2020 Election Robocall Defendants ‘Continue to Invoke’ 5th Amendment: Lawyer
Defendants Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, who face a Jan. 29 damages trial by jury for their roles in the robocall campaign to suppress Black citizens' mail-in votes in the 2020 election, “have asserted their Fifth Amendment constitutional right against…
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self-incrimination” since the “inception” of the case, their lawyer, David Schwartz, wrote U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero for Southern New York in Manhattan in a letter response Friday (docket 1:20-cv-08668). Wohl and Burkman “never stated otherwise and continue to invoke this privilege,” said Schwartz. The plaintiffs in the case, including New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), want Marrero to order Wohl and Burkman to declare by Nov. 4 whether they intend to testify at trial (see 2310050004). They seek the deadline for Wohl and Burkman to either withdraw their Fifth Amendment assertions, or be barred from testifying. If they withdraw their Fifth Amendment assertions, the plaintiffs want the opportunity to redepose them to obtain the discovery to which the plaintiffs otherwise would have been entitled in preparation for trial. If the Wohl and Burkman withdraw their Fifth Amendment claim, the court shouldn’t set a deadline, responded Schwartz. The plaintiffs’ statement that somehow Wohl and Burkman “would be given an unfair advantage if they so choose to withdraw this privilege is completely without merit,” he said.