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By Matthew Russell Lee, Video

SDNY COURTHOUSE, February 13 – When two wedding gift registry copies began duking it out in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on February 13, Judge Katherine Polk Failla asked an attorney she had admitted pro hace vice if she would be speaking, at least at the next conference. "A girl can dream," Judge Failla said, saying she was referring to herself. And in fact the younger lawyer did speak, explaining that Zola's logo had been taken by Prezola in the UK. The latter had started a trademark action which was stayed in favor of the Federal case before Judge Failla. The two side wanted a long period of discovery, into September, explaining that it would be hard to depose people over the summer. Judge Failla pushed back, noting that if that argument started being accepted in February, no work at all would get done. She offered the mediation services of Magistrate Judge Aaron, and set a preliminary next date for September 18. The commercial can was kicked down the road. The case is 1:18-cv-10213-KPF Zola, Inc. v. Prezola Ltd. This too is Federal court. Back on February 11 a dispute about coffee mugs erupted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York before Judge Gregory Woods who is also handling the criminal leaking of Treasury Department reports, see below. Vermont potters Zcups LLC, represented in Judge Woods' courtroom by a young couple and their two sons, accuse Home Essentials and Beyond of selling knock off coffee cups with teh same slogans on this, "A Cup of Hope," in violation of trademark and trade dress. But Home Essential's lawyer questioned why their cups didn't have the "TM" or "R" symbol on them, and said that in any event Home Essential was no longer selling these mugs. Judge Woods encouraged settlement, saying that litigation is expensive in light of the total volume of 6000 mugs mis-sold, allegedly. It was agreed the parties would exchange sales information under a confidentiality order, and try to dispense with this cup of bitterness. The case is 1:18-cv-09196-GHW Zpots LLC v. Home Essentials & Beyond, Inc. and, yes, there were not other journalists there but for Inner City Press. A Cup of Exclusives. Also before Judge Woods on January 30 the U.S. Treasury employee accused in October of leaking Suspicious Activity Reports about Paul Manafort and others, Natalie Edwards, pleaded not guilty.

Afterward on Worth Street, Inner City Press asked her lawer Jacob Kaplan of Brafman & Associates about a statement made during the proceeding, that another person's device was also search. Kaplan acknowledged that had been said, adding that he didn't know who it was. Video here, Vine here.  Discovery will begin once a protective order has been negotiated. The next court date is April 2 at 4 pm. The prosecutor, Daniel Richenthal, gave a copy of the Information to some in attendance.

Here's from what was announced in the Complaint in October: "Beginning in approximately October 2017, and lasting until the present, EDWARDS unlawfully disclosed numerous SARs to a reporter (“Reporter-1”), the substance of which were published over the course of approximately 12 articles by a news organization for which Reporter-1 wrote (“News Organization-1”). The illegally disclosed SARs pertained to, among other things, Paul Manafort, Richard Gates, the Russian Embassy, Mariia Butina, and Prevezon Alexander. EDWARDS had access to each of the pertinent SARs and saved them – along with thousands of other files containing sensitive government information – to a flash drive provided to her by FinCEN. She transmitted the SARs to Reporter-1 by means that included taking photographs of them and texting the photographs to Reporter-1 over an encrypted application. In addition to disseminating SARs to Reporter-1, EDWARDS sent Reporter-1 internal FinCEN emails appearing to relate to SARs or other information protected by the BSA, and FinCEN nonpublic memoranda, including Investigative Memos and Intelligence Assessments published by the FinCEN Intelligence Division, which contained confidential personal, business, and/or security threat assessments. At the time of EDWARDS’s arrest, she was in possession of a flash drive appearing to be the flash drive on which she saved the unlawfully disclosed SARs, and a cellphone containing numerous communications over an encrypted application in which she transmitted SARs and other sensitive government information to Reporter-1." We'll have more on this.

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