Moore

An in-person conference to address the parties’

discovery dispute (Doc. 24) has been scheduled

Adam Strychaluk < for March 31, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. to be held in

astrychaluk@liakaslaw.com <> Courtroom 520 of the White Plains courthouse.

P: (212) 937-7765

F: (877) 380-9432 The Clerk of Court is respectfully requested to

L A K A S L A terminate the letter-motion pending at Doc. 24.

MarcliSO (Piru

Bu ECF Philip M. Halpern

Hon. Phillip M. Halpern United States District Judge

United States District Judge . .

4: Dated: White Plains, New York

Southern District of New York March 16, 2026

Re: Moore v. Fitzpatrick et al., No. 25 Civ. 7504 (PMH)

Body-Worn Camera Attorneys Eyes Only Designation

Your Honor:

Please recall that my firm represents Plaintiff Ernastiaze Moore, who brings § 1983 claims

against DOCCS correction officers relating to two beatings and sexual assaults he suffered while

incarcerated at Sullivan Correctional Facility. I write under Rule 4(D) of Your Honor’s Individual

Rules to request a pre-motion conference to discuss declassifying a body-worn camera (“BWC”)

video that Defendants have designated as Attorneys’ Eyes Only (“AEO”) notwithstanding that the

video qualifies as neither “confidential” nor AEO under the parties’ recently negotiated

confidentiality agreement. Dkt. 20. The parties conferred regarding AEO designations twice

before submitting that stipulation for the Court’s approval, and they have conferred two

additional times regarding the video since Defendants designated it as AEO on February 12.1 The

parties have proved unable to reach agreement and this dispute is ripe for review.

Defendants have argued that the BWC footage—a 23-minute video that captures one of

the two sets of assaults that Mr. Moore suffered, Ex. 1*-—warrants an AEO designation for two

reasons. First, that it implicates DOCCS’s security and operational concerns because the footage

depicts the “physical structure” and “interior layout” of Sullivan Correctional; and second, that it

implicates the privacy interests of third-party DOCCS employees because the footage occasionally

shows non-party staff performing unrelated duties in short increments. Ex. 2 at 3 (privilege log);

Ex. 3 at 3, 6 (emails memorializing February 17 and March 4 meet-and-confers). While the parties

have conferred on this topic four times, Defendants have not articulated their security or privacy

concerns with any specificity greater than that just described, despite Plaintiff's repeated requests

that they do so. The parties agree that the video does not meaningfully depict any third-party

prisoners whose privacy interests might be implicated, and further agree that Sullivan closed in

2024. Dkt. 14 (Answer) § 24.

i Th parties conferred on January 20 and February 6 for approximately 30 minutes; on February

17 for approximately 45 minutes; and on March 4 for approximately one hour. All conferrals were attended

by undersigned and counsel for Defendants, Elizabeth Barbanes of the Office of the Attorney General

(“OAG”). The parties also discussed AEO designations and the BWC video during their Rule 26(f)

conference on January 8.

2 Plaintiffhas concurrently mailed and emailed the BWC video to chambers, as well as the handheld

video discussed below and labelled Exhibit 4. At Defendants’ request, the BWC video is filed here under

preliminary seal. Defendants have indicated that they will file a motion to seal on the Court’s instruction.

confidenTthiea l BmWatCe rivaild eenou dmoeersa tneodt i nq uthaeli fsyt ipfourl apterdo tceocntifoidne nutniadleitry aangyre eomf ethnet, fDokutr. 2c0at ¶e g2o(rai)e-s( do)f,

nor does it qualify for protection under either of the two categories of materials that the agreement

designates “highly confidential”/AEO, id. ¶¶ 26-27. Accordingly, Defendants bear the burden to

show good cause exists for either designation here. Gambale v. Deutsche Bank AG, 377 F.3d 133,

142 (2d Cir. 2004); see Austin v. Fordham Univ., No. 23 Civ. 4696 (GS), 2024 WL 749636, at *3

(S.D.N.Y. Feb. 23, 2024) (requiring “clearly defined, specific and serious injury”). Because AEO

designations so severely impact adversaries, the attorney-client relationship, and courts, they

constitute “the most restrictive (and thus least often justified) tier of discovery.” Nanjing CIC Int’l

Co. v. Schwartz, No. 20 Civ. 7031 (EAW), 2023 WL 6958787, at *5 (W.D.N.Y. Oct. 20, 2023).

Defendants have not and cannot carry their burden to show that declassifying the BWC

video would occasion any “specific and serious injury” that may justify confidentiality, let alone

an AEO designation that would preclude undersigned from showing Mr. Moore and deponents

the key piece evidence in this case. Defendants cannot “clearly define” their security concerns for

good reason: Sullivan is no longer an operating correctional facility, and—even if the facility were

not closed—the BWC footage does not depict staff discussing sensitive information in confidence,

entering a password, or performing any other action that might conceivably warrant protection.

Ex. 1. Defendants’ privacy justification is likewise without merit. Government employees do not

have any cognizable right or privacy interest implicated by video footage depicting them

performing routine duties. Cf. P.B.O. §§ 89(2)(b) & 90(1)(c) (precluding disclosure, under FOIL,

only of employee records that are “unwarranted invasion[s] of personal privacy”); Dkt. 20 ¶ 2(d)

(confidentiality for “information of a personal and intimate nature”).

Simply, no specific time-ranges in the video warrant AEO protection—and Defendants

have not proved amenable to producing a redacted copy of the BWC video that undersigned may

show Mr. Moore for precisely that reason. But the Court does not have to take Plaintiff’s word for

it. Your Honor may take DOCCS’s.3 Before commencing this action, Plaintiff obtained, through a

freedom of information request, a 24-minute handheld “extraction” video that depicts the exact

same course of events captured in the BWC video, which Plaintiff has produced in this litigation.

Ex. 4. Like the BWC video, that handheld video—which is not confidential—depicts Defendants

extracting Mr. Moore from his cell, transporting Mr. Moore to a “frisk room,” and assaulting Mr.

Moore in that room. Like the BWC video, it depicts the “physical structure” and “interior layout”

of Sullivan. Like the BWC video, it depicts third-party employees performing routine duties.

The only meaningful distinction between the handheld video that DOCCS produced in

response to a FOIL request and the BWC video it seeks to designate as AEO here is that the latter

captures the same assaults of Mr. Moore more clearly. And the only distinction between this case

and the myriad instances in which DOCCS has produced comparable videos in response to mere

FOIL requests is that Mr. Moore’s beating has received significant media and political attention.

See J. Root, A Bloody Prison Beating Was Caught on Video. No Guards Were Punished, NEW

YORK TIMES (Nov. 3, 2025); J. Ransom, Lawmaker Demands Accountability in Bloody Prison

Beating Caught on Video, NEW YORK TIMES (Nov. 5, 2025). In fact, DOCCS has actually

acknowledged that it erred in neglecting to produce the very BWC video it seeks to designate as

AEO here when it responded to the same two-year-old FOIL request through which Plaintiff

received the handheld video—an error it has so far refused to correct. See Ex. 5 at 2, 10, 12 (FOILs).

The BWC video warrants neither confidentiality nor an AEO designation. The Court

should declassify the video and deny Defendants’ related motion to seal.

3 As a general rule, “DOCCS and its correctional officers are essentially inseparable when defending

against constitutional claims.” Wandering Dago Inc. v. New York State Office of Gen. Servs., No. 13 Civ.

1053 (MAD), 2015 WL 3453321, at *10, n.9 (N.D.N.Y. May 29, 2015). That general rule holds here: During

Defendants’ Position

Defendants seek to maintain an AEO designation of the Body-Worn Camera video and

any other video that is made part of discovery in this case.

I.Plaintiff Mischaracterizes DOCCS’s FOIL Acknowledgment

Plaintiff’s letter asserts that “DOCCS has actually acknowledged that it erred in neglecting

to produce the very BWC video” through the pending FOIL request, and implies this

acknowledgment is tantamount to a concession that the footage warrants no protection. That

characterization is incorrect and misleading.

DOCCS’s communication with Plaintiff’s counsel regarding the FOIL request stated only

that it would review the BWC footage to determine whether it could be released under FOIL’s

applicable exemptions, not that it had concluded the video should have been, or will be, released.

FOIL review is a separate administrative process governed by Public Officers Law Article 6, with

its own exemptions, and a determination under that framework neither controls nor informs the

appropriate scope of discovery protections under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the

parties’ stipulated confidentiality agreement.

Critically, defense counsel was not copied on Plaintiff’s communications with the DOCCS

FOIL office regarding this video. No inference should be drawn from the FOIL office’s

preliminary administrative review as having any bearing on the merits of defendants’ arguments

here.

II.FOIL Release Standards Do Not Govern AEO Designations in Federal Litigation

Even if DOCCS’s FOIL office were ultimately to produce the BWC video in response to a

FOIL request, which has not occurred, that determination would have no bearing on whether AEO

protection is warranted here. FOIL and federal civil discovery operate under entirely different legal

frameworks. FOIL’s exemptions are narrower and serve different public-access purposes than the

“good cause” standard governing protective orders under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c). That DOCCS

produced a different video (the handheld video) in response to a FOIL request does not establish

that the BWC footage, which Plaintiff concedes captures the alleged assaults more clearly, must

be treated identically for purposes of civil discovery designations.

III.Defendants’ Security and Privacy Concerns Remain Valid

Defendants maintain the BWC footage implicates legitimate concerns that justify the AEO

designation. While Sullivan Correctional Facility has closed, the footage depicts operational and

structural elements, staff conduct and positioning, and law enforcement procedures that retain

security relevance, including with respect to other operating DOCCS facilities that employ similar

protocols. The closure of Sullivan does not extinguish these interests.

Specifically, the portion of the BWC footage that Plaintiff seeks to produce in this litigation

depicting Plaintiff’s transport route is security sensitive because it reveals the configuration of

corridors, doorways, security checkpoints, as well as escort procedures and staff positioning during

transport. A segment where the officer is positioned at a doorway, then turns to show additional

rooms and staff is security-sensitive because it reveals layouts and relationships between secured

areas, staffing presence and deployment, entry points, and sight lines, including areas unrelated to

Plaintiff’s claims. The BWC depicts the locking mechanisms of the doors and the direction and

mechanisms are the same as at other facilities, this information, if disclosed, can be used by an

incarcerated individual to facilitate a hostile takeover or a hostage taking. The disclosure of

information relating to practices throughout DOCCS facilities can compromise safety and security

at other DOCCS’ institutions. DOCCS’ staff work in an environment where they may be subject

to threats, harassment, and retaliation. Dissemination of video depicting officers’ faces, voices,

and conduct creates a substantial risk to the staff.

For all these reasons, Defendants seek to designate disclosed video footage of the incident

under an Attorneys’ Eyes Only Designation. Virgil v. Finn, 22-civ-3169 (CS)(JCM) 2025 WL

694450 5 (S.D.N.Y. March 3, 2025); U.S. Amodeo, 71 F.3d 1044, 1050 (1995).

***

We appreciate the Court’s time and attention to this matter.

Respectfully submitted,

s/

Adam Strychaluk

Encl. Ex. 1 – BWC video (under separate cover and preliminary seal)

Ex. 2 – Defendants’ privilege log

Ex. 3 – Email correspondence following February 17 and March 4 conferrals

Ex. 4 – Handheld video (under separate cover)

Ex. 5 – Correspondence regarding relevant FOIL requests