Free Republic

NEW YORK — Deborah A. Batts, the nation’s first openly gay federal judge, has died. She was 72. Batts was found dead on Monday, three months before she was set to preside over a trial of California lawyer Michael Avenatti on charges that he cheated porn star Stormy Daniels, a former client, of proceeds of a book deal. No cause of death was immediately released. In June 1994, Batts was sworn in after a smooth confirmation process following her appointment to the bench by President Bill Clinton. During her confirmation proceedings, it was never mentioned that she was a lesbian....

Manhattan federal court judge Deborah Batts who was slated to oversee Michael Avenatti’s Stormy Daniels-related embezzlement trial, has died. She was 72. The Philadelphia-born jurist, who was the first openly gay member of the federal judiciary, passed away February 2, according to sources familiar with the matter.

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a defamation suit filed by a woman who accused former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly of harassment. Rachel Witlieb Bernstein, a former Fox News producer, said in court that O'Reilly and Fox News defamed her in interviews they gave following her allegation that O'Reilly screamed at her, in addition to allegations from other colleagues, according to Variety. O'Reilly claimed that he was the victim of "political and financial hit job" …(snip) ... U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts said that Bernstein did not prove that she suffered harm from statements made by O'Reilly or Fox,...

A top Osama Bin Laden lieutenant who stabbed a Manhattan prison guard in the eye said yesterday that his hand was covered in blood after the attack but denied it was an act of terror. "My hand was all bloody," Mamdouh Mahmud Salim said as he gave a judge a chilling blow-by-blow account of the Nov. 1, 2000, assault on Louis Pepe at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. "This is the first time in my life that the blood of another person would come on my hand." Prosecutors are trying to prove the stabbing with a sharpened comb was a terrorist...