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The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Two of four women who testified at Ghislaine Maxwell's trial that she had a role in their sexual abuse at the hands of financier Jeffrey Epstein may be speaking at her sentencing or have their statements read aloud, court filings Friday show.
Prosecutors told a federal judge in a letter that two of six women who testified or were mentioned during a December trial plan to attend the Tuesday sentencing of the 60-year-old British socialite and may speak. They are Kate, an ex-model from Great Britain, and Annie Farmer, who identified herself in court by name after speaking out publicly.
Maxwell's lawyer in a separate submission to the judge said other women wanted to speak, or have statements read at the hearing, who were not directly part of the case.
The lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, said the hearing "should not a bully pulpit for anyone who was not identified as a victim of the charged federal offences and does not qualify as such."
Those individuals not among the six people who prosecutors have formally identified as victims in the case "should not be permitted to give oral testimony or have their written victim impact statements read during sentencing," she said.
Sternheim also objected to written statements by Farmer or Kate being read at sentencing, saying they raise issues that were not disclosed by the government or revealed during their testimony.
The Associated Press does not typically name people alleging sexual abuse unless they agree to be identified publicly, as Farmer has done.
Sternheim included letters from women as exhibits in her submission Friday, though portions were heavily redacted.
Prosecutors, in their letter to the judge, argued against the redactions, saying: "To the extent there is a privacy interest at stake in these documents, it belongs to the victims, who are not seeking to file these letters under seal."
Maxwell was convicted of conspiracy and sex trafficking charges in December after a month-long trial. Her lawyers have asked that she serve no more than five years in prison.
Prosecutors, though, say she should spend 30 to 55 years behind bars for recruiting and grooming teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein from 1994 to 2004.
Epstein, 66, took his own life in August 2019 in a Manhattan federal jail as he awaited a sex trafficking trial.
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during at his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
A burgeoning track star says his dream of going to the Olympics is being derailed by a deportation order after Immigration officials rejected his family’s claim for asylum
A Montreal father who kidnapped his daughter who has autism and lied to police when they asked where she was should serve three years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. said Thursday it's ready to sign on to the grocery code of conduct, paving the way for an agreement that's been years in the making.
A medical examiner says a Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge died from ingesting a substance 'with a high capsaicin concentration.'
To give Canadians a break on their summer road trips, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to suspend all gas and diesel taxes from Victoria Day to Labour Day.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is imposing sanctions on Israelis she accuses of 'extremist settler violence' in the West Bank, three months after pledging to do so.
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.
ALS patient Mathew Brown said he’s hopeful for future ALS patients after news this week of research at Western University of a potential cure for ALS.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.