When President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Jon Ponder, a three-time convicted bank robber, at the Republican National Convention in August 2020, Ponder, the founder and CEO of Hope for Prisoners, unbeknownst to Trump, was under investigation by the organization’s board of directors and in danger of losing his job. An attorney hired by […]
Jon Ponder, a three-time bank robber who was pardoned by President Donald Trump, was arrested Tuesday by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police on 20 charges, including sexual assault. Other charges against Ponder include multiple counts of unauthorized contact with prisoners, attempted coercion that is sexually related, and open and gross lewdness. The Current was first to […]
Iowa regulators have sanctioned a second state-employed nurse in the 2025 death of an inmate at the Newton Correctional Facility. In October 2025, the Iowa Board of Nursing charged two Department of Corrections nurses — Penny Lynn Daniels of Newton and David Arterburn of Altoona — with committing an act that might adversely affect a patient’s […]
Angel DeJesus spent much of his adolescence involved with Virginia’s Department of Juvenile Justice and a chunk of his adulthood in Virginia Department of Corrections facilities. He’s now a public speaker and youth mentor, after being pardoned by former Gov. Ralph Northam in January 2022. When he learned that Gov. Abigail Spanberger is assembling a […]
Jon Ponder, a three-time convicted bank robber who was pardoned by President Donald Trump, is under investigation by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department – a scenario that raises questions about potential conflicts of interest, given Metro’s partnership with Ponder’s non-profit, Hope for Prisoners. The Nevada Current reported in May that Ponder was banned from […]
Iowa regulators have issued an emergency order suspending the license of a physician associate who was accused of having sex with a prison-inmate patient while working for the Iowa Department of Corrections. The Iowa Board of Physician Associates has charged Kyle L. Parks with unethical conduct, an offense the board describes as including verbally or […]
Gov. Abigail Spanberger has restored voting and other civil rights to more than 60,000 Virginians since taking office in January, reversing the more restrictive restoration process adopted by her predecessor and reopening voting access for thousands of people with past felony convictions, her administration said Friday. The 66,085 Virginians whose rights have been restored may […]
Black students and those with disabilities are much more likely to be arrested or referred to law enforcement than other students in Iowa schools with school resource officers, an American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa report published Thursday found. School resource officers, or SROs, are sworn law enforcement officers assigned to work at K-12 schools, […]
Virginia is creating an enforcement unit to oversee the rapidly expanding market for vaping products, hemp-derived intoxicants, THC and kratom, consolidating several regulatory responsibilities within the attorney general’s office. Attorney General Jay Jones announced the Regulated Products Enforcement Unit on Thursday, saying it will handle civil enforcement, retail compliance, product directories and public education as […]
