Video blogger heading back to jail
A federal appeals court has revoked bail for Josh Wolf, the San Francisco video blogger who has refused to turn over unpublished footage of political protests to a federal grand jury.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the same panel that last week upheld a lower court's decision to hold Wolf in contempt of court, ordered his bail revoked on Monday.
Wolf will be turning himself in at 1 p.m. at a federal facility in Dublin, Calif., Wednesday, which meets the deadline given to him by the court, said Jose Luis Fuentes, one of Wolf's Oakland, Calif.-based attorneys.
Wolf was initially sent to prison on Aug. 1, but he was a month later while his appeal on the contempt of court charges was being considered.
"The appellant court did an end-run around their own rules and case law to punish Wolf," Fuentes said.
Fuentes has petitioned for a rehearing by Oct. 23, arguing, among other things, that the revocation of bail serves no legitimate purpose: "It will not coerce Wolf to comply with the subpoena," he wrote in a court document.
The case ended up in the feds' hands because federal prosecutors--who among other things want to see if Wolf's footage shows a San Francisco police car being set on fire at the protest--say they have jurisdiction over the case because the car was paid for in part by federal dollars.