WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames, who betrayed Western intelligence assets to the Soviet Union and Russia in one of the most damaging intelligence breaches in U.S. history, has died in a Maryland prison. He was 84.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons confirmed Ames died Monday.

Ames admitted being paid $2.5 million by Moscow for U.S. secrets from 1985 until his arrest in 1994. He admitted disclosing the identities of 10 Russian officials and one East European who were spying for the United States or Great Britain. His betrayals are blamed for the executions of Western agents working behind the Iron Curtain and were a major setback to the CIA.

He pleaded guilty without a trial to espionage and tax evasion and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Prosecutors said he deprived the United States of valuable intelligence material for years.

He professed “profound shame and guilt” for “this betrayal of trust, done for the basest motives,” money to pay debts. But he downplayed the damage he caused, telling the court he did not believe he had “noticeably damaged” the United States or “noticeably aided” Moscow.

“These spy wars are a sideshow which have had no real impact on our significant security interests over the years,” he told the court in a matter-of-fact tone.

In a jailhouse interview with The Washington Post the day before he was sentenced, Ames said he was motivated to spy by “financial troubles, immediate and continuing.”

In what has been called a “heartbreaking” loss, Jett, the former St. Paul police horse, has died.

“In true police form, he fought hard his last few weeks with us. He beat every medical challenge that came his way. His passing was unexpected, and heartbreaking to watch,” wrote Jen Mink on a GoFundMe page set up to help with veterinary bills.

She said an emergency veterinarian euthanized Jett on Christmas Day after he was unable to get on his feet, even with assistance.

Mink was partnered with Jett for about four years when she was a St. Paul police officer, and she owned and cared for him after he retired from duty in 2018. The police department opted to disband its mounted unit in 2019.

“If Jett was a person, he would be receiving a funeral or service with honors. I know it probably sounds silly, but to me, he would have given his life to help others,” Mink wrote. “He lived an honorable life. He was in the small percentage of horses that are courageous and brave. I wish he knew how important he was. Even after retirement, he still served and helped others. He had a big blue heart. And now he is gone, like he and his life weren’t a big deal.”

In mid-December, Jett, an appendix quarter horse, was battling a fever and had been eating and drinking minimally. As veterinarians sought a diagnosis amid evidence of a bowel impaction, Mink created the GoFundMe and asked for the public’s help with expenses.

She said that with the money raised, she knows that everything possible was done to prolong Jett’s life as long as possible.

“My heart hurts so bad right now … but I have moments of comfort, knowing there was nothing left for me or the vet to do. There are no ‘what-if’s’ or ‘if only’s.’ I have all of you to thank for that,” she wrote.

Jett was estimated to be in his late 20s, which is old for a horse.

Mink, who left policing in 2021, now teaches basic horsemanship skills to children through adults with three other retired St. Paul police horses, including Moose, her partner after Jett.

She said she is now turning to having Jett cremated and planning a memorial service consistent with his law enforcement service.

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Three Republican members of the Minnesota House are set to testify Wednesday morning before the U.S. House Oversight Committee for a hearing on fraud and misuse of federal funds.

Rep. Kirstin Robbins, R-Maple Grove, the chair of Minnesota’s Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee and a Republican candidate for governor in 2026, as well as Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville, and Rep. Marion Rarick, R-Maple Lake, are scheduled to testify. Hudson and Rarick also serve on the state’s fraud committee.

Members of the Republican-majority U.S. House have recently ramped up their probe into government program fraud in Minnesota. Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, has issued requests to multiple state officials to testify before the Oversight Committee.

“American taxpayers demand and deserve accountability for the theft of their hard-earned money,” Comer said in a news release ahead of the hearings. “The U.S. Department of Justice is actively investigating, prosecuting, and charging fraudsters who have stolen billions from taxpayers, and Congress has a duty to conduct rigorous oversight of this heist and enact stronger safeguards to prevent fraud in taxpayer-funded programs, as well as strong sanctions to hold offenders accountable.”

Comer said the Oversight Committee will hold future hearings on fraud. He’s invited Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to a February hearing, blaming the top elected officials for not doing enough to address the problem in the state.

Walz, who ended his bid for a third term as governor this week as political pressure on fraud continues to mount, has pointed to recent actions of his administration — such as canceling payments in a fraud-beset housing program, ordering third-party audits and the appointment of a top anti-fraud official — as signs that he is tackling the problem.

Ellison pointed to his office’s work to combat fraud in federally-funded programs, including prosecutions in “over 300 Medicaid fraud cases” where his office “won over $80 million in recoveries.”

“Attorney General Ellison has put fraudsters in prison while defending our tax dollars and the services they pay for,” his office said in a statement. “Attorney General Ellison will review Representative Comer’s invitation and respond at the appropriate time.”

Comer also has asked other state officials to give testimony to the committee. Former Department of Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead, who resigned last January, got a letter from the chairman in December requesting she provide testimony in an in-person transcribed interview on Feb. 6. Comer said the committee will have to “evaluate the use of the compulsory process” if she did not testify voluntarily.

A similar letter went out to Eric Grumdahl, the former assistant commissioner of Homelessness and Housing Supports at DHS, who left his job before federal prosecutors announced fraud charges in the state’s Medicaid-funded housing stabilization services program.

Other officials with DHS and the Minnesota Department of Education also got letters from Comer.

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, who is leading prosecutions in the $250 million Feeding Our Future children’s meal program fraud case and in Medicaid-funded programs, has estimated fraud in Minnesota could top $9 billion.

Walz and officials in his administration have disputed that number, saying Thompson has presented no evidence to back it up. Walz on Tuesday called that estimate “defamation” of the state.

The hearing starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Wednesday. It can be viewed at oversight.house.gov/hearing.

By MICHAEL CASEY

BOSTON (AP) — Pamela Smart, who is serving life in prison for orchestrating the murder of her husband by her teenage student in 1990, is seeking to overturn her conviction over what her lawyers claim were several constitutional violations.

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The petition for habeas corpus relief was filed Monday in New York, where she is being held at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, and, in New Hampshire, where the murder happened.

“Ms. Smart’s trial unfolded in an environment that no court had previously confronted — wall-to-wall media coverage that blurred the line between allegation and evidence,” Jason Ott, who is part of Smart’s legal team, said in a statement. “This petition challenges whether a fair adversarial process took place.”

The move comes about seven months after New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte rejected a request for a sentence reduction hearing. Ayotte said she reviewed the case and decided it was not deserving of a hearing.

A spokesman for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said it would have no comment about the petition.

A spokeman for New Hampshire’s attorney general said it would not comment on pending litigation “other than to note that the State maintains Ms. Smart received a fair trial and that her convictions were lawfully obtained and upheld on appeal.”

In their petition, lawyers for the 57-year-old Smart argue that prosecutors misled the jury by providing them with inaccurate transcripts of surreptitiously recorded conversations of Ms. Smart that included words that were not audible on the recordings. Among the words they claim weren’t audible but in the transcript were the word killed in the sentence “you had your husband killed,” the word busted in the sentence “I’m gonna be busted” and the word murder in the sentence “this would have been the perfect murder.”

“Modern science confirms what common sense has always told us: when people are handed a script, they inevitably hear the words they are shown,” Smart’s attorney, Matthew Zernhelt, said in a statement. “Jurors were not evaluating the recordings independently — they were being directed toward a conclusion, and that direction decided the verdict.”

Lawyers also argued the conviction should be overturned because the verdict was tainted by the media attention and due to faulty instructions to the jury. They argued jurors were told they must find that Smart acted with premeditation, not told they must consider only evidence presented at trial.

They also argued the trial court gave her a mandatory life sentence without parole for being an accomplice to first-degree murder, despite New Hampshire not mandating that sentence for the charge.

Smart was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a 15-year-old boy who later fatally shot her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry. The shooter was freed in 2015 after serving a 25-year sentence. Although Smart denied knowledge of the plot, she was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder and other crimes and sentenced to life without parole.

It took until 2024 for Smart to take full responsibility for her husband’s death. In a video released in June, she said she spent years deflecting blame “almost as if it was a coping mechanism.”

Smart’s trial was a media circus and one of America’s first high-profile cases about a sexual affair between a school employee and a student. The student, William Flynn, testified that Smart told him she needed her husband killed because she feared she would lose everything if they divorced and that she threatened to break up with him if he didn’t kill her husband. Flynn and three other teens cooperated with prosecutors and all have since been released.

Flynn and 17-year-old Patrick Randall entered the Smarts’ Derry condominium and forced Gregory Smart to his knees in the foyer. As Randall held a knife to the man’s throat, Flynn fired a hollow-point bullet into his head. Both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and were sentenced to 28 years to life. They were granted parole in 2015. Two other teenagers served prison sentences and have been released.

The case inspired Joyce Maynard’s 1992 book “To Die For” and the 1995 film of the same name, starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix.