Two attorneys arrested for their involvement in an alleged Molotov cocktail attack on a New York City Police Department vehicle in Brooklyn returned to jail Friday after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted prosecutors' request for an emergency stay.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York filed for the stay pending appeal after U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie ruled that the defendants, Urooj Rahman and Colinford Mattis, could be released to home confinement with electronic monitoring and $250,000 bail.

A panel of Second Circuit judges heard brief oral arguments Friday morning and issued their order at the end of the business day. They were soon taken into custody by U.S. Marshals, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

U.S. Attorney David Kessler told the panel that Rahman and Mattis must be detained amid ongoing protests in Brooklyn, given that their alleged crime took place early in the morning of May 30 during widespread protests related to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

A witness also accused Rahman of offering a Molotov cocktail to people protesting in the area, according to prosecutors, and a completed incendiary device and materials to make more were allegedly found in Mattis' van.

"Each defendant is a licensed attorney who has attended prestigious universities and law schools," Kessler wrote in court papers. "As such, the defendants were well aware of the severity of their criminal conduct when they decided to hurl a Molotov cocktail at an NYPD vehicle and to incite others to do the same. They knew their acts endangered the NYPD officers and protesters on the street, as well as their own futures, and the defendants were undeterred."

Rahman and Mattis' attorneys emphasized that neither had ever been arrested before. Both Mattis, who has been suspended from his job as an associate at Pryor Cashman pending the resolution of the criminal proceeding, and Rahman, a tenants' attorney in Bronx Housing Court, have stable lives and support from their families and friends, their lawyers said.

Along with granting the stay, the Second Circuit panel set forth an expedited schedule for the appeal, with the first brief due June 10.

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