Welcome to Court Watch #156. The week before a multi-day federal closure tends to bring out a quite interesting assortment of court documents. Prosecutors are trying to wrap up motions before the holiday, attorneys are filing outlandish civil complaints before they get subsumed by Christmas media coverage, and criminals are working their most creative festive scams.
The end result is one may say that Christmas came early for Court Watch readers. Read on to decide for yourself as we dive into this week’s dockets.
The Docket Roundup
Listen, we usually try to bury the most interesting court record of the week later in the issue as an easter egg to our most dedicated readers. But we just can’t. This court filing deserves to be read. It’s an absolutely fascinating investigation involving wifi jammers, license plate readers, drones, cryptocurrency, and a kidnapping attempt.
It must have become so routine at this point that no media organizations covered it but conservative media personality James O’Keefe was sued again for claims over just about what you’d expect.
The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was removed by the administration in September, sued over her firing.
In worst of society news, we’re ready to never have to read about these cases again.
Here’s a new one. A contractor at a recycling plant in Virginia is set to plead guilty to selling government-used body armor that the recycling center had been contracted to destroy.
The FBI says a guy who was probably having the worst trip of his life (both most certainly literally and perhaps drugaphorically) tried to jump out of a plane mid-flight in Alaska. The telltale sign was when the man reportedly started yelling at flight attendants for vodka shots.
Speaking of Alaska, Sarah Palin lost against The New York Times, again.
One Trump-appointed judge seems very very mad at ICE.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations sued the state of Florida over Governor Ron DeSantis’s designation of it as a terror organization last week.
The FBI was sued by Kyle Seraphin’s media company for records about Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wikins. Seraphin, a former agent turned conservative media personality, is in a legal battle with Wilkins.
Welcome to the DOGE discovery stage of court proceedings.
1.7 million allegedly stolen in an Illinois Medicare fraud scheme sounds like a lot before realizing the company reportedly billed for thirty million.
One man asked a judge to order the Justice Department to turn over records about its delayed enforcement of the TikTok ban and its contacts with tech companies over anti-ICE pages.
The U.S. Government filed an “Admission of Liability” in a lawsuit involving the Flight 5342 crash in D.C. It says, among other things, the black hawk pilot was not vigilant enough.
One of the leaders of Terrorgram was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
A Massachusetts man was arrested for allegedly threatening the assistant district attorney who had convicted him of state-level threat charges.
The Trump Organization settled its case over some knock-off MAGA merch. To be honest, it’s a bit of a boring docket as everyone settles or is found to be liable. Except, there’s one defendant this week who is pushing back, arguing an affirmative defense that ‘Make America Great Again’ is covered under protected First Amendment speech.
Authorities say an undocumented man got into a brief car chase with ICE agents in Charlotte after the agents tried to box him in with their vehicles.
President Trump sued the BBC for a boatload of money and then some. We’ll see if Britain’s gold standard decides to fight it or resign to the possibility that a random substacker may be installed as its editor-in-chief.
We vacillate back and forth between the studio version and the backyard version. For the song of the week, we went with the album version, but if acoustic is your jam, here’s the outside one. If you’re feeling something more cerebral this week, Mr. Ritter delivers.
We’re personally tapped out of Laura Loomer-Bill Maher deposition testimony, but we give our readers the juicy legal drama they demand.
What do Kim Kardashian, the Bering Strait, and Erin Burnett have in common? Well, they’re all defendants listed in your pro se case of the week.
ICE wants Medicaid data about purported undocumented immigrants from states that are not currently enjoined by a federal judge who has stopped them so far from handing it over.
DOJ files a motion to unseal a criminal complaint because the defendant was arrested. In the filing they say there is no reason to keep it sealed anymore. Regardless, Rhode Island federal judges can have up to 14 days to decide if they want to unseal a docket of a guy who’s gonna have a public arraignment shortly. Trust us, you don’t hate the lack of public access in the courts enough.
A retired Tennessee cop is suing after he claims he was arrested in retaliation for posting a meme in the aftermath of the Kirk assassination.
Ethan Klein really wants to take his snark mods to court.
Pandemic loan fraud is one way to allegedly turn your capital investment business worth $600 into a multi-million dollar company.
The FBI says a doctor, a lawyer, and a psychotherapist from Detroit were in a child abuse ring.
No one seemed to notice this docket so we kicked it to another court watcher.
Former federal employees are challenging the Trump administration after officials cut their positions, despite the bill that ended the government shutdown prohibiting further cuts until January 30th.
National Review took the Justice Department to court over documents in the Letitia James mortgage fraud saga.
Google was sued again for operating its search engine as a monopoly by an internet advertising agency.
An ICE assistant field director was indicted in Ohio after he allegedly lied to an investigator with Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s Office about a domestic violence incident.
Bloomberg Law looked at 240,000 civil cases to tell a gut-wrenching story of children being strip searched at school.
Not having final Ballroom plans but instead having plans for final Ballroom plans helped prevent an injunction.
Prosecutors charged seventy purported Tren de Aragua drug cartel members for a variety of crimes, though we found the indictment in Nebraska involving material support to terrorism, malware, ATM jackpotting, and money laundering the most interesting of the cases.
The feds say they foiled a left-wing plot in California by a ring that called themselves the “Order Of The Black Lotus.” Though for our money, the late additional fifth defendant’s criminal complaint in Louisiana was more interesting.
We found this profile piece of Judge Alsup fascinating.
A magistrate judge recommended that a case filed by the victims of Jeffrey Epstein against the FBI for negligence be dismissed with the option to be refiled in the future.
Because we cover nihilistic violent extremism, we found this newly released FOIA about the FBI's swatting database interesting. However, we’re admittedly nerds.
Keeping with the nihilism theme, we appreciate the shoutout in this Lawfare piece.
Bold strategy asking a judge to recuse every prosecutor in America from your criminal case.
The unions say DHS is about to cancel TSA collective bargaining.
We always love a good Boiler Room movie reference in a court document.
One former prosecutor took the deals between Big Law and the Trump administration seriously enough to get arrested, and we honestly respect his knowledge of New York zoning laws. Also he submitted his protest signs as exhibits (1, 2)
Thanks for reading. A final note, this Sunday is another edition of The Rabbit Hole. That’s our weekly series where we dive in quite deep about one issue in the federal courts. We don’t say this lightly, this story blew us away and involved interviewing a lot of very angry people about one persistent woman. As usual, the story will be behind a paywall but we assure you it’s worth the small price of admission.
A final-final note, there will be no roundup next Friday or The Rabbit Hole feature on Sunday, as we celebrate Christmas and spend time with family (we’ll try not to lie like we did last year).
A final-final-final note, if you’re looking for that last minute holiday gift, you can give a paid subscription to Court Watch (click on the link and then click “gift” next to “individual”). Added bonus, if you do so, shoot us an email and we’ll make you a fancy-looking custom gift subscription printout to wrap up for that someone special.
Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday and healthy New Year.