By Matthew Russell Lee
SDNY COURTHOUSE, April 12 – Lawyers for Woody Allen believe the decision by Amazon to cancel his four picture deal may go all the way up to Jeff Bezos and they may seek to depose Bezos, they told U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Denise Cote on April 12. Amazon, represented by a single lawyer, said that Allen's comments against the Me Too movement broke an "implied covenant" and represented "frustration of purpose." Allen was quoted that the Movement should not be permitted to become a witch hunt.
Judge Cote was setting up a schedule for summary judgment motions when it emerged that the contract precludes a jury trial. And so she set her own bench trial for February 2020, contingent on the results of private mediation the parties said they are beginning. Amazon's lone lawyer declined to speak to the press afterward. Inside, he emphasized that beyond "A Rainy Day in New York" which is already in the can, the other three films are proceeding with third party financing, mitigating damages. The case is Gravier Productions et al. v. Amazon Content Services LLC et al., 19-cv-1169 (DLC).
The Woody Allen and Gravier Productions lawyers, in the elevator, wondered at the "Ghana fraudster" sentencing Inner City Press has been covering in Judge Cote's courtroom before their intial pre trial conference. Was it Federal because the amount in controversy was over $75,000? No, because it was a conspiracy, including emailed romance scams. Inner City Press recounted Judge Cote's apparent anger at such a scam. Relevant to this case? Or was Judge Cote's comment welcoming the female attorney as the one who actually does the work a sign of things to come? We'll continue to follow these cases. It was noted that Bezos will be at the SDNY to speak with the U.S. Attorney's Office. We'll have more on this.
Back on April 4 a long time petty criminal was brought shackled into SDNY Magistrate's court, after serving three years in state penitentiary for stealing appliances from a department store. This was deemed a violation of supervised release, and the Assistant US Attorney argued for no bail. But Stanley Bamber was born in Newark and still has family in New Jersey. He could live with his brother, his assigned lawyer argued, pending arguments before SDNY Judge Alison Nathan, occupied the same day with Elon Musk. It was finally agreed that if Probation approves andradio frequency electronic monitoring is in place, the 60 year old Bambury may see the light of day. Between 1976 and 2000, the prosecutor said, Bamber was charged withcrimes 35 times. His was the last case of the day; in the elevator Inner City Press asked theAUSA about his record and got a Have a good night. Okay then - just another day in the SDNY. Johnny Morgan is suing the United States for a rectal search he endured in the Metropolitan Correctional Center at 150 ParkRow, right next to the SDNY. On April 4 before SDNY Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman, the government presented an expert Roy Lubit who said that Morgan is a "malingerer" and blamed his pain on abuse suffered earlier at the hand of his own mother. But even government expert Lubit said that the rectal entry should not have happened. It is, in fact, an outrage. Inner City Press was the only media in the smallish courtroom, compared to dozens of reporters two hours later for Elon Musk. While some might question taxpayer money going to pay damages for what happened to Mr. Morgan, what about public money for an expert witness to insult the torturee? We'll have more on this. The Federal Defenders scored a big win in a misdemeanor proceeding that only Inner City Press attended and covered on April 2. They defeated the U.S. Attorney's Office which argued that the simple assault they agreed to on a dispute on a cruise ship required allocution to actual physical conflict. There was case law on the Federal Defenders' side, and a plea to making a threat on the cruise ship - in "international waters" -- was found sufficient. The case was United States v. Batista, 18 Cr. 730 (NRB). The Federal Defenders lawyer was Sabrina P. Shroff, whom Inner City Press has previously covered in the UN bribery cases of Patrick Ho (new Hong Kong documentary here), getting bail for Cheikh Gadio, and of Ng Lap Seng, representing hapless Jeff Yin.
