Law&Crime Sidebar - Leaked Depp Email, Maxwell Suicide Watch, Rudy Giuliani 'Assaulted'

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

Law&Crime’s Angenette Levy recaps what happened in court when a no-nonsense Judge Azcarate entered the judgment for Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard. Plus, does an old email cast doubt on the testimony of one of Amber Heard’s friends? Ghislaine Maxwell placed on suicide watch ahead of her sentencing Tuesday. And Rudy Giuliani claims he was assaulted in a store while campaigning with his son. Gene Rossi, Matt Mangino and Law&Crime’s Adam Klasfeld join.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.

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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. The judgment in Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard is final. And now Amber Heard plans to appeal, but there are still a lot of questions about the case and about what will happen leading up to that appeal. I'm Anjanette Levy, and welcome to the latest edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar Podcast. We hope that you're having a great day and thanks so much for joining us.

On Friday of last week, I was in court in Fairfax County, Virginia. And this was really a hearing that was a formality. This is where Judge As Karate actually entered the final judgment for the defamation lawsuit between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. You may recall that the jury awarded Johnny Depp $15 million in damages. $10 million of that was compensatory damages. The other $5 million was punitive. But the $5 million in punitive damages, that's actually capped at $350,000 per state statute.

So Johnny Depp can only get $10,350,000. On the other side, Amber Hurd, she won one of her claims against Johnny Depp, and that had to do with statements made by Adam Waldman, his attorney, to the Daily Mail back in 2020. And Amber Hurd was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages by the jury on that count. However, she was not awarded any punitive damages. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what happened in court on Friday. It was a brief hearing, but Judge Ask Karate, no nonsense as usual. She has had this case for a long time.

She went through what was going to happen that day. Elaine Brettahoff, the attorney for Amber Hurd, wanted to file a bunch of post-trial motions and wanted the judge to schedule a hearing to hear these post-trial motions. And Judge Ask Karate was very firm. She said, we are not having a hearing on any of this. If you want to file motions, I will read them and decide on the papers. And she told Elaine Brettahoff basically that she knows that's not how it works. She said, I am the chief judge of this court and have been for some time.

And we're not doing this. So she was not giving her any wiggle room whatsoever. There was also discussion about Amber Heard having to file what's called a suspension bond. And that is so that the judgment is essentially state. during the appeal. So Johnny Depp wouldn't be able to pursue the judgment pending the appeal. But in order to do that, Amber Heard has to post $10.35 million. She has to kind of hand that money over to the court. And then interest on that accrues annually at a rate of 6%. So there was some discussion about that back and forth. And Judge Ask Karate basically told Elaine Brettelhoft, this is the procedure.

You have to file the bond. And that's it. There's no discussion. but Elaine Brettahoff said she wants to address this in post-trial motions. Johnny Depp, for his part, is actually kind of objecting to some of the things having to do with the trial. We don't know if he's appealing yet. That hasn't been stated. However, he's filed an exhibit with the judgment outlining his objections to the verdict and the judgment.

So joining us to break all of this down is Gene Rossi. He is a former federal prosecutor and practices in Virginia. So, Gene, welcome back to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Very briefly, tell us your reaction to what we've reported about Judge Ask Karate with Elaine Bretahoft in court on Friday. She basically said, I've had this case for 18 months. We had a six-week trial.

I'm not having a hearing. Well, Fairfax County led by this judge should be called itself the Rocket Docket. This was a six-week trial, a lot of witnesses, a lot of exhibits. But this hearing, Ann Jeanette, you hit the nail on the head. It was very brief or relatively brief. That's because she wants to close the file on this case. Enter the final order, have her put up her bond for appeal, and move on. If they want to file post-trial motions, she'll read them.

She'll probably deny them. but she's not going to have a hearing. She means business. She's a former Marine, and she doesn't take any suffer fools gladly. So that doesn't surprise me what happened Friday of last week. Gene, with the judgment that was filed, Ben Chu filed an exhibit. He called it Exhibit A, and it listed a number of bullet points as to why the Depp team disagrees with the finding to Danny Depp liable for Adam Waldman's statements. One of those bully points basically says that, you know, they say that

this is contrary to the law and unsupported by the facts, the fact that Adam Waldman made this statement to the Daily Mail where he called that second 911 call on May 21st of 2016 an ambush and in hoax. He said that the first 911 call didn't work out for them. So they spilled a little wine and roughed up the place and then placed that second 911 call. And they found that the, or at least the team finds that or feels that the $2 million award is excessive. So your thoughts on Exhibit A and those two bullet points in particular? Well, I have two thoughts on Exhibit A. One, it incorporates all the motions and filings and arguments in Lemon A that were made. So that's sort of unremarkable. But it addresses that one, defamatory statement that was found in Ms. Hurried.

favor regarding, I call it the hoax. And this Exhibit A tries to persuade the judge that the jury's finding was not supported by anything that was in evidence. This is a weak argument. I frankly think that Exhibit A is more a PR piece than a legal piece because the jury made a finding that the hoax was defamatory and what they provide in Exhibit A really should not move the judge and should move the needle. I want to move on now and get your thoughts just briefly on an email that was released on Friday. And I have to give credit where credit is due. Jackson Brian from the movie myths and monsters podcast, they were the ones who actually obtained this email and released it. And it's an email from Adam Waldman who was on the

case, the defamation case, until he was removed from the case by a judge after he released some audio recordings that were subject to a protective order. But in that email, he basically says that Rocky Pennington, who was present that night, that her husband at the time, Josh Drew, who we heard from during the trial, had told him that Rocky was hiding in the penthouse that night, that she didn't just enter when Amber wanted her to come in. He's making this sound like he has information that this was indeed, as he claims, a hoax. So why didn't we hear more about this during the trial? That befuddles me.

The text of this email, if it had come out and trial, goes to the heart of Mr. Depp's defense. Waldman had a good faith basis for believing that that second 911 call, if not the whole incident in a penhouse, was just a hoax. So that goes to the jury instruction on that one defamatory statement that was found in favor of misheard why this did not come out at trial, either this email or this conversation. I don't understand. And all I can say is this. It's too little too late.

It's not going to change anything. It obviously did not with this judge. Well, Gene Rossi, former federal prosecutor, attorney in Virginia, thanks so much for your expertise and your time, as always. We appreciate it. Thank you. This week, Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend will be sentenced in federal court in the Southern District of New York for her role in procuring young women for Jeffrey Epstein. And there's been some news that's come out over the weekend regarding Galane Maxwell and the fact that she has been placed. on suicide watch leading up to her sentencing. So joining us to talk about this is Adam Klassfeld. He covered the Galane Maxwell federal trial gavel to gavel. He is also the managing editor of Law and Crime.com. So Adam, welcome back to Sidebar. First of all, your thoughts on this whole filing that came out over the weekend saying that Galane Maxwell has been placed on suicide watch.

Thank you for having me, Ann, Jeanette. Well, this is. isn't the first time that Glenn Maxwell has been placed on suicide watch, as I understand it. Obviously, after the death of Jeffrey Epstein, everyone at the Bureau of Prisons has been on guard looking to avoid any sort of repeat. And just to kind of make listeners aware of what Suicide Watch means, her filing goes into it. she's basically forced to avoid wearing anything that can be used to harm herself. And one of the items explicitly mentioned is a suicide smock, something that can't be ripped or torn in any way. And one of the early cases that I covered as a journalist was the court-martial of Chelsea Manning. The same thing went up that in a high-profile case where it would be terrible and,

And if the DO, in that case, the DOD, but in this case, the Bureau of Prisons allowed someone in custody to die before a trial or sentencing, they, what we find is sometimes they take dramatic measures. And that's what Gillen Maxwell is saying happened here. She says that she is not suicidal, but she was placed on this heavily watched. status, that it's essentially constant around-the-clock monitoring, being forced to wear this deeply uncomfortable smock and anything that would prevent her from harming herself, just, and when she says it's not necessary. So she has asked for a, excuse me, a delay of her sentencing because she said that this status has compromised her ability to prepare for sentencing, to review her legal materials. We'll see what happens with that as we speak.

The judge hasn't ruled, but then again, she hasn't formally asked. She basically said, if this doesn't get fixed soon, I might need to request this. And as we've seen in recent filings, the judge got right on the phone with BOP and kind of made sure that she had access to the materials that she needs to review in order to prepare for sentencing on Tuesday. What do you expect at sentencing on Tuesday? Because I don't think that the judge is going to delay the sentencing. That's just my feeling. But what do you expect? Do you think that the judge, Judge Nathan, will max her out? As you said, and Jeanette, I don't think that the judge is going to postpone her sentencing.

Of course, anything can happen. We'll be monitoring the filings, but she's run a very tight ship. And what she has before her are two sentencing briefings from the defense and from the prosecution, and the prosecution wants her to have a very heavy sentence, somewhere between 30 and 55 years, effectively a life sentence. And Maxwell's defense team basically wants her to get lower, than what probation wanted, which is 20 years. Now, what I would expect is that we have seen Geline Maxwell

place a very big bet on arguing essentially that she was mistreated in pre-trial lockup, and she's essentially alleging various forms of unfairness, at trial by media. And one thing that's entirely absent that, according to prosecutors, that they note in their sentencing memo, is any sense of apparent remorse, that this is something that she is showing a lot of defiance. And she's saying, I'm going to appeal this. And as a result of this appeal, I'm not going to argue certain topics, including her relationship to Epstein. and we've seen the type of arguments that she's been making before in the bail hearings, and those hadn't succeeded.

And there's very little reason to expect that the same arguments that failed to get her bond before trial began will suddenly resonate before the judge. But of course, anything can happen, and of course we'll be monitoring it. Well, Adam Klausfeld, a managing editor of law and crime.com, an expert on all things, Galane Maxwell. Thanks for being on. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Before we could get started, I had to go to the bedroom.

So I walked through the entire shop, right, which you have to do to get to the bedroom. I went to the bedroom. I came out with one aide, actually a campaign manager. and with a group of people that started to gather around me, very, very friendly people, including an ex-first-grade detective and a woman who works for the Department of Parks. About a third of the way through, I got hit on the back as if a boulder hit me. It knocked me forward a step or two. It didn't knock me down, but it had.

hurt tremendously. That's former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani, also former U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, talking about what he says was an assault that happened with him on Staten Island when he was out with his son, Andrew, who is running for office and he was campaigning with his son. And joining us to talk a little bit about this is Matthew Mangino. He is a former prosecutor. And Matthew, welcome to Sidebar. I want to know, first of all, your thoughts. on this. This was captured by surveillance video and released. And it shows Rudy Giuliani standing there with a group of people. And Rudy Giuliani says in this video that this man came up to him and slapped him on the back and said, hey, what's up, scumbag? And made some comments about Roe v. Wade being

overturned by the Supreme Court. So your feelings about the video and Rudy Giuliani's claims? Well, I think Rudy Giuliani said that he was tremendously injured by this slap on the back. And, you know, I think it's in that he was in substantial pain. And I think, you know, he really wasn't hurt by this. Maybe his feelings were hurt. But I think when you look at it, you know, it's hard to justify that this is an assault. There are different levels of assault in New York. But again, you know, for this to fit into one of those specific subsections of the law, criminal law in New York, I think is a bit of a stretch.

Yeah. And we don't have criminal charges for hurt feelings, as you said. So what, I mean, if there was some sort of criminal charge to come out of this, I mean, what would it be? I mean, this seems like, I don't know the exact statutes in New York. Would this be something like a simple assault or what would you? call this? Well, yeah, I mean, this this would be at best a simple assault as it's characterized in a number of different states. I think in New York, this may fall under what would be a third degree class A misdemeanor, which is when someone intended to hurt another person. Again, you know, that's even a stretch. You know, was this intention, was it the intention of this employee in this store, you know, to actually hurt Rudy Giuliani or just maybe try to embarrass him, which he did, obviously. And, you know, Rudy, by his statements, obviously knows what the law is in New York and is trying to make it, you know, to get to that point where he meets those

thresholds under the statute, you know, substantial pain and things like that. But again, it's an intent to harm, as I understand, in New York law. Matthew, what are your feelings on, or I'm sorry, let me start that over. Well, it appears that Rudy Giuliani is taking quite a bit of heat on Twitter and other social media platforms over this claim. You know, he's saying it could have easily been knocked to the ground. He's 78 years old. So it sounds like, Matthew, you don't expect anything to come of this in the criminal realm. Again, I think it would, you know, if we went around, you know, and I'm a former prosecutor,

you know, eight years I spent as the district attorney in the county in western Pennsylvania, if we went around and prosecuted every single case where somebody, slap somebody on the back, you know, with the intent of maybe embarrassing that person or, you know, making a statement to that person, I mean, we'd be spending a lot of time in court prosecuting those types of cases. You know, what we always should remember, especially with regard to the criminal law, is that there has to be some sort of intent. There has to be some sort of intent to harm. And I don't see where this individual walking up behind Rudy Giuliani and slapping him on the back,

even if it was a rather aggressive slap on the back. had any intent to harm the Rudy Giuliani. Certainly, it wasn't his intent to knock a 78-year-old man to the floor, and as Rudy Giuliani said, possibly kill him. I mean, this is a case that is better off left alone by prosecutors in New York. Matt Mangino, thanks so much for being with us today. Thank you, Anjanet. And that's it for this edition of Long Crime Sidebar podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. Sam Goldberg and Michael Dininger are producers of this podcast. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager and Alyssa Fisher is our booking producer. You can find this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcast. We are also on YouTube. I will see you next time.

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