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New photos released showing Jeffrey Epstein with powerful men

admin - Latest News - December 13, 2025
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Democrats on the House Oversight committee released new photos obtained from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate. The photos show Epstein with a number of powerful men including President Trump, President Clinton, Woody Allen and Steve Bannon. The photos do not appear to show any illegal activity. NBC News’ Ryan Nobles reports.



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Dec. 12, 2025, 5:14 PM ESTBy Corky SiemaszkoRough seas. An almost moonless night. And a small fishing boat crossing a treacherous stretch of the Caribbean Sea, carrying precious cargo with a target on her back.Those were the conditions that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado faced when she made perhaps the most perilous part of her journey to collect her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, according to the U.S. Special Forces veteran who planned and aided her escape.“There were 5- to 6-foot waves, maybe even bigger waves than that, and we were doing this in the middle of the night,” Bryan Stern, who heads the Tampa, Florida-based Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, told NBC News. “It was pitch black, almost no moonlight. All of us were very cold and wet.”But Machado never lost her composure, or her lunch, Stern said, as the skiff lurched in the rough sea and plied through waters that have been targeted, of late, by the U.S. missile strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats.“She did fine,” Stern said. “They call her the Iron Lady for a reason.”Stern dubbed the extrication operation: “Operation Golden Dynamite.”“She is overwhelmingly the highest-profile person we’ve rescued,” said Stern, who noted this was the 800th mission his organization carried out.Machado vows to bring Nobel Peace Prize back to ‘Venezuelan mothers’01:35Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in October for leading the opposition against Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro’s regime, said on Thursday that she got help from the U.S. government to leave her hiding place in Venezuela and collect her award.Stern insisted the operation was paid for “by a series of unnamed donors,” and the U.S. government was aware of what was going on but not directly involved.“We designed and implemented the extrication of María Corina Machado from Venezuela to a friendly country from which she was flown to her next destination,” Stern said. “We were not hired by anyone in the U.S. government.”In fact, Stern added, “I’ve never received a thank-you note, let alone a dollar, from the U.S. government.”The White House did not respond to an email from NBC News seeking information about its possible involvement in Machado’s escape.Stern said he began planning the mission on Dec. 5.“We really wanted to get her to the Nobel prize ceremony on time,” he said. “But there were a number of obstacles.”Getting Machado out of Venezuela required disguising her appearance. Stern did not say exactly what they did to get her out and wouldn’t comment on a Wall Street Journal account that she, at some point, donned a wig.“Her face was a problem because she is the most famous person in Venezuela outside of Maduro,” he said, noting that there are billboards with Machado’s image everywhere in Venezuela.The Maduro regime was using Machado’s facial biometrics to try to locate her, he said.“People in the Maduro regime call it the ‘Hunt for Maria’ the way we would talk about the ‘Hunt for Bin Laden’,” Stern said. “We had to use a lot of deception, even with some members of her own team.”Stern said he met Machado for the first time on Tuesday evening. He would not say exactly when or where he rendezvoused with Machado, but it involved her taking a small skiff from a fishing village and transferring her at sea to the somewhat bigger fishing boat that he was on.“I was on the second leg of the operation,” he said. “I got very close to Venezuela.”But Machado’s departure, which was supposed to happen Tuesday morning, was delayed till evening by a broken engine, he said. And what should have been a three or four-hour trip turned into a roughly 16-hour ordeal.“I first met her at sea,” Stern said. “We used a fishing boat to get her to her flight.”Stern said the flight took off from Curaçao, which is about 40 miles north of Venezuela and is a self-governing island that is part of the Netherlands.“I would say we transited through Curaçao,” Stern said. “She wasn’t in Curaçao. She never cleared immigration in Curaçao.”Stern said this was the most challenging mission he and his group have undertaken. As for Machado, Stern said he’s a big fan.“I’ll admit I’m starstruck,” he said. “She’s a hero of mine.”Corky SiemaszkoCorky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.
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Oct. 31, 2025, 5:30 PM EDTBy Tim StellohFor John Diebel, she’s the suspect who got away.Diebel, a retired detective, spent more than a decade investigating the brutal murder of Steven Schwartz, a wealthy doctor whose 2014 death shook Florida’s Gulf coast. In his first interview about the case, Diebel recalled that the investigation was one of the most extensive of his nearly 50 years in law enforcement — one filled with unexpected turns and dead ends that led detectives far from the doctor’s sprawling mansion northeast of Tampa. Retired dectective, John Diebel who has spent more than a decade investigating the death of Steven Schwartz.DatelineYet in the end, Diebel’s investigation for the Tarpon Springs Police Department produced a single conviction for a crime far less serious than murder. And it did not yield criminal charges for a person who Diebel believes is responsible for the killing: Schwartz’s wife, Rebecca Schwartz.“It’s like the one case where you didn’t get the suspect that you knew in your heart that she committed a murder,” Diebel told “Dateline.” “You just didn’t have enough for the state attorney’s office to go forward with prosecution.” For more on the case, tune in to “The Death of Dr. Schwartz” on “Dateline” at 9 ET/8 CT tonight.DATELINE FRIDAY SNEAK PEEK: The Death of Dr. Schwartz01:55While Rebecca, 65, has never been criminally charged in the case, a jury in civil court — where the standard of evidence is lower than in criminal proceedings — found her liable this year for intentionally killing her husband or participating in his death. That decision, made in response to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Steven’s family, included a judgment that required Rebecca to pay the doctor’s family nearly $200 million in damages.Lawyers for Steven’s family accused her of killing him over a possible divorce — a move that would have cut her off from the fortune he’d made as a doctor specializing in kidney disease. Steven Schwartz.DatelineAfter Steven’s death, Rebecca — who earlier in life pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $7,000 from a Mothers Against Drunk Driving chapter that she led — became the beneficiary of an estate that an attorney for Steven’s family estimated at more than $30 million. She moved the money into hard-to-track limited liability companies, according to the family’s legal team. To date, the lawyers have frozen roughly $6 million to $10 million of her assets, one of the attorneys, Wil Florin, told “Dateline.”Rebecca declined to speak to “Dateline.” In a deposition in the civil case, she invoked her right against self-incrimination and declined to answer when attorneys for Steven’s family pressed her about whether she participated in his death. She did the same when she was asked about her previous conviction. In a separate deposition last year, she said she was worth $10,000 and had transferred almost everything she owned into trusts controlled by her two sons. Her attorney, Rohom Khonsari, said there was no evidence supporting the claim that Steven wanted to divorce her. Nor was there any physical evidence linking her to the crime, Khonsari said. A staged burglary and a dead body On the evening of May 28, 2014, Rebecca dialed 911 and reported a robbery at the family’s 8,000-square-foot home in Tarpon Springs, northeast of Tampa. Jewelry, cash and her husband’s watches were gone, according to audio of the 911 call, and she told the dispatcher she hadn’t seen Steven since that morning, when she left at 8:30 and he was in bed reading a newspaper.“He’s a physician, so I don’t know where he is, actually,” she said. “One of the hospitals, I assume.” Steven Schwartz and his wife, Rebecca Schwartz.DatelineAs investigators searched the house, they found watch boxes scattered across a bedroom floor and drawers yanked from cabinets. At the bottom of a set of stairs, they found Steven’s body in a pool of blood, Diebel recalled. He was 74.He’d been shot twice — once in the head, once in the neck — with what Diebel believed was a small-caliber gun. He had a large laceration across his neck, Diebel said, and an autopsy showed his spine had been fractured — an injury he appeared to have sustained during a fall down the stairs. Investigators discovered that a crucial part of the home’s elaborate security system — a DVR — was missing, as was a large knife in a butcher block in the kitchen, Diebel said. Neither would ever be found. Nor would authorities find the gun used to shoot him.Diebel came to believe the burglary scene was staged. While the drawers had been pulled out, he said, it didn’t appear that anyone had actually rifled through them. And the jewelry and watch boxes looked like they’d just been dropped on the floor. The effort, he said, seemed designed to make the crime look like a “burglary gone bad.”A crime scene photo of the drawers pulled out during the alleged burglary of the Schwartz home.DatelineDiebel also came to believe that someone close to the Schwartzes was probably responsible for the doctor’s death. He based that suspicion on the location of the missing recording equipment — it was hidden in a closet, above the garage — and on the family’s two large dogs: Rebecca told police they’d been locked all day inside the same bedroom that had been burglarized. Those clues led Diebel to believe the person was familiar with the home’s layout and knew the pets.Shortly after the death, investigators interviewed Rebecca, who called her husband her “best bud” — they’d been married for four years but a couple for far longer — and provided an account of her whereabouts on May 28, a video of the interview shows. That account included receipts, Diebel said. When police shared their theory about who was likely to have been responsible for her husband’s killing, she responded: “You think you can find who did this?”An investigator responded in the affirmative.Fingerprints lifted from the security system and elsewhere at the crime scene provided what initially seemed like a promising lead. They matched those of Rebecca’s oldest son from a previous marriage, Diebel said, prompting Diebel to travel with a team of investigators to a small town north of Madison, Wisconsin, where the son owned a Verizon shop.They showed up at his workplace unannounced, Diebel said, and questioned him about where he’d been on May 28. It turned out he’d been nowhere near Tarpon Springs. “He had gone to the doctor’s with his wife,” Diebel said. “She was pregnant at the time.”Diebel also ruled out a startling revelation from the doctor’s past that emerged after his death. As a 21-year-old college student in New Mexico, he robbed a doctor of $400 — then fatally shot him. Steven pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison but granted a full pardon a decade later.While shocking — Steven had kept the crime a secret from his children — Diebel believed it had no connection to his death. It had happened in 1961, more than a half-century before, Diebel said, and the doctor had transformed into a model citizen“This was a completely different man,” Diebel said. Finally, a breakthrough in the case Nearly a year passed before DNA delivered the case’s first breakthrough. The samples were taken from two spots on Steven’s clothes — inside a pocket where he usually kept a wad of cash, Diebel said, and a section of his shirt that appeared crumpled.It wasn’t the strongest DNA match — Diebel said there had been significant contamination at the scene because of the amount of blood — but the analysis led to an unexpected person: Leo Stragaj, a man who’d worked for the Schwartzes for years doing remodeling and property maintenance. Two weeks after the killing, Stragaj, 48, provided authorities with the genetic sample they used to compare with the DNA collected at the scene. In a recorded interview obtained by “Dateline,” he told authorities that he had no idea who was behind Steven’s death but wanted to help however he could.“That guy took care of my everything,” said Stragaj, an Albanian national who first came to the United States in 2000. “He supported my family in Albania.”Stragaj provided an account of his whereabouts on May 28 — he said he’d been working on a house all day — and authorities verified it, Diebel said. But after they obtained the DNA sample, police arrested him on a first-degree murder charge and confronted him with the new finding. He initially disputed the evidence, saying that he was being framed and that there was no way it was his, according to a video of the interview. Anton Stragaj’s mug shot in Tarpon Springs, Fla.DatelineBut after an hour and a half, Stragaj provided a far different account. In the interview, he said that Rebecca had asked him to stop by their house early May 28 to pick up her purse and that when he did, he found Steven’s body in a pool of blood.Stragaj said he grabbed the doctor and shook him — “just to see if he’s OK,” he said in the interview. He retrieved Rebecca’s bag, which he said contained jewelry boxes and a knife, and left.Upon returning the purse, he started screaming at Rebecca and demanding to know why she killed her husband, Stragaj told “Dateline.” She at first said nothing, then responded, “I know you know why I did it,” Stragaj said. (Stragaj provided a similar account during a deposition in the civil case when he was questioned by an attorney for Steven’s family.) In an interview with “Dateline,” Stragaj said he didn’t go to the police for two reasons: He feared being deported and worried Rebecca wouldn’t pay him the tens of thousands of dollars he said she owed him from an investment they’d made together.Not calling the police that day, he said, was the biggest mistake of his life.In 2021, after six years in the Pinellas County Jail awaiting trial, Stragaj accepted a deal from prosecutors — a guilty plea to a lower-level felony, accessory after the fact. A few months later, he was deported to Albania.Detective’s lingering doubts Diebel said he doesn’t believe Stragaj stumbled onto the murder scene. He believes Stragaj was directly involved in the doctor’s killing and could still answer a series of unresolved questions, including what happened to the missing DVR. In the “Dateline” interview, Stragaj maintained his innocence and said he had nothing to do with killing Steven.Because of Stragaj’s repeated lies, Diebel said, his account of what happened on May 28 wasn’t considered credible evidence against Rebecca. And in the decade-plus that he spent investigating the murder, Diebel said, he uncovered no evidence that would hold up in a criminal trial.Diebel said that before he retired this year, he tried everything he could — and had other agencies review his work to see whether there was something he missed. More witnesses came forward, he said, but nothing they provided was enough.Even though he’d never been able to prove it, Diebel believed a theory of the killing that was similar to that presented in the civil case — that Steven was murdered after he told his wife he planned to end their relationship. Diebel said he was glad there had been some measure of justice for Steven’s family with the civil judgment. And even though the investigation he shepherded for years was officially closed weeks after the jury delivered that judgment, he was hopeful new evidence could someday resurrect the criminal probe.“I just would encourage anybody if you know anything, no matter how small, if you have not talked with a detective or the police department about this, please come forward,” he said. “’Cause you never know what information that you have might be the link that we need to put things together.”Tim StellohTim Stelloh is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.Meade Jorgensen and Robert Buchanan contributed.
September 24, 2025
Sept. 24, 2025, 3:47 PM EDTBy Tyler KingkadeAfter dozens of school districts and colleges fired employees or placed them on leave over social media posts about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, some of those employees are turning to federal courts to get their jobs back. A former Ball State University staff member is suing the Indiana school’s president after she was fired for posting on Facebook: “Charlie Kirk’s death is a reflection of the violence, fear and hatred he sowed. It does not excuse his death, AND it’s a sad truth.”An art teacher in central Iowa filed a suit last week after the Oskaloosa school board voted to fire him for posting “1 Nazi down” about Kirk’s assassination.An elementary school teacher assistant is suing her Spartanburg County, South Carolina, district over what her lawsuit calls an unconstitutional social media policy. According to the suit, she was fired for posting a quote from Kirk in which he said it’s worth having “some gun deaths every single year” to protect the Second Amendment, and then adding the phrase “thoughts and prayers.” And on Wednesday, an art professor will plead his case before a federal judge in Sioux Falls, hoping to stop the University of South Dakota from firing him for posting on Facebook: “Where was all this concern when the politicians in Minnesota were shot? And the school shootings? And capital police? I have no thoughts or prayers for this hate spreading nazi. A shrug, maybe.”The schools have not yet responded in court. The universities and two districts declined to comment on pending litigation.The lawsuits are among the first actions educators have taken to combat a campaign propelled by conservative influencers and Republican lawmakers who urged schools and other employers to fire people who they say made light of or celebrated Kirk’s death. Those pushing for the firings have argued that teachers and professors with abhorrent views shouldn’t be allowed to influence students. Liberal-leaning critics have accused conservatives of embracing so-called cancel culture, which they had long condemned. Death of Charlie Kirk raises questions about future of free speech in America02:00Civil liberties groups have warned that some of the firings could violate the First Amendment, regardless of whether they simply criticize Kirk or openly celebrate his death. The legal challenges filed over the past two weeks will be important test cases on whether public employees can post statements deemed offensive, said Adam Goldstein, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.“It’s an unfortunate necessity that the courts will have to weigh in here,” Goldstein said. “There’s no option here other than a number of cases where courts hopefully reinstruct us on how the First Amendment is supposed to work.”In the days after Kirk was shot earlier this month, Vice President JD Vance and other top Republicans urged citizens to report people who mock Kirk’s assassination to their employers. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told Fox News last week that she’d “like to see more” college faculty who celebrate Kirk’s death fired or suspended.Some Democrats have shared similar sentiments. In Iowa, a leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate echoed calls to remove the Oskaloosa teacher. “I’d be pretty uncomfortable with my kids having teachers that celebrated someone’s murder,” Rob Sand, the candidate and current state auditor, told the Des Moines Register this week. Because the cases involve public employees, the employers have a higher bar to meet before firing them for speaking out, legal experts say. They will have to show the staff members’ posts created a disruption that interfered with classes, for instance, or the operation of a school. Goldstein said generating controversy or complaints is typically not enough to warrant a firing. Michael Hook, the University of South Dakota art professor, deleted his remarks after a few hours, and shared an apology that stated he regretted the original post. Through his lawyer, Hook declined to be interviewed.Hook filed a motion Tuesday to get an emergency order to block the university from moving forward with the next step in his termination process. He alleges his firing stems from angering “the wrong people,” noting that the governor and speaker of the state house had called for his termination. “When I read this post, I was shaking mad,” Gov. Larry Rhoden, a Republican, posted on X.An online petition to reinstate Hook has over 8,000 signatures.In many cases, Goldstein said, the teachers’ punishment seems disproportionate to their alleged offense, noting that an inappropriate post could be flagged without termination.“It’s very weird to live in a world where Charlie’s wife can forgive the shooter,” Goldstein said, “but we can’t forgive a teacher who quoted him.”Tyler KingkadeTyler Kingkade is a national reporter for NBC News, based in Los Angeles.
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