Judge sets bail for Indiana man accused of killing house cleaner and sets trial for March

A judge set bail Friday for an Indiana man accused of killing a house cleaner who showed up at his home by mistake at $25,000 and ordered him to surrender his passport.

Prosecutors charged Curt Andersen of Whitestown, on Monday, with voluntary manslaughter in connection with the Nov. 5 death of 32-year-old Guatemalan immigrant Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez.

Andersen, 62, made his initial appearance in Boone County Superior Court on Friday morning dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit and a bulletproof vest. In addition to setting bail, Judge Matthew Kincaid ordered Andersen to surrender his passport and scheduled a jury trial to begin March 30, according to online court records.

Voicemail and email messages were left Friday for Andersen's attorney, gun rights advocate Guy Relford. Boone County Prosecutor Kent Eastwood declined to comment on the case.

Alexander Limontes, an attorney representing Rios' family, said in a statement that prosecutors sought a $50,000 bond and Kincaid should have honored that request and set home detention as a condition of release.

“Maria was a hardworking mother & wife who showed up for her family, friends and community every single day,” Limontes said in the statement. “She was simply doing her job. For her family, today's bond hearing is another painful reminder of the loss they suffered and the long road to justice that lies ahead.”

Rios’ brother described her on a fundraising page as the mother of four children.

According to court documents, Rios and her husband were part of a house cleaning crew and went to Andersen's house by mistake. As they tried to unlock Andersen's door with a key their company had given them, Andersen fired a shot through the door without warning. The bullet hit Rios in the head. Her husband was not hurt.

Andersen told investigators he heard someone trying to unlock his front door and thought someone was trying to break into his home. The case promises to test the limits of Indiana's stand-your-ground law, which allows homeowners to use deadly force to stop someone they reasonably believe is entering their dwelling unlawfully.

Police have said there's no evidence Rios entered the home before she was shot. Relford, the defense attorney, has maintained that Andersen had every reason to believe his actions were justified under the law but has not elaborated publicly.

Rios' family planned to return her body to Guatemala on Saturday. A funeral has been set for Sunday in Cabrican, a town in the southwestern region of the country.

Curt Andersen leaves the Boone County Courthouse after appearing for a hearing on a voluntary manslaughter charge in the killing of Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez in Lebanon, Ind., Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

Attorney Guy Relford, right, who is representing Whitestown homeowner Curt Andersen, arrives at the Boone County Courthouse for a hearing on his clients voluntary manslaughter charge in the killing of Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez in Lebanon, Ind., Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. Following Relford is Curt Andirons wife Andersen's wife Yoshie Andersen. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

Curt Andersen, left, arrives at the Boone County Courthouse for a hearing on a voluntary manslaughter charge in the killing of Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez in Lebanon, Ind., Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

Curt Andersen leaves the Boone County Courthouse after appearing for a hearing on a voluntary manslaughter charge in the killing of Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez in Lebanon, Ind., Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he’s holding a White House Situation Room meeting with his advisors as he looks to make a “final determination” on moving forward with a deal to extend the Iran ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump confirmed the high-level White House talks the day after The Associated Press and other news outlets reported that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had come to terms on a tentative agreement. The deal would extend the fragile ceasefire by 60 days as new talks are held on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

Trump in a social media posting said that “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb,” the Strait of Hormuz must be reopened for international navigation and all sea mines dropped in the waterway must be destroyed as part of the agreement.

Iran’s main negotiator said Friday that it has “no trust in guarantees or words,” only actions, underscoring lingering distrust after the U.S. and Israel have twice attacked Iran over the past year while it was engaged in nuclear negotiations.

“No step will be taken before the other side acts,” Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who attended talks in Qatar this week, wrote on X. “We do not gain concessions through talks, but through missiles."

On Thursday, U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested negotiators were trying to strike general terms on Iran’s nuclear program in the tentative agreement, with the specifics to be hammered out in the ensuing talks.

Vance said the sides were going back and forth on “a couple of issues on the nuclear stuff, the highly enriched stockpile, and also the question of enrichment.”

The Islamic Republic has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Trump and his team said from the start of the conflict that a prime objective was to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.

Vance framed the war’s accomplishments more modestly.

“We’re in a position where we could substantially set back their nuclear program, not just during the term of this president but over the long term,” Vance said, saying that would be “very, very good” for Americans.

Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful and has not publicly committed to giving up the stockpile, believed to be buried under a trio of nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. strikes last year.

The proposed memorandum makes clear that Iran would not be able to impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz and that it would have to remove all mines from the vital waterway within 30 days, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. would gradually lift its blockade on Iranian ports and would also agree to relax sanctions, allowing Iran to sell more of its oil.

Iran has effectively closed the strait since the U.S. and Israel launched a surprise attack on Feb. 28 that killed Iran's supreme leader and other top officials. Before then, the waterway was open to international traffic, and around a fifth of the world's oil and gas passed through it.

The closure of the strait, which runs between Iran and Oman, has caused the price of fuel and other goods to soar, with the effects felt far beyond the Middle East.

Iran has said it lets some commercial vessels pass — about two dozen daily in recent days, compared with more than 100 a day before the war. But the Islamic Republic also has charged tolls for at least some ships and established a formal gatekeeper agency earlier this month, spurring a new round of U.S. sanctions this week.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that he discussed the strait’s future management with his Omani counterpart. Araghchi wrote on X that he expressed expressed solidarity “in the face of any threat.”

On Wednesday, Trump had warned Oman — a U.S. ally — not to enter into any agreement with Iran to share control of the strait or the U.S. will “have to blow them up.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Pakistan’s top diplomat, Ishaq Dar, whose country has been mediating the Iran talks. Neither Rubio nor Dar spoke as they posed for photographs at the State Department in Washington.

Even as word of the potential deal emerged, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed additional sanctions on the Iranian military’s oil sales arm. The new penalties, first reported by The Associated Press, extend the Trump administration’s economic pressure campaign.

Since the ceasefire began about seven weeks ago, the U.S. and Iran have traded strikes and accusations of ceasefire violations. But they have not returned to full-scale hostilities and have kept negotiating.

Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Farnoush Amiri in New York and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Men ride on their motorbike at the historic neighborhood of Oudlajan in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

People cross an intersection in front of a billboard showing a portrait of the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2024, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)