Review, Patreon Maxwell Book Schulte Book
Books - Guardian - Honduras - NY Mag
2d Exclusive Interview by Matthew Russell Lee
SDNY Courthouse, Oct 17 – In September and October 2022 Trevor Milton, founder of Nikola Motor was put on trial for fraudulent claims about NKLA's hydrogen trucks.
On Friday, October 14, Milton was found guilty on three of four counts.
Published hours after the verdict was a book by Matthew Russell Lee, who live tweeted and reported on the trial daily, and put questions to Milton and his lawyers in Foley Square outside.
And the Monday after the Friday verdict, Lee for Inner City Press conducted a second interview, after a first, screen shots on Patreon here:
Juror #9, "V" - "Sure, Overall the entire trial was very dense in terms of information I myself I estimate took at least 50 pages of notes front and back. While Mr. Milton may not have liked the result he should know that he did in fact receive a completely fair trial in my opinion. Personally in my notes I did have to write "credibility?" and ultimately did not use two witnesses testimony in my deliberation reasoning due to the fact I just couldn't find them credible....
... Roughly for the first hour and a half absolutely no decision was made at all on any counts. Personally it began to feel like we may have been a hung jury.
"This is when we began to request a few pieces of evidence we did not take any notes on that we needed to break the ice. Once we received those aids deliberations became smoother albeit there were moments of silence here and there as we contemplated what a juror may have said or looked for a piece of evidence that contradicted or further supported what was said.
"That being said on Count 2 that I've seen many questions on after looking up to see what the public thought was he was close to being convicted he reached 2/3 requirements and we began discussing the third it was then that I re-read the charge and noticed that while similar to count 1 count 2 had to meet ALL requirements.
"When asking if anyone noticed any evidence to suggest the government had met this criteria we found they fell short. In regards to count four I just wanted to mention we in fact did not even like Mr. Hicks and personally I believe he is greedy, but examining the law Trevor was still in fact guilty."
Watch this site.
Lee was each day in the courtroom of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Edgardo Ramos, and venturing farther afield to investigate leads exclusively give to him and Inner City Press and by Nikola whistleblowers.
As the trial wound down, Inner City Press published descriptions of documented destroyed within Nikola, and guilty knowledge by officials still at the company.
Material from those whistleblowers, the trial and even some more speculative and literary excursions featuring recurring characters Kurt Wheelock and Michael Randall Long, featured in the Ghislaine Maxwell book "Maximum Maxwell" as noted by New York Magazine, here, made its way at the speed of the Internet into the new book
"Hydrogen Heist: The Trial of Nikola's Trevor Milton: On Fraud, Guilty of 3 of 4 Counts; From Musk and Tesla Wannabe to Convict in SDNY, by Matthew Russell Lee
E-book here; paperbook forthcoming.
This review will leave it to others to find over-reaches and typos. For his reporting, Lee was banned from the United Nations in 2018 by SG Antonio Guterres, whose Media Accrediation chief Melissa Fleming has ignored appeals from a UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and, pro bono, the law firm of Quinn Emanuel.
One might surmise that history leads to some of the book's (over?) identification with the defendant.
A full scope instantaneous view of and taking off from trials like US v. Trevor Milton seems to be Inner City Press' project here.
And here it is.
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