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Fani Willis must turn over tranche of documents to judge

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:21:35 +0000

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis arrives during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case, Friday, March, 1, 2024, in Atlanta (AP Photo/Alex Slitz, Pool).

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must turn over a tranche of documents for a judge’s inspection in a public records case where her office was found to have repeatedly violated open records laws.

As Law&Crime previously reported, those violations occurred when the prosecutor’s office, in response to open records requests, denied having any documents showing any communications with special counsel Jack Smith or members of the since-defunct House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Late last year, in response to a lawsuit filed by the conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered the district attorney’s office to provide the requested documents and/or explain their continued absence, leaving open the possibility of attorney fees.

Now, after falsely claiming any such records exist for months, and after being assessed a fine of $21,578 in attorneys’ fees and costs, Willis and her office admit there are such documents. The DA is continuing to withhold those documents from the nonprofit on the basis that “they are exempt pursuant” to a section of Georgia law.

Following the default judgment, Judicial Watch asked for a special master to scour the agency’s files for the documents or for the court to conduct an in camera inspection of the documents. Willis, in turn fiercely opposed a special master as “incredibly intrusive.”

“Fani Willis was caught red-handed hiding records by Judicial Watch and the court,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “We’re asking the court to appoint a special master because Willis simply can’t be trusted to come clean.”

During a Friday hearing, McBurney said it was simply far too soon to appoint a special master — but made clear he would not discount the necessity of such a move in the future. Formally, that motion was held in abeyance. The majority of the hearing hashed out how to deal with the forthcoming in camera review of the documents in question.

“I can appoint a special master,” McBurney said — but noted that it would be an expensive undertaking that would be paid for by both sides. And in the interest of economy, the judge said he would take the first stab at surveying the files the DA’s office is refusing to turn over.

The court first sought to determine the general universe of documents.

“If it’s 55 pages, we don’t need a special master, I can do that,” McBurney said. “If it’s 5,550 pages, I’m not looking at 5,500 pages. Well, I will, but I’ll get that done over the next four years. And that’s not helpful to anyone.”

Attorney John Monroe, representing Judicial Watch, said there were entirely different concerns about the number of documents at stake.

“Our big concern is we don’t have any confidence in the universe of documents,” Monroe said. “They responded without doing a search. And then they didn’t even do a search until after the complaint was filed. They don’t have any records of what they searched. They say they didn’t search even the cellphones of the six people that they knew were involved in some communication or dialogue or something with the January 6th Committee.”

The nonprofit’s attorney then put a fine point on his argument.

“And then, when you ordered them to do, I think, what would have amounted to, like, the fifth search, when they previously said they didn’t have any records at all — privileged or otherwise — now they say they have some records that are privileged. It’s just very difficult to have any confidence.”

On top of that, the plaintiff’s attorney added, the DA’s office claims they lack the expertise to use a certain piece of property cellphone-searching technology. On this point, the judge jumped in to agree the prosecutors presumably do, in fact, use that specific technology on “every cellphone they seize from a murder defendant.”

Monroe went on to say two reasons support the appointment of a special master. First, he said a special master would alleviate “the horrible lack of confidence in their searching capabilities or effort that they’re putting into it” and could “provide technological support.” Second, he said appointing a special master would help to monitor compliance with the court’s order ”

“There’s just no way to know that there has been compliance,” Monroe summed up.

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘This court disagrees’: Judge strongly rejects ‘absurd’ and legally baseless effort by Fani Willis to avoid subpoenas for documents and testimony about Trump RICO prosecution

The judge, for his part, was highly sympathetic to the plaintiff’s position — even going so far as to offer a detailed criticism of the way the DA’s office has acted in the case up to this point.

“It’s kind of suspicious that you have no documents,” McBurney said — addressing the DA’s lawyer. “And then no documents because we didn’t search. And we did search and we have no documents. Then everything except what he gave the DA’s office is somehow excepted.”

Attorney Brad Bowman, representing the government, said the DA’s office had uncovered around 212 responsive documents — and conceded there were two instances of documents he thought seemed to be missing something “based on what was provided.”

The DA’s lawyer went on to explain that email accounts were searched, as well as physical files. He added that cellphones were also searched but did not know whether the aforementioned proprietary technology was used to search the phones — and he said that technology, Cellebrite, would be employed if needed.

“We do oppose the special master request,” Bowman said.

The DA’s office now, however, was willing to turn the documents over to the court — but insisted they should not be publicly released.

That answer more or less convinced the judge — for now at least.

The judge said he would issue an order in the near future containing deadlines for the DA’s office to comply. That order, the court said, would also direct the DA’s office to provide a detailed affidavit about how the search was conducted — and an appendix with the search terms used to conduct the search. Before any of that, however, the court anticipated some back-and-forth motions practice about what the affidavit and the appendix would contain.

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The plaintiffs, winning on their request for an in camera review, went on to voice concerns about the sufficiency of that relief.

“I’m troubled by the fact that we’re still leaving the DA’s office to their own devices on how to do the search,” Monroe said. “Especially with the track record.”

The judge signaled, quite volubly, that he was sympathetic to those concerns — but made clear the court was not ready to subject the DA’s office to more invasive measures at present.

“You should continue to be the skeptic and voice that skepticism,” McBurney advised — holding out the idea of a special master down the line. “I remain open to that concept, this is a graduated approach. If I look at the 212 pages and am grossly underwhelmed and it’s just patent that there’s got to be other things out there. Then, we’re done with the DA telling the county attorney: ‘Don’t worry, I got this.’ We’ll bring in the professionals. That will be messy. And, so, I won’t do that lightly … No options are off the table.”

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CNN’s parent company must turn over docs in defamation case

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 00:01:13 +0000

Inset: Zachary Young. Main: A court exhibit highlights the chyron from the Nov. 11, 2021, CNN segment at issue (court documents).

CNN‘s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery must conduct a financial deep dive and then hand relevant information over to a Navy veteran who is suing the network in a high-profile, and potentially high-dollar, defamation case, a judge in Delaware ruled on Friday.

In the event the requested documents do not exist, however, the company must issue a “sworn declaration” to that effect, Delaware Superior Court Judge Lynne M. Parker ruled, Fox News reports.

The ruling may come as something of a double-edged victory for Zachary Young, who is suing CNN over a 2021 segment that aired on “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” In the lawsuit, Young claims the cable news channel falsely painted him as an “illegal profiteer” exploiting “desperate Afghans” with “exorbitant” extraction fees amid the fallout of President Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Young and his attorneys have been trying to get their hands on certain financial documents they claim are relevant to the case for some time but complain that CNN has not been forthcoming with such discovery.

The underlying lawsuit was filed in Bay County, Florida, where 14th Judicial Circuit Court Judge William Henry is overseeing the case.

Young, a U.S. citizen who lives in Austria and is the president of Florida-based corporation Nemex Enterprises, is suing for CNN defamation per se, defamation by implication, group libel and trade libel, claiming that his efforts to save lives in Afghanistan as a security consultant were distorted by “lies published for sensationalism.”

The segment at issue, which aired on Nov. 11, 2021, and featured correspondent Alex Marquardt’s reporting on Tapper’s show, displayed a photo of Young over chyrons that read: “AFGHANS TRYING TO FLEE TALIBAN FACE BLACK MARKETS, EXORBITANT FEES, NO GUARANTEE OF SAFETY OR SUCCESS” and “AFGHANS AND ACTIVISTS REPORT DEMANDS OF $10K-$14K FOR ATTEMPTS TO GET FAMILY MEMBERS OUT OF COUNTRY.”

CNN has since tried and failed to prevent Young from amending his lawsuit to request likely costly punitive damages, failed to keep Tapper from being deposed, failed to prevent the release of embarrassing internal messages, and, relevant now, failed to keep the trial court from signing off on an “expansive” financial spelunking trip.

But the multinational mass media conglomerate, for their part, says the documents Young wants simply do not exist.

“If it doesn’t exist, we can’t be compelled to produce anything,” Jennifer Ying, representing Warner Bros. Discovery, told the judge in Delaware, according to a courtroom report by Fox News.

“We have told them twice now that such information does not exist,” Ying reportedly continued. “They have refused to accept that. We cannot create information that simply does not exist.”

Henry previously issued an order directing CNN to turn over the requested documents — but threw up his hands at the suggestion of directing the network to issue a sworn declaration attesting to the would-be non-existence of the financial statements in question.

The Florida court’s broad ruling, while helpful to the plaintiff, ultimately created a state of limbo in a fast-approaching trial.

Tired of waiting, the plaintiff’s team recently moved up the corporate organization chart — filing a request with the Delaware court because that is where Warner Bros. Discovery is incorporated.

“It’s simply inconceivable that Warner Bros. Discovery is incapable of providing cashflow and balance sheet information for its wholly owned subsidiary,” attorney Joe Delich told Parker. “Warner Bros. Discovery has produced some documents but has not produced any information about cashflow, or any kind of balance sheet information. We know that Warner Bros. Discovery has the ability to do this.”

On Friday, the parent company’s attorney shot back that the latest ask from Young was “premature” because the original subpoena return date had yet to lapse. Ying also complained that the subpoena lacked any mention of cash flow statements and balance sheets.

Parker aimed to cut through the confusion — unintentional or otherwise; essentially instructing both parties to get it together.

She told Young to issue a new, more specific subpoena that explicitly demands both cash flow statements and balance sheets.

“Well, CNN does not have to provide a sworn declaration, but Warner Bros. does,” the Delaware judge said. “You’re going to subpoena Warner Brothers requesting these two specific things, and they’re either going to produce documents or they’re going to give you a sworn declaration that it does not exist.”

The court instructed Young’s team to act fast.

“Issue the subpoena right away,” Parker continued. “They have 20 days from the date of issuance to respond.”

In the underlying lawsuit, Young says he “never advertised to, or took a single penny from, any Afghan, much less ‘exploited’ ‘desperate Afghans,”” that he “certainly never sold any services on a ‘black market,’” and that “[e]verything he did was legal.” But the CNN report “rendered” him “permanently unemployable in the career he has trained his whole life for” and, in turn, cost him millions of dollars.

The complaint includes an on-air correction and apology where CNN says they did not “mean to suggest” Young “participated in the black market,” despite the chyron under his photo on the segment.

The court docket in Florida currently shows two pre-trial hearings scheduled for Nov. 25 and 26. Trial is slated to begin Jan. 6.

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Teens turn opening day at Six Flags Over Georgia into chaos

homesafetytechpros — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 01:33:55 +0000

Opening day at Six Flags Over Georgia turned into mayhem after 500 or 600 teens started brawling. A smaller group of teens allegedly started shooting at cops. (WAGA/YouTube)

Police got into a shootout with several teenagers just outside a Six Flags on Saturday night, injuring a 15-year-old boy.

It happened just after 6 p.m. at the Six Flags Over Georgia in Cobb County. Authorities say about 500 or 600 teenagers began running through the park and brawling near the entrance. Security and Cobb County Police began clearing out the park when a group of teenagers fired shots at cops on a street just outside park property, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a press release. No officers were hit but a bullet struck an unoccupied Cobb County police car.

Officers identified the shots as coming from a wooded area nearby and one cop fired back, striking a 15-year-old boy, authorities said. Cops said they found a gun nearby. Paramedics took the boy to the hospital where he is listed in critical condition. The shots sent people scrambling and many of the teens were picked up by their parents at a nearby Wendy’s. Several videos that showed the chaos and mayhem were posted to social media.

Tiasione Justice lives nearby and talked to local Fox affiliate WAGA.

“It was a real big group of kids. I never seen a group of kids like that outside of high school, you know?” Justice said. “Parents just need to control their kids better, probably, or step in and make sure their kids are doing what they need to be doing.”

It’s not clear if police arrested anyone.

These Six Flags video from last night are crazypic.twitter.com/smEIDPe3p7

— Everything Georgia (@GAFollowers) March 3, 2024

Six Flags released a statement to the media calling the incident disappointing.

Our goal is to provide safe, fun entertainment. We employ state of the art security systems and metal detection, maintain a robust and vigilant Public Safety Department, and have strong support from Cobb County Police who are present both inside and outside the park. Every guest is expected to follow our strict code of conduct and anyone unwilling to follow that code of conduct is unwelcome.

It is incredibly disappointing that our community is disrupted at public events throughout the region by groups of underaged youth. Just like other venues in the area, we are committed to keeping this type of trouble outside our park and off our property. There was police activity involving gunshots; we want to confirm there was no shooting at our property or parking lot. This took place on South Service Road that is not owned or operated by Six Flags. However, we join our community and the Atlanta region in our commitment to safety and security. We won’t put up with that type of activity here.

There were also brawls at last year’s opening day, WAGA reported.

GBI will investigate Saturday night’s shooting and turn in its findings to the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office for review.

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