My Position Ahead of Friday’s Sentencing

By Don Matthews On Friday, August 7, I’ll appear via secure video link for sentencing in Lake Charles, Louisiana, following my conviction stemming from an August 25, 2025 encounter with U.S. Marshals at the John M. Shaw Courthouse in Lafayette — an encounter federal records confirm followed a Be-On-The-Lookout alert circulated on me, by name, photo, and driver’s license number, to Marshals across Mississippi and Louisiana. The government is recommending unsupervised probation on one condition: that I be barred from federal courthouses except when actively filing a lawsuit. I intend to object to that condition on the record, because it isn’t a public-safety measure — it’s a restriction on where a journalist is allowed to stand while doing his job. I would rather serve the full 30-day statutory maximum than accept an indefinite condition that tells the press which doors it may or may not walk through. None of this changes what the trial record already shows: critical lobby surveillance footage — footage that would have shown Marshals waving me toward the very door I was later convicted of “obstructing” — was never preserved. The government’s explanation was “technical error.” No sanction followed. Friday starts my appellate clock. This case is going up. Not because I disagree with a judge’s discretion, but because the record itself was never given the chance to speak in full — and it deserves review by judges who weren’t in that courtroom.

Related Coverage

• Federal Sentencing Set for August 7 in Lake Charles in Reardon Courthouse Case
• BOMBSHELL: FOIA Records Expose Ex Parte Communications Between U.S. Marshals and Federal Judges Before Charges Filed

Legal & Records References

• Louisiana Public Records Act, La. R.S. 44:1 et seq.
• U.S. Const. amend. I — First Amendment (Cornell LII)