| Warrant to Seize
M/T Skipper Still Sealed 10 Days
After Judge Order Inner City
Press Finds
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
FEDERAL
COURT,
Dec 22 – Following the seizure
of the M/T Skipper after it
left Venezuela on Decmeber 10,
on December 12 U.S. District
Court for the District of
Colombia Magistrate Judge Zia
M. Faruqui signed an order
unsealing his authorization of
the seizure, as
25-sz-50.
But when
Inner City Press, covering the
cases, sought out the case on
PACER on the morning of
December 13, it was still
listed as "25-sz-50 SEALED v.
SEALED; Case is not available
to the
public."
Figuring from the
number that there must be at
least 49 earlier seizure order
in 2025, Inner City Press
checked them one by one. Only
four were not sealed: one
involving SpaceX, others
involving domains uses for
cryptocurrency
scams. But what
about the other 45
cases?
Inner City
Press, which often
successfully makes such
requests in the U.S. District
Court for the Southern
District of New York, and now
in the NYS Supreme Criminal
Court unsealing exhibits in
the Luigi Mangione case, on
the morning of December 13
filed with Judge Faruqui, with
a copy to the AUSA on one of
the four unsealed cases.
But on the
morning of December 22, the
promised-to-be-unsealed M/T
Skipper order was still
sealed; now there are 25-sz-51
to 56 orders, all sealed,
along with the other 45 orders
still sealed.
Inner City Press
has written to Judge Faruqui,
and the AUSA, a second time:
..."A public
explanation, including in
light of other current
controversies about failures
to complete unseal, is
needed.
"Like nine
days ago, I went back and
checked sz cases 25-sz-1 to
25-sz-50 and found that only
four (five including M/T
Skipper which I assume will
soon actually be unsealed) of
the fifty are available. All
the others are still sealed -
nothing has
changed.
"There are
also 25-sz-51 through 25-sz-56
which are sealed -- it is
unclear which of these
involves the Bella 1 - so
Inner City Press' unsealing
request applies to those as
well."
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