'Jimmy the Greek' attorney speaks as judge weighs whether to release him on bond

We got some new information coming through right now. Northwest Indiana, big court hearing. The man accused of running a massive gambling ring just got out of court. Yeah, he goes by Jimmy the Greek. Brittany Choulis was there as he asked to be released from jail while he waits for the trial. So what's going on here, Brittany? They got The court ended. It was about a two-hour hearing. But Jimmy the Greek, Jerrid Mo, is still in custody. But the judge has not made a decision. After hearing about two hours of back and forth between federal prosecutors and defense attorney and forth, the judge says she wants to sit with all of the information and will write a formal written response to what she heard today. So no verbal decision. And as of right now, the federal government stay, the federal government keeping him in custody after being granted release last month is still in, it's still stick. So he will still be in custody. Potentially it could take about a week for this decision to come through, but let me just break down what happened in court today because prosecutors had two main arguments as to why they say Jimmy Jerrid Mo should stay in custody. Now, that first one, they mentioned him being a flight risk. They brought up his Greek heritage and the potential of him to get a Greek passport or a passport for Greek citizenship there. They said that they had some evidence and showed some text messages between Mr. Jerrid Mo and his wife about potential property in Greece and traveling over to Greece. They also brought up text messages of Mr. Jerrid Mo's daughter, Athena Jerrid Mo, who is also one of the 22 charged about inquiring about an architect for a potential villa the family was building there. So that is one of the things that prosecution was arguing. They also brought up other examples of people fleeing from this district to Greece, people who were charged and then fleeing to Greece. They say even if you turn over your U.S. passport. If someone has a Greek passport, they can easily go north to Canada, go south to Mexico, or even hop on a boat from Florida and then from there fly to Greece. And according to prosecutors right now, there are four fugitives over there right now who did flee from the U.S., three of them from this district court here. So that is what prosecution's first point was. Their second point was that they argued Jimmy the Greek, Jared Demos, would obstruct justice or attempt to obstruct justice if he was released from court. Now, both prosecutors and the defense attorneys kind of agree that extortion in and of itself is not a violent crime. But through the hearing today, prosecutors referred to a 30-page document that they filed last month detailing a number of phone calls and text messages they say that Jared Demos made showing that he has the potential to threaten people, to try and extort people and use threats for that. And they argued that that would also be at play if he were released. They say that while in custody, every phone call he makes is recorded by the jail. And they argued if out of custody, every phone call he makes would not be recorded. And they showed or they played about six to eight voicemails. They say Jared Demos made between 2024 and 2025 threatening victims that he was extorting. They said there's four victims of extortion. And they also said that he made phone calls to those victims' families, specifically detailing a phone call and playing voicemails that they say Jared Demos left the daughter of one of those victims, a college-age daughter of one of those victims. And that really stuck out to the judge, asking the prosecution to kind of respond to those allegations. Now, it took about an hour-plus for the prosecution to lay out their arguments. then the defense attorney laid out his arguments and we also caught the defense attorney right after court got out again two hours and still no decision but we did ask him to respond to the allegations prosecution was making that Jimmy Jared Demos is a flight risk and that he would attempt to obstruct justice and just take a listen to what attorney Beau Brindley had to say on the flight risk they're just ultimately saying that if you have you're from greek origin or you have a family member in greece that has property you need to be detained in jail, that's ridiculous But that's what their argument boils down to, it's nothing more than that. And then secondly, with respect to obstructing justice, there is no suggestion that Jimmy's gonna go out and obstruct justice and intimidate witnesses. Every time you have a case like this, there's gonna be some intimidation allegations. That doesn't mean everybody gets detained and there's nothing special about him. They're treating him like he's some sort of special ultra violent criminal. He doesn't have a violence case in his entire life. And when it comes to those phone calls they played in court, there's about six voicemails. Just what's your response to the judge kind of looking at that as potential for committing obstruction of justice because he allegedly had made those threats in the past? I don't think it has anything to do with obstruction of justice going forward. That's what happened in the case, and we'll deal with that when it's time to go to trial. The question about whether he should be released on bond is a question about whether he's going to go forward now and intimidate witnesses. And there's no evidence to support that. His attorney also arguing that the filing of charges, he's facing over a dozen charges, is that X factor. His attorney arguing that before he may have allegedly made those calls, but he does not want to go back to jail if he's given release. So his attorney arguing that these charges are the deciding factor in why he would not commit that a potential for obstruction of justice. Now, again, there hasn't been no decision. He is still in custody, but the judge said she will give a written response, a formal written decision on whether or not they'll release him. And again, that could take up to a week, according to defense attorney Brindley. I'll send it back to you guys for now. A very thorough report. Brittany, thank you so much for staying on top of that one for us.