The judge who will oversee the January antitrust trial of Thomas Farmer is poised to consider allegations by lawyers of the former Crowley Maritime Corp executive that US authorities ruined a valuable piece of evidence.

District judge Daniel Dominguez, of the US federal court in Puerto Rico, has called for a hearing to consider the claim that so-called “conspiracy journals” kept by two key witnesses for the prosecution’s case have been severed from their bindings and reordered, and sections have gone missing.

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