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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

_________________

United States of America, )

) No. CR-18-00422-02-PHX-DJH

Plaintiff, )

)

vs. ) Phoenix, Arizona

) December 19, 2022

James Larkin, ) 11:01 a.m.

)

Defendant. )

_____________________________ )

BEFORE: THE HONORABLE DIANE J. HUMETEWA, JUDGE

REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

STATUS CONFERENCE

Official Court Reporter:

Hilda Elizabeth Lopez, RMR, FCRR

Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. Courthouse, Suite 312

401 West Washington Street, Spc 30

Phoenix, Arizona 85003-2151

(602) 322-7256

Proceedings Reported by Stenographic Court Reporter

Transcript Prepared by Computer-Aided Transcription

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A P P E A R A N C E S

For the Government:

U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

By: Mr. Andrew C. Stone, Esq.

Mr. Kevin M. Rapp, Esq.

2 Renaissance Square

40 North Central Avenue, Suite 1800

Phoenix, Arizona 85004-4408

For the Defendant:

OSBORN MALEDON PA - Phoenix

By: Mr. Timothy J. Eckstein, Esq.

Sarah Pook Lawson, Esq.

Joseph N. Roth, Esq.

2929 N. Central Avenue, 21st Floor

Phoenix, AZ 85012

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P R O C E E D I N G S

(Proceedings commence at 11:01 a.m.)

THE COURT: All right. Please be seated.

COURTROOM DEPUTY: This is Case No. CR 18-422,

Defendant 2, United States of America vs. James Larkin, on for

status conference. Counsel, please announce your presence for

the record with government going first.

MR. STONE: Good morning, Your Honor, Andy Stone for

the United States.

THE COURT: Good morning.

MR. ECKSTEIN: Good morning. Timothy Eckstein,

Joe Roth and Sarah Lawson on behalf of James Larkin.

THE COURT: And good morning to you. Who else do we

have on the line? All right. Hearing no one else -- all

right.

MR. RAPP: Hello.

THE COURT: Was there someone else present?

MR. RAPP: Kevin Rapp has joined.

THE COURT: All right. Mr. Rapp, you are two minutes

late, but in any event, welcome.

All right. I have set this status conference because

I wanted to make sure to have new counsel for Mr. Larkin become

familiar with the status of the case at this time. And I

guess, Mr. Eckstein, I will assume that you are lead counsel on

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this matter; is that correct?

MR. ECKSTEIN: That's correct.

THE COURT: All right. And you have filed your Notice

of Appearance on the 13th of this month that is after this

Court has set a firm trial date. Now, I want to make sure and

get on the record your acknowledgment of a number of things.

The firm trial date was set after an attempted meet

and confer of all counsel in the matter. Obviously there are

numerous counsel involved in this case, and we could not come

up with an agreed-upon time so this Court had to set the case

bearing in mind its calendar as well as the age of the case,

and so the firm trial date has been set to begin on June the

20th of next year. It will continue through August the 31st.

And if necessary, we built in a couple of weeks if we need to

spill over that date. Trial will be in recess on July 4th and

5th. It will also be in recess July 31st through August the

2nd, as well as September 1st and 4th. Predominantly that is

to accommodate members of the potential jury for those 4th of

July and Labor Day holidays, and it also accommodates the Court

during the Ninth Circuit annual judicial conference in which I

have an obligation to attend being a committee chair.

And so we have, and I am sure that you are currently

meeting with prior counsel to obtain all of the discovery and

files, and I ask that government's counsel be present so that

they understand that they are under an immediate obligation

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also to provide you with discovery.

We have previously before this case went to the Ninth

Circuit on the Motion to Dismiss, we had previously come

together, all counsel, to revise a prescreening jury

questionnaire. You should certainly make yourself familiar

with that jury questionnaire because it is the questionnaire

that we will use, and I don't believe I will permit any new

questions to be added to that or omitted from that absent

extraordinary circumstances.

Now, the other matter I wanted to address, and I put

this out there on the record, Mr. Eckstein, just so that you

and your counsel, co-counsel are firmly aware, that I do not

intend to entertain any Motion to Continue absent extraordinary

circumstances, and those circumstances may be related to a

client's health issue or something to that effect, but I want

to make sure that you and your co-counsel are completely aware

of your obligations to this Court. This matter has been

pending for several years. You're going to find the discovery

to be voluminous, and I am going to make sure that Mr. Stone

and Mr. Rapp do what they can to ensure that you have

absolutely everything in an orderly fashion as soon as

possible.

And so to that end, I want to ask Mr. Eckstein, have

you had any communications with Mr. Larkin's prior counsel to

begin receiving that information?

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MR. ECKSTEIN: We have, Your Honor.

THE COURT: And have you received all of the

information that they have pertaining to the case?

MR. ECKSTEIN: We have not.

THE COURT: All right.

MR. ECKSTEIN: We started that process. My hope and

expectation is we will have the entire file in the next day or

two.

THE COURT: All right. And Mr. Stone and Mr. Rapp,

have you provided Mr. Eckstein with your information in terms

of what needs to be turned over that Mr. Eckstein may or may

not have? And I guess that's a question that Mr. Eckstein is

going to have to come to some conclusion, and I don't want to

do this at this point, but I am not opposed to imposing any

specific deadline for discovery to be provided, or I guess for

Mr. Eckstein for you to meet and confer with Mr. Stone and

Mr. Rapp as to what may or may not be missing in terms of any

discovery.

How do you propose to do that, Mr. Stone?

MR. STONE: Well, I think, as you just outlined, Your

Honor, once Osborn Maledon has received information from

previous counsel and has an opportunity to see what has been

turned over and what they have, then it would make sense to

have a conversation, a phone call, a meeting with government

and Mr. Larkin's new counsel and discuss if there's any gaps to

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fill and in the most efficient manner in filling those gaps.

THE COURT: And I guess, Mr. Eckstein, the question

really is to you, and if you need court intervention I'm happy

to do so, but I want to make sure that prior counsel provides

you with all of the files necessary to move forward in an

expedited way, and so I guess what is your -- what is your

understanding of when all of that material will be provided to

you?

MR. ECKSTEIN: As I indicated before, I think it will

be within the next day or two that it will be transmitted to us

electronically. I can't tell you not having received it yet

how -- whether there will be any issues in terms of us

downloading, having those materials organized, but my

expectation is that should not be a problem.

THE COURT: All right. And I guess based on what

you've received so far, how long do you think it will take you

to get through the material to determine whether or not you

need or believe there are additional items that the government

needs to provide?

MR. ECKSTEIN: I would say a couple of weeks probably.

THE COURT: All right. So I think what I will do is I

will ask that you provide the Court with a status report in

terms of whether or not you've received all of the discovery in

the case or if you do need court intervention in order to

receive the material, and I think what we should probably do,

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because I want to make sure that everything is provided to you

so that we don't have any cause for delay of this firm trial

date, I think we should aim to have that brief status filing by

you let's say by the beginning of the third week in January,

and let me look at that date. Why don't we say by the 17th,

the 16th is a federal holiday, why don't you place on your

calendars January 17th for that status report, and I will then

assume that you've received all of the files necessary from

prior counsel; that you've reviewed all of those files; that

you've had follow-up communication with government's counsel;

that they have either attempted to get you any additional

material that is related and relevant to your case.

And I guess with that, I just want to make sure that

we are on track to ensure that you are brought expeditiously up

to speed so that we have no delay. And so is there anything

further that you wish to raise with the Court at this time,

Mr. Eckstein?

MR. ECKSTEIN: There is not, Your Honor.

THE COURT: All right. Mr. Stone.

MR. STONE: No, Your Honor.

THE COURT: All right. With that then, we will stand

in recess. Thank you, counsel.

MR. ECKSTEIN: Thank you.

MR. STONE: Thank you.

(Proceedings concluded at 11:13 a.m.)

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C E R T I F I C A T E

I, HILDA E. LOPEZ, do hereby certify that I am duly

appointed and qualified to act as Official Court Reporter for

the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.

I FURTHER CERTIFY that the foregoing pages constitute

a full, true, and accurate transcript of all of that portion of

the proceedings contained herein, had in the above-entitled

cause on the date specified therein, and that said transcript

was prepared under my direction and control.

DATED at Phoenix, Arizona, this 10th day of March,

2023.

s/Hilda E. Lopez_______

HILDA E. LOPEZ, RMR, FCRR

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