By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 5 – Ricardo Cruciani has been Federally indicted for using his position as a doctor for fifteen years to sexually abuse patients, including causing them to travel across state lines.
He had properties and three cars but has applied for and gotten publicly paid Federal Defender legal representation.
For weeks, Inner City Press has sought to get unsealed Cruciani's financial affidavit. On February 15 this was ordered, but with at least a four week delay and the possibility of the Federal Defenders appealing for Cruciani.
Inner City Press has previously won Criminal Justice Act affidavit unsealing in the cases of Michael Avenatti and David Correia, in the Lev Parnas case.
But on February 15 U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge John P. Cronan was told, by the Federal Defenders, that given how busy they are in the SDNY Magistrates Court, unsealing the financial affidavits they get signed how hinder justice.
Inner City Press, present for the in-person oral argument, wondered whether the "penalty of perjury" warning on CJA-23 affidavit might similarly impact the desire for publicly funded counsel.
Even with the oral order to unseal, Cruciani and the US Attorney's Office have four weeks to confer before a redacted copy is filed -- unless the Federal Defenders appeal for Cruciani.
Judge Cronan had not until February 15 docketed Inner City Press two filings, which was done much earlier in the Correia and Avenatti unsealed, the latter reported on AP, NYLJ and ultimately in the National Law Journal.
Apparently the letters went into his chambers' junk email folder. But should the press have to have or pay for ECF access in order to be heard?
On February 28, the Federal Defenders using public money appealed to keep Cruciani's financial affidavit, to get publicly funded counsel, sealed.
Since then, while Inner City Press got Honduran drug trafficking Tigre Bonilla's financial affidavit unsealed - he claimed no money despite a finding in Honduras - its request as to a Colombian trafficker is pending, undocketed, before Judge Vernon S. Broderick.
Now on July, beyond representing dirty doc Cruciani to keep his presumptively fraudulent financial affidavit sealed, the Federal Defenders have joined that appeal - as an amicus. Where are the Committees ostensibly charged with advocating for transparency? Why are UN taxpayer funds being used to keep confidential the fraudulent affidavits - to be tax payer funded lawyers - of Colombia drug traffickers and sexual predator doctors with three houses in three states? Should the Press and public have to spend their own money to participate in this appeal? Watch this site. The case is US v. Cruciani, 21-cr-636 (Cronan)
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