Welcome to Court Watch #196.
Michael Russell Porter, like most red-blooded Americans, craves fast food, hates ads, and loves tomatoes. In late September, Porter reportedly called McDonald's customer support line to express his frustrations with the company, explaining to the call center representative: “I’m just calling to tell you this. I see on the news that you are now going to start showing third party ads at your drive-thru window. I just want you to know, the first time I see that, I am going into your store with my AR-15 and murdering everyone in the place. You people ought to be ashamed of yourself, you money hungry rat bastards.” As a result of the call, McDonald’s started beefing up their security at their golden arches in the Sunshine State. If they talked to their fast food competitors first, they may have noticed a pattern.
A few months prior, according to a criminal complaint, Porter got himself banned from the local Chick-fil-A in Florida when the employees “informed him that they ran out of tomatoes.” He apparently did not take kindly to the restaurant's lack of his preferred vegetable, and purportedly said he would be back with a shotgun.
Turns out that’s not even the most interesting case out of Florida this week. In fact, the dockets gave us some real winners throughout the country. So let’s dive into this week’s roundup which, as a reminder for some of our more passionate readers, is ad-free.
The Docket Roundup
Zizian cult leader Jack “Ziz” LaSota is seeking pre-trial release. Do you think anyone involved in the case will notice that one of the places that the defense offered to house LaSota while awaiting trial appears to be the home of an alleged Zizian member?
Louise Lucas, a prominent Virginia state senator, was indicted for trying to build generational wealth, among other things.
A judge was on the receiving end of a judicial smackdown opinion for reportedly using A.I. to create a decision.
Someone in the Department of Justice’s press office missed their best chance to ask will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
Flock’s lawyers are playing hardball about potential evidence in a criminal case involving a person accused of an arson attack on a Tesla dealership.
The Associate Attorney General of the United States has filed a motion in a Minnesota federal court to disqualify Judge Patrick Schiltz in a denaturalization case. Writing for the government, Stanley Woodward argues that Schiltz’s recent interview with the New York Times makes him unfit to rule on “a case concerning one of the Justice Department’s key immigration initiatives: pursuing the largest denaturalization effort in Department history to restore trust and integrity in U.S. citizenship.” He has also attempted to recuse another member of the Minnesota bench, Judge Tunheim, for participating in the Times piece. Schiltz swung back with a minute order telling him to refile the motion saying Woodward didn’t follow a local rule to ask Schiltz’s chambers to schedule a hearing first.
A pro se plaintiff filing under the name ‘Trump Genius’ and raising concerns about ‘ritual human sacrifice’ by HHS was denied an effort to be awarded <checks notes> 400 trillion dollars.
Federal Defenders in New York continue their weeks-long campaign about special administrative measures restrictions in prison for a suspected terrorist. Back-to-back letters to a judge are a ballsy move.
The Epstein search warrants were filed as exhibits in Ghislaine Maxwell’s case.
Anyone who followed January 6th Twitter would immediately understand why this administration decided to focus on this D.C. jail.
Gun rights folks don’t want a ‘cooling-off’ period when buying a gun in New Mexico/New America.
Another week, another multi-million-dollar ‘pig-butchering’ case, this time out of Arizona.
Lawyers for the man arrested for an attempted political assassination at the White House Correspondents' Dinner want the ballistic reports to determine if their client’s bullet was the one that hit a Secret Service agent.
A D.C. lobbyist is suing because he was barred from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
We’ll sleep when we’re dead.
Will the special counsel’s report about classified documents at Mar-a-Lago ever see the light of day? Stay tuned.
You may recall the Hamas-related arrests in Louisiana we wrote about a few weeks back. Now prosecutors are arguing the two brothers had secret money overseas, among other things, recorded in monitored jailhouse calls.
Our news spidey sense is going off hard about this sports betting and money laundering case out of Texas that is short on details and has no DOJ press release.
Your song of the week is admittedly a bit unusual, but give it two full listens and, we assure you, you’ll be humming it all weekend.
A judge used one footnote to issue a two-page opinion in a denaturalization case.
A Navy SEAL in California is accused of threatening his family in a series of increasingly unhinged messages.
The Justice Department filed another brief asserting executive privilege in a case brought by the ACLU to release the Office of Legal Counsel’s boat strikes memo.
The New York Times isn’t buying the opinion Perplexity AI is citing.
Here’s a fake lab and a purported 66 million dollar COVID scam.
CIA security officers got into a scuffle with a nonverbal man outside the gates of Langley.
President Trump was sued under the Emoluments Clause for his crypto holdings. The boutique firm representing the plaintiff is made up of lawyers who have previously worked on Democratic campaigns.
A reminder that Court Watch has a Research Desk to assist individuals, companies, and non-profits with finding the seemingly unfindable in court dockets. We also provide deep-dive PACER tutorials and trainings to newsrooms and organizations.
A nurse and his wife returning from Turkey refused to provide access to his electronics to CBP officers at Dulles airport, citing HIPAA concerns about his patients. They’re suing to get them back.
A dentist in Mississippi has had to deal with a determined alleged stalker for months.
DOJ takes a stand against AI-generated child exploitation images.
Listen, you’re probably not gonna read this because we’re not a YouTuber, but there are some unreported names and organizations in this seizure notice accused of large-scale fraud in Minnesota.
A Connecticut man is accused of compiling a list of neighbors with Trump lawn signs with a plan to kill them.
Some folks got more creative with pandemic fraud than others. For instance, two men in Nebraska allegedly used PPP loans to buy and ship luxury cars to Nigeria.
A pro se plaintiff believes FIFA discriminated against him because of a history of mental health issues.
We have a lot of Justice Department prosecutors who read our newsletter every week. A friendly reminder to review your filings when they involve underage victims of crimes. This week, we’ve sent multiple emails to U.S. Attorneys’ Offices around the country to let them know that they inadvertently dox victims because of poorly done redactions.
A convicted ISIS supporter was sentenced to fifty years in prison for attacking a prison guard and blinding him in one eye. We wrote about the case a few weeks ago.
It’s flying under the radar, but if you look closely enough, you can notice a pattern that the Secret Service is starting to roll up folks making threats to the President a day before he is planning on coming to that state for a campaign rally. This one was out of Kansas, but there were also three arrests in Alabama this month before another rally. Also, an Alabama woman was indicted for threatening to murder POTUS when he came to the Alabama-Georgia football game. According to NCITE and Chapman, that would make 146 people charged with threatening a public official this year, more than a dozen more cases than last year, which was in and of itself a already record year.
Two service members sued the Pentagon over a purported data breach that leaked their personal information.
“When the revolution starts” is never a good way to start a voicemail for a member of Congress.
It’s buried a bit, but according to a new civil complaint, a company set up a Turning Point meeting to influence the administration’s decision on legislation.
We honestly can’t figure out why we thought this lawsuit was interesting when we put it in the Google draft earlier this week. No pressure, but maybe you can.
A California man with guns and a history of making terroristic threats was arrested for planning a mass shooting at a church.
There’s an interesting case in Texas that’s a window into how human smuggling rings operate amidst the immigration crackdown.
The NCAA is mad at Ohio. No word yet on whether NCAA has secretly hired Ohio’s estranged mother to record a video opposing the Buckeye State.
A company that says they’re not ticket scalpers is suing over a D.C. law that targets ticket scalpers.
There was an order that flew under the radar quietly removing Judge Ada Brown from her cases a few weeks back, but we didn’t have the goods to publish anything of substance; luckily Bloomberg Law was all over it.
A pro se man says the Houston police department put him in a coma during a traffic stop caught on video.
The feds are the proud owners of three pieces of Missouri farmland and $4 million, seizing it from a purported investment scam. The millions would be useful when they need to buy diesel for the tractors.
There’s a nearly $30 million SNAP fraud case out of Indiana.
Charles Johnson continues to have a banner defamation lawsuit year.
Anyone who has followed Judge Reyes long enough knew there was going to be a Shakespeare footnote reference eventually in her order.
Thanks for reading. A quick scheduling note: there will not be a The Rabbit Hole this Sunday. We’re taking the weekend off. If you’re a free subscriber and disappointed by that, upgrade to a paid version so we have the ability to pay more freelancers to cover our bases when we need a weekend break.
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