Welcome to Court Watch #198. Sometimes the best lede is no lede at all.
The Docket Roundup
It’s a free country, but you can’t unring a bell to stop federal charges.
The feds say they tracked down the man sending powder-filled letters to elected and election officials. Turns out, despite what the twitter blue check marks tell you, it wasn’t the DSA.
The FBI says a U.S. special forces operator based at Fort Bragg posted classified information on social media and stole a pair of night-vision goggles. Also, the government gave him an award for his service with classified information on it and then charged him for having the award because it had classified information on it. Well, ok then.
This stalking case that starts at the Miami Open is nightmare fuel, complete with the ring camera capturing the fake mask, and the eating Papa Johns in the victim’s apartment.
A pardoned January 6th defendant was re-arrested for allegedly posting on Facebook, “ALL J6 Federal JUDGES will be EXECUTED!”
We track threats to public officials for a living and this case might be too meta even for us. A Florida man was arrested for threatening the President when he violently replied to a Facebook post about a woman who was arrested this week for threatening the President.
Jack Teixeira, the former Massachusetts Air National Guard member who leaked classified documents through a Discord channel for a video game, sued the Bureau of Prisons over his proposed transfer to Florence ADX. The BOP reportedly wants to move him to the supermax prison after he had an unauthorized interview with ABC News. (editor’s note: that move only works for Nathan Fielder interviews)
A man previously sentenced for threatening New York rabbis is now charged with a new stalking case of victims in Florida.
A California man pleaded guilty to providing material support to ISIS after he gave an undercover federal agent $400 and two guns, among other items, and pledged loyalty to the terror group.
Prosecutors moved to dismiss the case against the Harvard medical school researcher who allegedly tried to bring frog embryos through the Boston airport was dismissed after she won a rare motion to begin discovery into whether her prosecution was selective and vindictive. In this instance, DOJ says it’s because they have bigger cases to work on and can’t be bogged down by this small ball one. Which one would think would be a prosecutorial consideration before bringing charges but what do we know.
Conservative online news site, The Washington Reporter, is being suing for defamation.
The Justice Department asked the Eleventh Circuit to give it extra time to file a brief appealing a judge’s decision striking down an anti-voter fraud law.
One of the fixers of a multi-school college basketball betting scheme pleaded guilty in Pennsylvania.
A Florida judge threatened to sanction government lawyers after the Department of Homeland Security issued a false press release about the citizenship of a defendant. DOJ, to its credit, fell on their sword and did a full mea culpa in response. The latest ruling indicates that their filing diffused the situation with the judge.
There’s some movement in the case of a Washington Post reporter whose house the FBI searched as part of a leak investigation.
Two Kentucky septuagenarians filed a new presidential war powers case challenging U.S. operations in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.
A Virginia man is said to have created AI-generated explicit images of the sheriff and the deputies in his town and it ended how you think it would.
A partner at a Big Law firm was arrested by federal law enforcement in Northern Virginia for allegedly possessing child abuse materials.
Never change, pro se plaintiffs. There’s nothing like asking for a $400 trillion (with a T) judgment in a one-page filing.
A judge dismissed GOP megadonor Elliott Broidy’s lawsuit against the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, finding the case is best suited to be filed in Israel.
Well, glad we sorted out whether DOGE is subject to transparency laws almost two years later.
A California grand jury indicted a man who allegedly planned to bomb a synagogue and a Chabad Center. According to the criminal complaint in his case, he asked Elon Musk’s Grok for addresses of nearby synagogues and wrote, “Grok, based on my content, what is the likelihood i will commit an act of terrorism against Jews, or Jew sympathizers like @elon.”
The DEA is working a major cartel money laundering ring, seizing more than $55 million.
There are accusations of sex trafficking at a Tampa Bay strip club.
The Justice Department announced the extradition of an Israeli man who was reportedly behind a $2.89 million crypto hack.
Don’t buy Porsches off of Facebook Marketplace or passports through WeChat.
(whispers) The LockBit ransomware guy is taking a plea deal.
The New York Times’ legal department is working overtime to fight AI scrapers.
Come for alleged misconduct at the Virginia Attorney General’s Office’s Animal Law Unit and stay for improper giraffe removals.
Our song of the week is a product of trying to finish this newsletter this morning.
The Chicago federal courthouse continues to be one of the wildest legal beats in the country. The former agent in charge of the FBI’s Chicago office sued U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, claiming he forced him out as a scapegoat for the Broadview Six case.
Three men were indicted in Missouri for serving as couriers picking up more than a million in gold bars as part of an elder scam. On a related note, we sometimes give in to the voices and reply to scam texts to see how far we can push the scammers and take small fragments of time away from their ongoing scams. This past week, we had a several-hour-long back-and-forth with one scammer while pretending to be Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas. The scammer tolerated our fashion taste and intriguing texting style, but they gave up when we tried to sell them on “Taken for a Fool.”
An employee sued Trump Place Condominium in New York, claiming the company that manages the condominium hasn’t paid her.
The feds are the proud new owners of a Gulfstream jet that made flights to Tehran.
Prosecutors in Washington told a judge that 50 filings from a pro se defendant should be enough.
Lots of talk about Congressional oversight this week. One case that’s flying under the radar challenges the investigative power of a little-known, Congress-created watchdog.
The Middle District of Florida is fed up with lawyers trying to get around its page limit, saying once and for all what the correct font size is.
This criminal complaint out of the Eastern District of Virginia is a fascinating window into how law enforcement investigates drug dealing on the dark web.
A pet breeder in Ohio agreed to surrender more than 1,100 chinchillas.
The Southern Poverty Law Center wants the Justice Department to turn over the materials it collected during its investigation into the center’s informant program.
Thanks for reading.
