NC snake collector pleads guilty after cobra escape
RALEIGH, N.C. – A Raleigh snake collector whose escaped zebra cobra caused a frenzy in June pleaded guilty to one charge in court Friday and will pay more than $13,000 in restitution.
Christopher Gifford, 21, pleaded guilty to failing to report the missing snake and was ordered to pay overtime costs for law enforcement officers and emergency workers who responded to the incident.
The remaining 39 charges related to his escaped cobra and other venomous reptiles were dropped. The singular charge will also be dismissed after a year if Gifford successfully completes his probation.
The snake was reported outside a house in northwest Raleigh, less than a half-mile from Gifford’s home on June 28. It set off a frenzy of law enforcement and media attention before being captured two days later.
Gifford was charged with failure to report the escaped snake, with his attorney confirming the snake had been missing since November, The News & Observer reported. Most of Gifford’s charges are for keeping venomous reptiles in improper closures.
The city of Raleigh is considering a wild and exotic animal ordinance that would ban the possession of venomous snakes, among other changes.
—The News & Observer
Vanessa Bryant settles lawsuit filed against her by her mother
LOS ANGELES — Vanessa Bryant has settled a lawsuit filed against her by her mother, Sofia Urbieta Laine.
Laine filed a notice of unconditional settlement Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court, indicating that a request for dismissal would be filed within 45 days. Terms of the settlement were not released.
Laine accused Bryant of fraud in a lawsuit filed Dec. 15, alleging she had worked for years without pay as a “personal assistant and nanny” to her daughter’s family and that Bryant’s husband, Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, had promised to support Laine financially before he died in a helicopter crash Jan. 26, 2020.
“Unfortunately, Kobe Bryant’s promise did not see the light of day as he is now deceased and Vanessa Bryant took each and every step she could to void and cancel all of Kobe’s promises,” the lawsuit alleged.
Vanessa Bryant responded two days later, accusing her mother of attempting to “extort a financial windfall” following Kobe Bryant’s death. She has control of an estate that financial experts valued at as much as $600 million after he died.
In June, Vanessa Bryant was part of a group that settled wrongful death lawsuits against the company that operated the helicopter involved in the crash that killed her husband and their daughter Gianna, as well as John Altobelli, his wife Keri and their daughter Alyssa; mother and daughter Sarah and Payton Chester; Christina Mauser; and pilot Ara Zobayan.
—Los Angeles Times
NYC man charged in hit-and-run death of actress Lisa Banes
NEW YORK – Police have arrested the scooter driver wanted in the hit-and-run death of “Gone Girl” actress Lisa Banes, officials said Friday.
Brian Boyd, 26, was busted Thursday at his Upper West Side home — just steps from where the June 4 collision happened — and charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, as well as with failure to yield to a pedestrian.
Banes, 65, was struck by a scooter as she crossed the street at Amsterdam Ave. and W. 64th St. near the Lincoln Center.
The suspect, heading north on Amsterdam Ave., had blown through a red light and slammed into Banes with such force that the actress was knocked out of the crosswalk, police said.
She died 10 days later at Mount Sinai Morningside hospital.
Banes, who also starred in “Cocktail” and numerous Broadway productions, was on her way to meet friends for dinner when she was struck. She had intended to first stop by her alma mater, the Juilliard School, her wife Kathryn Kranhold said at the time.
Banes was nabbed at his Amsterdam Houses apartment. It wasn’t immediately clear how they identified him as the suspect, or whether his scooter was recovered.
—New York Daily News
House Democrats restart effort to craft new voting rights bill
WASHINGTON — The House Administration Committee on Friday kick-started the process for creating a new Voting Rights Act bill, releasing a report alleging that recent voting restrictions have discriminated against minority voters.
Democrats on the Subcommittee on Elections drafted the report following months of hearings about the impact of voting restrictions that states have implemented since a 2013 Supreme Court decision invalidating part of the Voting Rights Act. Their report argues states have used voter identification laws, voter roll purges and redistricting to minimize the impact of minority voters.
Those efforts have only intensified since President Joe Biden’s victory over former President Donald Trump, Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., told reporters during a news conference Friday. Trump’s repeated false claims about election fraud have been taken up and amplified by many of his supporters, he said.
The committee sent the report to the House Judiciary Committee to draft a new version of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, to be named after the late Rep. John Lewis. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., said he hopes the Judiciary Committee will draft the bill in time for a House vote in September.
That would leave little room for Senate consideration if Democrats hope to pass the law before states finish drawing up their new congressional maps. That process starts Thursday with the Census Bureau’s release of detailed local data, which had been delayed for months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, it’s unclear what path the bill may have in the closely divided Senate, which earlier this summer voted 50-50 along party lines on a motion to advance a broad federal election and campaign finance bill, falling short of a 60-vote threshold.
—CQ-Roll Call
