| Defendant Fired Wilkie Farr
For Pushing Guilty Plea Gets Kaplan Hecker and
Oct 30 Deadline
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- The
Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Sept 3 – A man identified as
Tafari Gordon was arrested in
December 2019 and charged with
having $7,000 cash to buy
drugs.
On July
31, 2020 the man wrote to
assigned Judge Alison J.
Nathan of the U.S. District
Court for the Southern
District of New York -- as
RasTafari Bey. He wanted to
fire his assigned lawyer and
represent himself.
On August
25 Judge Nathan held a
proceeding. Inner City Press
covered it.
The
defendant said his assigned
lawyer, Michael S. Schachter
from the Wilkie Farr firm, had
been pressuring him to plead
guilty since he first got the
case. So he wanted to go it
alone.
His letter
asserts he is not subject to
U.S. courts' jurisdiction,
citing the "Moorish National
Republic Federal Governemnt
Northwest Africa" and cc-ing
Michael Pompeo.
Judge Nathan
explained that such issues
will not be presented to a
jury. She urged him to
consider taking on another
lawyer.
But she agreed to
schedule a so-called Faretta
hearing. Schachter said he
couldn't make the chosen time,
due to a medical appointment.
So another time was chosen.
And on that day,
September 3, Jenna Dabbs of
Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP
was swapped in for Schachter
and the following schedule was
set: on or before October 30,
2020 the parties shall submit
an agreed upon 1-2 paragraph
description of the case to be
read to potential jurors." But
when will jurors return?
The case is still
called US v. Gordon, 20-cr-54
(Nathan)
***
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