Law&Crime Sidebar - Johnny Depp's Upcoming Trial, Inmate Bribed to Kill Ghislaine Maxwell, Nipsey Hussle Murder Trial

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

A juror from Johnny Depp’s defamation trial speaks to ABC News about the verdict, the legal teams and Depp and Amber Heard as Camille Vasquez and Ben Chew prepare to represent Depp in another case. A member of a film crew accuses Depp of assault in a civil case in Los Angeles where the trial will begin in July. A cellmate of Ghislaine Maxwell says she was offered money to kill the British socialite now convicted of sex crimes involving her ex, Jeffrey Epstein. And Eric Holder goes on trial for the murder of rapper Nipsey Hussle. GUESTS:Adam Klasfeld, Managing Editor of Law&Crime.com, on Ghislaine MaxwellMatthew Barhoma, Criminal Appeals and Corporate Lawyer, on Nipsey HussleLAW&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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry 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. View 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. I've never heard Johnny claim that. You didn't expect Keenan and Wyatt. Johnny has never actually said that. Ms. Heard. I think the jury can, Ms. Hurd, there's no question pending. You haven't heard the last of Camille Vasquez and Ben Chew. You have now come to know the real Amber Heard. Scary.

Johnny Depp's legal eagles will represent him again. Next month at a trial in Los Angeles, where a member of a film crew is accusing Depp of punching him not once, but twice. This as a juror from the defamation trial is speaking for the first time to ABC News. And welcome to Law and Crime Sidebar Podcast. Let's start with that juror. speaking exclusively to GMA. His identity was protected. We know he was a man, of course, but they are not using his juror number. GMA says the man told them the jury believed

Hurd was the aggressor in the relationship with Depp and that the pair were actually abusive to one another. However, the juror said Hurd did not prove that Depp was ever physically abusive to her. The juror also told GMA they believed Hurd cried crocodile tears on the stand and wasn't believable. The man also felt it was unbelievable that Hurd would give Depp a knife inscribed with until death in Spanish if she feared him. Yes, that's it. That's the knife you gave to the man who was hitting you, right, Ms. Hurd? I wasn't worried he was going to stab me with it when I gave it to him. That's for certain. But you gave it to him while he was abusing you, allegedly. I gave it to him that year. The juror also told GMA that Depp just seemed a little more real in how

he responded to questions and described Hurd's legal team as having sharp elbows, not necessarily being sharp. Johnny Depp's legal troubles aren't quite over yet, though. Depp will defend himself at a trial next month in L.A. against an allegation that he punched a man twice on the set of City of Lies in 2017. That movie is about the investigation into the deaths of Tupac Shakur and the notorious B.I.G. A man named Rocky Brooks worked on the film and claims Depp became a upset one night when they were going to have to stop shooting a scene at a hotel because a permit was set to expire. Brooks says Depp punched him twice in the ribs and then offered him $100,000 if he would punch Depp in the face. Another defendant in the case, Brad Furman, says the

allegation simply isn't true. But my experience with Johnny is he's an absolute gem. He's a wonderful, wonderful human being. And, you know, he never punched anybody on set or anything like that. There's just a bunch of nonsense there. And Johnny Depp has denied this allegation in a deposition video that's been circulating online for some time. The Hollywood reporter has also written about a script supervisor named Emma Danoff, who filed a declaration with the court and said that night, Rocky Brooks actually berated

an African-American woman who was homeless using racial slurs. and that Depp overheard what happened as he sat nearby. Dan F. wrote that Depp confronted Brooks saying, you can't talk to her like that. You think she is something less than you? Who do you think you are? How dare you? The trial is scheduled to begin on July 25th. The Law and Crime Trial Network has submitted paperwork to the court requesting access to broadcast the trial. But so far, that request has been denied.

Some really big news broke about Galane Macon. It came out of her sentencing memorandum that her team filed with the court. Apparently, her cellmate claims that she was offered cash to kill Galane Maxwell. She, of course, was the ex-girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, a sex offender who hanged himself in jail awaiting trial. And joining us to talk about that is Adam Classfeld. He is the managing editor of Law and Crime.com. He covered Galane Maxwell's trial in federal court last year and also host the objections podcast. Adam, tell us about what's going on with this cellmate.

Thank you, Anjanet, for having me. Well, the thing that came out here was contained in a giant sentencing memorandum submitted by Glenn Maxwell's attorneys, hoping that she will get a break on what is looking to be a couple-decade-long sentence. And part of the way that they're making their argument is by talking about her pre-trial confinement, the threats against her. It came out before trial that they had released an image of her, which would appear to be a black eye. So even before the trial began, they had been setting this tone of she is under threat. She's a stand-in for Epstein and that the government can't

prosecute Epstein because he died in prison. So they're going after her. So they're kind of echoing these seems again in their sentencing memo, hoping that she'll get a break at her sentencing later this month. And what they do in this memo, they kind of reveal the threats against her in prison that they say happened from a inmate of hers, who was subsequently put in solitary confinement, and basically say that this inmate boasted to three other inmates, that she was offered money to kill Galane Maxwell and that if she did, it would be worth the additional 20 years in prison she would get for that. That's what they claim in the memo.

They spend more time talking about her confinement than they do, interestingly enough, talking about anything about her relationship to Epstein. As a matter of fact, if you look at the memo, the memo has a footnote saying, we're not going to get into her relationship with Epstein because that basically that they are going to appeal the convictions and that they think that if they make any admissions about that, that will be used against her. So they're really trying to hang a lot on the conditions of her confinement, just as they did before her trial. Okay, there's a lot to unpack there, a whole lot. First of all, cellmates, inmates will talk. They will talk smack. How reliable do we think this is?

We'll find out because, like I said, they're placing a very big bet on focusing on this. It dominates a good portion of what is a lengthy sentencing memo. And I'm going to read from it here. It said most recently, an inmate in Ms. Maxwell's unit threatened to kill her, claiming that an additional 20 years, incarceration would be worth the money she'd receive for murdering Ms. Maxwell. And that it goes on later to talk about the boasts. Just recently, Ms. Maxwell was a target of a credible death threat from a fellow inmate. On information and belief, one of the female inmates in Ms. Maxwell's housing unit told at least three other inmates that she'd been offered money to murder Ms. Maxwell and that she planned to strangle her in her sleep.

Now, to your question, Anjanet, we haven't seen the government sentencing memo. They're, of course, going to respond to this, and they have contradicted some of her claims in the past. Now, when she has made claims about her incarceration in the past before trial, her pre-trial confinement, the judge found on the government side basically saying this was generally to make the argument that she should be released. She's facing so many threats within prison. And Judge Nathan ruled in the government's favor, rejecting every bid for bail. So this is, like I said, she's placing a big bet on these purported threats against her. We're going to hear the government side of things how much, how credible this is. And that will factor pretty strongly in her sentencing,

because, like I said, she's focusing more on the conditions of her confinement than her history with Jeffrey Epstein. Judge Nathan is not going to do this. I don't see this. I don't think Judge Nathan is going to do anything with this that's going to possibly impact Galane Maxwell's incarceration. She's facing major time. How much time could Judge Nathan sentence her to when she's sentenced, Adam? Well, we know from her sentencing memo that probation recommended 20 years imprisonment and that her actual sentencing exposure in terms of the recommended guidelines is even higher than that. So putting into perspective that she celebrated what I believe was her 60th birthday during her trial, she's facing serious time behind bars. The actual recommended guidelines is 24 to 30 years. So Maxwell's lawyers want to go below the 20-year sentence, and the guidelines themselves are higher than that. They can be as high as three decades.

We'll see how much the prosecutors want her to serve. As a matter of fact, one of the interesting things in her memo is that she points to the sentence that Harvey Weinstein got 24 in saying that it would be a sentencing disparity if she got that close to Weinstein's sentence. So there's a lot in there. It's a really long sentencing memo. And there's another, it's a 77-page memo with a subsequent filing that is an objection to her pre-sentence investigation, a couple dozen pages more. So they're throwing a lot out there, but they're notably ducking one of the key issues, which is her relationship to Epstein. Well, Harvey Weinstein and Galane Maxwell, not the same thing to totally different cases with different sets of facts.

One's a federal case. The other was a state case. And Harvey Weinstein, of course, has the L.A. case pending as well. Adam Klausfeld, thanks so much for coming on to talk with us about this. It's always a treat. And you know your stuff on this. You are the expert. And we appreciate you. your time. Thank you for having me. I know you're all familiar with the word snitch and the concept of snitching, but you may not be familiar with how volatile that subject is within gang life. That was a Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney during opening statements in the Nipsey Hustle murder trial. The man accused Eric Holder, he doesn't deny that he shot and killed

Nipsey Hustle, but was it murder? This is a case about heat of passion, and I'll get to that in a minute. But let's get to first things first. On March 31st, 2019, Eric Ronald Holder Jr. shot and killed Nipsey Hustle. And that was just a little bit of the opening statements from both the prosecution and the defense in Eric Holder's trial. He is, of course, accused of murdering Nipsey Hustle three years ago in Los Angeles. And joining us to talk about this is a California. attorney, Matthew Barhoma. Matthew, thanks so much for coming on. Tell us a little bit about this

case. I think we can all remember when Nipsey Hustle was murdered. And it's, it's so incredibly sad because he was really an up and coming round. That's right. That's right. Thank you, Anjanet. Thank you for having me on. And he really was an upcoming rapper, right? He had seemed like he had worked so hard, so long to get up until the point where he was right before death. He had just won a Grammy, just released his first official album and then gunned down by someone who knew him, someone who probably grew up with him and knew him for a long time. So it was really unfortunate, and the aftermath of that was also extremely unfortunate. People really felt his homicide.

Anytime somebody is murdered, it's awful. But when somebody's star is on the rise and it seemed like he was really making some way in life progressing, it's just really terrible. And Eric Holder is the man who basically admits that he shot and killed Nipsey Hustle. But he's saying that he did it, that this wasn't a murder. So tell us a little bit about the legal distinctions here. It's an affirmative defense case. That's absolutely right.

It seems like that who did it, the identity of who did it is certainly not an issue. Actually, it seemed like Eric Holder's attorney even said in opening arguments, my client grab the gun and shot him, right? The only real item on contention, the only real thing that people or these two sides are contending over is what kind of murder is this, right? Is this first degree murder? Is this voluntary manslaughter? Is his second degree murder? He's being charged with first degree, okay? So we know that the prosecution is charging him with the highest level of murder and its premeditated murder. So the real issue here, lies in what happened in the minutes right before the murder, and what does it mean for Eric Holder?

Is it first degree? Is it a second degree? Is it voluntary manslaughter? I want to talk a little bit about what happens with a case like this where it's an affirmative defense. The burden then shifts. The prosecution is going to have to prove that it wasn't what Eric Holder said it was. That's right. That's absolutely right.

They're going to have to go through the analysis of what murders, what, and why he fits within lying and wait. And actually, they already did in their opening to some extent. They already addressed that to some extent in their opening. They said that this was a premeditated murder, right? There was nine minutes an issue where Eric Holder knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to grab a gun. He was going to go and he was going to kill Nipsey. That's what the prosecution alleges. The other side, the defense, what Eric Holder is saying is there was a confrontation that took place. I was very heated, I was in the heat of passion, actually very specifically use those words. And those are magic words because those are the words that mitigate murder, right? When you have a heat of passion

homicide, it's not treated like a first degree murder. A heat of passion is where two people are really entangled and you had no time to cool off, right? And his attorney even said that those nine minutes were insufficient to cool off. So what his attorney is trying to do is he's trying to treat all the facts in a vacuum. He's trying to take the first incident, the nine minutes, and the shooting all together as one continuum. Whereas the DA is saying, no, no, these are two separate events. He knew exactly what he was doing in these nine minutes. Eric Holder kicked Nipsey Hustle in the head before he fled the scene. That does not seem like a heat of passion action to me. That seems like you're just getting a final dig in. Isn't that right? Isn't that right?

That's absolutely right. And not only that, it was after there was 10 shots shot, right? So that doesn't sound to me like heat of passion at all. Actually, there would be no nine minutes. If it was so heat and passion, it would have done it right away. You wouldn't have had to go and contemplate about it. It would have occurred right away. And not only that, one thing to also remember here, Anjanet, is that there's an appetite to convict in this case, right?

The aftermath of this case was quite strong. There's a real appetite. I'm speculating. with this jury to convict them. And they might just go for it. Matthew Barhoma, thanks so much for coming on to talk with us about this case. We appreciate it. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And that's it. For this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast, we will see you next time. Sidebar is produced by Sam Goldberg and Sean Bauer. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager.

And Alyssa Fisher is our booking producer. I'm Jeanette Levy. And we'll see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.