Welcome to Court Watch #173. Watching the courts requires a healthy obsession with puzzles and the crippling need to complete them. Records in PACER give snapshots and tea leaves of information that each tells a part, but only after looking under many rocks do you get a sense for the larger story. Take a criminal case, for example, an indictment or an affidavit written by an FBI agent can say a lot about what a person may have done. Defense motions, for their part, can contest into the gritty facts and nuances of a case. And then sentencing memos help fill in the personal parts about someone you’ve read about for months, likely for the worst thing they’ve ever done.
Only at the very end do all of the pieces start to fall into place together. But, as is often the case, you can wind up with more than a few pieces missing, making you question what the big picture and whether all of the pieces are actually there at all. Sometimes they show up immediately; other times it takes longer—perhaps sorted into another puzzle set or in this case, court docket. Every now and then, you look underneath a couch and find that the piece you’ve been looking for was beneath you the entire time.
In this week’s roundup, we help uncover a missing puzzle piece in an Epstein docket, an interesting throwaway line about national security in a judge’s order, and how one bounty hunter found himself on the wrong side of the law after calling them for help. Among other jagged little pieces found in the courts this week.
The Docket Roundup
“In this Court, his name will be synonymous with a failure to uphold the basic duties of competence and candor expected of every attorney.” A North Carolina judge had the last word after an Assistant U.S. Attorney resigned amidst accusations that he submitted a brief with AI case hallucinations.
Late last night, a democrat running for Congress in Louisiana filed a lawsuit to un-suspend the Governor’s suspension of the congressional primary election.
Former MSNBC host Katie Phang wants answers from the Justice Department about the Epstein files.
Speaking of Epstein: As a general rule, there should never be a series of documents sealed in a prominent case. It just triggers our editor and his friends to go digging.
A new civil case from California accuses the operators behind a cryptocurrency of trying to leverage the company to get close to President Trump.
Charlie Kirk’s head of security is suing Candace Owen for defamation.
The judge in President Trump’s case suing the IRS wants to know whether the two parties are actually adversaries. Any unitary executive folks want to weigh in here?
Impersonating an employee at the Government Publishing Office is a new one.
A D.C. man, who appears to be in the midst of a mental health crisis, reportedly walked up to a bank security guard as he was putting cash into an ATM and stole his gun before running into the Gallery Place metro. Court records say the man has a history of offenses at that same metro stop.
The parents of a six-year-old student with special needs say a D.C. teacher slapped him.
Flying under the radar, mostly because habeas filings are not generally available on PACER, but a judge’s order in a case of an Afghan man, Ahmadzai Abdul Ghafoor, arrested at the border, tells us that the U.S. government considered him a ‘known suspected terrorist’ last June. Ghafoor is arguing for his release on his own, sans lawyer. The U.S. Attorney’s office in the Western District of Texas declined to comment on the ongoing litigation. Prosecutors have until today to tell the judge if the 2025 terror designation against Ghafoor is still valid. Again, given that it’s a habeas case, the document won’t be available on PACER (but is available if you go to the courthouse) despite being a case that would be of public interest. In classic Court Watch fashion, we cold emailed the judge for an exemption to the rule. We’re hopeful that we may be able to sort it out without filing a motion. Mostly because word on the judicial street is our lawyer don’t miss when it comes to public access motions.
Clerks are saints. Don’t mess with clerks.
The feds say they took down nine sites used for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks with the help of Europol. The sites reportedly had more than 75,000 customers.
A 2023 criminal case against two men accused of hacking into U.S. universities for information about COVID-19 vaccine research in 2020 was recently unsealed.
Add a site for penpals to the list of places ruined by crypto scammers.
Speaking of which, here’s a fascinating case about international law, SpaceX, civil wars, and how crypto scam operations are run.
On Monday, Columbia will announce the Pulitzer Prize Finalists and Winners. This is all to say, the board has the chance to do the funniest thing.
The Ninth Circuit said it's cool to use tear gas again.
Here’s the criminal complaint for the alleged shooter at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.
The government wants to keep two men accused of defrauding investors out of tens of millions of dollars in an AI company, iLearning, detained.
We did not have an assistant public defender in Illinois getting charged for allegedly making racist threats on our bingo card this week.
The mother of Renee Good asked a judge to order the federal government to give her back the car in which Good was fatally shot.
Your song of the week comes for the mesmerizing choreography and stays for a song that actually slaps on the third listen. Though if you’re a fan of chaotic music videos, there’s one that rules them all. If you need a more chill song for your Friday, here you go.
Well, at least someone in the Comey family tree got a win in court this week.
An Iranian woman living in California was charged for allegedly selling tens of millions worth of weapons on behalf of Iran.
An Idaho company was fined more than $6.3 million for illegal wood.
We’re not completely sure who wrote the government’s motion to resume construction on the White House’s East Wing, but we have one really good guess.
A former senior health aide was indicted for purportedly concealing documents related to the origins of the coronavirus.
Arizona won’t have to turn over its voter rolls after a judge granted its motion to dismiss in a case brought by the Department of Justice.
One guy allegedly keeps trying to break into CIA headquarters. We feel for the police officers who keep having to chase him down.
Judge Beryl Howell was not amused after a member of the Proud Boys, who was pardoned for conduct related to January 6th, asked for the money that he had already paid in restitution back.
The family members of a mass shooting victim sued OpenAI. The shooter reportedly used its AI agent in the weeks before the attack.
The Trump administration sued New Jersey over a state law that restricts law enforcement officers, including ICE, from wearing masks.
A New York man, Sharon Gohari, is set to plead guilty in a case that originated from the alleged possession of child abuse images, but took an unexpected turn into national security, when it was revealed he reportedly helped smuggle three Iranian men, one of whom has ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, into the U.S. We were the first to report the story last June.
Judge Lewis Kaplan appears to be getting tired of Sam Bankman-Fried.
A flight from Zurich to Miami brought out some creeps.
We may learn about more DOGE employees soon.
Another alleged member of 764 was arrested in New York. He’s part of a growing number of criminal cases across the country.
An Ohio bounty hunter allegedly impersonated a U.S. deputy marshal while arresting a woman for missing a municipal court date for traffic violations. Law enforcement apparently found out about it after he locked himself out of his car, with the woman locked inside, and had to call for help. Also, stick around for his Internet searches (““police badge design”... “howbto [sic] determine if a us marshal is legit”)
A jury in Virginia couldn’t decide if a man accused by prosecutors of being responsible for the terrorist attack at Abbey Gate did it or not. (here’s the jury note). Shoutout to DOJ public affairs for casually glossing over that small fact.
Two people in Louisiana are accused of tricking investors into thinking they represented professional athletes in need of a loan before being drafted.
Thanks for reading. Just a programming note, in Sunday’s The Rabbit Hole, we look at what happens when you decide to be your own lawyer.