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Judge rules Reddy case will be public

By Michael Coffino Daily Planet Correspondent
Tuesday October 31, 2000

Guilty pleas expected to be entered by a Berkeley landlord and four relatives facing criminal charges for sex, immigration and tax offenses were put off Monday after the judge hearing the case refused a request by government and defense lawyers to seal the plea agreement and close the courtroom to the public.  

Federal prosecutors have implicated Lakireddy Bali Reddy, a 63-year-old Berkeley landlord, in an alleged conspiracy to import Indian teen-agers and adults to the United States for sex and cheap labor. Four members of Reddy’s extended family have also been charged and are expected to plead guilty to federal criminal charges. 

“I feel sick about the whole thing,” Reddy told the Daily Planet shortly before the hearing began Monday morning. “God is great,” he said, putting his hands together in a gesture of supplication. “God is great,” he repeated.  

Reddy said his attorney had advised him against talking to the press. “My mouth is shut up, my hands are shut up,” he explained genially. “I should not be talking.” 

Indeed, media issues moved to the center of Monday’s proceedings.  

Citing the “intense publicity” the case has received, lawyers for the defendants refused to enter scheduled guilty pleas unless the court session was closed to reporters. They argued that press coverage of statements the five defendants would have to give as part of their guilty pleas would prejudice potential jurors if the plea agreement is rejected by the judge and the case goes to trial.  

After initially closing the courtroom session for close to three hours, Oakland Federal District Court Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong finally opened the hearing to the public. She then asked defense lawyers if they wished to have the guilty pleas entered in open court. Defense lawyers declined to do so and Armstrong reset the entry of guilty pleas for Feb. 6.  

Judge Armstrong said she would also issue a judgment on that day and sentence the four men and one woman named in the case, including two of Reddy’s sons, 31-year-old Vijay Kumar Lakireddy and 42-year-old Prasad Lakireddy, Reddy’s brother, 47-year-old Jayprakash Lakireddy of Oakland, and Jayprakash’s wife, Annapurna Lakireddy. 

In an order signed late last week but not made public until Monday morning, Judge Armstrong had agreed to close Monday’s proceedings pursuant to a joint request by the defense and prosecution. As a result, about twenty media personnel and spectators seated in the courtroom Monday morning were ordered to leave before the session started.  

For close to three hours reporters waited in the hallway outside the courtroom until Roger Myers, a media lawyer representing the San Francisco Examiner, faxed an urgent request to the court seeking to have the proceedings opened on First Amendment grounds.  

At first, only a reporter from the Examiner was allowed inside the courtroom. This set off an indignant reaction among the dozen remaining journalists, who began to compose a handwritten letter demanding they be admitted as well. But before the note could be transmitted to the judge, the double doors to the courtroom were abruptly flung open and a bailiff instructed the assembled crowd to “come in, sit down and be quiet.” 

What little of Monday’s hearing spectators were then allowed to see presented the unusual spectacle of government and defense lawyers joining forces to argue that the defendants’ guilty pleas should be entered in a closed courtroom session, while Examiner attorney Roger Myers argued via speaker phone for open proceedings. Myers said it would be unconstitutional to hold closed proceedings.  

“There’s a constitutional right of access to criminal proceedings,” he told the judge. “Congress cannot legislate away the First Amendment.” 

But Reddy attorney Ted Cassman said media coverage would prejudice his client. “The extent of media coverage defies our experience,” Cassman told the judge. “The publicity in this case has exceeded anything we have ever seen in its tenor, its sensationalism, its pervasive(ness),” he said.  

When entering a guilty plea in federal court a defendant is required to engage in a lengthy “colloquy” with the judge elaborating on the circumstances of the guilty plea. This dialogue, Cassman argued, if covered in the media, would likely taint potential jurors, prejudicing them against Reddy and the other defendants in the event the judge rejects the proposed plea agreement with the government.  

Assistant U.S. Attorney John W. Kennedy agreed there was a “substantial danger” of prejudicing a jury pool.  

But Judge Armstrong denied the request. She held that publicity alone was not a sufficient basis to close the courtroom.  

The judge ruled that on Feb. 6 she would receive the pleas, enter a judgment, and hand down sentences, all on the same day. In the intervening months she said she would study a probation report discussing the case. A probation report makes an independent sentencing recommendation based on an investigation of the defendant’s life circumstances, background and other factors bearing on an appropriate sentence.  

Media law specialist Stephen Barnett, who has taught at Boalt Hall School of Law for thirty years, said he had never heard of a guilty plea hearing being closed to the public. “It’s contrary to what the Supreme Court says the First Amendment requires,” he said. 

“I think it’s unjustified and outrageous for a hearing in a criminal case that does not involve young children or other special considerations to be closed,” he said. “The law is that criminal proceedings in federal court must be open to the public.” 

Despite her later ruling that the session be opened to the public, all but thirty minutes of Monday’s nearly four-hour hearing was held behind locked doors.  

During this period a freelance courtroom artist tried to sketch the proceedings from a narrow window in the side door to the courtroom. That vantage afforded spectators an oblique view of the mute scene being played out inside. Reddy was dressed informally in slacks and running shoes, while the other defendants wore ties or more formal attire for their courtroom appearances.  

Meanwhile, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and a San Francisco law firm coordinating representation of what they say are numerous still unidentified victims in the case were also denied access to the proceedings for more than an hour. They were finally admitted to the courtroom and later spoke with numerous television and newspaper reporters gathered outside the courthouse. 

“More and more victims come forward every day,” said attorney Michael Rubin who plans to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of the alleged victims. 

“We think there are scores if not hundreds of victims throughout the world,” Rubin said, “some here, some in different parts of the country, many back in India, who are victims of this reprehensible conduct.” Rubin claimed Reddy’s activities had gone on for “decades.” 

“One of the things we’re doing is making sure that the people who are responsible for these events receive justice. We think all five defendants should go to prison,” he said. 

None of the lawyers representing the defendants in the case returned phone calls Monday seeking comment on Monday’s court session. 

In a related development, the government appears to have made a concession to claims by Reddy’s lawyer, Ted Cassman, that charges stating Reddy imported aliens for “immoral purposes” are unconstitutionally vague. In the government’s revised indictment filed last week, those charges against Reddy were dropped and replaced with different charges under a separate law specifically forbidding transportation of minors “for sexual activity.” Defendant Vijay Kumar Lakireddy, however, continues to be charged under the law Cassman claimed was too vague to stand up to a constitutional challenge.