News briefs
Boy accused of killing stepsister on cruise ship is free, but judge to talk to US Marshals
MIAMI - A federal judge in Miami on Wednesday allowed a teen boy charged with sexually assaulting and killing his 18-year-old stepsister on a cruise ship to remain free for now as the judge considers whether to hold him in a juvenile facility.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres initially ruled in February that Timothy Hudson, 16, who was arrested and charged as a juvenile, could live with an uncle in the Tampa area under electronic monitoring. But after a federal grand jury indicted Hudson on charges of murder and aggravated sexual abuse in March, prosecutors sought to place him in custody.
The judge ended the hearing without making a final decision, saying he wanted to speak with the U.S. Marshals Service about the logistics of detaining Hudson in Central Florida, near his family, versus Miami, the site of his trial.
Federal prosecutor Alejandra Lopez urged Torres to detain the stepbrother of Anna Kepner, who was found dead on a Carnival Cruise liner in November after they shared a cabin.
Lopez argued that Hudson "is a danger to others and should be held in pretrial detention" because he's no longer being prosecuted as a juvenile.
She asked Torres to reconsider his February decision to release Hudson when he was still charged as a juvenile. He was allowed to remain free in the custody of his uncle, but circumstances have dramatically changed now that the teen faces life in prison after a Miami grand jury charged him as an adult.
The teen pleaded not guilty to the two charges in the indictment in April. Hudson, who is represented by the federal public defender's office, is scheduled for trial in early September after his lawyers sought a three-month continuance citing the prosecution's "voluminous" evidence.
Hudson is accused of killing and raping Kepner, whose body was found underneath a bed in her stateroom by cleaning staff aboard the Carnival Horizon on Nov. 7, one day before the ship docked at PortMiami.
-Miami Herald
Matthew Perry's trusted assistant gets more than 3 years in prison for the actor's death
LOS ANGELES - A former live-in assistant to Matthew Perry was sentenced Wednesday to three years and five months in prison for distributing the ketamine that caused the actor's death.
Kenneth Iwamasa, who previously made $150,000 a year working for Perry, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death. He admitted to repeatedly injecting Perry, 54, with ketamine without medical training, including multiple injections on Oct. 28, 2023 - the day of Perry's death.
Perry, who had a history of drug abuse and addiction, was found dead in the hot tub of his Pacific Palisades home from acute effects of the drug. Iwamasa was among five people charged in connection with Perry's death and is the final one to be sentenced.
The judge ordered Iwamasa to self surrender by July 17.
"Your conduct was reckless, not just on the day of his death, but leading up to his death," U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett told Iwamasa, as she handed down her sentence.
While prosecutors noted in their sentencing memo that Iwamasa was the first defendant to cooperate against the others, they asked the judge to sentence him to more than three years in prison. They cited the former assistant's responsibility for Perry's medical care, knowledge of the actor's addiction struggles and steps to remove and destroy evidence following Perry's death.
"As defendant watched Perry spiral into darkness, he could have taken steps at any point to pull Perry back into the light," prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo.
"Defendant could have contacted Mr. Perry's family members or sought professional help to address Perry's drug relapse, or he could have simply said ‘no' when Perry asked for another ketamine injection. But he chose not to help, and instead concealed the ongoing danger to Mr. Perry, which ultimately resulted in his death."
It's unclear what sentence Iwamasa's attorneys are requesting.
-Los Angeles Times
$4 million for Groveland Four families comes after decades of fighting for justice
ORLANDO, Fla. - A $4 million fund negotiated by state lawmakers for relatives of the Groveland Four, the quartet of Lake County Black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in 1949, culminates a long battle to come to terms with a dark moment in Florida history.
The money would go to the families of Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, Charles Greenlee and Ernest Thomas. It was OK'd Sunday as part of the budget package for the coming fiscal year and is slated for a vote Friday.
The Groveland Four case had long been ignored until the 2012 publication of "Devil In The Grove," a Pulitzer Prize-winning book that brought national attention to that dark period of Lake County's history.
In 2019, the men were posthumously pardoned and a memorial was unveiled at the historic courthouse in Tavares. It would take another two years before a Lake County judge officially exonerated them.
The men were accused by 17-year-old Norma Padgett of raping her in the backseat of her and her husband's car on July 16, 1949. She claimed the couple was approached while their car was broken down on a dark stretch of road near Okahumpka, and said her husband Willlie had been beaten and robbed. She stood by her claims to police until her death in Georgia in 2024 at the age of 92.
While authors and historians have suggested the story was fabricated to cover up the couple's volatile relationship, the white lynch mob that gathered within hours from across Central Florida prompted an exodus of many of Groveland's Black families, with many never to return. The mob burned and looted Shepherd's home while attacking surrounding homes and businesses.
That terror and the presence of the Ku Klux Klan, which littered the streets with pamphlets amid the fallout of Padgett's accusations, prompted the governor to call in the National Guard to quell the violence.
Deputies seeking confessions beat Shepherd and Irvin, both 22, and Greenlee, 16, in the basement of the county jail. Meanwhile, a lynch mob formed by the notorious Lake County lawman, Sheriff Willis McCall, shot Thomas, 26, hundreds of times and killed him in a Panhandle encounter, as Thomas tried to flee the state days after Padgett's accusations.
Tried by an all-white jury, the three surviving men were convicted based on fabricated evidence and perjured testimony by prosecution witnesses. Irvin and Shepherd got death sentences while Greenlee was sentenced to life.
-Orlando Sentinel
Spanish police search Socialist Party HQ in widening graft probe
Spanish police seized information from the ruling Socialist Party's headquarters, as part of a broad criminal investigation that's gripping the country and roiling the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Officers of the Civil Guard, one of the country's main security forces, entered the party's main office in Madrid early Wednesday to request that certain information be handed over, according to public TV broadcaster RTVE. The party is collaborating fully with the police, party spokesperson Montserrat Mínguez said in an interview with Catalunya Radio.
The search is the latest development in a series of high-profile criminal investigations hitting people close to the government, including at least one former minister and former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero - who is also highly popular among Socialist grassroots. Wednesday's search is linked to a corruption case involving a former high-ranking member of the party.
The image of police searching a party's office carries special symbolism in Spanish politics with Sánchez's government having over the years repeatedly criticized the center-right People's Party for its history with slush funds. In 2013, the PP's headquarters was searched by police as part of a graft investigation.
In 2018, Sánchez led the first ever successful no-confidence vote to remove the PP from government. At the time, he based a large part of his bid to lead the country on anti-corruption pledges, and the 2013 raid was a crucial element of his campaign.
Although the PP and other opposition parties have said Sánchez should call elections given the number of open criminal investigations, so far the PP has not said it plans to seek a no-confidence vote. The PP is the largest party in parliament, but needs support from others to form a majority to govern.
-Bloomberg News
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This story was originally published May 27, 2026 at 7:58 PM.