By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
Books - Guardian - Honduras - ESPN NY Mag
LITERARY SDNY, July 26 – It was two weeks after the jury's guilty verdicts on Josh Schulte when he appeared again before Judge Furman.
This was back in 40 Foley Square, Judge Furman's smaller courtroom on the 11th floor. Schulte was brought in by Marshals, and there other unidentified government agents in the small gallery with Kurt Wheelock.
It was time to pick a date for what Schulte called the "CP" trial but his departing stand-by counsel spelled out in full.
Judge Furman shot down Schulte's written request to be able to use the SCIF in 500 Pearl Street to prepare for the trial.
Schulte wrote that he would need it once a week to go over the computers and servers seized from his East 39th Street apartment and said by the prosecutors in the first and second trial to contain National Defense Information.
Now the prosecutors - or prosecutor, as only one of them bothered to come to this post-conviction proceeding - said Schulte didn't need the SCIF at all. Now their position was that the computers had no classified information, he could just stay in the MDC where he was banned from communication in any way with the media or seeing anything on the Internet.
The CP trial was set, as it happened, for September 11, 2023. Schulte was taken out by the Marshals, his parents were not there. Kurt rushed out of the courtroom and over to Brooklyn to catch the EDNY guilty plea of R. Kelly's self-described manager Donnell Russell. This one was for threatening a Jane Doe, after his partial conviction for calling in a gun threat to the Neuehouse theater on 25th Street.
Kurt recorded his Schulte proceeding summary vlog over there on Joralemon Street. Brutal Kangaroo in Brooklyn.
But when he got back to the SDNY Press Room, and after he'd rushed over to the gym in the housing projects and everyone else had left, Kurt saw two things he felt compelled to write about.
[July 20 denial of access here; Brutal Kangaroo]
Judge Furman belatedly unsealed Schulte's habeus corpus petition, which had been held off-limits in full. Kurt put it up on DocumentCloud before running over to the gym. And when he got back he saw a short interview with one of the Schulte jurors, Number Four, Juan Flores. And it floored him.
Flores said, "Some of the jurors took meticulous notes, which they shared with the others once deliberations began." What?!?
Kurt went back to find Judge Furman's jury instructions. He'd been there when they were read out, but he wanted to make sure. And here it was:
"If any one of you took notes during the course of the trial, you should not show your notes to, or discuss your notes with, any other jurors during your deliberations. Any notes you have taken are to be used solely to assist you. The fact that a particular juror has taken notes entitles that juror’s views to no greater weight than those of any other juror."
There is was. The jury instructions had been openly violated.
Ghislaine Maxwell juror 50, so-called Scotty David (Kurt had learned and published his real name, but hadn't pushed it beyond that, concerned there might be some unwritten rule about how to describe jurors) had bragged to the British press that he had lied on his jury questionnaire about sexual abuse history.
This made Judge Nathan, now on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, hold a special hearing and question Scotty David, who got his own lawyer for the proceeding. So what would Judge Furman do now? More on Patreon here.
[July 20 denial of access here; Brutal Kangaroo]
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