By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
NY Mag Song 1
LITERARY SDNY, Dec 23 – In the transcripts, which were sealed until after SBF flew back to Palo Alto, Judge Abrams had pushed back about the defendants' request to seal the courtroom.
But it was an illusion - since there was no public notice, there was no one other than the participant there. And the request to seal the transcript was granted.
Kurt Wheelock, soon after he got to SDNY, had wandered floor to floor in 40 Foley Square, trying the door knobs of courtrooms. Actually, they were required to leave one of the two sets of doors open when they were in session. But listening through a closed door, he couldn't tell if it was a real proceeding, or just small talk between court staff.
So he'd opened Judge Schofield's door. Inside a man in shackles was standing before the judge. Everything stopped when Kurt came in.
"I think we are adjourned," he heard. Then, "We'll resume in the robing room." The US Marshals, the defendant and his lawyer, the judge and prosecutor and deputy, they all went through the door behind the podium. Kurt sat alone in the high-ceilinged courtroom.
Twenty minutes later - it felt like an hour - they came back out. Now, they were adjourned. Kurt asked for the docket number of the case, but it was not given.
Judge Schofield to her credit a few weeks later invited Kurt into the robing room, albeit on a small potatoes civil case, something about a Bronx sports bar pilfering the live feed of a boxing match between two Latin Americas. She said, "He is a legal blogger who has come to cover our court."
And it was true. And here he was, trying to get to the bottom of the cooperators' pleas to testify against SBF.
Kurt tweeted out screen shots, and others picked them up. Some replied, Where are the underlying documents? He'd probably ask the same, if he didn't know.
With the two allocutions tweeted out, Gary Wang's on Patreon, Kurt went up to the 24th floor, where jury selection for the uncoming death penalty trial of Sayfullo Saipov was ongoing.
A woman juror, prospective juror really, said that as a Catholic she could not vote for the death penalty. Both sides agreed she should be stricken for cause. And the trial was pushed back from January 3 to January 9.
Back in the Press Room, it emerged that Judge Abrams had just docketed an order recusing herself from the FTX case. Referring to herself as The Court, she wrote that her husband was a partner at the Davis Polk law firm, which worked for and against FTX. And so she was withdrawing.
Kurt took a screenshot of the order and put it out. But then the questions:
how would the new or next judge be chosen?
Would the case be wheeled out again in the Magistrates Court? If so, when? Or was there another, less public process?
Kurt decided to try to find out. A lot would ride on this. Be to continued -- song 1 here; more on Patreon here 1 and here 2 and here 3 and here 4
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