Articles by Josh Russell

Clothing

NYC agrees to $17.5 million settlement over forced removal of hijabs for mugshot photos Men and women who were forced to remove any religious head coverings for NYPD photographs are eligible for approximately $7,000 to $13,000 in settlement payments from the city.

April 5, 2024   

(Courthouse News) New York City agreed on Friday to pay a $17.5 million settlement to resolve a class-action civil rights lawsuit brought by New York women who were forced to remove their religious headscarves in NYPD mugshot photos for the department’s facial […]

Legal

NYC bike path attacker spared death penalty in rare trial The same jurors who convicted Sayfullo Saipov of eight murder counts eligible for the death penalty needed to agree on the penalty unanimously for him to face capital punishment.

March 13, 2023   

(Courthouse News) The Uzbek immigrant who carried out a truck attack on a lower Manhattan bike path in 2017, killing eight, will spend the rest of his life in a U.S. federal prison after a federal jury was divided on whether he […]

Legal

Family of truck terrorist testify in his defense at NYC death penalty trial The penalty phase of a trial underway since January hurtled toward its end with emotional testimony from the mother and the youngest sister of the Uzbek man convicted of a deadly 2017 truck attack in Manhattan.

March 1, 2023   

(Courthouse News) Two family members of Sayfullo Saipov spoke in his defense Wednesday, giving jurors a tearful composite of the man they knew before he became radicalized by the Islamic State group and went on to kill eight people as they spent […]

Law Enforcement

Lebanese sleeper agent loses challenge to 40-year sentence The Second Circuit on Tuesday upheld the terrorism conviction of man who claimed FBI agents had tricked him into incriminating himself while proffering evidence as a cooperator.

July 27, 2021   

(Courthouse News) A Hezbollah-trained sleeper agent who scouted New York City buildings for possible targets of terrorism failed to secure a reversal of his 40-year prison sentence Tuesday. At oral arguments back in April, attorneys for Lebanon-born Ali Kourani [said he] only […]