SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Chile on Monday defended the recent visa restrictions against three high-ranking Chilean officials, saying it is a “sovereign decision" to determine who enters its territory.
Ambassador Brandon Judd was responding to the controversy generated after the Trump administration hit the officials with travel bans for their alleged involvement in activities that the U.S. says have undermined regional security. Among those sanctioned is Chile's Minister of Transport and Telecommunications Juan Carlos Muñoz.
“It’s our sovereign right to take actions when we feel that the region’s security is being threatened,” Judd said at a news conference in Santiago.
The sanctions were announced Friday by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who accused the three officials of carrying out “activities that compromised critical telecommunications infrastructure and eroded regional security.” The reference alludes to a project — still in the evaluation phase — that envisions the construction of a submarine fiber optic cable connecting Chile with China.
The Chilean government later said one of the sanctioned officials was Muñoz, but did not comment on the identities of the other two.
Judd claimed the U.S. exhausted all diplomatic avenues before resorting to sanctions and said that despite specific warnings regarding the submarine cable, Chilean authorities failed to provide the necessary transparency.
Washington’s decision has sparked outrage within Chile’s left-wing government. President Gabriel Boric condemned the move, accusing the Trump administration of issuing “indeterminate accusations” and “applying unilateral sanctions” that infringe upon Chilean sovereignty.
Boric, who will hand over power to far-right politician José Antonio Kast in two weeks, has been one of the most vocal critics of U.S. President Donald Trump in the region.
Asked about the strong reactions within the Chilean government, the U.S. ambassador said there are “no threats” from the United States. “We are not making any threats. What we have strictly told you all the time is that everything we do depends upon communication and security,” he added.
Judd argued, without naming specific countries, that “there are many malicious actors in this region that want to cause harm, not just to this region and to Chile, but to the United States as well.”
Relations between Chile and the United States have deteriorated significantly under the second Trump administration. Boric has leveled sharp criticism against his U.S. counterpart, characterizing the Republican’s leadership style as that of a “new emperor”.
Trump, for his part, has openly expressed dissatisfaction with Boric and has welcomed the upcoming presidency of far-right politician Kast, following his landslide victory in Chile’s national election in December.
“We look forward to working with the new government to provide what the Chilean people demanded,” Judd said.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Brandon Judd, U.S. ambassador to Chile, gives a press conference at a U.S embassy in Santiago, Chile, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
Brandon Judd, U.S. ambassador to Chile, gives a press conference at a U.S embassy in Santiago, Chile, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Prosecutors portrayed a Utah mother and children’s book author as a money-hungry killer Monday on the first day of a murder trial in her husband’s death, while her defense team urged jurors not to make judgments before hearing her side.
Kouri Richins, 35, faces a slew of felony charges for allegedly killing her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March 2022 at their home just outside the ski town of Park City. She has vehemently denied the allegations.
Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that he drank. She is also accused of trying to poison him a month earlier on Valentine's Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out, according to court documents.
After her husband's death, Kouri Richins self-published a children’s book about grief to help her sons and other kids cope with the loss of a parent.
As arguments in the case got underway Monday, Richins sat next to her attorneys, taking notes and passing some to them. It wasn't known whether she would take the stand in her defense.
Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth told jurors that Richins was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that if her husband died she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million. Prosecutors have argued she was planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.
“The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life,” Bloodworth said. “More than anything, she wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence and success."
Defense attorney Kathryn Nester started her opening statement by playing the recording of Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death. Richins was sobbing hysterically on the call and seemed barely able to answer the dispatcher’s questions.
“Those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow,” Nester said.
Eric Richins had Lyme disease and was addicted to painkillers, Nester argued. She suggested he may have overdosed.
However, Eric Richins’ sister Katie Richins-Benson testified that their mother was a drug and alcohol counselor who had instilled in the siblings from an early age the dangers of drug use.
The trial is slated to run through March 26. A few dozen people hoping to watch camped outside the courthouse in lawn chairs starting at 4 a.m., four and a half hours before the trial began.
Richins faces nearly three dozen counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud. The murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
In the months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the illustrated children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his young son after passing away. The book could play a key role for prosecutors in framing Eric Richins’ death as a calculated killing with an elaborate cover-up attempt. Bloodworth told jurors Monday about how Richins promoted it on local TV and radio stations.
Years before her husband's death, Richins opened numerous life insurance policies on Eric Richins without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors alleged. Court documents also indicate she had a negative bank account balance and was being sued by a creditor.
Bloodworth showed the jury a series of text messages between Kouri Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was having an affair. She had texted Grossman about her dream of leaving her husband, gaining millions in the divorce and one day marrying Grossman.
Bloodworth also showed screenshots of Richins’ internet search history, which included “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?”
Eric Richins' sister testified that she rushed to her brother's house after hearing from another family member that he wasn't breathing. Richins-Benson ran inside and locked eyes with Richins, who just shook her head, she recalled.
“That’s when I knew my brother was gone,” the sister said through tears.
“I observed that she was not how she normally was,” Richins-Benson said of the defendant. “She was very well put together. She had a matching pajama-esque outfit on. Her hair was all done up. She wasn’t crying like I was.”
Defense attorneys pushed back on that characterization.
Body camera video shown in court from Summit County Sheriff’s Deputy Vincent Nguyen showed Richins distraught as she told police that her husband had chest pain before he went to sleep and may have taken a THC gummy. She said her husband had no history of illicit drug use.
“My husband’s active. He didn’t just die in his sleep. This is insane,” she said on the recording.”
Among the key witnesses expected to be called later in the trial is the family’s housekeeper Carmen Lauber, who claims to have sold fentanyl to Kouri Richins on multiple occasions.
Lauber is not charged in connection with the case, and detectives have said she was granted immunity.
Defense attorneys argued Monday that Lauber did not actually give Richins fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. No fentanyl was ever found in Richins’ house, and the housekeeper’s dealer has said he was in jail and detoxing from drug use when he told detectives in 2023 that he sold fentanyl to Lauber. He later said in a sworn affidavit that he sold her only the opioid OxyContin.
Nester showed jurors photos of an empty pill bottle sitting on Eric Richins' bedside table the night of his death and bags of marijuana gummies he was known to use regularly. She said he had asked his wife to procure opioids for him.
Internet searches recovered from the phone of Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, are displayed on a screen during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kathy Nester, the defense attorney for Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, shows the jury an image of a pill bottle while delivering her opening statement in Richins' murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Brad Bloodworth, chief prosecutor for Summit County, motions toward Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, while delivering his opening statement in Richins' trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Judge Richard Mrazik, right, talks to Brad Bloodworth, chief prosecutor for Summit County, during the trial of Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, looks on during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, talks to her attorneys during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
FILE - Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a court hearing on Aug. 27, 2024, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)
FILE - Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a hearing on Aug. 26, 2024, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)
