By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN Book
SDNY COURT/UN GATE, Nov 14 – 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' press office 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 from the spokesperson, 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.
Now a month later, the bases of the favor are gone, as (for a time) was a book on the topic - now back, here.
Update of November 14, 2022: one of the names on the list was and is Ismaila Whittier. On November 14, repeated and escalating messages threatening legal action unless story quoting the list, accurately, were received. While any such legal action would be frivolous and sanctionable, we publish the denials as received:
"I’m a nobody and I did not do the things you said I did, I don’t know why you’re targeting me. 2:23 PM I can’t have my name popping up in Google searches for things I didn’t do. Please take down my name. I am innocent and I didn’t do these things you said I did. Please get back to me ASAP. 2:35 PM This is libel, if you don’t take this down I will have to sue! 3:27 PM I’m not a diplomat and I don’t work for the state department and I’m not a John and never have been, this is Libel! Please respond to my emails and messages and take down all your posts about me immediately. Including this one: I seriously don’t understand why you’re targeting me. I will take legal action against if you do not resolve this by end of day tomorrow. against you* "
We'll have more on this, here and on other platforms.
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