9.Gerald R. Grant, Jr. — Direct/Cross (Recall)
475 linesGERALD GRANT, duly sworn
COURT CLERK: State your name and spell your last name for the record, keep your voice up and speak into the mic so everyone can hear you.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Sure. It's Gerald R. Grant, Junior, G-E-R-A-L-D, G-R-A-N-T.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. FICK:
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Good morning, sir.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I work for the Federal Public Defender's Office. I've been there for 21 years, just recently went part-time. And then I also have my own consulting business with computer forensics and mobile forensics.
MR. FICK: And the defender office you work out of, it's not the Boston office; it's a different one, right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, it is the Western District of New York, which is Buffalo and Rochester. And I am stationed in the Rochester, New York, office.
MR. FICK: And can you just briefly describe the kind of work you do as it relates to your testimony today, the subject matter of your testimony?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
Everything I do has to do with some type of digital forensics or digital equipment or electronic evidence. Anything that comes into our office with either a mobile device, a computer, any type of computer-connected device I am in charge of handling that, examining it, providing testimony and/or consultation with the attorneys.
MR. FICK: Thank you. And -- okay.
Now, were you provided access to electronic materials produced by the Yahoo company in response to a federal search warrant issued by the prosecution?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I was, yes, sir.
MR. FICK: And did you review what's commonly referred to as the "return" relating to those materials, the documents that came back in response to the warrant?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I did, sir, yes.
MR. FICK: And did the return indicate that Yahoo provided emails for the accounts associated with Tamerlan and Jahar Tsarnaev?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Between the two different accounts, the Jahar account contained 5,561 emails, and the Tamerlan account contained 92.
MR. FICK: Mr. Grant, I'm going to put a chart up on the screen in just a moment, hopefully.
Do you recognize the document that's on the screen right now?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I do, sir.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: The summary chart indicates the emails that were identified to have transposed between Jahar and Tamerlan, between the accounts.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: There is 21 depicted in this document, but there were two additional emails that were located within the email account.
MR. FICK: And the two additional ones, was there something about them that led us to -- or led you to leave them off the chart or led them to be left off the chart?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, we left them off the chart because they contained a link to an Internet address, but that Internet address would have been invalid, so it would not have taken us anywhere.
MR. FICK: And was -- were the emails addressed to a very, very large number of recipients, not just between the two brothers?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, it definitely was. It was not just an individual conversation. There were a number of recipients for the emails indicating even the possibility that this was a spam message.
MR. FICK: And did you verify the accuracy of all of the information in this summary chart based on the materials received from Yahoo?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, I individually took each one of these items, opened up and processed the actual snapshot files that came from Yahoo, opened each individual email to validate both date and time, the recipient as well as the sender and the subject.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: No objection.
THE COURT: All right. It will be admitted.
(Defense Exhibit No. 3316-001 received into evidence.)
BY MR. FICK:
MR. FICK: This is a little bit more blurry than I had hoped, but I'll just blow up a part of it. Can you just briefly go through and describe what the various columns depict?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. The first column, date and time, is basically pulled from the individual emails that were opened up from the Yahoo snapshot. So that information was copied. That would indicate local time. So it's been converted to the actual Eastern time zone at that point through the email.
The "from" column would be whoever the sender was of the actual email. The "to" column, the third one, would be the recipient or multiple recipients, if there were. And last, the subject was just basically what was in the actual subject field with the other indicators of either a forward or in regard to.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: And the color scheme here is that the Jahar Tsarnaev email address is in blue and the Tamerlan is in green. Is that right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Correct, sir.
MR. FICK: Mr. Grant, I'm going to put up on the screen what has been previously marked as Exhibit 3316-02, which I'll represent to you is a multi-paged document.
Have you seen this document before?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: In order to be able to show the full email message by indicating both the header information, the subject, to, from, and date, as well as the body of the message, if there was any text or links in them, and attachments, this document was created to make it easier so that an individual can look at a single page and see the actual email in its full content. That would be very difficult in any other format.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I did. I went through each one, one by one, again comparing it to the actual email out of the Yahoo snapshot. I opened up the individual attachments, if they were a picture. And I also -- if there was a link that I can go to the Internet, I followed that link through, opened it up and verified that it did take you to a valid video or a file and displayed that file.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Correct, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: No objection.
THE COURT: All right.
(Defense Exhibit No. 3316-002 received into evidence.)
BY MR. FICK:
MR. FICK: And, Mr. Grant, there's only one email on the first page, but does the chart overall contain all 21 of the messages we saw in the previous exhibit?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir, it does.
MR. FICK: And in certain places there are translations. What's your understanding of where those translations came from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: My understanding is that the translations came from another separate document that was provided from the government to the defender's office.
MR. FICK: So briefly, then, this first email dated November 1st, 2011, who's it to and who's it from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It's from Jahar to Tamerlan.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yeah. As you can -- a couple of ways you can tell if it was forwarded. There's an indicator in the subject line that has an FW indicating that somebody forwarded the message, as well as you may also see, within the body of the message, if you forward another one, it will actually contain the individual message that was forwarded inside of the body as you forward it on to the next person.
MR. FICK: In any event, looking at the attachment photos in the right column, fair to say that this is simply forwarding a message containing some pictures of a car, right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: That is correct. Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Moving on to the second page of the exhibit, an email also dated November 1st, 2011, is that a similar kind of message from Jahar to Tamerlan enclosing car pictures?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, it is. And it did include car pictures, yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Moving to the third page of the exhibit, an email message dated April 23rd, 2012. Who is this to and who's this from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It's from Tamerlan to Jahar.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It did. So because it did contain an Internet link, that's what I was following through on the Internet, and then opened up the actual video that it linked to and then had a screen snapshot to indicate on the right.
MR. FICK: And can you just read the English-language translation of the text of the message that I just highlighted?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Based on what you have highlighted, it says, "Watch this, it's interesting."
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, it is.
MR. FICK: Moving to the next message dated April 25th, 2012, who is this to -- who is it from and who is it to?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It is from Tamerlan to Jahar.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, there's also a Katherine Tsarnaev that was included in this.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: There was no message text. There was just the link only. And again, I followed that link through to validate that that screen shot was accurate and that it did contain that information.
MR. FICK: And that's an accurate depiction of the -- what's visible or what the video is at the other end of that link?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Moving to the next page of the exhibit, an email dated April 27th of 2012. Can I ask you to read, if you're just leaving out the sort of Salaam-Alaikum, Islamic greeting -- first of all, before I get there, let me -- who's it to and who's it from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It is from Jahar to Tamerlan.
MR. FICK: Okay. And skipping the sort of Salaam-Alaikum greeting, can you read the English part of the message I just highlighted there?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Thank you. I appreciate you letting me skip that.
It says, "Tamerlan, I miss you. I hope everything's all right. I can't get through to you no matter how many times I try to call. Thanks for the video. Take care of yourself. I'll call today."
MR. FICK: Okay. And does this appear to be a reply to the message we just looked at, based on the body of the message?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It does. It's a reply back from the one that Tamerlan sent, sir.
MR. FICK: Moving to the next page of the exhibit, an email dated April 28th, 2012, who is this from and to?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It is again from Tamerlan, and it was to Jahar as well as Katherine Tsarnaev.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It contained both a typed text message that said, "Check this out," as well as a link to a YouTube video. Again, I copied that link, pasted it into the Internet, pulled up the actual video, and then this depicts a screen shot of the content of that video.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I watched all of -- not all of it, but I skipped through it to make sure that it was completed from the beginning to the end and that I can validate that that exact screen shot is what the video contains on that date and timestamp.
MR. FICK: Moving to the next page of the exhibit, an email dated May 2nd of 2012, who is this one from and who is this one to?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It was from Tamerlan to Jahar.
MR. FICK: I'll just ask you to read, again, the English part of the message without the Islamic greeting at the beginning.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Okay. Translation is, "I am doing well" -- and I apologize if I'm not well with that -- "I am educating myself more and more about Islam. We are working on spreading Islam. In order for an Islamic society to emerge, Islamic spirit and thinking must rein amongst the population. And here in the Caucasus" -- I think that's what it is; I apologize -- "there are still very many people who live in jahili," [sic] and then in parentheses it says, "in ignorance. But it gets better and better. More and more people turn back to Islam, and want Islamic ruling shariat." And then there's like a text note that just shows the spelling "sharia." "But ignorance still dominates but not for too long. We need to practice patience and work on our way to Islam. Those who help Allah's cause, Allah will help them."
MR. FICK: Now, moving to the next page of the exhibit, an email dated May 7th, 2012, who is this to and from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It's from Jahar to Tamerlan.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, it was, sir.
MR. FICK: And can you just read again the English -- the non-greeting part of the message before the link?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Okay. It says, "Make Allah S.W.A" -- that's S, period, W, period, A -- "make it easy for the Muslim world, here is an interesting article too." And underneath it was an actual link to an Internet site, again --
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Moving to the next page of the exhibit, an email dated May 7th of 2012, who's that to and from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It is from Jahar to Tamerlan.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. It contains kind of a website, the .ru, and then it says, "It is. Check it out."
MR. FICK: And this website, this F-O-N-D-I-H-L-A-S, is that, in fact, the same website that the previous link we saw just came from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: The top one, this is actually two independent emails on one page. So the top one is from Jahar to Tamerlan.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: No, sir. It was just attachments.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Moving to the next page of the exhibit, an email dated June 2nd or -- I'm sorry -- June 5th of 2012. Who is this one to and from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: This is from Tamerlan to Katherine as well as Jahar, and then there's a third email that's called Karleone, two thousand --
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It says, "Two interesting articles, must read."
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It says, "One year of" -- I apologize if I can't -- "Sheikh Usam-" --
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Sheikh Usamah, yes. And that's "Martyrdom and the Apocalyptic Dream of America."
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: "Sheikh Usamah Bin Laden, The 'Lion of Islam' with a Tender Heart."
MR. FICK: And, again, this is an email that Tamerlan sent to Jahar, Katherine, and this Karleone address?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: This is from Jahar to Tamerlan.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: His response is, "Thanks, it's interesting."
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: This was from Tamerlan to Jahar as well as Katherine Tsarnaev.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, it is.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Again, this is another one from Tamerlan to Katherine and Jahar.
MR. FICK: Okay. And here, the screen capture said, "This video is unavailable." Can you explain how something like that happens?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: A couple of different ways it can be taken down. I tried the link to go to that actual video, and you get this exact screen. It's just an indication that the video was either removed or the person who originally posted it may have deleted it and taken it down, or there may have been some other reason for it not being available, but it's not playable at that point.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Objection, your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled. You may answer it.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I've seen it where either somebody complains and says it was copyrighted material, they can take it down, or even possibly inappropriate material.
BY MR. FICK:
MR. FICK: Moving to the next email dated June 26th, 2012, can you read the -- I'm sorry. Who is it to and from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It's from Tamerlan to Jahar as well as Katherine, and then that third Karleone email.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It says, "Check this out." I'm not sure what the -- you know, "Pious brother, Mashallah."
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: "Pious brother," yes.
MR. FICK: And again here the link is missing, but a little bit of its title remained. Is that fair?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. In this case, as you can see, it actually gives you an indication of why the video was taken down. So YouTube is explaining that it's been terminated due to third-party notifications, so that would have been somebody saw the video, identified it, wrote in to YouTube and said, "This is copyright material," and then YouTube removed it.
MR. FICK: And moving on to an email dated August 28th, 2012, do you recognize -- who is this one to and from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Again, this is from Tamerlan to Jahar.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, it is, sir.
MR. FICK: Your Honor, with the Court's permission, I would actually like to publish just a very brief portion of this link live, if I could.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Your Honor, this link -- they don't have a -- they have a recorded version of this link. I don't know why we need to do a live version.
THE COURT: I'm sorry?
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: We don't need to go to the Internet to get this when the defense has a downloaded version of this.
THE COURT: Yeah, I think we should use --
MR. FICK: Well, the downloaded version is part of a different exhibit. I suppose I can find it. One moment.
THE COURT: I think it's a more cautious way of approaching it.
(Pause.)
THE COURT: Just take it down from the jury while you look for it.
MR. FICK: Sure. I'm not -- I'm actually not broadcasting my own desktop onto the screen, but that's fine.
THE COURT: I understood you were going to look at another exhibit and find it. I just wanted to take it down while you did that.
THE COURT: When you're ready, let me know. I'll put it back up.
(Pause.)
THE COURT: Are you ready?
(Video recording played.)
BY MR. FICK:
MR. FICK: And so just returning now, if I could, to the exhibit that we had up, the page of Exhibit 3316-002, what we just saw is, in fact, the beginning of the video that you had screen-captured here, right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: That's correct, yes, sir.
MR. FICK: So that's the -- again, the content of the link sent from Tamerlan to Jahar on August 28th of 2012?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Moving to the next page of the exhibit, an email dated November 8th, 2012, who's that to and from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It's from Tamerlan to Jahar.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It says, "Take a look, brother."
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Subhanallah, A Story About the Youngest Sniper of the" -- it's kind of cut off -- "Nusrah Who Fell in a Battle in Hamah at the Age of 15."
MR. FICK: Moving to the next page of the exhibit, an email dated November 30th of 2012, who is this one to and from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: This one was from Tamerlan to Jahar.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, the top part was the link to the YouTube video, and then below was text that was typed, "Here. Watch it and share."
MR. FICK: And this screen capture that contains "The Day of Judgment, Love Allah" at the top." Is that a fair and accurate screen capture of the video that is at that link?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Moving to the next page of the exhibit, email February 16th, 2013, who's this to and from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: From Tamerlan to Jahar.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Again, the top part is an actual YouTube link, and then it says, "Listen and share. The same version exists in English if you need it."
MR. FICK: And the screen capture at the right is an accurate depiction of what lies at that link?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: And finally, the last page of the exhibit, an email dated March 21st, 2013. Who's this one to and from?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: From Tamerlan to Jahar.
MR. FICK: And is it the case, again, that the videos that were at those links were no longer available when this exhibit was made?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. This particular email contained two individual links of which the first one, when we followed through, gave the message that it's no longer available. And this time, though, it stated that the account that posted it has been terminated.
MR. FICK: Now, Mr. Grant, did you also have occasion to review a search warrant return for Tamerlan Tsarnaev's YouTube account?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Can you describe a little bit what is meant by a YouTube account? What is a YouTube an account, an account on YouTube?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Well, YouTube, like any other type of social media, is a way of sharing and being able to have a wall or some type of main screen that indicates what you may like, the activities that you're doing, if you're posting a video, so you can actually upload your own videos, you can like other people's videos, you can also join or have what's called a subscription, which -- meaning if you like specific videos that a person or another user of YouTube is producing, you can indicate that you like that, and it will then show you those on your main page or in your news feed, similar to like a Facebook.
MR. FICK: So is it fair to say it's -- a YouTube account is a way to sort of collect and share material on YouTube with other people?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Typically, yes.
MR. FICK: Mr. Grant, I'm going to show you on the screen what's previously been marked as Exhibit 3315-001. Can you describe for me what this is?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. This is actually the home screen of the Tamerlan Tsarnaev YouTube account.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: No objection.
THE COURT: All right.
(Defense Exhibit No. 3315-001 received into evidence.)
BY MR. FICK:
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: And then what does it mean to say this is the home page and this "All activities" bar is listed?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It just is an indication with the red underlining showing you that that is the page that you're on. The YouTube website will basically put the most current page, or the one that you're on, in front of the other pages, kind of like a spreadsheet. And this just indicates that you're on the home, and the button indicating "All available," means that you're not filtering anything out. You're showing everything that's available on the screen.
MR. FICK: And highlighting the first entry here, it says Tamerlan Tsarnaev subscribed to a channel, the Merciful Servant. What does it mean to subscribe to a channel on YouTube?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: A channel is kind of like a holding area for somebody to post specific, I guess, videos that they want to file under a specific category. You may be able to associate it with like a hash tag in Twitter. What happens is, if a person goes into this channel, they're going to see the videos that are posted, and then they can subscribe or say they like it, and then other videos that are in that channel will then show up or be offered in their news feed as a possible thing to look at.
MR. FICK: Paging through now to the second page of this exhibit, this first entry where it says "Tamerlan Tsarnaev added to Islam and liked," and then there's a video there, what does it mean to add -- add to Islam and liked?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Well, the "Islam" in this indication indicates a favored -- or a category that was created on the Tamerlan account. If, during that, you're kind of like putting together your collections, if you like a specific video, you can add it to a certain area in kind of like your own favorites.
MR. FICK: Moving now to the next page of the YouTube home page -- pardon me one moment -- and is this another video that was liked on the Tamerlan Tsarnaev YouTube home page?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, he indicated that he liked it.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It says, "So fear them not, but fear me if you are true believers."
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Sure.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. This is basically what's considered the play list of the YouTube account. As I was mentioning, it's kind of like a favorites. It allows you to create a custom play list of videos. It would be equivalent if you have iTunes and you categorize a specific category of music in your iTunes and then you put that music within it. It's basically a collection.
So what would happen is you clicked on the play list; it shows the individual categories that were created for the Tamerlan Tsarnaev account.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: No objection.
THE COURT: Okay.
(Defense Exhibit No. 3315-002 received into evidence.)
BY MR. FICK:
MR. FICK: Now, Mr. Grant -- I'll wait for this to come up on the screen.
What I've just highlighted lists or contains the various play lists that are on this YouTube page, right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: And so one of the accounts was actually named -- or one of the play lists was actually called "terrorists"?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: And what does it mean that there's this gray box without an actual picture visible there?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Well, if you open up that actual area, it would indicate that the video is no longer available.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: And then, your Honor, if I could get the screen for the witness, please, one more time.
MR. FICK: I'm putting on the screen what's been identified, Mr. Grant, as 3315-003. What is this?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Again, this is just another page on the YouTube. As we saw before, a person could subscribe to a channel, so when they do subscribe to a channel, it just keeps a collection of which channels you're subscribed to so that you can quickly access them if needed.
THE COURT: Okay.
(Defense Exhibit No. 3315-003 received into evidence.)
BY MR. FICK:
MR. FICK: So, Mr. Grant, are these the four subscribed channels that were on the Tamerlan Tsarnaev page?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Now, finally, were you provided with access to the forensic image of a cellular telephone identified -- Tamerlan Tsarnaev's cellular telephone identified by the FBI as HTC, the brand, 1B1?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir, I was.
MR. FICK: And did you extract a file or files and also run some reports about the contents of that phone?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: I'm going to put up on the screen, just for the witness, if I could, what's previously been marked as 3317-1-3.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: What I did is I took the physical extraction of the phone that was provided to us and processed it in a program called Cellebrite Physical Analyzer. From there, it allowed me to quickly pull out and sort individual categories that come from the phone: contacts, videos, audios, and those types. In this case, what I was able to do is then open up that particular class of entries that were in the phone, list them out, and then extract them to an individual report.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: This one specifically is just for the contacts, indicating that there was 166 contacts within this phone.
MR. FICK: And is the tool that you used to extract this report a true -- a reliable tool used by professionals in your field?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, it's actually the same tool that was used to provide the extraction.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Not the call log.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Okay. And did you also extract the -- a list of the audio files on the phone as 3317-1-1?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Your Honor, without -- I don't necessarily want to publish them now, but I'd just ask that all those be admitted into evidence for the moment, if I could.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: No objection.
THE COURT: All right.
(Defense Exhibit No. 3317-1-1, 3317-1-2, 3317-1-3, and 3317-1-4 received into evidence.)
THE COURT: We're at one o'clock. Where are you in your exam?
MR. FICK: I'm getting very close. In fact, the last issue was one as to which I understand there was an objection at the beginning of the proceedings today that we should probably address before I go there.
THE COURT: Well, why don't we take the lunch recess, and we'll discuss that before we reconvene.
COURT CLERK: All rise for the Court and jury. The Court will take the lunch recess.
(The Court and jury exit the courtroom and there is a recess in the proceedings at 1:00 p.m.)
COURT CLERK: All rise for the Court.
(The Court enters the courtroom at 2:08 p.m.)
THE COURT: Let me see counsel at the side.
(Discussion at sidebar and out of the hearing of the jury:)
THE COURT: Who called this meeting?
MR. FICK: Well, I think I just -- what I mentioned to the Court is I understand the subject of a video on the cell phone -- it's a four-minute-long video of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's voice in the park with his daughter, sort of repeatedly saying "Allahu Akbar" and getting her to repeat it over and over again.
We wanted to publish that very short video, and the government, as I understand it, objects.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: It's four-minutes-something long and it just seems so removed from what the issues are. I mean, domination -- it could hardly be characterized as domination --
THE COURT: Do you quarrel with the characterization of what the film shows?
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: No, it does say -- but the issue is -- I assume we're not playing the whole four minutes but a 30-second clip.
THE COURT: Only four minutes.
THE COURT: I'll let you do it and if I think you're overdoing it --
MR. WEINREB: I have another matter I would like to put on the record. We had some discussions with the defense over the lunch hour with respect to the foreign witnesses who are here. It has to do with the timing of when they're going to testify.
It's currently the intention of the FBI to return the foreign witnesses to Russia on Friday, meaning that they need to testify this week. At that point they will have been in the country for a week.
The FBI is devoting 16 personnel full time to taking care of them, both guarding them as well as protecting them from the press and from others. It's an enormous expense and distraction for the agency, and that's just part of the expense that the government has endured.
There is ample time between now and the end of Thursday to get all of them on and off the stand, but the defense keeps insisting that they are not sure they are going to be able to get them on the stand by Thursday and they may need to keep them all the way until the following Monday, which would be an additional four days, simply for the convenience of putting off some other witnesses like those who are reading 302s and other kinds of lengthy witnesses.
So I just want the record to reflect that it is still our intention that they are all going back to Russia on Friday whether they have testified or not, and the defense can make their decision about whether they want to call them between now and then or not.
MR. FICK: The issue is -- well, first of all, I would say we do intend -- have every intention of calling these witnesses on Thursday. The issue, though, in terms of timing is not just one of sort of convenience, and we would -- we're not sort of recklessly putting on some other witness in advance to delay them, but rather, the conditions under which their presence was permitted and the conditions under which we're able to interact with them makes it extremely difficult to do, the preparation work, and time consuming.
So there's a concern about whether we can be ready on Thursday, but we're certainly making efforts to do so.
THE COURT: Okay. Witness-handling is always an issue in cases and it's routinely resolved, and I would expect this will be resolved. So what -- can you tell me what the gross time would be for the witnesses' testimony?
MR. FICK: I mean, it's still very much a work in progress. I think we can certainly get them all on and off in under a day.
THE COURT: That's too gross.
MR. FICK: Well, let me think. There are five of them. It kind of depends on the length of the cross. And I suspect each witness's direct is probably in the neighborhood of a half-hour.
THE COURT: And how many are there?
THE COURT: Okay. Well, let's see how things develop, but I don't think the government's request is an unreasonable one as I heard it.
(In open court:)
COURT CLERK: All rise for the jury.
(The jury enters the courtroom at 2:13 p.m.)
COURT CLERK: Be seated.
MR. FICK: Thank you, your Honor. If I could get the screen back just for the witness again for a moment, please.
BY MR. FICK:
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Good afternoon, sir.
MR. FICK: We just introduced four of your reports about Tamerlan's HTC phone, the 1B1. And there was one more that I neglected to introduce. I'm going to show you another report on the screen and just ask if you recognize what this one is.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. This is an extraction report of what's considered the Internet history, or the web history of the device.
MR. FICK: So in other words, as a smartphone it can surf the Internet and it retains certain information about websites that are visited?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, the Cellebrite UFED system.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: No objection.
THE COURT: Okay. It's admitted and published.
(Defense Exhibit No. 3317-1-5 received into evidence.)
BY MR. FICK:
MR. FICK: And so on the screen -- sorry. I'm going to pull out a different section. The sort of last bits of Internet history on the phone are depicted on the screen here?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: And it's a number of web pages referencing articles including, among other things, the marathon bombings?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: And then finally, did you have occasion to extract a video file that was on this phone?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. It actually was a report that included all video files from the device.
MR. FICK: Well, there was a report about video files, but then one particular file itself we extracted -- or you extracted, and it's an exhibit marked 3317-1-6. Do you recall that?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. FICK: Your Honor, I would ask, then, permission to introduce and publish that exhibit as well.
THE COURT: All right. We resolved that in our discussion. That will be admitted.
(Defense Exhibit No. 3317-1-6 received into evidence.)
(Video recording played.)
THE COURT: Mr. Chakravarty?
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Good afternoon again, Mr. Grant.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Good afternoon.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: I just have a few things. That phone from which you extracted this video from, that was Tamerlan's phone found on Laurel Street in Watertown?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I'm not sure what the location is. I was just basing it off of the 1B1 actual folder.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Okay. And you were able to extract that phone and all that other data that Mr. Fick showed you from that phone?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. I was provided a physical extraction, or physical copy of the device's memory, and it was processed. Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: That includes the Internet history and that includes the call logs as well as the contacts on the phone?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And you weren't able to extract any of that data from the defendant's phones, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I didn't --
THE COURT: Sustained.
BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: The number of calls that you had between the -- from the call log of the -- of Tamerlan's phone showed that there were actually hundreds of calls that Tamerlan's phone had?
BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Is that right?
THE COURT: Overruled.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yeah, I -- yes, sir. I -- if I could see the exhibit.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: If we could call up 3317-1-2.
BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Do you recognize this?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And I'm sorry, this isn't in evidence yet.
So it shows 851 calls, right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And of those 851 calls, very few of them, in fact, less than 45, were with numbers that were used by the defendant, right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I did not go into that type of analysis. All I did was extracted the actual messages, or the call logs themselves, and did not do any detailed analysis on them.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So you didn't count how many calls that he actually had with the defendant?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: No, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Did you do any analysis to find out who he called?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: No, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So did you know that, for example, this phone number, that was the -- Number 2, that was the phone number that the defendant used on the T-Mobile phone that he activated just before the bombing?
THE COURT: Overruled.
You may answer it.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I recognized the number from other work I'd done, yes.
BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: In fact, some of it you testified to last time you were here, right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Correct, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So you do you know that was the phone number that was the defendant's number that he activated a T-Mobile phone just before the marathon bombing?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I believe so, yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And so you didn't do any further analysis about when he called the defendant?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: No, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And when the defendant called him?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: No, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: You would agree with me that it was actually a very small proportion of the 851 calls that were with the defendant?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I can't agree unless I actually did it. So unfortunately, no, I cannot agree.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: With regards to the YouTube videos that you showed, that you described for Tamerlan's YouTube account, you would agree with me that there were some religious videos on that YouTube account, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I believe they're religious. I know there were a lot of them that were in a different language and others where people were lecturing.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And that language was Russian, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I believe so. Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Okay. And you also downloaded some of those videos and provided them to the government as potential exhibits, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And some of those videos were actually dance videos. Is that fair to say?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I don't recall. I believe so. There may have been a couple of dance ones. I don't recall off the top of my --
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Do you recall a dance remix video from 2012?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It sounds familiar. I can't state yes or no on that.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: The YouTube site that you showed us had also indicated that some of the videos had actually been followed by people -- by many people, and there's actually a number on the YouTube site that shows how many people followed it, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, there is.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Can we just call up 3315-01?
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And so, for example, this number here means that there are 320,321 subscribers to that channel, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Correct.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Of which Tamerlan Tsarnaev was but one, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Correct.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And then there were other videos. Like, you know, this video appears to be a humorous video?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So there's a variety of different activities on that YouTube site, right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes. Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And you don't have any evidence that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was going to this YouTube site, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Not to -- to this site? No, I don't have any evidence of it.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: With regards to the emails that you showed us, I think you testified that there were about 6,000 emails that you looked at. Is that right?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Between the two accounts that were submitted from Yahoo, yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So between the 6,000 emails, there are about 20 that you presented to the jury?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Twenty-one.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Twenty-one?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And those are the emails between the defendant and his brother?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And occasionally there were two other people who were party to those emails?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And some of those emails involved the topic of religion, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: They appeared to be, yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And many of those emails included foreign language, an Arabic phrase as a greeting and then also a message in Russian, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, that needed a translation. Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And you read the translated versions from the Russian?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I did, sir. Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And those emails -- of those 20 or so emails, 21 emails that you described, some of them actually were the defendant writing back to his brother Tamerlan, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, they were in response to an email. Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And in some of those cases, the defendant actually suggested both an article as well as a particular website to look at, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I don't believe that they suggested an article. I think it was a response back to one. I'd have to look at it to confirm it.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Could we go to the Yahoo -- 3316, please? Thank you. Not this particular one. I'm just going to page down to a particular page. Thank you.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: So you would agree with me, Mr. Grant, that this is an email from the defendant to his brother?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And do you see where it says "Inshallah make Allah s.w.a. make it easy for the ummah," and then there appears to be a hyperlink to an article?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And then on the right-hand side you described that you created a screen shot for that link, to wherever the article went to, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And so this appears to be -- I'll zoom in a little more -- a page that is in both Arabic as well as in some kind of Cyrillic writing?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It appears so, yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And you would agree with me that it appears to be religious in nature, judging by the photograph?
THE COURT: Overruled.
You may answer it.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It's hard to tell. It looks it. I mean, it's hard to see from here what actually that is.
BY MR. CHAKRAVARTY:
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Hard to see what's in the photograph, you mean?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Yeah. It's like a gathering.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Okay. It's a gathering around a large box-type structure?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: It appears to be, yes, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: And then there's Arabic writing and then there are passages throughout. Have you seen the translation of this article?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: No, sir, I've not.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Okay. So you only know what was translated that was in the body of the email, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Correct, sir.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Okay. And so aside from these emails, you don't know what the communications were between the defendant and his brother, correct?
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: I'm not sure -- you mean like other forms or you mean --
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: Aside from what you've testified to already, the other forms of communication in which the defendant communicated with his brother --
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: No, I only looked at these.
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: That's all I have, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right, Mr. Grant. Thank you. You may step down.
GERALD R. GRANT, JR.: Thank you, sir.
(The witness is excused.)
MS. CLARKE: Your Honor, we call Judith Russell.