Brian Laundrie's parents 'grieving privately'; cause of death still undetermined, lawyer says

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The cause of death for Brian Laundrie, Gabby Petito's fiancé, has not yet been determined, his family's lawyer said Monday.

Attorney Steven Bertolino told WFLA on Friday that Laundrie's remains had been transferred to an anthropologist for further evaluation.

"No manner or cause of death was determined," Bertolino said Monday.

Bertolino also confirmed reports that there would be no funeral service for Laundrie.

Bertolino said his parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, were currently "grieving privately in Florida" with their daughter Cassie.

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After more than a month of searching, authorities located Laundrie's remains and other evidence on Oct. 20 at the Carlton Reserve, a nearly 25,000-acre preserve in Sarasota County, Florida. The remains were identified using Laundrie's dental records. They were found alongside some personal items, including a backpack, dry bag and a notebook, which experts believe could provide further clues.

“If that notebook contained, for example, information that could have been admissions, it could be projecting blame or rationalization, all that information could help in the determination,” former FBI profiler Jim Clemente told CNN on Thursday.

Laundrie was named a person of interest in Petito's death after returning to North Port, Florida, without her after the couple went on a cross-country road trip.

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Petito's body was later found in Wyoming, and the coroner ruled she had died by "manual strangulation."

Laundrie was never charged in connection with her death, though he was suspected of debit card fraud and withdrawing more than $1,000 from an unnamed account during the time Petito was missing.

Laundrie disappeared six days before Petito's body was discovered. Bertolino told News Nation's Ashleigh Banfield that he would go hiking often so his parents weren't concerned about him leaving to go to the reserve.

“He’s a young man; they weren’t concerned,” Bertolino said. “They thought he was … clearing his mind.”

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News Nation's Brian Entin reported that police had kept tabs on Laundrie before he disappeared by placing surveillance cameras around his family's home, but they missed him leaving to go to the reserve. Authorities said the lack of charges against Laundrie prevented them from taking more drastic measures.

One of the things I held off on reporting -- but now will because Brian Laundrie is confirmed dead.
Police installed hidden cameras around the house -- including this camera in a neighbor's yard behind the house. This particular camera was installed after Brian went missing. pic.twitter.com/RgNeC4wSUw

— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) October 23, 2021

“What I’ll say is that we were the ones doing everything in our power to get answers on this. If mistakes were made, there’s human error involved in every investigation," North Port police spokesman Josh Taylor said. "It certainly wasn’t from a lack of taking it seriously or hustle or knowledge. Sometimes things happen."

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Britney Spears 'will not be extorted' by father, lawyer says

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears and her new attorney say her father is trying to get about $2 million in payments before stepping down from the conservatorship that controls her life and money, a move they liken to extortion in a court filing Tuesday.

The document filed by lawyer Mathew Rosengart says the upcoming scheduled accounting of the conservatorship, which James Spears says he wants completed before he steps down, will mean significant payments for him.

“Britney Spears will not be extorted,” the filing says. “Mr. Spears’s blatant attempt to barter suspension and removal in exchange for approximately $2 million in payments, on top of the millions already reaped from Ms. Spears’s estate by Mr. Spears and his associates, is a non-starter.”

A representative for James Spears did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The filing is a supplement to Rosengart's July petition on Britney Spears' behalf for the removal and suspension of James Spears, which will be addressed at a Sept. 29 hearing.

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In his response, James Spears revealed that he had already been planning to step down from his daughter's conservatorship, which he has controlled at least in part since it was established in 2008.

But James Spears offered no timetable for his departure, saying it would come only after several lingering issues, including the next accounting, are resolved.

James Spears said he would fight any attempt to force him out, that there were no grounds for doing so, and that he has always only acted in his daughter's best interest.

Rosengart's latest filing contends that while there is plenty of misconduct to address, it is not yet the issue.

“The only question before the Court — which has, unfortunately, been lost for years — is whether Mr. Spears’ prompt suspension and removal are in best the interests of Britney Spears,” the filing says, later adding that “the unequivocal answer is yes.”

Since 2019, James Spears has controlled only his daughter's finances, after stepping down as the overseer of her personal life.

He was nevertheless the target of much of his daughter's ire in a pair of speeches before the court in June and July, in which she called the conservatorship “abusive.” Spears said she had been required to use an intrauterine device for birth control, take medications against her will and prevented from getting married, having another child or even riding in her boyfriend's car unsupervised.

“This conservatorship is doing me way more harm than good,” the 39-year-old Spears said at the time. “I deserve to have a life.”

In an unrelated case, authorities in Ventura County are investigating an allegation of misdemeanor battery from a staff member at her home who said Britney Spears struck her.

Rosengart called the incident "a manufactured ‘he said she said’ regarding a cellphone, with no striking and obviously no injury whatsoever.”

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OJ Simpson still fighting against orders to pay $60M for Goldman deaths, lawyer says

LAS VEGAS (AP) – O.J. Simpson will keep fighting recent court orders in Nevada that he owes at least $60 million in judgments stemming from the 1994 killings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman, his lawyer said Friday.

Attorney Malcolm LaVergne said he intends to ask the Nevada Supreme Court to overturn one judge’s order to pay the slain man’s father, Fred Goldman, and another judge’s order in favor of Paul Dorsey, a Connecticut man holding rights to collect the wrongful death claim of Ron Goldman’s mother, Sharon Rufo.

“I will be appealing both of those,” LaVergne said, “and there will be more motions at the trial level.”

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The flurry of court activity represents another turn in a more than two-decade fight by Ron Goldman’s parents to collect some $33.5 million that a California civil jury ordered Simpson to pay in 1997, two years after he was acquitted of double murder in what came to be known as “The Trial of the Century.”

New court filings followed a March 31 settlement of Simpson's 2019 lawsuit against The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, a hotel-casino where he alleged he was defamed by unnamed employees telling a celebrity news site he had been banned from the property in November 2017 for being drunk and disruptive.

LaVergne refuses to say if money changed hands in the settlement.

“They can't prove there are any settlement proceeds,” he said Friday, promising to litigate “to the very end."

In court filings, attorneys for The Cosmopolitan point to a confidentiality clause of the agreement and declare the resort “did not give any money or property to Mr. Simpson pursuant to the settlement.”

The Cosmopolitan previously argued that Simpson couldn’t be defamed because his reputation was already tarnished by his criminal and civil trials in the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend, and by his conviction and imprisonment in Nevada in a 2007 armed robbery case.

Simpson was convicted in Las Vegas in 2008, but has always maintained he and five men confronting two memorabilia dealers at a casino hotel room were just trying to retrieve personal mementoes stolen from him following his 1995 acquittal in Los Angeles. Two of the men had guns.

Attorney Craig Newman, representing Dorsey, pointed Friday to a June 7 court order keeping Simpson on the hook for at least $4.6 million. But Newman acknowledged there can be more court fights — including to determine if Simpson actually received money from The Cosmopolitan.

Attorney Larson Welsh, representing Goldman, was out of the office Friday and did not immediately respond to emails about a June 3 ruling favoring Fred Goldman.

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The slain man's father has hounded Simpson for years and contends Simpson has never willingly paid any of the judgment. Nevada court records list the amount of Goldman's claim now at $58 million.

Simpson, 74, lives in a gated golf course community in Las Vegas. He remains on parole following his release from prison in July 2017 after serving nine years for armed robbery, kidnapping and assault with a weapon.

The NFL Hall-of-Famer, former sports commentator, movie actor and commercial pitchman has declined to discuss his finances other than to say he lives on pensions.

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'Tiger King's' Jeff Lowe willing to give up big cats, lawyer says

MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) — Netflix’s “Tiger King” star Jeff Lowe and his wife are willing to give up their big cats to resolve a Justice Department civil complaint against them over the animals' care, their attorney told a federal judge.

At a hearing Wednesday where the judge found the couple in contempt for violating a previous order regarding the big cats, attorney Daniel Card said the Lowes “want out completely."

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Jeff Lowe took over the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park from founder Joe Exotic in 2016. Lowe and his wife displayed big cats there until shutting down the park in August. They then moved to a new facility in Thackerville.

The civil complaint, filed in November, accused the Lowes of recurring inhumane treatment and improper handling of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act. U.S. District Judge John F. Heil III in January issued an order that, among other things, required the couple to prevent breeding; to relinquish all of their lion and tiger cubs to the federal government; and not to exhibit any of their big cats.

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The judge in March found that the Lowes had violated his order, and on Wednesday fined them $1,000 per day until they get in compliance, according to The Oklahoman.

“They don’t want to fight this anymore. They don’t want to do it,” Card told Heil. “They want to give the tigers to a ... sanctuary of their choice and be done with it.”

Jeff Lowe was one of the central characters in the Netflix series that became a pop culture phenomenon last year. The series focused on Joe Exotic, a pseudonym for Joseph Maldonado-Passage. He is serving 22 years in federal prison for violating federal wildlife laws and for his role in a failed murder-for-hire plot targeting his chief rival, Carole Baskin, who runs a rescue sanctuary for big cats in Florida.

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Man charged in U.S. Capitol riot worked for FBI, lawyer says

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man who authorities say is a leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group and helped to organize a ring of other extremists and led them in the attack last month at the U.S. Capitol has held a top-secret security clearance for decades and previously worked for the FBI, his attorney said Monday.

Thomas Caldwell, who authorities believe holds a leadership role in the extremist group, worked as a section chief for the FBI from 2009 to 2010 after retiring from the Navy, his lawyer, Thomas Plofchan, wrote in a motion urging the judge to release him from jail while he awaits trial.

The defense said Caldwell, who has denied being part of the Oath Keepers, has held a top-secret security clearance since 1979, which required multiple special background investigations, according to Plofchan. Caldwell also ran a consulting firm that did classified work for the U.S. government, the lawyer said.

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“He has been vetted and found numerous times as a person worthy of the trust and confidence of the United States government, as indicated by granting him Top Secret clearances," Plofchan wrote.

Most section chiefs within the FBI rise through the ranks of the bureau and it is unclear whether Caldwell would’ve been directly hired for that position or whether he held any other positions with the bureau. The FBI did not immediately comment Monday evening and Caldwell's lawyer didn’t immediately answer questions about his client's work.

Caldwell is one of three people authorities have described as Oath Keepers who were charged last month with conspiracy and accused of plotting the attack on the Capitol in advance. He has been locked up since his arrest at his home in Berryville, Virginia, on Jan. 19.

Caldwell's lawyer said he denies ever going into the Capitol and has “physical limitations” that would prevent the 66-year-old from forcing his way into any building.

Caldwell’s lawyer said his client retired as a lieutenant commander with the Navy and that he was a “100% disabled veteran.” Caldwell suffered from complications related to a “service-connected injury,” including shoulder, back and knee issues, the attorney said. In 2010, Caldwell had spinal surgery, which later failed and led to chronic spinal issues and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the court filing.

Charging documents show messages between Caldwell and the others about arranging hotel rooms in the Washington area in the days before the siege. In one Facebook message from to Caldwell, one the others says: “Will probably call you tomorrow … mainly because … I like to know wtf plan is. You are the man COMMANDER.”

Authorities say the Oath Keepers communicated during the attack about where lawmakers were. At one point during the siege, Caldwell received a message that said “all members are in the tunnels under the capital,” according to court documents. “Seal them in turn on gas," it said.

Other messages read: “Tom all legislators are down in the Tunnels 3floors down" and "go through back house chamber doors facing N left down hallway down steps," according to court documents.

Caldwell is among roughly 200 people charged so far in the siege for federal crimes such as disrupting Congress, disorderly conduct and assault. A special group of prosecutors is weighing whether to bring sedition charges, officials have said.

Several members of the Proud Boys, a far-right, male-chauvinist extremist group that seized on the Trump administration’s policies, have also been charged with conspiracy and accused of working together during the siege.

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