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Man charged with killing Minnesota lawmaker plans to plead not guilty
Law Firm Press Release |
2025/07/15 12:25
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A Minnesota man plans to plead not guilty to charges he killed the top Democratic leader in the state House and her husband after wounding another lawmaker and his wife, his attorney said.
Vance Boelter, 57, is due in federal court for his arraignment on Sept. 12 under an order issued late Tuesday, hours after a grand jury indicted him on six counts of murder, stalking and firearms violations. The murder charges could carry the federal death penalty.
At a news conference Tuesday, prosecutors released a rambling handwritten letter they say Boelter wrote to FBI Director Kash Patel in which he confessed to the June 14 shootings of Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. However, the letter doesn’t make clear why he targeted the couples.
Boelter’s federal defender, Manny Atwal, said in an email that the weighty charges do not come as a surprise.
“The indictment starts the process of receiving discovery which will allow me to evaluate the case,” Atwal said Tuesday. She did not immediately comment Wednesday on any possible defense strategies.
At his last court appearance, Boelter said he was “looking forward to the facts about the 14th coming out.”
While the scheduling order set a trial date of Nov. 3, Atwal said it was “very unlikely” to happen so soon.
Investigators have already gathered a huge amount of evidence that both sides will need time to evaluate. The scheduling order acknowledges that both sides may find grounds for seeking extensions. And the potential for a death sentence adds yet another level of complexity.
The acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joe Thompson, reiterated Tuesday that they consider the former House speaker’s death a “political assassination” and the wounding of Sen. John Hoffman an “attempted assassination.”
But Thompson told reporters a decision on whether to seek the death penalty “will not come for several months.” He said it will ultimately be up to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, with input from the capital case unit at the Department of Justice, local prosecutors and the victims.
Minnesota abolished its state death penalty in 1911, but the Trump administration says it intends to be aggressive in seeking capital punishment for eligible federal crimes.
Boelter’s motivations remain murky. Friends have described him as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views who had been struggling to find work. Boelter allegedly made lists of politicians in Minnesota and other states — all or mostly Democrats — and attorneys at national law firms. In an interview published by the New York Post on Saturday, Boelter insisted the shootings had nothing to do with his opposition to abortion or his support for President Donald Trump, but he declined to elaborate on that point.
“There is little evidence showing why he turned to political violence and extremism,” Thompson said.
Prosecutors say Boelter was disguised as a police officer and driving a fake squad car early June 14 when he went to the Hoffmans’ home in the Minneapolis suburb of Champlin. He allegedly shot the senator nine times, and his wife, Yvette, eight times, but they survived.
Boelter later allegedly went to the Hortmans’ home in nearby Brooklyn Park and killed both of them. Their dog was so gravely injured that he had to be euthanized.
Investigators found Boelter’s letter to the FBI director in the car he abandoned near his rural home in Green Isle, west of Minneapolis. He surrendered the night after the shootings following what authorities have called the largest search for a suspect in Minnesota history. |
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Court widens options for vaping companies pushing back against FDA rules
Law Firm Press Release |
2025/06/22 11:37
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The Supreme Court sided with e-cigarette companies on Friday in a ruling making it easier to sue over Food and Drug Administration decisions blocking their products from the multibillion-dollar vaping market.
The 7-2 opinion comes as companies push back against a yearslong federal regulatory crackdown on electronic cigarettes. It’s expected to give the companies more control over which judges hear lawsuits filed against the agency.
The justices went the other way on vaping in an April decision, siding with the FDA in a ruling upholding a sweeping block on most sweet-flavored vapes instituted after a spike in youth vaping.
The current case was filed by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., which had sold a line of popular berry and menthol-flavored vaping products before the agency started regulating the market under the Tobacco Control Act in 2016.
The agency refused to authorize the company’s Vuse Alto products, an order that “sounded the death knell for a significant portion of the e-cigarette market,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion.
The company is based in North Carolina and typically would have been limited to challenging the FDA in a court there or in the agency’s home base of Washington. Instead, it joined forces with Texas businesses that sell the products and sued there. The conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the lawsuit to go forward, finding that anyone whose business is hurt by the FDA decision can sue.
The agency appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that R.J. Reynolds was attempting to find a court favorable to its arguments, a practice often referred to as “judge shopping.”
The justices, though, found that the law does allow other businesses affected by the FDA decisions, like e-cigarette sellers, to sue in their home states.
In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said she would have sided with the agency and limited where the cases can be filed.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids called the majority decision disappointing, saying it would allow manufacturers to “judge shop,” though it said the companies will still have to contend with the Supreme Court’s April decision.
Attorney Ryan Watson, who represented R.J. Reynolds, said that the court recognized that agency decisions can have devastating downstream effects on retailers and other businesses, and the decision “ensures that the courthouse doors are not closed” to them.
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Judge blocks plan to allow immigration agents in New York City jail
Law Firm Press Release |
2025/06/15 11:10
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A judge blocked New York City’s mayor from letting federal immigration authorities reopen an office at the city’s main jail, in part because of concerns the mayor invited them back in as part of a deal with the Trump administration to end his corruption case.
New York Judge Mary Rosado’s decision Friday is a setback for Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who issued an executive order permitting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to maintain office space at the Rikers Island jail complex. City lawmakers filed a lawsuit in April accusing Adams of entering into a “corrupt quid pro quo bargain” with the Trump administration in exchange for the U.S. Justice Department dropping criminal charges against him.
Rosado temporarily blocked the executive order in April. In granting a preliminary injunction, she said city council members have “shown a likelihood of success in demonstrating, at minimum, the appearance of a quid pro quo whereby Mayor Adams publicly agreed to bring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (”ICE”) back to Rikers Island in exchange for dismissal of his criminal charges.”
Rosado cited a number of factors, including U.S. border czar Tom Homan’s televised comments in February that if Adams did not come through, “I’ll be in his office, up his butt saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’ ”
Adams has repeatedly denied making a deal with the administration over the criminal case. He has said he deputized his first deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, to handle decision-making on the return of ICE to Rikers Island to make sure there was no appearance of any conflict of interest.
Rosado said that Mastro reports to Adams and “cannot be considered impartial and free from Mayor Adams’ conflicts.”
Mastro said in a prepared statement Friday the administration was confident they will prevail in the case. “Let’s be crystal clear: This executive order is about the criminal prosecution of violent transnational gangs committing crimes in our city. Our administration has never, and will never, do anything to jeopardize the safety of law-abiding immigrants, and this executive order ensures their safety as well,” Mastro said.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is running in the Democratic primary for mayor, called the decision a victory for public safety.
“New Yorkers are counting on our city to protect their civil rights, and yet, Mayor Adams has attempted to betray this obligation by handing power over our city to Trump’s ICE because he is compromised,” she said in a prepared statement.
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Cuban exiles were shielded from deportation. Now Trump is cracking down
Law Firm Press Release |
2025/05/29 07:22
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Financial markets welcomed a U.S. court ruling that blocks President Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law.
U.S. futures jumped early Thursday and oil prices rose more than $1. The U.S. dollar rose against the yen and euro.
The court found the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump has cited as his basis for ordering massive increases in import duties, does not authorize the use of tariffs.
The White House immediately appealed and it was unclear if Trump would abide by the ruling in the interim. The long term outcome of legal disputes over tariffs remains uncertain. But investors appeared to take heart after the months of turmoil brought on by Trump's trade war.
The future for the S&P 500 was up 1.5% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.2%.
In early European trading, Germany's DAX gained 0.5% to 24,160.75. The CAC 40 in Paris jumped 0.9% to 7,860.67. Britain's FTSE was nearly unchanged at 8,722.63.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.9% to 38,432.98. American's largest ally in Asia has been appealing to Trump to cancel the tariffs he has ordered on imports from Japan and to also stop 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection technician examines overseas parcels after they were scanned at the agency's overseas mail inspection facility at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Feb. 23, 2024.
The ruling also pushed the dollar sharply higher against the Japanese yen. It was trading at 145.40 yen early Thursday, up from 144.87 yen late Wednesday.
A three-judge panel ruled on several lawsuits arguing Trump exceeded his authority, casting doubt on trade policies that have jolted global financial markets, frustrated trade partners and raised uncertainty over the outlook for inflation and the global economy.
Many of Trump's double-digit tariff hikes are paused for up to 90 days to allow time for trade negotiations, but the uncertainty they cast over global commerce has stymied businesses and left consumers wary about what lies ahead.
"Just when traders thought they'd seen every twist in the tariff saga, the gavel dropped like a lightning bolt over the Pacific," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
The ruling was, at the least, "a brief respite before the next thunderclap," he said.
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.3% to 23,561.86, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.7% to 3,363.45.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.2% to 8,409.80.
In South Korea, which like Japan relies heavily on exports to the U.S., the Kospi surged 1.9% to 2,720.64. Shares also were helped by the Bank of Korea's decision to cut its key interest rate to 2.5% from 2.75%, to ease pressure on the economy.
Taiwan's Taiex edged 0.1% lower, and India's Sensex lost 0.2%.
On Wednesday, U.S. stocks cooled, with the S&P 500 down 0.6% but still within 4.2% of its record after charging higher amid hopes that the worst of the turmoil caused by Trump's trade war may have passed. It had been roughly 20% below the mark last month.
The Dow industrials lost 0.6% and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.5%.
Trading was relatively quiet ahead of a quarterly earnings release for Nvidia, which came after markets closed.
The bellwether for artificial intelligence overcame a wave of tariff-driven turbulence to deliver another quarter of robust growth thanks to feverish demand for its high-powered chips that are making computers seem more human. Nvidia's shares jumped 6.6% in afterhours trading.
Like Nvidia, Macy's stock also swung up and down through much of the day, even though it reported milder drops in revenue and profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its stock ended the day down 0.3%.
The bond market showed relatively little reaction after the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its latest meeting earlier this month, when it left its benchmark lending rate alone for the third straight time. The central bank has been holding off on cuts to interest rates, which would give the economy a boost, amid worries about inflation staying higher than hoped because of Trump's sweeping tariffs. |
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