New York
Ex-judge rejects free speech defense in Project Veritas case
NEW YORK (AP) — The First Amendment protection for journalists should not keep prosecutors from seeing most evidence gathered in a probe of people connected to conservative group Project Veritas, a former federal judge appointed to the case said in a report Tuesday.
Barbara Jones told U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres that she recommends letting prosecutors view most of the 1,000-plus documents gathered through search warrants for a probe into how the group received a diary purported to belong to President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden.
Neither Project Veritas nor any of its staffers have been charged with a crime. The group says its activities were newsgathering and were ethical and legal.
Jones, who formerly served as a federal judge in Manhattan, acknowledged that courts have long recognized a qualified evidentiary privilege for information gathered during a journalistic investigation.
But she wrote that the privilege is not absolute and that it offers the greatest protection when the information is gathered from confidential sources.
Jones said she rejected the argument that crimes described in a search warrant were not crimes because those under investigation were protected by the First Amendment and journalistic privilege. The warrant said possible crimes include conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines, interstate transportation of stolen property and possession of stolen goods.
She said previous court cases describing protections afforded to journalistic entities do “not suggest that people are free to commit unlawful acts simply because they are journalists.”
Jones also rejected an argument that the government had acted in bad faith. She said the materials were seized with judicially authorized warrants demonstrating that investigators had probable cause that crimes were committed.
The report from Jones comes more than six months after two Florida residents pleaded guilty to charges, admitting roles in trying to sell the diary and other items stolen from Joe Biden’s daughter to Project Veritas for $40,000.
In court papers, prosecutors have said that Ashley Biden was moving out of a friend’s Delray Beach, Florida, home in spring 2020 when she stored the diary and other belongings there.
A Project Veritas staffer soon flew to Florida and shipped the items to New York as the group paid the two Florida residents $20,000 apiece, prosecutors said.
Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe has said Project Veritas ultimately could not confirm that the diary belonged to Ashley Biden. The group did not publish information from it.
Last month, O’Keefe said in a speech posted online that he has been removed as the group’s leader.
Project Veritas identifies itself as a news organization. It is best known for conducting hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians.
Lawyers in the case did not return messages seeking comment.
Minnesota
Lead Derek Chauvin prosecutor appointed to be state judge
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — One of the state’s lead prosecutors who helped convict Derek Chauvin of murder in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd has been appointed as a judge in Hennepin County, Minnesota’s governor announced Tuesday.
Gov. Tim Walz said Matt Frank “will be a remarkable judge who will approach this position with the understanding that justice is a process, not a result.”
Frank is an experienced attorney with the state Attorney General’s Office, and he helped lead the state’s prosecution of Chauvin and three other former Minneapolis police officers who were charged in Floyd’s killing.
Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter and sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. He later pleaded guilty to a federal count of violating Floyd’s rights and was sentenced to 21 years on that count, to be served concurrently.
Frank also helped broker guilty pleas for two other former officers on charges of aiding and abetting manslaughter. A fourth former officer has decided to let a judge determine his fate.
He is also known for winning a guilty plea in the case of Lois Riess, a Minnesota woman who became notorious for killing her husband in 2018, then killing a woman in Florida and assuming her identity before she was captured.
Frank is the second member of the Chauvin prosecution team to be named as a judge. In December, the U.S. Senate confirmed Jerry Blackwell as a federal judge in Minnesota.
Missouri
Attorney seen on video groping clients avoids disbarment
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court decided Tuesday not to disbar a defense attorney, who was caught on video groping six clients in a jail interview room, in a courthouse and while behind the wheel.
The 4-3 ruling to indefinitely suspend 86-year-old Dan Purdy will allow him to apply for reinstatement after a year, The Kansas City Star reports. A disciplinary hearing panel had recommended disbarment for the attorney, and Judge Zel Fischer blasted the majority’s decision in his dissent.
“There may have been a time when a temporary suspension was an adequate punishment for sexually assaulting or harassing a client, vulnerable or otherwise,” Fischer wrote. “But,” he added, “in my view, that time is long gone.”
In the majority ruling, Judge George Draper acknowledged Purdy, who is based in Osceola, Missouri, had committed the assaults and severely faulted him for his conduct.
Video provided by the Vernon County Sheriff’s Office showed Purdy making sexual advances in September 2020 toward four women in a jail interview room. The women later told officers that the touching and kissing was unwanted.
In March 2021, he was seen on video touching a clients’ buttocks in a St. Clair County courtroom, although the client said in an affidavit that she believed Purdy didn’t touch her inappropriately, according to the opinion.
Later that year, a client used her phone to record Purdy reach across the seat and touch her breast under her blouse as he was driving her in his vehicle. That client said the sexual contact was unwanted, the opinion said.
No one answered the phone Tuesday at Purdy’s law office and the voice mailbox was full.
Draper wrote that Purdy, whose law license had already been suspended on an interim basis since December 2021, “fails to grasp the severity of his conduct or these charges.”
But Draper added that the discipline is consistent with what the court has issued in response to past sexual misconduct by lawyers. And he noted the discipline is more severe than Purdy’s request that the court allow him to apply for reinstatement after six months.
In his dissent, Fischer wrote that age shouldn’t be taken into consideration when determining appropriate punishment. The decision, Fischer said, made him “deeply distressed.”
