Lawyers for Pulse shooter’s widow won’t face sanctions
A federal judge Thursday cautioned lawyers for the Pulse nightclub shooter’s widow for missing a deadline to submit a final report for an expert witness without asking for more time, but decided not to reprimand them. Noor Salman was in federal court near downtown Orlando during the morning hearing and didn’t make any public statements. She is being held in a local jail until her trial, which is scheduled for March.
U.S. District Judge Paul Byron had set an Aug. 1 deadline for prosecutors and defense attorneys to submit finalized expert witness reports from mental-health experts, court records show.
But the expert Salman’s attorneys hired needed more information from the prosecutors’ expert in order to complete his own report, and that information did not come until after the deadline because it had to be sent through the mail and not electronically.
“But for snail mail, I think we wouldn’t be here,” said Orlando attorney Mark Horwitz, who represents Salman’s lawyers — Charles Swift, Linda Moreno and Fritz Schellar — but not Salman.
She was arrested in January on federal charges of providing material support to a terrorist and tampering with evidence. Her husband, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with police three hours after he opened fire at the gay club, killing 49 people and injuring at least 68 more. In a court document filed Thursday, prosecutors laid out more details on the charges against her.
Salman allegedly told Fort Pierce police who took her into custody early June 12, 2016, that Mateen “would not have engaged in violence unless he was protecting himself”; that he left their apartment the night of June 11 to have dinner with a friend; and that he’d deleted his Facebook account long before the attack and didn’t go online at home.
Salman’s attorneys have said they plan to use post-traumatic stress disorder as part of their defense, but have not specified exactly what may have caused her to have PTSD. She has previously said that Mateen was abusive.