The socks were included in clothes his defense team gave him for a hearing in Manhattan last month, the Manhattan district attorney's office said.

The note — plus another heart-shaped message addressed to someone called “Joan” — was hidden in a piece of cardboard at the center of a new pair of Argyle socks, Seidemann wrote. It’s not clear who wrote the note or slipped it into the socks. The filing didn’t say, and prosecutors later declined to elaborate.