by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 30 – In a bar in midtown Manhattan on the evening of August 15, 2023 Stanley Stark met up with a woman and took her to a hotel at 1 am.
Once in the room he was drugged with GHB, the date rape drug, and his credit card, iPhone and wallet stolen.
He was found dead by hotel staff in the morning. The NYC Medical Examiner named the cause of death as "acute intoxication by the combined effects of cocaine, ethanol and gamma-hydroxybutyrate" - that is, GHB.
Summer Caster and her pimp Jalen Teague were arrested and indicted with the death penalty on the table, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Inner City Press, which covers the SDNY courthouse closely, exclusively reported on their arraignment with two other women in the case, in chains, then on the transfer of one of them from Bedford Hills to the MDC.
With no notice, not in the day's docket on PACER, Summer Caster appeared on January 30, 2026 before the week's Magistrate duty judge Henry J. Ricardo - not in the normal Magistrates Courtroom 5A, but upstairs in Courtroom 21D.
Initially there was no one else in the gallery. The three defense lawyers, including learned counsel certified for death penalty cases, were summoned in to meet Magistrate Judge Ricardo in his chambers. Later the two prosecutors went in. They all emerged, and the proceeding began.
Summer Caster was pleading guilty to all 10 counts against her, including Count 2 with a mandatory minimum of life in prison.
Learned counsel intervened to say that that is also the maximum: Summer Caster is no longer facing the death penalty. But why was she pleading guilty with a minimum of life in prison?
The AUSA asked the sentencing not be set for a full six months in the future, then asked that no date be set, nor pre-sentencing report order at this time.
The CJA lawyer said off-handedly that the proceeding should not be docketed.
More on X for Subscribers here and Substack here
The overall case is USA v Teague, et al., 1:25-cr-40 (Broderick / Ricardo)
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