By Matthew Russell Lee, Author Amazon Patreon Song
BBC - Decrypt - LightRead - Radio - Podcast
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 19 -- Maxwell's motion for a new trial was due and so Kurt throughout the day checked the docket, ready to report it.
But nothing came until past 11:30 pm. And even then, all it consisted of was a one-paragraph letter from Maxwell's lawyer Bobbi Sternheim saying that yes, a motion had been filed, but entirely under seal.
Kurt was on the Bronx-bound 4 train when he saw it, and immediately undertook to report it. The Transit Authority Wi-Fi only works in the subway stops so it was intermittent, this reporting. He managed to upload just as the train was pulling out into the darkness of the tunnel.
That was this case in a nutshell: pulling evermore into the darkness.
Kurt filed another letter to Judge Nathan, who had in her US v. Nejad cases docketed his unsealing request without hesitation. But in this Maxwell case, she had refused, then docketed two requests only to deny them citing a supposed rule that other judges in the District didn't follow them, and didn't follow now.
Even this day, an in-person criminal case held in one of the large courtroom that Kurt could have gone to, as he did the Larry Doud / Rochester Drug Co-operative opioids prosecution and of course the Magistrates Court, had also been made available by phone. So why so much secrecy for Ghislaine Maxwell?
Especially after the secrecy then US Attorney Alex Acosta or those with pay-grades above him had given Jeffrey Epstein? Wasn't this prosecution, how ever narrow, supposed to somehow make up for, and restore the system's credibility from, that outrage? Yet it was getting worse.
During the day, while waiting for the Maxwell motion that never came, Kurt had watched not only Biden's one-year press conference but also the UN Security Council stakeout he was banned from. There, Norway's Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt pontificated to state media from Qatar and China about women, peace and security.
This while her Ambassador Mona Juul refused Kurt's written questions about her and Terje Roed-Larsen's links to Jeffrey Epstein.
From the same cold bus shelter Kurt had sat in uploading stories about being thrown out of the UN, the winter after it happened, now this January night Kurt recorded a two-minute podcast, specifically mentioning Acosta. He did the same in his letter to Judge Nathan.
Yet when later he checked the headlines, with his Scotty David news alert, they all said that Maxwell had filed a motion based on Juror 50 - a reader wouldn't have known it was all under seal. #MaximumMaxwell (more here on Patreon)
The larger question was how the "Scotty David" interviews came about. And now, The Carlyle Group. From #MaximumMaxwell to #MirroringMaxwell.
Inner City Press covered the trial, and all the comes before and after it; #CourtCaseCast and song I, Song 2, Song 3, fifth song, Nov 27 song and now, the Dec 29 verdict song here now Jan 8 Scotty David chatty juror song here
The underlying case is US v. Maxwell, 20-cr-330 (Nathan).
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