Judge Orders Jan. 6 Defendant’s Secret Court Docket Unsealed on Nov. 3

Samuel Lazar, 37, of Ephrata, Pa., berates police on the west plaza of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. U.S. Department of Justice/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

The federal judge who approved keeping a Jan. 6 defendant’s plea agreement and sentence on a secret court docket for months has ruled the sealed records in the case will be made public with possible redactions as early as Nov. 3.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson made the ruling in Washington on Oct. 4 after a coalition of national news media outlets filed its second motion in five months (pdf) to unseal the case records.

The case of Samuel Lazar, 37, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, has raised questions about public access to federal court proceedings after Judge Jackson took the unusual step of sealing an entire case docket, including the existence of the docket itself.

“The parties will have the opportunity to identify any material they would seek to have redacted from the public docket in either case and provide redacted copies by November 2, 2023,” the public court docket in the original criminal case reads. “The unsealing order does not apply to material that would have been sealed in any criminal case, such as the presentence investigation report and final recommendation of the U.S. Probation Office.”

It was only after his release from federal custody on Sept. 13 and the filing of a second motion by the Press Coalition that Judge Jackson agreed to make the records public. Mr. Lazar was released from a federal prison in New Jersey to a halfway house in July and finished his sentence in September.

‘No Explanation’

“These filings (together, the ‘Sealed Judicial Records’) are all subject to the First Amendment and common law rights of public access, yet the public docket still provides no explanation as to why these judicial records remain inaccessible to the public, even though Lazar has now been freed from incarceration,” wrote Charles D. Tobin, an attorney for the Press Coalition.

Samuel Lazar of Ephrata, Pa., wore green ski goggles at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. U.S. DOJ/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

The Press Coalition includes ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, The E.W. Scripps Company, Gannett Co., Gray Media Group, The Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, NBC News, Politico, Tegna, Inc., The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

According to a status update filed by prosecutors on Oct. 2 (pdf), Mr. Lazar was sentenced to 30 months in prison on March 17, 2023, in a sealed hearing. During the proceeding, the “defendant’s cooperation with the government was discussed,” the status update said.

Mr. Lazar was arrested by the FBI on July 26, 2021, and later charged in a superseding indictment (pdf) with assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.

As part of a secret deal with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty in March 2022 to one felony: assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and aiding and abetting. The plea deal “contemplated cooperation with the government,” prosecutors wrote.

In September 2021, a U.S. magistrate judge ruled that releasing Mr. Lazar pending trial posed too much of a danger to the public. He was ordered held until trial.

Writing on Sept. 29, Mr. Tobin said the public docket “still does not reflect that Lazar was ever convicted or acquitted of the charges against him or that the court reconsidered the findings made in adjudicating the issue of his pretrial detention.”

“The press, the public, and presumably even the police victims of Lazar’s violence on January 6, therefore, have no idea how or why this January 6 riot participant, deemed just a couple of years ago to be too dangerous to release, is now free.”