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Michael Desronvil says attorney Kevin Reddington’s efforts to investigate his conduct during deliberations left him fearing for his personal safety.
The lone juror who refused to find Lindsay Clancy not criminally responsible for murdering her three children has accused defense attorney Kevin Reddington of putting his safety at risk. Michael Desronvil told Fox News he became frightened after Reddington asked the court to investigate his conduct during the seven days of deliberations that ended in a September 4 mistrial. Desronvil was the only member of the 12-person jury who believed Clancy should be held criminally responsible for killing Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in January 2023.
Reddington has requested access to Desronvil’s phone records from the deliberation period and wants him questioned about his answers during jury selection. Desronvil also objected to the attorney referring to him as “he” in court, arguing that the description narrowed his possible identity because the jury consisted of nine women and three men. Although he acknowledged receiving no physical threats, he said the scrutiny made him fear for his safety.
The dispute follows allegations from other jurors that Desronvil ignored evidence of postpartum psychosis and privately acknowledged reasonable doubt before reversing his position. Desronvil rejects those claims, insisting he never doubted Clancy’s criminal responsibility and possessed evidence supporting his vote. He has declined to explain his reasoning fully while legal proceedings continue.
Clancy’s defense argued that severe mental illness prevented her from understanding the wrongfulness of her actions, while prosecutors maintained she deliberately planned the killings and waited until her husband left their Duxbury home. Since the mistrial, Reddington has questioned whether prosecutors proved Clancy killed the children at all, despite the defense previously acknowledging her actions. Clancy is scheduled to return to court November 2, with prosecutors yet to announce whether they will seek another trial.
Hot Take: Eleven jurors went one way. Desronvil went the other, and now the defense wants to rummage through his phone. The jury’s gone home, but somebody’s still looking for a conviction.
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The former Venezuelan president rejected an expanded federal indictment as a Manhattan judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro confronted a Manhattan federal judge Thursday, denouncing new torture allegations against him as “false accusations and false testimony.” Maduro, 63, twice declined to enter a formal plea, prompting Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein to record a not-guilty plea on his behalf. His wife, Cilia Flores, also denied the charges, declaring herself completely innocent.
The rewritten indictment accuses the couple of directing a system of political repression involving beatings, electric shocks, suffocation and threats against prisoners’ families. Prosecutors allege Maduro personally recommended torture methods and received reports about individual detainees, while Flores allegedly helped organize abuses. Both were seized by American military forces during a January operation in Caracas and have challenged the prosecution on immunity grounds.
The case has intensified questions surrounding Washington’s intervention in Venezuela, including the legality of capturing a foreign head of state and the strategic importance of the country’s vast oil reserves. Maduro’s attorneys maintain the charges are unfounded, while federal prosecutors are pursuing the torture allegations alongside an existing drug trafficking case. The trial is scheduled to begin June 14, 2027, with another pretrial hearing set for December 17.
Hot Take: The Americans dragged Maduro out of Caracas, put him in shackles and added another indictment. The lawyers will argue about torture and immunity. Nobody’s putting Venezuela’s oil reserves in the evidence locker.
The Kentucky Republican says Congress will face votes on both controversies after the midterm elections, regardless of objections from House leadership.
Rep. Thomas Massie has threatened to force House votes on impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and releasing additional Jeffrey Epstein records when Congress returns after November’s elections. The Kentucky Republican accused Speaker Mike Johnson of sending lawmakers home to avoid confronting the two controversies, warning that neither would disappear during the recess.
Massie introduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth in September, accusing him of conducting military operations without congressional authorization. The allegations concern the war with Iran, strikes on suspected drug traffickers, the capture of Nicolás Maduro and alleged retaliation against Sen. Mark Kelly. Hegseth and the Pentagon dispute the accusations, while Johnson has dismissed the impeachment effort as a political stunt.
Massie is also demanding greater compliance with legislation requiring disclosure of the Epstein files, arguing that millions of documents remain withheld or improperly redacted. The Justice Department maintains it has fulfilled its legal obligations. Having lost his Republican primary, Massie is due to leave Congress in January, leaving him a narrow window to force the votes.
Hot Take: Massie’s leaving Congress, but he’s got two last headaches for the speaker: Hegseth and Epstein. Johnson sent everybody home. The skeletons stayed in Washington.
Former agents and analysts allege they were dismissed for investigating Trump’s handling of classified records, despite collectively possessing more than a century of federal service.
Nine former FBI employees have sued Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Todd Blanche, accusing the administration of unlawfully firing them over their involvement in the investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Washington, alleges political retaliation and violations of due process, seeking reinstatement and back pay.
The employees worked on the investigation code-named “Plasmic Echo,” which examined classified materials retained at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after his first presidency. According to the complaint, their names were identified through internal case records before they were dismissed in February. Termination letters accused them of poor judgment and contributing to the political weaponization of the FBI, allegations the plaintiffs reject.
The nine collectively accumulated more than 100 years of FBI service, including work on counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations. Their attorneys argue that the dismissals disrupted sensitive national security cases and punished employees for carrying out assigned duties. The Trump documents prosecution was dismissed in 2024 after a judge ruled that special counsel Jack Smith had been unlawfully appointed.
Hot Take: Nine FBI veterans investigated Trump’s documents and wound up losing their badges. Now they’re suing the man who fired them. Funny how quickly the hunters become the hunted when a new sheriff takes the office.
The Bureau of Prisons says reports of a violent confrontation with Christopher “Dudus” Coke are false, contradicting earlier accounts of the rapper’s mysterious injury.
Sean “Diddy” Combs’ family and federal prison officials have denied reports that the jailed music mogul suffered a head injury during a fight with convicted Jamaican drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke. The denials follow conflicting accounts of Combs’ reported emergency medical treatment after an incident at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey on October 10.
Entertainment journalist Loren LoRosa told The Breakfast Club that a member of Combs’ family insisted no confrontation occurred, questioning how the prisoners could have encountered one another while housed in separate sections of the facility. The Federal Bureau of Prisons separately told TMZ that the reported fight was false and did not happen. Earlier reports had blamed the injury on either a collision with an upper bunk or an altercation with Coke.
Combs’ relatives remain uncertain about the precise circumstances of his injury but say he returned to prison after receiving medical attention. They have also questioned how information about his reported hospital visit reached the press. Combs is serving a 50-month sentence for prostitution-related transportation offenses, with his projected release date currently listed as March 2, 2028.
Hot Take: First it was the bunk bed. Then it was a Jamaican drug lord. Now the prison says there was no fight, and the only thing taking a beating is the truth.
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