EFTA00065094¶
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK¶
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK¶
DOE 1, et al., : 19-CV-07675 (GBD) Plaintiffs, v. JEFFREY EPSTEIN, et al., : 500 Pearl Street New York, New York Defendants. : November 21, 2019¶
VE, Plaintiff, : 19-CV-07625 (AJN) v.¶
NINE EAST 71st STREET, et al., Defendants.¶
TRANSCRIPT OF CIVIL CAUSE FOR CONFERENCE BEFORE THE HONORABLE DEBRA C. FREEMAN UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE¶
APPEARANCES:¶
For Jane Doe 1: ARICK W. FUDALI, ESQ. The Bloom Firm¶
[Appearances continue next page.]¶
Court Transcriber: MARY GRECO TypeWrite Word Processing Service¶
Proceedings recorded by electronic sound recording, transcript produced by transcription service¶
EFTA00065095¶
APPEARANCES CONTINUED:¶
For VE: BRADLEY J. EDWARDS, ESQ. BRITTANY HENDERSON, ESQ. Edwards Pottinger LLC¶
For Financial Trust, BENNET J. MOSKOWITZ, ESQ. CHARLES GLOVLER, ESQ. Troutman Sanders LLP¶
Nine East 71st:¶
For other Plaintiffs: DAVID BOIES, ESQ. SIGRID McCAWLEY, ESQ. JOSH SCHULER, ESQ. Boies Schiller Flexner¶
ROBERTA KAPLAN, ESQ. KATE DONNEGER, ESQ. DAVID BRODY, ESQ. LAURA STAR, ESQ. ALAN GOLDFARB, ESQ. ANDREW POSEN, ESQ. MARIANN WANG, ESQ. DANIEL MULLKOFF, ESQ.¶
EFTA00065096¶
38¶
appearance list, and so there’s a third one.¶
THE COURT: Do you have the docket number on that one, the case number on that one?¶
MS. WANG: Yes, we do. My colleague does.¶
THE COURT: It’s 19-CV something.¶
MS. WANG: Yes. It is 10788.¶
THE COURT: Okay. Can anyone else give me any ideas to roughly how many more may be coming down the pike?¶
MR. EDWARDS: Your Honor, Brad Edwards. Potentially dozens more cases could be filed. I’m just not sure whether they’re going to be filed here or potentially in the Virgin Islands or Florida. So it’s tough to —¶
THE COURT: Through your firm?¶
MR. EDWARDS: Through our firm.¶
THE COURT: Okay. I would just urge that if you’re anticipating filing more cases, you try to get on with it and not have this continuing sort of trickle of cases because especially if we start setting schedules for things, I’m trying to have some consistency on how cases are handled. If one comes in a month down the road, another one comes in two months down the road, another one comes in three months down the road, you’re not going to be on the same schedule.¶
MR. EDWARDS: Your Honor, I’ll tell you that Mr. Moskowitz and I have been conferring pretty thoroughly on issues including the anonymity issue. And one thing that we¶
EFTA00065097¶
8¶
things in individual ways sometimes. And just be aware dispositive motions will go in front of them unless they are specifically referred to me. And if any order of reference is narrow, you have to look at it, see what it says, and understand that’s the particular reason it’s before me. All right?¶
So with that said, I nonetheless wanted to give notice to anyone who’s on these cases that I was having this conference so that you could be informed, so that you could be present if you have an interest, and you could hear what’s said. So that’s number one.¶
Number two, I have seen in the press and in some of the correspondence that was put in front of the Court in one of the cases that there’s some talk about the estate working toward coming up with a settlement idea, concept, a plan for trying to create a fund or do something. I’ve also seen some murmurings, I don’t know if they’re true or not, that not all of the plaintiffs’ attorneys might be fully on board with the process that’s being set up which may not have been involving them.¶
So I’d like to understand what is going on on that front. And if it is possible to have these cases put on a settlement track, I’d like to make sure that everyone’s on board with the process of developing a plan for that and to get a feel for what it’s going to entail, potential time line¶
EFTA00065098¶
9¶
issues that are involved so that we can first see before we get into discovery issues other kinds of squabbles, see if in fact settlement is possible and we can move toward that.¶
So let me start on defendant’s side since rumor has it, and see what you have to say on that.¶
MR. MOSKOWITZ: Good morning, Your Honor. Would you like me to stand or —¶
MR. MOSKOWITZ: I’m happy to. I’m glad you raised this because one of the things I wanted to bring to Your Honor’s attention is that having assumed, although I don’t like assumptions, that you may have seen in the press that there is some kind of a claims program, I wanted to actually take the opportunity today to explain to you briefly what is going on. And since you asked specifically, I’ll start there.¶
So there is what I feel confident in calling an extraordinary opportunity that has already started that can lead to an alternative to all this litigation. A lot of people here as you can see. And this would be an extraordinary opportunity also to conserve party and judicial resources. And what happened is almost a week ago exactly the co-executors, and this is probably some of the stories you have seen, filed through counsel, not us, through estate counsel in US Virgin Islands where the will is being probated,¶
EFTA00065099¶
24¶
THE COURT: All right. What I’d like to do with respect to settlement is have an update after there’s been a period of time when everyone has been conferring and plaintiffs have been at the table through their counsel to give me just a status report on how that’s going and whether it’s looking promising or whether it’s not from anyone’s point of view. And that doesn’t mean other things can’t be handled on a parallel track. But I think that settlement is an important track. Plaintiffs are clearly interested.¶
Defendants are clearly interested. And when everyone’s interested in settlement, seems to me that’s the first thing you want to all try to do. But it’s got to really be a process where everyone really has seats at the table, it’s not just lip service to seats at the table, okay, to discuss any and everything that seems important to that process including, you know, how much is in a fund and including, you know, what is in this estate and not, so that plaintiffs understand, it’s almost like early disclosure of an insurance policy in a case.¶
Well, what is there? Right. That’s one thing that’s under Rule 26(a), a part of it, is to understand on plaintiff’s side what resources are there that are available towards settlement. That’s one reason why that information becomes important.¶
All right. I’m going to move on from that and we’ll talk about timing at the end with respect to anything and¶
EFTA00065100¶
47¶
January 10, I’m basically thinking kicking it more than 30 days because of the holidays. That’s why January 10. But what I’m thinking ought to happen between now and then, I give it to you for serious consideration, is you folks ought to schedule a meeting without me. You ought to schedule a meeting with the claims administrators and with counsel in these cases on both sides. And you ought to sit around a table and you ought to talk about all the questions and get as many answers as you can get and try to gain some confidence that you are all participating and your views are being taken seriously and valued. And that’s what I think you ought to do because in settlement discussions that’s what happens. People talk outside of the court about things and try to advance the ball. And you do have a lot of people. And if you talk one on one, then you have another one on one with a different lawyer and the message is heard differently or different questions are asked and answered, you know, you’re going to have some confusion reigning. So I would strongly recommend we not use the courtroom for that meeting at this stage but that you see if you can set one up and literally bring people to the table as a settlement discussion. And then when you report back, you’ll have something to report back on. Yes?¶
MR. BOIES: Your Honor, David Boies. I agree completely with the Court we need to meet among ourselves. You got good counsel on both sides here. I think that we can¶
EFTA00065101¶