Ex-Defendant’s Testimony ‘Uniquely Relevant’ to 2020 Election Robocallers’ Trial, Says Lawyer
Though voice broadcasting vendor Message Communications and its owner, Robert Mahanian, settled the claims over their alleged roles in the robocall campaign to suppress Black citizens' mail-in votes during the 2020 election, evidence of their liability “remains acutely relevant,” said…
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the attorney for remaining defendants Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman. The two in a memorandum of law Monday (docket 1:20-cv-08668) in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York oppose the plaintiffs’ motion in limine to exclude the settling defendants’ evidence and testimony from the Dec. 11 jury damages trial. Though Mahanian and his company settled all claims against them many months before U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero granted summary judgment in the plaintiffs’ favor, Wohl and Burkman “have signaled that they may try to shift blame from themselves to Message and Mahanian in an attempt to limit their damages,” said one of the plaintiffs’ June 22 motions (see 2306260042). Message and Mahanian were brought into the case by the “powerful and influential” New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), said the memorandum. They were “presumptively let out of this case for a nominal settlement or simply for cooperation,” it said. A jury “could properly deduce that Message was thereby induced to lean inward and cooperate with the People,” it said. “As to why Mahanian should be ordered to attend the trial and not some subordinate substitute without actual knowledge, Mahanian’s deposition testimony cannot be cross examined,” said the memorandum. In an age where remote attendance is “now normative,” to allow Mahanian to skip his in-person testimony at trial “would be an injustice,” it said: “Notwithstanding the specter of bias, Mahanian has first person knowledge and a superior understanding of the technology and how to read Message’s call data sheets and what they mean. His testimony is uniquely relevant to the damages phase.”