Kemo
03-17-2016, 03:03 PM
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On Monday and Tuesday, Gawker’s prospects in the jury trial of Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea’s civil suit against them did not look great. Co-defendant A.J. Daulerio was the first witness to clarify the controversy about his deposition. When he first testified years ago, likely thinking the video would never see the light of day and the case would go away, he was flippant and sarcastic. When asked under what circumstances a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy, he said if the subject was a child. When asked for an age range, angry having felt he already answered the question, he sarcastically replied “Four.” That blew up last week, with Fox News analysts and HLN’s Dr. Drew Pinsky saving some choice words for him. He did his best to undo the damage, but on cross examination, Hogan’s attorneys drew the attitude back out of him, and he didn’t come off well.
Gawker founder/publisher Nick Denton, who’s also named as a co-defendant of his company and Daulerio, came off much better than his former employee for the most part. Still, Hogan’s lawyer getting him to read the most graphic sections of Daulerio’s article out loud seemingly did additional damage, especially after Denton had talked about the whole thing humanizing Hogan. Other Gawker employees, like Mia Libby (head of ad sales) and Emma Carmichael (former Gawker.com managing editor turned editor in chief of Jezebel, their women’s issues blog) and acquitted themselves well and held up under cross examination. To be fair, so did Denton; Hogan’s lawyers just knew how to make him come off badly if he kept his cool.
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But if one moment signified how little it seemed as if the jury (and to an extent, the judge) was thinking of Gawker, it was a juror question that Carmichael got. In Florida, as well as two other states, jurors can submit questions for witnesses in civil trials, which are then read by the judge. Judge Pamela Campbell had no problem allowing and reading out a juror question asking Carmichael if she’d ever had an intimate relationship with Daulerio or Denton. Not only was the answer no, but Denton is openly gay and his husband accompanied him in the courtroom that day. The question, which was roundly criticized online, seemingly came about because of the Hogan team characterizing Carmichael as young and inexperienced. So the juror drew the inference that she slept her way to the top, because in his or her eyes, Gawker was that kind of company.
But today? Things are looking up for Gawker.
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Their expert and in-house witnesses both gave more compelling arguments about the actual financial gain of Gawker from the Hulk Hogan sex tape article than Hogan’s experts did. Depositions from both Hogan’s public relations representative and one who worked for TNA showed he went against their advice when he commented extensively about the sex tape during an already planned media tour that coincided with Gawker’s post. Then, today, instead of her testifying, we got to hear, if not all, then an extended portion of the 2015 deposition of Heather Cole (the woman on the video with Hogan), which ran about an hour and a half. It was, to put it lightly, incredibly uncomfortable to watch/listen to. She framed both Hogan and her ex-husband, Bubba the Love Sponge Clem (formerly Todd Clem) as publicity-hungry to an extreme degree. Perhaps more telling was that she referred to Bubba as “intimidating” and came off as if it was incredibly traumatizing for her to have to talk about what happened.
That said…it looks like she lied under oath, though it doesn’t look like Gawker will be able to bring that up in front of the jury. In her deposition, Cole testified that she had no idea that she was being filmed, and that there were three or four encounters with Terry Bollea/Hulk Hogan, all in separate locations. There are three videos (the one Gawker, was sent, the one with the racist comments, and one more), all shot in the Clem bedroom, but yes, it’s possible her memory was off there for whatever reason and there were more encounters than she remembered. That said, when questioned by Tampa police a few months later, she said she knew she was on camera and even guided Hogan towards the camera upon Bubba’s request because he could be “controlling.” One of those statements about her knowledge of the camera is definitely not true, the question is just which.
It should be noted, though, that with regards to Hogan’s knowledge of the camera, her statement that he didn’t know about it was consistent with what he told police. So while this was compelling and felt like an overall win for Gawker, there it wasn’t all great for them.
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In the grand scheme of things, the biggest news of the day might actually be what came right before the Cole deposition was played. Hogan, his lawyers, and Judge Pamela Campbell all returned from lunch looking downtrodden. It turned out that minutes earlier, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeals reversed some of Campbell’s earlier rulings. The end result is that the appellate judge has authorized the release of a large swath (believed to be in the 2,000 page rang) of motions, exhibits, and so on that Hogan wanted sealed. Thanks to intervention from the Tampa Bay Times and others, as soon as Thursday (3/17) morning, we may get a huge document dump that likely includes a large portion of the FBI file relating to the case that Hogan wants kept under wraps. His legal team filed an emergency motion to bar the release late today, but one would think that will be resolved in the morning anyway. It’s not clear if Hogan is fighting this on general principle, there’s something new and damning in there, or he’s worried about the audio of his racist comments getting out, since that would be worse than just the transcript.
According to the Tampa Bay Times’ own story on the matter:
Their motion made it clear that “None of the sealed records contains DVDs depicting Bollea having sex.”
What’s at issue consists of “approximately two dozen judicial records, including hearing transcripts, motions, and materials […] related to both procedural and substantive issues.“
Tomorrow may be the last day of the trial proper, with journalists being told that we may hear closing arguments. The Gawker edit of one of the sex tapes has not yet been screened in court, though they had gotten permission to do so. If Gawker plays it, it will not be visible to anyone other than the two sides, their lawyers, and the jury.
On Monday and Tuesday, Gawker’s prospects in the jury trial of Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea’s civil suit against them did not look great. Co-defendant A.J. Daulerio was the first witness to clarify the controversy about his deposition. When he first testified years ago, likely thinking the video would never see the light of day and the case would go away, he was flippant and sarcastic. When asked under what circumstances a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy, he said if the subject was a child. When asked for an age range, angry having felt he already answered the question, he sarcastically replied “Four.” That blew up last week, with Fox News analysts and HLN’s Dr. Drew Pinsky saving some choice words for him. He did his best to undo the damage, but on cross examination, Hogan’s attorneys drew the attitude back out of him, and he didn’t come off well.
Gawker founder/publisher Nick Denton, who’s also named as a co-defendant of his company and Daulerio, came off much better than his former employee for the most part. Still, Hogan’s lawyer getting him to read the most graphic sections of Daulerio’s article out loud seemingly did additional damage, especially after Denton had talked about the whole thing humanizing Hogan. Other Gawker employees, like Mia Libby (head of ad sales) and Emma Carmichael (former Gawker.com managing editor turned editor in chief of Jezebel, their women’s issues blog) and acquitted themselves well and held up under cross examination. To be fair, so did Denton; Hogan’s lawyers just knew how to make him come off badly if he kept his cool.
S3wb23i7Gkg
But if one moment signified how little it seemed as if the jury (and to an extent, the judge) was thinking of Gawker, it was a juror question that Carmichael got. In Florida, as well as two other states, jurors can submit questions for witnesses in civil trials, which are then read by the judge. Judge Pamela Campbell had no problem allowing and reading out a juror question asking Carmichael if she’d ever had an intimate relationship with Daulerio or Denton. Not only was the answer no, but Denton is openly gay and his husband accompanied him in the courtroom that day. The question, which was roundly criticized online, seemingly came about because of the Hogan team characterizing Carmichael as young and inexperienced. So the juror drew the inference that she slept her way to the top, because in his or her eyes, Gawker was that kind of company.
But today? Things are looking up for Gawker.
GpRChRUSdiA
Their expert and in-house witnesses both gave more compelling arguments about the actual financial gain of Gawker from the Hulk Hogan sex tape article than Hogan’s experts did. Depositions from both Hogan’s public relations representative and one who worked for TNA showed he went against their advice when he commented extensively about the sex tape during an already planned media tour that coincided with Gawker’s post. Then, today, instead of her testifying, we got to hear, if not all, then an extended portion of the 2015 deposition of Heather Cole (the woman on the video with Hogan), which ran about an hour and a half. It was, to put it lightly, incredibly uncomfortable to watch/listen to. She framed both Hogan and her ex-husband, Bubba the Love Sponge Clem (formerly Todd Clem) as publicity-hungry to an extreme degree. Perhaps more telling was that she referred to Bubba as “intimidating” and came off as if it was incredibly traumatizing for her to have to talk about what happened.
That said…it looks like she lied under oath, though it doesn’t look like Gawker will be able to bring that up in front of the jury. In her deposition, Cole testified that she had no idea that she was being filmed, and that there were three or four encounters with Terry Bollea/Hulk Hogan, all in separate locations. There are three videos (the one Gawker, was sent, the one with the racist comments, and one more), all shot in the Clem bedroom, but yes, it’s possible her memory was off there for whatever reason and there were more encounters than she remembered. That said, when questioned by Tampa police a few months later, she said she knew she was on camera and even guided Hogan towards the camera upon Bubba’s request because he could be “controlling.” One of those statements about her knowledge of the camera is definitely not true, the question is just which.
It should be noted, though, that with regards to Hogan’s knowledge of the camera, her statement that he didn’t know about it was consistent with what he told police. So while this was compelling and felt like an overall win for Gawker, there it wasn’t all great for them.
PqqS5ywwz1A
In the grand scheme of things, the biggest news of the day might actually be what came right before the Cole deposition was played. Hogan, his lawyers, and Judge Pamela Campbell all returned from lunch looking downtrodden. It turned out that minutes earlier, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeals reversed some of Campbell’s earlier rulings. The end result is that the appellate judge has authorized the release of a large swath (believed to be in the 2,000 page rang) of motions, exhibits, and so on that Hogan wanted sealed. Thanks to intervention from the Tampa Bay Times and others, as soon as Thursday (3/17) morning, we may get a huge document dump that likely includes a large portion of the FBI file relating to the case that Hogan wants kept under wraps. His legal team filed an emergency motion to bar the release late today, but one would think that will be resolved in the morning anyway. It’s not clear if Hogan is fighting this on general principle, there’s something new and damning in there, or he’s worried about the audio of his racist comments getting out, since that would be worse than just the transcript.
According to the Tampa Bay Times’ own story on the matter:
Their motion made it clear that “None of the sealed records contains DVDs depicting Bollea having sex.”
What’s at issue consists of “approximately two dozen judicial records, including hearing transcripts, motions, and materials […] related to both procedural and substantive issues.“
Tomorrow may be the last day of the trial proper, with journalists being told that we may hear closing arguments. The Gawker edit of one of the sex tapes has not yet been screened in court, though they had gotten permission to do so. If Gawker plays it, it will not be visible to anyone other than the two sides, their lawyers, and the jury.