New York, Mar 18: Donald Trump said in a social media post that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday as a New York prosecutor is eyeing charges in a case examining hush money paid to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network early on Saturday that "illegal leaks" from the Manhattan district attorney's office indicate that "The far & away leading republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week."
Messages left on Saturday with the district attorney's office were not immediately returned. Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to calls for comment.
Trump did not provide any details on social media about how he knew about the expected arrest. In his postings, he repeated his lies that the 2020 presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was stolen and he urged his followers to "Protest, take our nation back!" That language evoked the message from the then-president that preceded the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Law enforcement officials in New York have been making security preparations for the possibility that Trump could be indicted.
There has been no public announcement of any time frame for the grand jury's secret work in the case, including any potential vote on whether to indict the ex-president.
Trump's posting echoes one made last summer when he broke the news on Truth Socia that the FBI was searching his home as part of an investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents.
The grand jury in Manhattan has been hearing from witnesses, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who says he orchestrated payments in 2016 to two women to silence them about sexual encounters they said they had with Trump a decade earlier.
Trump denies the encounters occurred, says he did nothing wrong and has cast the investigation as a "witch hunt" by a Democratic prosecutor bent on sabotaging the Republican's 2024 presidential campaign.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office has apparently been examining whether any state laws were broken in connection with the payments or the way Trump's company compensated Cohen for his work to keep the women's allegations quiet.
Daniels and at least two former Trump aides onetime political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks are among witnesses who have met with prosecutors in recent weeks.
Cohen has said that at Trump's direction, he arranged payments totaling USD 280,000 to porn actor Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. According to Cohen, the payouts were to buy their silence about Trump, who was then in the thick of his first presidential campaign.
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Ranchi (PTI): A 25-year-old man, who works as a butcher, allegedly strangled to death his live-in partner and chopped her body into 40 to 50 pieces in a forested area in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, police said on Wednesday.
The accused, identified as Naresh Bhengra, was arrested.
The matter came to light after around a fortnight after the killing when a stray dog was found with human body parts near Jordag village in Jariagarh police station on November 24.
Bhengra was in a live-in relationship with the deceased, a 24-year-old woman also from Khunti district, in Tamil Nadu for the past couple of years. Sometime back, he returned to Jharkhand, got married to another woman without telling his partner anything and went back to the southern state without his wife to join her.
"The brutal incident occurred on November 8 when they reached Khunti as the accused who had married another woman did not wish to take her home. Instead, he took her to a forest near his house at Jordag village in Jariagarh police station and chopped the body into pieces. The man has been arrested," Khunti Superintendent of Police Aman Kumar told PTI.
Inspector Ashok Singh who investigated the case said the man worked in a butcher shop in Tamil Nadu and was expert in slicing chicken.
“He admitted chopping the body parts of the woman into 40 to 50 pieces before leaving those in the forest for wild animals to feast on. The police recovered several parts on November 24 after a dog in the area was seen with a hand," Singh told PTI.
Singh said that the woman, who was unaware of his marriage, pressured him to return to Khunti. After reaching Ranchi, they boarded a train on November 24 and headed to the man's village.
"Under a plan, the man took her to Khunti in an autorickshaw near his home and asked her to wait. He returned with sharp weapons and strangulated her with her dupatta after raping her. He then cut the body into 40 to 50 pieces and left for his home to live with his wife," Singh said.
The woman, however, had informed her mother that she had boarded a train and would be living with her partner, the police officer said.
Following the recovery of body parts, a bag was also found in the forest with the murdered woman's belongings including her Aadhaar card. The mother of the woman was called at the spot and she identified her daughter's belongings.
"The mother suspected the man behind the crime who after being nabbed by the police admitted to chopping the woman into pieces," the official added.
The incident has sent shockwaves among people in the region, with the Shraddha Walker murder case of 2022 still fresh in their memory.
Walker was killed by her live-in partner who chopped her body into pieces before dumping them in the jungle in South Delhi’s Mehrauli.