NEW YORK — Upstate New York sex cult leader Keith Raniere wants the judge who could overturn his conviction to recuse himself over a courtroom shouting match the jurist had with his lawyer last year.
An attorney for the NXIVM boss asked Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis to take himself off the case Friday, alleging the judge’s “personal feelings” made him biased against Raniere.
“The court’s history of biased comments and rulings, in this case, establishes that Judge Garaufis cannot engage neutrally and impartially moving forward,” Joseph Tully wrote in a 33-page motion.
Tully cited Garaufis’ “outrageous comments” at Raniere’s trial as well as other hearings in the case.
Among those was the July 2021 argument Garaufis had with Raniere’s lawyer Marc Fernich at a posttrial hearing where French requested an adjournment to attend the funeral of a colleague who died of pancreatic cancer.
Garaufis screamed at Fernich for not giving the court appropriate notice, claimed French was trying to “mislead” him and told the lawyer to “go cry” about it, noting that the man who died was not a member of Fernich’s family.
The courtroom sat in silence for 30 minutes after the exchange.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Judge Garaufis but that certainly wasn’t one of his better days,” said Jeffrey Lichtman, who was also representing Raniere at the hearing.
“It was the most excruciating thing I’ve ever had to sit through inside a courtroom,” said the lawyer of 31 years.
In another instance that Tully alleges showed bias, Garaufis cut off lawyer Mark Agnifilo’s line of questioning during the trial and told him, “You are done,” even though Agnifilo had acknowledged he was finished cross examining star witness Lauren Salzman.
Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison following his 2019 conviction for helping himself to a harem of women who were recruited for his sexual pleasure into his NXIVM cult.
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