Atlanta Zoo to Return Pandas to ChinaPelosi Assailant Sentenced to 30 YearsPelosi Assailant Gets 30 Years in PrisonEx-Baltimore District Attorney Asks for MercySuspect Sentenced to 80 Years in Prison for Rape

Zoo Atlanta to repatriate pandas to China

ATLANTA — America’s last zoo with pandas in its care hopes to say goodbye to the four giant bears this fall.

Zoo Atlanta is preparing to repatriate panda parents Lun Lun and Yang Yang to China with their U.S.-born twins, Ya Lun and Xi Lun, zoo officials announced Friday. There is no specific date for the transfer yet, they said, but it will likely take place between October and December.

The four Atlanta pandas are the latest to be in the United States since the National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China last November. Other U.S. zoos have returned pandas to China as loan agreements expired due to diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

Atlanta received Lun Lun and Yang Yang from China in 1999 as part of a 25-year loan deal that will soon expire.

Ya Lun and Xi Lun, born in 2016, are the youngest of seven pandas born at Zoo Atlanta since their parents arrived.

As for whether Atlanta could host future pandas, “no discussions have yet taken place with partners in China,” zoo officials said.

Pelosi attacker gets 30 years in prison

The man who broke into Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home two years ago and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer was sentenced Friday to 30 years in federal prison, with credit for time already purge.

Pelosi, Democrat of California, was speaker of the House at the time of the attack.

David DePape was convicted in November of two federal crimes: attempted kidnapping of a federal agent and assault on an immediate family member of a federal official.

He admitted during the trial that he carried out the attack, but said he never intended to hurt Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi.

DePape said his intrusion into the couple’s home was part of a plot to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and interrogate her.

The court imposed the statutory maximum sentences for each offense – 20 years for the kidnapping charge and 30 years for the assault charge, but it rejected prosecutors’ request that 10 years of those sentences be served consecutively. Instead, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said the sentences would be concurrent.

DePape also faces separate charges stemming from the attack. Jury selection for his state trial is scheduled to begin May 22.

Former Baltimore prosecutor asks for mercy

BALTIMORE — Former Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby has requested a pre-sentencing presidential pardon for her recent convictions for perjury and mortgage fraud, according to the Baltimore Sun.

In a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday, the Congressional Black Caucus expressed support for his cause, saying the prosecution was politically motivated, The Sun reported.

Mosby is expected to be sentenced next week. She asked for probation while prosecutors are seeking 20 months in prison.

“Our justice system should not be used as a weapon to prevent progress toward a more perfect union,” wrote Rep. Steven Horsford, Democrat of Nevada, who chairs the caucus.

The letter said Mosby submitted his pardon request on Wednesday.

The federal criminal charges stemmed from claims that Mosby cited pandemic-related hardships to make early withdrawals from his retirement account and then used that money for down payments on properties in Florida. Prosecutors said she repeatedly lied on mortgage applications.

Mosby lost his re-election bid in 2022 after being indicted by a federal grand jury.

“While requests for clemency typically express remorse and regret, what happens when justice has not been served and, in fact, denied? Mosby wrote in his request for clemency, according to The Sun. “No remorse or regret of this type is appropriate in this case.”

Suspect gets 80 years in prison for rape

MEMPHIS — A Tennessee man was sentenced Friday to 80 years in prison for raping a woman a year before he was charged with kidnapping and killing a teacher who was on a morning run.

Cleotha Abston was sentenced to 40 years in prison for aggravated rape, 20 years for aggravated kidnapping, and an additional 20 years for being a felon in possession of a weapon. The sentences will run consecutively, Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee ruled.

Abston, 40, was convicted April 12 of raping a woman at gunpoint in September 2021. He waived a sentencing hearing in which witnesses could have testified for or against him.

Abston’s attorney, Juni Ganguli, said he plans to appeal the conviction and will file a motion for a new trial.

“We had a solid defense,” Ganguli told reporters Friday. “I don’t believe for a second that he raped or kidnapped or had a gun, that he put a gun on this woman.”

He was not charged in the 2021 case until police detected his DNA on sandals found near where Eliza Fletcher was last seen. Abston is accused of kidnapping Fletcher from a street while she was jogging on September 2, 2022, near the University of Memphis and forcing her into an SUV.

No trial date has been set in the 2022 case.