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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document615_ Filed 02/24/22 Page 42 of 49 first instance, it held that the district court’s decision not to do so was within its broad discretion. Id. at 306. As the foregoing cases reflect, given the dangers of post-verdict hearings into jurors’ conduct, to warrant a hearing, allegations of impropriety must be “concrete allegations of inappropriate conduct that constitute competent and relevant evidence.” Baker, 899 F.3d at 130 (quotation omitted). A single, anonymous sentence found in a newspaper article does not meet that standard. Such a report is classic hearsay and suffers from the risks inherent on relying on such information. See Schering Corp. v. Pfizer Inc., 189 F.3d 218, 232 (2d Cir. 1999) (describing the “four classes of risk peculiar to this kind of evidence: those of (1) insincerity, (2) faulty perception, (3) faulty memory and (4) faulty narration”). As such, in the foregoing cases and numerous others, courts have routinely declined to grant evidentiary hearings based solely on hearsay statements. See also, e.g., United States v. Sattar, 395 F. Supp. 2d 66, 77 (S.D.N.Y. 2005), aff'd sub nom. United States v. Stewart, 590 F.3d 93 (2d Cir. 2009); Daniels v. Hollins, No. CV- 02-4495FBLB, 2006 WL 47412, at *8 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 9, 2006); United States v. Menendez, 440 F. App’x 906, 911-12 (11th Cir. 2011). As one court observed, “to permit an inquiry based on such scant evidence in a case that continues to receive an unprecedented level of publicity would do serious damage to the policies that justify limitations on postverdict juror scrutiny.” Stewart, 317 F. Supp. 2d at 443. So too here. The Court should deny the defendant’s request to expand the hearing to call every juror merely to inquire into a single anonymous statement in a newspaper article. 4. The Defendant’s “Discovery” Request Should Be Denied The Court should deny the defendant’s motion for “pre-hearing discovery” in its entirety. Given the “evil consequences” of post-verdict juror inquiries, courts may not permit such inquiries 40 DOJ-OGR-00009161