Defense lawyer Vinoo Varghese has revealed that the New York judge overseeing the prosecution of hobbyist gunsmith Dexter Taylor told him he could not use the Second Amendment to defend his client, insisting it “doesn’t exist” in the Empire State.
“She told us, ‘Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York,'” said Varghese.
Judge Abena Darkeh, blasted as a “DEI hire” by online commentators, is also Vice President of the Association of Ghanaian Lawyers of America. She is alleged to have acted as “the most aggressive prosecutor in the room.” The Bill de Blasio appointee is accused of limiting the scope of Taylor’s defense and indirectly instructing jurors they “must vote guilty.”
Taylor, a black conservative who has discussed his hobby on YouTube under the pseudonym Carbon Mike, faces ten to 18 years in prison at sentencing on May 18. While prosecutors describe Taylor as having “acquired a massive arsenal of homemade ghost guns,” the 52-year-old insists he was merely machining legal parts together as a hobby. He says he is also a hobbyist carpenter, radio operator, and technician with a “squeaky-clean criminal record.”
Taylor’s defenders argue that, federally, manufacturing one’s own firearms is lawful, with the Gun Control Act of 1968 allowing unlicensed civilians to make firearms for personal use only. Taylor’s lawyers argue he did not even fire his guns, still less distribute or sell them.
E. Jean Carroll, the 80-year-old advice columnist who claims Donald Trump raped her in a busy department store in the 1990s, previously boasted about owning an unlicensed firearm. Police confiscated it earlier this month, but there is no evidence she was arrested or charged with a crime.
