A. The transcript of September 23, 2011 hearing before Judge Mahoney. Utilizing speculation and unsupported conjecture, Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s counsel deliberately misled the Court. (continued)
Contrary to Defendants’ spin, Mr. Horwitz made clear to Magistrate Judge Mahoney what he meant: At the time the disputed documents were posted on the suspect blogs, Mr. Horwitz did not know how third parties could get “the documents . . . to put them up [on the Internet]” and thus could not provide a definitive answer to the question. There were a number of reasons for this conclusion:
- James Sotos
In his testimony, Mr. Sotos acknowledges that, with regard to Judge Mahoney’s use of the plural (“websites”), two websites were at issue — the Real MCSO and Shadow blogs.
Mr. Sotos agreed that it was not unreasonable, let alone misleading or deceptive, to believe that the disputed confidential documents were uploaded to blogs by third parties. (Transcript of Sotos Testimony (“Sotos TR.”) at 1222.)
Most significantly, Mr. Sotos admits that he could not be sure how the disputed documents got onto the blogs at issue, which is precisely how Mr. Horwitz responded to Judge Mahoney’s question.
Mr. Sotos agrees that an unhappy sworn member of the MCSO, Deputy Milliman, gave confidential materials to Mrs. Seipler that had been produced by the Defendants to the Plaintiff. (Id. at 1230, 1232-1234.)
Mr. Sotos further agrees that Sgt. Pyle, with his highly developed computer skills, knew how to hack into computers and he could believe that Sgt. Pyle had done so. (Id. at 1018. [FB3])
Mr. Sotos also grants that documents can be uploaded onto a website by a third party, with the website-owner’s permission, but states that he did not know whether such permission had been granted by the owner of the Shadow website. (Id. at 1232.)
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FN3 18 Q. If I told you that Sergeant Pyle has actually told members of the department that he goes into computers, hacks into them, and can upload information onto the Internet, would that surprise you?
A. Not really, no. After what I’ve heard about Sergeant Pyle, I guess you could say nothing would surprise me. (Sotos Tr. at 1018)
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Part 5 tomorrow.