#126: Toys 'R' Us Is Back

Welcome to Court Watch #126. It’s been a week of measurements and numbers in the federal courts. From missing out on graduating medical school by a hair, to P. Diddy’s tootsie roll comparison, to a raft of new federal trespassing charges that piqued our interest, to 98 hours of new regulation requirements, it was a numbers game. And granted, we’re more of a qualitative than quantitative type folks, but it was fascinating nonetheless. So if you're a numbers person, this is your issue. But if you’re more drawn by narratives, we have that too – particularly in our kicker. 

Unlike one certain New York assistant fire chief this week, there is more than ‘one way’ to experience the federal courts. So let’s enjoy it all together.

The Docket Roundup

• A federal judge doesn’t want to be pen pals with you. 

• In Justin Baldoni/Blake Lively court news, at least one law firm and its partners would very much like to not be included in it all. And Team Lively-Reynolds are backing their motion.

• A million-dollar gold scam, complete with “agents” coming to pick up the goods. Someone alert Charlotte. 

• Toys R Us is suing a smoke shop, Vape R Us, for infringement of trademarks. Because our brains work differently than others, we went down a rabbit hole. We’d humbly note that the threatening letter Toys R Us sent to the shop appears to include a cropped image from a newspaper story with no credit to the journalist photographer. Someone should create a Spiderman infringement meme. 

• The Justice Department continues to prosecute new January 6th cases, albeit a bit differently than the previous Administration. The FBI arrested a man this month for allegedly submitting seven reports to its tipline that falsely accused seven government workers of participating in the riot.

• A former DOJ pardon attorney who resigned, citing concerns about political influence, is suing for FOIA records.

• A federal judge used a footnote to discuss his displeasure with the term ‘Special Master.’

• There were some unusual federal charges filed in New Mexico over the last few weeks, so we reported on it for The New York Times. 

• The judge in the case filed by a Stanford University researcher (and Court Watch subscriber) to unseal warrants related to the searches of two Indiana University professors has ordered the government to show cause why the warrants should be kept sealed.

• A Wisconsin judge is moving to dismiss charges against her for allegedly helping a man evade federal immigration officials. Maybe channeling their inner Pontius Pilate, the lawyer notes in passing that the actions occurred on Good Friday. Also, citing Trump v. United States in asking for a dismissal is a next-level court move. 

• Wives rejoice, the courts are now going after at least one husband. 

• A former professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Florida is suing the school for purportedly discriminating against her as an Iranian American woman.

• Judge Boasberg wants real names. 

• A man was arrested in Rhode Island after he allegedly stalked a former high school classmate and sent threatening emails to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ hiring account for nurses. He also reportedly referenced wanting to kill President Trump.

• There’s a distressing threat case in rural Arizona.

• The New York Times asked a judge to let it see materials related to the feds’ investigation into the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group.

• A group of states suing the Trump administration has a lot it wants to say.

• A now disbarred attorney of twenty-five years is trying to take on New York’s legal system for “non-stop judicial, law clerk, and administrative communist, leftist, socialist, Democrat abuse of him.”

• Despite many of the cases getting dismissed with a recent change in policy, a federal judge in Iowa issued an injunction on a student deportation case, stating that “Homeland Security’s use of hedging language stating Defendants will not rely “solely” on overinclusive criminal records gives the Court little confidence Defendants will act consistently with pertinent regulatory factors.”

• Crypto platform Binance was sued for, among other things, allegedly evading sanctions. 

• ‘Awful Announcing’ is suing a news aggregate site. 

• A former Michigan national guardsman was charged with plotting an attack on the U.S. military in the name of ISIS. We ran the numbers with our colleagues at NCITE, he’s one of more than 250 individuals charged with similar offenses. 

• Justin reads the New York state courts, so we don’t have to be subjected to it. 

• An Ohio man was arrested for allegedly mailing elected officials forty-nine threatening letters with a white powder enclosed.

• Judges are sticklers. Tennessee has to fix its caption for the First Circuit.

• An ex-Georgetown medical school student is suing the university after he says he was kicked out for low grades after failing an exam by 0.08%. The lawsuit claims the student would have passed the exam – and avoided being kicked out – if his professor had correctly graded a problem worth 0.2 points.

• Credit Suisse gave up $108 million to the government as part of its plea agreement on charges of helping conceal income tax earnings from the IRS.

• Here’s a filing on behalf of X for our “judge shopping” trackers.

We’re told people need to be reminded more than once for a call to action. Last week, 22 of you overachievers did it on the first try. Now it’s everyone else’s turn. As we noted last week, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

• A researcher whose fellowship with the Department of State was revoked after she reportedly raised concerns about being discriminated against as a Black woman by receiving a lesser salary than her experience accounted for is suing. 

• There’s a nearly $2 million medicare fraud case in Florida.

• ChangeNOW, a crypto company that advertises itself as a platform in which traders can quickly transfer their crypto between currencies, helped law enforcement track down more than half a million stolen in a crypto phishing scam, according to court records.

• DHS and CBP are being sued after reportedly not responding to a FOIA request for more than a year about the entries and stops of a Middle East-based venture capitalist.

• Recession indicator? The U.S. Courts said bankruptcies rose 13.1% to 529,080 cases in the last one-year period that ended March 31st. 

• This one is for our fellow court data nerds. The Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy has assembled data for all charges filed in state criminal courts between 2001 and 2021.

• Don’t write that we’re mad that the DOJ has created its own court filing roundup. 

• A State Department security officer is suing for discrimination after he was reportedly questioned by the Department’s Office of Special Investigations about his Christian beliefs.

• For the song of the week, it is not something quiet and minor and peaceful and slow.

• There’s a concerning trend of people sending federal judges ominous fake pizza deliveries.

• A man who was sentenced in February to two years in prison after being convicted of impersonating an agent with NASA’s Office of Inspector General was arrested again this week for fifteen fake bomb threats he allegedly made three years ago. His purported targets in 2022 included the port of San Francisco, a hospital, an FBI field office, a U.S. Senator, and more.

• The Justice Department says there was a multi-hundred-million-dollar contract and bribery scheme involving a then-employee of USAID.

• An Assistant Fire Chief at West Point was charged for allegedly taking down and throwing away a one-way sign he didn’t like. And prosecutors thought this was a good use of their time, a year after it happened. 

• Here’s a filing by a family-run fuel center in El Paso about how FinCen’s Border GTO has impacted their business. The family says they have struggled to keep up with 98 hours a week worth of reporting paperwork and worry about possible financial penalties imposed by FinCen.

• A former aide to Hillary Clinton who previously worked as a defense contractor is suing James O’Keefe, the former founder of right-wing group Project Veritas, and his current venture, O’Keefe Media Group. The suit alleges the contractor was fired after O’Keefe arranged for an actress to meet the contractor on the dating app Bumble and record their dates. Mark S. Zaid, who is separately suing to reinstate his own security clearance, is representing the plaintiff.

• In state court news, the county clerk of court who helped facilitate ex-attorney Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial in South Carolina was arrested this week on perjury and misconduct in office charges. The perjury charge came after she purportedly lied during a hearing into whether she improperly influenced Murdaugh’s jury and if she shared sensitive crime scene images with media outlets. South Carolina might have to redo its longest and most notorious trial in state history.

A final note on court filings. This week held host to a series of events at the National Police Memorial in D.C. All told, 64 new names of police officers killed in the line of duty in 2024 were engraved in the memorial near the FBI Washington Field Office. They join 24,000 other names that are etched in stone, including one Private Donald J. Brereton of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, who was killed by two brothers trying to stop their attempted robbery of a liquor store on January 7, 1960. He was survived by his newlywed wife, Norah, and their daughter, Cathy, who turned one year old the day after his death. News reporting at the time discusses how the 13-state manhunt for the brother was led by the FBI and ultimately ended in their arrest and criminal convictions. Donald’s young daughter would go on to raise a family of her own, which included a son – Court Watch’s editor, Seamus Hughes. It may be said that the story of our fascination with court records did not start with our news organization’s launch 3 years back, but instead 65 years ago when a young beat cop tried to make his community a safer place.

Thanks for reading.