Bankruptcy Judge Imposes Sanctions In Case Involving Anti-Catholic Statements In Legal Memo

As previously reported, last month Minnesota U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Nancy Dreher issued show-cause orders to attorney Rebekah Nett and her client Naomi Isaacson (who is also a member of the bar) threatening to impose sanctions on them for bigoted anti-Catholic statements contained in a legal memorandum they filed with the court.  The memo was written by Isaacson and filed by Nett.  AP reports that yesterday Isaacson failed to appear for the show cause hearing, and the court ordered her jailed for contempt. She had previously been held in contempt for failing to turn over documents in the case, and the arrest order appears to relate to that since it runs until the documents are produced. (The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that the arrest order was issued on Tuesday, before the Wednesday hearing, and was for failing to turn over business records.) Isaacson and Nett were each ordered to pay $5000 in penalties for the abusive legal memo, take ethics classes, and the case file was forwarded to the chief judge of the district for possible disbarment from practice before federal courts in the state. The court did not jail Nett who did appear at the hearing and told the court that the offensive document was an "emotional outburst" written by Isaacson and that Nett "wasn't trying to condone that" when she filed it on behalf of the bankrupt company headed by Isaacson.  Nett argued that contempt sanctions are designed to prevent a repeat of the conduct, and that this kind of case was unlikely to ever arise again. The bankrupt company is a subsidiary of the controversial Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology.