Lev Parnas lawyer claims prosecutor threatened to shoot him in bizarre NYC courtroom spat
Disorder in the court!
The trial of ex-Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas took a bizarre turn Thursday when his lawyer accused a prosecutor on the case of threatening to shoot him.
The sideshow erupted after Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagen Scotten jokingly challenged Parnas’s lawyer, Joseph Bondy, to a duel following a tense conversation out of the presence of the jury in Manhattan Federal Court.
“I made a joke, which was, I think, ‘We’re going to have a duel. Does anybody have a sidearm? I guess I need one bullet,’” Scotten said, explaining the incident to Judge Paul Oetken.
But Bondy, a prominent lawyer who has represented mobsters and specializes in marijuana-related cases, didn’t think it was funny.
“I heard Mr. Scotten say, ‘We just have one bullet. Does anyone have a sidearm? If I could have one bullet,’ behind my back, referring to me, citing a firearm and a bullet,” Bondy said. “But here’s the thing, he did it to about five FBI agents. I heard them all laughing in response to his remarks. It’s inappropriate. It’s reprehensible.”
Bondy demanded an apology from Scotten’s supervisor, calling the challenge “outrageous.”
Oetken said Scotten’s remark “might not have been appropriate” in the “heat of battle,” but also accepted the prosecutor’s explanation that it was a joke.
“I’m not going to make anyone apologize,” the judge said.
