New Jersey
Lawyer tied to rapes by DNA left on drinking glass is accused of 5 more attacks
A New Jersey lawyer recently charged with sexually assaulting four women in Boston 15 years ago — attacks he was linked to by DNA he left on a drinking glass — has been indicted on suspicion of five additional attacks during the same time period.
Matthew Nilo, 35, was indicted Tuesday on seven charges stemming from five attacks on four women in Boston’s North End, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden. The attacks happened between January 2007 and July 2008 while the victims were walking alone in the dark, either at night or early in the morning, Hayden said. One woman was attacked twice, 11 days apart, he said in a news release.
“This case demonstrates that no attack will go uninvestigated, no suspect will go unpursued, and no amount of time will insulate a criminal from a crime,” he said.
Nilo’s attorney, Joseph Cataldo, did not respond to a phone message Wednesday.
Nilo, of Weehawken, New Jersey, was arrested in late May and pleaded not guilty this month to three counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping, one count of assault with intent to rape, and one count of indecent assault and battery. Those charges stem from four attacks in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood from August 2007 through December 2008 — when, authorities say, Nilo lived in the city.
Prosecutors have said Nilo was tied to those attacks through DNA obtained from a drinking glass he used at a corporate function this year. Cataldo has questioned the legality of taking DNA without a warrant.
The new indictments charge Nilo with one count of rape, one count of aggravated rape, three counts of assault with intent to rape and two counts of indecent assault and battery.
Nilo, who was released on bail this month, is due in court on the new charges July 13.
New Jersey
Man who tried to have child-porn victim killed is headed to prison
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man has been sentenced to more than six years in federal prison after exchanging sexually explicit videos and images with a 13-year-old New York girl and later paying $20,000 in bitcoin to have her killed, eventually calling it off.
John Michael Musbach, 34, of Haddonfield, received his 78-month prison term Tuesday during a court hearing in Camden, according to federal prosecutors. He will also have to serve three years of supervised release after prison.
Musbach pleaded guilty in February to using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire plot.
He began communicating online with the girl in 2015 and eventually began using those chats to request and receive sexually explicit videos and photographs of the girl, and send her similar videos and images of himself. The girl’s parents discovered the nature of the chats and notified law enforcement in New York state, where they lived.
Musbach was arrested on child pornography charges in March 2016 and pleaded guilty to child endangerment in October 2017. He received a two-year suspended prison sentence and was placed on lifetime parole.
In May 2016, Musbach started communicating with the administrator of a murder-for-hire site on the darknet, while his criminal case was pending, officials have said. After asking whether the girl was too young to target and being told the age wasn’t a problem, prosecutors said, Musbach paid about $20,000 in bitcoin for the hit.
When pressed for an additional $5,000 to secure the hit, Musbach eventually sought to cancel and asked for a refund of his $20,000. The website’s administrator then revealed the site was a scam and threatened to reveal Musbach’s information to law enforcement.
Federal prosecutors have not said how the plot was uncovered. But during his indictment in 2020, prosecutors said an informant gave the Department of Homeland Security messages between Musbach and the fake website for contract killings.
Washington
Rudy Giuliani interviewed in Jan. 6 probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rudy Giuliani, who as a member of Donald Trump’s legal team sought to overturn 2020 presidential election results in battleground states, was interviewed recently by investigators with the Justice Department special counsel’s office.
A spokesman for Giuliani confirmed he met with the special counsel. “The appearance was entirely voluntary and conducted in a professional manner,” Ted Goodman said in a statement.
A person familiar with the matter said the interview was not done before a grand jury. The person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, would not say what questions investigators asked.
The interview is an additional sign of busy investigative activity by special counsel Jack Smith as his team of prosecutors scrutinizes efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the results of the election in the weeks before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
Smith filed a separate case earlier this month charging Trump with illegally retaining classified documents at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.
As a lawyer for Trump, Giuliani pushed bogus legal challenges to the presidential election results. The legal team filed lawsuits in battleground states raising unsupported claims of vast election fraud even though officials, including Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, said no such pervasive problems existed.
Giuliani’s efforts have made him a key figure in investigations. He was interviewed last year by a House committee that investigated the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack and by prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, who have been investigating efforts to subvert that state’s election.
Justice Department prosecutors have for months now been examining what role Trump legal advisers played in working to undo the election. Last July, John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who aided Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results, reported that federal agents had seized his phone.
A spokesman for the special counsel’s office did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
CNN first reported the interview with Giuliani.
Arizona
State pauses $15M for rodeo after residents file lawsuit
PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona state budget item giving $15.3 million to a rodeo in Prescott has spurred a lawsuit by two city residents and a legal rights group who claim the Arizona Constitution bans such spending.
Howard Mechanic and retired Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Ralph Hess filed the lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court last week with help from the nonpartisan legal advocacy group Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, The Arizona Republic reported.
Lawyers for Attorney General Kris Mayes and Treasurer Kimberly Yee in court Tuesday agreed to halt the spending until the lawsuit’s resolution.
The lawsuit says the planned payout would violate the law and that Mechanic and Hess — as taxpayers — will suffer a financial loss by sharing in the “burden for replenishing ... wrongful and illegal expenditures.”
The payment is in conflict with of the state constitution’s gift clause, which bars government entities from giving money to private companies or people without direct benefits to taxpayers, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says the state failed to meet the two basic criteria of the gift clause: A gift must serve a public purpose, and the state must account for the gift’s direct benefits to the state.
The budget item also would violate the constitution’s directive that when spending doesn’t go to state agencies, public schools or to pay down state debt, lawmakers must list its purpose in a separate bill, according to the suit.
State Rep. Quang Nguyen, R-Prescott Valley, who helped direct the funds to the rodeo, said legislative attorneys OK’d the expenditure.
Spokespeople for both the Senate and House, which approved the budget before Gov. Katie Hobbs signed it, agreed, saying all budget expenditures were checked for possible gift clause violations.
Nguyen declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Danny Adelman, executive director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, told The Arizona Republic earlier this month that the center saw the rodeo payment as potentially problematic.
“These are important provisions to protect taxpayers,” he told the newspaper this week. “It’s important that they’re complied with.”
The subsidy was one of a list of cash giveaways included in the $17.8 billion state budget signed into law by the Democratic governor last month after private negotiations with Republican legislative leaders. Democratic and Republican lawmakers were allowed to divide $2.5 billion in surplus money for their priorities, a plan meant to encourage bipartisan support for the budget.
The rodeo money was an unwanted surprise for some Prescott-area residents, who had already questioned the rodeo’s expansion plans. The money would accelerate those plans, which opponents think could disturb residents with more traffic and noise.
Nguyen said he believes that enhancing the long-running rodeo — billed as the “world’s oldest” — would boost tax revenue and tourism in the northern Arizona city.
Ron Owsley, president of the nonprofit that operates the rodeo, has said the money would go to renovations that would bring a return to the state’s investment. He confirmed, however, that no written contracts or promises of benefits were linked to receiving the money.
A finding that the rodeo handout violates the gift and appropriations laws could affect other budget items including $1 million to horse-racing track Turf Paradise, $10 million for the International Dark Sky Discovery Center, and $5.6M for the nonprofit Lowell Observatory.
“We expect to win the case, but we also expect that there would be long-term, positive effects in reducing the number of gifts that the state has been giving out,” Mechanic said.
Florida
Woman pleads guilty to taking part Jan. 6 attack
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Florida woman has pleaded guilty to participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol following a rally held by then-President Donald Trump.
Corinne Montoni, 33, of Lakeland, pleaded guilty Monday to felony civil disorder in District of Columbia federal court, according to court records. She faces up to five years in prison at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Sept. 28.
Montoni was arrested in March 2021.
According to court documents, Montoni joined with others objecting to Democratic President Joe Biden’s election victory over the Republican Trump. A mob attacked the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying election results, authorities said. Five people died in the violence.
Montoni unlawfully entered the Capitol through a broken door next to the Senate wing door on the west side of the building, prosecutors said. She made her way to the Capitol crypt, where she took several videos with her cell phone, including one video posted to her Instagram account in which she states, “We’re in the Capitol cuz this is our house – we paid for this, and they’re trying to steal it from us. Let’s go!”
According to court documents, Montoni posted on social media throughout the day about her experiences at the Capitol. On her Parler account, she wrote, “WE BREACHED THE CAPITOL OMG”; On her Facebook account, she wrote, “We are DONE with these traitors. Today, we showed them how done we are. The Capitol building belongs to Us, we the people. This is our house.”.
