State Champ Radio District Attorney Alvin Bragg
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: YUKI IWAMURA / Getty
The sentencing of Jonathan Majors has been moved up to April, with the potential of one year in jail for the actor looming as a possibility.
On Tuesday (Feb. 6), Judge Michael Gaffey informed the legal team defending actor Jonathan Majors and the prosecution that he expects Majors to be present in court April 8 to hear his sentence, Deadline reported. Majors was convicted Dec. 18, 2023, on the charges of reckless assault and harassment of his former girlfriend, Grace Jabbari.
The Creed III actor, originally slated to appear in person, appeared virtually in court. The delay in the sentencing was due to the defense filing a motion to set aside the verdict. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has until March 5 to respond to the motion, known as a “330.30 motion,” referencing New York State criminal law. It’s considered a long-shot filing by legal observers.
The motion, which consists of 41 pages, was made public Wednesday (Feb. 9), according to Business Insider. In it, the actor is seeking for the verdict to be put aside citing two factors: a lack of sufficient evidence concerning the reckless assault and harassment charges and a reversible judicial error with regards to the charge of reckless assault.
Priya Chaudhry, Majors’ lead defense attorney, claims that prosecutors “bookended the trial with loud accusations of a deliberate pattern of intentional bad conduct by Mr. Majors,” also claiming that Judge Gaffney improperly gave jurors a choice of charging that Majors injured Jabbari intentionally or recklessly.
A spokesperson for Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg sent a statement to the press, saying: “The Court has already heard and rejected the arguments supporting this motion when the defense originally raised them during the trial. The jury then convicted Mr. Majors of Assault in the 3rd Degree and Harassment in the 2nd Degree. We will respond in detail in court papers.”
The once highly sought-after actor, who was fired by Marvel as the face of Kang the Conqueror after the verdict came down, faces one year in prison for the charges. Judge Gaffney said that he intended to make a ruling on the case by April 1 before adjourning.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Rawf8 / Getty
Justice arrived for two New York City men who had their names cleared after being falsely convicted of murder and jailed.
On Monday (November 27), the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg asked judges to vacate the convictions of two men, Wayne Gardine and Jabar Walker. Both cases were found to have gotten convictions on the two men due to suspicious police work and witnesses who were found to have lied after the cases were investigated again by the Innocence Project and the Legal Aid Society, respectively.
The cases were linked to the notorious 30th Precinct in Harlem, which was previously so rife with corruption in the 1990s that it became known as the “Dirty 30.” Walker was arrested after a witness (who later recanted claiming police pressure) claimed he fatally shot two men in 1994 and offered a plea deal by then-Manhattan DA Bob Morgenthau. Walker would turn it down citing his innocence and would be sentenced to 50 years in 1998. Gardine was also sentenced in 1994 after two witnesses claimed he murdered someone – one of the witnesses would confess later that he was pressured to lie by his boss, who was friends with the victim. The 49-year-old Gardine would serve 28 years of his sentence before coming up for deportation back to his native Jamaica.
The two cases came under the purview of the Post-Conviction Justice Unit launched by Bragg since he took office last year. Since its creation, over 500 cases have been vacated, with the majority being tied to police misconduct. It’s also compelled other city district attorneys to put together similar units. The legal teams for Walker and Gardine had no comment on whether both men intended to file civil lawsuits over their unjust convictions.
The 51-year-old Walker was present in the Manhattan courtroom when the decision was announced, shedding a tear. “I’m trying to process it right now,” Walker said to the press afterward, surrounded by his parents and family. “It feels real good to be out.” Gardine heard of his conviction being vacated through video conferencing while still in federal immigration detention in New Jersey. “It’s a horrible position to put someone in who has been wrongfully convicted. He spent nearly 30 years behind bars, and he’s still not free. It’s a very bittersweet ending to this story,” said Lou Fox, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Wrongful Conviction Unit.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Scott Olson / Getty
Political allies of former President Donald Trump have begun attacking New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg by making false claims about his ties to political donor George Soros.
As the former president is facing an indictment from a grand jury convened by the Manhattan District Attorney, Republican politicians have initiated a stream of attacks following his lead against Bragg on social media. In a post on his TruthSocial network on Monday (March 20th), he wrote: “Alvin Bragg received in EXCESS OF ONE MILLION DOLLARS from the Radical Left Enemy of ‘TRUMP,’ George Soros.”
The attack was echoed by other right-wingers such as J.D. Vance, the freshman senator from Ohio who has been an ardent Trump supporter over the past year despite prior misgivings. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio has expressed a desire to have Bragg testify before a House committee about the investigation.
There is a link between the district attorney and Soros, who has been attacked for years by right-wing politicians and conspiracy theorists for his donations to Democratic candidates with many noting these attacks based on antisemitism as the Hungarian-born billionaire is Jewish. But an examination of campaign records shows no impropriety.
The connection dates back to when Bragg first campaigned to be district attorney. He was endorsed by the progressive criminal justice group Color of Change in 2021. The group intended to spend $1 million on voter turnout efforts for him and did not directly contribute to his campaign. Soros would donate that amount to Color of Change in May of that year, one of a number of donations that he made personally and through his Democracy PAC political action committee. Color of Change would ultimately spend $500,000 in contributions backing Bragg’s campaign, 11 percent of its $4.6 million spent during that campaign year.
“George Soros and Alvin Bragg have never met in person or spoken by telephone, email, Zoom, etc.,” Mr. Vachon said. “There has been no contact between the two.” It is noted that his son, Jonathan, and his wife did donate $20,000 to Bragg’s campaign directly before Bragg won the Democratic primary for the D.A.’s office in 2021.
Despite those facts, GOP politicians aren’t letting up in their attacks on Bragg. Color of Change President Rashad Robinson highlighted the racism and anti-semitism behind those smears in a thread on his Twitter account. “Make no mistake, over the next couple of days as more news about potential consequences for Trump circulates, we will see a flood of anti-Black and anti-Semitic attacks from the former President and his supporters and enablers,” he wrote last weekend.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Joe Raedle / Getty
As former president Donald Trump is facing the strong possibility of being indicted, three Black prosecutors are notably at the forefront of the fight to hold him accountable for his misdeeds.
On Saturday morning (March 18), Trump declared on social media that he would be indicted as early as Tuesday (March 20), referring to the grand jury being convened in New York investigating his hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels as a violation of election law. His words placed a huge spotlight on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is overseeing the case. Bragg is one of three Black lawmakers, recently spotlighted by Capital B News, who stand out for their efforts to have the former president answer for a slew of alleged crimes.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has been steadfast in filing cases through her office against the policies of Trump’s administration. Her office filed a $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against the Trump Organization last September. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office have also dominated national coverage as they are weighing an indictment against Trump and his cronies for attempting to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in Georgia during the 2020 election. Her meticulous investigation has led observers to speculate that a decision is expected within the next few weeks, and a grand jury has already recommended multiple indictments for his allies.
Each prosecutor carries a long and robust career as well as a reputation for being tough as nails. Their work has earned them the ire of Republicans on the state and federal levels. GOP legislators in Georgia introduced a bill earlier this year that would create a committee to discipline elected local prosecutors or force them out. “I’m tired, and I’m just going to call it how I see it,” Willis said of the bill, noting that the number of minority prosecutors in Georgia went from five to 14 in 2020. “I, quite frankly, think the legislation is racist. I don’t know what other thing to call it.”
Bragg has been severely criticized for his policies since taking office, which are in tune with the movement for more progressive and ethical reform of the criminal justice system. Trump has repeatedly demonized Bragg, calling for his arrest. Bragg has remained silent publicly, but in an internal memo said that his office “will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly.” And James has also been under fire for her investigations into Trump and his affairs with Eric Trump calling her “the most corrupt attorney general in New York History” and “an embarrassment to prosecutors across this country.”
-
Pages
