In the latest development regarding the high-profile extortion case involving Maryland State Sen. Dalya Attar, her legal team has filed a motion to dismiss some of the charges against her. Attar's counsel asserts that the senator, along with her brother Joseph "Yossi" Attar and Baltimore City Police Officer Kalman Finkelstein, should be cleared of three extortion counts because there was no attempt to gain money or property from the alleged victim, as reported by Maryland Matters.
Attorneys for Sen. Attar argued that the real motive behind the defendants' actions was to seek respite from what they describe as persistent harassment from a former political consultant, who reportedly engaged in stalking and intimidation after being terminated from Attar's 2018 campaign, FOX Baltimore reported. Notably, the government's case hinges on accusations that the senator and her co-defendants sought to silence the former consultant with recorded footage of an affair, which they have pleaded not guilty to.
Although the entire case, which includes conspiracy and wiretapping counts as well, has not been requested to be dismissed, the defense clearly delineates its standpoint. Attar's attorneys emphasize that the senator's actions are not rooted in self-interest but rather in self-defense. "This case is not about any attempt by the Defendants to obtain money, property, or thing of transferable economic value," the filing read. "The Defendants sought nothing more than freedom from 'Victim' 1’s ongoing and well-documented stalking, harassment, threats, and demands," the attorneys claimed as stated in the filing obtained by Maryland Matters.
Furthering their defense, Attar's legal team pointed to a lack of direct evidence in the case, highlighting that the government did not possess the alleged video footage, which was central to the charges against the defendants, Maryland Matters further reported. They argued that the indictment was largely based on the contested testimony of one victim who recorded a conversation with Joseph Attar. "It is Victim 2, and Victim 2 alone, who reports that this fleeting display included intimate images of him and Victim 1 engaging in intercourse nearly two years earlier," according to the filing. "The Government unquestioningly accepted Victim 2’s allegation as true and relied on it to form the basis of a federal indictment, despite having no other direct evidence of the existence of the alleged illegal recording."
The motion to dismiss filed by Sen. Attar's legal team underscores the inherent tensions within these criminal proceedings, where each party's version of events carries its own weight in the battle for legal vindication. The court's decision on the motion to dismiss will significantly influence the trajectory of this high-stakes legal drama.
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