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    Supreme Court Revives Suit From Victims of Botched F.B.I. Raid

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    Lower courts ruled in favor of agents who had used a battering ram and a flash-bang grenade in mistakenly raiding the home of an Atlanta couple.The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously revived a suit from a couple whose home was mistakenly raided by the F.B.I., giving them a fresh opportunity to try to persuade lower courts that they should be able to sue the federal government for the harm they suffered.The case, Martin v. United States, No. 24-362, arose from a raid very early on a fall morning in 2017, when F.B.I. agents used a battering ram to knock down the front door of the home of the couple, Hilliard Toi Cliatt and Curtrina Martin. Guns drawn, the agents set off a flash-bang grenade and charged inside.The couple barricaded themselves in a closet. The agents dragged Mr. Cliatt out at gunpoint and handcuffed him. They told Ms. Martin to keep her hands up as she pleaded to see her 7-year-old son, who had been asleep in another room.As they questioned Mr. Cliatt, he gave his address. It was different from the one the agents had a warrant to enter.One of the agents, Lawrence Guerra, had earlier identified the correct house, which he said looked similar and was nearby, on a different street. But on the morning of the raid, he said he went to the wrong house because he had been misdirected by his GPS device.The couple sued for false arrest, false imprisonment, assault, battery and other claims but lost in the lower courts on a variety of grounds, notably that government officials’ actions are protected from lawsuits when they perform a duty that involves discretion.The case turned on the Federal Tort Claims Act, which sometimes allows suits against the government notwithstanding the doctrine of sovereign immunity. A 1974 amendment to the law made it easier to sue over wrong-house raids after notorious ones in Collinsville, Ill. But the law is subject to a tangled series of exceptions and provisos. More

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      Two Are Charged With Stalking an Artist Who Criticized Xi Jinping

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      The two men also unsuccessfully tried to illegally export sensitive U.S. military technology to China, prosecutors said.Two men have been charged with plotting to silence a Los Angeles artist critical of the Chinese government and trying to illegally export sensitive U.S. military technology to China, according to federal prosecutors.The defendants, Cui Guanghai, 43, of China, and John Miller, 63, a British national who is a permanent U.S. resident, orchestrated a harassment campaign against a U.S.-based dissident artist whom the authorities did not name, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. The two men also tried to smuggle restricted technology into China, the office said.The target of the harassment plot, the authorities say, was a Los Angeles-based artist who had publicly criticized President Xi Jinping of China. The artist planned to protest against President Xi during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November 2023 in San Francisco. The artist had also created sculptures of President Xi and his wife that, according to a federal complaint, depicted them kneeling, bare-chested, with their hands tied behind their backs.Mr. Cui and Mr. Miller, who unknowingly hired two F.B.I. agents working undercover, arranged to place a tracking device on the artist’s car and have its tires slashed, prosecutors said in court documents. The two also planned to destroy the artist’s sculptures, though they were unsuccessful, the authorities said.Mr. Cui and Mr. Miller are currently in custody in Serbia, according to federal prosecutors. It is unclear whether either man has legal representation.“The United States will seek extradition of Cui and Miller and looks forward to working in partnership with the Republic of Serbia’s Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Justice,” prosecutors said in a statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      D.C. Police Officer Sentenced to Prison for Leaks to Proud Boys’ Leader

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      A federal judge gave Lt. Shane Lamond an 18-month sentence for leaking details of an investigation to Enrique Tarrio, the far-right group’s former leader, and lying about it later.A federal judge has sentenced a former intelligence officer in the Washington police force to 18 months in prison for obstructing justice and lying to investigators about his relationship with Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, the far-right group.The officer, Lt. Shane Lamond, was found guilty in December of illegally leaking details to Mr. Tarrio about an investigation into his burning of a Black Lives Matter banner during a protest in Washington. The federal judge, Amy Berman Jackson, said that Mr. Lamond, who cultivated a close relationship with Mr. Tarrio in the months leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, had undermined his police department colleagues with “entirely unauthorized” back channeling with Mr. Tarrio.A lawyer for Mr. Lamond, Mark Schamel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Lamond’s lawyers argued during the trial that he had reached out to Mr. Tarrio to gather information, and that his updates about the status of police and F.B.I. investigations into the activities of the Proud Boys were intended to build rapport. In a pre-sentencing memo from April, they asked for probation instead of a prison sentence.“Mr. Lamond’s police intel work certainly strayed from the ideal,” his lawyers said. “But he did not impede the investigation in any way, and was the most significant source of information used to successfully prosecute Mr. Tarrio.” They added that he had sought to gain only intelligence that could help stop protesters from coming to Washington after the 2020 election. In requesting probation for Mr. Lamond, they also cited health problems, including with his spine.Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader, speaking to reporters in Washington on Friday.Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesProsecutors had argued for a sentence of four years. They said Mr. Lamond had “used his access and power in pursuit of his own personal agenda,” and lied repeatedly about his relationship with Mr. Tarrio.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Considers Early Release of Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination Documents

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      The materials are scheduled to be unsealed in 2027, but President Trump signed an executive order in January aimed at moving up the date.A federal judge in Washington said on Wednesday that he was open to lifting a court order ahead of schedule to release potentially sensitive documents related to the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., nodding to an executive order President Trump signed in January aimed at achieving that outcome.During a hearing on Wednesday to discuss the possibility, Judge Richard Leon of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia nonetheless cautioned that he intended to proceed slowly and prioritize privacy in an extended process to determine whether any documents should be released before 2027, the date that another judge set in 1977 for the documents to be unsealed.Judge Leon said he would start by ordering the National Archives to show him — and him alone — an inventory of all the sealed materials related to Dr. King that have been stored there.He said that the inventory, which the government says it has not reviewed, might help shed light on whether documents specifically related to Dr. King’s assassination in 1968, and the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that followed, had been separated out and could be efficiently processed.The hearing on Wednesday came through a lawsuit brought by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization based in Atlanta associated with Dr. King, which has sued to halt any effort to unseal documents early.It came in response to an executive order Mr. Trump signed in January that directed intelligence agencies to set in motion plans to release records related to the assassinations of Dr. King, President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bernard Kerik, New York’s Police Commissioner on 9/11, Dies at 69

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      Before his career imploded, he rose meteorically to become New York City’s chief law enforcement officer under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.Bernard B. Kerik, the New York City police commissioner who was hailed as a hero for overseeing the department’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, only to fall from grace after he pleaded guilty to federal corruption and tax crimes, died on Thursday. He was 69.Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I., announced Mr. Kerik’s death in a post on X. He said the former commissioner died “after a private battle with illness.”A cocksure high school dropout with a black belt in karate, shaved head and bulging biceps, Mr. Kerik vaulted to senior public posts as a disciple of Rudolph W. Giuliani after serving as Mr. Giuliani’s bodyguard during his successful 1993 mayoral campaign.In 1997, after Mr. Kerik rose through the ranks of the Police Department from a street cop in Times Square and narcotics investigator, Mr. Giuliani promoted him to correction commissioner, where he curbed sick time abuse by guards and reduced violence by inmates.Mr. Kerik’s appointment as police commissioner in August 2000 was not well received, in part because of his rapid promotions despite his lack of a college degree, which uniformed police officers ordinarily needed for promotion to captain and above. His highest rank before becoming commissioner was detective third grade. He later went on to earn a degree in 2002.During his tenure as police commissioner, for 16 months through 2001 when Mr. Giuliani’s mayoral term ended, crime continued the decline that was accomplished most by two of his predecessors, Raymond W. Kelly and William J. Bratton. Morale among officers improved. So did relations between the department and Black and Hispanic New Yorkers who had been alienated by incidents of police abuse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      F.B.I. Memo on Sheds Light on Dispute Over Venezuelan Gang

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      The remaining intelligence agencies disagree with the F.B.I.’s analysis tying the gang, Tren de Aragua, to Venezuela’s government.An F.B.I. intelligence memo unsealed on Wednesday offers new details on why the bureau concluded that some Venezuelan government officials were likely to have had some responsibility for a criminal gang’s actions in the United States, pitting it against other intelligence agencies in a heated dispute over President Trump’s use of a wartime law.The memo, whose conclusions the remaining intelligence agencies have rejected, was submitted by the administration to a federal judge in Texas before a hearing on Thursday. It is part of a proliferating array of lawsuits over Mr. Trump’s use of the law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport people accused of being members of that gang, Tren de Aragua, to a notorious Salvadoran prison without due process.“The F.B.I. assesses some Venezuelan government officials likely facilitate the migration of TdA members from Venezuela to the United States to advance the Maduro regime’s objective of undermining public safety in the United States,” the memo said, using an abbreviation for the gang.It added that the bureau also thinks some officials in the administration of Venezeula’s president, Nicolas Maduro, “likely use TdA members as proxies.”The submission of the memo opens the door to greater judicial scrutiny of a key basis for Mr. Trump’s assertion that he can invoke the rarely used law to summarily deport people accused of being members of the gang. It also offers a glimpse of the claims put forth by several detained migrants that formed the basis for the F.B.I.’s assessment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner

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      Paul Walczak’s pardon application cited his mother’s support for the president, including raising millions of dollars and a connection to a plot to publicize a Biden family diary.As Paul Walczak awaited sentencing early this year, his best hope for avoiding prison time rested with the newly inaugurated president.Mr. Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes days after the 2024 election, submitted a pardon application to President Trump around Inauguration Day. The application focused not solely on Mr. Walczak’s offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago.Ms. Fago had raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s campaigns and those of other Republicans, the application said. It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny.Mr. Walczak’s pardon application argued that his criminal prosecution was motivated more by his mother’s efforts for Mr. Trump than by his admitted use of money earmarked for employees’ taxes to fund an extravagant lifestyle.Still, weeks went by and no pardon was forthcoming, even as Mr. Trump issued clemency grants to hundreds of other allies.Then, Ms. Fago was invited to a $1-million-per-person fund-raising dinner last month that promised face-to-face access to Mr. Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Brian K. Williams Agrees to Plead Guilty in L.A. Bomb Threat Case

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      The former City Hall aide, considered by colleagues a steady presence, faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.A former Los Angeles official agreed Thursday to plead guilty to a felony charge after fabricating a bomb threat against the City Hall he was hired to protect as the deputy mayor of public safety.Brian K. Williams, 61, who rose from the city attorney’s office to become a deputy in two mayoral administrations, admitted in a plea deal that he had concocted a bomb threat and called it in to City Hall last October, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said in a statement.Under the terms of the deal, the statement said, Mr. Williams — who oversaw public safety for Mayor Karen Bass until she put him on administrative leave in December — has agreed to plead guilty to a single felony charge of “information with threats regarding fire and explosives.”“In an era of heated political rhetoric that has sometimes escalated into violence, we cannot allow public officials to make bomb threats,” said Bill Essayli, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California.At Los Angeles City Hall, where Mr. Williams had been considered by colleagues a steady and affable presence, a spokesman for Mayor Bass expressed disappointment. “Like many, we were shocked when these allegations were first made and we are saddened by this conclusion,” Zach Seidl, the spokesman, said.During the January fires that devastated Los Angeles, supporters of the mayor widely blamed her initial absence on the lack of a strong public safety adviser, who might have briefed her more fully than the fire chief, whom she later demoted.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      My Father Was a Nazi Hunter. Then He Died in the Lockerbie Bombing.

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      On an early summer day in 1986 in a federal building in Newark, my father, Michael Bernstein, sat across a conference table from an elderly man named Stefan Leili. Then a young prosecutor at the Department of Justice, my father spent the previous day and a half deposing Leili, who emigrated to the United States from Germany three decades earlier. While applying for an entry visa, the U.S. government claimed, Leili concealed his service in the Totenkopfverbände — the infamous Death’s Head units of the SS, which ran the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. In 1981, the Supreme Court ruled that such an omission was sufficient grounds for denaturalization and deportation. If my father could prove that Leili lied, the United States could strip him of his citizenship and kick him out of the country.Listen to this article, read by Robert PetkoffIn an earlier interview, Leili repeatedly denied guarding prisoners at Mauthausen, one of a cluster of work camps in Austria, notorious for a stone quarry where slave laborers spent 11-hour days hauling slabs of granite up a steep rock staircase. But my father and a colleague sensed that this time around, the weight of hundreds of detailed queries might finally be causing Leili to buckle. Leili had begun to concede, bit by grudging bit, that he was more involved than he first said. My father had been waiting for such a moment, because he had a piece of evidence he was holding back. Now he decided that it was finally time to use it.Leili sat next to his college-age granddaughter and a German interpreter. Earlier in the deposition, the young woman said her grandfather was a sweet man, who couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong. Indeed, it would have been hard to look at this unremarkable 77-year-old — bald, with a sagging paunch — and perceive a villain.Certainly, the story Leili first told my father was far from villainous. Born in a small town in 1909 in Austria-Hungary, present-day Romania, Leili was an ethnic German peasant, who like millions of others had been tossed from place to place by the forces convulsing Europe. In 1944, Leili said, the Red Army was advancing toward his village. He had to choose whether to join the Hungarian Army or, like many ethnic Germans from his region, the SS. The Schutzstaffel promised better pay and German citizenship, plus money for his family if he was killed. And besides, if he hadn’t gone along with what the SS wanted, Leili said, he would “have been put against the wall and shot.”Leili told my father he spent much of his time in the SS pretending to be ill so he wouldn’t have to serve. Then he guarded some prisoners working in a Daimler munitions factory. These were soldiers, not civilians. They had friendly relations, he told my father. They worked short days. They were well fed, even “plump.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More