Yesterday, Eastern District of New York DOJ prosecutor Mark Lesko told Judge Garaufis that he met with Mark Geragos and Michael Avenatti concerning Clare Bronfman’s criminal case.
This revealed publicly the surprising news that Avenatti likely represents Bronfman.
The revelation, not coming first from the defense, angered the judge, who declared there is no attorney-client privilege concerning whether or not an attorney represents a defendant in a case.
The judge pressed the defense for an answer – if Avenatti – who was arrested this week on attempted extortion charges – indeed did represent Bronfman. This caused the delicate heiress to faint dead away. She recovered shortly thereafter and left the courtroom – without answering the judge’s question.
Frank Report previously reported that Lesko filed a notice of appearance in the Nxivm case.  He was a prosecutor with the EDNY DOJ, from 2002- 2009, then left and turned politician.  He was deputy head of the criminal division on Long Island when he left the DOJ and was elected three times as Brookhaven supervisor.
Lesko then left elected office to become executive director of Accelerate, a not-for-profit organized to develop biotech companies on Long Island. He was also vice president for economic development at Hofstra University.
We also reported that, given Lesko’s expertise in successfully prosecuting cases, his return to the DOJ and participation in the Nxivm case would be a formidable addition to the prosecution.
Now, it appears that we may have underestimated just what a force Lesko will be on the case. This week, Richard Donoghue, U.S. Attorney for the EDNY [appointed by Trump], named Lesko, as chief assistant U.S. Attorney — the No. 2 person at the EDNY.
The EDNY has about 175 federal prosecutors. The district includes Nassau and Suffolk counties, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.  Lesko replaces Bridget Rohde, who was named Donoghue’s special counsel.
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
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He’s not as smart as Keith. No chance against Keith.
How much smarter must Raniere be to overcome pictures with a nude underage girl?
Yolanda,
Was that you I saw getting off the bus from Guadalajara the other day?
Or was that maybe the bus from Vancouver?
Shadow State
After I read the transcripts and took into account the mistrial/appeal potential in addition to the disrespect factor, it makes more sense now. Thanks crew.
I have been wondering the same thing. KR Claviger, can you fill us in and shed light on this? What was Clare’s motive for lying about how she found Geragos? Why does it matter if she found him on the internet or if her family already had a relationship with him? And what was her motive for hiding that Avennati is representing her? What benefit do those two actions have for Clare? Why didn’t she just say yeah i have known Geragos for some time through my family. And why didn’t she just inform the judge that Avennati is also now representing her? Those seem like stupid lies/omissions. Motive?
Clare doesn’t know how to tell the truth. It wasn’t just her, it was her lawyers as well. Now we know why the defense didn’t want this hearing to be public. The judge was not impressed.
Adding on to Natashka’s comment – I don’t get why the Avenatti thing is such a big deal or why the judge would be pissed about it. Avenatti is likely a dirty character and if anything Clare should be in panic mode about her representation – not the judge. Unless the omission is a sign of disrespect to the judge and proper protocol? I must be missing some legal context here so someone please educate me 🙂
I am guessing: Judges do not like to be lied to. The Judge is conducting hearings to be sure there are no conflicts of interest in the representation, so that all Defendants receive a fair trial. And she is playing hide the ball.
So were her lawyers.
One word soon Protocol and the court was disrespected.
Can I ask, why the big secrecy of him representing her? Why the lies to how she found Geragos? Is there any benefit to all this? Or was it just more stupid errors by the heiress and her attorney clowns? She sure knows how to pick em. Who would have thought any less after the fiasco concerning her and the attorney and the storage unit.
The defense team wanted to keep the whole hearing private, and now we know why. The real secret was the horse-trading Avenatti was attempting to do last week, the charges against him are just the icing on the cake.