by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, May 12 – A Columbia student who sold meth and an AK-47 was sentenced on May 12 to five years probation, 12 months of which are to be intermittent stays in a halfway house.
The Federal Defender asked to seal the transcript of the sentencing, even though the US Attorney's Office did not submit any cooperator's letter under Section 5(k), but rather a heavily-redacted sentencing memo for the defendant, Noam Halpert.
His five supporters in the courtroom gallery gave thumbs-up. Inner City Press was the only other person in the gallery. Only recently, it witnessed and reported the case of a Bronx resident sentenced to two years in prison for buying a gun to protect his mother, he said.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Victor Marrero, who sentenced Halpert, spoke of seeing the dangers of AK-47 in the newspaper headlines every day.
So the sentencing, and the SDNY prosecutors' presentation and redacted sentencing submission, merit further inquiry.
The case is US v. Halpert, 17-cr-447 (Marrero)
More including analysis on Substack here
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