SDNY COURTHOUSE, Aug 17 – After the
Department of Justice dropped the prosecution of then
NYC-Mayor Eric Adams, it began a case against his ally
Tony Herbert. Inner City Press has covered both cases from
the beginning, and on August 17 filed
to unseal in the US v Herbert case.
Judge Valerie E. Caproni has
now ordered
the government to explain, in writing and by Friday, why
the entirety of a suppression motion and its supporting
exhibits should remain sealed in the Herbert case over
alleged influence-peddling involving city contracts and
burial reimbursement funds. The redactions include other
targets of investigation.
The underlying sealing traces to an
August 14 letter from CJA defense counsel, former SDNY
prosecutor Jordan Estes now of Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher, seeking to keep sealed both the Motion to
Suppress Evidence Derived From His Electronic Devices and
six supporting exhibits. Notably, Herbert's own counsel
took no position on the question — the letter stated
plainly that the defendant "takes no position at this time
as to whether these materials should remain under seal,"
with the sealing request resting entirely on the
government's confirmed view, relayed secondhand through
defense counsel after a meet-and-confer, that the
materials "should be filed under seal." No further
explanation accompanied that request.
What is actually sealed, per a declaration
filed alongside the motion, are the affidavits and
warrants underlying five separate search warrants issued
by five different magistrate judges between July 2024 and
February 2026, along with defense counsel's own Brady
demand letter. Two of the warrants are now more than two
years old — old enough, Inner City Press argued in its
challenge, that whatever investigative sensitivity might
once have justified secrecy is difficult to square with a
defendant now indicted and actively litigating a public
motion challenging the government's own conduct in
obtaining and executing those very warrants.
Judge Caproni's orderrequires the
government to try to answer it, in a filing capped at five
pages, due August 21. That is a materially different
posture than where the case stood a week ago, when the
sealing rested on nothing more than defense counsel's
one-line relay of the government's preference. Inner City
Press which published a book on DOJ's dropping of the case
against Eric Adams, "Sovereign
District?," here, will report on the government's
response, and on whatever the Court decides once it has
one. Watch this site.