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PENISGIRL

Courtroom Illustration Job

from a particularly misty morning walk to camden plaza.

 

at the beginnig of summer 2019, i got put in touch with an associate producer for a documentary currently being shot about Keith Raniere. I knew very little about Keith and his 'company', Nxivm, (nex-ee-yum). I read an article in The Times and had heard about the branding. Raniere was being chared by the US Gov for sex crimes and racketeering. NXVM functioned as a self-help enterprise at the bottom and fuckin sex slave ring at the top.

The production team had been working on the project for some years and at the time of my introduction to the project, keith was going on trial at Eastern District of New York in brooklyn. There were no cameras allowed in his trial. This meant the production team wanted to hire a live-sketch artist. so i was optioned for the job and I got it :) full disclosure: the team hired myself and another artist named molly, but we never crossed paths and I think she was there like....4 days...and i was there for like 5 weeks. she also...is um...yeah.

 

i will tell some things about court in this entry, but i signed an NDA for HBO. this means I cannot talk about the film they are making and i cannot share the images I created for the film. I am ALLOWED to talk about the trial, which was public. The images I am sharing in this entry are personal to me, and are not to be used in the film. I cannot share the images i drew during the trial since they may be used on TV.

i learned a lot about the court system, too much to remember to write here. in court, there is about enough space for maybe 30 people in the gallery. half of the seats are reserved for 'government' (i think this was EDNY interns, FBI, the witness's handlers, i dont really know) a quarter for press, and a quarter for the public. Unless you are 'government', you are not allowed in the room unless you show up at 8 am and get your name on a list. this mean everyone gets to court at 7:30 am and waits in line together to get on the list. if youre late, sucks for you. the CSOs (court security officers) can decide to bar you from the courtroom for the rest of the day. I once came at 8 AM, put my name down and left for a doctors appt and then came back for the rest of the day.

 

a few times i was able to get my phone past the first level of security and snap a few photos. view of the lobby from the 3rd floor. a pretty good looking building if you ask me

after your name is on the list, its time for coffee. we all go get coffee in the cafeteria and wait for trial to being at 9:30. The cafeteria is a strange place where lawyers and federal judges pretend to ignore eachother and the press and public while disney movies play. youre not allowed to watch the news or TV in the cafeteria for some reason, but the news plays consistantly in the cafeteria over-flow room where people wait for their immigration ceremony to begin. EDNY houses the naturaliztion process for immigrants as well as high profile cases. All afternoon, new immigrant families were filing in and out, excitedly smiling and taking pictures of their citizenship documents. it was nice. with all the shit going on in this country, it put things in perspective to see people happy to become US citizens.

So we all have coffee and maybe some breakfast while we discuss the previous days' trial events or what we think is in store for the curent day. I made a lot of REALLY good friends in court. We sort of wake up together, take meals, and leave together (and sometimes go drink together after hehe) for 5 weeks. it felt like camp. i am hoping to see some of my court friends again when keith's sentencing takes place. Some of the people i met in court had actually moved to NYC to be there for the trial. they came from albany, st. louis, canada. when i asked why they were so committed to attending the trial the answers were sort of 'we want to see this man burn'. i guess keith had been ruining their lives for decades and it was important for them to see him go down in court.

 

  this is the cafeteria overflow room.

 

I had an 'artist chair'. that was lucky for me (and i think the production team, HBO, had to petition for a chair) I didnt have to fight for my seat each day. this also meant i was not allowed to move around unless i sweet-talked a CSO. my seat was positioned where it was very hard to see keith and the defendants table. sometimes I would get up and try to sneak to another seat to draw only to be turned around and pointed to my seat.

There was another artist there. and by 'another' i mean there were two...they work as a team. sidney and shirley shephard. they were both old as fuck, and mother-daughter. this 90 year old woman and her 70 year old daughter were a motherfucking packaged deal of courtroom-illustration.

feeding eachother in the cafeteria... helping mother take her nap...with her blindfold on...in the courtroom...
sometimes they fought with eachother..  

napping in the corner again with her special blindfold scarf.

 

here is the mother emerging from the gates of hell

 

 

 

-----a little bit about courtroom illustration----- I was told there are only SIX courtroom illustrators in NYC, all women. I was told they were EXTREMELY competitive and not nice. guess what? totally true!!! from what i gathered, if you are one of the Six, you have earned enough clout to get a special badge that gives you access to any courtoom and an artist chair. so you have your badge, the judges, the CSOs, the lawyers, they all know you and expect you in their trials making noise and scribbling away. once your drawings are complete, during a BREAK (there are 3 breaks during a trial day), i THINK, i think, you take your piece outside and have it photographed by your respective publication. then you get paid.

so, for example, jane rosenberg (who was there for the last two days of trial) sets up her materials in her artist chair, draws all day, then takes her work outside to be photographed and then BAM there it is on TV and online and in newspapers. maybe she has a contract with certain media companies, i dont know. like HELL i would be able to talk with her about it, none of these women wanted to give me the time of day. i actually saw them rolling their eyes at me while we waited in line one morning.

this is a drawing i did of jane. she had binocular-glasses. dope.

 

On the last two days (big days, lots of coverage, lots of press and extra artist chairs) i was seated next to Elizabeth Williams. she seemed peeved at first, and i kept quiet until she DID ask me basically 'so whats your deal'. after that, elizabeth was kind to me and respectful of my work. she asked where i went to school and made sure i was being paid for my time (FIT and yes). I have not reached out since the trial, and i do believe none of these women want an apprentice since its so competitive. but i did appreciate my time next to elizabeth. at one point, my pencil fell STRAIGHT into her purse and i was like 'oh fuck i cant reach into this womans purse rn fuck' so i waited until break and told her. my friend Stanley, seated behind me, saw the whole thing and tried not to laugh. ***ALSO*** do not laugh in court. DO NOT. you can be kicked out.

so, back to sidney and shirley. they sat on the other side of the aisle as me. and they were fucking mean. one time, the older one (i dont know which is which tbh) looked at me and told me i was 'stupid', they would curse at me in the cafeteria and were ENRAGED i had an artist chair in THEIR courtroom. i was warned by the CSOs and others 'do not engage with them'. so for the rest of the trial, i ignored them except sometimes i walked REALLY close to their faces in the cafeteria with my mouth ful of water and pretended i was going to spit on them. but i didnt. they tried to get my goat, i did not allow it. theyre so old, they should just enjoy their last years of sight. they used their binoculars to try to look at my drawings. after that, i brought my binoculars. the younger daughter tried to hit on every lawyer in the courtroom...cringe.

 

the CSOs actully turned out to be the nicest dudes. someone said they are all retired homocide detectives. after the first few days, they remembered my name put me on the list when they saw my face, we would talk a little about our weekends or our families. they made us all feel safe. shout out to LOUIS!! louis ruled.

this CSO eating a popsicle in the cafeteria :)

NO PHONES IN THE BUILDING. when we show up at 7:45 am, you valet your phone. you have to turn it off. this is sort of nice...to have no cell phones for an entire day... but also it gives the feeling that youre just....out of town? it felt like i was out of town for 5 weeks. yeah, when i left at 5 i could go back to the 'real world' but it dosnt really ever leave you...because we were all so invested in the trial.

 

fun fact: everyone is STARVING before lunch-break, and the courtoom is so silent you can really hear a symphony of growling stomachs. no one makes a big deal about it but we all know what is going on in our bodies and it is FUNNY. but remember, no laughing.

trial starts at 9:30, 10 minute break at 11, 1 hour break at 1, and a 10 minute break at 3. ends at 5. at 11 am, i go get soup-samples in the cafeteria and check my phone. at 1, i took an hour to myself or joined the crew at a diner for lunch and more filming. youre allowed to leave and come back as much as you want during the trial, but it is frowned upon and honestly a hassle because there are two levels of security you have to pass through and re-valet your phone and take off all your jewelry blah. I only went to court hungover ONCE. it was not worth it.

always gotta find my favorite bathroom. i enjoyed the 5th floor because it was always empty.

 

there is a lot ceremony in court. you stand when the judge stands, you stand when the jury stands and the stenographer is king. if the courtroom steno cant understand what youre saying, the judge will stop everything for a second and make sure she catches up. i think there were three stenographers going at all times for this trial. after a little research i found out that courtroom stenographs have only a few keys and they record things phonetically. also because of accents and slang, the job of a courtroom stenographer can never be replaced by technology.

 

i made about 10 or so drawings a day (not counting the ones i threw out). sometimes my supervisor would pass me a 'wish list' of things they wanted drawn that day. there were also rules about whose faces i can and cannot draw, like some witnesses were considered 'victims' and i was not allowed to draw their face and they kept their name a secret. my life-drawing skills improved greatly over the 5 weeks :) i would go home and edit the work and email all the drawings at the end of the week to my team. they didnt give a lot of critique but they continued asking me back so i think they were happy with the drawings. sometimes a witness would break down and cry on the stand and i would have to draw that which made me feel shitty. i was not allowed to draw the jury.

lots of people said 'oh, you cant talk about the trial right?' but the trial is open to the public. the press would leave the courtroom often to go tweet or write about what was happening during the trial. i am NOT allowed to discuss the contents of the documentary which is fine because i truly do not know anything about it. i will be watching it for the first time like everyone else when it comes out. i was warned before i got the gig that the things i would be hearing in court were sensitive and disturbing, and that was true. I cried in court a lot. many of us did. some of the testimony sounded like a nightmare. it became clear over the weeks that the judge and jury hated the defendant, which is strange because i dont think they are supposed to biased. but it was obvious. the defendants fought tooth and nail to make keith look like less of a monster. their main line of defense was 'these were consenting adults'. okay dude

 

ive been slowly writing this entry for about a week. its too much to put into words. the same time the trial was happening, i was suffering from a very serious family issue. i was able to dive deep into this job and focus on making good working and showing up on time- these were vital distractions to the derailment of my personal/familial life. i had a support group of friends during these weeks that helped me surive each day. they listened to me when i told court stories or cried about my family. if youre reading this, i love you.

when the trial ended and the jury read their verdict, everyone was crying. he was found guilty on all 7 charges. grown men in suits crying. i spoke with one of his lawyers after the jury was dismissed to deliberate. at that time, we were all free to talk and share our opinions. i gathered from our discussion that he was tired and he was done. during the press conference after, his team said "we've never seen a case like this which was so emotionally driven and difficult". all sides shook hands.

   

colin and emily. he writes for NYT and she for New York Post. we sat next to eachother most days. they were both extremely kind and i stay in touch with them.

i miss court a lot. it was one of the most profound experiences i ever had. witnessing our justice system in action, and participating in it by documenting it was incredible. it was also a trip, mentally. hearing a witness (human being) testify and sharing LITERALLY the most VULNERABLE aspects of their life and psyche too a room full of strangers was heavy. the way the lawyers drew the information out of each person with a calculated line of questioning was insane. then hearing the defendants spin their shared-stories into a narrative intending to make the witness look like liars or untrustworthy shits was...i have no words? theyre also just doing their job ? my brain was saturated in this trial.

the text i put on this page is probably only 20% of what the experience was like. if you see me you can ask me about it. its my favorite thing to talk about.

 

 

 

 

sometimes, now, after its all been over- i come home to my empty room, and i pretend my court friends are doing the thing from the ending scene of labyrinth... 'sara...'

 

 

 

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