| Defendant Fired Wilkie Farr
For Pushing Plea Now Pleads Guilty With Eye on
Safety Valve
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- The
Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Dec 1 – 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, below.
Now on
December 1, Tafari Gordon has
pleaded guilty, with the
prospect of a safety value
proffer before his sentencing
on March 11. The allocution
ran into problems on the issue
of what Gordon thought when he
agreed to transport his
co-defendant. After conferred
in a private (virtual) room,
Gordon returned and answered
to the US Attorney's Office's
satisfaction.
The
proceeding also had issues: It
began on Skype with video and
then moved to AT&T, audio
only. While no notice was put
into the docket - perhaps this
should be foreseen - Inner
City Press followed along.
Judge Nathan is overseeing
among others US v. Nejad, and
US v. Ghislaine Maxwell. She
takes all cases seriously.
Back on
August 25 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 by December 1 the guilty
plea followed.
The case is
definitely called US v.
Gordon, 20-cr-54 (Nathan)
***
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