Agthatbuilds said:
Can someone explain to me like I'm a child what the hell is going on
When we left off yesterday, Fani was still on the stand and her direct examination was done, meaning Fani's team was up this monring to cross her to rehabilitate that disaster of her testimony. I expected some late night cramming to get some documents about her cash stash being timed with the trips to bolster her claims she paid him in cash.
Instead, her lawyers declined to cross her so she was not even called to the stand. That left the defense attorneys scrambling because their next witness, Terrance Bradley, Wade's former law partner and one of the sources of Merchant's allegations, was MIA, allegedly for a Doctor's appointment.
So the judge allowed the state to present some of their witnesses out of order until Bradley could get to court.
First off for Wade and Willis was a former (Dem) Georgia Governor (and lawyer) Roy Barnes. Only thing he could testify to is that Willis and Wade approached him in late October 2021 to be Special Prosecutor for this case. He declined.
Next Willis witness was her father, another lawyer, former Black Panther member, world traveler, saw Covid coming back in 2019 while living in South Africa (he got booted out of SA, for some "political" reason) and was dazzling himself with his own brilliance. Apple didn't fall far from that tree, humility doesn't run in that family, apparently. He moved in with Fani (after being kicked out of SA) late summer of 2019 and Fani was bofing some DJ named "Deuce" that he met and knew about only because he was living with her. (Fani and her father don't talk much apparently.) Never met Wade until 2023.
Dad also testified that about a month after Fani was sworn in as Fulton County DA, their home was vandalized, people were gathered outside, hurling racial epithets and making threats. He claimed the police were called often and that he called them yet zero police reports of those calls were never produced (hmm). So he was heavily into playing the race card. Said "it was a black thing" to hoard cash. (It's more of a Great Depression thing when so many banks failed but whatever.) He also confirmed that he had seen Wade's testimony and his daughter's from the day before.
Now let's go back to the fact that Mr. Floyd is a
lawyer who knows what a sequestration order for witnesses is. He's know he was being called as a witness, at the very latest, by Monday of this week but probably earlier than that. So his violation of the sequestration order was very blatant, nor did he appear to care much. Blamed the media saying he couldn't watch the news, read his newspapers, nor view his feeds without seeing it. Well, hello! That's exactly what a sequestration order instructs a witness to do. Avoid those.
Lunch recess and then the main show, Terrance Bradley, Wade's former law "partner" (they were pretty loose with their definitions on what constitutes a law partnership, but I digress.) Bradley's whole testimony is overshadowed by the attorney client privilege because he was Wade's lawyer on the divorce. Judge lets Merchant et. al. to proceed with Fani's team able to object on privilege grounds on a question by question basis.
Then the real fun for today started. Fani's lawyers were objecting to nearly every question even before defense counsel had completed it. (There's some backstory to this I can provide in a separate post if you request) For hours Bradley is on the stand, hemming, hawing, letting counsel argue it out before the judge but in general remaining mum about what he knew about Fani and Wade under the cloaking device known as attorney client privilege. He tap danced like Gregory Hines but he never gave up Wade nor Willis. Even the judge was getting tired of that and ruled he would conduct an in camera ex parte review of the issues about attorney client privilege and then rule after. Defense was okay with that because the judge would then see all of the texts, emails, etc. that Bradley had provided to Merchant.
Then the questionin turned to when and why Bradley had left the firm in 2022. There was a "disagreement" between him and Wade. Said disagreement was "assessed" to be under the attorney client privilege for Wade's divorce case...by Bradley. Judge had no reason to question that at the time so he went along with Bradley on that issue. Multiple defense counsel tried different approaches but to no avail.
Then, drumroll please, Fani's lead lawyer Anna Cross stands up to cross Bradley. BOOM! She asks him if the reason he was forced out of the firm with Wade because he was accused of sexually assaulting an employee of the firm. Assault, not harrassment. Anna Cross in a few questions, blew up his law license, his current practice, maybe his family life. The judge is shocked and non-plussed. he asks Cross a kind of WTF? question and she calmly replies, "He lied."
I know, TLDR but you asked.
