December 31, 2020 • No Comments • National News

kuzma/iStockBy JAMES HILL, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — When Ghislaine Maxwell, the accused co-conspirator of deceased sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein, first appeared in court after her arrest in July, Annie Farmer spoke up to implore the judge to keep Maxwell behind bars until trial.

“She is a sexual predator who groomed and abused me and countless other children and young women,” Farmer told the court.

Five months later, when Maxwell returned to the court armed with a new $28.5 million proposed bail package and more than a dozen letters of support from family and friends, Farmer, 41, again stepped forward to oppose Maxwell’s pretrial release.

“I believe that she is a psychopath,” Farmer wrote in a Dec. 15 letter to U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan. “She has demonstrated a complete failure to accept responsibility in any way for her actions and demonstrated a complete lack of remorse for her central role in procuring girls for Epstein to abuse.”

Now, just days after Nathan again rejected Maxwell’s application for bail, Maxwell’s legal team is lashing out at Farmer, publicly questioning her motivations and credibility, according to new court filings in Farmer’s civil lawsuit against Maxwell and Epstein’s estate.

In what is likely a preview of a potential defense strategy for Maxwell’s upcoming criminal trial, her lawyers suggested that Farmer’s acceptance of a confidential settlement offer from a compensation program for Epstein’s victims is indicative of a financial motivation for Farmer to make “false assertions” against Maxwell about events that allegedly occurred in the mid-1990s.

“The fact that [Farmer] seeks money from the estate and from Ms. Maxwell, in the millions of dollars, at the same time she is a government witness in an upcoming criminal trial on the same topic is reason enough to suspect that her newly asserted memories of abuse — without corroboration — are not based on the truth or a desire for ‘justice’ so much as her desire for cash,” Laura Menninger, Maxwell’s lawyer, wrote in a letter to the court late Wednesday.

“The motive for fabrication could not be clearer,” the letter continued.

Farmer filed the civil lawsuit in November 2019, eight months before Maxwell’s arrest, alleging she was sexually trafficked at age 16 as part of “Epstein and Maxwell’s organized ring of procuring young women and girls for sex.” During a 1996 visit to Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, Farmer claims Maxwell pressured her into receiving a massage and “touched intimate parts of [her] body against her will,” according to Farmer’s complaint.

Farmer placed her civil lawsuit on hold in June while she presented her claims to the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program, a voluntary restitution fund that began operating earlier this year. In October, Farmer accepted an offer from the program, which requires her to drop all pending litigation against the estate and any former employees of Epstein before she can collect.

But Maxwell’s legal team has objected to the dismissal of the lawsuit, demanding that Farmer first be required to disclose the amount of her settlement. Maxwell’s letter to the court this week reiterates that demand, even though a judge told Maxwell’s lawyers earlier this month that she would not order that information disclosed to Maxwell.

“The amount of money [Farmer] obtains from the Epstein program is very much a matter of public interest and will go to the very core of plaintiff’s credibility during the upcoming criminal trial,” Menninger wrote in a letter to U.S. Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman.

Farmer, 41, has publicly identified herself as “Minor Victim 2” in Maxwell’s criminal case and is certain to be called as a witness should Maxwell’s case proceed to trial next summer. Maxwell is charged with facilitating and, in some cases, participating in Epstein’s alleged sexual crimes against three minor girls, including Farmer, between 1994 and 1997. Maxwell pleaded not guilty to all the charges, and she has denied the allegations in Farmer’s civil case. Epstein died in federal custody in August 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex-trafficking charges.

Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for Farmer, responded swiftly in a letter to the court on Thursday, slamming Maxwell’s letter as a “vicious, victim-blaming” attack on Farmer.

“Ms. Farmer will not respond to Maxwell’s meritless challenges to the merits of her case, to her credibility, or to her entirely appropriate participation in Maxwell’s prosecution,” McCawley wrote. “Ms. Farmer simply states that she stands by the allegations in her [lawsuit] and any statements she made in related proceedings, and she intends to testify truthfully if called in any future proceedings.”

McCawley’s letter also noted that Maxwell is not paying any portion of the proposed settlement offer from the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program.

“Maxwell should be quite pleased that she is escaping civil liability in this case without having to pay a dime to Ms. Farmer,” McCawley wrote.

A similar dispute is currently playing out in a civil case brought against Maxwell by another likely witness in the criminal trial. That anonymous accuser, Jane Doe, accepted a settlement offer from the compensation fund earlier this month and has also moved to dismiss her case. Doe’s allegations are substantially similar to those of “Minor Victim-1” in the criminal case.

But Maxwell is demanding that Doe, too, disclose the amount of her settlement before she consents to the dismissal of the lawsuit. And Maxwell has also requested that the court order Doe to pay Maxwell’s legal fees and costs for defending herself in the lawsuit. Doe is seeking dismissal of her case, Maxwell’s lawyers contend, “for substantially the same reasons as [Farmer] … a desire to get her money faster,” Menninger wrote.

Doe’s attorney, Robert Glassman, told ABC News last week, “Maxwell is clearly trying to gain an unfair advantage over all these victims.”

“She is inexplicably asking the judge to make a child rape victim pay for her attorney’s fees and costs. It’s unconscionable and sad,” said Glassman, a trial lawyer at the California firm Panish, Shea & Boyle.

The judge in Doe’s case has given the parties in until Jan. 15 to try to reach an agreement to dismiss the case that is acceptable to both sides. Maxwell’s lawyers are seeking a similar schedule in Farmer’s case.

But Farmer’s attorneys are asking the court to step in now and put an end to the dispute and allow Farmer to receive her payment from the compensation fund.

“Ms. Farmer has been trying to dismiss this case since October 14, when she asked the defendants to stipulate to dismissal,” McCawley wrote Thursday. “And Maxwell has delayed for no legitimate reason without providing any deadline whatsoever for responding.”

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

December 31, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Samara Heisz/iStockBy ROSA SANCHEZ, ERIN SCHUMAKER, IVAN PEREIRA and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 82.8 million people worldwide and killed over 1.8 million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Here’s how the news is developing Thursday. All times Eastern:

Dec 31, 9:03 am
US sees record high death toll for second day in a row

The U.S. has seen a record high daily death toll for the second day in a row.

There were 3,744 COVID-19 deaths reported Wednesday, the highest since start of the pandemic, surpassing the previous record of 3,725 deaths reported Tuesday.

Dec 31, 8:28 am
Surgeon general responds to vaccinations falling short of administration’s goal

In the wake of the Trump administration falling short on its vaccination goal, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told ABC News’ Good Morning America Thursday, “We always knew that this was going to take a while to ramp up.”

“The curve is rapidly increasing, in terms of number of people being vaccinated,” Adams said. “So we shouldn’t extrapolate from what happened yesterday to what’s going to happen six months from now. What we should do is make sure that curve continues to go up and continue to support our state and public health departments, which is what we are doing.”

The Trump administration had promised that 20 million people would be vaccinated by the end of the year.

As of Wednesday morning, 2,794,588 Americans had received vaccine doses and 12.4 million doses had been distributed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“There’s vaccines manufactured. There’s vaccines allocated. There’s vaccines delivered. And then there’s vaccines put in arms,” Adams said. “From a federal perspective, we are on track to have 20 million people able to be vaccinated, doses on the ground, by the end of next week.”
 
Adams also urged Americans to celebrate New Year’s Eve virtually.

“This has been a marathon, but we don’t want to trip at the finish line,” Adams said. “We want to have a normal New Year’s next year, we want as many of our loved ones and family and friends as possible to be able to enjoy that New Year’s in 2021. The way we do that is by pulling together and sacrificing one more time so that we can ramp up these vaccinations and put this virus away for good.”

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

December 30, 2020 • No Comments • National News

KVIA-TVBy MEREDITH DELISO, ABC News

(EL PASO, Texas) — An El Paso, Texas, elementary school teacher whose video of her first graders giving each other hugs went viral in 2018 has died after a two-month battle with COVID-19.

Zelene Blancas, a bilingual teacher at Dr. Sue A. Shook Elementary School, was in the intensive care unit for nine weeks after contracting COVID-19, according to a GoFundMe fundraising campaign her family set up to help cover her medical expenses. Blancas died on Monday, school officials confirmed with ABC News. She was 35.

“She always made an effort to share kindness, whether it was with a message or a note or just reaching out to her colleagues,” Principal Cristina Sanchez-Chavira told ABC News. “Just a very, very loving person.”

The school has been remote since March. At the beginning of this school year, Blancas created care packages that included masks, pencils and candy and delivered them to her students, her principal said.

“She embodied kindness,” Sanchez-Chavira said. “That’s who she was.”

The El Paso native, who taught at the school for four years, gained national attention in 2018 after a video she posted on Twitter went viral. In it, her first graders chose from a “good morning or goodbye” menu to give each other hugs, handshakes, high-fives or fist bumps.

“What a nice way to end our week!!” Blancas wrote in the post.

After her video garnered over 13 million views, Blancas told the El Paso Times that she wanted her students to feel like they “have a safe place to come back to and learn in a safe environment.”

Blancas was surprised that it took off, Sanchez-Chavira recalled.

“That small action touched so many lives,” the principal said. “The kids felt so comfortable. You could see how loving they were — that came through in her video. And that I attribute to the culture she established in her class, that loving culture.”

The video, which has since been viewed over 22 million times, drew the attention of PinkSocks Life co-founder Nick Adkins, whose organization works to spread kindness by gifting pink socks. He connected with Blancas to hand out over 1,330 pink socks to students at her elementary school last year during a “kindness pep rally.”

The two continued to stay in touch, Adkins told ABC News, and he planned to return to her school district this past spring before postponing due to the pandemic.

Blancas “was just a bundle of kindness and joy and love,” Adkins said.

“We try to celebrate people and organizations that are doing good things,” he said. “I’m grateful for the legacy that she’s left behind.”

El Paso has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. After a surge in positive COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations this fall, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego ordered nonessential businesses to shut down in late October. The order ended on Dec. 1, while curfews during the holidays have since gone into effect to further limit spread. More than 1,450 people in El Paso have died due to COVID-19.

Sanchez-Chavira said her school has been largely spared during the pandemic until now. Once she learned of Blancas’ passing, the school contacted the families of her students personally, including students from the past two years. The school is currently collecting photos of Blancas and letters from her students to give to her family, the principal said.

Sanchez-Chavira said she hopes to honor Blancas once the school returns to in-person learning, such as through a “kindness corner,” for a “constant reminder of her and her kindness.”

“It’s very easy to find teachers that can teach,” Sanchez-Chavira said. “But to find teachers that carry this passion and love for children, and the spreading of kindness, that in itself is irreplaceable.”

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

December 30, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Jon Cherry/Getty ImagesBy MARK OSBORNE, ABC News

(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — The Louisville Metro Police Department has moved to fire two officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in her apartment earlier this year.

Officer Myles Cosgrove and Detective Joshua Jaynes were both notified of termination Tuesday, according to their lawyers. Both officers will answer the termination notices in a hearing before Police Chief Yvette Gentry, who was named to the role in September, on Thursday. They can also appeal the police chief’s final determination.

“We plan to attend the pre-termination hearing on December 31st, although I expect the result has already been pre-determined,” Thomas Clay, Jaynes’ lawyer, told ABC News in a statement. “I fully expect Mr. Jaynes will be terminated after the ‘hearing’ no matter what the evidence is to the contrary. We will appeal any disciplinary action taken against Mr. Jaynes because I believe the evidence shows he did nothing wrong.”

Jaynes was not present at the shooting, but prepared the search warrant for Taylor’s apartment.

Louisville’s River City Fraternal Order of Police said in a statement, “The FOP is aware that two of our members received pre-termination opportunity to respond notices today, outlining the chief’s current intent to terminate their employment. In the near future both members will have an opportunity to have a hearing before the chief of police and respond to the information contained in the notices. After those hearings, when the chief makes her final determinations, our members have the right to appeal any discipline that may be issued.”

A ballistics analysis determined that Cosgrove fired the shot that killed Taylor, officials said.

“I can confirm that Mr. Cosgrove has received a pre-termination notice. Otherwise, we have no comment,” Cosgrove’s attorney, Jarrod Beck, told ABC News.

Another officer involved in the raid, Brett Hankison, was fired in June. He had been the only officer punished in the wake of the botched raid.

Hankison was also indicted by a grand jury in September on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree in the shooting that killed Taylor, but neither he nor the other two officers involved in the fatal encounter were charged in her death. Hankison was charged for firing bullets into neighboring apartments.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, who also fired into the apartment, has not been fired by the department. Mattingly was shot in the leg during the raid.

“The Mayor of Louisville has informed the mother of Breonna Taylor that LMPD intends to terminate Officers Cosgrove and Jaynes and that both officers have the right to appeal,” a lawyer for the Taylor family told ABC News.

Jean Porter, deputy director of communications for Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, said in a statement to ABC News, “LMPD Chief Yvette Gentry has initiated disciplinary procedures for officers involved in the Breonna Taylor case, following investigations by LMPD’s Professional Standards Unit. State law KRS67c.326 (1) (f) precludes comments from any persons in Louisville Metro Government about the allegations in these cases.”

Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was killed when the officers executed a “no-knock” warrant on the home she shared with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, on March 13. The police were looking for Jamarcus Glover, Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who allegedly was a known drug trafficker. Walker, who said he believed the home was being robbed, opened fire on the officers. They returned fire, striking and killing Taylor.

Walker, who was a licensed gun owner, was initially charged with attempted murder, but that was eventually dropped. He has sued the Louisville Metro Police Department and city of Louisville, claiming he had a right to defend himself according to the state’s stand your ground law. Mattingly filed a countersuit in late October.

The lack of discipline helped to spark months of protests in Kentucky and across the U.S., especially in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May.

Jaynes was placed on administrative reassignment in June over questions about how and why the search warrant was approved, then-acting Police Chief Robert Schroeder said.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

December 29, 2020 • No Comments • National News

drnadig/iStockBy IVAN PEREIRA, ABC News

(BALTIMORE) — The Coast Guard and local officials called off a daylong search Tuesday night for a man in the water near Virginia Beach following a tractor-trailer accident.

Authorities received a 911 call around 8:30 a.m. of reports that the tractor-trailer crashed through the southbound side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and went into the water, the Coast Guard said.

Witnesses reported seeing a man exit the vehicle and drift west, according to the Coast Guard.

A distribution manager at Cloverland Green Spring Dairy, based in Baltimore, confirmed to Richmond ABC affiliate WRIC Tuesday evening that one of their dairy trucks was involved in the accident. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel authority identified the missing man as Erik Mezick, 47, of Fruitland, Maryland.

“The thoughts and prayers of everyone at the CBBT are with the family and loved ones of Mr. Mezick during this difficult time,” Jeff Holland, executive director of the CBBT, told WRIC.

In addition to two Coast Guard boats and a Coast Guard helicopter, local police and fire departments and Virginia Marine Resource Commission combed the waters to find the missing man.

Crews searched 178 square miles before the search was called off in the evening.

The Coast Guard urged anyone who has any information or saw the man in the water to call the Sector Virginia Command Center at (757) 483-8567.

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