Court Watch #110: TikTok’s Burning Man

In partnership with

Welcome to Court Watch #110. Every reporter who has to file daily will tell you that they have no recollection of the contours and subjects of a story they wrote six months ago. The more seasoned, cynical, and honest reporters will move that file-and-forget timeline to less than a week. It’s the unfortunate nature of the business. News comes in, you report it, and then you move on to the next story before your bosses lay you off to pivot to vertical video news reporting or some other stupid ‘next big media thing’ that won’t work.  

Case in point on forgetfulness, when we wrote up this ISIS sentencing story last month, we did a quick Google search and realized we actually broke the initial arrest for Rolling Stone three years ago. Admittedly, that came as a surprise to us. 

There’s an immediate push to cover a new criminal charge when it lands, but little interest by reporters, editors – and to be fair – readers, to keep tracking it after the initial story. We’re guilty of that too. So before we get into explosive license plates, Russian bomb makers, TikTok arsons, NewsMax lawsuit, and the Proud Boy’s lawyer getting a new job all in this week’s dockets, we thought it prudent to give you an update on a few of our past stories. So with no particular rhyme or reason as to why we picked these five court dockets, here’s an update on our previous stories:

• Militia: Last February, a Tennessee man, Paul Faye, was accused of planning to kill migrants at the southern border as part of a militia plot. Reporting at the time stated that the man had communicated with two other individuals, who would later be found guilty of shooting at FBI agents. It made national news and every major paper covered it. Though every national and local reporter seemed to forget about it immediately after filing. Two weeks ago, Paul Faye pled guilty to six charges involving the possession of an unregistered firearm, specifically two suppressors and a short-barreled shotgun. Calling it an “exceedingly rare case where law enforcement intercepted an individual who joined two separate conspiracies to commit violence at the border targeting law enforcement”, prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Faye to 42 months. His defense attorney requested time served (13 months). Ultimately, a federal judge sentenced Faye to 20 months. 

• Coaching Copyright: Football Coach legend Lane Kiffin was sued over a tweet. Last month, he successfully won a motion to dismiss the lawsuit and is currently asking the court to force the man who sued him to cover the coach’s legal fees.

• Mass Shooting: A Texas man who was arrested for threatening a mass shooting after purchasing a gun pleaded guilty last week. A bond hearing is scheduled for later this afternoon, and sentencing is set for late April. 

• FBI Standoff: A Washington woman who pointed a gun at her chest during a standoff at an FBI field office pleaded guilty to a gun charge a day after Christmas. She’ll be sentenced in March.

• Both Sides: The former Technical Director for the Department of Defense’s Joint Staff J6 who was accused of being paid by a large military contractor to recommend their products while working for the government admitted to said conduct two weeks ago. The contractor company has ignored multiple requests for comment from Court Watch, but their comms team did subscribe to Court Watch. (editor’s note: hi guys!)

And with that, out with the old news and in with the new. Here’s a roundup of everything that was worth reading in this week’s federal court dockets. 

The Docket Roundup

• A Russian national in Philadelphia was charged with manufacturing a bomb.

• An Intelligence Community contractor is suing former employees, alleging that they stole their proprietary information and tried to undercut their existing contracts.

• A CEO and his wife/general counsel for a venture capital fund were sued by the SEC for purportedly making up PriceWaterHouseCoopers audits, banks statements, and stiffing multiple major sports teams out of millions. Before being fired, the company had 37 cents in their bank account. Awks, Yankees. 

• There’s drama in the legal e-discovery world. 

• Alleged gang leaders continue to find the only reason to use cryptocurrency. That seemed unfair to cryptocurrency advocates. You can also use the payment method to trick people on Bumble. 

• An Ivory Coast man was charged as part of a sextortion scheme that resulted in the death of a North Dakota teenager. 

• Medicare just casually giving out millions to a company that barely exists and checking in on it a bit later.

• Pro Se filings are a wild ride.

• In a civil court filing, an Arizona man asked the court for permission to attempt to assassinate the President. He was quickly arrested for a criminal charge.

• An alleged stalker of a minor was tracked down by law enforcement asking Amazon for all the purchase orders of a shirt.

• The State of Illinois forgot to include an email address in an arcane court filing requirement, which had the potential of resulting in not being allowed to argue that President Trump’s birthright executive order was unconstitutional.

• In what could be the worst coincidence ever, a man charged with a bomb hoax would very much like to exclude the fact that he bought a motorcycle with the license plate “KAA8OM”. As the defense attorney tries to argue, “This license plate is also most likely a reflection of the excitement and adrenaline associated with motorcycles, as opposed to any reference to bombs.”

• A former rebel general in Liberia pled guilty to lying on his application for a green card by not disclosing his involvement two decades ago in Liberia’s brutal civil war. Prosecutors said the ex-rebel was living in New Jersey and had applied to be a home healthcare aide before his arrest.

• The FBI “inadvertently missed sending an administrative notice” after getting a year-long extension to not have to do so. 

• Imagine catching a charge because you had no online chill for like nine hours.

• The Music Industry is fighting amongst themselves.

• A hacker who ran BreachForum had his sentence vacated on appeal. Writing in an opinion, the judges found “that the district court’s reliance on only Fitzpatrick’s personal history and characteristics constituted just such an abuse of discretion. The district court failed to impose a sentence that accounted for the severity of Fitzpatrick’s offenses, the need to punish and provide respect for the law, the need to adequately deter criminal conduct, and the need to protect the public from further crimes. Simply put, a 17-day sentence does not fulfill those required sentencing purposes and therefore was substantively unreasonable.”

• It took exactly two minutes and thirty-eight seconds into the new administration before a lawsuit against DOGE and President Trump hit the docket.

• Turns out, we used to believe in the inherent goodness of humanity until we discovered PACER. 

• The FBI is still on the money train seizing funds stolen by North Korean-sponsored hackers.

• A tourist from Missouri was indicted for arson in Puerto Rico after she allegedly lit a fire that burned down a hotel, a restaurant, a bar, and a store.

• A child exploit case hinges on how shareable the cloud service was.

• Be still our heart. After twenty-five years, a federal judge proactively decided to unseal a docket. 

• An Oregon man was charged with interstate threats after his purported phone calls to the caseworker on his child support case led the building that houses the entire Oregon Department of Justice to go on lockdown for two days.

• There’s a Tinder crypto scam case. Because of course there is.

• Law enforcement broke up what they called the “largest COVID tax credit fraud” in history.

• The former CIA analyst who photographed Israeli military strategy documents and sent them to Iran pleaded guilty. He will be sentenced in May and faces up to twenty years in prison.

• A soldier in charge of “enforcing the Army’s Honor Code and Standards of Conduct” was indicted for alleged PPP fraud.

• Online fundraising platform Givebutter is suing Zeffy over its negative ad campaign, which the lawsuit states featured a dissatisfied yet ultimately disingenuous former Givebutter user. Givebutter’s attorneys said they tracked down the customer based on her website and found she never contacted Givebutter customer service, despite Zeffy’s claims.

• A former finance minister of Mozambique, sixty-nine-year-old Manuel Chang, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for his role in a 2 billion dollar money laundering and bribery ring.

• Future White House lawyer Stanley Woodward withdrew from representing the Proud Boys.

• If you invested in a cannabis-infused coffee, you probably have a bad high.

• The feds want fifty grand from the bank account of a company, “Gracious Strands,” in Michigan that got nearly three hundred thousand dollars in PPP loans but purportedly does not exist.

• DOJ’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section clawed back another $20 million taken from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), bringing the total returned to Malaysia to $1.4 billion. 

• A small-town Texas mayor calling the police when she unexpectedly found 1/8th ounce of weed in her guest bedroom is by far our favorite story of the week.

• Conservative cable news operator, Newsmax, is suing a YouTuber saying they upload all of its coverage online.

• A man allegedly stole $1.4 million from investors he had reportedly promised to purchase and resell Brazilian sugar at a 100% rate of return in Ghana.

Thanks for reading. A final note, we’re playing around a bit with our website design. Our latest version with our new color scheme is now live. Unfortunately, unlike past subjects of our reporting, graphic design is not our passion. But we hope to continue to make your Court Watch web experience at least slightly better than PACER. We set the bar low to manage your expectations with the hope that then you’ll be pleasantly surprised that our site actually works, unlike PACER.

Start 2025 with a new, auto-updating portfolio

A new year is the perfect time for a fresh start. Authory helps you hit the ground running with a portfolio that updates itself every time you publish an article, no matter where.

No more tedious updates or worrying about losing your work due to site shutdowns.

Show off your writing with confidence, knowing everything is backed up and ready to share.

Make 2025 the year you automate your workflow, and shine as a writer.

Get started with your free portfolio today