Family and friends of actor Johnny Wactor called for action Tuesday from the public and officials to help find and convict his killers.
The former “General Hospital” actor was shot on May 25 when he interrupted thieves stealing the catalytic converter from his car in downtown Los Angeles, authorities said. No arrests have yet been made.
“I’m asking that anybody that knows anything please come forward,” the actor’s mother, Scarlett Wactor of South Carolina, said at a news conference outside Los Angeles City Hall. “It will help me and his brothers in our healing to know that they’ve been captured and convicted.”
Police made their own plea for public help on Aug. 5 when they released surveillance images of three unidentified suspects and their getaway car โ a stolen 2018 black Infiniti Q50.
Johnny Wactor was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and grew up in the nearby town of Summerville. He portrayed Brando Corbin on the ABC soap opera “General Hospital” from 2020 to 2022. He also appeared in films and TV series including “Station 19,” “NCIS” and “Westworld.”
Scarlett Wactor said previously that her son had left work at a rooftop bar with a coworker when he saw someone at his car and thought it was being towed. A mask-wearing suspect opened fire, his mother said.
“Grief is my constant companion,” she said Tuesday. “I can’t wish him happy birthday on Aug. 31 โ he would have been 38. I can’t ask if he’s coming home for Christmas. I can’t ask how his day went.”
Others at the news conference called for more action from Mayor Karen Bass and other leaders to combat crime.
“We will make sure that no family has to endure the pain that Scarlett is enduring today,” City Councilman Kevin de Leรณn said. “We want justice for Johnny and we shall have it.”
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults โ two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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