Judge closes hearing for D.C. gym owner charged in child porn case
In a surprise development, a U.S. District Court Judge on Oct. 23 agreed to a request by a defense attorney to close to the public and the press a court hearing in which gay D.C.
gym owner Michael Everts was expected to disclose whether he would accept an offer by prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge than the charge of distribution of child pornography initially filed against him.
Everts has been held in jail since the time of his arrest on Nov. 29, 2023, on a single charge of distributing child porn. Prosecutors disclosed in court documents shortly after Everts’s arrest that they extended a plea bargain offer to him, but did not publicly disclose the details of the offer.
In three separate status hearings before Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, Everts requested through his attorney and was granted additional time to consider whether to accept the plea offer.
