Heads Rolling? More on What Not to Do during a Trial
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That's what attorneys representing McAfee are hoping right about now. This will likely show up in some ethics casebook soon, assuming more fireworks occur. When vital discovery doesn't show up until ten hours before the trial starts, things are rotten somewhere.
That's what happened in this case. The government is prosecuting Kent Roberts, a former McAfee general counsel for alleged stock option backdating shenanigans. But there are three parties involved here: the Feds, Roberts, and McAfee itself.
Two years ago, a grand jury issued a subpoena to McAfee. Then the prosecutor, Laurel Beeler, over the weekend before trial, asked McAfee for travel records for the company's former controller. Based on the email the prosecution received, Beeler then broadened their request. That led to another 18 pages of emails, much more than anticipated, which showed that the former controller was involved in changing the date on an options grant. Of course, these emails should have been turned over after the subpoena was issued two years ago.
Predictably, this has led to an utter mess, bringing the entire reason for the prosecution into question. The jury got to go home, and the development has raised all sorts of attorney-client privilege questions. McAfee claims that all the relevant documents were turned over to the ''special litigation group,'' a group they set up to manage the extensive options scandal they are involved with. So who the question of who to blame for the oversight is quite murky, though oddly the two parties at issue in the case seem to be off the hook. When was the last time both named parties to a case in a discovery dispute weren't at fault?
For fans of legal soap operas, this case appears to have it all: zealous prosecutors, defendants pointing the fingers at each other, fee disputes, discovery surprises, mad judges, and generally all sorts of popcorn. Earlier this year, McAfee sued its counsel WilmerHale in another case because of the high legal fees Wilmer charged. Meanwhile, Roberts is trying to stick McAfee with his legal defense bill in yet another fee dispute.
The case promises to provide a lot more entertainment to court watchers.
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