Kim Dotcom Offers To Come To The US, If DOJ Releases Funds For Legal Defense
from the your-move dept
We just noted how the procedural delays in the case against Kim Dotcom meant that it was more difficult for him to fight back against the US government. In response to all of this, Dotcom is offering the Justice Department a deal. He will come to the US and defend the case here if it agrees to unfreeze assets specifically to allow him to fight the case (i.e., pay lawyers and living expenses during the trial). In other words, he's willing to skip the extradition fight and believes he can win in a US court, if they're willing to actually let him access the money to pay for the defense. As he told the New Zealand Herald:He said he would willingly go to the US if he and his co-defendants were given a guarantee of a fair trial, money to pay for a defence and funds to support themselves and their families.This is an interesting move, because it's entirely possible that the DOJ will call his bluff here. Certainly, some of the strength in Dotcom's case is that he wasn't violating New Zealand law (which is required for the extradition to take place). A fight in a US court, against the DOJ, is a much tougher proposition -- and a very risky bet. There are a lot of reasons why Dotcom may have a strong case, but the DOJ rarely loses. It happens, but it's rare. Even in extreme cases, the DOJ is pretty good at railroading those they indict to "plea" out of a case rather than face a full trial.
"They will never agree to this and that is because they can't win this case and they know that already."
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Filed Under: doj, extradition, kim dotcom, new zealand
Companies: megaupload
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They want him broke and unable to defend himself.
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it's only competition if the "start-ups" are actually paying artists... which, they're not...
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Megabox? Well, you'll just have to wait and see, won't we?
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If you didn't have your head stuck up the labels' ass, Mr. I-have-nothing-to-do-with-labels-but-will-fight-to-the-death-to-defend-them, you'd have known that, googlypants.
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Ballsy move, but he'll lose the home turf advantage...
The DOJ might call his bluff with the promise of a "fair trial," but there's no guarantee that they won't rescind that promise as soon as he's in their clutches.
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Re: Ballsy move, but he'll lose the home turf advantage...
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Sadly, he is a bit of a jackass about it, he can't resist trying to get one over on people. He may find that they agree, but that "living expenses" is a cheap hotel room near the court room, and that doesn't mean champagne wishes and caviar dreams. It might also mean that the legal expenses would have to be controlled and paid out from the feds from the time to time, not with an unlocked "here's your money back" situation.
What Kim isn't understanding is that, even if he does skip around the nearly year long delay in New Zeland, he still faces a US legal system that is likely to choke on his case for the forseeable decade or so. I don't expect this one to run any faster than the Jammie Thomas or Joel Tenebaum cases have gone, and each of those are running into the years. With appeals, third party interventions, civil suits, prolonged discovery, and all that stuff, the case would likely take years before it truly got heard - and then years of more appeals, possibly all the way up the chain to SCOTUS if the issues seem particularly relevant.
He needs to accept that he is screwed and work from there.
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Those are civil cases. In civil cases, both parties can appeal. With criminal cases, however, an appeal can only happen if the defendant appeals a conviction.
If Dotcom is acquitted, the government cannot appeal the case. (They also cannot appeal with e.g. jurisdictional dismissals, or prosecutorial misconduct.) Double jeopardy applies in that instance.
I believe this is what he is betting on. It's still a pretty risky bet.
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You obviously have missed that the US Judge has serious reservations about the case even being able to move forward.
Now there is the added attention to the fact they are applying criminal standards to civil charges which doesn't work.
Given much of the "evidence" against him seems to be sourced from the cartels, following their usual pattern the DoJ will twiddle their thumbs waiting for someone to call them back to support the claims for 50 million, and that call never comes. Then the DoJ will try to keep dragging it out in court, until it gets more press coverage and a Judge says wait a minute...
This is a gamble, but I doubt the DoJ wants to touch this right now. The case is a house of cards, and their actions have shown a desire to inflict damage on a company rather than gather evidence. They made claims to the Grand Jury that will never fly in a court of law and this will be coming home to roost.
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No, it's the sort of restriction in place to assure that the money isn't used for other purposes outside of the legal system. It is pretty normal in this sort of a situation. It wouldn't stop any work by the lawyers, but it would stop the money being diverted to maintain Kim's rather extravegent lifestyle.
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(Unless, you know, the lawyers are moonlighting as strippers, but you know what I mean.)
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"Honestly, if he feels he is innocent, he is going the right way here."
"he still faces a US legal system that is likely to choke on his case for the forseeable decade or so. "
The latter is dispicable, but the fact that you believe the latter and still prattle on that anyone innocent would walk into that deliberately suggests you are nuts or deeply dishonest.
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One choice does not negate the other. Fighting extradition in NZ doesn't make the case in the US disappear. It might make it possible for him to hide in NZ for as long as they will have him (and that is likely NOT very long, I suspect his residency will be reviewed and trashed), and he will still have to face US justice as well.
I think he (and his lawyers) woke up and realized that they don't have a choice.
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Every step has shown that NZ realizes the US case is non-existent, why would they then trash his residency?
As mentioned earlier, the US judges have been poking giant holes in the government's case.
Honestly, if they get a fair trial, then this will just speed up the whole thing because the US has no case.
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Even if, the extradition process isn't a trial of innocent or guilt, only that there extradition request is reasonable and valid. I am confident that the US has at least enough evidence to satisfy the requirements for extradition. NZ would find itself facing a real issue if they deny the extradition without serious merit.
You need to go look at what extradition entails to understand why it's nowhere near the same level as a conviction, and to see why NZ has few alternatives in the deal.
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How can you be confident of that when they have failed to show any evidence at all? Or when they have said they want the evidence destroyed? Or when they have shown that they don't seem to understand the laws they are trying to use? Or basically when they have been completely incompetent every step of the way?
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You say "if he's innocent" then prattle about stuff that applies whether or not he's innocent.
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Roman Polanski was actually found guilty (which Dotcom has NOT), fled the US, and has lived high on the hog in Europe ever since. (and Polanski's criminal conviction was for statutory rape!)
When does Polanski "face US justice" as you call it?
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Drat, PRMan beat me to it...
As much as I hate to agree with Anonymous Coward on this one, because I don't, but he does have a point that those in power (mainly the *AAs,) deem that running a corporation that competes with them is more dangerous than statutory rape.
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He needs to accept that he is screwed and work from there."
Oh yes, and these are just wonderful reasons why he should *voluntarily* put himself in the hands of the US govt instead of fighting extradition.
You destroy your own argument here.
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"If he's guilty, he's fucked. If he's innocent, he's fucked. But by allowing himself to get fucked, he's doing the right thing."
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But if the US reject the deal, Dotcom will argue to the NZ court that he will never get a fair trial in the US so they block extradition.
The gamble is that the US will lie, accept the deal, get him to the US, then refuse the fair trial/funds. Of course a politician would never promise something before an election and later... oh wait. #carbontax
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most evidence to date according to recent NZ decision.
Assuming they did accept, I'd imagine it wouldn't take them long to find a judge that would rule that the illegally obtained evidence was in fact able to be used, among a number of other things.
Keep in mind, the USG and it's corporate owners want him bad, and this whole fiasco has made them look all kinds of stupid, so if they have to bend, break or flat out make a few laws to convict and make an example out of him... well, at this point I very much wouldn't put it past them.
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As well, in this case I'd say that they would want to drag this on as long as possible, because as long as it's tied up in court, MU is offline, and the costs for the servers goes up and up.
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There are already like 2 pending civil cases filed against Mega by companies no one ever heard of. A judge put them on hold while this mess is getting sorted.
Cyberlockers are scary to the cartels because 6 strikes can't track it, so they needed to scare them away before the 6 strikes kickoff... which they keep missing. The RIAA had a serious reason in hoping to stop the Mega music sales platform. A nearly transparent sales system that only took 10% for itself and paid 90% directly to the artists... seems like artists would enjoy that much more than spending years trying to recoup on their loans...
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If I were Dotcom, I'd stay on my home turf, and either try to get the deadline put back to August or force the US to foot the bills for the additional 5 months.
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If Kim thinks this is a good idea . . .
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