By Bill Wichert

Law360 (April 5, 2021, 9:43 PM EDT) -- A federal judge in New Jersey on Monday rejected a man's bid to escape criminal charges over his alleged threat to kill a federal jurist in the Garden State on the grounds that his indictment was handed down past the 30-day deadline under the Speedy Trial Act, saying court orders related to the coronavirus outbreak paused that clock.

U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan concluded that the 30-day period to bring an indictment following William Kaetz's arrest was tolled by U.S. Chief District Judge Freda L. Wolfson's standing orders, which were issued in September and extended in December in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 in New Jersey. 

The Pennsylvania federal judge, sitting by designation, found that the orders "excluded the time between Mr. Kaetz's arrest and his indictment being filed, such that the 30-day period had not expired when the indictment was filed on January 21, 2021."

"The well-supported standing orders, predicated on findings pertaining to 'real time' public-health risks, properly tolled the speedy trial clock," Judge Ranjan said in his written opinion.

In the Sept. 23 order, Judge Wolfson continued the 30-day period for prosecutors to obtain an indictment or file an information until Jan. 4, and said "the time period of March 16, 2020 through January 4, 2021 shall be 'excluded time' in all criminal proceedings in this District under the Speedy Trial Act." The Dec. 17 order similarly continued the 30-day period to March 12.

Kaetz was indicted on four counts on Jan. 21, 95 days after his Oct. 18 arrest.

Kaetz, who has been ordered detained until trial, raised the speedy trial argument in seeking to dismiss three counts charging him with threatening to assault and murder a federal judge, sending a threatening email to the judge, and disclosing personal information about the judge on Facebook and Twitter.

Judge Ranjan shot down Kaetz's position that the government could have secured an indictment within 30 days of his arrest, despite the standing orders.

In accusing the government of "neglect" in handling what it purportedly considered a "relatively unimportant" case, Kaetz had stressed that prosecutors obtained indictments in at least 114 cases in New Jersey federal court between Oct. 20 and Dec. 31.

But Judge Ranjan said the fact that "some indictments were returned in other cases doesn't undercut the validity or applicability of Chief Judge Wolfson's standing orders, which balanced serious public-health risks and the limited ability to convene grand jurors."

"As such, the fact that some indictments were returned after Mr. Kaetz's arrest does not, standing alone, show that the government was negligent or operated in bad faith in failing to indict this case," the judge said.

The judge also rejected Kaetz's two other arguments to dismiss the three counts, including that the pre-indictment delay violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights and that the delay between his arrest and trial ran afoul of his speedy trial right under the Sixth Amendment. 

The due process argument fell short after Kaetz did not show "both actual prejudice and prosecutorial bad faith," the judge said.

Kaetz has neither shown that "he has suffered any actual prejudice to his defense" nor that "the government deliberately delayed bringing the indictment to obtain an improper tactical advantage or to harass him," the judge said.

In nixing the Sixth Amendment claim, Judge Ranjan said the U.S. Supreme Court and the Third Circuit "both recognize that, generally, a delay between arrest and trial is not presumptively prejudicial...until the delay approaches one year."

Kaetz was arrested slightly more than five months ago, the judge noted. Criminal jury trials in New Jersey federal court have been suspended till June 1 due to the pandemic.

The judge said he "does not view the relatively short delay in this case as presumptively prejudicial, even if trial is postponed to June 2021, considering the nature of this case and the present circumstances."

Judge Ranjan also denied a second motion from Kaetz — who was previously convicted of sending threatening communications — to dismiss the fourth count of the indictment charging him with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. That charge relates to how federal agents allegedly discovered a rifle in his home.

Kaetz argued that "the indictment fails to set forth that he knew of his status barring him from possessing a firearm, and thus the indictment 'fails to set forth all material elements for an offense under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1),'" according to the judge's opinion on that motion.

"Contrary to Mr. Kaetz's assertions, Count IV adequately alleges that Mr. Kaetz knew of his status that prohibited his firearm possession: '[Mr. Kaetz], knowing he had previously been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year . . . knowingly possessed, in and affecting interstate commerce, a firearm and ammunition[.],'" Judge Ranjan said. "This is sufficient."

Kaetz's attorney, Douglas Sughrue, told Law360 in a Monday email that, "We understand the Court's ruling. We look forward to our day in Court. We are confident that a jury will listen to the evidence placed in front of it and find Mr. Kaetz not guilty of all of the charges. If there is any other result, we look forward to taking the pretrial speedy trial violations to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals."

A representative of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, which is handling the case, said the office declined to comment Monday.

The government is represented by Cindy K. Chung and Tonya S. Goodman of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Kaetz is represented by Douglas Sughrue of Sughrue Law.

The case is U.S. v. Kaetz, case number 2:21-cr-00071, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

--Editing by Regan Estes.

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