{"id":122,"date":"2026-06-04T19:14:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T19:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=122"},"modified":"2026-06-04T19:14:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T19:14:28","slug":"the-criminal-probe-of-e-jean-carrolls-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=122","title":{"rendered":"The Criminal Probe of E. Jean Carroll\u2019s Lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On May 27, three experienced CNN journalists\u00a0reported that the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the now 82-year-old woman who has accused President Trump of sexually assaulting her in 1996.<\/p>\n

Read more Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration, May 29<\/a><\/p>\n

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had recused himself from the inquiry, CNN reported, because of his prior representation of Trump in the Carroll matter, but the inquiry was \u201cbeing overseen by other officials in the deputy attorney\u2019s general\u2019s office.\u201d They, in turn, had referred the matter to Andrew Boutros, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, according to CNN.<\/p>\n

Other\u00a0papers soon independently confirmed the gist of CNN\u2019s story. Carroll\u2019s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, declined comment to all those media outlets. Kaplan also declined a request for comment for this article.<\/p>\n

But Boutros apparently began to receive blowback about the vindictive appearance of opening a criminal probe into the alleged\u2014indeed, adjudicated\u2014victim<\/em> of the president\u2019s sexual assault. Coincidentally, Boutros was already on the defensive for having presided over the prosecution of the \u201cBroadview Six\u201d\u2014a high-profile case targeting ICE protesters in Chicago\u2014which had\u00a0imploded a week earlier amid cascading evidence of prosecutorial misconduct.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

So on May 28, Boutros\u00a0issued a denial, of sorts: \u201cIn light of the widespread-reporting and intense media and public interest into the E. Jean Carroll matter in New York, the Chicago U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office can confirm that it has not opened\u2014and has never opened\u2014a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll. Any claim to the contrary is categorically false.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the \u201ccategory\u201d of \u201cclaim\u201d that Boutros denied was conspicuously narrow. His office <\/em>had not opened an inquiry, he said; he did not address whether the main office at the Justice Department had.<\/p>\n

CNN, meanwhile, updated its story to specify that its sources\u00a0reaffirmed its original account. The\u00a0New York Times specified that \u201cpeople briefed on the investigation\u201d had told the paper on May 27 that Carroll \u201cwas a primary target.\u201d<\/p>\n

In any event, by then\u00a0papers were also reporting that Reid Hoffman, who provided some financial support to Carroll\u2019s attorney through his Chicago-based nonprofit, American Future Republic, was a subject of the inquiry\u2014whether in addition to Carroll or alone. Hoffman is the billionaire founder of LinkedIn, and an important\u00a0fundraiser for Democrats and their causes.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0social media thread on X, Hoffman said the accusations against him were \u201cabsurdly false. He is investigating me because I supported E. Jean\u2019s lawsuit \u2014 where a jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting her, and a court of appeal upheld the decision. …\u00a0Trump hopes that these fraudulent investigations will silence those who stand up to him. He is wrong. I will not bend the knee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the confusion,\u00a0some reporters have begun to write that the subject of this inquiry is \u201cE. Jean Carroll\u2019s lawsuits\u201d\u2014 though, of course, lawsuits don\u2019t commit crimes.<\/p>\n

But regardless of the formulation, it\u2019s clear that Hoffman and Carroll are the ones in the crosshairs. It\u2019s also clear that this inquiry is an archetypal illustration of what then-Attorney General (and later Supreme Court Justice), \u201cthe most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this stage, trying to rank the dubiousness\u2014or cruelty\u2014of the Trump administration\u2019s seemingly vindictive criminal probes or prosecutions has become a fools\u2019 errand. Would it be the probe of Jerome Powell, the then chair of the Federal Reserve, that\u2019s baselessness led two grand jury subpoenas, finding \u201cessentially zero basis to suspect [him] of a crime\u201d? Would it be the contemplated charges against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and five other Democratic members of Congress, that a grand jury\u00a0rejected? Would it be the\u00a0risible seashell charges now pending against former FBI Director James Comey. Would it be the earlier, stale, and tortured false statement accusations against Comey that were\u00a0dismissed due to the illegal appointment of a White House aide to prosecute him, after a different federal prosecutor balked at doing so?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Would it be the\u00a0nitpicking mortgage charges against former Attorney General Letitia James, that at least\u00a0two grand juries have rebuffed, or similar allegations that a federal judge in Albany refused to permit to pursue against her? And the list goes on: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has been as vindictive; Ksenia Petrova, who has been into the vindictiveness of the prosecution against her; Adam Schiff, for whom Trump has\u00a0explicitly ordered up charges but for whom none have yet been conjured: or John Brennan, the target of a sprawling\u00a0\u201cgrand conspiracy\u201d inquiry based in the <\/ins>Fort Pierce division of the Southern District of Florida\u2014a venue having little apparent connection to Brennan, but one in which Trump has enjoyed startling litigation successes in the past.<\/p>\n

Still, whether the target of the \u201cCarroll lawsuits inquiry\u201d is Carroll or Hoffman, and despite the stiff competition, it unquestionably ranks among the most dubious to have surfaced to date.<\/p>\n

What is the hypothesized crime? All of the reporting suggests that the inquiry stems from an inaccurate answer Carroll gave during a deposition in October 2022, when she denied receiving third-party litigation funding. In fact, as will be discussed in detail below, two years before that deposition Carroll\u2019s attorney, Kaplan, had obtained some financial assistance from Hoffman\u2019s nonprofit, America Future Republic.<\/p>\n

But Kaplan notified Trump\u2019s attorneys of her client\u2019s misstatement in April 2023\u2014before either of Carroll\u2019s two trials took place. So it\u2019s hard to see how Trump was harmed, or why one would imagine that Carroll intentionally withheld information that she later voluntarily provided.<\/p>\n

As explained in further detail below, the district judge presiding over Carroll\u2019s civil case concluded that her initial inaccurate answer, considered in context, did not provide any basis for questioning Carroll\u2019s credibility. A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed.<\/p>\n

Inaccurate testimony in civil depositions is ubiquitous. Intentionally false testimony\u2014that can be proven to be so beyond a reasonable doubt\u2014can theoretically be prosecuted as perjury. But prosecutions stemming from perjury in civil depositions are extremely rare.<\/p>\n

They are\u00a0not unheard of, of course. The best known instance was when President Clinton was investigated for perjury at a civil deposition in the Paul Jones case. But Clinton had also given false testimony before a grand jury\u2014a much more serious circumstance. The House of Representatives\u00a0impeached Clinton for his false grand jury testimony\u2014but not for the false civil testimony\u2014and the Senate acquitted. The judge in Clinton\u2019s civil case fined him for\u00a0civil<\/em> contempt. Then Independent Counsel Robert Ray\u00a0dropped his criminal inquiry of Clinton in exchange for Clinton\u2019s admission that he had given misleading testimony and his\u00a0consent to a five-year suspension of his bar license.<\/p>\n

What would the charge be for Hoffman, however? It\u2019s hard to say. According to the\u00a0Washington Post, prosecutors are looking at whether Hoffman\u2019s nonprofit \u201ccould have directed Carroll to lie during that deposition, according to the people familiar with the probe. The investigation is examining potential money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction charges, the people said.\u201d<\/p>\n

No known evidence to date remotely supports such accusations, but, of course, it\u2019s impossible to know what evidence Boutros might possess.<\/p>\n

Third-party litigation funding itself is generally lawful and common, though many\u00a0defendants do not like it. There is at least one\u00a0public traded company devoted to it. In the 19th and first half of the 20th century, third-party funding was considered unethical\u2014referred to as\u00a0\u201cchamperty\u201d or \u201cmaintenance,\u201d depending on the details of the arrangement\u2014but many now consider it, at least in some circumstances, and potentially\u00a0constitutionally protected activity.<\/p>\n

Third-party litigation funding is usually inadmissible before the jury\u2014because it\u2019s usually irrelevant to the subject matter of the suit. Plaintiffs often try to keep the identity of litigation funders confidential, and about whether defendants should be allowed to learn about it through discovery.<\/p>\n

Overview of the Cases<\/strong><\/p>\n

To understand the potential accusations against Carroll or Hoffman, we must step back and see the overall arc of the litigation to date.<\/p>\n

Carroll\u2019s litigation stems from an event that allegedly occurred at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1996. As a unanimous appellate panel later , Carroll was then an advice columnist with Elle. In her telling, she met Trump at the department store in a chance encounter. Trump recognized her. They engaged in light banter. He asked her to help him buy a gift for a girl. He selected a piece of lingerie and insisted that she try it on.<\/p>\n

\n

Mr. Trump took Ms. Carroll\u2019s arm and motioned for her to go to the dressing room with him. Because Mr. Trump was being \u201cvery light\u201d and \u201cpleasant\u201d and \u201cfunny,\u201d \u2026 Ms. Carroll walked with Mr. Trump into the open dressing room, which she described as \u201csort of an open area,\u201d…. But as soon as she entered, Mr. Trump \u201cimmediately shut the door\u201d and \u201cshoved [her] against the wall . . . so hard [that] [her] head banged\u201d …<\/p>\n

Ms. Carroll pushed Mr. Trump back, but \u201che thrust [her] back against the wall again,\u201d causing her to \u201cbang[] [her] head again.\u201d … With his shoulder and the whole weight of his body against her, Mr. Trump held her against the wall, kissed her, pulled down her tights, and stuck his fingers into her vagina. …<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to Carroll, Trump then, but a jury later found that she did not prove that part of her account by a preponderance of the evidence.<\/p>\n

Carroll then \u201cmanaged to get a knee up and push [Trump] back off of her,\u201d leaving the store \u201cas quickly as [she] could.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Within a day, she notified two friends of what had happened, according to her and their later testimony. She did not report the incident to the police.<\/p>\n

In June 2019, during the first Trump administration, she published a book. An excerpt, describing her account of the incident, was published in New York Magazine.<\/p>\n

On June 21, Trump a public statement.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book\u2014that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section. Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book, or carry out a political agenda \u2026It is a disgrace and people should pay dearly for such false accusations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He made similar statements in the ensuing days, including, repeatedly, \u201cshe\u2019s not my type.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November 2019, in New York State Supreme Court, in the case now known as Carroll I.<\/p>\n

Ten months later, in September 2020, the Justice Department, acting on Trump\u2019s behalf, the case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, arguing that Trump, as a federal employee being sued for \u201cofficial acts\u201d\u2014the alleged denunciations of Carroll\u2014was entitled to immunity under the Westfall Act. The case was assigned to Judge Lewis Kaplan (no relation to Carroll\u2019s attorney, Roberta Kaplan).<\/p>\n

In some cases where Westfall immunity applies, plaintiffs can still obtain compensation from the federal government\u2014though not the individual employee\u2014under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). But defamation claims are not permitted under the FTCA, so the department soon moved to dismiss the complaint.<\/p>\n

Read more Rational Security: The \u201cMosquitos and Heat and Sweaty and Eww\u201d Edition<\/a><\/p>\n

Years of litigation ensued over whether the alleged defamations were \u201cofficial acts.\u201d Later, Trump also raised \u201cpresidential immunity\u201d as a defense. Under a 1982\u00a0Supreme Court ruling, presidents have absolute civil immunity for \u201cofficial acts,\u201d though the term \u201cofficial acts\u201d is defined differently than under the Westfall Act.<\/p>\n

In 2022, after Trump left office, New York passed an Adult Survivors Act, inspired by the MeToo movement. It provided a window of opportunity for alleged victims of past sexual abuse to revive claims that would have been barred by the statute of limitations.<\/p>\n

In October 2022, Carroll publicly announced her intent to bring such a suit under the law. Her announcement triggered a new salvo of denunciations from Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In November 2022, she filed, Carroll II, in federal court. It was assigned to Judge Kaplan as a related case. She alleged battery and defamation. The battery related to the alleged rape and sexual abuse during the 1996 Bergdorf Goodman incident, and the defamation related to Trump\u2019s October 2022 denunciations.<\/p>\n

While Carroll I remained bogged down in appellate litigation over immunity issues, Carroll II went to trial in April 2023. After a nine-day trial, a jury found for Trump on the rape charge, but ruled for Carroll on sexual abuse. In context, Judge Kaplan, shortly after the verdict, \u201c[T]he proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump<\/p>\n

deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll\u2019s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.<\/p>\n

Carroll I, the original case, finally went to trial in January 2024. Judge Kaplan did not permit relitigation of the sexual abuse charge, finding that that issue had been decided by the Carroll II jury.<\/p>\n

Trump, who had not testified at the Carroll II trial\u2014indeed, he never showed up\u2014chose to testify in Carroll II. The Carroll II jury concluded that Trump had defamed Carroll, and in compensatory and punitive damages.<\/p>\n

On appeal, the Second Circuit unanimously the Carroll II ($5 million) judgment. Rehearing was in June 2025, with two of ten judges noting dissents. The Second Circuit unanimously the Carroll I verdict ($83.3 million) in September 2025. in April 2026, with three of twelve judges noting dissents.<\/p>\n

At the Supreme Court, a petition for certiorari in Carroll II has been\u00a0fully briefed. The Court has \u201crelisted\u201d the case\u2014postponing decision on the petition\u201413 times. A petition for certiorari in Carroll I is expected to be filed within a month. On June 2, Trump\u2019s attorneys to hold off on deciding the Carroll II petition until it receives the Carroll I petition, and to consider the two together.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Inaccurate Statement<\/strong><\/p>\n

Against that backdrop, where does Carroll\u2019s inaccurate deposition statement fit in? Here\u2019s what happened.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 14, 2022, Carroll sat for a deposition in Carroll I, although the parties understood that the testimony could be used for both cases. At the time, Trump\u2019s lead-lawyer was Alina Habba. (During his second term, Trump later illegally appointed Habba to be acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. Soon into her tenure, a district judge disqualified her, which an appellate court affirmed.) Habba\u00a0asked these questions and Carroll gave these answers:<\/p>\n

\n

Q: Are you presently paying your counsel’s fees?<\/p>\n

A: This is a contingency case.<\/p>\n

Q: So you’re not paying expenses or anything out of pocket to date; is that correct?<\/p>\n

A: I’m not sure about expenses. I have to look that up.<\/p>\n

Q. Is anyone else paying your legal fees, Ms. Carroll?<\/p>\n

A: No.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

About six months later, and about two weeks before the scheduled trial in Carroll II, Carroll\u2019s attorney Kaplan wrote a letter to Habba. She stated:<\/p>\n

During the course of preparing for her testimony at trial, Ms. Carroll has recollected additional information. While Ms. Carroll stands by that testimony about this case being a contingency case, she now recalls that at some point her counsel secured additional funding from a nonprofit organization to offset certain expenses and legal fees. To be clear, these issues are irrelevant to Ms. Carroll\u2019s claims. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After Trump\u2019s lawyers reacted with outrage, Kaplan wrote a\u00a0second letter to one of Habba\u2019s co-counsel, providing more detail.<\/p>\n

Based on our discussion, it appears that you may be operating on a misunderstanding of the facts. As Ms. Carroll testified at her deposition, she had (and continues to have) a contingency fee arrangement with her counsel. In September 2020\u2014well after Ms. Carroll filed her state court complaint in November 2019\u2014counsel for Ms. Carroll secured financial support from a nonprofit organization that would help offset certain costs and fees in connection with counsel\u2019s work on Ms. Carroll\u2019s behalf. Ms. Carroll has never met and has never been party to any communications (written or oral) with anyone associated with that nonprofit or its financial supporters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the same letter, Kaplan explained that the funding came from the nonprofit American Future Republic, whose primary backer was Reid Hoffman. Finally, she accused Trump of making \u201cmany misstatements at his own deposition … concerning issues that (unlike this one) are in fact relevant to the jury determination in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Habba then, seeking to postpone trial and reopen discovery. She alleged that the new information \u201cgoes to bias and motive for bringing the lawsuit.\u201d She cited newspaper articles describing Hoffman as a key Democratic fundraiser.<\/p>\n

Carroll\u2019s attorney Kaplan, opposing further delay of the trial. She argued that the funding could have no possible relevance to Carroll\u2019s motive for filing the suit, because Carroll filed it more than a year before Kaplan obtained Hoffman\u2019s assistance. Kaplan said she would not object to allowing Trump\u2019s attorneys to cross-examine Carroll at trial about what she knew about the identity of the funder. Finally, she noted that she had once proposed \u201creciprocal\u201d discovery of litigation funding to Trump\u2019s attorneys\u2014meaning she would disclose her sources of outside funding if Trump would disclose the outside \u201centity or entities\u201d paying for his<\/em> fees, but Trump\u2019s attorneys had not responded.<\/p>\n

Judge Kaplan declined to postpone trial, but allowed Habba some additional discovery, including a short supplemental deposition of Carroll.<\/p>\n

On the first day of trial, April 25, Judge Kaplan\u00a0ruled from the bench, orally deciding that he would not permit Habba to explore the question in front of the jury.<\/p>\n

\n

In general, litigation funding is not relevant.<\/p>\n

Here I allowed very limited discovery against what seemed to me a remote but plausible argument that maybe something to do with litigation funding arguably was relevant to the credibility of one or two answers by this witness in her deposition. I gave the defense an additional deposition of the plaintiff, and I gave the defense limited document discovery.<\/p>\n

On the basis of all that, I have concluded that there is virtually nothing there as to credibility. And even if there were, the unfair prejudicial effect of going into the subject would very substantially outweigh any probative value whatsoever.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As noted, in April 2023 the jury found for Carroll on the sexual abuse and defamation claims, awarding $5 million. Trump\u2019s appeal focused mainly on evidentiary questions surrounding Judge Kaplan\u2019s allowance, under\u00a0Federal Rule of Evidence 413 (relating to the admissibility of \u201csimilar crimes in sexual-assault cases\u201d), of testimony from two witnesses concerning Trump\u2019s alleged prior sexual abuse of them, as well as his allowing the jury to hear the so-called Access Hollywood tape, on which:<\/p>\n

You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful\u2014I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything \u2026 Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Trump\u2019s attorneys\u2014at this point, headed by Blanche\u2014had also raised the issue of Judge Kaplan\u2019s preclusion of the defense from exploring Carroll\u2019s inaccurate deposition answer before the jury. The unanimous panel Judge Kaplan\u2019s handling of the situation.<\/p>\n

It agreed with him, to begin with, that the litigation funding had \u201cminimal, if any probative value on the issue of Carroll\u2019s bias and motive.\u201d As for motive, the\u00a0panel wrote, \u201cCarroll publicly accused Mr. Trump of sexual assault over a year before the outside litigation funding was secured.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for bias, the panel continued, \u201cwhether the outside funder was politically opposed to Mr. Trump was of little probative value because Ms. Carroll herself frankly admitted her political opposition to Mr. Trump, and her key witnesses testified to their opposition as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, the panel also found that the disputed statement about litigation funding\u2014a matter that was itself normally inadmissible\u2014 was \u201cnot sufficiently probative of [Carroll\u2019s] credibility\u201d as warrant admitting it.<\/p>\n

The Second Circuit\u00a0wrote:<\/p>\n

\n

There was no evidence to suggest that Ms. Carroll was personally involved in securing the funding, interacted with the funder, received an invoice showing the arrangement before or after her counsel received the outside funding, or had discussed the arrangement with anyone between learning of it in September 2020 and being deposed in October 2022.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Ms. Carroll plausibly represented that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding counsel obtained in September 2020 when this question was first posed to her in 2022, and the additional discovery did not indicate otherwise. Rather, it showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs. Ms. Carroll testified that, after her counsel informed her in September 2020 that they had received some outside funding, she did not speak with her counsel about this topic again until the spring of 2023 and did not even know the funder’s political position or why they were partially funding her lawsuit. Therefore, by the time of her deposition in October 2022, Ms. Carroll had not spoken with her counsel about the matter of outside funding for over two years. It was not an abuse of the district court’s discretion to conclude that the available litigation-funding evidence would have little probative value compared to its potential for unfair prejudice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The full Second Circuit then denied rehearing en banc, with two noted dissents. The latter\u2014judges Steven Menashi and Michael Park, who were both appointed by Trump\u2014wrote a 37-page dissent, but only one sentence of it referenced, in passing, the dispute over Carroll\u2019s misstatement about litigation funding. The bulk of it related to Judge Kaplan\u2019s interpretation of Rule 413, in permitting testimony from the two witnesses who alleged prior sexual assaults by Trump.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obviously, we do not know if some unknown source has suddenly come forward and dropped new and credible information into the lap of someone at the Department of Justice that radically changes the landscape of the case described above. That is possible\u2014though unlikely.<\/p>\n

Absent such an anomaly, there is nothing in the record that warrants a prosecutor of integrity from initiating an inquiry into either Hoffman or Carroll.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, such an inquiry could well result from a vindictive president pressuring compliant and frightened subordinates to harass his enemies. During Trump\u2019s second term, the Justice Department has already compiled a long, shocking, and unprecedented record of seemingly vindictive prosecutions.<\/p>\n

And if that is what is happening, this inquiry can only be described as a grotesque abuse of a compromised and debased Justice Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more The Jan. 6 Pardons: How Many Clemency Recipients Have Faced Other Charges?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whoever is the primary subject\u2014Reid Hoffman or Carroll\u2014the inquiry appears to constitute archetypal prosecutorial abuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-executive-branch"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Criminal Probe of E. Jean Carroll\u2019s Lawsuits - National Consumer Reports<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=122\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Criminal Probe of E. 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