DOJ-OGR-00002566.jpg

Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 140 Filed 02/04/21 Page 18 of 22 indicted, and she didn’t know for a month more just 3 7777 7 a Martindell has been binding Second Circuit law for more than forty years, and the government’s violation of its holding is no trivial matter. 3 In Palmieri v. State of New York, the federal magistrate issued two sealing orders protecting the confidentiality of settlement discussions of a private antitrust case. 779 F.2d 861, 863-64 (2d Cir. 1985). Because the subject matter of the antitrust case overlapped with an ongoing state criminal antitrust case, the state Attorney General moved to intervene in the private antitrust case, to modify the seal orders, to access the settlement material, and to present the material and testimony to a state grand jury. /d. at 862. The district court granted the Attorney General’s request, but the Second Circuit, applying Martindell, reversed. Id. The Second Circuit recognized that the state Attorney General, like the federal government, “enjoys a similarly privileged position with respect to its investigatory powers.” /d. at 866. Those powers, in turn, “raise[d] a rebuttable presumption against modification of the orders.” /d. Indeed, given the parties’ reliance on the sealing orders, the Attorney General’s “burden [was] heavier than it might otherwise be.” /d. at 865. 14 DOJ-OGR-00002566