Blake Lively Settlement Revealed and Damaging Witness Testimony, with Kjersti Flaa - "In The Well" with Mark Geragos and Matt Murphy

0:04Welcome to In the Well. I'm Matt Murphy, former homicide prosecutor and author. I'm joined by my co-host and friend, Mark Geragos, criminal defense attorney to the stars. Mark, I'm back from vacation. Last saw you in CrimeCon in Vegas. Give me a breakdown. I was off the grid on this die boat. Give me a breakdown on what's going on in this crazy world. Well, I'll tell you, I don't know actually where to begin. You were gone and we would have had a spirited discussion last week about Carmelo Anthony. And I'm not talking about the Knicks or the basketball player, but a murder trial down in Texas and my rather unique take on it, I guess, unique in some circles.

0:51You've been on vacation. I hope it was productive. I brought photos. Okay, there I am. That's cave diving right after that disaster in Malaysia or in the Maldives, which was horrible. But they took us right to some caves. I got set up with these on my boat. Three different instructors were on vacation, and they were also professional photographers. So every 30 seconds, I'm handing my GoPro to them. So that's me. photo they took was like Ansel Adams. Turtles everywhere. So I went to a place called Palau, which was one of the, there's a battle in World War II, the Battle of Peleliu, which was one of the bloodiest battles in all of World War II.

1:37And it was this bizarre contrast where some of those beautiful reefs, the coral is perfect. They banned shark fishing a few years ago, so everything's just teeming. And then you'll be, you'll be swimming along and you look down, there'll be an artillery shell in the coral. It's just this, just crazy contrast. And, um, you know, I'm on a dive boat with a bunch of very happy people. Um, he's see if you guys can throw up the next one. I've been, I've been wanting to show Mark this since I got back. So, oh yeah, here's Mark. Well, you recognize that guy, Mark. That's, uh, that's from crime con. I love what a, what a, What a blast that was, right?

2:18CrimeCon is really nice people. For people who haven't been there before, that was my second one. It is quite an event and quite a happening, I'll tell you. Yeah, everybody's so, they're into it, and it's fun, and the energy is good. And here is the entire MK True Crime crew, sans Marduker. I don't know why you couldn't make it over. Something stopped you from coming. But that's we got the whole the whole group there. That's at a place called the Poodle Room in Vegas. And this is sort of funny. So that is a that is a group of attorneys and rule followers. And of course, some of our fabulous producers here on the show.

2:59And we went in there and they put it's one of those places they put stickers on your cell phone marks. So you can't take photos. And I got like I think I got photos. I don't want to rat anybody. I would get anybody in trouble. I think I got photos from the inside from everybody's phone. Yeah, exactly. Elected prosecutors and everybody is like exchanging photos from the inside after we left. But I am so I feel so fortunate to be with such an awesome group, you know, and I feel like I got a new group of friends that we got a new group of friends with these people like such a great, great bunch. And they're fun.

3:37It's a great group from all over the country. I mean, you've got Ashray and Phil down in Georgia. You've got Jonna. You've got the U down. Well, you're now down in the South Bay. I toggle back and forth between New York. You've got Eyeglash down in Florida. It's quite a crew. Yeah. So anyway, we went from CrimeCon to the... We've got Aaron Berg down in Florida as well. So, yeah, you know, he he did 12 years as the elected state's attorney for Palm Beach. And that is that is it's interesting the way they do it in Florida, you know, because here it's one DAA per county. And down there they will have they'll they put a whole bunch of counties together and they do districts.

4:26So I just gave a training slash presentation to the fourth judicial district in Florida. So it included like includes like three or four different counties. And it's based in Jacksonville. They couldn't have been nicer, but Dave was Palm Beach, which is where it was after him, I think. But it was where a lot of that Epstein stuff happened. So the real deal and nicest guy in the world. And kind of a breeding ground for legal commentators. You've got Stacey Honowitz. You've got Dave Ehrenberg. You've got, I guess, South Beach is where you've got Jose Baez and Mark O'Mara up in Orlando. They've got—Florida's fairly—Roy Black and the late, great Roy Black.

5:14You've got some talent there. I know that Texas always tries to say they've got the greatest criminal defense lawyers. I know Dan Coddwell always says that. But no less than John Quinn has remarked, you know, of Quinn Emanuel, who just stepped down as the chair. He and I years ago, we decided amongst ourselves, our committee of two, that the most hotly contested legal market in the country is Los Angeles. So that's both John and I have said that. I think to be, I think to get good, you need a good supply of weird, right? If you're in criminal stuff, the weirder the cases and the more of them you do, I think it gives you the best possible pace to sort of grow whatever talents you've got.

6:06And God knows Florida has plenty of that. But I don't know. We always hear about Florida, man. I would stat California against any of that. Yeah, it's become kind of a meme, hasn't it? Where did that take place? Florida. But I still think the most competitive legal environment is L.A. Next, entertainment journalist and multimedia producer Shasti Fla joins us to discuss the latest in the Blake Lively Justin Baldoni saga. And I got a few extra questions for her, too. So I'm looking forward to this. Stay tuned.

6:54Welcome back to In the Well. And for those of you who don't know, Matt not only will define In the Well for you, he also, and talk about spearing litigants, he also spears fish for a living on his off days. And joining us right now is entertainment journalist, multimedia producer, Shasti Flaw. Shasti has been covering, what else? the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni legal saga closely and personally been involved in the case. She was subpoenaed by Blake Lively back last year, was even set to testify against Blake for Justin's side. Welcome, Shasti, to In the Well. Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here.

7:40You guys are legends. So, yes, thank you for inviting me. Shosti, I have a question for you, because I have said that you I assume you know what the Streisand effect is, where you end up starting a legal battle in order to vindicate your rights and you end up magnifying your own issues a hundredfold. Blake Lively is now taking that to the next level on steroids. Do you think subpoenaing you may have been one of the three dumbest things in this case? Yeah, there's so many dumb things to choose from. But I think that's definitely up there. I mean, yeah, I mean, when you heard about that as a lawyer, I mean, yeah.

8:24And, you know, I'm European. We don't do that kind of stuff in Europe. They don't even know what that is. So I was really surprised. And of course, we didn't even realize that we were subpoenaed because they didn't tell us. So a lot of people were subpoenaed without even knowing about it. So it's the craziest story. And, yeah, so I think definitely it's up on the top three dumbest things that she did. I'll tell you one dumb thing that I think happened today. I don't know if we have, you know, in the federal courts, you've probably seen it, Shasti. They have PACER, which is the fancy legal term for the docket sheet.

9:06And so there's an entry today where Blake Lively's lawyers have come in and as they always do, they always overshoot what they should ask for. They cannot, they are almost constitutionally incapable of reading the room. And they asked for more and the judge ended up now basically bench slapping them and telling them now, now you're limited to 10 pages, single space, and I don't want to hear any more from you. Where they didn't have a limitation to begin with, they went overboard once again today and Judge Lyman gave them what Judge Lyman does best is you obviously don't know how to play in the sandbox.

9:47I'm going to teach you. It's just astonishing to me the lack of legal acumen in this case. For any of our audience that isn't familiar with it, you did a very now famous interview with Parker Posey and Blake Lively from 2016 regarding a movie called Cafe Society that was made by Woody Allen. And you had the temerity as an entertainment journalist to ask the question, what was it like to wear the costumes? Something completely, and it was set in the 1930s and it was apparently outrageously offensive. And the two of them just began talking to each other. It's bizarre. I've watched that interview multiple times.

10:30And one of the questions I had for you, kind of beyond the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni saga is just for anybody who's watching this. You're professional. You've got these two really famous movie stars. You've interviewed over, I think, 450 people. I watched a bunch of those too, Shashi, just to let you know. I loved your interview with Henry Winkler and even Jennifer Aniston. I kind of went down the rabbit hole on this. But what is that like? We've all been in a situation where we're kind of getting almost bullied. And what was that like for you? You're a professional, but they really, they just began kind of interviewing each other.

11:12Give it a look. First of all, congrats on your little bump. Congrats on your little bump. What about my bump? You've got two nice ones. Are these? They are kind of bumps, aren't they? No, not bumps. The lovely lady lumps. Check it out. Thank you, thank you. You like the movie? Are you a Woody Allen fan? I love most of his movies, and this one was so, like, visually amazing. Yeah, it's gorgeous. Did you guys love wearing those kind of clothes that you... Yeah. And, you know, working in digital... Everyone wants to talk about the clothes, but I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes.

11:50I would. I love Jesse's suits and how he... That's what I'm saying. His wardrobe was beautiful. Oh, I know. Everybody... Corey's wardrobe was gorgeous. Those high-waisted pants. He's so great. I would wish men wore high-waisted pants like that still. Me too. Or their father with his tank top in bed. It's so good. It's just like that. You can feel it. Did you catch the tablecloth on the light in the Italian restaurant when they eat spaghetti? I thought you really maintained your composure remarkably well. And I think this applies to so many different areas in life, whether it's a job interview, whether it's a work meeting.

12:25Tell us what was that like when all of a sudden they're turning on you? The expression on your face was, I mean, you could write a book about it, but share that with us if you don't mind. Oh, my gosh. So, of course, it started off with me saying congrats on your little bump. And I think a little bump now has been come. Like, it's been mentioned so many times in her legal filings as well. And that it started like that. And I was like, OK, she threw it back at me. And I was like, well, what happened? Is this her kind of sense of humor? But then after that, when I asked about the costumes at first, I was like, are they joking now?

13:09Oh, like, is this really happening? You know, I think there was so many emotions going through my head at the time. It's been a while. I mean, it's 2016, as you said, so it's 10 years ago now. But I do remember the feeling just sitting there at first being really like, I don't know, I just felt like I lost all my confidence. And then I started feeling a bit angry, annoyed. And then I was like, should I just leave? Should I leave? Should I not leave? And now there was so many emotions going through my head. And when I left the room, they actually cut off my interview early as well. I was supposed to be there.

13:46I had a double slot. I was doing this interview for Norwegian television and German television. But they cut it off short because I feel like they just thought, OK, this is not the best interview. So maybe we'll just throw this journalist out of the room. So when I left, I just I don't know, I just felt really disrespected, you know. And then you start going in yourself thinking like, what did I do? What did I do to provoke that kind of behavior? So, yeah, there was so many emotions. And I didn't realize until after I watched it. I don't know if you noticed, but Parker Posey was like rolling her eyes when I left the room.

14:28And Matt noticed. Trust me, Matt noticed. Yeah. So I'm glad I didn't do that. I think you felt disrespected. Yeah, you say you felt disrespected. it's because from any objective viewpoint, it was, I can't remember an interview that was less respectful than that. And I don't know if that's because you're, you're European and you weren't from, you know, uh, variety or, um, TMZ or, or something that they immediately recognized, but you've had, I mean, you've had over a hundred million hits on your YouTube channel. You, you are kind of a gateway to, um, I guess it's secondary, but the Norwegian people in Norway, everybody speaks English, right?

15:07Or it's very common at least. And I don't know if they just kind of small time to you because they didn't, they didn't recognize you right away, perhaps, or I, I don't know how to interpret it, but it was, she did roll her eyes. Another thing I noticed and tell me if I'm totally wrong here, but it seemed like, so your, your face was, the expression was professional, but you can tell, and you can also tell as time went on, you can almost, almost read all that, but you were, you were very well composed, but I noticed your fingers, you were, you appeared to be, it was like a poker tell. You were almost digging your thumbs into your fingers.

15:43And I do stuff like that, you know, in front of juries when I'm like, I'm either trying not to laugh at something or I'm getting really angry and I'm trying not to show it. Am I right on that? Is that something you do all the time? Yes, absolutely. That's a very observant thing, actually. I do, I do always do that when i do interviews i do it to remember questions it's like a thing that i do and all also if i if i start to lose like my focus i will do it as well so it's a thing that i know i consciously do but i noticed that and someone there was like a body language expert that did a video about it and he was talking a lot about how i was doing this so yeah so i did i did do that um well tell Tell a little bit, what were they going to have you testify to, if you know?

16:37I don't exactly know. But what I think, I did speak a little bit to Brian Friedman about this. But I think it's, you know, because I had all the analytics to my videos. So I could go into YouTube and actually see what happened to it when it went viral. and if anyone was pushing my video, I would see that the traffic wasn't organic. There would be spikes, there would be something telling that this video didn't go viral by itself or I could also see if someone paid ads on it. And I think that's the only way you can really push a video unless you're running an underground untraceable smear campaign.

17:21So I could testify to what happened to my video And as I told Brian Freeman at the time, you know, I received so many DMs from people like hundreds a day for a long time after I published that video. People saying, you know, I'm so glad that you show this. I'm so glad that we know now know who Blake Lively really is. And I can relate to the situation. I've been bullied and I felt exactly like I could see that you felt. So, you know, all these things, those things wouldn't happen unless that video went viral, you know, organically unless they think they're bots, the ones that wrote me emails and DMs.

18:00But her theories, and here's one of the experts I remember said that the reason how they could show that it actually was not organic was that there were so many likes on the top comment on the video. He did like this long report on how a video can go viral because someone likes a top comments. It's so dumb. It's like people like a top comment sometimes because they don't want to write their own comment because sometimes there's a lot of comments on a video and they think, you know, it's going to disappear anyway. I'm just going to agree with this person who says that she was a bully and a mean girl in this interview.

18:38And when you talk about a conversation with Brian Freeman, that's long after you shared it publicly, right? This was way before the lawsuit. Oh, of course. Right. Yeah. Years before, I guess. Years before when you posted it. No, so I posted it in 2024 after I'd seen the movie. Okay, so it was filmed in 2016. Yeah, but I never published it on YouTube until 2024. So you were like that. It was kind of the perfect storm in a sense But I didn't know about all the stuff that had been going on on the sets I had no idea about any of that I was like, okay, we were still in Hollywood But I was like, we were kind of planning to move to Europe So I was like, I don't care, I'm going to post this video This interview I had with Blake Lylee Because I watched the movie and I was like That just reminded me of, you know, watching her again I'm like, oh, I have this interview with her at home Should I just publish that interview?

19:39On the timeline, so the interview is 2016. Yeah. Well before the movie had ever been made. Yeah. You don't publish it in real time, 2016, 17, all the way to 2023 or 2024. Movie comes out. Or did you see a trailer? Or did you see the movie? Yeah, so I was at a press screening for the movie. So I did watch the movie, but it was before the premiere. So they had a pre-press screening for it. And that's when I watched the movie. And that's when I was like, oh, should I just publish that interview I have in my drawer? These old interviews. So you saw the press screening and before the movie came out, you posted it?

20:26Yeah, I think it was around the premiere or just before the premiere. I think I posted it on August 10th. Maybe the premiere was on August 6th, but the movie hadn't been come out like to the public yet. Yeah, I'm not exactly. I couldn't say exactly the timeline there, but I did post it around the time of the premiere. And then that's well before the filing of the lawsuit. Yeah. Yeah. As you know, I was mentioned. Yeah, I was mentioned in that. Well, the people who are watching this would know it's from a lawyer's standpoint, you unearth something. Unearthed, they went onto the internet. But there is something that was filmed a good 10 years before because obviously it was 2016.

21:17It just so happens you see the movie, which is also the trigger for you to post it, which you had not posted before. What a great artifact to have. Yeah. Yeah. And also, and, you know, thank you for doing that because it really seemed like it injected truth into what was going on in that case. We saw a different side of things, I think, just as a general public that nobody knew about. I think that was interesting. Shasta, I would love to hear your input on this. A lot of times when we cross-examine a witness, we will go back to, and there's kind of various rules depending on if you're federal and state court, how far back you can go on somebody's prior acts.

22:03And you can't just character assassinate them, but you have to find an act that took place prior and say, does it show something? Does it give me motive? Does it give me some kind of a insight into the person or what they're claiming? And this is a perfect example to Matt's point, right? Matt, isn't this kind of 1101 in some weird world? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or if there was a if there was a 1108 or 1109 mark for bitchiness, I wonder where that would where that would fall on. It was growing around evidence code sections and using your interview as the the kind of predicate act to get its admissibility.

22:51So, yeah, I would allow. I mean, that's the reason why it fought so hard to keep me out. But, you know, Blake's team, like, they did not want me there, obviously. So, yeah, I guess there's a reason for that. So let me tack real quick. In researching sort of about you and your background, I discovered that true crime is a huge deal in Norway. They have a thing called Nordic Noir, which I'd never heard of before. And there's an Easter crime weekend that a lot of people do. where they go and they read murder mysteries. And it turns out, Mark, I didn't know this, but there's this incredibly rich murder mystery history in the country of Norway.

23:41And I had never heard of it before. I found out because there was just a phenomenal series in the producer. Yes, Harry Hole. I'm watching it right now. Okay, it's phenomenal. It's very gritty. It's so good. It's so good. Although his nickname is kind of weird. His name is Harry Holes. Kind of funny. We used to have a bar in Manhattan Beach that was called Harry Holes. So what about you? Do you enjoy true crime? Do you enjoy murder mysteries? Do you follow any of the stuff that Mark and I do? You're as obsessed as we are with this? It's Blake Lively case. It's kind of I feel like people got addicted to this as the same way as we get addicted to these true crime stories, because there's so much going on all the time.

24:33There's so many aspects to it. There's so many layers. So many people got involved. So many industry got involved. So I think it has a lot of the same. I don't know what you guys think, but same kind of aspects to it as as true crime. Well, there's definitely a voyeuristic element to it, I think, right? Hollywood gossip and some of the things, and often when it intersects, which is Mark's world, defending famous celebrities who cross the line into getting charged criminally. But we would I would love to have you back. We would love to have you back sometime. Not only to talk about Blake Lively, but to talk about some true crime stuff.

25:16If you're if you're down, that would be I think that'd be really fun for us. Absolutely. Can I ask you something also before I go? I have a very, very specific question that I'm wondering if you could answer, because do you have time for that? Sure, of course. Yeah. OK, so I I've been so confused now with this case because Brian Friedman came out the other day when he released the whole settlement. And he said, you know, they cannot... The reason why I feel like he released the whole settlement was so that he could say, you know, there is no way that they could take these damages somewhere else or go to California or try to get these damages somewhere else because whatever Lyman decides or rules on, they can't appeal any of that.

26:05And then Gottlieb went to the media and said that, you know, we are going to try to get our damages through other vehicles. Where is the truth here? Who is, like, what's... Gottlieb's going to take the position that I'm in Brian's pocket. But let me just tell you, every single thing that that legal team has said so far has turned out to be false. I mean, just false legally. And then and they've been wrong tactically and strategically. It's unbelievable. At some point, somebody is going to write a long form article about the amount of money that Blake and Ryan have spent on this dry hole that they have been digging of for two, three years.

27:01or whatever it is, it's astonishing. And everybody keeps telling me I don't have any way to prove it, but that settlement agreement and the reason it was rushed into private mediation is there is a California Supreme Court case that says you can't sue your lawyers for legal malpractice if you resolve the case in private mediation And because you can't, there's a bar to bringing in whatever happened in the mediation. Therefore, you can't prove your case. That's exactly why this case got settled, because after Judge Lyman granted the motion that gutted Blake Lively's case, if you read that opinion, it is savage in the way he dissects the lawyer in the case.

27:53And specifically Blake's lawyering. That's why Brian, my guess, is why he released it. That is very interesting. Just to add to what Mark just said, you know, interviewing celebrities and being inside the Hollywood world, you know better probably than Mark and I do how much ego will often drive decision making. And if you've got the worst nightmare for any lawyer is, you know, and I don't know the behind the scenes on their team or not, but the worst nightmare is when you've got a client with unlimited resources who won't listen to you. And I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that some of these decisions were made against the advice of counsel.

28:35I don't know. I don't think anybody ever will. But, yeah, you understand the engine probably better than we do when it comes to ego and Hollywood and reputation and how somebody thinks they're looking in the general public. You can sort of see that going off the rails against sound legal advice. That's my best. That's my best thought on it. But do you think they're going to go somewhere else to get these damages? Can they do that? Not if their insurance carrier has anything to say about it because they're going to get slapped with an action. And also trying to judge shop with federal judges tends to go very poorly for whoever does that.

29:16And they will back each other up typically. So there's an old saying in U.S. legal circles, nothing is more powerful. Or what is it? Federal judges are second only to God himself when it comes to power. So this is a federal case and that wouldn't sit well with any federal jurist, I don't think. Thank you, Shasti. Where does the audience find you? Well, if they want to come and visit me in Mallorca, they can do that. I'm there now, or they can find me on my YouTube channel as well. Awesome. We're going to hit you up again. We're going to have you back. We're going to talk about some True Crime.