By Matthew Russell Lee, Author on Patreon Song Ruling
BBC - Decrypt - LightRead - Radio - Podcast
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Dec 14 -- It was Day 2 of the Ghislaine Maxwell trial hiatus and the courthouse was like a ghost town.
No line up outside 40 Foley Square, and free run inside for Kurt Wheelock. He went to the change of plea of a meth transporter brought in from El Paso. Despite the man cooperating with the government, he was ordered immediately detained, and shackled right in front of his mother, the only person in the gallery other than Kurt.
The sell-out to Epstein and now perhaps Maxwell was not he only sadness in the court. But it echoed loudly, and Kurt gave in and went with it.
He remembered not only Epstein's arraignment and denial of bond, like Maxwells, but also his posthumous wake, which for Maxwell had yet to happen. Judge Richard M. Berman had scheduled a nolo prosequi proceeding informed by the Crime Victims Rights Act, the statute ignored by DOJ in Epstein's sleazy disposition in 2007-2008 down in Florida.
That morning that was an opinion piece in the New York Law School by a professor of Kurt's in night law school at Fordham. David Boies had both mocked it as poisoned by conflict of interest, not without irony given Boies work not only for Theranos' Elizabeth Holmes but also Harvey Weinstein. Such sleaze was one of the reasons the Kurt practiced little.
At Judge Berman's wake there were many Jane Does, some known like Jane Doe 43 who sued not only Epstein but also Sarah Kellen now the wife of a NASCAR driver, but also Lesley Groff and Natalyna Malyshev. That case had been dismissed with prejudice, settled without the terms being in the record.
But many at the wake, held on August 27, 2019, had been on the record. First Courtney Wild, then Chauntae Davies and later her sister Teale. Annie Farmer had spoken, explicitly on behalf of his sister Maria. There was Anouska De Beorgiou and Michelle Licata, Theresa Helm and Marijke Cjhartouni. Here was Jennifer Aroz and of course Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who relentless held the mirror up to Maxwell, and also to Prince Andrew.
Kurt had been in the courtroom, scared them to try to use his phone. The testimony had washed over him and the media comments outside on Foley Square, as some got into black cars and some talked to the subway. It was not known then that Maxwell would be indict and arrested - or that, at least for now, they would try to stop it there. Would they drill further down, to Sarah Kellen et al.?
Or would they as justice cried out for go higher, to the Prince and yes, the UN Secretary General? Kurt tweeted the idea, and the UN's response that day was to hand spin about its rapes to the correspondents it let in, none of whom asking anything. Kurt ordered and put online the video. Some got it, and some didn't. The hiatus couldn't be forever. #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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