The envelope never made it to Judge Arthur Engoron, but caused an emergency response at the courthouse.

The envelope never made it to Judge Arthur Engoron, but caused an emergency response at the courthouse.

Judge Arthur Engoron, who handed down a $355 million ruling against former President Donald Trump in his civil fraud trial, was sent an envelope containing white powder on Wednesday, causing an emergency response at his New York City courthouse, a source with direct knowledge of the incident confirmed to NBC News.

The judge and his staff were not exposed to the substance — his mail is pre-screened on a daily basis and was intercepted before it reached him, the source said. A court officer opened the letter and powder fell out, according to the New York Police Department, exposing the officer and another court employee to the substance, the source said. The New York City Fire Department said the two refused any medical treatment. The threatening letter was first reported by ABC News.

The threat is far from the first against the judge. Police on Long Island responded to a bomb threat at his home last month, hours before closing arguments in the Trump trial were scheduled to begin.

  • suppenloeffel@feddit.de
    191·
    8 months ago

    A court officer opened the letter and powder fell out, according to the New York Police Department, exposing the officer and another court employee to the substance, the source said. The New York City Fire Department said the two refused any medical treatment.

    Uhhh - so two employees were exposed to a yet unknown substance that has to be at least considered to be harmful and were even allowed to refuse medical treatment? Am I missing something here?

    • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
      12·
      8 months ago

      shit they’ll probably be charged for the medical treatment. Every Americans knee-jerk reaction these days is avoid the hospital and ambulances for fear of medical debt wiping us out.

    • somerandomperson1231@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      73·
      8 months ago

      Until we know what the substance was we could be missing a lot. The letter could have been more of a threat than an attempt. Maybe it’s just baby powder or maybe they just didn’t breathe any of it in. The powder is probably just presued harmful until proven otherwise. Does that help clarify? In my opinion this article shouldn’t have been released in this form. It’s to wordy with to little information.

      • suppenloeffel@feddit.de
        8·
        8 months ago

        Yeah, the article isn’t all that great. Still, the fact that the two exposed employees refused medical treatment suggests to me, that the nature of the substance at least wasn’t yet known at that time, since it shouldn’t be necessary to even offer that, if the substance was known to be something harmless like baby powder.

        Cheers, though!

        • dev_null
          131·
          8 months ago

          A: You think we should call the ambulance? B: Nah, I didn’t even touch it, and it’s probably nothing anyway.

          “Refused medical treatment”

          • jkrtn
            2·
            8 months ago

            B: Nah, I cannot afford medical care. I’m only covered if my life is clearly in danger.

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            8 months ago

            For the record, you can always call an ambulance for people.

            Even without their consent. And even in the us, there won’t be a cost incurred until they accept treatment (which is why you wind up with absurdly expensive bandaids.)

            So if you think somebody might need some help, it’s better to call than not- this is particularly true if you may have some liability.

            Also, every state has some version of a law that requires calling for aid (that is satisfied by reporting to 911). They’re typically referred to as Good Samaritan laws.

            (If they refuse treatment to professionals, that’s their business, you’re clear of further liability; if the ambulance wants to insist they can either call cops and force the matter; or wait till they go unconscious and exploit implied consent.)

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          8 months ago

          You have the right to refuse treatment at any time you want.

          Now, there may be other things going on, like observation and isolation. There’s not a lot that can be done anyhow; until symptoms of something start showing up, most likely the fastest way to verify what treatment is appropriate is to run tests on the powder.

          That’s the kind of thing that gets put at the front of the line.

          Probably just cornstarch or baby powder. But also, both those could conceivably be a carrier for something.

          If I was their boss I’d go with the “and let you spread it to your family?” Guilt trip instead.

    • medgremlin@midwest.social
      2·
      8 months ago

      If it was actually anthrax, it has an incubation period of 1 to 3 days and a prodromal phase that can last anywhere from 1 to 6 days. Their exposure would have been inhalation which does carry the worst forms of the illness and the worst prognosis, but they’d have at least a couple days before symptoms start showing up and there are antitoxin and immunoglobulin treatments available. There’s not really a post-exposure prophylaxis, per se, and giving someone the treatments unnecessarily would be incredibly expensive.