By PHILIP MARCELO

NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan pawn shop owner pleaded guilty Friday to serving as a fence for luxury items stolen from wealthy residences across the country, including a brazen burglary at the home of Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow while he was playing an away game last year.

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Dimitriy Nezhinskiy admitted to knowingly purchasing stolen watches, jewelry and other high-end goods in order to re-sell them in his pawn shop. But he maintained that he did not know they had been taken from people’s homes until after his arrest.

“I am very sorry for my actions,” the 44-year-old New Jersey resident said in Brooklyn federal court. “Most of my business was completely legitimate, and it was a good business.”

Nezhinskiy pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to receive stolen property. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison as well as restitution of about $2.5 million and forfeiture of more than $2.5 million. He’ll be sentenced at a later date.

“This defendant ran a black-market pipeline, buying stolen luxury goods from organized theft crews that targeted homes and businesses,” New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement. “It was a deliberate operation that helped professional burglars prey on innocent people.”

Nezhinskiy, who was born in the nation of Georgia but has legal status in the U.S., could also face deportation, U.S. District Court Judge William Kuntz noted.

Juan Villar, a New York resident who ran the pawn shop with Nezhinskiy, pleaded guilty to the same charge last month and will be sentenced in December.

Prosecutors said the shop in Manhattan’s famed Diamond District fenced stolen goods for international burglary crews that targeted homes of prominent athletes around the country.

They say Nezhinskiy and Villar had been purchasing items from various crews and re-selling them from 2020 until the FBI raided the storefront and arrested them in February.

The crews, many consisting of foreign nationals from South America, mostly hit homes while athletes were out of town, including while playing in road games, prosecutors have said. Targets also included the homes of NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, Luka Doncic of the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers and Mike Conley Jr. of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The investigation spanned several states and led to at least six arrests.

Nezhinskiy and Villar weren’t charged in connection with specific robberies, but prosecutors said phone records link Nezhinskiy to one of the men charged with ransacking Burrow’s house.

Prosecutors also say a large amount of suspected stolen property was found at the two men’s business and at storage units in New Jersey belonging to Nezhinskiy, including luxury handbags, wine, sports memorabilia, jewelry, artwork and power tools commonly used for burglaries and opening safes.

The break-in at Burrow’s home happened on Dec. 9, 2024 while the Bengals were playing in Dallas. Police said a person arrived at the Anderson Township home to find a shattered bedroom window and the home ransacked. The person called her mother, who notified authorities, and was later revealed to be Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Olivia Ponton, not Burrow’s previous girlfriend.

“I feel like my privacy has been violated in more ways than one,” Burrow said afterward. “Way more is out there than I would want out there and that I care to share.”

Police said they apprehended those burglars the following month after finding them in an SUV with a Louisiana State University shirt and a Cincinnati Bengals hat believed to be stolen from Burrow’s home. Burrow played college football at LSU.

Police also found photos the robbers took of themselves flashing some of the other spoils — jewelry, watches, designer luggage and glasses. One even wore necklaces with pendants showing “JB9” and the number 9 — Burrow’s jersey number.

Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.

After shocking the world by winning 14 games last season, the Vikings got blown out by the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs, a humbling defeat that paved the way for some major changes on the roster.

Not only did the Vikings make the difficult decision to move on from Sam Darnold at quarterback, they reinforced the trenches on both sides of the ball while spending upwards of $300 million in free agency.

Now, the Vikings will move forward this season with rookie J.J. McCarthy leading the charge under center. He has fully recovered from his torn meniscus and is ready to step into the spotlight as the face of the franchise.

Here are five storylines to follow as the Vikings open training camp this week at TCO Performance Center:

The start of the J.J. McCarthy era

There were flashes of brilliance from McCarthy in the spring; he impressed on the field with his arm talent, and off the field with his magnetic personality at the podium. Will he be able to keep the momentum going in the summer?

That’s the biggest question that needs to be answered.

Every move that the Vikings have made over the past few months is indicative of a group fully expecting to compete for the Super Bowl. Whether they are capable of actually doing that will fall squarely on McCarthy’s shoulders.

Although the front office made a concerted effort to surround McCarthy with playmakers, the Vikings will go as he goes this season, for better or for worse.

The revamped offensive line

Maybe if head coach Kevin O’Connell had some more time to cool off after the Vikings lost to the Rams in the playoffs, he wouldn’t have been so honest. The emotions were still raw for O’Connell roughly 30 minutes after time expired, however, as he emphasized that the interior of the offensive line needed to improve.

That statement served as a compass for the Vikings in free agency as they signed Ryan Kelly to play center and Will Fries to play right guard. The remodeling continued in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft when they chose Donovan Jackson to play left guard.

There’s no doubt the interior of the offensive line will look different this season. Some early signs of how much it has actually improved will come in training camp when that trio takes the field together for the first time.

The dynamic duo at running back

The fact that the Vikings were able to run it back with Aaron Jones can’t be overstated. He was an extremely important part of the offense last season at running back, proving to be a difference maker on the ground and catching passes out of the backfield.

The only issue? Jones set a career high with 306 touches. That’s clearly not something the Vikings want to see happen again, which explains why they went out and acquired Jordan Mason in a trade. Now the Vikings boast a dynamic duo at running back.

That should help make life easier on McCarthy whenever he drops back to pass.

The competition at cornerback

The signings of Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave made headlines in free agency as the Vikings prioritized the interior of the defensive line. So did the three-year, $54 million deal that put Byron Murphy Jr. among the highest paid cornerbacks in the NFL.

That said, the Vikings also made a couple of savvy moves that flew under the radar, signing Isaiah Rodgers and Jeff Okudah to provide some depth on the corners.

The expectation is that Rodgers and Okudah will be competing against each other to see who emerges as the starter. The competition at cornerback also will include Mekhi Blackmon, Dwight McGlothern and a handful of other players hoping to make a name for themselves.

The fact that the Vikings didn’t kick the tires on Jalen Ramsey or Jaire Alexander when they were looking for a change of scenery suggests they are content to let the string play out internally before signing anybody else.

The contract extension for Josh Metellus

It will be interesting to see how much Josh Metellus participates in training camp if he doesn’t get a contract extension soon. There have been no indications that he plans to hold out.

The hardest part about the negotiations when it comes to Metellus is the fact that he plays so many different positions. Though he’s technically a safety, he lines up all over the field on defense, which makes it hard to figure out his market value.

After losing Cam Bynum in free agency, the Vikings need Metellus to pair alongside Harrison Smith and Theo Jackson.

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Everything you need to know about Vikings training camp this month

By REGINA GARCIA CANO, ERIC TUCKER and MEGAN JANETSKY, Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela released 10 jailed Americans on Friday in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, officials said.

The arrangement represents a diplomatic achievement for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, helps President Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad and lands El Salvador a swap that its president had proposed months ago.

“Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement in which he thanked El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

Bukele said his country had handed over all the Venezuelan nationals in its custody. The Venezuelan government said it had paid a “steep price” by having to release the U.S. nationals but was pleased to have its own jailed citizens back.

Central to the deal are the more than 250 Venezuelan migrants being freed by El Salvador, which in March agreed to a $6 million payment from the Trump administration to house them in a notorious Salvadoran prison.

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The arrangement drew immediate blowback when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to quickly remove men his administration had accused of belonging to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang. The administration did not provide evidence to back those claims.

The Venezuelans have been held in a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which was built to hold alleged gang members in Bukele’s war on the country’s gangs. Human rights groups have documented hundreds of deaths and cases of torture inside its walls.

Among the Americans freed Friday was 37-year-old Lucas Hunter, whose family says he was kidnapped in January by Venezuelan border guards from inside Colombia, where he was vacationing.

“We cannot wait to see him in person and help him recover from the ordeal,” said his younger sister Sophie Hunter.

The release of the Venezuelans is an invaluable win for Maduro as he presses his efforts to assert himself as president despite credible evidence that he lost reelection last year. Long on the receiving end of accusations of human rights abuses, Maduro for months used the men’s detention in El Salvador to flip the script on the U.S. government, forcing even some of his strongest political opponents to agree with his condemnation of the migrants’ treatment.

The migrants’ return will allow Maduro to reaffirm support within his shrinking base, while it demonstrates that even if the Trump administration and other nations see him as an illegitimate president, he is still firmly in power.

The release comes just a week after the State Department reiterated its policy of shunning Maduro government officials and recognizing only the National Assembly elected in 2015 as the legitimate government of the country. Signed by Rubio, the cable said U.S. officials are free to meet and have discussions with National Assembly members “but cannot engage with Maduro regime representatives unless cleared by the Department of State.”

Venezuelan authorities detained nearly a dozen U.S. citizens in the second half of 2024 and linked them to alleged plots to destabilize the country.

“We have prayed for this day for almost a year. My brother is an innocent man who was used as a political pawn by the Maduro regime, said a statement from Christian Casteneda, whose brother Wilbert, a Navy SEAL, was arrested in his Caracas hotel room last year.

Global Reach, a nonprofit organization that had advocated for his release and that of several other Americans, said Venezuelan officials initially and falsely accused him of being involved in a coup but backed off that claim.

The Americans were among dozens of people, including activists, opposition members and union leaders, that Venezuela’s government took into custody in its brutal campaign to crack down on dissent in the 11 months since Maduro claimed to win reelection.

The U.S. government, along with several other Western nations, does not recognize Maduro’s claim to victory and instead points to tally sheets collected by the opposition coalition showing that its candidate, Edmundo González, won the July 2024 election by a more than a two-to-one margin.

The dispute over results prompted immediate protests, and the government responded by detaining more than 2,000 people, mostly poor young men. González fled into exile in Spain to avoid arrest.

Despite the U.S. not recognizing Maduro, the two governments have carried out other recent exchanges.

In May, Venezuela freed a U.S. Air Force veteran after about six months in detention. Scott St. Clair’s family has said the language specialist, who served four tours in Afghanistan, had traveled to South America to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

St. Clair was handed over to Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy for special missions, during a meeting on a Caribbean island.

Three months earlier, six other Americans whom the U.S. government considered wrongfully detained in Venezuela were released after Grenell met with Maduro at the presidential palace.

Grenell, during the meeting in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, urged Maduro to take back deported migrants who have committed crimes in the U.S. Hundreds of Venezuelans have since been deported to their home country, but more than 200 deported from the U.S. have been held since mid-March at the prison in El Salvador.

Lawyers have little access to those in the prison, which is heavily guarded, and information has been locked tight, other than heavily produced state propaganda videos showing tattooed men packed behind bars.

As a result, prominent human rights groups and lawyers working with the Venezuelans on legal cases had little information of their movement until they boarded the plane.

Tucker reported from Washington and Janetsky from Mexico City. Associated Press writers Matt Lee and Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.

A metal foundry on St. Paul’s East Side at loggerheads with state regulators over air quality emissions has filed its second lawsuit against the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, this time alleging breaches of the state’s Data Practices Act and a count of defamation related to a December plant fire.

The Northern Iron Foundry, which was purchased by Lawton Standard in 2022, filed its latest lawsuit on Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court. It is being represented by the Minneapolis law firm of Dorsey and Whitney.

The 11-page civil complaint calls for proper enforcement of an existing stipulation agreement and alleges one count each of breach of contract, violation of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act and defamation.

In March, the foundry’s residential neighbors filed a class action suit against Northern Iron —  Brittney Bruce v. Northern Iron — alleging their homes had been contaminated by soot laced with heavy metals from the foundry. MPCA testing found chromium, cobalt, lead and manganese — the same metals detected in samples taken from the Northern Iron facility.

Response from Northern Iron

On Feb. 10, in response to Northern Iron’s May 2024 lawsuit against state regulators, the Minnesota Attorney General’s office issued a letter to the court, on behalf of the MPCA, expressing concern about the metal-tainted soot landing on residences near the Forest Street plant, as well as overdue air quality monitoring data and other issues delaying permitting.

During a July 10 hearing in the class action suit, “it was confirmed that the data regarding soot is not public data and is likely classified as civil investigative data, which can only be released pursuant to a court order,” reads the company’s latest civil filing, which claims a data privacy violation.

The attorney general’s office also claimed that Northern Iron submitted a permit application with new air quality modeling data more than four months after both were due, and that both were incomplete. The company, according to the attorney general’s office, submitted “a flurry of last-minute” requests for legal evidence known as discovery in an apparent attempt to delay the case.

The attorney general’s letter went on to say that a December fire that took place at Northern Iron was due to improper installation of equipment, even though “the MPCA has no evidence that the fire was caused by improper installation,” reads the lawsuit.

“The MPCA knew at the time that it submitted the Feb. 10 letter that the statement was and is false,” reads the lawsuit, which claims the letter amounts to defamation.

The new civil complaint notes that the MPCA issued Northern Iron a notice of violation in April 2023 over outdated emissions controls and equipment installed without proper permits, leading to a stipulation agreement between the two parties in July 2023.

The company agreed to pay the MPCA $41,000, and the agreement spelled out corrective actions Northern Iron would take while regulators held off on any further penalties.

The MPCA then issued a new administrative order in April 2024, alleging further violations. Northern Iron responded by filing a petition against state regulators in Ramsey County District Court that May, claiming that the MPCA had bypassed a dispute resolution process laid out in their previous agreement.

Added penalties

Last October, the MPCA levied $219,000 in added penalties against Northern Iron through an administrative penalty order for alleged violations of the stipulation agreement. The company filed a legal appeal of the order last November.

In December, the MPCA issued an amended administrative penalty order demanding penalty payments within 30 days, and in early June, regulators issued a notice of intent to revoke the company’s air permit without likelihood of it being reissued.

The company’s latest civil filing, which maintains that the dispute had hurt its standing with vendors and workers, calls for unspecified damages above $75,000 to be paid to Northern Iron for breach of the stipulation agreement, as well as attorney’s fees, costs and whatever other relief the court may deem suitable.

The summons and complaint was served to the MPCA on Wednesday, and the case was assigned that day to Judge Leonardo Castro.

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