On June 26, Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Roger Stone had to go to prison on Tuesday, July 14. She claimed that COVID-19 does not pose a risk for Stone as there were no COVID-19 cases at the Jesup, Georgia federal prison to which he was sentenced. On Monday evening, July 6, Stone’s lawyers filed an appeal of Jackson’s ruling as based upon a factually incorrect finding, as the prison was indeed infected. The Department of Justice admitted on July 7 that there were 11 infections. Evidently, there have been less than three dozen tests performed among the more than 1,000 inmates. (By July 9 , the 11 infections had grown to 13.) Of some note, of the 93 federal prisons, presently 72 have fewer COVID-19 cases than Jesup. Stone turns 68 next month, and has at least one ongoing medical condition. And the judge has a track record of open hostility to Stone.
Also on July 8, Stone posted on Instagram that it was “vitally important ... [that] the American people see all of the false claims in her most recent ruling…. I want the president to know that I have, in good faith, exhausted all of my legal remedies and that only an act of clemency … will provide Justice in my case where I was charged on politically motivated, fabricated charges and was denied a fair trial with an unbiased judge, an honest jury and uncorrupted and non political prosecutors.”
On July 8, Facebook shut down Stone’s Instagram account along with a grouping of other pages and accounts, accusing them of “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
