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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mea podcast. Mumma Mea acknowledges

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Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast

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Speaker 1: is recorded on a.

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Speaker 2: Quick heads up. This episode of The Quikie contains graphic

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Speaker 2: descriptions of sexual acts and violence. Take care when listening a.

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Speaker 2: I'm Taylor Strano. This is Mumma Mer's twice daily news podcast,

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Speaker 2: The Quickie. The first week of Shaun Didtycombe's federal trial

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Speaker 2: is almost at a close, with a key witness already

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Speaker 2: taking the stand. Plus, as Elizabeth Holmes serves time for

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Speaker 2: her Theronov scandal, her husband is pitching an eerily similar

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Speaker 2: blood testing company. Before we get there, here is Claire

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Speaker 2: Murphy with the latest from the Quickie newsroom for Friday,

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Speaker 2: May sixteen.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Taylor, one of the fifteen jurors hearing evidence in

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Speaker 1: the deadly mushroom trial has been dismissed after the judge

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Speaker 1: received information they've been discussing the trial with friends and family.

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Speaker 1: The judge has informed the other jurors not to contact

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Speaker 1: the discharged person and has reissued the warning not to

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Speaker 1: discuss the trial with anyone outside of the jury room.

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Speaker 1: Week three of the trial, we'll hear more from a

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Speaker 1: toxicologist who found deadly chemicals in the beef Wellington that

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Speaker 1: have been prepared by Aaron Patterson and served to her

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Speaker 1: in laws, which would lead to the death of Don

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Speaker 1: and Gale Patterson and Gail's sister Heather Patterson, who claims

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Speaker 1: it was all a terrible accident, is facing three counts

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Speaker 1: of murder and one of attempted murder after one of

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Speaker 1: the poisoned Heather's husband, Ian, survived. The toxicologists will return

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Speaker 1: to the stand today after telling the jury about finding

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Speaker 1: the deadly toxin beta amanaton in samples of the meat

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Speaker 1: and mushroom paste of the meal served by Pattison. The

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Speaker 1: chemical is found in death cap mushrooms. He also found

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Speaker 1: the toxin inside a food dehydrator that was seized from

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Speaker 1: the rubbish dump in the days after the lunch. Justin

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Speaker 1: Baldoni's lawyer has accused Blake Lively's lawyers of threatening Taylor

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Speaker 1: Swift's lawyers unless she showed public support for her. In

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Speaker 1: the fallout from Lively and Baldoni's ill fated movie It

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Speaker 1: Ends with Us, the two actors are suing each other

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Speaker 1: over allegations Baldoni created a hostel style work environment, including

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Speaker 1: inappropriate sexual comments and violating boundaries with improvised kissing scenes

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Speaker 1: during filming. He's also accused of launching a smear campaign

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Speaker 1: against Lively. Baldoni claims it was actually Lively who launched

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Speaker 1: the smear campaign against him, and issuing both Lively and

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Speaker 1: husband Ryan Reynolds over their alleged hijacking of the film's

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Speaker 1: creative process, in which he was the director. Brian Friedman,

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Speaker 1: one of Baldoni's lawyers, wrote a letter to the judge

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Speaker 1: on May fourteen, explaining that a source who's highly likely

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Speaker 1: to have reliable information told him that Lively's lawyers allegedly

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Speaker 1: threatened Swift in order for her to release a statement

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Speaker 1: of support. Lively's lawyers say the allegations are categorically false,

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Speaker 1: and they unequivocally deny all the allegations, which they say

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Speaker 1: are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources and completely untethered

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Speaker 1: from reality. Friedman then doubled down on the claim, filing

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Speaker 1: an afford David that claims he had an hour long

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Speaker 1: phone conversation with a person closely linked to Swift who

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Speaker 1: he's refused to name. He claims Swift's lawyers were called

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Speaker 1: by La Lively's team allegedly requesting a social media statement

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Speaker 1: of support given her absence from the twenty twenty five

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Speaker 1: Super Bowl, saying if she failed to do so, Lively

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Speaker 1: would release ten years of private text between the friends.

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Speaker 1: The judge granted Lively's team's motion to strike Friedman's letter

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Speaker 1: and the Affidavid, calling it improper and irrelevant to any

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Speaker 1: issue before the court. After more than a year, the

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Speaker 1: three justices presiding over the appeal from disgraced Special Forces

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Speaker 1: veteran Ben Robert Smith will hand down their decision today.

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Speaker 1: Robert Smith suited nine newspapers and journalists Nick mackenzie and

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Speaker 1: Chris Masters over stories they published in twenty eighteen that

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Speaker 1: claimed he'd committed war crimes, including killing a man with

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Speaker 1: a prosthetic leg that he later encouraged soldiers to use

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Speaker 1: as a drinking vessel. Justice Anthony Bozanko found the claims

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Speaker 1: to be substantially true, as were allegations Robert Smith engaged

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Speaker 1: in bullying a fellow Australian soldier. Robert Smith launched an

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Speaker 1: appeal against the findings, which was held over ten days

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Speaker 1: in February last year. The forty six year old, denying

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Speaker 1: any wrongdoing. He's never been criminally charged with anything. However,

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Speaker 1: if the appeal is dismissed, it could open up the

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Speaker 1: possibility for criminal investigation by the Australian Federal Police and

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Speaker 1: the Office of the Special Investigator. Robert Smith may also

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Speaker 1: be held liable for the tens of millions of dollars

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Speaker 1: that have been racked up in court costs over the

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Speaker 1: legal saga. Peace talks over the Russian invasion of Ukraine

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Speaker 1: seemed to have stalled after Russia sent a second tier

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Speaker 1: team to the talks in Turkey. After Russian President Vladimir

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Speaker 1: Putin proposed the talks himself. Ukraine's president Vladimir Zelenski traveled

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Speaker 1: to Turkey for the negotiations, the US sending Secretary of

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Speaker 1: State Marco Rubio, but Putin decided against attending in person,

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Speaker 1: instead sending a team of aids and deputy ministers, which

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Speaker 1: Rubio says and not indicative of a breakthrough, saying the

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Speaker 1: only way this negotiation will work is if President Trump

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Speaker 1: meets with Putin to break the logjam in person. Rubio

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Speaker 1: was asked if there were any plans in the pipeline

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Speaker 1: to bring the two leaders together. He said they were

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Speaker 1: waiting until Trump had finished his dea to the Middle East.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Clant next inside the first week of Ditty's trial.

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Speaker 2: The first week of Shawn didty Combe's federal trial in

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Speaker 2: Manhattan has been intense and deeply unsettling. He's facing charges

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Speaker 2: of sex trafficking, racketeering, and coercion, but the Disgrace music

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Speaker 2: mogul has pleaded not guilty to all of it. If convicted, though,

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Speaker 2: he'll face severe penalties including life imprisonment. The prosecution alleges

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Speaker 2: he ran a criminal enterprise through his entertainment empire, organizing

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Speaker 2: drug fueled parties known as free coughs that involve coercion

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Speaker 2: and violence. Cassie Ventura, Didy's ex girlfriend and a key

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Speaker 2: witness for the prosecution, has already taken the stand this week.

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Speaker 2: She has delivered testimony over multiple days, describing being forced

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Speaker 2: into degrading sexual acts, often under the influence of drugs,

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Speaker 2: and claimed Ditty used recordings of these encounters to blackmail

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Speaker 2: her years. Ventura shared that about two years ago she

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Speaker 2: was in such a dark place that she actually thought

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Speaker 2: about ending her life. She explained that the painful memories

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Speaker 2: from her time with Ditty had become overwhelming. She left

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Speaker 2: the house planning to walk into traffic, but her husband

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Speaker 2: stopped her just in time. After that, she started going

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Speaker 2: to therapy. She's also recounted instances of physical abuse, including

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Speaker 2: a twenty sixteen hotel assault captured on surveillance video. Now,

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Speaker 2: the defense portrays Ditty as a flawed individual struggling with

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Speaker 2: substance abuse and denies all allegations of trafficking. They argue

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Speaker 2: that the sexual activities were consensual and that the prosecution

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Speaker 2: is misrepresenting his lifestyle. The prosecution has also presented evidence

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Speaker 2: of alleged witness tampering with monitored prison phone calls, suggesting

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Speaker 2: attempts to influence testimony. This follows earlier allegations that Combs

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Speaker 2: tried to blackmail victims from behind bars. Throughout the proceedings,

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Speaker 2: Ditty's family has been a constant presence in the courtroom.

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Speaker 2: His mother, Janis, and six of his seven children have

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Speaker 2: attended daily offering visible support. Notably, during graphic testimonies, his

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Speaker 2: daughter's Delilah and Jesse, briefly left the courtroom, indicating the

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Speaker 2: emotional toll the trial has taken on them. But despite

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Speaker 2: the distressing nature of these allegations. The Comb's children have

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Speaker 2: publicly declared their unwavering support for their father, emphasizing their

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Speaker 2: belief in his innocence and the strength of their family.

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Speaker 2: Bond seven News US correspondent Miley Hogan has been in

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Speaker 2: the courtroom all week. Miley, give us a bit of

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Speaker 2: a recap. What has this first week of the trial

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Speaker 2: been like.

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Speaker 3: Well, the opening statements have been made now, and we

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Speaker 3: have an idea that this is really going to be

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Speaker 3: these freak coughs as they've been described in court now,

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Speaker 3: that is what Shawn Combs is alleged to have called them.

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Speaker 3: Whether or not Comb's coerced women into taking part in them,

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Speaker 3: or whether or not they were consensual, And that's really

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Speaker 3: what's going to be at the heart of this ca

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Speaker 3: and what the jury is going to have to weigh

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Speaker 3: when they're deciding whether or not Combs is innocent or guilty.

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Speaker 3: Both the prosecution and the defense laid out their cases

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Speaker 3: with their opening statements to the jury. The prosecution painted

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Speaker 3: a picture of a monster who forced women to take

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Speaker 3: part in these so called free co coughs that were

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Speaker 3: these drug fuelled sexual performances as they described them that

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Speaker 3: included male escorts. We're going to hear from three different

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Speaker 3: accusers throughout this trial. One is Cassie Cassandra Ventura, who

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Speaker 3: is his former partner, and the defense in their opening

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Speaker 3: statements really spoke about how just because you may not

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Speaker 3: like this man or agree with some of the things

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Speaker 3: that he does in his bedroom, that doesn't mean that

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Speaker 3: they weren't consensual. So they're going for that kind of

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Speaker 3: angle here. You might have heard that quote where they said,

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Speaker 3: you may have heard of his love of baby oil.

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Speaker 3: That's not a federal crime. So they're going to be

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Speaker 3: arguing here that these those sexual encounters were consensual.

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Speaker 2: There's been a really big focus on one of those

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Speaker 2: star witnesses. Did his ex girlfriend, Cassie Venture She's already

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Speaker 2: taken to the stand this week. What did her testimony reveal?

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Speaker 3: The Sandra Ventura, or known as Cassie, is really the

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Speaker 3: prosecution's star witness in this case, and her testimony was

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Speaker 3: explosive and at times it was distressing for her to

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Speaker 3: recall some elements of her relationship. She was with Combs

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Speaker 3: for a decade. On her first day of testimony, she

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Speaker 3: revealed that they met in two thousand and six. She

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Speaker 3: was young. She talked about how she was naive and

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Speaker 3: sexually inexperienced. They began a romantic relationship soon after they met,

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Speaker 3: and she spoke about how he introduced her to the

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Speaker 3: idea of freak coughs when she was twenty two years old.

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Speaker 3: She hadn't heard of them before. She told the jury

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Speaker 3: that they made her stomach churn, but that she also

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Speaker 3: loved him and felt a responsibility to please him. So

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Speaker 3: you kind of had that sense in the testimony, or

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Speaker 3: you're getting that picture of this complicate I had a

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Speaker 3: relationship between them where she did love this man, but

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Speaker 3: she also alleged that he abused her. We heard a

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Speaker 3: lot of her testimony as well about how he physically

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Speaker 3: was violent with her. You may have seen the security

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Speaker 3: vision that was taken back in twenty sixteen. I think

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Speaker 3: it was at a Los Angeles hotel. You can see

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Speaker 3: in that video that he was kicking and dragging her.

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Speaker 3: And I think it's important to point out that defense

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Speaker 3: has said that he was physically violent with her. They

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Speaker 3: haven't shied away from that abuse. But he's not on

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Speaker 3: trial for domestic violence. He is on trial for sex trafficking.

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Speaker 3: And racketeering as well.

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Speaker 2: Miley. The other element here is did his children. They've

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Speaker 2: had a lot of attention this week because they have

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Speaker 2: shown up to court. Whether or not in support of

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Speaker 2: their father is beside the point, but they have physically

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Speaker 2: been in the room at least for most of the time.

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Speaker 2: There was a couple of walkouts, is that correct?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so his daughters walked out at one point during testimony.

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Speaker 3: His mother is also in the courtroom as well. They're

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Speaker 3: all sitting behind him. You can see him at the

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Speaker 3: front at the desk, and then behind in the first

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Speaker 3: few rows is his family, his children and as well

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Speaker 3: as his mother. They've been arriving at court every day,

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Speaker 3: the children walking into the court holding hands. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: his family is there as well.

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Speaker 2: We know that during the jury selection process beginning of

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Speaker 2: the month, when that was all going down, there were

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Speaker 2: quite a few a listed names that were dropped when

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Speaker 2: they were figuring out who would be part of this durior. No,

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Speaker 2: there was a very long process. There was a lot

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Speaker 2: of people considered. Have we heard more celebrity names brought

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Speaker 2: up in this first week of proceedings?

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Speaker 3: Kid Cuddy was mentioned. There was a bit of conversation

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Speaker 3: about the relationship between Cassie and Tim. Now, those names

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Speaker 3: were mentioned during the jury selection out of an abundance

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Speaker 3: of caution, and it's basically the judge making sure that

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Speaker 3: none of the prospective jurors have any connection to anyone

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Speaker 3: that might be mentioned in this trial. It doesn't mean

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Speaker 3: that those people will be testifying. It just means that

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Speaker 3: their name could potentially be brought up in maybe someone

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Speaker 3: else's text.

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Speaker 2: Many imagine going to prison for a blood testing scam

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Speaker 2: that defrauded investors out of billions, only to have your

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Speaker 2: husband start pitching an eerily similar company while you're behind bars. Well,

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Speaker 2: that's exactly what's happening with Elizabeth Holmes, the former Silicon

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Speaker 2: Valley star who went from being worth nine billion dollars

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Speaker 2: to serving time in a Texas prison. As a quick reminder.

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Speaker 2: With her steady gaze, signature, black turtleneck and distinctive deep voice,

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Speaker 2: Elizabeth Holmes convinced the world's wealthiest investors that her company

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Speaker 2: Theranos could revolutionize healthcare, running multiple tests with just a

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Speaker 2: drop of blood. At nineteen years old, she dropped out

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Speaker 2: of Stamford and teamed up with engineers seanick Roy to

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Speaker 2: co found Thernos. Although he bowed out of the company

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Speaker 2: within the first few years, they quickly gained traction, raising

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Speaker 2: over seven hundred million dollars from high profile investors. But

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Speaker 2: the technology she didn't work. The blood tests weren't accurate,

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Speaker 2: the laboratories operated in secrecy, and Tharanos couldn't diagnose conditions

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Speaker 2: like cancer with a simple pinprick as promised today.

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Speaker 4: Together we were taking the first step toward making healthcare

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Speaker 4: accessible to everyone in this country. Because this machine and

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Speaker 4: all of us are going to change the world.

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Speaker 2: They even struck major deals, including a national rollout with

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Speaker 2: Walgreens to place their devices in pharmacies across the US.

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Speaker 2: Around this time, she brought on Sunny Balwhani, a former

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Speaker 2: tech executive and her secret boyfriend. He operated as president

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Speaker 2: and COO. Look He had no medical experience, but took

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Speaker 2: over operations and helped enforce a culture of secrecy. Eventually,

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Speaker 2: both Homes and Belwhanie were convicted and later sentenced to prison. Now,

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Speaker 2: as Home serves her eleven year sentence, her husband, Billy Evans,

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Speaker 2: is raising eyebrows and millions of dollars for his own

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Speaker 2: blood testing venture, named hemanthis after the blood lily Flower.

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Speaker 2: The company describes itself as the future of diagnostics and

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Speaker 2: a radically new approach to health testing. Evans, who met

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Speaker 2: Holmes in twenty seventeen while she was under investigation, hopes

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Speaker 2: to secure fifty million dollars in funding. The company has

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Speaker 2: already addressed the obvious comparisons, posting on social media. This

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Speaker 2: is not Therenos two point zero, though they acknowledge that

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Speaker 2: the skepticism is rational. Meanwhile, Holmes maintains her innocence from

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Speaker 2: a federal prison camp, a minimum security facility where she

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Speaker 2: shares the grounds with Real Housewives star Jen Shah. In

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Speaker 2: her first prison interview, Holmes remained defiant that Theronos failed,

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Speaker 2: but failure does not equal fraud. She's expected to be

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Speaker 2: released in twenty thirty two, though that could also change

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Speaker 2: with good behavior. As for evans new venture, Well, the

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Speaker 2: company says it'll start by testing blood in pets before

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Speaker 2: moving on to humans. Time will tell if this blood

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Speaker 2: testing company proves more successful than its infamous predecessor. Thanks

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Speaker 2: for taking some time to feature mind with us today.

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Speaker 2: The quickie is produced by me Taylor Strano and Claire Murphy,

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Speaker 2: with audio production by Lou Hill