By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
SDNY COURT/UN GATE, March 25 – In the course of covering and live-tweeting the US v. Larry Ray sex cult trial for two weeks, Inner City Press has obtained and published a number of the exhibits.
The same occurred on the night of March 21: a list of Ray's victim Claudia Drury's prostitution clients.
Inner City Press uploaded it to its DocumentCloud, and spoke about the list in a brief vlog on the morning of March 22 on the way into the Southern District of New York courthouse to cover the day's trial starting at 9 am.
Just before 10 am the prosecutors emailed reporters and asked that the exhibit be taken down. In an abundance of caution, Inner City Press deleted the document from its DocumentCloud - and wrote to several accounts at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press asking for a statement of applicable First Amendment law.
By the afternoon, having covered the trial until Larry Ray citing a seizure was taken out on a stretched (Inner City Press tweeted video here), a second request came in, to delete the March 21 evening tweet of the list, which still had an image from DocumentCloud.
With no response from RCFP and after conferring with others, Inner City Press added an explanation to the tweet, which stayed and stays up but deleted the tweet with the image.
In the interim two others wrote about the list, stating for example that it "appears to include a retired New York State Supreme Court judge and a hedge fund manager, a celebrity dating coach — and an executive at Gap and her husband — among many others" - including a "Metropolitan Transit Authority executive, an account executive at Amazon, a veteran travel writer and "a painter who has studios in Manhattan's East Village and in Italy and an architect, famous for designing college and university buildings." Also, a diamond dealer and a Washington, DC-based lobbyist.
[It was also covered, behind a paywall, by New York Magazine which had this to say about Inner City Press' covered in late 2021 of the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, book here via one of the companies with an executive on the John list.]
Later on March 22 came pressure directed at Inner City Press from other quarters to release and not "cover up" the list.
It was unclear if similar requests or demands were made to the two above-quoted corporate media. When Inner City Press for investigative reporting was roughed up and thrown out onto First Avenue from covering the United Nations of/by UNSG Antonio Guterres, many did nothing. But as we've previously noted, the First Amendment stops at First Avenue.
UN-world has refused to answer on Fomba Sirleaf, see here. Other exclusives: 2) the Gap couple here. The art historian here. The Yale architect de Bretteville here.
On March 25, after the public trial naming Randy Levinson ended at 1 pm, there appears to have been an in-person proceeding with Larry Ray for which no notice was provided in the docket.
So now this series, which began with Liberia's Fomba Sirleaf, and now the fifth, the lobbyist, next installments on Patreon.
Watch this and that site.
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