| Uighur
Whitewash Tale As Defendant
Declaims He was Paid to Kill
Someone by the UN
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell
Book
BBC-Guardian
UK - Honduras
- ESPN
NY
Mag
LITERARY
COURTHOUSE, May 28 –
"You better get over here,
Michael. There's a defendant
talking crazy and Federal
Defenders don't want to take
the case."
Michael Randall
Long was half way through a
motion for acquittal or in the
alternative for a new trial
for one of his other clients,
who had insisted he was not
guilty and still did, now
awaiting sentencing.
So a new case in
the SDNY Magistrates Court
sounded better than rehashing
the same old, same old.
"I'll be right over." It was
easy enough. Long's office was
just down Worth Street from
the courthouse, on the second
floor over the Ali Baba fruit
stand.
It was late May
and the flowers were in
bloom in front of the Columbus
park playground, where the
basketball courts had been
taken over by skateboards.
Didn't these kids go to
school?
Long used his
hard pass to swipe in, and
commented about the weather to
the Court Security Officer,
who'd used to work up in the
Mag Court. Not to hot, not to
cold, they both
agreed.
Long took
the elevator up to the 8th
floor, past Probation and the
Press Room where he felt sure
Kurt Wheelock was working,
hunched over the PACER
terminal.
On the
eighth floor he walked past
the painting of Justice
Sotomayor, alumna SDNY was
proud of, and looked out over
Chatham Green and the two
bridges. He used to smoke
cigarettes out on that
terrace. When he used to
smoke. Now he avoid both like
the plague, or black
lung. He took the
other elevator down to the
fifth floor and walked into
the Magistrates Court.
One of the
Marshals held out his glove
fist, to bump it. "Your client
is in there," he said,
gesturing at the door to the
lock-up.
"Though we can
all hear him out
here." Long
put his laptop down on the
defense table, along with his
phone, and went in.
"I'm
Michael Randall Long," he told
the bearded man in the orange
WCDOC jump suit. "I'll be
representing you if you
agree."
"I wanna
talk to the prosecutor!" the
man said. "I
don't think that's a good
idea," Long said. "At least
not at this point."
"I have
info that can get me out of
here," the man continued. Long
winced, at least inside. He
didn't usually like
representing cooperators. The
Assistant US Attorneys always
lorded it over him, like, We
know that all of your other
clients are guilty too.
"Why don't
you tell me about it first?"
he asked. "You're right they
sometimes give a deal. But you
have to present it right, and
not give away the information
for free, or for less that it
is worth."
"When they hear
it I'm gonna need, like
protection," the man
said. Long nodded.
The guy didn't look like a
drug dealer, at least not on
the street.
"What is
it?"
"The UN," the guy
said. "They paid me to kill
someone."
To be
continued...
***
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