Posted: 12/23/2013 5:29 pm EST | Updated: 12/23/2013 5:29 pm EST
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/23/jerry-koch-motion_n_4494943.html?1387837750
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/23/jerry-koch-motion_n_4494943.html?1387837750
NEW YORK -- An anarchist jailed since May on civil contempt for
refusing to answer grand jury questions has asked a federal judge to
free him, arguing that he has proved he will not cooperate.
Lawyers for Gerald Koch asked U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan in
a motion filed Friday to release the 24-year-old college philosophy
student from New York. Koch's silence shows he has no intention of
testifying in the future, the motion said. Koch's lawyers said they
believe the grand jury is investigating a 2008 bombing in Times Square,
which targeted an armed forces recruiting center and caused no
injuries. Koch is not a target of the investigation.
"Jerry's spending Christmas in jail," said one of his lawyers, Moira
Meltzer-Cohen. "He just has no value" to the bombing investigation. …
"Hopefully the judge will acknowledge that. I see no reason he would
doubt it. It seems abundantly clear, but the judge has virtually
unreviewable discretion."
Koch can be held on civil contempt for 18 months. But confinement is
supposed to coerce testimony, not serve as punishment. His supporters
have pointed to a similar case in Seattle, where two activists were freed after five months when a
judge determined that they would never speak to a grand jury that was
believed to be investigating property damage during a May Day
demonstration.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court upheld a civil contempt
finding against Koch, ruling that the government "has made a convincing
showing of its need to ask the questions at issue." Meltzer-Cohen said
Friday's motion was the next step in lifting the contempt finding.
Koch has denied having "meaningful knowledge" of the crime. But he
has refused to testify, claiming that grand juries such as the one in
Manhattan are used to silence and surveil activist communities.
Many activists have rallied around Koch, with hundreds demonstrating
outside the court during his contempt hearing.
In a declaration accompanying Friday's motion, Koch wrote, "I can
assert without any hesitation that there is nothing that will convince
me to testify before this or any grand jury."
"With each passing day, my sorrow at confinement deepens, but so
does my conviction that I am doing the right thing."
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