Here’s why prosecutors don’t want docs unsealed in Turtleboy witness intimidation case
The special prosecutor overseeing the witness intimidation cases against the blogger Aidan Kearney shot back at a request from his lawyers to release sealed documents , writing in a court filing that Kearney has a "well-documented history of abusing discovery materials to harass witnesses."
Attorneys for Kearney, who goes by "Turtleboy" online, said at a court appearance last month that many of the sealed documents contain information that could be embarrassing for prosecutors and other officials in Norfolk County. Kearney faces three witness intimidation cases there for what prosecutors have described as the harassment of witnesses in the Karen Read case.
But Robert Cosgrove, the retired judge appointed as a special prosecutor, said releasing the documents turned over during the normal course of discovery would only further Kearney's ongoing harassment campaign.
In prosecutors' view, Kearney has "created a cycle generating discoverable comments." He regularly "mocks, smears, or otherwise attacks witnesses and their family members online."
Those witnesses then ask the district attorney's office to step in, Cosgrove wrote. Their communications are often then turned over to the defense because they reflect a bias against Kearney. But Cosgrove argued that the witnesses have every reason to dislike him and no reason not to admit to doing so.
The "credibility of the witnesses and their potential bias" is not central to the indictments, Cosgrove wrote. Instead, the charges are mostly drawn from what Kearney has said online.
"The Commonwealth's evidence is largely based on Kearney's own statements and actions, lovingly recorded and broadcast by him for all the world to see. These videos speak for themselves," Cosgrove wrote. "There can be no serious dispute as to his actions."
Whether his actions are free speech or cross the line is the central issue at the heart of the case and one for jurors to decide, he said. The communications between the district attorney's office and witnesses shouldn't be released because they provide Kearney with a "road map as to which of his attacks have caused the most pain, and they are grist for further attacks."
For that reason alone, the protective order preventing the documents' release should stand, Cosgrove wrote.
Lawyers for Kearney have also claimed that because many of the documents are governed by protective orders in the Karen Read case, which concluded with her acquittal in June, they should now be subject to release. But Cosgrove countered that the orders in place in Kearney's case should stay in place because of the orders in the Read case.
Cosgrove also claimed that disclosure of some of the documents could undermine at least one ongoing investigation. As a special prosecutor, he said he wasn't aware of all investigations the district attorney's office was pursuing, but could prove to the court that there is one in which he is involved.
"The particular circumstances of this case amply justify the protective orders it has issued," he concluded. "This court is free to modify its discovery orders at any time, but any change should be narrowly drawn and made on a defense showing of particular need."
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