| Amid Ship Seizures 45 of 50
Cases Sealed in DDC So Inner City
Press Asks Judge To Unseal
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
FEDERAL
COURT,
Dec 13 – 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:
Dear Judge
Faruqui: ....This is a
Press request to unseal the
other seizure cases, or at
least as many of them as are
no longer justifiably sealed.
If the seizure warrants have
been executed, the cases
should be unsealed - going
forward, without the necessity
of case by case requests by
the Press or public. I am
cc-ing counsel in 1 of the 4
unsealed cases.
It is
impossible to know what these
other 45 seizure orders this
year are about. For that
reason, this is a blanket
request, to you or if
necessary the other Magistrate
Judges to which the cases are
assigned. (Since the cases are
still sealed we cannot know
which Judges, and don't wish
to gum up the works with
identical letters to all
Magistrates as appropriate, or
indicate how to
proceed).
In SDNY, I often file letter
requests for unsealing (with
some success), and appeal
where necessary. See, e.g.,
Lee v. Greenwood, 145 F.4th
248, No. 23-7432-cr, 2025 WL
2101302, at *2 (2d Cir. July
28, 2025). This
request to unseal should be
granted, and/or a virtual
hearing set.
Watch this site
***
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