Welcome to Court Watch #195. There are stories to be told in dockets this week. A court lost a million dollars in a scam, being high with the spies leads to arrest, and Musk decides not to gamble on a voting lottery case, among other fascinating filings.
A quick note before we jump into the dockets. Last Friday’s roundup led with a story of a BASE jumper who was pushing back on a seemingly open-and-shut case about whether he illegally jumped at Yosemite while livestreaming to his followers on Instagram. Sure, it was a relatively obscure criminal proceeding but we thought it had the potential to have legs on a debate about how far the power of prosecutorial discretion can extend to other federal agencies. However, DOJ moved to dismiss the charges against Jack Propeck yesterday, days after we wrote about the case. It’s weirdly not the first national park prosecution to quietly go away after we covered it.
This is all to say, if you ever get criminally jammed up hiking Denali, we might be able to tip the judicial scales in your favor if it’s an interesting story.
The Docket Roundup
If you’re interested in what is involved in taking down alleged darknet drug dealers, prosecutors in Virginia lay it out.
The feds seized some crypto from a purported work-from-home scam that (yes, we checked) still has an active website and paid ads on Google.
We got increasingly annoyed by all the numbers being thrown around about how many illegal voting criminal cases have been filed since 2025. Depending on the news source or the government press release from last week it’s somewhere between fifty cases and one hundred twenty-five. In a world of uncertainty, we appreciate specificity when it’s attainable. So we counted all the cases and got an actual number. It’s 131 federal criminal cases as of this morning.
It looks like Guam’s judiciary fell for a $1.7 million scam.
Elon Musk is settling with the folks who sued him for claiming they could have a real chance to win a million dollars for voting.
A man who was falsely accused of killing Charlie Kirk sued Candice Owens.
Tailgating will not get you into CIA headquarters at 1 AM, even when you allegedly do it while high.
The Justice Department entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with a former CIA analyst who prosecutors previously accused of acting as a foreign agent on behalf of South Korea.
A Utah grand jury indicted a man for allegedly running an investment scheme involving Amazon.
(whispers) Winning a student loan case against the government and then ghosting the justice department attorneys is kindof a boss move.
A federal judge in New York is refusing to dismiss a court-approved Commodity Futures Trading Commission consent agreement with crypto bros (editor’s note: we appreciate being able to report on the Winklevoss twins because we can say crypto bros without an apparent hint of irony)
A 27-year-old woman is set to be the first woman to go on trial in a U.S. federal court for supporting ISIS (there were other convictions, but none went to trial). Her attorney is a seasoned federal defender, there may be a surprise ending to this.
An Illinois man who claimed to be the “ruler of Africa” was arrested for allegedly threatening local police.
There’s a fun civil motion in D.C. about foreign discovery in a case involving a Israeli professional basketball team. In case you’re curious, former UNC double-double machine Armando Bacot, Celtic’s legend Daniel Thies, and Notre Dame standout Bonzie Colson all play on the team.
Prosecutors say an Arizona woman threatened to kill President Trump three different ways. And another woman from Rome, New York, reportedly asked a coworker if she could buy a gun to shoot Trump at a rally in Syracuse.
If you’re curious how to tell whether a court record is a sovereign citizen filing, some telltale signs include when it starts off with, “Absolute Ministerial Ambassador Chieftess Phoenix Flowing Rivers,” includes a seal from the “Organic Constitution for the united States of America” (SIC), and then immediately cites the Uniform Commercial Code.
The feds gave up on putting a tracker on a Tesla in a drug case but still came away with an arrest. We have the writeup via our friends at 404Media.
We’re looking for more readers to fill out a quick six question reader survey. If you’re a free subscriber, you get a temporary 30 day paid subscription with access to everything behind a paywall. No need for a credit card to take advantage of the trial. If you’re a paid subscriber, you get our never-ending love. Thanks to the 500 or so of you that have already done so, we’d love to get to 1,000. We spent a couple hours on this free roundup, do us a solid and spend 30 seconds on the survey.
Another pardoned Jan. 6er sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
A Saudi man was arrested for allegedly planting a bug in the OpenAI office.
Judge Reyes speaks for the trees (footnote 18).
Prosecutors have filed charges involving a sexual assault on an Air Force base.
We’re perplexed by a Washington pastor who was indicted for allegedly running an investment scheme for a company he marketed as “the global online marketplace and social network.”
One of the first lessons of journalism (and writing) is that the hook is the most important part, so we appreciate this big law firm’s lede in a brief from a victims of terrorism financing case.
For your song of the week, Cameron Winter released a new album live from Carnegie Hall. We’re not sure how to describe it. It feels like if you put someone with a light but not yet sloppy buzz on a piano and told him to freestyle lyrics as he plays. One of those things best experienced with a lit fireplace on a rainy Saturday. Start with the song Emperor XII in Shades, then work yourself up to the unhinged parts in The Rolling Stones. If this all seems too ethereal for you, just go with this way too under-rated Mac Miller cover.
A small business that received more than $100 million in federal contracts may not actually be a small business.
Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary was sued over posts he made about citizen complaints over a data center he’s funding.
It’s the greatest country in the world when you have the ability to petition the courts about how much you love movies and mergers.
Last week, we gave the Northern Mariana Islands a shout-out for having the federal courthouse with the best view. A reader was kind enough to note that one of the court’s local rules explicitly requires attorneys to wear shoes in court. We’d humbly argue that flipflops are shoes with that view.
A judge ruled against former CIA Director John Brennan’s attempt to have the Justice Department preserve records as part of its reported investigation of him.
There are some absolutely fascinating exhibits outlining the extent of government surveillance in a case out of Minneapolis concerning a group of activists who monitored ICE agents during the enforcement surge.
Our favorite filing this week was an Oklahoma man who was arrested after allegedly shooting at a helicopter spraying herbicide near his rural property. He reportedly told local sheriff’s deputies that he was sure the helicopter was screwing with him.
Former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz was sued by two women who said he groomed them while they were underage.
The New York Times (and other news orgs) wants a D.C. judge to unseal the warrant to search Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s residence.
A Nevada man, Ian Carpenter, was indicted for allegedly threatening FBI Director Kash Patel.
Thanks for reading. For this Sunday’s The Rabbit Hole, we look at what you eat and the people who really don’t want you to eat that.
