Trial War Stories - Girls Gone Wild with Andy Kabat

Two seasoned trial lawyers, Andy Goldwasser and Andy Kabat, sit down to unpack one of the wildest, most high-profile cases to ever walk into a courtroom. What begins as a carefree night in Key West—a wet T-shirt contest entered on a lark—spirals into a national scandal involving viral photos, spliced pornographic videos, law enforcement distribution, media rivalries, web searches topping national charts, and ultimately, a courtroom showdown with Hustler Magazine.

In this episode, Andy Goldwasser and Andy Kabat walk through the entire journey—from the moment a Youngstown news anchor’s private mistake went public, to the discovery that a competing news station helped circulate doctored videos, to the eventual federal copyright infringement battle against Larry Flynt’s company. Along the way, they break down strategy, cross-examinations, expert witnesses, scorched-earth defense tactics, and the precise moments that turned the case.

This is a story about mistakes, exploitation, power, law, redemption—and the trial skills that bring justice when the whole world is watching. A must-listen for trial lawyers, courtroom junkies, and anyone who loves a good war story from the trenches.

Chapters 

1. A Case That Went National

How a Key West wet-T-shirt contest became a viral phenomenon, hitting Oprah, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, and dominating web searches.

2. The Call That Changed Everything

The anonymous threats, online photos, and discovery that a video crew and photographer had circulated explicit content without consent.


3. From Embarrassment to Catastrophe

The spliced pornographic video, the anchor’s termination, and Andy’s investigation uncovering a competing news station’s role in distributing doctored footage.


4. The First Lawsuit: Fighting Back

Copyright battles, sheriff involvement, depositions that reveal the splicing, and the pivotal admission of a removed copyright notice.


5. Round Two: Taking on Hustler Magazine

Hustler publishes a copyrighted photo; a federal case begins, complete with aggressive defense counsel, expert witnesses, and the challenges of proving damages.


6. Trial Tactics, Backfires, and the Verdict

Cross-examinations that turned the jury, defense strategies that polarized the case, and how the Andys secured a win by flipping the defense's own expert.

Transcript

0:00

Talk about a fun case. That's what we're doing today. Girls gone wild, but with some consequences. And you're going to hear the story in just a minute. Every trial lawyer has that one case. The one that pushed them to the edge, changed how they practice or kept them up at night. This is trial war stories. And I'm your host, Andy Goldwasser. I sit down with great trial lawyers to unpack unforgettable cases the strategy, the chaos, the pressure, and the moments that turn the tide. Beyond the transcripts and verdicts. And now to the show. My guest today is the one and only Andy Kabat. Andy. First, I've known you for a long time, but you are a phenomenal trial lawyer. Really? Just the top tier lawyer. And I was talking to you the other day, and I asked you about some of your interesting trials because, as you know, I love talking about this stuff. And you started sharing with me this case that is wild in the wildest sense. And we're going to get into that, that case in just a moment. But it's really interesting to me when we started talking about the case, and I had to look up a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today. This is a case that was a story that really became national news, so much so that it hit Good Morning America. It was on Oprah. It was on Inside Edition. And I actually look this up. It was one of the most popular searches on the web for that particular year. This was big news. Tell us about the case. Yeah, that is absolutely correct. I think she was the single, largest downloaded person for a period of time because of this. I was asked to represent a news anchor, local news anchor from Youngstown, Ohio. Who had been diagnosed with a a disease that could have been terminal. And she beat it, and she and her husband said, you know what? We need to go celebrate. So they went to Key West, Florida, and we're out one evening and had a great dinner and had some drinks were not wasted, but had some drinks and inhibitions kind of fell apart. And they walked by a wet T-shirt contest. Okay. And, my client happens to be a very competitive person, so she entered the wet t t shirt contest on a lark and said, you know what? This be fun. And then her competitive nature took hold, and before you know it, she was complete naked on stage, not a stitch of clothing left. And this is a news anchor from Youngstown. Right. Who thought? By the way, I'm anonymous here. It's spring break. Key West, with a bunch of 18, 20 year old women. Why not? Let's have some fun. Right? She, did the contest. Left with her husband. Had some regrets, I think, at the end, because she thought, what did I just do? Right? Like we all do when we sometimes go a little bit too far. For sure, but had fun doing that and felt liberated and thought, you know what? I'm alive and I love it. Love it. Went back home to Youngstown, Ohio right around Christmas time. So several months had passed, and she gets a call from somebody anonymously saying, I know what you did, bitch. Whoa. Hung up. Okay. And she's like, I don't know what's going on. Well, come to find out, there was a gentleman in the audience taking still photographs who had posted the photographs on his website. Oh, boy. In addition, there was an I call them girls Gone Wild, but I don't know the actual name of the company, but there was a video company there in the audience who found out that she was a news anchor, and they published a video that said Naked News anchor on it with her, with her. Pic, because Girls Gone Wild at the time was huge. Yes. So it was something like that, or was it actually Girls Gone Wild or some affiliation or you're not really sure? I'm not really sure because I wasn't involved at that time. Okay. They had another lawyer. But it was one of those companies that had broad distribution, by the way. All right. I mean, this video hit everywhere. And just started getting downloaded all over the place. Correct. And so what she did, she hired a local lawyer in Youngstown, who ended up, she said, look, I don't want to exploit the pictures. I want the copyrights so that nobody is able to exploit. Makes perfect sense. I want to own this picture. I don't want anyone exploiting me. This was a just a whim. Fun night. That where I probably went too far. Correct. So that lawyer negotiates, with both the Vidi video company as well as the photographer, and gets the copyrights. They get the copyrights, they own the copyright. All right. So your client now owns the copyright. She owns this video or photograph. That is. Or is it already circulating on the web? It is definitely circulating on the web. Okay. She, as you said, was as soon as it came out, she got fired from her job. They. Yeah, they fired her. Oh, yeah, they fired her. Although I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but it absolutely was out in the public domain. Okay. And then what happened? And the reason tying into this call is that there began to circulate a video that showed pornography spliced in, and then my client's likeness, her naked body giving the impression that it wasn't just a T-shirt contest, but it was actually pornography that she was involved in. She then, as this video comes out, gets fired, and that's when she comes to my doorstep. And basically what she wanted me to look at was what who is creating the these tapes, you know, who is splicing this together, right? And we found out that, it was a competing, news station in Youngstown, Ohio. No kidding. Yeah. How did you did you have investigators? How did you find that out? So it was really interesting. We ended up, interviewing some people who said that they thought it was, but they didn't want to touch it. Because Youngstown, even at that time, was a place where I don't think you kind of rat on people. Right? And there were some police that were sheriffs that were involved in disseminating the tape. So everything was kind of hush hush. And I remember meeting with, a news anchor in the competing station, and I took her to the office that we had in Youngstown at the time and got her to admit that, in fact, it was the competing station. Wow. So we filed a lawsuit, but the the the the challenge was we weren't looking for money from exploiting it. We wanted to keep it quiet, conceal it. It's almost a catch 22, right? I mean, if you file a lawsuit, you're almost exploiting it more. On a percent. 100%. It's like a defamation case, right? Right. Once you put it out there, you're putting it out there even more. Yes. So what happened? We came up. We didn't really have a theory for damages. And, you know, as much as I love the case and love them, we had to get a theory. So we principally sued based upon the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Whatever that is. Filed a bunch of other claims. But that was our money claim. And what that, in essence, was, is that when you if you remember back in the day, when you got a videotape and there was a copyright notice that ran for site, this copyrighted subject, can't copyright, can't disseminate it. Yep. And there's all these provisions with fees and all sorts of stuff. Well, so if you remove that, it's a violation of the act. Okay. And if you violate the act every time you've removed it, you get damages, including punitive damages and attorney fees. Okay. So now I just had to get somebody to admit that they removed the warning sign. Okay. So we had, like, seven depositions. Well, I have to ask you. So who are you suing at this point? So we sued the, television station. We sued, a couple people associated. I mean. The television station that you believe leaked the tape. Correct. Okay. Correct. The competing station. Couple, people affiliated with the sheriff's department. We sued, a motorcycle retail shop. Okay. They were also disseminating the tapes. Anybody you could find that was disseminating this tape. You sued him and said, stop it. Well, I said, I didn't say stop it. I wanted to figure out how many times they disseminated the tape so that we could generate some damages. And we took a lot of depositions. And the case was defended by, Baker Hostetler. And they were super aggressive. And the man who was defending it was just nasty to me. I mean, we got into screaming, knocked down fights over everything. And about the eighth deposition, I was deposing the engineer from the competing station who I thought spliced up the tapes. And, before I got to even ask him some questions about the case, I wanted to figure out if, he was involved in it and if he was, whether that digital, copyright notice was on it, and he removed it. Okay. So I got him to admit, with some, help with, tape statement that I had from this news anchor that he, in fact, was the one who's placed the tapes and how sorry he was. And he did it as a joke, and he didn't think it was going to be that bad. Then I asked him, and this is maybe 20 minutes into the deposition. There's ten lawyers sitting around the table. I asked him, I said, isn't it true that there was this digital millennium notice on it? And he said, yes. And I said, you removed it, didn't you? He said, yes. I said, okay, thank you. Well, I, I literally just got up that great. You got what you needed. You got out. You didn't let anybody rehabilitate. I had ten pages of questions. Ask him. My clients were sitting next to me. They didn't know what happened. You couldn't get out of the room quick enough. I had to come back in and say, come on, we're leaving. Right? The other lawyers were probably screaming, hey, I have questions, I have questions. I said, we're done, okay. And we ended up settling that case. And, I thought it was over. Okay. I thought we were done. And then, she came back to me maybe a year or two later and said, I'm trying to get this, get past this, get beyond this in my life. But, they published one of my pictures. I said, well, who is they? And she said, hustler magazine. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Hustler magazine had a feature contest in their magazine to nominate the hottest news babe. Only. Only hustler. Yes. The month prior was none other than Lauren Sanchez, who now is married to Jeff Bezos. And somebody nominated Katherine, and they published a picture of her that was copyrighted with one of her breasts showing. Okay. And they put some words about, you know, hot news, babe, eye candy or something like that. And she wanted to sue based upon her copyright. So we took the case. Seems to me that it's pretty clear copyright infringement. Right. I mean, she owns the copyright. They published it without her consent or permission. You have an infringement. There might be an exception to that infringement. But there was an infringement. 100%. So you file a copyright infringement case against what would be the hustler entity? It probably has some different name, but hustler essentially, Hustler. Leap Productions, Larry Flynt Productions. I love that. Okay. And you yet because it's a copyright infringement. Is that in federal court? Federal court in front of Judge Oliver. Great judge in Cleveland. Awesome. Yes. Tell us what happens. So they despite being a California entity with offices in California and all their production in California, they were represented by this, law firm in Buffalo, New York. NY and Buffalo, New York. To this day, I don't understand, the real connection. Not that there and I said that probably wrong. There's not that there's great lawyers in Buffalo. I don't mean to despair. It's just you would expect. Yeah. Especially hustler, who I'm sure gets sued a lot. You would think they would be at the California or New York lawyers representing them. That's what I expect. I expected some large entertainment law firm that was going to come and just try and squash us. Because exactly. At the time I had left my big law firm and it was like 4 or 5 of us and a small law firm, and I'm like, oh, great, we got somebody from Buffalo. So maybe it'll be great. Well, they were worse than Baker. Oh my goodness. I got threatened sanctions fees. They actually said if you win a dollar we don't care. We're going to appeal it till we can't appeal it anymore. And just were nasty. Kind of just scorched earth litigation. Yeah. Great lawyers but just nasty kind of people. Yeah. But we did pursue the copyright infringement case. And again, she didn't want most of those cases are about you've exploited and because you exploited it and I didn't get the opportunity to exploit it. I've lost money. She didn't want the opportunity to exploit it. She wanted to put it away under the bed and never touch it again. So how do you quantify damages in a case like that? It was difficult. First of all, the reason why I took the case is because this woman and her husband are literally two of the best people I have ever met in my life. And we're going to talk about that in a minute because I read the Court of Appeals decision. I'm one of the issues they had with was some of your comments that were made in closing argument, which we'll talk about in just a moment. But I want to ask you some questions about that, and I'm going to put a pin in it for right now. Put a pin in it. But that's why I took the case, because I wouldn't have if I thought this woman was some money grabbing, awful person, or quite frankly, just promiscuous and just decides she's going to take her clothes off and it doesn't matter to her. It mattered to her. It mattered to her core. Her professional career was completely derailed because of, let's be honest, a harmless errand judgment. And it's not like she did anything illegal. She didn't do anything improper. It's just morally in the position that she had. It just didn't fit with what she did. And so it was a mistake. But as a result of that little mistake, her entire career is now derailed. 100%. And I'm sure her relationships were affected. I mean, it's a horrible thing. And it went against the core of who she is. I mean, it just did. It was just a frolic, right? And and everything about her was just the 180 degree opposite. I mean, thank God we didn't have cameras when we were growing up. I mean, who knows where we'd be sitting right now. So not me. You, right? Okay, well, I have to interrupt you. So tell us what happened. So. And that my point being is, is after I got to know these lawyers, I knew they were going to make the the common mistake. I knew they were going to try and victimize this poor lady. They were going to polarize the case. 100%. So that's why I thought, you know what, I'm going to have difficulty proving damages because the way it worked is all I had to do is prove copyright infringement and how many magazines they sold. And then the burden shifted to them to say, yeah, we may have sold$1 million worth of magazines, but it's not all attributable to your, your picture. Okay. Which in this case I knew was pretty easy because I had done my research. I knew that she wasn't on the cover. There was no indication that she was in the magazine. And these magazines happened to be shrink wrapped. So if you pick up a magazine, you can't tell if she's in it or not. So I knew damages were going to be a really big issue. And in fact, I tried to get an expert, but because she was on record 16 different ways, saying I didn't want to exploit this, it was that was a big issue in my. Case, right? I mean, normally I would think that you would look at, see if there was a spike in sales. Was that part of the analysis you went through or that wasn't you didn't even have to you didn't go there. We were not able to find a spike in sales. Okay? We were not. And then even if I could, I didn't know how to attribute it to her little picture. Right. Was it her picture or was it the woman who was on the cover half naked? Absolutely. I mean, that creates a real challenge. You know, on so many levels. Yeah, but they over lawyered it, which gets us to the trial part, which is how I think we were able to succeed. But I want to talk about the trial. Yeah, yeah. So the trial was great. We it was scorched earth discovery motions that you couldn't believe. Pretrial motions. I mean, we were doing motions and alimony for weeks, weeks. And we finally got to the trial, and I walk in, well, to back up, I wanted to take Larry Flynt step position. Okay. Because he was very involved in the magazine. Well, he was a publisher, was he not? He was the publisher. And despite them trying to run from it, he was involved in day to day decisions about what went on and what went in the magazine. Okay, I saw from the Court of Appeals opinion someone named David Flynn. Was that Larry's son? Or relative or not related at all? Yeah. It wasn't David Flint, it was David. Was not David Flint. Okay? His daughter was the trial rep. Larry Flint's daughter. That's right. His daughter, who really had no connection to any of this? Zero. She was a plant sitting there. And I read a petition. They wanted a female sitting at the trial table. They didn't want Larry Flynt, a porn publisher. Right, right. And so we had scheduled made arrangements to go out to Los Angeles, where their headquarters were. Okay, as with Brad Bachman. Okay. Excellent lawyer, great lawyer. I have a case with him now. He's terrific. Excellent lawyer. Was such a great help to me. Tried it with me. I mean, it was phenomenal. But he and I went, got on an airplane and went to this building on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. And we walk in to the first floor and it says Larry Flynt Productions, Hustler magazine. And that's it. It looks like any other office building you're in. Okay. Nondescript, just sterile as can be. And they say, okay, the depositions are going to be on the third floor. Well, the third floor was where Larry Flynt office was. Okay, I and I knew they weren't producing them, but that wasn't enough for me because they told me he wasn't there, wasn't available. Whatever. So we get up off we get off the elevator on the third floor, and there is this ornate gold everywhere, pornography littered all over the place. I love this. Conference room, waiting area, reception area. And I look over to my right and there's this huge office. And I said to the receptionist, I said, whose office is that? She said, It's Larry Flynt. So to have fun, I wanted to get a picture. And Larry Flynt, of course you did. You traveled all that way? Why not? Yeah, exactly. You knew he wasn't going to show up, right? I knew he was there. So. Fine. So I'm in his office, and I want Bachman to take a picture of me. And all of a sudden, we get two steps in the office and security comes. You get out. Where are the other lawyers? Are they even there? They're in the conference room. Oh, that's. Great. So we take the deposition, we come back, we end up going to trial. And, Larry Flynt is not there. And what was it like taking his deposition? They never. Oh, they never produced him at all. Never produced them. It was always some excuse. He wasn't well enough. He didn't travel. He didn't have time. He was too busy. He. Whatever. So you travel all that way. You have a feeling they're not going to produce and probably know that they're not going to produce him. You didn't get there. They don't produce them. Do you bring that to the attention of the judge? Well, we, Pope, we didn't go out there to actually depose him. We knew we were not going to depose him that day. We went out to depose three other people. Okay. Yeah. Got it. All right. But I wanted to see his office, and I wanted to see, you know, I love it. I was just having fun all the time, you know? Why not? Yeah. You're battling like crazy. Have a little fun in what you do, 100%. Okay. That's how I thought the other lawyers thought I was the biggest idiot on Earth. Of course, and thought to themselves, this kid is never going to be able to try this kid, right? Right. I mean, it was 2000 and what, 6 or 7 something? And by the way, what do you know about copyright infringement? You're not a copyright infringement lawyer. Well, there was that too, right? It's easy. I mean, you know, I learned that, right. So we tried it and and in walks this woman who I had never seen before. And they introduce her to the jury as Larry Flynt's daughter. And they also say, look, Larry wants to be here. Oh. But he can't be here. This this poor guy who's not feeling well, who's a loving father with his daughter, is going to appear as a corporate representative. Yes. You see, about over trying a case, right. Honoring her son. And in addition to that, they had an expert. I didn't have an expert because I couldn't get one. I mean, the fact of the matter was, is I didn't know how I was going to prove my damage. Okay. But they hired an expert, paid her $100,000, and she was going to come in and testify that there's no damages. So I had no Larry Flynt. I had a, daughter who knew nothing about the case. I had these lawyers who were nasty and were going to victimize my lady, and I had them over lawyering with an expert, so I knew I at least had a shot with the expert to cross-examine her. I intentionally didn't make a big deal about her, didn't take depositions, nothing. I just like, I'm going to do a cold. So we started putting on our case and as I thought, they victimized my client, which backfired. I don't even understand that. Right. What? I mean, where they just saying here she is. She's trying to exploit not only what happened, now she's trying to exploit the process. And really, this is nothing but publicity and fame. Was that what they were trying to say? Money grubbing. She loves it. She loves the attention. This is her business. She's a newscaster. This helped her, helped her life. Lawyers. We talk about this on the podcast a lot. Lawyers lose. They screw that up because as soon as you don't argue the truth, yeah, it backfires. Yes, but that was their perception of her. They believed it 100%. Yeah. They don't they don't know her. They never met her other than maybe her deposition. But they didn't take the time at her deposition to get to know her. They crossed her. Almost like she was in trial. Exactly. They were just mean to. They wanted her to say, you know what? This is what? You're getting a deposition. You take it further and trial. It's going to be worse. Wow. So they never got the never got to know her. And it had they they would have seen that she's this wonderful, sweet woman who cares about people and really, legitimately had remorse for what she did and just wanted to go on with her life. Did you put her on the stand? Yeah. How did she do? Oh, she was amazing. So you do a director of her and they go after her. The money grubbing, awful person you like it helped your career. Oh, that had to do. What did your husband think when you did a wet t shirt? How could you do that? Yeah, I mean, just. Jury must have been so turned off you. Could see them. You could see them bristling at the cross-examination. And right then I knew we had something. Yeah, we talk about that a lot too, in this podcast about how the feeling of a courtroom. Right. You don't need to hear it. You see it and you feel it. Oh, God, I felt it, and I knew I knew we were going to get something if I could prove damages. What do you need to prove? Damages to get the case to the jury. Well, so we we we did, our first burden, which was number of copies sold. How much? And then they rebutted it. So then I needed to come back with something that I couldn't just rest on it. Right. So that's what I was worried about. And so how did you handle that? I cross-examine their expert. So you got it out of their own expert I. Did. That's great lawyer. I. Did that is great lawyer. And had they by the way the expert didn't provide any magic. She just came in and said, look, there's no way anybody would know that she's in the magazine because it's shrink wrapped. And I thought to myself, son of the trial table. Why don't you have one of the goons who came in to testify? Otherwise, just say it's a shrink wrapped in your. Good right. Now. They needed the expert. They needed a $100,000 person. That's the other mistake that lawyers make all the time. They get these paid experts, and it creates an instant bad guy or a villain for us to attack at trial. So we get to closing arguments and it's back and forth. You're not getting there. Okay, I have a question for you guys about opening statement. Okay. All right. All right. So, this case actually got appealed. And as a result of that appeal, there's a written opinion, and I read the written opinion and I have to ask you about some of the things in that opinion, because the defense, after you got a verdict against them, really didn't like that verdict. And they really were shooting at everything they could to get it reversed. And one of their many arguments was plaintiff's counsel. You went too far. And as a result, the verdict should be reversed, right? Yeah. One of their criticisms of you was your opening statement. And you tell us about your opening, what you said, how you characterized the case and what was their issue with it. Well, so I think their biggest issue came not with my opening, but with my closing statement. Okay. I thought there was something with your opening as well. I know in your closing they had a lot of issues. You talked about money that was a big issue for them. Yeah. My opening statement, I think was fairly benign because I knew I was trying the case to, Judge Oliver, who's pretty conservative. I also didn't know that they would follow through with their threat to actually come after Catherine, which I found out after they they stood up, open their mouth and called our money grubbing person. But did they have a problem with your opening, Andy, when you talked about the stipulation that was in effect. So there was a stipulation where they actually stipulated to copyright infringement? Yes. But they said, wait a minute, there's an exception here. Yes. And that's the fair use doctrine. Yeah. That's right. Right. Is that you remember that I. So I. Do and say it's part of the fair use doctrine is the way I understand it is they hustler had its own lawyer evaluate before this was published and whether this was this photograph was protected or not. Right. That lawyer decided, well, it is copyrighted, but you could still use it under the fair use exception. And I don't fully understand the fair use exception, but in my small mind, the issue with that exception is that this wasn't for a story. This was to exploit a photograph. And you talked in your opening statement about this stipulation that there was this infringement. And I think they thought you went too far. No question. They I you've refreshed my recollection. I, I, in my opening statement said the parties have stipulated that there has been copyrighted. And there was. 100%, but they were worried because they had a defense to it. And you're right, they had and we deposed them. They had somebody in there. Editorial department, who was responsible for checking to see if the photograph was copyrighted. Right. He couldn't find out if it was. He then elevated that to his boss, who happened to be the publisher. The publisher was supposed to check. He never did. Instead, he sent the article, the proposed article to their lawyer, a lawyer from this Buffalo firm who was on retainer. Wait a minute. It's the same firm that's defending him at trial. Same law firm. Was he called as a witness a trial? Yes. So they. So the lawyers who are defending in the case are calling their own law partner as a witness in the case, correct. Because that was their only defense to it. Their defense was Bill fine bomb. I mean, you talk about a credibility error. Oh, yeah. Well, that's why we got into the money because they were on retainer. It was a million and a half dollar retainer, if my memory serves. Yeah. So so let's fast forward to the closing. Because of money talk. So here's what the what the court said in the. Yeah. In the opinion defense counsel said in his opening statement what this case is about, ladies and gentlemen, is money. Make no mistake about it. And I agree with him. This is you talking. Yeah. And I agree with him. It is about money, but not how you would think it's about money. Larry Flynt Company is a tremendously huge, successful company. They sell hustler magazine and countless other magazines and products. Revenue from just the magazine is 1 million. They've got videos, casinos, toys. What you did was to me, that's awesome lawyering. You took their argument. This is about money and you completely flipped it. That's what exactly I was trying to do. And then they had a problem with that. Yeah. They did not like it. They did not like it. And I love what the court did. The court said, well, too bad you opened up the door. Yeah, sure. They stood up and said, this is about money. She's a money grubbing person. One of my favorite stories about the case that I read about, and you got to explain it to us, is what happened. Like, what did you say about Larry Flynt, who wasn't there? So as I said in the opening, they said, Larry would love to be here, but he can't travel. And I was okay to let that one go. But then this guy gets up and closing argument and says it again. You know, Mr. Cavett made a big deal in his closing about Larry's daughter. Larry was shot. He's in a wheelchair. He doesn't get around very, very well anymore. Now what? He didn't. Know. None of this is in evidence, right? It's not. It's. Not. Which is why I felt like I had free reign to do what I. Because he opened the door. You're like, if you're going to talk about things that are not in evidence, let's talk about things that are not in evidence. Right. And what this asshole excuse my language didn't know is that three weeks before the trial, my dad, who loved to gamble, had a we had a surprise birthday party for him in a casino in Michigan. Okay. And I'm standing in the lobby, and there's a big to do. Like over to my right. And I look and I see a gold wheelchair and I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So I walk over there and it's Larry. No way. Yeah. And three weeks before trial. Yes. And of course I go, Larry. Hey, of course. I'm suing you. Are you going to be at trial? And I want a picture in your office, by the way. Yeah. And he just ignores me. So when this guy, again, this defense lawyer, gets up and says again that Larry wanted to be there, I felt in my rebuttal that I had every right to say he had no problem traveling to the casino. He could have been here. Good for you. They took exception. I can understand why they would. Yeah, and the court of Appeals actually said, hey, it was improper, but. Or not enough, but it's not enough to actually reverse the jury verdict. And I think what mitigated against that for me was that that it was improper for them in the first instance, to say the guy couldn't be here because there, as you said, there was no testimony that he couldn't travel. Yeah, yeah. So I when I sort of end on this note because to me, when I did some research on this case, I found your client to be absolutely amazing. And I'm not just saying, I mean, she is the hero of this story. I mean, what I read about her, she is now actually advocating against cyberbullying. She's using her own story to help people. I mean, what an incredible human being. And you knew that in your closing argument. And I have to read some another part of the opinion, because to me, this was so powerful and, I mean, I don't know if I was on the jury, it really would have affected me. And I think it probably affected the jury in the case. What you said is I have a daughter who's the most important thing in my life, and I tell her it's okay to make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. Stand up for what you believe in and don't give up. That's what I tell her. Katherine Bosley, you made a mistake. Were you looking at your client when you said that I was? Yeah. You took your clothes off. Okay, you can't take that back. But if my daughter turns out like Katherine Bosley, if she is able to live up to that role model of not giving up and sticking up for what she believes in, I will be one proud father that my friend is good. Good men that I met. And well, that's what makes you great lawyer. It's the authenticity that came out in you. I bet knowing you, you probably didn't even prepare that. Well, It just came out. I felt it, I felt it, and these people deserve it because they're my friends to this day, I. I see them socially. It's it's incredible. What I didn't like is the Court of Appeals saying that the comment was improper. Now, they said it wasn't prejudicial. Right. But they said it was improper. Yeah. Now, in trying cases over the last 30 years, I could tell you that I would have done I don't know if I would have done the exact same thing, but I should be proud if I did, because that's good lawyering. So thank you. Incredible stuff. And please extend our gratitude to your client because, again, she's the hero in this story and the saga. She fought the fight. She had a great warrior by her side. Congratulate on an incredible verdict. And I just want to tell you one thing, because, I have tried a lot of cases, and I've been lucky to make a living as a trial lawyer, but it would not have been possible if it were not for your father. Well, I just want you to know that he is, my role model, along with my dad. But, I went to practice at Remettre because of your dad. That was the only reason I went there. Wow. That's. That's really kind of you to say I. I had my dad on the podcast, and, you know, I just I've spent my career trying to make him proud, so it's very comforting. And I'm really appreciative of you saying that. Thank you. Is. Is that. Thank you. Thanks for doing this. Was a lot of fun. Thanks. Thank thank you.