Anonymous ID: ccb2ff Dec. 16, 2021, 7:26 a.m. No.15202104   🗄️.is đź”—kun

https://www.cnn.com/profiles/eric-hall-profile

Eric Hall is the Executive Producer of CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin (2-4pm ET) and CNN Right Now with Brianna Keilar (1-2pm ET). Named to the position in December 2012, Hall oversees and manages the editorial direction, production and execution of the daily shows, while leading teams based in the Atlanta, New York and Washington bureaus. He's led coverage during some of the decade's most pivotal news stories, including the Sandy Hook School Shooting and the Boston Marathon Bombings. He's also produced countless live events, including the Russia investigation hearings and the Impeachment Trial of President Donald Trump.

In addition, Hall serves as Executive Producer for several breaking news specials and special events for the network throughout the year, including "CNN New Year's Eve Live" and the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The New Year's Eve Special with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen, featuring six hours of celebrity interviews and on-location events, is cable news' top-rated special every first of the year.

Prior to CNN, Hall wrote, booked and produced both television and digital content for Shepard Smith's two news programs at Fox News Channel from 2007-2010. He spent 2008 on the road with Smith, covering the election of Barack Obama and Hurricane Gustav in New Orleans. Previously, he worked in CNN's Program Development department on the creation of pilots, news specials and major interviews for CNN networks.

Hall began his career with ABC's The View and The Barbara Walters Specials, part of the small team that produced her annual Oscar and "The Most Fascinating People" specials. Some of the profiles and interviews featured in the primetime programs included Eddie Murphy, Mariah Carey, George Clooney, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise, Ellen DeGeneres and Jay-Z.

Hall graduated from Elon University with a degree in Corporate Communications and Business Administration. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and two daughters.

Anonymous ID: ccb2ff Dec. 16, 2021, 8:22 a.m. No.15202386   🗄️.is đź”—kun

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ghislaine-maxwells-defense-sex-abuse-trial-begin-its-case-2021-12-16/

Ghislaine Maxwell's defense calls former Epstein assistant as first witness

Ghislaine Maxwell's defense kicked off its case in the British socialite's sex abuse trial on Thursday, calling a former assistant to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein as its first witness.

Since the trial began on Nov. 29, the jury has heard testimony from four women who said Maxwell groomed them between 1994 and 2004 for abuse by Epstein.

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges.

Cimberly Espinosa, 55, testified that she was hired as a legal assistant to Epstein's company in 1996. She said she then changed roles to work as Maxwell's executive assistant from November of 1996 until 2002.

"We were together just about every day," she said.

Under questioning by Maxwell attorney Christian Everdell, Espinosa testified that she worked with several other women who were receptionists or executive assistants to Epstein and Maxwell.

Espinosa said Maxwell was a demanding boss but that she learned a lot from her.

"I highly respected Ghislaine," Espinosa said. "I looked up to her very much."

Maxwell, 59, has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of sex trafficking and other crimes. Her attorneys argue that she is being scapegoated for the late financier's alleged conduct because he is dead.

In its case, which is expected to last two to four days, Maxwell's lawyers are likely to continue attempting to undermine her accusers' credibility by asserting that the women's memories have faded over the years and that they are motivated by money to implicate Maxwell.

The prosecution rested its case on Friday.

Anonymous ID: ccb2ff Dec. 16, 2021, 8:30 a.m. No.15202424   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>2428 >>2464

>>15202399

>https://montrealgazette.com/news/canada/police-to-give-update-on-killings-of-billionaires-barry-and-honey-sherman

Video released of suspect with distinctive gait in Barry and Honey Sherman murders

The suspect, with a hitch in their right leg, was seen walking around the couple's home when they were killed

Four years after Honey and Barry Sherman were found strangled by the pool in their Toronto mansion, a break in the investigation could now hinge on whether or not anyone recognizes the distinctive walk of a person who’s a suspect in the shocking double murder.

The suspect — no gender was clarified — has a distinctive hitch in their step and was seen walking around the couple’s home on Old Colony Road around the time that police believe the couple was murdered, Toronto Police told reporters at a Tuesday briefing.

“Through our investigation we have been unable to determine what this individual’s purpose was in the neighbourhood,” said Det.-Sgt. Brandon Price.”I would ask that you pay particular attention to the gait or stride or walk style that this person has on the video.”

The use of gait analysis in criminal investigations, says Michael Nirenberg, a “forensic podiatrist,” dates back to the 1830s, and has been used a number of times in American courts through the 20th century.

“What was once an almost accidental source of evidence has become a routine forensic option for some law enforcement agencies,” Nirenberg writes in the book Forensic Gait Analysis: Principles and Practice.

From his initial look at the footage — 22 seconds of the suspect, who appears to be wearing a hip-length jacket, striding along a cleared sidewalk on a snowy night — Nirenberg said he can see distinctiveness in the swing of the suspect’s arm and the tilt of the head. A gait analyst, he explained, would build a head-to-toe profile of the way a suspect walks, in order to link them to footage of a perpetrator.

“I’ll tell you what’s good in this case … this footage is good footage,” Nirenberg said.

Though to the layman the distinctive walk may be difficult to discern from the video, Price said the suspect’s walk shows they “kick up with their right foot with every step.”

“It is our hope that someone will come forward with a name when they recognize the individual’s walk,” Price said.

Trevor Haywood, the president and CEO of Haywood Hunt & Associates , a private investigation firm in Ontario, said there’s logic to releasing the video: Why just have a few investigators looking at the footage when millions of eyes could be doing so?

“The mannerism of somebody’s walking or behavioural characteristics, somebody might notice that,” Haywood said. “It could be a neighbour, somebody who sees somebody walking around, somebody that went to school with this individual — it could really open a Pandora’s Box.”

Anonymous ID: ccb2ff Dec. 16, 2021, 8:31 a.m. No.15202428   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>2444 >>2464

>>15202424

In Canada, in 2009, Daniel Aitken was convicted of the December 2004 first-degree murder of Adan Merino, in part based on a podiatrist’s testimony regarding Aitken’s gait. On appeal, Aitken’s lawyers argued gait analysis was opinion, without scientific basis, and should not have been allowed by the trial judge. The appellate court judge said the evidence was admissible.

“No doubt exists about differences in human gait: most people remember instances in which they recognized friends or relatives by their walk,” says an article in the journal Forensic Sciences Research.

Evidence, dating back to the 1970s, shows people can, from a side view, recognize their friends from their gait roughly 37 per cent of the time, though the likelihood of recognizing strangers is “not even above chance level.”

“Forensic gait analysis has been presented and accepted as a solution to a current problem — identifying people who are disguised or partially obscured in the ever-expanding number of images related to criminal acts,” says an article in the Journal of Law and Criminology.

Yet, researchers have questioned the validity of gait analysis and argued it has significant limitations in terms of accuracy, validity and reliability, even if done via algorithmic analysis. In order to be used as an identifier, the article argues, a number of challenges must be overcome, including the image quality and duration, and a variety of different movement types: is the person on screen running or walking, or injured, or intoxicated, or deliberately trying to disguise their gait.

Toronto police, upon showing media the footage, said they have no further information on the suspect’s age, weight or skin colour.

But, Price said, the suspect is between, roughly, 5’6″ and nearly 5’10” tall. They are wearing a head covering in the video, though police were unable to say whether it was a hat or a hood.

Meaghan Gray, a spokesperson for the Toronto police, told the Post the homicide squad had seen an increased number of tips following the announcement, but did not say how many had been received.

The suspect is contained within the reams of video footage police have obtained from security cameras in the neighbourhood. While the “vast majority” of people seen in the video have been cleared, this individual has not, and Price said, vanishes from view for “a very suspicious amount of time.”

“We’re left with a very glaring sort of unknown with this individual which requires an explanation,” Price said.

The Shermans were found dead in December 2017. Both were seated on the pool room floor of their 12,000-sq.-ft. North York mansion, with belts around their necks that were tied to metal railings along the pool. Initially, police suggested the deaths were a murder-suicide, but later revised that to a double homicide.

Last year, when the Supreme Court of Canada weighed in on the complexity of the case, justices bemoaned the lack of information, and speculated about who the killers might have been.

“Nobody knows anything about this case, that we know of. Nobody knows the motive, nobody knows the assassins’ names,” said Justice Russel Brown.

Tuesday’s announcement, while light on detail, represents one of the most significant updates about the deaths of two of Canada’s richest people. Price said officers have conducted 250 witness interviews, received 1,255 tips from the public and have taken 992 “investigative actions,” though he did not specify what that means.

The Sherman family has also hired a team of private investigators in an attempt to solve the case and are offering a $10-million reward for information on who killed the couple.