Southeast
'Political prosecutions': Republican AGs demand end to 'lawfare' prosecutions of President-elect Trump
Republican attorneys general are putting President-elect Donald Trump’s prosecutors on notice, urging them to halt “political prosecutions of the incoming president.”
“The cases brought against President Trump, particularly the criminal prosecutions, had nothing to do with crime,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird told Fox News Digital in an interview this week.
“They had everything to do with the fact that he was running for president again. He is innocent. He didn’t do anything wrong, and those cases never should have been brought in the first place. That was another way they were trying to wage campaign lawfare.”
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Bird, alongside more than 20 other attorneys general, sent a letter to Special Counsel Jack Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, calling on them to drop their cases to avoid the risk of a “constitutional crisis.”
Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia signed onto the letter.
“Mr. Smith, a federal court has already dismissed your claims in one case due to your improper appointment,” the AGs wrote in the letter. “That appointment flouts both the Appointments Clause and Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Not only that, your prosecutions of President Trump—President Biden and Vice President Harris’s political rival—violated multiple Department of Justice policies.”
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“President of the United States is the most important job in the world,” they wrote. “The President leads the free world. And America just gave President Trump a mandate to lead the United States to a brighter future. Prosecutions aimed at “self-promotion” are at no time appropriate.”
The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it is seeking to wind down two federal criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump ahead of his second term.
Trump was indicted on 37 federal counts in June 2023 on charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Trump was indicted in Georgia in August 2023 after a yearslong criminal investigation led by state prosecutors into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts.
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In early 2023, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee dismissed six of the charges against Trump, saying that District Attorney Fani Willis had failed to allege sufficient detail. The situation was then thrown into disarray when it was revealed that Willis had reportedly had an “improper affair” with Nathan Wade, a prosecutor she had hired to help bring the case against Trump. Wade was later removed.
About three months into taking office, James announced an investigation into the Trump Organization, claiming there was evidence indicating that the president and his company had falsely valued assets to obtain loans, insurance coverage and tax deductions. The investigation was launched after Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who had previously served federal prison time for violating campaign finance laws, testified before Congress that the Trump Organization had exaggerated the value of assets.
Fox News Digital’s Haley Chi-Sing and Emma Colton contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Laken Riley murder trial: Witnesses describe jacket found in dumpster, cup with alcohol smell
WARNING: GRAPHIC
ATHENS, Ga. – Jose Ibarra, the suspect charged in Augusta University student Laken Riley’s February murder on the University of Georgia campus, appeared in court Friday for the start of his trial.
Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, allegedly attacked and killed Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, while she was jogging along trails near Lake Herrick on UGA’s campus the morning of Feb. 22.
Two security guards escorted Ibarra into the Athens-Clarke County courtroom around 7:30 a.m. Friday, about an hour and a half before the start of the trial at 9 a.m., wearing a blue plaid shirt and gray dress pants with shackles around his wrists.
Just before the start of the trial, approximately 20 members of Riley’s family entered the courtroom wearing solemn expressions.
WATCH: Hear Laken Riley’s 911 phone call played in courtroom
“[H]e went hunting for females on the University of Georgia campus.”
“On Feb. 22, Jose Ibarra put on a black hat, a hoodie-style jacket, and some black kitchen-style disposable gloves, and he went hunting for females on the University of Georgia campus,” prosecutor Sheila Ross said in her opening statement Friday. Riley’s sister teared up upon hearing Ross’ first statements.
Ross said Ibarra then encountered Riley on her typical morning run and attacked her.
“When Laken Riley refused to be his rape victim, he bashed her head in with a rock repeatedly,” Ross said.
The suspect is charged with 10 counts total, including one count of malice murder, three counts of felony murder, one count of kidnapping, one count of aggravated assault with intent to rape, one count of aggravated battery, one count of hindering a 911 call, one count of tampering with evidence and one count of being a “peeping Tom.” Ibarra has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
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On Tuesday, Judge Patrick Haggard granted Ibarra’s request for a bench trial over a jury trial, meaning evidence will be presented in court only to Haggard rather than before a selected jury.
Ibarra and his brothers, also in the United States illegally from Venezuela, lived in an apartment building less than a half mile from the on-campus park where Riley was running.
The defendant’s attorney, Dustin Kirby, argued in his opening statement that evidence would not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ibarra killed Riley. He said it would take “gymnastics” for the prosecution to argue that Ibarra killed Riley with what he described as “circumstantial evidence.”
“[T]here should not be enough evidence to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Ibarra is guilty of the crimes charged.”
“We waived a jury trial in this case, with the hope and trust that despite the nature of this evidence that you could come to a verdict that was not just a way of of easing this family’s suffering, but it was based on an impartial and honest assessment of the evidence in this case,” he said. “If that happens, and the presumption of innocence is respected, there should not be enough evidence to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Ibarra is guilty of the crimes charged.”
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Ibarra allegedly murdered the aspiring nurse in what UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark described as a “crime of opportunity.”
Riley left home for her morning run at 9:03 a.m. on the morning of Feb. 22. By 9:11 a.m., Ross said, Riley called 911, which dispatch answered, but there was no response from Riley.
The 911 call was played aloud in court Friday. The call was mostly silent, with a dispatch operator saying, “Clarke County 911, can anyone hear me?” but no voices could be heard responding. The only sounds over the course of the seconds-long call were birds chirping and a quiet noise toward the end of the call.
Riley’s roommates noticed she had not returned from her run, and they went to search for her around at 11:31 a.m. At 11:46, they found one of Riley’s AirPods on the ground near her usual running path and her last known location, which they knew by using the “Find My Friends” iPhone app.
Riley’s roommate, Sofia Magana, testified that she had taken a photo of the area where she picked up Riley’s AirPod when she and their other roommate, Lilly Steiner, went out to look for her along the trails near her last known location on the morning of Feb. 22. The two students reported her missing to UGA campus police shortly after noon that day.
The prosecution played the call aloud in court while hearing testimony from Riley’s roommate, Lilly Steiner.
“Our roommate went out for a run at 9 . . . and we haven’t heard from her,” Steiner can be heard saying during the call. “We went to where her last known location was, and all we found is an AirPod.”
At 12:37, UGA PD Sgt. Kenneth Maxwell found Laken unconscious and not breathing. She was partially naked and covered in leaves. Authorities also noticed severe injuries to the side of her head, and prosecutors believe Riley’s body had been moved after her death; investigators located her body in a wooded area approximately 50 feet from the main running trail.
WATCH: UGA POLICE BODYCAM PLAYED DURING TRIAL
Maxwell’s police bodycam footage from the moment he found Riley’s body was played in court, and Judge Haggard gave those present in the courtroom the opportunity to leave. Riley’s mother departed the courtroom while her stepfather, father and sister remained seated.
The footage showed Sgt. Maxwell locating Riley, whose head was covered in leaves, and attempting to perform CPR on her. Maxwell says in the bodycam video that it appeared as through Riley had been attacked. Multiple members of Riley’s family cried quietly in court as the footage was played, as Ibarra repeatedly looked at and away from the video.
“At that point, I suspected this wasn’t an accident, based on the circumstances,” Maxwell testified.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Special Agent Daniella Stuart, the state’s sixth witness on Friday, said she had analyzed and photographed the crime scene around 2 p.m. on Feb. 22. The graphic photographs displayed in court showed Riley’s injured torso and head. Riley’s family was not present in the courtroom during Stuart’s testimony.
“Some kind of significant disturbance happened in that area,” Stuart testified while describing blood stains and hair on a rock near the area where officials had discovered Riley’s body.
The special agent confirmed that she had observed a latent print on the bottom of Riley’s iPhone, near the area where someone would hang up a call using their finger.
Investigators with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, UGA and the FBI immediately began searching for suspects. On the evening of Feb. 22, investigators with all involved entities went “dumpster diving” around the area where RIley had been killed, searching for evidence, Ross said.
The prosecutor described their findings that night as “a combination of good police work and luck.”
At a dumpster near the apartment complex where Ibarra lived, an officer found a “suspicious” dark sweatshirt with hair and blood on it. Authorities immediately submitted the sweatshirt to a lab for testing.
Officer Zachary Davis, the state’s seventh witness to testify Friday, said he had been checking dumpsters at apartment complexes around the UGA trails where Riley had been found. In one dumpster, he noticed the dark sweatshirt and then physically went into the dumpster, which had been labeled as strictly for recyclable items, to get a better look at the article just before 10 p.m. on Feb. 22. Davis’ police-worn bodycam footage shows him locating the item and putting it in an evidence bag.
“There’s hair on the buttons, ripped up sleeves,” Davis can be heard telling his fellow officers. He can then be heard asking them, “Was she a brunette?”
An apartment nearby had a doorbell video camera with a view of the dumpster, and around 9:40 a.m. on Feb. 22, the camera captured a man disposing of something in the dumpster. A woman living in Ibarra’s apartment, Rosbeli Flores-Bello, would later identify the man in the video as Ibarra.
Investigators would later test the recovered jacket for DNA evidence and find a combination of both Jose Ibarra’s and Riley’s DNA on the items.
Investigators would also find Ibarra’s DNA beneath Riley’s fingernails, Ross said. The suspect had bruising and scratches throughout his body at the time of his arrest, according to Ross and Special Agent Stuart, who photographed his injuries.
The peeping Tom charge stems from another Feb. 22 incident in which the suspect allegedly went to a residence on UGA’s campus in Athens and “peeped through” a window and “spied upon” a university staff member, according to the indictment.
Ross said a male individual had been captured on video camera footage trying to open a UGA graduate student’s door around 7 a.m. on the same morning that Riley was killed. Evidence showed that the individual haad gone to the student’s door “six times” and peeped through the student’s open windows, Ross said in her opening statement. The student called 911 at 7:57 a.m. that morning and reported hearing someone trying to “break into” her apartment.
Prior to the peeping Tom incident, an individual matching the suspect’s description appeared on surveillance video footage holding a white cup, Ross said in her opening statement. UGA PD Lt. Daniel Saunders, the state’s eighth witness, testified on Friday afternoon that he had located a white cup near a large rock by the crime scene containing contents that smelled of alcohol.
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Ibarra illegally crossed into the United States through El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was released into the U.S. via parole, ICE and DHS sources previously told Fox News.
His older brother, Diego Ibarra, who worked briefly in a UGA cafeteria before his arrest in February, is charged with green card fraud and had ties to a known Venezuelan gang in the U.S. called Tren de Aragua, according to federal court documents.
ICE previously confirmed to Fox News Digital that Jose Ibarra had been arrested by the New York Police Department a year after he entered the U.S. in August 2023 and had been “charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation.”
Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Florida AG promises that truth of FEMA bias allegations will come out in political discrimination scandal
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody responded to reports that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers in parts of Florida were instructed to skip over the households of hurricane victims who displayed support for President-elect Donald Trump.
“I fully expect that this discrimination or violation of civil rights of Trump supporters extends beyond Florida, even to other states and affected areas,” Moody said in response to those reports. The Florida attorney general has since filed suit over the alleged bias at FEMA.
Some whistleblowers have reported that FEMA workers in Lake Placid, Florida, were told to skip over households of storm victims who showed support for Trump.
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“This is why I wanted to bring the suit so quickly: not only because we’re in the middle of hurricane season, and I don’t want Trump supporters and any supporters of any political candidate to be discriminated against, quite frankly, but we want to make sure that this widespread policy is uncovered if in fact what [former FEMA supervisor Marn’i Washington] is saying is true,” Moody said.
A fired FEMA supervisor, Marn’i Washington, has said her actions were consistent with agency guidance and were not isolated to her team alone. She claimed FEMA is scapegoating her.
“This is exactly what Trump has been saying all along,” Moody said. “They’re not just out to get me, they’re out to get you, and I want to stop that, I want to rid that from our agencies.”
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Moody said that there is a “criminal” side of this case that may be brought under the upcoming Trump administration.
“FEMA workers followed these instructions and entered in a government database messages such as ‘Trump sign no entry per leadership,’” the lawsuit states. “According to whistleblowers, ‘at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags’ in Lake Placid, Florida ‘were skipped from the end of October and into November due to the guidance.’”
Fox News’ Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Friend who heard murder confession thought furniture heiress would end up dead in love triangle
The discovery of a dead, battered woman off a Florida highway led investigators to unravel her unconventional lifestyle and to the murder convictions of her two lovers in their “throuple” relationship.
Before her body was recovered at the end of a cul-de-sac near Highway 98 on April 23, 2018, Aileen Seiden had checked into room 15 of the Sportsman’s Lodge Motel in Eastpoint, Florida, along with her boyfriend Zachary Abell and their mutual girlfriend Christina Araujo.
A medical examiner testified that Seiden’s injuries were comparable to “the kind of thing [he saw] in motor vehicle crashes,” The Apalachicola Times reported.
Nearly all of her ribs were broken, and extensive bruising had turned the woman’s face, abdomen and upper body to an angry purple, the outlet reported.
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Initially, police were unable to identify Seiden’s body. However, soon after her body was found, they were called to a bloody scene at the Sportsman’s Lodge.
“As soon as I came in, I noticed the bed. I mean, it’s — you couldn’t miss it,” lead investigator Ronnie Jones said in a newly released CBS “48 Hours” documentary about the case, “Who Killed Aileen Seiden in Room 15?”
“I mean, this whole area was covered and had blood stains on it,” he said. “I just put two and two together, and I automatically put that back to the body that was found the day before. It wasn’t just somebody cut [themselves] and bled a little bit on the bed. I mean the amount of blood… tells me that whoever was here was probably deceased.”
Testing ultimately indicated that the blood belonged to Seiden.
Fatal attraction
Seiden was the youngest daughter of Miami businessman Frank M. Seiden, who sold furniture to luxury hotels, cruise ships and Disney Resorts, according to the Miami Herald. Seiden, Abell and Araujo lived in North Miami.
Mike Picavet, who knew the trio, told Fox News Digital that the love triangle was overcrowded, wrought with jealousy and peppered with hotheaded brawls.
“Christina and Aileen had their first fight in my kitchen [in 2017],” Picavet said this past week. “Because [Abell] brought her over, brought both of them over. Aileen threw it in Christina’s face that she’d already been having sex with Zach for a year already. And then Christina started throwing punches right away. And it was really weird because Aileen lost and got back up and she, you know, everything was calmed down, and she started saying, Well, you’re fat and ugly, too.”
From then on, Picavet said, Seiden and Araujo would trade punches often in fights fueled by alcohol, often resulting in black eyes on one or both of the women. Those fights were bookended by periods of raucous partying and drinking, he said.
Abell and Araujo started dating five years before Seiden’s murder. Meanwhile, Seiden and Abell had known each other since they were teenagers and reconnected in 2017.
Picavet, who met Abell and Araujo in a bar several years before Seiden came into the picture, said that Abell always had a “side piece” of some sort before the throuple’s relationship began.
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Picavet said he did not believe that Abell was abusive. However, he said that Araujo was always “very controlling and directing” toward both of her lovers. He said that Abell tried multiple times to break up with Araujo, but things were messy because they were business partners.
“He tried so many times,” Picavet said. “He just didn’t know how to… and then also…all the threats all the time that she could make him disappear… Every time she got drunk, she’d say some weird things.”
Seiden and Abell began dating in secret, with Seiden’s best friend telling documentarians that the man led her to believe that he would leave the other woman.
When Seiden lost her job as a property manager in 2017, a friend of hers told CBS that she started working at Abell and Araujo’s used car dealership. Picavet said that she lost her apartment at the same time. When Abell finally attempted to break things off with Araujo, Seiden’s friend said Araujo countered with an unconventional proposal: that the three of them date as a “throuple.”
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Friends and family told documentarians that Seiden was considering breaking off the relationship in the weeks before her death. However, she shocked them when she moved in with her lovers in what her best friend called “one last chance to make it work.”
On April 7, 2018, Abell and Araujo got into a fight. Seiden picked up Abell and took him away from the house, and the pair went on a road trip.
Araujo sent more than 150 angry text messages to Seiden and Abell in a 24-hour span, according to the documentary. However, after her two lovers had been gone for about 48 hours and had reached Texas, she had a change of heart.
“If you want to come back home come back. You never have to question my love,” Araujo wrote, according to the documentary.
Abell and Seiden then invited Araujo to fly out to meet them in Texas.
Picavet told Fox News Digital that he “thought [Seiden would] end up dead there or something because [he] didn’t expect them to come back altogether.”
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Ten days into the road trip, Seiden feared for her life and called her sister.
“I was like, ‘Aileen, run to the nearest gas station,’” Franceasa Seiden recalled, according to the documentary. “I said ‘run, get the — get out of there’ … ‘Go!’ …She’s like, ‘I can’t.’
Back in Florida, on their way home to North Miami, the group headed to the Sportsman’s Lodge Motel, where they decided that they would spend one more day there and continue to party. On the morning of April 22, they stocked up on Fireball whiskey and vodka at a liquor store, surveillance footage showed.
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That day, Seiden called her best friend and crafted an escape plan. She intended to get on a bus back home when the trio reached Tampa, their next destination. The friend bought Seiden a Greyhound ticket because she had left for the sudden road trip without her wallet.
However, Seiden’s friend never heard from her again.
On the evening of April 23, Picavet said that Araujo and Abell turned up on his doorstep.
“I was like, ‘OK, where’s Aileen?’ And right away, Christina says, ‘Oh, she ran away.’ … And I said, ‘Bull—-,’” Picavet recalled. “I said, ‘Where is she?’ And Zach right away… started to choke up, and he said, ‘She’s dead.’”
Abell told Picavet that Araujo had killed Seiden and convinced him not to call 911 when he found her body. Likewise, Picavet feared a violent outcome if he notified law enforcement.
“I was worried for my safety then, from Christina,” he told Fox News Digital. “Well, I can’t sleep in my house now. This is crazy. She knows. I know. So, you know, I could end up… she could end up killing me.”
Picavet said Araujo described where she and Abell dumped the body, and he began searching for the location on Google Maps. Ultimately, he would give police the same location where Seiden’s body was found.
After his friends had fallen asleep on his couch, Picavet snapped a photo. Then, he took to social media to find Araujo’s father, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department Col. Tony Araujo. When he finally reached him, Picavet sent him the photo and told him that he had urgent news about his daughter.
They met up at a nearby gas station.
“I went up there … I said, ‘Christina killed somebody.’ And he says, ‘You know I’m a cop, right?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, sir. I do,’” Picavet said. “He right away said, ‘Wait right there.’”
Araujo brought Picavet to the police station, where he made a formal statement. There, he identified a photo of Seiden’s battered body.
Police arrested Abell and Araujo and charged them both with first-degree murder. However, they would not face a jury for six years due to court delays and complications.
In 2023, Araujo took a plea deal for the lesser charge of second-degree murder. Abell went to trial in Franklin County in January 2024. Because Araujo confessed to beating Seiden, she became a crucial witness in his trial.
Abell’s attorney, Alex Morris, argued in court that Araujo had the motive to kill Seiden – jealousy over Abell’s split attention – and that she was the instigator in her death.
Ultimately, the jurors found Abell guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder, as they were unable to decide whether he had intended to kill Seiden when he and Araujo beat her.
At his sentencing, Abell claimed that he intended to leave Araujo and had proposed to Seiden with a Ring Pop on their road trip.
“Me and Aileen were gonna go our way and leave Christina out of it,” he claimed.
Picavet is convinced that Abell did not take part in the beating that cost Seiden her life, although he did help dispose of Seiden’s body.
“I know he didn’t kill her just because I know Zach. And he, you know, he would have told me he’s innocent of the murder. He’s stupid. Stupidly not innocent for helping move the body,” Picavet said.
Picavet said he is committed to helping Abell prove his innocence in the murder and said that a hidden camera in his apartment when his friends returned to his home that night captured Araujo admitting to being solely responsible for the killing and contradicting testimony that she gave in court.
However, that small camera, disguised as an outlet, was taken into evidence by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Picavet claims that investigators were unable to pull files off it for evidence and that he hopes to get the SD card from the device back so that he can obtain the footage that could help his friend.
“Once that happens, then Zach’s appeal should be good because there the evidence is going to come out, which is new evidence that Christina’s whole testimony was bulls—. And then it’ll be hopefully good for Zach.”
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