FIFA has appealed to Swiss federal judges after the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned a life ban for the former Haiti soccer federation president who was accused of multiple sexual offenses against players in women’s and girls’ national teams.

FIFA said Monday it filed a case at Switzerland’s supreme court to challenge the CAS ruling announced last month that upheld an appeal by 75-year-old Yves Jean-Bart.

“FIFA is concerned that this (CAS) award contains a number of very serious procedural and substantive flaws, including the CAS Panel’s failure to evaluate key pieces of evidence that were offered by FIFA,” soccer’s world body said in a statement.

FIFA said it asked the Swiss Federal Tribunal to annul the sports court verdict and refer the case back for a second hearing.

The federal court can review CAS decisions on limited grounds such as abuse of legal process. It rarely overturns verdicts.

FIFA’s ethics committee banned Jean-Bart from soccer in November 2020 and fined him 1 million Swiss francs ($1.08 million).

The published verdict detailed how FIFA ethics judges believed allegations that during 20 years as Haiti federation president Jean-Bart raped underage girls and habitually had sexual relationships with players.

When Jean-Bart’s appeal came to CAS one year ago, his legal team provided 21 witnesses who gave evidence on his behalf. FIFA produced one witness “as a victim of Yves Jean-Bart’s actions,” the sports court said about its verdict.

An elected Florida prosecutor who says he was suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis for political gain — and because he is a Democrat — is asking the state Supreme Court to reinstate him, citing a federal judge’s ruling that DeSantis violated state law and his First Amendment rights.

Andrew Warren, a twice-elected state attorney for Hillsborough County, filed the appeal late Wednesday. It comes a month after a federal judge in Tallahassee dismissed his lawsuit on technical grounds while agreeing with Warren that the Republican governor fired him inappropriately.

“We’re asking the Florida Supreme Court to affirm that finding and instruct the Governor to follow the law and reinstate me to office. We’re asking them to reiterate that no one is above the law — not even the Governor,” Warren said in a statement. He is also asking a federal appeals court to reinstate him.

The governor has refused to reinstate the Tampa-based prosecutor, and his press office did not immediately respond Thursday to an email and phone call seeking comment on the latest appeal.

No hearing date has been set. DeSantis appointed four of the seven Florida Supreme Court justices, with the other three appointed by his Republican predecessors.

Warren could also appeal his suspension to the Florida Senate, where Republicans hold a 28-12 advantage.

Warren is citing last month’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, who said that while federal law prevents him from returning Warren to office though a lawsuit centering on state law, he agreed that DeSantis’ actions violated both Warren’s First Amendment rights and the Florida Constitution.

Hinkle, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the evidence showed that DeSantis had no basis to find Warren incompetent or derelict in his duties, the two reasons cited for the suspension.

Instead, DeSantis targeted Warren because he’s a Democrat who has publicly supported abortion and transgender rights and because it would politically benefit him, Hinkle wrote. DeSantis is widely expected to run for president next year.

Hinkle called on DeSantis to voluntarily reinstate Warren “if the facts matter” to him. He said the governor and his staff never did a serious investigation of Warren before suspending him and ignored facts that argued against the dismissal.

A political newcomer who lost his bid for the New Mexico statehouse has been indicted on charges of allegedly orchestrating a series of drive-by shootings at the homes of Democratic officials.

A Bernalillo County grand jury returned a 14-count indictment Monday against Solomon Peña, prosecutors said. The counts include criminal solicitation to commit shooting at a dwelling, shooting at a dwelling, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle and possession of a firearm by a felon.

The 39-year-old felon remains in custody after a judge last week ordered him to be held without bond pending trial.

Detectives identified Peña as their key suspect using a combination of cellphone and vehicle records, witness interviews and bullet casings collected at the lawmakers’ homes.

Authorities arrested Peña on Jan. 9, accusing him of paying for a father and son and two other unidentified men to shoot at the officials’ homes between early December and early January. The shootings followed his unsuccessful Republican bid for a district long considered a Democratic stronghold. He claimed the election was rigged.

No one was hurt, but the case reignited the debate over whether lawmakers should make it harder for people accused of violent crimes to make bail. Lawmakers during this legislative session also are considering a measure that would shield the home addresses of elected officials.

Prosecutors have outlined Peña’s previous time in prison and described him as the “ringleader” of a group that he assembled to shoot at people’s homes, saying ballistics testing determined that a firearm found in the trunk of a car registered to Peña was linked to at least one shooting. Another man was found driving that car and was arrested on an unrelated warrant.

Peña’s defense attorney has raised questions about the credibility of a confidential witness that shared information with authorities, saying some of the statements used in a criminal complaint were contradictory. She also argued her client’s criminal history did not involve any violent convictions or crimes involving firearms and that he has not been in trouble with the law — other than two traffic citations — since his release from prison in 2016.

Court records show Peña was incarcerated for several years after being arrested in 2007 in connection with what authorities described as a smash-and-grab burglary scheme that targeted retail stores. His voting rights were restored after he completed probation in 2021.

A judge has thrown out Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, rejecting her claim that problems with ballot printers at some polling places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct.

In a decision Saturday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who was appointed by former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, found that the court did not find clear and convincing evidence of the widespread misconduct that Lake had alleged had affected the result of the 2022 general election. Lake will appeal the ruling, she said in a statement.

The judge said Lake’s witnesses didn’t have any personal knowledge of intentional misconduct.

“The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence,” Thompson said.

Lake, who lost to Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal 2022 Republicans promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake has not. Instead, she asked the judge to either declare her the winner or order a revote in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of Arizona’s voters.

In the ruling, the judge acknowledged the “anger and frustration” of voters who were inconvenienced in the election and noted that setting aside the results of an election “has never been done in the history of the United States.”

“But this Court’s duty is not solely to incline an ear to public outcry,” the judge continued. “It is to subject Plaintiff’s claims and Defendants’ actions to the light of the courtroom and scrutiny of the law.”

Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion.

County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted, since ballots affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters. They are in the process of investigating the root cause of the printer problems.

The former Yale University women’s soccer coach whose cooperation with authorities helped blow the lid off the nationwide college admissions bribery scandal by leading the FBI to the scheme’s mastermind was sentenced Wednesday to five months in prison.

Rudy Meredith, head coach at Yale from 1995 until 2018, pleaded guilty in March 2019 to wire fraud for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to help students get into the elite Ivy League university as soccer recruits. In one case, the recruit did not play competitive soccer, prosecutors have said.

Federal prosecutors and Meredith’s defense lawyers had recommended no additional prison time beyond the one day he had already spent in custody. But U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf said Wednesday that Meredith’s greed and his victims warranted a stiffer sentence.

Wolf described the victims as the members of the Yale team who were “betrayed” by being cheated out of having better teammates, as well as unknown victims — young women who might have gotten into Yale had Meredith not decided to essentially sell slots on the team. Those unknown victims may have included women from disadvantaged backgrounds, the judge said.

“You committed a very serious crime and you didn’t have to do it,” Wolf said.

Before he was sentenced, Meredith, his voice shaking, issued an apology and said he had ruined his reputation and his career because he was driven by greed and the desire to provide for his family.

“It’s all my fault and I am going to pay for this for the rest of my life,” he said.

In addition to the prison term, Meredith was sentenced to a year of probation, fined $19,000 and ordered to forfeiti more than $550,000.

Investigators began looking into Meredith after an executive who prosecutors were targeting in an unrelated securities fraud scheme told them that the coach had offered to help his daughter get into the school in exchange for cash.

Authorities set up a sting in a Boston hotel room in April 2018 and recorded Meredith soliciting a $450,000 bribe from the father.

He helped investigators unravel the wider bribery scheme dubbed Operation Varsity Blues by leading them to William “Rick” Singer, the admissions consultant at the center of the scheme.

R. Kelly’s federal trial in Chicago that starts Monday is in many ways a do-over of his 2008 state child pornography trial, at which jurors acquitted the singer on charges that he produced a video of himself when he was around 30 having sex with a girl no older than 14.

There’s one big difference: This time, prosecutors say, she will testify.

Kelly, 55, goes into Chicago federal court already sentenced by a New York federal judge to a 30-year prison term for a 2021 conviction on charges he parlayed his fame to sexually abuse other young fans.

Among the most serious charges the Grammy Award winner faces at his federal trial is conspiracy to obstruct justice by rigging the 2008 trial, including by paying off and threatening the girl to ensure she did not testify.

Testimony by the woman, now in her 30s and referred to in filings only as “Minor 1,” will be pivotal. The charges against Kelly also include four counts of the enticement of minors for sex — one count each for four other accusers. All are also slated to testify.

Even just one or two convictions in Chicago could add decades to Kelly’s New York sentence, which he is appealing. With the New York sentence alone, Kelly will be around 80 before qualifying for early release.

Prosecutors at the federal trial plan to play the same VHS tape that was “Exhibit No. 1″ at the 2008 trial. While it was the only video in evidence 14 years ago, at least three other videos will be entered into evidence at the federal trial.

A Nevada woman has lost her bid in a U.S. court to force international soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo to pay millions of dollars more than the $375,000 in hush money she received after claiming he raped her in Las Vegas in 2009.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey in Las Vegas kicked the case out of court on Friday to punish the woman’s attorney, Leslie Mark Stovall, for “bad-faith conduct” and the use of leaked and stolen documents detailing attorney-client discussions between Ronaldo and his lawyers. Dorsey said that tainted the case beyond redemption.

Dorsey said in her 42-page order that dismissing a case outright with no option to file it again is a severe sanction, but said Ronaldo had been harmed by Stovall’s conduct.

“I find that the procurement and continued use of these documents was bad faith, and simply disqualifying Stovall will not cure the prejudice to Ronaldo because the misappropriated documents and their confidential contents have been woven into the very fabric of (plaintiff Kathryn) Mayorga’s claims,” the ruling said. “Harsh sanctions are merited.”

Stovall did not immediately respond Saturday to telephone and email messages. Text messages to associate Larissa Drohobyczer were not answered. They could appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

In a statement referring to Mayorga only as “plaintiff,” Ronaldo’s attorney in Las Vegas, Peter Christiansen, said Cristiano’s legal team welcomed the decision.