Speaker 1: Welcome to Hot Mike's. Thanks for tuning in on Facebook, YouTube,
Speaker 1: tune in wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Billy Bush.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, because today's a big episode. I
Speaker 1: have found the real Claudia in the Amy Griffin saga.
Speaker 1: Here we have connected. She is none too happy about
Speaker 1: being involved in this whole thing. It came from Hot
Speaker 1: Mike's loyal viewer named em. We'll call her EM. She said, Billy,
Speaker 1: I'm loving your podcast, especially your series on Amy Griffin.
Speaker 1: By the way, I know who the real Claudia is. Wow,
Speaker 1: she does know who the real Claudia is. It checked out.
Speaker 1: I made contact what led me to the real Claudia.
Speaker 1: I'll give you the play by play a little later on,
Speaker 1: but it's all becoming so real here. I have seen
Speaker 1: mister Mason, the teacher that Amy alleges graped her for
Speaker 1: four years in middle school. The coach who was friends
Speaker 1: with that teacher and with whom Amy connected years later
Speaker 1: and confided in today. Also the Lost Martha Stewart podcast,
Speaker 1: the episode with Amy that I think was all but
Speaker 1: scrubbed from the internet, like Amy's comment on Reese Witherspoon's
Speaker 1: Instagram page and Sam Lansky, the ghostwriter. Did he just
Speaker 1: blow Amy's cover? But let's take a look at Amy's
Speaker 1: side here, right. We've talked a lot about the California
Speaker 1: case against Amy Griffin filed by Joline Altam, which started
Speaker 1: all of this on March fourth, twenty twenty six, where
Speaker 1: Jolene cited intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of
Speaker 1: emotional distress, invasion of privacy. In essence, Jolene accuses Amy
Speaker 1: of a hostile takeover of her most dramatic childhood memories.
Speaker 1: We have discussed all the things that are going against
Speaker 1: Amy through her book Proposals. She identified the teacher who
Speaker 1: perpetrated such alleged violent acts of pedophilia against her, yet
Speaker 1: he remains in town in Amarillo. She identified a family
Speaker 1: friend who she says abused her when she was very,
Speaker 1: very young eight years old. Amy conducted a failed hometown
Speaker 1: investigation using one of the top corporate investigative firms in
Speaker 1: the world. No corroborators were found, other than another girl
Speaker 1: from the school named Ali, who said, oh, I remember
Speaker 1: that teacher. He looked at you in a creepy way,
Speaker 1: and then you know, there's James If you read the
Speaker 1: tell you know, James, he's the kid in college when
Speaker 1: they were studying overseas in Europe who graped her. I
Speaker 1: guess after her sophomore year something, so you know, maybe
Speaker 1: around twenty or twenty one. That was only four years
Speaker 1: after the final alleged grape by her middle school teacher.
Speaker 1: And of that, you know, four years or so later,
Speaker 1: there's no memory, didn't trigger any memories. In the book,
Speaker 1: MDMA induced the recovery of Amy's memories, but in the
Speaker 1: Nevada suit, the memories came back before the medicine even hit.
Speaker 1: A major premise of the book was that this was
Speaker 1: all about recovering traumatic childhood memories using the drug MDMA.
Speaker 1: Do the details of the grape align with another student's experience?
Speaker 1: And who is Claudia she's written about in the book?
Speaker 1: Amy cited the elusive Claudia, the character in her book
Speaker 1: whom she says haunted her girl from her eighth grade class,
Speaker 1: whom she thought shared the abuse she remembers. She writes
Speaker 1: about seeing the teacher, this alleged pedophile teacher, you know,
Speaker 1: putting his hand on Claudia's shoulder in the hallway, and
Speaker 1: she thought, oh, my god, is it happening to her?
Speaker 1: She was an inspiration for Amy to come forward. I
Speaker 1: have identified the real Claudia, Amy's Claudia and connected it
Speaker 1: is definitely her, and that I mean, it's definitely the
Speaker 1: person Amy has pinned as the real Claudia. And guess
Speaker 1: what she was not in Amy's class. She wasn't even
Speaker 1: in Amy's school. We'll get to that, but in the
Speaker 1: interest of fairness, today we go inside Amy Griffin's counter
Speaker 1: attack her federal lawsuits. She articulates this in a complaint
Speaker 1: that she filed in federal court in Nevada against Joline
Speaker 1: Altamont June fifteenth. So this is Amy Griffin's version of events.
Speaker 1: By the way, I am mentioned in this complaint by
Speaker 1: Amy's lawyers because Zach Rosenblatt, the lawyer for Joline, appeared
Speaker 1: on Hot Mike's as soon as this came out March eighteenth.
Speaker 1: He was a guest on Hot Mikes and told us
Speaker 1: about what was to come from his client, Joleene Why Nevada.
Speaker 1: Joline filed emotion to dismiss this case, saying defamation claims
Speaker 1: that Amy has should be resolved in California, where the
Speaker 1: original suit is all in the same place here. On Monday,
Speaker 1: Amy's lawyers rejected that they want this to remain its
Speaker 1: own federal case and to go down in Nevada. Basically,
Speaker 1: this latest back and forth is procedural, but Amy is
Speaker 1: going all in on this narrative that the New York
Speaker 1: Time James colluded with Jolene basically fed her all the
Speaker 1: information to help her build out her story, and thus
Speaker 1: Jolene defamed Amy. So more feedback from another Hot MIC's
Speaker 1: viewer named Colleen Billy. I love that you are following
Speaker 1: the Amy g story. One thing I've noticed about Amy
Speaker 1: is the excessive Instagram comments she leaves on a listers pages.
Speaker 1: That is how I knew who she was before all
Speaker 1: of this. I used to think, you know, that's the
Speaker 1: insecure lady who always leaves Instagram comments on every page
Speaker 1: with some personal note to make it clear that you
Speaker 1: know we're friends and I know you well and we're close.
Speaker 1: And then she said, well, take a look at Reese's page.
Speaker 1: And I looked at Reese Witherspoon's post from when Amy's
Speaker 1: book came out, saying, you know, my best friend's book
Speaker 1: just came out. She's an inspiration and then I noticed
Speaker 1: that Amy's comment is the comment section is gone. I
Speaker 1: don't know who removed it, but who is is? Who
Speaker 1: is Amy Griffin? Right? You know, I've had conversations with
Speaker 1: mutual friends and acquaintances that people that know Amy and
Speaker 1: people that I know. I'm from New York. She is
Speaker 1: a New York mover and shaker. She went to UVA.
Speaker 1: She's well connected. She met John Griffin, married him when
Speaker 1: she was twenty seven. He was on the cusp of
Speaker 1: his fortieth birthday. He's thirteen years older. He was already
Speaker 1: very wealthy when they got married. He graduated UVA as well,
Speaker 1: but in nineteen eighty five, then he went to Morgan
Speaker 1: Stanley and then you know the move of his life.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, this guy became one of the
Speaker 1: original Tiger Cups mentees of Julian Robertson at Tiger Management,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest hedge funds. John then, after that experience,
Speaker 1: got to start Blue Ridge Capital in nineteen ninety six
Speaker 1: with approximately fifty five million dollars in essay, and when
Speaker 1: he closed it in twenty seventeen, he had twelve point
Speaker 1: four billion in his portfolio at its peak. So John
Speaker 1: and Amy ran into each other in the park. They
Speaker 1: were both runners, good timing right. They married in two
Speaker 1: thousand and three. Amy describes John in the book he
Speaker 1: wasn't like other finance guys, like you know, this cocky
Speaker 1: kind of guy. He was playful, like a labrador, and
Speaker 1: just as disarming and very very rich, very rich, and
Speaker 1: i'm gonna say it, kind of handsome. Amy made moves
Speaker 1: as a mom about town in New York, all the
Speaker 1: right nonprofits and charities, the right committees, the best schools
Speaker 1: for the kids. She joined the very exclusive Maidstone Club
Speaker 1: in Easthampton, Long Island in twenty eleven. This club is
Speaker 1: old school man, multi generational kind of place. It's the
Speaker 1: the epitome of high class, but not fancy or ghoshin anyway.
Speaker 1: It's more of a say, Brooks Brothers and Volvo crowd,
Speaker 1: not chanelle. In recent years, Amy and John, according to
Speaker 1: folks out there, have kind of blown off that that
Speaker 1: crowd don't don't really come around much. They've got a
Speaker 1: different crowd, a fancy crowd, an a list crowd. Roger
Speaker 1: Federer and his wife spend you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks a year at Amy and John's house and well,
Speaker 1: you know the others. I get the sense John goes
Speaker 1: along with with Amy. I mean, so he's an odd labrador,
Speaker 1: intense like her. Does Ironman competitions. You know, uh, they
Speaker 1: say happy wife, happy life. That's generally accurate unless your
Speaker 1: wife is doing something stupid. And then you got to
Speaker 1: speak up. Why not when you're that rich and you
Speaker 1: have that much exposure, why not just pay for the
Speaker 1: best therapists and you know, continue to lay low. I mean,
Speaker 1: billionaires are generally detested, right, they have high exposure. Why
Speaker 1: go worldwide? You know, sit with Oprah Winfrey and launch
Speaker 1: what Amy said, quote the idea that I had been
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted. That's word for word what she said to Oprah.
Speaker 1: I recovered in MBMA, the idea that I had been
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted, the idea. None of the big journalists and
Speaker 1: a listers, you know, asked any questions of Amy except
Speaker 1: Martha Stewart. You'll hear that in a little bit. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you all about Martha Stewart's kind of lost episode.
Speaker 1: It seems to have been scrubbed by from the Internet,
Speaker 1: but Martha had a lot of questions for Amy. She
Speaker 1: was like Mike Wallace, in sixty minutes. And the other
Speaker 1: person to call into question is Amy called herself into question.
Speaker 1: Throughout the book, she writes all kinds of like incredulity.
Speaker 1: She's like, how could this have happened. There's no way
Speaker 1: that this could have happened. I mean, she's sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, voicing what might be anticipated from the reader.
Speaker 1: Amy says she took about ten years off of any
Speaker 1: kind of work to raise kids before she returned as
Speaker 1: an investor of some of that Blue Ridge Capital money.
Speaker 1: She started G nine Ventures, and in twenty seventeen, as
Speaker 1: John was, you know, winding down the fund, she started
Speaker 1: the female founder investing in goop and bumble and spanks
Speaker 1: and you know, some people buy their way into the
Speaker 1: right clubs and social circles. In this case, I think
Speaker 1: she invested her way into the right female Hollywood power circles.
Speaker 1: That's Amy. I'll also say this, a lot of people
Speaker 1: said she's a nice person. She's not like some kind
Speaker 1: of hell on wheels kind of lady at all, which
Speaker 1: is good to hear. But back to Amy's Nevada federal suit.
Speaker 1: She filed it on the same day that she filed
Speaker 1: a motion to strike Joline's California suit against her. It
Speaker 1: was a busy June fifteenth. So what does Amy believe
Speaker 1: is her strongest evidence? Why did Amy's lawyers choose a
Speaker 1: federal case and the timeline witnesses, you know, the villains
Speaker 1: and exhibits that it lays out. Here is the introduction,
Speaker 1: the thesis to Amy's counter attack her defamation suit filed
Speaker 1: on June fifteenth, the federal case in Nevada against Jolian Oltom,
Speaker 1: her lawyer's right. In twenty twenty five, Joline Altem told
Speaker 1: The New York Times and through it the world, that
Speaker 1: Amy Griffin is a fraud and a thief. According to
Speaker 1: miss Altem, Miss Griffin's best selling memoir, The Tell, which
Speaker 1: recounts the brutal sexual abuse missus Griffin suffered at the
Speaker 1: hands of a middle school teacher in Amarillo, Texas, is
Speaker 1: not missus Griffin's story at all. It is Miss Altam's
Speaker 1: claims her story, a story Missus Griffin pride from her
Speaker 1: through a talent agent hired to coax out its details.
Speaker 1: On Miss Altham's telling, Missus Griffin stole the grape of
Speaker 1: another woman and built a best seller on it. Every
Speaker 1: element of miss Alton's account is false. The Tell recounts
Speaker 1: Missus Griffin's own abuse, her very own abuse memories she
Speaker 1: recorded in writing and reported to the police before miss
Speaker 1: Altam claims they were stolen. The talent agent miss Alton
Speaker 1: identified has affirmed in an affidavit that he has never
Speaker 1: spoken to missus Griffin or miss Altem, and Missus Griffin
Speaker 1: has not spoken with miss Altam since they attended the
Speaker 1: same middle school over thirty five years ago. I just
Speaker 1: saw a picture of the two of them in a yearbook.
Speaker 1: They're both there. Miss Altham's claims that missus Griffin contacted
Speaker 1: her out of the blue and met her for coffee
Speaker 1: in Palm Springs in late twenty nineteen, that in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, a man employed by Missus Griffin, imposing as
Speaker 1: a talent agent, coached the details of miss Altham's abuse
Speaker 1: from her, and that Missus Griffin appropriated miss Altem's story
Speaker 1: as her own in the Tell are all fabricated. Four
Speaker 1: indisputable facts proved this. First, the meeting at the beginning
Speaker 1: of miss Altam's story never happened. Missus Griffin was not
Speaker 1: in Palm Springs in twenty nineteen or in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: or twenty twenty, and she's never called miss Altam. By
Speaker 1: the way, Katie and kc on TikTok has tracked down
Speaker 1: the tail number to John Griffin's Bombardier Global Jet and
Speaker 1: traced it to those years, and seems to suggest that
Speaker 1: there were some landings in the area. She very much
Speaker 1: was in the Los Angeles area, which is considered the
Speaker 1: surrounding area of Palm Springs. There was even a landing
Speaker 1: that she alleged not confirmed, but in the Mojave area,
Speaker 1: which is very close to Palm Springs. Miss Altam, for
Speaker 1: her part, has essentially conceded that she does not possess
Speaker 1: a single document, communication, photograph, or receipt, substantiating that this
Speaker 1: meeting at the center of her account occurred. The meeting
Speaker 1: cannot be corroborated because it never occurred. Missus Griffin takes
Speaker 1: no position on whether miss Altam has been said at
Speaker 1: the hands of a teacher or anyone else. Missus Griffin
Speaker 1: alleges that miss Altam's claim that she stole her story
Speaker 1: of abuse is false. In defamatory second Dominique Price, the
Speaker 1: former reality show contestant season two of Temptation Island. God,
Speaker 1: does this get weird? Right? Dominie Price, the talent agent
Speaker 1: Missus Griffin supposedly deployed to extract miss Altem's story, has sworn,
Speaker 1: under penalty of perjury, that he's never spoken with miss Altem.
Speaker 1: He's never communicated with miss Griffin or posed as a
Speaker 1: talent agent. Miss Altam played no role in the tell.
Speaker 1: Miss Altham claimed to the Times that she is a
Speaker 1: character in the tell. The book refers to a woman
Speaker 1: whose pseudonym is Claudia, who attended the middle school at
Speaker 1: which Missus Griffin was graped, as told in the tale
Speaker 1: and in reality, Missus Griffin had recalled that Claudia spent
Speaker 1: time around Missus Griffin's assailant when Missus Griffin did. But
Speaker 1: you're going to find out later. I'll give you a
Speaker 1: little headline now, is that Claudia, the real Claudia with
Speaker 1: whom I have connected, did not go to that middle school.
Speaker 1: She did not attend Austin Middle School. On April twenty first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, while she was writing to tell, Missus
Speaker 1: Griffin met with the real Claudia in a coffee shop
Speaker 1: thousands of miles from Palm Springs. Now this is in
Speaker 1: a state that is a long way from California. It's
Speaker 1: in the middle of the country. That meeting was attended
Speaker 1: by Sam Lanski, who is the ghostwriter for Amy on
Speaker 1: this book, and was documented thoroughly during and shortly after
Speaker 1: the coffee meeting had ended. After learning after having learned
Speaker 1: of Missus Griffin's abuse through the tell, miss Altam claimed
Speaker 1: that she is Claudia. This too is false. And of course,
Speaker 1: as you know, Julian Altam has several declarations and testimonies
Speaker 1: from kids back in the day who testified that of
Speaker 1: all the descriptions and characteristics that Amy Griffin put forth
Speaker 1: in her book and in the proposal to the book
Speaker 1: describing who Claudia is, that Joline Altem checks a nine
Speaker 1: point list nine for nine. Fourth, and most importantly, Missus
Speaker 1: Griffin had already recorded her account of the abuse she
Speaker 1: suffered well before miss Altem claims that she stole it.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, Missus Griffin reported her abuse in
Speaker 1: great detail in a recorded interview with the Amarilla Police Department.
Speaker 1: That is true, she spoke with a Sergeant Gordon Eatley.
Speaker 1: By March twenty twenty two, Missus Griffin had finished a
Speaker 1: full draft of an article that would later become the Tell,
Speaker 1: so those details are in there. Miss Altem has had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to come clean at every step, including before
Speaker 1: the filing of this complaint. Miss Altam's attorneys have personally
Speaker 1: reviewed the evidence described above, but Miss Altam has insisted
Speaker 1: on maintaining her lives, continuing the enormous reputational harm she's
Speaker 1: already dealt. Missus Griffin, This lawsuit's purpose is to set
Speaker 1: the record straight. It ends when Miss Altam tells the
Speaker 1: truth publicly and plainly. So this federal complaint in Nevada
Speaker 1: Federal Court goes on and lists Amy's factual allegations what
Speaker 1: she is alleging here. Amy said her body kept the
Speaker 1: score for years. She knew that she was carrying something.
Speaker 1: She wrote that in the Tell as well. Back pain,
Speaker 1: ribcage pain, you know, pelvis pain. Anxiety rose within her
Speaker 1: whenever she discussed any memory from childhood, anything about childhood.
Speaker 1: A friend told her about an interaction with an older
Speaker 1: man that was unpleasant. She broke down sobbing. By the
Speaker 1: way again this kid in college, James that she writes
Speaker 1: about in the book, who forced himself non consensually on
Speaker 1: her and graped her while she was studying in the
Speaker 1: middle of her college term in Europe. You know, that
Speaker 1: would be about four and a half maximum five years
Speaker 1: after the last time she was allegedly graped by this teacher.
Speaker 1: And in that four years later, you know, nothing recalled
Speaker 1: an earlier memory, a memory of just four years ago. Again,
Speaker 1: I've reached out. I've also identified who James is and
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that and I reached out to him.
Speaker 1: No response. Amy said she always believed that something sexual
Speaker 1: in nature had happened to her, and it had. According
Speaker 1: to the book proposal, she there was a family friend
Speaker 1: she alleges that lived down on the street and he
Speaker 1: was abusive with her when she was eight years old.
Speaker 1: Now this is the source of my empathy with Amy. Again,
Speaker 1: I have no ax to grind with Amy Griffin at all.
Speaker 1: My interest here is the truth because lives have been upended.
Speaker 1: And also Psychedelic assistant therapy is a personal cause of mine.
Speaker 1: I believe it has the potential to heal the world.
Speaker 1: I really do. It's very important. It's doing wonders in
Speaker 1: the life of someone I love more than anything in
Speaker 1: this world. You know, so that's that's my purpose here.
Speaker 1: I do think, you know, something something happened to Amy Griffin.
Speaker 1: She's not just coming out of nowhere like a crazy person.
Speaker 1: I don't what the motives are. Did she get into
Speaker 1: deep or or just having a hard time connecting these things.
Speaker 1: I do think something happened to her, and if anything
Speaker 1: happened to her, my deepest, my deepest empathy, I and
Speaker 1: I don't want to see the trolling and the dragging
Speaker 1: in the and the of Amy Griffin like it's just
Speaker 1: of anyone. What's the point. But let's make what needs
Speaker 1: to be right right. You know. If that is the case,
Speaker 1: it's certainly worth asking the questions because, again of the
Speaker 1: three reasons I gave you, Amy's counsel, her legal team
Speaker 1: rights in this complaint. She has always had vivid memories
Speaker 1: of personal interactions with her assailant. Okay, so she can remember,
Speaker 1: you know him in the hallway, but not doing terrible
Speaker 1: things with bandanas and belt buckles. I don't understand this.
Speaker 1: How could you remember anything other than that about someone.
Speaker 1: Amy always held the memory of lending a dress to
Speaker 1: a classmate. She writes about this, it was very important
Speaker 1: that Amy was a good kid, and she helped this
Speaker 1: poor student, poorer girl in her class, you know, wear
Speaker 1: a dress to the dance. It made her feel good
Speaker 1: about herself, which is nice, and that would be as
Speaker 1: Amy says, the real Claudia. But all of Amy's experiences
Speaker 1: and the pain welling up inside of her, and that
Speaker 1: eerie feeling that something had happened in sexual in nature
Speaker 1: all came to a head when Amy writes that her
Speaker 1: ten year old confronted her saying, Mom, there's a lack
Speaker 1: of connection. You're this perfectionist, You're too perfect. I feel
Speaker 1: like you're here but not here. In the book, she says,
Speaker 1: here but not here. On Oprah, when she was telling
Speaker 1: the story, she said that her daughter told her, you're
Speaker 1: there but not there. Now, I know it's a small
Speaker 1: change here and there, same thing, but boy, something so
Speaker 1: pivotal coming from a ten year old, you know, the
Speaker 1: mouth of babes, you know, which compels you to go
Speaker 1: and discover your childhood traumatic memories and write a book
Speaker 1: and make this incredible platform. I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: you'd remember exactly what your child said. She tried, Amy says,
Speaker 1: to you know, cope using the usual methods of running
Speaker 1: and overworking and raising kids and running you know, to
Speaker 1: and from you know, camps and pickups. And but John,
Speaker 1: her husband, she says, you know, suggested MDMA, and Amy
Speaker 1: warmed up to it. She kind of a goodie two shoes,
Speaker 1: she said, didn't doesn't connect with drugs and didn't do
Speaker 1: any drugs, never did anything like that. But she thought okay,
Speaker 1: and she did it. Her first session was July nineteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and she told the facilitator right off the bat,
Speaker 1: something happened to me, but I can't remember. Within minutes
Speaker 1: of the first administering of MDMA, and her lawyers say,
Speaker 1: well before it fully took effect, missus Griffin sat up
Speaker 1: and asked, why is he here, meaning the teacher who
Speaker 1: allegedly violently graped and assaulted her back in middle school.
Speaker 1: And she then describes what he did, what he allegedly did,
Speaker 1: the brutal graping scenes, the belt buckle on the floor
Speaker 1: as you know, the bandana, tied her hands behind the back,
Speaker 1: defiling her mouth and dragging her across the floor and
Speaker 1: threatening to rip her teeth out, and smashing her head
Speaker 1: against the wall. Many different locations, the bathroom being the
Speaker 1: central one. She says a detective in Amarillo concluded her
Speaker 1: account was very credible after she told him. However, she
Speaker 1: never told that detective that she had taken MDMA to
Speaker 1: recover them. And of course, now her lawyers are saying
Speaker 1: the memories were recovered before the medicine kicked in. This
Speaker 1: is getting webby. Her lawyers added it to her Nevada complaint.
Speaker 1: Here's the exact verbiage. An expert in MDMA therapy has
Speaker 1: since reviewed missus Griffin's memories and concluded that they were
Speaker 1: recovered before the drug took effect. Straight up legal ease
Speaker 1: and not what the book says. No, the book's entire
Speaker 1: premise is that the memories were recovered thanks to MDMA.
Speaker 1: Amy says in the complaint that her PR team pitched
Speaker 1: the New York Times to cover the release of the
Speaker 1: book when it came out. Maybe write a spotlight piece.
Speaker 1: What could be better than a New York Times book
Speaker 1: review the New York Times. I guess had other plans,
Speaker 1: it turns out and investigation. Amy certainly calls Joline a
Speaker 1: liar in her Nevada complaint, but her lawyers want to
Speaker 1: focus now on the New York Times. They accuse one
Speaker 1: of the two female journalists, Katie Rossman, of professional jealousy
Speaker 1: when she wrote that article The Billionaire, the Psychedelics and
Speaker 1: you know recovered stolen Memories or recovered Memories. I can't
Speaker 1: remember the title, but it was the big you know,
Speaker 1: check yourself article that started all of this. Amy's legal
Speaker 1: team asserts that Katie Rossman and her partner Liz Egan
Speaker 1: interviewed at least eighty people, old classmates, neighbors, MDMA, and
Speaker 1: medical community people. They accuse The New York Times of
Speaker 1: asking leading questions to achieve their premeditated objective to take
Speaker 1: down Amy Griffin. Subjects who said they were inclined to
Speaker 1: believe missus Griffin, her lawyers say were omitted from the article.
Speaker 1: The New York Times pair of Rossman and Egan obtained
Speaker 1: the confidential, watermarked version of the book Proposal when the
Speaker 1: book was originally called Believe Me, and in it there
Speaker 1: were real names and the Foster home where Jolene went,
Speaker 1: and you know, details that didn't make it to the book.
Speaker 1: And the lawyers say this is how the New York
Speaker 1: Times found Joline, who by the way, had not read
Speaker 1: the tell until they contacted her on June seventeenth, shortly
Speaker 1: after she read it, and Amy claims only after reading
Speaker 1: the book did she tell The New York Times that
Speaker 1: she had been abused by a middle school teacher. I
Speaker 1: got to say here, I mean, it's not that Is
Speaker 1: it that shocking that she didn't offer up her story
Speaker 1: right away to a couple of jarsjournalists from The New
Speaker 1: York Times? I mean, are these the kinds of people
Speaker 1: you tell your story too? She likely wasn't planning to
Speaker 1: tell the biggest newspaper in the world about dramatic childhood,
Speaker 1: you know, grape memories, but reading to tell when you
Speaker 1: see that the details of Amy's accounts match your own,
Speaker 1: I mean, at that point, maybe you start to talk.
Speaker 1: The New York Times sent Amy's team a fact checking
Speaker 1: list for the article two weeks before publication, and there
Speaker 1: they said that Jolene told the Times the same lies
Speaker 1: that are in her California complaint. What are those lies? Well,
Speaker 1: Jolene was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a teacher at the
Speaker 1: same school. Joline's abuser was a different person than Amy's
Speaker 1: that Jolene said she was Claudia in the book that
Speaker 1: Joline borrowed address from Amy. For the school dance, which
Speaker 1: she returned during a church youth group meeting the next
Speaker 1: day at Amy's house. Amy appropriated Joline's own stories of
Speaker 1: abuse in her book. There they are the lies of Joline,
Speaker 1: according to Amy's lawyers, and then Joline asserted that she
Speaker 1: met Amy in the coffee shop in Palm Spring's late
Speaker 1: two Thoy nineteen, producing no evidence. Well, there is a
Speaker 1: hold on discovery right now until Judge Fruen Richard Frewen
Speaker 1: decides Thursday tomorrow if there is enough merit to Joline's
Speaker 1: case for it to proceed. So she hasn't provided anything,
Speaker 1: but let's assume that she will. She'll certainly be called
Speaker 1: upon to do so. Amy's counsel made it clear to
Speaker 1: The New York Times that Joline's story was demonstrably false,
Speaker 1: that there was no coffee jop meeting and the Griffins
Speaker 1: never hosted a youth group meeting for the church at
Speaker 1: her house, and that she never lent Jolene outum address.
Speaker 1: On that front, Amy asserts. Miss Eltam told The New
Speaker 1: York Times that she borrowed a floral pattern dress from
Speaker 1: Miss Griffin for the eighth grade dance, but the dress
Speaker 1: that the real Claudia borrowed was pink, not floral pattern.
Speaker 1: They say. Jolene only claimed it was a floral pattern
Speaker 1: because the tell said it was, but that detail was
Speaker 1: deliberately changed during the editing process to protect the real
Speaker 1: Claudia's identity. Jolene claims this guy calling himself Dominic Price
Speaker 1: called her, posing as a talent manager producer type to
Speaker 1: glean the details about her abuse from her, posing as
Speaker 1: a guy who's going to make a movie out of it.
Speaker 1: We could pay for your story. It could help people,
Speaker 1: she told to him. She said she talked to him
Speaker 1: several times a week for about a month. Amy says
Speaker 1: The New York Times called to verify, and he told
Speaker 1: him he knows nothing about it, as he stated in
Speaker 1: the AFFI David, which is part of his part of
Speaker 1: this complaint. Amy's council points out that Amy started recording
Speaker 1: her memories in twenty twenty and produced a draft of
Speaker 1: an article about them in March twenty twenty two. How
Speaker 1: could speaking to Dominic weeks later produce similar details. It's
Speaker 1: after the fact. Well, on that note, I say, let's
Speaker 1: see that article. It had to be submitted to a
Speaker 1: big editor at a big magazine. Let's see it, Okay,
Speaker 1: coming up here in a second. The Lost Martha Stewart podcast,
Speaker 1: where Oprah kind of went light in her interview with
Speaker 1: Amy about the book and the details leading up to
Speaker 1: the book and the details of these horrible childhood traumatic memories.
Speaker 1: Martha Stewart went full Mike Wallace like it was sixty minutes.
Speaker 1: We'll share that with you in a second. Also, something
Speaker 1: interesting Amy's ghostwriter said, which kind of doesn't add up.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a minute. First, let's talk
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Speaker 1: checkout all right. Sam Lanski, the ghost writer for Amy Griffin,
Speaker 1: gave an interview to Actually, a guy that used to
Speaker 1: work with me at Access Hollywood is now over at
Speaker 1: Glad a producer for them. And this is Sam Lanski
Speaker 1: talking to Anthony Ramos in June twenty twenty. The date
Speaker 1: is important.
Speaker 2: I was just having this conversation with a friend who
Speaker 2: is about was in the process of writing her first book,
Speaker 2: and she was saying, like, every time I get to
Speaker 2: something that I feel like is going to implicate somebody else,
Speaker 2: like I get stuck. I can't keep going because I
Speaker 2: just start dreading having that conversation of having them or
Speaker 2: them having to read it, and what a nightmare that's
Speaker 2: going to be.
Speaker 1: Well, Sam Lansky's the ghostwriter for Britney Spears, but he
Speaker 1: couldn't be talking about her because she didn't even start
Speaker 1: thinking about a book until after the conservatorship was over
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one. So again, this interview is June
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. There are no other ghostwriting gigs that I've
Speaker 1: been I did a search that Sam Lansky had other
Speaker 1: than Amy Griffin, So it would seem he's talking about Amy.
Speaker 1: I have a friend writing her first book. She's nervous
Speaker 1: about this. But wait a minute. This is one month
Speaker 1: before the memories were recovered in July of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: thanks to MDMA, or recovered just before the MDA kick.
Speaker 1: Then remember, huh, I was dead positive that MDMA was
Speaker 1: what pushed her to write the book in the first place.
Speaker 1: That was the launching point. Okay, sit on that for
Speaker 1: a second. Now that Amy Griffin has finally laid out
Speaker 1: her complete defense in federal court, does it answer the
Speaker 1: questions we've been asking for five episodes? Is there anyone
Speaker 1: to corroborate her account? On that note, Martha Stewart questioned
Speaker 1: Amy a lot harder than Oprah or anyone else on
Speaker 1: that book to her, did any other she was all
Speaker 1: over her. It's hard to find this, but I got
Speaker 1: to give credit to Katie and KC on TikTok. She
Speaker 1: found it. I watched her go through it today, so
Speaker 1: holler to you. That was an interesting fine in it.
Speaker 1: It's dated May on or May third, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Amy's very giving, She's very relaxed with Martha. Martha is
Speaker 1: all over her, but Amy's kind of wanting to give
Speaker 1: her good answers. You get that feeling. She's kind of
Speaker 1: like psyched to be sitting there with the legendary Martha Stewart.
Speaker 1: So Amy says, well, I guess it'd been married to
Speaker 1: John for twenty years, so you know, I got to
Speaker 1: the point where I could trust him to tell what
Speaker 1: was going on, twenty years to trust, She says about
Speaker 1: the alleged violent grapes in middle school, I believe it
Speaker 1: started around when I was twelve. It's very much explicitly
Speaker 1: twelve in the book. Martha says, you didn't tell anybody,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe even on the upper end at sixteen? Why?
Speaker 1: And Amy sort of said, couldn't really figure out what
Speaker 1: was going on there, but she said it happened only
Speaker 1: on school grounds, so confined within the school's wall. She said,
Speaker 1: only in the school bathroom. What what where's the locker room,
Speaker 1: the bleachers, under the bleachers, the classroom, the tennis center,
Speaker 1: which was the last one. She's only in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: she said to Martha. She told Martha that, you know,
Speaker 1: all throughout her life she was kind of a straight
Speaker 1: laced girl, you know, never liked being out of control.
Speaker 1: So she said, didn't do drugs, never seen drugs, she said.
Speaker 1: In the books, she says, there's explicit account she's with
Speaker 1: her roommates living in New York and they ordered a pizza,
Speaker 1: and the pizza came. They opened the pizza box and
Speaker 1: there's a bag full of joints in there, and her
Speaker 1: roommates starts smoking it out the window. So I think
Speaker 1: we think we've seen the drugs on the day that
Speaker 1: I went in, she said. For her, MDMA says and said,
Speaker 1: I know I have a lot of sexual trauma. She
Speaker 1: the facilitator who in the book is Olivia took notes
Speaker 1: for me. I could have sworn in the book that
Speaker 1: when it was over, John, her husband, gave her a
Speaker 1: beautiful blue journal, and that's where she started to take
Speaker 1: her notes. So if Olivia took the notes, let's subpoena Olivia.
Speaker 1: Subpoena Olivia. Anyway, she's not a real doctor. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's Hippa here. Then Amy said, within five minutes,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm ready to tell you everything. And then
Speaker 1: she told Martha she spent eight hours in the MDMA session.
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, I took one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty milligrams. That's a lot. I had a profound experience
Speaker 1: during MDMA therapy, and it was two hours and forty
Speaker 1: five minutes. Let's say double that. But I've never eight hours.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's psilocybin journeys don't take eight hours. Iyebo
Speaker 1: gain takes eight hours. And you know, things that the
Speaker 1: wounded vets are doing now eye would gain champion by
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan. Anyway. A central character in all of this
Speaker 1: is the elusive Claudia described in the book Proposal nine
Speaker 1: different Ways, all of which Joline claims, you know, match
Speaker 1: her and two others from her own lawsuit. Two other
Speaker 1: middle school kids confirm that in their declarations on her behalf.
Speaker 1: Amy denies that Joline is Claudia, says no way, and
Speaker 1: in response to Joline's original complaint in California against Amy,
Speaker 1: she produced text messages between her and the real Claudia,
Speaker 1: the woman she says is the real Claudia. Why doesn't
Speaker 1: Amy identify her. She's a private person, doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be identified. Maybe a judge could, you know, ask to
Speaker 1: see her privately, or you know, a subpoena would work
Speaker 1: if if she was I'm sure her Joline's people will
Speaker 1: subpoena her. I have identified whom Amy says is the
Speaker 1: real Claudia. I got a DM from a hot MIC's
Speaker 1: loyal regular viewer listener named EM and she said, Billy,
Speaker 1: I'm loving your podcast, especially your series on Amy Griffin.
Speaker 1: By the way, I know who Claudia is. I replied,
Speaker 1: Amy's version of Claudia, the so called real Claudia. Now
Speaker 1: keep in mind, this is a woman with whom Amy
Speaker 1: says that she met and who could offer nothing to
Speaker 1: her other than sympathy for her story, right, And the
Speaker 1: response came back, yeah, Amy's version of Claudia. EM said, So,
Speaker 1: when Amy's book came out last year, my coworker told
Speaker 1: me her good friend blank blank told her the story
Speaker 1: of Amy contacting her daughter redacted out of the blue.
Speaker 1: Amy told redacted who is the real Claudia, That she
Speaker 1: was going to be in her state, just in the
Speaker 1: middle of the country where redacted now lives and wanted
Speaker 1: to get coffee with real Claudia. Redacted, redacted said okay.
Speaker 1: So Amy shows up and proceeds to ask redacted Real
Speaker 1: Claudia if anything had happened to her in middle school.
Speaker 1: I can't remember if Amy specifically asked her about blank
Speaker 1: Blank that is the name of the real teacher who
Speaker 1: Amy alleges abused her, or if she just kept it vague.
Speaker 1: But Real Claudia told Amy nothing had ever happened to her.
Speaker 1: The story's absolutely identical to what Amy wrote in her book.
Speaker 1: By the way, her maiden name is blank blank Okay.
Speaker 1: And here's the big part. She did not go to
Speaker 1: Austin middle school. She went to a different one, and
Speaker 1: that is named here. I think she might have played
Speaker 1: volleyball or something with Amy, and that's their connection. But
Speaker 1: I moved to Amarilla from a small town in my
Speaker 1: tenth grade year. I knew Amy from high school. Redacted
Speaker 1: Real Claudia is now and gives her full married name,
Speaker 1: the name of her town in the state she lives in,
Speaker 1: and also sends me a photo. I've seen the photo.
Speaker 1: I know the full name. I use my context to
Speaker 1: now that I have name, town and states. I looked
Speaker 1: her up. Her number was easy to find, and I
Speaker 1: texted her and I called her a couple times, and
Speaker 1: after a little while she responded to me. She said,
Speaker 1: where did you find my name? I said, a listener
Speaker 1: in my podcast Random? Can we chat off the record? No,
Speaker 1: but thank you, I said, I promise I won't share details.
Speaker 1: Not interested. Best of luck on your search. I have
Speaker 1: very strong feelings on this topic. Do not want to discuss. Well,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that it's the real Claudia. If you
Speaker 1: shared those feelings with me, I said, I promise I'll
Speaker 1: keep them completely to myself. Can you tell me the
Speaker 1: name of the school you went to? Then? She said,
Speaker 1: once again, best of luck, Thank you so much. And anyway,
Speaker 1: I have seen the eighth grade yearbook from Austin Middle
Speaker 1: School in Amy's year, and this woman is not in there.
Speaker 1: And according to my loyal m here hot Mike's viewer,
Speaker 1: she said, she did not go to that school. And
Speaker 1: not only is she not in the class, but she
Speaker 1: did not go to the school. So there it is,
Speaker 1: and there we are. Tomorrow a big day. Judge Richard Fruin,
Speaker 1: who was born in nineteen thirty nine, is presiding. He
Speaker 1: is eighty seven years old. So he's like Farmers insurance man.
Speaker 1: He knows a thing or two because he's seen a
Speaker 1: thing or two, but I don't. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he's got the time for it. But he has to
Speaker 1: judge Joline Altam's case based on merits, and she's got
Speaker 1: seven or eight declarations supporting her. Amy's got a dominic
Speaker 1: price saying I don't know her and that's it. It
Speaker 1: would shock me if he did not find enough merit,
Speaker 1: and shock me if this whole thing was thrown out.
Speaker 1: I don't think it will be, but we will find out. Guys,
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us for this episode of
Speaker 1: Hot Mics. Please hit like hit the notification bells and
Speaker 1: then you know when we're on, and please subscribe. That's
Speaker 1: it for us until next time. Oh oh, Maureen Callahan
Speaker 1: from The Nerve, we'll have a special chit chat with
Speaker 1: her about all this tomorrow. Bye bye