by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, May 4 – Michael Paschal is on trial for sex trafficking a 17 year old girl from North Carolina to engage in commercial sex at his direction in a building on Brady Avenue in the Bronx in 2000.
On May 2, 2023 the trial began before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Vernon S. Broderick. Inner City Press was there, the only media in the courtroom.
After the jury was selected - the voir dire questions included the NYC Agency for Child Services, which kept the victim "Sunshine" in the hospital until returning her to North Carolina - the opening statement were given in the afternoon.
By day's end, the prosecutors were reading into the record a mind-numbing litany of declarations, about Meta, TextNow and Apple records, and foreign business records from Poland.
On May 3 the victim, referred to as Kaitlin Smith and "Sunshine," was on the stand. The defense tried to emphasize that she'd said she was 19. But on re-direct she said the defendant told her to say that.
A detective testified about the code used in the ads for pricing; the defense asked if their couldn't be a second explanation for "safe."
The cell site expert previously with the US Attorney's Office and now paid $5000 by it testified, past 5:30 pm.
Again, the exhibits were "published" to the jurors, but not on the larger screen facing the courtroom gallery.
On May 4, the US Attorney's Office write it to say they had just learned that Paschal's legal team intended to put on Tanesia Stokes, described as an unindictment co-conspirator, as a defense witness on May 5. The prosecutors want Judge Broderick to specifically allocute her that she is knowingly and voluntarily waiving her Fifth Amendment rights. Watch this site.
The case is US v. Paschal, 21-cr-331 (Broderick)
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