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Tag: wake
Trump to attend wake for fallen NYPD officer as he ramps up rhetoric on crime
Former President Donald Trump is expected to attend the wake for New York Police Officer Jonathan Diller on Thursday.
Diller was killed Monday when he was shot in Queens after he approached an illegally parked vehicle.
New York police spokesperson Tarik Sheppard said the officers were expecting Trump at the wake in Massapequa on Long Island.
Trump previously posted on Truth Social that his “heartfelt prayers go out to the family” of Diller, adding that Diller’s “life was taken by a murderous career criminal.”
“To Officer Diller’s family, and all of the other brave men and women of law enforcement who put your lives on the line every day, we love you, we appreciate you, and we will always stand with you!” Trump said in his post.
Trump was already in New York, and he attended a hearing Monday in the hush money case against him. He has not held a major campaign event since March 16.
“President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump has often railed against crime rates in New York City, and he has falsely asserted that the city’s violent crime rate “hit unimaginable records.” The rate of major crimes is down by more than 20% since 2001, according to police crime data.
In his rhetoric about crime, Trump has often blamed his likely opponent in November, President Joe Biden. Biden will also be in New York on Thursday for a major campaign fundraising event alongside former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
New York Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban this week mourned Diller on X, saying that “this city lost a hero, a wife lost her husband, and a young child lost their father.”
“We struggle to find the words to express the tragedy of losing one of our own,” Caban said in the post. “The work that Police Officer Jonathan Diller did each day to make this city a safer place will NEVER be forgotten.”
Diller received a dignified transfer Tuesday, looked on by New York police officers paying their respects.
The last time a New York City officer died in the line of duty was in January 2022, when Detectives Wilbert Mora, 27, and Jason Rivera, 22, were killed responding to a 911 call in Harlem.
Jonathan Dienst, Tom Winter and Summer Concepcion contributed.
Trump expected to attend wake of slain NYPD officer
Former President Donald Trump is expected to attend the wake for slain New York Police Department officer Jonathan Diller on Thursday afternoon, NYPD spokesperson Tarik Shepard told NBC News.
Diller’s wake is scheduled on Thursday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Massapequa, Long Island. Diller was fatally shot Monday in Far Rockaway, Queens after he and his partner approached a vehicle that was illegally parked at a bus stop. The suspect inside the vehicle shot Diller below his bullet-proof vest, Police Commissioner Edward Caban said, according to the Associated Press.
Reached for comment, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is “moved by the invitation to join” Diller’s family and his colleagues “as they deal with his senseless and tragic death.”
Trump’s expected attendance at Diller’s wake comes as he continues to make baseless claims about the crime rate in New York. The former president has often made such claims while attacking state prosecutors who have brought charges against him, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. James brought the civil fraud case against him and Bragg brought charges of falsifying business records against him in his hush money case.
The former president has also repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of undocumented migrants beating up police officers and driving up the crime rate in New York City to record highs.
“You know, in New York, what’s happening with crime is it’s through the roof, and it’s called ‘migrant,’” the former president said at a rally in Michigan last month. “They beat up police officers. You’ve seen that they go in, they stab people, hurt people, shoot people. It’s a whole new form, and they have gangs now that are making our gangs look like small potatoes.”
Associated Press contributed.
Lawyers for ex-Lizzo dancers say they are reviewing more complaints in wake of lawsuit
LOS ANGELES — Lawyers representing three of Lizzo’s former dancers said they’ve been reviewing new complaints since she was accused of sexual harassment, creating a hostile work environment and weight-shaming in a lawsuit filed last week.
Ron Zambrano said his firm, which focuses on employment law, is vetting new allegations from at least six people who said they toured with Lizzo, including other dancers and some who said they worked on her Amazon Studios reality show, “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls.”
The allegations, he said, are of a “sexually charged environment” and failure to pay employees.
Zambrano said that in reviewing the claims, he determined that some are potentially actionable but that others aren’t.
A representative for Lizzo declined to comment Tuesday.
Allegations against Lizzo
The suit, first reported by NBC News and filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of Arianna Davis, Noelle Rodriguez and Crystal Williams, prompted an outpouring of disappointment among fans and a rebuke from Lizzo, who called the allegations “sensationalized stories” that were “false” and “unbelievable.”
The suit alleges conduct that another lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Neama Rahmani, described as “outrageous.” Lizzo, who’s known for promoting body positivity and celebrating her physique, allegedly pressured a dancer to touch a nude performer at a strip club, called attention to the dancer’s weight and fired her in front of other performers after she recorded a meeting in an effort to help manage a health condition, according to the suit.
It accuses Lizzo of calling out the dancer’s weight after an appearance at the South by Southwest music festival. In a meeting with all of the dancers this year, Lizzo allegedly said it was “normal” for them to get “fired when they get fat,” Zambrano said this week.
The weight allegation is part of a disability discrimination claim in the lawsuit. Davis says she has an eating disorder.
Williams and Davis were fired in April and May, respectively. Rodriguez resigned in May.
The suit also accuses Lizzo’s dance captain, Shirlene Quigley, of proselytizing to other performers and deriding those who had premarital sex while sharing lewd sexual fantasies, simulating oral sex and publicly discussing Davis’ virginity.
Quigley and her representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Career fallout
It isn’t clear whether the allegations will hurt Lizzo, whose real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson. Luminate, which analyzes entertainment and music industry data, said in an email that there appeared to be little impact on her sales, streaming and airplay from last Tuesday to Friday.
The company said more data, which is released weekly, will be available Friday.
Lizzo released her fourth album last year, and her single “Pink,” which appears in “Barbie” and is on the movie’s soundtrack, was released last month.
Fabletics, which launched the shapewear brand YITTY with Lizzo last year, which aims to champion “body normality” and “self-love,” didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Amazon Studios announced this year that “Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” was auditioning for season 2. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A Philadelphia music festival that Lizzo was scheduled to headline in September was canceled Tuesday; in a statement, organizers didn’t say why.
Representatives for the festival, Live Nation, Lizzo and SZA, who was also scheduled to headline the event, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Before the lawsuit was filed, ticket sales for the festival were “not good,” a source close to the production said.
Dancers’ claims
Davis and Williams began performing with Lizzo after they competed for the show’s first season two years ago. It was their first experience working in the industry, Zambrano said.
Rodriguez was hired the same year after she performed in the video “Rumors.” She had previously worked for Beyoncé, Janet Jackson and Lady Gaga, Zambrano said.
Rodriguez hadn’t previously experienced anything like what she encountered working for Lizzo, Zambrano said. Even being taken out to a club — as Davis said the dancers were when Lizzo allegedly goaded her into touching a nude performer — was unusual, Zambrano recalled Rodriguez as saying.
“Typically what happens is after the show, people stick around at the venue and have a party at the venue,” he said. “And that’s it. It’s very rare to be invited to dinners or a club afterwards.”
After they resigned or were fired, all three women “went to their separate homes to be with their families to basically recover from the experience,” he said.
“It was really traumatic for them,” he said, noting that they were fired in front of management and security staffers. “They felt very unsafe, very vulnerable.”
The women were unable to publicly discuss the circumstances of their firings because they signed nondisclosure agreements, Zambrano said. When they first approached his firm, Zambrano said, they came with their mothers, because they felt “unsafe” talking about what had happened.
Filing the lawsuit, he added, allowed them to get “their story out.”
Lizzo rejects allegations
Two days after the suit was filed, Lizzo responded in a statement calling the allegations “gut wrenchingly difficult and overwhelmingly disappointing.”
“My work ethic, morals and respectfulness have been questioned,” she said. “My character has been criticized.”
“Usually I choose not to respond to false allegations but these are as unbelievable as they sound and too outrageous to not be addressed,” she said, adding that the dancers “have already publicly admitted that they were told their behavior on tour was inappropriate and unprofessional.”
A lawyer for Lizzo, Marty Singer, who has called the lawsuit “specious,” pointed to a video interview for season 2 of Lizzo’s reality show, in which Davis said she looked up to Lizzo and wanted to “follow in her footsteps.”
The interview is from April, and Davis said the video was recorded before the “bulk of our allegations.” She said it showed how much she was trying to please Lizzo.
“Right up until the last minute, I didn’t realize how bad it was and how much I was being taken advantage of,” she said. “I just genuinely wanted to save my job.”
In an interview broadcast Monday by Sky News, Williams pushed back against Lizzo’s comments, saying Lizzo was “confirming the pattern of every time somebody speaks up or advocates for themselves, like we’re doing now, we get victim-blamed, we get gaslighted, and she likes to point the finger instead of addressing the issues that are brought up.”
“Just to deny and victim-blame and not even take accountability … it’s just so insensitive and kind of invalidates our experience as a whole,” Rodriguez added.
The suit doesn’t specify a dollar amount for damages that cover emotional distress, including unpaid wages, loss of earnings and attorney’s fees.
Rahmani said his preference is to try the plaintiffs’ case in court, but he said he’s obligated to present them with any potential settlement offer.
So far, he said, he hasn’t discussed the matter with the dancers because of the tone of the comments from Lizzo and her lawyer.
“But things can change pretty quickly,” he said.
A case management conference is scheduled for Jan. 26.
Wife of suspect in Gilgo Beach killings asks for ‘normalcy’ in wake of ‘indescribable catastrophe’
The family of a Manhattan architect charged in the Gilgo Beach serial killings is “enduring a profound and indescribable catastrophe,” an attorney for his estranged wife said as she begged for privacy and “normalcy.”
Macedonio & Duncan, the law firm representing Asa Ellerup in her divorce from Rex Heuermann, issued the statement in a news release on Friday. It also included a direct statement from Ellerup.
“On behalf of my family and especially my elderly neighbors, who have also had their lives turned upside down by the enormous police presence, in addition to the spectators, and news crews. They deserve to live peacefully; they should be able to walk their dogs and go to the grocery stores without cameras shoved in their faces,” she said. “I am pleading with you all to give us space so that we may regain some normalcy in our neighborhood.”
Ellerup filed for divorce on July 19, days after Heuermann was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Megan Waterman, 22; and Amber Lynn Costello 27.
The women were believed to be sex workers who advertised online, according to police. Their remains were discovered in December 2010 in Gilgo Beach on Long Island’s South Shore.
More Gilgo Beach coverage
Heuermann, 59, is also suspected in the disappearance and death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, whose remains were also found near Gilgo Beach. That investigation continues, according to a bail application.
Ellerup was out of state at the time of the killings and isn’t considered a suspect, authorities have said.
The remains of the four women, known as the “Gilgo Four,” were discovered during the search for missing Shannan Gilbert, 23, who was reportedly last seen running through the gated community of Oak Beach after leaving a client’s home, according to a police case timeline.
Heuermann pleaded not guilty and has denied involvement in the killings. Michael J. Brown, an attorney for Heuermann, told reporters that the allegations are “extremely circumstantial in nature.”
“The only thing he did say, as he was in tears, was ‘I didn’t do this,’” Brown said. “He’s distraught. He’s clearly distraught about the charges here.”
