“From what Ms. Dixon said, the beauty of it is the judge would almost have to view the entire video by himself—she called it
“A second way the judge might handle it would be to allow the relevant part into evidence and let Zander’s people use the rest only if it’s under seal. That would mean it would not be available to the public or the press. Either way, by having the court decide, we’re clean and protected legally from both Zander’s and Zak’s people.
“Anyway, Ms. Dixon recommends that option. She believes that one is better for us. She said they’d inform Zak’s lawyers about what we’re doing, but not until right after we turn over the relevant portion to Zander’s lawyers.
“Finally, Ms. Dixon said Zander’s lawyers are just trying to do everything they can to slow us down. But with this approach, they’ll realize that isn’t going to happen. They realize that if this goes to court, he will lose, and this will drive it home to them. She said to tell you to trust them on this,” Dad said.
“Easy for her to say,” Mom observed.
Mom did have a point. If it weren’t for Ms. Dixon watching everything, I would have been nervous. At least now, I wasn’t dealing with either Cal or the idiot from the ‘attorney to the stars.’ He’d played Candy Crush on his cell phone the whole time he was supposed to be representing me during my police interview.
“Anything else on that front?” I asked.
“No,” Dad assured me. “The next topic is the NCAA. Ms. Dixon talked to Maddie Addison about Stewart Chadwick and his threats. She says that until he actually does something, it’s all just words. You haven’t been damaged, though technically, his threats are illegal. She said that if he does something, you have him. Maddie’s only concern is that you videoed him without his consent. He specifically asked that we not do that.”
“What you can prove in a court of law and what you can show the world are two different things,” Mom said.
That was basically what we’d done to Zander: convicted him in the court of public opinion before the law could get to him. So far, it looked like even though we’d exposed what he’d done, the legal system had taken a pass on actually doing anything meaningful to him.
“I understand that,” I said. “I’m just worried that Stewart will cause us trouble down the road. Can the FBI do anything about him?”
“Maddie said you don’t want to share the last video of Stewart with the FBI, and we don’t want to put in writing that we even asked that question. We provided them with evidence of what the shoe companies are doing, along with agents and financial advisors. The NCAA may also be a subject of their investigation, but we don’t have any way of knowing that, and the FBI hasn’t said anything to that effect to us. She said you want to step back from that mess and count everything you’ve done to cooperate with them to this point as a win,” Dad said.
“What does Mr. Morris say about it?” I asked.
Dad smiled.
“He was appalled by Chadwick’s actions. You have to remember that Mr. Morris worked for the NCAA for some years. He said that your comment about them being a group of decent people was spot on. They will defend their member institutions to the hilt, but they don’t go out of their way to make threats to athletes to get them to do their bidding.”
“As long as I don’t try to break their antitrust exemptions, I’m okay?” I asked.
“That probably would cause them to have some significant heartburn, and then all bets would be off,” Dad agreed. “Mr. Morris wants to take the tape to people higher up the food chain. He said he’s certain they have no idea that Stewart is doing anything like this.”
“What does Ms. Dixon say?” I asked.
“She said to sit on it. She doesn’t see an upside of turning Stewart in to the NCAA unless he follows through on his threats.”
I was starting to feel anxious. I was very much a ‘tackle a problem head-on and be proactive’ kind of guy. This waiting and trusting people was really getting on my nerves.
“What else?” I asked.
“Aaron signed papers promising not to sue you or Cassidy. In exchange, you are leaving him on his medical insurance until he recovers. You also agree not to file a civil suit against him,” Mom said.
“What about the criminal side?” I asked.
“He’s going down,” Mom said.
“Aaron agreed to plead guilty to child endangerment. With that on his record, he’ll never be able to work with children again,” Dad said.
“Can I still kick his ass?” I asked.
“No!” my parents said in unison.
“One last thing,” Dad said. “Caryn wants to do a year-end wrap-up when you come home for New Year’s. I told her you’d do it.”
“Super!” I said, faking excitement.
