| For Mounir Mrabet Trial US
Seeks to Seal Courtroom, Transcript through
Court Reporter
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell
Book
SDNY COURT
EXCLUSIVE, Nov 3 - In
the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New
York on January 5, a bond or
detention proceeding was held
by Magistrate Judge Sarah
Netburn for Mounir Mrabet,
charged with narcotics
conspiracy.
Inner City Press
was present as the only media
in the Mag Court. Related
Mag Court live-tweeted
thread (more on Patreon
here)
vlog here
Mrabet was in a white t-shirt;
he had been arrested at 6 in
the morning. He consented to
detention without prejudice.
On May 11, 2023,
Mrabet appeared before the
assigned District Judge, Jed
S. Rakoff. Trial was set for
August 8, and discovery
production to the MDC was
discussed.
Then Mrabet's
counsel asked for release on
bail. The AUSA replied that
Mrabet had 10 kilos of meth
and seven phones; 20 arrests,
four felonies.
Judge Rakoff said
it seemed clear, but for the
increasing danger in the MDC.
He said in some of his cases,
defendants have been moved to
other facilities. No
commitment to make that
recommendation was made by the
AUSA. Mrabet remains detained.
Jump cut to June
29, 2023 - Mrabet was back in
court, this time being allowed
to fire his CJA lawyer (who
nevertheless continued to make
discovery arguments on his
bahalf). Mrabet, speaking for
himself, described lock-downs
in the MDC and the difficulty
of getting discovery on a
laptop - he wanted it printed
out. Judge Rakoff ordered the
print outs. The AUSA said she
would look into it - and that
a superseding indictment had
been added.
On July 5 Judge
Rakoff approved the US
Attorney's Office proposal to
put all the iCloud text
messages on a laptop and FedEx
it to Mrabet in the MDC,
rather than 30 bankers boxes
of print-outs which FedEx said
would cost over $50,000. The
US says this "eliminates the
delay of awaiting a CJA-funded
laptop from the defense."
A new CJA
lawyer was appointed, and on
July 14 Judge Rakoff set a new
trial date: November 6, 2023.
On August 4 the
new CJA lawyer moved to
suppress, declaring that
Detective Mark Gurleski
obtained the warrant based on
false statements and annexing
NYPD records of interviews
about Hyatt room 3344 and a
storage locker at 501 Tenth
Avenue.
On November 2,
2023, the US Attorney's Office
wrote in seeking to have the
courtroom sealed during the
trial, for UC-1 who they want
to leave unnamed, or with
pseudonym. They claim an audio
feed will be available (as for
example SDNY District Judge
Paul A. Engelmayer provided in
another case Inner City Press
wrote in about) - and that
"the Government would make the
daily transcript of IC-1's
testimony available to the
public through the court
reporter's office." At how
high a cost? Can that really
be called publicly available?
Some Districts provide an
online list of all proceedings
for which closure is sought.
Watch this site.
The case is US v.
Mrabet, 23-cr-69 (Rakoff)
***
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