By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
SDNY COURTROOM, Oct 17 – In the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on November 19, 2021 a detention proceeding was held by Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang on a defending brought in from the Dominican Republic the night before.
Willie E. Dennis, formerly a lawyer at K&L Gates, was charged with cyber stalking. At first the US Attorney's Office was OK with his release, but them things switched. Inner City Press live tweeted it below.
On October 13, 2022 Willie Dennis was on trial, sitting alone at the defense table with five at the prosecutors' table in front of him. One was reading his threatening emails to a K&L Gates target, who said he was terrified for his wife and children.
Slowly the gallery filled with lawyers for the next case, about Bernie Madoff. Some of them looked amused, then concerned. One asked, How's that on the stand?
Dennis made objections, and got sidebars. He was denied one at the end, but was told he can raise his issues on cross-examination. When the jurors left, so did the two US Marshals in the back row, as if on alert. Dennis put on his winter coat and arranged his papers on the table, soon to be used for the left over Bernie Madoff case.
On October 14 conducting cross examination, Dennis asked about how he had been locked out of his email and computer files at 1:44 am and if K&L Gates had ever done that before. Once, it was said, not in the New York office.
In the docket, heavily redacted, is an email from Willie Davis arguing that he is being prosecuted because he exposed the "penetration of KL Gates' network servers in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seattle by Chinese Communist Party agents." Photo here.
On October 17," conviction in federal court of WILLIE DENNIS for cyberstalking three victims, all his former colleagues at a global law firm (the “Law Firm”). The jury convicted DENNIS today following a one-week trial before U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff." We will continue to cover the case to sentencing.
From November 2021 and since: Willie E. Davis is currently in FBI custody in 290 Broadway. He has been assigned a Federal Defender, who has spoken 3 or 4 times today with Dennis by phone.
Judge Wang: Why is this not in person? AUSA: He arrived from outside the US, we don't know his vax status.
US says: "DENNIS, a U.S. citizen, was arrested this week in the Dominican Republic... He engaged in a campaign of harassment, intimidation, and threats against multiple individuals, including other partners, who worked at the [K&L Gate Law] Firm."
Dennis owns a multi-family building, and property in the Dominican Republic, but he has debts. He is being given a publicly-funded Federal Defender.
AUSA: He was arrested in the Dominican Republic on Nov 16 and arrested in the US yesterday. Judge Wang: You are charged with four counts of cyber-stalking.
Judge Wang took a break and returned, to rule: "I am accepting recommendation he be detained until fitted with a bracelet or co-signers can sign the bond."
Jump cut to August 15, 2022 when the case, reassigned to Judge Jed S. Rakoff, had on short notice a phone conference that pointed to an in-person one: "Minute Entry for proceedings held before Judge Jed S. Rakoff: Telephone Conference as to Willie Dennis held on 8/15/2022. Present were the defendant and his consulting counsel, Anthony Cecutti and Kastine Thiele, AUSA Rushmi Bhaskaran for the government and a court reporter. The Court sets a conference in courtroom 14B to consider the defendant's application to relieve consulting appointed counsel and substitute in new consulting assigned counsel."
Inner City Press went and live tweeted it here.
This case is US v. Dennis, 20-cr-623 (Rakoff)
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