How CNN Got Crushed By This Lawyer For Smearing A Navy Veteran - DansDeals Podcast Special

you call them out of Bill of the trial you guys call yourselves fair and Report the news but you're not reporting this case everyone else is and so he went through all their testing and training and then he worked for the CIA for many years in order to get punitive damages on step one we needed to prove that they primary intend to harm the jury finding itself removed the cap from from phase two we are back with another Dan's Deals podcast we're trying something a little bit different today we are here in the law offices of fredman Norman Friedland here with attorney go Freedman nice to meet you he just won a recent defamation case against CNN and was awarded punitive damages I think that was the first punitive damages awarded by a jury against a mainstream media since like New York Times V Sullivan is that right we've been trying to figure that out but I think that's right yeah I asked Chad GPT this morning and it said it was right well let's let's go with that yeah I'm feeling pretty good about it definitely in a very long very very long time yeah yeah incredible I saw like National chire and and Gawker against Hulk Hogan but those aren't mainstream media those are tabloids yeah and also Gawker wasn't a defamation case it was a invasion of privacy case so slightly different okay yeah different standards okay very cool so I'm JJ from Dan deals I'm Dan and I'm v ville V Devon how do you how do you figure out which name to actually use complicated I've seen it reported three different ways now yeah I asked the Wall Street Journal to flip it to velvel but or V and they they said we use legal names okay I said well you know I think you should use the name I want to be called by but they Wen unpersuaded I'm surprised they wouldn't just call you by the name that you requested yeah I was like you called Joe Biden Joseph Biden every time you right yeah no they they they didn't seem persuaded look my parents are balua so when I was born they called me Devon I went by Devon till I was like six or seven then we became religious and I thought velvel was the coolest name ever so I refused to answer anything other than velvel so then I was Ville for a long time and then when I started in the law no one could pronounce velvel so the folks on my firm just shortened it to Vel cuz they could handle that easier and it just kind of stuck so I've got all three now yeah I answered all of them now point but do you prefer the media call you velv absolutely no I signed my pleadings as Ville I sign my my website's up as Ville um my legal name is Devon Still and my bar license is under Devon so you'll see in some of my filings it'll say like Devon Vel fredman in quotations okay but yeah no every everyone calls me Ville or Val I mean I can relate I'm like denil Daniel Dan I don't even know what my name is at this point the best is your boarding passes where it says Danel correct middle initial is a word to the wise is parents should not give their kids a middle name that their boys a middle name that starts with letter A or else you will have Gabriela or Daniela or something and like oh is this your wife's boarding pass where is your boarding pass I'm like no no that that's me Daniel a so that makes sense actually I never thought about that so I kind of want to just jump right into the CNN case and and hear some background uh because a lot of people have been talking about it I think it's been covered by every single media Outlet uh CNN actually covered it they in the end you called out you call them out a bill the trial you guys call yourselves fair and Report the news but you're not reporting this case everyone else is everyone else had these huge articles I mean like 20 minute read articles and you go to S and it's like is there a hundred words on this even afterwards there was nothing totally bury it shortest CNN article in I've never seen anything like it give him credit though they reported it they did they did report it so huge story huge news congrats on the win really incredible um full disclosure it's my brother-in-law married his sister I actually saw a post recently you were on The Dan deals forums 2011 uh posting about an elsat course Christal how did you even remember that's before even started working at Dan's Deals before I started working at Dan deals before I ever met him or or married into the family right years before yeah that so I was surprised you even remember that he signed up for an account one and only post it was it one post yeah I was trying to you know we we had no money back then at all so we were trying to make some money so I was teaching the Elsa I was tutoring the lset and I think I thought it was probably a good place to try to were you married at the time yeah I got married in 2009 started law school a few months later so we had you know my wife was working as a preschool teacher making I think it was like $1,000 a month as she'd get up at like 5: in the morning take the subway yeah pregnant it was terrible in retrospect we should have just taken more loans but right she did that and I was trying to teach the elsat so it must have um I that must have been the Genesis of that post right and what was what was it called back then want we so this is a funny story yeah want my1 180.com that's right yeah I was I was looking for jobs and I wanted to PO somehow tell folks that I had gotten a perfect score in the L you were in law school at the time when this yeah I was well I had as soon as I taken the test and and so I got a perfect score in the LSAT and as soon as I did that I I started trying to tutor to make extra money and I was able to get you know decent rates at that time because it's a rare score then once I was in law school and I was looking for jobs I was looking for a way to signal to potential employers that I was pretty smart Beyond J for your resume for my resume um but like it's considered like um taboo to kind of talk about your elsat score so I was sitting there with my wife and I was like I can't figure out a way to do this like I think I just can't do it it's just too much of a faux PA and she goes well why don't you just call the business something like want my1 180.com or something like that's brilliant right both from like an advertising perspective and from like the the purpose I wanted it for so I did I put it on my resume I created the website wy1 180.com and like had it let employers know that you got the 180 without actually saying that you got 180 exactly right it's a great stry she was really smart yeah so it worked yeah so that's where I think I think I created a like a Gmail account and that's that's how that started right I think I considered hiring you did you really to tutor me at one point I was looking into it I ended up going with Els set by fish I guess I didn't do a good enough job I I think it was more expensive he was or I was you were oh really look CU fish is offering what my 175 and he was offering what my should have hired Dan for the bark that's so funny yeah well I guess fish is doing a class of 30 kids at a time so you can't really compete on price with that that's true like you were doing one-on-one I was doing one-onone I remember what it was it might have been like 150 or 200 bucks an hour something like that yeah right so yeah so I mean he did a full course I think it was two grand and if you're doing 150 an hour it's obviously more and Russ F worked out got into n League law school dropped out worked this guy now so and now you got to put ivy league Dropout on your resume which always looks good that's true he was also a backdoor part of the trial team we had him coming in and Consulting and helping us on a bunch of I heard about that I mean that's awesome it was pretty cool he's responsible for some pretty significant parts of the trial I'm sure we'll get into that in a little bit absolutely okay so so I guess let's just recap really quick so you said you you put that on your CV right you got a 180 and where did that lead you uh ended up applying to all the top law schools I thought I was guaranteed to get in because I had a perfect outset score in a 40 from yiva but found out pretty quickly that at that point in time the law school admission Council that aggregated all the data created these reports that basically ranked me against all prior applicants from my school which were zero other applicants so all their reports just said like insufficient data insufficient data insufficient data um Harvard Y and Stanford which were at the time the top three I think they still are had never accepted a candidate like me before went to like full Yeshiva for all the years beforehand and had you know a bachelor's in Hebrew letters is that from Miami or who yes from Miami yeah so I got rejected from Yale I got weight listed at Harvard and Stanford I got accepted into Columbia got accepted into Northwestern with a full scholarship use that to get some money out of Columbia then I ended up reaching out to Alan dwit to see if I can get into Harvard right and he was really great and and talked to me for a little bit asked me for some materials he could use at the time I knew nothing so I gave him absolute useless material and he kind of lost contact with me and I went to I went to Columbia a side note I spoke to Professor dur Switz maybe was a year ago or so he told me that after that year he felt kind of guilty that we had lost contact and he helped a new student get in and Harvard has changed their policy and now accept students so and told them I'm taking responsibility that's amazing yeah Isn't that cool Harvard does take yiva kids now they do yeah yeah that's right so evidently it's uh it was Professor dershwitz who did it and he did it because he felt guilty didn't help me so yeah so for all the people that went to Harvard Law you got me to things that's amazing so after Colombia after Columbia I went to uh boyel and flexner which is a very well-known litigation Boutique um David boy is a very famous litigator I was there for about seven years and we started our own firm in 2019 been here ever since and how many lawyers are at your firm now um something like 25 wow so you just started how many years ago 2019 so five years ago or so yeah it was August of 2019 yeah working for you now that's incredible yeah it's been we barash we've had a lot of success wow okay no complaints so so brief recap of the previous couple cases the big sure like I mean you you I think you told me I think you told me that the CNN case came from one of the previous cases right yeah I feel like it's always going to be like a Snowball Effect I can't even imagine like what's coming now we got a lot of yeah a lot of inbounds thank God yeah that case we had a uh a Bitcoin litigation cryptocurrency case that went to trial the end of 2021 and we ended up having a month-long Federal jury trial we got $100 million from the jury then it after prejudgment interest it became 140 wow yeah and so that that had a lot of press and a lot of attention and Zach the client in the CNN case saw that verdict come out and he was like I want those guys that's amazing yeah he reached out to us I mean a bunch of other lawyers too and eventually he he chose us smart man I like to think so it worked out for him so Bitcoin case I remember the could he claimed he founded Bitcoin right and then that was proven to be untrue I guess Satoshi Nakamoto Satoshi Nakamoto yeah you know when we when we picked up the case in in mid 2017 he was a I think a legitimate Contender for Satoshi okay it was Craig Craig Wright yeah I say legitimate cautiously because there lot of people that said there's no way based on some of the things that he did and some of the tests that he failed but there was a significant contingent of people who thought well there might be something here and that was in part because the guy who took over after Satoshi Gavin andreon kind of vouched for him and said oh this is Satoshi oh interesting and so when we picked up the case we actually thought like who knows like this might really be real and so we we we litigated it that way but as time went on you know Craig became became more and more apparent that he was just constantly saying things that were untrue even under oath um and forging documents nonstop to the point where the courts you know really hammered him on it and you know said nothing is more inimical to the administration of justice you're forging documents you're lying under oath and wow so you know his claim to the mantle sort of kind of and that was kind of through the depositions and the trial yeah and the experts we retained like we had forensic experts that would come in and review the documents to kind of you know because you look at a document it looks okay but then when you open up the metadata inside the document you can see that it's been manipulated when it's been manipulated or he used things that we call like pgp which is pretty good privacy it's like an encryption key and he didn't realize that the pgp encryption key includes in a stamp of the document a date and time but not in like human readable format you need to convert it from computer language to human readable but people that know yeah and so we'd convert the pgps and it would be like you know allegedly signed by Dave kimman years after he died right like is this even like in a word like I save a word Dock and email it to someone they could dive into the word dock or this is like more of an online like resource protocol document so I you know it's a good question on word docs um certainly PDFs include those those edits yeah in history and like we'd see you know we'd open up the PDF and look at the metadata and you'd literally see a tag where it says like PDF text edit and it would be like the Open Bracket it kind of looks like almost like the HTML like websites a little bit and so you could tell it had been modified once you open the metadata on it and we and we I remember we had a cross exam I cross-examined him at a sanctions hearing because we move for sanctions based on all these you know lies and fraud and everything and we had a hearing and I I you I wanted to talk to about the metadata and we were really nervous about like the judge saying well how you asking this Layman about the metadata but he claimed to have been a forensic document expert so before I asked him anything about the metadata I was like you're a forensic document expert aren't you he's like yeah of course I mean he was very right very full of himself and um and he says yeah and so then I went right into the metadata and sure enough the other side objects and the judge was like he seems to be filing no problem like he's an expert you know right it's like all right and then he ended up getting so mad at me during that cross he threw a piece of paper at me no way yeah it was a little anti-climatic because when you throw paper it kind of just like hit the floor he didn't make an airplane out of no he didn't or ball it up even and like Chuck it but the the judge turned around he goes doctor right you throw another thing in my courtroom you'll be in handcuffed so fast your head will spin oh wow and that got that that got him kind of rattled so what's up with you and judges getting heated in the CNN case when a lawyer makes misrepresentations to a court uh it's it's a pretty big deal I think you know the lawyers are supposed to be officers of the court and everything they say to the court needs to be you have to have complete cander to the tribunal and it's our ethical obligations and many many lawyers take that very very seriously and if the court feels putting aside what happened in the CN case but if the court feels that a lawyer has lied to them or has misrepresented things to them that can blow up real fast and I think that's what we saw in the CNN case I think judge Henry felt CNN's lawyers had had had lied to him we had we believed it too based on what we had said you know they had some technical defenses to it so I'll leave them to defend their own conduct but the judge obviously felt that they had lied to him and uh that's that's what happened you know you get you get a really angry judge if that happened right so okay background Z re Give me the give me the the three minute rundown of the of the history of the case so Zach reached out to us about the case um he told us there were a bunch of other you know first amendment and defamation lawyers that were looking at the case and so we looked at it too what the time frame like when did he first re out this would have been February this was February of 2022 so half a year after the pull up like that yeah about that right exactly and actually the only reason I remember that is because at trial uh CNN tried claiming that Zach was in touch with us in December and then there was documents that were lost they tried implying that it was you know we had advised him to destroy documents of course this is outrageous and so I ended up using a privilege log to show when the date of our communication was first used which was in February so it was posted to that time frame so yeah so Fe he reached out in February and you know we do our own due diligence in the cases so we reviewed the segment the video segments reviewed the digital article tell us what what was his claim what did you feel looking at it the first time yeah so I a little careful about attorney client privilege stuff here so got to be a little high level but you know he basically said here's here's this video segment it's it says things about me that are just not true accuses me of operating on a black market being a criminal on CNN.com I guess at that time yeah you could go online and watch it you go on their Facebook page and watch it the archives still had it so you could see it all over the place and so we were able to watch the video segment we were able to read the digital article that it was about and talk to him and he's like I didn't do anything illegal I never did anything criminal I think a lot of people watching have no idea what Zach does did leading up to this seg right so I mean it came out of trial Zach's kind of restricted from being able to talk about it but a lot of this is now public so it came out of trial was Zach started off as um a Navy SEAL and he was in Seal training for about three years he got injured at the end of SEAL training trying to do this really dangerous maneuver with like a boat filled with sand like docking it on rocks in water or something and like the whole team needed to like lift it and something happened and it fell on him and it resulted in some serious spinal injuries he tried to rehabilitate that but he couldn't finish the Seal training at the time so I think he served the Navy for a little over three years MH and then they charged him honorably with all kinds of medals and stuff we went through that trial and he was very good there went back to school finished his education and then enrolled in Blackwater which is a private government contractor protected the CIA and other government officials that were traveling through Afghanistan and Pakistan for them uh and then while there the CIA kind of picked up on him and noticed what he was doing and recruited him to come work for them and then so they poached them from blackwat basically exactly and so he went through all their testing and training and then he worked for the C for many years he was uh he equivocated on exactly when those years were he's not supposed to disclose exactly when he was and was not in the government service does the CIA pay better than Blackwater it's it's actually interesting he's he's a real Patriot right and so he would go overseas and train like the SSD like the Saudi Arabian well they're called the Gip but he would he would the United Arab emirat Special Forces and stuff like that and they CIA and we asked well how are you comfortable doing that he's like these are us allies like they need to be westernized if we don't do it that vacuum will be filled by China or Russia or something else like talked about how Saudi Arabia is the foiled Iran at all times like they're huge Ally to the United States because of the Sunni Shiite Muslim fights they're they're just enemies and so that's very useful to the United States so so working for the CIA could have even been a calling I guess for someone who wanted to be a seal I I I don't like I can tell you a funny story when the um when the Massad did the Beeper The walki Talk and beeper operation in right historic yeah Zach called me and he was flipping out he was F he's like you do not understand what this takes he's like this is unbelievable he's like only the Israelis could pull this off he's like then of course I got into the bait like who's better the CIA or the msage and he's like well you know like you know he won't he won't give you a straight answer on that but he's like resource wise the CIA has to outspend them like a million to one I'm sure that's true I'm sure that's true I was talking more just like tactics you know I mean c can you imagine the CIA ever authorizing an operation like that I mean this the the G to pull that off is unbelievable it was crazy but it was so cool to see somebody who has that kind of experience like really ner out about it be like you have no I that was unbelievable like what an operation like it it's like an airline price mistake for us yes exactly exactly you know he was he was real impressed with it so that was cool so then when he left the government service he began kind of changing what he did into a service for other governments so it was like a revolutionary idea where he would take these large corporations these huge defense contractors he'd go work for them and then train other sovereigns special forces their spies and things like that and so he began just kind of going corporate in terms of servicing large corporations for their needs whether it was the Saudi araban government to create their CIA or whether it was to extract people from Afghanistan on behalf of large corporations he was kind of servicing large corporations in the security and intelligence sector right so you have sweet business to be in it was awesome it was awesome like the things he did were insane yeah yeah we got into some of it at trial where he was literally teaching spycraft at the trial like how to you know's like surveillance detection he's like you really don't want to like bend down and tie your shoe and look in the mirror and I'm like why not right you'll get made immediately and then he's like you're it might have been two people trailing you and now it's going to be 40 people trailing you with a beacon on your car and air support and it's like what happens when that happens he's like then you're done like right because we're talking about China you're talking about you know Russia you're not you're in hostile areas if you get made you're done and so it was like it was really neat to listen obviously he was very careful about the details he could expose about it but he talked about brush passes and dead drops and it was it was I mean for me as a guy I mean I was just like tell me like tell me more you know like what else and you know so Co it was so cool that's amazing um okay so the so the backdrop is he was getting people out of Afghanistan for corporations right and CNN ran this story correct yeah and the story portrayed him as a black market criminal that's what we argued it you know used word Black Market over and over put banners or labels of Black Market underneath his face by his name we argu Black Market has one dictionary definition which is illegal Market you know trading any illegal activity and then the other thing we argued was that you know as a whole the entire reporting gave what we called a defamatory gist meaning like kind of like the gist of the segment all of it together gave this impression of Zach being a bad actor praying on Desperate Afghans um which of course was not true because he never took any money from any Afghans right they had like a technicality right that they won pre-trial that because he posted on the internet means he was targeting Afghans like like on the internet he was advertising to them and it's a little bit like legal like like come on like yeah sure I post on the internet it doesn't mean I'm targeting yeah everyone no that's true that's exactly right they did they they won summary judgment that he had advertised to Afghans but what was what was a little unfair about that I thought was the Court's reasoning in its summary judgment order was very clear he basically said you posted something online so by virtue of doing that you've you've advertised to the world and he used this example he's like if I'm watching TV and the judge has a full head of hair right he goes and you know they're advertising hair transplant surgery or something like that it's like I may not be the target audience because I don't need hair transplant surgery but at the same time you have advertised to me and so that's totally fair like I agree with the judge's conclusion but then when it came to trial it was like the the finding that was told to the jury was he advertised to Afghans and then when we tried putting a little context on there CNN was objecting and the court kind of made us do a dance but I we eventually got it in and I think it was effective that they understood what was happening which was yeah I posted publicly but I had a clear target audience right this the chief security officers the CEOs the Coos on LinkedIn those are the people I was really going after right right and when if someone would individually contact him he was he would not interested right right and we saw that over and over again in trial which is like an Afghan would reach out his first question was do you have a sponsor able to fund right and then when they would say no or they wouldn't answer he would discontinue contact yeah right so okay so that brings us basically up to the trial right yep well we got some really good pre-trial wins too I think which was yeah so you know a lot of lawyers like to use summary judgment which is this device we use in litigation which is have the court resolve things and they try to win the whole case with it and I've kind of taken a different approach to it in a lot of my cases where I'm not trying to cut your head off a sumary judge I'm not trying to win cuz that's very difficult but I will try to inflict like some Mortal wounds on you right like chop off your arm you have to come to battle with only one arm and so one of the things we did great metaphor yeah and no that's really what happened and so what we did is we moved for summary judgment on like discreet issues factual issues and the first issue we did was Mr Young did nothing illegal Zach did nothing illegal or criminal and we argued under summary judgment standard they have no evidence he did he says he did not which is evidence he did not now the burden shifts to CNN to put some evidence and we had them under oath and deposition saying we have no evidence that he did anything illegal we never had evidence he did anything illegal then they said we never reported that which of course was a question for the jury to determine but you know so so we went to the judge and we said hey there's evidence that he did nothing illegal his own sworn statements there's no evidence he did anything illegal so CNN has failed its legal burden fin as a matter of law that Zach did nothing illegal criminal and so he granted summary judgment on that so that was a big deal right because so you're like surgically deciding what to put forward for summary Josh that's right yes exactly and then we did it again and we said find that he's never taken any money from an Afghan and we did the same thing Zach said he's never taken any money from Afghan you have seven years of his bank records there's no transfers from any Afghans you've got his income tax statements that show all of his income that they all got all that in Discovery all yeah they got all it in Discovery it's all accounted for right so like there's no evidence that he ever took money from any Afghan fined he didn't and you know they came back again trying to argue garbage and was not there and so the cour granted it again so they walked into trial with the jury being told you right you accus this man of operating in a Black Market which we argued sole dictionary def was Black Market was illegal Market they got told I have already decided that Mr Young did nothing illegal or criminal I have already decided he never took money from an why did they say black markets of gray Market what was I have no every knows there's a gry market there's a black market like there's obviously a difference between the two they can't argue that a black market is the same thing as a gry market they were I you know who knows but the case in order to get a punitive damages against IM media defendant you've got to show that they did it with a primary intent to harm him right so you know one could argue that black market sounds a lot worse than a gray market and if you look at their like their pitches all of these emails like came out like the progression of the story those were unbelievable I mean it really seemed like they just wanted to get him and we got to figure out how we're going to get him and like you see their legal team and they're like I don't know if we should run this like wow yeah so you know I don't know why they did but that would be my speculation that's why they used it you do you think that going just cuz Dan mentioned their internal Communications and I remember to me the one that stood out the most was one of the reporters saying I'm going to nail that Zachary young mother effer and I mean that to me was like the whole case with intent to harm it was such a crazy thing to hear from a reporter regardless of the context just a crazy quote to hear from someone reporting at someone else do you think that and just to add context to that sometimes you read an article and you're like wow they really have it out for this guy but you don't have proof of that you just think that as you're reading it or you're watching it and like wow I'm like looking at the there's so much evidence that they really were out to get him you know it wasn't just so what I'm wondering is is is it gonna change that they're no longer gonna say it but they're gonna still do it or or is there or is there going to be like a is it like a real Reckoning cuzz I'm I'm sure their egos are bruised all the reporters involved in this story I mean they were arguing very hard that they did nothing wrong and in court of law they they were proven wrong right I mean there was a point in the closing statement CNN's closing arguments where their lead counselor David axod tried arguing that if the jury found for for the plaintiff then all the reporters in the story would bear like a Scarlet Letter essentially which got an objection for me that was sustained because that's not a relevant consideration for the jury like it is what it is but certainly CNN seems to recognize that that this finding has hurt The credibility of of the reporters invol and the network I'm sure and the network who was the the the expert she's a professor she teaches ethics and journalism Emma Lacy berau Emma Lacy berau do you think they're going to change like at that level of uh standards and practices within CNN because of this case I don't know you know the the standards and practices document we we put into evidence we didn't show portions of it you know you've got to there's all kinds of great stuff and you have to just make decisions of what you're going to show the jury and so stuff Falls in The Cutting Room floor as you're trying to fit everything into an hour and 45 minute presentation right but there are portions of that document that go into detail about defamation cases and how Banners are really difficult in defamation cases like you got to be careful about banners and oh W and and talking about you know tough language like that in documents can be used against you in defamation cases so there they're aware of it I mean it's common sense but they're aware of it I I don't know I hope I hope it just stops you know but or are they just going to start saying like more allegedly and more like well based on this Source who claims that you know yeah so someone someone asked um I posted on our forums if anyone had questions to ask you today and somebody said when all the news networks were saying in the B like right for 107 they said Israel bombs Hospital in Gaza you remember that and it turns out it wasn't them it was like the P or whatever the Hamas competitor did it and the terrorists are the actual ones that did it to their own misfired rocket and all the headlines said Israel bombs Hospital in Gaza and then like in small things in the article maybe it said you know Source Gaza Health Ministry according to according to so first of all is it defamation to run a headline like that or as long as they say Source anonymous source this person if if CNN would have put in the article you know Source this activist that reached out to them in the first place right is that total cover from defamation no it's not you can't just attribute it to its source and then you know be okay with it it'll help obviously but the courts are still going to look at the whole context of the communication so could there be a case made for international news like that of the state of Israel against of the BBC they're going to claim fog of War they're going to claim that they didn't have clear EV I mean if they have clear evidence they should have to what point up to what point is there a case is I want to hear from you is there a case in your opinion where there could be I mean these fake news headlines everying single day right Elon Musk doing a Sig hail uh at the inauguration I mean just so clearly out of context but everyone runs with it the good people on both Sid story that that's been so well explained right but you have leaders of the Free World still running that St narrative when it's clearly been refuted when it's been the most fake news it's it's clearly intentional defamation in my opinion to be able to say things like that is there legal remedy one day or because it's such big news and such a commonly done thing it's never going to change and the court isn't a remedy so you know every case has to be looked at in its own facts like so it's tough to make generalized statements but like for example if you take the the example about Israel and the Gaza Health Ministry source of B Israel bombing a hospital defamation law in the United States is very protective of speech in general even this case against C that's why it's such an accomplishment to have gotten puno damages it's so difficult to prove right but it becomes even more difficult to get any kind of liability at all when the subject of the story is a public person or a matter of public interest and the standards get ratcheted up way higher and so one of the legal Maneuvers CNN tried doing was they tried claiming that Zach was a public person based on based on the fact that he made some posts on LinkedIn about you know I mean everybody's public then that so that's what we argued exactly what we argued and the court agreed with us and said no and so because of that there was this like two-step inquiry which was was in a negligent and that was the yes they committed defamation per se yes they committed defamation by implication and then you got down to show malice show that they knew it was untrue or had substantial doubts as to its actual falsity and then published anyways and published with the primary intent to harm and that malice standard would get incorporated into the first question on a matter of public person like Israel so you'd have to show that not only did they make the mistake they knew it would probably not true and they went ahead and published it anyways it's very difficult to get that kind of evidence without getting into discussion overy and you probably wouldn't get that far in these cases also Israel I'd have to look at whether a sovereign can sue um probably but like there's a lot of issues that start jumping out when you try to think through that so there's a higher bar for that it's a higher bar I think practically you you're not going to see lawsuits from those press from those press stories whether it's possible in some technical way it probably is possible somehow but it's it's real tough you do see Trump going after you know more news organizations and having that settlement now with ABC and and still going after more right so that's true and he's public he's he's uh I mean I guess they're just figuring let's just settle and not drag this out which I guess is my my first question is why did CNN not settle this case they're down O2 count coming into this they I mean you you've really got them where you want them why did they not settle before I don't know you'd have to well I will tell you this did they make any offer so there was a public mediation so the court ordered the parties to mediate that mediation failed okay so I shouldn't say I don't know CNN did try to settle I think Zach was unwilling to settle and we we I've been quoted publicly you know going back a year or two ago already saying he would not settle like he wanted everybody's going to settle for the right price I mean there has to be a price mean I don't know about that Zach well because think about it Z was but the fact that if if it is a big I guess people don't know the size of the settlements I if there was obviously if people knew there was a big settlement they clearly know CNN is saying you know we messed up here uh we're very happy with the settlement okay I can't can't disclose the the number uh but we're very happy with it was that CNN strategy the whole time to wait and see if they would get you know called out for punitive damages and then go in and settle you know that day dangerous strategy a very dangerous strategy and and it's left I mean in my opinion it's left uh a scar on their reputation I mean we now have a jury first of all it aired all their dirty laundry right which was all of these messages saw the light of day that you know may not have ever seen if they were able to settle I want to asteris that because I really don't think Zach would have settled until he got his verdict so even if you got the settlement that you wound up getting he wouldn't have taken that number beforehand oh yeah he was not settling this case till verdict okay I think it was unique in that there were two verdicts that were necessary so first was did they commit defamation and how much money do they have to pay and are they on the hook for punitive damages right and the jury said yes they did defamation they should pay $5 million and yes we need which was lower than you wanted it was lower than we wanted but you know you got to think about the demographics of where you are and that area of Florida is just not as affluent as Miami or Broward so it was not unexpected that they would come in lower okay but they answered the next question which was the most important question in the affirmative right saying yes CNN needs to be punished right which is uncapped in Florida correct it is capped Yes except in Florida it becomes uncapped if you did it with the intent to harm the other person okay and since in order to get punitive damages on step one we needed to prove that they a primary intent to harm the jury finding itself removed the cap from from phase two okay and that was something you argued to the judge yes yes that convinced him that was a really cool argument yeah but I think it's right it's very gamar cup argument because you already have the that's right yeah it was already established that they did it with malice so if they did it with malice and Malice requires a primary intent to harm then the jury's already found that they had a primary intent to harm which should remove the cap not needed yeah so Zach really wanted two things he wanted CNN to be proven that they acted with malice against him and they wanted he wanted obviously a settlement but he didn't want to settle without that even if CNN admitted that beforehand that wouldn't have been enough for him I think he wanted Vindication and I think he wanted to stand up to you know Zach's a really unique person he's got a really unique background and I think he did not like the record as it stood and CNN had already apologized but that wasn't enough and he wanted to prove himself right and I think he also was doing something for societal good I I really think that was part of it for him he's always been a I was talking about this before and one of the things that really fired him up was you know one of these women activists called him a mercenary and he got really upset about it he's like I'm not a mercenary I do get paid for the work I do but I only do work in the interest of the United States and so that that sort of thing really fired him up and I think he felt this was almost like his duty to go the distance so nothing CNN could have said would have changed his M okay I mean you'd have to ask Zach but my impression is no he was going to verdict and then because he got the verdict that said yeah they lied about you they owe you money and they did it on purpose right and to hurt you and they knew it wasn't true at that point I think he felt he made his point and he could bow out gracefully and and take a settlement from C I mean if if if if the jury decides they want to award I mean I think you had asked for 30 days of Revenue was that something that c would have appealed do you think 100% they would have appealed yeah 100% so it would have gone on for another who knows how long yeah years okay then who knows if you know who knows what the Appel cours would do I mean I think we'd win but you never know and so yeah so you take the haircut and you settle and he's happy with that you say it was a haircut I didn't say there was a haircut okay fair enough I didn't say there wasn't a haircut either to be clear I can neither confirm nor deny your comments then I I saw the jury asking like oh so how much was it like they wanted to know they want to know too yeah absolutely that so funny I bet you want to know what the jury was thinking oh my God desperate desperate to know have any reporters reached out to the jury pool that you know of not I'm aware of whereas the lawyers are not permitted to do that um but the public is so and the jury is allowed to contact us so does the public know who was on the jury that's a great question how would that connection be made even so there's vaer which is the selection of the jury and that's done in open court it wasn't broadcast live but it's done in open court so if anyone was in court they could have heard the names of the jurors is something that come out Freedom of Information who went to the jury selection or you mean like a like a foyer request that's a great question I don't know the answer to that I don't know the answer to that but it's certainly you know like it was find out and there was a lot of press there that weren't broadcasting live but they were there so they know I think the names of the jurors but I mean even if there was one juror who's gonna speak and do a podcast like this I mean he's he can't prove you know what the whole jury would have ruled for pun of Damages you would never know what they would have true decided collectively sure that's true and and they didn't even finish hearing the evidence you got settled before all the experts even got they never even got together to discuss the puni of damage right that was correct they decided that we were entitled to it right but they didn't talk about a number a number right well I mean who knows but right they shouldn't have yeah so you mentioned that this was in this County in the was it Florida Panhandle it was in Florida yeah Bay County so how did it wind up there we filed up there okay I want to hear more about that more about that strategy yeah you know you are allowed as a plaintiff to choose your Venue and you can choose it for any reason you want and as long as venue is proper and venue was proper Bay County both because the defamatory content was broadcast there and CNN had Affiliates there and so under Florida law we were able to go there but you could have picked any County in the country theoretically uh if it had aired there and if there were potentially Affiliates there yes we could have chosen any in the in the country you know I'm I'm a Florida lawyer also New York a lawyer and DC lawyer but you know it's easier to be home so that that was helpful I'd rather be in Florida and then a lot of our preliminary research showed us that Republicans were much more ready to hold CNN not just CNN but media to account than Democrats it's not you know a lot of people like oh you love the Republicans it wasn't that we wanted Republicans that hated CNN it was just that our research showed us that Republicans were more willing to hold the media to account and it kind of broke down Republican Democrat that way Independence Independence kind of broke with us too uh but so we went and found a county that was both favorable from a court perspective the trial courts in Bay County have a great reputation the First District Court of Appeal which is the pellet Court over there has a great reputation so we like the court systems there when you say reputation what does that mean like you know they're they they get things right they're quick they they they issue opinions that we like and things like that there are minor differences in Florida as you go so Florida's the big state and there are different district courts of appeal that sit over different areas of Florida so for example Miami and qest is what we call the Third District Court of Appeal Broward is the fourth district court of appeal with you know Palm Beach County and so on so the appell court that sits over that geographic area sets the law for that area and it is uniform throughout Florida unless there's a disagreement between two of them so you can have minor differences in law in Florida depending on which District Court's Jurisdiction you're in until the Florida Supreme Court will resolve it and then it becomes uniform so the law in the first DCA we thought was good for us the courts in the first DCA we thought were good courts smart courts fast courts and so we liked it from that perspective and voted like 80% Trump right it's like 73 72.8 I think per Trump voters or not not Trump voters but Republican voters so we had everything we wanted good law good courts and a van we call it like a jury pool of people that we thought were ready to hold the media to account what's interesting is just just over the past year I've seen numbers about you know people that still respect the media believe the media is truthful and even among Democrats it's really fallen off a cliff over the past year or something like that we and in this case also I think will is was I opening for both Republicans and Democrats as far as honesty from the media are you you know our jury was three three three Republicans three Dem you able to ask them when there selection how they're registered how do you know that well you you can look them up okay so we know their names and then you can look them up so so you just do that instantly when you're selecting absolutely yeah yeah yeah we had jury Consultants with us to help us you know pick the jury and help you know figure that out it actually came out during trial Zach testified to the fact that we had a jury consult we were just like oh my goodness it's got to tell the truth so we can't object how did that question come up CNN I think CNN asked who was in the room with you when you were preparing with your lawyers and Zach answered truthfully I mean Zach was super honest right and there was this portion of the trial where CNN like played some Shenanigans and got a document we had never seen and like sprung it on us and and the judge wouldn't let us talk to Zach and so we were internally talking like what's going on and everybody was just like three years Zach has never lied to us ever lied to us like we just have to have some confidence in our client it turned out he you know that was rewarded cuz it was true he had not lied to us again and CNN ended up getting lambasted for it so so what was the breakdown of the jury it was 3 three I think it was three Republicans and three Democrats wow so the county did not come into play really with that 73% yeah number really didn't it's a Sixers six jurries yeah well he selected eight um because you have two alret at Jury number two after the first week jury number two called in sick she came off the panel that brought in alternate jur number seven became part of the panel and then there was another Alternate which was jur number eight and she was dismissed at the end of the case because she wasn't needed so the breakdown of the eight was four and four then or what was the uh the breakdown to eight was I don't there were some okay was there it might have been independent I don't I don't remember but we had three Democrats interesting three Democrats I mean why so what happens is you get we had 40 something people in the room and I get to ask questions CNN gets asked questions just wasn't aired and you don't got to ask about their politics right you don't really get to ask about their politics we didn't ask about their politics I'd have to think about whether you that'd be permissible or not there might be cases where it'd be permissible but in this one we again we didn't really care that much about it right I mean you you did do it there because it's a republican County now I mean that's part of the strategy yeah that's true but like when it came to picking actual jurors there were things we cared much more about than just their that wasn't dis appointment for you that it was three and three I mean I would have loved to have six jurs that absolutely hated CNN but that that would have been a fair trial right and so part of part of me was but representative of the area might have been you know 5- one or four- two yeah uh the the statistics broke down to be like basically 42 was the statistically likely scenario it wasn't disappointing to us I think when we saw the final breakdown of the jury panel we were like okay so CNN's going to get a fair trial and that actually in some ways that kind of was meaningful to us because we didn't want people to be like oh they only won because of this like and so we thought we had a winning case and had known what I know now like before we filed we might have filed somewhere else we didn't know what the evidence was going to show when we filed the case and so obviously as lawyers it's our it's our job to do as best of a job as we can for our client and that includes filing where it's beneficial for him to file in retrospect would you have done it in Miami Dade possibly yeah because I think we would have gotten a higher first number from the it was before Discovery that's right we didn't know oh you didn't know how damning the evidence was at that time exactly oh interesting what's the order would be when you find things out you file right and then once you have a court case you can start getting documents from the other side you really knew you didn't have any smoking guns at that point you didn't know that you would win these summary judgments okay so that changes everything as far as strategy go that's true that's true now I will say we got very lucky with judge Henry um because I've been I you know I've been practicing for a long time now and he is one of the smartest judges I've ever practiced in front of he might have gotten someone unfavorable here I mean who knows yeah who knows who we could have gotten I mean we have great we have great judges here too but we also have you know not so great judges and I you know what big County might be similar but there's there's less of them so it's easier to kind of look at who you might get he was phenomenal I don't always agree with his decisions I think he got some things wrong obviously I when I Lose I'm I I don't think I should have lost but overall I thought he did a really good job of kind of calling balls and Strikes and following the law so so you think based on just the average income in Miami day versus Bay County is it twice as much something like that probably you know I don't know the exact numbers that the damages would have been yeah they would have been more I think they would have been more ready to give a higher amount you know and I think jury think I mean I'm guessing but I think this jury thinks they gave Zach the world with the 5 million but I agree I think but it was a lot less than his potential what he could have made I think for emotional damage for a regular person say they got a million dollars that's like retirement money right for like like that's like you're set for life you got a million dollars you know and and to someone making 25 $30,000 a year that's a crazy amount of money to give and and and I do think that it does show what a great case you argued you know that they did that so does the fact that they settled the case you know in between phase one and phase two does that render moot the ruling of phase one or how does what what are the what no I mean the case is dismissed so but that doesn't get rid of the jury finding a jury found after a full trial that they defamed him they did it purposely and maliciously to hurt him and that you know he they should be punished as a result of that in determining what the actual punishment should be we never got that far so it it does kind of meaning we can't take our $5 million jury verdict and go bring it to CNN and collect on their assets for it because the settlement replaced that verdict right but the finding is still there it's still a fact it happened and you know nothing nothing he got what he wanted which is clearing his name basically cleared his name and you know he again you know you remember the the money is made in these cases on the punitive damages so you know they settled that portion of it and like we can't talk about it but Zach is Zach is very happy okay yeah I I feel like both sides were arguing very much about the punitive as the as the Crux of the issues and their closings especially right um I feel like you did it about you know patriotic Duty and everything like that and and the actual numbers that should be awarded it was more left to the expert right I I feel like you didn't really focus on that because you knew and they knew as well that it's the punitive that that really matters here that's right that's what we were really going for that was that's where the meat of the you know that's where the meat is so to speak so yeah 100% we were watching on the Deal's forums watching the case live at least the the settlement part of it everyone's you know watching what's going to what's going to happen in phase one phase two I think the Judge asked you at one point if you if you want a thousand if you if you want a fine for something that came up and one of the guys is really hoping you're gonna say well now I can afford it no no would not I think his reaction might have been uh well how about how about we triple it or how we yeah um but what happened then what was that about so I think that happens a lot with judges when one side is really acting out and not acting nicely they will in an effort to appear kind of bipartisan or Fair they'll kind of like throw flak both ways and so I think CNN's council did a lot of things that really irked the judge and I kind of got caught in some of the crossfire and what ended up happening was so we were in phase two and we were going to put on evidence of out their finances and they had a financial expert they wanted to put on the stand and we had certain deposition testimony from their CFO we wanted to play and we had filed a motion that morning at like 5:30 in the morning to exclude their expert witness saying it didn't meet the standards necessary to be an expert that we had sent to the other side these are the portions of your CFO Depot we want to play and so CNN got up and said they waited too long to do this this is like happening right now we're we're unfairly prejudiced they could have done it earlier and so then judge Henry looked at me and he's like why did you wait today to file it and so I started going down this pathway of explaining to him well what happened was we got permission to add punitive damages and when that happens you get the right to seek Financial discovery which is super intrusive you know what's their net worth what are their revenues everything like that so they immediately appealed that decision because it's appealable right away to the first DCA and so instead of us sending Financial Discovery and then them filing a motion to stay the financial discovery pending resolution of the appeal to see we just agreed that we would hold off on financial Discovery until the first DCA issued its decision then what happened is the first DCA this was like two months before trial no this was a long time ago oh wow yeah like years ago okay and then what happened was the first DCA issued his decision affirming the trial courts adding punitive damages to the case so soon as that came down we went back to CN and said okay now we're doing Financial Discovery they filed what they called a motion for hearing on Bonk asking not just the three judge panel of the first DCA to decide it but to have the entire first DCA rehear the case and we went to judge Henry and we said they're going to lose this and it's wrong and we never agreed to keep it stay until it's resolved right basically and so he kept us stayed until the first DCA denied the motion for rehearing in Bon then CNN was like oh we might petition to the Supreme Court the Florida Supreme Court for review and we were like judge and at that point CNN never did it and it never became an issue we and we we moveed forward and so what I was trying to set up was to explain to him I was like Hey and when that happened I told you that you're going to jam us up on financial Discovery and like everything's going to get late and at one point you yourself even said I don't know when we're going to do these dabert motions which is the motion to challenge the finances but as soon as I started going down the road of hey there was this agreement and went he immediately assumed I was like sliding CNN's Council which I wasn't doing actually that's when he's like hey you want $1,000 fine and so that's why I said no but backround I was like you know were you scared to push back moment no I mean like I you got to stand up for yourself right and I'm like no like I I obviously I don't want to find but also like I'm doing nothing wrong here was he seemed pretty happy with your explanation on he backed off I agree I mean you you stood up for yourself he said I take it very seriously when I say in court yeah yeah I think judges respect I mean you got to be respectful you know but you got to also be able to stand up for yourself if you're too scared to stand out for yourself for your client you're not going to be doing a good job so yeah I mean not all judges will and some would be like okay $1,000 fine but it is what it is you got to make your record so see were yamaka during the whole trial what did what did it anybody comment on that do you think that affected anybody's opinions or what they said I don't think so I mean I don't know but I don't think so like I always do I never have not done it yeah and I think we're seeing more and more lawyers that are doing that professionally we wearing yamuk at a court that's just my personal just what I see out there but I think especially l people just expect lawyers to be Jewish anyways just kind of fall lawyers in cont yeah it's like that's like he's Jewish of course he he's a lawyer you know I just it's like I feel like it's a badge of honor it's like oh he's not just a lawyer he's a good lawyer you know he's a Jewish lawyer I want that Jew lawyer you know like so so no comment though from any no comment from anyone nothing and what about chabus chabus was interesting I was there for three shabas because we got there early but there were two shabas that were occurring during the trial and before trial started I flagged for judge Henry that you know shaba starts really early and we'd really have to finish trial at o' something like that it's like 4:45 or something like that yeah CU different time zone different time zone right yeah I think I even realized that Florida had a central time I Wasing like oh yeah nobody knows neither did I until and then like sometimes have to fly out of Tallahassee so it's like a two-hour drive but then you flip time zones and so I'd arrive at the airport an hour after the flight was supposed to leave and I was like oh it's pretty wild that it doesn't just like you know the time zone does curve between some states but florid the P handle so far though right it it really screw things up I think I first realized that only when you had asked me I know that your family had tried flying to you for shabas and they were oh my God you guys were clutch on so they're going through Atlanta and J's like we need a flight from Atlanta to was the air City Beach P City Beach and I'm like wow that's this it's got there the same time it departs it's in a different time zone like okay I don't think I even realized that that was a thing what folks don't know is at trial my wife was like you like you just said she was supposed to I was away from the house for 3 weeks a long time so we had planned for the second shabas she'd bring all the kids we'd hang out over chabas and then she'd go back Sunday and that way at least I'd see the kids so she did that and you can't fly from Miami to Panama City which is my first surprise I'm like America doesn't have a Non-Stop to Florida to Florida flight that was surprising to me I know I was crazy so you have to go through another airport and the easiest way to do it is go Delta through Atlanta yeah and it's like a 45 minute layover and so they did that of course they land in Atlanta on the morning Friday morning of this crazy once in a blue moon this wasn't for reconnaissance at CNN headquarters conne no and it's my wife with four kids and she gets on this plane and you know it's it's it's snowing and there's backup and the pilot is telling her you're going to take off you're going we're this flight is taking off and I'm looking at the background of this J is having me is this the flight going to take off and I'm looking at it I'm like nope so I'm looking at there were there were zero Delta dep there's nothing going out and I think this is at noon already on Friday and she was supposed to leave I think 8:30 and like zero Delta flights have left in the past three and a half hours there's no way this little Regional Jet is going to take off on this little flight they've got so many planes I'm looking at the flight radar you're literally looking at the actual planes on the runway line up counted 100 planes I'm counting lined up I'm like there is no way and then finally at noon they lifted the departure stop and there's still a ground stop at the time for flight going into Atlanta but there's there's like five flights tricking out in an hour and there's five like there I'm doing the math here there's no way this like so I told JJ tell Han to ask the pilot like there's only five flights going out per hour do you really think we're getting out and the pilot I mean was the pilot was surprised like where did you get that data from like I don't have that data but I'm sitting home on my computer I'm seeing the data but the pilot doesn't have that information of the the rate of Departures per hour and not many flights are lined up so my wife is going nuts with four kids in the plane and texting with j was texting with you so then she's texting me and I'm trying to do trial so but you know just my wife and my kids so she's like what do you do what do I do and I was like oh my God I don't know so then I reach out to JJ I'm like now can you be on your phone in the court or was there a recess you can be on your phone in the court it can't ring um but it's like we thought the jury might look at it like disrespectful so I was on my computer which was open in front of me and I was taking notes and I was using WhatsApp and I message on my computer whatever yeah so I'm so I reach out to JJ and I'm like what's going on with this flight like what's gonna happen and he's like I've looked at it Dan's looked at it this flight's not taking off and I'm like the Pilot's telling her it's going to take off J's like we see more than the pilot I'm like how sure are you this flight's not taking off and he's like 100% sure this flight is definitely not taking off before shabis and almost certainly not taking off at all so I text Ken I'm like you should get off the plane she's like she's devastated like she wanted to see me and the kids everything like that she's like I want to see you the pilot saying is going to take off I was like Dan and are saying it's not taking off I don't care what the Pilot's saying that flight's not taking off you might as well get somewhere nice in Atlanta so you're not like and it's kind of like if you watch like Apollo 13 and you're like they have only so much information on the aircraft on spacecraft right Houston has the information from they're the on that have the computers they know a lot more they're like well do we need to tell them that is this information they need up there on their like no they don't need this information it's kind of like I've got all the information in front of me the pilot doesn't have that level of information so he's telling them yeah we're going to take off we're absolutely going to take off he's telling his passengers it's going to happen I'm like there's and that's what he was saying and so K was like why am I getting off the pilot saying it happened I was like it's not going to happen and so she eventually says to me um the kids like I told them we should get off they're like devastated I'm going to give it one more hour and I'm like looking at the clock I'm like okay it's still more than enough time to get to ATL I was like so I literally wrote her I was like that's fine but you realize you're going to have to get off this flight like this is horrible but she's like I know but let's just see sure enough an hour goes by and no progress so she gets off the flight and and they're still at the gate right they're still at the gate didn't take off she eventually was supposed to take a taxi but the folks she was staying at said you know like don't get in a car Atlanta's not ready for snow like take a train and on the way from you know maybe 45 minutes or so after she had left the plane sure enough the cancellation came through JJ's like told you I was like I didn't doubt you but yeah and then she told me that so uh David and Tova Isaacs are super nice took them in hosted them for sh unbelievable absolutely incredible and then uh she said they said that you can't drive in Atlanta in the snow and and there were dozens of crashes in Atlanta that day it was crazy they you have to take the public transfer there's like some sort of tram system and she said that all the homeless also decided to go on the tram that day and she's with four kids but she didn't have any suitcases which I was impressed I was impressed there was no check luggage I'm like is there a check luggage like how you get that up like that's that's impressive we learned some stuff from guys and they wanted to drink because there was snow and and it was like filled with drunk homeless people but she eventually made it there and the headphone picked them up and the like four-wheel drive vehicle and then and then 20 minutes before chabas the power went out yep yep it did oh my goodness and and and that and then reminded me when I was flew through Dallas in a snowstorm to get to Maui and there was a snow you know crazy snowstorm all the fight gets canceled my hotel had no not just no power but had no water they lost water in Dallas oh God these others I just do not handle the snow very well Houston I Houston today got snow like we do not own a single snowplow there's nothing we can do we just have to wait it out yeah so yeah I'm sure Atlanta is pretty pretty similar there that uh they did make it to me Sunday morning okay good by the time Sunday morning you know after noonish came around I guess enough snow had melt I was telling JJ on Friday just rebooking as soon as you can because he did that's G to get can that people going to fill up those flights right the sh flights get are going to get canceled too and people going to fill up the Sunday flight that's always got to think ahead of you know those cancellations cuz sometimes oh there's no flights for three more days that have space yeah first there you change that flight before it's cancelled you can you know get the availability yeah so they came Sunday okay they came Sunday JJ booked them Friday before sh there no court on Sunday of course there's no court on Sunday I was supposed to be working for the case but you know family family's more important so we spend and that's of course the point of going for shabus is you can't work exactly like shabus is when you sp sit there just like twiddling my thumbs you know it's like um so you're three shabas in Panama City Beach whatever that is yeah um just by yourself well the last one Han was with me so she came in for closing okay just her just her my parents watched the kids did she fly through Atlanta or Charlotte she flew through Atlanta okay she flew through Atlanta I thought about having her go to Tallahassee and then driving two hours but she flew through Atlanta no problems and she arrived for the uh closing arguments and then the jury verdict and then the second portion of you know phase two which decides the amount and then she was there for the settlement and then by the time was settled there was like an hour and a half till shabas started there was no time to get out and there were no flights Saturday night in M of shabis so we ended up uh just being stuck together and the whole team eventually left because none of them were religious or none of them were Jewish uh some of them were Jewish but not religious and so everyone ended up departing you know over the course of chabas and eventually it was just her and I does every like go out for drinks afterwards but is there any very antagonistic at Parts sure uh I will say that when it was over you know we all shook hands and and we were all joking around with each other so I I don't know there was no opportunity to do that but it does happen it does happen and actually some of CNN's own Witnesses like what their their corporate rep Adam Lavine I have a lot of respect for that guy he yeah real really smart he was asked to defend like an impossible position and uh we talked a little bit after afterwards or that was Alex marker his no lavine's documents were super clean leine Mar five oh oh oh oh oh well markart went to a concert after then if you you yeah we used after the actual story air actual story aired and he was like expressing frustration that digital didn't want to push us publish a story because digital was like this is a flawed story swiss cheese you know that sort of thing so he got frustrated and he wrote to another colleague of his he's like something I don't remember the exact quote but something along the lines of whatever like the story aired it's a new day I went to a concert or something like that it's like the guy literally like burnt Zach's house down and like went Wonder these guys does someone like him does he get blowback you know after you know see has to pay out a case like this we don't know obviously I have no idea I mean you hope that they change their standards and they promoted him so yeah it was pretty crazy they w a motion Lim on this I didn't think they should but um you allow to talk about it now yeah it's just not allowed to go to the jury okay so he was promoted after so what happened was he was like senior National Security correspondent and then he did the story and then negotiations hit for his contract renewal and then shortly after that started we filed our motion for leave to amend to add punitive damages where we take all the bad evidence in the case and we put it toward the judge and we say hey this is real bad you should let us seek punitive damages and the courts Act is like a gatekeeper to like not allow garbage cases through and within a month of that or something like very very shortly after we filed that motion CNN paused his contract negotiations and and then did an investigation and like a month later resumed them promoted him to Chief National Security correspondent and gave him a raise and so we moveed c not think they were going to lose this case was there just arrogance here I well I you know my closing had a big theme of arrogance yeah I don't know but they did that and so we wanted to say hey not only did CNN do this they were rewarded the guy that did it right but uh the judge kept it out we were allowed to talk about his career trajectory so there's a cross portion of the cross I was like hey why was that not relevant he said there was no evidence that there was any kind of quidd pro Crow or any kind of like bargain for Exchange in relation to it so therefore it's more prejudicial than probative meaning it would hurt CNN more in the eyes of the jury than it would help us prove our case okay I thought he was wrong because I thought you know part of punitive damages analysis part of the analysis of whether they need to be punished is how do they react to this and here they reacted by by promoting the guy right which seems like that you know they were happy with what happened here which is something that shocked me the most and and you told me you just got to you know play the cards your de was your partner in at the firm Kyle Ro he did a fantastic opening yep and he was on the impression he had 40 minutes I think and in reality he had like an hour and 20 minutes an hour that he could have used and you didn't play the actual segment because you were trying to condense everything into 40 minutes and then when CNN got up there and said that they had an hour you know before they started he's like no no judge it was 40 minutes like I'm sure about this and he ended up he misunderstood made him mistake and CNN added to their opening you saw what they did they had 20 minutes left and they didn't even show you the clip that's how much they don't want you to see it that's how much it start arguing it was like so dirty so unbelievable and then you wanted to bring it up again how they use that against you and they're just like not in my courtroom and like but they that's pretty they started it right and you said you just got to deal you know it's just so much is determined before a trial starts that I I I never realized that that much is decided behind the jury's back I guess oh yeah ton of it tons of it I mean there was there was a lot of stuff you know there's so many moving Parts it's impossible to have total control over everything and so another really cool example like that that ended up working out for us was we wanted to admit the definitions of black market and and so we we were just going to scan the dictionary pages and the the scans weren't coming out great and it had all kinds of other words and the judge was like I don't want all these other words to go in so he said you know what we'll just pull the online versions so the associates pulled the online version and had that first page of the of the definition they sent it to CNN CNN gets up and objects like hey it's only page one of nine and so I was like I don't know what the other pages are they must be like advertisements or something and so we asked the associates to pull them and review them we're in court and some you know sometimes these things happen it just kind of slipped and they sent it to CNN CNN said oh we've looked at it okay and the judge admitted into evidence then I looked at it and I saw that it had this portion the Websters version had this portion of the of the web page that said like common usage compiled from around the internet and then it was like a read more and if you click read more it says like Websters does not endorse these definitions everything like that but that wasn't on there and then there was an example of somebody buying like tickets like secondhand tickets on the black market and so we ended up going back to the judge and we're like hey we want just the dictionary definition it's got all kinds of other stuff in it he's like no it's in it's in and so we were frustrated with that too because that you know shouldn't have been in there and it was kind of like it wasn't dirty by CNN it was like one of our Associates should have picked it up and they didn't um and so it was what it was but then as we got into trial ax Rod put up Adam Lavine a CNN a CNN's lead lawyer yeah and he put up Adam Lavine their corporate rep and and you know we ended trial every day at 5 and so he clearly dragged that examination out until 4:59 so that the jury would have to go home listening to the favorable testimony of Adam Lavine now nothing wrong with that strategy you know absolutely but he made a mistake because he ended at 459 and there was still a minute left so what happened was he ended on this issue with these black market and he puts up the definition on the screen and he goes look you see here buying tickets and remember one of the core issues in the case was does black market mean an illegal Market or can it mean something else and so he's like look here you see Websters has this definition of buying tickets on the secondhand Market secondhand tickets is a black market if you buy Taylor Swift tickets from StubHub is that a black market you Adam lavine's like no it's not and so he sits down to rest and kind of leaving the jury with this idea that black market doesn't only mean illegal market and up until that point every CNN person on the stand said we understood it to mean an unregulated Market that was their whole defense they had nothing so now he finally hooked in to some legitimate Source semi legitimate source of course it didn't have the Webers doesn't endorse this and he was going to leave him with that overnight to come back the next day but he messed up because he left a minute so I didn't ask I just kind of got up there was like judge I have a question I can ask in a minute and he kind of looked at me like he's like okay and so I said can you put that back up there and he puts it back up and you know obviously I knew this had come in and I wasn't and I have to have a plan for it so I didn't know that he was going to use it for LaVine I thought he was going to wait for closing but he pulled it out for LaVine so I get up there and I go hey do you see here where it says that the version is compiled from online sources and he says yeah and I go listen isn't ticket scalping illegal in some states he's like oh I don't I don't know where the law is now in every state and I was like okay but you can agree with me that there are some places where ticket scalping is illegal right and he goes yeah and I go well in those places then if you buy a secondhand ticket then you are doing something illegal and you are working on the black market aren't you and he's kind of looks at me he goes yeah and I was like okay judge we can end for the day one minute sure I like I got in a minute and like it just completely ruined great for his plan was to leave him with this idea that black Market's not and now they're going home being like Oh yeah why did you leave the minute did he I just don't think he I mean this is literally the 98 yard kick return you get to the one yard line and then you're celebrating and get tackled like are you serious that's literally what happened or they drop it they they drop it to like you know spike it they spike it at the one yard line and it's just a fumble was huge mistake cuz now they went home not only did they not go home on lavine's testimon they went home thinking oh number one ax Rod's you know CNN is misleading us about what the definition is and number two the plan of is right right vel's right about this like oh it is an illegal market and that's consistent with what's being said and then they went home with that sat with it all night so it was like I think he didn't think I'd get up and try to use a minute right like but I was like hell no hell like can't let him go home on that so wow so mistakes happen but you got you know when they happen you've just got to be ready there were a few there were a few highlights of the case in the comments on the live stream they were called it a Perry Mason moment you know that was one of them um I loved the theater and acting part oh yeah yeah well that was you that's why you loved it yeah so okay so this is crazy actually but um this isn't the closing this is not closing the cross of markart okay Dan watch your closing which by the way if no one has seen the closing yet on this case go look it up it was unbelievable closing I I feel like you have to put that on your resume and so many people online were watching until then we're like we're not sure we we know we really need to listen to closing and they heard your closing I'm like wow like that was just a dagger that was one guy in our Forum he said he started listening to the case by CNN's defense that's when he started right and he was thinking Sia's pretty good and then he heard the closing he's like forget it it's over it's over it's done that's I'm glad to hear that that's what you're supposed to do in closing so it's good to hear I was able to accomplish absolute dagger yeah this was a big deal so one of the main themes of our case like the biggest theme of our case was CNN shows theater over truth and the reason we did that was because we had this video this behind the-scenes footage and Discovery you know CNN has to produce everything to us one of the things we asked for was all raw footage that you took to create the video segment and they turned that over and we were watching it and you know I don't know if CNN didn't watch it all the way to the end or what during Discovery but in deposition I I you know we got this what happens is markart makes a phone call to Zach on his phone and it shows Zachary young as a contact and there was a big issue in trial of whether that call was real or not because the the call history wasn't there but markart said it was real so whatever putting aside whether it's real or not after that call ends the cameraman tells Mark can Verizon not tell you definitively if that was made or not made on Signal I don't know but also it was too late nobody had tracked that down during Discovery and now like the evidence is like game set match like now you can't add stuff anymore got and so we were able to take advantage of this that you know and it was actually something we realized in the days leading up to trial we're like hold on a second like we always assumed he made the call but then when we started looking through the evidence were you there for that too I think you were there for that too yeah JJ was there for that too was like helping us kind of just like as be like almost like a jury consultant like giving us like an outside perspective of how the evidence looked and he went and he's like wait a second like there's there's missing there's no Miss call here there's no outgoing call here and so we started making it a theme of the trial like well that's the evidence shows and like you know but putting aside whether he made that call or not after he makes that call which clearly rang he then picks the phone up again and the the the cameraman tells him to like pretend like he's making a phone call and he sits there for like 30 seconds staring at a phone pretending to call like with a concerned face on like a fake ring or there's no ring at all it's just sitting there and they used it for like what they called b-roll footage or whatever it was they called it and then that fake call the the undisputably fake Call makes it into the final video segment like where you see markart staring at a phone call he's like not he's has this concerned look and the voiceover is like we tried to call Zachary young but he didn't pick up makes him look real shady when he's done and the guy's like okay cut we've got it all markard puts his phone down and then he takes a step back and he raises his hands in the air and he goes theater like with this like English accent yeah and it was like what a startling admission right like oh my God you literally are are admitting that what you're doing was theater and so it was a big theme of our case was theater versus truth right theater versus truth so well you know I cross-examined him on this and are you reporting the news or are you making it up exactly and their and their standards say we do not create the news we report the news right and so we we slammed them on that and so in the in the cross I had this great moment where I was like was theater right and he's like no and I was like yeah you know you you that theater makes in he's like no it's Boll Footers oh well theat I was just like you can't even say it you can't even admit what you did right it was like this really dramatic moment then his lawyers get up you know CNN's lawyers get the C and then we played the [ __ ] yeah it was like all building up to like and then you had him saying the you know so then what happens is his lawyers put him up right and they they they get to ask questions and so they go what what is this whole thing about theater and he says you know I'm embarrassed to admit this but I'm a big fan of SNL and I'm a huge John Lovitz fan and John Lovitz has this character was the thesbian or something what's it called or something like I forgot what the name of Master thesbian and he gets up there and he goes theater and he says it in SNL he's like I was really just like there was this whole big production and like we didn't get the shot and I just I tried to like I don't remember his exact words he said something he always does yeah he like he always does this it's like it's like a thing and it was like this like excuse for why he said theater and I I listened to it and I was like damn like obviously it's still bad that he said theater but this kind of made it less bad right and I was like this was a big part of our case yeah and I was really frustrated about it and so I was immediately like almost comical a little bit yeah he kind of like took some of the like sting out of the admission into being like okay he was joking maybe shouldn't have been joking but like it was a bad joke not an admission of guilt and so I was pretty frustrated so I I immediately got on the the chat with all the lawyers the team and I was like how do you think that came across and people are like you know uh and then I I got on my family WhatsApp chat too and I was like hey is anybody watching and JJ was watching BOS was watching my sister and I think my sister goes like I feel like he accomplished in like making it less bad unbeknownst to me JJ decides to go on a crusade the man looks up JJ what's your hourly it's seriously it's unbelievable he's like wait a second hold my beer right and I knew I knew before cuz cuz I remember talking about this to you before the trial and I remember cuz you even talked to him about this during deposition like you mentioned and he did not mention this right there was no mention of this before this was clearly and I could say this as a non lawyer non involved in the case this was clearly made up with the lawyer before trial coached exactly what to say like oh oh that's great yeah use that in my opinion this say no reflection of the firm and I did not employ clearly this was set up just watching it I I could it didn't pass the sniff that it was so clear to me that this was made up prepared and they're like oh that's great use that you know and he's really good talker right he's got like a silver tongue he's yeah he's just really yeah I mean there's a reason he has how many three emys or whatever is he great he's a very talented reporter and and I think he's still going to be great after this segment and I think hopefully reporter or actor he he he elevates you know his uh okay so we asked him the emies are not in theater that's of so any so I had some background okay so J that in trial I did in depo and at trial I was like the theater the Emmys they're not in theater right no no J it was all the set up it was a whole theme through the cross because we knew this video was coming so it was a big deal that he had like managed to take some of the sting out of it a little bit and uh JJ's like hold my beer and he goes on SNL and he looks up every single episode that this master thesbian John love's character ever appears in and then he goes onto YouTube and on five time speed watches every single one of them to see if John litz actually does this acting this theater thing with his hands and I had asked Chachi BT if he does and GPT said he did and so I was like damn it but JJ why I don't trust chat GPT besides for like the case of the lawyers that like went to trial with chat GPT evidence on getting a trouble for that gives a lot of hallucination it does hallucinate you need you need to watch what it says okay so he watches every single one and then he finds this this like interview of Love its where he talks about his words and basically the long story short is JJ figures out the line isn't theater it's acting not theater and so he tells me this and he's like V it's it's acting it's not theater and I was like is I have no way to back it up right and he's like I'm telling you I was like how sure are you he's like I'm 100% sure as sure as that flight's getting can got canceled didn't it right the words I told you cuz I was so I said I'm willing to bet a billion dollars that's what I told I'm like I I'm actually willing to bet a billion dollars so the first thing I did I go back to GPT and I'm like give me the source and he gave me a video so then I sent the video to JJ I'm like watch this video and he's like nope doesn't say it and I was like how sure are you he's like I'm willing to bet a billion dollars that's a lot of money you know this is some serious trust by the way on the Fly trusting me in court I felt the love you're on WhatsApp communicating yeah WhatsApp literally talking about the live stream so he tells me this I was like okay I have to go for this right and and so I get up there and I'm recrossing him right because we called him in direct and then they cross and we redirect but technically it's a cross examination and I got there hey you testified about this thing about you know you said it was theater from John lovit yeah and I was like the the line is acting not theater isn't that right and I guess I must I just had so much confidence in JJ I just said it so like confident his his veneer just shattered must shock just shattered like his face I hope we could put this on the on the on when we yeah you could find it I yeah we're going to put this in in the in the video Yeah sir you mentioned John litz before do you recall that yes you said this famous line was theater do you remember that one of it yeah one of them yeah wasn't it really acting you used to say acting not theer Sor is that right yeah that's right then then I misremembered it I thought it was theater so your testimony here today sir is that you invoked a fictional character of a comedy show played by an actor to explain why you faked a call and killed a man's career and reputation with lies and slander no that's incorrect on multiple accounts his face dropped it just dropped and he he just was like humiliated what it looked like to me was just like humiliation shock surprise like un and he says something like oh was was was that the line I must I must have gotten confus or something and how did their team when they gave him this strategy not figure that out it's crazy like is this really what he thought it's nuts that's what made me so confident that it didn't pass the smell test because you could see it in the way he presented I could see it yeah knowing the history yeah um that this was just something they came up with and hope you bought it that's it and that was it I mean it was just it was so his reaction was so strong to that Revelation challenged he could he couldn't believe he had nothing to say that I used it in closing right I literally was talking about I like you could see it on his face like he's just shattered like when he it's also very rare I think it's very powerful because it's so rare it's very he said she said in the trial I thought Black Market went this was this it was all from a long time ago you know but to have something yes no on the stand from a witness that you're you're questioning how truthful he is and they're questioning that and just to have something so black and white yeah was it was it clear that he lied or that he was mistaken could you tell either way it doesn't matter so it didn't matter anymore it was like it had credibility was her credibility was shot the the explanation no longer made sense like I think the takeaway was that he was not being honest that's the takeway I took from it I think it's takeway the jury took up hurting him crushing him yeah really bad and that's why JJ was like a star of the like a big moment everybody's like wow and they look at me and they think it's so cool but really it was just JJ like it was did you get a dinner out of this JJ I owe I owe him one I owe him one yeah happy to help Ser Justice it's uh that's awesome he was great he stayed up to like 4 in the morning the night of the closing he went through the closing he gave me feedback and some really great stuff like one of the things CNN was also arguing was when it said you know I'm going to nail the Zachary young mother effer and then the guy responds back and going to hold you that one cowboy and then a couple lines later marker's like or maybe not maybe he just slips away and CNN was putting a lot of like hanging their hat on that being like oh it wasn't trying to nail him like he was like maybe I'll get him maybe I won't get him like we'll see what happens and JJ's like dude if somebody slips away it means they got away despite your best efforts to nail them it doesn't mean that you let them off I was like like you know it just sometimes takes that outside perspective and you know JJ is real smart on it and he told it to me I was like oh my God like I did that in closing and I was like it's so true meanwhile Jay is now applying to Harvard that she have to get my 180 my 180 he's like I dropped out the first time I'm like you guys really shouldn't let me I'm saying dropped out of pen but now that harvor is an option fora guys Harvard actually wanted yeah that's another story you did you got into Harvard then right what happened you was early admissions early and everyone withdrew it but Harvard's like you really want to withdraw you know like like are you sure AR's like AR's like you really want to withdraw and I'm like I have to and they're like okay if like if you insist you know you mean change change the course change the course of history you know what it's meant to be though you know it it wasn't absolutely that advice that you the advice that you got to take early mission from Penn despite you know thinking you could get into Harvard and then eventually dropping out and coming to work for Dan's deal it's the best thing ever right and and but the advice itself like you could look at it negatively like hey that was pretty bad advice I could have gotten into Harvard right or you could look at like no this was the way it was meant to be you weren't meant to go to law school and become a lawyer you were meant to do the career path you chose yeah and it was meant to be that's advice you got and advice that was still good advice because it led you down a path that you were meant to go down but it's cool you gets to live like vicariously as a lawyer by having a brother-in-law that's doing these high-profile Cas that's really cool it's aming it's awesome I mean I'm happy for the free help you know pretty awesome the first case was on the house but the next case one of the guys at Dan deals was like oh you need a jury consultant I was like yeah getting lime behind JJ exactly this guy added real value you know like multiple times that's awesome so all right so jury comes back they say that liable for everything every single count of Damages so what happens and they go out to lunch and then walk us through like what's the background who goes over to who what's the what's the inside the settlement negotiation what you're allowed to say obviously I mean there had been some discussions between the parties but like I said there wasn't really going anywhere so after the jury came down with a verdict that usually can loosen everybody up on their position so the conversations restarted uh and as soon as they go out to lunch like you're talking they didn't go to lunch they took yeah so actually it then so what funny oh did they so we ordered Lun I remember when they came back they wrote to the to the judge that they had reached the verdict okay and so the bayb comes out and you know she's like verdict so everybody starts coming back in to see because you know they had asked questions and things like that but this was verdict and I overheard when she handed the letter to the Baya she goes but we still want lunch and I had no idea how to interpret that like what does that mean we're done there's no phase two we're not giving punitive damages but we're still hungry and we want lunch right or does that mean like we know that like we need to go into a phase two now but before that we want lunch I had no idea and I'm sitting there racking my brains like which one is more like Wier like no so they they ordered then they reached the verdict obviously we were staying for phase two they ordered lunch but then what happened was the judge pushed us right to keep going because he knew we had to end early for shopas so what happened was you asked me about the shabas thing so I had flagged early on like months before trial that I would need to end trial at 4:15 the judge granted the request like you know look to CNN any objections they didn't OB okay so we'll stop at 4:15 on Fridays they had a Jewish lawyer too but not Orthodox right not Orthodox uh did they have a Jewish lawyer I don't know if they had a Jewish lawyer a Jewish name is he yeah I guake Schwarz yeah okay I assumed so yeah it very well might be so they they didn't object so we were planning at Ting at 4:15 but then what happened was as trial went on like we were falling way and way way way way behind schedule and it became obvious that we couldn't just lose 45 minutes but I couldn't be there for those 45 minutes so I eventually just told the team I was like just keep going I just have to leave this is the first Friday this is the first Friday so I did you know I I I explained what had happened and then and I just left and you know trial continued until 5:00 but on this phase two what I told judge Henry was listen like there's going to need to be a closing and I need to be able to give that closing so we can't like we have to end at 4 I think at that time like shabas pushed a little later and we were within a few blocks of the courthouse so as long as I had like 10 minutes before sh hit like I could go out and walk home and you know and Han was there so she would have been home and lighting already so we would been okay that was on day two so Jud Henry was aware of that and so he was pushing us to keep going so we immediately went into opening a face to then we put on our expert who talked about their revenues and their net net worth and everything like that while that was going on I was outside negotiating with one of CNN's lawyers and so that so the case was proceeding and we were negotiating how do you the expert or somebody had mentioned that 30 days Revenue how do you determine like what's a punishment where did that come from it's a great question it's just a strategy you've got to think through what the jury would why not say six months why not say two months where just just the blue no we we had a lot of discussions about why we chose the numbers we chose but um yeah you could have chosen any of them we needed to get an answer from from the expert that they could AFF it so that was one thing that was important and we also again we were cogent of where we were and so we didn't want to be asking for a billion dollars you know the Press reported as billion dollar case you you we never reported it as a billion dollar but you know obviously it had the potential to go very high and so it was I think the revenues were like 5 million a day right and so you know you that that was what it was like 150 million or something like that so I think we just kind of landed on that number as being like it was a nice even number 30 days not making them go bankrupt right it won't make them go bankrupt but it's enough to there was also a factor of like I had this thing I wanted to say in closing which was you know if you if you want to make a difference you got to make a dent and this is a big you had that closing prepared already not not written but like in my head I had ideas you know I've been doing this for two and a half years so you I have a little note on my on my phone somewhere with all like the ideas I wanted to wave into the closing and so you know there was something to like I want their their revenue was like two billion or 2.2 billion and so I wanted like somewhere around 10% okay I wanted to say something like if if the media companies know that every time they do this you're going to take 10% out of their bank account they're going to stop real fast yeah and so we wanted to to Target that number around that number and so that's that's kind of some of the thought process that went into it but there's no like a 30 days 60 days it's just you're taking it out of you got to pick what you think the jury will buy we thought you know we thought about you know what was the time frame between when they started the investigation and when they published like guess what goes through my thought is if you ask for 6 days maybe they'll come back and give you 30 days so if you ask for 30 days maybe they only give you 15 days of Revenue like is it is it like negotiating or are they just going to buy your argument and say like you know what we'll give you I think I think Joe the lawyer that was yeah uh crossing your expert on the money matters I think he did it so well cuz he did it very nonchalant like what would a 30-day timeout be it was very like D it's not even a big punishment what a small punishment be a small punishment would be $150 million it would be nothing to wouldn't it wouldn't be damaging it would just be punishing but it wouldn't be you know damaging the that was like the floor I I think that the CNN people saw that so would you have asked for 10% would you have asked for higher than that than in closing or so we had not yet determined that I mean this was happening so fast right like yeah crazy speed at that point insane and you know we had talked about whether to ask for numbers in Vader when we were you know in when we were interviewing the jury we talked about whether to ask for him an opening in closing you must give numbers so we gave some numbers at closing um but then when we started off again the phase two it was just being like it was lightning fast and so we were out talking amongst ourselves at lunch break for 20 minutes talking to each other like what's the number we should ask how many days timeout should we ask for where do we want to be and we were purposely going for something that was like high but that wouldn't limit us to like not be able to ask for more right just if you were asking like 20 million for the original damages and you came back at five if you ask for three days maybe they come back and chop that down by S per yeah except so there's a lot to think about there because you know they have to punish CNN and they understood the idea that like if you give Bill Gates a $10 speeding ticket it's nothing that came up with the exper and what we don't know is they knew from vadir that the money from punitive damages all goes to Zach because I tried to get people out and did get somebody knocked out for that so I went around saying hey this is the way the law allows punishment and you're going to potentially make Zachary young one of the richest people in the world are you okay with that and I got one guy to say like I don't know that I could do that right and that that that knocked him off the V that's more important if they're a Republican or Democrat exactly there's a lot of things that are more important than that right so we got him off but they knew from beforehand that all this money is going to go to Zach so and I don't know because I haven't spoken to the jury is whether they gave five because they knew they were going to wall up CNN on the back here okay so I you know I don't know what they were going to do it's also such a different mindset of what someone's lifetime work is worth versus what CNN should be punished with and the whole argument was that CNN has to be punished that's like the whole closing the whole everything was all building up to that punitive so when punitive got awarded I feel like it would have been so so much more than that and I think CNN was also defending the punitive mainly because that's what they were trying to fight against that's why everyone had the same story of No Regret right what an interesting decision by CNN I mean maybe M to apologize and say no regret I think if they had apologized and meant it sincerely not everyone take it back like we didn't agree with that apolog L liability you know like well the lawyer said we had to apologize but we don't actually think editorially it had to be apologized for and under the law you really still kind of do need to award punitive damages in that instance like I mean the jury is has the discretion not to so but but it would still be called for but less because you wouldn't had necessarily need a deterrent effect and again at the end of the day jurors are humans so if they saw real regret and real sympathy from CNN you don't need to punish them as much Monet or maybe you don't need to punish them at all they learned their lesson we hit them on the liability and they you know I don't know what happened but I thought that was a massive mistake I think they bet the farm on winning punitive and I think that's what their strategy was no regret we did nothing wrong there was nothing intentional and by saying like what do we have to be sorry for was arguing that point I think and that's when I think they saw that punitive was coming they knew just just right were screwed either way because they had issued this apology right and then it's like so they had issued this apology apology non apology like some of you know legal team wanted us to apologize we they would get us we hope it would get us out of the case and he was just it was just an impossible position to defend which is why we exploited it which just like are you sorry or not in apology everyone's gonna hate that the jury's gonna hate that like what is that and then one of the jury questions was like does a near and sincere apology like reflect poorly on the on the organization that g very good jury questions came out jury questions were incredible do they always have jury questions after expert testimony in Florida you required to allow them to ask questions unless both parties agree otherwise okay CNN did not want jury questions after the first round they didn't want want before either really but we wouldn't agree we wanted why why didn't they want jury questions I don't know I I is that a strategy is that it takes a little longer because the jury gets a chance to ask questions um I don't know they did not want them and we does the jury know that they didn't want them or is that that's kept from the jury that's confidential okay but because you didn't agree to that they were able to ask questions and they ask great questions they ask great questions great questions and and we use their questions throughout our closings and our themes Chang your own strategy 100% yeah because we're seeing how they're reacting in real time to it so like one of the really great questions we woved in was that CNN had taken this approach where it was like guilty until proven innocent and technically I mean they're not a court of law so the but like the idea kind of resonated and it was a jury question and we doesn't sit well with Americans it doesn't sit well with Americans and we just kind of wo it through our themes because it was a juror question right and and another jury asked like how much money would you have made if this didn't actually get asked I think one of the jurors asked how much would you have made if you were at 5i so he uh his colleagues went on to create a new company and that was doing his sort of thing without him okay and so one of the jurors asked like how how much money would you have made if you were there okay and technically he doesn't have a foundation to answer that question like as a legal evidentiary matter he doesn't know how much he would have made unless he has a basis and he didn't have a basis so the judge didn't ask the question but we knew it got asked okay so then in closing we talked about can you imagine how much money would have made at five you know we can do that sort thing cuz some of the stuff some of the things the judge had kept sealed right what what was one letter the judge kept sealed yeah he unsealed it at the end so the jury had asked him can we answer questions one and two and then come back tomorrow and answer three four and five and so he sealed it because obviously if you answer no to questions one and two which is did they commit defamation per se did they commit defamation by implication if you say no and no the case is over right so the idea that they're saying oh can we come back and answer 345 means that they're answering yes to at least one of one or two and so he didn't want anyone to have insight into the corations he sealed the letter that was the right move by the judge I think so it was in a tough spot cuz interesting that you knew the questions though even if the judge didn't want them ask but you could still address them because what happens is they pass the questions up and then then the judge reads us the questions and then determine then asks if we have an objection to the questions or if CNN has an objection to the question questions okay so did CNN object to that question or um the judge think I don't remember if CNN there's a transcript so we can look it up but I don't remember if C objected to that question or the judge just kept that one out on his own okay um you know we wanted it asked obviously you know you also have to maintain credibility so when the judge is like but what's the foundational issue you have to concede well you know there's a problem here are the jury questions going to generally be beneficial for the def for the plaintiff or what do you think I think it it just gives you yeah I think it just gives you insight to what they're thinking I'm just curious why CNN would not want that kind of insight because they could also use it to their advantage assume I don't I don't know why they didn't I don't know why they didn't but regardless Florida laws even is that t is that typical in other states or um There are rules about jur questions in other states I am not I'm blanking on what they are I think federal court they can ask questions but I don't know if they're like Florida state court has it setup that unless both parties agree the jury gets to ask questions okay and I've forgotten what the default rule is in federal court I remember we had a a federal Tri question not that I watched a lot of Trials but never noticed this insightful questions coming up and no they were really great questions the jury actually was super super following along they understood the issues they asked great questions it was it was and in fact one of them was was real great she you know she asked a question and the witness kind of didn't answer it and she wrote another and she passed up the judge and and and it was like answer my question I was like damn like that woman's a lawyer right there yeah that's great yeah it was really cool that's amazing so somebody you got to play this for you so when you um presented that settlement offer to Zach right the final one that you guys took kind of imagine I know you can't talk about what it was and anything but just before you presented it to him kind of imagine you did something like this [Laughter] that brings back a lot of memories and then you told him he was just like yes I wish I had done that right in retrospect did not occur to me next time did not occur to I feel like every judge should Institute this like before they say like the amount so cn's lawyer takes you out of they you go out of the Court while they're while they're questioning the expert on the finances and you're negotiating a settlement yeah like what's the back and forth like all right we'll give you X and is it just a regular negotiation or yeah it was a negotiation I mean obviously it goes beyond just you know xyxyxy and you know there's positions and well we want this and I want this and you know confidentiality and you know there's there's things like that and there are demands made that we said no to we made demands they said no to I mean like you know it's it's more than just a number examples or those are all confidential what like what one side would want or or what would uh considerations be in a theoretical case so that's that's that's easier like sometimes instead of confidentiality parties might want to have like an agreed statement let's say for example like what are you going to say if you're asked and so sometimes that's something that's that's up for negotiation and and you know one side might say no we're not agreeing that we we'll keep the number confidential right but we won't keep anything else confidential that's something you could see in a case like this and then you know you argue your positions like oh well you know we're about t the jury for this much money and they're going you know you saw what they did and you know they they found you liable for punitives like you really want to risk going to the jury on it you know and then the CNN will say back well you know you asked for more money you didn't get everything you asked for why do you think you're going to get asked for you know so it's like you know it's a negotiation back and forth and is that just with the lawyers or is like the CN right are they call corporate no yeah they Authority yeah they have to get Authority so you know they you know I I talk to lawyer lawyer talks to them lawyer comes back talks to me I talk to Zach then I come back talk to the lawyer whole CH do media companies have insurance for this kind of thing is there is there any defamation insurance I doubt it no okay especially when they have two billion in assets you know all right was that not like SEC public record like the numbers that you put up in the court that did make it in is it going to be is that I mean that was I think shocking I think that was shocking to a lot of people that you know they've been saying CNN's in Decline CNN's in Decline but like they really are in Decline apparently over the past two three years um is that the first time that information came out to the public I think so yeah because CNN is uh a subsidiary of Tom Warner uh Warner Brothers Discovery rather it's called now okay and so Warner Brothers Discovery kind of reports all the finances rolled up into one and this is a huge issue in the pre-trial proceedings it got me kind of confused the CNN worldwide International versus yeah so the defendant is CNN Inc the defendant is CNN Inc but what CNN says is but the revenues were for also for worldwide is that what happened there so CNN worldwide isn't a real entity okay but it's the way they refer to their business the CNN business and it incorporate CNN Inc and other entities and so they had to report they claimed like CNN worldwide's revenues and CNN worldwide stuff because that was the only way they claimed they accounted for it okay we were focused on CNN Inc because it was the defendant right and then you know there were huge fights between us and CNN in the stages leading up to trial about whether their disclosures were accurate like CNN claimed they had no cash flow statements and we're like are you out of your mind you're a two billion doll entity like now it's public but we couldn't say it at the time but it's like you're two billion you get2 billion dollar of Revenue you telling me you don't account for where that cash goes like do your Sher ERS know this like but they claimed they're like no Warner Brothers manages all our cash and you know there and so there was huge fights back and forth and we end up going to Delaware to move to compel Warner Brothers to comply with the subpoena and and Warner Brothers was yelling screaming that we didn't give enough time and this that and we said hey if they don't have it swear that they don't have it and one brother's like well the judge in Florida didn't make them do that and the judge in delor was like well I'm making you do that she's like produce it like reissue The subpoena you have 20 days to respond and if you don't have it like give sworn declaration and so you know we had a lot of litigation and parallel litigation against CNN against Warner Brothers Discovery and stuff like that I that's where I was getting confused with the expert because they they were asking like there's worldwide and there's CNN Inc and there I don't know what's going here anymore who who has what assets it got kind of confusing for me I don't know but for the jury I'm sure for the jury too and then it'd be my job at the end to kind of make it make sense right right yeah um I saw it and I don't know if you could comment on this or not but I think David alod said at one point that we don't want the cfo's testimony deposition to be played because it's just going to be so embarrassing for CNN did he say that yeah you weren't in court I don't know why yeah it's not a it's not legit I'm sure he didn't win right well yeah I mean the judge was deciding in the whole 20 minutes and Joe went out to edit it down to a shorter amount of thing and they were just saying going to be embarrassing is that public record that deposition or because it I think entire deposition is public record but we did play portions of it in Phase One very few portions but so the parts that weren't played they're sealed they can't get out confidential so curious what what's embarrassing like it almost sounded to me like they wanted to settle because they didn't want like that embarrassing I don't know oh I don't know I don't I don't know what he's referring to yeah but we played you know one of the things they were slamming Zach about was like his profit margins or like 65% profit margins and so we in Phase One played the cfo's testimony that they projected profit margins to 42.8% it's like what are you talk like you're allowed to go get 42.8% a multi-billion dollar entity but he's not allowed to get 65% and so was you know that that came out right okay so so you're asking is the is the amount that they settled for is that going to be public as far as like SEC filings no he's saying it's all wrapped up into into Warner Brother so it's going to be if it's if it if it's something that needs a disclosure does that need to be disclosed you have to ask SEC lawyers I mean like it would have to it would have to be my gut instinct is the amount of the money that exchange hands would have to be so material that it would affect not billion bus but Warner Brothers like 4 something billion business it's not Material at all for that I mean I don't want to comment on amounts but even if it's hundreds of millions of dollars still not going to yeah if you're worth like 40 something billion even if you paid you know like you PA a billion it not it might not be a material change yeah right so that negotiation goes back and forth for a couple hours no I mean it was quick because the we were moving forward like like judge Henry was like where's Vel cuz I had to cross their expert so you know their expert was about to testify and then I had to cross and we it eventually got to a point where we were real close but not there yet and we actually went to the judge and we we asked for a sidebar and we said listen we are real close to settling but we're not done yet like can you just stop this for 15 minutes uh and he agreed he monetary monetary difference or some dision whatever difference yeah just like we were close but not there yet and it I think both parties knew that we were within Striking Distance it was real chance this was going to happen not that it was guaranteed to happen but that it was real chance it was going to happen and so we both went in we're like we need some more time like you got to stop because like it's just it's too fast and like we can't get CNN is a corporation they need multiple levels of approval Zach had to think about things you know make sure he was comfortable with it so it's just there wasn't enough time uh and so that he did he took his foot off gas is is It ultimately up to Zach at that point is it completely his call whether to take or reject of course he's just representing his client of course I just wondering like how much influence you have versus I mean I give it advice but at the end of the day it's his Zach's a really great guy and like he did ask me at the end he's like are you okay if I take this and I thought it was really nice of him to ask cuz like most most clients don't ask and I was like absolutely like you know first of all it's your case and second of all no complaints here like you know I was like you let me go to verdict I wanted to go to verdict I wanted a verdict real bad like this had never been done before well I know about never but it hasn't been done in like 50 60 years like and and I really wanted the chance to get the verdict so once he gave me the verdict you know I was as long as there was enough that he was happy and I was happy I I was find a nice bottle of kosher wine for shabas to celebrate with afterwards you know what not only that we didn't have any wine we had to make Kish on bread oh my God on like stale bread too cuz it was like it was we had ordered food from Pomegranate okay and it and it got stuck in the blizzard oh yeah so it ended up coming but like some of it I was a little like afraid to eat yeah M and uh but the bread was okay but you know we had opened some of it and it was just like it was not a it was it was a wonderful shopas cuz it was like there was nothing to do was just me and my wife and you're in a high and we were yeah we were like super excited about what we had done and accomplished and so we got to walk around Panama City and we took a million walks and did anybody recognize you or a few people a few people but not like not like everywhere I went but a few people I was in trusum Pizza which is like the pizza store here the other day just buying pizza and some guy walked in he's like oh you're famous I don't know about that but yeah so overall your strategy was pretty much to not just go after the facts of the case but also to make this a broader like media story and it seems like that was successful I don't know I mean we weren't like we weren't focused on making the media pick up as much of it as far as just hold holding media accountable as part of the Str get oh yeah 100% And that's part of the P of Damages right and that's there was like these Waring cross uh closing arguments where I went up there and I was like this is your opportunity to send a message like the media is lining and there was a lot of news coverage like report reporters unhappy with that I guess they were like well you're trying to politicize this and you're trying to you know yeah but we wen't I mean there was no partisan basis in the in the story wasn't about Republican or conservative or liberal or Democrats it was it was just the news has gotten out of hand right and you called for it it should return to the Senate return to the center exactly and so you know and then axod got up CNN's lawyer got up and said like this is not about sending message right and then I got to get back up and rebuttal and be like it's exactly what this is about that's the purpose of punitive damage is to send a message to deter like send the message and it seemed like that really resonated that Str I think so I hope so I mean they awarded it so it worked so so uh I guess maybe last question but someone had asked if you uh tried to put fill in on Jake tther I uh Jake T so I have had success putting against fing a lot of people you'd be surprised yeah but Jake tapper's deposition was done remotely via Zoom okay and so did not have an opportunity to put it up Pharaoh can still go out there and try to fight absolutely you know what I think he'd be open to it you know you didn't you only saw portions of of Jake tapper's deposition and um Tapper kind of got given a a script of what to say uh he did say in deposition he was intimately involved in all of his shows but you know I'm not sure Tapper actually like meant to hurt this guy I put money that he probably much reporting he does yeah he's a pretty face I mean he says he's not he says he he say he's not a pretty face is that on the record he does actual reporting I asked him in Depo like are you kind of like a movie star and so like you just kind of show up and get given your lines and walk out he's like no I'm involved intimately in all ASP but I'm sure there are cases where he's more involved than others right didn't do the reporting you it was this was a segment that featured on his show and you know I think he kind of trusted his team to get that right so what did he say about that does he actually do reporting on segments that are featured on the show I mean obviously not as much as when they feature him I'm sure he reviews it the editori and I'm sure he he relies on CNN's procedures to you know to get it done and we didn't have any proof that you know Tapper was aware it was not true and Tapper did it on purpose like we had nothing like that but there you know there's a lot of that deposition that didn't get aired and it's confidential but I will tell you he spoke passionately about going to um Israel after October 7th I thought he was great after October 7th I thought Anderson Cooper and Jer were actually really positive really covered it fairly and so Yi far might have might have some might have some success exced just don't tell him he's that I I recommended it because I think Persona Nara I think over there right are you kidding sing is hiring you for the next case that they have to defend highly doubt it I don't I don't all right you see snowballing from here you do you see more cases coming to you because of this or I mean you had mentioned that you already had some yeah we have a lot of inbounds a lot of them are are you know far out there or people that are kind of you know a little On The Fringe yeah so we're looking through them and and kind of trying to pick and choose what what it is we uh we want to deal with and it's also important from our perspective like the sort of cases we lend our name to it's important to us we like to say we take cases we believe in and so we've we've turned down some cases based on that even though we think they might be meritorious it's like this is not the case for us yeah so I mean God willing rich hasem I hope so but at the end of the day one thing I've seen you know starting from working for a big law firm and then starting my own law firm and and taking these high-profile cases is really at the end of the day you know hasem controls your pessa and absolutely um it you you might think you got the greatest case in the world and it'll turn into nothing or you you might have a nothing case and it turned into something huge and so I hope so but at the end of the day it's all it's all with him absolutely all right well thank you so much for taking the time today pleasure rting fun conversation really fun awesome