Kobe Bryant crash photos trial; FBI alleges Baldwin pulled trigger; Trump affidavit — True Crime Daily Sidebar with Joshua Ritter
In this episode of True Crime Daily The Sidebar Podcast
Robert Simon joins host Joshua Ritter to break down the biggest cases making headlines across the nation. They discuss possible legal ramifications for Anne Heche’s estate after her death was ruled an accident, Vanessa Bryant’s lawsuit over the sharing of crash site photos, the FBI determining that Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger in the “Rust” shooting incident, and Donald Trump’s deposition and the FBI search of his home.
Tweet your questions for future episodes to Joshua Ritter using the hashtag #TCDSidebar.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:00:11]
Hello and welcome to True Crime Daily’s The Sidebar, taking you inside the courtrooms of high-profile and notorious cases from across the country. I’m your host, Joshua Ritter. I’m currently a defense lawyer based here in Los Angeles and previously, an LA County prosecutor for nearly a decade. We are recording this on Friday, August 19, 2022.
[0:00:30]
In this week’s episode, we’ll be discussing the legal ramifications of Anne Heche’s tragic death following a fatal collision with a residence. We would also look at the lawsuit filed by Kobe Bryant’s widow for crash site pictures allegedly shared by Los Angeles sheriffs, deputies, and firefighters. Next, the FBI releasing evidence that Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger, causing an onset of death in the Rust shooting. And finally, we will look at the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Estate and about the former president invoking the 5th Amendment in a deposition days later.
[0:01:05]
Today, we are joined by Robert Simon, a trial attorney specializing in civil law, co-founder of the Simon Law Group, legal analyst, podcaster and friend of the show. Welcome, Bob
Robert Simon:
[0:01:15]
Hey, man. Thanks for having me. Oh, we got a very interesting lineup today, Josh. What a busy week.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:01:21]
Yeah, absolutely. I’m really interested to hear your thoughts on these cases. Before we jump in though, you have some big news to share. Actually, a couple of big things. Why don’t you go ahead and tell us what’s going on?
Robert Simon:
[0:01:32]
Yeah. So, I welcomed my third daughter into this world last Monday. So, this is 11 days ago, when this is recorded.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:01:39]
Congratulations.
Robert Simon:
[0:01:40]
So, girl dad times three, you know, we’re gonna talk about Kobe Bryant as the ultimate girl dad, right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:01:45]
Right.
Robert Simon:
[0:01:45]
And then, you know, I have a company that I founded called Justice HQ, and we just opened a San Diego location yesterday. So, a lot of – you know, professionally, socially, you know. What do you call when it’s just you at home? I don’t know what they call it. Something ultimately. Do it well, man. Sorry, you get lack of sleep after-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:02:00]
You got a lot of spinning plates. So, we get it. We understand. All right. Well, let’s jump in.
[0:02:06]
FIrst, we’re talking about something right here in Los Angeles, California. After a horrific car accident, the Los Angeles County medical examiner coroner ruled Anne Heche died due to inhalation of smoke and thermal injuries. These injuries stemmed from an August 5th accident when Heche, 53 years old at the time, crashed her mini cooper into a Los Angeles home. Both her car and house caught fire. The LA Fire Department press release stated it took 59 firefighters around 65 minutes to extinguish the flames and extract the driver.
[0:02:38]
The actress remained in a coma for over a week after the crash, before it was announced that she would be taken off of life support. The incident was being investigated as a felony DUI collision by LAPD prior to Heche being pronounced legally dead. And most recently, the coroner ruled her death as an accident.
[0:02:58]
So, Bob, walk us through, what, if any, civil liabilities still exist for Heche and her estate? How does that work after a person has died?
Robert Simon:
[0:03:07]
Yeah. I mean, I handle a lot of cases just like this where the person that did the harm died in a crash or dies thereafter. So, the death – so, I mean, she’s dead, right? I mean, she’s not gonna be able to personally pay a debt. However, her estate will have to pay any debts that are owed. So, what’s gonna have to happen is the plaintiffs, the claimants for the property damage and all the damages she claimed – that she caused, they’re gonna have to, you know, file a claim first, and then maybe, you know, a lawsuit to be like a debtor of the estate.
[0:03:39]
Sometimes, what you have to do as a lawyer when we’re on that side is have to, like, go make it upon ourselves to go open up – create an estate and open it up for them. And who knows what our state of affairs are actually in because, you know, there’s different levels of debtors that have to be taken care of out of the estate, but that’s first and foremost. These people will have to tabulate their damages. Likely, they have their own insurance as they’re home property owners, right? And they will have – their own insurance will likely pay for all the stuff upfront, and then seek what’s called subrogation or go against the insurance company for Ms. Heche to pay. And if they refuse to or the homeowners don’t have enough insurance or no insurance, they will have to go after her estate to do it that way.
[0:04:18]
So, note, her estate is not off the hook. You know, it’s just – it’s going to be a debt. And I think the best thing that could be done is the people that will be controlling the estate now just kinda step up and try to take care of it because I think you want to get as much bad press away, as much as possible. You know, and they’re all talking about all the – you know, the drugs, the alcohol, these types of things. And anybody that knows anybody suffering from addiction, it is an – it’s an illness, right? It’s something that you have to be aware of and something you – we meet people like this in our lives. So, you have to really concentrate on these types of things, but it’s not really gonna matter if she was or was not on drugs at the time or alcohol.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:04:56]
That’s what I was gonna ask you. Does that play any role or is it just, “Hey, she hit this building.” I mean, thank God nobody else inside died, but all we’re talking about is, “Hey, you hit a building. You shouldn’t have done that. And you’re responsible to pay for it.” Is that all that it comes down to?
Robert Simon:
[0:05:13]
Yeah. And you know, coverage, most auto insurance coverages, you know, they’ll cover you even if you’re driving while intoxicated and you hit somebody else, unless she’s had multiple prior DUIs and there was a specific exclusion. Like if they say, “Hey, you’re a bad player in this. We know that you’re not gonna be able – like, you’re likely to make this cause,” or you arrange your primary to say, “We’re not gonna cover it if you’re drunk.” That happens. I’ve seen my second or third DUI people have very high policies that specifically exclude if they’re toxicated when they drive.
[0:05:43]
Now, that’s not – you know, there might also be something else at play because we don’t know the circumstances leading up to what-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:05:50]
Right, right.
Robert Simon:
[0:05:51]
… to Ms. Heche, you know. You know, is there somebody else that may be at fault. Like we see a lot of – I’ve seen it. I don’t know if it ever panned out but, you know, fentanyl is always mentioned, like every day over every social media platform. And a lot of times, that comes whenever you’re buying street drugs or illegal things that are mixed up with it and you do not know. So, well, dude, weed is legal in California. What if she went to a witch doctor and she actually bought a product or a brand that had fentanyl in it. Maybe she had a claim for that. But, you know, it’s just a mess. But then, the coroner says it’s an accidental death because I don’t think she intentionally meant to run her car, and cause fire and breath inhalation, but there’s that, so.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:06:29]
Yeah. One point on that that I thought was interesting is, usually, what the coroner is essentially saying is that she didn’t do this on purpose. So, in other words, this wasn’t a suicide attempt, whcih it’s fairly early for them to have determined that because, usually, they go about interviewing everybody that was with her that day, the people that she lives with. They go through perhaps her phone, her search history, what she’s searching for, you know, suicide hotlines and things like that. So, either they did all that very quickly or this seems like a rather premature kind of determination. Who knows if it would end up being here or there.
[0:07:03]
But as you were speaking, something else I thought was interesting is what – I mean – and this is, again, total hypothetical world we’re dealing with here but what if she was at some other celebrity’s home when she had the cocaine, and the cocaine was laced with fentanyl? Are they looking at some liability now that she went out high as a kite and crashed into some house?
Robert Simon:
[0:07:24]
The lawyer answer we always hear, right, Josh? It depends. So, there’s a law that’s in a lot of the states including California called the Dram Shop Law. So, if she’s at a bar overserved or she went somewhere and is overserved, they kinda cut off liability, unless it’s extremely known or should have known that she was at danger going out there, right?
[0:07:41]
So, it could be. You know, if this were a case where there was a significant, significant property damage but not be able to be covered or injury she caused to other people, I mean, these go heavily unturned. You know, if somebody promised her, for instance, that she’s at this party, you know, doing day drugs or whatever the heck is going on in these areas, you know, she’s doing these things and they’re like, ”Oh, we guarantee you it’s safe. We went to some holistic place,” and blah, blah, blah, and then it ends up up being laced with fentanyl, and maybe they knew about it and just wanted to see how she’d react, who knows, man? LIke, this is a – it’s a hypothetical but who knows what goes on.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:08:17]
Yeah, yeah, I agree. If they’re — if — thank God there wasn’t but if there was more serious injuries involved to other people, you would imagine, like you said, no stone left unturned and they would find out where she got those drugs from.
Robert Simon:
[0:08:30]
That’s right.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:08:33]
All right. Let’s stick with another case, another tragic case here out of Los Angeles. Vanessa Bryant and Chris Chester are suing LA County after deputies, sheriffs and firefighters allegedly took and shared photographs of their loved ones’ remains - Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and other parents and players who were flying to a girls’ basketball tournament when their chartered helicopter crashed. This is one of those things, Bob, that I think everybody knows where they were when they heard about this. Like, I will never forget the moment. I got a call from a friend while I was driving to tell me that Kobe had died.
[0:09:07]
The lawsuit alleges invasion of privacy, claiming deputies took the photos for non-investigative purposes and shared them off duty. It further alleges that the plaintiffs suffered emotional distress because of the photos. The county already settled a similar case brought by families of crash victims reportedly for around $2.5 million. A law prompted by the crash makes it a crime for first responders to take unauthorized photos of deceased people at the scene of the accident.
[0:09:34]
Bob, a lot of listeners, I imagine, are asking, how can taking photos result in such large damages, like we saw in that previous case, $2.5 million. Who knows what comes out of this case. Walk us through that. What is the theory behind that?
Robert Simon:
[0:09:48]
So, I mean, you have – I mean, it’s an emotional distress point at its core for Vanessa Bryant, her children, the other plaintiff that sued because put it this way, like if you imagine had gone to a place where you have shielded your children and yourself from seeing these graphic photos of your loved one that died, I mean, just think about that for a second, what would it be like if you saw those photos?
[0:10:09]
And when I – I do a lot of wrongful death cases, and I personally hate looking at those photos. You cannot not see that. A lot of times, I don’t look at them. I go through trial, and what I’ll do sometimes, I’ll just put it in an envelope, and I’ll tell the jury, “Look, I didn’t want to put you through this. I didn’t want the family to see these photos. Here’s an exhibit. It’s gonna go back here with you. You can look at it if you want. You can look at it if you want to look at it. That’s not what I – we’re not here to pull your heartstrings with things like this.”But imagine what the family would have to go through if they start seeing it on the internet. And you know how it goes. I mean, this would be published everywhere. I mean, they’d have to go through everything with their daughters.
[0:10:43]
And this is where – this is where I think the defense is. They’re screwing up royally. If anybody is following this trial, it is they’re trying to put at issue her psychological condition because it’s her emotional distress claim. Fine. But they wanna go into, and start showing – they’re asking the judge in a federal court in Los Angeles, they would show pictures of her on vacation afterwards.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:11:05]
Oh wow!
Robert Simon:
[0:11:06]
They wanna show pictures of her dressed as Cruella de Vil for Halloween because she — because revenge is one of the, like, signs of grief or one of the steps of grief. I kid you not. If they do that– if I was on that side, if I was the plaintiff’s lawyer, I’d be like, “Go for it.”
Joshua Ritter:
[0:11:23]
So, they’re essentially trying to say that she’s falsely mourning the death of Kobe? Is that what they – is that the argument here?
Robert Simon:
[0:11:33]
Yeah, how – I mean, I see this go much as, “How could she possibly be having so much fun? She should be grieving.” I am telling you, it is a mistake. And juries see that.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:11:42]
Wow!
Robert Simon:
[0:11:42]
It backfires. It’s a mistake. Now, the thing that – they should just own up to it because look, one of the causes of action is straight up negligence. The other one is privacy. And all roads lead to wrong. You can win on negligence. You can win on privacy invasion. All of these go to damages. It’d go to damages for Vanessa Bryant. They have admitted they took the photos. They are on video sharing them in a bar and laughing about it.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:12:07]
God.
Robert Simon:
[0:12:09]
Yeah. So, you’re done.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:12:10]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:12:11]
You should go up there and say – and they did do; they did damage control. They said they deleted them; they can’t find them anywhere; if you go on the internet, they’re not there now. Now, here’s the kicker. What if it starts surfacing? What if somebody goes into the dark web and gets paid a lot of money for the photo? It’s out there. The point of plugging for this litigation because they’re trying to minimize damages but there’s nothing stopping that from happening, right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:12:32]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:12:31]
That’s the fear. And if you look at other similar cases, there was Erin Andrews that happened. A friend of mine tried this case. It went national maybe four or five years ago. She was filmed through a peephole in her hotel.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:12:43]
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:12:45]
And I think there was something like a 40-plus-million dollarverdict and it seemed a little silhouette through the keyhole, and it was in a more conservative venue, and by far, Los Angeles made the hotel accountable for 51%-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:12:57]
Wow!
Robert Simon:
[0:12:57]
– over the person that took the photos. Now, here, it’s like these people are influential. So, it’s all gonna come from LA county and stuff like that. But man, it’s bad for them. And this case is just about money damages, in my opinion. This is what it should look like in the jury. My only question would be, are you able to compensate somebody tens of millions of dollars for invasion of privacy or for somebody to would have to repeatedly have their daughter shown photographs of their dead father, of their dead sibling. That is-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:13:25]
Yeah, I would-
Robert Simon:
[0:13:25]
That would be the only thing I’d be talking about.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:13:27]
I was just gonna ask you that. So, I know you’re a plaintiff’s attorney, and I know as painful as this may be for you, if you could put on your defense attorney hat for just a second, what – how do you defend this? My kind of rookie attitude was, well, maybe you say, “Listen, the grief that they’re experiencing is very real and the emotional damage is very real, but that’s about the deaths of their loved ones. That’s not about a couple of photographs that may have been taken.” Is that an argument you would even get close to or is this, like you said, you don’t touch it and you just try to mitigate the damages?
Robert Simon:
[0:14:01]
Yeah. So, I think you do try to mitigate the damages to some degree. If I’m on the other side, which I never am, by the way, but I do these focus groups, I always play the defense lawyer because I know how I would beat my own taste. And I try to do it to see what would happen. I would begin there talking to the jury about – my themes would be, you know, kinda the punishment has to fit the crime, right? This is what happened. We did what we could. We deleted all the things when it happened. There’s a few bad apples that did things. They’re remorseful about it. It’s not gonna happen again. She’s due a significant amount of money. We think that, you know, a million for her and a million for the kids is fair compensation. You know, let’s not let this get out of control or proportion. You know, I understand she’s the high-profile person. This is how I would be framing this case.
[0:14:49]
And the most successful lawyers that I’ve seen do this. They kinda fall on their sword. They become very unapologetic and they just minimize stuff. Juries these days, we see a lot of things we call nuclear verdicts. I’ve had a few recently myself. And the reason is because jurors are ticked off. And if you start doing things that tick them off like what they’re talking about, showing her on vacation and trying to minimize her grief or say that she’s just as Cruella de Vil, you’re gonna get – you will get hit by a ten million plus dollar verdict in my opinion.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:15:18]
Alex Jones.
Robert Simon:
[0:15:20]
Exactly. Now, that was, you know, $4 million plus 40 tuned in. So, it’s gonna get knocked down because of taxes but-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:15:26]
Right. But I think it was the jury punishing this man for his behavior, right?
Robert Simon:
[0:15:32]
Yeah. Find their villain, right? And if you get those jurors ticked off about that villain – it could be anybody in the court, it could be one of the lawyers, it could be one of the players, it could be one of the defense experts, it could – it’d better not be your client, it’d better not be you as a lawyer. Right now, the defense in this case, in my opinion, are doing a good job of making themselves look like the villain for picking on this rather than accepting responsibility.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:15:53]
Yeah, very bizarre strategy. Are you surprised at all – there was a previous case that’s settled in the millions. Are you surprised that this one is going to trial or why do — what are your thoughts on why this one didn’t settle?
Robert Simon:
[0:16:08]
So, the – it’s always up to the individual themselves, never the lawyer’s call. But anyways, they settled that lawsuit, a confidential amount, but it is significant. So, now, we dovetail into this. And I think with what we see around a lot of celebrities and the overreaching of years of the paparazzi and all these things happening, I think lawsuits are the number one thing that can deter bad behavior, whether it’s a pharmaceutical company, whether it’s a bad car manufacturer, or whether it’s somebody that’s trying to, you know, have – take a bad celebrity moment or somebody’s bad private life and trying to profit off of it or to make off of it. We see this on social media and things. And the more that we hold people accountable in the public forum, the more it’d occur with behavior.
[0:16:54]
Now, there’s nothing stopping her right now. You could settle the lawsuit at any time. You know they could do it today, they could do it tomorrow, they could do it during jury selection. So, I think that the more press they get out to show – they’ve already had these people go up on the stand. You’ve proven your point. They’re up there admitting to what had happened. You’ve done it. Now, if you could get them to a point –
[0:17:13]
The more – the longer this trial goes on, the better it’s going to be for the plaintiffs in this case as far as leverage for monetary amount. If they compensated the past couple of clients for $2.5, you know that that’s the bare minimum offer that they would have given them as well. So, yeah, I think I don’t know why they would want it to go – going to the jury proves the point but you could have a jury say – if you’re trying a case and the defense lawyer is out, a jury may say, “You know what, a couple of million bucks is a lot of money. They could put it into a trust for the kids, thinking on the back of their head they’ve been compensated. Let’s do that.” It’s just a matter of where the dollars are at this point, so.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:17:49]
Yeah, interesting.
Robert Simon:
[0:17:54]
Remember Erin because I think Vanessa Bryant takes the stand today.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:17:58]
Oh wow!
Robert Simon:
[0:17:58]
Yeah. So, that’s usual to get the gauge of – as a plaintiff lawyer, you – we kinda call that our money moment to see how they’re presenting or how they’re connecting with your audience is gonna say your compensation. Here in federal court, it’s eight jurors, it’s gotta be unanimous. So you could see how they’re reacting in live time.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:18:13]
Oh wow!
Robert Simon:
[0:18:14]
Yeah. And we – I have close friends that are close friends with the Bryants, and everybody praises how amazing she is. And if that comes off on the stand, and if the defense goes in and does these things that are ticking the jury off, whew!
Joshua Ritter:
[0:18:28]
Can you imagine trying to cross-examine the widow of Kobe Bryant and try to make it sound like she’s playing up her grief? Good grief.
Robert Simon:
[0:18:38]
The best lawyers I’ve seen that minimize this, they don’t ask a single question.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:18:42]
Yeah, yeah. That would be a smart move. Another case that we’ve been following for a while now out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, according to an FBI forensic report, the gun used in the fatal shooting on the Rust movie set could not have been fired without pulling the trigger. In previous interviews, Alec Baldwin said that he didn’t pull the trigger on the gun. He was quoted in an interview saying, “The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger.” Pretty clear on that. The discharge firearm caused the death of cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42 years old, in October of 2021.
[0:19:17]
Now, the armorer of the production, Hannah Guttierrez-Reed, has slammed the local authorities investigating the case for their investigation. Reed’s lawyer has stated the primary question in this case from the beginning has been where did the live rounds that ended up on the Rust set come from? Reed and her legal team alleged that the sheriff’s office did not ask the FBI to conduct testing on the ammunition rounds for fingerprints of DNA.
[0:19:44]
All right. This is an interesting development. I don’t know if it’s a shock to anyone who knows anything about firearms but the FBI has now said someone pulled the trigger. The trigger was pulled for that gun to have gone off. How does this finding change the outlook for Baldwin as far as a civil lawsuit?
Robert Simon:
[0:20:06]
Or here in the civil lawsuit anything you say can and will be held against you in the court if it gets – Yeah. You’re – at any time, like it’s one of the evidence exceptions. So, unfortunately, for Mr. Baldwin is he’s just got caught lying.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:20:18]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:20:19]
And the FBI comes in, they’re gonna say, “Look, they have a matchup,” you know, in a very hypothetical world. So, this is a revolver. So, there – you know, it’s a very long stretch, but you could pull the trigger but cock the hammer back holding it with just your thumb, right-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:20:36]
Right.
Robert Simon:
[0:20:36]
– becauseit’s a revolver. And if you let loose with the hammer, it might go all the way through, and strike the rounds, and cause a discharge. You know, but even then, you pulled on the trigger.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:20:46]
Right, I was gonna say. But the first part of that whole scenario is pull the trigger.
Robert Simon:
[0:20:51]
Well, this is – I mean, why I say that, it’s like maybe – maybe that’s what – if I’m – you [indecipherable 0:20:57] on this case if you’re [crosstalk 0:20:59]-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:20:59]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:20:59]
– the public because he lied about it. So, why didn’t I just cock the hammer, and maybe he didn’t remember pulling the trigger and he didn’t – whatever. right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:21:04]
Right, right, right.
Robert Simon:
[0:21:05]
So, at the end of the day, he’s also part of the production company. They’re the ones with insurance on the hook. We talked about this last time. It is if they wanna pursue any type of punitive damage, he’s personally gonna be looked at. They’re gonna rifle through his finances. And I think the biggest thing that came out of this, they’re gonna be held civilly liable because it’s a negligence standard. It’s more likely true than not true. I mean, this person, like, it happened, right? This is gonna come from the same insurance pockets, I believe, in the backend. This is just gonna come into he’s a liar, he’s – he got caught lying by the FBI, right? This is silly.
[0:21:42]
I don’t think it’s gonna matter too much for that lawsuit but I do somewhat agree with the person that you just mentioned is it does — there is maybe culpability on who loaded the live ammunition into it.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:21:52]
Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. If that’s true, I mean, I would be shocked. In a case like this, I mean, they’ve been investigating it for months, right? In a case like this, I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have dusted the round, you know, because it would have remained in the chamber, right, on a revolver. So, they could know exactly which round it was, dusted that, DNA’d all of that to determine who is the last person to have touched that bullet before it went into the gun because that’s a huge question, right? If you’re Baldwin, you’re saying, “I thought I was handed –” the gun wasn’t hot, right? That’s his whole thing?
Robert Simon:
[0:22:25]
Yeah.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:22:26]
So, who put that live round in there? If that is, in fact, true that they don’t know and they never tested it, does that work for him or how – I mean, does that give him any advantage on the civil case or how does that work?
Robert Simon:
[0:22:40]
It just puts in another defense that may be able to financially contribute. So, who would be responsible for loading the round? Is it the same production company, so it’s not gonna matter? They have a third-party person that was supposed to do it or are they covered by some other insurer and would be another defendant? Because, again, he’s also contributing to this because he’s the one that pulled the trigger or cocked the hammer. Whatever you wanna say, he’s gonna be, at least, a percentage at fault even if there was a third party that put a live round into it and he didn’t know, right? I mean, that’s just the way that it works. So, I just – I would be shocked like you if they didn’t try to figure that out, you know, who put it in if they went to as far as to see if the trigger was pulled, why not just dust them?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:23:19]
Right. We’re also dealing with the FBI here. It’s not like they are low on resources. I mean, they kinda do everything.
Robert Simon:
[0:23:25]
Yeah. And I don’t know. I just – another one that I really think that they’re a blank slate on this one.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:23:33]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:23:34]
And we talked about it. I know the lawyers that are on this case for the plaintiff. And they’re not gonna leave any stone uncovered, man. I mean, it’s bad news, so.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:23:42]
So, again, talking about how long this investigation has just been taken, that the sheriff’s department has apparently still not presented their file to the DA for any kind of filing decision on criminal charges. So, tell me, how would that change things from a civil perspective? Let’s say he – let’s say in this scenario of they don’t file on them, and then the scenario of they do file charges on them? Even if there’s charges, there’s some sort of negligent discharge and not murder, right?
Robert Simon:
[0:24:09]
Yeah. So, civilly, it’s not really gonna matter. But if there’s criminal proceedings that happen, it will stay or pause the civil lawsuit aside for money damages until that criminal one is wrapped up. Most of the time, that’s what happens. If there is – say he gets charged with something, and there’s a plea for misdemeanor or something, which you would know better on that than I where these charges may lie or where it may go, but in the civil side, the only thing that you’d be able to use as evidence is if he was – if he plead to a felony or if he was convicted of the felony. Then, it would be like automatic, you are at fault pretty much for the civil.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:24:46]
Gunshot, gunshot.
Robert Simon:
[0:24:47]
Although it does – you still prove your case, in any case. And again, it’s a different standard of burden of proof where it’s more likely true than not true. So, you just have to prove, did he probably screw up? Did the production company – I mean, if they just put in live rounds by accident, that’s like enough in a civil lawsuit. In the current one, you know, it’s much different. You gotta be beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s a much bigger burden to prove, so yeah.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:25:15]
Well, we-
Robert Simon:
[0:25:17]
Well, what do you think? What do you think ? Do you think he is gonna get charged criminally on that?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:25:21]
The problem here is his intent, right? His mindset. It’s obvious, I think, to everyone, he didn’t intend to do this, but was his conduct so grossly negligent that you can kind of, you know, infer that mindset upon him? It is so grossly negligent to point a gun at someone and pull the trigger regardless if, you know, there’s not live rounds or even if you believe it’s empty. I mean, if you’ve ever been to a gun store, they fully empty the gun and show everyone that the gun is empty, but they will never ever point that gun at someone, even knowing that that gun is empty.
[0:25:58]
So, you know, is that so grossly negligent that you could say that it equates to a criminal mindset? I don’t know I would have said earlier on that there’s no way they do this, but they’ve been taking this investigation for so long that it makes me wonder, are they over there wringing their hands because they know they’re about to charge, you know, the biggest case they’ve ever had out of that small little county? I don’t know.
Robert Simon:
[0:26:21]
I mean-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:26:21]
It’s gonna be interesting to see.
Robert Simon:
[0:26:23]
Yeah. Again, we can go into the mindset, like it’s known in the industry that these things can happen. Is it wreckless grossly, you know, negligence or, you know, is that manslaughter? Is that whatever? I don’t think it’s gonna rise the level of anything else above that because I think-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:26:40]
I think it would be a really difficult case to prove that. I mean, you know, if he had alcohol in his system, maybe we’d be talking something different, but if everything remains as we know right now, I would be shocked if they charge him. But we’ll see. I mean, they’re taking a long time to investigate this. So, we’ll see.
Robert Simon:
[0:26:57]
Maybe he just had his-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:26:58]
All right.
Robert Simon:
[0:26:57]
… say beetlejuice three times and it’d come and help him out. I don’t know.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:27:05]
That’s a great reference. Here’s the big one, the one I know everybody has been waiting for. Finally, out of West Palm Beach, Florida and New York, on August 8th, the FBI executed a search warrant and raid on former President Trump’s West Palm Beach home. Federal agencies’ 27 boxes, allegedly including 11 sets of classified documents that were labeled top secret, secret, or confidential. According to an unsealed portion of the warrant, the search was conducted as part of a federal probe into whether Trump illegally took classified material with him when he left the White House.
[0:27:41]
Days later, Trump was to be deposed by lawyers from the New York Attorney General’s office as part of his civil investigation alleging the Trump organization exaggerated the value of its holdings to impress lenders or misstated what land was worth to slash its tax burden. In an hour’s long deposition, Trump reportedly took the 5th more than 400 times. Trump has previously been publicly critical of those who plead the 5th.
[0:28:08]
In a final standing turn of events, the judge is poised to release parts of a key Mar-a-Lago raid document, despite DOJ complaints, an affidavit underpinning the search of Trump’s estate will be made public. Federal prosecutors have been given until August 25th to submit a list of requested redactions. The government will be given an opportunity to appeal if it doesn’t agree with the proposed redactions.
[0:28:33]
All right. Right off the bat, give us your thoughts on this raid of a former sitting president. I mean, this is historical, yes?
Robert Simon:
[0:28:41]
I mean, it was. It’s unprecedented. It’s huge.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:28:45]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:28:45]
I mean, here’s the thing. Like, we just were talking about the FBI. I know a lot of people in the FBI. These are some of the most upstanding people that are just trying to get to the truth. They don’t – most people, they don’t have political agenda, right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:28:58]
Right.
Robert Simon:
[0:28:59]
But if you’re doing something like this, you better sure as heck have some big thing at the end of the-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:29:06]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:29:05]
–at the end of the rainbow, and not just be a few rinky dink documents that should be in the National Archives. It’d better not be. Or else, this is just a monumental egg on your face, right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:29:16]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:29:16]
Yeah. we’re dealing with the unknown right now. We talk about like if they release this affidavit and it turned – if they show just the name of the person that gave the information, maybe there might be a clue or two. But again, we’re operating an unknown here. But if it is truly something that’s like big at the end of the rainbow, then, it’s justified. But if it’s something small, it’s gonna look real though.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:29:38]
Oh yeah. The second I heard about it, my thought was they – there better be a dead body at the end of the rainbow. I mean, this is so huge that they – you know, there must have been – but then, it’s like they’ve been – they’ve known he’s had these boxes for months. They’ve been going back and forth about, you know, there’s emails from the FBI saying, “We want that room secured.” So, it’s not like they were hitting and Trump was lying about where they were or what they were. They just – if this is really just all about, you know, documents that belong in archives, I agree with you, they totally missed the mark on how they played this thing out to execute an actual warrant.
Robert Simon:
[0:30:20]
So, they had – I think they had given them a chance several times. And here, we know you have some of this repossession, return, return, return. They returned calm and it’s like well, we know, return, return, return. Then, in June, their lawyer says, “We don’t have them.” Well, we know. If that’s – I mean, I’ve read that a few times. If that’s true that we didn’t have them, that’s kinda messed up. So, I think that’s where the affidavit comes in where somebody’s saying, “Hey, this is still here.” But if they – correct me if I am wrong but you deal with this a lot. If they say, “Yes, it’s here,” there has to be some, like, imminent threat that something bad is going to happen with those documents that are there, right? Like it can’t just-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:30:54]
Right.
Robert Simon:
[0:30:55]
For them to do what they did, it had to have been like, “This is here and this is gonna go somewhere else,” or somebody is coming over to look at this that shouldn’t have their eyes on it. It has to be something serious. Because you deal with this a lot more than I do. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:31:08]
I think that if it was a dispute, like you said, that they were asking for the documents, him and his team are saying, “We don’t have it to give back and forth,” all of that, I think a smarter kind of political – from a political perspective way to have done it, we’d just go in front of a judge, make a motion to compel in front of a judge and say, “Listen, there’s a dispute over these documents. We don’t believe you should have them. We want you to rule them.” And I think that would have played out a lot better than, you know, a bunch of armed agents showing up at his house and rifling through his stuff, especially to dealing with the person you’re dealing with.
[0:31:45]
Trump has - putting it mildly - embraced the idea of being a murderer, right? And doesn’t this just perfectly play into all of that, especially if at the end of the day, what you come up with is bupkis?
Robert Simon:
[0:31:59]
Well, when I first heard about this, I thought, look, say what you want about Trump, I’m personally not a fan of the guy, but he’s smart to the point of like did he – I thought in my head, like, if he orchestrated all of this just to embarrass the current administration, like set it up, pretend like he had all these documents, and somebody submitted that affidavit that he kinda knew about, and it did some of that at the end of the rainbow, oh boy!
Joshua Ritter:
[0:32:22]
Right.
Robert Simon:
[0:32:23]
Oh boy! Give the man credit.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:32:25]
Yeah, yeah, seriously. All right. Let’s switch gears a little bit to talk about him pleading the 5th because these two things took place so close in time that everybody kinda thought there was some sort of connection. And I think there is, in a way, and I’ll explain. But he took the 5th in a civil deposition. Talk to us about that. Have you handled that before? How do you handle it? What are the ramifications of it?
Robert Simon:
[0:32:52]
Yeah. So, any time, the same type of thing, if there’s an underlying crime that we talked about, the Anne Heche, that came to the present in a civil lawsuit. So, somebody is driving, drunk, killed somebody, there’s a criminal aspect to it. That person’s gonna plead the 5th not to incriminate themselves during a civil lawsuit. Two different paths, right? So, I’ve had that many times.
[0:33:13]
You know, I have one where I was trying a case up in Santa Cruz, and I had a very high-profile man run over a migrant worker, and killed him, tried to flee, he plead the 5th all the way through the civil lawsuit even though they didn’t pursue charges until like the day of civil trial. He’s like, “Oh, why? Now, I wanna testify. I want to talk about it.” I mean, it was like – it was crazy. But, you know, we had to retake this deposition and do all these other things.
[0:33:37]
But in civil lawsuits, it’s not like a criminal where you can’t use it against them and testify. In civil, you get an adverse, like, instruction a lot of the time to say they didn’t testify. And as a lawyer, I go up there and say, “Because you know what they would probably say.”
Joshua Ritter:
[0:33:51]
Yeah, I was gonna say, I know that you’re allowed to use that. They call it like a negative inference or something that you’re allowed to take. Explain to us what that means. Like, how does that play out in court?
Robert Simon:
[0:33:59]
Yeah. So, it looks like there’s jury instructions, and some of them will say like if you didn’t hear from a witness and if you think that would have been unfavorable for them, you can infer that their silence was, like, not good for them, right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:34:14]
Interesting, yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:34:15]
Because, yeah, the jury instructions are different per state and whatever. But beat that as it may. What that means is that if Trump continues to plead the 5th all the way through until trial, in a case like this, the jury can approximately go up and say or plaintiff there could say, “He’s pleading the 5th because he knows he’s guilty.” You can hold — you know, you can take that inference as his silence means that what he has to say is bad.
[0:34:40]
But again, play this out, like if there are no criminal charges or whatever, and he can come back and say, “I’m now gonna want to testify,” you know, I’ve seen this happen before, this could just be a timing issue. And right now, look, his home just gets raided in West Palm Beach. As his attorney, would you tell him to plead [crosstalk 0:35:01]?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:35:00]
That’s exactly what I was gonna say. Everybody is making such a big deal out of it. I don’t think there’s a criminal defense attorney around who would let their client go under oath for anything when it’s obvious that they’re under some sort of huge criminal investigation. Until we get to the bottom of what that is all about, I wouldn’t let him testify to anything at deposition or at trial or anywhere.
[0:35:20]
I mean, the other point that people are making is, “Oh, he pleaded the 5th 400 times.” I mean, I’m not trying to take away from the significance of him pleading the 5th, but what that is is, you know, you know as a civil defense attorney or a plaintiff’s attorney - in this case, the AG - but they’re just asking him every question they would have asked him, and he’s saying the same answer to every single one of them, so that they can get those answers out there if they wanna use them later on. So, it’s, again, not so shocking that he did it that many times when you understand what’s happening here.
Robert Simon:
[0:35:52]
And as a plaintiff lawyer, you know, I’m gonna ask a lot of questions in the deposition that I know is gonna get objected to and not answered, but you’re doing it for a different purpose. Sometimes, it’s to educate the other person on what’s going on in the background or to show your hand a little bit, to show up the strength of your case or to have, you know, [indecipherable 0:36:10] on this one. I mean, you could think they might have been asking questions like, “Mr. Trump, isn’t it true that you had nuclear documents for the Saudis in your subject system? Is that true?” “I plead the 5th.”
Joshua Ritter:
[0:36:22]
Right.
Robert Simon:
[0:36:23]
Right. I mean, they could have not had anything to do with that case whatsoever but asking him this, right? So-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:36:29]
Right. So funny. Let’s talk a little bit about this, again, to me, is kinda shocking. The judge has said that he intends to unseal the affidavit to the warrant. So, let’s talk a little bit about that. What has been released to the public right now is the warrant itself, which is basically a judge saying that based upon evidence that I’ve seen, you know, certain – there is evidence that perhaps the commission of certain crimes. And that’s when everybody kind of, you know, lost their brains about the espionage act, which is listed amongst those things. And then, it gave the receipt. Meaning, what documents were actually taken. And it’s kind of a general description of, you know, 27 boxes, some of the boxes contain such and such materials.
[0:37:16]
But the real important part of a warrant is the affidavit. I mean, that’s where all the information is contained that talks about how did they get this evidence that they then show to the judge. And in an ongoing investigation, usually, the government enjoys almost impenetrable protection from anything like that. And here, the judges – I wanna get your thoughts on it. I have some thoughts. But here, the judges decided to go ahead and release that with redactions, but go ahead and release that. What are your thoughts?
Robert Simon:
[0:37:48]
Well, I think also recently, they went up to the Court of Appeal and they said, “No, it’s okay to release it.” So, now, you had two courts be able – who said the same thing.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:37:56]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:37:57]
And again, they’re reviewing – I would assume that these judges have reviewed the affidavit in camera, which means the judge reviews it by himself and knows the contents of it before making these rulings, which leads me to believe there’s some – I mean, that they don’t – that they think maybe there’s some bigger – look, I mean, the judge, they’d be thinking this way that there’s been so much violence directed towards the FBI and federal agents right now that maybe they need to get this out there for the public safety or for the safety of the FBI. Like these are things that they can think about when they’re releasing an affidavit. But in my opinion, it’s crucial because whoever – and from what I heard, whoever knew where all these things were, where his safe was would have to be very close to his circle.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:38:39]
True.
Robert Simon:
[0:38:40]
So, the person who signed it, if they release nothing else but the person who gave that information, that might be enough to give the public a little bit more ease or ease the pressure off the FBI. Who knows, right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:38:53]
I think what’s funny is I think what the actual redact is the name of that person.
Robert Simon:
[0:38:57]
Really.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:38:57]
We could probably get it-
Robert Simon:
[0:38:58]
That’s all I wanna know. It’s all I wanted.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:38:59]
Yeah. I think that person will be identified as a confidential informant and they probably won’t tell us. Now, maybe there will be enough information surrounding that that we’ll have – we could, you know, figure out the identity of that person, but I think that’s probably the only thing we won’t know.
[0:39:16]
My thought was you’re absolutely right. The judge took this in camera, reviewed it, decided whether or not there’s – you know, there’s incredible public interest in this and there’s all this other kind of policy reasons why they should probably release it, including – you know, there’s no privacy problems because Trump is out there saying, “I want it released.”
Robert Simon:
[0:39:34]
He’s gonna declassify them, right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:39:36]
Right, right. What I think is whatever is in the affidavit, it’s apparently not something that will jeopardize a continuing investigation. So, the judge feels like this won’t harm you in whatever investigation you’re conducting. It’s either that or this is it. All this was about was the documents that they wanted returned to the White House. And so, there’s nothing more in this affidavit about any other kind of continuing investigation. In other words, this is the end of the investigation, so there’s no harm to the investigation by releasing this. Those were my thoughts about this.
Robert Simon:
[0:40:09]
Yeah. And I think the second one that you brought up that the lawyer – I mean, the government lawyers have come out and been saying that this is an ongoing thing, right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:40:18]
Right.
Robert Simon:
[0:40:18]
That’s been confusing. And I think they’re gonna further brief and they’d have to share their hand a little bit. I mean, if the case is done, and they got back what they got back, and that’s it, I mean, a lot of egg on people’s faces-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:40:28]
Yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:40:28]
And this is a big known murder.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:40:30]
Yeah, it is.
Robert Simon:
[0:40:31]
Again, we don’t know the contents but whatever, you know.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:40:33]
Yeah. Well, it’s a nothingburger, I agree with you, but there has been an argument, “Well, listen. If these weren’t declassified, and he moved them, that can be a crime in and of itself.” And then, there’s all this talk about can he – would this, you know, prevent him from running again? And I don’t know if we wanna get into the weeds on all of that. The only point being the Constitution is the only document that can say what qualifies you for the presidency. So, I imagine, if they did try to disqualify him, it would be something the Supreme Court would have to decide.
[0:41:04]
But the question I had and the thought I had was, Trump has made the argument that – and it’s true – as a sitting president, he can declassify anything at any time for whatever reason he wants. And he’s made the argument that by moving these documents down to Mar-a-Lago, that in and of itself declassified them; and therefore, none of these is me moving classified documents.
[0:41:28]
Putting aside whether or not that would actually work and if he could do that, if these are now, in fact, declassified documents, my question is would they be subject to a Freedom of Information Act request and how would that all play out? What are your thoughts on that, Bob?
Robert Simon:
[0:41:42]
I think it would be [indecipherable 0:41:42], you know. The Atlantic had just made a public record, the best of them all.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:41:48]
Exactly.
Robert Simon:
[0:41:50]
Like pick him up like it was his public library, his presidential library. Look, I just think, you know, in his mind, as he thinks these things, maybe. I mean, I don’t know, but there’s a process when you declassify materials, and you have to go through – you just have to say that you’re president or whatever; maybe did but there’s a pretty good easy way to find out. But at first, he didn’t have the documents, then he says, “Well, I did, but I declassified them,” and you know, it’s just the confusion machine. He’s a-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:42:13]
Yeah, yeah.
Robert Simon:
[0:42:14]
And most people are on both sides of the political spectrum, duties types of things, and you just have to see through and see what the actual evidence is and what happened. But, you know, he declassified them. Again, go out. Josh, make a request, go take a look.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:42:27]
I know, seriously. I would love to know what they are because why is he – why is there all these fighting over this stuff. I mean, people are like, “Oh, it’s nuclear secrets.” I don’t think we have nuclear secrets printed out on documents quite frankly. We have things called computers, which are probably more dangerous to be in other people’s hands. But whatever they are, he felt strongly about not giving them back to the White House, and they felt very strongly about going and getting them to the point of executing a search warrant on a former president.
Robert Simon:
[0:42:57]
I mean-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:42:57]
I would love to know what they are.
Robert Simon:
[0:42:59]
I mean, so why didn’t he just declassify stuff like - I don’t know - Hunter Byne’s laptop for an investigation. I mean, why would he declassify Epstein’s list, right?
Joshua Ritter:
[0:43:09]
Right.
Robert Simon:
[0:43:10]
All these things. Maybe that’s what he’s got.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:43:13]
Area 51. He’d want Area 51 declassified.
Robert Simon:
[0:43:17]
He’s got Hilary’s emails, Area 51, moving into JFK.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:43:21]
Exactly.
Robert Simon:
[0:43:21]
He has all that [indecipherable 0:43:21] that’s all sitting in Mar-a-Lago and he’s declassified it.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:43:25]
He’s sitting on all of it.
Robert Simon:
[0:43:28]
That would be hilarious. Look if you did that-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:43:29]
That would be fantastic. Evidence of aliens are sitting in his basement on Mar-a-Lago. I love it.
Robert Simon:
[0:43:35]
Oh, that would be – that would actually be really fun, but-
Joshua Ritter:
[0:43:40]
Bob, thank you so much for coming on this. Where can people find out more about you?
Robert Simon:
[0:43:45]
I mean, you can go to my Instagram, @planetfunbob. You can go to my website, justiceteam.com and look me up. You know, Robert Simon, attorney, just Google it, man. I am pretty easy to hit up. And then, DM me and I'll get back to you.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:43:57]
Fantastic.
Robert Simon:
[0:43:58]
But always happy to come on, man. And I love rapping about this stuff because it’s great mental gymnastics. And these can change day by day, man. And I just impress on everybody listening, find your own truth, do your own due diligence, don’t listen blindly to what people tell you about stuff. Logic usually carries the day. Find out for yourself.
Joshua Ritter:
[0:44:17]
Wise words. And I’m your host, Josh Ritter. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter, @joshuaritteresq. And please check out my new website at joshuaritter.com. And you could find our Sidebar episodes wherever you get your podcast. And we wanna hear from you if you’ve got questions or comments you’d like us to address, tweet us your questions with the hashtag #tcdsidebar. And thank you for joining us at The True Crime Daily Sidebar.
