transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:05] Cups up, friends.

Speaker 2:
[00:06] Cups up.

Speaker 3:
[00:07] Cups up.

Speaker 1:
[00:08] Welcome, welcome back.

Speaker 2:
[00:09] Hola.

Speaker 1:
[00:10] To America. Yeah, you're first world travelers. What's going on? Everything good?

Speaker 2:
[00:15] You know, the more that I travel, the more that I'm like, yeah, we're really, America has the best branding in the world, I would say, but not necessarily the best things. Peru was amazing. First of all, the exchange rate is three solas to a dollar. So that was fun. We handed out a lot of hundreds of solas to people, which is like 30 bucks, and it would be so happy. I saw many cool, I loved the llamas, guys. Like the llamas gave me so much peace and happiness. And whenever David couldn't find me at any hotel we were at, he would just go find the llamas because I would just be-

Speaker 3:
[00:56] What do you mean? They had llamas at the hotel? Like just hanging out?

Speaker 2:
[00:59] Every hotel has a llama. That's so cool.

Speaker 3:
[01:01] Yes, it was like a hotel llama. Not a hotel llama.

Speaker 2:
[01:05] El Paco llama.

Speaker 1:
[01:06] They have a grassy area that's fenced in.

Speaker 2:
[01:08] Yeah, they have a little grassy area that they sit there and you can feed them or just sit there and pet them like I did. And then in the city, there's these women that, oh my gosh, they were the most industrious women I have ever seen in my entire life. They would all have a baby on their back. Usually, a baby on their back, like a child with them holding all of this merch stuff that they're selling on the streets. And then holding a llama too because the llamas, they sell pictures with the llamas on the streets. So if you see a woman, like I did that a million times, like a lot of times you just see these women in traditional Peruvian outfits carrying a llama and you're like, can I get a picture? And you give them a few bucks. And I would give them more, of course, because I felt like those llamas were worth it. And yeah, it was just really cool. But yeah, very industrious in Peru and a very like women-centered culture, I feel like. Women were doing all the work.

Speaker 3:
[02:13] I like that. You were saying about Mother Earth. What is Mother Earth that you guys were saying to me?

Speaker 2:
[02:19] Pachamaama. Pachamaama. They say that a lot. They pray to Pachamaama and they worship the sun, which is a very, the Incans were all about worshiping the sun. And I didn't realize it, but a couple of times I would be walking in places and salesmen would be like, Blondie, Blondie. They would call me Blondie a lot. And I didn't realize that until our new friend Rafael was telling me, the Peruvians really worshiped blonde hair. Or they did back in the day when the Spaniards came over, because they worship the sun and the color gold and the color yellow. So anything involved with that. So when Spanish people came over with blonde hair, they thought that they were like people of God. And of course, the Spanish didn't clarify. Like, I would be like, no, I'm just... It's just a different color. It's just a different color. It's nothing. But yeah, just a lot of very interesting, very peaceful, cool. We did a lot of like hiking around, a lot of walking. Great climate, great people, great food. Oh my gosh, the food was so good. But more on that when we come out with our episode wherever it leads, what's going on with you guys?

Speaker 1:
[03:38] I had my normal week of practicing law, did some speaking engagements, of course, a police report, and then ODC stuff. So it's just the normal week for Eric Bland, the lawyer. How about you, Liz?

Speaker 3:
[03:51] The new normal, I guess.

Speaker 1:
[03:53] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[03:53] I did something interesting. I went to the TWA hotel at JFK Airport. I wasn't flying anywhere. I literally went to the hotel to stay at the hotel for two nights, and it's this retro, it used to be the TWA terminal, and back in the day when you would fly out of New York City, and they turned it into this really kitschy hotel that is pretty faithful. I mean, the lobby and all of that is pretty faithful to the 1960s. But yeah, I could sit in my room, my bed faced the runway at JFK, so I could watch the planes land and take off.

Speaker 1:
[04:32] Did they have chairs with chrome arms and the psychedelic rugs? You know, if you looked at it, your eyes get blurry?

Speaker 3:
[04:40] No. So they had this deep red rug that actually, when you're going down the terminal tubes to the hotel parts, gets a little like... What's that movie with Jack Nicholson?

Speaker 1:
[04:50] Shining.

Speaker 3:
[04:51] Yeah, The Shining.

Speaker 1:
[04:52] The Shining?

Speaker 3:
[04:52] Very The Shining for a moment.

Speaker 1:
[04:54] You're looking down the hallway.

Speaker 3:
[04:55] Yeah, because it just goes on forever and you're like, errr.

Speaker 1:
[04:59] Red rum.

Speaker 3:
[04:59] Red rum, exactly. But they had a really good pool bar and like a little like bar to get drinks at the top. And so you could sit in like this pool that was 98 degrees and watch the planes from there. And it's just, it was cool. It's just like...

Speaker 1:
[05:15] That is very fun.

Speaker 3:
[05:16] It's hard to explain to people. Like I, when I lived in the Lowcountry, one of the things that people complained about a lot was that Saturday would just be like wall-to-wall traffic going to the island. And for some reason it didn't bother me. Well, not for some reason, because I just like would look in the cars and I'd be like, this is like the beginning of everyone's vacation week. And so it's a lot of collective positive energy and like hopefulness and like plans and we're going to go to the beach, we're going to go biking, we're going to get good food. So I would just be like happy for the people. And so the same thing with like the airport, but it was more than that, not just like happy, people are going, they're either coming home or they're on their way to another destination for any number of reasons. Every single time a plane lands in this country, and it's a lot, a lot of planes are landing all the time, it's a freaking success. Like you look, you're just like, I would sit in my bed and watch it. And I'm like, you did it, you did it. Like you landed the plane.

Speaker 2:
[06:15] Another one, another one.

Speaker 1:
[06:17] It's an extraordinary thing to think about, like all the planes taking off landing, flying in the air and they're landing. And, you know, God's grace, we don't have a lot of crashes every year. And you think about, you know, it's amazing. This is a tin can that's got two engines attached to it with a lot of unknowns, whether it's weather, wind, animals, birds, whatever, or mechanical malfunction, plus the operator error. And it's pretty good throughout the world. You know, we go months, years, right? It's amazing.

Speaker 3:
[06:51] It's like a professional moment of like, I guess, when you win a case or you write a book or, you know, there's there's a moment of professional success that we all have. That is like a moment we can look at and say, like, I did it. I, you know, I'm doing the thing I love and I did it. I think when, like, you're a pilot, it must be, I mean, I can't imagine you would take that for granted too much, but every time you land the plane, you just got hundreds of people home safely. And it's just, it's cool. And I just, I like to think, I don't know, I just go off into the clouds, so when I'm watching these things.

Speaker 2:
[07:23] In Peru, they would clap in the planes that we took within the country. And they were so cheap. Gosh, that is one thing. I mean, it is a success and it's great. Yay for the airlines and everything for getting us safe. But at the same time, American prices are so ridiculous. And South America is the same as Europe, where you can get $100 flight across the country.

Speaker 3:
[07:45] Oh, that's not happening here.

Speaker 2:
[07:48] Right, no, it's not happening here at all.

Speaker 3:
[07:51] And it was a good, there's more good than bad happening. But there's a lot of bad happening. So it's like, it's one of those things where it's like high highs, low lows.

Speaker 1:
[08:00] Mandy, how did you unwind from, you know, your very traumatic week that you had? And why do I say it's traumatic? Because you're, you know, you're not used to being on a witness stand and being admonished by a judge and then being questioned by a very overzealous attorney. And then you get through that, you go back to a hotel room, you unwind, you have dinner, and then the very next day, you've got to go through it again with another attorney who's hitting you from a different angle. And it's a, you know, a five, six hour deposition. And it's just a discussion between you and this attorney. And it's not something that you are familiar with because you just don't do it. And then you get done and it doesn't end there because now we have, you know, the trolls and we have people attacking you and, you know, you having to defend yourself. And I saw your post about that a woman has a right to wear a bathing suit. And you know, shame on anybody for telling a woman what they have to wear when they're recreating in their own property, in their own pool. And then, you know, now we get police reports and you go away. Where is your frame of mind right now?

Speaker 2:
[09:16] Oh, it's all over the place. And my, we had planned for the record. We had planned that trip to Peru before. And so I was really, A, just thankful that it ended when it ended. I was also thankful that it was Jim Bannister doing it, who was not a fraction of what Debbie was.

Speaker 1:
[09:36] Or Mark.

Speaker 2:
[09:36] Or Mark. Jim felt, Jim was actually like keeping it within lines that were decent. And I don't know, I just kind of had an out of body experience in court last week. I was treated like a criminal. I think there's no other way to describe the way that I was treated.

Speaker 1:
[09:55] You were not treated with respect. I was there.

Speaker 2:
[09:57] For simply, yeah. And thank you for being there.

Speaker 1:
[10:00] No, of course. But I was very dismayed because you are a witness.

Speaker 2:
[10:05] A non-party.

Speaker 1:
[10:06] But you were a non-party fact opponent. And it was distressing to see how you were spoken to by lawyers, how you were, you know, obviously you were admonished by the judge and that's his job. But I felt it wasn't the best example to a non-litigant and non-lawyer of what the justice system should be like. I felt kind of a little bit dirty when I left, to be honest with you. I talked to your attorney, Becky, and I was not proud of what I saw in that courtroom. I wasn't proud how they treated David. I mean, here's a spouse of a wife who's, you know, being questioned about her, what she wears. Is she mentally stable? Is she emotionally stable, emotionally unstable? Are you reading too many things into this? The constant questioning of your veracity of what you feel, what you've gone through, like, it's no big deal. You know, you're making an amount out of a mold hill. And David was there, as any husband would, to protect you. And he didn't act in a way that was offensive to the court. And he was admonished. They didn't like the faces he was making.

Speaker 2:
[11:19] They didn't like that I was looking at his face. They were mad that I was looking at my husband for emotional support when I was ambushed.

Speaker 1:
[11:28] Right. You needed the reassurance.

Speaker 2:
[11:30] By this hearing, that they had prepared for it. And I do not understand how due process was done in that way when one side is completely prepared with lots of exhibits. And they have a whole basically mini trial planned out. And we are just ambushed by this situation that we had never heard of even happening.

Speaker 1:
[11:50] They had their postings, but they didn't have them in order. They didn't, they piecemealed what was shown to take it out of context. You know, and I'm dealing with this in my ODC stuff. You've got to go in sequence to understand where you are in a text stream. You just can't pull out a page from a text conversation and say, see, see here.

Speaker 2:
[12:11] Because a lot of the photos that they were showing, the caption was, I know I don't look like it in these photos, but I was terrified this day and I was extremely stressed but they didn't mention any of that. But yeah, I felt completely abused by the South Carolina court system. I felt like I was punished for everything that I have exposed in Murdoch. And at the end, it felt extremely clear that that's what that was about. Like it was very clear that this was them conspiring to get, in my opinion, them conspiring together. This was the first time in this experience that we have had where lawyers have been able to get together and get revenge for the things that we have exposed about them and their clients on our podcast. And that was extremely clear when I was sitting there. And again, the court let them. And my other thing, yes, I was, David was admonished for simply looking at me and being a person of support when I'm a non-party witness in a case that I had been summoned to on the other side of the state. When during breaks, when I had to go to the bathroom, I was treated like a prisoner, Eric. Like they made a bailiff go with me. Like I was going to escape or some sort of thing.

Speaker 1:
[13:24] So that you wouldn't talk to anybody.

Speaker 2:
[13:26] Right. But it was absurd. Like I was treated with less respect than Alex Murdoch on that stand.

Speaker 1:
[13:32] Well, what I saw was they tried to, or Debbie tried to insinuate through her questions. And I say this with all due respect, that you were more of an influencer than a journalist at this point. And I really was offended by that because at your core, you are a journalist. And at your core, everything you do is journalistic. The podcast is journalistic. It's about informing based on research. Nobody's just walking on a show and going in front of a microphone without spending a week of deep dive that you and Liz and Beth and David and everybody else in True Sunlight does. But they tried to act like, well, you're just a social media maverick.

Speaker 2:
[14:14] They don't want journalism to be influential. They want journalism to be like what John Monk does in journalism, which is be a mouthpiece for the system and provide what they want to protect the system. They do not want journalism to be what we are making it, which is an influential, groundbreaking, world changing type of work. They don't want that because they want the system that they have developed to stay in place. And again, that has never been more clear than as it was in that courtroom. Yeah, and we'll talk more about that in a minute, and we'll be right back.

Speaker 3:
[15:02] I have a lot to say, guys.

Speaker 1:
[15:03] Okay, Liz, you're on.

Speaker 3:
[15:06] There's just so much. The first thing I want to say is something that a friend pointed out to me, and I think it's really smart, and it makes a lot of sense to me, and that is that you don't want to anger deponents in general, as a strategy in a civil case. You certainly don't want to anger a deponent that you say has information that you want, that you need, and that is critical to your case, right?

Speaker 1:
[15:31] Right, you want the information.

Speaker 3:
[15:33] And that's something that a judge would know. That's something that a judge would understand. So it sort of flies in the face of logic that they would do what they did to you on Tuesday, which is ambush you, question you like you were a criminal, badger, just to use that word, badger you. Several times, Becky had to stand up and tell them to stop yelling and cool your jets kind of thing. The way the lead up to this hearing as well was very adversarial and I think that it's important for people to know that leading up to the deposition standoff on March 27th, you and your attorney were trying to have productive conversations with Parker's attorneys and it wasn't happening. They weren't allowing that to happen. They were still enrolling you guys.

Speaker 1:
[16:17] They wouldn't even respond to Becky, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's not like there was discussion and we're talking over or we're not gonna agree. They wouldn't even answer Becky.

Speaker 2:
[16:27] Right, and so at some points, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:29] Yeah, and so essentially what happened on that Friday with them not coming to you, et cetera, et cetera. Normally the way that would work is that because you're a deponent that they need, want critical to the case as they say, you would be somebody that they would want to go to, obviously somebody that they would accommodate. But it was never about that and it's very clear.

Speaker 1:
[16:51] No, it wasn't.

Speaker 3:
[16:52] And the other thing is just that you did not, and I think this is important too for everyone to understand, you did not disobey and I understand that lawyers out there are going to say, she did that. So you did not disobey a court order. Like the subpoena I understand now is a court order, etc. But you guys were actively trying to get help from the court so that you could have this conversation with Parker's attorneys.

Speaker 2:
[17:14] And feel safe and their hostility was making me feel increasingly unsafe. And not once in any of these debates including the day. And again, Eric, like in the day that we had the standoffs, if I am a person that you are deposing and you are wanting to get information from me, wouldn't you want to say something along the lines of we want you to feel safe too?

Speaker 3:
[17:43] Right.

Speaker 2:
[17:43] Instead, he gaslit me and said, ho ho, I looked around the corner and there's no ghost over here. So you better come over here. And it was like, he who?

Speaker 3:
[17:54] Mark Moore said that? Mark Moore.

Speaker 1:
[17:56] It wasn't information that they wanted. They wanted to brace you, Mandy. It was all about bracing you, that you have this platform and very loyal supporters and very loyal listeners. And you've changed the landscape in South Carolina in many ways, you and Liz and David, whether it's in Horry County, whether it's in Beaufort County, or whether it's in Hampton. You've changed the landscape. And I think they just wanted to brace you because they could.

Speaker 3:
[18:27] Obvious to everyone.

Speaker 2:
[18:28] It was a cumulative punishment for everything that I have brought to the surface.

Speaker 1:
[18:34] Well said.

Speaker 2:
[18:35] In the last six years.

Speaker 1:
[18:36] Well said.

Speaker 2:
[18:37] And that's exactly what it felt like and it was so clear. But what was shocking again is that I kept looking at the judge like.

Speaker 1:
[18:44] Tell me. Do something.

Speaker 2:
[18:46] Isn't there something that you can do to stop or that you would want to do to stop this? Because what is happening here in the precedent that they set there, again, is that you can be attorneys with wealthy clients. And if you want to get revenge on a journalist for what they've reported, you can do whatever you want to that journalist. You can force her into a deposition where she feels scared for her life. You can collude with her harasser, allegedly. And you can do all of that and still get her in trouble with the court.

Speaker 3:
[19:22] It's very obvious, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[19:24] And guess what that's going to do? That's going to silence journalists across the state.

Speaker 1:
[19:27] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[19:28] And it has silenced journalists.

Speaker 1:
[19:29] And your trouble isn't over, just like me.

Speaker 2:
[19:33] Yeah. Look at the journalists in the states. Everybody's quiet. No.

Speaker 3:
[19:37] And yes, it has. I mean, there are people that you can count on in South Carolina to speak up about this. And one of them you would think would be what maybe South Carolina's most senior attorney at this point, or attorney, and most senior reporter at this point, who is John Monk, who instead of covering this in an unbiased way, as he likes to believe he does, he clearly used it to take out revenge on his part as well.

Speaker 2:
[20:06] Yeah, that was more revenge for Murdaugh.

Speaker 3:
[20:08] Retaliation. Yeah. And or calling out his-

Speaker 2:
[20:12] I got it from that angle too.

Speaker 3:
[20:13] Yeah, exactly. No, exactly. That's exactly what I saw there.

Speaker 1:
[20:17] Referring to his article, I thought it was unseemly in a lot of ways. I thought it was not straight down the middle journalism.

Speaker 2:
[20:27] No.

Speaker 1:
[20:28] He took unnecessary shots at you.

Speaker 2:
[20:30] And he never does that. We all have to stop pretending like John Monk is straight down the middle of articles. He does articles that powerful men like and support, and that keeps the system intact. He does not do anything that actually stands up for what's right, or is fair, or honest. His article was also not honest in like, I do honest reporting. I report from facts. I don't make up things like, people are saying that she's a hack, and that this hearing was about me being reckless with facts. That's not what this hearing was about. This hearing was about the deposition, and he editorialized that that's what that was about. Again, this is why it is so stupid to say that there's unbiased journalism, because he is a perfect example of somebody who dumb people look at, which is when they say, that's an unbiased journalist right there. And you look at that article, and it is filled with disgusting bias, to the point where, and I love the comments, I didn't say anything about it, but people were really heated on Facebook. I was watching that on vacation, and one of my favorite comments was, this comes off as a very jealous ex-boyfriend.

Speaker 3:
[21:49] Yep, which is a gross notion to think of.

Speaker 2:
[21:52] Yeah, that's disgusting.

Speaker 3:
[21:53] Yeah, he's never been so, for people to know to you that when we worked at The Island Packet, John Monk worked at our sister paper. We were using the same back-end system as him, and he was what I would regard, in my opinion, a very secretive sneaky reporter in that he didn't have to share his sources with editors the way we did. But beyond that-

Speaker 2:
[22:16] The rules were so different.

Speaker 3:
[22:18] The rules were so different for him. One of those things was that he was told to back off of the boat crash case, because it was in our jurisdiction, and we had it. We're not- I'm sure he thought, like, well, this is the paper of record for the Lowcountry, and that's where it happened. And so he was told to back off, and he didn't. He continued to try and scoop us, I guess. I don't know what you would call. I really don't know how you would refer to that, but I would just say this. Like, you can call Mandy a hack, you can call me a hack, I don't care. But we're honest about where we're coming from, and we're always...

Speaker 2:
[23:00] And say it's your opinion. Just say it's your opinion. Don't say people are saying that you're a hack or that this hearing was about you being a hack. It wasn't.

Speaker 3:
[23:09] It wasn't.

Speaker 2:
[23:10] That hearing was not about me being a hack. That's your opinion. You think I'm a hack, and you want people to believe that.

Speaker 3:
[23:16] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[23:17] I thought the hearing was about lawyers trying to show somehow that you're an unstable person. And I say that again, knowing that you are a very stable person and a very smart, intelligent woman. But they were trying to, I felt that Debbie was trying to show that you had no objective, reasonable right to be fearful for your health and your safety. And you articulated it beautifully why you said, this isn't just over this. This is on the ass end of six years of having people troll me, threaten me, say mean things. This is a cumulative effect of six years of you taking a lot of incoming. And I just felt it was so unseemly. The whole hearing, I just left and I felt horrible for you.

Speaker 2:
[24:11] But here's my question, Eric, go ahead and you're probably going to ask what I'm going to ask. Didn't she come off as unstable? She was the emotionally unstable one.

Speaker 1:
[24:22] She came off as, I don't know if it would be unstable, but she had a green light. And so she used that green light. She could have been stood down by the judge. That judge and most judges that I appeared before wouldn't have tolerated the length that she took you out on a branch, okay? He overruled a lot of Becky's objections and gave her a lot of room to do what she did. And she took advantage of it. Most judges would have cut her off when he got to bikinis, when he got to a lot of the different subject matters. And Becky's like, what does this have to do with her deposition tomorrow? And then it was, well, we have a contempt motion. I felt like it wasn't about the deposition. It's about, hey, we want to hold this woman in contempt. We want to assess attorney's fees. We want sanctions. And I don't know where that stands, whether that's still an issue that's under advisement with the court. But I just felt like it was a judge that let her go far, way too far.

Speaker 3:
[25:30] Yeah, way too far. And at the very end, I think the thing that was the most offensive and should have been the most telling to the court is when Debbie said to Mandy, you're going to be deposed tomorrow and it's going to be in a secure location. And she did it in a way that was very menacing.

Speaker 2:
[25:47] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[25:48] Very menacing, like not just snarky, but like emotionally unstable. It was as if she, they're, they're taking her to like Abu Ghraib or something. Like it just, again, I go back to what my friend said about the, you don't want to get a deponent angry. And therefore, and this is like across the board, right? Like you're either, I mean, a non-party deponent who you say you need to question is somebody you want to keep happy. So they'll say that that wasn't what it was about. And that's, we all know that, but they're showing that's not what it was about.

Speaker 1:
[26:21] It's about getting information. How do you get information when you hit somebody with a baseball bat?

Speaker 2:
[26:26] Exactly, they were showing that that's not what any of this was about. It was their side mission between Greg Parker, Mark Moore and Deborah Barbier again to get me back for the things that I have reported in the last six years. That's all this was. And it was allowed and it was disgusting and it was horrible and it's still not over.

Speaker 1:
[26:46] What do you mean it's still not over? I don't understand.

Speaker 2:
[26:48] It's still not over, Eric. There's all of, everything's still up in the air. Like, we could still have to pay. I could still be held in contempt. And that's why, again, civil or criminal, we don't know. What we know so far is that they have been given the longest leash in the world to do what they have done to me. And it's just going to get longer. And I don't have any faith in the system whatsoever. What I have faith in is our fans and people from around the world, making noise about this and putting it in the sunlight and making sure that people know that they can't do this in the dark. I believe that I am a test case for somebody who stands up to the system and stands up to lawyers.

Speaker 1:
[27:36] You sound like me.

Speaker 2:
[27:37] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:38] You sound, I could be sitting in your seat and say the same thing. I feel like a test case for the ODC.

Speaker 2:
[27:44] Right.

Speaker 1:
[27:44] That they want to make an example of me as a lawyer that is well known and accomplished a lot in the last six years, that I think has benefited our bar. I also think that it's sad. I am affected by what I'm having to go through because these aren't complaints against me from clients. If they were complaints from me against clients where a client said, I stole money like Alex, or I lied to them, or God forbid, I engaged with sex with a client, or I missed the statute of limitations, or I lied on a document, I filed with the court. I get it. But I have practiced very good law for a long time, 38 years, and tons of nice things are said about me the way they're said about you two and the job that you two do. And I'm being attacked for being a good lawyer. And I just, I have lost so much faith in our system. And I feel the same way that you do. We're saying the exact same thing, at least from that.

Speaker 2:
[28:54] Right. I mean, I'm just what happens. This is what happens in South Carolina, and they want to make an example out of us that they do not want anything to change in the system. They do not want anything to be exposed. And we are a threat to that. So we will be punished, and they will use the court to do so.

Speaker 3:
[29:13] So let me say the thing. I'm not done saying angry things, but I want to point out a few positives here. One is that in a world where we have to fight against people that want to use their power corruptly, who can be bought off, who don't have a soul, whatever it might be, it is the good guys who get beaten up. And the fact that they have gone to this length, and this is again, I don't know about you guys in your past relationships, but if you ghost somebody, if you show less interest in them, it works, okay? It's a very clear thing. I don't want somebody to feel special in any way, or they hurt me in any way. I cut them off, right? I'm not saying it's a great psychological thing for another day, but my point is, is they're showing way too much interest in you, which is giving you more power, which is giving you more value in breaking down the system. Their focus and fixation on you, and I'm going to extend what I've said about Jim Seidel and Anapha David to them as well, their fixation on you, is actually them admitting that you're right, and them admitting that you have...

Speaker 1:
[30:30] It wasn't just skin deep, she got to the bone.

Speaker 3:
[30:33] Exactly, so that's one positive. Another positive is, the number of people who have come out in support without our prompting on the posting of John Monk's stories, like that have been put on Facebook, et cetera, it was like the end of a movie where you realize that people like you after all. Like, it's just like, it wasn't just that people were like putting an emoji or saying, I like this, or yay Mandy, go Mandy. It was them actually like articulately, succinctly like putting together what the problem was here over and over and they were seeing through it. Never in my history at the Island Packet or watching the Island Packet from afar, have I ever seen that kind of commenting on a story where people even during political times when it's like this candidate versus that candidate, never. This was hundreds of comments from people who were seeing what was actually happening here, not just with what was going on in the courtroom, but with the coverage of it. Yeah, and then the third thing, and this is a positive for the judge, and I say this because again, I hope he takes this part into consideration. Going back to what I was saying about the deponent, you don't want to anger them, right? Well, another thing is that because Mandy did not go to their location and bluffed and whatever, they decide that they're going to need two days to depose her. This is what's happening during the week where she's on the stand. They tell the judge, we're going to need two days because she's going to object to our questions and we're going to have to come back to the court and blah, blah, blah. So we're going to hold the deposition open. The judge says, let's do it at Spartanburg County. I'll be down the hall. And if she raises objections to what you're asking her, come on down the hall. And I will make a ruling right there and then.

Speaker 1:
[32:33] So it doesn't remain open. That's smart.

Speaker 3:
[32:35] So it doesn't remain open. But beyond that, they showed their asses. Because how many times did they have to go down the hall for the judge to rule, Mandy?

Speaker 2:
[32:44] None.

Speaker 3:
[32:45] Yeah, none.

Speaker 2:
[32:46] None.

Speaker 3:
[32:47] Because instead of asking her those questions, now that they had a supervisor down the hall, now that there was an adult down the hall, they tamed their questions instead of asking her ridiculous questions that didn't need to be asked but they know the judge would have ruled in her favor if she objected to them.

Speaker 1:
[33:02] Not only that, Becky was not an obstructionist attorney. She let you answer the questions. If she just kept objecting and instructing you not to answer, of course, it would have spun out of control.

Speaker 2:
[33:16] But again, most of the questions I literally could not answer. A, half of the deposition was them asking me about how Liz feels about something. I was like, that would be speculating. What is wrong with you? I don't know. They kept showing these stolen text messages. I have no idea. I don't know if that was Liz or not. I don't even know if these are authentic or not.

Speaker 3:
[33:45] Also point out, we're not the only ones. We're not the only ones in those texts.

Speaker 2:
[33:48] Why are you asking me about these suspicious text messages that I have no idea? And I kept telling them again, if you really wanted information about me, about this stupid scissor reel from four or five years ago, you should have asked me four or five years ago. Because time has passed and I have lived 17 lives since then. And I do not remember so many of these things. And again, they've only added to the trauma and the muddying of my memory because all of it makes me angry. Like my, anything with the Parker's case, my brain just goes, like, the cartoon character would be like red coming out of it and everything goes murky and weird. Like I don't remember it because they have put so much trauma in my brain about all of this.

Speaker 3:
[34:42] Let me just point this out because it piggybacks off of what she's saying. If those texts are real, the stolen texts I'm talking about, they're not texts between me and Mandy.

Speaker 2:
[34:51] No, they're not.

Speaker 3:
[34:52] They're texts between our boss, Will Fulks, whoever else was on the text message chain. So it could either be Will and us, it could be Will and Dylan.

Speaker 2:
[35:02] But they were all from Jen Wood.

Speaker 3:
[35:03] But they were all from Jen Wood. The blue was Jen Wood. If they are authentic, then that's who they came from. But yet, in the garbage dump that is someone's website, for them to constantly, and I will even say this about other podcasts, we have been over and over misattributed. And they did this to me during the deposition where they would be like, why did you say this? And I'm like, well, that's blue. That would be Tabor Vox, not me.

Speaker 2:
[35:31] Right, I know. They did the same thing to me and it was like they wanted to trick me. And I kept saying, actually on this side, it's Jen Wood. That's Jen Wood saying that. And I know that her name is the only one that's not on any of these pieces of paper, which is really, really weird. You're trying to make it like it was me and Liz and it wasn't. It was me, Liz and Jen Wood.

Speaker 3:
[35:52] And this matters because I think that they want to show the court is like, these are secret text messages between the two menaces of South Carolina.

Speaker 2:
[35:59] Right.

Speaker 3:
[35:59] These were text messages, again, if they're authentic, because I haven't seen, for work. And anything we would have said was being said and witnessed by other people. So it's not this like intimate, like situation that they got between Mandy and me. Now, they did not, they would not have been able to get those texts if they're real through the normal process. So that's why they had to purchase them for thousands of dollars through a third non party person.

Speaker 1:
[36:27] Why doesn't the journalistic privilege apply to that?

Speaker 3:
[36:31] It does, Eric.

Speaker 2:
[36:32] It should.

Speaker 1:
[36:33] If you are all journalists together, if you were working all together, I'm confused here. If you guys are talking about ongoing stories that are part of the journalistic protection of the newspaper or whatever news media was at the time, Fitznews, I don't understand why those are out. Why?

Speaker 3:
[36:56] There's nothing in those text messages that helps their case. We did not get the body photos of Mallory Beach. We did not give them to Greg Roman, who was the person that Greg Parker was admitted, that his team has admitted to him being part of their team, paid part of their team. Nothing in those text messages can help them absolve Greg Parker from what he's been accused. Instead, what they're doing is using these text messages to create chaos and a dust storm so that it masks what's actually going on. So we're at a loss as to how, what can we do? We do not own, like those text messages that this person sold to them is, they belong to Fitznews, technically. They belong to Jen Wood.

Speaker 1:
[37:44] They're journalistic privileged.

Speaker 2:
[37:46] Right. It was work product.

Speaker 1:
[37:48] Work product.

Speaker 3:
[37:49] I agree. But what do you do to block them from being used in depositions? What do you do to block them from being leaked?

Speaker 1:
[37:56] You file a protective order. We should have gone to the AP or to...

Speaker 2:
[38:01] With that same judge?

Speaker 1:
[38:03] I believe that Judge Kelly, at the end of the day, I'd like to believe, is going to say, you got her deposition. This is over with. You got a hearing. You put her under oath. That's my hope. But they tried to make you look bad in front of Judge Kelly. The first question by Debbie Barbier was, why do you call him R. Kelly? You remember that, Mandy?

Speaker 3:
[38:26] His name. Why do we call him by his name?

Speaker 2:
[38:28] His name on the website.

Speaker 1:
[38:30] They wanted to turn him against you from the jump street.

Speaker 2:
[38:34] I know. They also wanted me to, they have said this all along, they want me to look like a conspiracy theorist that hates the system and that is crazy and thinks that everybody in the system is bad, which I'm like, look around.

Speaker 1:
[38:50] But you say some nice things about Judge Bubba Griffith. You've said some good things about law enforcement officers.

Speaker 2:
[38:58] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[38:59] Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:
[39:00] When a judge does good things. Yeah. Listen, especially when a judge is an older white man, I will say lots of good things because look, we need that. We need older white men on the side of justice, on the right side, I should say.

Speaker 3:
[39:17] More of that, please.

Speaker 2:
[39:18] But let's take a break and we'll be right back. A couple things I want to say before we get into the stalker portion of this. The other thing that made me really, really mad about the mistreatment of me and the way everything went down, it felt very much so like Parker's attorneys were not only prepared for that hearing, but prepared for a deposition the next day. They all had iron clothes at my deposition, and fresh suits, and bubbly hair, and they were prepared. I had to get my outfit from Target. I had to Instacart my clothes. I had to go into my deposition with no ADHD medicine, or antidepressants, or I didn't bring any of my medication with me to Spartanburg. I felt like I was a prisoner in this town of Spartanburg that I was summoned to. It again, very much worry anybody who is a truth teller in our state, because that's how they will be treated, of summoned to a location and forced into something that they were not at all prepared for, and ambushed. And somehow the other side is completely aware of everything that's going on. Oh, and Eric, their team was making fun of us the entire time. We overheard them joke about, Stakes on Mandy tonight, we're all going for Stakes, and Mandy's going to pay for that.

Speaker 1:
[41:07] I heard they made an untoward comment to about Becky and her outfit that she wore to court. Becky had told me, and I didn't witness that, because I was there for two hours and then I had to leave before, I didn't get to see you finish is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2:
[41:21] So again, if I get sanctions, I would really like the judge to know that, that they thought that this was a joke. They thought that the bill that they were racking up at this location was a joke to torture me more.

Speaker 1:
[41:33] But that they sent another comment about another lawyer.

Speaker 2:
[41:36] In the name of justice.

Speaker 1:
[41:37] About Becky and what she was wearing or something like that.

Speaker 3:
[41:40] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[41:41] It really, I really felt bad for Becky. I don't feel like she was treated with respect by the other lawyers, which I don't usually see.

Speaker 3:
[41:50] There was no, there wasn't professional at all.

Speaker 2:
[41:52] And it was her birthday.

Speaker 3:
[41:53] It was her birthday.

Speaker 1:
[41:55] Right.

Speaker 2:
[41:55] And again, like if you want to, if you are a judge and you want to protect the system, I feel like the only way in this case to protect it is to make lawyers behave in a way that is decent. And this, none of this was decent or right. And the way that Becky was treated.

Speaker 1:
[42:14] With disdain and contempt.

Speaker 2:
[42:16] By the attorneys the entire time.

Speaker 3:
[42:19] Meredith as well. Was.

Speaker 2:
[42:21] Meredith as well, disdain and again they acted like, they acted like, they were treating me like a criminal, but yet I didn't get due process like a criminal. So our attorneys didn't get all of the same exit, like they didn't print out the exhibits for all the attorneys. They were just, it was out of control injustice, in my opinion. And side ops too, side ops.

Speaker 3:
[42:47] Let's not forget that part of it.

Speaker 2:
[42:49] Right. And again, we have to go back to the fact that the entire reason why I felt unsafe in this entire case is because there has been one stalker who has been creeping me out and we have come across information in the last couple of months that that stalker was directly talking to the attorneys in this case. And during my deposition, during the deposition standoff a couple weeks ago, it became even more clear that he was communicating with them when he was posting things that he was aware of, things about the deposition that nobody else was aware of. It was very clear that he was getting live updates. And I can't stress this enough, the amount of times on the stand that I was asked about, why do you do this? Why do you go, why go to Savannah with your friends? How dare you on a Friday?

Speaker 1:
[43:46] To have a security guard.

Speaker 2:
[43:47] In the public.

Speaker 1:
[43:47] Why do you have a security guard? You have a security guard in this courtroom. Why didn't you have a security guard in?

Speaker 2:
[43:52] Because they were the threat the entire time. But when I'm going to the threat, and the threat is coming to me, that is when I need a security guard. I do not think that they understand that the security isn't, the main threat is not the entire world at this point. It is people associated directly with them. So I feel the most unsafe when I am around those lawyers.

Speaker 3:
[44:19] Which the judge should be able to see, given what they did in the courtroom. So we should talk about this person a little bit, because it's important.

Speaker 2:
[44:25] Well, it's amped up.

Speaker 3:
[44:27] It's amped up, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[44:29] Why is it amped up?

Speaker 3:
[44:30] One thing, let's point out, this person, Jim Seidel, who has the website, what have you, he published audio from the hearing, and there is no record of him filing a rule 605 form with the court. You need, as a person who's gonna use audio from the courtroom, you need to have explicit permission of the judge. You have to have, and it's something that goes on the public record. So this is just showing you the motivation. This is not about journalism. This is not about, I'm just covering a story to just...

Speaker 2:
[45:03] And that's a court violation.

Speaker 3:
[45:04] It's a court violation.

Speaker 2:
[45:05] In my eyes, it is an extremely serious thing to...

Speaker 1:
[45:09] Violation of court rules.

Speaker 2:
[45:11] You are disobeying the judge when you do not fill out a 605 and you're putting things on the internet, clips from that hearing.

Speaker 3:
[45:18] You need specific, every media organization needs to have specific permission from the judge and you can't just show up and think like, oh, there's one group that has that permission, so that's okay. It's not okay. And there's a reason for those 605 forms, right? You don't want somebody surreptitiously recording what's going on in court room and then posting it because in a divorce hearing or something, to embarrass. Because the only reason you would surreptitiously record without the court's permission is probably to embarrass somebody.

Speaker 2:
[45:49] Or like in a drug case, if somebody is telling on somebody, like there are just a lot of things that could, that should be confidential when within the court. And you have to also, and that's the point of journalists and the difference between journalists and influencers and TikTokers. Journalists take those rules of 605 seriously.

Speaker 3:
[46:09] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[46:10] Like we take rules of the court when it comes to what we can cover and what we cannot seriously. Because again, we understand that there absolutely has to be things within the court that stays confidential. And you can't suspiciously take clips off the internet of different things in court and like either posting them on the internet or selling them to other people for information. Like that is chaotic and that is illegal. And again, I hope that the judge sees that.

Speaker 3:
[46:40] Yeah, and it's dishonest because it gets shared in dishonest ways. And I think one thing just to point out, and the judge, I hope, knows this, where we weren't investigated by SLED for taking photos of Paul Murdoch's dead body and sealed court evidence, exhibits, sealed exhibits in the Murdoch hearing. We weren't kicked out of the courtroom. We weren't barred from like all the things that the people that that applaud the Parker's attorneys. And you could see all of them in a roster down the side of the WebEx because you could see who was logged in to watch. There was a father, or at least somebody using the person's name, of another podcaster watching. Like just for entertainment, just to watch Mandy.

Speaker 2:
[47:20] And then another podcaster posted for entertainment that she was entertaining herself while on vacation. Like people were using my trauma and my... And again, I'm fighting for the First Amendment here, you assholes. Like, I have busted open a lot of the stories that have given you guys the right to have a stupid podcast.

Speaker 3:
[47:43] Y'all using What's-his-face's phone calls in your podcasts and your... Where'd you get those from? Why'd you know you could do that?

Speaker 2:
[47:51] Right. All the things that we brought to the surface, right? And like, we've done all the legwork so these idiots can just babble about it and then make fun of us. And that's fine. Whatever. Do your thing, girl.

Speaker 3:
[48:04] The whole thing is about whether these people are saying that Mandy was not being stalked or harassed. She had no right to want to have security or have this in a secure location. In the meantime, they're showing the judge that they are doing exactly what Mandy says that they do, which is harass and seek to bully her. They're doing that right in the court. And then right as all of this is happening, there's more stalking and harassment that's getting put on the record. And I don't know how much we're allowed to say about it, but it's...

Speaker 2:
[48:32] We can say, my attorney started to be stalked and harassed. From unwanted messages to unwanted packages, I can say that much.

Speaker 1:
[48:43] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[48:43] It's creepy, really scary, escalating.

Speaker 1:
[48:47] I know that her husband is a US attorney.

Speaker 2:
[48:52] And her husband is a US attorney.

Speaker 1:
[48:56] Who do the US attorneys know?

Speaker 2:
[48:58] The FBI.

Speaker 1:
[48:58] The FBI. Who do they work with every day? The FBI.

Speaker 2:
[49:03] Escalating in a creepy way that feels like this person is even more unhinged than they have ever been. And I'm also very sick and tired of people, particularly men on the internet, giggling at harassment and saying like, ha ha, that makes you scared, ha ha, that makes you scared. Well, every man like that giggles until somebody's dead.

Speaker 3:
[49:27] We have the most amount of firearms, personal firearms, sold to people in this country. Women to women as well, but mostly to men, right? They fear for their safety and have an amendment that they can rely on, which is the Second Amendment, to do something about the fear they have for their safety. They brag to each other about how, come on, my property, you'll be shot in the head.

Speaker 2:
[49:51] Don't tread on me.

Speaker 3:
[49:52] Exactly. So, like, what are you talking about? You know what fear is, and this judge actually knows what fear is, too. And not only that, when he was a legislator, he actually came up with a bill to make it so that, like other state employees, that House members and Senate members of the Senate could carry firearms on the House floor. But he's somebody who understands what it is to, as a judge, especially in this political climate, and like, let's talk about that for a second. We have state legislatures across the country right now, asking for the laws to be changed to allow politicians to use campaign funds to hire private security guards. So we have in South Carolina, Bruce Bannister, who is actually the brother of Parker's attorney Jim Bannister, appealing to Mark Keel of SLED and saying, Listen, if anyone wants a security guard, private security, or not private, if anyone wants security from SLED, please give it to them, because this is tough political times for us. Right? So you're telling me that politicians who vote on things, but you have a person who is more well known. Does anyone raise your hand if you know who Bruce Bannister is? Right? Who's Mandy Matney? You know what I mean? There's more wide recognition of Mandy than any other legislator in the Senate or the House. There just is. I can't think I could go to my family and be like, do you know, or any friends out there randomly, and be like, do you know Wes Newton? Do you know Bill Herb Kershman? No, they don't. But there are people that don't know you who know you. And the threat, therefore, is bigger, in my opinion. And I'm just saying that it seems like this judge would empathize with that, and sympathize, and understand.

Speaker 2:
[51:35] And also, I paid for security that day. And I hope that he understands that, too. And it was a lot of money. And I'm not happy about it. And I paid for security for the entire trip to Spartanburg. And Debbie, I have receipts on that, if you want them.

Speaker 3:
[51:50] Were you there, Eric, when Debbie asked Mandy, what was your security guard's name, as if?

Speaker 1:
[51:55] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[51:55] Like, what?

Speaker 1:
[51:56] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[51:57] Everything was gas. Everything.

Speaker 1:
[52:00] It was all demeaning. It was all to just minimize her subjective feelings of fear and David's fear for her. They just tried to minimize it and degrade it and act like it's fanciful and in their heads. And, you know, I know we don't have enough time left, but, you know, I found out, I guess, on Friday, when David texted us that somebody filed a police report against us in Buford for harassment, and no sooner did we find out that it was closed.

Speaker 2:
[52:31] It's our harasser.

Speaker 3:
[52:33] And the case was promptly closed, apparently.

Speaker 1:
[52:36] So good for the Buford Sheriff's Department. I saw somewhere that he's upset that he claims that he's not a convicted felon or that we're mischaracterizing his criminal background.

Speaker 2:
[52:51] Felon's a felon.

Speaker 1:
[52:52] I've seen documents filed in the court that he was charged, and he pled guilty.

Speaker 2:
[52:57] He pled guilty to lying to investigators. He is a convicted felon.

Speaker 1:
[53:01] I got to believe those documents are real.

Speaker 2:
[53:03] Right. Right, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:06] Lying to federal officials. Guess who went to jail for 12 months doing that? Martha Stewart.

Speaker 2:
[53:12] Convicted of lying. That's the thing. Like, Parker's attorneys are on the side of a man who is convicted of lying to federal investigators. And Debbie and Mark Moore are former US attorneys.

Speaker 3:
[53:25] Federal, yeah, exactly. They know this. But I think if we're gonna leave people with one thought, I think that there's, and just so people are clear on this and they're able to better defend online, I guess. You showed up for your deposition. It's the issue, and then this is the other thing. The judge denied your motion for protection or your emergency motion that you filed. But you didn't know that, and no one appeared to know it.

Speaker 2:
[53:49] Until Monday, so we had no idea.

Speaker 3:
[53:52] Exactly, but he says it's signed on Friday at 7:45 a.m. So to somebody from the public to look at those documents would think like, wait a minute, so she knew, she didn't know, neither did the other side.

Speaker 2:
[54:03] No, I didn't.

Speaker 3:
[54:04] And so-

Speaker 2:
[54:05] And they never mentioned that.

Speaker 3:
[54:07] They never mentioned that, and then also you were asked this question. I think it's the most important question that the judge should consider, which is whether if you had known about the judge denying your motion, would you have gone over to West Newton's office to sit for the deposition? And you answered that, yes, I would have. So I don't know how-

Speaker 2:
[54:26] Yeah, because that's a different story.

Speaker 1:
[54:28] It was that she's law-abiding-

Speaker 2:
[54:30] Right.

Speaker 1:
[54:31] Citizen to court orders.

Speaker 3:
[54:33] And every single step of the way here, you had a right to hire an attorney. You had a right to say, like, I think this is just harassment. I don't think I'm being deposed for any valid reason. This is a mere, like, in South Carolina, and I guess other states as well, you can't just depose people because you have a mere hunch of what they might say. You have to have some sort of specific. Is that right? How's it worded, Eric? Like-

Speaker 1:
[54:56] Right, you have to show relevant. You have to show that it can, through discovery, can lead to it's relevant to admissible evidence.

Speaker 2:
[55:04] You can't sum it like-

Speaker 1:
[55:05] You just can't. I can't just, in my case, if I'm suing you, Mandy, I can't just send a deposition notice out to the Pope. It's got to be some nexus.

Speaker 2:
[55:14] Exactly. You can't force Nancy Mason to a deposition just because you want to or-

Speaker 1:
[55:21] I know that all too well.

Speaker 2:
[55:24] Or because of, or you can't get Donald Trump to sit down for a deposition just because. The other thing is that, and this is the reason why I fought this all along, and this is something that we all need to consider as we end on it, is like I fought this so other journalists don't be afraid of defense attorneys to come after them and depose them. Years after, they have exposed them and their clients for wrongdoing. And that is what is happening here. And I, I thought the other day, Eric, like I sat back and was like, oh my God, so Weldon Boyd's attorney can come after me and force me into a deposition. And to somewhere, I feel unsafe.

Speaker 1:
[56:09] Same circumstances.

Speaker 2:
[56:10] And ask me about my sources and steal my text messages and post them on the internet to intimidate me to stop reporting on him. JP Miller's attorney could do the same thing. Like this could go on, this could be a very easy way for defense attorneys.

Speaker 1:
[56:26] Your new occupation isn't deponing.

Speaker 2:
[56:28] Yeah, my new occupation in that case would be retired because I'm out, because again, we cannot afford to do this for very long. Like I cannot stress that to the audience enough.

Speaker 1:
[56:39] It's chilling the First Amendment. It's chilling the press. It's trying to dissuade the press from covering this.

Speaker 3:
[56:50] 100%.

Speaker 1:
[56:52] They want to keep you away from this trial because guess what? When it comes in August, they're dealing with Mark Tinsley and guess what? You're going to report on it and you got a large audience.

Speaker 2:
[57:05] And guess what? But it's a trial of a jury. It's a jury trial. It's not one person. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[57:13] No, it's true.

Speaker 2:
[57:14] But they are going to face a jury of real people. And guess what the jury of real people is? Like the people who were commenting on the packet story of the last week, who can see through things. And I'm also so freaking tired of attorneys like Debbie, and Mark, and powerful people like Greg Parker, acting like the general public is just a bunch of idiots that can't see through their bullshit. Because they see it, and they hear it, and they're tired of it. And I cannot stress that enough.

Speaker 1:
[57:46] Cups down on that. That's a great way to end it.

Speaker 3:
[57:49] Absolutely. Yeah, cups down, man.

Speaker 2:
[58:08] Cup of Justice is a LUNASHARK production created by me, Mandy Matney, and co-hosted by journalist Liz Farrell and attorney Eric Bland. Audio production support provided by Jamie Hoffman and Grace Hills. Learn more about our mission and membership at lunasharkmedia.com. Interruptions provided by Luna and Joe Pesky.