LA County prosecutors obtain new indictment against Weinstein
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County prosecutors have obtained a new indictment against Harvey Weinstein in the hopes of reviving a charge that a judge threw out earlier this month, attorneys said.
Weinstein appeared in a downtown courtroom Monday to answer the indictment, which was handed down last week, according to his attorney, Mark Werksman.
The disgraced mogul was indicted on 11 counts of rape, forced oral copulation and other charges in April, but L.A. County Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench threw out one count of sexual battery against Weinstein last week, agreeing with a defense motion that the statute of limitations on the charge had run out.
The charge, which alleges Weinstein attacked a woman in 2010, was initially filed in October 2020, within the statute of limitations. But Lench granted the defense motion that the indictment created a new criminal proceeding and broke the statute.
The indictment handed down last week marked the third amended indictment against Weinstein this year, as prosecutors have had to grapple with repeated defense attempts to get charges dismissed on statutory grounds.
Weinstein — who was sentenced to 23 years in prison after he was convicted last year of rape in Manhattan — is expected to stand trial by November on the other remaining counts, which stem from allegations made by five women who say he assaulted them between 2004 and 2013 in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles.
—Los Angeles Times
Officer who fatally shot woman on Jan. 6 is cleared
WASHINGTON —The Capitol Police officer who fatally shot pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt during the Jan. 6 riot as she was trying to breach the Speaker’s Lobby through a broken window has been cleared by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility and will not face disciplinary action.
The Capitol Police, which did not identify the male lieutenant citing threats he and his family have received, said in a statement Monday that it “determined the officer’s conduct was lawful and within Department policy, which says an officer may use deadly force only when the officer reasonably believes that action is in the defense of human life, including the officer’s own life, or in the defense of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury.”
The Department of Justice announced in April that it would not criminally charge the officer.
Babbitt’s death has been cast by some House Republicans, such as Arizona’s Paul Gosar, as a sort of cover-up. Gosar has sought to publicly identify the officer who fatally shot Babbitt.
Former President Donald Trump said in an Aug. 11 statement that he had spoken with Babbitt’s family to offer condolences. Trump said Babbitt was “murdered at the hands of someone who should never have pulled the trigger of his gun. We know who he is.”
The Capitol Police said the officer and his family have “been the subject of numerous credible and specific threats for actions that were taken as part of the job of all our officers: defending the Congress, Members, staff and the democratic process.”
Missouri man dies saving family members in Lake Michigan
A Missouri man drowned in Lake Michigan Sunday while rescuing two small children, according to Wisconsin authorities.
The 40-year-old man, whose identity was not publicly released, went into the lake off North Beach in Racine County when he noticed two kids — family members of his — struggling by large rocks, the sheriff said.
He rescued the young children, but did not emerge from the lake.
Multiple agencies responded to the lake to help search for the man, who was found about an hour after he went missing, according to the sheriff. He was transported to Ascension All Saints Hospital, where he died.
Sheriff Christopher Schmaling views the man as “a hero,” he said in an interview with The Racine Journal Times.
“He came here with his family... and unfortunately as a hero he went in for two individuals in his family and lost his life as a result,” Schmaling said.
The man was from Montgomery City, Missouri, which is about 80 miles northwest of St. Louis, according to WDJT.
—The Charlotte Observer
Biden administration defends COVID-19 eviction ban
The Biden administration Monday defended its extended ban on many evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in a Supreme Court challenge.
The White House filed the response to Chief Justice John Roberts in a case brought by an Alabama Realtors group that seeks to strike down the ban.
“The CDC has warned that the public health consequences of an increase of evictions at this time would be very difficult to reverse,” Acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher argued.
Roberts will now decide whether to grant the request to end the ban or refer the case to the entire court.
Biden extended the ban at the beginning of August. He tweaked it to include only counties with a “substantial spread” of the pandemic, which covers about 90% of Americans.
Real estate agents say the ban by the Centers for Disease Control is a dramatic overreach that is costing them millions in fees. They say it is an economic policy decision that has little to do with public health.
A federal judge in the Washington, D.C., circuit agreed, striking down the ban but opted to withhold her ruling while the government appealed.
—New York Daily News
