United States magistrate judge

A US magistrate judge dismissed charges against former FBI officials Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, who were accused of lying to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 about what they knew of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation. Judge Zia Faruqui called the prosecution "weaponization" of the Justice Department after a two-day probable cause hearing examining each alleged false statement.

Defense attorneys argued the pair, both from the FBI's defunct Foreign Influence Task Force, may have misspoken rather than lied, citing workload and ambiguous committee questioning. The case would have been the highest-level prosecution to emerge from the laptop saga, which the FBI later confirmed as authentic.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic Party are sending 134 election law attorneys, 1,000 voter protection volunteers, and 54 hotline operators to five congressional districts for the midterms, after the White House accused the state of allowing noncitizens to vote illegally. The move follows a federal judge blocking the Justice Department from forcing California to set aside 20,000 ballots it alleged were fraudulently cast; data scientists reviewing that list found it riddled with errors, including thousands of names that don't match state voter rolls. Newsom has since warned federal courts that agents may try to seize ballots before results are certified, calling it an attempt to undermine Democratic midterm gains.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maureen P. Kelly held Attorney General Todd Blanche, Homeland Security chief Markwayne Mullin, and an acting ICE field office director in civil contempt after Nain Vasquez Gonzalez, a Salvadoran man she had ordered released following 38 months of detention, was rearrested by ICE agents in New Jersey hours later. Kelly said officials gave "inconsistent stories" and failed to produce body camera footage, with one agent's camera reportedly uncharged. She criticized ICE's use of masks to conceal agents' identities, calling it "unamerican," and imposed sanctions covering attorney's fees. Immigration attorneys called the contempt finding unusual but an even-handed application of court authority.

A federal magistrate judge in Miami ruled that President Trump must sit for a deposition with BBC lawyers by Dec. 11 or risk penalties, including possible dismissal of his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the broadcaster. Trump had skipped a scheduled Oct. 16 deposition, citing other commitments, and proposed mid-January instead; BBC lawyers argued the delay was untenable given his central role in the case.

The suit stems from a 2024 BBC documentary that spliced portions of Trump's Jan. 6, 2021 speech, which he claims misrepresented his remarks and amounted to election interference. The BBC has apologized for the edit but disputes any defamation. The hearing also addressed a BBC subpoena seeking testimony from former special counsel Jack Smith, which Trump's lawyers oppose. Discovery is scheduled to close Dec. 18.

A federal grand jury has indicted Houston physician Dr. Joseph A. Montes on 12 counts related to an alleged scheme to bill the federal government roughly $30 million for COVID-19 office visits that never occurred, of which about $20 million was actually paid out. Montes appeared before a U.S. magistrate judge after the indictment, returned Sept. 30, was unsealed.

Prosecutors allege that between 2020 and 2022, Montes allowed co-conspirators to run pop-up COVID testing sites under his two Houston clinics' names, billing the Health Resources and Services Administration for office visits patients never actually had, while only providing nasal swab tests. On one day alone, the clinics allegedly submitted more than 9,000 claims — about one every nine seconds. Montes allegedly used proceeds to buy luxury vehicles and jewelry from Tiffany & Co. He faces decades in prison if convicted on the wire fraud and money laundering counts, plus fines up to $250,000. The case is part of a broader federal push against pandemic-era healthcare fraud.

A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel has thrown out a lower court order requiring Oregon to house transgender women inmates in prisons matching their gender identity. The unanimous ruling, authored by Judge Eric Tung and joined by two other Trump-appointed judges, reversed an April decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark D. Clarke that had mandated individualized safety assessments before placement decisions.

The panel found the plaintiffs failed to show Oregon acted with deliberate indifference toward transgender inmates, saying the lower court relied on outdated evidence and disregarded contrary evidence from the state. Two transgender women had sued the Department of Corrections in 2025, alleging severe risk of sexual and physical violence in men's prisons.

Tung's opinion, which repeatedly referred to transgender women as "male inmates who claim to be female," drew criticism from civil rights attorneys and even Oregon's own Attorney General's Office, which welcomed the outcome but disavowed the court's language. The underlying lawsuit continues in federal district court, and attorneys for the plaintiffs say they intend to keep pursuing the claims.

Lawyers for two Orthodox Jewish synagogues, Bais Brucha and Khal Anshei, are asking a federal magistrate judge to sanction Toms River, New Jersey, for failing to preserve laptops and phones tied to a religious discrimination lawsuit filed in 2021. The suit alleges the township worked to block expansion of the Orthodox Jewish community through discriminatory zoning, including a former 10-acre house-of-worship minimum and parking rules the shuls say unfairly burden religious sites.

Plaintiffs' attorney Roman Storzer says of 24 relevant township laptops, 11 are missing and three are encrypted; of 25 cell phones, nine are lost and five are inaccessible. A judge already fined Toms River $29,750 in October for contempt over discovery failures. Complicating the case, the township's insurer-appointed law firm is again seeking to withdraw as counsel, a request a judge denied once already. Toms River is separately suing its excess insurance fund for more coverage, arguing the case is a civil rights matter, not a land-use dispute, as the township has already exhausted $2 million in existing coverage.