SDNY PRESS ROOM, Nov 6 – A man
who fourteen years ago filed a False Claims Act lawsuit
against the City of New York alleging the City defrauded
the federal government on food stamps and that he should
get paid for it was asking for another extension on
November 5.
The case has long been assigned to
Chief Judge Margo K. Brodie of the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New York. But Friday's telephone
proceeding was held by EDNY Magistrate Judge Peggy
Kuo.
Inner City Press covered it, calling
in from the SDNY Press Room - because it has been blocked
by EDNY District Executive Eugene J. Corcoran, whose
staffer Michael Loguercio used three Court Security
Officers on November 4 to have Inner City Press' reporter
"escorted" out of the courthouse, after confiscation of
its EDNY press passes to cover the US v Clase and US v
Huawei trials, without any written order or due
process.
While the claim - by EDNY US
Attorney's Office spokesman John Marzulli - was Inner City
Press' use of electronics to live tweet in the courthouse,
its reporter is an EDNY admitted attorney and has the
right to bring electronics in and, as it was when ousted
on November 4, use them in locations outside the 10th
floor overflow courtroom which despite promises from Judge
Kiyo A. Matsumoto in the Case trial was not
working. All this of this should be reversed
by Chief Judge Brodie. But she was not on the call.
Instead, plaintiff / relator Joel Mahl
asked for more time, beginning to say that a man helping
him had an organ removed. Magistrate Judge Kuo
cut and said the disclosure of private medical information
was improper. Inner City Press agrees, and is not
publishing the organ referred to, nor looking in the
helper's name.
Ultimately Magistrate Judge Kuo set a
deadline of January 6, 2027. Will it be met? Will Chief
Judge Brodie take action on the lawless removal from EDNY
of an EDNY admitted attorney, and orally proclamation that
despite the EDNY's published rules, he cannot bring in
electronics?
Watch this site - Chief Judge Brodie has a
criminal proceeding at 11:30 am on November 4 but due to
the ouster and lack of clarity, Inner City Press cannot
access it, nor the Clerk's office where Judge Rachel P.
Kovner said
it should file its requests to make habeas corpus cases
public. This is EDNY today. We will continue
to report, even more than before given the above.
This case is, formally, United States of
America v. The City Of New York, 1:12-cv-05979-MKB-PK
Update: Inner City Press is informed from inside the courthouse's / Corcoran authorized press corps that a "reminder" about phone use was circulated, to cover their tracks. Not circulated to Inner City Press - it was taken off the circulation list. But perhaps to remind those had been using phones in the courtroom just like Inner City Press on November 4, and before it, to cool it for a while, to justify this ouster. Inner City Press' long-standing request for the in-house status it has at SDNY was never addressed by DE Corcoran, nor any criteria disclosed. Today's EDNY.
