Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Tyler Robinson Files Post-Preliminary Hearing Status Report on Discovery (Part 1) (8/30/26)

Transcript

Tyler Robinson Files Post-Preliminary Hearing Status Report on Discovery (Part 1) (8/30/26) · The Epstein Chronicles

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  Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome back to the program. In
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  Speaker 1: this episode, we have a new filing from Tyler Robinson
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  Speaker 1: that has to do with Discovery and the amount of
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  Speaker 1: information that the state has already handed over is massive.
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  Speaker 1: So let's just dive right into the document and see
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  Speaker 1: what's what. State of Utah Plaintiff vs. Tyler James Robinson
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  Speaker 1: Defendant Defendant Tyler James Robinson's Post-Preliminary Hearing Status Report Concerning
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  Speaker 1: Discovery Case number 251403576. Introduction. Over the recent months, the
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  Speaker 1: court has inquired of the state at each hearing in
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  Speaker 1: this matter concerning the status of discovery. The state typically
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  Speaker 1: informs the court that it has passed on to Mr.
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  Speaker 1: Robinson's defense team all or a vast majority of the
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  Speaker 1: discovery that it has received from the Utah State Bureau
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  Speaker 1: of Investigation. The purpose of this post-prelim hearing status report
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  Speaker 1: concerning discovery is to provide the court, with a more comprehensive,
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  Speaker 1: and nuanced understanding, of the scale of discovery, in this matter.
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  Speaker 1: The work that must be done, by members of the
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  Speaker 1: defense team, to convert raw discovery productions, into material, that
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  Speaker 1: can be meaningfully, and efficiently reviewed, by counsel, and other
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  Speaker 1: members of the defense team, and the current status of
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  Speaker 1: that work. For purposes of this status report, the discovery,
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  Speaker 1: that has actually been produced to date, by the state
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  Speaker 1: is divided, into three categories, although, As the court will
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  Speaker 1: see below, there is an overlap between them. The first category,
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  Speaker 1: which is designated here, is Documentary, Forensic, and Miscellaneous Digital Evidence.
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  Speaker 1: Includes inter alia, law enforcement reports, laboratory reports, and related
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  Speaker 1: forensic material, law enforcement body camera recordings, handwritten notes, audio
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  Speaker 1: and video recording of investigation, and of interviews with witnesses,
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  Speaker 1: crime scene diagrams, and other diagrams. surveillance video from public
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  Speaker 1: and private entities and persons, background and investigation reports, scene photographs,
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  Speaker 1: photographs of the execution of searches, search warrant applications, affidavits,
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  Speaker 1: and non-digital returns, evidence logs, photographs of seized evidence, medical reports,
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  Speaker 1: and other miscellaneous documents and digital files. The second category
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  Speaker 1: which is designated here, as digital evidence requiring specialized processing
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  Speaker 1: and analysis, includes copies more properly designated as images of
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  Speaker 1: the entire contents of the seized devices such as telephones, tablets, computers,
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  Speaker 1: external hard drives, and other memory devices, native files of
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  Speaker 1: stored communication, and other data obtained via search warrants from
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  Speaker 1: cellular and telephone companies, cellular tower owners, and social media companies.
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  Speaker 1: The third category, which is designated as forensic discovery addresses
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  Speaker 1: data and materials requested from the state that it has
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  Speaker 1: not yet provided and which the FBI and ATF may
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  Speaker 1: not produce absent in order of this court directing them
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  Speaker 1: to do so. While there is nothing in the Utah
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  Speaker 1: Rules of Evidence that distinguishes between the three categories of
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  Speaker 1: discovery denominated above, it is, in counsel's view, a useful
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  Speaker 1: conceptual way for counsel and the court to understand the
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  Speaker 1: scope and complexity of the evidence in the case. 1. Documentary, forensic,
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  Speaker 1: and miscellaneous digital evidence. On March 27th, 2026, Mr. Robinson
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  Speaker 1: filed a motion to vacate or continue the preliminary hearing.
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  Speaker 1: Docket 466 attached to that filing, as addendum 1, was
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  Speaker 1: a declaration of Richard G. Novak with exhibits outlining the
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  Speaker 1: status of discovery at that point in time, noting that
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  Speaker 1: as of March 18th, 2026, the defense had received 25
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  Speaker 1: discovery productions from the state via the Axon platform, consisting
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  Speaker 1: of 19,612 files. See Docket 466, Addendum 1, Example B.
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  Speaker 1: Since March 18, 2026, the state has continued to produce
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  Speaker 1: new batches of discovery on a regular basis, consisting of
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  Speaker 1: an additional 9,625 files, with the most recent production being
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  Speaker 1: August 18th, for a total of 29,237 files, received over
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  Speaker 1: 45 separate productions to date. See Exhibit A attached here too.
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  Speaker 1: In order to disseminate discovery to counsel and other members
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  Speaker 1: of the defense team in a timely manner, and to
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  Speaker 1: support meaningful and efficient review of the content, the defense
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  Speaker 1: paralegal follows a three-step protocol for organizing the disclosure, which
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  Speaker 1: includes 1. downloading the production via Axon and confirming completeness,
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  Speaker 1: initial organization per UCAO categorization and logging of discovery production
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  Speaker 1: in order to make it available for prelim review by
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  Speaker 1: council and the defense team. Two, top-level processing, which includes
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  Speaker 1: OCR checking, searchability of files, editing file names with descriptive information,
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  Speaker 1: including assigned Bates number, splitting, combining files where necessary, identifying duplicates,
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  Speaker 1: bait stamping, and indexing files with basic coding to include baits,
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  Speaker 1: UCAO category date, brief description, and file type. And three,
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  Speaker 1: conducting a thorough review of each file to add more
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  Speaker 1: detailed coding, including authors, witnesses, organizations, evidence items, other relevant content,
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  Speaker 1: as well as a brief summary of the file, and
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  Speaker 1: to further identify duplicates and missing files. As of August 26, 2026,
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  Speaker 1: step one, has been completed on 100% of the disclosure
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  Speaker 1: received to date. Step 2 has been completed on approximately
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  Speaker 1: 23% of the disclosures, 6,643 files. Step 3 has been
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  Speaker 1: completed on approximately 20% of the disclosures, 5,759 files. While
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  Speaker 1: the defense has been diligently working its way through the disclosures,
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  Speaker 1: it's an inherently time-consuming process that is, in this instance,
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  Speaker 1: further complicated and slowed by a number of factors, including
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  Speaker 1: the way in which much of the discovery is produced
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  Speaker 1: by SBI, some of the limitations of the Axon platform
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  Speaker 1: by which it's shared, and the sheer volume of law
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  Speaker 1: enforcement agencies involved in the investigation. Use of Axon as
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  Speaker 1: a discovery review platform is not a tenable option for
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  Speaker 1: the defense. Therefore, it's necessary to download each discovery production
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  Speaker 1: from Axon and preliminarily organize it in a manner that
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  Speaker 1: is quickly accessible to the defense team. This is a
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  Speaker 1: time-consuming multi-step process. Productions download through multiple compressed zip files
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  Speaker 1: that need to be unzipped. Depending upon the size and
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  Speaker 1: file types, this step alone can take several hours to
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  Speaker 1: complete for a single production. The task is complicated when
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  Speaker 1: there are duplicate file names for distinctively different files, which
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  Speaker 1: is the case for thousands of files produced to date,
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  Speaker 1: mostly image and video files. Because none of the original
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  Speaker 1: file names include the Bates number, when there are duplicate
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  Speaker 1: file names, within the same production, additional care must be
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  Speaker 1: taken to ensure that each file is being associated to
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  Speaker 1: the correct corresponding Bates number once it has been downloaded. Additionally,
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  Speaker 1: although UCAO categorizes the discovery in Axon, by assigning the
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  Speaker 1: files to various folders, Axon only displays the immediate folder
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  Speaker 1: in which a file is assigned. If the file is
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  Speaker 1: in a subfolder, the Axon table only displays the subfolder
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  Speaker 1: and there is no way to determine the parent folder
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  Speaker 1: or full path without making educated guesses and opening individual
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  Speaker 1: folders to attempt to locate the file. While this doesn't
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  Speaker 1: affect being able to access and download the file within
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  Speaker 1: the dated production folder, it does affect being able to
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  Speaker 1: ascertain UC AO's categorization of the file. Another circumstance often
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  Speaker 1: slowing the process is that the format of many of
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  Speaker 1: the files provided do not allow for straightforward OCR processing
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  Speaker 1: to make the text searchable. Our paralegal has found this
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  Speaker 1: to be the case in almost every production that has
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  Speaker 1: contained a significant number of PDF documents. This means that
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  Speaker 1: although our paralegal batch runs the productions for text recognition,
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  Speaker 1: every file must be checked individually to ensure that it's searchable.
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  Speaker 1: Files that do not properly OCR must be individually reformatted
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  Speaker 1: by the paralegal to accept the OCR. Related to the
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  Speaker 1: importance of every file being text scheduled are the numerous
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  Speaker 1: handwritten witness statements and law enforcement officer investigative notes. These
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  Speaker 1: must also be handled individually to ensure the contents will
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  Speaker 1: be recognized in a searchable keyword database. The way in
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  Speaker 1: which SBI provides the material to UCAO also slows the
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  Speaker 1: review process. Many of the files provided by SBI do
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  Speaker 1: not contain any identifying information as to what the file is,
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  Speaker 1: who or what it might relate to, and how or
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  Speaker 1: when the file was obtained or by whom. And many
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  Speaker 1: documents reference attachments or corresponding files that are not actually
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  Speaker 1: provided in the same production as the parent file, i.e.
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  Speaker 1: emails or law enforcement reports with attachments. Although the categorization
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  Speaker 1: done by the UCAO team can be very helpful in
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  Speaker 1: answering some of these questions for portions of the material,
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  Speaker 1: many questions remain, requiring the defense to conduct additional time-consuming
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  Speaker 1: but necessary review process in order to a. attempt to
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  Speaker 1: further identify the material by cross-referencing other items in discovery
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  Speaker 1: and or b. prepare a comprehensive discovery request for items
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  Speaker 1: confirmed to be missing or for supplementary information as to
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  Speaker 1: the files unable to be identified. The above examples are
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  Speaker 1: not intended to be criticisms directed at UCAO, SBI, or Axon,
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  Speaker 1: as every discovery organization project comes with its own challenges,
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  Speaker 1: but are instead meant to explain to the court the
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  Speaker 1: challenges specific to this case and how they affect the
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  Speaker 1: pace at which the discovery process is progressing. Right folks,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to wrap up right there, and in the
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  Speaker 1: next episode, we're going to pick up where we left off.
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  Speaker 1: All the information that goes with this episode can be
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  Speaker 1: found in the description box.