|
|
|
Son of Norway’s crown princess arrested before his trial on rape charge
Lawyer Court Feed |
2026/02/02 16:52
|
The eldest son of Norway’s crown princess has been arrested, just before his trial opens on charges including rape in a case that has been an embarrassment to the royal family, police said Monday.
Marius Borg Høiby was arrested on Sunday evening and is accused of assault, threats with a knife and violation of a restraining order, police said in a statement. They requested four weeks’ detention on grounds of risk of reoffending. His lawyers couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
On Tuesday, he’s due to go on trial at the Oslo district court. The indictment includes 38 counts, including rape, abuse in a close relationship against one former partner, acts of violence against another and transporting 3.5 kilograms (7.7 pounds) of marijuana. Other charges include making death threats and traffic violations.
Høiby has been under scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested in 2024 on various allegations of wrongdoing. He was indicted in August, but had been free pending trial until Sunday.
Høiby is the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit from a previous relationship and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon. He has no royal title or official duties.
The indictment centers on four alleged rapes between 2018 and November 2024; alleged violence and threats against a former partner between the summer of 2022 and the fall of 2023; and two alleged acts of violence against a subsequent partner, along with violations of a restraining order.
Høiby’s defense team has said that he “denies all charges of sexual abuse, as well as the majority of the charges regarding violence.”
Haakon said last week that he and Mette-Marit don’t plan to attend court and that the royal house doesn’t intend to comment during the proceedings.
He emphasized that Høiby isn’t part of the royal house and that, as a citizen of Norway, he has the same responsibilities and rights as all others. He said that he’s confident that all concerned will make the trial as orderly, proper and fair as possible.
While the royals are generally popular in Norway, the Høiby case has cast a shadow on their image. And the trial is opening just as his mother faces renewed scrutiny over her contacts with Jeffrey Epstein.
Friday’s release of the latest batch of documents from the Epstein files shone an unflattering spotlight on Mette-Marit. They contained several hundred mentions of the crown princess, who already said in 2019 that she regretted having had contact with Epstein, Norwegian media reported.
The newly released documents, which include email exchanges with Epstein, showed that Mette-Marit borrowed a property of Epstein’s in Palm Beach, Florida, for several days in early 2013, and the royal house confirmed that she did so through a mutual friend, broadcaster NRK reported. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Partial shutdown seems increasingly likely as Democrats demand ICE changes
Legal World News |
2026/01/28 21:14
|
With a partial government shutdown looming, Senate Democrats laid out a list of demands Wednesday for the Department of Homeland Security, including an enforceable code of conduct for federal agents conducting immigration arrests and a requirement that officers show identification as the country reels from the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis.
It remained unclear if President Donald Trump and Republicans would be willing to meet those demands, even as funding for DHS and a swath of other government agencies was at risk of expiring Saturday. Irate Democrats have pledged to block a spending bill unless their demands for reforms are met.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that the legislation won’t pass until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “reined in and overhauled.”
“The American people support law enforcement, they support border security, they do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens,” Schumer said.
With an uncertain path ahead, the standoff threatened to plunge the country into another shutdown just two months after Democrats blocked a spending bill over expiring federal health care subsidies, a dispute that closed the government for 43 days as Republicans refused to negotiate. That shutdown ended when a small group of moderate Democrats broke away to strike a deal with Republicans, but Democrats are more united this time after the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents.
There’s a lot of “unanimity and shared purpose” within the Democratic caucus, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith said after a lunch meeting Wednesday.
“Boil it all down, what we are talking about is that these lawless ICE agents should be following the same rules that your local police department does,” Smith said. “There has to be accountability.”
As the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement surge goes on, Schumer said Democrats are asking the White House to “end roving patrols” in cities and coordinate with local law enforcement on immigration arrests, including requiring tighter rules for warrants.
Democrats also want an enforceable code of conduct so agents are held accountable when they violate rules. Schumer said agents should be required to have “masks off, body cameras on” and carry proper identification, as is common practice in most law enforcement agencies.
The Democratic caucus is united in those “commonsense reforms” and the burden is on Republicans to accept them, Schumer said. He has asked Republicans to separate out the Homeland Security bill from the others to avoid a broader shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said he was waiting for Democrats to outline what they want, and he suggested that they need to be negotiating with the White House. He indicated that he might be open to some of their demands, but encouraged Democrats and the White House to talk and find agreement.
It was unclear whether Trump would weigh in, or how seriously the White House was engaged — or whether the two sides could agree on anything that would satisfy Democrats.
The White House had invited some Democrats for a discussion to better understand their positions and avoid a partial government shutdown, a senior White House official said, but the meeting did not happen. The official requested anonymity to discuss the private invitation.
With no serious negotiations underway, a partial shutdown appeared increasingly likely starting Saturday.
The House passed the six remaining funding bills last week and sent them to the Senate as a package, and that makes it difficult to strip out the homeland security portion as Democrats are demanding. Republicans could break the package apart with the consent of all 100 senators, which would be complicated, or through a series of votes that would extend past the Friday deadline.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Minneapolis shooting scrambles Second Amendment politics for Trump
Legal Information |
2026/01/24 21:26
|
Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped elicit a White House turnabout this week after bristling over the administration’s characterization of Alex Pretti, the second person killed this month by a federal officer in Minneapolis, as responsible for his own death because he lawfully possessed a weapon.
The death produced no clear shifts in U.S. gun politics or policies, even as President Donald Trump shuffles the lieutenants in charge of his militarized immigration crackdown. But important voices in Trump’s coalition have called for a thorough investigation of Pretti’s death while also criticizing inconsistencies in some Republicans’ Second Amendment stances.
If the dynamic persists, it could give Republicans problems as Trump heads into a midterm election year with voters already growing skeptical of his overall immigration approach. The concern is acute enough that Trump’s top spokeswoman sought Monday to reassert his brand as a staunch gun rights supporter.
“The president supports the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens, absolutely,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
Leavitt qualified that “when you are bearing arms and confronted by law enforcement, you are raising … the risk of force being used against you.”
That still marked a retreat from the administration’s previous messages about the shooting of Pretti. It came the same day the president dispatched border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota, seemingly elevating him over Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, who had been in charge in Minneapolis.
Within hours of Pretti’s death on Saturday, Bovino suggested Pretti “wanted to … massacre law enforcement,” and Noem said Pretti was “brandishing” a weapon and acted “violently” toward officers.
“I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign,” Noem said.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, an architect of Trump’s mass deportation effort, went further on X, declaring Pretti “an assassin.”
Bystander videos contradicted each claim, instead showing Pretti holding a cellphone and helping a woman who had been pepper sprayed by a federal officer. Within seconds, Pretti was sprayed, too, and taken to the ground by multiple officers. No video disclosed thus far has shown him unholstering his concealed weapon -– which he had a Minnesota permit to carry. It appeared that one officer took Pretti’s gun and walked away with it just before shots began. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
A federal judge is set to hear arguments on Minnesota’s immigration crackdown
Law Firm Press Release |
2026/01/20 21:27
|
A federal judge will hear arguments Monday on whether she should at least temporarily halt the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that has led to the fatal shootings of two people by government officers.
The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month, five days after Renee Good was shot by an Immigration and Customs officer. The shooting of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol officer on Saturday has only added urgency to the case.
On Monday, President Donald Trump said he is sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota. The president’s statement comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who had become the public face of the administration’s crackdown, answered questions at news conferences over the weekend about Pretti’s shooting. Trump posted on social media that Homan will report directly to him.
Since the original court filing, the state and cities have substantially added to their original request in an effort to restore the order that existed before the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota on Dec. 1.
Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he plans to attend.
The lawsuit asks U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez to order a reduction in the number of federal law enforcement officers and agents in Minnesota back to the level before the surge and to limit the scope of the enforcement operation.
Justice Department attorneys have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous” and said “Minnesota wants a veto over federal law enforcement.” They asked the judge to reject the request or to at least stay her order pending an anticipated appeal.
Ellison said during a news conference Sunday that the lawsuit is needed because of “the unprecedented nature of this surge. It is a novel abuse of the Constitution that we’re looking at right now. No one can remember a time when we’ve seen something like this.”
It is unclear when the judge might rule.
The case has implications for other states that have been or could become targets of ramped-up federal immigration enforcement operations. Attorneys general from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Minnesota.
“If left unchecked, the federal government will no doubt be emboldened to continue its unlawful conduct in Minnesota and to repeat it elsewhere,” the attorneys general wrote. |
|
|
|
|
|
Law Firm News RSS Feed
