Month: December 2024

A Wisconsin man who officials say faked his own drowning roughly four months ago and fled to Eastern Europe – leaving his wife and three children — has willingly returned to the U.S. and turned himself in.

According to Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll, the man – Ryan Borgwardt — came back on his own because of his family, but remained tight-lipped on why Borgwardt left, and where exactly he’s been for the past four months. Borgwardt, 45, landed in the U.S. on Tuesday and was being held at the county jail, pending a court appearance. The sheriff said his office has recommended a number of charges, including obstruction of justice.

Sheriff Podoll said Borgwardt began communicating with authorities on Nov. 11 after disappearing but hadn’t committed to returning to Wisconsin, telling authorities that he faked his death because of “personal matters.” Borgwardt – an experienced kayaker – had told authorities in mid-August he traveled about 50 miles from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he overturned his kayak, dumped his phone and then paddled an inflatable boat to shore, saying he picked that lake because it’s the deepest in Wisconsin. After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bike about 80 miles through the night to Madison, Wisconsin where he boarded a bus to Detroit before eventually crossing the Canadian border and flying to Europe. Borgwardt took out a $375,000 life insurance policy back in January (which authorities state was intended to help his family) and had transferred funds to a foreign bank account prior to his disappearance and changed his email while he communicated with a woman in Uzbekistan.

The Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office said the search for Borgwardt’s body went on for seven weeks with the help of trained volunteers at a cost of at least $35,000, in which they only discovered the man’s kayak and a tackle box containing a set of keys, a wallet and his license. Officials eventually uncovered evidence that Borgwardt had fled to Europe via Canada.

The sheriff’s office said in communications with Borgwardt, they “expressed the importance of his decision to return home and clean up the mess that he has created”. They added that Borgwardt has admitted regret for how he has hurt his family and “also feels bad about the amount of hours that we have put in the community.”

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After a federal court blocked the multibillion proposed merger between grocery retailers Kroger and Albertsons on Tuesday, Albertsons has backed out of the deal, and filed a lawsuit against Kroger.

Kroger, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, operates 2,750 stores in 35 states and the District of Columbia, including the chains Harris Teeter, Mariano’s, Ralphs and Smith’s. Albertsons, based in Boise, Idaho, operates roughly 2,300 stores in 34 states, including brands like Jewel Osco, Safeway and Shaw’s. Together the companies employ around 700,000 people.  Under the merger agreement, Kroger and Albertsons (who compete in 22 states) had agreed to sell 579 stores in places where their locations overlap to C&S Wholesale Grocers, a New Hampshire-based supplier to independent supermarkets that also owns the Grand Union and Piggly Wiggly store brands.

Two federal judges in Oregon and Washington blocked the merger – which would have marked the biggest supermarket merger in U.S. history – instead siding with the Federal Trade Commission, which has opposed the plan. The FTC has argued the merger would eliminate competition, and raise prices for American shoppers.

Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran said in a statement: “Given the recent federal and state court decisions to block our proposed merger with Kroger, we have made the difficult decision to terminate the merger agreement. We are deeply disappointed in the courts’ decisions.”

In a separate statement issued Wednesday, Albertsons said it is suing Kroger for willful breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing: “Kroger willfully breached the Merger Agreement in several key ways, including by repeatedly refusing to divest assets necessary for antitrust approval, ignoring regulators’ feedback, rejecting stronger divestiture buyers and failing to cooperate with Albertsons.”   Albertsons also claims that Kroger failed to exercise “best efforts” and failed to take “‘any and all actions’ to secure regulatory approval of the companies’ agreed merger transaction as was required of Kroger under the terms of the merger agreement between the parties.”

In response to the lawsuit, Kroger released its own statement, calling the suit “baseless” and adding that “Kroger refutes these allegations in the strongest possible terms, especially in light of Albertsons’ repeated intentional material breaches and interference throughout the merger process, which we will prove in court,” the company claimed. “This is clearly an attempt to deflect responsibility following Kroger’s written notification of Albertsons’ multiple breaches of the agreement, and to seek payment of the merger’s break fee, to which they are not entitled. We look forward to responding to these baseless claims in court.”

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The New York Attorney General’s Office has rejected a demand from President-elect Donald Trump to drop the , $480 million civil business fraud case against him.

NY Attorney General Letitia James had been urged by Trump defense attorney John Sauer in a Nov. 26 letter to dismiss the case “for the health of our Republic.”  Sauer wrote: “President Trump has called for our Nation’s partisan strife to end, and for the contending factions to join forces for the greater good of the country. This call for unity extends to the legal onslaught against him and his family that permeated the most recent election cycle.”

Sauer had argued that the continuation of the case will impede Trump from carrying out his presidential duties.  However in a two-page letter, Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale responded that “this Office will not stipulate to vacate the final judgment already entered by Supreme Court, New York County, in this action or otherwise seek to dismiss the action.”  Vale added that there is “no merit” to Sauer’s claims, and that Trump’s upcoming inauguration “has no bearing” on the outcome of the trial or his ongoing efforts to challenge the judgment, saying: “Presidents do not have immunity from civil lawsuits arising from unofficial conduct, and such lawsuits may proceed while the President is in office. This civil enforcement action is not a criminal action, and [Manhattan] Supreme Court did not impose any criminal sanction on Mr. Trump or any other defendant.”

The civil case was brought by AG James in 2022, and accuses Trump, his two adult sons, his business and key executives within it of falsely inflating Trump’s assets to boost his stated net worth and obtain financial perks. Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable for fraud and held a bench trial to determine penalties in February, ordering Trump to pay more than $450 million in fines and interest. That penalty included millions of dollars in prejudgment interest that will accrue by $111,983 every day until it is paid, with Trump’s total judgment and interest totaling more than $486 million.

A New York appeals court in March reduced the bond amount to $175 million; the appeals court has yet to issue a decision.

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The suspect in the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City faced an extradition hearing on murder charges on Tuesday afternoon.

Luigi Mangione contested extradition to New York but was denied bail and remanded to State Correctional Institution Huntingdon in Huntingdon County. The state of Pennsylvania has 30 days to get a warrant from NY Gov. Kathy Hochul for extradition to NY. Mangione has been charged in NY with one count of second-degree murder, two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document, and one count of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, online court documents show. He also faces gun charges in Pennsylvania related to the firearm police found on him when he was arrested on Monday.

Mangione was seen on video pulling away from members of the Blair County Sheriff’s Department before entering the courthouse, screaming: “This is completely unjust and an insult to the American people!” He was pinned against a wall before being forced inside.

Per NBC News, Mangione was arrested yesterday morning at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on a tip from an employee. Authorities said he had a gun similar to the one used in the shooting, a silencer and a fake ID. In handwritten notes, he said “these parasites had it coming” and that he “wasn’t working with anyone.”

According to a confidential assessment of the crime by the NYPD intelligence bureau (based in part on the suspect’s writings) and reported by ABC News, Mangione “appeared to view the targeted killing … as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and ‘power games.’”  The suspect allegedly described himself as the “first to face” United Healthcare “with such brutal honesty.”

Additionally, according to the New York arrest warrant when arrested on Monday, Mangione had “written admissions about the crime” with him along with several handwritten pages expressing “disdain for corporate America.” NYPD Chief of Detective Joe Kenny said on Tuesday that Mangione indicated “he’s frustrated with the health care system in the United States. Specifically, he states how we are the No. 1 most expensive health care system in the world, yet the life expectancy of an American is ranked 42 in the world.”

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