Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York delved deeper into the family dynamics of two attorneys accused of a Molotov cocktail attack on a New York City Police Department vehicle in a reply brief filed late Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Urooj Rahman and Colinford Mattis, who were arrested on May 30 and indicted on charges of arson and use of explosives to commit a felony, among other offenses, are "caretakers and authority figures in the familial relationships they identify," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Kessler wrote.

While attorneys for Mattis and Rahman have argued that the pair's family commitments —Rahman cares for her aging mother, while Mattis is a foster parent of three — demonstrate strong character and are likely to encourage good behavior as they await trial on bond, Kessler argued that the family members did not prevent the previous alleged attack and were apparently unaware of it.

"It seems highly unlikely that Rahman's ailing and elderly mother or Mattis's foster children have sufficient insight into the defendants' lives or their current predicament, or the kind of moral or physical authority over the defendants that would dissuade the defendants from further crimes," Kessler wrote.

Mattis and Rahman were released to home confinement with electronic monitoring and a $250,000 bond a few days after their arrests, but prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York immediately appealed U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie's ruling to the Second Circuit, arguing that Mattis and Rahman presented a safety risk while protests were ongoing in the city.

A panel of Second Circuit judges granted prosecutors' request for an emergency stay, so Mattis and Rahman returned to jail to await their next hearing, which is set for Tuesday before Judges Jon Newman, Peter Hall and Gerard Lynch of the Second Circuit.

The case has attracted attention from across the legal community, with a group of 56 former federal prosecutors filing an amicus brief this week urging the Second Circuit to uphold Brodie's ruling and a growing list of more than 850 current and former students, organizations, faculty and staff at New York University School of Law calling for the charges to be dropped.

Mattis is a graduate of NYU Law, and at the time of the alleged attack, he was an associate at Pryor Cashman on furlough due to the pandemic. The firm has since suspended him pending the outcome of the criminal case. Rahman, who graduated from Fordham University School of Law, worked as a tenants' attorney in Bronx Housing Court until her arrest.

In the amicus brief, the former federal prosecutors argued that the government's argument, if adopted, would change existing bail practice. The preexisting circumstances of a defendant's life are routinely considered in bail proceedings, they argued, even though those circumstances typically failed to prevent the alleged offense.

In response, Kessler argued that he had made a more specific argument.

"The government's point is simply that in this case, under these circumstances, these preexisting familial relationships should give the Court little comfort that the defendants will not engage in further criminal activity," he wrote.

Bracewell partner Paul Shechtman, who is representing Rahman, said he hopes the appellate court recognizes that Brodie's decision to approve the bond package was reasonable.

"I hope that our brief and a compelling amicus brief will persuade a distinguished panel of the Court of Appeals that the bail package imposed below was entirely reasonable," he said.

Mattis' attorney Sabrina Shroff said prosecutors' arguments and their interpretation of the Bail Reform Act of 1984 are not in keeping with case law.

"The government's reading of the statute caused concern to individuals with deep law enforcement experience and we share their concern as raised in the amicus brief," she said.

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