By Matthew Russell Lee, Author on Patreon Song Ruling
BBC - Decrypt - LightRead - Radio - Podcast
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Dec 18 -- The Maxwell charging conference was held on Saturday, with rain-swept Foley Square otherwise empty.
Up the courtroom as Maxwell's lawyer Everdell, unlike his meandering cross-examinations, scored point after point with Judge Nathan, getting foreign trafficking removed and "the defendant" switch to 'Ms. Maxwell," Kurt paid closer attention than usual.
Unlike during the week, when he tried to listen to and even live-tweet other criminal proceedings over the call-in lines denied here, on Saturday #MaximumMaxwell was all that he was covering. He was already starting the work on a Mount Vernon police brutality project, but that could wait until after, over the PACER terminal. Today was a day to look more closely.
There was woman in the front room, whispering in the ear of Maxwell's brother. The brother, a fixture through the trial days after afterward on Pearl Street and in Foley Square, took down his COVID mask to drink bottled water. Then he didn't pull the mask back up.
To Kurt it was ironic. Judge Nathan amid COVID and now Omicron had denied his request for a public call in line, while ordering social distancing in the courtrooms, even the overflow. Now right in the front row, Maxwell's brother went maskless.
Kurt tweeted it. Within less than a minute, Maxwell's brother was staring at the cellphone held out to him by the woman to his right, then looking up and pulling up his mask. Kurt tweeted that too, mentioning for context and woman and the phone. How had the woman brought it in?
She was Leah Saffian, a lawyer, yes - but in California. It had taken Kurt months to get the right to bring in his phone. How had it worked so quickly for Saffian?
Saffian, the docket on PACER showed, was not only of the five lawyers who'd filed notices of appears in the case, including Mark Cohen no longer at the defense table but still being chided, by the prosecution and then more mutedly by Judge Nathan. But one of the four - only three were here for most of the charging conference, with Laura Menninger stepping out presumably to prepare her closing argument for Monday - had written to Judge Nathan about Saffian.
In April 2021, Sternheim had written, she and Leah Saffian, Esq had gone for a legal visit in the MDC with Maxwell. They had been filmed throughout, then legal papers taken.
So Saffian was enough of a lawyer for Maxwell to get into the MDC, even though no notice of appearance in the docket of Maxwell's case. Who else did that? #MaximumMaxwell.
Note: On October 29, 2021 and again on November 12 Ghislaine Maxwell and the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York filed a flurry of motions in limine, heavily redacted; the Government argued that trial exhibits are not public and will be withheld. Inner City Press opposed and opposes the continued secrecy.
Inner City Press will cover the trial, and all the comes before and after it; #CourtCaseCast and song I, Song 2, Song 3, fifth song and now Nov 27 song
The underlying case is US v. Maxwell, 20-cr-330 (Nathan).
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