The plaintiff is an aggrieved former model from Sweden who claims that the Wall Street boss who paid for her apartment, for expensive gifts and for whatever work former models do at allegedly big-deal financial firms was a bad guy who forced her into a sexual relationship involving several encounters over a period of some months.
The Wall Street boss says she is making the whole thing up. He has accused her on his website of visa fraud, extortion and loose womanhood. (In addition to being an international financier, he also claims to be an investigative journalist. His lawyer conceded that "We all know [he] has diarrhea of the keyboard.")
No More Testimony
People with a particular tabloid fixation were sorry to learn that testimony in the case ended Friday. The last witness was the financier's wife, who pretty much backed up her husband's story. She of course broke into tears on the stand.
She said her husband offered the former model a job on the evening they met at a function at the family home. (The former model told a slightly different story.)
The wife said she herself had pressed her husband to increase the pay of the former model/intern/marketing chief by $700 a month.
The wife also said she agreed that her financier husband ("financier/horndog" husband per the New York Post) should pay the rent for the former model's Tribeca apartment, beginning only six weeks after the woman started work at his firm, but not without a question.
"I was wondering, 'Why would he want to undertake the liability as the guarantor?'
But he told me it was good for the business. (The former model) could be closer
to the office, focus on work and bring him more deals. I said okay."
Later, at a business event in Luxembourg, the wife said she saw the former model flirting and laughing with her husband. The wife saw this as "annoying and unprofessional" and suggested firing the woman. The husband said he could not.
"He was in a tight corner. She was important for the transaction. He couldn't
let her go. He needed her to get it through."
This is actually funny. I have met several big-deal finance people. They do not rely on 24-year-old former models, interns or marketing chiefs to close big sales. At least the ones who are not pimps do not.
As I mentioned in my last post, the aggrieved former model is suing the financier/horndog for $850 million. Near as I can guess, it is in neither party's interest to let on that the guy may not have that kind of cash or that his firm isn't doing all that well. More about him soon.
Jury Duty
All the fun now will be had in the jury room, where six everyday people will try to make sense of this lawsuit. Now that the courtroom histrionics are over, I don't think anybody really cares about what happens to any of the people who have testified. I know I don't care.
This coincides with my latest call to jury duty. I have been summoned Monday to join the latest jury pool at our county courthouse. It is the fifth time I have been called since moving to New Jersey. I also have been called, multiple times, in the other three states where I have lived since attaining voting age.
Some people win $15 on scratch-off lottery tickets. I get jury summonses.
Over the years I have sat on a single jury. It was not a peak experience, but it was more fun than counting hours in a holding pen waiting for a judge to call for a jury panel. This is how I have spent the rest of my time at courthouses.
They also serve who only sit and wait, I suppose.
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