Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,
Your story “The RNC 8 Railroad” was brought to my attention as containing an
inaccurate and reckless reference about my role in prosecuting the RNC 8.
The Saint Paul City Attorney’s Office does not have prosecutorial jurisdiction over felony cases and I am unfamiliar with the specific details of the RNC 8 case you reference other than what I have read in newspaper accounts. The City Attorney’s Office prosecutes the violation of misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor level offenses.  It is the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office that is prosecuting the “RNC 8” cases.  Thanks.
John Choi, St. Paul City Attorney
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The offending paragraph:
St. Paul’s Ramsey County has whittled the cops’ haul down to the last cases, those city prosecutor John Choi hopes to convince a jury hold water. Among those still charged, he’s trying to nail to the proverbial courthouse door defendants nationally known as the RNC 8: Luce Guillen-Givens, Max Specktor, Nathanael Secor, Ervy Trimmer, Monica Bicking, Erik Oseland, Robert Czernik and Garrett Fitzgerald.  They’re charged with Conspiracy to Riot in the furtherance of Terrorism, a felony.
*****

Dwight Hobbes responds:
Mr. Choi,
I regret drawing on an unreliable source to inaccurately refer to the role of the St. Paul City Attorney’s Office.  There was, however, no malicious intent.  In the future, I will not rely on that source.
Dwight Hobbes