Using the website Leakypreet.com, businessman Billy Walters today announced he had filed suit against former federal prosecutors and FBI officials.
The civil complaint in federal district court in the Southern District of New York says, "the primary relief Walters seeks here is a definitive judicial declaration that the individual Defendants conspired to rob him of due process.This pattern of misconduct not only damaged Walters but undermined the constitutional assurance of the fundamental fairness of the federal criminal investigative apparatus. Citizens suspected of crimes by federal officials have a constitutional right to be treated fairly."
From the complaint:
Bharara's personal intervention in the arrest of Walters demonstrates the extreme lengths he went to covet publicity for himself and use the media to his own advantage. Walters was taken into custody in 2016 by a team of FBI agents in Las Vegas, Nevada. The agents didn't book Walters into a federal detention facility per standard procedures (or even perp walk him in front of waiting television cameras). Instead, they drove Walters 15 miles to the JW Marriott Las Vegas Resort & Spa, where they put him up overnight in a one-bedroom suite with five federal agents and ordered him room service—all at taxpayer expense. Walters had a simple question for the agents: Why am I here? They explained that Bharara had scheduled a press conference the next morning to crow about the arrest and did not want the local media to scoop him.
Named in the complaint are former prosecutors Preet Bharara, Telemachus Kasulis, Daniel Goldman, and Richard Zabel, and former FBI officials David Chaves and George Venizelos. The complaint cites "at least a half dozen" instances of other press leaks in New York white collar investigations, including the cases of Raj Rajaratnam, David Ganek, Fayad Abbassi, Michael Steinberg, Mark Nordlicht, and Sanjay Valvani.
The Walters/Chaves case has been the subject of continuing coverage here.