David Weinstein's Testimony

The jury returned to the court room this afternoon for a brief testimony from David Weinstein regarding Exhibit A-1031 (a memo written by Weinstein regarding a December 7 phone conversation with Yash Rana, former Qwest counsel).

The content of the letter is as follows:

On December 7, I spoke to Yash Rana at Qwest.  Yash's telephone number is 555-555-5555.  I believe all the outstanding issues regarding the growth shares have been resolved.  100% of the shares will be sold immediately on January 2.  One-third will go into the deferral plan as cash.  The amount that goes into the deferral plan will be reduced by the Medicare taxes.  The remaining 2/3 will be paid to Joe.  In essence, there will be share withholding and the net amount of shares will then be immediately sold.  This way les shares are reported sold.  I asked Yash if there was a problem from an insider trading perspective and Yash told me there was not.  Joe previously made an irrevocable election to sell the shares during the last window period and according to their legal counsel, this qualifies for an exemption for the insider trading rules.

The bottom line is we are in good shape as far as the growth shares are concerned.

Comments

[Not Named Stern]

This criticism of Stern is interesting, but I am not sure it sticks. As a savvy and sophisticated person, I know clear well that graphical enhancements represent things in an exaggerated way. Perhaps not so exaggerated that the judge did not see fit to prevent the jury from seeing them, but exaggerated nonetheless. By contrast, a nice, simple chart appears less likely to have been designed to fool me. The question is whether the chart conveys the idea and I grasp it, not whether it looks snazzy. Likewise, while the Government may have had all sorts of flashy gadgetry and bells-and-whistles, the problem is that the jurors may have lost the core message that the prosecution wanted to reinforce. I doubt that jurors had any trouble remembering Nacchio's argument or recollecting the slogans he wants them to use in deliberation behind closed doors. But no juror during any of those deliberations will be able to rely on the Government's flashy graphics, which they will have forgotten and which they cannot reference in a debate with a juror using one of Nacchio's "condescending" slogans to club other jurors into submission.

[J Robert Brown Jr.]

I believe this comment was intended for another post called "General Thoughts on the Closing Arguments." So, for better insight into this comment I suggest a quick glance at that article.

With that said, I believe the reader makes a good point here about the exaggerated appearance of computer generated graphical enhancements. However, in my post I simply conveyed my thoughts on the closing arguments, and there is really no telling (until the verdict) how the jury viewed the closing arguments.