Unless he grew five inches in height, gained 150 pounds, suffered dramatic hair loss, and saw his skull double in size, the telephony expert in the Balch’s half-baked deposition in 2017 during the height of the Newsome Conspiracy Case was allegedly an actor, a fake, an imposter.
The real Jason Forman is pictured above exiting Verizon Corporate headquarters in New Jersey.
In March, the well-read blog Legal Schnauzer wrote about the farce of a deposition and Verizon’s alleged expert:
At the beginning of the deposition, [alleged Verizon employee Jason] Forman had no attorney present to represent him and object, if necessary to certain question. The normal process … is to have an attorney present, who can object to questions and then usually instruct the deponent to answer the question, even if it is found later to be inadmissible at trial. If the dispute is particularly serious, the deposition can be interrupted, with the issue taken to a judge for resolution.
That’s why deponents generally answer questions, over their own attorney’s objections, with admissibility and other issues to be resolved later. In this instance, with no attorney present for Verizon at the beginning, “Jason Forman” (a non-lawyer) essentially made his own objections and steadfastly refused to answer certain questions, especially if they could lead to personal identifiers.
We, the CDLU, have questioned the legitimacy of the deposition and we remind our readers that a staged event is not surprising.
Balch & Bingham gave birth to a fake AstroTurf campaign in the North Birmingham Bribery Scandal. The use of actors by electric utility companies and their consultants was exposed in 2018. And Alabama had a legendary story of actors portraying themselves as tree-hugging environmentalists in 2013 so they could smear and eventually oust a Public Service Commission member in 2014.
And what does this mean for Balch & Bingham and the Newsome Conspiracy Case? The civil RICO lawsuit to be filed by Burt Newsome after the Alabama Supreme Court issues an opinion, will have even more teeth to snap down and chew apart Balch’s unsavory if not criminal conduct.
We also learned that there are no video or audio files available for what was supposed to be a recorded “video deposition.”
Maybe the incredible minds at Balch truly believe “staging” events is a path to victory not knowing that their paid operatives and partners are consistently fumbling the ball and exposing the firm to more ridicule, more liability.
And if you don’t believe us, just look at Clark A. Cooper, Joel I. Gilbert, Oliver Robinson, Trey Glenn, or Scott Phillips for starters.
