TRUMP REPORTEDLY DENOUNCED EPSTEIN AS EARLY AS 2006, ACCORDING TO A FORMER POLICE CHIEF
Michael Reiter, former Palm Beach police chief, claims that Trump called him in July 2006 to denounce Jeffrey Epstein. Trump reportedly told him that “everyone knew what he was doing” and that he was glad the police were “finally arresting him.” This testimony is included in documents published by the Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of the Epstein case, and Reiter confirmed to the Miami Herald that he was the source of these notes when he was questioned by the FBI in 2019.
However, the former police chief’s revelations contradict Trump’s public statements in 2019, when he said he had “no idea” about Epstein’s abuses. And the DOJ claims to have no evidence confirming that Trump called law enforcement in 2006.
At the time, police and federal authorities were interviewing numerous underage victims, but the case ended in 2008 with a highly controversial agreement that allowed Epstein to escape federal prosecution.
Reiter also reports that Trump described Ghislaine Maxwell as Epstein’s “operator” and “evil,” contradicting the president’s more neutral comments in 2020.
TRUMP PARDONED MAN FOUND GUILTY OF ABUSING MINORS
Pardoned by Trump for his participation in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Andrew Paul Johnson was convicted in Florida on five counts of sexual abuse of minors.
Arrested in Tennessee in August and then sent back to Florida, he had pleaded not guilty.
The jury convicted him of acts involving a child under the age of 12 and another under the age of 16, as well as indecent exposure. However, he was acquitted of one charge related to the transmission of harmful content. According to the investigation, the two children were subjected to repeated acts over several months. Johnson also allegedly attempted to manipulate one of them by mentioning his presidential pardon and a supposed future fortune.
Johnson now faces life in prison, with his sentencing date yet to be set.
FIRST EXECUTION OF 2026 IN FLORIDA
Ronald Palmer Heath was executed on February 10 at the Florida State Prison. The 64-year-old man became the first person to be executed in 2026. He had been convicted of the premeditated murder of a sales representative, Michael Sheridan, in 1989. Heath had also been convicted of armed robbery and other charges.
The previous year, in 2025, a record 19 executions took place in Florida, a level not seen since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States in 1976. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed more execution warrants than any other governor in the state’s history.
According to records, Heath and his brother Kenneth met Sheridan at a bar in Gainesville in northern Florida before luring him to a remote location to rob him. The assault escalated into a very violent murder. The brothers abandoned Sheridan’s body in a wooded area and returned to the bar in Gainesville to take items from his rental car and made several purchases with Sheridan’s credit cards. Ronald Heath was arrested several weeks later after investigators linked him to the stolen credit cards. Kenneth Heath was also charged with Sheridan’s murder but was sentenced to life in prison as part of a plea bargain.
Two other executions are already scheduled for February and March in Florida. They will be carried out by lethal injection of three drugs.
