Criminal Justice
Oops. DOJ Spokesman Accidentally Sends Out Confidential Witness List
Posted Jan 8, 2009 8:32 PM CST
By Martha Neil
Uh-oh. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald accidentally e-mailed to journalists yesterday a copy of a federal criminal complaint that also included a one-page list identifying almost 20 confidential witnesses in a $15 million fraudulent investment case.
"The inadvertent disclosure of the sources—former One World employees, customers, and 'other' individuals who spoke with FBI and IRS agents—caused Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn to send an urgent follow-up email asking journalists to destroy the complaint due to the 'non-public information disclosing the identities of persons not named in the affidavit,' " reports the Smoking Gun.
Fitzgerald is based in Chicago. The blog post also includes a copy of the criminal complaint filed in U.S. v. Charles G. Martin and John E. Walsh, as well as a copy of the witness list that redacts the names of those identified.
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Comments
B. McLeod
Jan 8, 2009 8:54 PM CST
I think the practical effect is that DOJ now must proceed based on the assumption that the confidentiality of the list has been compromised. What a debacle.
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Alan Sheketovits
Jan 9, 2009 4:22 AM CST
Oy. The government also makes mistakes. It also licenses lawyers. In this light, again, this McLeod comment. It is like horse manure at the stables. Every where you look, you see. Worse yet, you step in it. Oy.
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Kendall Smith
Jan 9, 2009 4:02 PM CST
Ah, the pitfalls of using email as a legal document delivery tool. The number of similar instances is too high to count. You always need a safeguard against yourself and the SEND button…..I know this will sound like a shameless plug, but it’s exactly why tools like LexisNexis File & Serve are a far better choice…you have more control over your information, who else can have access, and you can “recover” from the inevitable oops!
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