Judge puts gag order on news media in lawyer's assault trial, then apologizes and rescinds
A county court judge in Maine, hearing a domestic assault case against a prominent local lawyer, at the outset of the trial Monday ordered reporters not to publish any of the courtroom testimony. By Wednesday, he reconvened the case, post-sentencing, to apologize for the gag order and rescind it, the Portland Press Herald reports.
“It’s certainly very clear that this particular order was not lawful, and I should not have ordered the media to refrain from reporting what was said,” Cumberland County District Court Judge Jeffrey Moskowitz announced from the bench to an audience of about 35, mostly news reporters and curious lawyers.
The defendant, attorney Anthony J. Sineni III, had persuaded the judge to order the news media not to report what he or any witness said in court, the newspaper reported Monday.
A reporter for the newspaper protested the order Monday and asked the judge to delay the hearing so the publication’s lawyer could appear. The judge declined and proceeded; and the newspaper ignored the gag order, publishing testimony.
The newspaper’s lawyer, Sigmund Schutz, said Monday that there was a “100 percent chance” that the judge’s order was unlawful.
Sineni entered a plea agreement that included dismissal of a domestic violence assault charge concerning his former girlfriend, Winona Hichborn, with whom he has three children, and dismissal of three felony charges of witness tampering and one of possessing a stolen firearm. Sineni pleaded guilty to a single assault charge against a man who was with Hichborn.
Hichborn’s testimony was the only testimony in the hearing. She detailed her 11-year relationship with Sineni and made assertions of domestic abuse—which the judge ordered could not be used in news reports, but which the newspaper published.
“Tony [Sineni] told me before that he is above the law and that if he gets away with this, they won’t be able to touch him,” Hichborn testified. Judge Moskowitz ordered the case file sealed for seven days at the request of Sineni’s lawyer, Christopher Largay. But Moskowitz also subsequently rescinded that order.
The Portland Press Herald reported Wednesday that Largay said he had sought to block Hichborn from testifying since the charge in which she had been named as a victim was being dismissed. He denies that he himself or Assistant Attorney General Paul Rucha suggested the gag order, the Press Herald reported Wednesday.
Sineni received deferred disposition, and the charges can be dismissed if he stays out of trouble.
Hichborn’s lawyer in a civil suit against Sineni, Elizabeth Peoples, spoke to reporters outside the courthouse Monday and referred to the gag order, saying, “This case has received special attention because he is a prominent attorney.”
