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By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Sept 20 – While many or even most cases in the Magistrates Court of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York are sealed or have case numbers given only later, on September 20 Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang accepted the guilty plea to the lesser included offense of marijuana distribution, not Oxy, from a man with a B.A. in international business. He did not seem happy. Judge Wang asked, are you feeling alright today?

  "As good as I can be," Dejan Piskacek answered. His lawyer Ezra Spike asked SDNY Judge Valier E. Caproni to an extension of time for motions in limine, to work out a plea. And now it's done. We will try to cover the sentencing on the less included offense. Watch this site.

   On September 19 Judge Wang had a presentment interrupted for more than 20 minutes by a fire drill.

Defendant Shoendale Jarrett sat in shackles as over the loudspeaker the fire drill was announced, again and again. Inner City Press, the only media in the Mag Court, was urged by several to write about it. Would they do this to District Judges? Or to a former Magistrate named Peck? Ultimately Jarrett was bound over to be re-presented on September 20, with an eye toward release. Inner City Press, pending the Tekashi #6ix9ine trial, aims to be there.

  Last on September 19 there was an even murkier case, of a defendant named Shaquille Perkins whose case, 19-mj-4742, showed up as nonexistent on PACER even hours later. But he was real: he'd had a loaded gun in The Bronx, then got set up at the courthouse, called Legal Aid which mis-asked the Eastern District such that Perkins became a fugitive. He has a spot in Monroe College in January.

  Judge Wang took one of her breaks, but returned and issued terms of release. We'll have more on this.     

On September 12 a defendant named Ausencia Nazarrio Ortiz was presented and quickly detained upon consent, with no court date until October 15. 

Inner City Press will continue to cover this and other SDNY and 2nd Circuit cases - watch this site, and there is more on Patreon, here.