Frank Housh, the attorney for Antwan Odom, appeared in Genesee County Court on Wednesday morning along with Odom, to address a temporary gag order put into place last month at the request of District Attorney Larry Friedman.
Friedman requested the gag order after a May 3, 2019 court appearance where Housh spoke with reporters in regards to making a motion to add character evidence.
This comment from Housh on May 3rd is what is at issue.
“We will see where this leads, in a justification defense, self defense, one of the issues is the character of the first aggressor and how you defend yourself. The fact that Ray Leach is known in the community to be a violent person, a confrontational person, known to be a drug dealer who by the prosecutors own admission he went to my clients house, called him out and beat him into unconsciousness, so to say his history of violence and intimidation is irrelevant is simply absurd, we should be able to bring that up.”
On Wednesday morning, Housh submitted a letter dated June 4th to the court asking for District Attorney Larry Friedman to be disqualified first before Housh can submit his motions. Housh says he has no objection to the current temporary gag order. But stated that Friedman could have just requested the order instead of filing a grievance.
On May 17th , Housh made this statement in court in regards to the grievance, “This gives me a prior restraint on my 1st Amendment rights. I’ve never heard of an elected DA taking what is supposed to be a private grievance procedure being filed under these circumstance and making it public. Its supposed to be private, he has made it extremely public.”
Housh then told the court last month that his client can’t get a fair trial here with him as his lawyer.
“The DA is attacking my license, so I will have to withdraw from the case, I don’t have the resources. I want to represent my client, I can’t do that now, his 5th Amendment right is now lost.”
Today, Friedman told the court he felt it was his obligation to follow up and report the issue.
“I’m not prosecuting him, no one is prosecuting him, I’m not seeking his disbarment,” says Friedman.
Friedman told the court he could not wait until the case is over to file a grievance because the jury selection would be tainted.
Housh also accused Friedman of controlling the media coverage saying that Genesee County is small community that has a website and a radio station. Housh said in court that is a false claim. The community is also covered by the larger markets in the area and stories about this case have appeared in media outlets in those markets also.
“He wishes to control the press coverage, but I can say nothing,” says Housh.
Judge Zambito gave Housh until July 2nd to discuss the issue with his client and disqualifying the District Attorney will be discussed at that appearance.
Also discussed in court on Wednesday, was amending the order of protection so Odom could attend his high school graduation.
Judge Zambito did not have an issue with amending the order for graduation, however Friedman says attorneys for the City of Batavia School District spoke with the Superintendent in regards to allowing Odom to attend his graduation and the Superintendent feared there would be a disturbance and did not want to allow Odom to attend.
Judge Zambito says he has no jurisdiction over what the school district decides to do in the matter.