The man who was convicted of assaulting then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022 was re-sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday, with no change in the original sentence after the case was reopened so he could speak during his sentencing hearing, local news reported.

David DePape was originally sentenced to 30 years in prison on May 17 for forcibly entering Pelosi’s home in San Francisco early on Oct. 28, 2022 and clubbing her husband Paul in the head with a hammer in a politically motivated attack.

During the original sentencing, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley failed to give DePape a chance to address the court, a “clear error” under the federal judicial rules, the judge wrote in a court filing the next day.

She also scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to resolve the issue, allowing DePape to speak on his own behalf. He did, apologizing for the attack, before Corley sentenced him again to 30 years in prison, reported ABC7, a local ABC affiliate in San Francisco.

In November, a jury found DePape guilty of attempting to kidnap a federal officer and assaulting an immediate family member of a federal officer. Prosecutors said the 44-year-old was driven by the far-right conspiracy theories known as QAnon.

Paul Pelosi, 82, suffered skull fractures and other injuries that have continued to affect him, according to a letter filed in court. In addition to dizziness and a metal plate that remains in his head, Pelosi said he has struggled with balance and has permanent nerve damage in his left hand.

Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives at the time of the attack, was in Washington when it occurred.

DePape still faces separate state charges stemming from the Pelosi break-in and attack, including attempted murder. Those charges carry a potential sentence of 13 years to life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.

A San Diego federal judge was reprimanded by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday for ordering the teenage daughter of a defendant handcuffed during her father’s sentencing hearing.

The official censure from the 9th Circuit’s Judicial Council concerns U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez‘ instructions to have a deputy marshal place a 13-year-old girl in handcuffs in February of last year, something the council wrote “constitute(s) abusive or harassing behavior.”

As part of the reprimand, Benitez will not be assigned new criminal cases for three years and attorneys may request to recuse him from sentencing hearings for supervised release violations — the same type of violation that led to the sentencing hearing at the heart of the reprimand.

The judge has gained national notoriety for his rulings in support of gun rights, with Gov. Gavin Newsom describing him as “a wholly owned subsidiary of the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association.”

Benitez explained that his intent in the handcuffing was to keep the girl from heading down a path of using drugs.

Her father, who had a drug-related history, told Benitez during the sentencing hearing that his daughter had used marijuana and he feared she would be “following the same footsteps as I am right now.”

Benitez then had the girl placed in handcuffs and asked her, “You see where your dad is?” and later asked, “How did you like the way those cuffs felt on you?”

Later he told the girl, “That was the message I was hoping to get to you. So your dad’s made some serious mistakes in his life, and look at where it’s landed him. And as a result of that, he has to spend time away from you. And if you’re not careful, young lady, you’ll wind up in cuffs, and you’ll find yourself right there where I put you a minute ago.”

Witness accounts differ on how long the girl was handcuffed, but several people reported she was crying throughout the hearing and after leaving the courtroom.

The council wrote that Benitez responded to complaints about the incident by stating “that his actions were motivated by a desire to change the alleged behavior of (the defendant’s) daughter and to potentially change the behavior of (the defendant) as well.” He said that no one objected to his order at the time and also said he’d be willing to apologize to the girl “if I could also briefly explain why I did what I did.”

The council wrote that his conduct was “impermissible” in two ways.

“First, the shackling of a spectator at a hearing who is not engaged in threatening or disorderly behavior exceeds the authority of a district judge. Second, creating a spectacle out of a minor child in the courtroom chills the desire of friends, family members, and members of the public to support loved ones at sentencing.”

The council also wrote that though Benitez “maintained that he acted only with the best intentions,” his actions harmed the girl and “impaired the public’s trust in the institution.”

City News Service contributed to this article.

Two brothers who kidnapped three people without documentation and held them for ransom at an Escondido home in 2023 pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges, prosecutors said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that Virves Pablo-Francisco, 22, and his brother Nicolas Pablo-Francisco, 20, held a father and son from Ecuador and a 16-year-old boy from Afghanistan hostage and demanded thousands of dollars from their families in June 2023.

The siblings demanded between $4,000 and $10,000 for each person’s release.

Virves Pablo-Francisco also admitted to investigators that he provided the Ecuadorian father and son no food and told them they were required to pay extra if they wanted to eat.

Prosecutors say the abductions came to light last June, when the 16-year-old boy’s family in the United States was contacted by his kidnappers.

The family reached out to law enforcement. According to a probable cause statement filed in federal court last year, investigators found cell phone records for a phone the kidnappers used to call the family.

Records showed Nicolas Pablo-Francisco was the phone’s user, with a listed address in Escondido, according to the statement. Virves Pablo-Francisco was listed as the billing party for the account.

On June 14, 2023, agents searched the home listed on the phone’s account and found all three kidnapping victims. Nicolas Pablo- Francisco was arrested at the home, while Virves Pablo-Francisco was arrested later.

“Criminals involved in alien smuggling may think they will get away with taking migrants hostage because of the unique vulnerability of their victims,” said FBI San Diego Acting Special Agent in Charge John Kim in a statement. “They are wrong.”

Virves Pablo-Francisco pleaded guilty on Tuesday, while his brother pleaded guilty in February.

City News Service contributed to this report.

All Peoples Church filed a lawsuit Monday against the city of San Diego that alleges the city council‘s rejection of its large-scale church project in Del Cerro violates federal protections for religious institutions.

The lawsuit was filed in San Diego federal court nearly three months after the city council voted 6 to 2 to deny the church’s proposal for the All Peoples Church Light Project, which would have been built on a six-acre site on College Avenue, just north of Interstate 8.

All Peoples Church purchased the property in 2017 and sought to construct a 900-seat sanctuary, classrooms, a “multipurpose space for youth ministry,” and upwards of 350 parking spaces.

The project was approved by the San Diego Planning Commission, but some Del Cerro residents opposed the project, calling it a “megachurch” that would cause significant traffic and environmental impacts.

Save Del Cerro, a community group made up of more than 1,000 residents, said the project would create safety hazards due to the increased vehicle traffic.

The city council rejected the project in January, which an attorney representing the church in its lawsuit said constitutes religious discrimination.

In a statement posted on its website, the church says the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act prohibits local governments “from regulating land use in a manner that discriminates against or among religious institutions.”

The lawsuit alleges the city violated that law and “imposed its land use regulations in a manner that treats the church’s religious land use less favorably than comparable secular activities.”

Lead counsel Daniel Dalton said, “The law is clear. The city cannot discriminate against a religious use using different rules and analysis from a non religious project in a similar situation. Federal law protects churches from the abuse of government in creating different standards for a religious facility, which is what the council did in justifying its motion to deny the All Peoples Church Light Project.”

The church’s lease is set to expire this summer at its current location in City Heights, which the church says cannot adequately meet the needs of around 800 weekly attendees and prevents the church from hosting larger gatherings like weddings and funerals.

“The church believes it is called by God to own and build a permanent home large enough to accommodate its growing congregation, its anticipated growth, and its various ministries,” according to the complaint.

The church’s pastor, Robert Herber, said in a statement, “We believe now, more than ever, in the vision and need for our permanent home at this site.”

City News Service contributed to this article.

Former President Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro was found guilty on Thursday of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House of Representatives committee that investigated the 2021 attack on the Capitol.

The 74-year-old economist is well known in San Diego because he ran unsuccessfully for local and state offices five times as a Democrat or independent while living here and teaching at UC Irvine.

A 12-member jury found Navarro guilty of two counts of contempt after he refused to testify or turn over documents to the Democratic-led House panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 riot by Trump supporters and broader attempts by Trump, a Republican, to reverse his 2020 election defeat.

“The defendant choose allegiance to former President Trump over compliance with the subpoena,” federal prosecutor Elizabeth Aloi told the jurors during closing arguments on Thursday. “That is contempt. That is a crime.”

The charges carry a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Jan. 12, 2024.

Navarro is a hawk on China policy who advised Trump on trade issues during his presidency and also served on the COVID-19 task force. Navarro became the second close associate of Trump to be convicted for spurning the committee after Steve Bannon was found guilty last year of contempt of Congress for similarly defying a subpoena and was sentenced to four months in prison. Bannon is now appealing the conviction.

The verdict in Navarro’s case in federal court in Washington came after a trial that featured just one day of testimony from three prosecution witnesses, former staff members of the select committee. The defense did not call any witnesses or present any evidence.

Navarro said ahead of trial that he did not have to comply with the committee’s demand because Trump invoked executive privilege, a legal doctrine that shields some executive branch records and communications from disclosure.

But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Navarro could not use this as a defense, finding that the defendant had not put forward evidence that Trump formally invoked executive privilege in response to the subpoena. Defense lawyer Stanley Woodward was left to argue that Navarro’s failure to comply may have been an accident or a mistake.

The verdict represented a victory for the Justice Department and the now-defunct select committee, which moved aggressively to secure testimony from many of Trump’s top advisers before being disbanded when Republicans took control of the House in January.

Many of the committee’s findings were mirrored in a federal criminal indictment obtained by Special Counsel Jack Smith accusing Trump of attempting to subvert the election results, one of four criminal cases he faces as he runs to regain the presidency in 2024.

The panel sought to interview Navarro about a plan devised by him and other Trump allies, dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep,” to delay Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. The committee concluded its work last year without interviewing Navarro.

Navarro had said publicly that he was protecting the presidency by not sharing information with Congress.

Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on the day that Congress met to certify Biden’s victory, attacking police and sending lawmakers and others fleeing for safety. Trump has made false claims that the election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and former CEO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani were on Tuesday ordered to pay $452 million to victims of the blood-testing startup’s fraud, and an appeals court also denied Holmes’ request to remain out of prison while challenging her conviction.

The partner of San Diego-based Evans Hotels‘ heir William “Billy” Evans, Holmes rose to fame after claiming Theranos’ small machines could run an array of diagnostic tests with just a few drops of blood.

She was convicted last year of misrepresenting the startup’s technology and finances. She was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison.

Holmes and Evans, who have two young children, were recently interviewed by a reporter for The New York Times while visiting the San Diego Zoo.

Under the restitution order made Tuesday by Judge Edward Davila, who also oversaw Holmes’ trial and sentencing in San Jose, both Holmes and Balwani are equally responsible for the full amount.

Davila rejected their argument that intervening events contributed to Theranos investors’ losses.

“The victims’ losses occurred at the moment they exchanged their money for Theranos shares,” the judge said.

Holmes had asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pause her sentence on April 25, two days before she was to report to prison.

The court rejected her argument that the appeal is likely to result in a new trial, the threshold for her to remain free on bail. The denial of bail on Tuesday means Davila will now set a new date for her to go to prison.

During the trial, Holmes testified in her own defense, saying she believed her statements were accurate at the time. On appeal, Holmes is challenging several of the judge’s rulings, including his allowance of evidence about Theranos’ test accuracy that postdated her statements to investors.

Balwani was convicted of defrauding Theranos investors and patients at a separate trial and sentenced to 12 years and 11 months in prison. He began serving the sentence on April 20, after Davila and the 9th Circuit rejected his requests to remain free on bail during his appeal.

Forbes dubbed Holmes the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire in 2014, when she was 30 and her stake in Theranos was worth $4.5 billion. Theranos, once valued at $9 billion, collapsed after a series of Wall Street Journal articles in 2015 questioned its technology.

The family of a man who allegedly was beaten to death by another inmate last year at the San Diego Central Jail has filed a lawsuit against the suspected killer.

Relatives of Dominique McCoy, 38, previously sued the county in federal court, alleging McCoy was placed in a cell with John Roman Medina, then 18, late in 2021.

The family alleges McCoy was wrongfully arrested on an erroneous warrant, then killed hours before he was set to be released from the jail on Dec. 29. Medina, now 19, is charged with the murder and remains in custody.

On Wednesday, the family filed a separate lawsuit against Medina, who is due in court next week for a hearing in the criminal case.

According to McCoy’s family, he was arrested for a probation violation stemming from a misdemeanor drug offense. His probation, however, had been terminated nearly two months prior.

Despite the erroneous warrant, McCoy was arrested on Dec. 23 and remained behind bars for nearly a week before a judge ruled that the arrest was made in error and ordered his release, the lawsuit states.

The suit states that Medina, who had been recently arrested on suspicion of felony animal abuse, assault with a deadly weapon and violence against a child, should not have been placed with a prisoner like McCoy, who did not have a history of violent offenses.

– City News Service

A federal judge has frozen the assets of dozens of people and entities accused of operating a nationwide scheme to distribute counterfeit bottles of Gilead Sciences Inc. HIV drugs.

The widespread case, which Gilead described in court papers as “staggering in scope,” involves two alleged “kingpins.”

Gilead, which has been pursuing alleged counterfeiters in a civil lawsuit since last year, said in a court filing unsealed on Wednesday that the alleged illicit operation is responsible for sales of hundreds of millions of dollars of counterfeit bottles of its top sellers Descovy, Genvoya and Biktarvy, and other medicines.

An order to freeze assets, by U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in New York, also unsealed on Wednesday, targets more than 50 defendants newly added to Gilead’s suit.

Many counterfeit bottles contain antiviral pills manufactured by Gilead, but illegally bought off the street and repackaged, while some have been found to contain other, potentially dangerous drugs, including the powerful antipsychotic Seroquel, Gilead has said.

HIV drugs accounted for $7.6 billion of Gilead’s $12.6 billion revenue in the first half of the year. The company in January warned that more than $250 million of counterfeit drugs had been sold over the last two years, and said it had identified more than 85,000 bottles that were fake or tampered with.

The newly added defendants include alleged “kingpin” Lazaro Roberto Hernandez, who was arrested on drug counterfeiting and money laundering charges in June as part of a related federal investigation and remains under house arrest.

The other alleged kingpin, Armando Herrera, lives in Florida.

“Gilead’s ongoing investigation revealed that these two kingpins directed the initial sale of the counterfeits through suppliers created solely to sell counterfeit medications,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Gilead said it had identified the two men, who took elaborate steps to conceal their identities, by matching approximate locations of their disposable burner cell phones with flight records.

The Foster City, California-based company, which has office in Oceanside, first announced it was pursuing counterfeiters in August 2021, shortly after filing its lawsuit.

The case also includes alleged mid-level leaders and a complex web of shell companies, distributors and pharmacies, along with so-called collectors.

The latter group pay cash on the street for the bottles used in the scheme, often acquiring them from people who are homeless or suffering from drug addiction, Gilead said.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru, editing by Bill Berkrot and Leslie Adler)

– Reuters

Roomster was sued on Tuesday by federal officials and six states, including California, which accused the roommate-matching service of using fake listings and reviews.

The misleading posts, the Federal Trade Commission and state authorities argue, led Roomster – an app to link those seeking to share homes and apartments – to benefit, by receiving more than $27 million from people often struggling to find affordable places to live.

According to a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, Roomster and its co-founders have since 2016 “inundated the internet with tens of thousands of fake positive reviews to bolster their false claims that properties listed on their Roomster platform are real, available and verified.”

The suit alleges that those harmed were typically lower-income renters and students, with many lured into paying even more money to fraudsters who flooded New York-based Roomster’s platform with their own fake listings.

“Millions of hardworking Californians are struggling to find housing within their budgets. When people see affordable rooms for rent on highly rated apps like Roomster, they trust that these ‘verified’ listings are what they say they are,” said the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta. “Unfortunately, Roomster hasn’t been honest about the source of its popularity or its commitment to preventing fraud on its app.”

Roomster, in a statement, said the accusations have no merit and “represent another example of the FTC’s overreach.”

Tuesday’s lawsuit is part of an FTC crackdown on fake reviews and deceptive endorsements.

In addition to California, New York, Colorado, Florida, Illinois and Massachusetts joined the FTC’s case against Roomster and co-founders John Shriber, the chief executive officer, and Roman Zaks, the chief technology officer.

A fourth defendant, Jonathan Martinez, was accused of selling more than 20,000 fake reviews to Roomster, with Shriber instructing him to produce “lots of 5 star IOS app reviews” and saying he “would like to be #1” for people seeking roommates.

“There is a term for lying and deceiving your customers to grow your business: fraud,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

The lawsuit seeks civil penalties and an injunction against violations of federal and state unfair trade laws, including the False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition Law.

In its statement, Roomster said it has always operated with honesty and integrity, and the FTC was “not sincerely interested” in understanding its marketing and advertising practices.

Martinez, who ran the business AppWinn, reached a $100,000 settlement and agreed to cooperate with regulators. His lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last October, the FTC warned more than 700 companies they could face significant civil fines by using fake reviews and deceptive endorsements to cheat consumers. Each offense could incur a penalty of nearly $44,000, officials said.

The Roomster case is FTC et al v Roomster Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-07389.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Bill Berkrot and Josie Kao)

– Reuters and staff reports

President Joe Biden on Friday nominated a California Superior Court judge to the federal bench, and if he’s confirmed, the feat would mark a milestone for the state’s LGBTQ community.

Three of the president’s eight nominees would hold spots on California U.S. District Courts if the Senate approves their nominations. Two serve as Superior Court judges in Northern California, including Daniel Calabretta, who could become the first openly gay federal judge in the state’s Eastern District.

Calabretta, a judge in Sacramento, also has served as Deputy Legal Affairs Secretary for former Gov. Jerry Brown and once clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

The other two California nominees are:

• San Francisco Superior Court Judge Rita Lin, who if confirmed, would become the second AAPI woman – and first Chinese-American woman – to serve on the court for the Northern District of California
• Araceli Martinez-Olguin, a supervising attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, also nominated for a post in the Northern District. She would become the second Latina to serve on that district.

Biden’s latest nominees continued the White House’s push to diversify the federal bench.

Most prominent among them is Julie Rikelman, an abortion rights lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights whom the president picked to serve on the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

She represented the Mississippi clinic at the heart of the June Supreme Court decision to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision.

“Julie Rikelman brings exactly the kind of experience with reproductive rights we desperately need on the courts,” Christopher Kang, chief counsel of the progressive group Demand Justice, said in a statement.

Conservative opposition is expected in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats are facing pressure from progressive activists to speed up judicial confirmations before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when they risk losing control of the chamber to Republicans.

“This nominee is a radical, left-wing abortion activist who has no business being on any court, let alone a federal appellate court,” said Mike Davis, who heads the conservative judicial advocacy group the Article III Project.

Biden also nominated Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Maria Araujo Kahn to the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Other district court nominees include Myong Joun, a state court judge in Boston, picked to become the first Asian American man on the federal bench in Massachusetts, where Biden also nominated Julia Kobick, a deputy state solicitor in the state attorney general’s office.

District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman was nominated to be a federal judge in Washington, and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeffery Hopkins would, if confirmed, become a district court judge in Southern Ohio.

Reuters contributed to this report.