DS9 Document EFTA00801130

1 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE FIFTEENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, IN AND FOR PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA JEFFREY EPSTEIN, ) ) Plaintiff, ) vs. No. 502009CA040800XXXXMBAG ) SCOTT ROTHSTEIN, individually, ) BRADLEY J. EDWARDSL__ ) individually, and III ., ) individually, ) ) Defendants. ) West Palm Beach, Florida July 11th, 2017 8:45 a.m. - 8:59 a.m. PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO SET CASE FOR TRIAL The above-styled cause came on for hearing before the Honorable Donald W. Hafele, Presiding Judge, at the Palm Beach County Courthouse, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, on the 11th day of July, 2017. Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801130 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 APPEARANCES: For The Plaintiff: SEARCY DENNEY SCAROLA BARNHART & SHIPLEY, P.A. 2139 Palm Beach Lakes Blvd. West Palm Beach, Florida 33409 By JACK SCAROLA, ESQUIRE For The Defendants: TONJA HADDAD, PA 315 SE 7th Street, Suite 301 Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301-3158 By TONJA HADDAD COLEMAN, ESQUIRE For Jeffrey Epstein: ATTERBURY, GOLDBERGER & WEISS, P.A. 250 Australian Ave. South, Suite 1400 West Palm Beach, Florida 33401 By JACK A. GOLDBERGER, ESQUIRE Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801131 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 THEREUPON, the following proceedings were had. THE COURT: Okay. MR. SCAROLA: Your Honor, Jack Scarola on behalf of the plaintiff, Brad Edwards. This is our motion to expand interrogatories. There are two groups of interrogatories that we wish permission to propound to defendant. The first has to do with a 74 member witness list, and we are seeking further details with regard to the role that these 74 individuals are expected to play in order to make a determination as to whether depositions need to be taken of any of these people. The second group of interrogatories are punitive damage interrogatories. The punitive damage claim is pending, and it is clearly appropriate that we be entitled to get detailed information regarding the defendants' pecuniary circumstances. THE COURT: All right. Ms. Haddad? MS. HADDAD COLEMAN: Good morning, Judge. Tonja Haddad Coleman on behalf of the defendant, Jeffrey Epstein. We have filed a memorandum of law in opposition to Mr. Scarola's motion. There is several Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801132 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 issues -- THE COURT: I haven't seen it. When was it filed? MS. HADDAD COLEMAN: Judge, it was hand delivered to your office. It was filed on June 24th and it was delivered to your office on June 28th. I have the cover letter here. THE COURT: Okay. MS. HADDAD COLEMAN: May I approach? THE COURT: I haven't seen it. Yes, ma'am. I've looked through everything I've got relevant to the case. MS. HADDAD COLEMAN: Thank you, Judge. THE COURT: Delivered to the 9th floor, but that shouldn't be a major problem. But anyway, go ahead. MS. HADDAD COLEMAN: Your Honor, the issues that we see facing the motion filed by Mr. Scarola are two-fold. Number one, as you will see in the attached exhibits to our motion, Mr. Epstein has already filed interrogatory responses related to his net worth for the punitive damages, and we have attached for your review a copy, a certified copy of the notice of serving answers to Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801133 5 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 interrogatories. And with respect to his interrogatories for our 74 listed witnesses, Judge, at first blush it looks like he's only requesting four additional interrogatories. However, as you'll see delineated in our motion, he is asking for a plethora of information -- THE COURT: Yes, I read the interrogatories, I understand that there's a significant amount of work that would need to be done with respect to delineating what those individuals may have to say. But other than that, what is your objection? MS. HADDAD COLEMAN: Judge, the other objection is that -- and, again, this is all discovery issues, which I think the Court would be better off specially setting, as you discussed at the hearing last week, with respect to all of the outstanding discovery. Since 2013, which is the first time that we filed a witness list, Mr. Scarola has filed witness lists that have things such as all of the listed victims -- THE COURT: Right. I've dealt with that kind of peripherally at another hearing, and I Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801134 6 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 said to them, I don't typically allow that type of grouping to go forward, but no one has brought a motion. MS. HADDAD COLEMAN: Yes, Judge, our motion is pending. And we're requesting a hearing date for that, and I think that because this is a discovery motion, we might be better off addressing all of this, because we may not need 74 witnesses. We're the defense here. Once we know what Mr. Scarola is presenting in this case, instead of the hundreds of people that seem to be listed in his categories of witnesses that have no proper names or addresses, we may not have 74 witnesses. Furthermore, Judge, pursuant to the law, which we have cited in our motion opposition, the items that Mr. Scarola is asking us to delineate for him include which exhibit we expect to put forth through this witness, what the testimony is we expect him to give pursuant to contested issues. We don't even know what issues he's presenting for his malicious prosecution claim, so we couldn't possibly tell him what our witnesses are going to be saying Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801135 7 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 until we know how he's presenting his case. Furthermore, Judge, the law clearly stated therein states that he's not entitled to try his case through our work. Mr. Scarola needs to conduct his own discovery on these witnesses and there are less intrusive means other than having us categorize 74 separate people; every witness name, every exhibit, and a summary of the testimony that we expect them to testify about, when we're not even sure all 74 would be germane to the trial because we don't know what Mr. Scarola is presenting. THE COURT: All right. Thank you. MR. SCAROLA: The suggestion at this stage of these proceedings that the defendant does not know what this case is about and what the issues are is, quite frankly, absurd. The witness list that we have filed admittedly has two or three categories of witnesses, and we are addressing that. And I've told Ms. Haddad that we will itemize each of the witnesses in those categories. She'll have that by the end of this week. She knows who each of those witnesses are. When we identify, as we have, each of the Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801136 8 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 plaintiffs' attorneys who have prosecuted claims against Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Haddad know who those plaintiffs' lawyers are. But we'll give them specific names and addresses. When we identify each of Jeffrey Epstein's victims who prosecuted claims against Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein knows who those individuals are. They're a matter of public record. He settled those claims for very substantial sums of money. So, we'll cure that problem. And that problem does not present any impediment whatsoever to the defense understanding what the issues in this case are. When they identify 74 witnesses, they need to be prepared to give us some indication as to what role they anticipate these witnesses may play in this lawsuit. So, the interrogatories are reasonable, they are appropriate, they are limited, and the fact that prior answers to net worth interrogatories were filed, which I believe to be deficient to begin with. But the fact that we got answers some years ago to net worth Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801137 9 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 interrogatories is not an appropriate objection to our obtaining updated information regarding this defendants' current pecuniary circumstances. Thank you, sir. THE COURT: All right. Thank you, both. The way I would have perceived this to go would have been as follows: When Mr. Scarola sends those types of interrogatories to you, I think that there would be a corollary responsibility on the part of the counter-plaintiff. And remember, Mr. Epstein was the one who brought the lawsuit in the first place. So, a suggestion of his uncertainty as to what the issues are is difficult to conceptualize. Irrespective of that, from the standpoint of managing discovery, there's really -- there's not been really presented to me a legal objection. I've gone through, as best I can, your memorandum. And other than the burden of answering these questions, which I understand to be significant, at the same time I've heard no significant objection that -- or have seen a case that would be on Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801138 10 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 point in order to suggest that I don't require the answers to be given. What I was going to say earlier is, I don't have a problem if you want to send essentially the same interrogatories to Mr. Edwards, so as to develop the theme that further, if there is any uncertainty. But in trying to manage the discovery process, again, while significant in terms of the nature of the interrogatories, and I'm talking now about the, what I'll call contention interrogatories or proof interrogatories, I don't see anything wrong with them, albeit it will take some time to respond. But I also don't see a problem with you doing the same thing if you think that it would be helpful to you, particularly where the suggestion is made that the issues remain somewhat clouded. So I'm going to grant the motion to expand the interrogatories, treat the net worth interrogatories to the extent that the responses were provided fully in the prior set an updated interrogatories. Because it's true, and I have seen for myself, particularly where Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801139 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 cases have been lingering, where there are punitive damage issues involved, and net worth changes significantly. So, that's where we will leave it today. Thank you both for your presentations and wish you both a very pleasant rest of the week. MR. SCAROLA: Thank you, sir. You too. MS. HADDAD COLEMAN: Thank you. (Thereupon, the hearing was concluded at 8:59 a.m.) Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. 561-471-2995 EFTA00801140 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COURT CERTIFICATE STATE OF FLORIDA ) : SS COUNTY OF PALM BEACH ) I, LINDA P. AUKAMP, RPR, certify that I was authorized to and did stenographically report the foregoing proceedings and that the transcript is a true record of my stenographic notes. Dated this 4th day of August, 2017. LINDA P. AUKAMP, RPR Palm Beach Reporting Service, Inc. EFTA00801141