Welcome to Court Watch #154. The feds caught the (alleged) J6 bomber, Satan caught a pro se case, and the RNC is caught in the middle of a media defamation lawsuit. Meanwhile, a private equity firm lost millions, an unnamed celebrity lost his cool on CBP, and the Justice Department lost its one-day commitment to stopping loaded guns from getting into the Capitol.
Plus, an assistant federal defender in Virginia attempts the Kobayashi Maru of immigration defenses. All that and so much more in this week’s roundup.
The Docket Roundup
We honestly don’t know how one would serve “Lucifer da fallen Loser” with the lawsuit, but we’re excited to see a sovereign citizen try.
The Justice Department is playing clean-up after a defendant filed a motion to dismiss following a recent presidential pardon.
An Afghan man in Texas was arrested for allegedly going on a TikTok live and threatening other people on the stream.
There’s an anonymous celebrity suing Customs & Border Protection over a reportedly hostile interaction.
Senator Jim Justice and the IRS settled their case.
A Philadelphia man was sentenced to almost three years in prison for threatening a city employee over texts and phone calls with racial epithets.
In eyes raised emoji news, Elon Musk and the SEC are still going at it. The government responded this week to a motion to dismiss by Musk’s lawyers.
A man lost out on a million dollars because he says an email sent by the government ended up in his spam folder.
The FBI says a woman from North Carolina threatened an assistant U.S. attorney and two federal judges in Honolulu after she was banned from the courthouse.
There’s a harassment suit out of New York involving an executive at a roofing company that has some serious allegations.
The Daily Beast served a subpoena on the RNC in its lawsuit with Trump campaign manager Chris Lacavita.
Welcome to North Carolina, where they file charges against you for catching too big of a fish.
Two brothers who were federal contractors in Alexandria, Virginia were indicted on charges of conspiring to delete government databases.
Prosecutors are appealing a judge’s decision to release one of the purported Nvidia chip smugglers.
A driver who stayed out too late while in a Delaware park reportedly led the feds to bust a machine gun conversion device ring.
The case of Lindsey Halligan’s appointment in the Eastern District of Virginia continues to have a ripple effect, potentially upending the prosecution of one of the alleged plotters behind the Abbey Gate bombing in 2021.
In this week’s worst of humanity, five twenty-somethings were charged for reportedly running an exploitation ring on Discord called “Greggy’s cult,” which included future members of another terrible group, 764.
Here’s a 50-million-dollar multistate luxury car Ponzi scheme.
The FDA raided a warehouse in Missouri and seized hundreds of dietary supplements for purportedly having psychoactive ingredients.
Frank Figliuzzi, a former senior FBI agent, asked a judge to stay discovery that was requested by FBI Director Kash Patel in his defamation case.
One judge in Florida was big mad after an attorney accused of filing briefs with AI hallucinations tried to voluntarily dismiss his case.
If you weren’t convinced that ChatGPT makes for a bad therapist before, how about now?
Cybersecurity reporters appear to have missed this, but a Belarusian hacker behind the “Ransom Cartel” pleaded guilty in Virginia.
Please don’t fly your drones over DCA.
The feds are continuing to push to get records from Facebook about a self-described community watch page that tracks ICE.
If you want to get a sense of what 130,000 dollars in a bookbag looks like, law enforcement in North Carolina have you covered.
Peter’s song of the week comes from one of his fondest memories in high school, when his legendary 9th-grade English teacher would pass around a pop quiz on the last day of class before winter break and have students fill in the lyrics of the song. Seamus’ tune of the week is a song from yesterday.
Nine regional newspapers in California sued Microsoft and OpenAI, claiming the company used their content to train its LLM.
A New York private equity company is out two million dollars because of an email phishing scam.
The two co-hosts of Gay USA say MSNBC used clips from an interview with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi without their permission.
Apparently, ATM robbers are using the same kind of device as high school computer science classes.
A Colorado man, who spoke at a city council hearing about stopping funding of a “local partisan newspaper”, is suing a person who sent him a glitter filled letter shortly after that stating “Sorry for the loss of your savior. Please enjoy some of Charlie’s favorite candy for your necks Circle Kirk. All the candy leaked out before we could get it in the ambulance…errr envelope”
The ATF wants to search a beat-up Dodge Durango that crashed after a police chase in Pennsylvania.
For those who enjoy novel legal arguments – an assistant federal defender in Virginia is arguing that CBP officers are not properly tasked under the Appointments Clause, to remove anyone, ergo his client should be released. If DOJ loses this, it will have serious repercussions. (From DOJ’s response to the motion: "The defendant asks this Court to do the extraordinary—to be the first and only court in the entire country to invalidate a duly issued expedited removal order (issued in accordance with the relevant statutory framework) pursuant to a novel argument—that United States Customs and Border Patrol agents (hereinafter “BPAs”) do not have the legal authority to issue expedited removal orders")
A local Union president in South Carolina is suing a national Union president.
MySelfies, a Virginia-based company, allegedly scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars from public schools.
A high-stakes blackjack player and the owner of a Nevada steel company are stirring up drama in the casino world, alleging that the Resorts World casino brand welcomes criminals into its gambling houses.
The FBI says a California man who has had multiple psychiatric holds threatened on Twitter to blow up synagogues. Prosecutors and his federal defender are debating whether he should be released pre-trial.
DOJ charged and then (the next day (!)) dropped the charges of a man accused of bringing a loaded gun into the U.S. Senate.
An employee is suing the Wounded Warrior Project for purportedly failing to provide accessibility features for her significant hearing loss.
The text chain between a man threatening a CBP Agent and the CBP Agent himself…“Go f*** yourself”... “Copy. Thanks for your time.” <files federal charges shortly afterwards>
The ‘Disinformation Index’ is suing the FTC for investigating the Disinformation Index.
This seizure notice of nine Starlink terminals is an absolutely fascinating look into cryptocurrency scams.
A newly released FOIA is short on details, but it does tell us that the FBI was looking into a left-wing (among their other varied ideological interests) gun rights group.
Will the last U.S. Attorney left standing please turn off the lights?
If you woke up hopeful for humanity, may we absolve you of such feelings with pictures in this dog-fighting filing.
A Florida man was charged with delivering <checks notes>... a grenade launcher to an undercover cop.
Authorities say a tax accountant charged with filing misleading returns continued to do so as he awaited sentencing.
DOJ is continuing its defense of an FBI agent being sued by a Proud Boy member.
For those into black market dark web illegal drug stores run by high school science teachers, we have a filing for you.
Thanks for reading. A last reminder, our weekly deep dive feature, The Rabbit Hole, will move behind a paywall starting this weekend, so it might be time to upgrade your subscription. This Sunday’s piece takes a look at a criminal case seven years in the making. Our sincerest thanks to the ninety-eight (!) of you who made the jump to paid subscribers in the last week.