Some mothers receive flowers on Mother’s Day; Paige Singh saw Donald Trump on trial.
The Bay Area mother, who came from California to join her husband in business, scored a spot Tuesday at what has quickly become one of New York City’s hottest tickets, thanks to her husband and the pro he hired as a Mother’s Day Gift to secure her a place in line outside the courthouse.
“My husband? He thinks it’s crazy,” she said. And her kids “just laugh.”
But for Singh, the hundreds of dollars she sent through Zelle to a stranger taking her place in front of Manhattan Criminal Court were worth the opportunity to see the former president of the United States on trial.
The paid sit-in went so well that Singh, who also participated in part of E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against Trump, changed his travel plans to get an extra day in court.
“It was so easy that I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll go on Tuesday.’ So I changed my flight,” she said.
Queue workers are a growing part of the gig economy. But the criminal trial of a former president accused of making secret payments to a porn star trial has translated into a windfall for people paid to wait and who, as the trial progresses, have increasingly been hired by members from the general public without any participation. in judgment – beyond curiosity.
“We definitely had to add staff,” said Robert Samuels, who runs Same Ole Line Dudes, which calls itself “New York’s premier professional line seating company.”
For the Trump trial, Samuels has doubled his prices, expanded his viewership from 26 to 32 and has been too busy to watch the “Bridgerton” episodes he loaded onto his iPad to pass the time during the wait.
Entry to the court is free, of course, but it is on a first-come, first-served basis and seating is limited. The first person in line Wednesday morning paid $1,800 for someone else to take their spot. A little further back in line, a woman was offering her seat for $450.
“This is a unique experience that you can only see here,” Samuels said.
In New York, line workers are more accustomed to working the lines at reservation-free restaurants, ticket booths, sample sales, book signings, pop events, and new product launches—anywhere someone with more money than you might want to pay someone to wait.
“Skip the lines and enjoy your time in the big city!” reads the page advertising permanent services on TaskRabbit, the gig work platform. “Even the DMV can be conquered with the help of Taskers!”
In Washington, line-waiters have long been a silent but essential cog in the influence economy, where lobbyists and lawyers who charge their clients hundreds of dollars an hour hire others to $60 per hour (for a minimum of three hours) to wait in line and secure seats for them in Congressional hearings and major court proceedings.
A cool courier company proclaims your “high-quality standing line services for Congressional hearings or other events,” while another boasts of having “helped our clients overcome many difficulties in obtaining seats for hearings on Energy, Telecommunications, Broadcasting, Healthcare, Banking, Congressional Ethics and much more”.
Elsewhere, liners, like their rideshare-driving brethren, gather at big events, like billionaire Warren Buffett’s annual gathering in Omaha, which can draw twice as many people as there are seats. Hiring someone to wait in line is “probably what I would do” to get in, Buffett himself said in 2017, according to to the Wall Street Journal.
In addition to lawyers, the media are also common customers of those waiting in line, given the limited space in high-profile trials and the imperative need for reporters to be present at proceedings that are not televised.
But Trump’s trial, especially during last week’s testimony from longtime Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen, has led ordinary Americans to hire professional assistants like never before.
One woman — a lawyer and self-described “political junkie” who declined to give her name — ended up paying $750 for someone to reserve a spot in line for her overnight, after trying to get in line the day before. When she first appeared, she realized it was already too late and she wouldn’t be able to get in. It was 4 in the morning
On TaskRabbit, several New York City queue participants specifically advertise the Trump trial in their bios, while several others have posted photos from the trail or show work histories that suggest they also work at the Foley Square courthouse. (They have been booked most days for weeks, except Wednesdays when the trial period ends.)
“We’ve done other trials, but nothing compares to what this one was,” said Samuels, whose “line guys” can be seen outside the courtroom in their distinctive black and yellow baseball caps. “Now we have the entire general public contingent that we never did with other tests.”
He has worked on many high-profile tests before. But no one who didn’t have a professional need was paying to see Jeffry Epstein’s accomplice Giselle Maxwell, the fraudster crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried or the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
For the Trump trial, Samuels doubled his typical testing fee, from $25 to $50 per hour, given the greater demand and potential security risks that are not present when waiting for limited-edition Nike tickets or tickets “Hamilton” cousins.
There have been reports of fights and disputes between paid and civilian queues during dark nights, which Samuels attributed to wild queues joining the queue without specific customers or trying to buy spots from others already there, hoping to move them for profit.
He disapproves of this type of trading and thinks it brings negative attention to an industry that is already viewed negatively by many.
“It’s like if you’re a plastic surgeon and you follow the rules and you have all the licenses and then there’s someone doing botched butt implants in your basement. You will look down on it,” he said.
Job standing in line has been controversial, especially in Washington, where critics argue that the rich and powerful should have to wait in line like everyone else.
The Supreme Court visitor policy it explicitly states that “no ‘tax practitioners’” are allowed in line for members of the Supreme Court Bar, and asks the general public “not to reserve space for others who have not yet arrived.”
But these policies are often overlooked. SCOTUSBlog spotted at least a dozen “suits” swapping places with those in line one morning in 2020, just after sunrise — and just before Supreme Court police officers showed up to start handing out tickets.
Former Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, even once tried to ban the paid line at the Capitol, saying in 2007: “We need to make sure this place is available to the people who own it and those are the people of this place . country, not the lobbyists.” But the “Get in Line Law” didn’t go anywhere.
Outside the Manhattan courthouse, while line professionals seem to make up a sizable portion of the line on any given morning of Trump’s trial, there are also some brave citizens doing it themselves.
Jim Neely, a 70-year-old retiree from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, said he got in line at 10 p.m. to secure a spot for the next day.
“I wanted to be a part of history, to see it being made right before my eyes and try to remember the visceral and intellectual bits that don’t come from the airwaves,” said Neely, who said he used to be a “dyed Republican” before Trump.
He said the night was “not a bad experience,” although the plastic sheet he brought proved less waterproof than expected when it started to rain. He’s already planning to return for the trial’s closing arguments – and won’t pay anyone else to wait for him.
“I’ll do it again,” he said.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
