Kontogiannis Transcripts. The judge hearing the government's request that Kontogiannis' guilty plea be kept sealed asserts that his understanding from the government is that opening Kontogiannis' guilty plea would lead people to "assume he is cooperating with the government and he is going to be untouchable, and that creates personal danger to him as well as, I'm told, the agents who have been working with him." (p. 13). Kontogiannis' own lawyer earlier describes himself as a former assistant U.S. attorney in New York who specialized in organized crime cases (p. 11). Is it increasingly plausible that Kontogiannis is an FBI asset, working as an informant on organized crime cases that, post 9/11, may have assumed some counterterrorism applications? Note this remark from Kontogiannis' lawyer: "Both the Southern District of California and Eastern District of New York routinely have closure in plea proceedings and such cases. And the heightened concern in the context of counter-terrorism has given even greater compelling force to basis for seeking closure under the circumstances" (pp. 11-12). Also note that the request for the transcripts to be sealed was relayed by the US attorney's office in San Diego but was originally from another US attorney's office - which one is redacted, but presumably the one for the Eastern District of New York. More from Spencer, and background from me here, here, here, here, and here.

Posted by Laura at August 31, 2007 09:54 AM