India's Deputy Consul General in New York, Devyani Khobragade, attends a Rutgers University event at India's Consulate General in New York, June 19, 2013. PHOTO: REUTERS
In a letter to a federal magistrate judge in New York, Khobragade's lawyer requested an extension of the time by which the US government must file an indictment or commence a preliminary hearing.
The lawyer, Daniel Arshack, confirmed he filed the letter in court but would not comment about a possible resolution of the case.
Khobragade, who was deputy consul-general in New York, was arrested on December 12 and charged with one count of visa fraud and one count of making false statements about how much she paid her housekeeper.
The case was adjourned until January 13 by which time the government must commence a preliminary hearing or file an indictment.
Arshack asked US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn to extend the deadline by 30 days to February 12.
"Significant communications have been had between the prosecution and the defence and amongst other government officials and it is our strong view that the pressure of the impending deadline is counterproductive to continued communications," Arshack wrote.
Preet Bharara, the US attorney in Manhattan whose office is handling the case, however responded saying the plea discussions can continue following the indictment in the case.
"The government is not seeking an extension of the deadline for indictment and therefore there is no motion for the court to decide. At any rate, as the court knows, the timing under which the government seeks an indictment is in the discretion of the government, and the defendant cannot alter that," Bharara wrote in a letter to a federal magistrate judge in New York.
Bharara added that as recently as January 5, the government outlined "reasonable parameters" for a plea that could resolve the case, to which the defendant has not responded.
Khobragade's arrest enraged India, which is demanding that all charges be dropped against her. On the day of her arrest, she was strip-searched. The arresting authority, the US Marshals Service, said the strip search was a routine procedure imposed on any new arrestee at the federal courthouse.
Khobragade was released on $250,000 bail.
In the aftermath of her arrest, India asked to transfer Khobragade to the United Nations.
US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Monday that India's application to transfer Khobragade's accreditation to the Indian mission at the United Nations, which was made before Christmas, was still under review.
"We've received the request for change in accreditation, but the process is ongoing and no official decision has been made yet to do that. So there's no change in her status as of this point," she told a regular news briefing.
Indian media have said the request to transfer Khobragade to the United Nations was aimed at ending the stand-off with the United States in the hopes that her new diplomatic status could allow New Delhi to bring her home without the prosecution proceeding.
According to UN guidelines on diplomatic privileges and immunities, documents certifying diplomatic immunity, if approved, are usually issued by the US Mission to the United Nations within two weeks of the initial request.
A State Department official said there was no set time period for the process, and noted that the request had been filed just ahead of a period of government holidays.
Harf said the United States hoped to see the case resolved as soon as possible in the interest of the bilateral relationship between India and the United States, which has been strained by the case.
"We don't want this to define our relationship going forward and don't think that it will," Harf said. "If you look throughout the region, if you look at Afghanistan, if you look at energy issues, economic issues, we have a whole host of things we work together on, and those are very important and shouldn't be derailed by this incident. ... (T)he relationship with India is incredibly important, it's vital, and that's what we're focused on."
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Yea, delay until India finds a smoking gun in Delhi linking a USA staffer! India is embarrassing itself, just resolve behind the scenes in an amicable way that doesn't hurt 'the maid' and her family without taking any immature steps. Every country's diplomatic staff does some kind of 'off the laws of land' and India or the USA is not an exception.
Foolish motion - defense council can protest if Prosecutor files motion for delay but can't ask court to force prosecutor to delay something required by law. It would appear that India has no more understanding of basic American law than Pakistan.
The United States has successfully delayed by about thirty years the development of India’s cryogenic engine -- a tiny example of incomparably greater sabotage: ""India's greatest scientist and greatest living Indian publicly tortured in Harvard seminar, systematically and totally starved for up to 3 weeks at a time, made semi-starved and homeless and even blind for years, kept under 24-hour audio and video surveillance as well as surveillance of [and interference with] communications and electrical typewriter and computer use, document creation and photocopying, etc., by satellite for more than past 3 decades, systematically harassed and in poverty and neutralised and robbed of his work at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per year, robbed of crores in his money and property in India by C.I.A.-RAW, forced back into exile in the U.S., all with full cooperation and participation of India's RAW and India's C.I.A.-RAW-controlled prime ministers, politicians and media -- to keep India poor, weak and enslaved" and how this means the nuclear destruction of New Delhi and then the coast-to-coast destruction of the United States; see my blog titled 'Nuclear Supremacy For India Over U.S.' which can be found by a Yahoo/Google search with the title; my biography can be found in Marquis' Who's Who in the World, 2014 and earlier editions." One nuclear explosion on Ramlila Grounds where the uninformed masses gather by the hundreds of thousands at the rallies of Kejriwal, Modi, etc. will take care of their popular support but, instead, one nuclear explosion on RAW headquarters and one on South Block - North Block will destroy traitors, including Kejriwal, sponsored by CIA-RAW while it suppresses Satish Chandra who can make India the supreme military and economic power in the world immediately by destroying Washington and New York simultaneously with RAW headquarters, South Block and North Block with a warning that additional U.S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation or sign of retaliation; his proposal about money will make India the most prosperous nation in the world within about ten years but it will be militarily dominant immediately on the destruction of Washington and New York and will be able to dictate in economic matters also immediately on the destruction of Washington and New York such as by having Americans work as slave labor for India -- although the coast-to-coast destruction of the United States will take precedence over having Americans work as slave labor; I have shown that Americans deserve to be killed as ruthlessly as fecal bacteria. With its nuclear warheads emplaced in Washington, New York and other U.S. cities, India has the means right now to make all U.S. presidents -- past and present -- present themselves in India to be whipped and hanged, by warning that Washington and New York will be destroyed if the U.S. fails to obey and additional U.S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation. Filthy niggers of the Indian government such as the Commerce and Industry Minister and the Foreign Minister insist on putting “the extremely valuable partnership” with the United States above all else; they have a partnership with the United States in raping Mother India -- they pull apart and hold open the entrances to the cavities of Mother India which the United States then rapes. They deserve death even more than Ratan Tata about whom I wrote: “Ratan Tata should be whipped and hanged for giving $50 million to Harvard University where the world’s greatest scientist was publicly tortured for being an Indian and to keep India poor, weak and enslaved”. I have described -- IndiasLegitimateRulerSatishChandraDOTblogspotDOTcom -- the war waged with the help of 24-hour satellite surveillance for the past 37 years against the only Indian who is an obstacle to the Americans’ rape of India.