The Waffle House sex video case has been a six-year ordeal in the court system. And after a seven-day trial, it’s not over yet. The jury will continue deliberations Wednesday.
Did a former housekeeper commit unlawful surveillance in her efforts to prove she was a victim of sexual harassment, or did she have the right to record Waffle House chairman Joe Rogers Jr. in his home, where she worked? A Fulton County jury must decide whether a sex video involving Rogers was recorded illegally.
"Your home, your bathroom and your bedroom, are those private places?" Meighan Vargas, assistant district attorney, asked the jury in closing arguments. "They want you to accept an argument that if you invite anyone into your house, it is no longer private."
But defense attorneys argue the video was made legally under Georgia's one-party consent law. Rogers is not a victim, but instead a sexual predator, a liar, and is vindictive, attorney Brian Steel told the court.
"When you cross Joe Rogers, he uses his best assets — his time and his money — to take you to court and to crush you," Steel said.
More than a week of testimony in the case concluded Tuesday afternoon with closing arguments, clearing the way for jurors to begin deliberating. After about two hours of deliberating, jurors decided that deliberations would continue Wednesday.
Mye Brindle, former housekeeper for Rogers, says Rogers sexually assaulted her. At the advice of her attorneys at the time, David Cohen and John Butters, Brindle videotaped a sexual encounter with Rogers in his home as evidence of the harassment.
Brindle, Cohen and Butters are all charged with unlawful surveillance. Brindle retained the two attorneys for her 2012 civil lawsuit against Rogers. The defense rested its case on Monday without testimony from either Cohen or Butters, the lawyers who are indicted along with Brindle, who testified Tuesday. The three defendants were initially indicted on two additional charges related to the sex tape — conspiracy to commit extortion and conspiracy to commit unlawful surveillance — but those charges have since been dropped.
Prosecutors contend that Rogers had a right to privacy in his own home. Rogers said the sexual acts with Brindle were consensual, but Brindle testified that she feared losing her job if she refused him.
“This is not a sexual harassment case,” Melissa Redmon, assistant district attorney, said in closing arguments. “Joe Rogers, despite the defense’s wishes, is not on trial here.”
Brindle, Cohen and Butters devised a plan to record Rogers in an effort to extort money from him, prosecutors alleged.
“What these defendants did was a crime,” Redmon said. “We cannot have lawyers telling citizens to break the law so they can get a settlement. That is not OK.”
But defense attorneys argued in their closing that no crime was committed, and that Rogers lied under oath.
“Joe Rogers is a filthy, despicable human being,” Steel told the jurors.
The jury is expected to resume deliberations Wednesday at 9:30 a.m.
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