[00:00:03] Speaker 05:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:00:04] Speaker 05:
I'd like to reserve two minutes for rebuttal.

[00:00:07] Speaker 05:
May it please the court.

[00:00:08] Speaker 05:
My name is Meredith Firetog.

[00:00:10] Speaker 05:
I represent Appellant Kelly Croft.

[00:00:12] Speaker 05:
Ms.

[00:00:12] Speaker 05:
Croft seeks reversal of the order dismissing her TVPRA claims against the Dolan defendants and the Azov defendants and asks that this court remand the case for discovery.

[00:00:23] Speaker 05:
The district court below made some fundamental errors in applying the pleading standard to Ms.

[00:00:29] Speaker 05:
Croft's complaint.

[00:00:30] Speaker 05:
It failed to take all of the allegations as true

[00:00:33] Speaker 05:
it drew inferences against the pleader and instead adopted Appellee's preferred narrative spin on the facts.

[00:00:40] Speaker 05:
I'm going to touch three arguments today.

[00:00:42] Speaker 05:
First, that Ms.

[00:00:43] Speaker 05:
Croft has adequately pleaded a commercial sex act under the TVPRA.

[00:00:47] Speaker 05:
Second, I will address Dolan's arguments, which were raised on the first time on appeal and therefore should be waived, concerning well-pleaded allegations concerning the illicit means.

[00:00:57] Speaker 05:
element of the TVPRA and finally I will turn to the ASOF defendant's liability under theories of beneficiary liability and agency or vicarious liability.

[00:01:07] Speaker 04:
You don't have a lot of time and I'm only one of three, but for me the first issue that you raised is not the most critical.

[00:01:13] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:01:13] Speaker 04:
Illicit means is more.

[00:01:15] Speaker 05:
Illicit means is more critical.

[00:01:16] Speaker 05:
So to start off, the court only found below that a lack of Commercial Sex Act was why there was no TVPRA violation.

[00:01:25] Speaker 05:
Now on appeal, Dolan spends 40 some odd pages of his 50-page appellate brief arguing these alternative theories concerning illicit means.

[00:01:33] Speaker 05:
But regardless, plaintiff did plead illicit means.

[00:01:36] Speaker 05:
She pleaded fraud and coercion that induced her to submit to sexual acts with Dolan.

[00:01:42] Speaker 05:
Fraud has a plain meaning under the TVPRA, and defendants plainly transported Ms.

[00:01:48] Speaker 05:
Croft on fraudulent grounds.

[00:01:49] Speaker 05:
They led her to believe that she was being transported for legitimate work for the Eagles and the ASOF entities.

[00:01:56] Speaker 03:
In reality... But, Council, with respect, all of the, if you will, accoutrements to provide massage and so on were there.

[00:02:07] Speaker 03:
The fact that the Eagles didn't use that doesn't change the fact that the hotel, the transportation, the facilities and so on, those were all provided.

[00:02:19] Speaker 03:
It wasn't fraud.

[00:02:20] Speaker 03:
You have some other elements you're arguing with respect to Dolan, but with respect to what was promised that isn't that exactly what you got?

[00:02:29] Speaker 05:
No, she was hired by the A's off entities.

[00:02:31] Speaker 05:
She received a message from the A's off entities that she was needed on the tour based on the context and all of the circumstances leading up to that request from the A's off entities.

[00:02:41] Speaker 05:
She understood that she was going to work for the Eagles, specifically be a massage therapist just for Glen fray, the lead singer of the Eagles.

[00:02:48] Speaker 03:
And that in and of itself, in your judgment, qualifies as the cause of accident of the TVPRA?

[00:02:56] Speaker 05:
Well, that is the fraud that induced her to get into the place where she was then coerced to engage in a SSAP.

[00:03:02] Speaker 04:
Can we talk about the coercion?

[00:03:03] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:03:04] Speaker 04:
Hold on, because I think Judge Forrest was trying to ask a question before I asked mine.

[00:03:16] Speaker 03:
I'm not hearing Judge Forrest.

[00:03:20] Speaker 03:
Am I alone in that?

[00:03:24] Speaker 03:
Is her microphone on?

[00:03:26] Speaker 04:
The microphone is on.

[00:03:28] Speaker 04:
Can you turn up here?

[00:03:30] Speaker 02:
I don't know where to do that.

[00:03:33] Speaker 02:
Is that better?

[00:03:35] Speaker 02:
There we go.

[00:03:37] Speaker 02:
Ah, OK.

[00:03:39] Speaker 02:
So I was saying, I think that if you accept the plaintiff's allegations, you probably have enough facts to indicate that she was fraudulently induced to go to LA.

[00:03:48] Speaker 02:
What I'm not seeing, I mean, the standard in the statute is fraudulently induced to engage in a commercial sex act.

[00:03:53] Speaker 02:
So I think those are two different things, and that's getting to what Judge Kristen was getting at as well.

[00:03:58] Speaker 05:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:03:59] Speaker 05:
So the standard is that the intent is that fraud will be used to induce a commercial sex act.

[00:04:04] Speaker 05:
The fraud doesn't actually need to directly cause the commercial sex act.

[00:04:07] Speaker 05:
It just has to be the illicit means intended to bring about an illicit sex act.

[00:04:13] Speaker 02:
But I'm still sort of, what are the facts in the complaint that indicate that fraud or coercion was intended to be used to get her to engage in a commercial sex act, as opposed to get her to LA?

[00:04:23] Speaker 05:
Well, on the fraud aspect, getting her to LA was an essential material part of the commercial set.

[00:04:29] Speaker 04:
But it wasn't enough.

[00:04:31] Speaker 04:
It wasn't enough.

[00:04:31] Speaker 04:
So she gets to LA, and then what?

[00:04:34] Speaker 05:
And then the coercion, and that's why the CVPRA allows a sort of combination of illicit means of fraud and coercion.

[00:04:40] Speaker 04:
So we can talk about the coercion a little.

[00:04:43] Speaker 04:
The classic, we take these cases very seriously.

[00:04:46] Speaker 04:
I don't want to give you any, I don't want to suggest to the contrary.

[00:04:50] Speaker 04:
But this isn't an underage person.

[00:04:52] Speaker 04:
It's not a person who spoke, didn't speak English.

[00:04:56] Speaker 04:
It's not a person who didn't have the means to get on a plane and leave LA.

[00:04:59] Speaker 04:
I don't think.

[00:04:59] Speaker 04:
I don't see that.

[00:05:01] Speaker 04:
And that's the problem I have.

[00:05:02] Speaker 04:
Why was it such a coercive environment?

[00:05:04] Speaker 05:
So that requires taking a look at all of the allegations put together and figuring out a harm that given all the surrounding circumstances would compel a reasonable person

[00:05:13] Speaker 05:
to continue to perform the commercial sex activity to avoid a potential harm.

[00:05:19] Speaker 05:
Here you have a billionaire owner of Madison Square Garden who's lured this very young woman who's a massage therapist for the eagles from a small town in Tennessee.

[00:05:29] Speaker 05:
He basically says, look, you can come to Madison Square Garden and massage people who come through me.

[00:05:34] Speaker 05:
I can fire and hire people on this tour.

[00:05:36] Speaker 05:
I can fix problems for you.

[00:05:39] Speaker 05:
I can do whatever I want here.

[00:05:40] Speaker 05:
That's more than just, you know,

[00:05:45] Speaker 05:
I can't leave.

[00:05:46] Speaker 05:
If I don't submit to this, there goes my career.

[00:05:49] Speaker 05:
There goes everything that I've put my life into.

[00:05:55] Speaker 05:
Yes, but we do allege that this was her big break.

[00:05:58] Speaker 05:
This was the biggest deal in her life.

[00:05:59] Speaker 05:
She had never been away from Tennessee.

[00:06:01] Speaker 05:
This was a huge deal for her.

[00:06:03] Speaker 05:
The working for the Eagles was her big break, and Dolan held power over that, and he made that perfectly clear.

[00:06:08] Speaker 04:
What's your strongest argument that this is sufficient coercion?

[00:06:14] Speaker 04:
Is that it?

[00:06:15] Speaker 05:
Well, it's all of the Weinstein cases.

[00:06:18] Speaker 05:
It's the Schneider case.

[00:06:19] Speaker 05:
It's that serious financial loss, given the circumstances of who the plaintiff is and who the defendant is, can be sufficiently coercive.

[00:06:27] Speaker 04:
Some of the Weinstein cases aren't

[00:06:28] Speaker 04:
TVPRA cases.

[00:06:30] Speaker 04:
So which one in particular are you relying on most?

[00:06:33] Speaker 05:
I mean, I think the David V. Weinstein, Noble V. Weinstein, Kenosha V. Ziff, all of those cases do focus on just the idea of this is a big break.

[00:06:43] Speaker 05:
This is a career-making opportunity, and this person

[00:06:47] Speaker 05:
seems to hold that power over you.

[00:06:50] Speaker 05:
So if you refuse to go forward with what they're asking, what are the consequences?

[00:06:56] Speaker 05:
Are they serious enough, given who you are and the circumstances you're in, to say, I need to move forward?

[00:07:02] Speaker 02:
That's the rub.

[00:07:02] Speaker 02:
I mean, I share the sentiment that Judge Christen shared about.

[00:07:07] Speaker 02:
We're not making light of this case at all, but you've got a 27 year old woman and the theory that you're trying to sell is that a reasonable person would submit to a commercial sex abuse or a commercial sex act to

[00:07:18] Speaker 02:
avoid missing out on a big break in a career.

[00:07:20] Speaker 05:
That's exactly what the TVPRA contemplates.

[00:07:22] Speaker 02:
That's bold.

[00:07:23] Speaker 05:
And that's exactly what the language of the TVPRA contemplates.

[00:07:27] Speaker 05:
It doesn't require, you know, it's a reasonable person in those circumstances would be sufficiently coercive.

[00:07:33] Speaker 05:
She has pled that this was sufficiently coercive for her.

[00:07:36] Speaker 05:
Whether or not that coercion a jury will find was sufficient is a jury question.

[00:07:42] Speaker 05:
But she has certainly pleaded

[00:07:43] Speaker 02:
Well, it's not about coercion for her.

[00:07:45] Speaker 02:
This is an objective standard, not a subjective standard.

[00:07:48] Speaker 02:
So we have to say, just generally, it's reasonable that somebody would submit to this to avoid a career harm in this circumstance, where you haven't alleged, as Christian alluded to, that she was in such dire financial situation that she was going to be on the street or something if she missed this opportunity.

[00:08:04] Speaker 02:
We don't have any of those kinds of facts.

[00:08:05] Speaker 05:
That's certainly one way to plead coercion.

[00:08:08] Speaker 05:
But the career prospects laid forth in the Weinstein cases

[00:08:13] Speaker 05:
that compelled people to engage in sex with Weinstein was enough under those cases to be coercion.

[00:08:20] Speaker 05:
You wanted to reserve two minutes.

[00:08:21] Speaker 05:
You're below that.

[00:08:22] Speaker 04:
Do you want to reserve?

[00:08:23] Speaker 05:
Yes, thank you.

[00:08:23] Speaker 04:
You bet.

[00:08:29] Speaker 00:
Good morning.

[00:08:30] Speaker 00:
Thank you so much for giving me the time to be here.

[00:08:32] Speaker 00:
I'm Joshua Perry here on behalf of James Dolan and JD in the straight shot.

[00:08:36] Speaker 00:
I want to go right to the point, Judge Kristen and Judge Forrest, that you made.

[00:08:41] Speaker 00:
Nobody is making light of these allegations.

[00:08:43] Speaker 00:
I understand the court isn't either.

[00:08:45] Speaker 00:
If these allegations were true, and they are most assuredly not, then what we would have here are state law California claims, perhaps a Title VII claim.

[00:08:52] Speaker 00:
What we do not have is a TVPA case.

[00:08:56] Speaker 00:
They've conceded, effectively, an oral argument that the fraud is not enough, that it comes down to what they allege is economic coercion here.

[00:09:04] Speaker 00:
There is no case in which economic coercion, defined as depriving the alleged victim of the benefit that she seeks for the commercial sex, amounts to coercive fraud that would compel a reasonable person to engage in commercial sex.

[00:09:22] Speaker 04:
This is where you get into a bit of trouble with me, because this has to be a carefully worded

[00:09:26] Speaker 04:
rule of law.

[00:09:27] Speaker 04:
There are cases where we've expressed serious concern about a prototypical case where somebody brings a person to the United States, maybe intercepts their passport, maybe deprives of their paychecks so that they don't have the means to escape.

[00:09:48] Speaker 04:
So I do think that your briefs overstate your case.

[00:09:52] Speaker 00:
Judge, and I think, for instance, one of the cases that you're referring to there is United States versus Dan, which is a case that this court handed down in 2014, and absolutely that's right.

[00:10:02] Speaker 00:
Trapping somebody in a place, depriving them of their passport, yes, that is a form of coercion, but as was observed already, that's not what's alleged here.

[00:10:11] Speaker 04:
What's alleged here is that it... No, I'm only pushing back because I think the rule statement that you advance is too sweeping.

[00:10:17] Speaker 00:
I appreciate the court's point.

[00:10:19] Speaker 00:
Let me go directly to the Weinstein cases, which Ms.

[00:10:22] Speaker 00:
Croft pointed to as her strongest cases.

[00:10:24] Speaker 00:
Those are not economic coercion cases.

[00:10:27] Speaker 00:
The illicit means that was alleged in those cases are number one, the use of physical force, which is not alleged here, and number two, fraud, where promises of career advancement were made and were not kept.

[00:10:41] Speaker 00:
That is indeed fraud, because it's fraud that goes to the essence of the bargain.

[00:10:44] Speaker 04:
I think there were allegations of physical force, but in Florida, and those are not before us.

[00:10:48] Speaker 04:
Isn't that right?

[00:10:49] Speaker 00:
That's exactly right.

[00:10:49] Speaker 00:
That is not pled.

[00:10:51] Speaker 00:
It was not argued below.

[00:10:52] Speaker 00:
It's not argued here.

[00:10:53] Speaker 00:
It was not presented by the parties, and it is, as the court observes, beyond the statute of limitations.

[00:10:59] Speaker 00:
That's right.

[00:10:59] Speaker 00:
And the court can look beyond the statute of limitations, of course, for context, but it can't look for an essential element of the tort.

[00:11:07] Speaker 04:
Is that history part of what goes into the coercive nature that she found herself in in Los Angeles?

[00:11:15] Speaker 00:
Again, it may go to context, it may go to her state of mind, but as was already pointed out, that's not what the statute demands.

[00:11:24] Speaker 04:
The question is whether a reasonable person in the same position with that history would feel coerced.

[00:11:30] Speaker 04:
My question.

[00:11:31] Speaker 00:
And the answer is, on the facts that were pled here, no, absolutely not.

[00:11:36] Speaker 00:
What you have here is a 28-year-old self-pled successful masseuse, self-pled had worked at the Bridgestone Arena, self-pled four stars.

[00:11:45] Speaker 00:
Bridgestone is actually a bigger arena than the LA Forum.

[00:11:47] Speaker 00:
Nashville's the fastest growing metropolis in the country.

[00:11:50] Speaker 00:
This is not a small town girl who was

[00:11:52] Speaker 00:
misled and taken advantage of.

[00:11:55] Speaker 04:
But she's a grown woman, please.

[00:11:56] Speaker 04:
And can I interrupt right there?

[00:11:58] Speaker 04:
Because I don't know that Judge Smith has had any opportunity to jump in.

[00:12:03] Speaker 03:
Could you – No, I'm listening to what my colleague here is saying and very much subscribed.

[00:12:09] Speaker 03:
It seems to me that the argument that – the claim that I'm going to help your career is enough to provide the coercion here would open up a huge

[00:12:20] Speaker 03:
Pandora's box of claims that Congress never intended.

[00:12:23] Speaker 03:
Would you like to comment on that in terms of, as I understand it, the claim that this is simply enough, that the career promise, whether or not was ever going to be kept, is enough to constitute the coercion required under the statute?

[00:12:44] Speaker 00:
It's absolutely not, and the Court is exactly right.

[00:12:47] Speaker 00:
If it's true that the mere promise of career advancement is enough, then many of the Title VII quid pro quo cases that come before this Court on the regular are in fact sex trafficking cases that Congress punished with 15 years to life in prison.

[00:13:02] Speaker 00:
That can't be the rule.

[00:13:03] Speaker 00:
Nor can it be true that the mere withholding of hoped-for compensation is enough or many prostitution cases that come before the state criminal courts would be sex trafficking cases.

[00:13:15] Speaker 00:
This is not to minimize the seriousness of Title VII cases.

[00:13:18] Speaker 00:
It's not to minimize the seriousness of prostitution cases.

[00:13:21] Speaker 00:
Those are serious, but those are separate statutes.

[00:13:24] Speaker 04:
So my point on this, and I don't want to belabor it, but there would be circumstances where withholding compensation might be enough if the person didn't have a means to

[00:13:32] Speaker 04:
extricate herself from the situation.

[00:13:35] Speaker 04:
That's my only point.

[00:13:36] Speaker 00:
Is it okay if I speak directly to that?

[00:13:38] Speaker 04:
Quickly, because you're out of time.

[00:13:39] Speaker 00:
Of course.

[00:13:39] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Judge.

[00:13:41] Speaker 00:
Sure.

[00:13:41] Speaker 00:
Yes, I agree that in conjunction with other factors, like being trapped, like inability to extricate, the withholding of something that you were already promised may be enough, but not failing to receive a benefit that you haven't yet gotten.

[00:13:56] Speaker 04:
We understand your argument.

[00:13:58] Speaker 04:
I'm going to stop you there because you're over time.

[00:13:59] Speaker 04:
I thank you for your patience with our questions.

[00:14:02] Speaker 04:
We'll hear from co-counsel.

[00:14:05] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:14:06] Speaker 01:
Anton Mitlicki for the Azov entities.

[00:14:08] Speaker 01:
May it please the Court.

[00:14:10] Speaker 01:
We joined in Mr. Dolan's arguments, and so... Counsel, would you get a little closer to the mic?

[00:14:15] Speaker 03:
I'm sure you can speak loudly there, but I can't hear you here, so please stop.

[00:14:19] Speaker 01:
Is that better, Your Honor?

[00:14:20] Speaker 03:
Much better.

[00:14:20] Speaker 03:
Much better.

[00:14:21] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:14:22] Speaker 01:
I was just saying that we joined in Mr. Dolan's arguments, and if you agree with those,

[00:14:26] Speaker 01:
You don't have to listen to anything I'm about to say, but our position is even if the complaint against Mr. Dolan can go forward, the complaint against the ASOF entities for beneficiary liability and agency liability cannot, and I'll start with beneficiary liability.

[00:14:43] Speaker 01:
To survive a motion to dismiss, they would have to plausibly allege that the ASOF entities

[00:14:49] Speaker 01:
should have known that Mr. Dolan was sex trafficking the plaintiff.

[00:14:53] Speaker 01:
That is, that Mr. Dolan was using force or threats of force or coercion to cause plaintiff to engage in a commercial sex act, which is a crime punishable by at least 15 years in prison.

[00:15:05] Speaker 01:
Plaintiff alleges, you know, several red flags, which she calls red flags, things that the ASOF entities allegedly knew that should have tipped them off that this crime was happening.

[00:15:17] Speaker 01:
So she says, unlike during prior Legs of the Eagles tour, Plaintiff was put in the same hotel as Dolan's Band, which was one of the bands on the tour.

[00:15:25] Speaker 01:
as opposed to the Eagles and the Dolan paid for her trip to California and that she went to the forum every day and was provided with a room and was paid for that but that she didn't provide as many massages as she expected.

[00:15:41] Speaker 01:
Nobody, no reasonable person, knowing those facts, would walk into a U.S.

[00:15:46] Speaker 01:
attorney's office, for example, and say, I think there is sex trafficking going on, because those facts are not red flags of anything.

[00:15:53] Speaker 01:
They're just facts that describe a masseuse being hired for a rock and roll tour.

[00:15:59] Speaker 02:
Well, she has two other facts that you've not listed, and that is that your clients knew that Dolan was engaging in sexual conduct with her, and that

[00:16:10] Speaker 02:
She was specifically asked to come to LA at Dolan's request.

[00:16:14] Speaker 02:
That's who wanted her, not the Eagles.

[00:16:15] Speaker 01:
Oh, yeah, I thought the second one I thought I said that that's true.

[00:16:18] Speaker 01:
And so if you if you think that Mr. Dolan, I mean, she was the masseuse on the last leg of the tour, the the A's off entities could have known that Mr. Dolan wanted her on this leg of the tour.

[00:16:29] Speaker 01:
That doesn't

[00:16:30] Speaker 01:
even come close to suggesting that there was sex trafficking going on.

[00:16:34] Speaker 01:
As to the allegation that my clients knew that there was a sexual relationship, two points.

[00:16:40] Speaker 01:
First of all, they don't allege that.

[00:16:42] Speaker 01:
They allege that Mr. Dolan told members of his band that there was a sexual relationship, which I'm not sure how that touches my clients.

[00:16:51] Speaker 01:
But even if you give that one to them, knowing that there is a sexual relationship, again, is not

[00:16:57] Speaker 01:
knowing or even being put on constructive notice that there was sex trafficking, right?

[00:17:02] Speaker 02:
If you look at the cases... I agree with you that if you don't have sex trafficking, then this isn't going to come together.

[00:17:07] Speaker 02:
But I understood your argument to be even if they could allege enough to establish sex trafficking, still wouldn't work.

[00:17:12] Speaker 02:
And that's where I'm not sure I buy it.

[00:17:14] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:17:15] Speaker 01:
That is our argument.

[00:17:15] Speaker 01:
And the reason we say that is if you look at the cases that have allowed

[00:17:19] Speaker 01:
claims like this to go past the pleadings, for example, the hotel cases where people rent hotel rooms for an inordinate period of time.

[00:17:28] Speaker 01:
There are all sorts of different people going in and out.

[00:17:30] Speaker 01:
There are, you know, used condoms and drug paraphernalia found in the rooms.

[00:17:36] Speaker 01:
Women are seen walking out of the rooms looking haggard and beat up.

[00:17:40] Speaker 01:
Those cases get past the pleadings because somebody knowing those facts should be on notice that there is something like sex trafficking going on.

[00:17:47] Speaker 01:
But if all you know is that Mr. Dolan wanted to hire a masseuse that he had worked with before to be on the tour, and that she was given a room at the forum to provide massages, provided less than she expected, and was paid for doing so, that would not... And even if they knew that there was a sexual relationship, which we don't think they alleged, I don't think anybody, any reasonable person, would be put on notice that a crime was happening, that there was coercion in exchange for sex acts happening.

[00:18:17] Speaker 01:
That's the thrust of our argument.

[00:18:20] Speaker 01:
And then there's the agency point, as I think I'm almost out of time, but the agency point is basically that their allegation is that, if anything, Mr. Dolan controlled the ASOF entities.

[00:18:32] Speaker 01:
You can look at, for example, paragraph 39 in their complaint.

[00:18:36] Speaker 01:
So Dolan could control the ace of entities business decisions about the Eagles tour.

[00:18:40] Speaker 01:
So if anything, the allegations would show that Dolan was the principal.

[00:18:45] Speaker 01:
There's no allegation, no plausible allegation at all, suggesting that Dolan was an agent of the ace of entities.

[00:18:53] Speaker 04:
Anything further?

[00:18:54] Speaker 01:
That's it, Your Honor.

[00:18:54] Speaker 05:
Thank you.

[00:18:55] Speaker 05:
Thank you for your argument.

[00:18:59] Speaker 05:
Thank you, Your Honors.

[00:19:00] Speaker 05:
I'd like to start with a quote from USV Mainz, which is a Fourth Circuit case that makes it clear that fraud does not need to cause the Commercial Sex Act.

[00:19:09] Speaker 05:
The crime of sex trafficking is complete when the defendant recruits, entices, harbors, et cetera, the victim with knowledge that the prohibited means will be used in the future

[00:19:19] Speaker 05:
to cause them to engage in the commercial sex acts.

[00:19:22] Speaker 05:
That is what happened here.

[00:19:23] Speaker 05:
Dolan and Azov jointly used fraud, knowing that it would be used to try to induce her in a sex act.

[00:19:30] Speaker 05:
The promises of, I'm going to give you a slot at MSG.

[00:19:35] Speaker 05:
That was his intent, was that he was planning to use those means, those illicit means, to induce a sex act for which she thought there was value.

[00:19:43] Speaker 03:
That's what the TV.

[00:19:45] Speaker 03:
Where in the complaint do you allege what you just said?

[00:19:50] Speaker 05:
that where do we allege that?

[00:19:53] Speaker 03:
In other words, you basically are saying this is obvious and this is what happened.

[00:20:00] Speaker 03:
I'm not seeing what you're saying in the complaint.

[00:20:03] Speaker 03:
What paragraphs are you referring to that in fact allege what you just said?

[00:20:09] Speaker 05:
So the Azov entities at paragraph 50 say, I need you out on this tour.

[00:20:15] Speaker 05:
They know that it's coming from JD.

[00:20:17] Speaker 05:
They know that fraud is being used.

[00:20:19] Speaker 05:
There is the knowledge of the illicit means.

[00:20:23] Speaker 05:
Wait.

[00:20:23] Speaker 05:
Paragraph 50 is knowledge?

[00:20:25] Speaker 05:
Paragraph 50, Azov says, I need you at the show.

[00:20:30] Speaker 05:
Knowing that it's on the JD credit card, he knows that there's fraud being used.

[00:20:33] Speaker 05:
They know given the circumstances.

[00:20:35] Speaker 03:
But that doesn't say that.

[00:20:35] Speaker 03:
I mean, it says about the credit card.

[00:20:38] Speaker 03:
You're implying so many things that need to be stated with specificity.

[00:20:43] Speaker 03:
That troubles me.

[00:20:44] Speaker 05:
I don't see how you get there.

[00:20:45] Speaker 05:
So it's a reasonable inference to be drawn based on the totality of the circumstances here, which is that they know that all of these red flags, the fact that she's staying somewhere else, that she's not actually performing things, that it's going on the JD credit card, those are meaningful red flags that they should say, why are we lying about this?

[00:21:03] Speaker 05:
Why do we need a deceit to get her out to LA?

[00:21:07] Speaker 05:
Why can't you just say James Dolan wants to have sex with you out in LA?

[00:21:12] Speaker 05:
He's going to pay for it.

[00:21:13] Speaker 05:
Why is there a deceit at all about what her reason for going out there is?

[00:21:19] Speaker 05:
Because they need a deceit to induce her to come out to engage in the commercial sex acts.

[00:21:23] Speaker 05:
You're over your time.

[00:21:24] Speaker 05:
Could you please wrap up?

[00:21:25] Speaker 05:
Yes.

[00:21:26] Speaker 05:
That is all I have, unless there are more questions, Your Honor.

[00:21:29] Speaker 04:
I don't think there are.

[00:21:30] Speaker 04:
Thank you for your argument, all three of you.

[00:21:33] Speaker 04:
We'll take that case under advisement and go to the next case on the calendar.