Connect with us

WOW

The Justice Department Is Struggling To Bring Capitol Riot Cases To Trial: Here’s Why

Published

on

Trump supporters breach security and storm inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The woman in blue with her fist raised was later identified as Suzanne Ianni.

Early one morning in January, Suzanne Ianni peered through her window to discover two black SUVs and a police cruiser parked in front of her house. All she could think was: «Aw, they’re here.»

Advertisement

While Ianni had been expecting federal agents for days, she wasn’t fully prepared for their arrival or for the moment when they said, «You’re under arrest.» «And I just sat down in a chair, I was trying to catch my breath,» she told NPR. «And they’re like, OK just relax,» she said. «It’s only a misdemeanor.»

Ianni, a 59-year-old mother of three, is one of the more than 570 people charged as being part of the mob that overran the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. She stands accused of disorderly conduct and being inside a federal building illegally.

The morning the FBI came, she recalls her husband handing her a coat and some shoes and then when the agents told him «no laces,» Ianni couldn’t help but laugh. «I’m like OK, I’m not going to hang myself over trespassing, you know.»

Advertisement

Ianni is one of the more than 570 people charged as being part of the mob that overran the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. She is accused of disorderly conduct and being inside a federal building illegally.

The attack on the Capitol is something most Americans watched on TV or Facebook or Twitter, from the police battered in hand-to-hand combat on the stairs, to the fatal shooting of a woman just outside the House chamber.

In the weeks afterward, there was a general sense that the Jan. 6 cases would be of the slam-dunk variety. After all, the events took place not just before our eyes but also at a time when the endless selfies, livestreamed video and GPS locations were easily vacuumed up for use in court later. But attorneys working for the defense describe prosecutors as overwhelmed by the evidence and struggling to build cases.

Advertisement

«The evidence is significantly more complicated for them than they thought it was going to be, that’s clear,» Greg Hunter, a defense attorney who is working on a dozen Jan. 6 cases, told NPR. «Every one of those people was carrying a smartphone, every one of them, and they’re all taking pictures and videos and all that evidence has actually slowed everything down.»

Attorney Greg Hunter stands outside the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C. Hunter is a defense attorney who is working on a dozen Jan. 6 cases.

Twenty-five people have pleaded guilty so far, which leaves a good 550 more cases left to resolve. To try to understand why all this is moving so slowly, NPR spent months speaking with dozens of Jan. 6 defense attorneys, prosecutors and defendants, both on and off the record.

What our reporting found was that the mountain of evidence is not the only reason why justice appears to be slow. Officials are also having trouble just finding prosecutors to assign to the cases, and some of those prosecutors said officials at headquarters are micromanaging the process, which is hobbling progress as well.

Advertisement

Ianni had a typical experience: Though she was arrested less than two weeks after the riot, it took months for prosecutors to provide her lawyer with even the most basic evidence. By spring, she had already seen two prosecutors cycle through her case and has recently been assigned a third.

She and her attorney say she was offered a plea agreement in May — four months after her arrest — which the prosecutor said was a take-it-or-leave it deal and had to be approved by officials in Washington, D.C., before it could be confirmed. All this, just over trespassing and disorderly conduct — two of the basic charges related to the Capitol riot.

The Justice Department declined to comment about the case or for this story.

Advertisement

Three categories of defendants

The Justice Department has created a kind of framework for prosecutions, dividing the Jan. 6 defendants into three categories. The first includes people such as Ianni who went inside the Capitol and allegedly walked around but aren’t charged with property damage or assaulting police.

The shorthand used to describe these people (both among some Justice Department insiders and defense attorneys) is «the tourist cases» — a nickname derived from the words of Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., who rather infamously said, «If you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from Jan. 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.»

The second category of defendants includes those who broke into the Capitol, damaged property and attempted to stop the certification of the 2020 election. They are facing charges of civil disorder and assault and include people such as Tampa, Fla., crane operator Paul Allard Hodgkins, 38. He was seen carrying a red-and-white «Trump 2020» flag into the well of the Senate, while others stood over the vice president’s abandoned chair.

Advertisement

Rioters clash with police as they try to storm the U.S. Capitol. The Justice Department has created a kind of framework for prosecutions, dividing the Jan. 6 defendants into different categories based on what they are accused of doing that day.

Hodgkins pleaded guilty in June to one count of obstructing an official proceeding, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Prosecutors asked for 18 months. This month, U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss sentenced him to somewhat less than that: eight months because, the judge said, he pleaded guilty early and seemed remorseful about what he had done. Some two dozen others have also pleaded guilty in recent weeks.

And finally there is a category that prosecutors have yet to define precisely. These are the people investigators believe are connected to right-wing extremist groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. Officials are investigating whether or not there is hard evidence that shows the assault was planned in advance. Illuminating that would go a long way toward clarifying what actually took place that day.

Super Happy Fun America

Before all this happened, Ianni was best known in the Boston suburb of Natick, Mass., as one of the first members of a group called Super Happy Fun America. She describes it as a «center-right civil activist organization.»

Advertisement

Super Happy Fun America is more complicated than its jovial name would suggest. It has ties to far-right extremists, and a handful of its members, in addition to Ianni, are facing charges related to Jan. 6.

Before the Capitol riot, the group’s greatest claim to fame was organizing the 2019 Straight Rights Parade in Boston. Ianni told me that the organizers thought straight people deserved a parade just like gay people did. The point wasn’t anti-gay, she said, although a lot of people saw it that way.

Perhaps that’s because a right-wing extremist group called the Proud Boys provided security for the event, and one of the parade’s headliners was Milo Yiannopoulos, who is known for his racist and misogynist rants. «It wasn’t anti-anything,» Ianni maintains. «We said if you love liberty you can march in our parade.»

Advertisement

And while the group claims to be just calling out political correctness and poking fun at the left, people who track the group say it has become a gateway for more extremist organizations because it helps normalize radical ideas. Super Happy Fun America denies this. Ianni, a Natick Town Meeting member, said the group is just fighting to preserve the U.S. Constitution.

In 2020, COVID-19 restrictions and the election became hot-button issues for the group and its followers. Despite the evidence, Ianni still believes the election was stolen and that the people who descended on the Capitol that day were just trying to hold Congress to account.

Advertisement

«This whole thing about insurrection is a bunch of BS,» Ianni said. «There was no insurrection. It was an act of civil disobedience. It was a walk-through by people taking selfies. It was a symbolic- walk through. … That was 97% of the people.»

According to NPR’s Capitol riot database, about 20% of the people charged are accused of committing acts of violence.

A prosecution memo

Back in the spring, the Justice Department in Washington sent a memo to department lawyers setting out a strategy for the prosecution of the Jan. 6 cases. The memo, some of which was read to NPR, asked officials, among other things, to develop a kind of continuum of culpability.

Advertisement

The idea was to develop a matrix that would allow prosecutors to charge the hundreds of people who breached the Capitol building in a more systematic way. If someone broke through a police line to enter the Capitol, how might this person be charged differently than someone, such as Ianni, for example, who is not accused of participating in any violence?

Ianni argues with another person on Jan. 6 near the pro-Trump rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

These kinds of prosecution memos aren’t unusual. They are meant to set legal priorities for the nation. In May 2017, the first attorney general in the Trump administration, Jeff Sessions, wrote a short memo calling for a resumption of mandatory minimum sentences, instructing prosecutors to pursue the harshest possible charges. Before then, a prosecution memo during the Obama administration from Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. ordered prosecutors to curtail severe penalties for low-level federal drug offenses.

The prosecution memo that went out after Jan. 6, according to two people who described it to NPR, told federal prosecutors out in the field that headquarters, known as Main Justice, would need to approve all plea agreements. Prosecutors in the field generally have discretion on what they can offer to resolve a case without going to trial. But that hasn’t happened here. Four defense attorneys told NPR that prosecutors floated plea deals in the spring but said they couldn’t guarantee those deals would be honored because higher-ups in Washington had to sanction them.

Advertisement

Consider Ianni’s case. Her plea offer was a take-it-or-leave-it deal. The prosecutor told Ianni’s attorney that she could plead guilty to one of the misdemeanor charges against her and would also have to agree to give the government unfettered access to her social media accounts and answer their questions under oath — something known as a proffer.

Typically proffers are statements limited to what a particular person did on a particular day. But this proffer was different; it was not limited to what a particular suspect did on Jan. 6. Instead, it would have allowed prosecutors to ask a wide range of questions — all of which, under the terms of the plea, defendants would have to answer honestly. Half a dozen defense attorneys contacted by NPR said they had received nearly identical plea deals for clients who were charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. They called the broad proffers a Justice Department «fishing expedition.»

Ianni and her lawyer believe that prosecutors wanted her proffer, not because of anything she did that day but rather to gather evidence against some people with whom she is associated. She knows some of the Proud Boys, one of the far-right extremist groups prosecutors have had in their sights.

Advertisement

Ianni was one of the first members of a group called Super Happy Fun America and is still a part of the group, which has ties to far-right groups such as the Proud Boys. Some members of the Proud Boys came to Washington with Ianni on Jan. 6.

«They always offered to escort us down [to rallies in Washington] because despite what’s being said about the Proud Boys, they’re really just a bunch of guys who put their bodies in between us and antifa,» Ianni said, referring to a loose movement of activists whose followers have attended protests around the country.

The Justice Department is particularly interested in the Proud Boys as it continues to investigate whether the events of Jan. 6 were planned in advance. So far, 32 members of the group have been arrested and charged with Jan. 6 offenses, more than any other organization. Two dozen Oath Keepers have been similarly charged.

«The connections between people are seemingly the most important thing to them,» defense attorney Hunter said. «How much of this is organized? How much of this goes back home, because that’s what shows you what you really have to be worried about.»

Advertisement

Ianni, for her part, told her lawyer to turn down her plea deal. «As soon as I heard what was expected of me, I told them, ‘No way,’ » she said.

Shock and awe

Often, when otherwise law-abiding citizens get caught up in violent protests in this country, prosecutors roll out something called a deferred prosecution agreement. Essentially, it is an agreement that says if defendants stay out of trouble, and perhaps pay a fine, prosecutors will give them a pass. That helps move cases along.

Four defense attorneys interviewed by NPR said that they were told by federal prosecutors that deferred prosecution agreements for Jan. 6 defendants were a nonstarter, even for the lowest-level charges. Justice officials, they said, told prosecutors working the cases that they were not authorized to offer them.

Advertisement

And that’s odd, Henry Fasoldt, Ianni’s attorney, told NPR, because even people arrested over violence during last summer’s protests against systemic racism and police brutality managed to get those kinds of deals.

Americans watched the Capitol riot unfold on TV or the internet.

«That’s really interesting to me,» Fasoldt said. «Even people who were charged with violent crimes in Oregon got deferred prosecution agreements. None of those deals are being offered to Capitol rioters, even those with nonviolent misdemeanor crimes. The discrepancy doesn’t make any sense to me.»

Others said that there is, in fact, a big difference: The violent mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 threatened hundreds of lawmakers, former Vice President Mike Pence and current Vice President Harris.

Advertisement

Fasoldt said people such as Ianni shouldn’t be charged as part of a mob; they’re individuals. And their cases should be treated that way.

Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, said the Justice Department has decided to play hardball with Jan. 6 defendants — hoping to prevent future attacks. It has opted for a legal strategy in the mold of shock and awe: Arrest everyone, charge everyone.

«You start with the FBI and the investigations that are going on, and you keep them coming,» she said. «And every jurisdiction has these cases, and if I sound harsh, good, because this was an attempt to undermine a valid American election.»

Advertisement

National Guard troops stand behind shields as they clear a street from protesters outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

The Justice Department announced in early July that the arrests and charges aren’t over. It expected to round up hundreds more people in the coming months.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys NPR talked to agreed about one thing: The best way for the nation to understand what took place Jan. 6 is to present evidence in court that shows what happened. Collectively, America has yet to decide whether Jan. 6 was a protest that went off the rails or a calculated plan to launch a coup. A full hearing may help provide a more satisfying answer.

Ianni’s next hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Advertisement

Comentarios

0 Comentarios

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Comentanos

WOW

Empresario y productor de cine Dhar Mann acusado de pagar menos de lo debido a actores vitales en videos tremendamente exitosos

Published

on

Empresario y productor de cine Dhar Mann acusado de pagar menos de lo debido a actores vitales en videos tremendamente exitosos

Dhar Mann, el creador detrás de un gran imperio de videos compuesto por personas influyentes y actores de TikTok que se utilizan para mostrar lecciones sociales, aparentemente acaba de aprender una lección propia.

Advertisement

Esta semana, varios de los actores que han aparecido en numerosos videos de gran éxito para la productora Dhar Mann Studios se han presentado y lo han acusado de supuestamente pagar menos de lo debido a todos los miembros de su personal, y se han subido varios testimonios en video sobre cómo es trabajar. para él.

A medida que la controversia continuó en los últimos días, esta reacción se convirtió en una protesta de los trabajadores, y algunos de los actores y actrices se negaron a trabajar hasta que mejoraran las condiciones.

Esto también ha llevado a que se realicen numerosas publicaciones en las redes sociales sobre la «cancelación» de Dhar Mann, a lo que respondió en una larga publicación de Instagram a la que se eliminaron los comentarios poco después de publicarse.

Entre las publicaciones que piden su cancelación, el tema predominante se centra en gran medida en la naturaleza irónica de que Mann tenga múltiples videos sobre jefes que maltratan a sus trabajadores, pero que lo acusan de la misma acción como si no fuera consciente de sí mismo.

Advertisement

Ayer, el propio Mann respondió a las protestas en una publicación en su página de Facebook, que desde entonces ha recibido más de 11.000 me gusta en aproximadamente 22 horas, además de recibir miles de comentarios.

Advertisement

Comentarios

0 Comentarios

Continue Reading

WOW

6 grandes cambios en la seguridad social en 2023

Published

on

6 grandes cambios en la seguridad social en 2023

Richard Stephen/Getty Images/iStockphoto

El Seguro Social verá muchos cambios este año, muchos de ellos relacionados con el mayor ajuste por costo de vida (COLA) en más de 40 años. El nuevo COLA afectará los pagos a los beneficiarios del Seguro Social, pero no es el único cambio que verá en 2023.

Advertisement

Seguro social: ya sea que tenga 62, 65, 67 o 70 años, he aquí por qué importa su edad
Más: 3 formas de hacer que su jubilación sea a prueba de recesiones

Los siguientes son seis cambios al programa que están vigentes este año, según una hoja informativa publicada recientemente por la Administración del Seguro Social.

Nuevo COLA entra en vigor

La gran noticia para 2023 es un aumento del 8,7 % en el COLA del Seguro Social, que es el más alto desde un aumento del 11,2 % en 1981. El fuerte aumento del COLA este año se debe a la tasa de inflación vertiginosa, que también es la mayor en 41 años. .

Advertisement

El pago mensual promedio del Seguro Social para todos los trabajadores jubilados aumentó a un estimado de $1,827 desde $1,681, dijo la SSA, una ganancia de $146 por mes.

Para cualquier persona que reciba beneficios del Seguro Social, la nueva cantidad de pago comenzó en enero de 2023. Para aquellos que reciben Seguridad de Ingreso Suplementario (SSI), las nuevas cantidades de pago comenzaron el 30 de diciembre de 2022.

Una cosa a tener en cuenta: el COLA 2023 del 8.7 % no se aplicará a todos los beneficiarios del Seguro Social. Algunos aumentos de pago serán superiores al 8,7 % y otros serán inferiores debido a una variedad de factores, incluido el monto de su seguro primario (PIA) y el momento en que se inscriba en Medicare. La SSA debería haber enviado avisos de COLA a los beneficiarios proporcionando detalles sobre los nuevos montos de pago.

Advertisement

Aumento de los umbrales de discapacidad del Seguro Social

La SSA paga beneficios mensuales a las personas que no pueden trabajar durante un año o más debido a una discapacidad y, por lo general, los beneficios continúan hasta que los beneficiarios pueden volver a trabajar de manera regular. Sin embargo, también hay casos en los que podría tener una discapacidad calificada incluso si todavía está trabajando, como si no puede hacer el trabajo que hacía anteriormente debido a su condición médica. En este caso, solo es elegible hasta una cierta cantidad de ingresos. Cuando pasa ese umbral, no se puede considerar que tiene una discapacidad calificada. Los siguientes son los cambios de umbral para 2023, en función de los ingresos mensuales promedio:

Ver: Con una recesión que se avecina, tome estas 3 medidas de jubilación para mantenerse encaminado

20222023
no ciego $1,350/mes $1,470/mes
Ciego $2,260/mes $2,460/mes
Período de trabajo de prueba (TWP) $970/mes $1,050/mes

Responda nuestra encuesta: ¿Cree que la bancarrota es una forma aceptable de escapar de la deuda de préstamos estudiantiles?

Advertisement

Aumenta el estándar de pago federal de SSI

Los beneficiarios del Seguro Social que también califican para los beneficios de Seguridad de Ingreso Suplementario (SSI, por sus siglas en inglés) han visto un aumento en los montos máximos de pago del SSI federal en 2023, con base en el COLA del 8,7 %. Para personas individuales, el estándar aumentó a $914 por mes desde $841 en 2022. Para parejas, el pago aumentó a $1,371 por mes en 2023 desde $1,261 en 2022.

Aumento en los beneficios máximos para los trabajadores que se jubilan a la plena edad de jubilación

Los estadounidenses que se jubilan a la plena edad de jubilación, ya sea a los 66 o 67 años, dependiendo de cuándo nacieron, vieron un aumento en sus beneficios máximos este año. El máximo aumentó a $3627 por mes en 2023 de $3345 por mes en 2022.

Las ganancias imponibles máximas aumentarán para aquellos que todavía trabajan

Cualquiera que haya recibido un cheque de pago sabe que parte de ese cheque se retiene para pagar los impuestos del Seguro Social. Hay un límite en la cantidad de sus ingresos anuales que pueden ser gravados por el Seguro Social, denominado ingresos máximos imponibles. Ese límite aumentó a $160,200 en 2023 desde $147,000 en 2022.

Advertisement

Cambio en las cantidades exentas de la prueba de ingresos

El Seguro Social retiene los beneficios si sus ganancias superan cierto nivel y si no ha alcanzado la edad plena de jubilación (FRA). Esto se llama la cantidad exenta de la prueba de ganancias de jubilación. De acuerdo con la SSA, se aplica uno de los dos montos exentos diferentes: un monto menor en los años anteriores al año en que alcanza FRA y un monto mayor en el año en que alcanza FRA.

Si tiene menos de la plena edad de jubilación, el monto exento de la prueba de ingresos aumentó a $1,770 por mes en 2023 de $1,630 por mes en 2022. Si alcanzó la FRA, el monto aumentó a $4,710 por mes en 2023 de $4,330 en 2022.

Más Contenido del GOBankingRates

Advertisement

Comentarios

0 Comentarios

Continue Reading

WOW

La NBA y sus jugadores tienen un acuerdo para un nuevo acuerdo laboral

Published

on

La NBA y sus jugadores tienen un acuerdo para un nuevo acuerdo laboral

El escolta de los Jazz de Utah, Johnny Juzang (33), dispara contra los Spurs durante un partido en San Antonio el miércoles.

Eric Gay/AP


ocultar título

alternar título

Eric Gay/AP

El escolta de los Jazz de Utah, Johnny Juzang (33), dispara contra los Spurs durante un partido en San Antonio el miércoles.

Eric Gay/AP

La NBA tendrá paz laboral en los próximos años.

Advertisement

La liga y sus jugadores llegaron a un acuerdo la madrugada del sábado sobre un nuevo contrato colectivo de siete años, anunció la NBA. Todavía está pendiente de ratificación, aunque es casi seguro que ese proceso no es más que una formalidad.

El acuerdo comenzará este verano y durará al menos hasta la temporada 2028-29. Cualquiera de las partes puede optar por no participar; de lo contrario, durará hasta 2029-30.

Entre los detalles, según una persona familiarizada con las negociaciones que habló con The Associated Press: el torneo de temporada que el comisionado Adam Silver ha querido durante años se hará realidad, y los jugadores tendrán que aparecer en al menos 65 juegos para poder ser elegible para los principales premios individuales como el Jugador Más Valioso. La persona habló bajo condición de anonimato porque ni la liga ni la Asociación Nacional de Jugadores de Baloncesto dieron detalles al público.

Otra parte nueva de la CBA será un segundo nivel de impuesto de lujo que, cuando se alcance, evitará que los equipos usen su excepción de nivel medio para fichar jugadores. Ese fue un compromiso claro, dado que algunos equipos querían el llamado «límite superior de gasto» que esencialmente habría instalado un techo absoluto sobre lo que se puede gastar cada temporada y ayudaría a equilibrar el campo de juego entre los equipos que están dispuestos a pagar enormes facturas de impuestos y los que no lo son.

Advertisement

No en la CBA hay un cambio en la política que permitiría a los jugadores de secundaria ingresar al draft de la NBA. Se discutió y ha sido un elemento de la agenda durante meses, pero no cambiará en el corto plazo, probablemente no durante al menos el término del próximo CBA.

«También apreciamos que hay muchos beneficios en tener realmente veteranos que puedan traer a esos jóvenes de 18 años», dijo la directora ejecutiva de NBPA, Tamika Tremaglio, en febrero durante una conferencia de prensa de NBPA en el fin de semana All-Star. «Entonces, ciertamente, cualquier cosa que consideremos, para ser honestos, tendría que incluir un componente que permitiera a los veteranos ser parte también».

Silver dijo el miércoles, al final de una reunión de dos días de la Junta de Gobernadores, que tenía la esperanza de llegar a un acuerdo para el fin de semana. También dijo que no se había considerado, al menos por parte de la liga, retrasar la fecha de exclusión por tercera vez.

El CBA actual, que entró en vigencia el 1 de julio de 2017, vino con una opción mutua para que la NBA o la NBPA optaran por no participar después de seis temporadas, el 30 de junio de este año. Originalmente, las partes tenían como fecha límite el 15 de diciembre para anunciar su intención de ejercer la opción de exclusión, luego la pospusieron hasta el 8 de febrero y luego hasta el viernes.

La liga y el sindicato continuaron hablando después de que pasó la fecha límite de exclusión de la medianoche, y se anunció un acuerdo casi tres horas después.

Advertisement

El acuerdo no pone fin al proceso, aunque obviamente es un gran paso adelante.

Los propietarios tendrán que votar sobre lo que los negociadores han elaborado, y los jugadores también tendrán que votar para aprobar el trato. Luego viene la redacción real del documento: el CBA más reciente registró alrededor de 600 páginas que contienen casi 5,000 párrafos y 200,000 palabras. Gran parte será igual; mucho de esto necesitará ser revisado.

Advertisement

Comentarios

0 Comentarios

Continue Reading

Facebook

¿Búscas empleo?

Videos

Lo más visto

A %d blogueros les gusta esto: