Law&Crime Sidebar - Ghislaine Maxwell Prison Conditions, Kevin Spacey, Rob Kardashian Revenge Porn

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite turned criminal defendant, is alleging serious abuse in jail. Could it affect her sentencing? Jesse Weber discusses with Law&Crime Managing Editor Adam Klasfeld. Weber and attorney Jenny El-Kadi analyze actor Kevin Spacey's new sex crimes case in the UK. The revenge porn trial between Rob Kardashian and his ex Blac Chyna ends before it even begins. Entertainment Attorney Dan Lust explains what may have happened.GUESTS:Adam Klasfeld, Managing Editor of Law&Crime.com Jenny El-Kadi, Trial Attorney Dan Lust, Sports and Entertainment Attorney LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Sean BauerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wonderly Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Today we announced charges against Clayne Maxwell for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually exploit and abuse multiple minor girls from the period of of 1994 through 1997. Gleine Maxwell, the British social I-turned criminal defendant is alleging serious abuse in jail as she awaits sentencing for her sex crimes. Managing editor of Long Crime, Adam Classfeld breaks down the startling report.

Actor Kevin Spacey's fighting back against sex crimes charges in the U.K., but the question is, could he end up behind bars? And the court battle between Rob Kardashian and his ex-Black China ends before it even begins. Entertainment attorney Dan Lust explains what maybe happened behind closed doors. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. So Galane Maxwell is awaiting sentencing after a jury convicted her of sex trafficking and conspiracy for her role in the grooming and enticement of minors to be abused by the late financier, Jeff. Epstein. Now, Maxwell is claiming that she herself was a victim while she was locked up in solitary confinement at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center in New York. Her lawyers

are arguing that this entitles her to a shorter prison sentence. So the question is, what exactly is she alleging? And what does this mean? Well, joining me right now is Law and Crime Managing Editor Adam Adam Classfeld to break it down. Hey, Adam. Hey, how's it going? Good. I'm glad to have you on. Now, I'm really glad to have you on because you've covered this from the very, very beginning. So what is Maxwell alleging right now? What she is alleging is very much what we've been hearing even before the trial began,

that she has been under really harsh detention in pretrial lockup. And these were claims that were heard when she filed multiple motions for pre-trial release that failed before the judge. And she is placing a very hard bet right now on her sentencing being. determined by the conditions of her confinement. Some of these claims were rejected before,

like, for example, her access to pretrial communications, that this was a case that spanned decades. She needed to basically examine decades' worth of evidence, and before trial began, said that the conditions of her confinement that were interfering with her ability to prepare for trial. Now, those arguments were rejected in terms of her arguments for pretrial release. Now she's claiming that she was closely watched very often. We have to remember that before the Galane Maxwell case even began, there was, of course, the Jeffrey Epstein case. And Jeffrey Epstein died in prison. And that essentially caused the BOP that she argued to be overprotective, keep a close eye on her 24 hours a day that essentially interfered with her sleep.

Before trial, there was an emergence of a photograph with the black eye that was never quite explained. So these aren't new arguments, but she is doubling down on it. There's a report recently that she filed 100 complaints over her jail conditions. And what we're seeing in her sentencing memos is her attorneys focusing on her confinement, playing down anything related to her relationship to Jeffrey Epstein and not focusing so much even on what happened at trial in order to get some leniency for their client. Shocking that she's trying to do that. Shocking. We're not really surprised at that. She's trying to ask for a lenient sentence. I guess the question is, I also saw this report that she said she was not only tied down to a chair or handcuff,

and you mentioned monitoring, but that her life was in danger, that someone tried to attack her. Did I read that right? You did read that right. In her sentencing memo, one of the key things to emerge from that was an allegation that an inmate essentially said that if that inmate killed her, that she would be paid enough money to make it worth an additional 20-year sentence so that she has faced threats to her life behind bars. Now, again, this might shed light on some of the things that we heard earlier about the close watch that the BOP was keeping on her, that they didn't want to repeat essentially of

what happened to Jeffrey Epstein. And that's what essentially Glenn Maxwell's lawyers have been saying that because they have argued she is a stand-in for Epstein and that she has faced such harsh conditions and threats to her life, that they're trying to get some leniency out of that. What are they looking for? Let's start. What is the prosecution looking for and what is her defense attorneys looking for? So the prosecution sentencing memo hasn't emerged yet. What we do know from the defense sentencing memo is that probation has recommended a 20-year sentence. The defense wants less than that. And we also know from the defense sentencing memo that essentially the federal guideline sentence are even higher than what probation recommended. Probation recommended

20 years and that guideline sentence is north of that. So we're still waiting to hear from the government sentencing memo and we'll find out what they're recommending. But we do know probation wants two decades and that she recently celebrated her 60th birthday during the trial itself. So she was born on Christmas Day. So after Christmas Day passed, she turned 60. So a 20 year sentence is some serious time. It really is. And when do we expect her to be sentenced? Does it next week. Do we think it's going to be delayed at all, or is it going to happen on time? So it's going to be toward the end of the month, and just to get you the exact day, her sentencing has been scheduled for June 28th. All right. And let me ask you,

if you had to guess, based on everything you've seen in this case, again, you are the expert when it comes to Galane Maxwell. If you said, I was the expert on Johnny Depp and Everheard, you know this case backwards and forwards. What do you predict her sentence would be? Without saying a number that can be thrown back if I get that number wrong, I will say that Judge Nathan is a tough judge. I do think that Maxwell has placed a really heavy bet on an argument that has failed in her courtroom many times before. All right. Well, I'm not going to hold you to it. We'll see what ends up happening when she ultimately is sentenced. A long crime managing editor, Adam Classfeld. Great to have you on. Thanks so much. Thank you for having me.

Okay, Mr. Powell, this complaint to charges that's in the town of Nantucket on July 8th, 2016, did commit indecent assault and battery gun person 14 or over. All right, turning now to actor Kevin Spacey, and that was actually from his 2019 Massachusetts case where he was accused of groping a teenager, but the charges there were ultimately dropped, but right now he's facing a new set of charges across the pond in the UK, and the former House of Card Star appeared at the Westminster Magistrates Court in London. in. He's being charged with sexually assaulting two men, one in March of 2005 and another in April 2013. And he's also charged with causing a man to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent in August of 2008. Now, here's what's interesting. The judge in this case, granted Spacey unconditional bail. It's really interesting there. Now, these charges all come about as when he served as the artistic director at the Old Vic Theater in London. He surrendered himself voluntarily to the English court, and he seemingly is going to fight these charges.

Now, the next update we have is that he is going to appear at the Southwark Crown Court on July 14th for some trial preparation issues, and maybe we'll even enter a plea at that time. I'm joined right now by lawyer Jenny Alcotti, who specializes in abuse cases, namely human trafficking. Jenny, I'm so happy to have you here to talk about this really bizarre and disturbing case. Thank you so much for having me, Jesse. It's a pleasure to be here. So you have to tell me what unconditional bail means. I mean, what does it mean for Kevin Spacey? What can he do? What can he do? And why would the judge grant this? Yeah, so basically what unconditional bail means is that there's no conditions placed on his bail, meaning he can go about his day without being in prison. He doesn't have to be held in contempt

because he wasn't considered a flight risk to the judge. So typically what judges will do, if they put them on condition bail, it means that they have to be in prison because they're worried that they might flee the country, they might not show up to their hearings, might not show up to their trial. But with regards to this case, it ended up being an unconditional bail because the judge didn't find that he would be fleeing the country. He showed up to all his hearings and he doesn't present to be a risk to the court. You know, it's so funny when you watch him leaving court, he has kind of a smirk and I'm not an expert in body language, but this is a guy who beat out the case in Massachusetts. You have to wonder if he feels he has a strong case here. When you look at this

case and you look at the allegations, do you think Spacey is in a good position or should he be worried that he will actually face some prison time? I think he should be worried that he might face some prison time, especially with now this whole Me Too movement. There might just be three allegations, but I think more people will come out if they were survivors of domestic abuse or sexual assault by him. So I think he should be a little bit worried, but he doesn't seem to be worried based off of his claims and statements that he's made. He seems pretty confident that he's going to win. But I mean, just as we saw, you know, Amber Heard thought that she was going to win her case and she lost. So I think he should be a little bit concerned. You know what I found interesting.

is that the theater, the old Vic Theater, their trustees, they launched a probe and they hired a law firm to look into it. And the firm's lawyers, I guess they investigated for about two weeks. And they wrote that, quote, it has not been possible to verify any of these allegations. What do you make of that? I thought that was very interesting, especially since he had been there for such a long period of time. I do want to say, though, I think two weeks of opening up a tip line might be a little bit of short of a time, though. I think it should have been a little bit extra time. I'm maybe even a couple months to allow survivors to come through and say, yes, I was a victim as well. So I think two weeks wasn't enough of an investigation to open that hotline. So this is a case that's really interesting because we usually cover cases where men are accused by women of sexual abuse. And here you have a man who allegedly sexually assaulted other men. I know it's a part of the Me Too movement. How do you think it's going to amplify the narrative at all? I think it's going to stay the same, honestly, in the sense of, you know, if you take a look at the Boy Scouts of America. These were children, minors that were abused by other

males. And so I think it's going to be a little bit more difficult for men to come out and say that they were abused because you have that stigma for most men where they don't want to say that they were abused. And actually, statistics have shown that if you were sexually abused as a minor, you don't come out until the age of 53 and discuss your sexual abuse. So I think it can take some time for these men to come out and state that they were abused, but I think that they will eventually in time, and I hope that they do in time. You mentioned Depp and Herd. Do you think that this trial will become the next Depp Hurd out across the pond? Particularly, I don't know what the rule is with cameras there, but if they are allowed there, do you think that this case could become that?

I honestly do think so. I think that you saw America so emotionally invested in the Amber Hurd Johnny Depp trial. And so I think the same thing will happen here, just because Kevin is such a well known actor. I mean, he's been in House of Cards. He's been in numerous different TV appearances as well where he, I think a lot of people were shocked to hear this. And so I think people will want to know the truth with this as well as we start to see more celebrities coming out like this. And even just outside the courtroom, there was a swarm of reporters. I mean, there's so much interest in this, particularly if this trial does move forward and goes past where we even saw the Massachusetts case go. So all eyes could be on Kevin Spacey. Attorney Jenny, Alcotti, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Jesse. All right, we're going to move over now to Rob Kardashian. The reality star was facing a lawsuit by his ex-Black China, where she alleged that he engaged in revenge porn, namely posting nude photos of her on Instagram. And she also alleged domestic abuse, and she accused other members of the Kardashian clan of torpedoing her reality show, Rob and China, by allegedly bad-mouthing her

to executives. Now, interestingly, this trial was actually separated. It was severed. And the Kardashian women won their case against Black China. So all that was left over was the lawsuit against Rob Kardashian. And we were about to get jury selection. This was about to start this trial when all of a sudden the case settled. According to the Rolling Stone, a source confirmed to them that, quote, this case is not going forward. It settled. Now, we don't really know what the terms of that are, but we're going to guess. So I'm joined right now by a very special guest sports and entertainment attorney Dan Loss, who's also a professor at my alma mater, New York Law School. Dan, always good to see you, always good to see the New York Law School alum and

together again. It's great. Jesse, my pleasure to join you. And yes, normally I'm talking about sports. I teach my sports law class, but I do dabble in the law of entertainment. So of course, I've been following this. And my wife and I imagine people that are listening to this are very big into the Kardashians. So certainly, case that I've been keeping my tabs on. So certainly happy to break it down with you. It's funny you should say that because as we were covering Depp and Heard, people kept talking about this in the background. They kept saying, oh, this is going to be the next one. This is going to be the next one. Well, apparently it's not because it's not happening. I mean, were you surprised by the settlement? And I say that because last week, apparently Rob Kardashian rejected an offer from Black China's side that at the same time, the judge wouldn't hold China to these terms that were negotiated in an email since she apparently never accepted them. So it seemed like both sides were at a stalemate, but then now, boom, a settlement.

Were you surprised by it? Well, I am surprised at a couple levels. Number one, right? As you and I know, a lot of case settled on the courthouse steps, but it was kind of an odd move last week to say, hey, here's that they apparently accepted. And Black China's like, where's the acceptance? I see that there is a potential offer in here.

So, you know, that part's a little surprising to see, I'm not sure what changed, right? And then the part that probably is very surprising as I was kind of joking with a colleague, right? the reason they're saying they settled this case is for their, for their daughter together. They don't want to see their daughter to look at these headlines and see that they were in some type of revenge porn litigation. And then I kind of said to myself, I'm like, isn't the cat out of the bag? Isn't that what we're already talking about? Having a ton of shows already been dedicated to this

exact cause. So if that's the reason, that seems like not the best reason at the 11th hour of the case. And everybody's talking about whether or not there were financial terms to a settlement, which there usually are, but there's got to be something else worked in there, right? I mean, these kinds of settlements, what do you anticipate? It can't just be a financial payout. It's got to be something else. Yeah, so I think early reports were that Black China was looking for a seven-figure settlement. I'm not, I have no reporting one way the other if that was secured. What is being reported again, I mean, we can buy the rumor in you, I know until we see the settlement agreement, we don't know, but that apparently there is another lawsuit where a mutual friend of theirs

is suing Black China and Rob Kardashian for outing this person as, you know, being out of the closet. So Black China, I guess, as part of this agreement, had asked Rob Kardashian to get out of that case without a penny to her. So whether that's Rob agreeing as a co-defendant to stipulate to get her out of the case, I'm not exactly sure what that meant. But it seemed to be maybe Rob accepting accountability and getting Black China out of that separate case. We don't have any confirmation one way the other, but I did see that that other case was tied to the settlement agreement. But in terms of the monetary payment, I mean, what do you think it could be? I mean, generally, I know it's hard to speculate. There's got to be a number put on the table that would settle this.

in a way that say, hey, you don't want to risk it for a jury, but also, you know, if I feel like I have a strong case and I go to a jury, I could really see a large payout in terms of damages. So generally speaking, what do you think the payout was behind closed doors? Yeah, I'd say maybe six, mid-six figures. I think that was potential, right? We know the Kardashian clan, certainly they're not short of money. Rob is a famous last name and that last name comes with a lot of dollars. So it wouldn't, I mean, if they dissed this for altruistic reasons for their daughter, I mean, that would surprise me. There was a lot of money. no money exchange after, you know, years lead up to litigation, the severed case, you know,

with Kylie and Kendall and Chris and everyone testifying the other matter, this one seemed to be the last one left. But I don't know, I think when you look at Black China, you have to say, what were the reputational harm that you would be alleging? And the show has been canceled. It's been a couple years before Black China. Since Black China was at her, like, Zenith of popularity, she doesn't have any, you know, the season two of Rob and China is not pending. So, you know, I think a seven-figure demand was probably high. If they settled at seven figures, you know, Jesse, it wouldn't surprise me either because Rob does have that type of money. But my guess is it's probably in the mid six figures. You think it would have been bad for Rob Kardashian to go to trial because if I was

understanding it correctly, he was presenting a pretty interesting legal argument that she had maybe consented to the release of the photos and that she had no expectation of privacy. I thought those arguments were interesting in a revenge porn case. It's tough. You know, as Jesse, as I'm sure you are. I'm watching the Pam and Tommy Lee documentary. A similar argument was made there as well. I don't know. I don't know if I buy that. It's one thing to saying, hey, I'm okay with these getting out. It's another thing for someone to post them on Instagram and post them on Twitter. And keep in mind, right, there was an ongoing narrative around the release of these pictures. So it seemed to be done, you know, at least the cases that I follow with respect to revenge porn. There tends to be a narrative, tends to be a reason behind it. Certainly Rob wasn't putting these out there as, hey, this is my ex, I guess at the time. She's beautiful. Look at her. It was done in a, you know, seemingly a malicious manner. So I'm not sure if I buy that defense. But if Rob really felt that good about it, I'm sure he would have gone forward with the case, but that's got to be factored in. And I think from a legal point of view, I would have liked to see how it would have been decided by a court or by a jury because, again, this is a relatively kind of new area of

law, right? And so wouldn't it have been interesting to see how something's so high profile, it's the same thing with Johnny Depp and Amber Hurd when we talk about defamation law. It doesn't necessarily change the law, but it does become a case that people follow and have a better understanding of the law. And I kind of wish we saw that just from a legal point of view about where revenge porn law would go. You know, it's interesting. And if you followed the case that was severed, there was a lot of, you know,

Kardashian manipulation and pulling the strings behind the scenes. They're the judge ultimately, you know, that case or the jury threw that case out at the end of the day. But which you kind of have to keep in mind, right, the Kardashian brand as a, you know, a billion dollar entity, however much the Kardashians are worth. I'm not sure it was so good for the brand

to have this case floating out there and to have the type of media attention that we had centered in on the, you know, the Chinese Deputy Amber Heard case. Because, you know, I imagine, you know, there would have been a lot of attention to that case. So, yeah, I think it would have been good for us lawyers to have seen that played out. But I think the Kardashians were doing everything in their

power to get that case settled, resolved, tied up with a bow, and move to the background. So it's a footnote in legal history as opposed to one that's set in precedent. Entertainment and sports attorney, Dan Loss, thank you so much for coming on. And I'm jealous that I am not a student in your New York law school class. First of all, would love to go back to the school. But wouldn't it be great to have you as a professor? So, you know, how is the school doing, by the way? School's good, but we miss you, Jesse. I heard you were maybe back somewhat recently, but you need to make more of a grand entrance. You know, roll out the red carpet.

You have the whole Jesse Weber experience. Smoke, doves. Oh, yeah. That's my call. Indoor fireworks. I think that's what we're at. As a lawyer, you know that's probably illegal and probably very dangerous. So we'll keep that on the side.

Dan Loss, thank you so much. Appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Sidebar is produced by Sam Goldberg and Sean Bauer, YouTube manager, Robert Zoki, and Alyssa Fisher, as our book. King producer. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time.

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