Legal Ethics

Waffle House Sex Tape Reaches High Court As The Bar Is Lowered Just A Little More In America

The 'covered and smothered' Waffle House sex tape is still in the courts.

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When the final history of the decline and fall of the American empire is written, I hope there’s a chapter title for this line from this morning’s edition of Law.com:

The high court’s ruling is the first of multiple issues involving the Waffle House sex tape before it.

Kind of says it all right there. It combines the gluttonous lifestyle that makes Waffle Houses exist in the first place, the decadence of the rich and powerful, the decaying walls of personal privacy, and the gross excess required for this to be only the first of “multiple” issues regarding a greasy sex tape.

Perhaps saddest of all, this case is still kicking around years after we first reported on it. For the unfamiliar, Mye Brindle, the former housekeeper and personal assistant to Waffle House Chairman Joe Rogers Jr., allegedly secretly videotaped herself — in a state that requires all party consent — having sexual encounters with Rogers. She made 17 such tapes which seems… excessive to prove her claim, but perhaps she was covering all her bases.

Brindle’s tapes were, according to authorities, made in conjunction with her attorneys David Cohen and John Butters, who then wrote Rogers a demand letter prior to filing a harassment claim against him.

So Brindle sued Rogers, Rogers sued the attorneys, prosecutors lodged felony claims against Brindle, Cohen, and Butters, and the trial judge tossed the felonies. That bring you up to date.

Now the Georgia Supreme Court has unanimously reinstated most of the charges. From Law.com:

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The justices reversed the dismissal of three violations of the state’s eavesdropping law “because Brindle and her attorneys allegedly took actions to agree to make a secret video and actually video record others without the consent of all of the persons being recorded. … The consent of all parties is needed before a person may use any sort of spying device to photograph or video record the activities of another person in a private place and out of the public view.”

The high court also reversed the lower court determination that both criminal statutes were unconstitutional.

The court did deliver some good news for Cohen and Butters… and lawyers everywhere:

In the opinion written by Justice Harold Melton, the high court affirmed the dismissal of a felony extortion conspiracy charge stemming from a demand letter Cohen sent to Joe Rogers Jr. prior to filing a civil sexual harassment claim against him on Brindle’s behalf.

“If a mere threat of legitimate litigation could serve as a proper basis for a charge of extortion, [the state statute] could be applied in an overbroad and unconstitutional manner that would run afoul of First Amendment principles protecting the right of individuals to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” Melton wrote.

Can you imagine if demand letters constituted extortion? Not only would it cripple the legal profession and incentivize clogging the courthouse with matters that could be resolved without wasting judicial resources, it would kill some of the best fodder for Above the Law stories. And that was the real issue here, wasn’t it?

In retrospect, we should have filed an amicus brief on that point.

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High Court Reinstates Criminal Charges Against Lawyers, Client In Waffle House Sex Tape Case [Law.com]

Earlier: Videos of Waffle House Chairman Smothering Housekeeper With His Gravy Violated Privacy
Lawyers Face Lawsuit Over Illegal Sex Tape

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