A state judge ruled Tuesday that any article published by Tribuna in which the governor is mentioned must be approved by the court.

In addition, the judge directed González, who was the editorial director of the newspaper for 30 years until his retirement in 2017, to submit to the court for review any future material in which Sensores is mentioned.

“The verdict against Jorge Luis González and Tribuna is nothing less than a gag order that constitutes a clear case of the courts siding with a state governor in overt efforts to silence any critical reporting of her administration,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “CPJ is alarmed by the sharp increase in lawfare against critical media in Mexico, where journalists continue to be attacked with almost complete impunity.”

The ruling by the Campeche state court is only the latest episode in the ongoing legal assault by Sansores on Tribuna and González, both of whom she sued on June 13, 2025, accusing them of spreading hatred and causing moral damages in coverage of her administration.

It is unclear which specific reports caused the governor to sue Tribuna, González told CPJ. It is also unclear why the lawsuit targets González, as he is no longer with the paper after his retirement in 2017. 

A previous ruling ordered González to pay “moral damages” of $2 million pesos (about USD$110,000) to Sansores and prohibited both the reporter and Tribuna from mentioning the governor in any reports, according to news reports. That sentence was suspended on July 9, after González successfully filed an injunction, which CPJ has reviewed, citing the Mexican Constitution’s prohibition of censorship before publication.

González said he planned to appeal, but it wasn’t immediately clear what strategies were available to him.

Several calls by CPJ to Sansores’ office for comment were unanswered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jan-Albert Hootsen/CPJ Mexico Representative.

A state judge ruled Tuesday that any article published by Tribuna in which the governor is mentioned must be approved by the court.

In addition, the judge directed González, who was the editorial director of the newspaper for 30 years until his retirement in 2017, to submit to the court for review any future material in which Sensores is mentioned.

“The verdict against Jorge Luis González and Tribuna is nothing less than a gag order that constitutes a clear case of the courts siding with a state governor in overt efforts to silence any critical reporting of her administration,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “CPJ is alarmed by the sharp increase in lawfare against critical media in Mexico, where journalists continue to be attacked with almost complete impunity.”

The ruling by the Campeche state court is only the latest episode in the ongoing legal assault by Sansores on Tribuna and González, both of whom she sued on June 13, 2025, accusing them of spreading hatred and causing moral damages in coverage of her administration.

It is unclear which specific reports caused the governor to sue Tribuna, González told CPJ. It is also unclear why the lawsuit targets González, as he is no longer with the paper after his retirement in 2017. 

A previous ruling ordered González to pay “moral damages” of $2 million pesos (about USD$110,000) to Sansores and prohibited both the reporter and Tribuna from mentioning the governor in any reports, according to news reports. That sentence was suspended on July 9, after González successfully filed an injunction, which CPJ has reviewed, citing the Mexican Constitution’s prohibition of censorship before publication.

González said he planned to appeal, but it wasn’t immediately clear what strategies were available to him.

Several calls by CPJ to Sansores’ office for comment were unanswered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jan-Albert Hootsen/CPJ Mexico Representative.

Image by History in HD.

If there was ever a strong contemporary case for declaring that silence is complicity, consider the hush of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and even George W. Bush as they grind their teeth over the Donald Trump/Elon Musk wrecking of America. Trump is destroying freedom of speech and due process, abolishing democratic restraints, and establishing a criminal fascistic dictatorship.

Trump pounds Biden for the Trump Administration’s blunders and failures an average of six times a day. These assaults go unrebutted by the Delaware recluse, nursing his political wounds.

The Clintons? Bill sticks to his private telephone wailings. While Hillary, who gave us Trump in 2016 with her smug, stupid campaign, penned a self-anthem op-ed in the New York Times on March 28, 2025. She writes: “Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries.” Trump is not belligerent enough for the war hawk Hillary Clinton who has been the pro-Iraq sociocider butcher of Libya and the ardent supporter behind provocative “force projection” of the Empire around the world.

Before turning to the excuses for essentially shutting themselves up during our country’s greatest political upheaval – unconstitutional and criminal to the core, here is what prominent Democratic Presidents and Presidential candidates COULD do:

1. Tens of millions of Americans voted for our past Presidents. They are waiting for their leaders to speak up, stand up, and mightily help lead the fight to stop Trump’s mayhem against the American people in red and blue states. The people want former Democratic leaders to galvanize the Democratic Party, still largely in disarray about confronting Trump.

Don’t they know they have a trusteeship obligation to citizens, many of whom are voicing their demands for a comprehensive plan of offense against the GOP in town meetings and other forums?

The media, threatened daily by Trump, is eager to give former Democratic Party leaders coverage.

2. They are all mega-millionaires, very capable of raising many more millions of dollars quickly with their fame and lists of followers. They know very rich people as friends. They could set up strike forces in Washington and around the country to provide needed, fighting attorneys, organizers, and other specialists to ride head-on against the proven damage to health, safety, and economic well-being of people here and abroad and counter Trump’s daily cruel and vicious assaults. They could end Trump’s unrebutted soliloquy of lies and false scenarios over mainstream and social media.

3. They could push the Democrats in Congress to hold constant “unofficial” public hearings and file resolutions and legislation that provide the daily evidence of this dictator and his recidivistic criminality and push for Impeachment and Trump’s removal from office. Impossible, you might say with the GOP in narrow control on Capitol Hill. Look back at Nixon who for far fewer violations was told by Republican Senators that his time was up. Politicians save their political skin in approaching elections before rescuing an unstable, egomaniacal, vengeful politician like the one now camped at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Trump will be soon plunging in polls and stock market drops, inflation, recession, and more Gestapo-like kidnappings and disappearances to foreign prisons of targeted individuals. These conditions are not popular with the American people.

4. The former Democratic leaders could do what Bernie Sanders is doing and traverse the country supporting the fighting civic spirit of the American people who oppose the painful afflictions wrought by Tyrant Trump.

5. Gore is well-credentialed to show how the actions of Hurricane Donald, Tornado Trump/Drought Donald, and Wildfire Musk’s fossil-fuel-driven greenhouse gases are leading to a climate catastrophe. The facts and trends Trump omnicidally ignores need to be front and center.

Even George W. Bush, known for causing the deaths of over one million Iraqis and the destruction of their country by his criminal war of aggression has a beef. His sole claim to being a “compassionate conservative” – the funding of life-saving AIDS medicines overseas – has gone down in flames with Trump’s illegal demolition of the Agency for International Development (AID). Bush may be mumbling about this, but he’s staying in his corner painting landscapes.

All this abhorrent quietude in the face of what they all believe is a mortal attack on the Republic has the following excuses:

First, they don’t want to get into a pissing match with a slanderous ugly viper, who unleashes his hordes of haters on the Internet. That’s quite a surrender of patriotic duty at a time of unprecedented peril. What would all the GIs, who they caused to lose their lives in their presidential wars, think of their timidity?

Second, it wouldn’t have much impact. America doesn’t listen to “has-beens.” Then why is Obama still the most popular retired politician in America with over 130 million followers on Twitter? That attitude is just convenient escapism.

Third, plunging into the raucous political arena with the Trumpsters and Musketeers is just too disruptive of a comfortable daily routine life by politicians who believe they have been there, done that, and deserve a respite. Self-diminishment gets you nowhere with tens of millions of people in distress who seek powerful amplifiers from well-known leaders behind the demand that Trump understands: YOU’RE FIRED, ringing throughout the nation from liberals and betrayed Trump voters hurting in the same ways. That mass demand is what pushes impeachment of the most visibly impeachable president in American history.

In the final analysis, it comes down to their absence of civic self-respect and cowardliness in confronting Der Fuhrer. Aristotle was right: “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”

The post The Dangerous Silence of Retired U.S. Presidents appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ralph Nader.

A pair of federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of fired federal workers at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury. The White House vowed to fight what it called an “absurd and unconstitutional order.” This comes as the White House and its allies have increasingly targeted judges who rule against the administration. Elon Musk has posted dozens of messages on his social platform X calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against the administration. We speak with retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner, who served as a federal district judge in Massachusetts for 17 years, from 1994 to 2011. “The distance between what they are trying to do and what is lawful is so enormous that anyone would rule as these judges are doing,” says Gertner.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Taiwan’s national security law is a set of legal provisions aimed at safeguarding its sovereignty and democratic system from internal and external threats. It includes measures against espionage, subversion, and activities threatening national security, with a particular focus on countering external interference, including from China.

China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.

“85% of current incidents related to national security are involved with retired military and police. We are very concerned about this situation,” said Liang Wen-chieh, spokesperson of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees relations across the Taiwan Strait.

“China has been systematically and methodically cultivating these forces on the ground in Taiwan … it has become very difficult to secure evidence in espionage and national security-related cases,” Liang added without elaborating.

The number of individuals in Taiwan prosecuted for Chinese espionage increased from 16 in 2021 to 64 in 2024, Taiwan’s main intelligence agency, the National Security Bureau, or NSB, said in a report this month.

In 2024, 15 military veterans and 28 active service members were prosecuted, accounting for 23% and 43%, respectively, of all Chinese espionage cases.

“Chinese operatives frequently try to use retired military personnel to recruit active service members, establish networks via the internet, or try to lure targets with cash or by exploiting their debts,” said the NSB.

“For example, military personnel with financial difficulties may be offered loans via online platforms or underground banks, in return for passing along secret intelligence, signing loyalty pledges or recruiting others,” the agency added.

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The Taiwan government’s announcement on national security cases came days after Taiwanese prosecutors sought a 10-year prison sentence for a retired military officer for leaking classified information to China.

The Taiwan High Prosecutors Office on Monday indicted retired Lt Gen. Kao An-kuo and five others for violating the National Security Act and organizing a pro-China group.

Prosecutors claim that Kao, leader of the pro-unification group “Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,” along with his girlfriend, identified by her surname Liu, and four others, were recruited by China’s People’s Liberation Army, or PLA.

The group allegedly worked to establish an organization that would serve as armed internal support and operational bases for the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, in the event of a PLA invasion of Taiwan. This effort reportedly included recruiting active-duty military personnel to obtain classified information and monitor strategic deployments.

Additionally, they are accused of using drones to simulate surveillance on mobile military radar vehicles and other combat exercises, subsequently relaying the results to the CCP.

China has not commented on Taiwan’s announcement on national security cases.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office said it will punish and sanction Legislative Yuan member and rights activist Puma Shen, retired chip billionaire Robert Tsao and their civil defense organization the Kuma Academy for "inciting separatism," a term used by the Chinese Communist Party to describe views that aren’t in keeping with its territorial claims.

"The punishment of Puma Shen, Robert Tsao and the Kuma Academy in accordance with the law is a just act of punishing those who support independence," Office spokesperson Chen Binhua told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday, as China wrapped up its latest military exercises around the island.

"It is a powerful punishment and resolute blow to Taiwanese pro-independence forces and their provocations," Chen said. "Our determination to smash all Taiwanese pro-independence secessionist plots is unswerving ... those who stubbornly continue such provocations will pay a heavy price."

The Taiwan government's Mainland Affairs Council said the island is already governed by the 1911 Republic of China as "a sovereign and independent country."

"The Beijing authorities have no right to impose any punishment on our people," the Council said in a statement on Wednesday. "The people of Taiwan enjoy living under a free and democratic political system."

"This will do nothing to aid healthy communication," it said.

Chen had earlier accused the Kuma Academy, which was founded by Shen and financially supported by Tsao, of "brazenly cultivating violent pro-independence elements in Taiwan and ... openly engaging in separatist activities in the guise of lectures, trainings and outdoor drills," with the support of the island's government and "interference from external forces."

The measures come days after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te vowed to resist China's claims on the democratic island, which has never been ruled by Beijing nor formed part of the People's Republic of China.

In an Oct. 10 National Day speech marking the 113th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China by the nationalist Kuomintang under Sun Yat-sen, Lai said his government, which fled to the island after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists on the Chinese mainland in 1949, would continue to defend Taiwan's diverse and democratic way of life.

Civil defense

The US$33 million Kuma Academy program aims to train up 3 million civilians in civil defense, including 300,000 snipers, to fight alongside regular and reserve forces in the event of a Chinese invasion.

Other civil defense organizations have sprung up in recent years across Taiwan, in preparation for war or other disaster scenarios.

Chen warned Lai on Wednesday that China would continue to step up sanctions targeting the island "until the total unification of China is achieved."

"This is one of China's many acts of intimidation against Taiwan, including economic coercion and military threats," a spokesperson for Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party said in a statement to Reuters. "These irrational acts will only further hurt the feelings of the Taiwanese people and damage cross-strait relations."

Under the sanctions, Tsao and Shen are now barred from traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau, while any affiliated enterprises and businesses linked to the pair will be barred from "seeking profit" in China.

Shen told reporters in Taiwan that the move was an attempt to "intimidate" the island's 23 million people.

"China is particularly wary of Taiwan's civil defense campaigns and the development of civil defense awareness, and is also very concerned about any courses or investments in that area," he said.

By contrast, Beijing appears to have wiped the slate clean for Taiwanese actor Wu Kang-ren, who recently reposted an Oct. 1 article from the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, congratulating the People's Republic of China on its 75th anniversary.

Asked about Wu's background as a student leader during the 2014 Sunflower Movement against closer ties with China, Chen said Beijing would welcome anyone who considers themselves Chinese, and agrees with China's claim on Taiwan, "as long as they can draw a clear line between themselves and pro-independence views."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lucie Lo for RFA Mandarin and RFA Cantonese.

A former Papua New Guinea army leader, Major-General Jerry Singirok, is furious after being arrested and charged under the Capital Markets Act.

He was a trustee of Melanesian Trustee Services Ltd, part of a superannuation agency with 20,000 unit holders, but its trustee licence was revoked last year.

General Singirok said the agency was already embroiled in legal action over that revocation and he said his arrest on Wednesday was aimed at undermining that action.

• READ MORE: Other Jerry Singirok reports

He said Task Force Shield, which he said had been set up by Trades Minister Richard Maru, had made a series of allegations about the degree of oversight at Melanesian Trustee Services Ltd.

The Post-Courier reported that Singirok was released on 6000 kina (NZ$2700) bail.

“They said that we did not audit, [but] we got audited, annual audits for the past 10 years,” he said.

“They said we didn’t do that. [They claimed] we continued to function without consulting our unit holders, which is wrong.

“There is a list of complaints, and as I said, it is now going to be subjected to a court. What’s important is that they are using the Capital Markets Act to charge us.”

General Singirok said in a Facebook post that he had spent his entire life fighting for the rights of the ordinary people and he would clear his name after what he is calling a “witchhunt”.

He said he had been a member of the superannuation operator since 1989.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Prosecutors routinely find ways to get key detectives to testify in criminal trials, even when they are retired, sick or otherwise reluctant. Some fly retirees in from Florida or other retirement locales when necessary. Others have said they use subpoenas to force detectives to take the witness stand.

But prosecutors in the St. Louis circuit attorney’s office have been unable to get retired homicide detective Thomas W. Mayer Sr. into a courtroom, even though some of the cases Mayer investigated involved the murders of children — the sort of high-profile cases cops say they especially want to win.

Over the past two years, Mayer has told prosecutors he is unable to testify against two men he arrested after the fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager; those cases crumbled. Prosecutors said he told them he’s not available to testify in the case against a teen accused of driving a car from which at least one passenger allegedly shot another teen who was in his own vehicle. And court records say Mayer has been unavailable to testify against a teen charged with the murder of a 9-year-old boy shot while riding in his family’s SUV while they were delivering food to his grandmother.

Mayer, who served as the Missouri president of the Fraternal Order of Police from 1998 to 2006, contends retired police officers should not be expected to testify, because “retirement is meant to be retirement.” And he said his doctor told him he’s too sick to testify, though it’s not the first time Mayer has claimed illness has prevented him from carrying out his duties — and not the first time those claims have been questioned.

“If I were to be dragged back to court, with the stress level and heartbeat level — blump,” Mayer, 66, told a reporter during an interview at his home in rural southeastern Missouri, mimicking a collapse. “I don’t want that.”

Mayer’s position is in some ways similar to that of another retired St. Louis homicide detective, Roger Murphey. ProPublica and Riverfront Times reported last month how Murphey has refused to testify in at least nine murder cases because he was angry over policies of former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. Unlike Murphey, Mayer said he was not holding out for political reasons. Still, prosecutors are facing the same challenges to keep his cases viable as they did with Murphey’s.

In a city struggling to solve murders in the first place, the refusal of police to take part in routine court proceedings compounds St. Louis’ criminal justice challenges, and leaves victims shortchanged.

Mayer and Murphey also expose a vulnerability in how St. Louis police approach homicide investigations: They frequently rely on a single detective. But former prosecutors and homicide investigators in other jurisdictions said most police departments use multiple officers at every critical juncture of a case to reduce such vulnerabilities.

“When a homicide case is properly investigated, ideally there should be redundancies built into the investigation so you shouldn’t be reliant on a single police officer for any fact,” said Matt Murphy, who was a prosecutor in Orange County, California, for more than two decades and now works as a defense lawyer and legal commentator.

Mayer said departments should be prepared for retired detectives to be unavailable. “I regret that cases fell by the wayside, but there should be some kind of safety net,” he said in one of a pair of lengthy interviews. He said he believed prosecutors understood his health issues and said they have assured him that “they’re going to go on with other witnesses.”

How Mayer and Murphey have responded to their old murder cases raises questions about why city prosecutors have not dealt with the problem head on, using their subpoena power to force them to court.

Doing so might result in messy trials, with Mayer or Murphey potentially becoming hostile witnesses. But forcing their hands would send a message to the police department that “there are police policy issues that have to get fixed,” said Brendan Roediger, a professor at Saint Louis University School of Law and director of its civil advocacy clinic.

The St. Louis police department did not respond to questions about Mayer and his cases. Marvin Teer, Circuit Attorney Gabriel Gore’s chief trial assistant and the prosecutor who has handled three of those cases, said he had to take Mayer at his word and didn’t have the authority to force him to reveal his medical records. He said Mayer’s health information was protected by privacy laws.

“Our biggest fear,” Teer said, “is he’s already indicated he doesn’t remember the cases because his medicine interferes with his ability to recall accurately. Why do I want to put a guy like that on?”

Teer acknowledged that “in hindsight, I might have done things differently.”

St. Louis has one of the highest homicide rates in the country, with about 1,000 murders since the beginning of 2019. And some families of those who were killed say the refusal of two detectives to testify has compounded their pain.

After Jonathan Cruz, 19, was shot to death in 2021 by passengers in two separate cars, police arrested the alleged driver of one of those cars, Neptali Mejia. Court records show that Mejia provided a videotaped confession to Mayer and that prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder. Mejia has pleaded not guilty and is currently under house arrest.

Cruz’s brother Ivan said he hoped Mejia’s arrest would lead the police to others involved in the crime. Mayer, he said in an interview, “gave me hope there was going to be justice and everyone responsible was going to be behind bars.”

Now the case is in trouble. Because prosecutors have said Mayer won’t testify, Mejia’s lawyer said he plans to ask the judge in the case to block the video recording of Mejia’s statements to Mayer from being admitted at trial.

Ivan Cruz, who said he has moved to another state out of fear of the people who shot his brother, said he was aware that prosecutors were having trouble reaching Mayer. Mayer, he said, “can bring a lot of peace and closure to the families that are suffering from all of this violence.”

The notion that officers would not follow their cases to trial is anathema to many homicide detectives and prosecutors. They said retired police officers, despite generally not being paid for testifying in their old cases, hold a legal and ethical duty to participate at trial, the same as anyone with knowledge pertinent to a court case.

Retired Seattle homicide detective Cloyd Steiger said he belongs to a Facebook group of retired police officers. “I get messages from them sometimes saying, ‘Hey, I got a subpoena for this murder trial. Do I have to go?’” he said. “And my answer is, ‘Yes, it’s unambiguous. Sorry, yeah, you gotta put your big boy pants on and go down there and do it.’”

John Skaggs, a retired Los Angeles homicide detective who trains homicide squads around the country, said the thought that a homicide detective would refuse to testify for any reason “is foreign to me.”

He said he has brought witnesses into court in wheelchairs and even hospital beds because their testimony was so important. He said he would do the same if he was ill and his testimony was needed. “I’d come in with a medical doctor and a paramedic team, and they can revive me if I go out,” he said. “If I’m needed, I’m coming.”

Brian Seaman, the district attorney in Niagara County, New York, said he had to track down seven retired police officers — including two who had moved out of state — to testify in a 2021 trial over the strangling murder of a 17-year-old girl nearly three decades earlier. He won a conviction.

Seaman said that bringing back the retirees was a “logistics puzzle” but that they “took great pride in their work and wanted to see the case through” to a trial. He said if a retired officer is the only witness who can provide testimony about evidence, “it’s just expected that they be available.”

Officers do sometimes have legitimate medical reasons for missing court, experts noted. Or, particularly in cold cases, they may even be dead by the time a case comes to trial. That’s why it’s important that departments have multiple police witnesses for each piece of evidence collected in the investigation.

But in St. Louis, perhaps because the two detectives are alive and their absences cannot easily be explained to jurors, local prosecutors have tried to salvage what they can from them.

Some legal experts took issue with the circuit attorney’s office’s decision not to compel Mayer to court. Murphy, the former Orange County prosecutor, said it would be a “cop-out” for a prosecutor to say they couldn’t proceed with a case because a witness said they were sick. He said prosecutors can subpoena a witness to determine whether they have a valid medical reason not to testify.

In the early morning hours of a Sunday in August 2019, Sentonio Cox became the 12th child that year in St. Louis to be killed by gunfire — and the third that weekend. The 15-year-old had been roaming around a south side neighborhood with a cousin, who was about the same age. The cousin told police later that someone had come out of a house and yelled at them to get off their property. He fled when he heard a gunshot.

The cousin guided the family to the last place he saw Sentonio. Just after sunrise, they found Sentonio’s body in a vacant lot across the street with a gunshot wound to his head.

Mayer led the investigation, which culminated with the arrest of Brian Potter, who lived in a house across from the vacant lot, and Joseph Renick, who had been staying with him. Police and prosecutors alleged the men had confronted the teens after using a surveillance camera to spot them trying to break into a vehicle parked in front of the house.

According to police and court records in the murder cases, Mayer alleged that Renick pointed a revolver at Sentonio as the teen was backing away with his hands up. Potter ordered Renick to “shoot this piece of shit,” and Renick fired one shot into Sentonio’s head. Renick and Potter pleaded not guilty.

Emails obtained through a public record request showed that prosecutors contacted Mayer several times to update him on the case as they prepared for the Renick and Potter trials. Mayer acknowledged in October 2021 that he had received a subpoena, according to the emails.

In January 2022, prosecutor Srikant Chigurupati emailed Mayer to say the trials were coming up and “we’ll obviously need you as a witness.”

Weeks later, prosecutors requested new trial dates, telling Judge Christopher McGraugh that Mayer was on leave from the department and they were unable to get him to testify. The judge denied the requests.

To buy more time to try to get Mayer to court, the circuit attorney’s office in March 2022 dropped the cases and refiled them. Potter’s attorney said the move violated his client’s right to a speedy trial; Renick’s said it was an abuse of the criminal justice system.

By then, Mayer was approaching retirement and using his accumulated sick time. Mayer said he called in sick for several months in 2022, a common practice among St. Louis officers to maximize their payout for unused sick days, and left the department in September of that year, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 65.

The trial of Potter began in August 2022. Without Mayer, the case against Potter rested on a single eyewitness who had told Mayer she heard Potter give the order to shoot. Potter had told Mayer he didn’t know Renick had a gun, and that the shooting had surprised him, according to testimony at the trial.

Potter’s attorney, Travis Noble, sought to undermine the credibility of that witness, according to the transcript. Noble’s questions during cross-examination revealed that the eyewitness had lied under oath in a previous case and suggested a possible hidden agenda for her implication of Potter: that Mayer had showered her with compliments, called her a hero and promised to intercede with her parole officer. She was on parole for drug trafficking.

Noble also challenged parts of the investigation as unethical and incomplete. In his opening statement, he noted that Mayer, the detective who wrote all the reports, wasn’t there in court but that jurors would instead hear testimony from another detective, Benjamin Lacy, who hadn’t written the reports.

In an exchange with Teer in court, Noble said he would reveal the reason for Mayer’s absence to the jury, insinuating there was more to the story. Out of earshot of the jury, Noble told the judge that he’d heard rumors that Mayer simply “doesn’t want to come back” to testify and said he wanted to ask Lacy about it on the stand, according to the trial transcript.

“He said, ‘F the city of St. Louis,’” Noble told the judge. “He’s riding out, burning his sick time until he can retire.”

The judge said he was wary of derailing the trial by allowing the jury to hear questions about Mayer’s absence. He pointed out that another prosecutor had vouched for Mayer’s medical condition, and he had to accept it as fact. The judge told both sides to say Mayer was “not available.”

In cross-examination, Noble pressed Lacy for details that Mayer had not recorded in his report.

“I know this is not your investigation,” Noble said. “I’m not saying you were derelict the way you did it. This ain’t you. This is Mayer’s investigation, right?”

Lacy answered: “It is.”

The jury acquitted Potter after less than a day of deliberation.

“There was no evidence presented that seemed credible,” the jury foreman, Adam Houston, said in an interview. “Maybe the detective could have made the difference if he had been a credible witness, but it was just some really crappy pictures, a lot of hearsay and random people who are not trustworthy saying things you don’t feel were unmotivated by the things they might be getting out of testifying.”

A week before Renick’s murder trial was set to begin in June, Teer struck a deal for him to plead to involuntary manslaughter; under what’s known as an Alford plea, Renick maintained his innocence even as he conceded prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him. Renick was sentenced to 10 years in prison; under parole guidelines, he is scheduled to be released in August 2025.

While the judge said he didn’t typically discuss plea deals, he described Renick’s sentence as “extremely favorable.” If the case had gone to trial, he said, Renick could have faced life in prison.

Teer said he was “incensed” over how Mayer affected his cases.

Mayer lives far from where he once tried to solve some of the city’s most brutal crimes, in a home set in woods off a dirt road about 100 miles south of St. Louis. Reporters from ProPublica and the Riverfront Times interviewed him in front of his home in June and again in October, each time for about 90 minutes.

Mayer has told prosecutors that he suffers from a heart condition, according to Teer. During the interviews, he said his physical decline should be plainly visible, and he repeatedly apologized for seeming groggy or forgetting key details, which he blamed on the medications he takes. He declined to share his medical records.

This is not the first time Mayer has claimed to be sick for extended periods, but he said that allegations he has abused sick time are false. Before joining the St. Louis police force in 2005, Mayer worked for 24 years in the police department in St. Charles, a major St. Louis suburb. He also took on leadership roles with the FOP, and eventually became its statewide president, representing some 5,000 officers.

In 1995, the St. Charles chief, David King, wrote in an internal memo that Mayer had developed an attitude that “may be counterproductive to police efforts” after his work shift was changed, according to court records.

Mayer then called in sick for 4 1/2 months, producing doctor’s notes that said he had shortness of breath and vocal cord spasms, according to court records. In a memo in January 1996, King noted that Mayer had been seen at an FOP dinner dance and was attending union-related meetings.

In 2003, some St. Charles City Council members wanted to trim Mayer’s benefits, including the 200 hours a year of paid leave he received to do union work. He filed a workers compensation claim for stress-related illness from the “constant and pervasive harassment” of the city council members, then called in sick for five months. His doctor noted that while Mayer was too sick to work, he was able to carry out his FOP duties, which carried “minimal stress,” according to medical records in court papers.

In May 2004, Mayer sued the city, the city administrator and all 10 council members, alleging they were harassing him and causing him health problems. The city countersued with a host of charges against Mayer, including repeated sick time abuse. It pointed to his work for the FOP and claimed that he was physically active.

Mayer was fired in April 2005, according to court records, then months later hired by the St. Louis police department. Mayer and the city of St. Charles agreed to drop their lawsuits, with the city agreeing to pay Mayer $57,000 and describe his departure in personnel records as a retirement, according to news reports.

Fourteen months into his retirement, Mayer recalled how he used to relish testifying in court, a task he called the “crowning jewel” of police work. He said he particularly enjoyed the results of his testimony: helping to send a defendant to prison.

But Mayer said he doesn’t want to think about the horrors of his old job. “That city was just a toilet, and the violence put on other people is just horrendous,” he said. “I don’t really want any involvement anymore,” he added. “I’m retired, you know — aging — and I have my kids and my grandkids.”

That attitude comes with a cost. In the case against Neptali Mejia for the murder of Jonathan Cruz, Mayer’s reluctance to testify casts doubt on the prosecution’s ability to get a murder conviction.

Ivan Cruz said he fears the people involved in his brother’s death will become emboldened if Mejia is not convicted of murder. He said he believes that potential co-defendants have seen Mejia on house arrest and “laugh about it and say the system is not going to do anything.”

In February, Judge Katherine Fowler granted a motion by Mejia’s lawyer, Mark Byrne, to exclude Mayer from testifying because prosecutors had not made him available for a pretrial deposition. Byrne noted in the motion that the prosecutor had told him and the judge months before that Mayer “has not been cooperative with prosecutions of cases in the City of St. Louis.”

Mayer was the only detective present when Mejia allegedly made statements that prosecutors say implicated him, and prosecutors have not disclosed any witness who could provide evidence against his client, Byrne wrote. It’s not clear if a prosecutor would be able to use the recording of Mejia’s statements at trial without Mayer appearing in court to testify about it.

Byrne said if the case were to go to trial, he would ask the judge to bar the recording because he would not have a chance to cross-examine Mayer about it.

“Any evidence they would try to put on and not have the lead detective is problematic,” he said. “The lead detective has his hands on everything and directs people to do things as part of their investigation.”

Two weeks before publication of this story, Teer said he’d been “troubled for quite some time” about Mayer’s absence from the Mejia case. “You can expect that he’ll receive a subpoena from us,” Teer said.

“And if I have to arrest Tommy Mayer to bring him in,” he added, “then I will.”

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This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Jeremy Kohler, ProPublica, and Ryan Krull, Riverfront Times.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Ruby Lott-Lavigna.

A sweeping investigation published by The Washington Post on Tuesday after years of digging and legal battles with the U.S. government shows that at least 15 retired American generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for Saudi Arabia's ministry of defense since 2016.

"Saudi Arabia's paid advisers have included retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, a national security adviser to President Barack Obama, and retired Army Gen. Keith Alexander, who led the National Security Agency under Obama and President George W. Bush," the Post reported, citing more than 4,000 pages documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings.

The Post noted that it "sued the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the State Department in federal court" in pursuit of the documents, which the outlet finally obtained after a protracted legal fight.

"Congress permits retired troops as well as reservists to work for foreign governments if they first obtain approval from their branch of the armed forces and the State Department," the newspaper pointed out. "But the U.S. government has fought to keep the hirings secret. For years, it withheld virtually all information about the practice, including which countries employ the most retired U.S. service members and how much money is at stake."

In total, the Post found that "more than 500 retired U.S. military personnel—including scores of generals and admirals—have taken lucrative jobs since 2015 working for foreign governments" such as Saudi Arabia, Libya, Turkey, and Kuwait, mostly with the official approval of U.S. military branches.

"Records show they rarely reject a job request," the Post found.

The Post did highlight some cases of ex-military officials taking "foreign jobs or gifts without notifying the U.S. government at all," citing the prominent example of retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a Trump loyalist and fascist who raked in nearly $450,000 in payments from Turkey and Russia in 2015 without receiving clearance from U.S. officials.

Other ex-servicemembers named in the Post story as paid consultants to the Saudi defense ministry include retired Air Force Brig. Gen. John Doucette and retired Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry.

Kate Kizer, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy, wrote on Twitter that the reporting provides further evidence that "war and crimes against humanity" are "big business for U.S. military leaders after their service."

The Post published its explosive story as a growing number of Democratic lawmakers are pushing for a total reexamination of longstanding diplomatic and military relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in the wake of OPEC's decision to slash oil production, driving up prices in the U.S. and across the world.

Saudi Arabia receives around 70% of its weaponry from the U.S. on top of other military and logistical support.

"Saudi planes literally couldn't fly if it weren't for American technicians," U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in an interview last week. "Yet they are fleecing the American public... There needs to be consequences."

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a watchdog organization, filed a similar FOIA lawsuit as the Post and also published the results of its investigation on Tuesday.

"Between April 2010 and August 2020, the State Department issued over 500 waivers to retiring servicemembers, allowing them to take emoluments to work on behalf of foreign interests," POGO's Julienne McClure wrote in a summary of the group's findings. "While many of these positions are not disclosed, some clearly support military operations, such as “battle trainer,” while others are far more general, including descriptions like 'consultant' or 'advisor.'"

McClure noted that "over half of these waivers were granted so former military officials could work on behalf of United Arab Emirates interests, despite the Emirati government's troubling record of human rights violations."

"Even as the State Department issued hundreds of these waivers," McClure wrote, "they simultaneously listed a bevy of human rights abuses in their 2020 Country Report on human rights issues in the United Arab Emirates, including 'arbitrary arrest and detention... government interference with privacy rights... undue restriction on free expression and the press... and criminalization of same-sex sexual activity.'"

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Ophelia Williams’s nightmare began on August 8, 1999. It was sometime before 7 a.m. and Williams and her children were asleep in their home in Kansas City, Kansas, when she was awoken by a loud banging on the front door. Williams put a housecoat over her nightgown and went to answer it. Outside was a gaggle of police officers with a search warrant. She let them in.

They were there, she learned, to arrest her twin sons, then 14, who were accused of murder in connection with a robbery gone wrong. As the officers fanned out for the search, a detective named Roger Golubski stood with Williams in her living room. Her 12-year-old daughter was by her side. He introduced himself and looked her up and down, she later testified in a deposition. She was uncomfortable and asked if she could change into some clothes. No, Golubski told her. She moved to the couch and sat down, crossing her legs, “and he said, you got pretty legs,” she recalled. She was worried about her sons, and here was Golubski, commenting on her appearance. “I didn’t like that at all,” she testified. “I thought it was inappropriate.”

“He was the police. What was I going to say?”

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“If I wanted to save myself, meet with him and it won’t be on the record.”

“Wouldn’t any other man who’d been having sex with a series of murder victims be a suspect in their killings?”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Jordan Smith.