EFTA00801130.pdf

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