Indiana men get 220 years each for quadruple homicide, apartment robbery

Two men convicted of murder and other charges in the fatal Indianapolis shootings of three young men and a young woman were both sentenced Friday to 220 years in prison.

Cameron Banks and Desmond Banks were sentenced after being convicted in early March of four counts each of murder, felony murder and robbery resulting in serious bodily injury following a five-day trial.

A third co-defendant, Lasean Watkins, was convicted on the same charges, but his Friday sentencing was reset for April 28 and he was appointed a new attorney.

4 INDIANAPOLIS TEENS CHARGED WITH SHOOTING, KILLING 4 PEOPLE IN RANSACKED APARTMENT

The charges stem from the February 2020 shooting deaths of three men — Marcel Wills, 20; Braxton Ford, 21; and Jalen Roberts, 19 — and a woman, Kimari Hunt, 21. The victims’ bodies were found in a ransacked Indianapolis apartment.

Two Indiana men were sentenced to 220 years each in prison for their roles in a 2020 quadruple homicide.

Two Indiana men were sentenced to 220 years each in prison for their roles in a 2020 quadruple homicide.

“This case serves as a tragic reminder of the lasting effects of gun violence,” Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said in a statement announcing Friday’s sentences.

SUSPECT IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER INDIANAPOLIS POLICE SHOOTING

WXIN-TV reported that Cameron Banks and Desmond Banks are brothers and that they, Watkins and another suspect ransacked the apartment and cleaned out a safe after more than 50 rounds were fired inside it during the killings.

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A fourth suspect, Rodrience Anderson, pleaded guilty last October to four counts of robbery resulting in serious bodily injury while agreeing to cooperate with the prosecution. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 3.

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Most Wanted fugitive couple arrested in Mexico; five missing children recovered


Los Angeles
CNN
 — 

Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of child violence that may be disturbing.

Two Washington state fugitives wanted on murder and multiple child abuse charges have been arrested in Mexico, the US Marshals Service announced Friday, noting it was the first case involving a couple being placed on the agency’s Top 15 Most Wanted fugitives list.

Edgar Salvador Casian-Garcia, 34, and his girlfriend, Araceli Medina, 38, were taken into custody last week by Mexican officials, the Marshals Service said, after being charged in Franklin County, Washington, with aggravated murder, four counts of child rape, and child assault.

During the arrest, Mexican officials also recovered five of the couple’s children who had been listed as missing and endangered. The children were returned to the United States and placed in protective custody, the US Marshals said.

CNN is attempting to locate attorney information for Casian-Garcia and Medina, who remain in Mexico, pending extradition according to US investigators.

“We are so thankful that all five missing children have been rescued safely,” said John Bischoff, vice president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “The charges against Araceli Medina and Edgar Casian-Garcia are heinous and we commend the unwavering dedication of law enforcement.”

The criminal charges came after two of Casian-Garcia’s daughters, age 3 and 8, were found abandoned in Tijuana, Mexico, in late 2020.

“Both girls showed signs of severe physical and sexual abuse,” said the US Marshals. “Subsequent forensic interviews done with both girls determined that Casian-Garcia and Medina had likely been abusing and sex trafficking the children.”

According to police in Pasco, Washington, the remains of the girls’ 7-year-old brother were later discovered in early 2022 by hikers in rural Washington. Authorities said they suspect the boy was tortured to death and his body dumped.

The US Marshals said they believe Casian-Garcia and Medina fled to Mexico after learning they would be charged in the case. A reward of up to $25,000 had previously been announced by the agency for information leading to their arrest.

“The advances in technology used by law enforcement, combined with assistance from our federal partners — in this case the US Marshals — were instrumental,” Pasco Police Chief Ken Roske told CNN, adding the suspected murder and assaults have been tragic for his community. “I’m thankful the rest of the siblings have been rescued and are safe now.”

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Team maps 85,000 volcanoes on Venus

Scientists have created a new map of 85,000 volcanoes on Venus.

“This paper provides the most comprehensive map of all volcanic edifices on Venus ever compiled,” says Paul Byrne, an associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

“It provides researchers with an enormously valuable database for understanding volcanism on that planet—a key planetary process, but for Venus is something about which we know very little, even though it’s a world about the same size as our own.”

Byrne and Rebecca Hahn, a graduate student in earth and planetary sciences, used radar imagery from NASA’s Magellan mission to Venus to catalog volcanoes across the planet at a global scale. Their resulting database contains 85,000 volcanoes, about 99% of which are less than 3 miles (5 km) in diameter.

The map shows the surface of Venus dotted with different icons indicated different volcanoes. The key shows triangles in different colors to denote the different sizes of volcanoes, a black dot for deformed volcanoes, and a yellow rectangle for volcanic fields.
The map of volcanic edifices on Venus. (Credit: Rebecca Hahn/Washington U. in St. Louis)

“Since NASA’s Magellan mission in the 1990s, we’ve had numerous major questions about Venus’ geology, including its volcanic characteristics,” Byrne says. “But with the recent discovery of active volcanism on Venus, understanding just where volcanoes are concentrated on the planet, how many there are, how big they are, etc., becomes all the more important—especially since we’ll have new data for Venus in the coming years.”

“We came up with this idea of putting together a global catalog because no one’s done it at this scale before,” says Hahn, first author of the paper in JGR Planets. “It was tedious, but I had experience using ArcGIS software, which is what I used to build the map. That tool wasn’t available when these data first became available back in the ’90s. People back then were manually hand-drawing circles around the volcanoes, when I can just do it on my computer.”

“This new database will enable scientists to think about where else to search for evidence of recent geological activity,” says Byrne, who is a faculty fellow of the university’s McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences. “We can do it either by trawling through the decades-old Magellan data (as the new Science paper did) or by analyzing future data and comparing it with Magellan data.”

Smaller volcanoes on Venus

The new study includes detailed analyses of where volcanoes are, where and how they’re clustered, and how their spatial distributions compare with geophysical properties of the planet such as crustal thickness.

Taken together, the work provides the most comprehensive understanding of Venus’ volcanic properties—and perhaps of any world’s volcanism so far.

That’s because, although we know a great deal about the volcanoes on Earth that are on land, there are still likely a great many yet to be discovered under the oceans. Lacking oceans of its own, Venus’ entire surface can be viewed with Magellan radar imagery.

Although there are volcanoes across almost the entire surface of Venus, the scientists found relatively fewer volcanoes in the 20-100 km diameter range, which may be a function of magma availability and eruption rate, they surmise.

Byrne and Hahn also wanted to take a closer look at smaller volcanoes on Venus, those less than 3 miles across that have been overlooked by previous volcano hunters.

“They’re the most common volcanic feature on the planet: they represent about 99% of my dataset,” Hahn says. “We looked at their distribution using different spatial statistics to figure out whether the volcanoes are clustered around other structures on Venus, or if they’re grouped in certain areas.”

Venus missions ahead

The new volcanoes dataset is publicly available for other scientists to use.

“We’ve already heard from colleagues that they’ve downloaded the data and are starting to analyze it—which is exactly what we want,” Byrne says. “Other people will come up with questions we haven’t, about volcano shape, size, distribution, timing of activity in different parts of the planet, you name it. I’m excited to see what they can figure out with the new database!”

And if 85,000 volcanoes on Venus seems like a large number, Hahn says it’s actually conservative. She believes there are hundreds of thousands of additional geologic features that have some volcanic properties lurking on the surface of Venus. They’re just too small to get picked up.

“A volcano 1 kilometer in diameter in the Magellan data would be 7 pixels across, which is really hard to see,” Hahn says. “But with improved resolution, we could be able to resolve those structures.”

And it’s exactly that kind of data that future missions to Venus will acquire in the 2030s.

“NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency) are each sending a mission to Venus in the early 2030s to take high-resolution radar images of the surface,” Byrne says. “With those images, we’ll be able to search for those smaller volcanoes we predict are there.

“This is one of the most exciting discoveries we’ve made for Venus—with data that are decades old!” Byrne says. “But there are still a huge number of questions we have for Venus that we can’t answer, for which we have to get into the clouds and onto the surface.

“We’re just getting started,” he says.

Source: Washington University in St. Louis

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Trump's indictment rests on this bizarre legal theory and has three major flaws

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The indictment of former President Donald Trump reportedly handed down by a Manhattan grand jury is sealed, so we don’t know the precise legal charges against the former president. However, based on leaks to the media from sources within the district attorney’s office, we can draw some reasoned conclusions. 

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has cobbled together a novel, if not bizarre, legal theory of intertwining offenses. It is doubtful that his case can withstand judicial scrutiny, assuming the judge who presides over the matter is objective and neutral. 

The defense will surely file a motion to dismiss by arguing that the case is not supported by the law and that the alleged facts do not amount to a crime.     

The district attorney accuses Trump of falsifying business records in the accounting of a payment made to porn actress, Stormy Daniels. By taking that dubious misdemeanor and coupling it with a purported campaign finance violation, Bragg seeks to elevate it into a felony. The law does not permit such arrant manipulations.

TRUMP INDICTED AFTER MANHATTAN DA PROBE FOR HUSH MONEY PAYMENTS

It is doubtful that the prosecutor will argue a state campaign crime because the 2016 presidential election was for federal office. At the same time, Bragg cannot cite a federal campaign violation because a local prosecutor can only charge under state statutes. 

Regardless, the prosecution of Trump is likely barred by the statute of limitations. The misdemeanor is two years, while the felony is five years. Neither can be tolled or paused under a strict reading of New York law. Trump may have been outside of the state’s jurisdiction during much of the past seven years, but his whereabouts were well known, and he maintained his residency in New York while president, visiting it regularly. Hence, it is unlikely that the two statutes of limitations can extend beyond their expiration.

Bragg had no access to evidence, yet he prejudged an indictment that had not been brought and pre-ordained the grand jury’s outcome. The district attorney now wants to engineer a conviction by contorting the law.

Apart from the procedural obstacles, the merits of Bragg’s case are equally flawed. First, non-disclosure agreements in exchange for money are perfectly legal. Second, it would have to be shown that Trump himself was involved in falsifying records. Third, Bragg would have to prove that Trump not only understood the complex and convoluted campaign laws that few people comprehend but that he intended to violate them.

UNPRECEDENTED TRUMP INDICTMENT EVISCERATED AS ‘LEGALLY PATHETIC’

The Department of Justice previously examined the Daniels payment and concluded there was no crime. So did the Federal Election Commission (FEC). 

Why? Because the law does not regard such transactions as campaign donations. Even in the absence of a personal or commercial purpose —which Trump asserts— it still does not count as a contribution.  

Bragg’s attempt to criminalize the Stormy Daniels episode is simply not supported by any credible evidence. Trump’s disgraced former lawyer, Michael Cohen, arranged the payment.  

In a February 2018 letter to the FEC he stated that “the payment in question does not constitute a campaign contribution” and that he acted on his own.  

In April of 2018, he told his ex-attorney, Robert Costello, that Trump had no involvement and was unaware of the transfer of money. This is reflected in contemporaneous notes maintained by Costello and turned over to the district attorney.  

Yet, Bragg appears to have concealed this vital information from the grand jury. When he testified, Costello says he was shocked that the panel has not been shown his voluminous files that corroborated Cohen’s original explanation and exonerated Trump. Withholding exculpatory evidence is an unconscionable act. It is the duty of a prosecutor to see that justice is done, not to gain an indictment and conviction. Hiding evidence is a serious breach of legal ethics. 

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Bragg’s reliance on Cohen —an admitted liar who went to prison, in part, for perjury— is also ethically suspect.  

The disbarred lawyer is now peddling a different story and has made no secret of his hatred for Trump. 

Cohen has every motive to spin more lies in his quest for retribution against his former boss. Is Cohen lying now or was he lying five years ago when he told authorities that Trump was never involved? Any half-decent defense attorney will easily shred such a dishonest witness on cross-examination, making Bragg look foolish.

The ethical imperative of a prosecutor is to be fair and equitable. Bragg is neither. He ran for office vowing to pursue Trump. He had no access to evidence, yet he prejudged an indictment that had not been brought and pre-ordained the grand jury’s outcome. The district attorney now wants to engineer a conviction by contorting the law.

The DA’s former assistant, Mark Pomerantz, who helped orchestrate Bragg’s feeble legal theory, penned a book openly admitting that Trump was targeted in a politically motivated investigation.

Pomerantz vented his contempt for the former president because “he posed a real danger to the country and to the ideals that mattered to me.”

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Disagreeing with someone’s views or harboring personal animosity is not a basis for criminal prosecution. But Bragg has chosen to abandon the duty of a prosecutor to adhere faithfully to the principle of “equality under the law.”  

In so doing, he has weaponized the law for political gain. It is a disgraceful abuse of power. 

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Thai firefighters battle huge forest blaze that spread across two mountains


Bangkok, Thailand
CNN
 — 

Firefighters in central Thailand have spent days battling a wildfire that has engulfed two mountains and part of a forest park.

The fire started at the Khao Chaplu mountain in Nakhon Nayok province, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Bangkok.

Authorities said the blaze ignited during a lightning storm on Tuesday and strong winds whipped up the fire so it quickly spread across the mountain.

On Wednesday, the fire reignited and spread to neighboring Khao Laem mountain, according to Thailand’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.

Video from Nakhon Nayok shows a huge blaze covering the mountain at night, the fire glowing red in the dark and smoke billowing in plumes.

By Thursday, the blaze had spread to Khao Nang Dam, a forest park, as disaster teams and the army fought to extinguish the flames.

The disaster prevention department said in a Facebook post Thursday that three helicopters were dispatched to extinguish the fire, dropping more than 150,000 liters of water over the blaze.

A helicopter drops water over a forest fire hotspot on Khao Laem mountain in Nakhon Nayok province, northeast of Bangkok on March 30.

Areas near the fire were declared disaster zones and firebreaks built to stop it spreading into residential areas, the Thai Prime Minister’s office said in a statement Thursday.

Meanwhile, fire trucks and fire-fighting equipment were brought in on standby at the foot of the mountains in case the fire spread to nearby villages, the disaster prevention department said.

By 9 a.m. local time on Friday, the wildfire had subsided, according to the Prime Minister’s office.

“There have been no pockets of fire spotted. The smoke has continued billowing out from two to three spots at Ta Baek Mountain,” the statement said.

However, it warned that strong winds could reignite the fire.

Though authorities believe a lightning storm started the blaze, “the true cause of the incident will be investigated,” the Prime Minister’s office said.

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Former President Trump indicted by NY grand jury

Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks on education as he holds a campaign rally with supporters, in Davenport, Iowa, on March 13.
Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks on education as he holds a campaign rally with supporters, in Davenport, Iowa, on March 13. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

A yearslong probe into a hush money scheme involving former President Donald Trump and adult film star Stormy Daniels has led to him being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his alleged role in the scheme.

The indictment is historic, marking the first time a former US president and major presidential candidate has ever been criminally charged.

Here’s what to know about the hush money investigation:

What happens next: A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg released a statement Thursday saying the office has contacted Trump’s attorney to “coordinate his surrender” for arraignment on “a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal.”

“Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected,” it added. Trump is expected to appear in court Tuesday for his arraignment, multiple sources tell CNN. Judge Juan Merchan is expected to preside, one source said. 

How we got here: The Manhattan DA’s investigation first began under Bragg’s predecessor, Cy Vance, when Trump was still in the White House. It relates to a $130,000 payment made by Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen to Daniels in late October 2016, days before the 2016 presidential election, to silence her from going public about an alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the affair.

At issue in the investigation is the payment made to Daniels and the Trump Organization’s reimbursement to Cohen.

According to court filings in Cohen’s own federal prosecution, Trump Org. executives authorized payments to him totaling $420,000 to cover his original $130,000 payment and tax liabilities and reward him with a bonus.

The Manhattan DA’s investigation has hung over Trump since his presidency and is just one of several probes the former president is facing as he makes his third bid for the White House.

A rare case: The grand jury’s decision marks a rare moment in history: Trump is the first former US president ever indicted and also the first major presidential candidate under indictment seeking office. The former president has said he “wouldn’t even think about leaving” the 2024 race if charged.

The decision to bring charges is not without risk nor does it guarantee a conviction. Trump’s lawyers could challenge whether campaign finance laws would apply as a crime to make the case a felony, for instance.

Cohen’s role: Cohen, Trump’s onetime fixer, played a central role in the hush money episode and is involved in the investigation.

He admitted to paying $130,000 to Daniels to stop her from going public about the alleged affair with Trump just before the 2016 election. He also helped arrange a $150,000 payment from the publisher of the National Enquirer to Karen McDougal to kill her story claiming a 10-month affair with Trump. Trump also denies an affair with McDougal.

Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in jail, met with the Manhattan district attorney’s office earlier this month and praised Bragg for offering Trump the opportunity to testify.

What Daniels has said: For her part, Daniels, also known as Stephanie Clifford, met in March with prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office probing the payment, according to a tweet sent by her attorney, who said Daniels had “responded to questions and has agreed to make herself available as a witness, or for further inquiry if needed.” 

She wrote a tell-all book in 2018 that described the alleged affair in graphic detail, with her then-attorney saying that the book was intended to prove her story about having sex with Trump is true.

Read more about the investigation here.


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21 states threaten banks with legal action over woke policies: 'Stay in your lane'

EXCLUSIVE: A coalition of 21 state attorneys general sent a stark warning to dozens of financial institutions and asset managers, warning them against pursuing woke environmental and social initiatives.

In a letter sent Thursday to 53 of the nation’s largest financial institutions, which collectively manage trillions of dollars worth of assets, the attorneys general threatened to take legal action if the firms veer from the best interests of their clients while pushing social priorities. The effort, led by Montana, Utah and Louisiana, comes ahead of proxy season during which most companies hold annual shareholder meetings where they vote on key policy initiatives.

“This ESG nonsense is filtering into a lot of our states and the way they’re doing it is really, really concerning and probably flagrantly illegal,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told Fox News Digital in an interview. “Pushing it through these asset managers and through these proxy votes is extremely concerning.”

“The message is: ‘Stay in your lane and do what you’re supposed to do. You have a fiduciary obligation under our various states laws to maximize investment. That’s your job. That’s what you’re supposed to be doing. We’re aware of state law and if it needs be, we will defend our state pensioners against anything outside that lane.'”

REPUBLICAN STATES ARE PLANNING AN ALL-OUT ASSAULT ON WOKE BANKS: ‘WE WON’T DO BUSINESS WITH YOU’

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry led the effort on Thursday.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry led the effort on Thursday. (Fox News)

The letter, first obtained by Fox News Digital, stated that in recent years large asset managers, which hold majority stakes in major publicly-traded companies, have used client assets to change companies’ behavior to align with so-called environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards

Critics — including attorneys general, state treasurers, the energy industry and consumer advocacy groups — have accused ESG-focused asset managers of sidestepping their legally-mandated fiduciary duty of looking out for the wellbeing of clients whose money they manage.

25 STATES HIT BIDEN ADMIN WITH LAWSUIT OVER CLIMATE ACTION TARGETING AMERICANS’ RETIREMENT SAVINGS

“You are … not only bound to follow the general laws discussed above but also have extensive responsibilities under both federal and state laws governing securities,” Knudsen and the other attorneys general stated in the letter. “Broadly, those laws require you to act as a fiduciary, in the best interests of your clients and exercising due care and loyalty.” 

“Simply put, you are not the same as political or social activists and you should not be allowing the vast savings entrusted to you to be commandeered by activists to advance non-financial goals,” it continued.

Protesters demonstrate outside the BlackRock headquarters in New York City during the company's annual shareholders meeting in 2022.

Protesters demonstrate outside the BlackRock headquarters in New York City during the company’s annual shareholders meeting in 2022. (Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The attorneys general took particular issue with ESG practices that push aggressive climate policies which opponents have argued would hamper the fossil fuel industry and increase consumer energy prices.

The letter Thursday highlighted that asset managers participate in Climate Action 100+ and have joined the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM). The two associations require members to make certain climate commitments.

LOUISIANA DIVESTS FROM BLACKROCK OVER ESG POLICIES: ‘WOULD DESTROY LOUISIANA’S ECONOMY’

For example, the NZAM requires members to “accelerate the transition towards global net zero emissions and for asset managers to play our part to help deliver the goals of the Paris Agreement.” NZAM members also commit to implement “a stewardship and engagement strategy, with a clear escalation and voting policy, that is consistent with [their] ambition for all assets under management to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.”

And the Climate Action 100+ initiative seeks commitments from boards and senior management to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the value chain” via net zero commitments.

“None of this is financially defensible,” the attorneys general stated in their letter. “Instead, it is a transparent attempt to push policies through the financial system that cannot be achieved at the ballot box.”

A person walks past pump jacks operating in Bakersfield, California.

A person walks past pump jacks operating in Bakersfield, California. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong/ File)

Knudsen added that he was concerned ESG policies would ultimately harm Montana residents by reducing their energy options and hiking prices.

“Montana’s a northern state. It gets really, really cold,” he told Fox News Digital. “We can’t heat our homes with rainbows and fairy dust. That’s basically what we’re talking about here when we’re talking about solar or wind power. When it’s 40 below in February in Montana, the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.”

“We’ve got a million people to keep warm. So, we have to have reliable energy,” he said. “And Montana is an energy producing state. We do produce oil, we do produce natural gas, and we do produce some of the highest quality coal in the world. So, I mean, to me, that’s a no-brainer.”

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Knudsen noted that New York-based BlackRock, one of the asset managers addressed in the letter, owns a 25% stake in NorthWestern Energy, Montana’s largest regulated utility company.

BlackRock, which alone manages more than $8.5 trillion, has explicitly leveraged client funds to push green transition policies to combat global warming. In 2021, the firm’s CEO Larry Fink said that pension funds, foundations and endowments “should have a loud voice with [fossil fuel] companies to move forward.”

The letter Thursday also warned against taking certain actions promoting race and gender quotas or abortion. More than 20 abortion-related proxy measures have been proposed this year, more than every other year combined, according to the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow.

In addition to BlackRock, the letter was sent to Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Invesco, JP Morgan, State Street and dozens of other asset managers.

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Gwyneth Paltrow wins ski collision case



CNN
 — 

Gwyneth Paltrow has prevailed in the civil trial relating to a 2016 ski collision.

A Utah jury on Thursday found Paltrow, an Oscar-winning actor and the founder and CEO of Goop, not liable and ruled in her favor in her counterclaim against the man who sued her.

Terry Sanderson, a retired optometrist, sued Paltrow over lasting injuries he said he sustained when the two collided at the Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah more than seven years ago.

The jury in the civil trial deliberated for a little over two hours before returning their verdict in favor of Paltrow, who testified that it was Sanderson who skied into her back as she was down slope from him.

The trial began on March 21.

Sanderson’s attorney on Thursday asked the jury to consider his client’s brain injury and life expectancy, suggesting the jury award $3.2 million to Sanderson.

Sanderson’s complaint alleged his damages were more than $300,000.

Gwyneth Paltrow listens as the verdict is read on March 30, 2023, in Park City, Utah.

Paltrow testified last week that Sanderson skied into her. She sought and was awarded $1 in damages, plus attorneys’ fees in her counterclaim.

After the verdict was read, Paltrow released a statement through her attorneys.

“I felt that acquiescing to a false claim compromised my integrity. I am pleased with the outcome and I appreciate all of the hard work of Judge Holmberg and the jury, and thank them for their thoughtfulness in handling this case,” Paltrow said.

Her attorney, Steve Owens, also released a statement.

“We are pleased with this unanimous outcome and appreciate the judge and jury’s thoughtful handling of the case,” he said. “Gwyneth has a history of advocating for what she believes in – this situation was no different and she will continue to stand up for what is right.”

Sanderson spoke to reporters outside of the court.

He said that when Paltrow was seen placing her hand on his shoulder after the verdict was read, she said to him, “I wish you well.”

He later said that he believes “she thinks she has the truth,” but asserted that he did not present any “falsehoods” during the trial.

Sanderson’s lawyer Kristin VanOrnum said that she has “newfound appreciation” for Paltrow, when responding to a question regarding the media coverage of and interest in the trial.

“If she has to deal with all of this on a daily basis, I can’t even imagine and I feel for her on that,” she added, after telling reporters that she was “not starstruck.”

Before the jury was sent to deliberate, Sanderson’s attorney, Robert Sykes, rejected claims that Sanderson was seeking fame and attention by bringing his case to court.

“Part of him will always be on that mountain,” Sykes said in his closing arguments. “We hope that you will help bring Terry home off that mountain with a fair verdict for today.”

Owens, meanwhile, asserted in closing that for Paltrow, it’s an issue of right and wrong and that it would be “easy” for Paltrow “to write a check and be done with it,” but said that would be “wrong.”

Gwyneth Paltrow speaks with Terry Sanderson, left, as she walks out of the courtroom following the reading of the verdict in their lawsuit trial, Thursday, March 30, 2023, in Park City, Utah.

“It’s actually wrong that he hurt her, and he wants money from her,” he told the jury.

He added, later, “He’s entitled to be here today, but he’s not entitled to be rewarded for hurting her.”

Paltrow’s attorney James Egan, in his portion of closing, referred back to the opposing side’s comments, saying: “Ms. Paltrow wants him off the mountain, too, but she should not be responsible for the cost of that.”

Paltrow told the jury the collision happened on the first day of a trip to Deer Valley that she was on with her two kids, then-boyfriend Falchuck and his two children.

She testified that two skis came in between her skis, forcing her legs apart and that she heard a “grunting noise” when she felt a body pressing against her back before they both came crashing down together.

Gwyneth Paltrow enters the courtroom for her trial, Friday, March 24, 2023, in Park City, Utah, where she is accused in a lawsuit of crashing into a skier during a 2016 family ski vacation, leaving him with brain damage and four broken ribs. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)

‘You skied into my f**king back’: See Gwyneth Paltrow on the stand describe anger over ski collision

Paltrow said she did not ask about the condition of Sanderson after they collided but claimed she stayed on the mountain “long enough for him to say that he was OK” and to stand up.

Terry Sanderson in court on March 27.

During his testimony, Sanderson reiterated claims it was Paltrow who skied into him.

“I got hit in my back so hard and right at my shoulder blades and it felt like it was perfectly centered and the fists and the poles were right at the bottom of my shoulder blades, serious, serious smack and I’ve never been hit that hard,” Sanderson testified. “All I saw was a whole lot of snow.”

Sanderson disputed suggestions he sued Paltrow to exploit her fame and wealth.

“I thought, ‘I’m not into celebrity worship,’” Sanderson told the jury about learning she was the other skier involved in their collision.

Jurors also heard from a number of expert witnesses, Sanderson’s daughters and testimony from ski resort employees. Testimony from Paltrow’s two children, Apple and Moses Martin, was also read to the jury during the trial.

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