By Alicia Penn
TL:DR [1]: This one is fun, read it
The government charged Masood with a 3-million dollar conspiracy to defraud the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center[2]. He along with 7 other codefendants were indicted in April 2022. Evidence included 30 electronic devices from different homes and Google search warrant returns of defendants’ email accounts.
Although the Government had all of the devices within their control and the search warrant returns early on in the case, they took 2 ½ years to actually produce that discovery to the defense. Along the way they claimed the voluminous nature of the discovery made filter review difficult, the data was too large to download in-house, they were having internal IT difficulties, they were working on negotiating pleas, the original AUSA left.
Although it stopped short of finding bad faith, the Court called the Government’s delay in producing discovery “extraordinary, chronic, and indefensible.” Id. at 23. It rescinded the tolling orders to remedy the delay, and concluded that Masood was not tried within 70 days of unexcluded time in violation of the Speedy Trial Act.
The Court then explained why the delay merited dismissal with prejudice. It held that internal IT difficulties were “insufficient when balanced against the demand of Congress that the public and the Defendant have a statutory right to a speedy public trial.” Id. at 27 (cleaned up). It called the Government’s approach to discovery “cavalier” and explained that the Government had passed their work onto the defense and bench—“When the Government fails to deliver, a defendant is forced to expend inordinate time and resources to get that which the Rules and the Constitution require the Government to give. Not to mention the inordinate expenditure of precious judicial resources on the same.” Id. Last, the Court articulated the end result of the Government’s delay—“while no one prosecutor intentionally slow-walked discovery, the discovery had been slow walked nonetheless to the Government’s advantage.”
The full memorandum opinion is attached here:
[1] Too long; didn’t read. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/TL%3BDR
[2] https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/eight-individuals-facing-federal-indictment-3-million-scheme-defraud-walter-reed-national