Let's Go To Court! - 3: Hulk Hogan’s Sex Tape & the Killer Doctor

Episode Date: March 8, 2018

WARNING: The audio in this episode is rough. What can we say? We were young(ish), dumb, and thought we’d save a little money by sharing one microphone. Yeah. The audio quality improves drastically after episode 9.  In this episode, Brandi tells us about Dr. Robert Neulander, the beloved OBGYN who killed his wife. … Or did he? Maybe. It’s totally possible. But damn it, it’s also possible that she slipped in the shower. The prosecution and defense used the same pieces of evidence to tell two different stories. So is he a killer? We don’t know. And it’s driving us fucking nuts. Then Kristin talks about Hulk Hogan’s sex tape. It’s a doozy. The Hulk’s lawsuit against Gawker got the site shut down and could have a chilling effect on the first amendment… and it was all funded by a billionaire with an axe to grind. Come for the do-rag jokes, stay for the lecture on consent.   And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The documentary “Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press” “Jury awards Hulk Hogan $115 million as Gawker looks to appeal,” Politico “Gawker in the fight of its life with Hulk Hogan sex-tape suit,” Politico “Peter Thiel’s Secret War with Gawker,” New York Times In this episode, Brandi watched the hell out of: The 48 Hours episode, “The Doctor’s Daughter”

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about Hulk Hogan's sex tape and his lawsuit against Gawker Media. And I'll be talking about Dr. Robert Newlander, the popular OBGYN, who was suspected in the suspicious death of his wife. Brandi. Yes. Did you know that we don't have anyone sponsoring us right now? I did know that. That was no surprise. It's an outrage, really, because both our moms are listening.

That's right. A number of other family members as well. Yes, I mean, I have several parents. This is true. So we should have a sponsor any day now. But in the meantime, let's make this sponsored by my husband, the gaming historian, who every week sets us up with our audio equipment. Kristen. Yes.

I am looking for a high quality Blu-ray of one of my favorite YouTube channels. Really? What is it? The Gaming Historian. Oh, he's so good looking. Do you know where I could find a Blu-ray? I like how you just glossed over it. I feel uncomfortable commenting on your husband's looks. I just had to zoom past that one. You're in luck. Sitting right behind me is a whole big stack of Gaming Historian value one blu-rays available online at gaminghistorian.com. I will head right there right now. Gaminghistorian.com. Okay, so this week I'm talking about dr robert newlander i actually first heard of this case from a 48 hours episode yeah it was like a sunday afternoon it was like investigation discovery was doing a marathon and i was just like cleaning my house and this episode

came on and i had to like stop and watch it because it was really interesting to me it's a really good case and I'm undecided on it and there's so few cases where I hear all the stuff and can't decide about the ending uh-huh so let's let me take you on a journey this is okay this is so weird and I'm sorry to interrupt yes because I feel like you and I are both very decisive people. Yes. We are judgmental people. Like, we know how we feel. But I don't know how I feel about my case this week either.

That's hilarious. It is so weird. That's hilarious. And I'm uncomfortable. But okay, tell me all about yours. So, Dr. Robert Newlander, hero or villain? You decide. I can't wait.

I can't wait. At 825 a.m. on September 17th, 2012, a call came in to the Syracuse, New York 911 ditch... That stroke is really affecting you. It's not affecting me one bit. I'm going to just start. Yeah, just start over. At 825 a.m. on September 17th, 2012, came into the syracuse new york 9-1-1 dispatch center on the line was 23 year old jenna newlander who said she needed emergency medical crews for her mother when asked what was wrong with her mother she said she was not sure and

that her dad had told her there'd been an accident in the bathroom and asked her to call 9-1-1 jenna placed the call on hold and ran across the sprawling home to reach her mother's bathroom. As she reconnected with the dispatcher, she had become completely distraught. She was screaming and crying out for her mother and she could be heard begging her father not to move her mother. The call is heartbreaking to listen to. On this episode, they play a big portion of the call, which I personally love 9-1-1 calls it's very morbid i just like to hear that side of it but it is it's they're horrible to hear yeah but there's like a horrible core and there's a fascination yeah it's because you're a horrible person

minutes later emergency crews arrive at the upscale home of Dr. Robert and Leslie Newlander. Paramedics descend on the master bedroom where they found a horribly bloody scene. Leslie Newlander was declared dead shortly after their arrival. The Newlanders were described as pillars of their community in upstate New York. Dr. Robert Newlander was a well-known and highly respected OBGYN who had delivered upwards of 10,000 babies in his lengthy career. Yeah. Whoa. He was regarded for his bedside manner and his genuine support of his patients. Leslie, his wife of 28 years with whom he had two children, was known for her positive

outlook, caring nature, and her various philanthropic adventure, philanthropic ventures. Adventures, ventures. I i mean i'm sure there were some adventures in there i like the idea of her like swinging from a tree like just throwing money what a kooky adventure within hours of leslie's death dr newlander walked investigators through the events of that morning. Bob Newlander recounted that he left the house early that morning for a run at a nearby park. When he'd returned home, he made Leslie her morning coffee and took it to her bedroom.

Leslie was in the shower, so he left her coffee on the bedside table. Approximately an hour later, when he still hadn't seen Leslie, he returned to her bedroom to check on her. Upon entering the bedroom, he noted to her bedroom to check on her. Upon entering the bedroom, he noted that the shower was still running. He entered the bathroom and found Leslie on the floor of the shower, unresponsive and bleeding profusely. Oh my god. Yeah. He immediately attempted to call 911, but the bathroom phone was not working, so he yelled for his daughter, Jenna, to make the call. Newlander claimed that due to the steam and dark tile in the shower, he wasn't able to see to properly administer CPR.

So he picked his wife up and carried her nearly 60 feet and laid her down outside the bathroom where he started to perform life-saving measures. How big was this house? It's huge. They're very well-to-do family. It's a huge home. The shower, to kind of give you a picture here,

was a walk-in shower with a you know it's completely tile walls floor everything and it's this really dark slate tile okay um and then it's got this bit like built-in bench in there okay so it is believable it would be totally steamed up absolutely and the um they also mentioned that it was a steam shower so it had a regular shower head and then it also had a steam function which they believe was also running the time that she was in that shower so it's completely believable to me that it was full of steam in there okay he later picked her up again and for unknown reasons moved her further from the bathroom laying her on the floor next to the bed where he continued to administer CPR.

Jenna, the only other eyewitness, corroborated her father's account and the medical examiner determined that the scene and Leslie's injuries also matched his version of events. So Leslie's death was ruled an accident due to a disastrous fall in the shower where she hit her head on the stone bench.

Case closed, right? Not so much. Not exactly. That's not enough for a 48 hours episode. Within a couple of months of Leslie's death, the Newlander's neighbor and close friend began to hear whispers and rumors. There was talk of financial problems and marital issues within the home. So Dr. Newlander himself will admit that him and his wife were not sleeping in the same bedroom, that they were contemplating a trial separation, and that they but that they still very much loved each other, but maybe were not on the same page within their marriage anymore. So they were sleeping in separate bedrooms. Well, and you know, there's a huge difference between the marriage is ending and I want to kill you.

Absolutely. So friends and acquaintances speculated that Leslie's death may not have been the result of a tragic accident, but something more sinister and intentional. The neighbor who was on the receiving end of these rumors and tips wasn't just any neighbor. She happened to be Dr. Mary Jim Bellick, who served as the chief medical examiner in Syracuse for 11 years. Whoa. Yes. So to ease her mind about these rumors, she decided to call her former colleague, District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick.

As it turned out, he had also been hearing these rumblings and had even received an anonymous letter stating that Leslie's death was not an accident. At the time of her death she had been preparing to leave her husband fitzpatrick asked mary to look over the case files and she agreed to do so pro bono okay so we've got this 11 year veteran uh medical examiner who's very close friends and next door neighbors have this tragic death and then she starts hearing these rumors i'm loving this yes so she starts looking through these files and she's immediately alarmed by the amount of blood there's blood everywhere in this crime scene there's blood smeared all over the bathroom on the walls on the floor there's blood pooled on the floor outside the bathroom and then there's a

blood pooled next to the bed she's also alarmed by the injury to leslie's head mary says it's so severe that the blood pooled in leslie's eye she says the injury was more consistent with a car accident or an impact with a heavy object than a fall in the shower okay mary then relayed her findings to fitzpatrick and said that she believed leslie died of a blunt force trauma from an assault and determined the manner of death to be homicide not accidental shit yes so based upon mary's opinion on the case files the da asks authorities to revisit the crime scene and gather more evidence six months after leslie's death in that time the house has been sold but this is what's weird the all the original furnishings are still in the house dr newlander has moved into kind of like a loft apartment thing

kind of in the city and the house is has now been sold i don't know that new people were living there at this time that is unclear to me but the original furnishings were still in the house when they went back six months later okay to reinvestigate this kind of weirded out by someone buying that house right yes i mean obviously obviously it happens yeah you know in some states you don't have to disclose that a death happened in the house lots of states actually you don't have to disclose that a death happened in the house. Lots of states, actually, you don't have to disclose that there was a death in the house. Well, and see, I think, you know, natural causes, I think, sure, a house of a certain age, you're going to assume. Yes.

But a really horrible death? A really horrible, bloody death. Yeah, I feel like you should. Okay, well, it gets worse. Okay. Well, it gets worse. Okay. Okay. So, investigators uncover blood spatter on the blinds behind the bed, on the lamp next to the bed, and on the slanted wall. There's like, it's like the bed was placed back in a recess and then there's like a slanted ceiling.

Okay. Kind of next to it. And so there's blood spatter all over that slanted ceiling too. Why would there be spatter? So, okay. These are my problems with this there are some pictures of this slanted ceiling from the original investigation so i think they knew about that blood spatter but they missed the blood spatter on the blinds and the lamp these fucking people who bought this house bought it with the blood spatter over everything i didn't even think about that yikes if i'm walking through a house and thinking about purchasing it if i see blood

on the blinds you bet your ass i'm not buying that fucking house or at least you want a discount oh gross so the original medical examiner that ruled the death an accident considers this new evidence and changes the cause of death from accidental to homicide. Wow. So nearly 15 months after Leslie Newlander's death, murder charges were filed against Dr. Robert Newlander. were filed against Dr. Robert Newlander. Due to his notoriety in the community and the rumors that had been circulating for months, the case was so high profile that the district attorney, Bill Fitzpatrick,

took the case himself. He decided he was going to argue the case himself. Newlander retained well-known local lawyer, Edward Mencken, who said of his client, I have never had a client whose innocence I had believed in more firmly than his. Which I bet he tells that to all of his clients i was gonna say i feel pretty shitty if i were one of his clients as the trial

got underway in march of 2015 both sides would actually use the same evidence the blood spatter the 911 call and leslie's injuries oh this is to attempt to prove two very different scenarios. Oh, that's tough. Yeah. So they're arguing two very different scenarios with the exact same pieces of evidence. Okay. The prosecution's case was simple. They argued that a pre-dawn assault took place in Newlander's bedroom and that the shower scene was staged to explain the blood in various places around the bedroom. They also argued that Robert involved his daughter, Jenna, the only other person in the home, so that he'd have a witness on his side.

Additionally, they argued that the blood spatter evidence in the room, so the spatter on the headboard, spatter on the items on the nightstand, the spatter on the blinds behind the bed, and the spatter on the wall, the slanted wall that we talked about, which was approximately seven feet from the bed oh all support the theory of this pre-dawn assault they believe that because it

was dark when the assault took place dr newlander didn't see this blood spatter sure and so he didn't know that he needed to come up with a scenario that would explain that away okay and okay when you say involved the daughter involved her how by just by getting her into the crime scene so she was on the other side of the house he called her asked her to make the 9-1-1 call and then brought her into the scene so not something as sinister as like she's correct okay no yeah the prosecution's case relied heavily on the testimony of their blood spatter expert, who testified that the blood on the wall was the most powerful evidence of their assault theory. As in her expert opinion, it was impact spatter.

So impact spatter is caused when a blunt force is applied to liquid blood. Their expert even recreated a crime scene and attempted to reenact this assault. Oh, gross. expert even recreated a crime scene and attempted to reenact this assault by placing a rock covered in plastic and wearing a wig on a bed covering it with blood and then impacting it with a blunt object oh geez yes she said that the reenactment verified that the blood spatter evidence was caused by an impact event she was able to recreate the same spatter evidence was caused by an impact event. She was able to recreate the same spatter that she found on the scene through this impact event. The defense critiqued this reenactment, saying it amounted to nothing more than whacking a mannequin over the head.

And I get that, but how else do you recreate these things? Absolutely, yeah. get that but how else do you recreate absolutely yeah then the prosecution called newlander's housekeeper who testified that the sheets found on the bed at the crime scene which are free of blood are not the same sheets she put on the bed the previous morning okay yes okay so the prosecution argues that they believe that dr newlander discarded of the bloody sheets and whatever weapon he used on his early morning run at the park though the park was searched and no sheets or weapon were ever found okay this is my question here though when did they search it though if they thought it was an accident right yeah yeah here this is i have a different problem with this

with this witness okay okay not with the witness but with this theory there's a shit ton of blood at this crime scene if the assault happened in the bed like the prosecution is arguing taking the sheets off is not enough to get rid of it there'd be blood soaked through to the mattress yeah yeah you're right you're right so it's not like he's bashed his you know wife's head on the bed she's bleeding profusely enough to cause spatter seven feet away and it only soaks into the top layer the sheet the sheet that's on the bed he pulls that off you know i don't know if you've ever had uh like as a little kid wet the bed you pull the sheets off the mattress is wet only as a little

no further questions please last week when you wet the bed kristen listen i had a dream i was in a pool i don't know what to tell you so i'm just saying i call fucking bullshit on this because you can't pull the sheets off and then expect there to be no blood evidence on the mattress okay okay the defense then called their own blood spatter expert who testified that it was not possible to determine whether leslie's death had been an accident or a homicide because the investigation had been flawed oh boy he testified that there was not enough close-up pictures of the blood and that some of the evidence had not been collected until months

after the incident, which we know that. Yeah. They didn't go back for six months. Emergency crews had walked all over the scene and the defense argued that the paramedics could be responsible for some of the blood spatter. They argued that first responders had blood on their gloves and in peeling their gloves off could send cast-off blood. Okay. The defense also argued that first responders had blood on their gloves and in peeling their gloves off could send cast off blood. Okay. The defense also argued that the blood that some of the blood spatter could have been cast off from Dr. Newlander himself. The doctor said that he had been wearing a long sleeve shirt that became so soaked in blood as he tried to save his wife's life that he took it off so that he when he took it off he like threw it to the side and but in the emotion of taking it off and throwing it cast off blood was sent the prosecution is like no absolutely not those

theories are ridiculous paramedics are trained in how to remove gloves to avoid cast off and there's so much blood spatter here that no gloves or but bloody shirt removal could account for it all i love how every time you're like here's what the prosecution said i'm like yeah that's a good point i'm like well that's also a good point exactly so okay but then here's my thing with this okay this was declared an accident very early on okay like very shortly after emergency crews arrived on the scene, this was declared a horrible accident. In an accident situation versus a crime situation, there are very different protocols I feel like people take. And so maybe a crime scene wasn't preserved and protocol, glove removal

protocol wasn't followed to a T. Okay. I'm kind of with you yes I kind of get yeah if you're walking into it with the crime scene mindset you're gonna yeah dot your eyes yes but at the same time I feel like if you've been trained a certain way you're gonna kind of stick with that training you're not gonna be yeah flinging gloves everywhere I get that I do get that I also want to just say for the record that if my dad were in this situation and his sweatshirt became totally disgusting he'd just wash it and wear it you're absolutely right he for sure would blood stayed and all what's staying at all what still good i can run in this i love sorry this is getting so incredibly off topic but i loved when you were over the other

date you looked at him and you were like how long have you owned that shirt you're wearing and he's like a few years you're like no no no i remember that from my childhood. I feel like it's my position in life to call your dad out on these topics. Someone has to. Someone has to. Okay, anyway, this is not about my dad's sweatshirt. Absolutely. Back to the New Landers. So the defense argued that there was a reasonable explanation for Leslie falling in the shower.

Defense argued that there was a reasonable explanation for Leslie falling in the shower. Both her personal trainer and her sister testified that she had vertigo and that it had recently gotten much worse. Okay. Yeah. Jeez. The defense next called medical examiner Dr. Daniel Spitz, son of world-renowned medicaliner, Dr. Warner Spitz, our good friend, Dr. Warner. Do you know him? No. Oh my gosh, he's testified on some of the biggest, the biggest court cases. He testified on Casey Anthony, he testified in the West Memphis Three.

He is huge. Okay, okay. So he comes to so his son, Dr. Daniel Sp, comes and testifies on traumatic head injuries. He testified that Leslie's injuries are consistent with striking her head on the stone bench inside the shower. The prosecution countered that evidence showed that Leslie suffered two blows to her skull and that the injuries are not consistent with hitting the straight edge of a bench and that Leslie's other injuries do not add up to the defense's account so she had an abrasion on her cheek bruising on her nose do you like that i'm pointing out these body areas for you in case you aren't familiar with this sometimes i'm like ass cheek yes cheek nose and then she had bruising and scraping on her neck okay okay i also have a problem with this what's your problem so her husband is lifting her up and carrying her around the room yeah

laying her down picking her up laying her down again administering cpr which is administered with a lot of force yeah you do a lot force. So couldn't those injuries have been caused through all of that? I don't know. Cheek and nose stuff? I'm just picturing like he you know, he's I have the advantage of knowing what he looks like.

He's not a large man. And he's picking up his, you know, 130 pound wife and carrying her out of the bathroom and setting her down. I'm guessing it's not the gentlest of set-downs on the floor. You know, assuming he's totally innocent, he's panicked, he's running with her, he's, you know. Yeah. Okay, maybe, yeah, maybe.

Okay. On to the next. Oh, this case. Crucial to the case is not only how leslie died but when dr spitz testified that leslie died around 8 30 a.m but the prosecution maintains that the death could have occurred as early as 4 15 which fits their theory of a pre-dawn assault that's how do you know like i know it's i I know it's not an exact science. You can't know exactly when somebody died. But how can they be four hours apart?

That's what I'm wondering. Yes, it seems like that's the one thing they usually agree on. Yes. Yeah. And they're four hours off. One medical examiner to another expert. Next, now 25 year old Jenna Newlander takes a stand to defend her father. As the only other eyewitness, she is very important to the outcome of the case. On the stand, Jenna recounted what happened in the Newlander home hours before her mother's death. She recalled that she was in her mother's bedroom until 2am and clearly remembered the sheets and that they are the same ones that are pictured in the crime scene photos okay this directly contradicted the housekeeper's testimony that the sheets have been changed so i don't know there's questions there now and i kind of want to know about the

sheets like were they a funky pattern they were a funky pattern okay they have like leaves it's like different colored leaves in a row on them so they're distinct sheets these are not just you know solid gray sheets that you could have 50 sets of I mean I think that 50 shades of gray sorry as soon as you said 50 I was like oh no I have to make a really dumb joke well I'm glad it was you this time i'm tired of having to be there's time there's time don't worry so then there's perhaps the most critically important piece of evidence the 9-1-1 call so jenna put the call on hold in her mother's office which is at one end of the house okay and then she um puts she puts it on hold there and then she runs to the other end of the

house to the bathroom where her mother was as she took the phone off hold she cried oh my god there's blood everywhere both sides argue that this is crucial evidence that support their version of events so the prosecution argued that Jenna yelled this in response to the blood that had been left by the assault as her mother should not yet have been moved so there would be no blood outside the bathroom at this point. Oh my God, okay. Proving the prosecution's theory that her father moved the body

to account for the blood left during the assault. The defense, however, argued that the call did just the opposite and confirmed the doctor's innocence. The defense said Jenna initially ran to the bathroom phone in the water closet, but found it wasn't working just as her father had said. So she ran out of the water closet around the corner into her mother's dressing area to get the cordless phone. It was as she was coming out of the dressing area that Jenna saw her mother for the area to get the cordless phone it was as she was coming out of the dressing area that jenna saw her mother for the first time as her father was moving her mother out of the bathroom to perform cpr he placed her on the floor outside the bathroom just as jenna

reconnected with the dispatcher and cried oh my god there's blood everywhere jenna was asked on the stand if she saw blood on the way to the water closet and she said no which supports the notion that the first time she saw blood she was looking at her mother and it goes completely against the prosecution's version that the scene outside the bathroom was staged to explain the blood because so the way this works she would have had to run into the bedroom uh-huh turn to go to the bathroom get the phone there and then she would have had to come back out to this and go back like one door to this dressing area i'm guessing it's like a walk-in closet area yeah and get the phone i just want to say congratulations on being so classy with her use of water the crapper room so the da does not believe that jenna could have done everything she claimed to do

in the 13 seconds the 911 call was on hold so put the call on hold run across the house go into the water closet pick up the phone find it the house, go into the water closet, pick up the phone, find it's not working, go into the dressing area, get the cordless phone and come back out to see her mother being moved into the bedroom. Agreed. 13 seconds. Yep. Okay. And if it's this huge house. So Fitzpatrick attempted to do it himself and it took him 50 seconds.

Okay. Yeah. to do it himself and it took him 50 seconds okay yeah but she is a 23 year old girl reacting to a crisis and running on adrenaline how can you compare the two he's just a guy trying to do a reenactment yeah um but 50 seconds assuming he was doing it in good faith and going as fast as he possibly could. How old is he? He's 60-something. Oh, okay, fuck that. He should have. They should have gotten a 23-year-old in there to do that reenactment. They really should have gotten someone like, okay, let's look at her health.

Let's look at. So this is immediately what I think of. Have you seen the movie Sully with Tom Hanks where he's the pilot? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A long time ago. Okay. So there's this scene in that where they're going before like a panel of people who are saying that he could have made it back to LaGuardia. He didn't have to land the plane in the Hudson.

And then it cost the company tons of money because they lost an entire plane. I'm just right now realizing that I was thinking of the movie where he's on the ship and he's taken over by. Captain Phillips. So sorry, continue. Okay, so this panel says that they've run all of these simulations and flight simulators and that different sets of pilots were able in the simulations to get the planes back to la guardia and titaburro which were both options at the time um and they were both able to do that safely in the amount of time that sully landed the plane on the hudson what i'm so you're still thinking about captain phillips i'm just wondering like did they factor in pirates

okay but in the movie right these people these these people doing the flight simulators hit the birds like sully did and then immediately they are given okay this time you're gonna attempt to get back to la guardia this time you're gonna attempt to make it to um titaburro so they immediately start the bailout to do that when in actuality when it happened they had to go through a whole checklist of things they had to figure out that they'd been hit by fucking birds yeah and so when they re-ran the simulations with like a 13 second delay for human processing time uh-huh they all crashed every single one of them crashed into the city oh so this is what i'm saying okay very different scenario but he knew exactly what he was doing

like i'm you know i'm gonna try and do this reenactment under normal circumstances i'm not reacting to the crisis that my my mother has had some kind of horrible accident in the bathroom i'm not running on adrenaline i just don't think you can compare the two i think you can kind of try. Yeah. And the way you kind of try is you don't compare a 60-year-old man to a 23-year-old man. Absolutely. I think that is so...

Absolutely. That is so dumb. That is so not a good comparison. But, you know, just to see, is it humanly possible? Right. Yeah. Like, I think you can try to determine if it's humanly possible. Yeah, they should have got

like the kenyan that won the marathon to go sure hey that would be great because if he can't do it there was one other part of jenna's testimony that might have proved crucial jenna told the jury that as her father was tending to her mother in the bedroom she saw him take off oh shit i'm so sorry that's i mean ma'am can you get your shit under control my dad's car he wants to talk about sweatshirts he's like listen girls that's from 2002 it's fine it's fine it's practically new do you remember where you were yes you can just jump back okay okay so jenna told the jury

that as her father was tending to her mother in the bedroom she saw him take off a blood-soaked shirt and throw it to the side. As mentioned earlier, the defense argued that the removal and tossing of this shirt may have led to some of the blood spatter in the bedroom. But this shirt has never been found. Oh, no. Yes. So, the potential weapon hasn't been found. The potential sheets haven't been found in this sweatshirt. This mystery shirt has't been found the potential sheets yes haven't been found in this this mystery shirt has never been found that's my downton

the da has said that even if jenna was injected with truth serum and asked if her father had killed her mother she would say no he believes He believes that Jenna has created an alternate reality in her head to protect herself from the loss of both parents. I mean, there's maybe something to that. I would totally get that. Yeah. I can totally understand how someone would do that. Absolutely.

And wouldn't blame them for it at all. No. Yeah. Or, but if she's telling the truth then can you imagine how mad she'd be at that no i know what i know absolutely absolutely but how can you be sure yeah in her head you she believes it's the truth but what's the actual truth yeah no one knows somebody knows the question now though is not what jenna believes but what the jury believes fitzpatrick was worried about the emotional impact jenna's testimony may have had on the jury after eight grueling days of testimony he addressed them one more time in closing argument he asked

them to focus on the evidence rather than emotions, specifically referring to the blood spatter on the walls and the injuries to Leslie's body. He told them, Leslie will speak to you, ladies and gentlemen. You have to listen to her. He also asked them to listen to Jenna's words on the 911 call, saying it proves Newlander's guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. In Mencken's summation,

he argued that there was no evidence of a homicide and that there was no motive. He referred to Dr. Newlander as innocent throughout his entire closing argument. The jury deliberated for three days before alerting the judge they had reached a verdict. Dr. Robert Newlander returned to the courtroom once again arm in arm with his children and Leslie's family who had flanked his side throughout the entire proceedings. Wow. Two and a half years after Leslie Newlander's death, the jury found Robert Newlander guilty of her murder. Oh, man, I wasn't expecting that. A heartbroken Jenna Newlander broke the silence of a stunned courtroom and cried out, I was there.

You didn't do it. Oh, man, I really was there, you didn't do it. Oh, man. I really was not expecting that at all. Outside the courtroom, a visibly shaken Ed Menken addressed the press calling Dr. Newlander the most honorable person he'd ever met and called the case a travesty that was not yet finished. Oh, man. This is where I was like oh i don't know so newlander's children immediately

hired how many children did he have four he had two with leslie and then two from a previous marriage okay um so they immediately hired gerald chargall an attorney who was well known for defending mob boss john gaudy oh to handle their father's appeal okay he wasted no time and filed a motion to get the conviction thrown out on the basis of juror misconduct at the center of this appeal was juror jonna lorraine according to an alternate juror lorraine had received texts and other communications about the case during the trial against the judge's instruction not to discuss the case. Yes. A search of the juror's phone, get this, showed that she had received some potentially prejudicial texts, including one from her father that read, make sure he's guilty.

And another from a friend that said, I can't believe Jenna isn't a suspect. What? Yes. that said i can't believe jenna isn't a suspect what yes lorraine's phone was seized and it was discovered that she had deleted thousands of potentially prejudicial texts prior to giving her phone over to authorities weeks later though the judge upheld the conviction saying that in the early stages of deliberation lorraine had been undecided and the judge ruled that she'd ultimately taken her role seriously how seriously could she be taking it if she's getting texts like that yeah i don't like that at all i don't either i mean she sounds like you know i would be so thrilled to be on a jury

i would too that sounds like something i'd be tempted to do like right can i talk about this with everyone yes no the answer is no. Shut up. But what if you listen to the text her dad said a different way? Okay, so he texted her, make sure he's guilty. But what if he said, like, make sure he's guilty if you're going to convict him. If you're going to convict him, make sure he's guilty. Yeah.

I don't know. Oh, yeah. God. Even then, though. victim make sure he's guilty yeah i don't know oh that yeah god even then though and still yes and it's not like she's the only one in there no i'm i'm sorry but she sounds kind of dumb actually the reason that the the fact that you say that she's kind of dumb is actually the reason that i have some issues with the way jury trials work in general because i think that there are people on there who maybe aren't do not have the critical thinking necessary to be able to decide the fate of a defendant i'm yeah i'm really glad you said this because norman got summoned for jury duty.

Like, I can't remember when. And he was just bummed out. Like, oh, God, I hate this. And I was so jealous because I've always wanted to be on a jury. But it makes me, the whole thing made me nervous because it seems like almost everyone I know, when they get summoned for jury duty, all they want to do is get out of it. Yeah. And these are intelligent people. Absolutely.

And it seems like the people who have stuff going on in their lives or have obligations get out of jury duty so who does that leave well exactly and then i was just listening to this story it was a case where the jury came back with their verdict and then the judge pulled the jury and one of the jurors responded that no it was not their verdict and the judge nearly had to declare a mistrial because the juror misunderstood the question oh dear god yes like once the judge phrased it a different way the juror was like oh yeah yeah yeah yes that's my yes i came to that same conclusion jesus christ yes yes so i i mean well that's why they say jury trials are so wildly unpredictable yes you don't know who you've got absolutely in that box

you don't know what they're thinking what they're bringing to it you just yeah you just don't know no the jody arias trial that jury when they came back um hung on the decision if she should get the death penalty or not they said the jury instructions were not clear they did not know that if they didn't decide that a mistrial would be called oh so they said having if they would have known that that they probably could have come to some kind of decision and see that makes me wish that i could see like what instructions your instructions look like yes like if if they are but they probably aren't written in legal speak and so in which case they need to cut that shit absolutely and just put it in like you know make, make it sixth grader. Layman's turns. Absolutely. Yes.

Yeah. If it already is in layman's terms. Well, then maybe. Yikes. Yes. Yikes. Maybe these folks don't need to be deciding whether someone lives or dies. Absolutely. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Okay. Almost four months after the verdict, sentencing finally began. So they've got this. They did this appeal. It was denied. So now we're sentencing finally began so they've got this they did this appeal it was denied so now we're sentencing facing a maximum sentence of 25 years to life the family begged the judge for the minimum sentence of 15 years leslie's sister addressed the court saying had any of us even slightly

suspected foul play of any sort we would not be here today on bob's behalf yeah i i can see that absolutely finally dr robert newlander addressed the court and said an innocent man has been convicted for i would not and did not take a life i love my wife leslie newlander and i mourn her every day there's i just have so many questions like that's what i feel like how i don't know how a jury arrived at a conviction when there's so many questions and you can see both sides i mean it's very difficult yeah i don't see how you get to beyond a reasonable yes that's exactly i think there's plenty of room for reason i agree ultimately the judge sentenced newlander to 20 years to life, stating, Unless he didn't. Exactly.

Exactly. As Dr. Newlander was escorted out of the courtroom, Jenna called out to him, love you, dad, and then broke down in tears. Oh, God. In October of 2017, Newlander's lawyers argued before a panel of appellate judges for the conviction to be thrown out or to be granted a new trial. The appellate court has not yet ruled. So what do you think?

I have no idea. Right? I think think it's funny i think if they had come back not guilty i'd be like oh i don't know i think he was guilty but i don't know yeah that is really really tough and it's like you said when they're using the same pieces of evidence to come up with totally different but plausible scenarios, then I don't see how you get to reasonable doubt. I don't either. Oh, man. That's tough.

It was a tough one. And I feel so sorry for Jenna. I do, too. Either way, it's awful. I feel terrible. Either way, for Jenna, it's terrible. Man. Man, right?

That's a good one. Yes. Oh, God. Oh, man. That's so good. yes oh god oh man that's so good okay how about we talk about a sex tape let's do it sex tape first amendment right to privacy love it here we go yes so i i saw somewhere and i wish i remember where, but someone made a point that I think is really good, which is like, this is such a kind of cheesy, tawdry lawsuit that people sometimes think, oh, it's not important because it's about fucking Hulk Hogan sexting. And one of the key people in this case is named Bubba the Love Sponge. That's his legal name. Oh my gosh. So like people think because it all sounds so silly that this isn't a big deal. This is a huge deal. Yeah. Especially for First

Amendment, for privacy, you know, all this stuff. Okay. Here we go. I'm ready. Lay it on me. Okay. So let's start with just the people. Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, which is not as exciting. Not nearly as exciting as Hulk Hogan. So Hulk Hogan was a huge deal in the 80s and early 90s. Some people say he's the greatest professional wrestler of all time. I know jack shit about professional wrestling. So I'll just say he's probably the most famous. Yeah, the fact that I've heard of him. Right. Yeah. Just a little bit about. I bet Dwayne The Rock Johnson would have something to say about that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Was he a professional wrestler? Absolutely. Or he became the man of my dreams? Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?

Now that you mention it. Does it smell like a vanilla candle? Yes. And like crappy iced coffee? That's correct. Okay. I can smell it. So a little bit about his personal life. In 1983, he married his wife, Linda. You know, they had that reality show. Oh, yeah.

Did you watch it? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I watched it. Okay. So I did too. There was a time where there was no other shows on TV but reality shows. That's right. That was like Nick and Jessica in Newlywed, Hulk Hogan, The Osbournes, like everybody had a reality show.

So their marriage kind of got a little rocky around 2006. Around 2007, Linda filed for divorce. It was final in 2009. Okay, so we're in that 2007 area. Hulk Hogan is down in the dumps. He's really upset that his marriage is basically shit. And so he goes over to his best friend, Bubba the Love Sponge. Bubba the Love Sponge has this wife named Heather Clem. She didn't take on the Love Sponge last name. Um, I think his name was Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

Thank you for keeping me honest. Bubba and Heather have this open marriage. And Heather starts begging Hulk Hogan, have sex with me, please have sex with me, come on. And Bubba is all for it. They have his blessing. I know. So Hulk Hogan, looking back on it, he said, I was depressed. I gave up and gave in. I felt that those people loved me. So the two of them have sex. All right. Here's something a little controversial. Hulk Hogan claims he had no idea that he was being videotaped at the time. The videotape came from this surveillance camera that was set up in their master bedroom. Like you do. So it's not just...

Pointed directly at the bed. Yes. I run surveillance on my bed as well. Tons of interesting stuff going on. So it wasn't just like this surveillance camera that's always running. You have to put in a disc and press a button. So someone had to have gotten the thing set up to tape. But again, Hulk Hogan claims he had no idea it was running. A little while later,

this LA lawyer is shopping around the Hulk Hogan sex tape. Hulk Hogan gets wind of this. He's very upset and he gets the FBI involved. So they start this big investigation. Wait, I have a question. Sure. Did you watch the sex tape? I wish. No, I think, I don't think you can even find it online anymore. Um, I'm dying to know if he took his bandana off. You know he didn't. During. He wore it to court. Because he's bald.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's like those guys who wear really terrible wigs. Yeah. Or like they do the come over and it's like like it is so much better to be honest with yourself absolutely just accept what has happened and move forward like be the best bald you can be so fbi is getting involved 2012 comes along and the website gawker which is like this gossip news site gets a hold of this 30 minute sex tape through an anonymous tip aj delario who's the

editor-in-chief of gawker at the time makes this like highlight reel of the sex tape that's like a minute and 40 seconds long he puts it up on the website and he posts this long article about our fascination with celebrity sex tapes hulk hogan's mad he has his lawyers ask Gawker to take the tape down. Gawker's like, no, thank you. We will not. So let's talk a little bit about Gawker. Did you ever go to Gawker? Yeah. Back when it existed? Yeah. Yeah. What'd you think? I mean, you get all your celebrity gossip there i mean i kind of relate it to like the online version of like star magazine it's like you know star magazine is like the like the false people yeah you know what i mean it's me it looks just like a people magazine but nothing you read in it is true yes i guess could i kind of like correlate it's just it's all gossip nothing i feel like is

substantiated on it see i feel like sometimes it is yeah you know but you never know you never know yeah absolutely the site was started by nick denton and i think he used to work for the financial times in london i so he used to be more of a legitimate journalist and his idea for the site was to publish the stories that journalists tell each other which I love that I know that concept is great yeah because and it's been forever since I was a reporter but you do hear things that people will not tell you on the record yeah you find out stuff that you can't get verified to the level you need it to be verified to put it into a respectable publication.

And so you end up knowing stuff Yeah. that you can't ever print. And it's so frustrating. So it's, this is kind of a cool idea. Yeah. So he started it in 2002. By 2015, they were getting 23 million hits a month

on the website. Oh my gosh. Yeah. By that time, they were making $ million hits a month on the website. Oh my gosh. Yeah. By that time, they were making $48.7 million in revenue. Wow. They were doing real well. Yes. People love gossip.

People, yes. You heard it here first. That's right. Gawker grew to include sister sites like Jezebel, Deadspin, Gizmodo, Kotaku, other sites that I can't remember. They were a controversial site, obviously, and they were used to being sued. I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the stories they did because, like I was saying earlier, some of them were good and kind of pushed things forward in a way that might not have come forward. They claimed they were really influential in getting the Bill Cosby allegations out into the open,

They claim they were really influential in getting the Bill Cosby allegations out into the open. Which, women had been coming forward. But people tended to just be like, meh. Yeah. Not believe it. And so they claim, you know, when we started writing about it, people started paying attention. I thought it was Hannibal Buress who did that. See, I did too. And that's why I'm not giving them full credit.

And I wonder, I wonder, were they the ones who posted the excerpt right stand up maybe yeah that's my memory that's why i'm kind of like they claim so so there's that and they also kind of take credit for exposing the mayor of toronto for smoking crack yeah the crack guy yeah i think those are kind of those are important stories yeah i'm sorry I just spit everywhere. Well, I enjoyed it. Chris! Honestly, I didn't even notice.

No, okay, go. It's so moist in here with that humidifier. Look at these eyes. They have not watered yet. The one thing I'm not liking, though, is that humidifier is making this weird noise every now and then, and I'm like, are people going to that humidifier is making this weird noise every now and then. And I'm like, are people going to think we're starving? I thought you were farting.

How dare you? We only record this for like an hour and a half. I put a cork in it. Because I'm a lady. A lady, that's right. Sorry. So, things that Gawker did that were not so great. Okay.

I'm just going to name two of these. Just so you get kind of a full sense of what they're like. In 2006, they launched this thing called the Gawker Stalker Map. And I'm just going to read from their own site what this was. Today, we're launching the next step in inane celebrity drooling, Gawker Stalker Maps, in which we try to visually pinpoint the location of every stalk worthy celebrity as soon as they're spotted. Oh, that's not cool. Yeah. Ugh. Yeah, that's gross. That's horrible.

And, you know, obviously it was criticized because, like, you're putting people's safety in this. Absolutely you are. You're making stalking seem like this cute, okay thing. No. It's not. It's not yeah it's gross there's this really entertaining youtube clip that i watched where jimmy kimmel i guess was filling in for larry king one night and he had a gawker editor come on and try to defend this

gawker stalker thing and she was just kind of giggly and like oh whatever no one's been hurt yet and we've been doing this for years and it just you walk away from that like what the hell are these people I'll tell you I bet Jimmy Kimmel was probably very serious about that yeah because I went on a star tour in LA and let me tell you that the house that we got the closest to was jimmy kimmels and i bet that he hates that oh why were you able to get so close it was like he didn't live in a gated neighborhood so you could we literally were right outside of his house and could see his dog in the backyard and we were one we're one of how many tours that ran that day yeah i bet he hated that i would hate that yes i would absolutely i hate it when a car drives slow by my house and nobody's trying to stop me i'm like that little old lady like peeking

through her blinds what do you want this time yeah i i i'm totally with you i don't want a fucking tour bus pulled up outside my house. To the left, you'll see Jimmy Kimmel's dog. I'd be pissed. Yeah. Yeah. And he let her have it. I mean, he really did.

He kind of told her she was going to hell. Good. Yeah. She didn't seem concerned. No. The other one, so in 2008, they published a story, and the headline was, I had a one-night stand with Christine O'Donnell. She was the Republican nominee for Senate, and I remember

reading that story when it came out, so I was clearly part of the problem, and it was just, it was like, one of those things you, you read, and you go, why was this published? Yeah. First of all, one of those things you you read in your book why was this published yeah first of all there was no one night stand he just slept in the same bed as her not that that matters but it was just kind of like yeah why you know that's so weird i don't remember her she was she was a bit of a nut but it was an interesting story because even though she was a bit of a nut, she was super conservative. Liberals didn't like her at all. But that story united liberals and conservatives because everyone was like, dude, what are you? This is not okay.

Why would you do that to a candidate? So that's Gawker. That's kind of their reputation. Back to the Hulk Hogan sex tape. Yes. Because it's been a while. So before the major trial, Hulk Hogan sued Gawker for copyright infringement in federal court. And he sought a temporary injunction just to get the thing taken down. Right. But the judge denied Hulk Hogan's right to a preliminary injunction. The judge

thought Gawker's publication was protected by the First Amendment. And I assume, you know, thought this falls into the realm of newsworthiness right which it's been a while since journalism school but there there are different rules for celebrities and politicians it's kind of like if you voluntarily thrust yourself into the limelight then then the press can write a little more about you. You know, you don't have the same privacy rights as, you know. I think maybe posting their naked genitalia online, you know. Crosses the line. In a live action form might be crossing that line.

Uh-huh. Yeah, a lot of people agree with you. So that federal case went nowhere yeah you know the judge was like no protected by the first amendment the judge also seemed to kind of think it was weird that hulk hogan was you know claiming to be embarrassed and anxious to hide this tape while at the same time trying to actively protect the financial worth of the video so the federal case went nowhere hulk hogan was already suing the clems heather clem and buff of the video. So the federal case went nowhere. Hulk Hogan was already suing the Clems, Heather Clem and Buffy the Love Sponge,

in Florida State Court. So he just adds Gawker to that Florida case. Which was a brilliant move to move it to Florida. Yeah. And he also... Because I don't know if you know this, Florida courts, fucking crazy. It's a fact.

No one can disagree with that. Florida courts are a little nuts. And as you'll see, the culture clash between the New York Gawker Media and this furniture. I bet. Yes. Yeah, it was real. So he adds Gawker to the case, but he also adds Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker, and A.J. Delario, the editor-in-chief of Gawker, and a few other people. Almost immediately, he settles with the Clems out of court for $5,000.

Nothing. Nothing. That's nothing. Yeah. Why would he settle? Well, so there are some theories on that. and why would he settle well so so there are some theories on that in in this really good documentary nobody speak which is on netflix right now and it's about this trial they say that basically he settled out of court with them for five thousand dollars and with that came the

agreement that bubba the love sponge would plead the fifth he wouldn wouldn't testify because Bubba had been saying, no, Hulk Hogan knew. Knew. Yeah. It was part of the deal. He was in on it. Yeah. I mean, he was on Howard Stern saying, yeah, everybody knew what was, what was happening. I gotcha. Yeah. So he settles out of court with the Clems and asks this state judge, Judge Pamela Campbell, to grant his temporary injunction. You know, get Gawker to take that thing down. Yeah. And she grants it. Gawker appealed that decision because they were like, no, no, no, no, no.

We won this in federal court. This is newsworthy. We're protected. We're going to appeal this. And the appellate court sided with Gawker. They said it was newsworthy, protected by the First Amendment. So then they took that decision back down to Judge Pamela Campbell, asked her to dismiss the suit entirely. They said, look what the appellate court said. Can you dismiss this?

And she's like, no, we're going to trial. Good. By the way, Judge Pamela Campbell represented Terry Schiavo's parents. Really? Yeah, when she was a lawyer before she became a judge. Wow, that is. Yeah, speaking of crazy Florida court cases. Crazy Florida cases, yes.

Around this time, and this is coming from that documentary, Nobody Speak, the Gawker people are kind of like, okay, this has been a lot of court stuff. You know, we've had the appeal, we had the federal stuff, now we're in state court. How is Hulk Hogan affording all this? Yeah. Because it's expensive for us and he's just one guy whose career is over behind him. They start to think, you know, this is really weird. At the time they kind of start floating this conspiracy theory, is there someone bigger behind hulk hogan

who's funding this but then they're kind of like no that's too tinfoil hat that can't really be true so they just kind of block that out of their heads then and this is when things get interesting hulk hogan decides to drop a charge in the lawsuit and the charge he dropped was infliction of emotional distress. And they were like, okay, what the fuck? Why would you drop any charge? Because, you know, you want to keep as many charges as you can to get more money in the end, assuming you win. So why would someone take a charge out? Come to find out. I feel like that might be one of the easier charges to argue, too.

I would think so. I would think so. Listen to this. Okay. Okay. charges to argue i would think so i would think so listen to this okay okay infliction of emotional distress fell within the parameters of gawker's insurance coverage you take that part out gawker is no longer covered by insurance for this oh my gosh and so then it becomes like, holy shit, somebody is just after Gawker. Gawker.

This is personal for somebody. It's not just about this sex tape. It's about trying to kill Gawker. Yeah. Okay. Okay, that's crazy. And genius. Yeah, yeah.

There were some smart people behind this. Yeah. So 2016, the case goes to court. Hulk Hogan is seeking $100 million in damages. And in Florida, they had this six-person jury. Mm-hmm. Four women, two men. Hmm.

Give me your reaction to that. Hmm. I don't know. I feel like... don't know i feel like i feel like it'd be easier to get men on hulk hogan's side than women maybe just the opposite really okay here's my theory i feel like anytime there's a case that in some way could be about sexual exploitation i'm not saying that's necessarily what this is about. Yeah, to a degree it is. If it's about that, I think more women are going to be more sympathetic

to this idea that, oh, your sex tape got leaked, these images of you got leaked. That could be. Yeah, I could see that. I feel like women are more sympathetic to that. Now, why do you feel like men would be more sympathetic? Because I feel like a woman might think that you were, how do I phrase this? Um, you were involving yourself in somebody else's marriage, whether you had permission

or not. So maybe you get what was coming to you. Okay. I can see that too. Yeah. Then maybe a woman would be like, look, man. You were stepping out where you shouldn't have been. Yeah.

Maybe this is what you get. Yeah. Okay, I can see that, too. But I think you're totally wrong. Let's talk a little bit about the culture clash between Gawker and the jury. And Politico had a really good article on this. Just to start, Hulk Hogan moved to Florida as an infant. So he's kind of this

hometown hero, local celebrity. People seem to really like him. Is he like Hogan's hero? God. And you were worried you wouldn't make a terrible joke. He's this hometown hero. So people in Florida really knew him well. I assume they liked him. They were proud. By contrast, most of the jurors had never heard of Gawker before this trial started. A few of them had heard of some of the sister sites, but they were totally unfamiliar with Gawker.

So this trial takes place in St. Petersburg, Florida, which is on the Gulf Coast. It's kind of a tiny place, I assume. I have no idea. No, expert. Could be. Yeah. It's a town of four people. A lovely family.

The Smiths. The Hogan. The Hogan. Really hard to find jurors so you know in comes the gawker folks and one of the strategies of hulk hogan's team was to kind of paint them as crass and uncaring they have no morals they don't care what they did to this guy how they embarrassed him how they you know hurt him and i think it was probably fairly easy to make that case based on some of the stuff we're about to talk about here aj delario who was the editor of gawker and he's the one who actually posted the sex tape they had deposed him a while before

where they just like sit you in the room. They ask you a ton of questions. Toward the end of that deposition, they had a bad exchange. So they played that tape for the jury. And here's how it went. Attorney, can you imagine a situation where a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy. Delario. If they were a child. Attorney. Under what age? Delario.

Four. Oh! Mm-hmm. Oh! Oh! Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no.

Uh-huh. No. And I think your reaction is the same as the jury's reaction. Right? Yeah. Oh, no. Uh-huh. No. And I think your reaction is the same as the jury's reaction. Right. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Mm-hmm. Now, in his defense. Okay. No, no. I'm being totally serious. I'm being totally serious. I'm being totally serious. I watched the tape of that. And it's clear that he is being flip. Oh, yeah. But still, who the hell? No, who the hell says that? No. And even if you're being flip. That's like people who make jokes about bombs at an airport. Like, no, shut up. You know, just can that. And in the documentary, he talks about how it was just kind of,

he was kind of backed into a corner, but I think, what a stupid thing to say. What an awful thing to say. And yeah, they played that clip, and that made the news, and that was, I just have to wonder, when he said that in the deposition, did he know immediately? Whoa, I shouldn't have said that. Or was he just like, just making my little jokes. Nobody will hear this.

This won't be all over every newspaper in America. this won't be all over every newspaper in America. They also pointed out how Gawker staffers talk to each other in chats and emails about this, just to prove, like, they don't take this stuff seriously. They're really crass. They showed an email from Emma Carmichael, who was the managing editor at the time, and her email said, Hello, editorial policy is do not talk about Hulk Hogan's sex tape while our legal department processes his giant dot, dot, dot lawsuit. Yeah, which I think that's, like, come on.

That's fine. Yes. I'm on Emma's side there. Yeah, I am too. And then they also pointed out, AJ Delario's like, I think this was just like a message to a co-worker. And I wish I had more context about this,

but I don't. It's about the sex tape. And he says, Hogan's penis is also wearing a little do-rag. He's picturing Hogan's joke with a do-rag. He's picturing Hulk Hogan's joke with a do-rag and long balls. Those are bad.

I don't know. It'd be interesting to hear how that came across to the jury. That stuff I'm kind of like okay okay i don't know stuff doesn't bother me at all no now the four-year-old absolutely yeah that's gross and weird yeah this seemed to work on the jury and this this is when i don't even know how to lead up to this one because it's so weird but apparently florida jurors can anonymously

submit questions oh yeah to you you know, to the judge. Witnesses. No. You know that guy in the robe up there. The bathrobe. He stands behind the judge. So they can anonymously submit written questions to witnesses. But, you know, first the judge looks through them.

Yes. Presumably, they take out any really dumb or off-topic ones, and they will read that to the witness. The witness then has to answer. So in the course of this trial, the judge, Pamela Campbell, had dismissed some in the past, presumably for being off-topic or irrelevant. For whatever reason, she allowed this question to come out. This was when Emma Carmichael, managing editor, was on the stand.

Emma had just given this lengthy testimony. I watched some of it. It seemed pretty normal, just kind of about here's what it was like to work there. They questioned her about revenge porn and, you know, what she thought. And kind of just totally normal stuff. At the end of her testimony, she is asked by this judge from a juror whether she'd ever had an intimate relationship with A.J. Delario or Nick Denton. What does that have to do with anything? Exactly.

What? How did the judge allow that question? I have no idea. Wow. She just wanted to know. She was like, you know what? I'm curious about this one, too. It's a spicy question.

So that was like, you know, that took the internet by storm because people were like, what the hell? Like, where is this jury's head at? And I was thinking about that. Like, that would be like if i was reading to you about this trial and you're like wow hey when was the last time you ate an avocado i just i feel like what are you talking about this is not what we're talking about at all i also feel like i should just throw this out there. Nick Denton is openly gay. So, like, it's... What did she say to the question?

She said no. She was so cool on the stand. I mean, she gets this ridiculous question. And apparently there were gasps. And, you know, people were, like, kind of like, oh, my God. Yeah. But she, and I think at that time she was now the editor-in-chief of Jezebel, which is a feminist news site. Yeah.

So here she's this feminist, and the most important question they've got for her is, did you sleep with your bosses? Oh my gosh. So the judge asks her the question, and she says no. Wow. And they move on. Wow. Yeah. And they move on.

Wow. Yeah. You know, that question obviously weirdly implies that she slept her way to the top, which still has nothing to do with the case. I hesitate to even say this, but, like, even if she did, which she didn't, what would that have to do with anything? Nothing. Yeah. It has nothing to do with anything.

Shut up, Florida jury. Yeah. But anyway. On to the case. The the defense so gawker side their goal was to establish that look hulk hogan talked about his sex and sexuality openly in the media all the time he even talked openly about the sex tape um they also said look he shouldn't have even been surprised that the sex tape was released when he'd been talking about it all along. You know, he talked about it on Howard Stern. And the defense said to him, you talk about the size of your penis on air. Your reality show showed you on the toilet

with your pants down. How can you pretend to care about your privacy? There's a difference, though, when you sign up for it. I totally agree. And when it's something that's done without your knowledge. I totally agree. And I don't think they really got into that here. They took a different tactic. But like, to me, even if I walk outside naked, that's your choice that you did that. Yes. And it's not the same as if like, you surreptitiously got a naked photo and plastered it everywhere. You know, it's just not it's not the same as if like you surreptitiously got a naked photo and plastered it everywhere you know it's just not it's not the same chris and i will promise y'all will be taking no naked pictures please do though yeah yeah it's just and i also think there's a

huge difference between talking about something and wanting the visual proof of it yes plastered all over the place absolutely so i i'm not really on their side about this but i i do see the point if they're trying to make this argument for newsworthiness like hey he's the one who brought it up he's the one who made it news hulk hogan's tactic and this is kind of a weird, interesting one, was to be like, look, that was Hulk Hogan talking, not Terry Bollea. He tried to draw this distinction between Hulk Hogan, this... The character. Yeah, this, you know, wild character and himself. And he was like, look, Hulk Hogan doesn't have a lot of privacy left to violate, but Terry Bollea does.

left to violate but terry bella does okay but if he wore the do-rag on the sex tape he was hulk hogan that is such a good point we've got to know surely he kept that surely he kept it on right oh absolutely absolutely this led to a really weird moment in the trial. I'm wondering if you remember what this moment is. Okay, this is bizarre. So he's making this point that Hulk Hogan lies, he exaggerates, he's larger than life. And he even at this at some point said, Hulk Hogan has a bigger penis than Terry Bollea. And it led to this exchange. Here's the honest to god exchange hulk hogan says i do not have a 10 inch penis no i do not and the lawyer goes fair enough dude i didn't ask but you know wait does hulk hogan have 10 inchogan apparently hulk hogan does terry bella does not interested

to know how that works uh he has a detachable penis like that song what song there's a song called detachable penis and this guy goes did you make it up no it's a real song this guy goes to a party and he loses his penis and he has to look all over town the next day for it and it's this is a real song i'll play it for you sounds really good yeah they have that weird exchange i gotta say he was really good on the stand really which i guess i shouldn't be surprised he's a performer yeah but he had his little black do-rag on and his little black sport coat and he just seemed really genuine like you just kind of did he have a tank top on under the sport coat you know it didn't look like a tank top to me it looked like uh fitted teeth okay and i

think he was wearing a cross too i mean you know pulling some religion. That's right. He also talked about the betrayal of the sex tape. He said he couldn't sleep or eat for days. He said, when the sex tape hit, my whole world turned upside down. And he talked about how he couldn't get over the betrayal of his friend. Because, you know, again, he claimed, I had no idea this was being videotaped. Come to find out, it was taped, and my and my friend presumably was the one who brought it out to the public on to hulk hogan's side hulk hogan's lawyers said gawker only published the sex tape to make money it wasn't newsworthy at all and ultimately on march 18th 2016 at the end of like

a two-week trial the jury found in favor of hulk hogan and they found in favor of him big time so they awarded him 115 million dollars oh my god damages yeah 60 million was for emotional distress which now i'm kind of like i thought he dropped the charge of emotional distress but let's not question what i've written here clearly you're're the expert here. Yes, yes. $55 million was for economic harm, and upon hearing the verdict, Hulk Hogan burst into tears. A few days later, the jury awarded him $25 million more in punitive damages, and they ordered Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker, to pay $10 million. They ordered AJ Delario, the editor to pay $100,000. Wow. Yeah.

So I'm interested in your reaction. I think, I think that's the right. Really? I do. Oh man. I do. They,

yeah, I just think that they crossed the line that somebody's night moves are not are not people's business and that it's not newsworthy i think writing a story about the fact that it's out there and posting the actual sex tape are two very different things i agree with you and have they written a story about it yeah that would have been one thing but posting the highlight reel i think crosses a line i i have trouble with this because i get nervous about any time there's a potential limitation on some kind of censorship yeah and

I do get nervous at that but at the same time yeah I think I'm like weirdly sensitive to the sex stuff yeah and like people's nude photos videos and stuff like that because to me and here I'm just gonna make up my own law my own realm yeah to me I think here I'm just going to make up my own law, my own realm. Yeah. To me, I think that should be a sex crime. Yeah. To publish, and I don't care if someone's a celebrity, a politician, whether they've thrust themselves into the limelight at all.

If you don't have permission to publish that stuff, I think that should be a sex crime. Yeah. It violates a person. Yeah. It's absolutely a violation i want to call olivia benson get her on the case yeah i i mean i'm i'm happy for hulk hogan i'm glad that the judgment was in his favor i think that he deserved it i mean i don't know if deserved is the right word i feel like it's the right

the right judgment yeah i think that's way too much money uh it is a lot of money but i think that's common yeah in jury trials yeah i think it is my hope is that this verdict doesn't have a chilling effect on them absolutely but if it does chill the sex tapes then sure i'm happy with that because again i i think that's bullshit yeah that people can publish stuff like that without permission there is much more to this story so initially gocker planned to fight the verdict yeah i have a feeling that when they got that question have you slept with your bosses and you, I think they kind of knew things were going downhill for them. Yeah. They were very surprised by the amount that the jury asked for.

Yeah. In an interview with the New York Times, Heather Dietrich, who was the president and general counsel of Gawker Media, was like, look, three state appeals court judges and a federal judge repeatedly ruled that Gawker's post was newsworthy under the First Amendment. We expect that to happen again. You know, they thought, okay, we're just going to have to kick this up a notch. We'll get a ruling in our favor. She also said that the jury wasn't allowed to hear critical evidence. And she noted that they hadn't heard from Bubbaba the love sponge who again at one point in time had said hulk hogan knew he was being videotaped critical evidence what the hell is gawker talking about when they say critical yeah that's held from the jury okay do you remember

when i told you about the fbi getting involved yeah finding additional sex tapes and all this stuff okay while this trial was going on gawker sued the fbi to get access to all that additional stuff you can do that apparently and the court found in gawker's favor so they got access to all this you know everything in the investigation what they found out was there were other tapes where hulk hogan was saying a bunch of racist shit i think i remember this yes and like super racist stuff about his daughter's ex-boyfriend he said homophobic stuff yes i mean it was bad yeah gawker's theory was kind of like okay he's not so much embarrassed about the sex tape he didn't want the racist stuff to come out because the sex tape didn't really seem to affect his relationship with wwe or any of that but once the racist stuff came out

immediately dropped him yes he completely like lost any affiliation with the wwe when that happened and so gawker had wanted to bring that to the jury to be like you're not getting the full picture here you know there's another motive at play so they wanted to bring that into the jury trial but judge pamela campbell the trial judge said these documents these tapes are for lawyer eyes only the jury cannot see these interesting thing happened next somehow the national inquirer got a hold of the racist stuff and they published the story and that's when the wwe cut ties with hulk hogan and i want to say that they took him out of the hall of Fame. They did. Yeah, okay.

So it had huge consequences. So what does Hulk Hogan do? Sues Gawker again. This time for leaking the racist tapes. But Gawker says, we're not the ones who leaked them. And in a statement, Gawker said, Hulk Hogan is a litigious celebrity abusing the court system to control his public image and media coverage.

It's time for Hulk Hogan to take responsibility for his own words, because the only person who got Hulk Hogan fired from the WWE is Hulk Hogan. I like how they said his name like five times in that statement. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, it definitely changes my opinion i mean i had forgotten about all of that that didn't even happen that long ago no no it's fairly recent i had forgotten about that changes my opinion a little bit see for me it changes my opinion on him and his motives but it doesn't change my opinion on whether it's okay

to publish absolutely i agree and that's my conflict exactly it's like i don't like any of that yeah and i think it's shitty that the jury didn't get to hear the whole story potentially yeah but i mean if they're there to decide whether it was right to publish the sex tape then maybe that stuff is irrelevant yeah man yeah i mean it is irrelevant that if you think about it that way right yeah it kind of is this is why this is so hard for me because i think i'm on one side but then now that i think about it you're thinking about it that way yes it is irrelevant it doesn't have anything to do with whether it's okay to post his live-action genitalia. I just love that we have a podcast where we're talking about live-action genitalia.

And where I got to say out loud, do rag on his penis. Dreams are coming true here, folks. Keep dreaming, folks. Okay, so after the trial, Gawker Media filed a post-trial motion to throw out the jury verdict. They said key evidence was wrongly withheld and that the jury instructions on the constitutional standards for newsworthiness were improper. In another motion, Gawker argued that even if the verdict stands, the amount of damages should be reduced. argued that even if the verdict stands the amount of damages should be reduced so here's what their statement said it said we expect to be fully vindicated and even if the verdict were to stand

there is no justification for awarding tens of millions of dollars never seen by victims of death and serious injuries but um yeah what do you think i guess I could kind of see that, but... I think it's hard to put a monetary value on what they did to him. Yeah, I agree. And so, if that's what the jury thought he would, like, would... make it slightly better, I don't know. Yeah. This is a lot of money, but they...

Ugh. They did something pretty terrible, I feel like. Yeah don't know. Yeah. This is a lot of money, but they, they did something pretty terrible, I feel like. Yeah, I agree. I don't like it one bit. Yeah. Okay, so the judge denied both of those post-trial motions, though. On June 10th, 2016, Gawker filed for bankruptcy. A few months later, so did Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker. Because he was supposed to pay how much? I think it was $10 million. And around that time, Univision Communications bought Gawker Media's assets, including those other six sister sites that had nothing to do with the Hulk Hogan sex tape. Gawker shut down in late August 2016.

Now, do you remember, earlier I was talking about this kind of conspiracy theory that, you know, how could Hulk Hogan possibly afford all this? Surely there's someone behind him. Yeah. No, that can't be right. Turns out that was true. So somebody was puppet mastering behind the scenes. I'm sorry. At first i had no idea what those hand gestures i'm pulling the strings kristen of hulk hogan and little hulk hogan gross oh shit i forgot to mention something good god that november pretend i didn't do that big review yeah okay okay so that that november gawker and Hulk Hogan reached a $31 million settlement. And in the settlement, Gawker agreed not to appeal.

Wow. Yeah, so donezo. Donezo. Finished, okay. I'm glad that we both agreed at the same time. At the same time that it was donezo. Yes. Can't just say done.

No. Back to this mystery billionaire. here yes the puppet master um let's see um i mean this mystery yeah it's a real it's not because i'm disorganized it's because i'm building suspense master podcaster this secret billionaire was peter teal he's the co-founder of paypal he was an early investor Facebook and he admitted to it blue or green I can't see that's right folks bringing you that terrible comedy no charge you can use that in your daily life yep just enjoy it anyway so peter teal a super rich guy admitted to the new york times and i think it was around may that he had paid for a team of lawyers to go out and find victims of gawker

to see if he could pay for their lawsuits against them because he wanted to take them down wanted to bring them down yes he didn't get super exact about how much he gave for Hulk Hogan's legal defense, but he said it was around $10 million that he paid. Wow. And I can't remember the exact quote, but he basically said this was one of the greater philanthropic things I've ever done. So you may be wondering why did he do that what was his big beef with gawker get ready in 2007 gawker ran an article outing peter teal as gay wow huh yeah so he's this huge venture yeah list um in silicon valley and they outed him as gay that's a huge violation of his privacy yeah yeah now interestingly gawker people don't think that that's actually why he's mad at them the gawker people kind of feel like he was out of the closet. The real reason that he had this ax to grind with them was because they covered a failed project of his that lost a lot of money.

And they think that's why he was actually mad. He didn't like the negative coverage. Either way, I think it's shitty to out someone as gay. Absolutely. So I, you know. Maybe Gawker got what they had coming to him. Maybe. Maybe.

And it sounds like they pissed off the wrong guy. No kidding. No kidding. But at the same time, it's like that kind of scares me. If you piss off the people with money, then you're screwed. Because I am currently plotting my plan

to take down Noodles and Company, as I talked to you about last week. Please tell the people about your plan. Noodles and Company. I have an active boycott going on with Noodles and Company because they got rid of my favorite item, the spicy chicken Caesar wrap. Which, when you told me, I got really pissed because I used to love the spicy chicken Caesar wrap. really pissed because I used to love the spicy chicken Caesar wrap um so I guess I need to find somebody who something noodles and company did something horrible to and fund their campaign to take them down I wonder if we could build a movement to get it put back on the menu I mean

I tried to write on there I mean I did I did. I wrote on their Facebook page. You tried, but you just couldn't put the words together. I wrote a strongly worded message on their Facebook page. They offered me a free menu item off of their new world tour menu, and I declined. It was delicious. It was really good. It was so good. It was just the right amount of spice. God.

Okay. Sorry to take this amount of spice. Yes. God. Okay. Sorry to take this off of noodles and company. I could go on for days. Also, this is making me really hungry. Right. And we agreed to go out for chips and salad after this. And I'm like, let's wrap this up. A little bit about Peter Thiel.

First of all, he had this quote in the New York Times that I'm going to put in because I think it's kind of interesting. He said, I refuse to believe that journalism means massive privacy violations. I think much more highly of journalists than that. It's precisely because I respect journalists that I do not believe they are endangered by fighting back against Gawker. I think that's good. I thought it was a really good quote. Yeah. Because that's the other thing I struggle with is, you know, I... There is. There's a line. Like, this is what's appropriate. Yeah. And that you have... Left over. Left over. You know, I don't want there to be a chilling effect on journalism but at the same time i'm

thinking dude i was a two-bit reporter at a little paper i would have never you know you gotta have more respect for people than that absolutely of course i wasn't at a gossip site anyway so i do want to throw in a little bit about Peter Thiel. He, they, they talked about him a lot in this documentary. God, I'm nervous to say anything negative. Peter Thiel, we support you. We really enjoy you. But we're going to share some counterpoints. The counterpoint is so he

this is from an article in the Guardian. The opinions expressed here are not the opinions of the host. It's true. So from an article in the Guardian, they're writing about this book that Peter Thiel wrote.

He wrote that the definition of rape had been erroneously expanded to include seductions that are later regretted. He also suggested that the movement to combat rape on college campuses was motivated by animosity toward men. He's a big time donor to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. He's, I looked into his opinions on diversity, kind of, he's i looked into his opinions on diversity kind of definitely not my cup of tea um and he's also co-founded the seasteading institute which aims to create cities that float at sea beyond the reach of government water world is that's already been done it's called water world so kevin costner beat you to it part of me is so conflicted about this because

i don't like the idea of billionaires being able to step in and kind of mess with the justice system yeah and i don't know that it's really relevant that I think he's kind of a weirdo. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to reconcile that. Like, he's got these opinions and thoughts that maybe I don't agree with. But I do think that he has some things that he said that I do agree with. Yeah, I mean, I agree pretty much wholeheartedly with the Gawker quote. Yeah. I can see why being outed would make you think, you know what, now that I've got a ton of money, I'm going to take these people down. So I'm also including this quote from Floyd Abrams, who's a First Amendment attorney, and he was featured in the documentary. He said,

the reason to save Gawker is not because Gawker was worth saving the reason to save it is we don't pick and choose what sort of publications are permissible once we do it empowers the government to limit the speech in a way that would be impermissible man i know see i hear that and i'm like oh i take everything back gosh yeah because i totally could see that too yeah yeah yeah it's a slippery slope you start you know shutting this down and then what's next exactly and that's what makes me so nervous about this whole thing yeah and i also firmly believe that if they had appealed that decision it would have been reversed really i really do i really think so i think yeah i think another court would have found what all the other courts did which was

this falls this is newsworthy it's protected by the first amendment do i agree with that personally again i'm i'm grossed out by the idea of sharing someone's Again, I'm grossed out by the idea of sharing someone's sex tape. Yes. Without their permission. Yeah. Man. Okay, but what's the difference between posting a celebrity sex tape on a news site or posting your ex-girlfriend's sex tape on Facebook?

Yeah. Where do you draw the line there? Hold on, say that again to me. Okay, so like Hulk Hogan's sex tape is leaked and posted on Gawker. And that's ruled okay because it's newsworthy. And then some guy breaks up with his girlfriend, or his girlfriend breaks up with him, and he's pissed. And so he posts her sex,

the sex tape that they made together all over social media. I think the argument could be made that she is not a public person. Okay. She didn't voluntarily thrust herself into the limelight. What if her, she is a celebrity and yeah, then I same situation though she has a jilted ex who posts their sex tape everywhere after they break up is it then newsworthy and okay no i see i don't think it's ever okay right

i mean i know that's just a problem i don't know although let me give an exception. Okay. Because I've been, I've been thinking a lot about like, when would I find it permissible? Yeah. And I don't think there would ever be a situation where I would think, yeah, you should post video. But let's say someone like Mike Pence, who has been, you know, he's put out anti-gay policies. He's very firmly anti-gay. Let's say he had a gay sex tape. Okay, that to me is newsworthy because then all of a sudden, whoa, we're learning a whole hell of a lot more about this guy who's made all these policies. This changes things. I don't think you need to see a video. Right.

So I don't think you'd have to put it out there in a graphic way. Right. You could just write about it and maybe show a still image with stuff blurred. Yeah. I'm getting oddly specific. But do you see what I mean? What I, okay, answer me this. What would be blurred, Kristen?

His steely, beady eyes. Just full penis on display, but his eyes are blurred. We don't want to see those things. on display but his eyes are we don't want to see those things but do you like do you see what i mean like i i couldn't feel like that would be like if i if i came out and was like tall women are awful they're all going to hell they're they're devious you could at least see me as a tall person be like oh honey you're just self-hating yeah there's more that's a rough one in conclusion i don't know how to feel about either one of these cases today no there are so many questions on both of these cases yeah yeah this is the episode that brings

no conclusion i'm so glad that you had no conclusion on your it's been bugging the shit out of me that i don't know how to talk and i feel like an idiot because i'm thinking if hulk hogan's lawyer came in here and a gawker lawyer came in here yeah if one of them talked i'd be like that guy knows what he's talking about if the other one talked i'd be like i'm with her yeah just totally depending on who spoke left absolutely man man these were good ones we're great at we're amazing um you know what's really gross about us so i've been learning how to trying to learn how to edit audio. Turns out, I do this fucking disgusting thing before I ever, I make a point, which is like, I'm always making little points here. Yeah. Apparently, I do this.

And you can see, I've got four drinks here. I'm not parched. We're not in a fucking desert but i make that little and i think i like no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no here's what you do because i've been listening yeah you when you're reading something it's a wonder i'm able to breathe it out so that's um how did we even get on this that's just the gross thing that we did oh because we were things we do we were feeling really great really great about ourselves and how good our episode was that's right we're gross we're hilarious we're experts

join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I usually copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. I got my info from the documentary Nobody Speak, as well as articles from the New York Times and Politico. And this week, I literally watched the 48 Hours episode The Doctor's Daughter like 10

times and just retold it to you. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff. And in this case, watch that episode 48 hours.