Judge
Told DOJ to
Make Exhibits
Public During
Sealed Trial
Now Still
Resists so
Press Opposes
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Feb 13 – For a criminal trial
in January 2026 the US
Attorney's Office asked U.S.
District Court for the
Southern District of New York
Judge Jessica G.L. Clarke to
seal the courtroom for a main
witness. She did, and Inner
City Press which was covering
or trying to cover the trial
was told
Judge Clarke has
aordered that the Government
would make the daily
transcript of the UC’s
testimony available to the
public through the court
reporter’s office and publish
redacted versions of the
exhibits, including the Buy
Videos, to the public.
Inner City Press immediately -
January 29 - asked the Office
for the exhibits. Nothing. The
exhibits were not shown in the
audio-only room. The trial
ended, in a guilty verdict.
Still no exhibits.
On February 13,
after Judge Clarke had ordered
the Office to explain by
February 20, the AUSA filed a
letter blaming Inner City
Press, saying darkly that it
reports on cooperating
witnesses - in open court -
and that it might publish the
exhibits if provided. Well,
yes, as we've done for exampel
in an EDNY case before Judge
Komitee, here.
And on reporting
on cooperating witnesses in
open court, the reference, it
seems, is to Inner City Press
reporting what a cooperating
witness in US v. Kevin Perez /
Kay Flock(23-cr-99-LJL) said,
such that the witness' sister
who read Inner City Press came
the next day to testify the
from what she'd read, her
brother was lying. Apparently
the Office didn't like that,
but its witness' testimony was
in open court.
Or perhaps
the unveiled anti-Press
reference is to a recent
guilty plea the Office moved
from the Magistrates Court in
5A to another courtroom,
apparently hoping that a
proceeding required to be held
in "open" court would in fact
be noticed and covered by no
one. Open courts are not a
game.
Inner City
Press immediately filed
opposition into the docket, here.
Watch this site.
The case is USA v.
Conyers, et al., 1:23-cr-457
(Clarke)
***
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