Government

BENCHSLAP: Judge Dropkicks Capitol Riot Defendant's Request For Luxury Mexican Vacation

Sometimes there is harm in asking, actually.

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Benchslapped-01Safe to say that Chief Judge Beryl Howell was not impressed with the Emergency Motion to Travel filed this morning by Capitol Riot defendant Jason Owens.

Owens, who traveled from Texas to DC with his 21-year-old son and breached the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, hasn’t let a multi-count federal felony indictment slow him down. In fact, the sales rep for Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals is doing better than ever, pushing enough drugs to earn himself a spot in the “Presidents Club” trip to Cabo San Lucas.

It’s not clear if Chief Judge Howell would have granted the request to spend five nights in Mexico at a luxury resort, even if it hadn’t been made less than two weeks before the proposed trip, after the tickets had already been purchased, and styled as an “Emergency Motion,” emphasis original. Nor is it clear why Owens’s attorney, a Texas lawyer admitted pro hac vice to practice in the District, failed to bring the matter to the court’s attention since April 22, when his client first asked him to “Let me know how you want to proceed with getting permission from the court to attend this meeting.”

It’s possible that mistakes were made.

In any event, it appears that Owens will not be able to make the trip, as Howell responded just hours later with this scathing minute order flagged by BuzzFeed’s Zoe Tillman.

Forgive the long block quote, but the full-throated judicial rage on display cannot be appreciated with mere excerpts:

On April 21, 2021, defendant made his first appearance before a magistrate judge of this Court following his arrest on charges relating to his alleged criminal conduct on January 6, 2021, including the serious felony charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding an officer of the Metropolitan Police Department, and obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder.

Exactly one year later, on April 21, 2022, defendant registered, as an apparent “winner” of the “2021 President’s Club” recognition offered by his employer, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, for he and his wife to attend a five-night getaway in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, furnishing such business-critical data as his t-shirt and shoe sizes (“Mens L” and “Mens 10 1/2”), favorite color (“Blue”), willingness to receive delivered alcoholic beverages (“Yes”), and special dietary request (“Vegan, but not too crazy strict”). See Def.’s Mot., Ex. A, Email from “Web Registrations” to Jason Owens (Apr. 21, 2022).

The following day, apparently fully aware that to attend this boondoggle he would need dispensation from this Court due to his conditions of pretrial release, defendant inquired of his retained counsel “how you want to proceed with getting permission from the court to attend this meeting,” Def.’s Mot., Ex. A, Email from Jason Owens to Jim Darnell (Apr. 22, 2022), seemingly assuming this Court’s approach to nonessential foreign travel by defendants facing federal felony charges would be, like defendant’s adherence to veganism, “not too crazy strict.” More than a month later, on May 23, 2022, defendant filed the instant “emergency motion to travel” (emphasis in original), to attend “a corporate meeting” and/or “a work-related conference,” now less than two weeks away with flights already booked, Def.’s Mot. at 1.

Public reports describe the “President’s Club” as “a prestigious award for top-selling [Mallinckrodt] reps that came with free trips to destinations like Hawaii and Europe,” Meryl Kornfield et al., Inside the Sales Machine of the ‘Kingpin’ of Opioid Makers, Wash. Post (May 10, 2022), https://wapo.st/3MGfKEB. Past years have promised “a great trip dedicated to celebrating your achievements” including “a week of fun and relaxation,” five-star accommodations, and “spa treatments, golf and water activities such as snorkeling, paddle boarding and outrigger canoes,” id. (reproducing a Mallinckrodt document, “FY13 President’s Club in Maui, Hawaii”). While the Court does not begrudge defendant’s apparent business success while on pretrial release, his international travel to harvest the bounties of such success will need to wait until he is no longer facing felony charges arising from ill-advised domestic travel in January 2021.

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Ominous reference to calendar: check. Scare quotes: check. Recitation of embarrassing personal details in a manner guaranteed to attract attention of reporters: check. Barely concealed reference to attorney’s failure to respect the court by filing timely motion: check. Judge’s clerk who knows how to work Google: check. Language clicky enough that it might even break through the avalanche of bad publicity Mallinckrodt has been weathering this month: check.

June in Texas: CHECK CHECK CHECK.

US v. Owens [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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