DOJ REPORT REQUIRED IN THE ALI SADR CASE REGARDING BRADY ISSUES IS RELEASED

The US Attorney's office, SDNY, has delivered a status report to US District Judge Alison Nathna, who presided over  US vs. Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad,  responding to her Order entered February 22, 2021, concerning  whether the FBI's BIDMAS search processes do cause additional Brady violations in the District, and addressing what steps are being taken to insure that improper use of the FBI BIDMAS information system does not occur in the future. In the Sadr case, information uploaded by the FBI, regarding other unrelated IEEPA investigations in progress, was not timely conveyed to the defense, resulting a Brady violation.

 In a six page report, signed by John McEnany, the District's Associate United States Attorney, containing details of the FBI's investigation into the case, his office reached the following conclusions and recommendations:

(1) An audit of the investigations that accessed BIDMAS (Bureau Investigative Document Management and Analysis) in the Sadr case did not find that any searches were outside the scope of the search warrants obtained in the case by the US Attorney's Office. Some BIDMAS data from other investigations,, however, was aggregated, resulting in potential violations.

(2) BIDMAS search results must be conducted with awareness of the obligations under the Fourth Amendments and  Brady vs.Maryland  requirements.

(3) Extensive training was conducted to insure that Brady violations do not occur in the future in other cases.

Readers who have the need to examine the scope of the audit, and the conclusions in more detail may want access the complete text of the August 17, 2021 letter below. A fair reading of the report indicates that the  Brady  violation occurred when the FBI researchers failed to alert the prosecutors that it had other materials which could constitute evidence requiring disclosure under Brady. The report asserts that this "blind spot" has been eliminated through adequate training procedures.

 A fair reading of the report indicates that the Brady violations occurred due to the flaw in the BIDMAS system, and the failure of the investigating agents, in an overabundance of caution, to insure that everything obtained was disclosed to the defense in a timely manner.