WEBVTT - Stop Cop City vs RICO ft Moira Meltzer-Cohen 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:11.080 Als media, Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.040 This is going to be another episode in which we're 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:18.880 discussing the Defend the Forest and Stop Copcity movement in Atlanta, Georgia. 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.200 This struggle has always tied together a lot of the 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.960 aspects that we focus on on this show, between the 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:33.040 collapsing climate, political escalation, and how everything just feels like 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:36.440 it's kind of getting worse. But through that there's people 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:43.000 who respond to this crisis of neoliberalism and band together 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:44.960 and figure out how to sort through all of this 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.880 shit and all that is continuing as the City of 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:52.760 Atlanta and State of Georgia unveil new state repression tactics 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.440 to chill any resistance to the construction of this ninety 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.600 million dollar police training facility that we have covered in 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.959 depth in this show the past few years. A few 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.959 months ago there was another three part series about the 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.720 sixth Week of Action in June, but new things have 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.720 happened since then. The referendum has been submitted to that 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.240 is all in process, but the same day construction was 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.560 scheduled to begin, the State of Georgia indicted sixty one 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.759 people on rico charges, RICO is an acronym referring to 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:29.839 the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This specific act 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:34.720 is meant to legally target organizations, and organizations can relate 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:39.520 to anything between you know, traditional incorporated organizations or something 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.760 as loose as like a pickup basketball team, which is 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.039 how the state is able to paint whole communities of 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.520 people who are just connected by similar values as being 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:54.080 a quote unquote organization. The RICO Act, in practice is 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.800 basically a way to criminalize a whole community. Now I'm 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.760 not a lawyer, but I do know lawyer. So for 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.720 this episode, I brought on Mo Cohen, a lawyer specializing 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:08.120 in state repression. So, without further ado, here is my 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.760 conversation with them. Mo, Hello, thank you for joining me today. 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:14.640 No grab them, It's my pleasure. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.880 So in late August, the Fulton County District Attorney and 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:22.519 other kind of legal entities with the State of Georgia 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.200 unveiled a whole bunch of RICO charges against I believe 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.240 sixty one people relating to the Stop Coop City quote 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:35.480 unquote movement. It's part of like like I said, it's 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.959 an ongoing kind of campaign of repression that we've talked 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.119 about pretty in depth before. But before we get into 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:43.960 the actual like rico charges, I first want to kind 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:48.320 of talk about the raid that happened against the Atlanta 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.480 Solidarity Fund earlier this year, and a whole bunch of 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.880 like financial crime charges that they've been trying to use 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.639 to suppress the bail fund organizing. I think we've talked 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:00.840 about this kind of briefly on the show before, but 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.840 we've never really gotten very much in depth about it, 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.919 and from my perspective, a lot of these reco charges 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.920 are very much related to the depression of the Solidarity 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:15.040 Fund mode. I assume you're familiar with the Solidarity Fund 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:20.560 raid and the charges against against the Network for Strong Communities. 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.440 I am, Yeah. Do I talk a little bit about 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.079 that event. I think that happened in May of this year, 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.880 I believe, so. 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:38.520 It wasn't a huge surprise. It wasn't, in my opinion, 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:44.760 a very well grounded or legally warranted indictment. Yeah, and 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:48.920 certainly the way that the way that law enforcement went 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:53.080 in to retrieve those three people who were indicted was 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:58.040 a little extra particularly given the nature of the allegations. 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.960 I think people who are accused of financial crimes don't 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:05.600 typically get taken out with a swat team. But I 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.840 don't think it was a huge surprise that the district 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:17.320 attorney brought those charges because this kind of reco indictment 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:24.719 was anticipated, and those kinds of financial charges or allegations 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:30.160 of financial misconduct are sort of the predicate for bringing 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.320 this kind of sweeping rego indictment. 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:36.440 Yeah, And I think like in like the weeks and 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.159 months prior to the swat raid against the Solidarity Fund 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:44.560 in May, people at the Solidarity Fund were basically warning 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.919 that they were they were like suspecting that they would 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.520 that there would be some form of reco charges used 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.320 against the movement, and everyone was kind of like preparing 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.719 for that. That was definite. Was definitely talked about as like 0:04:55.760 --> 0:05:00.440 as a potential like a tactic of of suppression. You 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:02.560 know when you say that the types of like financial 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.960 crime like fraud charges that that were brought against this 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.880 the Sole Fund people, how they seem kind of unwarranted. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.360 That is something that the judge in the bond hearing 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:15.520 kind of agreed with. 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:18.040 The judge was unimpressed. 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.200 Yes that I I I listened to the I listened 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.400 to the hearing, and the judge is very skeptical of 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.600 the prosecution's claims and basically told the prosecution like, if 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:31.839 you like actually want this to like succeed like in 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.840 actual like court, you know, once once this progresses, you're 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.000 you're gonna have to have a much much stronger case 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.159 because this all seems kind of like nonsense. But you 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.280 know that that didn't stop the prosecutors and the I 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:47.719 believe it's the Attorney General Office as well of Georgia 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:52.080 of using using kind of some stuff from this from 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:54.640 this raid against the Solidarity Fund and trying to kind 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.920 of tie together this grand conspiracy narrative that we now 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:02.320 see in this in this reco indictment. So let's I 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:04.720 guess let's let's talk a little bit about the Rico 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.360 indictment at this At this point, so rico is a 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.400 very like scary word, right, Like this is like I 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.479 feel like everyone kind of knows about like rico like 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.800 like a pop culture like it's like geist sense. But 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.240 do I actually like talk about like what these types 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.000 of rico charges actually are because like you know, most people, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:24.200 even if they're charged with the crime, right, most people 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.320 don't ever like have to deal with, Like RICO as 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.480 like a concept, So do it you know, if if 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:31.159 if you're like arrested at a protest to get like, 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:33.880 you know, pedestrian in roadway, there's like a litany of 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.520 other kind of basic charges that cops will throw at you. 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:38.839 RICO is a bit more serious, Like it's kind of 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:40.640 it's kind of like a scary ordeal, you know, same 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.560 thing with like the domestic terrorism charges that that that 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:45.159 have been used the past year. 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:50.440 So yes, what is a lot more serious. Yeah, So 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:57.680 what exactly is rico. RICO is, uh, while it was 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.599 initially a federal law that was passed in effort to 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:05.479 target specifically organized crime, because federal prosecutors were having a 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:10.400 difficult time prosecuting these sort of individual offenses that were 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:15.000 being committed by dispersed groups of individuals who are all 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.880 acting maybe not in concert, but in the service of 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:24.720 a larger criminal enterprise. There's a couple of important things 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:29.760 that I want to say just upfront. Sure, The first 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:32.120 thing is this is not the first time that RICO 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:37.360 has been used against movement people. The second thing I 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.320 want to say is that all prosecutions are political prosecutions, 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:46.680 and RICO is no different. Although federal RICO and ostensibly 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:51.720 Georgia State RICO were developed and passed in an effort 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:55.600 to target organized crime, that is not how they've been 0:07:55.600 --> 0:08:01.280 primarily used. And I think it is really significant to 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:06.160 note that after a lot of the people of color 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:10.120 solidarity movements like the Black Panthers of Black Liberation, Army Aim, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.880 the Brown Berets, the Young Lords, these groups were all 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:19.200 really weakened by Cohen telpro and the community groups that 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:24.160 remained were then labeled as gangs and prosecuted under RICO. 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:31.000 And so I just you know, everything that happens in 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.319 this conversation, we have to sort of hold in our 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:39.520 minds that this particular movement is not the first movement 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:44.600 and not the first community who has had REGO leveled 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.360 against it as a form of state repression. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:52.160 Yeah, and specifically Fultland County. It looks like the batch 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.920 of indictments that we're using these preco charges, it looks 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.920 like this was, at least according to the Atlantic Constitution Journal, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.839 people this this was the same grand jury that did 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.280 the RICO dinitements against former President Donald Trump as well 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.240 for this, for this, for this batch of charges, and 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.640 they've used they've used RICO charges against like young black 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.600 wrappers in the past. This is this is a a 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:19.320 thing that the Fulton County Office has has done before. Yes, 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:21.520 and also like we have like rico's this is like 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.520 a criminal racketeering thing against the mob. In terms of 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.160 like what RICO actually is, like is it its own 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.800 separate charge or is it like is it a way 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.640 to like apply other felony charges, like you know, can 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.160 can you just be charged with RICO or is there 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.520 have to be like other other crimes that you're accused 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.960 of for them to actually use this use this charge 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:41.000 against these activists. 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:46.560 RICO is its own criminal offense, but it relies upon 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:51.040 there having been other criminal offenses committed in the service 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:56.319 of a larger criminal enterprise or a conspiracy to try 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.920 to do crimes in the service of a larger criminal enterprise. 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.040 And one of the reasons that it is so broad 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.880 in Sweep, I mean, federal RICO is already very broad 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.840 in Sweep and Georgia Rica in particular is notorious for 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:17.080 being even broader. One of the reasons it is so 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:23.120 attractive to prosecutors is precisely because it can capture these 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:29.559 large groups of people with very little actual criminal conduct. 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.040 Okay, So yeah, that's kind of one of the things 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.800 that we want to talk about is I read the 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:39.480 indictment as soon as it came out, as soon as 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.120 it was made public. It is it is a long document. 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:47.640 The first patch of it is just like it's almost 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.480 like a really bad like Wikipedia article on like like 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:56.280 what anarchism is is how is how the document starts. 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.400 And then it gets into all these like alleged alleged 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.640 like a thing that are not necessarily criminal nature, but 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:06.240 they're all in the service of pushing forward this conspiracy 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.520 to stop the construction of this police training facility. So 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:11.720 there's a lot of like kind of like a like 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:14.800 random almost aseni and stuff in there that that they're 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.160 that they're eluding is is a quote unquote an overt 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:22.120 act in furtherance of the conspiracy. You know, anything from 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.280 like buying glue or buying like food supplies, and they're 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:29.199 they're including or or things like like like writing your 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.160 name as Aca B. They're they're they're including that as 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.400 as as as an as an overt act in furtherance 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.640 of the conspiracy, which is is kind of silly. It 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:39.559 doesn't make very much sense. But like these also these 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:41.640 is this is like a very serious case as well though, 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.080 because this is like you know, the people, people you know, 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.200 facing twenty years in prison on top of like the 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.200 domestic terrorism charges. Well, uh, do you know what else 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.360 is a overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy? It 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.640 is the the uh, the advertising that allows us to 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.280 continue this show. It's all, it's all, it's all all 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.160 part of the plan. So yes, every every single ad 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:19.680 is a co conspirator. So take that, Ronald reichen Coin. Okay, 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.599 we are back. We could talk about more about the 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.280 actual indictment in a sec I do kind of want 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:27.880 to first talk about who are facing these charges, right, 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.480 because these are these are sixty one people, and it 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.120 looks like for for when I was looking through, one 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:35.679 of the first things that you noticed is like, oh, 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:40.520 they're mostly charging people who have already been charged before. 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.959 There's not too many new people added. 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:43.240 To this case. 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.400 It's mostly people who've already been arrested and charged. Can 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:48.240 you can you kind of like talk about the scope 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.320 of these sixty one people who are included in this indictment. 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:56.600 Yes, So, as I was saying, the scope of Georgia 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:00.959 RICO is extremely broad, and some of the criminal acts 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:05.400 that can serve as a predicate for charging RICO are 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:10.760 these extremely unremarkable acts that we would typically think of 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:16.720 as being very normal protest related behavior, and some of 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.880 them are things like domestic terrorism. And so I don't 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:24.880 think it is an accident that all of those people 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:29.719 were charged with domestic terrorism in the beginning months of 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:36.320 this of this sort of push to overcharge the stock 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.160 Cup City activists. And in fact, I think one of 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:41.720 the things that tipped us off at that point that 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:46.640 RICO was in the pipeline was that people were being 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.520 charged with domestic terrorism, which is one of the predicate 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.480 offenses for RICO. And so many of the people who 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.240 are on this indictment are the people who were already 0:13:56.280 --> 0:14:01.120 charged with domestic terrorism. They were overcharged domestic terrorism. In 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:06.160 my opinion, they were overcharged. I think the opinion of 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:12.880 most attorneys, they were overcharged. They were charged in that manner, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.560 not because the allegations against them are serious. In fact, 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.120 if you look at the allegations in those domestic terrorism 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.720 indictments or they're not even indictments yet, most of them 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:30.320 in those domestic terrorism charges in the documents that are 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:35.840 associated with those arrests. The allegations are, you know, as 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.880 I said, these absolutely unremarkable garden variety sort of criminal 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:44.760 trespass allegations, by and large, the allegations against people, and 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.280 they include things that are absolutely lawful, like having mud 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.600 on your like having on your knees. Yes, yeah, so 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.000 a lot of the allegations. One of the things that's 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:59.200 remarkable about Rico, and frankly about the domestic terrorism stuff, 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:04.880 is that both of those statutes allow for the sort 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:10.640 of bootstrapping of one offense into a much more serious 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:15.920 offense if certain conditions are met. With respect to the 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:23.800 domestic terrorism statute, a very large number of garden variety 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:29.920 offenses like criminal trespassing can be transformed into domestic terrorism 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.600 if they are perceived to be essentially politically motivated. In 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.520 the case of So, what we have here is a 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.680 situation where a bunch of people got charged with domestic terrorism, 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:45.080 not because they were doing something really dramatic or violent, 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.880 but because whatever it was they were doing was perceived 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:52.560 as being an effort to influence public policy. So we 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:57.600 transformed a very minor offense into a very serious offense. 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:02.720 That serious offense then became the predicate offense for Rico, 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:05.440 which is an even more serious offense. 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.480 Yeah, And from my understanding at least in terms of 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:10.480 a lot of a lot of the people in the 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.040 sixty one indictments are are the sixty one people in 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:17.000 in the indictment is from the arrests that happened at 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.640 the music festival last Castruch, and a lot of a lot, 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:22.320 a lot of a lot of those people were only 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:26.200 charged with domestic terrorism, which is interesting because usually domestic 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:30.120 terrorism in Georgia is like an enhancement charge. But lots 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:31.960 of the people weren't actually charged with any of the 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.520 other other charges. Yet the prosecutors just argued, because we're 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.480 charging with domestic terrorism, it's like inferred that they must 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.000 have done some other crimes that we haven't yet specified. 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.400 But in the way that works for the for the 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.160 Rico indictments, because I think you need to have already 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.880 had like like I think there's like a prerequisitive like 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:53.240 two other like felonious charges. What they did in the 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.400 in these reco charges is go back to the music 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.320 festival and break down every single thing that happened there 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:02.560 that they're alleged these people did as separate instances like 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:05.240 like planning to go to the place, you know, marching 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:07.400 to the place, being at the place, Like they broke 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.040 it down to have all these separate things so that 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.879 they could like shoehorn it into this Rico indictment. So 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.320 there's a lot of like a you know, revisionist history 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.560 going on here, very kind of different arguments than what 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.600 the actual like domestic terrorism of bond hearings had in 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:29.080 like a previous months. But yeah, there is at least 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.840 at least one person in the indictments who is new 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:35.159 I think. I think possibly a few others, but I 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.600 haven't quite checked, but there at least one person which 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.400 is a very interesting case. It's this it's this guy 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:44.280 who worked at the uh the Flock camera company who 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:48.320 I saw that who they are alleging was was passing 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:54.600 off information about where cameras were were were located. And 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.399 this is an extremely interesting case because he is he 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.760 is not included in any other previous charges, but that 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.360 is at least one of the people who who are 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.359 kind of new additions to this indictment. One thing I 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.600 didn't want to mention because you've you've said you've you've 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.880 kind of mentioned a few times that these are these 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.119 are state level RICO charges. Those are kind of different 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:16.320 than federal reco charges. Do you want to kind of 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.800 get into like the difference between state and federal charges 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:20.879 and specifically how kind of the ones in Georgia at 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.879 work versus the the the federal rico that you know, 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.160 kind of inspired different states to kind of add their 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.040 own style of rico. 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:36.359 The big difference between the federal Rico Statute, which is 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:41.200 already extremely vague. I think Scalia said something like Scalia, 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:49.280 who is notoriously not far left, yeah, activist right, I'm 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:53.880 not a supporter of leftists, uh in in any meaningful way. 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.600 I think described the federal Rico statute I think as 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:03.920 intolerably vague. So the federal Rico Statute is already very 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.199 broad in its scope. It already does this thing that 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:12.680 we were discussing of pulling in many many people by 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:17.840 associating them with, you know, this criminal enterprise. The Georgia 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.960 Ricos statute is even more broad. The Georgia Ricos Statute 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.800 uses a lot of the same terms, right, a pattern 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:31.280 of racketeering activity. Right, It uses a lot of the 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.720 same concepts, but it defines those concepts in ways that 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.800 are even broader, even easier to apply. So I think 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.640 the thing that is significant about RICO is that similar 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:50.880 to like what we would see with conspiracy, where you know, 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:55.040 not every person involved in a conspiracy needs to have 0:19:55.240 --> 0:20:01.760 been participating in every single criminal instance of criminal conduct 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.399 in order to be implicated. 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:08.600 They don't even need to know the other co conspirators necessarily. 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:13.080 So that's the case in this indictment. Yes, yes, And 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:17.040 that is sometimes the case with maybe other reco indictments. 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.399 We certainly have seen some stuff like gang prosecutions where 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:26.680 the people involved don't know each other. Typically, I wouldn't 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.960 actually expect to see something that broad. When a prosecutor 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:35.200 wants to indict someone for engaging in criminal conduct, they 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:41.720 need to have individualized probable cause that that individual did 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:46.840 the crime one of the things, and you can't attribute 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:53.640 one person's behavior to another person. Rico offers a way 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:54.360 around that. 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:55.119 Yeah. 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.520 To use RICO in the way that the prosecutors in 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:06.320 Georgia are doing, among other things, enables them to engage 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.600 in a sort of collective punishment of people who they 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:17.080 perceive as holding certain ideologies and those people can be 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:22.200 engaged in lawful behavior and even in constitutionally protected behavior, 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.920 but if they can characterize any of that behavior as 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.400 having been an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:37.480 the fact that this person bought glue and was reimbursed 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:43.800 for the glue, yeah, can function to allow the prosecutor 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:47.800 to attribute all of this other criminal conduct to the 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:49.000 person who bought glue. 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:54.320 Basically, there people can you know, be hit with charges 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:58.359 that are being you know, alleged against actions of other people, 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:00.320 but they're all getting like roped up together, and they're 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.400 all facing these charges together, that's right. 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.439 So you can, like, the allegation that there is a 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:15.479 criminal enterprise allows the prosecutors to associate various people and 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:23.520 various acts, even lawful acts, even constitutionally protected acts, with 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:30.040 attempting to further that criminal enterprise. And so the allegation 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:36.040 that this criminal enterprise exists is the fundamental core of 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:43.560 this indictment. Now you read the indictment and it's you know, 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:48.440 it's laughable. They're making these claims that you know, if 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:53.000 it weren't so serious, if this weren't so serious, we'd 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:56.000 all be rolling on the floor. The idea that mutual 0:22:56.200 --> 0:23:02.399 aid is sinister. Yeah, it really to me. When I 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.480 read this indictment, I thought, Wow, this is just fascinating, 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.879 because what's happening here is that Georgia is saying the 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:13.400 quiet part out loud. We all know state repression is real. 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:18.720 We all know that the American legal system functions to 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:25.800 repressed assent, to impose prior restraints on First Amendment protected behavior, 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:30.600 to chill speech, to frighten people into submission. Right, we 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:34.879 understand that it is this coercive system, but there is 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:39.720 at least a sort of set of rules that purport 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:46.879 to prioritize fairness, that purport to value concepts of due process, 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:50.360 and the Rico Statute, and in particular, the Reco Statute 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:57.000 as it is being used here, really functions so explicitly 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:01.439 to circumvent those rules, and that they're just they're not 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.879 even trying anymore. They're not even trying to pretend that 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:10.360 they care about individual probable cause, about the First Amendment, 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:13.520 and I would say, most frighteningly about the sixth Amendment, 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:17.760 which is the right to counsel, because they have gone 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:24.320 way beyond the pale in alleging that things like accessing 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:30.640 legal help, or accessing bail, or having legal observers or 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:37.159 you know, providing anti repression trainings are in some manner 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:41.600 sinister acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. And I am 0:24:41.760 --> 0:24:45.760 really I don't know what will happen here. I really 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:50.600 can't begin to guess because I feel like it is 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:55.560 no longer possible for me to be surprised by the 0:24:55.920 --> 0:25:01.080 nonsense that is coming out of this jurisdiction. I don't 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:05.399 know what will happen, but I am very, very curious 0:25:05.440 --> 0:25:11.240 to see how the bench, how the judges in Georgia 0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:21.480 respond to these allegations that involve making it part of 0:25:21.560 --> 0:25:28.399 a criminal conspiracy to provide legal assistance. You know, this 0:25:28.560 --> 0:25:32.160 is to me like one of the most concerning aspects 0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:36.760 of this of this indictment, because as absurd as it is, 0:25:36.800 --> 0:25:39.240 this could have very serious consequences. 0:25:40.119 --> 0:25:42.080 Yeah, I mean, that's something people have been talking about 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:45.560 with Atlanta for a while now, is that because of 0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:48.520 how many you know, criminal cases there is around this 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:52.199 top top city of like movement, whatever kind of the 0:25:52.240 --> 0:25:54.359 result of those cases is going to be is going 0:25:54.400 --> 0:25:58.479 to set a very influential precedent for future for future 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:02.199 kind of eco defense campaigns, future, like any anything relating 0:26:02.200 --> 0:26:06.440 to like like civil rights, you know, uh, police abolition, 0:26:06.640 --> 0:26:09.000 or even even even things it's like benign is like 0:26:09.040 --> 0:26:12.679 police reform, like any any kind of like any kind 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:15.800 of like grassroots activist, whatever kind of movement that's going 0:26:15.840 --> 0:26:17.720 to happen in the future, is going to be affected 0:26:17.760 --> 0:26:21.679 by how these cases go. Because not only as you know, 0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:24.639 as as as you mentioned the you know, access to 0:26:24.640 --> 0:26:26.920 bail fund being being in like access to to to 0:26:27.040 --> 0:26:29.920 lawyers and and so and legal support is being used 0:26:29.920 --> 0:26:33.480 in these reco charges, they were also alleging that by 0:26:33.640 --> 0:26:36.320