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      Man Who Shot the Rapper Nipsey Hussle Is Convicted of Murder

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      A jury found Eric R. Holder Jr. guilty of first-degree murder for the 2019 killing of Hussle, an artist who devoted his adult life to championing his South Los Angeles neighborhood.Eric R. Holder Jr. was found guilty of first-degree murder more than three years after fatally shooting the Los Angeles rapper Nipsey Hussle.Pool photo by Frederick M. BrownLOS ANGELES — More than three years after the fatal shooting of the rapper Nipsey Hussle, whose 2019 killing in front of the local clothing store he owned scarred the South Los Angeles neighborhood he had devoted his adult life to championing, a jury on Wednesday found Eric R. Holder Jr. guilty of first-degree murder in the case. The verdict closes a painful chapter in recent hip-hop history.At trial, prosecutors described the gunman as an embittered acquaintance who had belonged to the same street gang as Hussle but felt disrespected by him during a brief parking-lot run-in.That Mr. Holder pulled the trigger was not in dispute in court. His own public defender and multiple witnesses identified him as the assailant who fired toward Hussle with two handguns, hitting the rapper at least 10 times before kicking him in the head.But Mr. Holder’s legal team had argued that the case was overcharged. Aaron Jansen, the public defender representing Mr. Holder, said that the killing was not premeditated and instead occurred in the “heat of passion,” about nine minutes after a conversation in which Hussle invoked neighborhood rumors that Mr. Holder had cooperated with law enforcement, or snitched, a serious offense in the gang world, and urged him to clear things up.Mr. Holder should have been charged with voluntary manslaughter, his lawyer said.After meeting for less than an hour on a second day of deliberations, the jury members indicated they agreed with Los Angeles county prosecutors that Mr. Holder had made the decision to kill Hussle as he returned to a car after the two spoke, loaded a gun, took a few bites of French fries and then marched back through the parking lot to confront the rapper.Mr. Holder, 32, was also found guilty of two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter, stemming from the two bystanders who were wounded in the shooting, lesser charges than the attempted murder counts that prosecutors had brought.Mr. Holder’s lawyer argued that his client had no specific intention of harming either of the wounded men, both of whom were strangers to him, when he attacked Hussle outside of the Marathon Clothing shop in the Crenshaw neighborhood where the rapper and his assailant grew up.In addition, Mr. Holder was found guilty of possessing a firearm as a felon and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. He could face life in prison, and was scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 15. Mr. Jansen said that in sentencing, he will ask the judge to consider Mr. Holder’s mental health history, including a years-old schizophrenia diagnosis.In court, Mr. Holder stared forward, unflinching. He wore a dark navy suit and white sneakers. There was no sound in the courtroom as the verdict was announced — no reaction from the half-full gallery.Hussle, whose real name was Ermias Joseph Asghedom, was mourned widely after his death at 33 as a principled artist and entrepreneur who transcended his early years as a member of the local Rollin’ 60s Crips, emerging as a hard-boiled, motivational lyricist and community ambassador. His public memorial in April 2019, at what was then known as the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, drew some 20,000 admirers, including Stevie Wonder and Snoop Dogg.Though not a commercial hitmaker for most of his career, Hussle was known for his extensive industry connections and independent business sense, having sold music on his own terms for 15 years before releasing his major label debut, “Victory Lap,” in 2018. A Grammy nomination for best rap album and a management partnership with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation near the end of his life had the rapper poised for a move deeper into the mainstream.Along the way, Hussle had also preached Black empowerment through business and education, investing his winnings as a musician in the neighborhood where he was raised. With a group of backers, Hussle bought the strip mall at the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Slauson Avenue that housed his Marathon store, while also helping to open a nearby co-working space dedicated to increasing diversity in science and technology.Following the verdict, John McKinney, the Los Angeles County deputy district attorney prosecuting the case, said he hoped that it would bring “some resounding peace” to friends and fans of the rapper.“This verdict and the story of his life will be talked about for sure at Crenshaw and Slauson,” Mr. McKinney said, “but the meaning of it will carry far beyond those streets.”On the Sunday that Hussle was killed, he had stopped by the shopping plaza for an unannounced visit, as he often did, according to court testimony. While catching up with friends and employees in the parking lot, Hussle spent about half an hour signing autographs and posing for photos with fans.At that time, Bryannita Nicholson, a woman Mr. Holder had been casually dating, was driving him around the area, Ms. Nicholson testified. A key witness for the prosecution who said that she had transported Mr. Holder to and from the scene of the shooting, Ms. Nicholson was granted immunity from prosecution for her appearance in court.When Ms. Nicholson pulled into the plaza so that Mr. Holder could get something to eat, she spotted Hussle in the parking lot and remarked in passing that he looked handsome, she said on the stand. Mr. Holder, a fellow member of the Rollin’ 60s Crips, approached Hussle for a brief conversation while Ms. Nicholson waited in the car, she said.The encounter between the two men was casual and low-key, according to testimony. But prosecutors said Hussle told Mr. Holder that there were rumors going around the neighborhood that he had snitched. Hussle encouraged Mr. Holder to “get the paperwork” showing he had not, said Mr. McKinney.“It just seemed like a regular conversation,” Mr. McKinney told the jury. “But obviously it wasn’t.” He called the pair “two men whose arcs in life were bending in different directions.”As the men finished speaking, Ms. Nicholson said she overheard talk of snitching as she approached Hussle for a selfie, which she posted to Facebook. It would be the last photograph of the rapper. Asked in court if she sensed that a fight was about to occur, Ms. Nicholson said, “No, I wasn’t afraid at all.”As Ms. Nicholson pulled into another nearby parking lot so Mr. Holder could eat, she testified, he pulled out a handgun and began loading it. He walked back toward Hussle’s store; a short time later, Ms. Nicholson heard gunshots.According to witnesses, Mr. Holder had confronted the rapper outside and said, “You’re through” as he opened fire.“You got me,” Hussle said, according to the prosecutor. Two men who were standing with Hussle, Kerry Lathan and Shermi Villanueva, were wounded by the shots.In his opening statement, Mr. McKinney, the prosecutor, portrayed Ms. Nicholson as a kind of unwitting accomplice. “I think you’ll find in her a naïveté, a simplicity,” he said. Mr. Holder mostly avoided her eyes or looked at her dispassionately as she testified.In that testimony, Ms. Nicholson said that when Mr. Holder got back into her car, he told her to drive or he would slap her. That evening, she learned of Hussle’s death. But Ms. Nicholson said it wasn’t until more than a day after the shooting, when her mother recognized her white Chevy Cruze on the news, that she realized that Mr. Holder may have been involved.Mr. McKinney emphasized that Ms. Nicholson quickly agreed to cooperate with the police, allowing the authorities access to data from her phone and submitting to hours of interviews. “I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is my reputation, too,’” she testified.In addition to being the agreed-upon motive in the shooting, the concept of snitching — and its outsize importance in gang culture — loomed over the trial. While Mr. Holder was repeatedly identified as the gunman, lawyers on both sides cited some witnesses’ reluctance to testify in detail, or even show up to court, for fear of retribution.“I don’t know nothing, don’t see nothing,” Mr. Lathan, who was wounded in the incident, said during his turn on the witness stand.“You don’t want to testify about what happened?” the prosecutor asked.“That’s right,” Mr. Lathan said.Mr. Jansen, the defense lawyer, had argued that it was precisely that anti-snitching culture that transformed a conversation between Hussle and Mr. Holder into a provocation.“Even people who are shot don’t want to come in and testify against Rollin’ 60s gang members,” Mr. Jansen said in an interview after the verdict. “I thought those facts supported what we were saying: Eric Holder didn’t want to be labeled as a snitch either, out of fear of retribution.”Mr. Jansen added: “I just wanted people to remember that Eric Holder Jr. is a human being. He did a terrible thing and he will have to face justice for that.”Last Tuesday, Mr. Holder was attacked while in custody, briefly delaying the final days of the trial. His lawyer said that his client had been punched in the face and “sliced with some kind of razor.”Because of the high-profile nature of the case, and because it hinged on questions about consequences for snitching, Mr. Jansen said his client should have been in protective custody.In court, prosecutors did rely in part on the testimony of Herman Douglas, known as Cowboy, a onetime Rollin’ 60s member who worked at Hussle’s Marathon store. Mr. Douglas testified that while he was no longer involved in gang life, he still vigilantly watched every car and person that crossed his path for signs they might be dangerous. At no point in Hussle’s conversation with Mr. Holder, he said, did he sense that the rapper was at risk. “I would’ve snatched him up out of there,” Mr. Douglas said.When the defense questioned Mr. Douglas about whether there could be consequences as dire as “getting beat up or even killed” for snitching, Mr. Douglas said that was unlikely. He noted that his participation in the trial could be considered snitching by some. But things had changed since he was coming up in the neighborhood.“I ain’t worried,” he said. “Maybe in the ’80s, yeah, but this is 2022.”Following the guilty verdict, Mr. Douglas sat outside the courtroom and cried into his hand, his shoulders shaking. Later, he told reporters he did not know if he would ever feel closure after his friend’s death. But he said that he hoped his participation in the trial would show others that sometimes it was worth speaking up.“Just do what’s right,” he said. “No matter what people say.” More

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      Bill Cosby Loses Sex Assault Lawsuit and Must Pay Damages

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      A jury in California sided with Judy Huth, who accused Mr. Cosby of molesting her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, when she was 16.SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A jury on Tuesday found that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted Judy Huth in 1975, when as a 16-year-old girl she accepted his invitation to join him at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.The decision by the jury once again tarnished the reputation of a man whose standing as one of America’s most beloved entertainers dissolved as dozens of women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct.As part of its decision, the jury awarded Ms. Huth $500,000 in compensatory damages, but declined to award punitive damages.Beyond its significance to Ms. Huth, who first came forward with her accusations in 2014, the verdict offered a degree of satisfaction for many of the women who for years have accused Mr. Cosby of similar abuse. The Huth case, for them, offered a second chance at getting public vindication of their accounts after Mr. Cosby’s criminal conviction in the Andrea Constand case was overturned by an appellate panel last year on due process grounds.Many of the accusers had been time-barred from filing their own suits because they had not come forward at the time when they said Mr. Cosby had attacked them. But Ms. Huth’s suit was able to move forward because the jury agreed she was a minor at the time, and California law extends the time frame in which people molested as children can file a civil claim.After the verdict was announced, and the jury dismissed, Ms. Huth hugged her lawyers.“I feel good, I feel vindicated.” Ms. Huth said.The verdict was a damaging setback for Mr. Cosby who, upon his release after serving nearly three years in prison, had promoted the appeals court decision as a full exoneration, an overstatement now overshadowed by a finding that reinforces an image of him as a person who wielded his celebrity to take advantage of women.Mr. Cosby has consistently denied the accounts of all of the women, asserting that, if he had sexual encounters with anyone, it had always been consensual. He invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and did not attend the trial. But parts of his deposition, which was videotaped several years ago, were played for the jurors and they heard him say he had no recollection of ever meeting Ms. Huth.The 12-person jury was not unanimous in its findings and voted 9 to 3 to award Ms. Huth the compensatory damages. After the jury was dismissed, one juror, Aldo Reyna, 25, explained why he decided in her favor.“Given the time frame, you have to go on somebody’s word,” he said in an interview. “Either you believe them, or you don’t. I believed her on the stand.”Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for Mr. Cosby, claimed some victory in the fact that the jury had decided against awarding punitive damages.“We do feel some relief,” she said. “Finding no punitive damages was a significant win for us.”A spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, said the entertainer would appeal.“Mr. Cosby continues to maintain his innocence,” Mr. Wyatt said in a statement, “and will vigorously fight these false accusations, so that he can get back to bringing the pursuit of happiness, joy and laughter to the world.”The jury, which began deliberating Thursday, heard 10 days of testimony during which Ms. Huth, now 64, told of how a chance meeting with Mr. Cosby while he filmed a movie in a local park eventually led her to an isolated bedroom in the Playboy Mansion. In often emotional testimony, she described how a famous man she had once admired, whose comedy records her father collected, tried to put his hand down her pants and then forced her to perform a sex act on him.“I had my eyes closed at that point,” Ms. Huth said in court. “I was freaking out.”Afterward, she said, she was “mad — I felt duped, fooled. I was let down. I was hurt.”The Playboy encounter occurred several days after Ms. Huth and a friend, Donna Samuelson, met Mr. Cosby as he filmed a scene for a movie, “Let’s Do It Again,” in a park in San Marino, Calif., not far from their homes.Ms. Huth and Ms. Samuelson testified that Mr. Cosby invited them several days later to his tennis club and then to a house where he was staying, where they played billiards, he gave them alcohol and got them to follow him in their car to the Playboy Mansion, where he told them to say they were 19 if anyone asked their age.A snapshot of Ms. Huth and Mr. Cosby at the Playboy Mansion, taken by Ms. Huth’s friend. It was entered as evidence at trial.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesMr. Cosby, 84, denied Ms. Huth’s allegations, with his lawyer Jennifer Bonjean describing her account as “a complete and utter fabrication.” Though the jury was shown photographs of Mr. Cosby with Ms. Huth at the Playboy Mansion, taken by Ms. Samuelson, Mr. Cosby said in the deposition that he takes pictures with a lot of people and his lawyer suggested Ms. Huth had made up the assault and coordinated with her friend to make money.Ms. Bonjean pointed out that Ms. Huth, by her own account, had spent hours at the mansion after what Ms. Huth had described as a callous molestation, swimming in the pool and ordering cocktails. And she challenged Ms. Huth’s explanation for why she had not spoken about the episode in the months and years afterward, questioning whether Ms. Huth had really repressed a terrible experience or whether she simply came forward with an accusation to join others who were providing accounts of misconduct by Mr. Cosby at that time.Ms. Huth said she had simply buried the traumatic experience for years.“It’s like trash,” she said. “You dig a hole and throw trash in it.”The jury sided with Ms. Huth. But its decision came after lengthy deliberations punctuated by multiple questions from jurors who sought guidance on how to interpret the language of questions on a verdict sheet they were given as a guide. The process was further complicated when the jury forewoman had to be excused after the second day of deliberations. The panel, which reported it was close to a verdict on Friday, had to take on an alternate and was told to start over.As the trial progressed, Mr. Wyatt increasingly criticized the judge and one of Ms. Huth’s lawyers, Gloria Allred. Mr. Wyatt said the judge had unfairly favored Ms. Huth and he objected when Ms. Allred made an acknowledgment of Juneteenth in court, releasing a statement that she was exploiting the memory of “enslaved people” even as she helped a suit against Mr. Cosby, whom he called “Black America’s Icon.”After the verdict, Ms. Allred congratulated Ms. Huth on persevering through a long legal battle.“She has demonstrated so much courage and made so many sacrifices to win justice,” Ms. Allred said. “She won real change. She fought Bill Cosby and won.”Ms. Huth’s was the first civil case accusing Mr. Cosby of sexual assault to reach trial. He had been sued by other women, many of whom said he had defamed them after his legal team dismissed their allegations as fictions. Eleven civil cases ended in settlements, with 10 of the settlements having been agreed to by Mr. Cosby’s former insurance company over his objections, his spokesman said.Ms. Huth’s case had largely been put on hold while prosecutors in Pennsylvania pursued Mr. Cosby on criminal charges that he had drugged and sexually assaulted Ms. Constand, a former Temple University employee.But his 2018 conviction in that case was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which ruled that a nonprosecution agreement made by a previous prosecutor meant that Mr. Cosby should not have been charged in the case.One remaining civil case was filed last year by Lili Bernard, an actor and visual artist, who accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Atlantic City in 1990, when she was 26. Mr. Cosby has denied her account, and the case is still in its early stages.Ms. Bernard was one of several women who have accused Mr. Cosby of abusing them sexually who attended the trial in Santa Monica on some days in support of Ms. Huth. She praised the verdict, saying, it “goes way beyond Cosby survivors.”“Judy Huth is a hero!” she said. “Her coming forward inspired others to find their voices.” More

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      Amber Heard: I ‘Stand by Every Word’ of Testimony in Defamation Trial

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      In her first public interview since losing a defamation case brought against her by Johnny Depp, her ex-husband, Ms. Heard said she had told the truth when she accused him of abuse.Almost two weeks after losing a high-profile defamation trial, Amber Heard said in a television interview on Tuesday that she had told the truth on the stand about her accusations of abuse against her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. She also took issue with the judge’s handling of evidence that she said helps prove her account of the relationship.Ms. Heard told NBC’s “Today” show that she will “stand by every word” of her testimony to her “dying day.” She alleged repeated physical abuse by Mr. Depp, as well as several instances of sexual abuse, all of which Mr. Depp denied.In her first public interview since the jury verdict in Fairfax, Va., Ms. Heard acknowledged that she was responsible for “horrible, regrettable” behavior toward Mr. Depp, including demeaning insults that were aired in court, but maintained that any physical violence on her part was in response to his own. Mr. Depp testified that Ms. Heard was violent toward him, and not the other way around.“I behaved in horrible — almost unrecognizable to myself — ways,” Ms. Heard said. “It was very, very toxic. We were awful to each other.”But, she asserted, “I’ve always told the truth.”Ms. Heard, 36, lost the defamation case that Mr. Depp filed against her, alleging that she had “devastated” his career after The Washington Post published an op-ed in which she called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article did not mention Mr. Depp by name, but he and his lawyers argued that it was clearly referring to a time in 2016 in which Ms. Heard told a court that Mr. Depp was physically abusive toward her.Our Coverage of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard TrialA trial between the formerly married actors became a fierce battleground over the truth about their relationship. What to Know: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard sued each other with competing defamation claims, amid mutual accusations of domestic abuse.The Verdict: The jury ruled that Mr. Depp was defamed by Ms. Heard in her op-ed, but also that she had been defamed by one of his lawyers. Possible Effects: Lawyers say that the outcome of the trial could embolden others accused of sexual abuse to try their luck with juries, marking a new era for the #MeToo movement.The Media’s Role: As the trial demonstrates, by sharing claims of sexual abuse the press assumes the risks that come with antagonizing the rich, powerful and litigious.The $10.35 million award to Mr. Depp was offset by a $2 million award for Ms. Heard. The jury found that Mr. Depp had defamed Ms. Heard in one instance, when a lawyer who had previously represented him during the defamation proceedings made a statement to a British tabloid accusing her of damaging the couple’s penthouse and blaming it on Mr. Depp.A lawyer for Ms. Heard, Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, has said she plans to appeal the verdict.The six-week trial turned into an internet obsession fueled by courtroom sound bites made accessible by a pair of cameras filming the proceedings for livestreams and television broadcasts. Ms. Heard was on the receiving end of much of the online vitriol, with Depp fans mocking her testimony and calling her a liar.“Even if you think that I’m lying, you still couldn’t tell me — look me in the eye and tell me — that you think on social media there’s been a fair representation,” Ms. Heard said in the NBC interview, more of which will air later this week. She added that she had “never felt more removed from my own humanity.”In the days after the verdict, Ms. Heard’s legal team has argued that it would have been impossible for the jury, which was unsequestered, to completely shield themselves from the social media bias against their client.Ms. Heard said there had been “really important pieces of evidence” that a judge kept out of the Virginia trial, some of which were allowed in a separate trial in London. In that case, Mr. Depp sued when The Sun newspaper called him a “wife beater” in a headline. Mr. Depp lost that case, and the British judge was persuaded that Mr. Depp had physically abused Ms. Heard repeatedly throughout their relationship.Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 7In the courtroom. More

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      Johnny Depp Jury Finds That Amber Heard Defamed Him in Op-Ed

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      The jury in Virginia found that Ms. Heard had damaged her ex-husband’s reputation with an op-ed in which she identified herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”For six weeks, the defamation case that the actor Johnny Depp filed against his ex-wife Amber Heard transfixed the nation, offering a rare instance of high-profile #MeToo charges and countercharges, including lurid accusations of physical abuse, being hashed out in the public spotlight of a courtroom.On Wednesday, the seven-person jury in Fairfax, Va., found that Mr. Depp had been defamed by Ms. Heard when she described herself in a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Mr. Depp was awarded more than $10 million in damages.During the trial Mr. Depp had fiercely denied Ms. Heard’s accusations that he had subjected her to repeated physical abuse that included punching and head-butting and several instances of sexual assault. In a statement after the verdict Mr. Depp thanked the jury, saying that it “gave me my life back.”Ms. Heard, who was in the courtroom as the verdict was read, said in a statement afterward that she was disappointed “beyond words” by their finding.“I’m heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence, and sway of my ex-husband,” she said.Ms. Heard did not seem buoyed by the fact that the jury also awarded her $2 million in damages, agreeing that she had been defamed in one instance by a lawyer for Mr. Depp. A spokeswoman for Ms. Heard, Alafair Hall, said she planned to appeal.A jury found that Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard were both defamed.Craig Hudson/Associated PressSuch cases are often settled out of court, in part to avoid public scrutiny. The bitter charges and embarrassing details in this case were aired not only in open court, but also before cameras that beamed every accusation onto televisions and livestreams, where they were turned into memes and debated on social media.The 2018 op-ed that Ms. Heard wrote never mentioned Mr. Depp by name, but he argued that it clearly referred to their marriage, which began in 2015 and fell apart just over a year later, and that it was false. (Early drafts of it were prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union, where Ms. Heard was an ambassador with a focus on women’s rights and gender-based violence.)The jury agreed, and found that it contained several statements that were false, and were made with actual malice.Ms. Heard countersued, claiming that she had been defamed in 2020 when one of Mr. Depp’s lawyers at the time had dismissed her accusations as a “hoax” in statements to a British tabloid. The jury found that Mr. Depp had defamed Ms. Heard in one instance, when the lawyer accused her of damaging the couple’s penthouse and blaming it on Mr. Depp.The verdict came as a surprise to several legal observers, who noted that a judge in Britain had ruled two years ago that there was evidence that Mr. Depp had repeatedly assaulted Ms. Heard. That ruling came in a libel suit that Mr. Depp had filed after The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, called him a “wife beater” in a headline. The judge in that case had ruled that the defendants had shown that what they published was “substantially true.”Ms. Heard, 36, maintained throughout the trial that everything written in the op-ed was true.Amber Heard leaves the courthouse in Virginia after the jury’s verdict in the libel case brought by her ex-husband.Tom Brenner/ReutersThe combination of star power, sensational details and cameras in the courtroom turned the trial into an internet obsession. Memes and posts attacking Ms. Heard, some created by superfans of Mr. Depp, proliferated online. Ms. Heard testified that she had received thousands of death threats since the start of the trial and called the online mockery “agonizing.”Sometimes breaking into sobs on the stand, Ms. Heard testified about more than a dozen times that, she said, Mr. Depp was violent toward her. In a key incident in Australia in 2015, Ms. Heard said, Mr. Depp became “belligerent” after taking the drug MDMA and attacked her, grabbing her by the neck and, at one point, sexually assaulting her with an object that Ms. Heard later determined to be a bottle.“I’m looking in his eyes and I don’t see him anymore,” Ms. Heard testified. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”Mackenna White, a lawyer who counsels people as to the risks of publishing potentially contested accusations of sexual misconduct, said she worried that the online mockery of Ms. Heard would make some less likely to come forward.“The absolute destruction of Amber Heard is going to have an impact,” Ms. White said. “If you’re someone who’s worried about what could happen if you speak out, this could have the same chilling effect that we’ve been trying to reverse all these years.”Others saw the online reaction as a harbinger of what the jury would decide.“You have now millions of Americans weighing in as evidence unfolds in court — you can take that as an indication of how the case is going,” said Imran Ansari, a lawyer representing Alan Dershowitz in defamation suits involving Virginia Giuffre, who said she was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation and accused Mr. Dershowitz of being part of it, which he denies.Spectators outside the Virginia courthouse, many of them fans of Mr. Depp, reacted after the verdict was announced.Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Depp, 58, gave a vastly different account of their relationship — and of the trip to Australia — in which Ms. Heard was the aggressor. Ms. Heard, he testified, had once been a girlfriend who seemed “too good to be true,” but turned into a partner who would taunt him, call him demeaning names, punch him and throw objects at him.In Australia, he testified, she threw a handle of vodka that exploded on his hand and severed his finger. (She denies throwing the bottle at him and said she only ever hit him in self-defense or in defense of her sister.)Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 7In the courtroom. More

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      Jussie Smollett to Be Released From Jail On Appeal, Court Orders

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      The appellate court ruled that he be released on bond pending his appeal of a judge’s sentence that he serve five months in jail.An Illinois appellate court ruled Wednesday that the actor Jussie Smollett be released from jail on bond pending his appeal of his conviction for falsely reporting that he had been the victim of a hate crime.Mr. Smollett was sentenced last week to five months in jail, but his lawyers quickly asked a panel of judges to stay the sentence while they appealed the conviction.Mr. Smollett’s lawyers had argued in court papers that the sentence should be stayed because his term would likely be finished before his appeal was completed and that being incarcerated threatened his health and safety.Nenye Uche, Mr. Smollett’s lead lawyer, said in a video posted to his client’s Instagram account, “They released him and that says a lot about what the appellate court thinks of this case.”In the six days since Mr. Smollett was taken into custody, his family has been pleading for him to be freed and urging the public to call the county to seek his release.“It’s absolutely ridiculous that he’s in there,” said Jocqui Smollett, one of Mr. Smollett’s brothers, in an Instagram video. “You should be terrified of the precedent this sets.”Prosecutors, who had argued at sentencing that Mr. Smollett’s offense warranted incarceration, wrote in court papers that by the defense’s logic, every short term of imprisonment would be stayed pending appeal.“That simply is not, and cannot be, the rule,” wrote Sean Wieber, one of the prosecutors.Two out of three of the justices on the appellate panel agreed that Mr. Smollett should be released from custody after he posts a $150,000 recognizance bond, agreeing with the defense’s argument about the short sentence and acknowledging that Mr. Smollett’s offense was nonviolent. One justice dissented.Mr. Smollett’s incarceration on Thursday started with his announcement in the courtroom as he was led to jail that he was not suicidal and that if anything happened to him, it would not have been by his own hand, a statement that appeared to put the authorities on notice. He also repeatedly declared his innocence.Judge James B. Linn granted his lawyers’ request for protective custody, and according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, Mr. Smollett was being kept in a private cell in the Cook County Jail with security cameras and an officer stationed at the entrance.His family had been arguing on social media that he was the target of “vicious threats” on social media and was at risk. They expressed concerns about his treatment in the jail. Jocqui Smollett said on Tuesday that his brother had been sleeping in a “restraint bed” but had recently been moved to a cell that “actually has a bed.”Mr. Smollett’s appeal is based, in part, on the idea that the actor’s recent sentence violated the legal concept of double jeopardy because he had already surrendered a $10,000 bond and performed some community service in 2019. Prosecutors have argued that those measures were voluntary and not a punishment.The case drew national attention, and Mr. Smollett was initially widely viewed as the victim who had been beaten and targeted with racial and homophobic slurs. Then the police began to question his version of events.At the trial, prosecutors told the jury that Mr. Smollett had instructed two brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, to attack him near his apartment in Chicago, where they placed a rope around his neck like a noose and yelled, “This is MAGA country.”Both brothers testified. Abimbola Osundairo, the younger of the brothers, said Mr. Smollett had asked him to “fake beat him up.”The prosecution’s evidence included video surveillance of the men meeting up for what the brothers said was the “dry run” and Instagram messages from Mr. Smollett to Abimbola Osundairo shortly before the attack in which the actor provided updates on the timing of his flight back to Chicago.The defense disputed that Mr. Smollett had planned the attack, arguing that both the messages and the footage were evidence that he had been interacting with Abimbola Osundairo because he had been providing the actor with fitness training.Mr. Smollett, 39, who in 2019 was best known for starring in the music-industry drama “Empire,” maintained his innocence during the trial.During seven hours of testimony over two days, he insisted that the attack had occurred as he described. But both prosecutors and Judge Linn had cited Mr. Smollett’s testimony as an aggravating factor that led them to pursue incarceration.Judge Linn called Mr. Smollett’s hours on the witness stand, during which he denied planning the attack, “pure perjury.”Bob Chiarito contributed reporting. More

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      Supreme Court Will Not Review Decision to Overturn Bill Cosby’s Conviction

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      Prosecutors had appealed a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which had overturned the conviction on due process grounds.The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the bid by prosecutors in Pennsylvania to reinstate Bill Cosby’s conviction for sexual assault, a decision that ends the criminal case that had led to imprisonment for the man once known as America’s Dad.In an order issued Monday, the court said, without elaborating, that it had declined to hear the appeal filed by prosecutors last November.The Supreme Court’s decision leaves in place a ruling issued by an appellate court in Pennsylvania last year that had overturned Mr. Cosby’s 2018 conviction on due process grounds, allowing Mr. Cosby, 84, to walk free after serving nearly three years of a three-to-10-year prison sentence.Mr. Cosby had been found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home outside Philadelphia, though his lawyers argued at trial that the encounter, in 2004, had been consensual.The case, one of the first high-profile criminal prosecutions of the #MeToo era, drew widespread attention, in part because of Mr. Cosby’s celebrity and in part because dozens of women had over a period of years leveled similar accusations of sexual abuse against the entertainer. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last June that Mr. Cosby’s due process rights had been violated when the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office pursued a criminal case against him despite what the appellate court found was a binding verbal promise not to prosecute given to him by a previous district attorney.The former district attorney, Bruce L. Castor Jr., who said he believed Ms. Constand but was not sure he could win a conviction, said he had agreed years ago not to press charges against Mr. Cosby to induce him to testify in a civil case brought by Ms. Constand. He said the substance of his promise was contained in a news release he issued at the time that said he found insufficient credible and admissible evidence. But he held out the possibility of a civil action “with a much lower standard of proof.” Ms. Constand later received $3.38 million as part of a settlement in her civil case against Mr. Cosby.During the civil case, Mr. Cosby acknowledged giving narcotics to women as part of an effort to have sex with them, a statement that was later introduced as evidence at Mr. Cosby’s trial.Understand Bill Cosby’s Sexual Assault CaseBill Cosby was released from prison June 30, 2021, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 conviction for sexual assault.Why He Was Released: Here’s a breakdown of the issues surrounding the ruling to overturn the conviction.What Legal Analysts Think: The court’s decision opened an unusually vigorous debate among the legal community.His Uncertain Future: Experts say it’s unlikely the ruling will change the public perception of the former star.The Aftermath: The Times critic Wesley Morris looks at what to do with our fondness for “The Cosby Show,” and W. Kamau Bell’s documentary series contextualizes his legacy.Following Mr. Cosby’s conviction in 2018, an intermediate appeals court in Pennsylvania found that no formal agreement never to prosecute had ever existed, a position that aligned with what the trial court had ruled.But in a 6-to-1 ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that Mr. Cosby had, in fact, relied on Mr. Castor’s assurances that he wouldn’t be prosecuted, and that charging Mr. Cosby and using his testimony concerning drugs at the criminal trial had violated his due process rights.Prosecutors had argued that such a promise had never been made. They said that no one else in the district attorney’s office at the time had been made aware of it and that a news release could not be the basis of a formal immunity agreement.A spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, welcomed the decision Monday, saying in a statement that the entertainer and his family “would like to offer our sincere gratitude to the justices of the United States Supreme Court for following the rules of law and protecting the Constitutional Rights of ALL American Citizens.”Ms. Constand and her lawyers released a statement Monday that criticized the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling, in particular faulting the panel for assuming “there was a valid agreement not to prosecute, which was vigorously disputed in the Habeas proceedings, and determined by the trial judge not to exist.”Andrea Constand and her lawyers have consistently taken issue with the reasoning of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in overturning Mr. Cosby’s conviction.Angela Lewis for The New York TimesThe Montgomery County district attorney, Kevin R. Steele, released a statement in which he expressed his appreciation to Ms. Constand and described petitioning for Supreme Court review as “the right thing to do,” even though there was only a small chance the court would take up the case.“All crime victims deserve to be heard, treated with respect and be supported through their day in court,” the statement continued. “I wish her the best as she moves forward in her life.”Mr. Cosby was first accused in 2005 of having molested Ms. Constand, then an employee of the Temple University basketball team for whom he had become a mentor. The case was reopened in 2015, and Mr. Cosby went through two trials, the first of which ended with a hung jury. The second ended in April 2018, with a jury in Montgomery County convicting Mr. Cosby of three counts of aggravated indecent assault.Both cases were closely watched by many of the women who came forward with similar accusations but statutes of limitations in their cases made further prosecutions unlikely.Mr. Cosby has consistently denied the accusations that he was a sexual predator, suggesting that any encounters were completely consensual.Patricia Leary Steuer, who accused Mr. Cosby of drugging and assaulting her in 1978 and 1980, said in an interview on Monday that she felt “a little let down by the decision” but that “it does not change anything for me and the other survivors” since, she said, public sentiment is on their side.“The survivors did what we were supposed to do which was to come forward and tell the truth and that’s what we did,” she said. “The rest is out of our hands.”Legal experts had predicted it would be unlikely that the Supreme Court, which denies the vast majority of petitions for review, would take up the Cosby case. For one thing, they said, the case involved a unique set of circumstances that did not necessarily raise far-reaching constitutional issues.Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer and former prosecutor who has followed the case, said the Supreme Court typically “looks to determine whether there are compelling issues of constitutional law about which the courts across the country need additional guidance, especially if the case is capable of repetition.”Shan Wu, a former federal prosecutor in Washington, said the Supreme Court likely considered whether its ruling would have the potential for broader significance outside the parameters of this case. “It’s a very unique set of circumstances,” he said. “It’s highly unlikely to be repeated.” More

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      Jussie Smollett Found Guilty: What Comes Next?

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      The actor who was found guilty of falsely telling the police he was the victim of a hate crime faces a possible sentence of up to three years, but experts disagree on whether the judge is likely to incarcerate him.The discussion in the case of Jussie Smollett, the actor convicted on Thursday of falsely reporting he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack, has turned to whether the actor will receive prison time when he is sentenced in several weeks.Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the case, said on Friday that he had not yet decided on what recommendation he would make to the judge but again emphasized how serious he thought the case was. Mr. Webb has pointed in several settings to the social damage caused by faking a hate crime, about the waste of police resources spent on the case and about the consequences of lying to a jury, which found Mr. Smollett guilty after he spent seven hours on the witness stand standing by his account.“It’s fair to say Mr. Smollett is not repentant at all,” Mr. Webb said. “And he doubled down during our trial. I will emphasize those matters as I should.”But some experts said they would find it surprising if Mr. Smollett were to be imprisoned because he was convicted of the lowest level felony offense and has no prior felony convictions.Mr. Smollett’s lead lawyer, Nenye Uche, a former prosecutor who said his client planned to appeal the verdict, echoed that sentiment on Thursday.“I’ve never seen a case like this where the person got jail time,” he said. “And he shouldn’t because he’s innocent.”Mr. Smollett’s lead lawyer, Nenye Uche, speaking to reporters after the verdict on Thursday, surrounded by other members of his defense team.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressMr. Smollett was convicted of five counts of disorderly conduct, which carry a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Even Mr. Webb has acknowledged that those charges don’t typically lead judges to incarcerate people.But he said: “There’s never been a case like this. I don’t know any case in Illinois that involves this criminal misconduct and deceiving police for weeks on end about a hate crime and then compounding it by lying to a jury.”Judge James B. Linn, who is presiding on the case, has the option of sentencing the defendant to just probation or a shorter period of prison time. He agreed on Thursday to release Mr. Smollett while he awaits sentencing.“What I could see happening is probation with a ton of community service hours,” said Michael O’Meara, a criminal defense lawyer who has also worked as a prosecutor, “and just to sting him a bit, maybe some jail time.”The judge will certainly consider Mr. Smollett’s prior criminal infraction, though it was 14 years ago and relatively minor. He was convicted in California of misdemeanor driving under the influence, making false statements to the police and driving without a license. (Mr. Smollett pleaded no contest.)In this instance, it was Mr. Smollett who reported a crime, an attack by two assailants who he said beat him up, yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him, placed a rope around his neck and poured bleach on his clothing in an early morning assault on a frigid day in 2019. But two brothers told the police that Mr. Smollett had directed them to carry out the attack, and he was ultimately charged by a grand jury with lying to the police, a hoax that prosecutors argued had been orchestrated for publicity.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      Jussie Smollett Found Guilty of Reporting a Fake Hate Crime

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      Mr. Smollett was convicted of filing a false police report in 2019 claiming he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack. The jury deliberated for more than nine hours.A jury in Chicago found the actor Jussie Smollett guilty on Thursday of falsely reporting to the police that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic assault in 2019, an attack that investigators concluded was a hoax directed by the actor himself.With its finding, after more than nine hours of deliberation, the 12-person jury indicated it had chosen to believe the accounts of two brothers who testified that Mr. Smollett had asked them to mildly injure him as part of a publicity stunt.Mr. Smollett, wearing a dark gray suit and a blue shirt, sat upright in his chair, hands clasped, staring directly at the jury just after the verdict was read.Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the case, said afterward that Mr. Smollett only made matters worse by continuing to stand by his account at trial.“This jury worked so hard,” Mr. Webb said, “and for Mr. Smollett to come up before them and lie for hours and hours and hours — that really compounded his misconduct.”Jussie Smollett, an actor in the Fox music-industry drama “Empire,” was found guilty of filing a false police report after staging a hate crime against himself.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressThe case dated back to the frigid early hours of Jan. 29, 2019, when Mr. Smollett — known then for his role in the Fox music-industry drama “Empire” — told the police he had been the victim of a hate crime near his apartment building in Chicago. Mr. Smollett said one of his attackers had even yelled, “This is MAGA country.”His account captured the attention of a politically polarized nation concerned with rising hate crime reports and the persistent threat of racism. But public support for Mr. Smollett quickly evaporated when investigators came to the conclusion three weeks later that he had staged the attack on himself.Chicago officials, upset at the amount of police work that was spent on the case, have sued Mr. Smollett to recoup some of the city’s costs. They were similarly critical in 2019 when the office of the city’s top prosecutor, Kim Foxx, who early on had recused herself from the case, citing a potential conflict, quietly dropped the charges in exchange for Mr. Smollett’s agreement to forfeit his $10,000 bond and perform community service.The case was later revived by Mr. Webb, who reviewed that decision and ultimately announced that a grand jury had charged Mr. Smollett with six counts of felony disorderly conduct. Mr. Smollett was convicted on five counts on Thursday, relating to conversations he had with the police just after the attack. He was acquitted on the sixth count, which related to a follow-up conversation with an investigator two weeks later.The actor faces up to three years in prison. The judge did not set a sentencing date and released him on bond.His defense team said Mr. Smollett would appeal.“We remain confident that we’re going to come back and he’s going to be vindicated,” said Nenye Uche, one of the actor’s lawyers.Prosecutors argued in court that Mr. Smollett had instructed two brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, on all of the details of the attack, specifying that they should punch him only hard enough to create a bruise, pour bleach on his clothing and place a rope around his neck like a noose. The prosecutors faulted Mr. Smollett for not cooperating adequately with the investigation by balking at turning over evidence like his cellphone.“Mr. Smollett didn’t want the crime solved,” Mr. Webb said during his closing argument on Wednesday. “He wanted to report it as a hate crime; he wanted media exposure; but he didn’t want the brothers apprehended.”Mr. Webb told the jury that Mr. Smollett staged the attack because he had received a death threat in the mail and was upset by the muted response of the producers behind “Empire,” the television show on which he starred.The defense came forward with a sharply different account of Mr. Smollett’s attitudes and behaviors. The actor had not been upset by the TV studio’s response to the letter, his lawyers said, and had, in fact, turned down its offer to have security drive Mr. Smollett to and from the set. They said the Osundairo brothers were liars who had attacked Mr. Smollett to scare him into hiring them as bodyguards, and who concocted a story to avoid prosecution themselves.Mr. Smollett’s lawyer Mr. Uche argued that prosecutors had not established that the actor had a clear motive for any scheme, and that, in fact, his client had every reason not to have faked an attack.“His lack of motive is pretty obvious: Media attention, he doesn’t like it,” Mr. Uche said. What is more, he said, Mr. Smollett had a music video shoot coming up and could not afford his face getting bruised.Mr. Smollett, 39, took the stand and testified for more than seven hours in an effort to counter the narrative of the brothers, who had detailed how Mr. Smollett planned the attack. He said his interactions with the brothers in the days and hours leading up to the attack had been harmless. A “dry run” in his car that the brothers had described to the jury as a planning exercise two days before the attack was really an aimless drive through Chicago smoking marijuana.But the jury chose to believe the brothers. Abimbola Osundairo, 28, a fitness aficionado who had appeared on “Empire” in minor roles, testified that the planning began when Mr. Smollett, whom he was helping train for the music video, texted him for help with something “on the low.”“He said he wanted me to beat him up,” Mr. Osundairo said of their meeting. “I looked puzzled, and then he explained he wanted me to fake beat him up.”Mr. Osundairo said he agreed to the plan because he felt “indebted” to Mr. Smollett for getting him a role as a stand-in on “Empire.” Olabinjo Osundairo, 30, who had also appeared on “Empire” in minor roles, said he participated to “curry favor” with Mr. Smollett.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More