In a twist of fate, a New York City lawyer recently caught in a romantic entanglement on a Central Park bench has been grappling with the shadows of family heartache. Nearly two decades ago, a profound tragedy struck his family with the sudden passing of his younger brother, the Daily Mail has uncovered.

Nathaniel D Cullerton’s younger brother, Eric Cullerton, met a tragic end at the tender age of 24. The fatal incident occurred in 2007 when Eric was involved in a devastating head-on collision near their Connecticut home.

Local reports reveal that Eric had just wrapped up his morning shift at a Ridgefield Starbucks when tragedy struck. His 1990 Nissan Sentra veered into oncoming traffic, resulting in a collision with a Jeep.

Back then, a heartbroken Cullerton, who was 26 at the time, was among those who honored his brother’s memory. He remembered Eric as a remarkably talented young musician whose abilities left a lasting impression on those around him.

“Eric played in many local bands, embracing blues and rock,” Cullerton told The News-Times shortly after the heartbreaking loss, paying tribute to his brother’s enduring passion for music.

‘He toured the US with the Murali Coryell Band for the last year and a half. He had recorded and produced a couple of solo albums. He wrote (music) all the time.’

An obituary in the local paper, too, described his musical talents, noting he would travel with a ‘small cassette recorder everywhere he went to record his ideas and songs.’

‘Eric loved his family. He loved France, where he spent every summer with his cousins and grandparents on his mother’s side.

‘He loved music and lived through it. He was an artist with the gentlest soul. He felt all the pain that is in this world, but also saw and rejoiced in all its beauty.

‘He was deeply loved by all who met him. In the words of a dear family friend, “He moved through life a head taller and several times more humorous and contemplative and kindly than almost every one else, making music and friends wherever he went”.’

The harrowing details of the dark family tragedy surfaced soon after Cullerton, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, became embroiled in a public scandal in wake of his dalliance with a much younger co-worker. 

The high-flying lawyer was recently caught-on-camera smooching Kelsey Borenzweig, 29, near the luxury $2.3 million apartment he shares with his attorney wife. 

The tryst was exposed when a TikTok comedian named Jay Guapo shared the footage of them French kissing with his 3.5 million followers last Thursday.

At one point, Guapo could be heard telling the lovers to ‘get a room’ before a shame-faced Cullerton tried to shoo him away and order him to stop recording them. 

The clip quickly spread like wildfire on social media as online sleuths outed the sheepish lovers as Cullerton and Borenzweig. 

The pair both work within the law firm’s litigation department.

This spring, the firm helped OpenAI boss Sam Altman defeat a civil lawsuit brought by Elon Musk. 

Neither Cullerton nor Borenzweig have addressed the viral controversy. 

Cullerton, for his part, has been married to Moira Penza, a 42-year-old partner at another top law firm, Wilkinson Stekloff, since 2026.

Before moving into private practice,  Penza worked as a federal prosecutor and led the case against NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere. 

She also appeared on an episode of the HBO series The Vow, which investigated the secretive cult.

Penza has been tight-lipped in the wake of the cheating scandal. 

Her sheepish husband was spotted looking stressed as he broke cover late last week traveling back-and-forth between his Manhattan digs and the couple’s home in Connecticut, where he is originally from.

He was seen arriving at the $1.4 million second home he owns with Penza in Wilton before heading back to the Upper East Side in his luxe Range Rover. 

He ignored a Daily Mail reporter’s questions about whether his wife had seen the clip.  

Borenzweig, meanwhile, was snapped with her parents in Manhattan soon after news of the scandal broke. 

The associate was most recently in a relationship with a fellow lawyer but the romance ended a few months ago, a source told the Daily Mail. 

It is unclear how long Cullerton and Borenzweig have been romantically linked.   

The Daily Mail has repeatedly contacted Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz for comment on Cullerton and Borenzweig’s relationship but hasn’t received a response. 

The pair worked closely together to win the Altman case against Elon Musk.

A photo taken during the trial in May captured Cullerton smiling as he walked into the federal court building in Oakland, California, with Borenzweig trailing just a few steps behind. 

Cullerton’s meteoric rise to success saw him obtain his Juris Doctor (JD) from Georgetown University in 2013, before clerking at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Borenzweig’s legal pedigree is just as impressive.

She received her JD from New York University School of Law in 2022 and also spent time clerking before joining Wachtell.

She grew up in Malibu, California, in a sizable $2.7 million midcentury home moments from the Pacific Ocean.

The pair’s kiss has drawn comparisons online to an infamous clinch caught on a kiss cam at a Coldplay concert near Boston last summer when Andy Byron, then CEO of data software firm Astronomer, was filmed cuddling the firm’s HR executive Kristin Cabot.

On Wednesday, a man was found guilty of federal terrorism charges related to the 2022 stabbing of renowned author Salman Rushdie. Rushdie has long been under threat due to his controversial novel “The Satanic Verses.”

The jury unanimously convicted Hadi Matar on all counts, including the serious charge of engaging in transnational terrorism.

Requests for comments have been directed to Matar’s legal representatives.

At 28, Matar is already serving a 25-year term in New York state for attempted murder following the August 2022 attack, which occurred on stage at an amphitheater. His recent federal conviction could potentially extend his imprisonment for life.

Rushdie was about to deliver a talk on the importance of writers’ safety when he was brutally attacked, enduring 15 slashes before an audience in shock. The assault left him with severe injuries, including the loss of vision in his right eye.

Matar’s defense: No evidence of his state of mind

Prosecutors asserted that Matar was motivated by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ’s 1989 call for Rushdie’s death because of “The Satanic Verses.” Defense lawyer Nathaniel Barone countered that the government had no proof of what was in Matar’s head.

Matar himself declined to testify. Rushdie did, telling jurors: “I can’t say what his ambitions or his aim was, but the wounds were dispersed across my body.”

Rushdie won Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize for his 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” about his native India. “The Satanic Verses,”a novel of magical realism about the lives and dreams of two actors who survive a plane explosion, followed in 1988.

It drew critical acclaim in the United Kingdom but engendered protests around the Muslim world over what some believers saw as blasphemous suggestions about Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, particularly in a dream sequence. Over the ensuing years, at least 45 people were killed in riots over the book, a Japanese translator was stabbed to death, an Italian translator was attacked and survived, and the book’s Norwegian publisher survived a shooting.

Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family, has said the dream sequence was just that. But he went into hiding for years, gradually emerging after Iran’s government distanced itself in 1998 from Khomeini’s fatwa, or religious edict.

“For two decades or more, I led a public life without a hint of trouble,” Rushdie testified at the trial in Buffalo, New York.

Yet the fatwa was never rescinded; indeed, Khomenei’s successor, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, indicated in 2017 that it remained in effect. An Iranian foundation has offered a more than $3 million bounty for killing Rushdie.

Prosecutors: Matar’s messages showed him zeroing in on Rushdie

Matar repeatedly broached the fatwa with contacts in messaging apps in 2021 and 2022, according to exhibits shown in court. The messages showed Matar fuming that he felt Rushdie had attacked Islam and, by surviving, emboldened others to insult the faith. Matar alluded to a 2006 comment along those lines by the late Hezbollah militant group leader Hassan Nasrallah, the messages showed.

Born in the U.S., Matar also holds citizenship in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. Prosecutors said that photos in Matar’s New Jersey bedroom and on his computer indicated his support for Hezbollah, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.

Matar aimed to fulfill the fatwa and “wanted everyone to know he was doing this for Hezbollah,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch said in an opening statement July 22.

The messages showed Matar initially talked about wanting to “expose” Rushdie, then about taking his life. In a private note to himself, he wrote: “We need to kill him ASAP,” according to Lynch. The prosecutor said Matar framed the planned killing as part of what he considered a jihad, or holy war.

By spring 2022, the electronic chats showed, Matar wrote that he had discerned where Rushdie lived and was tracking his public appearances, eventually pointing out his scheduled August 2022 talk at the Chautauqua Institution, a western New York arts and intellectual center.

As Rushdie was being introduced, his attacker climbed on stage behind him, then stabbed him 15 times as the audience gasped. Spectators and another speaker, Henry Reese, scrambled to aid Rushdie. Law enforcement officers, assigned to the event, arrested the attacker — soon identified as Matar — after civilians restrained him.

Rushdie published a 2024 memoir about the attack, then returned to fiction with last year’s “The Eleventh Hour.” The author, who was knighted by Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II, received a Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award in November.

In a fiery Capitol Hill session on Wednesday, Republican Senator Rand Paul made a startling disclosure concerning Bill Gates. During a discussion with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Paul revealed that the prominent businessman and philanthropist held a top-level security clearance throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Bill Gates was given Q security clearance from 2014 to 2021,” stated Paul as the hearing drew to a close. This clearance, initially granted during the Obama administration, signifies a considerable level of trust and access.

A Q security clearance, issued by the Department of Energy (DOE), allows access to classified information, comparable to a Top Secret clearance from the Department of Defense.

Gates acquired this high-level clearance due to his connection with TerraPower, a company at the forefront of nuclear technology innovations.

Earlier in the session, Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott inquired whether Dr. Fauci had collaborated with Bill Gates on vaccines or global health initiatives, or if he knew of any collaboration between Gates and China on sensitive research projects.

Fauci refused to answer both questions.

Scott then further pressed Fauci on Gates, asking if he was involved in any classified government programs, used research such as countermeasures or gain of function, and even asked if he maintains an active national security clearance. 

Fauci provided no answers.

Gates and Fauci have shared ties for over 20 years. Beginning in 2003, Fauci served on a scientific advisory board that received partial funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

In 2010, he also became involved in an initiative backed by the foundation and global health organizations, including the World Health Organization, to develop a Global Vaccine Action Plan. Gates noted in 2021 that the two remained in regular contact and spoke frequently throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

In total, Fauci refused to answer 111 questions about COVID-19 origins during an explosive hearing where he blasted Republicans’ ‘unhinged obsession’ with him.

The former chief medical advisor invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination in the opening round. He then continued to do so over 100 separate times when interrogated by lawmakers on the committee.

‘On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,’ Fauci told Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul numerous times in the opening round of questions.

During his opening statement, Fauci earlier accused Paul of having an ‘unhinged obsession’ with him.

‘Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me,’ Fauci noted.

‘The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up in his words ‘behind bars,’ Fauci continued.

‘Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion,’ he added.

Earlier, Fauci’s attorney David Schertler was physically removed by security after attempting to speak on his client’s behalf.

‘I didn’t invite you here to testify,’ Paul snapped as officers moved in.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, later read a statement from Schertler accusing Paul of mounting something other than ‘a serious effort to seek information’ and of having ‘built a personal brand’ around his prosecution of the doctor.

Paul hit back, noting that in ‘no courtroom in America’ could a witness plead the Fifth and then have his lawyer testify for him.

‘The attorney is complaining and testifying, saying you didn’t do it. The prosecution is unfair. You don’t get to do that. That’s one thing you give up when you take the Fifth Amendment,’ he said. ‘He was not invited to testify, he was out of order, and it was appropriate to have him ejected.’

Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, accused Fauci of using federal staff to enrich himself during the pandemic by soliciting awards recognizing his work.

‘You turned your staff into a full-time application machine. You actually wrote to people and said, ‘Do you think maybe I qualify?’ And you got cash for all of this,’ Hawley said. ‘You used eight separate federal employees on federal time using federal resources to solicit cash for that.’

Fauci again invoked the Fifth.

Hawley argued the pardon had stripped him of that protection, citing Brown v. Walker, the 1896 Supreme Court ruling holding that a pardoned witness ‘may not stand upon his privilege.’

Legal scholars are divided on the point, with some arguing the privilege survives where a witness still faces state charges or perjury exposure.

 Fauci’s personal diaries were released earlier this week, showing how he delighted in his interactions with celebrities as America went through the death throes of the early COVID-19 pandemic.

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who also became chief medical advisor to Joe Biden, Fauci achieved remarkable fame of his own during the lockdowns in 2020, a fact that was raised throughout Wednesday’s hearing. 

Christine Wonsley, the mother of Nolan Wells, has mobilized her legal team to issue subpoenas to a range of leading social media and tech companies. This legal maneuver aims to access records from her late son’s accounts, as questions persist concerning the circumstances of the 18-year-old’s demise, according to court documents.

Documents filed in Mississippi State Chancery Court, which came into the possession of ABC News last week, highlight an effort to obtain data from various platforms. These include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—all Meta-owned—as well as Snapchat, TikTok, and Life360, an app for family safety and GPS tracking.

The petitioners desire access to the interactions on Wells’ accounts—messages, photos, and videos—and seek the GPS data location coupled with timestamps. This information could be vital for the family as they search for clarity regarding his death.

Per the court order, these tech giants are given 21 days from receiving the subpoenas to allow inspection and duplication of the designated documents, records, and electronically stored information. These materials are to be sent or made available to Christine Wonsley’s legal representatives.

Efforts by ABC News to procure comments from the contacted companies have not yet yielded any responses.

Wells, who played football at Southwest Mississippi Community College, went missing during a Fourth of July celebration with high school friends on Horn Island, a popular undeveloped island just south of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, officials said.

The 18-year-old’s body was recovered on July 6. Authorities said they suspect Wells drowned, but are still investigating.

The subpoenas come after Wonsley alleged in an interview with ABC News’ Good Morning America on July 10 that his family tracked his phone, but when she went to pick it up from Wells’ friends, she said it appeared that some texts and SnapChat messages had been deleted.

It is unclear who had Wells’ phone in the days between July 4 and July 10.

“When we finally got his phone, me and my sister went through the phone. We went in his Snapchat. He had two accounts. Absolutely nothing,” Christine Wonsley said. “It wasn’t even 24 hours, which is how long videos and pictures stay in Snapchat … even my sister was like ‘Yeah, that’s suspicious.'”

Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said there was no initial indication of a crime, but he stressed that investigators were “working diligently to determine exactly what occurred.”

Ledbetter also said the sheriff’s office welcomed the family’s independent investigation.

The official autopsy report from the state Medical Examiner’s Office and the toxicology tests are still pending. A private autopsy commissioned by Wells’ family preliminarily ruled his cause and manner of death as “undetermined pending investigation.”

“This has been a difficult journey. Losing a child, it truly breaks your heart. It is a pain that is just you can’t measure it. Especially someone like Nolan, who brought so much joy and light and life to everyone,” Wonsley said during a press conference on July 22.

“You don’t find too many genuine people like him. So to lose that light at such a young age, under these circumstances, has been absolutely difficult. Which is why we’ve gone this route. There’s so many people out in the public asking all of these questions, but the only question that we have is what happened to our son,” she added.

ABC News’ Jeana Fermi and Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.

A Nevada inmate’s daring attempt at freedom was cut short thanks to a coordinated effort by multiple law enforcement agencies, aided by a vigilant tipster, as reported by authorities.

Footage from the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office captures the moment 23-year-old Chase Orput, without a shirt, was discovered by deputies on railway tracks, just moments before he was apprehended and returned to custody.

The last sighting of Orput had him moving southwest in a black-and-white striped prison outfit, sparking an all-night manhunt by the Washoe County and Storey County sheriff’s offices.

A local business worker near Interstate 80 identified Orput and tipped off the Sparks Police Department. Utilizing drone technology, officers and deputies were guided to his whereabouts near mile marker 21.

Orput was evaluated by medical personnel at the scene before being transported back to the Washoe County Detention Facility, where he is expected to face additional escape charges.

The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office said Orput was located around 1 p.m. Tuesday, roughly 24 hours after he walked away from a Washoe County Sheriff’s Office inmate work crew at about 1:30 p.m. Monday.

Authorities said the citizen’s call gave officers a crucial lead, allowing Sparks police officers and Washoe County sheriff’s deputies to quickly narrow in on Orput’s location. Sparks police also deployed a drone to provide aerial support as deputies closed in.

“This incident demonstrates the value of strong partnerships between our region’s law enforcement agencies and the important role our community plays in public safety,” Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam said in a statement.

“We also want to thank the citizen who recognized Mr. Orput and immediately contacted law enforcement. Their quick actions contributed directly to this successful outcome.”

The sheriff also thanked the Sparks Police Department and Storey County Sheriff’s Office for assisting in the search.

Orput had been serving a 90-day jail sentence on misdemeanor charges for possession of drug paraphernalia and failure to show or maintain proof of insurance when he walked away from the inmate work crew, authorities said.

In a significant move to shield children from the gripping clutches of addictive social media, New York State has taken a bold step forward. On Tuesday, it was unveiled that the SAFE for Kids Act has reached its final form and is set to be implemented at the start of next year.

The legislation aims to disrupt the cycle in which social media giants inundate young users with personalized content through complex algorithms and late-night notifications. However, parents looking for an all-inclusive remedy should temper their expectations.

Court blocks have stymied similar efforts across the United States, while countries like Australia and the United Kingdom have witnessed the agility of youth who swiftly maneuver around such digital barriers, often outpacing legislative measures.

Although the SAFE for Kids Act might spare some pre-teens from a 2 a.m. Instagram alert, a gentle reminder is warranted: lawmakers cannot act as digital gatekeepers for every child. The onus remains on families, educators, and communities to assume the role of safeguarding children online.

This week, Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced the completion of the SAFE for Kids Act, an initiative aptly abbreviated as “Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation.” They confirmed that the law will be activated on January 25, 2027.

The new law would prevent qualifying social media companies from presenting minors with an algorithmically personalized feed and would also bar them from delivering them notifications between midnight and 6 a.m.

New York kids can only overrule the default setting if a parent consents, according to the law, which will be enforceable by civil penalties and age-verification processes, like government ID verification, facial age estimation, and checks against official records.

Critics have warned that age verification means that everyone is less free online, and that requiring users to prove their identities can jeopardize adults’ right to go online and speak anonymously without government oversight.

New York’s law, to its credit, has attempted to placate concerns by giving platforms the option to choose “zero-knowledge” age verification systems, which are cryptographic and don’t share information with third parties except for a user’s adult/minor status.

Even still, the law is vulnerable, and any parent who thinks it’s a permanent fix should think again. Other states, like California and Arkansas, have tried to implement similar notification curfews, only to be blocked by courts, who deemed the regulations unconstitutional.

Other laws attempting to ban minors from social media across the world have shown that wherever legislators have stood between kids and their apps, the kids find a way to circumvent them.

When Australia banned minors from social media in late 2025, many kids simply made new accounts, asked for help with bypassing restrictions, downloaded VPNs to change their geolocation data, and even used an older person’s ID or put on makeup to trick age verification barriers — according to the government’s own report.

A YouGov survey of Australian parents also found that 27% reported their kids were switching over to alternative, less regulated platforms, meaning the law may have sent them to sketchier parts of the internet’s Wild West — and those are just the parents who know what their kids are really doing online.

When Britain enforced age checks for pornography and dangerous online material that same year, VPN downloads from Proton rose 1,200%. The UK government’s own investigation found that 40% of 11 to 17-year-olds had circumvented age checks, as of this month.

Of course, social media restrictions on kids do keep some of them offline. But here in New York there will surely be kids downloading VPNs, using parents’ accounts to get on platforms, and flocking to unregulated websites to access the content they’re after.

That’s not because New York lawmakers don’t have kids’ interests at heart, but because Albany will never be able to stand in for family and community in the battle to keep kids safe from online harm.

Parents, families, schools, and community members need to step up.

To give them their due, they have been trying: Schools around the country have been implementing bell-to-bell cell phone bans. More and more parents are keeping their kids off social media until they’re old enough to scroll responsibly. Flip phones and dumb phones are having a moment. Even kids themselves are expressing a desire to unplug.

But corrosive online material such as gambling, pornography, religious radicalization or school shooter manifestos spread insidiously online and the government can never be a stand-in for grassroots interventions — and parents shouldn’t count on them to be their saviors.