Today is
Saturday November 23, 2024
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Prosecutors will recommend Erik and Lyle Menendez be resentenced for the 1989 killings of their parents in the family’s Beverly Hills home, providing the brothers with a chance at freedom after 34 years behind bars.
An official with knowledge of the decision who was not authorized to speak on the record ahead of a planned press conference confirmed that Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón would recommend resentencing for the brothers.
They were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors must now seek court approval.
Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they fatally shot their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez.
The brothers said they feared their parents were about to kill them to stop people from finding out that Jose Menendez had sexually abused Erik Menendez for years.
The brothers’ extended family has pleaded for their release, saying they deserve to be free after decades behind bars. Several family members have said that in today’s world — which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse — the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.
Multiple members of their extended family, including their aunt Joan Andersen VanderMolen, sat in the first few rows of Thursday’s news conference. Joan Andersen VanderMolen was Kitty Menendez’s sister and has publicly supported their release. Mark Geragos, an attorney for the brothers, was also there.
The Menendez brothers were tried twice for their parents’ murders, with the first trial ending in a hung jury.
Prosecutors at the time contended that there was no evidence of molestation, and many details in their story of sexual abuse were not permitted in the second trial. The district attorney’s office also said back then that the brothers were after their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate.
Not all Menendez family members support resentencing. Attorneys for Milton Anderson, the 90-year-old brother of Kitty Menendez, filed a legal brief asking the court to keep the brothers’ original punishment. “They shot their mother, Kitty, reloading to ensure her death,†Anderson’s attorneys said in a statement Thursday. “The evidence remains overwhelmingly clear: the jury’s verdict was just, and the punishment fits the heinous crime.â€
The LA district attorney is in the middle of a tough reelection fight against former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman who has blamed Gascón’s progressive reform policies for recent high-profile murders and increased retail crime.
WOOD COUNTY – Wood County Sheriff’s Office reports that early Thursday morning, chainsaws and firearms were part of the items stolen from unlocked vehicles. According to our news partner KETK, authorities ask residents to lock their vehicles and limit the amount valuables left inside their vehicles. They also remind everyone that the suspects in this case are armed and are considered dangerous.
WCSO said the burglaries Thursday morning occurred in the 2370 series of County Roads and 1600 series of County Roads near Alba-Golden ISD.
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ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is at risk of misallocating nearly $1 billion in lead pipe replacement funding to the wrong states because it didn’t verify inaccurate data provided by Texas and Florida, an agency watchdog announced.
It’s possible that the EPA can avoid much of the misallocation and can recover some funds that already went where they shouldn’t have, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General said. But the errors mean some states with the biggest needs may have to wait longer for funds — or will get less than they should have, the OIG said in a report this week.
The EPA disputed the watchdog’s conclusions, saying it tried to balance evolving information on lead service lines in each state with the need to quickly allocate money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Officials promised to review future allocations for Texas and Florida.
At issue is a first-of-its-kind EPA survey that asked local officials to estimate the number of lead pipes in their state. Some states with long industrial legacies like Illinois and Michigan have far more than others. The bipartisan infrastructure law provided $15 billion to find and replace lead pipes. The survey was to ensure states with more pipes got more money.
But the EPA didn’t verify what states told them and there were glaring problems with the numbers provided by Texas and Florida, according to the inspector general. For example, a single data entry error by Houston caused the EPA to allocate nearly $120 million more to Texas than it probably should have in fiscal year 2023, the report said. When Houston told Texas officials about the mistake, the state didn’t inform the EPA, the report said.
“Florida seriously screwed up and Texas was obstinate,†said Tom Neltner, national director of the lead policy nonprofit Unleaded Kids.
The findings were released just weeks after the Biden administration finalized an ambitious rule mandating that most cities remove their lead pipes within a decade, highlighting how difficult that effort will be. Lead harms brain development in children and increases blood pressure in adults and the agency estimates it will cost $50-$80 billion to replace the country’s roughly 9 million lead pipes. Federal funds are vital for ensuring the cost doesn’t fall too heavily on homeowners.
“We have warned the EPA repeatedly about the real and significant consequences of using unreliable data. The Agency needs to fix these systemic flaws before more taxpayer dollars are misdirected,†said EPA Inspector General Sean W. O’Donnell.
O’Donnell’s office wants the agency to develop methods to verify state data. EPA says the OIG misunderstood the point of its survey and wants to focus on addressing the questionable Florida and Texas data and allocations. It’s considering what to provide to those states going forward.
Texas did not return a request for comment. The OIG provided an initial report on the problem in May. At that time, Florida said the EPA estimate for the state was premature and too high. They blamed the EPA for a flawed calculation. Florida officials did not respond this week to AP’s questions about the inspector general’s report.
The EPA survey was important because many water providers don’t know how many lead pipes they have or where they are. Before the survey, lead funding levels weren’t linked to how many pipes a state had. Accurate inventories are expensive and time-consuming so the agency relied on states to provide their best judgment so it could quickly distribute federal funds based more closely on each state’s needs.
“This agency effort redirected hundreds of millions of dollars to areas of the country with higher need for lead service line replacement,†the agency said.
The EPA also gave states a chance to update faulty data, and funds that aren’t used by states eventually are reallocated to places that can use it.
When the EPA initially released state results, however, some experts immediately raised questions about some, including Florida’s, because they differed widely from prior industry and nonprofit estimates. In 2023, Florida received the highest allocation in the country, Texas the fifth most.
The inspector general said that skepticism was warranted. The report said Florida used an estimation method that inflated its lead pipe count and inconsistently applied that methodology. The watchdog also talked directly to eight water providers that accounted for about 40% of the state’s total number of reported lead pipes. Four showed the OIG that they reported no known lead pipes.
“None of their responses matched the (lead pipe) data that the state submitted to EPA,†the report said, adding that one anonymous water system manager told the inspector general’s office that the data the state submitted for their system “made absolutely no sense.â€
The EPA tried to collect better data from Florida, but state officials didn’t update their submission when given the chance. Florida was awarded its full amount — $254.79 million – for 2023, the report said. Its allotment was reduced to $228.68 million the following year — a high amount the inspector general also called into question.
“Flaws in Florida’s (lead pipe) data carry significant financial implications for other states,” the report said.
Neltner said it matters if Florida, a state with few lead pipes, spends a lot on searching for them when other states with documented problems desperately need money to get lead out of the ground now.
Even after the EPA allocates money, there’s time to correct problems. It is unclear how much Texas actually received in 2023, Neltner said. The following year, Texas was given the minimum. That meant that others states like Minnesota and New Jersey received more money.
DETROIT (AP) — Tesla’s third-quarter net income rose 17.3% compared with a year ago as its electric vehicle sales rose.
The Austin, Texas, company said Wednesday that it made $2.17 billion from July through September, more than the $1.85 billion profit it posted in the same period of 2023.
The profit came despite price cuts and low-interest financing that helped boost sales of the company’s aging vehicle lineup. It was the company’s first year-over-year quarterly profit increase of 2024.
Revenue in the quarter rose 7.8% to $25.18 billion, falling short of Wall Street analysts who estimated it at $25.47 billion, according to FactSet. Excluding one time items, Tesla made 72 cents per share, beating analyst expectations of 59 cents.
Shares in Tesla Inc. soared almost 9% in trading after Wednesday’s closing bell.
Earlier this month Tesla said it sold 462,890 vehicles from July through September, up 6.4% from a year ago and the first quarterly increase of 2024. The sales numbers were better than analysts had expected.
Even with sales drops in the first two quarters, Tesla said in its letter to shareholders that it expects slight growth in vehicle deliveries for the full year despite “ongoing macroeconomic conditions,†mainly high interest rates. Last year the company sold 1.8 million EVs worldwide.
The letter said that Tesla is on track to start production of new vehicles, including more affordable models, in the first half of next year, something investors had been looking for. The new vehicles will use parts from its current models and will be made on the same assembly lines as Tesla’s current model lineup, the letter said.
The new vehicles were not identified. CEO Elon Musk has said the company is working on a car that will cost about $25,000 as well as a purpose-built robotaxi.
By using parts from existing models and the current manufacturing system, Tesla won’t reach cost reductions that it previously expected. But the company said this method should enable more than 50% growth over 2023 production.
Tesla said it reduced the cost of goods per vehicle to its lowest level yet, about $35,100. “Despite sustained macroeconomic headwinds and others pulling back on EV investments, we remain focused on expanding our vehicle and energy product lineup, reducing costs and making critical investments in (artificial intelligence) projects and production capacity,†the letter said.
The company’s widely watched gross profit margin, the percentage of revenue it gets to keep after expenses, rose to 19.8%, the highest in a year, but still smaller than the peak of 29.1% in the first quarter of 2022.
During the quarter, Tesla’s revenue from regulatory credits purchased by other automakers who can’t meet government emissions targets hit $739 million, the second highest quarter in company history.
HENDERSON — Henderson Police Department are searching for a suspect involved in a Wednesday morning shooting that left one injured. According to our news partner KETK, officers responded to a shots fired call near 1100 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and West Main Street. When police arrived, they were told the victim had already been taken to a hospital with minor injuries.
HPD and Rusk County Sheriff’s Office are attempting to locate the suspect. While the suspect is still at large, police said, they are “not believed to be an immediate threat to the public.â€
Anyone with information about the case are asked to contact the Henderson Police Department at 903-657-3512.
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KILGORE — Kilgore residents may have started to notice a taste or odor change in their tap water. According to our news partner KETK, the reason is The City of Kilgore temporarily converted the disinfectant used in their water distribution center from chloramine to free chlorine.
City officials explained, “public water systems are required to properly disinfect their water and maintain an adequate disinfectant residual in the distribution system. We have chosen to implement a temporary disinfectant conversion to free chlorine based on increasing water quality complaints and decreasing chloramine residuals.â€
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SMITH COUNTY – The first day of early voting in Smith County saw more than 9,000 votes cast at the polls on Monday. According to our news partner KETK, Smith County officials said 10,635 ballots were cast, 9,594 were cast in person. How does this compare to early voting during the 2020 election? In 2020, Smith County only saw about 6,000 people in the first day of early voting.
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AUSTIN (AP) — A Texas man whose execution was halted after lawmakers ordered Robert Roberson to appear at the state Capitol did not show up as planned Monday after a dispute over transporting a person on death row for the extraordinary purpose of testifying in a public hearing.
His absence at a highly anticipated hearing at the Texas Capitol was another twist in last-ditch efforts to spare Roberson’s life over claims that outdated science and faulty evidence led to his 2003 conviction in the death of his 2-year-old daughter.
It also opened tensions between a group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers who say Roberson is innocent and state Republican leaders, including Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who say the unusual maneuver by legislators to subpoena Roberson at the last minute in an attempt to buy more time crossed a line.
Roberson had been set last Thursday to become the first person in the U.S. executed over a murder conviction connected to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. He was taken to America’s busiest death chamber and was waiting in a holding cell when the Texas Supreme Court abruptly halted plans to give him a lethal injection.
Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody, the chairman of a state House committee that led efforts to stop the execution, said as Monday’s hearing opened that Roberson likely would not appear but that lawmakers still hoped he would do so soon.
“If this committee wanted to take a heavy-handed approach, there are dramatic ways that we could enforce that subpoena,†Moody said. “But we didn’t issue the subpoena to create a constitutional crisis, and we aren’t interested in creating division between branches of government.â€
The Texas Attorney General’s Office had told lawmakers that Roberson would only appear by videoconference, which Moody said would be “poorly suited†for Roberson because he is autistic.
“That doesn’t mean Robert won’t testify at all,†said Moody, without saying when Roberson might testify or how.
Among those testifying Monday about Roberson’s case was daytime television psychologist “Dr. Phil†McGraw and best-selling author John Grisham. The veteran talk show host McGraw threw his full support behind Roberson, stating that there was not enough evidence to convict him of a crime.
“If you execute people when you now know better, you need to abolish the death penalty. If that’s the standard by which you’re gonna execute people, you’ve got a bad system,†McGraw said.
Roberson’s claims of innocence are backed by a group of Republican and Democratic legislators who say he was convicted based on outdated science.
Roberson received the death penalty for the 2002 death of daughter Nikki Curtis in the East Texas city of Palestine. Prosecutors argued that the infant’s death was caused by serious head trauma from being violently shaken back and forth. Roberson’s attorneys say that the bruising on Curtis’ body was likely due to complications with severe pneumonia and not child abuse.
Once Roberson testifies to lawmakers, prosecutors could seek a new execution date at any time, according to Gretchen Sween, one of his attorneys.
Lawmakers had sought to have Roberson transported from death row to appear in person, raising the possibility of an extraordinary scene in the Texas Capitol. However, the state attorney general’s office told the committee he would appear virtually.
Abbott’s office said the Texas Supreme Court should toss out the subpoena, writing that the House committee has “stepped out of line†in their first public statement on the case.
Almost 90 lawmakers across party lines, medical experts and civil rights advocates had called on Abbott to stay his execution. Abbott has not commented on Roberson’s case and the Texas parole board rejected pleas to grant clemency.
Rebuffed by the courts and Texas’ parole board in their efforts to spare Roberson’s life, legislators last Thursday subpoenaed Roberson to testify. Lawmakers on the House committee have expressed frustration with Texas’ junk science law, which they say has failed to work as intended, including in Roberson’s case.
The 2013 law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible. At the time, it was hailed by the Legislature as a uniquely future-proof solution to wrongful convictions based on faulty science. But Roberson’s supporters say his case points to faults in the judicial system where the law has been weakened by deliberate misinterpretation from the state’s highest criminal court.
In the last 10 years, 74 applications have been filed and ruled on under the junk science law. A third of applications were submitted by people facing the death penalty. All of them were unsuccessful.
Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, has previously told the committee that a court hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who rejected their claims.
AUSTIN – It was a packed committee room Monday in the Texas House. According to our news partner KETK, legislators met with witnesses to listen to testimony in the case and conviction of Robert Roberson of Palestine. Roberson is on death row for a crime that is now being called into question. He was found guilty in 2003 of killing his 2-year-old daughter, a conviction for which he was set to be executed last Thursday. A ruling from the Texas Supreme Court spared him in the 11th hour, citing concerns about a last-minute subpoena ordering Roberson to be present for House testimony about his case on Monday.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice would only allow Roberson to attend the proceedings virtually, an accommodation which Roberson’s attorneys and the House committee alike argued would not be acceptable. Given that Roberson has been diagnosed with autism, and he has been in custody for more than two decades, his attorneys argue that his ability to effectively communicate would be severely impeded in a virtual setting.
On Monday’s witness list was TV personality Dr. Phillip McGraw, Novelist John Grisham, Former judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Elsa Alcala, Terry Compton, a juror from Roberson’s 2003 trial and Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney.
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UPDATE: ATHENS – Athens Public Safety announced that as of 4 p.m. West Corsicana Street is reopened.
ATHENS – Athens Public Safety announced on their Facebook that parts of West Corsicana Street are closed due to a structure fire. According to our news partner KETK, the City of Athens said the fire department received at call at 11:45 a.m. about a fire at a vacant furniture store, next to Travel Inn on West Corsicana Street. Officials said no one was inside the vacant building and The Travel Inn was evacuated. The Athens Fire Department had the blaze controlled by 1:30 p.m. They were assisted by District 8 Fire Department, Long Cove Fire Department, South Side Fire Department, Henderson County Fire Marshal and the Athens Police Department. According AFD Public Information Officer Michael Hannigan, the empty store had significant damage, while The Travel Inn had damage to several rooms. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
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TRINITY COUNTY – Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace said that one man was arrested on Sunday after he reportedly said he was “going pig hunting†or planning to kill police officers. According to our news partner KETK,the sheriff’s office was notified that a man had displayed a firearm and said he was going to drive around the town of Trinity and kill police officers.
Randall Konetzke was reportedly seen driving recklessly on FM 356, stopping in front of the Trinity Police Department and then speeding back onto FM 356 where he stopped. When officers responded Wallace said Konetzke was outside of his vehicle, which was parked on the side of the road, talking to another driver.
When he saw the officers, he started to walk back to his vehicle and then the officers told him to stop but he continued to try and get into his truck. A brief struggle ensued and Konetzke was arrested. He was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, terroristic threat to a public servant and resisting arrest, search or transportation.