Disgraced gymnastics doctor Nassar has his final appeal rejected
DETROIT — The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday rejected a final appeal from sports doctor Larry Nassar, who was sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting gymnasts, including Olympic medalists.
Attorneys for Nassar said he was treated unfairly in 2018 and deserved a new hearing, based on vengeful remarks by a judge who called him a “monster” who would “wither” in prison like the wicked witch in “The Wizard of Oz.”
“I just signed your death warrant,” Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina had said then of Nassar’s 40-year sentence.
The state Supreme Court said Nassar’s appeal was a “close question” and that it had “concerns” over the judge’s conduct. But the court also noted that Aquilina, despite her provocative comments, stuck to the sentencing agreement worked out by lawyers in the case.
“We decline to expend additional judicial resources and further subject the victims in this case to additional trauma where the questions at hand present nothing more than an academic exercise,” the court said in a two-page order.
More than 150 victims spoke or submitted statements during an extraordinary seven-day hearing in Aquilina’s court more than four years ago.
Nassar pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting gymnasts and other athletes with his hands under the guise of medical treatment for hip and leg injuries.
He worked at Michigan State University and at Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics, traveling the world with the elites of the sport.
“Our Constitution does not allow for cruel and unusual punishment,” Aquilina told Nassar. “If it did, I have to say I might allow what he did to all of these beautiful souls, these young women in their childhood. I would allow someone or many people to do to him what he did to others.”
Nassar subsequently received another 40-year sentence in a separate case in a neighboring county.
He is currently in federal prison for child pornography crimes in a different case that grew out of the same investigation.
The sentences effectively mean Nassar, 58, will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
West Bank violence: Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinians and wounded at least eight others early Friday during a military operation in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The military said its forces came under attack and exchanged fire with militants.
The Israeli military has been carrying out near-daily raids in the occupied West Bank since a string of attacks earlier this year killed 19 people in Israel.
Many of the arrest raids have been launched in and around Jenin, the hometown of several of the attackers.
The military said it raided two locations in search of weapons. At the first, it says soldiers fired back after Palestinians opened fire and hurled explosive devices at them. On their way to the second location, they exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen in a vehicle, the army said.
Navarro plea: Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro pleaded not guilty Friday to contempt of Congress charges after refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Navarro, 72, appeared in federal court in Washington to be arraigned on the two-count indictment.
He was charged with one contempt count for failing to appear for a deposition before the House committee investigating the attack and a second charge for failing to produce documents the committee requested.
Navarro has argued that the select committee investigating the attack is unlawful and therefore a subpoena it issued to him in February is unenforceable under law.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta scheduled a trial for November.
NM official avoids prison:
An elected official who was a central figure in a New Mexico county’s refusal to certify recent election results based on debunked conspiracy theories about voting machines before backing down avoided more jail time Friday for joining the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol.
Couy Griffin, who founded the political group Cowboys for Trump, was sentenced to 14 days imprisonment. U.S. District Judge Trevor Mcfadden gave Griffin credit for the 20 days he already served in jail after his arrest.
Mcfadden, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, also ordered Griffin to pay a $3,000 fine and $500 in restitution and perform 60 hours of community service.
Commissioners in Otero County certified the results ahead of a Friday deadline.
Freedom Riders: Legendary civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and three other men who were sentenced to work on a North Carolina chain gang after they launched the first of the “freedom rides” to challenge Jim Crow laws had their sentences posthumously vacated Friday, more than seven decades later.
“We failed these men,” said Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour, who presided over the special session and at one point paused to compose himself.
On April 9, 1947, a group of eight white men and eight Black men began the first “freedom ride” to challenge laws that mandated segregation on buses in defiance of the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court Morgan v. Virginia ruling declaring segregation on interstate travel unconstitutional.
Four of the so-called Freedom Riders — James Felmet, Andrew Johnson, Igal Roodenko and Rustin — were arrested in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to move from the front of the bus. After a trial in Orange County, the four men were convicted.
Pakistan terror financing: An international watchdog said Friday it will keep Pakistan on a so-called “gray list” of countries that do not take full measures to combat money laundering and terror financing but raised hopes that its removal would follow a visit to Islamabad to determine its progress.
The announcement by Marcus Pleyer, president of the Financial Action Task Force, was a blow to Pakistan’s newly elected government, which believes it has mostly complied with the tasks set by the organization.
Pleyer, at the organization’s meeting in Berlin, said an inspection by the FATF in Pakistan would take place before October, and that a formal announcement on the country’s removal would follow. Pleyer also praised Islamabad for implementing the organization’s plans — a clear indication that Pakistan is moving closer to getting off the “gray list.”