For Another US v Doe Inner City Press Is Locked Out With No SDNY Docket Number or Basis

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by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 10 – A defendant was processed for more than an hour in a sealed proceeding on July 10, 2023 in the Courtroom 18D before Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.  

Inner City Press, often the only media in the SDNY Mag Court, stood outside Courtroom 18D for more than an hour but was told, You can't come in. This while an Assistant US Attorney went in, then a defense lawyer, then a Spanish language interpreter, then a law enforcement agent.

  More than an hour later they came out, and took an elevator down. Inner City Press then did the same. The door to the Magistrates Courtroom 5A was locked.

  In late May, not as bad as this, a sealed proceeding took place inside the Magistrates Courtroom 5A. Inner City Press asked that the docket number and basis for sealing be put on the record.

The answer was, "No."  

   Others remained in the courtroom -- two Assistant US Attorneys, who before the sealing were discussing "suretors," implying that that defendant was being charged and released on bond, and at least one lawyer beyond the one who represented the defendant. 

   The lawyer who represented the defendant loudly explained why he had not yet effectively filed pro hac vice papers, that the state at issue required five days to give a certificate of good standing.

  Only Inner City Press left, and the courtroom door was locked behind it.   

The proceeding was not short.

It took fifty minutes, during which time in the hallways outside the courtroom Inner City Press struck up a conversation with the defendant in the next case, and witness what seemed to be a controversial celebrity emerge from the US Attorney Office's doorways down the hall.

More on the May proceedin on Substack here.

  An Inner City Press appeal to that week's Part 1 Judge was referred to District Judge Victor Marrero, who denied it.

This July 10 case, for now, is US v. Doe, xx-cr-xx (or 23-mj-xx) (Lehrburger)

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