EDNY COURTHOUSE,
Feb 21 – The case was
called United States versus
Jho Low but in the dock there
was only one Roger Ng, in a
courtroom without no Press or
public.
The Chief
Judge of the U.S. District
Court for the Eastern District
of New York had ruled that due
to COVID-19 the jurors had to
be socially distanced. So they
had taken over all of the
wooden pews of the courtroom
gallery.
The
press was pushed into an
overflow courtroom two stories
away, with a Court Security
Officer at the door to make
sure they didn't dare take in
a cell phone to tweet with,
much less a laptop or tablet
to blog on.
Kurt
Wheelock hadn't yet gotten the
one-case press pass to bring
his electronics in to the
media room on the third floor.
But still the CSO asked if he
had any electronic devices in
his light day backpack or of
the pockets of his winter
coat.
Kurt
said no, signed his name on
the COVID 19 contract tracing
sheet and went in. He sat in
the back row, returning a nod
to a wire service reporter who
had asked him about, but never
included in an article, Kurt's
ouster from the United
Nations.
Television monitors had been
set up in the well of the
overflow courtroom, with
another roll down plastic
screeen for the six earlier
arriving journalists at
counsel table.
It
was not Roger Ng in the
witness box, but a man named
Cummings from Strategic
Marketing Group.
He was being
asked how much Jho Low, and in
one case Ng and by implication
Goldman Sachs, effectively
erasing itself from this trial
for now, had paid in promotion
and seemingly prostitution
fees.
They
flew in rappers and movie
stars and models - the word
was put in quotation marks
even on the memo he has asked
about - to Jho Low's parties
in Las Vegas and once in his
hometown in Penang,
Malaysia.
Leonardo
DiCaprio, whose Wolf of Wall
Street Jho Low funded, and the
director Martin Scorcese;
Jaime Foxx and Kim Kadashian.
Where was Jah Rule, who
partnered with McFarland on
the failed Fyre Fest? Maybe
that came later.
Kurt
started taking notes. He'd
write this up later on a bench
across from the courthouse, or
in the Park Manor a block away
if it was too cold. It was
still winter but just barely.
And Kurt was hunting for the
Weasel of Wall Street.
Kurt had first heard
of Jho Low while still in
the UN, before he was thrown
out. Jho Low appeared at a
UN press conference in front
of the ubiquitous and now
defiled logo.
#TheWeaselOfWallStreet, 1st
in a new series
Inner City Press is also covering
US v. Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, the
self-rapped Crocodile of Wall Street, a
story here,
song here
***
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