Welcome to Court Watch #169. There’s an old Catholic tale of a priest during World War I. He was assigned to the trenches, giving comfort and far too many last rites to American G.I.s. As the story goes, one afternoon he looked up from the foxhole and saw a farmer in the middle area between the trenches of the two opposing armies. He was quietly and methodically tilling the ground. The priest, worried about the man’s safety, yelled for him to take cover, but he couldn’t hear the desperate pleas. The priest, risking life and limb, ran through an active battlefield to save the farmer. When he got there, he said, “Are you crazy? You have to leave. They’re shooting. You can farm later, you need to live now.”
The farmer reportedly said, “If I don’t plant now, there will be no food when this bloody war is over and no one lives.”
It could be our ever-advancing age or the quiet beginnings of Spring, but we’ve been thinking a lot about seeds planted, the fruits of which come much later.
Which brings us to today’s lede story before we dive into the docket roundup.
Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down its decision in U.S. v. James Wesley Burger, or, as some readers might know, the ISIS Roblox case. In November 2025, a federal judge in the Western District of Texas dismissed an indictment against Burger for making alleged threats to carry out a terrorist attack at a Christian music festival. The catch was that he purportedly made the statements while playing an experience called “Church” on the mega-popular online game Roblox, which the judge deemed as too fantastical an environment for the alleged threats to be considered legitimate.
After Burger’s initial arrest, we spent hours on Church, trying to find out just what the environment at the center of a case arising from a children’s game was like. We wrote in November, “Within the first twenty minutes of playing “Church,” Court Watch observed Roblox users dressed as skinheads arguing about race, members of the Irish Republican Army (with a balaklava and all), German World War II Schutzstaffel, and, yes, avatars intended to look like terrorists from the Middle East who were debating the Qur’an and violent jihadism. One of several players in a German SS uniform used Roblox’s chat to quote Goebbels and deny the Holocaust. Two others encouraged their Lego-shaped peers to read Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Ahmad ibn Umar al-Hazimi, Islamic theologians that have resonance with Islamic State supporters.”
We thought it was pretty good writing and a solid example of creative reporting. Apparently, so did Burger’s defense team. Writing in their brief to the Fifth Circuit when the dismissal went up on appeal, “Church hosted Roblox avatars dressed as skinheads arguing about race, members of the Irish Republic Army wearing balaclavas, Nazi SS officers denying the Holocaust, and avatars dressed in Middle Eastern clothing debating the Koran and discussing violent jihadism.”
The Fifth Circuit ended up reversing the dismissal of charges, putting Burger’s prosecution back on track. But not without cribbing our reporting again. The unanimous three-judge panel wrote, “Users customized their avatars’ appearances to align with their positions—sometimes extreme or offensive. Avatars in the Church experience included skinheads arguing about race, balaclava-clad members of the Irish Republican Army, Nazi S.S. officers denying the Holocaust, and avatars dressed in Middle Eastern clothing debating the Koran and discussing violent jihadism. It is unclear at this stage whether the typical Church player sincerely held the views which he espoused in the experience.”
We’re not really sure how to feel about our first piece of reporting that ended up in a federal appellate court being about a children’s online video game. There’s also the adorable elephant in the room of apparent plagiarism, which is quite untoward in the journalism world, but does tend to prop up the entire legal system.
Either way, we still appreciate the readership, your honors. Who would have thought a reporting seed would end up feeding an appellate opinion?
And with that, let’s keep dodging docket bullets and farming the courts for interesting filings.
The Docket Roundup
In things no one saw coming and no other reporter covered yet, a U.S.-based charity, Islamic Relief USA, is suing its former parent organization, Islamic Relief Worldwide, arguing that the latter’s continued fundraising in the U.S. may jeopardize the American chapter due to its alleged ties to terrorism.
We have questions about a group of Iran-backed hackers and their beef with Albania.
The FBI tracked down a man who allegedly sent a threatening email to Alexis Wilkins, Kash Patel’s girlfriend, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
An Ohio man sued election officials after he was kicked out of running in the Republican primary for a U.S. House seat.
Epstein victims are suing Google, arguing that the technology companies indexing of DOJ released Epstein Files that were later removed was a violation of their privacy.
The Pentagon press corps is back? Maybe not yet.
The civil case brought by a group of Epstein survivors against Bank of America prevailed over another attempt to stop the case.
A veteran who wanted benefits for “being deployed to Israel” was accused of threatening to murder VA employees.
This case out of Wisconsin doesn’t explicitly link to 764, but it sure is giving off a lot of its disturbing vibes.
This might be the strangest criminal case of the week. Some additional background here.
“Don’t hide the ball” is one of several striking parts in Judge Roy Dalton’s order addressing the government in yet another immigration case.
Homemade bombs, purportedly stalking police officers, and a possible raid on a ketamine dispensary: New Mexico is a wild place.
A former FBI outside expert living in Florida is suing the Iranian regime, arguing it has been harassing him and his wife for decades.
The Fifth Circuit held that a police officer should be able to make his case in a civil suit against a Black Lives Matter organizer to a jury for purported injuries that occurred during a protest that devolved into a riot.
In a superseding indictment, prosecutors say an Arizona gun shop owner was helping out drug cartels.
A blind item shoutout to the Justice Department lawyer who responded to our email and quickly redacted a defendant’s personal information in a court filing.
We might get some more DOGE deposition videos soon.
President Trump’s case against Capital One for being debanked was dismissed (with leave to refile). Here’s the original civil complaint.
D.C. cyclists won’t stand for bike lanes disappearing from the National Mall. Just please don’t hit us on one of those damn electric scooters.
A judge declined to issue a temporary restraining order against the Department of Homeland Security over a purported database containing biometric data of immigration protestors, writing that further constitutional arguments should be laid out rather than an emergency order.
A man accused of threatening a prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York was indicted.
The exhibits from one of the cases we wrote about last week, about alleged threats to shoot up an Ohio mosque, confirmed the kids are not alright.
Several press nonprofits and labor unions are trying to block the FCC’s sign-off on the merger between Nexstar and Tegna.
Out with Kristi and in with Markwayne in a hundreds of civil cases.
NOTUS was flexing its muscles all week, including a FOIA case for records from USAID.
A case against the Department of Defense over books removed from school libraries on military installations survived a motion to dismiss.
The dam is close to breaking in FOIA cases against ICE amidst the partial government shutdown.
If a major fentanyl indictment drops and nobody notices until eight hours later, does it really exist?
We think this D.C. man suing Abraham Lincoln faces an uphill battle. Besides the obvious fact that Big Abe is too busy with the cherry blossom tourist apocalypse this week, the man is barred from filing in the D.C. district court.
A Florida man allegedly threatened Department of Veterans Affairs employees.
Booz Allen was sued for a data breach that reportedly disclosed confidential IRS information.
An Instagram post of an artificial intelligence-generated image of a man holding a rifle led law enforcement to arrest a security guard for purportedly possessing a firearm as a felon.
The city of Miami was sued by a woman after a police officer reportedly showed up at her door following a pro-Palestinian Facebook post that criticized the mayor.
Your song of the week.
Miles Guo’s attorneys asked for a reduced sentence because he was nearly poisoned in prison.
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division apparently has some fans of The Godfather.
Speaking of threats from the online world, one guy allegedly messaged on Discord, “police if you are seeing this … i am here in america to show them 9/11 again” (sic). Which they did in fact see.
Ric Grenell is out of a job and lost a defamation case.
One guy from Philly can’t stop making alleged homophobic threats to local media personalities, getting charged for the fifth time in seven years.
The YouTube channel Legal Eagle wants to know what was up with security clearances during the first Trump administration.
Michael Flynn got paid. And so did some other folks.
A judge dismissed a case against the Department of State for its purported agreement with El Salvador to incarcerate detainees from the U.S. in return for money, citing the nonprofit group plaintiffs’ lack of standing.
Your pro se of the week is one guy in Oregon who’s very concerned about the U.S. Mint producing a coin with Trump on it.
An Oregon woman allegedly helped steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from a probate payment by spoofing a law firm’s email.
A judge quashed the subpoena of the FBI agent who swore the affidavit for the search of the Fulton County election office ahead of an evidentiary hearing today.
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