| For Kidnapping and Murder 84
Month Sentence in SDNY For Cooperator With
Sealed Transcript
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- The
Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
July 29 – A man was killed on
March 11, 2014 and on July 29,
2020 one of the killers was
sentenced to 32 additional
months in prison then to be
freed.
The transcript
was sealed. But Inner City
Press was there.
It was a
proceeding before U.S.
District Court for the
Southern District of New York
Judge Vernon S. Broderick, on
the CourtCall platform.
It was not listed
in the day's Calendar on
PACER, and from the beginning
there was talk off taking the
whole proceeding offline,
excluding the
press.
Ultimately the
Assistant US Attorney
acknowledged that she did not
have authority to make a
request to seal the courtroom,
without a green light from
Main Justice which she did not
have. She did, however,
request that the transcript be
sealed.
The defendant,
described as Buchanan - no
docket number was given -
spoke for himself, and to his
credit apologize. He read from
a letter than his lawyer said
was written, lightly, in
pencil.
The court
reporter asked the lawyer, in
the GEO private prison in
Queens, to take a photo of it.
But it would be for a sealed
transcript.
The guidelines
called for 444 months to life.
But
Probation proposed 120 months,
and Judge Broderick citing the
defendant's cooperation
imposed 84 months - 54 months
of which have already been
served, in the cooperators'
prison in Queens from which
Tekashi 69 was released.
The
defendant had thought he was
born in Jamaica but was born
in the US. He grew up with his
aunt.
He had engaged in
ten robberies before that
fateful day, when he chased
the victim with a gun, into a
car, then helped dispose of
his body.
The US Attorney's
Office gave a Section 5(k)(1)
letter and asked to seal the
transcript.
Judge Broderick
to his credit asked the
parties to try to later unseal
as much of the transcript as
they can. He asked if any
victim or relative of the
deceased wished to speak. But
the call-in line for CourtCall
is automatically muted.
No docket number
was given.
Inner City Press
intends to have more on
this.
***
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