A judge has denied a request from New York Attorney General Letitia James in her mortgage fraud case, aimed at requiring federal prosecutors to keep track of all their communications with the media.
This motion was filed by defense attorney Abby Rowell after reports surfaced indicating that U.S. Attorney Lindsey Harrigan had lodged a complaint about James being indicted for bank fraud and false statements. The complaint suggested there was a lot of encrypted communication via Signal regarding this matter.
U.S. District Judge Jamar Walker, in his six-page order, stated, “Defendants have not demonstrated that a court must compel the government to monitor any particular kind of communication with the media.” He ultimately denied the request for the preservation of communication records from the government.
Walker described a Signal chat between Harrigan and a reporter as “unusual,” but did not comment on any legal or ethical concerns surrounding it.
While he emphasized that prosecutors need to follow all court rules, he did not imply that any were specifically violated. He also issued a “suspension of litigation” to halt the potential deletion or destruction of records associated with the ongoing case.
Interestingly, Harrigan’s signal message to the reporter was set to disappear after eight hours. The judge didn’t determine whether Harrigan’s message—which questioned a New York Times report alleging that James’s grandniece had told a grand jury she hadn’t paid rent on a property central to the case—needed to be preserved under discovery rules.
“The court does not think that the evidence preservation regarding government communications requires keeping it in any specific format,” Walker remarked. He reiterated that the defendants hadn’t sufficiently shown the necessity for preserving those records.
“I trust that both sides will adhere to this order without needing extensive supervision,” he added.
In response to James’ motion, federal prosecutors requested a gag order against Walker, but he turned that down as well.
Last week, James pleaded not guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution. The indictment claims she bought a three-bedroom house in Norfolk, Virginia, for $109,600 in August 2020, benefiting from better mortgage terms and saving nearly $19,000.
However, prosecutors allege that the house was not used by James but was instead utilized as a rental investment property for her grandniece, Nakia Thompson. If convicted on both counts, James could face as much as 60 years in prison and a fine up to $2 million.
