Elizabeth Holmes Don’t Like Mondays
Not much to say, really, if you’re one of Elizabeth Holmes’s lawyers. Monday was a Hail Mary pass to eclipse all Hail Marys (“Maries”?) as counsel for the Theranos founder/CEO argued in court on Monday that she should be given a new trial because one of the lead prosecution witnesses is “remorseful.”
Nope.
Sentencing, which was supposed to happen this month, will move forward as quickly as is practicable.
What Holmes actually ends up getting is anyone’s best guess. The judge would be justified in an aggressive sentence but, as Holmes really has been through a lot over the past decade and is a new mother, a sentence that it realistic but also merciful would also be a fair direction.
David Gelman, a criminal defense lawyer, remarked:
“Requesting a new trial is great when there are valid legal theories to support it. Otherwise, courts tend not to take kindly to it, which is what happened here.”
Deshaun Watson. Again. And Again.
Over the weekend, the Cleveland Browns fell to 2-4 while news broke that their suspended start quarterback fell to 2-5, as in 25 sexual assault lawsuits.
For a remarkably talented young star to only have made the news cycle over for sexual assault over the past close to two years should indicate that this is a pattern that won’t stop repeating. With the NFL just waiting for new information to extend Watson’s 11-game suspension to a year or more, this was probably it.
Same pattern of forcing a massage therapist into unwelcome sexual acts. This new civil plaintiff has a lawyer not previously involved in any of the other 24 lawsuits, 23 of which have been settled, thanks, in part, to Watson’s absurd $230 million guaranteed contract by the deeply misguided Cleveland Browns.
Nancianne Aydelotte, co-founder of NJ Lady Lawyers, remarked this week that “The ongoing Watson saga highlights the massive power imbalance between NFL players and those in their orbit. When things go bad, they can go very bad.”
Where this particular civil suit goes and how quickly Watson will look to settle remains to be seen. What is becoming clear is that any welcoming door for Watson’s return to the league is rapidly closing. If this new plaintiff doesn’t hold the last straw for Watson, it has to be close.
I commented on the Deshaun Watson case this week on ESPN.
Ye, Go Away
Ye decided this week to speak out against the well-settled facts in the tragic murder of George Floyd, alleging that Floyd died because of fentanyl and that the cop’s knee “wasn’t even on his neck like that.” Of course, an expert has already proven, in an actual court of law, that none of this is true – that George Floyd actually died from a lack of oxygen.
Ye is making himself a massive public target these days, seemingly living by the unwise axiom that any media is good media.
Eric Purchase, an injury lawyer, points out that “Ye is opening himself up to potential lawsuits by making what on their face appear to be reckless statements.”
Intentional infliction of emotional distress is going to be hard to pin on someone clearly incapable of understanding the impact of his actions. Ye’s actions this week evince someone who is simply spinning out.
On Monday, Ye also decided that he was planning to buy Parler, the social media platform embraced by the Right or Ultra-Right, depending upon your perspective.
Ye’s week ended as badly as anticipated with the Friday announcement that Balenciaga, with whom Ye had a long-running muse/mentor relationship, has severed all ties.
Massive NCAA CTE Case Goes to Court
On Friday afternoon, we saw the opening remarks in the case on long the life and death of Matthew Gee, former USC Trojan.
Gee died in 2018 from massive brain trauma that his wife alleges was the product of football and the NCAA’s negligence. Her suit against the NCAA for failing to protect her husband from repetitive head trauma and CTE – chronic traumatic encephalopathy – could become a landmark case in an era where there are far, far too many concussions at the NCAA and NFL levels each week.
Attorney Joe Capo commented “With each season that goes by, more people understand the gravity of concussions and the life-threatening danger of their cumulative effects on athletes, particularly football players. What the court does in the case will be important for how liability is apportioned in the future.
I have long believed that the next CTE target, after the NCAA, will be the colleges themselves. Huge football schools such as Stanford ($38 billion endowment) and Notre Dame ($18 billion endowment) have a very well-defined bull’s eye on their collective backs.
About Aron Solomon
A Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer, Aron Solomon, JD, is the Chief Legal Analyst for Esquire Digital and 24-7 Abogados. He has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, and was elected to Fastcase 50, recognizing the top 50 legal innovators in the world. Aron has been featured in Forbes, CBS News, CNBC, USA Today, ESPN, TechCrunch, The Hill, BuzzFeed, Fortune, Venture Beat, The Independent, Fortune China, Yahoo!, ABA Journal, Law.com, The Boston Globe, NewsBreak, and many other leading publications.