Arizona
Prosecutors won’t retry Arizona rancher, 75, charged with murder of Mexican national on property after hung jury
Prosecutors have decided against retrying an Arizona rancher accused of fatally shooting a Mexican national who crossed onto his property near the southern border after his murder trial ended with a hung jury last week.
The Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office decided to drop the highly politicized case against 75-year-old George Alan Kelly after jurors were unable to come to a consensus on a verdict following more than 48 hours of deliberation.
Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink declared a mistrial last Monday, which left the decision of whether to retry Kelly for the death of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, up to the prosecutors.
“Because of the unique circumstances and challenges surrounding this case, the Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office has decided not to seek a retrial,” Deputy County Attorney Kimberly Hunley told Fink Monday.
The judge agreed to dismiss the case and will set a hearing date to see if the dismissal will be without prejudice — which would make it so that the charges wouldn’t be able to be brought back to court.
Kelly’s lawyer Brenna Larkin plans to file a request for the case to be dismissed without prejudice.
In the meantime, the rancher said he felt “relief” when interviewed by a local reporter from KGUN as he left the courthouse.
“The nightmare’s over,” Kelly said.
He offered his “sincere sympathy” to Cuen-Buitimea’s family outside the courthouse where protesters had gathered to demand a retrial so that the victim could get justice.
“Gabriel was a human being,” one of the protesters had written across a sign.
Kelly, whose trial lasted nearly a month, had been charged with second-degree murder for the Jan. 30, 2023 shooting outside Nogales, Arizona.
His victim, Cuen-Buitimea, lived just south of the US-Mexican border in Nogales, Mexico. He was crossing Kelly’s Arizona cattle ranch with a group of other men when the elderly rancher fired nine shots from an AK-47 rifle toward them from about 100 yards away, according to prosecutors.
Kelly claimed the shots were only meant to be a warning and that he didn’t aim directly at anyone, but one of the bullets struck Cuen-Buitimea, killing him.
The case ignited debate across the country with the influx of migrants from the south coming into the US as Republicans have slammed President Biden for his handling of the border crisis as he is up for reelection.
GoFundMe campaigns created to support Kelly — who was initially held on $1 million bond — were forcibly shut down for violating the site’s policies on raising funds to benefit people accused of violent crimes.
With Post wires
Arizona
Arizona State men, women golf teams out of NCAA postseason; Arizona men advance
Schauffele clinches first major with PGA championship win
Xander Schauffele has clinched his first major title after winning the PGA Championship by one shot at Valhalla Golf Club.
unbranded – Sport
Four days after the Arizona State men’s golf team was eliminated in the Rancho Santa Fe (California) Regional, just the fifth time that a No. 1 seed failed to make it to the NCAA championship since 2009, the ASU women’s team was knocked out of the postseason. Missy Farr-Kaye’s squad finished 16th, one stroke out of the top 15 that advanced after the first of two cuts in the women’s postseason championship.
Two ASU golfers advanced as individuals, however, as senior Ashley Menne and Patience Rhodes got through the final day. The second cut was set for Monday night and will send the top eight teams to match play with the championship finale set for Wednesday.
The Arizona Wildcats are among the top 30 men’s teams to advance to Omni La Costa Resort & Spa’s North Course in Carlsbad, California, for the men’s championship, which runs May 24-29. UA finished third in the West Lafayette Regional. After missing last year, Arizona will make its 29th championship appearance.
Local juniors shine
Peoria Sunrise Mountain alum Ben Lorenz, who plays collegiately at Oklahoma, won medalist honors at the Rancho Santa Fe Reginal. He helped OU become one of the 30 teams to advance to Omni La Costa Resort & Spa’s North Course in Carlsbad, California, for the championship, which runs May 24-29.
Max Lyons from Phoenix was named the Big East Men’s Golfer of the Year after his junior season at Marquette. He led the league with a 72.33 scoring average with 17 par-or-better rounds.
Scottsdale Christian Academy graduate Gracie McGovern, now a freshman at TCU, along with Brynn Kort, finished runners-up in the 2024 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship in San Antonio last week.
Rahm, Mickelson miss cut at PGA
Phil Mickelson, who won the PGA Championship three years ago, missed the cut in the major this time around, as did fellow former ASU golfer Jon Rahm. For Rahm, it snapped his cuts made streak in the majors at 18, which had led all pro golfers.
Arizona
Full, unredacted copy of Arizona fake electors indictment released
PHOENIX (AZFamily/AP) — The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has released the full, redacted copy of the state’s fake electors scheme indictment just days after the final defendant, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was served after his 80th birthday party while he was walking to his car.
Arizona’s Family obtained a full copy of the indictment early Monday which confirms that all defendants are facing charges for fraud, forgery, and conspiracy, all of which are felonies.
“We look forward to full vindication soon,” Giuliani’s political adviser, Ted Goodman said in a statement Saturday.
The indictment alleges that Giuliani “pressured” Arizona legislators and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to change the outcome of Arizona’s election and that he was responsible for encouraging Republican electors in Arizona and six other contested states to vote for Trump.
Goodman said that Giuliani is expected to appear in court Tuesday unless he is granted a delay by the court.
Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, is among others who have been indicted in the case.
Neither Meadows nor Giuliani were named in the redacted grand jury indictment released earlier because they had not been served with it, but they were readily identifiable based on descriptions in the document. The Arizona attorney general’s office said Wednesday, May 1, that Meadows had been served and confirmed that he was charged with the same counts as the other named defendants, including conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges.
With the indictments, Arizona becomes the fourth state where allies of the former president have been charged with using false or unproven claims about voter fraud related to the election.
Giuliani faces other legal proceedings, and a bankruptcy judge this past week said he was “disturbed” about the status of the case and for missed deadlines to file financial disclosure reports. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $148 million to two former election workers for spreading a false conspiracy theory about their role in the 2020 election.
Giuliani was also indicted last year by a grand jury in Georgia, where he is accused of spearheading Trump’s efforts to compel state lawmakers in Georgia to ignore the will of voters and illegally appoint pro-Trump electoral college electors.
Among the defendants are 11 Arizona Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump won in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election — including a former state GOP chair, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers. The other defendants are Mike Roman, who was Trump’s director of Election Day operations, and four attorneys accused of organizing an attempt to use fake documents to persuade Congress not to certify Biden’s victory: John Eastman, Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn and Jenna Ellis.
Trump himself was not charged but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator.
The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes.
Eastman, who devised a strategy to try to persuade Congress not to certify the election, became the first person charged in Arizona’s fake elector case to be arraigned on Friday. He pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges.
Eastman made a brief statement outside the courthouse, saying the charges against him should have never been filed.
“I had zero communications with the electors in Arizona (and) zero involvement in any of the election litigation in Arizona or legislative hearings. And I am confident that with the laws faithfully applied, I will be fully be exonerated at the end of this process,” Eastman said. He declined to make further comment.
Arraignments are scheduled May 21 for 12 other people charged in the case, including nine of the 11 Republicans who had submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump had won Arizona.
All of the following individuals are named as defendants in the indictment: Rudolph Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, Christina Bobb, Jenna Ellis, Michael Roman, Kelli Ward, Tyler Bowyer, Nancy Cottle, Jacob Hoffman, Anthony Kern, James Lamon, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino, Gregory Safsten, and Michael Ward.
The Arizona indictment said Eastman encouraged the GOP electors to cast their votes in December 2020, unsuccessfully pressured state lawmakers to change the election’s outcome in Arizona and told then-Vice President Mike Pence that he could reject Democratic electors in the counting of electoral votes in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
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Arizona
Slight cool down with winds ahead for Arizona
Mostly sunny and warm today, with a high of 100 in Phoenix.
This will not be quite as warm as the 104-high temperature in Phoenix on Saturday. Winds will increase to 10-15 mph this afternoon in the Phoenix metro area, with some gusts of around 25 mph. In the high country, gusts of 30 mph are possible this afternoon.
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