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  • Court Watch #106: We Lied. But for America.

Court Watch #106: We Lied. But for America.

A Virginia man, William Smith, was charged with trying to kill a bald eagle. We simply couldn’t ignore that. Plus: Capital One CEO Threatened, Coupon Cutting, Abortion Threats, & Blake Lively Court Record

Welcome to Court Watch #106. This newsletter wasn’t supposed to happen. We told you we took this week off. But it is the quiet weeks when the courts close for a few days that are usually the most interesting. So we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to take a quick scan of the filings with a stiff glass of eggnog in hand. What we found included jury tampering, fake medical gloves, a bank CEO being threatened, a billion dollars laundered, NFT scams, a wildlife foundation that made a million dollars, Serena Woodsen has receipts, and an ongoing back and forth over a defamation case involving the President-elect. There’s also other stuff. But first, let’s talk about birds. 

Specifically, our nation’s bird. The majestic bald eagle lives in American folklore, soaring through the sky to bring freedom, justice, and the American way to all that are fortunate enough to witness its unimaginable beauty. Since 1782, the bald eagle has been the congressional approved nation’s symbol of flight. This week, it officially became the U.S. national bird. It has also had a rough go of it, being the first animal listed in the Endangered Species Act in the early 1960s. Americans may fight over whether a dress is blue or gold (editor’s note: it’s clearly blue), but we are united in our love of our ‘hairless’ wonder. 

There are very few things that bring a fractured nation together like our love of flying freedom. Which is why when we saw a rare federal charge of 16 U.S.C. 668 on the Eastern District of Virginia’s docket, we stopped wrapping presents, sat up, and took notice.

Authorities have charged a 73 year old man Virginia man, William Custis Smith, with trying to kill a bald eagle. The criminal information, which is short on details, says that last year Smith used the “pesticide carbofuran to lace fish carcasses and placed them on his property with the intent to bait and kill a Bald Eagle.” Court documents also say he bludgeoned to death a Red-Tail Hawk for good measure. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia declined to comment. We sincerely apologize to the flack for bothering him on the holiday break. Efforts to reach Smith, who is representing himself, were unsuccessful. Smith’s initial court appearance is set for January 10, 2025. 

The Docket Roundup

  • A Florida woman was convicted of spray painting “If abortions aren’t safe than niether [sic] are you” on a pregnancy center. 

  • The father of a doctor accused of prescribing over half a million opioid pills was charged with jury tampering for allegedly following a juror of his son’s trial out of the courthouse during the lunch break and encouraging him to “show some compassion.”

  • A Virginia School Board is suing a parent for suing the Virginia school board. The Richmond Times-Review had an interview with the family about the original lawsuit a few months back.

  • The lawyers for a man accused of murdering three people in Maryland because of their race are looking to subpoena the FBI for testimony regarding whether one of the deceased victims was under investigation for association with MS-13. 

  • For long-time readers of Court Watch – like issue #10 long time readers you may be familiar with the story of a family that Amazon inexplicitly decided to make its legal punching bag. After getting most of Amazon’s civil case dismissed, that same family is punching back and has filed their own lawsuit against Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and many others at the online retailer alleging any number of things, including that “Amazon, relying entirely on the false report, leveraged its significant contacts with the U.S. Department of Justice to initiate a criminal investigation of Northstar, Mr. Watson, and others”

  • A Kansas father whose son was killed in a work-related accident was charged with threatening to murder employees of the company, allegedly saying on YouTube, "I'm about to go after those in the company that murdered my son at work. OSHA said the company knowingly and willfully kill my son. Now I'm going to kill them."

  • Apple is being sued for purportedly allowing a cryptocurrency pig-butchering scam app on their ‘app store.’

  • Blake Lively has receipts

  • An update from our Tuesday story about the man who tipped off law enforcement to the soldier interested in child exploit images and was then arrested for the same charge. A (bald) eagle-eyed Court Watch subscriber found the ‘airman’ in Alaska. 

  • Given that more than five hundred (!) DOJ folks opened that story on Christmas Eve, we were interested if the Justice Department also did other things to avoid their loved ones during the holidays besides reading us. So we checked. There were a mere 6 criminal cases filed on Christmas Day in the federal courts. All immigration-related charges, none of them particularly newsworthy. All told for the lawyer community, there were only 78 new federal civil and criminal cases around the country initiated on December 25th, this included a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for the death of a California homeless man who was shot by a deputy.

  • You could have read this here first or waited six days later for a DOJ press release. Your call.

  • If you’ve been enthralled by coupon-cutting scam documentaries/movies on Netflix and court documents that haven’t been reported on before, we have a new indictment for you.

  • An Illinois smoke shop is suing the cops, saying law enforcement relied on a faulty weed testing system.

  • A Missouri man was indicted for threatening staff of the St. Louis NAACP.

  • Authorities say a postal worker has been secretly stealing rent checks in Queens. Which seems a bit small-ball compared to the California case involving a postal worker who allegedly went to Turks and Caicos using credit cards stolen on his delivery route.

  • A Texas sock company that bought millions of dollars of surgical gloves during COVID is suing the supplier, saying they weren’t actually medical grade quality.

  • The ‘Central Park Five’ are pushing back on President-elect Trump’s motion to dismiss their defamation lawsuit.

  • This holiday break, take some time to read the intimate details of Romanian transnational crime organization scams. 

  • A lawyer would appreciate the judge’s thoughts on how to bend space and time.

  • A Baptist church in Georgia wants to control a radio tower.

  • The Justice Department lays out the case of how an Iranian government operative tracked and then murdered an American in Iraq.

  • Former Bureau of Prison employees were convicted for not helping an inmate who was exhibiting signs of distress. The inmate later died due to their neglect.

  • Our NCITE colleagues had a fascinating piece about the legal blind spot involving Incels and Qanon arrestees.

  • Take a cross-country road trip with us as the cops follow 300,000 dollars.

  • It took eight years to collect 8 million dollars but a seizure notice in Missouri traces back to public corruption in Venezuela. 

  • A pharmaceutical executive was charged with insider trading to the tune of 38 million dollars.

  • There’s a new superseding indictment against a dual Russian Israeli citizen who allegedly ran ‘Lockbit’ which DOJ says “was once the world’s most destructive ransomware group.”

  • The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation made more than a million dollars this week. 

  • The “largest network of legal process servers” got hacked and then sued. We’re at a loss on who one hires in this scenario to serve the complaint to the company.

  • California law enforcement jumped on the dark web to track down an alleged drug dealer whose product purportedly caused the overdose death of a 17 year old.

  • Turns out you can’t lose 90 million dollars and not explain how which may be news to every Wall Street bank selling sub-prime mortgages in the 2007.

  • The FBI arrested a Texas man who allegedly threatened to kill the CEO of Capital One after the company sought to recoup 500 dollars from him. In the email to the company, the man says allegedly “This debt is not valid, paid capital one several times for this same account. Call me before show up to one of their locations with a machete and gasoline.”

  • A Florida man has admitted to attacking an energy facility due to its perceived support of Israel.

  • There’s run of the mill carjacking and then there’s convoluted carjacking.

  • T.D. Bank laundered 1.8 billion, with a b, dollars and paid the U.S. Government about that amount in fines. It received a 20 percent discount on the fine for being cooperative after DOJ found them out. As a general rule, we also always tell the truth after being shown irrefutable evidence of our deception. We’re glad there’s a reward for that. 

  • A Chinese national was arrested at a tradeshow in Las Vegas for selling pill press equipment that could be used to make fentanyl. 

  • The DOJ thinks Kabbage, Inc., a now-bankrupt company that approved 7 billion in PPP loans, systematically over-calculated their taxes and payroll costs to receive greater loans.

  • Authorities say a Florida man who made bomb threats in the name of ISIS in 2019 is back at, but this time for al Qaeda. It’s tough to decide which designated foreign terrorist organization to materially support.

  • Two men from California were arrested for allegedly operating a 22.4 million dollar NFT scam. 

  • SDNY prosecutors unsealed a 2013 filing to keep 105 million dollars turned over by PartyGaming, an internet gambling company that the DOJ says operated illegally in the U.S. from 1997 to 2006, as part of a non-prosecution agreement.

  • A Rhode Island man who set fire to a black church is set to plead guilty in the new year.

  • We learned this week that buying stocks from a company allegedly evading Russian sanctions wasn’t a good use of your money.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you next week, even if we say we won’t. 

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