A rookie federal prosecutor who brought a case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Donald Trump’s life by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram has stepped off the case, reported NBC News.
Matthew
Petracca, who had been recently hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the
Eastern District of North Carolina, is no longer on the Comey case, according
to a court filing.
Petracca
also dropped off of other criminal cases in the Eastern District of North
Carolina in recent days, according to court filings. Petracca is a former
Republican county committeeman in New Jersey whom W. Ellis Boyle, the U.S.
attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, hired months ago, NBC News has reported. Boyle oversaw the highly criticized
case, which will go to trial in October if it manages to survive legal
challenges.
Petracca
had contemplated leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to two
people familiar with the matter, but instead remained a Justice Department
employee after taking a week off. Petracca had not responded to a previous
request for comment on his status at the Justice Department and did not respond
to an additional request for comment Friday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the
Eastern District of North Carolina did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Assistant
U.S. Attorney Timothy Severo is now heading the Comey case. Petracca did not
handle a recent interaction with Comey’s defense team, which instead communicated with First Assistant U.S. Attorney Phil Aubart.
A two-count indictment was brought late last month and
suggested that a reasonable person would interpret the image of the shells,
arranged to spell out “86 47,” as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United
States.”
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