#121: A Week of Betrayals

Welcome to Court Watch #121. Did your best friend testify against you at trial? Is your soon to be ex-husband hiding assets in the Caymans? Did your business partner cut you out of the deal?  

If you read the dockets regularly like we do, that’s all possible, if not likely. 

A sense of betrayal is the background noise of the federal court system. Always on and always present. And this week was no different. From Mr. Beast shouting Judas to the IT guy, to a Chief Technology Officer (allegedly) deleting emails, to the NCAA taking your money, to an online influencer attacking the wrong pilot, it’s been a week of Cain and Abel in the world of Article III. 

So let’s dive into a week in the dockets that would rival the twists and turns of our favorite ’90s Days of Our Lives episodes. 

The Docket Roundup

• Mr. Beast is suing a former employer for installing hidden cameras. Also this will be the most clicked-on link in today’s newsletter. There’s nothing you or Court Watch can do about it. 

• It’s almost impressive how many quality control (QC) issues there are in one Matt Taibbi defamation lawsuit docket.

• The hottest lawsuit strategy for 2025? A fire alarm going off at your office when you need to file a motion in time. 

• DOJ and OMB took a decidedly different approach than typical to comply with a court order.

• We humbly suggest that they also set up a third amendment task force. The fear of having to host British soldiers in our basement is a constant concern, given our Irish heritage. 

• There’s some drama over who owns old pictures in Harlem. 

• If you track DOJ’s plane flight patterns like we do, you may have noticed a trip to the Congo this week. Now we know why. 

• When an FBI agent tried to serve a grand jury subpoena in a murder investigation, the witness allegedly took the subpoena and threw it on the ground.

• Here’s a 12-million-dollar crypto scheme on Telegram.

• March may be over, but former Villanova men’s basketball player Kris Jenkins, who hit the shot to win the 2016 national championship game against North Carolina, is suing the NCAA and the big five power conferences (P.S. Marcus Paige’s shot before was even more impressive).

• Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrest of 3 alleged MS-13 members for a 2015 murder.

• A twenty-eight-year-old alleged member of the online terror ring 764 was arrested for purportedly possessing child sex abuse material.

• Northwestern professors are suing Congress.

• The man who was arrested outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home with a pistol and knife in an apparent assassination attempt pleaded guilty.

• There’s a new Terrorgram related prosecution.

• A man in Maine was indicted for allegedly posting threats on social media targeting President Trump, Obama, Kamala Harris, and Jews.

• We should make ‘All Planets Court’ a thing. 

• Two men were sentenced to pay fines and serve probation for the “largest-ever bird mount trafficking case.”

• A pilot for the Virginia Army National Guard who was falsely blamed for the airplane crash at DCA in January is suing right-wing influencer Matt Wallace for allegedly targeting her on Twitter.

• The Central Park Five can continue their defamation lawsuit against the President of the United States.

• A thirty-year-old woman from Brooklyn who was sentenced in 2019 to four years in prison was re-sentenced this week to nineteen years after the Justice Department successfully appealed to the Second Circuit.

• “...and it seems almost certain that the X entities’ decision to file multiple suits in multiple jurisdictions is designed more to bully Media Matters and inflict financial hardship upon it than to actually vindicate those entities’ rights.” Big loss in court for Twitter. 

• An Oklahoma man is said to have threatened a federal judge. 

• This dismissal of charges may signify a new DOJ approach to purported cartel members to skip conviction and move directly to deportation.

• “I was wondering how long, and honestly, I started bragging, I was like, I've got to be the only person in the United States history that's ever been able to get away with 200 of these things [threatening the President] on record.” We appreciate the honesty, truly. 

• The FBI is being sued over a car crash. 

• The Dhillon law firm is working a FOIA lawsuit against USAID. There are so many layers to just that one sentence. 

• Datacenters, new graphics chips, AI, and betrayal. This lawsuit has it all. 

• Coinbase was sued over a pigbutchering scam. 

• Turns out the guy with the ‘BOOM’ license plate was found guilty of bomb threats. 

Thanks for reading. Finally, if you missed it, we broke some news yesterday. 

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