Transcript

Oh, You! · Serious Trouble

0:09
SPEAKER_00: Hi, it's Ken White.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: And it's Josh Barrow, and this is Serious Trouble.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Ken, you know, George Santos' good luck has finally run out.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: It seemed like he could do no wrong.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Everything, you know, sort of like broke his way, this little scamp around with his fun little lies.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: It seemed like he was living exactly the life that George Santos wanted to live until this past week.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's run into a few little bumps in the road, Josh.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Little bumps.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: Little bumps.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: He had a difficult day earlier this week.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: It was one difficult day, right?
0:41
SPEAKER_00: The two difficult things both happened on the same day.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: And the first and biggest of them was that in that federal criminal prosecution in
0:49
SPEAKER_01: the Eastern District of New York,
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I guess the little bumps he had been federally indicted and expelled from the U.S.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Congress even before the federal indictment.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, the indictment came down.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: They expelled him while it was pending.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: He lost his job.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Poor guy.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I mean, he saw those, I claim, as opportunities as opposed to bumps.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: He was using them as marketing opportunities,
1:11
SPEAKER_01: opportunities to further define himself,
1:13
SPEAKER_01: to be the George Santos he wanted to be.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: And part of being that George Santos was proclaiming loudly that he would never
1:19
SPEAKER_01: take a plea,
1:20
SPEAKER_01: that he was going to fight this,
1:21
SPEAKER_01: that he was going to overcome these government allegations without much specificity
1:27
SPEAKER_01: as to why.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: That stopped earlier this week when he entered a guilty plea in federal court to
1:33
SPEAKER_01: two of the claims against him for identity theft,
1:37
SPEAKER_01: actually aggravated identity theft and wire fraud.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: And so people can remember,
1:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:42
SPEAKER_00: George Santos lied about a lot of things like being Jewish,
1:45
SPEAKER_00: said he was never a drag queen,
1:47
SPEAKER_00: these various things.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: But then he told some lies that like are of interest to federal prosecutors.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:51
SPEAKER_00: and most notably,
1:53
SPEAKER_00: one of the ways that he funded his campaign was that he would steal people's credit
1:56
SPEAKER_00: card numbers.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: and run contributions involuntarily you gave to the George Santos Committee,
2:01
SPEAKER_00: whether you intended to or not.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: In one case,
2:03
SPEAKER_00: the relative of another Republican member of Congress who was particularly
2:07
SPEAKER_00: aggrieved during this process when they decided whether to expel him from the U.S.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Congress.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: He also made false representations about his campaign fundraising that may have
2:15
SPEAKER_00: helped him get money from other people.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: He went to at least one large donor and was like,
2:19
SPEAKER_00: here,
2:19
SPEAKER_00: write this big check to a committee that will help me get elected.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: And instead, it was a check that just went into a
2:28
SPEAKER_00: on personal expenses, including designer clothes.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Which,
2:31
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:32
SPEAKER_00: well,
2:32
SPEAKER_00: George Santos was always so well dressed that it's understandable that he needed
2:36
SPEAKER_00: extra sources of funding to get all of that very fine clothing he was wearing.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: So he's pleading guilty.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: And I guess he may go to prison for up to 22 years.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: You're trolling me, Josh, and I'm not going to fall for it.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: So it's a two year mandatory minimum.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: The identity theft statute is one of those occasional federal statutes, non-drug
2:56
SPEAKER_01: That has a mandatory minimum.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: So he's going to spend at least two years.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: The maximum is 22, but there's no chance it's going to be anywhere near that.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: The prosecutors were estimating six to eight.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: So that's plausible.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: So he's going to spend some time in federal prison.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: What he pled to,
3:14
SPEAKER_01: like the first superseding indictment,
3:17
SPEAKER_01: this is kind of like the government just going on describing things he did until
3:20
SPEAKER_01: they get tired or run out of paper.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: As is common in this sort of situation,
3:27
SPEAKER_01: even though he only pled to one kind of wire fraud and one of identity theft,
3:32
SPEAKER_01: they made him admit basically to the entire array of schemes.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: So those included fraudulently charging donors on credit cards when they hadn't agreed to it,
3:42
SPEAKER_01: Lying to donors that the funds would be used for his 2022 campaign when they were
3:46
SPEAKER_01: being used for personal expenses.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: Using false claims about who had donated to get donations from other people.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: Getting unemployment insurance fraudulently,
3:58
SPEAKER_01: which was federal because it was backed by federal COVID money.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: lying to the House of Representatives, overstating his income and assets.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: So it's a lot of stuff.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Right.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: And so he'll be sentenced in February.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: That's not an atypical delay.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: And so you say, you know, six to eight years is plausible.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: I assume that's based on a sentencing guideline calculation is where the
4:18
SPEAKER_00: prosecutors come up with six to eight years.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: And that's usually largely driven by the amount of loss, the amount of money that was defrauded.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: And so one thing that we've often discussed in these sorts of white collar cases is
4:30
SPEAKER_00: that the guideline is supposed to generally show where the sentence typically ends up.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, you can go above or below the guideline, but that's supposed to be typical.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: But in these sorts of cases,
4:39
SPEAKER_00: it seems like the usual theme is that it's actually typical to end up below the guideline.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Would you say that that's the case here that you think it'll probably be less than six to eight?
4:46
SPEAKER_01: So the trend in white-collar cases is for it to be below the guideline because very
4:51
SPEAKER_01: often these are people with no prior criminal history.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: And sort of the sensibilities of federal judges are adjusted such that they think
4:59
SPEAKER_01: the violent and drug crime they see is worse and that the white-collar crime they
5:04
SPEAKER_01: see is not as bad.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: That said, this is a pretty –
5:08
SPEAKER_01: breathtaking array of criminality.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: And there's no United States sentencing guideline downward adjustment for, you know, oh, you.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing like that for him being, you know, a charmer.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: It will typically be less than the guidelines.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure for George Santos it's going to be a lot less because he seems like
5:31
SPEAKER_01: someone who's kind of skated for too long and sooner or later someone's going to
5:34
SPEAKER_01: drop the hammer.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: I was struck.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: He gave this statement outside the courthouse after entering his plea that was sort of pitch perfect.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: That was like,
5:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:42
SPEAKER_00: like I betrayed the trust of my constituents and I failed to live up to the
5:47
SPEAKER_00: standards that I espoused.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And I hope to get people's trust back,
5:50
SPEAKER_00: but I'm not asking for forgiveness because I know forgiveness has to be earned.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: It's,
5:54
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:55
SPEAKER_00: we've seen a lot of defendants go out and say things that like were clearly not to
5:59
SPEAKER_00: their best interest heading into sentencing.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: And it seemed like George Santos,
6:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm not ready to give him the Senate Twink Memorial Award for belatedly good judgment.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: He's going to have to do more before he can get that.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: But it seemed like he was actually like listening to counsel and saying the things
6:12
SPEAKER_00: that one is supposed to say at this stage.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: And,
6:15
SPEAKER_00: you know,
6:15
SPEAKER_00: I assume he'll have to speak again at the sentencing in February and there'll be
6:18
SPEAKER_00: filings before that.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: But he did seem to be, you know, trying to at least project
6:23
SPEAKER_00: a certain degree of apology.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: which is more than one might have seen from certain other people in similar positions.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: Clearly, some attorney has gotten control over him and convinced him to listen.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: That's reflected in the plea.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: It's also reflected in that, as you said, quite good statement of contrition.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: It's clear that did not come from anywhere within George Santos, given his history.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: So that will go well for him.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: That type of statement will serve him well at sentencing if the lawyer can continue sitting on him and
6:55
SPEAKER_01: stopping him from doing and saying other stupid things.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: No doubt George Santos is looking ahead to what comes next.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: And,
7:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:03
SPEAKER_01: it is now common to have these sort of post-sentence second acts that involve
7:11
SPEAKER_01: podcasts and TV appearances and sort of reinvented lives.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: So I think he is likely looking forward to some sort of reality TV slash podcaster
7:22
SPEAKER_01: slash YouTube personality future.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, that makes the stakes for him about the sentence even higher than they otherwise would be.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, fewer years in prison is, in its own right, a very good thing to achieve.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: But,
7:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:33
SPEAKER_00: if George Santos goes away for,
7:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:36
SPEAKER_00: if he gets sentenced to three and a half years and then,
7:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:38
SPEAKER_00: presumably that means he serves,
7:39
SPEAKER_00: what,
7:40
SPEAKER_00: like a little bit shy of three or something?
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: That's a very long time to be out of the public eye in terms of leveraging your brand.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: But if it's seven years, it's hopeless.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: And despite various reforms and the First Step Act that Trump signed and other
7:57
SPEAKER_01: efforts to make federal prisons more livable,
8:00
SPEAKER_01: their podcast facilities remain substandard,
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Josh.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not sure that he would be able really to reach his audience the way he wants
8:07
SPEAKER_01: to from federal prison.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Although, Ken, you would not believe the audio quality that you hear on some successful podcasts.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Like I had to listen to the Red Scare podcast the other day,
8:16
SPEAKER_00: which it's actually like similar in size to this podcast in terms of audience.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And it sounded like it was recorded in a prison.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, maybe maybe he actually can make a successful podcast from within prison.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
8:27
SPEAKER_00: if,
8:27
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:27
SPEAKER_00: if Michael Avenatti can phone into MSNBC,
8:30
SPEAKER_00: can't you phone in a podcast from prison?
8:32
SPEAKER_01: You can,
8:33
SPEAKER_01: but Josh,
8:34
SPEAKER_01: the methods used to bring recording equipment into jail for you are not conducive
8:39
SPEAKER_01: to audio quality.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: And I, yeah, I wouldn't count on it.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: So basically,
8:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:47
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
8:47
SPEAKER_00: he'll have an eye toward,
8:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:48
SPEAKER_00: will people,
8:49
SPEAKER_00: will I be in prison so long that no one will remember me?
8:53
SPEAKER_00: What a ridiculous person I was by the time I got out.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, exactly.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: You see people like Rod Blavoyage trying to, you know, relaunch themselves.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: And it's been so, so long that they struggle.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: They're, you know, they're MC Hammer, a blast in the past.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: So it's tough.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: But you know what, Josh?
9:11
SPEAKER_01: That wasn't even the end of our friend George Santos' bad day.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: It was not.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: So in another courthouse in New York,
9:19
SPEAKER_00: actually in New York City,
9:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
9:20
SPEAKER_00: he doesn't even get to stand criminal trial.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess he doesn't stand trial at all.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: But these proceedings have been happening out on Long Island.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: But then there's a copyright infringement suit that he brought against the Walt
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Disney Company and Jimmy Kimmel.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: That was being heard in court in New York City.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: And that case has been dismissed.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: George Santos has lost his claim that those cameo videos that Jimmy Kimmel ordered
9:40
SPEAKER_00: under false pretenses saying,
9:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
9:42
SPEAKER_00: will you make a video for my furry friend who's a beaver puss and say yiff,
9:47
SPEAKER_00: yiff,
9:47
SPEAKER_00: yiff for him,
9:49
SPEAKER_00: which George Santos did.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And they broadcast this on national television.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: And George Santos sued saying,
9:53
SPEAKER_00: hey,
9:54
SPEAKER_00: we had a contractual agreement through cameo and you had a personal use license and
9:57
SPEAKER_00: it didn't allow you to broadcast this on television.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm owed damages.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: This got before a federal judge who said, no, George Santos isn't entitled to anything.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: So what we discussed when this case first came up was whether or not Jimmy Kimmel
10:11
SPEAKER_01: commissioning these cameo videos and then running them on the air to ridicule
10:15
SPEAKER_01: George Santos,
10:16
SPEAKER_01: whether that fell under the fair use doctrine,
10:19
SPEAKER_01: which is a defense to copyright infringement when you're using the work.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: to criticize, satirize news coverage, that type of thing.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: It is difficult to win a fair use argument at the motion to dismiss stage because
10:34
SPEAKER_01: there's usually disputed facts that aren't suitable for resolution.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: This time the judge just said,
10:39
SPEAKER_01: though,
10:40
SPEAKER_01: it was so clear on the face of the complaint based on what Santos himself claimed
10:46
SPEAKER_01: that it was,
10:46
SPEAKER_01: uh,
10:47
SPEAKER_01: subject to dismissal.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: So the fair use factors,
10:50
SPEAKER_01: and Josh,
10:51
SPEAKER_01: you know how excited I am when I get to describe a multi-factor test to our audience.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: Justice Kennedy, watch me now.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: The fair use factors are the purpose and character of the use.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: What are you using it for?
11:05
SPEAKER_01: Satire, news coverage, whatever.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: The nature of the original work,
11:08
SPEAKER_01: what type of work is it,
11:10
SPEAKER_01: the amount you used,
11:12
SPEAKER_01: and the effect on the market.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: And the judge basically says that the nature of the use predominates,
11:17
SPEAKER_01: that it's clearly being used in a transformative way because it's being used
11:21
SPEAKER_01: entirely to ridicule Santos and to comment on the fact that a former member of
11:26
SPEAKER_01: Congress has now stooped
11:29
SPEAKER_01: to making these cameos, calling out to furries.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: So he dismisses it on that basis.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: He says the contract claim in there is preempted by copyright law and that Santos
11:42
SPEAKER_01: hasn't articulated any damages that would support fraud.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: I think that this is a little vulnerable on appeal simply because it's very difficult,
11:51
SPEAKER_01: again,
11:51
SPEAKER_01: to get a fair use victory at the motion to dismiss stage.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: And Santos has said that he's going to appeal,
11:58
SPEAKER_01: but you question how much money he really wants to throw at that because it's
12:04
SPEAKER_01: always been more of a public relations thing about his brand and less about
12:08
SPEAKER_01: actually winning.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: winning anything.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, he did, in fact, suffer reversals in both a criminal case and a civil case on the same day.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: This was not the analysis.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, I'm not an attorney at all.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a copyright attorney.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: I was surprised by the analysis that the judge had here and finding that it was so clearly a fair use.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess one reason is, you know, one of the prongs of the test is the amount of the work used.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And they used 100 percent of the work.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, they had to make these fairly brief cameo videos and they aired them in their entirety.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: And then the idea that it's a transformative use,
12:41
SPEAKER_00: I guess the way I think of what transformative means,
12:44
SPEAKER_00: I guess,
12:44
SPEAKER_00: must be different than what it means as a term of art in the law,
12:47
SPEAKER_00: because it seems to me like,
12:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:49
SPEAKER_00: these cameo videos,
12:49
SPEAKER_00: they're funny because George Santos is sending this absurd message.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: That's what the work is.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: The cameo is George Santos wishes your furry,
12:58
SPEAKER_00: beaver-puss friend a happy birthday,
13:01
SPEAKER_00: and he congratulates your blind daughter on her driving test and wishes her getting
13:05
SPEAKER_00: better in the hospital after her accident and hopes that she will be back on the
13:08
SPEAKER_00: road again soon,
13:09
SPEAKER_00: even though people say she shouldn't drive.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: The videos themselves are humorous because they're ridiculous.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: And then when you air them...
13:16
SPEAKER_00: That sounds to me just like airing the work.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't sound like transforming the work at all.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And what the judge says is that because the work is being shown for the purpose of
13:27
SPEAKER_00: mocking George Santos,
13:28
SPEAKER_00: that's the transformation that basically instead of like,
13:30
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:30
SPEAKER_00: it's being transformed from a birthday message to your friend into a political
13:34
SPEAKER_00: commentary on George Santos.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: I sort of imagine transformative work having to,
13:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:39
SPEAKER_00: like you're making a piece of pop art and you take an advertising logo and you
13:43
SPEAKER_00: actually do something physically to the logo.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: You transform it, you change it, and that also changes the purpose.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't imagined the situation where you can just broadcast a work in its entirety
13:52
SPEAKER_00: and the context is what transforms it.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a fair critique of the judge's decision, Josh, because I think that
13:58
SPEAKER_01: Calling it a transformative use because it's being used to make fun of Santos kind
14:03
SPEAKER_01: of pretends that the original use is serious and straight-faced.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the original use, Santos is being very deliberately tongue-in-cheek.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: He knows that he's kind of a figure of ridicule and fun,
14:16
SPEAKER_01: and that is the appeal in part of buying a cameo from him.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it ridiculous?
14:21
SPEAKER_01: I can get
14:23
SPEAKER_01: you know, a former congressman to do this cameo for me.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: So I do think that that transformative use analysis is subject to some dispute.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not 100% sure this stands up on appeal if he decides to spend his money on appeal.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing,
14:40
SPEAKER_00: just at a high level,
14:41
SPEAKER_00: looking at this decision,
14:42
SPEAKER_00: as you noted,
14:42
SPEAKER_00: there's he made certain other claims,
14:44
SPEAKER_00: including,
14:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:45
SPEAKER_00: that he was defrauded,
14:46
SPEAKER_00: that there was a breach of contract.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And the apparently the he made a New York law contract claim,
14:52
SPEAKER_00: and that's preempted by federal law,
14:54
SPEAKER_00: which governs copyright law.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just sitting looking at this and wondering,
14:57
SPEAKER_00: like,
14:58
SPEAKER_00: there must be some way to write a contract such that you can hire me to make a video.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: And the contract prohibits you from broadcasting that video on national television.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: And if you broadcast that,
15:07
SPEAKER_00: I should get damages like it feels like that's that should be a legally available structure.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't be the case that,
15:12
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:12
SPEAKER_00: any video that's going around,
15:14
SPEAKER_00: if it's useful for ridiculing me,
15:16
SPEAKER_00: that means that you can air it on ABC.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not entitled to any damages as a result of that.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: It seems like Jimmy Kimmel did obtain these videos under false pretenses.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm like on some grand moral level.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: That's important.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: But it sure does seem like he breached the cameo terms of service and that someone
15:31
SPEAKER_00: ought to have some sort of recourse for that or otherwise the contract doesn't mean anything.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: Well,
15:35
SPEAKER_01: but the concept is that we don't want to have copyright law jumbled up with a bunch
15:41
SPEAKER_01: of contract issues so that every time you have a copyright issue,
15:45
SPEAKER_01: you also have an argument about what this contract meant.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: That's the whole point of preemption, that we have sort of a
15:52
SPEAKER_01: certain and predictable way to address these copyright issues.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: And I think you're right that maybe in the abstract, you could come up with some sort of contract.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: But the question here was whether or not the Cameo shrink wrap had it and whether
16:06
SPEAKER_01: or not his implied contract implied anything not directly covered by copyright law.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of contracts you might sign on the web without thinking very much about
16:19
SPEAKER_00: them and longer-term consequences that they might have,
16:21
SPEAKER_00: this is actually another Walt Disney Company story.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: It is.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Walt Disney Company had a good day in court with George Santos,
16:28
SPEAKER_00: and they've had a bad time – well,
16:29
SPEAKER_00: they've really had a bad time outside court because of something that they did in court.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: This is a wrongful death case.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: You have a man who says that his late wife died because she had an allergic
16:38
SPEAKER_00: reaction to food that she was served at a restaurant at Disney Springs at Walt
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Disney World in Florida.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: He's suing for wrongful death.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: And what the Walt Disney Company argued in court was, well,
16:49
SPEAKER_00: You signed up for Disney Plus some years ago and your Disney Plus contract of
16:55
SPEAKER_00: service included an agreement to arbitrate any dispute with the Walt Disney Company.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: And therefore,
17:01
SPEAKER_00: in this wrongful death claim about your wife,
17:03
SPEAKER_00: there's no claim that her death had anything to do with the Disney Plus streaming
17:06
SPEAKER_00: service that you have to arbitrate for that reason.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: And so Disney made that argument.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: This got a lot of national press for a lawsuit that otherwise probably would not
17:14
SPEAKER_00: have gotten a lot of attention.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And then Disney sort of had to go back to court with its tail between its legs and
17:19
SPEAKER_00: be like,
17:19
SPEAKER_00: actually,
17:19
SPEAKER_00: we withdraw that argument.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: And so I guess,
17:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:21
SPEAKER_00: before we get into the PR aspects of this and,
17:24
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:25
SPEAKER_00: sometimes there are arguments you could make in court,
17:26
SPEAKER_00: but you shouldn't because of the attention you'll get.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Did Disney have a point at all about this?
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Can they you know,
17:31
SPEAKER_00: if you've entered into a contract that you never read about some service that was
17:35
SPEAKER_00: trivially inexpensive,
17:37
SPEAKER_00: is it possible that you've signed away your right to sue them over anything,
17:41
SPEAKER_00: even something completely unrelated?
17:42
SPEAKER_01: No, I think that it's a very aggressive motion in this case.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Now, in general.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: The law very much favors enforcing arbitration agreements because courts want to
17:52
SPEAKER_01: clear their dockets and send things off to arbitration.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: Companies like Disney want to go to arbitration because it's faster,
17:59
SPEAKER_01: it's cheaper for them,
18:00
SPEAKER_01: and the arbitrators are much better for them than juries are.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Here, what happened was, yeah, the husband signs up for Disney Plus in 2019.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: And he accepts,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: the click and you accept it stuff that,
18:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:13
SPEAKER_01: any dispute with Disney is going to be arbitrated.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: Later,
18:17
SPEAKER_01: he uses his Disney account to book their tickets at Disneyland and uses it to do
18:23
SPEAKER_01: things like scope out what restaurants to go to.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: And,
18:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:26
SPEAKER_01: he chooses this restaurant,
18:27
SPEAKER_01: which isn't owned by Disney,
18:28
SPEAKER_01: but is at Disney Springs,
18:31
SPEAKER_01: specifically because it says it can have,
18:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:33
SPEAKER_01: allergen free food.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, tragically, his wife gets food with nuts and dairy and she dies.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: The things that are unusual here.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: First of all, this is not like some fly by night minor law firm making this argument for Disney.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: This is O'Melveny and Myers, which is a.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: very well-respected California mega firm,
18:54
SPEAKER_01: which for the record,
18:56
SPEAKER_01: I turned down when they offered me a job.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: And then later they turned me down when I came back asking for a job.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: And the lawyer on it is Daniel Petruccelli of the OJ Simpson civil case fame and many other cases.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: So these are not hacks making this argument.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: But what's unusual is, first of all, they didn't make it immediately.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: And the plaintiff had a good argument.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: They basically waived arbitration because they answered the complaint and they made
19:21
SPEAKER_01: some discovery requests asking for copies of things that had been subpoenaed.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: And that type of conduct is usually found to waive your right to arbitration if you do it.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Second,
19:30
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
19:31
SPEAKER_01: this is a guy suing not in his personal capacity but as administrator or executor
19:37
SPEAKER_01: of this woman's estate.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: So it's in effect trying to enforce it against a woman who didn't sign the
19:41
SPEAKER_01: arbitration agreement herself.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: And the issue is,
19:45
SPEAKER_01: can this shrink wrap arbitration clause foreseeably be taken by anyone as relating
19:52
SPEAKER_01: to anything that Disney can ever do to you ever anywhere and not just something like,
19:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
19:57
SPEAKER_01: I watched The Mandalorian and I went blind.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: It's instead,
20:01
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:02
SPEAKER_01: I was on the Disney property four years later and Goofy ran me over in a Ford
20:05
SPEAKER_01: Bronco or something.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: So that's very dubious that you can extend it that far.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Disney's best argument is that when the husband booked the tickets at Disney,
20:16
SPEAKER_01: that he clicked on stuff that in effect incorporated that prior agreement.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: So he incorporated that.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: But I think most people would be shocked to learn that,
20:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:26
SPEAKER_01: by clicking on something that Disney can kill them and they have to go to
20:31
SPEAKER_01: arbitration over it.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: So I think it was always going to be an uphill battle.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: But as you said, the PR issue is quite separate.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: We all enter these agreements all the time without reading them,
20:41
SPEAKER_00: without thinking about them,
20:41
SPEAKER_00: without knowing that we did so.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that affect the enforceability?
20:45
SPEAKER_01: Yes, but not as much as you would hope.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: So there's sort of a line of law that talks about whether it's unconscionable,
20:52
SPEAKER_01: and that has both procedural and substantive elements.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: The procedural element is, is this done in a way that is tricky and you wouldn't
21:01
SPEAKER_01: anticipated and is kind of calculated to get you to do something you didn't mean to do.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: And the substantive is, are the terms super unfair?
21:09
SPEAKER_01: And I think something like this,
21:11
SPEAKER_01: where something originating with a streaming service winds up binding you later in
21:17
SPEAKER_01: a wrongful death,
21:18
SPEAKER_01: seems to me likely to be found to be unconscionable.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: But you can't be sure,
21:23
SPEAKER_01: because again,
21:24
SPEAKER_01: courts very broadly enforce arbitration agreements,
21:28
SPEAKER_01: and it's often an uphill battle to defeat them.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: You know,
21:30
SPEAKER_01: Josh,
21:31
SPEAKER_01: there's tons of these stories about,
21:33
SPEAKER_01: look at this outrageous thing this company is doing in defending this lawsuit.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: And usually it's like,
21:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:40
SPEAKER_01: a child gets killed and the lawyers use boilerplate answer that includes
21:44
SPEAKER_01: contributory negligence.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: And the story is,
21:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:47
SPEAKER_01: Megacorp blames child for his own death type thing when it's just boilerplate and automatic.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: This is a little different.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: This is,
21:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:54
SPEAKER_01: people at O'Melveny and Myers thought about this and thought it was a good idea and
21:58
SPEAKER_01: put it out there.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And so,
22:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:01
SPEAKER_00: 99% of lawsuits are between two parties that are unlikely to draw a lot of public
22:07
SPEAKER_00: interest from people not involved in the lawsuit.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: And so I assume when you're defending, the impulse is, you know, let's throw in every available argument.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And,
22:15
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:15
SPEAKER_00: some of them might be stretches,
22:16
SPEAKER_00: but we want to make it just so that,
22:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:18
SPEAKER_00: anything that might work,
22:19
SPEAKER_00: we want to throw it in there and use it.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: And I assume that's very often the correct and sound litigation approach on the defense side, right?
22:26
SPEAKER_00: You want all the available arguments.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: And even if they would be unsympathetic to some theoretical outside observer,
22:32
SPEAKER_00: you may not care very much because this is,
22:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:33
SPEAKER_00: for the audience of the judge who's just going to be looking at the law and won't
22:38
SPEAKER_00: be so emotional about it.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: And you also want to preserve the arguments for later if new facts show up.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you might articulate a defense in the answer.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: And an answer is just generally a document saying everything that Geisey just said
22:53
SPEAKER_01: is bullshit and we assert the following legal arguments,
22:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:57
SPEAKER_01: statute of limitations,
22:58
SPEAKER_01: contributory negligence,
22:59
SPEAKER_01: that briefly.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of time you're just preserving those arguments for later.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: You're not substantively articulating them.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: And that's in case facts come out that support them.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: This is different because they had to actually make and research and articulate
23:13
SPEAKER_01: this entire motion saying that the husband who's the executor of the wife's estate
23:18
SPEAKER_01: should be forced into arbitration because he clicked on this button while
23:24
SPEAKER_01: subscribing to Disney Plus in 2019.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: And so I guess one thing I'm wondering is how you have an approach to litigation
23:30
SPEAKER_00: strategy around that when you are a high profile litigant like the Walt Disney Company.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I assume, you know, you have this huge company.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: It's sprawling.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: It may have many separate legal departments.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: The decision maker about how to handle a lawsuit is probably off,
23:43
SPEAKER_00: may in certain cases be siloed into one division of the company,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: not necessarily taking an overall view.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: I assume you need to have an eye toward,
23:51
SPEAKER_00: is this motion that we're about to file,
23:52
SPEAKER_00: is this going to draw a lot of news attention to the company?
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Is this something that could affect the company's reputation?
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Is that going to be costly in such a way that it's worth giving up some amount of
24:02
SPEAKER_00: ground in terms of legal strategy because we don't want to cause a PR problem for
24:06
SPEAKER_00: the whole company as happened here?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: I assume that requires – it's a different perspective and maybe a different set of
24:11
SPEAKER_00: competencies inside the room than you would need on litigation otherwise.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and often something like Disney has so many lawsuits that it is difficult –
24:21
SPEAKER_01: to bring that level of judgment to bear about the company's public relations and
24:27
SPEAKER_01: the greater good and that type of thing.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: So if you've got 10,000 Disney lawsuits,
24:32
SPEAKER_01: and I'm sure it has at least that many,
24:34
SPEAKER_01: it's hard to use that type of analysis.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: However, that said, it's not hard here.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: because this, again, is O'Melveny and Myers, which has a lot of disaster mitigation and PR experience.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: They're expert at it.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: It's Daniel Petruccelli, who's an expert at it.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: They are handling the case.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: It's not some hack at a strip mall who doesn't know any better.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: This was very predictably something that, if it went viral, would just explode.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: And
25:02
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of hard to dent the mouse's already pretty bad reputation.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Disney already has an abysmal reputation in litigation and as an employer and that type of thing.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: Talk to anyone who's ever worked at Disneyland and they'll rant at you for hours about that.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: What a Kafka-esque experience it is.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: And talk to anyone who's litigated against Disney and it's the same.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: So it's hard for them to get themselves into something that is even worse than
25:31
SPEAKER_01: their sort of baseline reputation for this type of thing.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: But they manage here.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: It's funny that you say that,
25:35
SPEAKER_00: though,
25:36
SPEAKER_00: because,
25:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
25:36
SPEAKER_00: I have heard,
25:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:38
SPEAKER_00: and they they have to sue Disney.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: daycares for stenciling Mickey Mouse on the wall.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And that's, you know, like you can in fact lose your trademarks if you don't defend your trademarks.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: And so I like the, I understand why they do this very unpopular thing.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: But we've all,
25:53
SPEAKER_00: even people who are not even connected to the industry,
25:55
SPEAKER_00: hear these litigation horror stories about the Walt Disney Company.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: And yet, you know, it's the happiest place on earth.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: And,
26:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:01
SPEAKER_00: to the extent that the,
26:02
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:02
SPEAKER_00: they already have this terrible reputation around this stuff,
26:04
SPEAKER_00: it doesn't appear that it's necessarily affected their ability to sell products and
26:08
SPEAKER_00: services to people.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: So maybe that is the calculation here that,
26:11
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:11
SPEAKER_00: in three weeks,
26:12
SPEAKER_00: nobody will remember this arbitration claim about the Raglan Road restaurant.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: And so maybe it was worth the shot and, you know, it happened to bounce in a bad way.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: But maybe, you know, maybe the reputation hit isn't actually that large.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
26:25
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the calculation that all the sorts of people being outraged on
26:29
SPEAKER_01: Twitter about this,
26:30
SPEAKER_01: their kids are still going to be watching this.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: frozen 12 times this weekend.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: And they're not going to stop it because it would be terrible to manage their kids through that.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: So I think you're right.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about Matthew Perry.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: This is a little different than most of the cases that we follow on this show.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: But of course, Matthew Perry died last year of a ketamine overdose.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: And there has been a federal indictment of five associates of Matthew Perry's for
27:03
SPEAKER_00: their role in selling him ketamine that ultimately led to his death.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: And so there's two medical doctors.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: There's a drug dealer, Jasmeen Singha, known as the Ketamine Queen of North Hollywood, who
27:16
SPEAKER_00: I want to know, like, are there regional ketamine queens in every part of L.A.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: County, Ken?
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Is there a ketamine queen for like the basin or the beach cities?
27:23
SPEAKER_01: It's a feudal system,
27:25
SPEAKER_01: Josh,
27:25
SPEAKER_01: where the ketamine dukes owe fealty to the ketamine queen and beyond those,
27:31
SPEAKER_01: the viscounts,
27:31
SPEAKER_01: I believe.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the succession is going to be quite something now that Jasmeen Singha is headed off to prison.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And then also Matthew Perry's longtime personal assistant.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: who was brokering these various ketamine transactions and,
27:45
SPEAKER_00: according to the indictment,
27:45
SPEAKER_00: actually administered the fatal dose of ketamine to Matthew Perry.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: And so I guess,
27:49
SPEAKER_00: you know,
27:50
SPEAKER_00: one of the striking things about this is I assume the federal government does not
27:53
SPEAKER_00: normally take a lot of interest in,
27:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
27:55
SPEAKER_00: someone turned up dead in his home of a drug overdose.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Let's send agents from a variety of federal agencies to figure out how that
28:02
SPEAKER_00: happened and indict the people involved in it.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: But if you are a mega celebrity like Matthew Perry,
28:08
SPEAKER_00: the federal government may take interest in that and indict a number of people who
28:12
SPEAKER_00: were involved in the chain of transactions that got the ketamine to you.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: It is.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: And the so-called ketamine queen, Jasmine Sangha— Jasveen.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Jasveen,
28:21
SPEAKER_01: my apologies,
28:22
SPEAKER_01: to the ketamine queen,
28:23
SPEAKER_01: had been arrested on methamphetamine charges for distributing meth back earlier in
28:30
SPEAKER_01: the year.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: And at this point,
28:31
SPEAKER_01: it's not clear whether that revealed her connection to Matthew Perry or whether
28:36
SPEAKER_01: they were always searching for stuff related to her connection to Matthew Perry.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: We'll find that out in the course of the case.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: But what you see is them going after her first for this meth dealing and then
28:46
SPEAKER_01: eventually developing the superseding indictment that adds on everything about
28:51
SPEAKER_01: Matthew Perry.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: And it is drilling down to sort of one set of transactions about one drug customer
28:57
SPEAKER_01: that you really normally do not see.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: with the feds.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: And it's a little remarkable to see the full weight of the federal power brought
29:06
SPEAKER_01: down on a situation like this.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: So when this superseding indictment hits,
29:11
SPEAKER_01: it's got three people cooperating already who pled guilty to informations.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: It's got tons and tons of
29:20
SPEAKER_01: Texts and WhatsApp messages and recorded things.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: She's just completely hosed.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: You really see the impact of the full weight of the federal government coming down on someone.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: And yes, it is likely because this is a very famous person who died and the U.S.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Attorney's Office sees that this is a way to get more deterrence by bringing attention to
29:44
SPEAKER_01: to a prosecution like this.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: You know,
29:47
SPEAKER_01: the Central District of California and the Southern District of New York have
29:51
SPEAKER_01: always been seen as sort of like the federal prosecutors to the stars to some extent.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: So they get a lot of- Those are Los Angeles and New York City, respectively.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: Or Los Angeles and Manhattan and the Bronx, respectively.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: The Southern District would expect to be listed first.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: But they've always had a lot of high profile cases like this and will continue to do so.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: And you can say-
30:13
SPEAKER_01: Is it fair that you get absolutely pummeled if you sell to a TV star instead of
30:20
SPEAKER_01: just to a random guy in the street?
30:22
SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: Is it fair that they care so much about publicity?
30:27
SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, it's a rational goal of federal prosecution.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the listed goals in the principles of federal prosecution is what will
30:35
SPEAKER_01: the deterrent effect be?
30:37
SPEAKER_01: And when the government can get this vast amount of publicity by bringing the case
30:43
SPEAKER_01: and have much more deterrence and much more awareness,
30:46
SPEAKER_01: then they tend to go for it.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: And these offices have always liked the press.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: They've always been very open to press attention.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we've seen a couple of similar cases to this.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Michael K.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Williams,
30:57
SPEAKER_00: who is an actor from The Wire,
30:58
SPEAKER_00: died of a fentanyl overdose a couple of years ago,
31:00
SPEAKER_00: and there was a federal prosecution,
31:02
SPEAKER_00: people involved in getting him those drugs,
31:03
SPEAKER_00: similarly with Mac Miller,
31:05
SPEAKER_00: the rapper.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: This is a pattern that we've seen.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: One thing is, you know, makes me wonder about, you know, being a drug dealer to the stars in Hollywood.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: It seems like that's an added professional risk that like if your client dies,
31:15
SPEAKER_00: the feds are going to come after you in a way that they probably wouldn't with an
31:18
SPEAKER_00: ordinary person.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there's all sorts of risks dealing drugs to the stars.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: There's the fact that the whole class of personal assistant are not necessarily the
31:29
SPEAKER_01: most reliable about Umar Ta that you can really count on them to flip at the first instance.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: There's the whole culture of Hollywood.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: And there's the fact that there are all these hangers on and people looking for
31:43
SPEAKER_01: status and proximity and all that type of thing.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's a big risk.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: And the risk is that
31:49
SPEAKER_01: If you give drugs to someone and kill them and they're nobody,
31:53
SPEAKER_01: there's a good possibility that nothing is going to happen,
31:55
SPEAKER_01: or at least it's not going to be treated in this massively – well,
32:01
SPEAKER_01: harsh is the wrong word,
32:02
SPEAKER_01: but this show of overwhelming force against this person.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: But if you do it with a star, then you're going to run into that buzzsaw.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Well,
32:11
SPEAKER_00: and I think we see some of the flip side of it in the indictment and the fairly
32:15
SPEAKER_00: gross details in this indictment about,
32:17
SPEAKER_00: you know,
32:17
SPEAKER_00: well,
32:18
SPEAKER_00: why would you want to sell drugs to Matthew Perry given that at risk?
32:20
SPEAKER_00: You get the answer to it in this indictment,
32:22
SPEAKER_00: which is that,
32:23
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
32:23
SPEAKER_00: they saw an opportunity to make a lot of money.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: And there's a text between these two medical doctors who were originally involved in diverting ketamine.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And then it's also clear from the narrative in the indictment that the reason they
32:51
SPEAKER_00: end up with the ketamine queen is that these doctors are,
32:54
SPEAKER_00: in fact,
32:55
SPEAKER_00: charging an arm and a leg for the ketamine.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: And his assistant figures out,
32:59
SPEAKER_00: well,
32:59
SPEAKER_00: if I'm going to be buying a giant quantity of ketamine from Matthew Perry every day,
33:02
SPEAKER_00: maybe I should look for a more traditional illegal channel.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: The amount of ketamine described in this indictment is just staggering.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Even at the street prices, he's spending more than $500 a day on ketamine.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: And then it also describes how one of the doctors taught Matthew Perry's personal assistant,
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Kenny Iwamasa,
33:21
SPEAKER_00: how to inject him with ketamine.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: And the prosecutors keep emphasizing Kenny Iwamasa had no medical training.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: There's no reason that either of these people should have thought that he was
33:29
SPEAKER_00: qualified to do this and then ultimately ends up administering a fatal dosage.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I think one reaction I've gotten from some people who've just seen news
33:38
SPEAKER_00: reports about the indictment is sort of like feeling a little bad for Matthew
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Perry's assistant,
33:42
SPEAKER_00: who presumably was pressured into this by his boss.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: But once you read the indictment,
33:48
SPEAKER_00: I think that it becomes more clear why Mr.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Awamasa's conduct was something that was beyond the pale in certain ways.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: And also,
33:55
SPEAKER_00: if you've been Matthew Perry's assistant for 25 years,
33:58
SPEAKER_00: God knows how many pain pills you probably helped him get over that period.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
34:02
SPEAKER_01: you can completely be against the war on drugs and the abuse of federal power and
34:07
SPEAKER_01: how the war on drugs has transformed American life and still think that someone
34:12
SPEAKER_01: who's taking advantage of an addict this way –
34:15
SPEAKER_01: And assisting them and exposing them to so much danger as a contemptible person and
34:21
SPEAKER_01: deserves some sort of consequence.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: And,
34:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:24
SPEAKER_01: this is such absolutely reckless behavior that led to a tragic result that was so
34:28
SPEAKER_01: probable that on some level it's kind of a,
34:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:31
SPEAKER_01: fuck around and find out for the personal assistant.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Finally, speaking of fucking around and finding out, Trayvon White.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Kenner,
34:39
SPEAKER_00: you were discussing whether to even do this story,
34:41
SPEAKER_00: but I've been amazed the amount of people I've heard about this from.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Treon White is a member of the Washington, D.C.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: City Council.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: So he's not a really high level government executive,
34:50
SPEAKER_00: but he's on the city council and he's been indicted for receiving bribes that he
34:55
SPEAKER_00: took bribes from basically a government contractor,
34:58
SPEAKER_00: someone who.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: ran an organization that was involved in doing certain violence interruption
35:02
SPEAKER_00: programs in the District of Columbia.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: And the agreement was that Councilmember White would try to ensure that those
35:08
SPEAKER_00: contracts got renewed,
35:09
SPEAKER_00: and then the guy would pay a kickback of about 3% of the value of the contracts,
35:13
SPEAKER_00: which is tens of thousands of dollars,
35:15
SPEAKER_00: to Trayon White as a thank you.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: Actually, excuse me, I think it was ultimately over $100,000.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: But in any case, substantial bribe, but not an earth-shaking national story.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: I think the reason this is getting so much attention is you may remember Trayon
35:29
SPEAKER_00: White as the member of the Washington,
35:30
SPEAKER_00: D.C.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: City Council who said that the Rothschilds control the weather and that the reason
35:34
SPEAKER_00: they were having extreme weather events was a Jewish global conspiracy,
35:39
SPEAKER_00: for which Councilmember White had to apologize on two separate occasions,
35:42
SPEAKER_00: the second time saying he got confused between the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: And so not the sharpest knife in the drawer and now quite possibly heading to
35:52
SPEAKER_00: federal prison because it turned out that the guy who was offering him all this
35:55
SPEAKER_00: cash was wearing a wire.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Of course he was.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, for accepted bribes, you need to add in there repeatedly on audio and video.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: in the FBI informant's car, often wearing a hideous sports coat.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: This jacket is so ugly.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: You have to look at the indictment.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: And their pictures.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: They didn't charge him for a crime against fashion.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: No, they did not.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: I don't know that it's a thing in D.C.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: But can that be an other included act in the sentencing?
36:25
SPEAKER_01: I think that depends on the federal judge you draw, Josh.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, he said all sorts of terribly incriminating things.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those
36:34
SPEAKER_01: The quotes are one of those things where you're nominally trying to use coded language,
36:38
SPEAKER_01: but it's so terrible that you might as well just notarize a confession.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
36:42
SPEAKER_01: it is partially such a story because this guy previously blamed the Rothschilds for
36:49
SPEAKER_01: the bad weather.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: Although, to be fair, he also blamed the Rockefellers.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: So it's not, you know, this purely a Jewish thing, I think.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, but I think the other note that's being sounded here is about D.C.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: politics and D.C.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: political culture.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people are looking at this and say, oh, he's hosed.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: He'll never be a public official again.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: He's clearly going to be convicted.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: And to those people, I'd say, you know, Google Marion Barry.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Tran White is a protege of Marion Barry,
37:18
SPEAKER_00: represents his old district on the city council,
37:20
SPEAKER_00: I believe is being represented by an attorney who previously represented the late
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Marion Barry.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: Right.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: So the late Marion Barry was a very colorful mayor of D.C.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: He got caught in a sting.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: He coined the deathless phrase, the bitch set me up, when caught on...
37:36
SPEAKER_01: on video doing crack.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: And then he largely skated.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
37:40
SPEAKER_01: yes,
37:41
SPEAKER_01: he spent like six months in federal prison,
37:42
SPEAKER_01: but he was acquitted or the jury hung on most of the most serious charges.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: And then he had a political resurgence.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: He got reelected to city council and became mayor.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: No, he got reelected as mayor.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Right.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: And then he went and sat on the city council.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: So this was widely seen as a reflection,
38:00
SPEAKER_01: kind of the way the OJ Simpson case was,
38:02
SPEAKER_01: of this racial tension in the sense that
38:04
SPEAKER_01: There was this widespread distrust of law enforcement and the police that was
38:09
SPEAKER_01: reflected in Marion Barry continuing to be this folk hero and this successful
38:15
SPEAKER_01: politician even after taking this federal fall.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: So I suspect that's the way Trayvon White may try to.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: to play this.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: I think that probably the FBI has anticipated this and they're going to play it more straight faced.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: And this case is different in that it's massive bribes and it's not,
38:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:34
SPEAKER_01: just doing drugs and sort of stuff like that.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: But this has,
38:39
SPEAKER_01: for anyone who likes,
38:41
SPEAKER_01: uh,
38:42
SPEAKER_01: DC politics,
38:43
SPEAKER_01: uh,
38:43
SPEAKER_01: of a certain age,
38:44
SPEAKER_01: uh,
38:45
SPEAKER_01: and,
38:45
SPEAKER_01: uh,
38:46
SPEAKER_01: Josh,
38:46
SPEAKER_01: you were probably pretty young for this,
38:47
SPEAKER_01: but,
38:48
SPEAKER_01: uh,
38:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: This is a blast to the late 80s, early 90s.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: But I mean,
38:53
SPEAKER_00: isn't that the key distinction that you're describing there,
38:55
SPEAKER_00: though,
38:56
SPEAKER_00: that like this is a public corruption case that I mean,
38:58
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
38:59
SPEAKER_00: I assume that we're talking about a lot more than six months in prison.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: If Trayvon White is ultimately convicted on these charges.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: It is a public corruption case, but it's the type of case that can
39:10
SPEAKER_01: bring out the sort of deep mistrust of law enforcement,
39:15
SPEAKER_01: frustration with the way the government is run,
39:19
SPEAKER_01: feelings in D.C.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: of sort of lack of representation and being a puppet,
39:25
SPEAKER_01: not being really having a voice in their own governance that they not completely
39:29
SPEAKER_01: and reasonably have.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: So it would not surprise me at all if Trayon White uses Marion Barry's tactics and may succeed with them.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, certainly he'll give that a shot.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: And when Trayvon White was first elected to the city council,
39:42
SPEAKER_00: there was a more establishment type figure who had won in a special election.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: And he rebuilt the Marion Barry political coalition,
39:48
SPEAKER_00: was held on in Ward 8,
39:50
SPEAKER_00: which is the—DC is about half black.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Ward 8 is the poorest section, more or less, of DC, east of the Anacostia River.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: It was Marion Barry's base of political support.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: I think this is a little bit different.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we're going to be seeing Trayvon White back on the DC city council,
40:06
SPEAKER_00: but I suppose we will see.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: Ken, I think we can leave it there on that note this week.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: But I want to thank you for speaking with me.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, we didn't mention a certain name this entire episode, and I for one am happy.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: No news regarding a former president.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: Bob Menendez?
40:19
SPEAKER_01: Or Bob Menendez.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: Bob Menendez took his name off the ballot in New Jersey, by the way.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: So actually, there was some Bob Menendez news this week.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: He was running as an independent.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: And I guess, you know, as he said, it's August 21st as we're taping this.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: And so Bob Menendez ceased to be a senator as of yesterday.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: He collected his last paycheck on August 20th and left the Senate.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: And so he will not be back, rather like Trayvon White, I think.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: But Josh, we can count on this great nation continuing to serve as colorful figures like Bob Menendez.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: I am confident of that.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: Ken, thank you very much.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Josh.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: Serious Trouble is created and produced by Very Serious Media.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: That's me and Sarah Faye.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Jennifer Swadik mixed this episode.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: Our theme music is by Joshua Mosher.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and we'll be back with more soon.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: See you next time.