DOJ-OGR-00001788.jpg

Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 63 Filed 10/07/20 Page 2 of 8

Honorable Alison J. Nathan
October 7, 2020
Page 2

returns. The Government is continuing the process of reviewing and preparing productions of
electronic discovery materials, which include extractions of data from numerous electronic
devices. The Government expects that it will meet the November 9, 2020 deadline for the
completion of electronic discovery productions. Additionally, the Government recognizes that its
disclosure obligations are ongoing, and the Government will continue to review the Prosecution
Team Files for any additional discoverable or exculpatory materials. In particular, the Government
is aware of its obligations under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) and its progeny, and will
promptly produce any exculpatory material of which it becomes aware.

The Government’s Rule 16 discovery productions do not include witness statements or
material under Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972) and its progeny, consistent with the
common practice and law within this Circuit. As indicated in a prior letter, the Government intends
to produce all such materials to the defense well in advance of trial.¹ Specifically, although the
parties have not yet conferred regarding a schedule for disclosure of witness statements, the
Government is prepared to produce all statements and impeachment material for witnesses it
expects to call at trial as early as four weeks prior to trial. Additionally, the Government is
prepared to produce any statements by witnesses who it does not expect to call at trial as early as
eight weeks prior to trial, subject to restrictions to protect those individuals’ privacy to be
negotiated by the parties.

II. Applicable Law Governing Disclosure of Other Investigative Files

The disclosure obligations set forth in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, Brady, and
Giglio apply to materials in the Government’s “possession.” As a general matter, though “[a]n
individual prosecutor is presumed . . . to have knowledge of all information gathered in connection
with his office’s investigation of the case[,] . . . knowledge on the part of persons employed by a
different office of the government does not in all instances warrant the imputation of knowledge
to the prosecutor . . . .” United States v. Avellino, 136 F.3d 249, 255 (2d Cir. 1998) (citations
omitted); see also United States v. Locascio, 6 F.3d 924, 948-49 (2d Cir. 1993) (declining to “infer
the prosecutors’ knowledge simply because some other government agents knew about” additional
evidence where federal prosecutors were unaware of documents in possession of FBI agents who
were “uninvolved in the investigation or trial of the defendants”); United States v. Quinn, 445 F.2d
940, 944 (2d Cir. 1971) (declining to impute knowledge of prosecutor in Florida to prosecutor in
New York and noting that the “Department of Justice alone has thousands of employees”). The
imposition of such “an unlimited duty on a prosecutor to inquire of other offices not working with
the prosecutor’s office on the case in question would inappropriately require [courts] to adopt ‘a
monolithic view of government’ that would ‘condemn the prosecution of criminal cases to a state
of paralysis.’” Avellino, 136 F.3d at 255 (quoting United States v. Gambino, 835 F. Supp. 74, 95
(E.D.N.Y. 1993)). Thus, discovery and disclosure obligations only extend to “information known

__________________________________________________________________
¹ The Government recognizes that its Brady obligations include the disclosure of witness
statements containing exculpatory information. To date, the Government is not aware of any
exculpatory material contained in any witness statements, but it will continued to review its files,
including witness statements, for such material. If the Government becomes aware of any Brady
material from any source, it will promptly disclose such material to the defense.

DOJ-OGR-00001788