Welcome to Court Watch #187. It’s not every week that devil worshipping, congressional extramarital affairs, sketches of military bases, and a trip to Home Depot for nails all converge in the federal courts. But this is that week.
Plus, the Justice Department has a new watering hole.
The Docket Roundup
Flying under the radar: A former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee, Alexander Strohmeyer, was indicted for threats after he purportedly threatened to use AI to create child exploitation materials of a senior officials in the U.S. Attorney office and wanted to use ChatGPT to track down their kids.
A federal judge ordered independent reviewers to monitor conditions at a Texas and California detention center that houses children, finding that current conditions do not meet the basic standard of care.
Everyone is talking about tattoos, but we’re more interested in tea. Congresswoman Nancy Mace’s former chief of staff sued a conservative outlet in South Carolina over claims it falsely stated she had an affair with Mace.
A plea deal was made in a U.S. Post Office bribery case involving lots of counterfeit stamps.
The New York Times wants a judge to unseal grand jury records after one of its freelance reporters was subpoenaed over a story about an aborted Navy SEAL mission in North Korea.
An airline ticket credit and an annoyance over customer service experience resulted in a federal charge.
The woman who allegedly plotted an ISIS-inspired attack on the New York State capitol had apparently educated herself already about the material support statute and the size of nails.
A man who called himself the “God of Israel” got in trouble for allegedly calling in threats to a Georgia district attorney’s office.
We helped out a bunch of smart academics to figure out why fake warrants keep getting introduced into the federal court system.
FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend and country music superstar, Alexis Wilkins, lost her defamation case against a conservative influencer over jurisdictional reasons.
Court records we helped obtain for Bloomberg Law News finds that the U.S.’ war overseas is having an adverse effect on the Administration's war on immigration in the United States as judges put a pause on some deportations of Iranians.
Very fancy libel lawyers are trying to unmask an anonymous twitter account and substacker who wrote mean things about a man involved in the Professional Tennis Players Association
The Alien Terrorist Removal Court is still the hottest docket in D.C. right now. The chief judge has ordered a release hearing for next Thursday but then both sides asked for a continuance (editor's note: maybe a self-deportation deal is in the works?). Meanwhile, the alleged alien terrorist’s attorneys and the Justice Department are duking it out over whether the attorneys get access to any classified materials. The Justice Department has already indicated it plans to appeal the ruling if the chief judge says so. We’re deep in the tea leaves, and we’ll have more to say after the release hearing.
The Flock anxiety has reached the federal docket, albeit in a very unhealthy manner.
A grand jury in New Jersey indicted a 20-year-old alleged neo-Nazi for a purported plot to blow up electrical power stations in 2024.
Speeding seven miles per hour over the speed limit led to a $52,000 drug bust in West Texas.
Speaking of busts, the feds are the new proud owners of a Cantina Bar in Oklahoma City. Court Watch is entertaining investor pitches to join us at the ground floor of purchasing the Sooner watering hole off forfeiture.gov and hosting opening argument mic nights for 2Ls. It’s important to aggressively niche our news coverage even smaller.
An anti-ICE student group sued Florida International University for reportedly punishing several students after a protest.
The Babylon Bee wants a word with New Mexico over its artificial intelligence-generated content regulations.
Max Blumenthal sued the Department of Homeland Security over reportedly having to go through a secondary screening at Dulles International Airport, during which two of his cell phones were seized.
The fourth time is the charm. A magistrate judge in Florida recommended that the government’s motion to dismiss a case brought by a group of Epstein victims be denied.
There was another case under the Take It Down Act, one of the newest federal crimes on the books. We wrote about the first few cases for The Rabbit Hole last month.
A man living in Hawaii who apparently thinks he’s married to Tulsi Gabbard was arrested for reportedly threatening her husband on X.
The “J6 Historical Society,” formed by a group of pardoned J6ers, sued U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for records from investigations into that fateful day. Additionally, other J6ers want to take the government to court for tort payouts. And other J6ers filed a different lawsuit. The latter two were filed by a law firm with a website called ‘legalbrains.com’
Our song of the week has just the right amount of quiet soul.
One 764 member’s attorney was not happy that the government tried to slide new facts about running a devil worshipping group in prison into its sentencing memo supplemental. He was sentenced to 77 years.
Ominous letters to elected officials in Ohio led the feds to grab user information from an online database of home addresses.
The Intercept is taking on President Trump’s Truth Social $100,000-a-month early access feature. A subscription to Court Watch is 9 dollars-a-month and our feed breaks more news. We’re clearly not keeping up with inflation.
This is a good old fashion ad-swap with a colleague that’s also part of beehiiv’s Media Collective.
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Maryland will not give up the new FBI headquarters without a fight.
An Illinois judge declined to grant the attorneys’ fees of a woman who was held in mandatory detention, despite most of the federal circuits overturning the Trump administration’s policy of mandatory detention in immigration cases.
Capitol One and the Trump family want a judge to sort out discovery in their case.
It was fun while it lasted: the Perdue “six-seven” chicken nugget case was settled.
A judge allowed a civil assault case filed by a pro-Israel protester to proceed against a pro-Palestine protester after the two reportedly fought over a flag.
The Fourth Circuit said ICE can’t use aggressive enforcement actions near churches, though only the churches involved in the case.
Fix the Court assembled a list of all the gifts given to Supreme Court justices. Our favorite gift from 2025 was concert tickets gifted to Sonia Sotomayor, “likely for a Bad Bunny show.”
Dinesh D’Souza settled a lawsuit over 2000 mules.
The state of Texas doesn’t want Baltimore, Columbus, New Haven, and a legal aid clinic to crash its party with the Justice Department over immigration court procedures.
A pro se litigant tried to sue a Nevada state judge for allegedly using AI to decide five family court motions. A federal judge, however, said she still enjoys absolute immunity for judicial-related claims.
An incarcerated man has filed civil complaints against President Trump, among others, not once, not twice, but six times in the past month. The complaints are meandering but colorful, and a judge has already struck one for bad language.
There was a new pig butchering seizure out of North Carolina. Lawfare had an interesting write-up last week about how the seizures don’t do much to prevent future scams.
A New York City man was charged with a federal hate crime after he allegedly disrupted a synagogue service and attacked several worshippers.
The SEC says there was a major car dealership investment scheme in Texas.
Seventeen Iranians were indicted for reportedly hacking on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. None of the men appear to be in custody.
In an outlier for these types of cases, a Minnesota judge said he would still rule on a Department of Homeland Security policy revoking student visas, even after the department reinstated the visas of the plaintiffs in question.
We have questions about this “photographing and sketching defense installations” charge out of Alabama.
An ex-cop on Folly Beach, South Carolina, sued the town’s former mayor and the old sheriff of Charleston county after he was fired for reportedly warning the FBI about a senior skip day threat at the beach. Also, if you ever have a chance to visit, Peter recommends Monday open mic night at Chico Feo, the boiled peanuts at Bert’s, and the burgers at Lowlife.
Thanks for reading. For this Sunday’s The Rabbit Hole, we look at how much it costs to ‘fix’ a computer.
