Thread by @innercitypress

In #SDNY, Cesar Sayoc To Be Sentenced after he's described as changed man by Federal Defenders, Inner City Press will live-tweet sentencing, @SDNYLIVE thread innercitypress.com/sdny4allocutes…

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Sayoc's lead Federal Defender is Ian Marcus Amelkin, who introduces others including summer intern and scientists. Judge Rakoff jokes about life plus 10 years, hasn't yet said as he does at most sentencings that he find guidelines "irrational"

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff adopts pre-sentence report with some re-wording about the devices. Now come the experts on their reports - so were these destructive devices or crude counterfeits? innercitypress.com/sdny3allocutes…

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff asking about page 24 of 107 page report saying unclear if lack of effectiveness of bombs were the result of ineptitude or intent of Sayoc. Witness does say that ineffective bombs can still explode. But objection to examples is sustained

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff now sustains his own objection to Assistant US Attorney inviting the Agent to give examples of amateur bombs nevertheless going off. Federal Defender thanks Judge Rakoff for making objection for him

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Now witness Dale Mann notes that fireworks are shipped all over the world and do not explode. Says even when FBI ground up these devices they did not explode. Neither side has questions for Mr Mann

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin We're done with devices. Now it's psychology, with Dr Harrison G. Pope. Judge Rakoff jokes that "you spent a good deal of your career at Harvard but I will regard that." Reactions to this joke are mixed (see recent photo of Jeffrey Epstein in Harvard sweatshirt)

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff is doing all of the questioning - neither side had any questions for Dr. Pope either. Now, perhaps last witness before statements by lawyers and maybe Sayoc, Doctor Michael First, on overuse of steroids

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Federal Defender asks Dr First if Judge Rakoff accept their recommendation and gives Sayoc 10 years, could he be safely managed in the community afterward? Dr. First says Yes, describes meeting Sayoc in the MCC where Sayoc "begged" him to be treated

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Federal Defender says, "Does this mentally ill man who did not hurt anyone deserve to die in prison?" Judge Rakoff immediately asks, did he cause panic and fear for weeks? FD replies Sayoc was surprised that the media covered it

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff says while it is sometimes argued that people recidivate less as they get older, here Sayoc committed this crime in his 50s. Notes that Sayoc once called in a threat to the electric company. "The line is going up," he posits.

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Federal Defender previews he'll explain Sayoc's development as a "slow boil." He began with learning disabilities, played soccer at a junior college then invited to play at UCF or UNC Charlotte - but "school was a challenge." Now described as "a low IQ person"

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Federal Defender says Sayoc, after being sexual abused, began taking steriods at 15. Judge Rakoff jokes he didn't think men started steriods until they got a big contract to play professional sport. Loud / forced laughter from the lawyers' tables

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Federal Defender: .. you know about the strip club... then bouncer and also delivering pizza... in the last ten days he hit rock bottom. He lost his home in the Great Recession, he spent 100s of dollars on burning candles, reading Trump self-help books

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Federal Defender: Sayoc becomes "obsessed with Trump... buys Trump ties... looks up to Trump as a father figure... exposed to hateful ideas, conspiracy theories. He became deranged by them

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Federal Defender: the stickers on his van made him a target, made him more withdrawn. Now argues that US Attorney is not linked it to Trump because they are part of the Executive Branch. Cites back to Oklahoma City bombing. Rakoff cuts in --

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff: you haven't presented me with any studies on that, and studies like that are hard to construct in a rigorous fashion. Difficult for any responsible social scientist to make the link. "I'm wondering if this is a bit of a side issue."

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Federal Defender Marcus says 10 years is a long time, "all your time in college, all your time in law school." Judge Rakoff quips, "Law school is cruel and unusual punishment." Another burst of laughter. Then: the speed with which Sayoc was caught deters

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Federal Defenders asks Sayoc sentence be limited to 121 months. Now Assistant US Attorney runs through litany: 16 pipe bombs mailed, discovered over 10 days, a subway station in NYC temporarily closed. 121 months is insufficient: less than a year per pipe bomb

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff: broken glass, certainly, once does not put into packages of this sort with "loving intentions" - but says he's focused on Sayoc's most likely intent. AUSA says Sayoc began researching in 2016. Rakoff cuts in, says it's his job

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff: what matters is what he did, and what he intended at the time. Less interested in whether Sayoc is walking away from guilty plea to WMD counts. Repeats he thinks the Federal Defenders' argument blaming Trump is "something of a sideshow"

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff says he took the liberty to read the defense's expert witness' previous studies of effect of steroids, both to understand & "to make sure I could get a good night's sleep." Another round of laughter - hard to know if it's intended to effect sentence

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff asks Federal Defender Marcus if he has any rebuttal. Instead, Doctor Pope is offered up again on the long term effects of steroids. He says effects go away in a few weeks. Next up: Sayoc himself, "if he wishes to be heard." He does.

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Sayoc: "I am so very sorry for what I did." Says he was sexually victimized at a Catholic boarding school, and now can't believe what he wrote on social media. Now Rakoff takes 10 minute recess to reflect and decide on sentencing.

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff is back, with written decision: "In a nation like the US it is no small thing to deprive a person" of his freedom and liberty. Quotes Sec 3553a, sentences not greater than necessary- then turns to the Golden Rule. Calls the instant offenses horrendous

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff: Just who was the individual who committed these acts of domestic terrorism? Cesar Sayoc, a victim of abuse, who turned to steroids to try to defend himself. 2002 bomb threat against his electric company. "He became infatuated with a political figure"

@sdnylive @MatthewLeeICP @eorden @CBSNewYork @dontagala @wfaa @acnewsitics @jilevin Judge Rakoff: "I conclude in the end Sayoc was fully capable to construct effective pipe bombs" - but chose not to. This mitigating factor make life sentence inappropriate. But 10 years is too low. So: 240 months - 20 years, 5 years supervised release