Police in Winter Park, Florida, released body camera footage of officers responding to an i9 youth soccer game on Saturday amid a dispute over 3-year-old soccer player Nevada Pierre, who dominated the field, prompting concerns over other children getting to play.

Body camera video released on Monday shows the league’s athletic director telling police, who responded to the incident, that he decided to call 911 after a female parent began livestreaming their interaction on social media.

He explained that the dispute with the parent, who identified herself to ABC News as Nevada’s mother Martasia Griffin, began after the 3-year-old’s parents disagreed with his decision to “swap out” Nevada to give other children a chance to play.

“What happened is he’s very advanced compared to the other ones. So he scored a lot of goals, but he pushes the kids to do all that stuff. So I try to tell him, ‘Hey, stop! Don’t [push]. You want to play with that person, right?'”[The parents] don’t like that. They tell me I’m ignorant. I’m this. I’m that,” he said.

In the 911 audio of the call, which was released by police, the athletic director tells the dispatcher that he is calling to report an alleged “unruly parent” who is live-streaming their interaction on social media.

“There’s a parent here that’s really really disruptive … following me around and calling me names and in front of this whole bunch of people that’s here,” he said in the call. “I want [her] to be gone … Can you have someone quickly get here?”

Griffin told ABC News that she was standing up for her son after she learned that he was going to be benched, after being sidelined multiple times in previous games, to give other children the chance to play amid complaints from other parents.

“I was only walking behind him because he said that he’s the director. So I’m trying to figure out what are you gonna do? Like my son should play,” she said of her interaction with the athletic director.

Griffin acknowledged that when her son plays, he dominates the field.

“It’s just his movement. How he’s moving around with the ball. Nobody can’t touch the ball,” she said.

Griffin said that people were “yelling” at her son to “pass the ball,” and when he saw the police, he “was scared as if he did something wrong.” She said the experience damaged “his spirit.”

“At some point, Nevada’s feelings has to … matter too,” Griffin said. “Everybody’s worrying about their kids’ feelings. Their kid want playing time. Their kid want to kick the ball. My kid do too. He don’t know why he’s sitting down. Why everybody else is playing?”

Griffin also claimed that she heard other parents tell their children to push her 3-year-old son on the field. Nevada plays in a league with 5-year-olds, according to his mother.

In a statement, the i9 sports program said that they are “aware of concerns” regarding this incident and “take them very seriously.”

“The respectful treatment and well-being of every child and family matter deeply to us. We have reached out to the family and have begun a review that includes speaking with those involved,” the statement said. “While we work to understand the circumstances, we will not speculate or share unverified information. We appreciate everyone who has brought their concerns to our attention.”

The Winter Park league’s athletic director didn’t respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Griffin said that her son trains for three hours a day with his father and is advanced for his age, so he excels on the field, regardless of playing with children older than him.

According to the league’s ethos, as outlined in the i9 Sports Experience, there is a “focus on fun” and they are committed to giving the children the opportunity at “equal playing time regardless of talent level.”

The league’s “sportsmanship values” include “being a team player” and “inclusion” — “to ensure everyone is treated equally and fairly,” and “giving everyone a chance to play regardless of differences,” the i9 website says.

Police said during their interaction with the director in the body camera video that this is a “civil” matter and “not criminal” and while they couldn’t force Nevada’s family out of the park because it’s a public space, they could tell them that they couldn’t participate in the program anymore.

Griffin is seen in the video asking for a “refund,” and the director said he would fully refund what they paid.

The officers are seen having a conversation with Nevada’s parents and told them that the youth sports league would get in contact with them about refunding their money in a week or two. The family then left the field on their own accord, the video shows.

She noted that the i9 league offered Nevada a chance to join another league for free, but it was three hours away, so the family declined.

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The Alexander brothers were each sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday, after being found guilty on all counts in their federal sex trafficking trial in New York City.

The former real estate titans, Oren and Alon Alexander, 39-year-old twins, along with their brother, Tal Alexander, 40, were accused by prosecutors of a “decade-long sex trafficking and sexual abuse scheme.”

The three brothers will have to participate in sex offender treatment programs in prison, the judge said. In addition to their prison terms, the brothers were each sentenced to 10 years of supervised release.

Oren and Alon Alexander were also ordered to pay $300,000 each in fines, and Tal Alexander was ordered to pay $350,000 in fines, as well as restitution, which will be determined by attorneys from both sides. Oren Alexander, who was also convicted of sexually exploiting a minor by distributing homemade child sex abuse material of a 17-year-old girl in 2009, was ordered to pay an additional $50,000 immediately.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Espinosa asked the judge for the maximum sentence — life in prison — for all three brothers, arguing that the government does not believe one is more culpable than the others in what prosecutors called an “immense” sex trafficking scheme.

“They spent years designing, executing, and perfecting their playbook of luring victims with promises of luxury, drugging victims so they could not resist, and then forcibly raping them,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed ahead of Tuesday’s hearing. “The defendants carried out their playbook time and time again, drugging, raping, and assaulting dozens of victims. Over 70 women came forward with harrowing accounts of assault that stripped them of their dignity and autonomy.”

Defense attorneys argued that the brothers should serve lighter sentences — 15 years, the minimum for sex trafficking — while maintaining their innocence.

“At no time did Alon, Oren or Tal rape or sexually assault another person. At no time did Alon, Oren or Tal entice, harbor, or maintain a woman to have commercial sex. At no time did Alon, Oren or Tal administer a drug or other substance to a woman against her will or without her knowledge. At no time did Oren intentionally make or distribute child pornography,” defense attorneys wrote in their sentencing memorandum on behalf of the three brothers. “They are innocent of these charges, and they show honor and respect to our system of justice by vowing to fight for their innocence with all of their power for as long as is required, confident in the notion that one day they will be free to live out their lives with their children and families.”

The brothers’ friends and family members also submitted letters to Judge Valerie Caproni asking for leniency, describing their character and dedication to family.

The brothers addressed the court prior to learning their sentences during Tuesday’s hearing in Manhattan, continuing to claim that they never sexually assaulted or drugged anybody.

Judge Caproni admonished the brothers for continuing to maintain their innocence.

“You did not have to stand up and say you’ve never raped anyone,” Caproni said while handing down their sentences. “That’s a lie and you know it.”

A dozen women delivered victim impact statements during Tuesday’s hearing, including six who testified during the federal trial.

Prosecutors thanked those who came forward in the case “to ensure that the defendants can no longer harm others.”

“The defendants preyed on women and young girls, using drugs and violence to incapacitate them so they could rape them. The defendants did this for years –inflicting unspeakable harm on so many young women.  And, for years, the defendants used their careers and social status to conceal the danger they posed,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said in a statement. “Today’s sentence makes clear that this craven, sinister conduct is extraordinarily serious and will be met with serious punishment.”

Throughout the five-week trial, 11 women testified that they were sexually assaulted by one or more of the brothers. At least eight of the women claimed they were drugged by one of the Alexanders. 

The brothers denied sexually assaulting anyone or running a sex trafficking conspiracy, as prosecutors have charged. They pleaded not guilty. A spokesperson for the Alexander family called the verdict “deeply disappointing.”

“We believe there are substantial problems with the evidence and the way this case was presented,” the spokesperson, Juda S. Engelmayer, said in a statement following the jury’s verdict in March. “The legal process does not end here. We will continue fighting every day until justice is done and the three brothers regain their freedom.”

Oren and Tal Alexander gained notoriety in New York’s luxury real estate market through their company, Alexander Group, and have been under federal investigation alongside Alon since late 2024.

They have been accused of luring women to nightclubs and parties, then drugging and sexually assaulting them.

In his closing statement during the spring trial, federal prosecutor Andrew Jones said there is “crushing evidence” that the brothers “masqueraded as party boys when really they were predators” who committed an “array of federal sex offenses.”

Jones recounted the graphic accounts of the alleged victims and said the wealthy brothers had a “playbook” of luring women with exclusive parties, yachts and luxury travel so they could assault them.

During closing arguments, defense attorney Howard Srebnick conceded the brothers could be “obnoxious” and their conduct “inappropriate,” but he told the jury, “Nobody was being assaulted, nobody had been trafficked.”

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to unfreeze a Biden-era policy that allowed immigration judges to use their discretion to temporarily close deportation cases for immigrants.

In an unsigned order, the court rejected a request from three cities with large migrant populations — Baltimore as well as Columbus, Ohio, and New Haven, Connecticut — to pause an agreement between Texas and the Trump administration that threw out the policy.

There were no noted dissents. 

The regulation, known as “administrative closure,” gives immigration judges discretion to temporarily pause deportation proceedings for migrants while the migrants seek humanitarian protections or other forms of legal status in the country.

The Trump administration has pushed to curtail judicial processes for unlawful migrants, and the high court’s conservative majority has been largely deferential to executive authority in the area of immigration policy.

Deportation hearings in immigration court are legal proceedings initiated by the Department of Homeland Security in which an immigration judge determines whether a migrant should be removed from the United States. Often, an immigration judge will pause or dismiss a case to allow the individual to pursue legal relief. 

While dismissals were viewed as a positive outcome for migrants, immigration attorneys have said the Trump administration, as part of its immigration crackdown, began to use dismissals to detain people at immigration courts and place them into expedited removal without allowing them to fight their case.

Last year, federal agents arrested hundreds of migrants at immigration courts — in some cases after their deportation cases were dismissed. 

In court filings, the cities argued that administrative closure promoted “efficiency” and protected “due process rights.” They also argued that the practice has existed in various forms for decades.

In June, the state of Texas sued the federal government, arguing that the policy granted “indefinite amnesty to aliens illegally present in this country.”

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A thief who stole earrings valued at over $760,000 and later swallowed them while being arrested is set to be sentenced in December after he was found guilty of grand theft and robbery, the state attorney’s office for Florida’s ninth judicial circuit announced.

Jaythan Gilder received the guilty verdict last week after a trial surrounding the theft of jewelry at a Tiffany & Co. store in Orlando, Florida, the state attorney’s office said.

According to the prosecutor’s office, “In February 2025, Gilder posed as a representative negotiating a jewelry purchase on behalf of a professional basketball player.”

Prosecutors say Gilder then grabbed and attempted to leave with $760,000 worth of merchandise and used “force” against an employee while trying to escape.

According to an affidavit for an arrest warrant, Gilder also attempted to leave with a ring, which was slapped out of his possession and recovered at the scene of the robbery.

Gilder was later arrested, after which prosecutors say he “swallowed the stolen earrings in an attempt to conceal the evidence.”

A video posted by the Orlando Police Department describing the crime said that while Florida Highway Patrol stopped Gilder, “they noticed items in his mouth he was attempting to swallow, which a body scan at the Washington County Jail later found to be foreign objects suspected to be the Tiffany’s earrings.”

Authorities “monitored” Gilder over a nearly two-week time period “before recovering the jewelry,” prosecutors say.

“After the diamonds were expelled from his system, we were able to bring the diamonds to Tiffany’s where they were cleaned and where their master jeweler looked at the inscription or serial numbers on the diamonds and confirmed they were the very diamonds that were stolen on the 26th [of February],” the police video added.

“This case involved not only a significant financial loss, but also the safety of employees who were confronted with violence while simply doing their jobs,” state attorney Monique Worrell said in a statement. “This verdict sends a clear message that violence and theft will not be tolerated in our community.”

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Election officials from coast to coast are facing a slew of challenges ahead of the high-stakes midterms, from the Trump administration’s bid to impose itself on state-run elections to last-minute court challenges and threats faced by election workers — all under a persistent sense of distrust in the voting process itself, some experts told ABC News.

“Usually the temperature is much higher — and emotions run much hotter — in a presidential election year than in a midterm election year,” said Wendy Weiser, vice president of the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. “This year, though, the temperature is staying up at a high level.”

Election experts broadly lay blame for the elevated sense of distrust in elections this year at the feet of President Donald Trump, whose administration has taken unprecedented steps to question the outcome by levelling unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

Trump administration officials says steps they’ve taken in recent weeks — including lawsuits in California and Alaska and threats to prosecute election workers — are meant to ensure the integrity of the election. 

But under the weight of those allegations, state officials say the once-collaborative rapport between the federal government and state leaders has in some cases given way to a deep sense of suspicion.

“There’s no trust in that relationship,” Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar told ABC News. “In order to have a working relationship, there has to be trust, and the fact that they continue to tear that trust apart and spread the misinformation and the lies that they are about our elections is wrong.”

At the same time, people who oversee voting at the county level across the country are frequently fielding questions from voters who say they lack faith in the electoral process. About 6 in 10 Americans are confident the midterm elections will be conducted fairly and accurately, while nearly 4 in 10 Americans and about 3 in 10 voters are not confident , according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.

“No matter how transparent we are, people always are questioning what we’re doing [and] how we’re doing it,” Deidre Holden, the director of elections and voter registration in Paulding County, Georgia, told ABC News. “I try to explain [that] we have nothing to hide. You’re welcome to come in and watch the process.”

‘You never know what someone’s going to do’

Holden, who has been an elections official in Georgia for 25 years, said that in her early years in the role, she “used to train people on how to smile and hand out an ‘I voted’ sticker.”

Yet over the last several years, Holden has devoted much of her time to ensuring that everyone at polling places and in the county’s ballot processing facility are safe. She currently has a sheriff’s deputy stationed at every polling location, and in 2024 she first showed ABC News the active shooter training her poll workers were undertaking as a precaution.

“I’m forever concerned with the security of my staff, with my poll workers, with my voters,” Holden said. “You never know what someone’s going to do.”

Paulding County was once a solidly Republican area, but as the suburban sprawl around Atlanta has increased, the county’s population has quadrupled and it is now a purple county with Democrats and Republicans living side by side. With such a partisan divide, Holden said transparency about the process is key.

“Some of our best poll workers have come from the naysayers that didn’t trust us and we invited them in and now they’re our best workers and our biggest advocates because they get to see behind the scenes, they get see how the sausage is made, how we do things and how we do those things with integrity,” Holden said.

‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’

The official once again overseeing the election at the state level in Georgia this November is Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who rose to national prominence in January 2021 after receiving a phone call from President Donald Trump.

“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump told Raffensperger at the time, claiming it was “not possible” that he lost Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.

Joe Biden won the 2020 election in the Peach State and Raffensperger certified the results, despite facing criticism from some other Republicans.

“At the end of the day we did our job, we followed the law and we followed the constitution,” Raffensperger told ABC News in a recent interview.

“I know I did the right thing, and I feel sorry for people that didn’t do the right thing, because at some point, they’re going to have to look at themselves in the mirror,” he said.

Raffensperger’s time in office will end in January. Early voting for the midterms is currently underway in Georgia, and Raffensperger said he is confident that residents will have an accurate idea of the projected election results by midnight after the polls close.

“Those ballots actually in effect will be counted three times just to verify the result, so at the end of the day, we know that the winner won and that’s our job,” Raffensperger said.

‘What they’ve been able to uncover is nothing’

While Raffensperger was on the phone with Trump in 2021, many recent dustups between the federal government and state agencies have involved staffers going back and forth over email and video conferencing.

At the core of the growing friction is the claim by President Trump and DHS officials that the country has a “broken” election system, where they claim 278,000 people who are not U.S. citizens have registered to vote illegally.

Weiser told ABC News that the Trump administration has been attempting to “substantiate their theory that our country is plagued by widespread voter fraud.”

“What they’ve been able to uncover is nothing,” Weiser said. “Our elections, in fact, are safe and secure.”

The allegations of widespread noncitizen voting have not just been made at press conferences. Over the summer, DHS employees reached out to states around the U.S., sending letters and holding meetings about “the concerning results” of what they called a “preliminary review” of potential noncitizens registered to vote.

Aguilar, the Nevada secretary of state, said members of his office ended up on a video conference call in August with DHS representatives alleging that there could be as many as 15,903 noncitizens registered to vote in Nevada.

One of the DHS officials on the call was Heather Honey, a known election denier and a key figure in the fight to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

While not overtly hostile, a recording of the video conference obtained by ABC News shows palpable tension and some awkward exchanges, as Nevada officials seemed deeply skeptical of the claims made by DHS.

“So what you’re saying is the 15,000 number has not been vetted?” a Nevada official asked, according to a recording of the video conference.

“I probably wouldn’t use the sentence, ‘It hasn’t been vetted,'” a DHS representative responded, adding that each out has not “had a full manual review.”

Following the meeting, DHS officials emailed Nevada officials with a new figure — claiming they found 185 noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls during a preliminary sweep. Officials in Nevada said the DHS was wrong, replying later that, after their own review of those 185 individuals, “our records indicate that they were citizens.”

In response to a request by ABC News for comment, DHS stood by their work, which they called “a service to Nevada’s citizens,” and accused Nevada officials of knowingly harboring illegal voters on its lists.

“Nevada knows the 185 names they keep waving around were never the full list of illegal voters,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email. “They were only the files [that immigration officials] had finished reviewing at the moment of the call. Since then, [immigration officials] have manually confirmed about 2,000 more aliens from the same list. The review is just beginning.”

Trusting the process

While voting in the upcoming election will conclude on Nov. 3, there is concern among some election experts that the relationship between federal leaders and their counterparts at the state and local levels might not be easily repairable.

The federal government has traditionally supported state and local officials on a slew of election-related matters, from mitigating foreign threats to cybersecurity. With the fragile state of affairs, some experts fear any Election Day complications could threaten the integrity of the vote.

“Our state and local election officials are going to have fewer resources at their disposal, less intelligence and less ability to coordinate in responding to what might be significant threats going forward because they don’t trust the federal government as a partner the way they did,” Weiser said.

While trust in how elections are being conducted remains top of mind for voters, election officials like Holden, Aguilar and Raffensperger are working to assure their residents that they should still have faith in the process.

“There’s no reason for a voter to ever doubt their ballot,” Holden said.

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