Month: September 2021

On Wednesday, a Florida judge ordered that schools can issue mask mandates, ruling against Gov. Ron DeSantis while the appeals court sorts out the legality of the governor’s ban. Leon County Judge John Cooper ruled to vacate an automatic stay given to the state after it appealed his previous decision stating that DeSantis’s executive order banning school mandates is unconstitutional.

DeSantis’s order allowed parents to decide if they want their kids to wear masks to school rather than have local school districts make the decision, prompting a lawsuit brought by a group of parents in favor of school mask mandates. DeSantis said last week he believes the state will win in the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee because of a new state law, the Parents Bill of Rights, which he said gives parents the final authority on their children’s health. “We’ll end up getting it back,” the governor told reporters. “Obviously [Cooper’s ruling], it’s problematic.”

School boards in 13 districts in Florida have voted to defy the order and chose to require masks because of the virus resurgence; however they faced the possibility of having their salaries withheld. The Biden administration had promised federal funds for any district that lost money for requiring masks.

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Nancy Salzman, a former nurse who co-founded and once ran the cult-like NXIVM group, was sentenced Wednesday to 42 months in prison. Salzman, 67, the former president and co-founder of NXIVM, must also pay a $150,000 fine. Salzman has agreed to forfeit more than $500,000 in cash, several properties and a Steinway grand piano.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordered that Salzman must report to prison by Jan. 19; her lawyers said she has been caring for her ailing mother. Salzman’s crimes involved stealing identities of the group’s critics and hacking into their email accounts from 2003 to 2008, prosecutors said. She was also accused of conspiring to doctor videos showing her teaching NXIVM lessons before the recordings were turned over to plaintiffs in a New Jersey lawsuit against the group.

Speaking in Brooklyn federal court, Salzman said she fell under NXIVM leader Keith Raniere’s spell when they started working together 20 years ago and that she started rationalizing and overlooking the wrongdoing she saw around her. Salzman pleaded guilty in March 2019 to charges of racketeering conspiracy that involved conspiracy to commit identity theft and conspiracy to obstruct justice. She was one of the first in the group’s leadership to plead guilty to criminal charges. Raniere was sentenced last October to 120 years in prison for turning some women into sex slaves branded with his initials and sexually abusing a 15-year-old.