This saga gets more mind boggling and overtly anti Semitic as it drags on... Nice to see that at least one state senator has picked up on it and is keeping it on his radar.
BTW there was a robocall tonight with an update, but it was a little complex, so I'll attempt to explain it simply.
Judge Joseph Paone ruled that the prosecutors violated the Brady act by not sharing critical evidence with the defense before trial. What was that evidence? It was a single page from a Quickbooks report that the state created a year prior to trial, and it showed that the entry they said was criminal was made by a bookkeeper. The page was numbered page 247. (The bookkeeper was named on that page, while during trial they kept implying to the jury that it must have been Rabbi Eisemann who made the entry.) The prosecutors released this for a side reason long after the trial, and the defense jumped on this as proof that they knew all along that it was not Rabbi Eisemann.
When Judge Paone ruled for a new trial, he said that there was no evidence presented that the prosecutors DELIBERATELY hid evidence, but even doing it by mistake warranted a new trial. Had they done so on purpose, the law mandates that the entire indictment gets dismissed, and they would have no right to bring him to trial again.
As soon as the decision was released, Eisemann's lawyers wrote a letter to the prosecutors demanding that they hand over a lot of additional info on the case, which they were entitled to before the trial but never got. Included in that request was the first 246 of the above mentioned report, as well as any subsequent pages. In the days after, the prosecution ran in circles, doing everything possible to not release the info. They first said that they already turned over everything (a blatant falsehood) but they would look again in case they find anything else. They then filed an appeal and asked the judge to put a stay on discovery requests until after the appeal played out. Judge Paone flat out denied their request, saying that they already wasted enough time. The prosecution then said that it would take too long to redact all the notes in the 247+ page report. The defense asserted that they are entitled to see those notes, but even if the prosecution handed over a redacted copy, how long does it take to white out some notes? The defense filed a motion to compel that report, but before it was ruled on, the appeals court accepted the case, taking it out of the jurisdiction of Judge Paone.
The motion filed now is to the appeals court, and it ask them "to remand the matter back to the trial court for the limited purpose of determining whether the complete [247+ page] document should be produced to the defense and, if produced, whether the indictment should be dismissed based on a willful violation of Brady."
This last line is important. Basically, the Eisemann defense is openly accusing the prosecutors of willfully hiding evidence, which would get the whole case dismissed. The fact that the prosecution is trying so hard to not have to hand over the report indicates that there is something they are trying to hide - a potential for a second Brady violation down the line.
I hope this was clear.
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