Was It a Mistake for Naresh Bhatt to Take the Stand?

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Did you ever physically touch Mompleth in anger? [00:00:11] Speaker 2: Never. [00:00:13] Speaker 1: And did you ever physically hurt her? [00:00:17] Speaker 2: Never. [00:00:19] Speaker 1: Would you say, was your marriage happy during these first two years? [00:00:25] Speaker 3: Very, very happy. July 2024, Virginia nurse and mother Mamta Kafle Bat vanished. Her body has never been found, but prosecutors say her husband, Naresh, murdered her and disposed of her remains. After four weeks of testimony and nearly 100 witnesses, prosecutors rested their case Monday. Their final witness was Mamta's brother, who told jurors his sister had sent him a photo of a black eye, blamed Naresh for the injury, and asked him to save it because she might need it someday. But today, the spotlight shifted to the man accused of killing her. Naresh took the stand in his own defense, denying that he ever physically abused his wife. So what did jurors hear from the defendant himself? And can his testimony overcome the case prosecutors have spent weeks building? To help us underwind this web, is a new guest to the show, managing editor at Law and Crime and Court TV, and the host of the newly launched podcast, Court Chatter. Please welcome Kathy Russin. Hey, Kathy. How are you doing? [00:01:28] Kathy Russin: Hey, Josh. I'm doing great. How are you? [00:01:30] Speaker 3: I am doing well. This case is a wild one. And it's kind of unfortunate because it's not being live streamed. It's being released later on and not entirely in a way that we can watch it day to day, which is unfortunate because it seems like a really fascinating one. What is, give us your best understanding of what this case is about. [00:01:52] Kathy Russin: Well, first of all, I'll give you a little inside baseball on why it's not being live streamed. Oh, I love that. Of course, you know, we're the pool camera in there. We had to fight, fight, fight to get into that courtroom. And the judge is just very paranoid. I don't know how else to say it. And the media order was a little ridiculous. And we came back and pushed back a little bit on it. And so we're doing the best we can do with it. The judge was literally like, you can have your camera in here, but you can only post clips. You can only post news clips. And it has to be at least an hour after that testimony happened and no timing of what those clips are. So we were just like, well, I guess we'll interpret this. I guess we'll interpret this how we want to interpret it. [00:02:45] Speaker 3: Here's a 30-minute clip. [00:02:47] Kathy Russin: So I'm like, well, I guess this is what we're going to do. So on Court TV broadcast, you know, they're kind of playing it out. We're covering other trials, and they're definitely following the one-hour delay and all those rules. But they're playing out long portions. And then on Long Crime Trials YouTube and on Court TV YouTube, we're posting clips. And we're posting long clips. And we're trying to do our best to show the most we can show of this trial. Also covering it heavily on our daily shows and Benny Paul and investigate, Paul to investigate. So we are really kind of all over this case, doing it the best way we can do it with the, like, you can't tell us we can use 90 seconds or something. You know, the judge didn't put a time limit. So anyway, that's why. That's why this case is mainstream. [00:03:30] Speaker 3: I feel like for another day, we could have an entire conversation of what you have to deal with to just get cameras inside. [00:03:37] Kathy Russin: Listen, let me just tell you. Some judges are like, if you're in Florida, they're like, come in, bring a marching band. Like, do whatever you want. Other places, it's just massive paranoia. Just massive paranoia. [00:03:50] Speaker 3: So funny to me. [00:03:51] Kathy Russin: It's just, it's a lot. And a lot of judges lately are liking that they order us to do a 30-minute delay. Like, that's going to make some big difference. But in their head, they think it is. So we're in the Connecticut trial for Cooper Ouellette right now. And so we have to stream it on a 30-minute delay. Anyway, so, yes, I could. I could do a whole show on the last 15 minutes. We'll have to do that. [00:04:14] Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to pencil you in for later on in the discussion on that. [00:04:18] Kathy Russin: Yeah, yeah. Anyway, okay, this case. Yeah. Yes. [00:04:23] Speaker 3: What is your best understanding of where we're at on this case? [00:04:27] Kathy Russin: Well, we're at the end, and he's on the stand. It's a no-body case, which, you know, people are like, how can you try a no-body murder case? It happens all the time. We've covered a lot of no-body cases with successful prosecutions. Rarely is it not a guilty with a no-body. So I don't think that's a big factor that her body hasn't been found. And I'll tell you, this guy was on camera everywhere doing all the things that I know all the people in your chat right now know. Like, we have kind of a saying in this business that there are murder cleanup aisles in the stores, and all these defendants go and hit these murder cleanup aisles. And that's what he was doing. I'm not saying he murdered her. I'm just saying he was buying gloves and trash bags and cleaning supplies. And we're showing you right now he was going around town and throwing things in trash compactors and in different dumpsters and putting his gloves on to do it. He bought knives. He's on camera everywhere doing everything in what now the timeline looks like shortly after she disappears. And for the next 24 to 48 hours, all of this you're starting to see right here, he is doing. [00:05:40] Speaker 3: And just, and disposing of things too. [00:05:44] Kathy Russin: That's what I mean. He's throwing, he's throwing away bags of stuff in random places. He, when she didn't show up for work, when she was supposed to, which now if prosecution's right, it would be like the day after she was killed. The coworkers called in a welfare check and the police came and they have, we have the video of him on the doorstep holding his baby. And if you guys know the Chris Watts case, there are several cases like this, but it immediately reminded me of Chris Watts. Outside of Colorado, where he's on the porch saying he doesn't know where his missing wife is and all that. There's video like that of Naresh. He's holding the baby and he's saying, he first says that they agreed to separate. And she went to stay at one of her sister's house, either in Texas or New York. He's not sure. That's the first story he does, please. Then another story is they got in a fight and she left and she's probably staying at, you know, one of the apartments that her sisters have. And then another story is he doesn't know he went to bed and he woke up and she wasn't there. So he changed his story multiple times. But I just think the most jarring part of this case is all him. There it is. There's him on the porch talking to the police. Is all the times he's on camera doing all the things that we see defendants do that eventually get convicted is what he's doing. And he did media, right? Media interviews, just like Chris Watts and some of these other guys that go on saying, I don't know where my wife is. I wish she'd come back. You know, he did that kind of stuff also. [00:07:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, there does definitely seem to be some sort of really demented playbook. It's reminding me a lot of the Brian Walsh case, which we all followed so closely. But yeah, he, you know, found at the different stores purchasing all the items. I agree with you. There should be some sort of red flag that goes up when you're buying a bunch of cleaning supplies along with a bunch of stuff that you could use to dispose of a body. I just don't know how you could legally go about enforcing that law. But and then the the scene disposing of things in, you know, around the county. And you've got to give your tip your hat to investigators, too, because this stuff is difficult to track down as well. Right. You have to go and like do the footwork of actually going out to these different locations, finding what it was that he purchased, finding, you know, finding surveillance in areas where he may have disposed of these things. And there might be more, but this is the best that they were able to find. But the part that was most jarring to me is something that you already mentioned. But usually when you have a no body case, the difficulty or one of the difficulties is going to be the question of, well, what if this person just wandered off? What if this person just took off? And that's initially what he's telling police. She just took off. I don't know where she's at. I didn't even file a missing person because I believe she took off and she's going to to New York or Texas to visit her family. She's got an 11 month old. That was the part that killed me. You're telling me that this woman, I don't care what problems you're going through. I don't care about divorce or not. She's going to leave her infant. No, no, no discussion with anybody else. No telling anybody else. Check on the baby. Just leave your infant behind because you're having marital, marital, marital struggles. That I don't that above everything else. I do not buy. [00:09:14] Kathy Russin: And she's a nurse. It just didn't happen. And then also the no body cases are, they immediately start tracking that she's had no phone activity. She's had no bank activity. She's had no, nothing. Social security activity, nothing, nothing. She's not out there somewhere alive. I mean, I'm just going to kind of go on the record saying that it's, it's not likely that she, I mean, it's just not, it's just not. [00:09:40] Speaker 3: What's interesting about these no body cases too, that it gives a small advantage to the prosecution that you sometimes don't think about is that because there is this built-in defense of, well, she could have wandered off. The prosecution is allowed to rebut that by presenting a bunch of kind of character evidence of the victim that we wouldn't otherwise hear about in a normal murder case. [00:10:05] Kathy Russin: It's a great point. [00:10:06] Speaker 3: I get to talk about things like her being a nurse and how loving she was towards her, her child and how she never would have left her child and how she checked in with her family all the time and all of these other things that paint this picture of this incredibly caring person that we might not otherwise get because it's rebutting the idea that she would just simply wander off. And that's what we've had in this case. [00:10:29] Kathy Russin: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, and there's such a good point. I'm glad you brought that up because I hadn't really thought about it because it just always happens. In no body cases, we hear all about the character evidence. We hear all about how this just wouldn't have happened. This just absolutely wouldn't have happened. [00:10:47] Speaker 3: The other playbook that seems to take place in these no body cases is that you've got, so we should write this out so that we have the blueprint, but one, you've got the strange purchases of cleaning supplies. Two, you've got the bizarre disposing of items. And three, then you've got the search history. And his search history is also one for the books. Here's some highlights of what he was searching for. But again, look at the dates because we're talking about her disappearing on July. Where is it? [00:11:28] Kathy Russin: Like July 30th. [00:11:30] Speaker 3: July 30th is like the last time anybody saw her alive. Okay. So some of these are not as close in time. He's got things like uncontested divorce, a little bit suspicious. What happens if your spouse disappears in a divorce in Virginia? Highly suspicious. He's searching for a human brain diagram. And then what is the chicken farm thing? Do you know that connection? [00:11:59] Kathy Russin: He just searched that. I don't think he was. I don't, I have not seen or heard anything that he was spotted at a chicken farm, but that's what he searched. I have no idea. He's got some more bizarre searches that happen after. [00:12:12] Speaker 3: Another one is, can I donate my baby to my friend on August? Now getting very close to the time, but, you know, putting aside murder. [00:12:24] Kathy Russin: So this is like two weeks after and he's not been arrested yet. [00:12:27] Speaker 3: Oh, right. Sorry. August. So after he's not been arrested yet, horrific thing to even be thinking about, but he's searching for it. Um, and then finally, uh, the last piece of kind of digital evidence I'll highlight here is a message that he sent to her in February of 2024, um, saying the days are coming that you will regret a lot and the days and the days eventually came ominous. None of this would I again call like as horrific as we saw in like, say the Brian Walsh case, but you know, certainly a lot of, um, highly suspicious activity on his part. No. [00:13:10] Kathy Russin: Yes. So he was actually asked about that on the stand today about that exact message and February 2024 is what a lot of his testimony was about today. Uh, I would just say he's not done testifying the day ended. He's still under direct exam and we all know what we wait for when a defendant takes a stand. We're waiting for cross exam, but so they didn't even get to the day of the disappearance yet. Um, and that will be coming tomorrow. First thing he, so February 14th, Valentine's day of the year that she disappears, they have a fight. Um, he doesn't want to go to Valentine's dinner. It's hard because of his language barrier and his accent when he's testifying. And they do have an interpreter, which isn't as like, you know, sometimes we see interpreters and it's really hard to follow. He, the interpreter's there to help him in case he needs help with a question, but he's responding in English and so at least it's, it is easier to follow, but he has an accent. So he's saying they, they had a disagreement. They were, um, he said something like she went, she went to her room and I was like, oh, they had separate rooms. So I, I think that was news to me. Um, so the February was a whole thing. So this is what happened after that because she left and went and stayed with her friend for a few days in February. And I think that's when this was saying, and he tried to explain that this was not, that wasn't meant that anything, you know, that he was going to do anything bad, that she would just regret not having, you know, him and have the father of her child and things like that. [00:14:39] Speaker 3: I got a question for you. Maybe you do, you do, or don't know the answer to this, but while you were talking, it just made me think of it. Are there any text messages from him to her after the late July? [00:14:49] Kathy Russin: No, I haven't heard. I haven't seen anything about that at all. [00:14:54] Speaker 3: Right. I mean, here he's indicating that she takes off, right? I mean, that's kind of a good fact for the defense that they have fights and she takes off. So him being her, not being around is not all that shocking to him, but as by that text right there, he texts her even not to check in on her, maybe just to say a nasty word or two to her. But if she, the last time anybody hears from her is late July and there's not one text message from him saying, where are you? You left me with the baby. How dare you do this? It's over between us. None of that. That to me is a little suspicious as well. [00:15:30] Kathy Russin: Not typical because what we learn about this February time and kind of in general is that he's pretty controlling in the relationship and her friend testified, the one that she went and stayed with in February, that he cut off her phone. Her credit, her cards, and she had no vehicle. And then he would drive by that friend's house multiple times a day and she took an Uber to work and he followed the Uber. That's what he was doing for the days when she left him in February. So there's just not even a chance in, you know what, that he isn't doing that behavior when she leaves in July. There's just no chance. [00:16:08] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Very good point. [00:16:10] Kathy Russin: Yeah. [00:16:11] Speaker 3: As you said, the coverage that we do have, you guys have been doing fantastic, but it is clips. So I wanted to at least show, before I show this clip, one point on the language thing that bothers me is that you're going to hear he speaks perfect English. But it does bother me that they have an interpreter there because I always feel like if you have an interpreter, everything should go through the interpreter, answers questions. But when you have them there and he's hearing the interpreter, but then answering back in English, I guarantee you if he is convicted, one of the first things they're going to say on appeal is he didn't understand what was going on. [00:16:52] Kathy Russin: Josh, he's also not even letting the interpreter interpret most of the time. He's just responding and you hear like a couple words from the interpreter, but he's already responding because he understands English perfectly. [00:17:03] Speaker 3: It's just so sloppy and so messy. And I think it's going to create problems on appeal. But I want to show this clip. But before we get to that, I want to thank some people who've been so kind to let us have this conversation and help support the channel. To Beth Ringel, thank you so much for supporting the mods with coffees. That's very kind of you, Heather Cooper Smith, appreciate the super sticker. That's very kind of you. And Shy Gal says, how do you guys think streaming is going to change in the near future? Oh, this will be this will be part of our bigger conversation later on. But go ahead and jump in if you like right now. [00:17:37] Kathy Russin: We we get a little worried sometimes. Some judges are really cracking down. Honestly, we had a case. Oh, this Virginia case. This is the case. The judge cited the Lindsay Clancy holdout juror as a reason they didn't want it streamed because they didn't want the jurors watching the footage like for to cite a case that happened in a different state. That's bizarre. So that's bizarre. That's bizarre. And I think judges are worried of a Karen Reed, a Lindsay Clancy effect that the jurors are out there doing their own thing or talking about it and all of that. But I will say we have more trials than we've ever had. If you guys could see our trial tracker, which you won't ever see it, there's at least 700 cases on there. I don't I don't even know. I don't know what the I mean, I'm not kidding. So we were never going to run out of that. The streaming, we're getting really good at talking to judges and and reassuring them. And because we've been doing this for so long, you know, Court TV has been doing it forever. But Law and Crime has been doing it now for 10 years. We can show them a track record. We tell them, you know, we know how to do this sometimes. And I love the local media, but they don't do that for a living. So sometimes they they'll get in there. You accidentally show a juror, you know, think. So we we're really good now at talking to judges about like, look at our track record. We could do this. So I don't think streaming is going to go away. We are seeing more judges. We are seeing more judges that want to delay because they feel like if you accidentally show a juror, you'll be able to catch it in that 30 minutes and somehow stop the stream. That's not going to happen. But that's what they think. So I'm I'm I'm very comfortable in my job. We'll be streaming trials for a very long time. Yeah, good. [00:19:23] Speaker 3: I'm glad that makes me feel comfortable. [00:19:25] Kathy Russin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:19:26] Speaker 3: And I and I agree with you that in the sense that they're just fighting an a tie that's not going to be stopped. I mean, people are not going to go back to not being able to watch these things now that they know that they have access to them. All right, let's let's play this clip. Actually, before we do, we're about 25 subscribers away from hitting a milestone. So if you're sitting there and you're watching and you haven't hit that subscribe button already, take a take a second to go ahead and do that. It's tax free. The government doesn't know about it. We encourage it and we would appreciate it. But let's go ahead and take a look at Naresh. You talked about controlling. He's actually talking about the roles that each of them have in their marriage. [00:20:09] Speaker 1: So what kind of roles did you have? What were you responsible for? [00:20:14] Speaker 2: Mostly cleaning. Except the kitchen. Cleaning, vacuum, laundry, grocery, all the paperwork. [00:20:27] Speaker 1: All the paperwork. [00:20:28] Speaker 2: Legal, any kind of paperwork. [00:20:30] Speaker 1: What were her roles in the house? [00:20:32] Speaker 2: To control me? To control me? Or she do the kitchen cooking. Cooking is like, you know, cooking and then study, cooking and... [00:20:46] Speaker 1: We're studying too. [00:20:48] Speaker 2: Cooking and then what type of clothes we have, like, you know, fancy decoration, stuff like that. [00:20:55] Speaker 3: I honestly feel that when a defendant takes the stand, you could throw out the rest of the case. And I know that's probably overly ambitious. But if a defendant does well, the prosecution's in deep trouble. If they're able to knock it out of the park. And it's usually very difficult to do that. If a defendant does not do well, even if they had a good case going for them, they can ruin their own case. They could say one thing that appears to be less than truthful. And jurors say, well, that guy's not truthful to me about a small thing. They're not truthful to me about a big thing. So I think a lot is riding on a defendant testifying. And I know that's probably an obvious point to make. But a lot of that simply has to do with how likable are they as well. Is this guy a likable character to you? Or do you think he comes across as kind of a jerk? [00:21:54] Kathy Russin: Oh, come on. Any female juror is going to be. And I would give the men the credit as well. Is just, come on. This guy. Now, I get it. They do have a different culture. And so it could be, you know, the traditional roles. Although she worked. You know, she was a nurse. But just he said so many things today like that that just made me cringe. And there's not, I will promise there's not a chance a person on that jury likes him. Now, whether that will make him guilty or not. I, there's no way, because he says stuff like, he checked the bank account that night and $1,000 had been withdrawn. And so he wrote her a sticky note and slid it under the door into her room. And I was like, why are you guys in other rooms? And why, you know, and, and she denied that. And he, he said demeaning things just about how her, like, of course, I don't believe that he did all the cleaning except the kitchen. I'm just going to say I don't believe that. He came out and said that. I was like. [00:22:56] Speaker 3: Well, he was buying all those cleaning supplies. [00:22:57] Kathy Russin: I was like, I was like, come on now. Yeah, no, he's not likable. We have seen, I mean, it's usually a crash and burn situation when a defendant takes a stand. But it's usually also because it's already crashed and burned. And so they might as well, they might as well throw them up there. I will say the only times I've seen it really benefit, and I'm sure there's trials, I, someone asked me how many trials I've covered. I don't know what this case, it could be of a thousand at this point. I really don't know. It's, it's a lot, a lot, a lot. And so I'm sure I've seen defendants who helped themselves and got a not guilty. It just doesn't really come to mind. But what I have seen is if I've seen like a couple of them facing the death penalty, and I firmly believe they didn't get the death penalty because they testified. So that, that can save them because it just humanized them. It makes them a person, and now the jury has a hard time wanting to kill somebody that, that has been talking to him. So that, you know, so that's a benefit. I think in this other case of that Cooper Ouellette case that we're out of Connecticut right now, he's going to take the stand. I think he needs to. So I think there are times when a defendant needs to take the stand. Self-defense cases. You really, you really need, you really have got to get up and tell us why you were in fear for your life. I don't know why this guy's on the stand. [00:24:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. But, well, I'll tell you why he's on the stand. Uh, and he's on the stand for what you just pointed out and for the exact reason, which is the theory behind the prosecution, uh, case why they believe he killed her. He's a control freak. He wants to be in charge of everything. He wants, he was in charge of her. Uh, he, he, he micromanaged her. Um, and when she started to quote unquote, disobey him, he thought that's enough and, and took her life and he's doing the same thing here. I'm, I can almost guarantee you his attorneys turned to him and said, Nuresh, don't get on the stand. You're not going to do yourself any favors. And he said, I'm not listening to you. I'm doing what I do and I need to, to speak and I need to say something. And that's how he's kind of conducted his whole life is just telling people what to do. And I think that's what he thinks he's doing with this jury and it's not working. [00:25:02] Kathy Russin: I think, I think that's very true. And I will say the first, I don't know how many hours he was on the stand today and I didn't get to listen to every word. And I played a little catch up because I had other things going on, but because we have a whole team that's watching it and taking notes and all that, I was able to follow it. They started with his childhood and he, and how he grew up and it was just ad nauseum. And it was just like, just like, stop. He grew up poor, he grew up poor in Nepal and there was like civil unrest. I get it. And I guess I know she was laying that background to him to say why he may be controlling or why the relationship may be what it is. He says he was kidnapped when he was a kid and forced to work in like a labor camp type thing. I don't even, I don't even know, but, um, he spent a long, long time talking about, uh, the way he grew up. And then he finally got the lottery for a visa to come to America. And that's, and so that's what he did. But I think you're right. The, uh, reporter that I'm following that's in the courtroom, um, she said the defense case was supposed to start and they came in not really knowing who, who would the defense call. And all of a sudden they called him and it was kind of a little shock in the courtroom. So I think you're probably right that he made that call. [00:26:12] Speaker 3: They didn't want him to. And he said, put me on the stand or you're fired. Um, one other thing that he did, I have one more clip here. I want to play, uh, where I think he, I mean, I, I think he did a lot of things wrong, but this is a, just a strategic blunder in my view as well. Uh, when he's asked about any kind of domestic violence that may have taken place in their relationship. [00:26:37] Speaker 1: Let's watch, did you fight or argue during this time? Never, um, did you and mom to ever have physical confrontations? Did you ever physically touch mom in anger? [00:26:56] Speaker 2: Never. [00:26:57] Speaker 1: And did you ever physically hurt her? [00:27:01] Speaker 2: Never. [00:27:03] Speaker 1: Um, would you say, was your marriage happy during these first two years? [00:27:09] Speaker 2: Very, very happy. [00:27:10] Speaker 3: That nobody's, you're, that's what I'm saying. You buy, if you're lying to me on the small things, then you're lying to me on the big things. And we already know there's been other people testifying about domestic violence. She sent photographs of injuries that she's had for domestic violence, but he wants to get up there and portray himself as this saint. And he's going to sink his own ship. If it was ever a float to begin with the idea that you could say, I mean, wouldn't it have been. A little more convincing to say, yes, I admit things got out of hand. I admit there are times I am ashamed of. I admit doing things and raising my hand to her in anger. And I wish I never had done it, but I did not take my wife's life. [00:27:56] Kathy Russin: I don't know if he should admit it to physical abuse, but the fact that he got up there and said they never, never had a single fight, had never had a single fight. 100% not believable, absolute, complete lie. There's not even allegedly I'm going to put there because every couple fights. And so, and he, he made a point of, he went on and I don't know if it was that part of the clip, but he went on to say when he said, she said, have you ever physically harmed? He said, no, I, that was not a tradition in our family. Uh, I never saw my father or my uncles or anyone, um, touch women. And he went on and on and on like that. So, you know, you know, as well as I know that when someone doesn't directly answer the question, but tries to like prove themselves, he went on and on. And the attorney had to get him back on track. She's like, okay, but did you ever physically harm your wife? [00:28:49] Speaker 3: When you start citing your resume, it's not a good place to be in. Yeah, that's what he did, yeah, well, like we said, uh, the rubber hits the road when he's, when he's on cross-examination and I, is it, do, is it a female prosecutor? [00:29:03] Kathy Russin: Um, no, I have five trials going right now, so I have to really think hard about that. Um, listen, Josh, my life. [00:29:15] Speaker 3: I'm, I'm, I'm, I asked that because I'm, I could see him being one of those types of defendants. That you could easily get under this person's skin. And I would love to see a female prosecutor go after him and challenge him and watch him kind of turn into the, the, the person who could have committed murder right there in front of the juror's eyes. [00:29:38] Kathy Russin: Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I would love if anyone's in your chat room and they've watched any of these clips, if they could hurry and chime in. But I really, I really don't. [00:29:46] Speaker 3: Our crack team of investigators just chimed in. It is, uh, senior assistant commonwealth's attorney, Sarah Sammy and assistant commonwealth's attorney, Catherine Williams. So two female prosecutors. There you go. [00:29:58] Kathy Russin: Oh, he'll hate that. He will hate that. [00:30:00] Speaker 3: He will hate that. He will hate that. They'll interrupt him. They'll correct him. They'll tell him he's not answering the question. I would, that's going to be fun to watch. [00:30:09] Kathy Russin: I will say, I will tell you that, um, we've been putting clips out and they're getting longer and longer. And, um, I will just say that we will have his testimony in great length. [00:30:22] Speaker 3: Good. Big clips. Big clips you're going to have. [00:30:25] Kathy Russin: So, uh, we, uh, made a little decision today. So I think you'll see a lot more of his cross-examination and we'll probably end up putting that for him. [00:30:33] Speaker 3: We will be tuning in. He's back on the stand tomorrow. Yep. Uh, we will be tuning in to watch that. Here is Kathy's X account, Instagram, uh, plus please check out Court Chatter, brand new on Lawn Crime Plus. Um, what do you got coming up next on Court Chatter? What do you guys, what trials are you guys covering next? Tell us what's up. [00:30:56] Kathy Russin: Yeah. Let me pitch that for a minute just because I know your, I know your chatters and your viewers. I actually know a lot of them. And then I know who, who watches things like this. Um, you guys should check out. So we have an app that we launched this year called Lawn Crime Plus. It is a subscription-based app. I do have a code for a significant discount if anyone's interested. We put all of our shows on there. So all of our daily shows that everyone's already watching. We put all of our trial footage on there. Um, a lot, a lot of information. The most exciting part of the app for me, because I am a trial junkie. That's where I'm at. I started as a trial junkie. I started as a stay-at-home mom that was obsessed with trials. I understand how, how you can get obsessed. We have a case file section in the Lawn Crime Plus app. Everything that we bring in in a case, we have now put in there for you. So, every court document, every body cam, every interrogation, every crime scene photo, evidence, any exhibits. And, you know, we're in the background gathering all this stuff on all the cases that we cover. And then, a lot of times after the trial's over, we do a whole request and we get everything in. We're putting all of that in the case file section. So, what I do on Court Chatter, Court Chatter is just something we launched a few weeks ago. It's literally me just doing what I've been doing tonight. I really just kind of riff about the cases. It's only like 10, 12 minutes. Um, I pick a few that we're covering currently and then what to look ahead to next week. So, I will give you a sneak peek if we're going to a trial next week that maybe you guys don't know about. Um, and then point you to those people's case files and let you start going down the rabbit hole. So, that's what Court Chatter is. And it's a, if I just take just a second, it's near and dear to my heart because some of the people that are watching you right now will know that have been following me for a really long time. Um, about 15 years ago, I was a stay-at-home mom. I got obsessed with watching trials. Casey Anthony is the one that launched me into obsessiveness. And I built a blog called Court Chatter. And I would blog about cases and I was the president of the PTA. I mean, I was a stay-at-home mom. And then I, um, turned that Court Chatter into a website. And when someone would live stream a trial, I'd embed it. I'd have a live chat room. Things were not streaming on YouTube then. So, people weren't watching trials on YouTube with the chat room. So, I had that and I built up kind of this trial watching community. I would tweet out the play-by-plays, all that. Fast forward four years into that, not making a dime, total my passion and hobby. Dan Abrams found me, bought Court Chatter, and hired me. And that's when Long Crime was launched. And so, and we, there were like five people that worked at Long Crime. That's how this started in 20- [00:33:28] Speaker 3: This is such a great story. [00:33:30] Kathy Russin: In 2017. So, this is to me near and dear my heart. They asked me to do a show. They want me to do a show. They know how I have a passion for this. And I just said, can we call it Court Chatter? So, that's how it kind of was a full circle moment for me. [00:33:42] Speaker 3: This is such a cool story. And I'm so happy for you. That is so fantastic. I love it. Just your own passion drove you to, drove you to create this thing into the universe. And I love it. I love it. [00:33:57] Kathy Russin: I'm doing what I love every day. I was doing it for free before someone paid me to. [00:34:01] Speaker 3: You're like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Somebody can pay me to do this? Well, thank you again for coming on. I'm going to bug you again to come on in the future. Anytime. Because I know that you do follow all of these cases. And we, there is, again, all of your social media. Do yourselves a favor, everybody, and go follow Kathy on all of her platforms. And make sure that you're also subscribing to Court Chatter. And we will be talking to you soon, my friend. [00:34:31] Kathy Russin: Thank you. [00:34:32] Speaker 3: All right. Take care. Thank you so much, Heather Coopersmith, for the super sticker. That's very kind of you. Thank you, Linda Baer, for supporting the mods with coffees. They need it. Staying awake this evening. And I just want to share a quick story with you guys. It was just making me think of this. I had a trial when I was a prosecutor where the defendant was, charged with abusing his children physically, not sexually, physically abusive with his own children. And they were terrified of him. And the wife, the mother of the children, was terrified of them. And no one, they had the hardest time getting anyone to take their case seriously. Mostly because many times they would get afraid and not want to take it to trial. And finally, we had convinced them to do this. Now he's on trial. They're terrified. They were an immigrant family. They're worried about their immigration status. All of these things are at play. And he decides to testify. Why? Because he's exactly like this guy. He's an egomaniac. And he's a control freak. And he feels that he can tell everybody what to do. And nobody's going to tell him. And he's never been wrong a day in his life. And he's going to stand up in front of that jury and not only tell them how I'm wrong, but how I'm really the bad guy in ruining their whole life. And I get him up there and I do the best to remain calm, but be as snarky a son of a bitch as I could possibly be. And I am interrupting him and I am correcting him and I'm stopping his answers and telling him he's not answering my question. And I can tell that it's getting to this guy the whole time. And he's getting more and more worked up and he's getting more and more flustered and he's getting more and more angry. And finally, he would start to have these little outbursts. And every time he would, I would say, no need to get angry. Sir, I don't know why you're so angry. And constantly reminding the jurors of this is who this guy actually was. If he's doing this, and I said this in closing, if he's doing this under cross-examination in front of all of you wearing a suit and tie with me standing about 20 feet away from him, imagine what he's doing with these little boys when they don't do what he told them the first time. That's, I think, how this is going to go down on cross-examination. If they're able to get this guy to at least, you know, that mask falls for just a half second, it's going to be, they're going to have a real field day with him. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this discussion, there's plenty more legal analysis and case coverage waiting for you right here on the channel. Click here to watch another episode or explore this playlist for more discussions and breakdowns. And before you go, subscribe to Courtroom Confidential and turn on all notifications. Once again, I'm your host, Joshua Ritter. I'll see you next time. Bye.