President Harry Truman. I am honored that President Trump has entrusted me to help bring this beautiful and necessary renovation to The People’s House, while preserving the elegance of its classical design and historical importance.”

The construction team will be headed by Clark Construction, and the engineering team will be led by AECOM.

The project will begin in September 2025, and it is expected to be completed long before the end of President Trump’s term.

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When Will This Sh*t Stop?

A career criminal with 23 prior arrests and 70 charges was allowed to roam free until she stabbed a pregnant woman in broad daylight outside a Harris Teeter in Charlotte’s Cotswold Village Shopping Center on March 18. 

The 38-year-old victim was loading her car with her three-year-old child nearby when Marvina Marie Hardy (also known as Marvina Marie Hardy-Butler), 40, of Waxhaw, attacked her with a steak knife, stabbing her in the sternum. 

The victim fought back. Both she and her unborn baby are expected to recover.

Hardy was tracked to Flagler County, Florida, after public tips and surveillance video from inside the store helped identify her. 

She now faces extradition to North Carolina on charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill/inflict serious injury and battery of an unborn child. The motive remains unknown.

This preventable horror is the direct result of a revolving-door justice system that treats violent repeat offenders like minor nuisances. 

The same deadly pattern has repeated across blue cities and states. In Chicago, a man fresh out of jail threatened to kill white people with hammers on a CTA train, ranting racial threats just two days after release.

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Judge Tosses DOJ Lawsuit Challenging Minnesota’s In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrants

A district court judge tossed out the Trump administration’s lawsuit on March 27 against Minnesota laws that allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates, or in some cases have tuition waived, for college and university classes, ruling that the state law doesn’t violate federal law.

Judge Katherine Menendez of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota granted the state’s motion to dismiss the Department of Justice’s lawsuit, filed on June 25, 2025, finding that in-state tuition rules didn’t discriminate against citizens.

“As Defendants point out, there are multiple ways a student could qualify for Resident Tuition without residing in Minnesota, such as attending a Minnesota high school while living in a neighboring state, or by attending a Minnesota boarding school,” Menendez wrote in the decision.

The federal government sued Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other state officials over the state’s laws that allow foreign nationals to receive lower or free college tuition.

Minnesota law states that any student, other than a non-immigrant alien, can qualify for a resident tuition rate at state universities and colleges if they attend high school in the state for at least three years and graduate from a state high school or get a high school equivalent degree.

The law also states that illegal immigrants must give the state proof that they have complied with federal selective service registration requirements and have filed to obtain lawful immigration status in order to qualify for in-state tuition.

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He Compared a Black Child to a Dog and Withheld Evidence in Death Row Cases. Now He’s Running for Judge.

Hugo Holland’s aggressive legal tactics made him one of Louisiana’s most renowned prosecutors and helped turn Caddo Parish, a majority Black community in the northwest corner of the state, into one of the nation’s leaders in death penalty convictions.

His nearly 40-year career, though, has been marked by controversies.

In at least two death penalty cases, Louisiana judges found that Holland withheld evidence. In a third, he secured the conviction of a Black 16-year-old, comparing the boy to a dog and telling the jury to “get rid of it”; prosecutors later admitted that Holland and his team had failed to turn over evidence.

Defense attorneys have also accused him of racism, pointing, for example, to a capital murder case several years ago in which Holland emailed one of them to say he was going to spend Veterans Day in his pickup truck looking for “a Black guy or a Mex-can.” Holland called it a joke.

Holland, 62, is now running for judge in the First Judicial District Court in Caddo Parish, and his nascent campaign appears to have substantial backing. He has raised more than $61,000 in less than two months, according to the first campaign finance report released in February — twice the amount many candidates running for the 1st Judicial Court spend in an entire campaign, said Jeffrey Sadow, an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.

Holland’s donors include an assistant district attorney with the Caddo Parish DA’s office, the district attorney of neighboring Bossier and Webster parishes, a former state judge, and members of major law firms throughout the area.

Holland’s funding haul might prove to be so daunting that it scares off potential challengers, Sadow said, though candidates have until the end of July to enter the race. “It shows he’s got an awful lot of support and that he’s considered a quality candidate,” he said.

In addition to his robust campaign fundraising, Holland has been able to bring on the head of the local Republican Party, Matthew Kay, as his campaign chair. (Kay also served as an elector for Donald Trump in 2024.)

Holland declined multiple requests for comment about his candidacy and record as a prosecutor. Neither Kay nor nine of the 10 donors Verite News and ProPublica reached out to would respond or agree to speak about their support for Holland.

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An Obama-Appointed Judge Might Have Delivered a Huge Blow to Dems’ Anti-Voter ID Pushes

While Congress is working out ways to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the core principles of the SAVE America Act are next. With the Democratic Party’s intransigence, there’s talk of including some of these provisions in a future reconciliation package, which will also fund ICE and Border Patrol—frontline officers are getting paid, but the civilian support staff is not right now. The issue surrounding voter ID is over: everyone supports it. 

Overall, the Save Act has a 71 percent approval rating from a Harvard poll. On voter ID specifically, it holds similar approval figures across the board. It’s been that way since the Obama administration. It’s a popular policy that some Democrats have labeled Jim Crow 2.0. Well, in North Carolina, years of litigation have been settled on that state’s voter ID law, and it’s not good for Democrats. Oh, and this ruling was handed down by an Obama-appointed judge.

A federal judge has upheld North Carolina’s voter identification law nearly two years after holding a trial in a lawsuit challenging the ID requirement. The same judge had blocked the law from taking effect for the 2020 election cycle. 

Her initial ruling against voter ID helped delay implementation of the ID law until 2023. 

State lawmakers approved the ID law in 2018 after voters approved a state constitutional amendment enshrining voter ID in North Carolina’s governing document.

“Finally. After seven years, we can put to rest any doubt that our state’s Voter I.D. law is constitutional,” state Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said in a prepared statement Thursday. “This is a monumental win for the citizens of North Carolina and election integrity efforts.” 

“[It is important that this Court begins by recognizing what this case is, and what it is not,” US District Judge Loretta Biggs in her 134-page order Thursday. “This case is not about whether North Carolina law will require that voters show photo identification when they go to the polls. That question was settled on November 6, 2018, when approximately 55% of North Carolina’s registered voters enshrined a photo voter identification requirement in the State Constitution.” 

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San Francisco Judge Frees Man Who Killed 84-Year-Old ‘Grandpa Vicha’ in Unprovoked Attack After Citing Murderer’s ‘Traumatic Childhood,’ Releases Him on Probation

A San Francisco Superior Court activist judge has ordered the immediate release and probation of Antoine Watson, the man convicted in the 2021 unprovoked killing of 84-year-old Thai immigrant Vicha Ratanapakdee, widely known as “Grandpa Vicha.”

On Thursday, Judge Linda Colfax sentenced Watson to a total of eight years but suspended the remaining portion of the term after giving him credit for approximately five years already served in San Francisco County Jail.

Watson, now 25, was released to live with his mother in Hayward on five years’ probation, which includes weekly therapy sessions and regular check-ins.

The high-profile killing was captured on surveillance video and helped lead to the national “Stop Asian Hate” movement in early 2021.

On January 28, 2021, Watson, then 19, was recorded on video running full speed and violently shoving Ratanapakdee to the ground as the elderly man took his daily morning walk in San Francisco’s Anza Vista neighborhood.

Ratanapakdee struck his head on the pavement, lost consciousness, and died several days later from his injuries.

Watson was initially charged with murder, assault, and elder abuse.

This January, a jury convicted him of involuntary manslaughter and assault but acquitted him of murder and elder abuse charges.

During Thursday’s sentencing hearing in the San Francisco Superior Court, Judge Colfax explained that she selected the middle term of three years for the assault conviction and added a five-year enhancement for aggravating factors, including the victim being over 70 and suffering great bodily injury.

However, because Watson had already served more than five years, he was eligible for immediate release.

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Judge Rules Parents Have Less Say In Pediatric Vaccine Schedule

A powerful medical organization and its backers won a legal victory last week in an ongoing struggle against federal efforts to alter vaccine recommendations and return decision-making to parents.

On March 16 U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy issued a ruling that effectively halted the government’s lead vaccine recommendation group from meeting and stayed vaccine recommendations published under U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other left-wing medical groups sued Kennedy in July in response to his removal of pregnant women and healthy children from the Covid-19 vaccine recommended list. The group then amended its suit, filing multiple complaints challenging  Kennedy’s reconstituted immunization advisory panel and its votes. The AAP also challenged the revised pediatric schedule that the CDC published in January, which aligned the U.S. schedule with most developed nations by removing six vaccinations from the current schedule.

The American Academy of Pediatrics requested a ban on Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meetings; Murphy acquiesced in part, granting a stay on the ACIP appointment rather than an injunction, the same day the Supreme Court stayed another of his decisions. The March meeting of ACIP, at which the committee was poised to address Covid-19 vaccine injuries and recommendation processes, is now indefinitely postponed.

“The same day he is stayed for repeatedly refusing to follow the law, he issues another activist decision,” wrote Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on X. “We will keep appealing these lawless decisions, and we will keep winning.”

In his 45-page ruling, Murphy wrote that the government has “undermined the integrity of its actions” by sidestepping ACIP in the vaccine schedule revision process and replacing members without the use of “rigorous screening.” The newly appointed members, Murphy wrote, represent a “procedural failure … that … fails to comport with governing law.” Violation of the Administrative Procedure Act will likely be proven, he concluded.

Responding to Murphy’s decision, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said that the department “looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned” in a statement to The Defender.

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