IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE FIFTEENTH JUDICI-7 AL CIRCUIT IN AND CASE NO Publisher of THE PALM BEACH POST DIVISION AG Plaintiff R2 Palm Beach County Florida SHARON BOCK as Clerk and Co o5 Beach County Florid5 Defendants JOINT NOTICE OF FILING SEP TEMBER AND SEPTEMBER Plaintiff CA Florida oldings 223Plaintiff publisher of The Palm Beach Post Defendant Dave Aronberg as St ate Attorney of Palm Beach County Florida 223Defendant collectively the 223Parties by and through unde rsigned counsel and pursuant to the Court 2s u5 h5 n5 o5 f3 h5 n5 r3 p5 f3 September and September hearing proc eedings on Defendant 2s Amended Motion for u5 y5 Lauren Whetstone Florida Bar No R1 I1 C1 H1 A1 J1 S1 C1 H1 O1 Florida Bar No Florida Bar No ACOBS LLC Gatewa Blvd Suite Filing E-Filed PM FILED PALM BEACH COUNTY FL JOSEPH ABRUZZO CLERK PM A A 4A E0 A4 DE a qr?q rq qrCX HhL Kg lg d?a d6U a M3 flW y??S m/y t0 I F/Z V/j 1a qC KS u?v vZ O5 a qr rCX qC 0V I I dc rM?M rM 10Cy n??m?n k?o?h I A I w?!ac qr MCX 10Cy ITy 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qr YY Mo?ANp D01jJ 9F bzEV 4O 8V CTX O!o CTX KK AA qr A C5 qr rYY 1A?CC V9 a c?F CTX A A 4A E0 A4 DE a qr?q rq qrCX HhL Kg lg d?a d6U a M3 flW y??S m/y t0 I F/Z V/j 1a qC KS u?v vZ O5 a qr rCX qC 0V I I dc rM?M rM 10Cy n??m?n k?o?h I A I w?!ac qr MCX 10Cy ITy qr M3 Ґ??1rA5R h?H?T3P K?z X?K I v"x i X5 EO5 5a r?q CX 9r Cy rq rqC M3 ş?:c p/p0 5H V)V 6T Y2 G5 qrM?r?qr?r9 q?10Cy rCX qr l1 X?l 3K fm?Q Z2f CX CX gT L??T 2E Tel whetstonel gtlaw.com g5 sandra.famadas gtlaw.com thomasd gtlaw.com FLService gtlaw.com Florida Bar No R2 E2 E2 E2 East Las Olas Boulevard Suite Fort Lauderdale FL Tel mendelsohns gtlaw.com h5 Admitted ro Hac Vice R2 E2 E2 E2 L2 L2 State Street 6th Floor Albany NY Tel grygie3.8 lm g5 tlaw.com NINA OYAJIAN Admitted ro Hac Vice R2 E2 E2 E2 L2 L2 Century Park East Suite Los Angeles CA Tel riveraal gtlaw.com Counsel for Plaintiff CA Florida Holdings LLC The Palm Beach Post Fernandina Beach FL Tel o5 Counsel for Defendant Dave Aronberg as State Attorney for Palm Beach County CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I HEREB-3 CERTIF-4.1 opy of the fore elec3.8 tronically filed with the Flo5 id o5 o5 v5 parties of record herein on th day of October Lauren Whetstone Lauren Whetstone CA Florida Holdings L.L.C vs Dave Aronberg Hearing Before Judge Luis Delgado September IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE 15TH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR PALM BEACH COUNTY FLORIDA CASE NO AG CA FLORIDA HOLDINGS LLC Publisher of the PALM BEACH POST Plaintiff vs DAVE ARONBERG as State Attorney of Palm Beach County Florida SHARON BOCK as Clerk and Comptroller of Palm Beach County Florida Defendants TRANSCRIPT OF HEARING PROCEEDINGS RE Defendant Dave Aronberg Amended Motion for Attorneys-31.1 Fees DATE TAKEN Tuesday September TIME p.m p.m PLACE PALM BEACH COUNTY COURTHOUSE North Dixie Highway Courtroom West Palm Beach Florida BEFORE LUIS DELGADO JR Circuit Judge Stenographically reported by Lisa Begley RPR RMR Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Page APPEARANCES On behalf of the Plaintiff GREENBERG TRAURIG South Flagler Drive Suite East West Palm Beach Florida BY Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Page I PAGE Opening Statement By Mr Wyler By Ms Whetstone WITNESS DAVID ARONBERG STATE ATTORNEY Direct Examination by Mr Wyler Cross Examination by Mr Bideau Redirect Examination by Mr Wyler STEPHEN MENDELSOHN ESQ Direct Examination by Ms Whetstone Defense Rests EXHIBITS ENTERED IN EVIDENCE Joint Exhibits Certificate of Reporter Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Thereupon the following proceedings began at p.m THE COURT All right please be seated All right so re here on the amended motion for attorneys-31.1 fees announce appearances Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page attorney-31.1 fees It was filed on November 9th in conjunction with his demand that was made to the plaintiffs on June 8th That demand letter that was sent to the plaintiff-31.1 counsel was sent on the same day that Judge Marx entered her order granting the defendant-31.1 motion to dismiss Count of this case with prejudice And that motion that demand letter asserted that the plaintiff-31.1 sole remaining count for declaratory action had no basis in fact or law pursuant to Their declaratory relief claim is rooted in Chapter Florida Statute that governs the exceptions for the release of grand jury grand jury materials In our letter we specifically told the plaintiffs that under a their declaratory relief claim is unsupported by the material facts necessary to establish it and also under that their declaratory relief claim is unsupported by the application of the law to those material facts There a case Davis Bailynson found at So.3d a Fourth DCA case from Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page THE COURT Give me that cite one more time MR WYLER Yes sir Davis Bailynson B-a-i-l-y-n-s-o-n So.3d a Fourth DCA That case says The central purpose of Florida Statute is and always has been to deter meritless filings and thus streamline the administration and the procedure of the courts Thus the post-19 version of the has expanded the circumstances where fees should be awarded and the purpose is to defer meritless filings The statute provides the following language authorizing the award of attorneys fees such as in the present litigation It says Upon the Court-31.1 initiative or motion of any party the Court shall award a reasonable attorney-31.1 fee including prejudgment interest to be paid to the prevailing party in equal amounts by the losing party and the losing party-31 attorney on any claim or defense at any time during a civil proceeding or action in which the Court finds that the losing party or the losing party-31.1 attorney knew or should have known that a claim or defense when initially presented to the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Court or at any time before trial was not supported by the material facts necessary to establish the claim or defense or would not be supported by the application of then existing law to those material facts So notably the statute includes a lot of key words in there but here the key words that focusing on is knew or should have known Here the plaintiff had a due diligence obligation to know what the law was when they filed the lawsuit They should have known the ultimate facts of the case all along and they should have known the proper legal mechanism for obtaining the records that they were seeking Nonetheless we ve informed the plaintiff multiple times throughout this case that not that Mr Aronberg is an improper party not only because not only is it impossible for him to produce the requested records since he has no possession custody or control over them but also because the statutes that govern the disclosure of grand jury records clearly and unambiguously do not grant such authority or power to the state attorney Another case for you is Trust Mortgage Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page LLC Ferlanti found at So.3d also a Fourth DCA case from And it can guide the Court here This case says that in determining an award of sanctions under Section the trial court-31.1 findings must be based on substantial competent evidence and the trial court must make an inquiry into what the losing party knew or should have known during the fact establishment process both before and after the suit was filed So as to the a claim Mr Aronberg-31 position is that the newspaper should have known when they were doing their research that it was an impossibility that he had no access custody or control of these records but that fact a bright line was drawn to that fact by Judge Marx in the June 3rd motion to dismiss hearing She made several statements that put the plaintiff on notice if they weren already And if it would please the Court I would like to read those onto the record You can find these ve submitted a joint binder to you and if you THE COURT I have it here Tell me where Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page looking MR WYLER Yes sir If you look at that-31 the condensed version of the transcript You can find the full version if you look at and I can give you the Bates stamp numbers THE COURT Tell me where to look and ll look MR WYLER Absolutely Your Honor Look at Bates stamp and that will start you THE COURT Of what exhibit MR WYLER Okay Exhibit is the full version I thought that might be easier for you to read it At THE COURT You said MR WYLER Yeah and if you look in the lower left corner there a Bates number that says CA slash Aronberg and ll see the Bates stamp numbers THE COURT the number MR WYLER THE COURT Go ahead MR WYLER Thank you Your Honor I going to go through this transcript and ll direct you to the actual page number of the transcript itself okay Page lines Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page through Not for nothing This is all Judge Marx Not for nothing I think we all know that they have control and custody of the records Page lines through I think we can all agree that the state attorney doesn-31.1 have these records Page line asking you how are the clerk and the state attorney the proper defendants Page line puzzled by the procedural posturing of this case naming the state attorney and you know I further stymied by the fact that you allege in your complaint that they have particularly David Aronberg the state attorney that he has these records Page line Okay run this all the way out say you win and you get a judgment against the state attorney Dave Aronberg he supposed to do with it He release the grand jury testimony He has no authority whatsoever to do that Page line And the only thing re here today about is why should the clerk and the state attorney have to defend a civil action Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page when an impossibility of performance They even If you were to win and get a judgment against them they cannot give you what they have Page line simply saying why should these two entities have to defend this lawsuit when even down the road if you win they give you what they don-31 have Page line And you know really I want to you boil it down for me as to this take it all the way down the road You win You get a judgment against the clerk and the state attorney I know there-31.1 other reasons why you might have filed it this way but I just simply puzzled because I do hear what the clerk and the state attorney are saying and that is performance is impossible They have the records and cannot absolutely There-31.1 not even an inch of wiggle room that they could release the records even if you got a judgment It is solely a determination for the Court I frankly think you know there-31.1 ways to get your records There-31.1 ways to get confidential records but it by suing the state attorney and the clerk Page line Even assuming arguendo Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page that they have the records we know they You were to If you were to get a judgment against them how would you expect them to perform And then finally on page line What do you mean What do you mean re not trying to block it re saying that despite the fact just talk about the clerk because we all know the state attorney doesn-31.1 have it I would ask the Court to enter the hearing transcript found at to as Defense-31.1 Exhibit No THE COURT Any objection Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Thank you Your Honor These statements along with the upcoming examination of Mr Aronberg and Mr Mendelsohn along with everything presented to the Court it shows that these sanctions are justified and there is no arguable basis in fact or law the way those statutes are written that Mr Aronberg could ever provide the requested materials that he was sued for As to the argument Mr Aronberg-31 position here is that the newspaper plaintiffs and their attorneys they should have also known at the beginning when they were doing their research that those statutes precluded Mr Aronberg from actually providing these records That what they sued for They asked for Mr Aronberg to provide these records so that they could then be disclosed to the public But chapter or Statute states this And this this argument has been presented in everything that ve said to the newspaper When such disclosure is ordered by a Court pursuant to subsection for use in a civil case it may be disclosed to all parties to the case and to their attorneys and by the latter to Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page their legal associates and employees However the grand jury testimony afforded such persons by the Court can only be used in the defense or prosecution of the civil or criminal case and for no other purpose whatsoever That argument was ultimately utilized in Judge Hafele-31.1 final judgment in favor of the clerk because on top of other things the plaintiff admitted that they weren-31.1 seeking to use these requested records in an underlying civil or criminal case They wanted to use it to for public disclosure Chapter of the Florida statutes also applies here This has also been made evident and very clear to the plaintiff That statute says in pertinent part The notes and this is all regarding the grand jury materials The notes records and transcriptions are confidential and exempt from the provisions of Chapter and Section a Article of the State Constitution and shall be released by the clerk only on a request by a grand jury for use by the grand jury or on an order of the Court pursuant to Chapter So like I said these legal arguments have Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page been presented to plaintiff and its lawyers several times It was in the demand letter but plaintiff dropped Mr Aronberg from the case too late The statute had already taken effect There-31.1 a 21-day safe-harbor provision in that statute And the testimony and evidence today will show that a motion for attorneys-31.1 fees was filed appropriately with that statute and then following that Mr Aronberg was dropped from the case After that an amended motion for attorneys-31.1 fees was filed Plaintiff has an argument having to deal with the timing of when our amended motion for attorneys-31.1 fees was filed They claim that we don comply with the 21-day safe-harbor provision and they use this case of Lago Kame Lago Kame By Design K-a-m like Mary K-a-m-e By Design LLC found at So.3d also a Fourth DCA case from So that case held that if a party files a subsequent or amended motion for sanctions under Section and raises an argument that was not raised in the original motion for Section sanctions then the subsequent motion must independently comply with the 21-day safe-harbor Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page provision Okay but the facts are different totally different See in the Lago case the party who was served with the demand never withdrew from the case They stayed in the case to the end The person that served the original in Lago after serving it served a second one and when they served the second well they serve a second demand letter They filed a second motion for attorneys-31.1 fees an amended motion for attorneys-31.1 fees without providing an additional letter letter before they filed the amended motion That happen in this case In this case we filed our amended motion our original motion for attorneys fees on November 9th and then they dropped Mr Aronberg from the case on October 21st sorry we filed sorry I apologize Your Honor We filed our original motion for attorneys-31.1 fees on July I apologize They dropped Mr Aronberg from the case on October and then we filed our amended motion for attorneys-31.1 fees on November 9th Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page So the significant thing about this Your Honor is the 21-day safe-harbor provision is there to provide the provide an opportunity to reevaluate your position and change your position and withdraw your case based on the demands in the There was no opportunity for the plaintiff to reevaluate and change their position They had already made their mind up They had already dropped Mr Aronberg from the case So by asking or saying that we failed to provide the 21-day safe-harbor provision that is misleading Your Honor because there was no way they could change their position with another demand letter sent to them They had already made their decision and dropped Mr Aronberg from the case It was impossible for them to change their position So he had no obligation to serve his amended motion prior to filing with the Court because he was already dropped and a previous motion for attorneys fees was already filed Another interesting part of that Lago case is that in that case the Court did find that the amended motion was filed improperly because they were still in the case but instead the Court Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page picked up the originally-filed motion for attorneys-31.1 fees in that case And we would ask Your Honor in the alternative should you find that that you would rule on our original motion for attorneys-31.1 fees if it came down to it because in the end the arguments are the same and the real difference in the filing of the amended motion for attorneys-31.1 fees is that it included the final tabulation of my firm-31 fees as well as affidavits my affidavit of reasonable of fees and an affidavit of reasonable fees from our expert The other interesting thing here the other argument that ll hear plaintiff make is that Mr Aronberg was a proper party to the case Now again the clerk is the person the only entity that has authority to provide these records under statute and that alone should be enough to show that Mr Aronberg is not a proper party defendant But Judge Hafele final judgment actually helps out this because Judge Hafele-31.1 final judgment actually instructed plaintiff on the right way to go about trying to get the records that they were seeking It points out that they followed failed to follow the right procedure Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page In that final judgment Judge Hafele makes it clear that all that they had to do was file follow the Rules of Judicial Administration Rule and file a motion seeking disclosure in the underlying case and then serve the parties to that case and anybody who might be interested in it That underlying case is State of Florida vs Jeffrey Epstein case number and Mr Aronberg nor his office is a party to that case So he is an improper party They never needed to sue him to get these records There-31.1 a big difference between suing the state attorney to get records versus filing a motion in a case that was already open Okay now they make one other defense here under a but that does not apply here in any sense and I ll explain to you why First let me read you the statutory language This is a and it says Notwithstanding subsections and monetary sanctions may not be awarded a Under paragraph if the Court determines that the claim or defense was initially presented to the Court as a good faith argument for the extension Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page modification or reversal of existing law or the establishment of new law as it applied to the material facts and with a reasonable expectation of success So here the plaintiff tries to twist the language of that statute in two different ways to suit its argument First they entirely failed to recognize that the a sic defense applies only to claims made under and that has to do with the law not being correct as applied to the facts to establish the case The law here cannot be applied to the case in such a way that would support their claim as I went through with those statutes with you That is the only scenario under when re making a legal argument not a factual argument where you can come up with a good faith defense So there is no good faith defense at all that applies to the factual argument that it is impossible for Mr Aronberg to provide these materials that he has no access custody or control over them and he never has That is unchanged by this defense of theirs But the interesting thing is that this defense fails in another way too because if you Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page recall their only remaining count is for declaratory relief and when declaratory relief is asked of the Court that is an asked for interpretation and admittedly so by the plaintiff Their They state that Where did I just put it They argue that their declaratory relief claim was presented to the Court as a quote good faith argument for the interpretation of existing law or at least the establishment of a new law But that doesn-31.1 work here because if you go back to the statutory language the statute only for the extension modification or reversal of existing law It doesn-31.1 say anything about interpretations They did not ask for the extension of or of They didn ask for it to be modified They ask for it to be reversed They asked the Court to interpret it and tell them whether or not they had the ability to have the grand jury records disclosed to them That is totally That is an interpretation that they asked for The Court only got to address that as to the clerk because again we were dropped before then So the other part of that statute talks Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page about it says or creation of a new law okay They weren-31.1 asking to create a new law with their declaratory relief claim The only place where they were trying to create a new statutory cause of action was in their Count that was dismissed with prejudice by Judge Marx and is not at all a part of Mr Aronberg-31.1 demand The demand only regards the claim for declaratory relief So the defense under a fails as to both of Mr Aronberg)-31 claims I would just like to reiterate to the Court that the clerk is in actual possession of the requested records is the only entity that is statutorily authorized to release grand jury records pursuant to a Court order and despite plaintiff arguments to the contrary the record evidence will show that plaintiff and its lawyers knew or should have known at the time they were served at least at the time they were served with the demand that the declaratory relief claim fails under a because it is unsupported by the material facts necessary to establish it and under because it is unsupported by the application of the law to the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page material facts Plaintiff and its attorneys have exposed themselves to sanctions under and Mr Aronberg requests such relief THE COURT Thank you MR WYLER Thank you Your Honor Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page this Court has noted The Post named two defendants number one the clerk of Court as the public office tasked with custody of grand jury records and number two the state attorney-31.1 office because it actually ran the investigation and because it is the public office tasked with protecting grand jury secrecy The state attorney-31.1 office says they should have never been named a party Of course they had to be named a party Not only were they the public office that conducted the investigation and presumably had possession of certain documents at some time but more importantly re the public office with the power and authority to prevent the clerk from producing grand jury documents Your Honor we heard in the state attorney counsel-31.1 opening that this is about custody whether the state attorney had the documents whether he had possession or custody of the documents but not just about that It is not just about custody And ll get into this but the important point is the state attorney-31.1 office has as its task the protection Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page of the grand jury system And important to remember re here today on a motion for sanctions relating to the declaratory relief claim not the statutory claim We heard reading from the transcript before Judge Marx relating to the motion to dismiss Count which was on a statutory claim under Florida Statute Of course we are here on the declaratory relief claim that also involved constitutional law and First Amendment law not just Florida statutory law So starting off we went as to the merits but you even need to get there Your Honor There are two noncurable case dispositive jurisdictional issues which require denial of the motion without any consideration of underlying facts And this is not just an argument These are jurisdictional defects Number one the Court lacks jurisdiction because the amended motion for sanctions was filed after the state attorney was dismissed as a party And I ll indicate Hopefully you can hear me but here is where the state attorney filed his amended motion for fees It was November Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page And we dismissed the Post had dismissed him as a party days before on October 21st The case law is clear that the Court has no jurisdiction over a motion for sanctions after a voluntary dismissal like the motion here And this is case law including Sidlosca vs Olympus and that is in Authorities tab the Authorities binder that Your Honor has at tab and ll read the case cite for the record So.3d a Third DCA case Number two the Court also lacks jurisdiction because the amended motion which is the only motion we are here on violated subsection safe-harbor notice provision which requires a motion for fees be served at least days before its filed It is undisputed that the state attorney never served a copy of the amended motion for sanctions at any time before filing it on November 9th I believe Mr Wyler also mentioned that and agreed with that in his opening As a result the amended motion cannot be considered The state attorney tries to rely on a prior what he calls quote unquote place-marker motion for fees that was served on June 8th in an attempt to get Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page around the safe-harbor requirement of He cannot do so First the statute is in derogation of the common law so it must be strictly construed More importantly the case law says and this is Lago vs Kame the case law says that the initial place-marker motion is not sufficient to comply with because once they filed an amended motion making new arguments then that 21-day safe-harbor notice was required anew And again Lago says this is tab in Your Honor-31.1 binder that they must independently comply with the 21-day safe harbor The state attorney tries to argue that because we dismissed him prior to him filing the amended motion for fees he no longer required to comply with the 21-day safe harbor but the dismissal is exactly what the 21-day safe-harbor provision is aimed at encouraging from parties in litigation There was nothing to ask us to withdraw with a 21-day notice because it had already been withdrawn so doesn-31 even apply to the situation here and actually a situation that came up in the Ferere F-e-r-e-r-e vs Shore Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page case and tab in Your Honor-31.1 binder and a Fourth DCA case And in that case the Court said that subsection was not applicable where there was no way for plaintiff-31.1 counsel to withdraw an allegation after a post-trial motion So if the safe-harbor notice was not available then doesn-31 apply at all And here obvious that the amended motion made new arguments not in the first place-marker motion And re going to pull up the first place-marker motion and the amended motion to compare them and those are exhibits Joint Exhibits and So first here is So the first place-marker motion Exhibit it the motion itself is one page There-31.1 an enclosure letter that came with it and two pages So three pages total The motion itself says nothing except re going to prevail and this is your notice we want fees But the enclosure letter says along the lines I believe Mr Wyler said this in his opening that the defendant Aronberg nor the office of the state attorney is in custody or Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page control of the grand jury materials sought therein However the first motion completely failed to address the main reason why the state attorney was a party to the lawsuit because it could object to the clerk providing the grand jury records So now pull up Exhibit which is the amended motion And Your Honor here so you can have an idea the first motion Joint Exhibit the amended motion This is three pages This is pages with exhibits pages of a motion And one page of a motion So clearly there new stuff in the amended motion for fees But Mr Wyler said they said the same arguments not not true The amended motion clearly makes new arguments not in the first place-marker motion It also references new documents like the state attorney-31.1 motion for summary judgment and Mr Aronberg-31 affidavit both which were filed in August of So here indicating Importantly the amended motion also raises new positions Just as an example and Gerard Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page if you could pull up paragraph of the amended motion it says The state attorney has no objection to the clerk producing and disclosing the requested materials should the Court grant an order to that effect And then in paragraph it says Likewise the state attorney has no objection and never has had any objection to the clerk releasing the records sought by the plaintiff not true though As you will see in the evidence the position that the state attorney had quote no objection or quote never had any objection to the clerk producing grand jury materials was new and you-31 ll hear from Greenberg Traurig attorney Stephen Mendelsohn that this is exactly the position that the Post was trying to get and Mr Mendelsohn was trying to get from the state attorney And you ll hear in a June 23rd letter Mr Mendelsohn wrote to the state attorney he said the state attorney is named here because they are a party that is tasked with protection of the grand jury system You have the right to object to the release of grand jury materials why you-31 re here And once we had this Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page notice right here of saying they object we dismissed him So he first said on the record on October 14th I have no objection to the production of the Epstein grand jury materials We dismissed him October 21st So to close out on the jurisdictional argument the amended motion raised new arguments and cited new record evidence that did not exist at the time of the first place-marker motion So the amended motion had independently complied with the strict 21-day safe-harbor requirement and the state attorney failed to serve it before filing therefore the amended motion must be denied outright Your Honor even if the Court sorry even if the state attorney could overcome the jurisdictional defects the evidence will show there absolutely no basis for sanctions under the statute and turn to the statute now and the standard under it as applied by the case law And this will be tab THE COURT Are you talking to me or Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page And Your Honor the standard for sanctions under Florida Statute The statute is behind it Mr Wyler read from that And this is a case that interprets interprets this high standard and this is the same I note that Davis vs Bailynson going to botch that name sorry but the case that Mr Wyler read from has the same exact standard as to how you you interpret whether somebody has met the requirements of So this is a high burden This is not a who won This is not a prevailing party standard They have the burden of showing that the claim was so frivolous and devoid of merit both on the facts and the law as to be completely untenable and we know the claim was not frivolous number one because they admitted in their answer to this very claim And Gerard if you could pull up the comparison They admitted in their answer to this very claim that a good faith dispute exists between the parties And here you re seeing Your Honor is seeing a comparison of Exhibit which is the amended complaint this count for declaratory Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page relief and Exhibit which is the state attorney-31.1 answer And it says The Palm Beach Post has sought from defendants and defendants but defendants have refused to provide access to the testimony minutes and other evidence presented in to the Palm Beach County grand jury Indeed defendants have each filed motions to dismiss the complaint and the relief it sought under Florida Statute Section Accordingly a good faith dispute exists between the parties And in response the state attorney simply said Admitted By that admission they lose this motion for sanctions They cannot now argue this claim was without merit And in addition we will go through the evidence that shows the Post and Greenberg Traurig acted only in good faith and with thoughtful deliberation and that this was not a frivolous claim by any means So backing up a bit and to what we believe the evidence will show After Epstein arrest here in Palm Beach County in the Post began an investigation into Epstein and then what happened with the prosecution in how he got this sweetheart deal from the former state Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page attorney to inform the public what went wrong The Post made a number of public records requests No luck The limited documents they received shed no light on how Epstein got off with such leniency So in the summer of we again have this timeline after years of investigation on Epstein the Post brought in a team at Greenberg Traurig including Stephen Mendelsohn here who you will hear from today and other experienced attorneys in First Amendment and constitutional law and criminal law The Post and its attorneys spent months researching and determining how do we get these records And you ll see the first box is from July July through November research and legal research and due diligence regarding what claims to bring and how You will hear that Mr Mendelsohn tried contacting the state attorney-31.1 office and requesting what was missing from the public records requests And if you want to pull up Exhibit Exhibit is an example of such and it was a letter from Mr Mendelsohn that ll hear about where he requests specific documents And Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page you will hear that was not the only attorney to write the state attorney-31.1 office in addition to the Post You will hear that Mr Mendelsohn-31.1 specific records request to the state attorney-31 office went unanswered and you will hear from Mr Mendelsohn and the Post that the Post was left with no other option So the Post filed this lawsuit seeking access to grand jury materials naming two defendants the clerk and the state attorney And the state attorney was a necessary party to the claim here I believe ve gone over that but quickly number one the state attorney ran conducted the grand jury investigation in At some point the state attorney-31.1 office had to have records But number two more importantly as the public official with responsibility and control over the grand jury system the state attorney had to be named As the public office with that control the state attorney had the power to object to the clerk producing records And this is something that the state attorney has never refuted or even addressed and that goes hand in hand with number two that the state attorney also had the ability Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f REDACTED Page to request access to records from the clerk This was not on a whim not to harass and certainly not frivolous In doing all this background research you will hear that Mr Mendelsohn came across Fourth DCA and federal case law supporting the conclusion that the state attorney was a necessary party Mr Mendelsohn provided the state attorney with that case law and explained what we needed from the state attorney in this case We needed the state attorney to represent that he would not object to the release of grand jury materials by the clerk if ordered by the Court They ignored that request You will hear from Mr Mendelsohn Exhibit about a June 23rd letter he sent to the state attorney in response to the state attorney place-marker motion for fees that was in early June And in this letter dated June 23rd Mr Mendelsohn set forth three reasons why the state attorney was named as a party Again number one custody number two they had the power to make arguments against release of grand jury materials number three there was nothing that prohibits the state attorney from Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page requesting copies of the clerk during and after the close of criminal prosecution So as Mr Mendelsohn says in this letter even if the state attorney-31.1 office did not have possession or custody of the materials that did not end the need for his office to be a party to the declaratory relief claim The state attorney still had the right to object to the clerk producing records exactly why we included them in the case ll hear they previously did oppose release by filing a motion to dismiss this is Count sorry the statutory count and then by filing the answer to Count admitting that a good faith dispute exists as to this very claim So in the timeline for months after Mr Mendelsohn letter they they refused to respond and we also reminded them on October 2nd in a later filing what we needed What we needed from the state attorney to release him from this case was that he would not object to the clerk-31.1 release of materials and this was in our reply sorry response to the first place-marker motion for fees and that was Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f REDACTED Page Exhibit In that exhibit or in that document again raises the In re Grand Jury case that you just saw in the June 23rd letter It was not until after this on October 14th that the state attorney-31.1 office finally stated in a court filing they would not object to the clerk-31.1 production if ordered and he took a position of neutrality Days later we dismissed the state attorney important to note the dismissal of the state attorney does not make him a prevailing party not even under the sanctions standard which is much higher than a prevailing party standard but even under a regular prevailing party standard the state attorney is not a prevailing party here Just because a plaintiff voluntarily dismisses a defendant does not make a defendant a prevailing party Where a plaintiff gets something or a compromise out of litigation a dismissal becomes an appropriate course of action as a result then neither party is the prevailing party for purposes of contractual attorneys fees And pursuant to the Kelly vs BankUnited case that is it Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f REDACTED Page should be in tab of Your Honor-31.1 Authorities binder We sent it included in the supplement THE COURT I think I Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page motion to dismiss Count not the count re on here today which is Count for declaratory relief important to note that Count for declaratory relief involves issues of First Amendment and constitutional law not just that Florida Statute In number two respectfully what what Judge Marx said during a hearing is not evidence as to whether the state attorney actually has custody or control of records So we heard her statements on the record but no evidence about whether the state attorney did or did not have custody of the documents And he did say in his filings he does not have custody or control of the documents but again we re not just here about his own custody or control re here about his right as the state attorney to object to the clerk releasing grand jury records And when Judge Marx entered an order on Count dismissing Count that was a limited order on whether there was a private cause of action under that statute In addition there was Judge Hafele-31.1 final judgment that was Exhibit in the binder and Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Judge Hafele when he entered the final judgment that was as to the same claim at issue here the declaratory relief claim as it remained against the clerk because ll recall the state attorney had already been dismissed as a party once they said they had no objection to the clerk releasing grand jury materials In the final judgment Judge Hafele noted this was a case of first impression involving issues of genuine public concern The arguments by the attorneys in support of the declaratory relief claim were strong sincere palatable and persuasive He commended everyone for their hard work This is the opposite of a frivolous claim And while the Court ultimately did not rule in the Post favor for declaratory relief as to the clerk we respectfully disagree and that decision is currently on appeal But more importantly that is not the standard for Again it is not a prevailing party standard They have not met the high burden for sanctions to prove that the fact the claim was so frivolous or so devoid of merit under both the facts and the law as to be completely untenable Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page and at the very least this is a case in this case of first impression the claim for declaratory relief was a good faith argument for extension of the law And according to a sanctions cannot be awarded A reminder here too that it was not just the statutory the Florida statute at issue constitutional and First Amendment law at issue in the declaratory relief claim Finally worth noting that if there are no sanctions imposed there are no fees to be paid by the state attorney-31.1 office by Mr Aronberg personally or by taxpayers by anybody Mr Wyler who represents state attorneys across the state of Florida had a contingency agreement with the state of Florida in this case sorry state attorney in this case and from the outset no fee obligations arose unless there was a Court order awarding fees And that Exhibit in the joint exhibit binder So the only way they were going to get fees was under a motion However there has never been any basis for sanctions In closing Your Honor is reserved Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page for egregious conduct There-31.1 nothing even remotely close to that conduct that exists here The motion must be denied and the Post respectfully requests the Court deny the amended motion for sanctions in its entirety Thank you Your Honor THE COURT How many witnesses are you calling MR WYLER Just one Mr Aronberg THE COURT All right THE CLERK Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the evidence you are about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth THE WITNESS I do Thereupon DAVID ARONBERG STATE ATTORNEY having been duly sworn by the Clerk of the Court responded and testified as follows DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR WYLER Good afternoon Mr Aronberg Will you please introduce yourself to the Court and tell us how long you ve held your position A Good afternoon Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page David Aronberg I go by Dave And ve been state attorney since I was elected in Thank you re here today on your amended motion for attorneys-31.1 fees filed November against the plaintiff correct A Correct And did you engage my law firm Jacobs Scholz Wyler to defend you in this action A Yes I going to show you our Joint Exhibit Do you recognize this as a copy of our engagement letter with your office signed by Jeanne Howard A Yes Thank you MR WYLER Joint Exhibit Your Honor our firm engagement letter contingency fee agreement THE COURT Thank you BY MR WYLER Mr Aronberg have you reviewed or are you otherwise familiar with the pleadings and filings submitted with the Court in this hearing A I am So then you re familiar with the newspaper-31.1 original summons and complaint filed against Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page you on November 14th and then the amended complaint filed January A Yes And what has the newspaper sued you for A They sued me to obtain the Jeffrey Epstein grand jury documents Did they sue to just obtain them or to also produce them and provide them to them A They wanted me to produce them and to give it give those documents to them And do you know what they wanted to do with those documents once they got them A They wanted to publish the documents Okay And do you have possession custody or control of those requested grand jury documents A No I ve never had possession custody or control of those documents And by control of those documents do you mean that you couldn-31.1 you have no power to release them if you had them A I have no power to release these documents I don-31 have them ve never had them They knew ve never had them But in their complaint they allege that you and your office are quote in possession of the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page documents that are the subject of this action A That-31 this whole case whether I had possession custody or control of these documents why they sued me and my office And I never had possession custody or control of these documents Okay MR WYLER Your Honor you can find that on J9 of the amended complaint if you re looking THE COURT Thank you MR WYLER You can find it at Bates stamp BY MR WYLER Mr Aronberg are you familiar with the newspaper-31.1 allegation in their complaint that you quote have denied to the Palm Beach Post and to the public at large the grand jury materials sought to be disclosed A I am Did you ever deny the newspaper those requested materials A From the beginning we informed the newspaper that I ve never had these documents In our motion to dismiss we had two arguments The first one the very first one was that we do not possess have custody or control of these documents Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page In the second argument we then make an argument of law because a motion to dismiss and we have to argue as a matter of law and we couldn-31.1 rely on the matter of fact that I have the documents So they put us in a position to argue as a matter of law that even if we did have them under the law we could not provide them Okay A And since then ve been using that as a cudgel MR WYLER And Your Honor if I can I ll direct you to J6 and Those are the two motions to dismiss that do make that assertion THE COURT and MR WYLER Yes Your Honor And ll read that on the record J6 Bates stamp it says It is significant to note that despite plaintiff allegations to the contrary Defendant Aronberg is not in custody or control of the records sought and is therefore not a proper party to this action And in the second motion to dismiss ll read that to the Court as well That at Bates stamp It is significant to emphasize that despite plaintiff-31.1 allegations to the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page contrary Defendant Aronberg and the Office of the State Attorney for the 15th Judicial Circuit are not in custody or control of the records sought herein and therefore Defendant Aronberg is not a proper party to this action In fact Defendant Sharon Bock as clerk and comptroller of Palm Beach County Florida admits that she is the custodian in possession of the documents that are the subject of this action BY MR WYLER Mr Aronberg after these initial filings did you take any other steps to further notify the newspaper and its lawyers that your office lacks possession custody and control of the requested records A Yes and that is because when the articles came out that I was somehow stonewalling the Palm Beach Post and trying to prevent public access to these documents I started to get calls and texts from people asking why I was doing that I had a Facebook message that said I should resign Peter Antonacci my predecessor down in Broward reached out to me wanted to know why I was covering for the grand jury or for Barry Krischer or for others And I told him I don have the documents because that seemed to be lost in the articles written Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page And so I took an extraordinary step I made a decision to create a Web portal and to release every document that my office had relating to Jeffrey Epstein and put it on the Internet and that was and I have just to refresh my recollection the dates up here that was January 30th Okay great On January 30th did going to show you joint Exhibit No Do you recognize this as the press release that your office released that you were just explaining A Yes And can you read it to the Court please A This is a press release that my office put out when we established this Web portal and it says this Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg creates Web portal for public access to Jeffrey Epstein records And then there a statement from me In response to a large number of requests my office is posting online all the public records from the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein These records which have all been released previously pursuant to public records requests can be accessed through the following link and it gives the link The Jeffrey Epstein case occurred several Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page years and multiple state attorney administrations before I became Palm Beach County State Attorney in I was elected as As an aside I was elected in but I started in As such I have never seen or had access to the Epstein grand jury transcripts as the state attorney-31.1 office has never possessed them As lawsuits and investigations continue to move forward I hope that Epstein-31.1 victims are able to achieve justice and closure they deserve Thank you Now in addition to that press release did you make any other steps to further notify plaintiff that you have the records they were seeking A In addition to putting out that press release and sending it to the Palm Beach Post and every other media outlet in our database from around the country I also put that press release on my Twitter page and not only that I pinned it so it would be the first thing on my Twitter page I also put it out on my Facebook page and as a result it received national media coverage including coverage from the Sun-Sentinel the competitor to the Palm Beach Post But curiously the one paper that did not report on this Web portal the one paper that did not report on my releasing all the documents in Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page my possession was the Palm Beach Post To this day they still have never acknowledged that I posted every document onto my Web page onto my Twitter page onto my Facebook page onto our Web portal To this day even though ve had that tweet pinned to my page for months in the past they have never acknowledged that it existed Thank you Mr Aronberg going to show you our joint Exhibit No Do you recognize this as the Twitter post that you were just referencing A Yes And does it say the same thing as the press release A Yes Thank you A It also looks like this could be from Facebook as well Okay All right are you aware and familiar with the June 3rd motion to dismiss hearing and statements made on the record by Judge Marx the ones I just read to the Court previously A Yes What did you think of those remarks MR BIDEAU Objection Your Honor irrelevant what Mr Aronberg thinks of remarks Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page THE COURT Sustained BY MR WYLER So following those remarks from Judge Marx do you believe that the newspaper knew or should have known that you were not in possession custody or control of those records and that they should have dropped you from the lawsuit even then MR BIDEAU Objection Again Your Honor I don know how Mr Aronberg could know what the newspaper knew or should have known THE COURT So your objection is speculation Sustained MR WYLER Okay THE COURT All right you know generally we have a jury here but let keep objections short ll answer them if I need to or ll ask for more MR BIDEAU Okay Your Honor BY MR WYLER Can you Mr Aronberg can you please explain to the Court how it is impossible for you to provide these records A Well first I never had these records so obviously it impossible for me to provide them I told them that They knew that Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Secondly I have no custody or control over these documents ve never had them They know that which is why they now are moving the goal posts to change this whole lawsuit this whole action from custody possession control into keeping me on the sidelines so I object to the clerk-31 ability to release the documents So a new a new ball game now apparently But the newspaper obviously knew that I never had these documents that I never had custody or control over them because I repeatedly told them All right And then so following Judge Marx order that I just referenced on June 3rd what action did you then direct me to take A Well after Judge order and I was dismissed from one of the two counts I asked you to seek sanctions well to start the ball rolling so to send a letter that gives the 21-day notice correct And let me show you a copy of that letter MR WYLER Your Honor if you see our it a copy of the demand letter and the email to Mr Mendelsohn that accompanied it and just for a point of clarification there is the motion for attorneys-31.1 fees at the end but that Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page was not filed on June 8th Pursuant to the statute you have to wait at least days and as ll see later that was followed THE COURT The way this is I assume this was attached to the letter MR WYLER It is Your Honor It at Bates stamp yes Your Honor BY MR WYLER Do you recognize that Mr Aronberg as a copy of the email to Mr Mendelsohn and then the demand that we issued to the plaintiff A Yes And in that letter did we assert our position that their demand to produce the grand jury records that there was no basis in fact or law A Correct Do you know if the newspaper dropped you from the lawsuit within the 21-day safe-harbor provision provided by statute A They did not But they eventually did drop you A A long time later they did finally drop me Okay but before they dropped you did we not file a motion for summary judgment Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Correct And did that include an accompanying affidavit from you A Correct Let me show you a copy of that affidavit at Do you recognize this as a copy of your affidavit A Yes Will you please read it aloud for the Court A The entire page Yep A My name is David Dave Aronberg and I the State Attorney for the 15th Judicial Circuit Palm Beach County Florida since and a defendant in the above-captioned matter Plaintiff is seeking declaratory relief pursuant Florida Statute and the Court inherent authority allowing plaintiff access to the testimony minutes and other evidence presented in to the Palm Beach County grand jury the requested materials and to use those materials for the purpose of informing the public Despite plaintiff-31.1 above-described action for declaratory relief neither myself nor the Office of the State Attorney for the 15th Judicial Circuit SAO is Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page in control custody or possession of the required excuse me of the requested materials As such the declaratory relief sought by the plaintiff seeks materials that are impossible for me or my office to produce To be clear neither myself nor the SAO has the legal authority to obtain and deliver the requested materials ve repeatedly made these facts evident to the plaintiff and the public through not only the pleadings and correspondence in this matter but also through an office press release and my public social media accounts Despite the contentions of plaintiff neither myself nor the SAO has the authority to demand that the clerk grant the SAO access to grand jury materials after a criminal case has concluded Moreover during my administration neither myself nor my office has access to grand jury materials from the clerk office in this or any other instance As provided in Section Florida Statutes the clerk has sole authority and possession of the requested materials which can only be released by the clerk pursuant to an order of the Court Thank you Do you know of any other substantive action regarding plaintiff-31.1 claim for declaratory relief after you filed your motion for Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page summary judgment A After we filed the motion for summary judgment we included the affidavit and then there was a at some point I was dismissed and then there was an amended motion after that correct And going to show you Do you recognize this as a copy of the notice where you were dropped as a party from the lawsuit A Correct What date is that It on the top the very very top A This was October 21st Thank you And after you were dismissed are you aware yeah after you were dismissed are you aware that the Court eventually granted the clerk summary judgment in their favor a summary judgment in favor of the clerk A Yes Okay Just a couple more questions for you There been some references to maybe the newspaper not just suing you just to get these records for public disclosure Even Judge Marx said that she thought that there was something else going on What do you think is the underlying reason here for this lawsuit Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page MR BIDEAU Objection Your Honor irrelevant as to what the reason is MR WYLER It goes to good faith Your Honor THE COURT All right overruled A Look it was clear to me from the beginning that this whole lawsuit was a twofer for the Palm Beach Post Number one they were able to try to overcome the fact that the Miami Herald a newspaper miles away scooped them on the Jeffrey Epstein story and they wanted to catch up and be the hero of their own narrative And so they made themselves the center of this whole thing by suing to get these transcripts And number two they can do it on the back of someone they have extreme dislike for and it no secret in this community that the Palm Beach Post and I have had numerous battles over the years usually one-sided where the Palm Beach Post has for the past years has attacked me written many misleading articles which stems from a personal vendetta from a leader of the Palm Beach Post Randy Schultz and me And then after he was removed from his position his acolytes believed that I had something to do with it and they the attacks continued I mean they continue even today where Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page there-31.1 a front page article about some exaggerated a misleading front-page article about a criminal defendant in Broward who is making claims and trying to get my ex-wife-31.1 deposition And the Palm Beach Post instead of writing the facts about it sued to get the ex-wife-31.1 deposition released I mean for years this has been an ongoing issue between the Palm Beach Post and me and not a secret For example when they hired a reporter to cover my office who my office prior to my being there prosecuted for crack cocaine So I was thinking maybe at some point they could find a reporter to cover our office who our office did not prosecute for crack cocaine So this has been an ongoing thing So this whole matter stems from two things The Palm Beach Post trying to get the Jeffrey Epstein story back sell newspapers and to go after me and they re able to do it And why I insisted that we at least get the taxpayers some of their money back because they had to fight and pay for your legal fees to fight a lawsuit that was in my mind frivolous from the beginning because this newspaper knew I never had these documents I never had control or custody And very telling that now re trying to move the goal posts and make this about something entirely different Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page BY MR WYLER talk about that moving the goal posts We talked earlier about the wording in the complaint against you Do you recall the statements were that you somehow denied the Palm Beach Post and the citizens of Palm Beach County the grand jury records they were requesting Do you recall that A Yes And now it appears that re hearing a whole new argument from plaintiff today is that correct A Yes And that argument correct me if I wrong is that they were fine once you said you object to the records being released and that for that reason they dropped you is that accurate A Correct MR BIDEAU Objection Your Honor leading THE COURT Sustained BY MR WYLER Can you please explain your your perception of how they moved the goal posts A Look I mean this lawsuit from the beginning was about whether I had possession custody control of the Jeffrey Epstein grand jury transcripts Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page a series of articles they wrote about this They wrote a long series of articles attacking me for trying to obstruct Those articles were misleading The fact that re here today and now not about that about keeping me on the sidelines so I have that I object to the clerk-31.1 production of these documents is something that I haven-31.1 heard before and I think is so misleading because this whole thing was about the grand jury transcripts not about trying to prevent me from saying something to the clerk It was clear from the beginning I never had these documents Judge Marx made it clear on the record and that why we pursued these sanctions Thank you And it there a big difference between objecting to the release or intervening in the release and actually being able to release the records A They sued me to get the records They didn-31 sue me to prevent me from speaking up There-31.1 nowhere in the complaint that says that they re suing to you keep you from objecting to the release A Not only is there nothing in the complaint there-31.1 nothing in all the articles they wrote They Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page wanted this thing to continue to continue to write articles It would have been embarrassing for them to admit that they filed a frivolous lawsuit and then they had to dismiss me So they continued these articles way past the 21-day period and now when they got called on it re trying to change the whole case into something about how they needed me to stay silent so I wouldn-31.1 tell the clerk to do something I mean this thing was about production custody and control of grand jury documents and I just believe the Palm Beach Post should be able to change it after the fact So do you believe they have an agenda against you and were intentionally targeting you when they filed this lawsuit A They ve always had an agenda against me MR BIDEAU Objection Your Honor relevance THE COURT I think you have already covered it So I going to sustain the objection fine BY MR WYLER Have your friends and family been impacted by the plaintiff-31 agenda-driven reporting MR BIDEAU Again Judge objection Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page relevance THE COURT Sustained as to relevance MR WYLER Thank you BY MR WYLER Do you believe that plaintiff-31 relationship with you prevented them from accepting the ultimate fact that you have no legal right to possession custody or control of the release of the requested grand jury records MR BIDEAU Objection cumulative Judge I think we ve been over this He asked the same question before THE COURT ve covered this MR WYLER No further questions THE COURT Cross examination MR BIDEAU Thank you Judge CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR BIDEAU Good afternoon Mr Aronberg A Hi You said a couple minutes ago to your lawyer that you filed this motion to get the taxpayers back some of their money right A Uh-huh That what you said The taxpayers are Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page not out any money are they A It is a contingency-fee basis Right and so the answer to question is The taxpayers are not out any money are they You owe your counsel a nickel today right A I think fair to say You haven-31.1 paid your counsel a nickel today right A We have not And the only way that your counsel gets any money is if he wins this motion right A That a good point So under no circumstance are the taxpayers out any money correct A Yeah I guess so You re right Okay So when you testified a few minutes ago that you filed this motion in order to get the taxpayers back their money that was wrong right A Look the fact that our office Is that right or wrong A Look I have to dispute with you on that one Look look the fact that our office has spent months having to deal with this frivolous lawsuit that taxpayer money And yes so perhaps I misspoke when I said that because the money wouldn-31.1 go directly to him Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page unless we got something today But clear the taxpayers are out money when you divert my attention from real business to focus on your frivolous lawsuit that has been filed for nothing more than to sell newspapers and make a profit for your client So the only person involved in this lawsuit I haven-31.1 seen you Have you testified in any hearings in this case A No Have you been deposed in this case A No Okay So the only thing you ve done in this case presumably is chat with your lawyer correct A Are you saying our office has done nothing has not been distracted about this case talking about you Mr Aronberg A Oh I ve spent plenty of time about this case I have spent way more time than I ever should have in a case that I had nothing to do with Mr Aronberg you said that this idea that Well let me back up for a second You said that you thought the Palm Beach Post brought this case for two reasons One they brought this case because they like you and they wanted to embarrass you somehow and they brought this Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page case because they-31 ve been scooped by the Miami Herald I think you said right A Yes On the Epstein matter I mean you agree that an investigation into the Epstein matter and what your predecessors did in the Epstein matter is a legitimate matter of public interest right A The investigation of Jeffrey Epstein Absolutely Absolutely And the And the investigation of what your office by your predecessor By the way nobody has ever suggested Mr Aronberg in any of the pleadings filed in this case that you personally were involved in whatever happened with Mr Epstein That not in the complaint right There-31.1 no reference to you personally having been involved In fact the complaint makes it very clear that this was your predecessor who was involved correct not you A Correct Now so the pleadings we drafted didn accuse you of having done anything wrong with respect to Mr Epstein or the plea deal that got cut or whatever happened with the feds correct We acknowledge you weren-31.1 around in the pleadings that we filed in this Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page case right A You acknowledged that I had nothing to do with the stuff in the past but you are accusing me of hiding grand jury transcripts that ve never possessed There-31.1 nothing in the pleading that said you hid grand jury transcripts correct The request The lawsuit for declaratory relief was to declare that you either turn over what you had correct A Then you read your own newspaper I talking about the pleadings that are filed in this case I understand that you are concerned about the press side of this concerned about the legal side okay A The legal side sued me to get grand jury transcripts and the press side accused me of hiding them Okay so we can agree that the legal side the thing re here on in this case today is about getting grand jury testimony correct getting grand jury transcripts A Possession custody and control correct Incidentally when my firm first got involved Do you have the exhibit binder in front of you A I do not Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page MR BIDEAU Okay Can we get an extra copy of it Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page questions are about the Jeffrey Epstein matter A Okay yes Okay and this was the first letter you received from my office correct From Mr Mendelsohn about the Jeffrey Epstein matter right A I know if this is the first letter If you say it I assume true And in this letter Mr Mendelsohn requests a number of documents and records with respect to the grand jury matter concerning Mr Epstein correct A I have to read it but yes ll take your By the way your office never actually responded to this particular letter did it A I don-31 know And in fact after this letter if you look at tab which is the very last tab and I apologize the binder is so big it hard to move around This letter is dated of August of THE COURT What exhibit MR BIDEAU Exhibit Your Honor Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page MR BIDEAU You can look there okay THE COURT going to slow you down a little bit I see the writing on the screen from that far so going to flip to MR BIDEAU And I apologize I hate these big binders THE COURT It okay I just want to see what re talking about as re talking about it re right re not easy to navigate All right please continue BY MR BIDEAU Exhibit is an October 9th letter and that from Mike Grygiel another lawyer in my office to your office and following up on Mr Mendelsohn-31.1 October sic 27th letter okay and his September 17th letter Do you see that A Yes Okay And up to that point in time we had not yet received responses to our letters correct Do you know A I don know Okay And then And then after that sir it was on January it was on it was in shortly after that November of that we filed the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page first lawsuit against you correct A Correct So after having sent your office two letters you know if we ever got responses to those letters we went and filed a lawsuit and in that lawsuit we named you in your official capacity correct not a personal capacity A Correct And whenever you sue the state attorney office and your office gets sued for things all the time it doesn-31.1 have anything to do with you personally right A Correct You sue You sue an entity like the state attorney-31.1 office in its by the state attorney who is in his official capacity correct A Yes And you talked about your original motion to dismiss J6 so let take a look at J6 if you want to look at Exhibit in the binder or can you look at it up there I really care A Okay look at the second page On the second page you MR BIDEAU Could you highlight Gerard Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page where it starts with Plaintiff has improperly Down at the bottom last paragraph BY MR BIDEAU You see you indicate your lawyer responded by saying Plaintiff that would be the Palm Beach Post is improperly seeking requested grand jury materials for the purpose of public disclosure pursuant to the Court-31.1 inherent authority and supervisory powers over the grand jury Do you see that A Yes So at least at that point you were objecting saying the Post shouldn get these they-31 re not entitled to them so that they because they want to give them out to the public right And what the sentence says A See Is that what it says A Look you are this is exactly the problem what you guys did You filed a lawsuit against us and the first defense that we had was that we didn have the documents but because as you know in a motion to dismiss you have to argue as a matter of law So the only way we could dismiss this frivolous lawsuit is to Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page argue as a matter of law And this this was the legal position that says by the way under the law re not entitled to these documents And then you then your client then wrote all these articles saying see trying to block us trying to obstruct us without mentioning the number one defense which was he doesn-31.1 have the documents That could have gone a long way That could have shown maybe some good faith if you would have done that Mr Aronberg in connection with at the time of the motion to dismiss you had filed nothing your office had done no indication that you have the documents did you up to this point in time Up to this point in time And this is only this is only late You hadn filed an answer You filed any motion A In our motion to dismiss You responded to any of our three prior letters and the first pleadings you filed indicated that your objection was that we were improperly seeking these materials under the Court-31.1 inherent authority and supervisory powers over the grand jury for public disclosure That was the official position filed by your lawyer and I understand you were taking a legal position to dismiss the lawsuit Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Correct but also I do want to challenge one part of that When you say that we we were silent over and over again about responding to your public records requests I have spoken to ve spoken to the public records person in my office who believes that she did say that we have the documents to everyone who has requested them MR BIDEAU Your Honor move to strike as hearsay THE COURT Sustained BY MR BIDEAU And after you filed this motion the Palm Beach Post filed an amended complaint correct and in that amended complaint the Post asserted two causes of action right One was a statutory claim and one was a declaratory judgment claim under the First Amendment and the Court inherent authority correct A Correct And the motion to dismiss and the arguments in front of Judge Marx all went to the statutory claim not to the second claim the declaratory judgment claim correct A The Marx hearing was about Count Count the statutory claim correct A Correct Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page And so when we look at ve got the complaint here because I want to read it The first amended complaint which is J9 and if you take a look at J9 THE COURT Let me stop you for one second So flipping through these but like for example right there I I see that MR BIDEAU Right I know THE COURT But I saw that you were able to blow up a portion of MR BIDEAU He is THE COURT and I going to ask him to do that that way I don have to MR BIDEAU going to ask him to blow it up so you can see it THE COURT Thank you very much I appreciate it BY MR BIDEAU So take a look here at Count for declaratory relief MR BIDEAU Gerard it on page Okay just blow up the Count for declaratory relief please that section BY MR BIDEAU Then with respect to paragraph do you Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page see that one of the allegations is that the Post respectfully requests the Court declare that pursuant to Florida Statute it is entitled to access to the testimony minutes and other evidence presented in to the grand jury because such disclosure and access would be in furtherance of justice and then it cites to sic correct A Yes And it says because the Post is not seeking these materials in connection with any civil or criminal case it seeks a declaration In other words it asks the Court hey construe this paragraph construe the statute to allow us to give this stuff to the public because we recognize there an interest of justice provision in that statute correct A Well it is what it says it is Okay And what it says right in furtherance of justice what the request was A Again it is what it is Okay And then paragraph the Post seeks a further declaration that disclosure of the testimony minutes and other evidence presented to the grand jury is appropriate pursuant to the Court inherent authority over grand jury proceedings because of the exceptional public interest in this case and Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page compelling circumstances supporting transparency Do you see that A Yes Okay and with respect to paragraph do you know what the answer was A No that you filed A not offhand MR BIDEAU Okay Can we pull up the answer to That J2 page BY MR BIDEAU As to you admit that we seek a declaration but you deny the remainder of paragraph So in fact although we were asking in that the Court uses its inherent authority over grand jury proceedings because of the exceptional interest in this case and compelling circumstances that the Court declare that we re allowed to use this testimony your answer was well your declaration but we deny paragraph So you asked the Court to deny that relief A It is what it is MR BIDEAU Okay And then ll go to paragraph I think you have a slide on that Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page BY MR BIDEAU And in we say the Post has sought from defendants but defendants have refused to provide access to the testimony minutes and evidence presented in to the grand jury Indeed defendants have each filed motions to dismiss the complaint and the reliefs sought under Accordingly a good faith dispute exists between the parties Do you see that A Yes And you see in that case your office admitted that your lawyers admitted that at least admitting there was a good faith dispute between the parties and admitting that the defendants had refused to provide access to the testimony minutes and evidence presented right No qualification you all just admit that A Again it is what it is Now you said that this argument that Ms Whetstone made during her opening statement that the idea that you wouldn object to disclosure was something new that just popped up at this hearing that I think your phrase was you moved the goal posts right A Yes at this hearing But that not true Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page either right because that issue had been raised with you all the way back in June of right A Are you saying this lawsuit was about that Is that what re saying or are you saying that it was about possession The issue The issue of your position with respect to whether you would agree with sorry whether you would object to the request to have the records released was an issue that had been raised by Mr Mendelsohn back in June of correct A Can you restate the question please Sure Let me Let me try to do it a little more articulately because that was pretty terrible Let me get the letter out to make it easier for all of us please You ve seen this letter right Exhibit A not sure if ve seen this one Okay well did you know that when your lawyer filed his motion back in early June and then had that two-page letter that he served it with right and he laid out we don have the records right A Correct Which is the basis for your A Yeah correct we have it leave me alone Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Well Basically A Yeah no possession custody or control Okay no possession custody or control Mr Mendelsohn a couple weeks later wrote a letter back right Do you remember seeing that A This is the letter you re referring to the letter and under tab in the binder A Again I remember seeing this letter Can you flip to the second page A This letter was written to my attorney To your attorney right A back in June of June 23rd A No I don remember reading this letter Okay well let me see if I can help you out then Would you go to the middle of that paragraph where it says The state attorney was named Can you Go above that where it says The state attorney was named as a party not simply Do you see it Okay Do you see Mr Mendelsohn writes back he says Assuming the state attorney does not currently have physical possession of the Epstein grand jury materials I mean by the way the Office of State Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Attorney at some point would have had possession of the materials that were going to be presented to the grand jury right I mean the office presented this stuff to the grand jury You would have had possession A If re talking about the transcripts no No but talking about the other materials the investigative materials the exhibits the minutes the other things like that A The minutes Your office would have had those A The minutes I don believe so I guess it depends I don-31 know how they did it back in Barry Krischer-31.1 administration but the documents that you asked for ve never had So the only question I had Well hold on You mean the transcripts because in the complaint we actually ask for more than transcripts A Right but those are documents I ve never had and the whole thing You personally never had them but A Right you agree with me the Office of State Attorney would have during the course of the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page investigation would have had those materials it had to A Again I know what Barry Krischer-31 administration had back then Well when you got the public records request did you have somebody go back and look and see what they had A Well obviously when we got public records requests we try to fulfill all of them Right and you don know personally sitting here today what was done to respond to any of Mr Mendelsohn or Mr Grygiel my partners-31.1 letters asking for materials from back during the Barry Krischer days correct Because there-31.1 been no response to those letters even to today MR WYLER Objection Your Honor those letters and the Chapter request have nothing do with this lawsuit re not referenced in the lawsuit They have no bearing on the requested relief that plaintiff is requesting here THE COURT Overruled BY MR BIDEAU And so THE COURT Can you repeat the question MR BIDEAU Sure I ll repeat the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page question BY MR BIDEAU You don-31 know what anybody in your office did to respond to Mr Mendelsohn or Mr Grygiel-31 letters Exhibit and Exhibit correct You personally know A It is my understanding based on conversations I had with the office that every public records request has been responded to and that people were told who requested Jeffrey Epstein grand jury transcripts that we did not have them Mr Mendelsohn and Mr Grygiel in those letters request a lot more than just transcripts right They wanted evidence They wanted exhibits They wanted that sort of material correct That was Exhibit and we looked at right A When I say transcripts I mean records I mean records that anything we had we put then out on that portal that your client refused to acknowledge Well the portal was things you already produced what Your press release says this is all the stuff ve already given out right already been in the public right A Yeah Okay well but you understand we were Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page asking for stuff that you yet given out and as best you know you have any personal knowledge as to whether or not what happened to those requests to Mr Mendelsohn-31.1 request or Mr Grygiel-31.1 request right You personally know A Well again you objected because of hearsay before but in speaking to an individual who does public records in my office ve been told that that person had said whether or not ve had those documents and so I believe that everyone who requested documents were told truthfully whether we had those documents or not And we can use documents in a broad in a broad way In a broad sense right A Correct But you don have copies of any responses or that went back to Mr Mendelsohn or Mr Grygiel in my office when they requested documents correct A I would think that Mr Wyler would have everything that we produced Okay Now Mr Mendelsohn back in June of in response to your first letter he says The state attorney was named as a party not simply as custodian of the grand jury the grand jury records The state attorney was named in his official capacity as Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page his office has quote as his primary interest protection of its grand jury system and he cites to a 11th Circuit decision Do you see that A Yes Okay And in that case the U.S petition he goes on to explain it He goes on to explain that the Broward County State Attorney was involved in this case and so Mr Mendelsohn was indicating to you in that case where you were named not only whether you had custody you were named in that case basically because re in charge of the grand jury process you had the right to object if the clerk wanted to give out those records or not A Where does it say that It in the The case indicates that when one seeks grand jury materials the relevant state attorney is a necessary party in order to protect the grand jury system and the Office of State Attorney supervised it to make arguments if needed against release of the grand jury materials Do you see that A Yes So Mr Mendelsohn was telling you as opposed to what you said a few minutes ago in here that the first time you saw these goal posts being moved Mr Mendelsohn was today when Ms Whetstone testified Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page I mean when Ms Whetstone talked In fact all the way back to when the very first motion was filed Mr Mendelsohn told you that one of the reasons that the Post sued you in this case was in order to address the situation that you had the right if you thought it was appropriate to object to the release of materials Do you see that A Was that in the complaint asking about the asking about the A Well the letter you wrote after well after the complaint the letter you re showing me here that was sent to Mr Wyler is what it says it is Correct A on not in the complaint right But you told me that this idea of moving the goal posts that the Post was suddenly making that argument you told everybody in this courtroom a few minutes ago that just happened today I mean they-31 re just moving the goal posts on me Well if the goal posts are being moved that was back on June 23rd of and you remember seeing this right A Again I don remember seeing this letter but again this was not part of the complaint This is an after-the-fact letter from Mr Mendelsohn to my Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page lawyer Correct and so A Okay you neither you nor your lawyer ever responded to this letter right A Well ll have to talk to my lawyer about that Obviously I don-31 personally respond to letters written to my lawyer Correct But you told us you re familiar with the pleadings but re not familiar with this particular letter A Again I remember seeing this letter Now Mr Mendelsohn indicates in the last sentence These are some of the same reasons why the state attorney was named in this case Do you see that Very last sentence of that paragraph A Yes MR BIDEAU Can we take a look at Exhibit Do you have Exhibit up Can you Can you blow up the part that highlighted please and ll read it BY MR BIDEAU Now Exhibit is Defendant David Aronberg response to plaintiff-31.1 memorandum in opposition to the motion the original one filed Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page back in June of And do you see in paragraph in the first paragraph you indicate quote Nonetheless the state attorney has no objection and never had any objection to the Court releasing the records sought by plaintiff as to the disclosure of the requested materials sought herein lies within the province of the clerk pursuant to the order of the Court Do you see that A Yes And this is the first time in any pleading Strike that First of all obviously you knew this was an issue back in October of the fact that the Post was arguing that one reason you needed to be in this case was because you had the right to object because you address that issue in October of correct A Here Here right as of October So that argument had been raised not for the first time today but back in right Mr Aronson A Aronberg Aronberg I sorry A This is what it says it is And again I felt that this sentence was consistent with what our position always has been because when we were forced to do the motion to dismiss Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page we were forced because of a matter of law to make the legal argument as a legal matter that the Post is not entitled to this but as far as my belief of whether I care whether these grand jury documents are released ve never cared one way or the other but because of this in my view bad faith lawsuit you forced us to do a motion to dismiss that told you we have this stuff and secondly we had to do a response as a matter of law Okay now let me get back to my question My question was You told the Court earlier today that this moving the goal posts this idea that you had the right to object and we wanted to make sure you weren-31.1 going to object was something that came up for the first time today and that true was it That issue came up back in June of at the at the latest when Mr Mendelsohn put it in his letter and you saw it necessary to address it in October of right A So the letter that I said I don remember seeing is the letter that you say put me on notice that this argument was being made Well that letter certainly put you on notice if you know it before that sir because it says it clear as day A But it doesn-31.1 make my statement Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page inconsistent It said again that I was not aware of your moving the goal posts and besides it doesn-31 matter because this whole thing is about possession custody and control which you informed of that we have Now re saying well this whole thing was about you wanted me to talk to the clerk or you want me to talk to the clerk and to me disingenuous because not the subject of this lawsuit You mentioned in a sentence that Mr Mendelsohn wrote to my lawyer much later than the complaint well after the complaint in one sentence in a letter to my lawyer and you-31 re saying aha we wanted this the whole time Well certainly we wanted it the whole time and we wanted it at the as Mr Mendelsohn will testify and Mr Mendelsohn wrote that when your lawyer sent a saying our case isn frivolous we think your office might have possession of the records at least some of the records that we were seeking and in addition your office has the right to object A Did you put that in the complaint You put that in the complaint I know hard for a lawyer to not ask questions but Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Fair enough Fair enough And try not to argue because our court reporter is going to kill us Okay in any event Mr Aronberg in the October 14th response you indicate that the state attorney has no objection okay to the clerk producing these records if the clerk produces them right A Right And you know by the way that the clerk had already produced them without well probably nobody could find a court order had given them to the U.S Attorney and the FBI years earlier right A I guess so I mean I wasn there years earlier so if what happened yes sure And by the way shortly after you filed Exhibit is when the Palm Beach Post dismissed the case right It was within days of that correct We can do it up there Maybe days A Whatever your timeline says Right All right you indicated on the 20th is the first time you stated you had no objection to production of the materials okay and then on October 21st now that you said you don have them and you object the Post dropped you as a party seven days later see that Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Yeah Right Okay And then days later you file an amended motion which makes a host of arguments not set forth in your original motion back in June of correct A Well you have to ask Mr Wyler about the substance of that but I know that the motion the amended motion was filed after I was already dismissed from the lawsuit and after your client failed to dismiss me within the 21-day grace period Well that the 21-day grace period for the first motion that you filed correct A Correct correct But the motion re here on today according to the Court order and the notice is your amended motion which was never served prior to being filed correct A Well are you saying that the filing of the second motion means that the first motion is now void it just goes away it didn exist re going to be arguing that to the Judge but the filing under the law the filing of a second motion that raises new and different arguments absolutely goes away the first motion goes away A But the whole purpose of the 21-day notice Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page is to give you a chance to dismiss me and I was already dismissed by that point so So take that to its logical assume you had gone ahead and served this back say back here in October okay and then you filed that response and we looked at it and said oh now admitting now saying not going to oppose it If we had dismissed you right then have no fee claim right because under the rule re allowed to dismiss A You get days We get days right So if you had served it all the way back here in October and if we had gotten your response and dismissed you have no fee claim right We would have gotten your and within the grace period we would have dismissed it right A If the second one was filed before I was dismissed within the days Yes sir A and the case was still pending Then yeah you have a much better argument But you have an argument now because under the first ll argue ll argue that to the Judge A All right fair enough Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page as to whether we have an argument now We think the Fourth is pretty clear on that one MR BIDEAU Would you bring up please just last question Exhibit paragraph BY MR BIDEAU And this is this is your amended motion and you say The state attorney has no objection to the clerk producing and disclosing the requested material should the Court grant an order to that effect however it is impossible for the state attorney to comply with the relief blah blah blah because you made that argument before That argument that you had no objection to the clerk producing the requested materials was not set forth in your original motion your original motion correct A I believe correct MR BIDEAU all I have Judge THE COURT Redirect MR WYLER Just real quick REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR WYLER Mr Aronberg you were just talking or just being asked questions about the public records requests that were made of your office Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Did the plaintiff ever file a Chapter lawsuit against your office for those records A No MR WYLER No further questions THE COURT Is Mr Aronberg excused THE WITNESS Thank you Your Honor MR WYLER Yes you re excused Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page MR WYLER Thank you Your Honor Joint Exhibits through were admitted into evidence Defense rests THE COURT But not this timeline correct This is not Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Tomorrow I have another matter that I have to hear in the afternoon But in the event we need to go past even if for argument probably Thursday or Friday in the afternoon ll bring you back If the testimony is going to conclude today or mostly conclude today and the only thing left are your arguments of law and your arguments as to the findings of fact then that might be something that we end up doing on Thursday or Friday afternoon okay MR WYLER Yes Your Honor I think it might be worthwhile to point out to the Court that the reasonableness phase of this if we get there we ve already agreed that there would be no experts so I think that could dispense with that I am located up in Amelia Island Florida so I am THE COURT Fifteen minutes away MR WYLER Super close So I know if it would be possible if we finished with the testimony today if maybe we could make written closing arguments to the Court instead of coming back THE COURT How do you feel about writing Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page attorney at Greenberg Traurig in the Fort Lauderdale office Please let us know your educational background A I have a bachelor-31 degree from Colgate University in Upstate New York graduated in and in economics and I have a J.D degree from Hofstra University School of Law from And your work experience going backwards in time A I ve been at Greenberg Traurig as a commercial litigator for approximately years and all that time ve been a shareholder at Greenberg As I said I work out of the Fort Lauderdale office at present Previous to that I was in the Boca Raton office of Greenberg Traurig so going back years Before that I was an attorney with Rutherford Mulhull Wargo in Boca Raton also commercial litigation and prior to that I was a named partner a firm in Miami That was Carolonga Langen Lorenza phonetic Mendelsohn and before that I was an assistant attorney general for the State of New York In what states are you licensed to practice law A New York and Florida Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page At Greenberg Traurig what types of cases do you practice A A variety of commercial litigation copyright trademark securities real estate disputes disputes over employment contract fraud Also not just simply commercial but I also do defamation defense First Amendment cases on defamation and I do trial work and appellate work When you were at the New York State Attorney General-31.1 Office what types of cases did you handle A I was in the Litigation Bureau of Labor Statistics and that civil litigation primarily civil rights and constitutional law cases involving USC Section where New York State and its officials were sued in their official capacity That included cases under the Fourth Amendment cases under the Seventh Amendment occasionally and the Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S Constitution Are you AV rated A Yes AV rated as well Have you ever been sanctioned or subject to disciplinary action A Never Ever Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A In any jurisdiction Ever had sanctions or Rule sanctions awarded in any case that ve worked on A This is the first motion ever under or Rule under the federal rules or any of that So besides this case no A No You ve never had any motion raised A No No am How did you first get involved with the Jeffrey Epstein case on behalf of the Palm Beach Post A I was contacted by Michael Grygiel from our Albany office He represents a number of media and newspapers throughout the United States and essentially he heads the media group at Greenberg Traurig And he was looking for someone to help the Palm Beach Post in obtaining documents from at that time the state attorney office here in Palm Beach County When were you contacted by Mike Grygiel A When approximately Nods head up and down A In the summer of Grygiel G-r-y-g-i-e-l Thank you So here around on the timeline I indicating July Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Yes And what did the Post want to find out and inform the public about with regard to Jeffrey Epstein A Right at that time the Epstein matter was back in the news Mr Epstein had been arrested by the FBI and he was being prosecuted by the U.S Attorney-31.1 Office in the Southern District of New York and was in custody So the issues of the plea deal that had been worked out by Mr Krischer office back in was back in the news and in particular President Trump-31.1 Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta at that time was the U.S Attorney in the Southern District of Florida who also helped negotiate the plea and the non-prosecution agreement and there was a big firestorm as to whether or not Mr Acosta should or should not resign as Secretary of Labor What was the Post interested in finding out with regard to the prior grand jury investigation by the Palm Beach County State Attorney A Well because of the firestorm surrounding Alex Acosta and the re-arrest or new arrest I should say of Jeffrey Epstein the Post was interested in looking back again as to what Barry Krischer office as state attorney did in terms of using or misusing the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page grand jury process in terms of the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein both in terms of the very light non-prosecution agreement that they allowed him to enter into as well as the extremely lenient sentence that he had Were you involved in drafting letters to the state attorney-31.1 office seeking documents relating to the Epstein prosecution A Yes Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page We were very interested in finding out the conversations between defense counsel criminal defense counsel for Mr Epstein and in particular Alan Dershowitz and Mr Krischer-31.1 office We knew from investigation that Mr Dershowitz had provided Mr Krischer with exhibits or documents which went to injure the testimony the credibility and the testimony of the young woman who testified before the grand jury I mean we were looking for those communications between Mr Krischer-31 office and defense counsel in particular where Mr Dershowitz and others from the defense provided those materials to damage the credibility of the grand jury witness We also wanted communications between Mr Krischer office and the FBI and the U.S Attorney-31.1 Office because those issues were coming to the fore because of Alex Acosta and we did know that there were such communications and we wanted those documents to go back to the Post for public disclosure What was the state attorney-31.1 office-31.1 response to this August 27th letter A I never received a response to this letter Were there other letters from Greenberg Traurig to the state attorney-31.1 office following up A Yes Mr Grygiel wrote a letter to the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page state attorney-31.1 office as well When I receive a response I guess he felt whatever but he did send that next letter Okay so pulling up Exhibit Is this Let me know what this is A Yes this is Mr Grygiel from our Albany office this is his letter to State Attorney Dave Aronberg October reiterating some of the things that we thought were in the possession of the state attorney-31.1 office but had not been provided to the Palm Beach Post Did you get a response Was there a response to this letter A No Did you review the documents that were provided by the state attorney office to the Post A Yes Before Sort of in the middle of this the Palm Beach Post before I had written had made a public records request of the state attorney-31.1 office and some materials had been provided and we did go through that those materials They did not include those that I mentioned in Joint Exhibit which particularly were missing the Dershowitz communications and the communications with Mr Krischer office the FBI and the U.S Attorney-31.1 Office Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page So what information what additional information was needed that the Post was seeking A We wanted to see why the grand jury was used in such a way as to result in a very lenient charge for Mr Epstein as well as the lenient sentence that was part of the non-prosecution agreement We knew from the investigation and from other materials we had assembled that there were there was a grand jury that was empaneled In fact there was two The first one was canceled and the second one was conducted and a witness a victim did testify And we were on fairly certain ground that the state attorney office under Barry Krischer undermined her credibility with materials provided to Mr Krischer by defense counsel Did you A and we did not get those materials back from the state attorney-31.1 office Did you review any other information to reach the conclusions about the grand jury indictment A Yes I wanted to say that I was not the only one working on this at Greenberg Traurig In addition to Mr Grygiel Nina Boyajian of our Los Angeles office who is a First Amendment expert was also part of our team She is very well versed in First Amendment Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page issues especially when it comes to representing the media-31.1 interest under the First Amendment So we also had paralegals tasked with that responsibility too We had assembled deposition transcripts affidavits that had been submitted in various cases I personally have spoken with the Town of Palm Beach County the Town of Palm Beach Chief of Police Reiter and discussed his testimony with him in civil cases ve obtained his deposition transcripts We spoke to only a few of the plaintiffs-31.1 lawyers in the cases but some of them did provide us with materials There was a voluminous amount of materials we used We also went back to the criminal case where the materials were in the public domain and read through those items as well And after this team at Greenberg reviewed all this information and did due diligence what was decided next A Ultimately the team decided that it was necessary to bring a lawsuit to obtain what we call grand jury materials It not just simply the transcripts of what occurred in front of the grand jury but all of the ancillary or corollary materials related to that And that as we stated in Exhibit included but not limited to the communications where we believe Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Mr Dershowitz provided damaging information or documentation to Mr Krischer-31.1 office to destroy his own witness in front of the grand jury which honestly looking at all of the materials we had received and based upon my personal discussions with the chief of police of the Town of Palm Beach we came to the conclusion Mr Krischer had abused his authority as state attorney When did the due diligence process start and when did it end as far as reviewing the facts A Started in the summer of and it Well the first phase resulted in the lawsuit and that contained hundreds of hours-31 worth of work not only legal work but as I said factual investigatory work as well But it continued even after the lawsuit had been filed as well We didn stop in case we found something new and ultimately we did find new things out in this case which I can add later but there were new revelations that had occurred And the initial complaint was filed in A The end of November of What legal research was done before filing the initial complaint And that was for the statutory count under A Sure The way we divided the work between myself primarily and Ms Boyajian was that we would Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page handle the First Amendment issues in the case So the U.S Supreme Court cases involving the rights of the media to be the public surrogate or be the public mouthpiece and to obtain and participate in all facets of criminal proceedings she helped me and provided that I was aware of all of that but she certainly had a greater in-depth knowledge than I did I was tasked with the responsibility of fleshing out Section of the Florida statutes primarily What did you personally research to flesh out Florida Statute A I read every word of Chapter I looked at Law Review articles I remember one from Catholic University Valparaiso and others about the grand jury process grand jury secrecy both federal cases and state cases I found every reported case under which particularly dealt with the issues that we were discussing before and that Mr Aronberg testified about and that went back to even the predecessor statute to which is into the And I tried to find legislative history on the statute but there wasn any So I amassed cases under the statute going back from the et cetera under I read all of them It sounds like a great deal of research Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page but did you engage in any other research before filing the initial complaint A Well federal as well not only under the state but I wanted to see you know who to sue to be honest with you in this case We had a debate amongst ourselves as to who the proper defendants were going to be and my principal responsibility was determining under Florida law who that would be So I had extensive experience as an assistant attorney general on suing at least in defending state officials in not only cases but many other type of cases where state officials are sued in their official capacity So this was certainly nothing new to me I probably handled cases like that all on the defense side So I was very familiar with arguments of who was the proper party and the role of a state official in litigation So what did I do I went to see whether there were other cases Chapter cases where state officials had been sued and in particular I found two cases One was a state case and one was a federal case The state case was James vs Wille and coincidently actually involved the predecessor to Barry Krischer and that case involved the beating of an inmate at the Palm Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Beach County Jail out by Belle Glade and that individual sought grand jury testimony and the state attorney was named as a party in the case and in fact participated in the case as to whether or not grand jury secrecy under the statute you know the extent of it and made legal arguments opposing such So re talking about some of the cases you relied upon A Yes in determining that the state attorney was a necessary party defendant and I wanted to pull up you mentioned James vs Was it the James vs Wille case A Yeah James vs Wille correct And that Exhibit Can you just let me know if Exhibit is the case you were talking about A Yep the case And were there any other cases you relied upon specifically with regard to the state attorney necessarily being a party A Yes An 11th Circuit case called In re Grand Jury It a Federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals case Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page pull that up Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page the state attorney decided what he wanted to do But if we name the state attorney we were denying that state official and that office the right to object under secrecy laws So the purpose was to allow the state attorney if he chose to do so to object to the disclosure under and to advocate for the state secrecy interest and that was a prime issue of why he was named Were there other reasons A Well we weren sure what the state attorney-31.1 office had We knew that at one point the state attorney-31 office had grand jury materials because under Mr Krischer that-31 what had occurred He presented this to the grand jury So we weren-31.1 completely sure who had what So we also believed and I still believe that the statute does not prohibit the state attorney from requesting the state attorney to look at grand jury materials not disclose it to the public but merely to disclose it to the state attorney if the state attorney wanted to look at it So we were hopeful that if the state attorney was interested in looking at these materials that he would say that he had the right to look at them Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page under and then if so ask the Court for an in-camera review before release to the public So those are the three issues we were concerned with Did Greenberg Traurig conclude that the state attorney was a necessary party to this case regardless of whether it had possession of the grand jury materials A Yes And was that conclusion a yes A Yes it was So after the complaint the initial complaint was filed in November of were discussions had with the state attorney counsel and the counsel for the clerk A Yes What were those discussions A Well we had discussions about the case particularly where this is going did they have objections and if so under what basis did they have objections After the complaint the initial complaint was filed what position did the state attorney take in the case A Took two Took two positions He filed Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page an answer and that answer contained a motion to dismiss Backing up Sorry After the initial complaint was filed what was the what was the position taken by the state attorney to the initial complaint just the Count A Okay Sorry just Count A His position was that grand jury secrecy was preeminent under and that statute barred the release of the materials He also argued that the statute was only operative where there was a pending civil case and a pending criminal case and since the Epstein case was not pending civilly involving the Post or the criminal case there was no criminal case in Palm Beach County we didn have any position or standing under the statute to seek the materials on behalf of the Palm Beach Post Did the state attorney file a motion to dismiss the initial complaint A Yes What was your reaction to that A Well I was hopeful that they wouldn object or seek to dismiss it but I understood that they had a statutory obligation to protect grand jury secrecy so I take it personally or anything like that I Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page understood the role that they were playing because that was the role we gave them the opportunity to play in this case So I was neither surprised nor upset that they played that role because the opportunity we gave them Did the clerk file a motion to dismiss the initial complaint as well A Yes After the state attorney filed his motion to dismiss the initial complaint what did the Post do in response A After the initial Well we filed an amendment to the to the complaint Did you take a look at whether there were other causes of action you could assert A Yes We decided to develop the First Amendment issue in more depth and argue that the Post had rights under the First Amendment as well as the statute in conjunction with the statute to obtain the materials as well as an argument that I had developed which was that the Court has inherent authority as the ultimate supervisor of the grand jury system under the Florida Constitution to prevent abuse of the grand jury system and we felt that the Court had such authority That was the Clayton case that I was relying on Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page re going to pull up Exhibit which is the amended complaint in this matter Could you confirm to me that-31 the first amended complaint A Yes I see that on the board here Yes in front of me as well And ll turn to it but the state attorney answered Count of this amended complaint which was the count for declaratory judgment is that correct A That is correct They moved to Yes they moved to dismiss Count the purely statutory claim and they answered the declaratory judgment which was the mixture of First Amendment statute inherent authority of the Court What do you recall about reviewing the answer to the first amended complaint for declaratory relief A Well they continued to oppose the release of the materials under asserting grand jury secrecy and asserting that we didn have a claim under the statute I did note that they admitted in paragraph that the case was brought in good faith and that-31 particularly the declaratory judgment one That stood out to me Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page ll pull that up I think ve seen it a couple times ll pull it up Please let me know if this comparison of Exhibit and Exhibit is the paragraph re talking about A Right right yes that they refused to provide access through their objection to the clerk to testimony minutes and other evidence Again this was not just simply transcripts It was much broader than that And that a good faith dispute exists and they admitted all of that Did Count for declaratory relief seek to force the state attorney to produce documents that he did not have A No Did the state attorney position that his office did not have possession or custody of the grand jury materials end the need for his office to be a party to the declaratory relief claim A No and really the proof of that is what actually occurred which is they moved forward with their motion to dismiss and ultimately a motion for summary judgment So they opposed the release of the materials as was their right under the statute Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page asserting grand jury secrecy So it actually proved why we put them in the case which is to give them the opportunity on behalf of the office officially to assert grand jury secrecy which is what they did So in effect it worked They took advantage of the opportunity and asserted that we were not entitled to it under the statute-31.1 grand jury secrecy provisions On June 8th Judge Marx did Judge Marx enter an order on the motion to dismiss Count under Florida Statute A She did And what was what was the ruling A She determined that the Post lacked well that the statute did not create a private right of action that it was limited to those who were seeking the materials in the pending civil case and a pending criminal case so she did it on a very narrow ground That order sorry A Go right ahead Mr Mendelsohn go ahead Okay that order did not address the declaratory judgment claim in Count did it A No When did the state attorney send its initial what he calls place-marker demand letter Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page and motion for fees A Within hours of the order from Judge Marx was issued I believe on June And at that point why was the state attorney kept in the case A Well they were still objecting to disclosure under Count under the declaratory judgment They were still asserting that grand jury secrecy and the statute could not be overcome by the First Amendment or by the Court-31.1 inherent authority and that the Court-31.2 inherent authority was limited by the statute which we obviously thought was sort of the other way that the statute or the legislature could not inhibit the Court inherent authority because the judiciary had its rights and the legislature had its rights So that issue still remained Did you write to the state attorney-31.1 counsel and lay out the reasons for continuing to include the state attorney in the case A Yes my letter of June 23rd And ll go ahead and pull that up Exhibit Is that the letter that you re referring to A Yes Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page And your letter set forth the reasons why the state attorney was named as a party in the case A Yes and continued to be named A Yes Did the state attorney-31.1 office ever address the second reason for keeping the state attorney in the case in response to this letter A I never received a written response to this letter And that second reason was that he was the that the state attorney office was an official tasked with protecting grand jury secrecy A Correct And in your letter did you cite a case to the state attorney A Yes I cited to In re Grand Jury Proceedings the 11th Circuit case Did you have discussions with the state attorney counsel after this point after writing this letter A Yes with Mr Wyler And what were they A What are we going to do about this case essentially Is the state attorney going to oppose us Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Is he continuing to oppose us Because I never received a response to my June 23rd letter and I wanted it to be understood that we honestly believed that the state attorney had a necessary role to play in their official capacity We were hopeful that they would take a neutral position but they remained adamant that they had to protect grand jury secrecy under the statute which we respected And I want to know the substance of settlement discussions if there were any but did settlement discussions go on with the state attorney-31.1 counsel after the June 23rd letter A Yes Yes they did And is that indicated on the timeline here of June June 8th to October 15th A Yes With Mr Wyler yes Mr Wyler A He was a very nice man on the phone We had very good conversations very professional The state attorney filed his motion for fees on July 1st is that correct A Yes And is this the state attorney first motion for fees that was filed on July 1st A It is Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Did the initial motion as filed set forth any of the grounds for the motion A No it It just said that they were entitled to So after this point did you did the Post and Greenberg seek discovery from the clerk A Yes And this was in the litigation A Yes What discovery did you seek from the clerk A We wanted to know whether or not any well first whether the state attorney under Mr Krischer had asked for any of the materials that the clerk had had and also whether the FBI and U.S Attorney Office had asked the clerk to provide such materials And the clerk indicated to us in response to a request that the clerk office had done so though they were vague as to why and when And what did you serve interrogatories A Yes and document A Requests yes We wanted to see a log of the materials in the grand jury sealed that the clerk had sealed We hoped that there was a log indicating Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page what was in there not really specifically what was in there but by category whether it was a transcript whether there were exhibits and/or whether there were affidavits or whether there were deposition transcripts Whatever there was in there we wanted to understand The clerk had responded that they don-31 keep a log so they couldn-31.1 tell us unless the seal was broken what was in there In August of the state attorney-31.1 office filed a motion for summary judgment is that correct A Yes And Exhibit please Is this the state attorney motion for summary judgment on the screen A Yes it is Yes And in support of this motion for summary judgment did Mr Aronberg file an affidavit in support A He did Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page At this point after the affidavit had been filed had the state attorney responded to another one of the reasons that he had been named as a necessary party to the action A No They focused exclusively on possession rather than their position protecting the grand secrecy issue which they had advocated for So did the state attorney-31.1 affidavit and motion for summary judgment address In re Grand Jury Proceedings or any of that any point in your letter about his office being able to prevent the clerk from releasing grand jury materials A No they never responded to that Was there still a factual issue At this time in August was there still a factual issue as to whether the state attorney had physical possession of copies of grand jury materials A Well we knew at one point Mr Krischer obviously had to have had such We also had We were of the belief that there were communications on very strong grounds between Mr Krischer office and Mr Dershowitz and other defense counsel as well as the FBI and U.S Attorney leading up to and including the indictment the non-prosecution agreement as well as the sentencing report Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page We never received any such and we knew they were out there Exactly who had them where they were we weren-31 sure We learned in hindsight that the U.S Attorney-31.1 Office had been provided with such by the clerk-31.1 office This is the Palm Beach County clerk-31.1 office So fast forwarding a bit to October 2nd did Greenberg and the Post sorry did the Post file a response to the state attorney-31.1 first place-marker motion A We did And if you could pull up Exhibit A Which one is this exhibit A That what I thought Okay Is this the Post response memorandum of law of the plaintiff to the state attorney-31.1 A That is correct sanction motion A Yes I drafted this yes On page Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page ability to object to release of grand jury records A Yes I cited to In re Grand Jury Proceedings again If you look at the screen is that on page Is that where you cited to A Correct And at this point the state attorney still had not responded to this reason he was named as a party is that correct A Yes So then on October 14th did the state attorney file a reply to this response A Yes Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Correct What happened is the state attorney never noticed the first motion they filed for fees for a hearing and they still haven-31 done that So never been noticed for hearing There was a little dispute between myself and Mr Wyler as to whether or not the fee motion that he had filed in June should be heard first or their motion for summary judgment should be heard first and there was a case management conference before Judge Hafele and Judge Hafele decided that the state attorney could decide the order of when that would occur So not knowing when what hearing would go first I filed a response to their fee motion that they filed back in June and that was Exhibit and then he responded in Exhibit And I ll call your attention to pages through of Exhibit and the state attorney-31.1 reply A Yes and where highlighted on the screen A Yep I see that It says Nonetheless the state attorney has no objection and never has had any objection to the clerk releasing the records sought by the plaintiff Was this the first time the state attorney the state attorney stated his office would not object Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page to the release of grand jury materials if ordered by the Court A Yes So after your reply sorry after your response on October 2nd then on October 14th the state attorney for the first time stated in a filing that he had no objection to the production of Epstein grand jury materials by the clerk A accurate yes Was this a change from the state attorney prior position about releasing grand jury materials A Absolutely How would you describe the change from the initial from his initial response to the initial complaint to this reply A Initially they fulfilled why they were in the case which is they objected to the release of the materials under and now they were taking a neutral position and they were no longer advocating the supremacy of and its secrecy provisions as a bar or prevention or preventive for the release of grand jury materials They were no longer taking that position They were no longer taking any position What was your reaction to this change A Well I was pleased Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Did you send a letter a settlement letter on October 15th in response to this October 14th position in the reply A Yes I did it pretty quickly after I saw it The next day A The next day Well I started writing it on the 14th but yes we sent it on the next day Okay and I ll pull up Exhibit Is this your letter to Mr Wyler with regard to the reply A Yes Since they had changed to a neutral position I didn-31 see a point in discussing whether or not they should remain in the case and what the purpose of this was And in it you say you were pleased about them changing A Yes yes In the second paragraph I said I was pleased to read that they the state attorney clear and unequivocal statement in their response filed yesterday that their office will not oppose the Post-31 request for access to the Jeffrey Epstein grand jury materials I was pleased Once the state attorney-31.1 office said that it would no longer object to release of the grand jury Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page materials by the clerk what was and the response A We had a team meeting and ultimately discussion with the Post as to whether or not the state attorney should remain in the case We had for the first time Mr Aronberg-31.1 affidavit He had previously stated that position but for the first time in a pleading or an affidavit filed in the case he said he clearly have possession And now taking a neutral position Because of the change in position that this neutrality had now created we had a very serious discussion as to whether or not he should remain in the case because remember one of the necessary party prongs that I had mentioned previously was to give Mr Aronberg the opportunity as state attorney to voice either his objection to the release or his neutrality or maybe his support Now he decided to change from opposition to neutrality and since that was the case we determined ultimately to drop him from the case that there was no he had exercised his option and made a decision and we were happy that he had done so Was What date was the state attorney dropped as a party to the action A It was in October Was it October 21st Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f REDACTED Page ll pull up Exhibit A Okay ve got it in front of me It was October 21st And is this Exhibit the notice of dropping the state attorney as a party A Correct After this days after this did the state attorney file an amended motion for fees under A He did Is that the motion we re here on today A Correct the only one that the state attorney has noticed for hearing re pulling up Exhibit and once up I like you to confirm is this the amended motion for sanctions that re here on today A Yes Was this amended motion ever served on you or the Post anytime before it was filed A No Does the amended motion set forth new and different BCs for the motion for sanctions than compared to the first what they call place-marker motion A Absolutely What were some of those new arguments Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Well ultimately the major new argument was that he now had neutrality in the case That was a massive change in the position of the state attorney which was not the situation back when they first made their place-holder motion and this is the words they used back in June This was a sea change as far as we were concerned in the status of the case And you told the state attorney that was the basis for its joinder back in the beginning of the case A As a necessary party yes And since they were no longer advocating secrecy and now had adopted neutrality that why we dropped them from the case And ll move to what I think is going to be my last exhibit the final judgment which is Exhibit A Yes Did the Post So did the Post file a motion for summary judgment against the clerk A Yes as to the declaratory relief claim A Yes They were the remaining party in the case And Judge Hafele heard argument on that motion for summary judgment Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A He heard it for about two and a half hours yes And was this the same declaratory judgment count that had been asserted against the state attorney that had been dismissed against him after he said he had no objection to the clerk releasing documents A It was Count That was the same count that we had against the state attorney and the clerk and that had been dropped against the state attorney at the time I argued the motion for summary judgment in front of Judge Hafele in September of or August of And Judge Hafele entered an order on a motion for summary judgment which became this final judgment is that right A Correct And going through it on page the Court noted that the Post position was Well ll ask you what was the Court-31.1 reaction in the final judgment to the presentations given by the Post A Ultimately Judge Hafele determined that his hands were while he recognized that the Court had inherent authority and that inherent authority covered the supervision of prosecutorial abuse of the grand jury process he felt constrained by the statute which was So he felt ultimately that he could not exercise Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page inherent authority because of the limitations that he thought contained though without sounding too egotistical he was very effusive to the work that Greenberg Traurig had done as well as the work done by the clerk-31.1 counsel So ll draw attention to page It says The newspaper makes strong arguments to advance its more expansive construction of Section A Right as part of furthering justice And then page it says The Court acknowledges the newspaper vibrant and sincere arguments Was that Was that comment with regard to Count A Yes And the count re here on today A Correct That matter is on appeal The final judgment is on appeal Thank you That was my next question A Okay Okay Okay one last question sorry two Did you have any discussions with the editorial side of the Post having anything to do with the decision to sue the state attorney Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A None There was a firewall between the legal arguments we were making here and whatever the Post was writing both editorially and factually I had absolutely no conversations with the Post nor did any member of my team as to what they were going to write not my role to tell the paper what it wants to or not write or not write so the legal positions that we adopted in this case were were the positions that we as Greenberg Traurig and the paper came to the conclusion of based upon the facts and the law As to what the Post may have wanted to write or did write I have zero input into that nor did Mr Grygiel nor did Ms Boyajian I didn even know what was going to be printed until I read it in the paper so I did not know one word they were going to put in the paper Last question Did suing the state attorney in this case have anything to do with a personal vendetta against the state attorney A Well I voted for Mr Aronberg No So no A We have a mutual friend So I have no animus against him at all I not happy he has me sitting up here to be honest with you but you know I understand why he has me up here I get that not Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page happy being associated with Mr Epstein The man was reprobate He was one of the lowest forms of humanity So even having my name in an article even if not accused of something I can understand why not happy about it But I we do this out of animus or lack of preparation This was a sober decision against someone in their official capacity sorry that he feels personally offended by this but we took great pains to make sure that there were no allegations in the amended complaint and the complaint accusing him of anything or of any wrongdoing of any kind because just not the case that we have in front of us Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page minutes probably more like THE COURT Okay so you know from Amelia Island to here is five hours MR WYLER Yes sir THE COURT re almost in Georgia MR WYLER Exactly Your Honor I will be here whenever you need me to be here ll make it happen THE COURT Thursday or Friday MR WYLER Honestly THE COURT How about Thursday MR WYLER how about Thursday Yeah Thursday would be better THE COURT Okay all right we ll come back in Thursday MR MENDELSOHN In the afternoon Your Honor THE COURT Come back Thursday probably p.m Give me one minute Brief interruption THE COURT All right so the only thing left is cross examination redirect and then are the parties going to write closing arguments Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page THE COURT I prefer closing arguments that are written I think things are more coherent You know I think the logic is tighter If the parties mind writing closing arguments I would prefer that Okay do you want to bring your closing argument I mean I can anticipate you probably know what re going to argue Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page THE COURT All right so ll come back Thursday p.m THE WITNESS Am I excused Your Honor from the stand THE COURT Yes THE WITNESS Thank you THE COURT I know we have guests You know the Wall Street Journal will write reprobate It a big word a big word All right anything else Have a great day everybody re in recess The hearing adjourned at p.m Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Page COURT CERTIFICATE STATE OF FLORIDA COUNTY OF PALM BEACH I Lisa Begley RPR RMR certify that I was authorized to and did stenographically report the foregoing proceedings and that the transcript is a true and complete record of my stenographic notes Dated this 12th day of September Lisa Begley RPR RMR Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com a 11th 14th 15th 17th 1st Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com 20th 21-day 21st 23rd a 27th 2nd 30th 3rd a Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com a a 8th 9th A ability above-captioned above-described absolutely abuse abused accepting access accessed accompanied accompanying accounts accurate accuse accused accusing achieve acknowledge acknowledged acknowledges acolytes Acosta Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com acted action actual adamant add addition additional address addressed adjourned administration administrations admission admit admits admitted admittedly admitting adopted advance advantage advocate advocated advocating affidavit affidavits affirm affirmative afforded after-the-fact afternoon agenda agenda-driven agree agreed agreement aha ahead aimed Alan Albany Alex Alexander allegation allegations allege allowed allowing aloud alternative amassed Amelia amended Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com amendment Amendments amount amounts ancillary and/or anew Angeles animus announce anticipate Antonacci anytime apologize apparently appeal Appeals appearances appears appellate applicable application applied applies apply approach appropriately approximately arguable argue argued arguendo arguing argument arguments Aronberg Aronbergs Aronson Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com arose arrest arrested article articles articulately asks assembled assert asserted asserting assertion assistant associates assume assuming attached attacked attacking attacks attempt attention attorney attorneys attorneys attorneys August Authorities Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com authority authorized authorizing AV award awarded awarding aware B-A-I-L-Y-N-S O-N bachelors back background backing backwards bad Bailynson ball Bankunited bar barred Barry based basically basis Bates battles BCS Beach bearing beating began beginning behalf belief believed believes Belle Bideau Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com big binder binders bit blah block blow board Boca Bock boil book botch bottom box Boyajian break bright bring broad broader broken brought Broward Buitrago burden Bureau business CA call called calling calls canceled capacity care cared Carolonga case Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com cases catch category Catholic center central century cetera challenge chance change changed changing chapter charge chat chief chose Circuit circumstance circumstances cite cited cites citizens civil civilly claim claims clarification Clayton clear clerk clerks client close closer closing closings closure Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com cocaine coherent coincidently Colgate commended comment commercial common communications community compare compared comparison compelling competent competitor complaint completely complicated complied comply compromise comptroller concern concerned conclude concluded conclusion conclusions condensed conduct conducted conference confidential confirm conjunction connection consideration considered consistent Constitution constitutional constrained construction construe construed contacted contacting contained contentions contingency contingency-fee continue continued continuing contract contractual contrary Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com control conversations copies copy copyright corner corollary correct correspondence counsel counsels count country counts County Countys couple court courts Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com courtroom courts cover coverage covered covering crack create created creates creation credibility criminal cross cudgel cumulative curiously custodian custody cut damage damaging database date dated dates Dave David Davis day days DCA deal dealt debate decide decided decision declaration declaratory declare defamation defects defend Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com defendant defendants defendants defending defense Defenses defer degree deliberation deliver demand demands demonstrative denial denied deny denying depends deposed deposition depth derogation Dershowitz describe deserve Design destroy deter determination determined determines determining develop developed devoid difference diligence direct directly disagree disciplinary disclose disclosed disclosing disclosure discourage discovery discussed discussing discussion discussions disingenuous dislike dismiss Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com dismissal dismissed dismisses dismissing dispense dispositive dispute disputes distracted District divert divided document documentation documents domain Douglas drafted drafting draw drawn drive drop dropped dropping due duly duty earlier early easier easy economics editorial editorially educational effect effusive egotistical egregious Eighth elected email embarrass embarrassing empaneled emphasize Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com employees employment enclosure encouraging end engage engagement enter entered entire entirety entities entitled entity Epstein Epsteins equal ESQ essential essentially establish established establishment estate event eventually evidence evident ex-wifes exact exaggerated examination exceptional exceptions exclusively excuse excused exempt exercise exercised exhibit exhibits Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com exist existed existing exists expanded expansive expect expectation experience experienced expert experts explain explained explaining exposed extension extensive extent extra extraordinary extreme extremely F-E-R-E-R-E Facebook facets fact facts factual factually failed fails fair fairly faith familiar family fast favor FBI federal feds fee feel feels fees Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com felt Ferere Ferlanti Fifteen fight file filed files filing filings final finally find finding findings finds fine finish finished firestorm firewall firm firms five-minute flesh fleshing flip flipping Florida focus focused focusing follow force forced fore forms Fort forward forwarding found Fourteenth Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Fourth frankly fraud Friday friend friends frivolous front front-page fulfill fulfilled full furtherance furthering G-R-Y-G-I-E-L game gave general Generals generally genuine Georgia Gerard give Glade goal good govern governs grace graduated grand grant granted granting great Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com greater Greenberg ground grounds group Grygiel Grygiels guess guests guide guys Hafele Hafeles half hand handle handled hands happen happened happy harass harbor hard hate head heads hear heard hearing hearings hearsay held helped helps Herald hero hey hid hiding high higher highlight highlighted hindsight hired history Hofstra hold Holdings honest honestly Honor Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Honors hope hoped hopeful host hours hours Howard humanity hundreds I idea impacted important importantly imposed impossibility impossible impression improper improperly in-camera in-depth inch Incidentally include included includes including inconsistent independently indicating indication indictment individual inform information informed informing inherent inhibit initial initially initiative injure inmate input inquiry insisted Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com instance instructed intentionally interest interested interesting Internet interpret interpretation interpretations interprets interrogatories interruption intervening introduce investigation investigations investigative investigatory involved involves involving irrelevant Island issue issued issues items J.D J2 J6 J9 Jacobs Jail James January Jeanne Jeffrey Jennifer joinder joint Journal Judge Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com judgment judicial judiciary July June jurisdiction jurisdictional jury jurys justice justified K-A-M K-A-M-E Kame keeping Kelly key kill kind knew knowing knowledge Krischer Krischers Labor Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com lack lacked lacks Lago laid Langen language large late latest Lauderdale Lauren law laws lawsuit lawsuits lawyer lawyers lay leader leading learned leave left legal legislative legislature legitimate leniency lenient letter letters licensed lies light Likewise limitations limited Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com lines link litigation litigator LLC located log logic logical long longer looked Lorenza Los lose losing lost lot lower lowest luck made main major make makes making man management mark Marx Marxs Mary massive material materials matter Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com means mechanism media medias meeting member memorandum Mendelsohn Mendelsohns mentioned mentioning merit meritless merits message met Miami Michael middle Mike miles mind minute minutes misleading missing misspoke misuse misusing mixture modification modified monetary money months Mortgage motion Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com motions mouthpiece move moved moving Mulhull multiple mutual names named naming narrative narrow national navigate necessarily needed needless negotiate neutral neutrality news newspaper newspapers newspapers nice nickel Nina nods non-prosecution noncurable Nonetheless notably note noted notes notice noticed notify noting Notwithstanding November number Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com numbers numerous object objected objecting objection objections obligation obligations obstruct obtain obtained obtaining obvious occasionally occur occurred October offended offhand office offices official officially officials Olympus one-sided ongoing online open opening Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com operative opportunity oppose opposed opposing opposite opposition option oratory order ordered original originally filed outlet outright outset overcome overestimate overruled owe p.m pages paid pains palatable Palm paper paragraph paralegal paralegals part participate participated parties partner partners party Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com partys past pay pending people perception perform performance period person personal personally persons persuasive pertinent Peter petition phase phone phonetic phrase physical picked pinned place place-holder place-marker plaintiff plaintiffs plaintiffs plaintiffs play played playing plea pleading pleadings pleased plenty point points police popped portal portion position Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com positions possess possessed possession post Posts post-19 post-trial posted posting posts posturing power powers practice precluded predator predecessor predecessors preeminent prefer prefers prejudgment prejudice preparation present presentation presentations presented President press pretty prevail prevailing prevent prevented prevention preventive previous Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com previously primarily primary prime principal printed prior private problem procedural procedure proceeding proceedings process produce produced produces producing production professional profit prohibit prohibits prongs proof proper prosecute prosecuted prosecution prosecutorial protect protecting protection prove proved provide provided providing province provision provisions public publish publisher pull Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com pulling purely purpose purposes pursuant pursued put putting puzzled qualification question questions quick quicker quickly quote raise raised raises ran Randy rated Raton re-arrest reach reached reaction read reading ready real reason reasonable reasonableness reasons recall receive received recess recognize recognized recollection record Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com records redirect reevaluate reference referenced references referencing referring refresh refused refuted regard regular Reiter reiterate reiterating related relating relationship release released releasing relevance relevant relied relief reliefs rely relying remain remainder remained remaining remarks remember reminded reminder remotely Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com removed repeat repeatedly reply report reported reporter reporting represent representing represents reprobate request requested requesting requests require required requirement requirements requires research researching reserved resign respect respected respectfully respond responded responding response responses responsibility rest restate rests result resulted revelations reversal reversed review reviewed reviewing rights road role Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com rolling room rooted rule rules ruling rulings run rush Rutherford safe safe-harbor sanction sanctioned sanctions SAO scenario Scholz School Schultz scooped screen sea seal sealed seated secrecy secret Secretary section securities seek seeking seeks sell send sending sense sentence sentencing September series serve served serving set settlement Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Seventh sexual shareholder Sharon shed Shore short shortly show showing shown shows sic side sidelines Sidlosca signed significant silent simply sincere sir sitting situation skills slash slide slow So.3d sober social sole solely solemnly sort sought Sound sounding sounds Southern speaking specific specifically speculation spent spoke spoken stamp stand standard standing start started starting starts state Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com stated statement statements states Statistics status statute statutes statutes statutorily statutory stay stayed stems step Stephen steps stipulated stonewalling stood stop story streamline Street strict strictly strike strong Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com stuff stymied subject submitted subpoena subsection subsections subsequent substance substantial substantive success suddenly sue sued sufficient suggested suing suit summary summer summons Sun-sentinel Super supervised supervision supervisor supervisory supplement support supported supporting supposed supremacy Supreme surprised surrogate surrounding sustain Sustained swear sweetheart sworn system tab tabulation taking talk talked talking talks targeting task tasked taxpayer Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com taxpayers team telling terms terrible testified testify testimony texts thing things thinking thinks Thirty Thomson thought thoughtful Thursday tighter time timeline times timing today told tomorrow top total totally Town trademark transcript transcriptions transcripts transparency Traurig Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Traurigs trial true Trumps Trust truth truthfully turn tweet twist Twitter two-page twofer type types U.S Uh-huh ultimate ultimately unambiguously unanswered unchanged underlying undermined understand understanding understood undisputed unequivocal United University unquote unsupported untenable upcoming upset Upstate USC utilized vague Valparaiso variety vendetta versed version versus vibrant victim victims view violated voice void voluminous voluntarily voluntary voted wait Wall wanted Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Wargo ways Web week weeks whatsoever Whetstone whim wiggle Wille win wins withdraw withdrawn withdrew witnesses woman won word wording words work worked working worth worthwhile write writes writing written wrong wrongdoing wrote Wyler years Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com yesterday York young Zoom Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com PHIPPS REPORTING Raising the Bar CA Florida Holdings L.L.C vs Dave Aronberg Hearing Before Judge Luis Delgado September PHIPPS REPORTING Raising the Bar IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE 15TH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR PALM BEACH COUNTY FLORIDA CASE NO AG CA FLORIDA HOLDINGS LLC Publisher of the PALM BEACH POST Plaintiff vs DAVE ARONBERG as State Attorney of Palm Beach County Florida SHARON BOCK as Clerk and Comptroller of Palm Beach County Florida Defendants TRANSCRIPT OF CONTINUATION OF HEARING PROCEEDINGS RE Defendant Dave Aronbergs Amended Motion for Attorneys Fees DATE TAKEN Thursday September TIME p.m p.m PLACE PALM BEACH COUNTY COURTHOUSE North Dixie Highway Courtroom West Palm Beach Florida BEFORE LUIS DELGADO JR Circuit Judge Stenographically reported by Lisa Begley RPR RMR Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Page APPEARANCES On behalf of the Plaintiff GREENBERG TRAURIG South Flagler Drive Suite East West Palm Beach Florida BY Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Page I WITNESS PAGE STEPHEN MENDELSOHN ESQ Cross Examination by Mr Wyler Redirect Examination by Ms Whetstone Non-movant rests Certificate of Reporter Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Thereupon the following proceedings began at p.m THE COURT All right please be seated All right announce your presence Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page that the evidence that youre about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth THE WITNESS I do Thereupon STEPHEN MENDELSOHN ESQ having been duly sworn by the Clerk of the Court responded and testified as follows CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR WYLER Good afternoon Mr Mendelsohn A Good afternoon Mr Wyler So Im going to start off with this Isnt it true that part of the exhibits that weve all agreed on that are here and part of evidence are some of the portions of our settlement negotiations A There is one letter yes Okay And isnt it true you and I talked several times regarding settlement A Sure And isnt it also true that during the pendency of our settlement negotiations Mr Aronberg was contacted by the same reporter that the SAO had previously prosecuted for illegal substances Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page foundation MR WYLER Thats fine THE COURT All right BY MR WYLER Isnt it true though that Mr Aronberg and Mike Edmondson contacted you to complain about an article that was being written about him A No no Ive never spoken to Edmondson that I remember Well okay Thats fine But you did speak with Mr Aronberg right A No I dont recall speaking to anyone on this matter unless he was on the phone with you Other than that no Okay well then part of when we spoke and maybe you didnt know Mr Aronberg and Mike Edmondson were on the phone with us but isnt it true that there was a time when you and I spoke in settlement negotiations that you offered to hold an article pending our settlement negotiations Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page THE COURT What exhibit are you talking about MR WYLER I dont actually have an exhibit that is part of evidence but I do have an exhibit that is not part of evidence that I will offer to the Court THE COURT That is good then Objection is sustained A That is absolutely untrue BY MR WYLER So youre saying that never happened A No Mr Aronberg through you suggested that in the settlement that the paper would write a favorable article about him if we were able to settle You suggested that I didnt make a comment one way or the other but I absolutely advised my client of it I dont make editorial decisions for the paper so I have no authority to make such So youre saying there was never a conversation between you and I where we discussed Mr Aronberg creating a comment to go into the newspaper as part of those settlement negotiations where you wanted us to drop our demand and you offered to get an article held while we determined whether we would do that Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Are you reading from the amended complaint That is found at page Bates stamp number paragraph of the first amended complaint Ill be happy to show it to you A Well if youll just let me know where in the amended complaint it is what paragraph Paragraph THE COURT Whats the Bates stamp MR WYLER Your Honor A Yes sir thats part of what I said in paragraph BY MR WYLER But there was an allegation that my client is in possession and/or control of the documents A In his official capacity as his office is in possession and/or control of documents that are the subject of this action And in the prior sentence I quoted Florida Statute which provides for the attorney excuse me the state attorney to have authority over grand jury proceedings in the state of Florida Okay Isnt it also true in the first amended complaint that your client admitted that it is not it is not seeking these materials in connection with either a civil or criminal case and therefore Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page sought unlimited access to the requested materials under A Again thats a compound question Im not sure which one goes first Isnt it If you would look at Bates stamp page A I dont have the Bates stamps in front of me All I have is the exhibits sir Okay They should be on there in the bottom left corner A Which one is it A Okay Im sorry what is your question sir Didnt you admit on that page that you are not seeking these requested materials in connection with either a civil or criminal case A A pending Right that is correct Okay A The Post was not seeking these documents in a pending criminal or civil case involving the Post That is correct Thank you And did you also seek unlimited access to those requested materials for that reason A No thats not accurate Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page If you look Would you look at Bates at that Bates stamp I just provided you A Yes I believe its on here A Are you looking at Uh-huh A on Exhibit Yes Im looking at that sir Okay and if you would look at paragraph A Sure And then do you see one two three the fourth line down in the sentence that starts with Because A Yes Okay It says Because the Palm Beach Post is not seeking these materials in connection with either a civil or criminal case it seeks a declaration that the scope of its use of the disclosed materials is not limited A Right not limited to a civil or criminal case but that the Post had the right under section of in furtherance of justice We were always seeking an in-camera inspection of the documents by the Court prior to any release to the Post Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Did that argument succeed in your claim against the clerk A Which one That you had no connection with the civil or criminal case and to get unlimited to get unlimited access A Well again we werent seeking unlimited access As I just mentioned we were always seeking an in-camera inspection by the Court prior to release to us So we were not seeking unlimited access nor immediate access to the documents You werent All right were going to move on Isnt it true that the other day you testified that you sued my client because you needed him not to object to your request for these materials A I needed him not to object No I gave him the opportunity to do actually three things One is to support our request two they could have taken a neutral position or three they could have objected Initially the state attorneys office took the position to object and as I think I testified they eventually changed the position in October of to neutrality And you believe thats a proper basis for Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page filing this lawsuit against my client A That they adopted a neutrality position Im not clear what youre asking me Oh no that you needed him not to object A That I needed him not to object No Unless you wanted A Im sorry did I step on you sir No youre fine A No That I needed him not to object No I gave the state attorneys office the option to make in their discretion to make the decision as to what they wanted to do vis grand jury secrecy And as I stated You know if you look at the paragraph you quoted before thats paragraph of the first amended complaint I cite to Florida Statute which gives the state attorney the authority over grand juries and if you look at the cases cited under there are a number of them which say that the state attorney has very very broad powers in the conduct of a grand jury so Thank you Mr Mendelsohn Lets move on A Okay In your long practice as an attorney is it your understanding that clear unambiguous statutory language has to be enforced as written Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Well there are circumstances where the courts have implied causes of action Thats the famous United States Supreme Court case of Cort Ash where the Court said that even if Congress did not specifically authorize a cause of action that in certain circumstances if Congress did not bar such you could have an implied cause of action That comes also for Section of the securities laws Okay but A And Florida has that too All right But in your research you stated that you went through right A Exactly yes Okay And you came across this language right Im going to read this to you When such disclosure is ordered by a Court pursuant to subsection for use in a civil case it may be disclosed to all parties to the case and to their attorneys and by the latter to their legal associates and employees however the grand jury testimony afforded such persons by the Court can only be used in the defense or prosecution of the civil or criminal case and for no other purpose whatsoever You came across that language when you were doing the research right Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Absolutely And do you recall my client asserting that as a defense from the beginning from our first interaction first legal filing in this A Yes you made a motion to dismiss arguing that the Post did not Well take a yes It was a yes or no A Well you asked me if your client did that and I was answering it So the answer Ill take it as a yes or no A May I finish my answer without interruption The answer is yes you made a motion to dismiss under and asserted that the materials could only be used in a civil or criminal case Of course we disputed that because of which is the furtherance of justice language And did that did that argument was this argument successful in your action against the clerk A It was never addressed by the Court So youre telling me that Judge Hafele never brought up or in his final judgment A No Im suggesting the way you characterize it was not the way Judge Hafele decided Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Judge Hafele in his final judgment said that he felt constrained by the statute vis his inherent authority as a judge While he wanted as a judge to exercise his inherent authority to allow for disclosure he felt that the statute constrained him in doing so because it did not expressly so state that it could be used outside of the civil or criminal case Thats what I believe Judge Hafele said Do you have a copy of the final judgment in front of you A Yes What exhibit is it Its tab A Okay Okay All right tab or Bates A Sure The newspaper makes strong arguments to advance No No sir No sir A Im sorry No sir Let me redirect Let me direct you to the first paragraph here under Emphasis Added Do you see it says Reading subsection A Right Could you read that until the cite for the amended complaint please Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Right Reading subsection furthering justice which is in quotes and parentheses in tandem with section it is evident that the phrase quote furthering justice end quote is to be interpreted in the context of seeking disclosure of the grand jury materials for use in a pending criminal or civil case Keep going A Yep The newspaper acknowledges that it is not seeking the disclosure of such materials for such purpose Instead Thats it Thank you Mr Mendelsohn A But its not the Mr Mendelsohn THE STENOGRAPHER Im sorry I cant take this THE COURT Gentleman gentleman were here for trial and youre being cross-examined THE WITNESS Your Honor maybe for the rule of completeness I would like to be able to read the entire sentence THE COURT So right now youre testifying Its your witness Whats your next inquiry MR WYLER Thank you Your Honor May I Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page continue with this final judgment Your Honor BY MR WYLER I would like you Mr Mendelsohn to flip to page of that same final judgment At the very top of that page could you read that first sentence for me too for me A Subsection clearly limits Section sic scope as to the instances in which grand jury testimony or materials need to be disclosed for use in a criminal or civil case And then You can keep going A Section provides that once grand jury testimony is disclosed in the course of a court proceeding it is then open to unlimited dissemination Before that occurs the Court must determine that one of the three needs prescribed in section is present in a criminal or civil case that requires disclosure Theres nothing in Section that gives the Court carte blanche which he has italics authority to release grand jury materials in any situation that might bear some relationship to quote furthering justice end quote in its broadest sense Thank you All right so moving on from in your extensive research of this case did you also come across Chapter Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Sure Okay and let me provide that to you sir MR WYLER This is tab of the or of the Authorities Your Honor tab BY MR WYLER Do you have it Mr Mendelsohn or would you like me to provide it A Its the amended and supplemental affidavit of attorneys fees and costs You dont have the Authorities binder A No I dont have the Authorities binder MR WYLER May I approach THE COURT Yes BY MR WYLER Heres a copy of A Yes Im familiar with this provision Great okay And then the very last sentence of that first paragraph it starts with The notes records and transcriptions Would you please read that for the Court A Im not sure where youre directing me sir Let me approach again and show you here Im sorry I didnt have this highlighted for you Right here very last sentence of that Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page first paragraph starts with The notes A Yes Will you please read that for the Court A Sure The notes records and transcriptions are confidential and exempt from the provisions of Section subdivision and Section a Article of the State Constitution and shall be released by the clerk only upon request by a grand jury for use by the grand jury or on order of the Court pursuant to Thank you Mr Mendelsohn And do you recall my client asserting this as a defense to your claim as well A Yes yes And isnt it true that your client and your firm and you yourself have been made aware several times that Mr Aronberg and his office have no ability to comply with your declaratory relief claim because they have no possession custody or control of those requested grand jury materials A Im aware thats your argument Youre aware that weve made that argument to you several times are you A Yes you made a motion to dismiss and a motion for summary judgment Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page And did we also put that argument in our demand A Yes Okay And isnt it true that you and your client have admitted that the clerk is the only one in possession and control of those requested grand jury materials A I dont believe so All right If I could direct the Court and you Mr Mendelsohn to tab and its Bates stamped A Yes sir And then the second paragraph starts with Also Can you just read Can you just read that first sentence for me Or Ill just read it here It says Also the clerk who admittedly has both possession and control of the Epstein grand jury materials has not followed the state attorneys lead in seeking sanction of the Palm Beach Post It says that in there correct A Well you didnt read it verbatim but essentially thats what it says yes It also says the clerks decision I didnt ask you what else it says A I know because it doesnt help you Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page But I didnt ask you that THE COURT Gentleman so this is the second time okay MR WYLER Thank you Your Honor THE COURT Lets maintain a little civility BY MR WYLER Mr Mendelsohn in your extensive involvement in this case how did you contribute to the June 3rd motion to dismiss hearing A How did I Yeah or did you A I didnt argue the motion but certainly as part of the group we had discussions as to how we thought it should be argued the potential arguments from the state attorneys office and what we thought would occur Did you attend via Zoom or A Yes Okay A I did And have you ever read the transcript of it A Some time ago yes Okay so then you were aware of Judge Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Marxs statements the ones that I read onto the record in my opening statement regarding the impossibility of performance for the records that you requested A I know she said that yes Okay Did you agree with Judge Marxs statements as to an impossibility of Mr Aronberg being able to comply A I took her statements as complete dicta since they were not before her as a question on the motion to dismiss I did not know what personal knowledge she had of what the state attorneys possession or nonpossession was So I did not credit it as being anything but a dicta statement from her So you or your firm no one objected to those statements then correct A There wasnt Im not sure what youre referring to Was there any objections made to any of those statements made objections or appeals made as to those statements made on the record in that hearing A I dont follow because you dont make objections to a judges comments Well through an appeal you would Did you file an appeal as to that motion to dismiss A No It wasnt necessary Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Okay Would you please flip to our Joint Exhibit Number A Sure Its also found at Bates stamp A Yes sir Okay do you do you recognize this as a copy of my clients demand letter and a copy of the email when it was sent to you A Yes I do And what day was it sent to you A June 8th Okay A of Thank you And then if you flip to the past the letter thats Bates stamp A Yes sir Do you Do you recognize this as the motion for attorneys fees that was sent along with that motion to or with that demand A Well it wasnt a motion It was an unsigned proposed motion that you were suggesting would be filed if we did not act within the 21-day safe harbor under Thats right And that Do you know when this motion for attorneys fees was actually filed Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A July the beginning of July of I believe If I told you July does that sound correct to you A Yes it does Okay And is that more than days after June 8th A Yes Its days beyond my math A I have no reason to doubt that If you look at I quoted in our In the demand youll see a quote of the Chapter subsection A What are you referring to now Do you see in my the demand letter still Exhibit A The demand letter thats Exhibit No no no Still on A Bates stamp A Yes Okay Do you see where the statutes quoted there in the middle of the page A Yes Can you tell me anywhere in there theres a Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page good faith element A No because you didnt quote the good faith element of the statute In subsection is there a good faith element A I believe there is a good faith element that wraps around the entire proceeding of Okay but in subsection itself is there a good faith element in that subsection A No but theres an additional good faith provision in that you didnt cite to in this letter Okay Now are you referring to subsection I can show you the statute A Let me just check here Im looking at my letter of June 23rd a thats what I was referring to Okay All right And now we talked about this before Can you a can you read subsection a for the Court A I dont have I have my letter which I can hand it to you A Sure Yeah absolutely Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Thank you Youre welcome a is right there A Notwithstanding subsections and monetary sanctions may not be awarded a under paragraph if the Court determines that the claim or defense was initially presented to the Court as a good faith argument for the extension modification or reversal of existing law or the establishment of new law as it is applied as it applied to the material facts for the reasonable expectation of success under section excuse me under paragraph a or paragraph against a losing partys attorney if he or she has acted in good faith based upon the representations of his or her client as to the existence of material facts under I just I just needed you to read a Thank you A Oh I wasnt sure So under a does that apply to subsection a of the statute or does it only say there A No if you look at a if you look at it says under paragraph a or paragraph against a losing partys attorney if he or she has acted in good faith Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Youre seeking fees against myself and No no A and Greenberg attorneys so I read that as being applicable Mr Mendelsohn youre skipping down to Thats not what I asked you a does that apply to a Does it say it in the statute Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page from that I believe the Court understands what Im saying So back to that demand letter Isnt it true in that demand letter that we asserted that your clients declaratory relief claim is not supported by the material facts to establish it A Thats what you say yes Okay we made that assertion yes A Thats what the state attorney asserted Yes sir okay And in making that assertion didnt he say that neither him or his office has custody or control of those records and thats its impossible for him to provide them He made that known to you in that letter A Thats what he said yes Okay Didnt that letter also say that your clients declaratory relief claim is unsupported by the application of the law to those facts A Well in a conclusory way yes but not in any specifics as to why we were wrong Well then maybe you should keep looking at that because if you flip to the second page of that demand letter do you see Section quoted as the reason for that assertion A Yes but if you recall there was more Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Thank you A there was more than one argument you were making and more than one argument we were making A review of this letter makes crystal clear Im sorry All right Okay lets go to tab number A Yes Do you recognize this as the letter where you rejected our demand A Yes Can I direct you to the very last paragraph of that letter A For these reasons we decline No sir No sir Ill point you The very last paragraph of this letter it starts with Also assuming A Thats actually Oh no Im sorry on the second page I didnt need that one A Thats actually the penultimate Then well start with the penultimate paragraph on A Right I see that yes It starts Also assuming First sentence please Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Also assuming the state attorney does not have physical possession of the grand jury materials there is nothing in Florida law that prohibits the state attorney from requesting the clerk provide copies to the state attorney Do you want me to keep reading No sir Thank you But I would like to redirect your attention again back to and that statement that you read earlier It says The notes records and transcriptions are confidential and exempt from the provisions of Section and Section a Article of the State Constitution and shall be released by the clerk only on request by a grand jury for use by the grand jury or on order of the Court pursuant to Section A Right Im familiar with that Okay A And that section refers to the clerk not to the state attorney Thank you Exactly Thank you A So theres nothing to prohibit the state attorney in this statute from asking the clerk for these materials All right isnt there a big difference between getting access from the clerk for materials and Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page disclosing the materials Isnt there a difference between that A I dont understand what youre asking Ill ask you again Isnt there a difference between accessing the materials and being able to disclose the materials A Once the clerk provides No no no Its a yes or no question A Then I dont understand what youre asking me to be honest with you Is there Is there a difference between saying Hey may I please have these records versus saying Here you go heres these records Newspaper A Well what youre what youre asking me is a twofold question I asked you one question Is there a difference between access and disclosure A No Once you access something its disclosed I dont understand what youre asking me sir I honestly dont Mr Mendelsohn Im sorry and I do not want to have I do not want to make the Court angry but weve got to stop talking over each other Im asking you a simple question You stated here that Mr Aronberg could get Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page access to these records through the Court through the clerk correct A He could ask the clerk for them and I didnt and I argued that there was nothing in the statute prohibiting him from asking the clerk for the clerk to give his office these documents yes sir Okay sure Okay thank you And so lets just say that happened A Okay The clerk gives Mr Aronberg asks the clerk for the records and the clerk gives them to him A Okay Thats not what you asked for in your lawsuit is it A Yes of course it is Mr Mendelsohn did you not does not your complaint request the complete the disclosure of these records from my client A But You asked Did you ask in your lawsuit for my client to hand these records over A No no No Okay A No because we had asked for the records to be examined by the Court in camera before they were ever Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page to be disclosed to the public In fact we stated in the amended complaint that the Court should review such documents and redact anything that would identify witnesses or potential witnesses or those who were not charged with a crime So its inaccurate for you to suggest that the paper just wanted it handed to them That was never the case Okay Lets look back at your complaint Its tab number Were going to look at Bates stamp and were going to look at your wherefore clause A Tab you say Yes A Yes A I see it Okay A Wherefore the Post the Palm Beach Post respectfully requests that the Court determine the rights and obligations of the parties by declaring that pursuant to Florida Statute Section and the Courts inherent authority the Palm Beach Post may gain access to the testimony minutes and other evidence presented in to the Palm Beach County grand jury and use those materials for the purpose of informing the Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page public Okay thank you And so in there it says that youre asking for the Palm Beach Post to gain access to the testimony is that correct A Yes after the Court examined them in camera How else would you gain access to testimony unless it was disclosed to you A Im You would not A Im not following what youre asking me Im really not Would you please look at tab A Dave Aronbergs motion for attorneys fees Uh-huh A Okay Its at Bates stamp A Right This is the one you made on July Correct And we went through that Before you said that was filed at least days after you received the demand correct A Well you said it was and I agreed with you And I said at least days Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Right Thank you So if I give you this Let me give you this statute again and ask you to look at subsection for me A Okay And if could you read that to the Court Thank you A A motion by a party seeking sanctions under this section must be served but may not be filed with or presented to the Court unless within days after service of the motion the challenged paper claim defense contention allegation or denial is not withdrawn or appropriately corrected Thank you And you and your client did not withdraw the claim for declaratory relief within that days after being served correct A Yes All right And then let me have you look at tab number or our Exhibit Number A Plaintiff Yes the notice of dropping State Attorney Dave Aronberg on October 21st that is the one you want me to look at Yes thats right Yep And thats the date it was filed October is that what you said Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Yes Okay And is that filing date more than days beyond when you were served with the A Youre confusing a lot of things there No Im not I asked you a question A I cannot answer that question I cant Okay A because its making a number of assumptions that are inaccurate No no no That was one simple question When were you served with the demand A Which one No no no You were only served with one demand A Thats correct Okay Im just asking which one A Right I wanted you to pin down what you did Okay you were served with one demand A Right What day was that A The letter was June 8th Okay And this And that gave you days from that date to change your position is that Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page correct A The statute gave me that yes Okay And then when did you actually change your position and drop Mr Aronberg A We dropped Mr Aronberg When you say changed position I dont know what youre referring to We dropped Mr Aronberg as a defendant in this case on October Okay and October is more than days after June 8th right A Yes Okay So then that fits with the statutory language then correct of what that 21-day it gives you days to withdraw and you didnt withdraw within days correct The statute subsection gives you days to withdraw the alleged A You are confusing a number of things that are happening so I cannot answer that question Youre assuming certain things that are not accurate so I cannot answer your question in the manner you put it to me Mr Mendelsohn its very simple Im just trying to establish that that that you filed your drop cure you dropped the claim against Mr Aronberg outside of the 21-day safe-harbor period correct Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A But you never moved you never filed a motion on the first motion you made for fees Okay A Thats not before us So youre confusing a safe-harbor for something youve never moved on versus dropping your client as a defendant after something else happened Okay so A So youre mixing two things together Im not I believe you are Okay so is it your position then that after you dropped Dave Aronberg as a client that A Hes not a client After Is it your position that after you dropped Dave Aronberg as a party from this lawsuit its your position that after you dropped him that another demand letter should have been sent to you A You didnt give us Just answer my question After you dropped Mr Aronberg from this lawsuit is it your position that you should have been served with another demand letter A Yes You didnt comply with for your amended motion for You did not comply with Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page it Yes that is the position Can you tell me after dropping Mr Aronberg from the lawsuit how your position how your clients position could have changed if they were served with another letter being that he was already out of the lawsuit A Well thats the problem you have because you served this motion without giving us the safe-harbor the amended motion Im referring to as well as the fact that you served it after we dropped him For jurisdictional purposes you cant do that How could I provide you a safe-harbor if you had already dropped him from the lawsuit A Mr Wyler with all due respect youre actually making my argument which is that is not applicable when your client is no longer part of the case Well then I guess we just have differing views on how to interpret that statute Mr Mendelsohn All right I just have a few more questions for you A Sure Id like to go I think Id like to go back to that final judgment That was tab A Okay Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page All right all right Im on Bates stamp and Im at the top of that page that first sentence A The clerks position Is that what youre reading from Yes yes Thats correct A The clerks position is that he is merely a custodian of the materials and as such he has no real interest in the issues before the Court as identified The clerk only needs direction from the Court on whether or not he should produce or disclose the materials Nonetheless the clerk has zealously advocated the position against disclosure based upon grand jury secrecy and confidentiality because Rule xvii of the Florida Rules of General Practice and Judicial Administration the clerk is required to maintain the confidentiality of grand jury records Yes will you read the next paragraph too please A The clerk is correct that his role as custodian of the materials is only to follow the Courts direction once confidentiality is determined The clerks role in this proceeding has been complicated or expanded because the newspaper filed this action as a Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page civil declaratory judgment action and has moved for summary judgment under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure However the proper procedure for obtaining disclosure of confidential Court records is set forth in Florida Rule of General Practice and Judicial Administration which only requires the filing of a quote motion end quote seeking disclosure Florida Rule of General Practice and Judicial Administration Want me to keep going Yeah just to the very end of that next sentence please A Accordingly the Court will treat the newspapers complaint and motion for summary judgment as a motion for disclosure under Rule excuse me As a result the Court need not determine as a matter of law whether the clerk of the Court is a proper defendant to the declaratory judgment for the release of the grand jury materials Thank you All right A Im sorry was there a question No Theres going to be Just one second When you filed this lawsuit were you familiar with Rule of the Rules of Judicial Administration Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page A Absolutely Then why didnt you just file a motion like the rule says says youre supposed to if you want confidential Court records and sued my client instead A First off the rule doesnt actually say that It says you may file a motion in a pending criminal or civil procedure Since there wasnt a pending criminal or civil proceeding we didnt view that motion as being necessary to be made Now this issue is before the Fourth DCA at the present time and the clerks taken the position in its answer brief that Rule is ambiguous and the actual procedure that needs to be followed is uncertain And in fact the clerks position is now that the Supreme Court must reassess how one would seek grand jury materials That was in their answer brief which Id be happy to provide to the Court along with our initial brief and reply brief which extensively discusses Rule but also argue that the clerk has now adopted a position of neutrality when it comes to the release of the grand jury materials In its answer brief it says it no longer opposes release of the materials Okay A It is now neutral on that issue Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Thank you Mr Mendelsohn In the Courts final judgment however it does say which you just read to the Court the proper procedure for obtaining disclosure of confidential records is set forth in Florida Rule of General Practice and Judicial Administration which only requires the filing of a motion seeking disclosure is that correct A Yes but at this time the state attorney was not a party and in fact the state attorney has never made any argument under Rule in this case It has never made such an argument But you were aware of that rule before you filed this lawsuit A Right and the clerk made this argument after we dropped the state attorney from this case That was the first time the clerk had made such The clerk made this argument that the rule was applicable in opposition to our motion for summary judgment which occurred after the state attorney had been dropped from the case So this was not an issue in the case either because your client did not raise it the clerk did not raise it and it was not before the Court until after your client was no longer a party So it was not an Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page issue that either you addressed or we addressed as part of your demand that we withdraw the case But you still knew about it before you filed the lawsuit right You knew about that rule A Of course Of course All right last question for you Isnt it true that your clients goal in obtaining these records from my client was for public disclosure Was that your end goal A After the Court examined them in camera and removed witness identification or people who hadnt been indicted that was actually discussed very much extensively in the oral argument before Judge Hafele and in fact he asked us particularly if I were and using Judge Hafeles words inclined to release these materials to the newspaper and the public it wasnt just the paper it was simultaneously to the public how would I go about redacting them Would I need to have someone else a master possibly review them How would I go about doing it And we had about a half hours worth of discussion as to how to accomplish that if he were inclined to grant disclosure So that absolutely was an issue before Judge Hafele Great So then the final goal was Was Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page the final goal to have these requested grand jury materials be able to be disclosed to the public A Absolutely Okay And that was without any connection to any underlying civil or criminal case correct A If youre asking me whether or not the Post was part of a civil or criminal case pending at the time no it was not You did not Did you request these records as part of a pending civil or criminal case A Involving the Post No MR WYLER Thank you No further questions A other than this lawsuit THE COURT Thank you Redirect examination REDIRECT EXAMINATION Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page paragraph A Yes I have that in front of me Can you read the entire paragraph please A Yes Id be happy to Defendant Dave Aronberg is the duly elected State Attorney for the 15th Judicial District in and for Palm Beach County Florida pursuant to Florida Statute Section and has authority in grand jury proceedings pursuant to Florida Statute Section He is sued in his official capacity as his office is in possession and/or control of documents that are the subject of this action So and Im actually going to compare Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page that are the subject of this action So comparing those two paragraphs was the clerk named in a different capacity as the state attorney in paragraph A Yes because in paragraph I cited to Florida Statute which is the broad grant of authority to state attorneys to supervise and conduct grand jury investigations and thats really what the situation involved in this case So you set forth in the amended complaint that the state attorney was named as having authority over grand jury proceedings is that correct A Yes Was the same language in the first complaint that was filed in November A I dont recall Lets go ahead and pull that up Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page and it appears that paragraph appears the same And lets go ahead and blow that up just so we can close the loop on this Paragraph of the original complaint is the same as the amended complaint is that correct A Yes Both of them cite to Section Florida Statutes creating jurisdiction by the state attorney over all grand juries within their particular judicial district So the state attorney was named never named solely because he might have possession custody or custody of the grand jury records from the Epstein grand jury investigation is that correct A That is correct The primary reason was because the state attorney has such authority over the grand jury process in this judicial district Now granted Mr Aronberg was not the one who conducted the Jeffrey Epstein grand jury proceeding Nevertheless we didnt sue Mr Aronberg in his individual capacity only in his official capacity because hes the successor to State Attorney Krischer Was there any case law cited in the amended complaint Well go back to Exhibit please any case law cited in the amended complaint dealing with the state attorneys official capacity as the protector of Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page the grand jury system A You mean paragraph Yes A No I didnt cite to it because it was clear to anyone who looked at Florida Statute they would see a litany of cases describing the authority of the state attorney over the grand juries in their judicial district So it was obvious that what we were getting at You cited the statute that gives the state attorney power over the grand jury A Correct yes In fact there are cases that say that under this statute that the grand jury is essentially the arm of the of the state attorney And now that were back on the amended complaint Ill direct your attention to paragraph sorry page wherein there is the wherefore clause Mr Wyler had you read from one of the wherefore clauses but I wanted to ask about the wherefore clause on page A Yes and you had said that you had requested an in-camera inspection Actually could I just ask you to read this wherefore clause A Sure The Palm Beach Post respectfully Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page requests that this Court pursuant to Florida Statute Section and the Courts inherent authority order the state attorney and clerk of the Court to file with this Court files of testimony minutes and other evidence presented in to the Palm Beach County grand jury during the first Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse investigation so that following an in-camera inspection it can be made available to the Palm Beach Post and the public on an expedited basis and grant such other and further equitable or legal relief the Court deems just and proper So in the amended complaint did you request an in-camera inspection A In fact in our motion for summary judgment that we made before Judge Hafele theres a whole section on that And Mr Wyler asked you about the transcript the hearing before Judge Marx and that transcript and during that hearing Judge Marx made comments about possession and custody of the grand jury records by the state attorney I wanted to ask you about the order on that motion to dismiss The order was Exhibit A Yes And did Judge Marxs order address those Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page comments that Mr Wyler read A No she did not Thats why I believe that they were dicta And what did Judge Marxs order rule A She ruled on a very narrow area which and I respect Judge Marx Shes a very very seasoned and reasoned jurist She determined that under that there was not a private cause of action and that because it was not a private cause of action we could not utilize that statute to seek the grand jury materials We disagreed with that and that is the subject of the appeal So turning to the final judgment that was entered by Judge Hafele which is A Exhibit yes A Yes Mr Wyler asked you to read from page that was Bates number ending A Yes And Im going to ask you to go ahead and finish that paragraph or read the whole paragraph if you would like A Right The newspaper makes strong Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page arguments to advance its more expansive construction of Section as part of quote furthering justice unquote Unquestionably the established matters surrounding Mr Epsteins conduct the circumstances of his resolution of the state charges and potential federal charges and his guilty plea and incarceration are matters of public interest and disclosure of the materials may arguably fall within the concept of quote furthering justice end quote in the broadest social sense of the phrase Should I keep going or not I think thats fine for now Were there other portions of the final judgment that you wanted to discuss and needed to finish Did the A Well Go ahead sorry A I take issue with the state attorneys assertion that this was only about possession and custody We were asserting that the Court has inherent authority over the grand jury process and that inherent authority superseded or was preeminent over the statute That is why we gave the state attorney the opportunity to participate in this case because we felt it was only fair to not only the state attorney but to Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page the public to hear a voice for grand jury secrecy And the state attorney availed himself of that opportunity Now on appeal we are of the belief that the Court has such inherent authority and that the Courts inherent authority is as I say superior to the statute There are federal cases which say that and there are state cases which say that And in fact the Florida Supreme Courts case actually its a Fifth DCA case in Clayton says that where a state attorney may have abused his authority with the grand jury Its not Mr Krischer and its not Mr Aronberg so Im not suggesting they are but in that case it was the Fifth DCA who said that I dont care what the statute says the Court has authority to control abuses of the grand jury process and ultimately thats why were here We believe that weve laid out a very detailed factual and legal reason why we think the prior state attorney abused his authority How did he do so By obtaining materials from the defense team that undermined the credibility of the witness and the victim before the grand jury We assert that in paragraph of the amended complaint It states that in there And if you look at the exhibits youll see that We now know based upon the Department of Justice the U.S Department of Justices report that Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page the clerks office in Palm Beach County shared these reported secret grand jury materials with the federal government without a court order without notice apparently to Mr Aronbergs office or to the public Now why they did that under what authority they did that I dont know Now whether they asked Mr Krischer or whether he consented during the time of the U.S Attorneys interactions with the state attorney Mr Krischers office we dont know that either But we do know that they have been disclosed And youre trying to get those materials and A We want the public to have those materials Right A Not me The public A The public The Post is only a conduit for the public Thats what the media is under the First Amendment Without the media acting as the conduit for the public the public does not have the authority the time or the resources to inform the public of whats going to happen Imagine if Joe Public or Jane Public came and brought this lawsuit Would it have gone anywhere No Thank God for the First Amendment that the Post has Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page the right constitutionally to seek these materials I know Im going off on a tangent but its important THE COURT You are So lets move on THE WITNESS Thank you Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page private right of action yes So that statute is not the claim that were here on today correct A That is correct Count was broader than that And when it comes to Mr Wyler said something about possession or custody of the state attorney He referenced that the state attorney does not have possession or custody in this letter correct A Correct But the reason for naming the state attorney in the complaint the initial complaint and the amended complaint was broader than his own possession or custody A Correct As the entity charged by Florida law with the supervision of the grand jury proceeding that included as well the protection of grand jury secrecy and we named him in his official capacity if he so chose to protect grand jury secrecy which he did in a motion to dismiss and the motion for summary judgment he filed opposing the release of the materials to the public So that first motion for fees was filed July 1st is that correct A The first motion yes Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Yes And did the state attorney ever set that motion original motion for fees for hearing A Never And we are not here on that first motion is that correct A Correct They never set it for a hearing So were here on the amended motion for sanctions which was filed November 9th is that correct A Correct And in fact the amended motion and the notice of hearing does not mention the first one from July of So you never got a notice of hearing that set the original first July 1st motion for fees for hearing is that correct A That is correct yes And you never got a copy via mail or fax or hard copy of the amended motion for fees filed November 9th prior to the time it was filed correct A That is correct We werent given the 21-day safe harbor Why did you Why did the Post decide to drop the state attorney when it did A The state attorneys position changed from one of opposition to the release of the grand jury Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page materials to one of neutrality Once the grand jury Once the state attorney changed the position then the Post re-evaluated whether or not he should remain in the case and we determined that he should be dropped from the case At that point had the Post accomplished everything that it needed from the state attorney in the amended complaint A Yes We had given him the opportunity to voice objection or non-objection He originally voiced objection then he changed it to neutrality That was his decision and there was nothing further that needed to be stated And at that point when the Post decided to dismiss the state attorney on October 21st had the Post accomplished everything that was set forth in your June 23rd letter those three reasons A Yes We had given the state attorney his opportunity to be heard and he took it and then decided he no longer needed it And finally the you mentioned that the final judgment on Count regarding declaratory relief is currently on appeal A Yes Count is yes And does the state attorney need to be Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page named in that appeal A No Why not A Well the appeal was taken on Count as you say Count had a number of elements associated with it Thats the declaratory judgment provision It asserted that under the First Amendment both the U.S Constitution and the Florida Constitution that the Post had standing or the right to seek these grand jury materials and the statute was complementary to that First Amendment right by the language in the statute of it being in furtherance of justice We also asserted that the Court had inherent authority over and above If the appellate court were to determine that was in conflict with the Courts authority that the Courts authority was superior to So if its unclear So there were a number of elements a constitutional element the Courts constitutional inherent authority as described by the Florida Supreme Court and that we believe that the reading of the statute that read out in furtherance of justice or tied it exclusively to a pending civil or criminal case was too narrow a reading of the statute So the state attorney has stated his Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page affirmative non-objection to the clerk releasing the grand jury materials from the Jeffrey Epstein case if ordered by the Court A Yes That was why we dropped the state attorney On October 14th A Correct yes that was the first time he filed that affirmative statement A Yes that he didnt object A Thats absolutely right yes And the clerk no longer objects to the release of the grand jury materials if ordered by the Court in the Fourth DCA appeal A Yes In their answer brief the clerk took the position that it had no opposition at all to the release of the materials which was contrary to the position they took against our motion for summary judgment Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page THE COURT Okay Then I guess both parties have rested at this point Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page think that theres a lot of theres a lot going on here and I think it might be beneficial to the Court if you would if you would allow us I will give you Id be happy to give you a written closing argument I think it could help you in formulating your final judgment whichever way you go Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page THE COURT Okay Im going to give you some guidance because theres something I do want to hear from you I do want you to address Lago And Ms Whetstone when I read In re Grand Jury Proceedings in those cases the state attorney was subpoenaed they were not a party to the case and I want you to address that as well How much time do you need to prepare your closings MR WYLER If you could give us a week Your Honor that would be terrific THE COURT Ill give you a week Ms Whetstone is a week sufficient Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page Give me one more minute There might be something else I want you guys to address In the event that I agree with Mr Aronberg the amounts have been stipulated to correct Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com YVer1f Page because there is a difference Mr Aronberg in his official capacity as a named party and In re Grand Jury I think in that case I think the state attorneys was subpoenaed And I also want you well both parties to address the Horowitz case where it says that the judge can extend the law because its an obligation of legislative authority All right so youll give me your arguments and proposed orders within days Do I need to bring you back in for a hearing Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Page COURT CERTIFICATE STATE OF FLORIDA COUNTY OF PALM BEACH I Lisa Begley RPR RMR certify that I was authorized to and did stenographically report the foregoing proceedings and that the transcript is a true and complete record of my stenographic notes Dated this 13th day of September Lisa Begley RPR RMR Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com h1J,q-p Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com a a a 14th 15th 1st xvii 21-day 21st 23rd a Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com a 3rd a a 8th 9th A ability absolutely abuse abused abuses access accessing accomplish accomplished accurate acknowledges act acted acting action Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com actual Added additional address addressed Administration admit admitted admittedly adopted advance advised advocated affidavit affirm affirmative afforded afternoon agree agreed ahead allegation alleged ambiguous amended Amendment amounts and/or angry announce answering apparently appeal appeals appears appellate applicable application applied apply approach appropriately area arguably argue argued arguing argument arguments arm Aronberg Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Aronbergs article Ash asks assert asserted asserting assertion associates assuming assumptions attached attempted attend attention attorney attorneys attorneys attorneys Authorities authority authorize availed awarded aware back bar based basis Bates Beach bear began beginning behalf belief bench beneficial Bideau big binder blanche blow Bock Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com bottom bring bringing broad broader broadest brought Buitrago CA call calls camera capacity care carte case cases challenged chance change changed Chapter characterize charged charges check chose circumstances cite cited civil civility claim clause clauses Clayton clear clerk clerks client Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com clients close closing closings comment comments compare comparing complain complaint complaints complementary complete completeness complicated comply compound comptroller concept conclude concluded conclusion conclusory conduct conducted conduit confer confidential confidentiality conflict confused confusing Congress connection consented Constitution constitutional constitutionall constrained construction contacted contention contesting context continue contradict contrary contribute control conversation copies copy corner correct Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com corrected Cort costs Count County court Courts courts creating credibility credit crime criminal cross cross-examined crystal cuff cure custodian custody date dated Dave day days DCA deal dealing decide decided decision decisions declaration declaratory declaring decline deems Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com defendant defense demand denial denying Department describing detailed determine determined determines development devoted dicta difference differing direct directing direction directly disagreed disclose disclosed disclosing disclosure discretion discuss discussed discusses discussion discussions dismiss disputed dissemination district documents door doubt Douglas draw drop dropped dropping due duly earlier easier editorial Edmondson elected element Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com elements email Emphasis employees enclosed enclosure end ending enforced enter entered entire entity Epstein Epsteins equitable ESQ essentially establish established establishment event eventually everybodys evidence evident examination examined excluded exclusively excuse excused exempt exercise exhibit exhibits existence existing expanded expansive expectation expedited experienced expert expressly extend extension extensive extensively fact facts factual fair faith fall familiar famous favorable fax Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com federal fees felt file filed files filing final finally fine finish firewall firm fits flip Florida follow formulating found foundation fourth front furtherance furthering gain gave General gentleman Gerard give giving goal God good government grand Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com grant granted great Greenberg group guess guidance guilty guys Hafele Hafeles half hand handed happen happened happening happy harbor hard hear heard hearing held Hey highlighted hold Holdings honest honestly Honor Horowitz hours hours hundreds I identification identified identify illegal Imagine implied important impossibility impossible in-camera inaccurate incarceration inclined included indicted individual inform informing inherent initial initially Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com inquiry inspection instance instances interaction interactions interest interpret interpreted interruption investigation investigations involved involvement involving issue issues italics Jacobs Jane Jeffrey Jennifer Joe joint joked judge judges judgment judicial July June juries jurisdiction jurisdictional jurist jury justice Justices knew knowledge Krischer Krischers Lago Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com laid language Lauren law laws lawsuit lawyer lay lead left legal legally legislative letter limited limits list listed litany long longer looked loop losing lot Madam made mail maintain majority make makes making manner Mark Marx Marxs master material materials math matter matters media memo Mendelsohn Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com mention mentioned middle Mike MILLER mind minute minutes mixing modification moment monetary motion move moved moving named names naming narrow needed negotiations neutral neutrality news newspaper newspapers non-movant non-objection Nonetheless nonpossession notes notice Notwithstanding November number object objected objection objections objects obligation obligations obtaining Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com obvious occur occurred occurs October offense offer offered office official one-page open opened opening opportunity opposes opposing opposition option oral order ordered orders original originally p.m Palm paper paragraph paragraphs paralegal parentheses part participate parties party partys past pendency pending penultimate people performance period personal persons phone phrase Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com physical pin plaintiff planning plea point portions position possession possibly Post potential power powers practice preeminent prefer prepare prepared prescribed presence present presented previously primary prior private problem procedure proceeding proceedings process produce prohibit prohibiting prohibits proper proposed prosecuted prosecution protect protection protector provide provided provision provisions public publisher pull Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com purpose purposes pursuant put putting question questions quote quoted quotes raise raised rate rates re-evaluated read reading real reason reasonable reasoned reasons reassess rebuttal recall received recess recognize recollection reconsider record records recoverable redact redacting redirect referenced referring refers rejected relationship release released releasing relevant relief Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com remain remember removed repeat reply report reported reporter representations request requested requesting requests required requires research resolution resources respect respectfully responded rested rests result reversal review rights role rule ruled Rules safe safe-harbor sanction sanctions SAO Scholz scope scratch screen seasoned seated secrecy secret section securities seek seeking seeks sense sentence served Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com service set settle settlement sex shared Sharon show sic simple simultaneously sir situation skipping social solely solemnly sought sound speak speaking specifically specifics spoke spoken stamp stamped stamps standing start starts state stated statement statements states statute statutes Statutes statutory STENOGRAPHER step Stephen Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com stipulated stop strong subdivision subject submitted subpoenaed subsection subsections substances succeed success successful successor sue sued sufficient suggest suggested suggesting suing summary superior superseded supervise supervision supplement supplemental support supported supposed Supreme surrounding sustained swear sworn system tab talk talked talking tandem tangent team telling terrific testified testifying testimony things Thomson thought tied time times today told top Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com transcript transcriptions Traurig Travel treat trial true truth turning twofold U.S Uh-huh ultimately unambiguous uncertain unclear underlying undermined understand understanding understands United unlimited Unquestionably unquote unsigned unsupported untrue utilize verbatim versus victim view views vis voice voiced wanted Weatherby week weeks whatsoever wherefore Whetstone whichever withdraw withdrawn witnesses words worth wraps write writing Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com written wrong Wyler yesterday zealously Zoom Judge Luis Delgado September w.phippsreporting.com
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