Defendant's Opposition to Detention Pending Sentencing — United States v. Daniel Dadoun

Record facts

U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey · No. 3:25-cr-00215-RK · Doc. 33 · 2025-04-04 · Docket on CourtListener

Summary

A defense letter brief in United States v. Daniel Dadoun, No. 3:25-cr-00215-RK, in the U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, filed April 4, 2025 as Document 33. It replies to a government letter brief of April 3, 2025 stating an intent to move for the defendant's detention pending sentencing under 18 USC § 3143, ahead of a plea hearing set for April 8, 2025. The brief argues that the government cannot meet the clear and convincing evidence standard, noting the surrender of foreign passports, home confinement with monitoring, and release on a $10,000,000 security appearance bond. It responds to five alleged violations of release conditions dated January 16, January 19, March 21, March 22 and March 29, 2025, describing each as a travel issue around approved appointments. The 6-page letter asks that the defendant remain on home confinement and attaches six exhibits.

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ANTHONY POPE LAW, P.C.
ATTORNEYS Al LAW
NEW JERSEY OFFICE
NEW YORK OFFICE
60 PARK PLACE
275 MADISON AVE.
SUITE 1101
35TH FLOOR
NEWARK, NJ 07102
NEW YORK, NY 10016
TEL: (973) 344-4406
TEL: (212) 905-4900
FAX: (973) 344-3201
FAX: (973) 344-3201
.antI:or i:oijeIa lii,n.COm
ANTHONY POPE. ESQ.*
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*Cerqfiedbv the Supreme Coun of
PI,EASE REPLY TO:
New Jersey as a Civil & Criminal Trial Attorney
New- Jersey Office
April 4, 2025
VIA ECF
The Honorable Robert Kirsch
United States District Judge
Clarkson F. Fisher Bldg. & U.S. Courthouse
402 East State Street
Trenton, NJ 07808
RE:
United States v. Daniel Dadoun
Dear Judge Kirsch:
This office represents the interests of Defendant, Daniel Dadoun, who is presently
scheduled for a plea hearing before Your Honor on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. On April 3, 2025, the
Government filed a letter brief informing the Court of the intent to move for Mr. Dadoun’s
detention pending sentencing, pursuant to 18 USC § 3143. Please accept this letter brief in reply
and opposition to same.
As the Government stated, the standard set forth for detention in 18 USC § 3 143 is a
rigorous evidentiary test and high standard requiring the Court to find by clear arid convincing
evidence that the Defendant is not likely to flee or pose a danger to the safety of the community.
Defendant respectfully submits that the Government is unable to meet this high threshold, as he
poses no flight risk or danger to the community.
DEFENDANT DOES NOT POSE A FLIGHT RISK
The Government argues that Dadoun is a flight risk because he is a citizen of Israel.
France, and Canada, but not the United States. However, he has surrendered all foreign passports
and remains on strict home confinement with a custodian and monitoring, rendering travel
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impossible for him. Regardless, Dadoun has no intention of fleeing the Country or avoiding any
court proceedings. Further, as the Government points out in its motion, “Defendant has appeared
for all court appearances required in this case.” (ECF 32).
The Government further alleges that Dadoun may have access to significant financial
resources and foreign bank accounts—however, this does not mean that he is a risk of flight.
Despite the Government making these same arguments during Dadoun’s bail hearing on
September 19, 2025, Judge Hammer disagreed and released him on home confinement with a
$10,000,000 security appearance bond secured by real estate properties and a co-signer. (ECF
20). Since then, despite access to financial resources, he has remained in the Country and
promptly appeared at all Court proceedings.
The Government cites five violations of Defendant’s release conditions—none of which
even come close to equating to Defendant’s attempted flight. Rather, they pertain to minor
monitoring violations involving travel to and from pre-approved medical appointments or
religious services. Indeed, despite Judge Hammer being advised as to two monitoring violations
from January 16 and 19, 2025 (cited by the Government in its motion, ECF 32, p.4), His Honor
entered an Order, with the consent of the Government, modiing Dadoun’s release conditions to
allow him to attend synagogue on the Sabbath. (ECF 31).
As explained below, Defendant’s remaining violations pertained to simple and innocuous
travel issues to and from synagogue. None of these violations included an attempt of flight,
danger, or violence. The violations similarly did not involve Dadoun accessing any financial or
foreign resources. The Government cannot point to any evidence showing Dadoun used or
attempted to use his resources for any nefarious purposes.
While Defendant’s family lives in Israel, this does not mean he does not have community
ties in his current community in Brooklyn, New York. Since his release, he has stayed with his
custodian, Motti Zibler, his friend for over 10 years, in Brooklyn, where there is a large Orthodox
Jewish community in which he takes part. For example, per Judge Hammer’s Order, he attends a
synagogue located at 511 Avenue R in Brooklyn and enjoys a close relationship with Rabbi
Moshe Bouskila. Dadoun’s Orthodox Jewish Community, his surrendering of all foreign
passports, lack of any attempts of flight, and the absence of any evidence showing he attempted
to use any resources to flee demonstrate the degree to which Dadoun is not a flight risk in this
matter.
DADOUN DOES NOT POSE ANY DANGER TO THE COMMUNITY
While the Government does not propose in its motion that Dadoun poses a serious danger
to the community, it must still be stressed that the offense(s) to which he is pleading guilty (bank
fraud and money laundering) do not involve any violence or threats of violence to any person or
property. Dadoun also does not have any significant criminal history. The only criminal history
alleged by the Government is a conditional discharge for obstruction.
The Government did not attach any documentation verifying any offense or conditional discharge for obstruction,
but rather cites “publicly available resources.”
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There is no indication or allegation that Dadoun has ever engaged in violence or
attempted to do so. However, there is evidence that, if re-incarcerated, he would be the victim of
violence. This is because while incarcerated for ten months in the Essex County Correctional
facility, Dadoun was the victim of numerous antisemitic attacks by other inmates because he
refhsed to take off his yannulke. He was repeatedly threatened, brutalized, beaten, and on one
occasion, burned in a vicious attack by dangerous inmates at the facility (See attached “Exhibit
A” for photographic evidence of the burns Mr. Dadoun sustained while at the Essex County
Correctional facility).
As a result, allowing Mr. Dadoun to remain on pretrial release would result in no harm or
danger to the community. However, his incarceration may result in continued harm and violence
to his person. Mr. Dadoun is an extremely proud and practicing Orthodox Jewish man, and
would similarly refuse to take off his yarmulke if re-incarcerated, exposing him to the possibility
of more antisemitic attacks.
THE ALLEGED VIOLATLONS
En support of the contention that Dadoun should be detained pending sentencing in this
matter, the Government lists five alleged violations of the terms of his pretrial release, which are:
•
On January 16. 2025. Defendant purportedly had a medical appointment, but
instead went shopping for approximately two hours. Defendant denied traveling
to a particular shopping center, but GPS monitoring showed that he had been at
the shopping center. Defendant failed to provide proof of attendance at the
appointment.
•
On January 19. 2025. Defendant purportedly had a medical appointment, but
instead traveled around Manhattan. Defendant failed to provide documentation
verifiing this medical appointment.
•
On March 21. 2025. Defendant visited a synagogue that was not approved by
Pretrial Services, contrary to the Court’s order which permitted travel only to a
verified synagogue.
•
On March 22, 2025. Defendant deviated from his approved plan to attend
religious services to make an unauthorized stop at a private residence. Defendant
told Pretrial services he was at that location for 20 minutes, when in fact he was
there for an hour.
•
On March 29, 2025, after having been warned about the prior instances of
noncompliance, Defendant again deviated from his approved plan to attend
religious services to make an unauthorized stop at a private residence. Defendant
told Pretrial Services that he was at that location for 20 minutes, when in fact he
was there for 40 minutes.
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Defendant will address each and every one of the violations with an explanation,
demonstrating their innocuous nature. Importantly, all of these violations pertain to unauthorized
stops for pre-approved travel, but do not include any criminal actions, attempts at flight, access
to financial resources, violence, or harm.
The first violation from January 16, 2025 alleges that Dadoun shopped instead of going
to a pre-approved medical appointment, and did not provide proof ofattendance at the
appointment. Dadoun did have a scheduled medical appointment, but on his way, he was
contacted by his doctor’s office and was told that the appointment needed to be cancelled (see
attached Exhibit B for correspondence from the doctor’s office confirming this to be the case).
On his drive back to his residence, he received a call from his attorney’s office to discuss the
case, and pulled over so that he would not be distracted. Dadoun maintains that he did not do any
shopping but rather remained on the phone with his attorney.
The second violation from January 19, 2025 alleges that rather than go to a pre-approved
dental appointment, he traveled around Manhattan. However, Dadoun’s dental appointment,
originally scheduled for 9:30 AM that day, was rescheduled to 12:30 PM. At 10:26 AM, he
notified the New York Probation Office of this in an email, and stated that because of the
reschedule, he would be back at his residence closer to 4PM as he was using public
transportation (see attached Exhibit C). Dadoun, did in fact attend his dental appointment and
was given a receipt which reflects a date of January 19, 2025 (see attached Exhibit D).
The above violations were brought to the attention of Judge Michael Hammer at a bail
modification hearing on January 23, 2025, in which Dadoun requested the permission of the
Court to attend synagogue on Sabbath. After hearing Dadoun’s explanations, Judge Hammer
denied the Motion, but stated that if Dadoun remained compliant for a period of forty-five days,
he would reconsider and be inclined to allow the modification for synagogue attendance. On
March 6, 2025, Dadoun and the Government entered into a consent order, signed by Judge
Hammer, allowing the modification. No action was taken against Dadoun for the January 16 and
19 violations. The rest of Dadoun’s violations pertain to his synagogue attendance.
The Synagogue in which Dadoun was permitted to attend on Sabbath is located at 511
Avenue R in Brooklyn, New York, which is a half-hour walk from his residence at 2702 Avenue
N in Brooklyn New York. Because he observes the Sabbath, Dadoun cannot use electronics such
as a car or a cell phone on Friday nights and Saturdays until sundown. Therefore, he walks the
half hour to and from synagogue for prayers on the Sabbath. Originally, he wanted to pray at a
synagogue closer to his residence, but the Rabbis at those synagogues were reluctant to provide a
letter to the Court to authenticate his attendance. However, Rabbi Moshe Bouskila did provide a
letter of authentication, and therefore the synagogue at 511 Avenue R is the only one that Dadoun
has approval to attend.
As to the March 21, 2025 violation, Dadoun does admit that he traveled to a closer
synogogue on that night because the rainy and windy weather conditions made it difficult to walk
the half-hour (See Exhibit E for weather report from March 21, 2025). He regrets this decision
and knows he should have remained at home rather than attend a non-approved synogoue.
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However, this relatively minor infraction did not include any attempts at flight, criminal
behavior, violence or harm.
The next violation cited by the Government is from March 22, 2025, where Dadoun is
alleged to have made an unauthorized stop at a private residence on his walk home from his
approved synagogue. Dadoun maintains that on his walk home, he passed by an old friend he had
not seen in a decade and struck up a conversation with him on the street. He did not enter any
residences. This infraction did not involve anything other than Dadoun having a conversation
with a friend on a street near his residence on the Sabbath.
The final violation cited by the Government is from March 29, 2025, where Dadoun is
alleged to again have made an unauthorized stop at a private residence on his walk home from
his approved synagogue. On that occasion, Dadoun stopped at the home of his Rabbi in order to
use the restroom, as the restroom at his synagogue was unusable and he was not able to walk
thirty minutes back to his residence without first relieving himself, as he suffers from urinary
urgency and a sensitive stomach. His Rabbi, Moshe Bouskila, allowed Dadoun into his residence
to allow him to use his restroom before he began walking home. Rabbi Bouskila authored a letter
to the Court confirming these circumstances (See attached Exhibit F). Because Dadoun cannot
use his phone on the Sabbath, he was unable to first obtain permission from Probation in order to
make this stop. Dadoun is committed to nothing but full compliance in the future, and will not
engage in any behavior violative of his current release conditions.
The above five innocuous violations constitute the entirety of his record of non
compliance. None of them demonstrate that he is a flight risk or a danger to his community.
None of them involve access to finances, bank accounts, passports, or anything to do with the
offense(s) to which he is pleading guilty. Rather, they all involve travel issues to and from pre
approved locations such as medical appointments and synagogue. As such, the Government is
unable to meet the high standard set forth in 18 USC § 3143 for detention.
Without the above five violations, the Government relies on Dadoun’s status as a non-
citizen and access to finances as the only evidence to suggest he is a flight risk. The Government
made these same arguments to suggest that Dadoun was a flight risk at his original bail hearing,
but Judge Hammer disagreed and ordered his release. The nature of the additional five violations
incurred since that time do not equate to Dadoun being a flight risk, as none of them involved
Dadoun’s attempt to flee. He has appeared in Court for every hearing, and will continue to do
until he is ultimately sentenced.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Daniel Dadoun respectftilly submits that following the entry of
his guilty plea, he be permitted to remain on home confinement.
Respectfully submitted,
ANTHONY POPE LAW, P.C.
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cc: AUSA Katherine Romano (Via ECF and email)
ANTHONY POPE. ESQ.
Daniel Hernandez, Senior U.S. Pretrial Services Officer (via email)
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