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The attorneys for Quintez Brown, the suspect sprung from jail by a BLM-supported bail fund after allegedly attempting to murder a Louisville, Kentucky, mayoral candidate, asked a judge to dismiss a new federal indictment unsealed last week, arguing prosecutors improperly subpoenaed Brown's mental health records.
The motion says federal prosecutors issued a subpoena for 21-year-old Brown’s mental health records March 22, but Brown only found out about what his defense attorneys alleged is a "violation of his psychotherapist-patient privilege" during his recent federal arraignment April 8.
Brown’s defense attorneys argue the government had not notified Brown about the subpoena and warned that the recipient should not notify anyone that the information was requested because "such disclosure could impede the investigation" and "thereby interfere with the enforcement of the law."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda E. Gregory of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky requested the mental health records, and the subpoena says the information should be handed over to FBI Agent Jordan Matteo. It’s unclear if the motion to have the indictment dismissed will hold any weight.
Brown’s attorney, Rob Eggert, has called the new federal indictment "racially and politically motivated" and claimed the U.S. Attorney’s Office "ran from the case" when Breonna Taylor, a Black woman, was killed, and now is accusing Brown, a Black man suffering from mental illness, of committing a crime against a White mayoral candidate "at the prompting of" Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Quintez Brown, accused of an attempt on the life of Louisville mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg, was booked into the Grayson County Detention Center as a federal prisoner, according to a booking log. (Grayson County Detention Center)
Brown, a civil rights activist and former newspaper intern and columnist, is accused of entering the campaign headquarters of Democratic mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg in Louisville on Valentine’s Day and opening fire in an attempt on the candidate’s life. No one was injured, but bullets grazed Greenberg’s sweater. Police arrested Brown 10 minutes later, allegedly finding a 9mm magazine in his pants pocket.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) Louisville shelled out $100,000 to cover his bail, and Brown was released two days after the shooting for home incarceration with an ankle monitor. In April, a Jefferson County grand jury indicted Brown on attempted murder and four counts of wanton endangerment charges, as several of Greenberg’s staffers were nearby at the time of the shooting.
Federal authorities rearrested Brown last week. A new federal indictment unsealed April 7 charges Brown with interfering with a federally protected right, as well as using and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence by shooting at and attempting to kill a candidate for elective office. Brown made his initial federal court appearance April 7 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Colin H. Lindsay.
Greenberg is Jewish, and despite the Louisville Courier-Journal previously reporting that a federal grand jury was weighing hate crime charges, that count was not listed in the federal indictment.
McConnell described the allegation that he had any influence on the federal prosecution as "quite laughable" in an interview on NewsRadio 840 WHAS.
"That's quite creative but not very convincing," he said.
Louisville Democratic mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg speaks during a news conference in Louisville, Ky., Feb. 14, 2022. Greenberg was shot at while inside his campaign office but was not struck, though a bullet grazed a piece of his clothing, police said. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Days before the shooting, Brown attended a recruitment event for the Lion of Judah’s Louisville chapter, but the organization’s national president, based in Minneapolis, previously told Fox News Digital that Brown never joined and was not a member.
Lion of Judah National President Nasiy Nasir X, in a phone interview with Fox News Digital in February, also denied that the organization was in any way affiliated with the Black Hebrew Israelite (BHI) movement, which the Anti-Defamation League defines as "a fringe religious movement that rejects widely accepted definitions of Judaism and asserts that people of color are the true children of Israel."
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Brown previously appeared in a 2018 TV segment with MSNBC host Joy Reid covering a Washington, D.C., protest for gun control. He has advocated for socialism in past writing, and as an MLK scholar at the University of Louisville was selected to visit California to meet former President Barack Obama. His family reported him missing last summer, but he was later found safe.
