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Hi, and welcome to episode four of Work Gone Wrong, the podcast that makes you say, They did what at work?
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We want to thank you for listening to our first three episodes.
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We are open to all feedback as we continue to figure out exactly how to share this information with you.
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You can reach us at www.workgonewrong.com, even though I've been told you no longer have to say the WW part.
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As you know, hopefully, we are two employment attorneys who have spent decades investigating office misbehavior, whether it's sexual harassment, gender discrimination, or perhaps a run-in with the law, which we're going to talk about today.
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We have curated the most interesting cases from our past 30 years and we're bringing them to you.
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I'm Dee Dee Church.
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And I'm Kristen Lemke.
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All of the cases that we'll be discussing predate the time that I started working with Dee Dee.
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So I will be hearing about them for the first time along with you.
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And hopefully I'll be asking the questions that you're listening along and asking yourselves.
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And just as a reminder, we are both attorneys.
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So these cases are old and we will change all of the details to protect the privacy of the people and companies involved.
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You might say, Kristen.
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Say what, Dee Dee?
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That these are cold cases.
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As I reach back into the freezer behind the frozen waffles, which I know you like.
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Lego My Ego.
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There you go.
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Um, okay, uh, let me tell you about today's case.
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This one is a little different from everything we've talked about before.
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I think you're gonna find that it is quite remarkable.
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And I bet you're wondering the names of our characters for today.
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I am.
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Please tell me.
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I will tell you.
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Our characters today are gonna be named Edward Lewis and Vivian Ward.
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And I'll just let that settle over you and our listeners.
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And as always, we'll tell you at the end what movie, book, or TV show these are taken from.
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So Edward Lewis was the HR director, the human resources director for a public entity that reached out to me and said, We have had an arrest amongst our executives.
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And those of you in HR listening will be intrigued to learn that the arrestee was the director of human resources.
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Oof.
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Yeah.
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So I was, as always, interested in being helpful if I could.
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And so I agreed to interview him.
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They suggested that they not give me any more information so I could go in neutral and learn what I needed to from him.
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We set up the interview, and let me just give you the picture.
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He is 6'4 at least.
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He is a large man, a former football player turned HR director.
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And I am not, as you know, very large.
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I'm 5'4 on my best days.
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So I was a little intimidated that I was gonna have to ask this man about being arrested.
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And I decided to ask the public entity if they would position someone right outside the door so that if I did run into any trouble or he did get very angry and I felt uncomfortable, I could raise my voice and ask for help.
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Did they indicate it was something that he had done that had to do with violence?
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They indicated that the reason I was investigating is because they had a very strict policy against conduct, unbecoming their public entity.
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So I knew he had been arrested for something that would be embarrassing to the organization.
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And I knew I was gonna have to ask him these questions, and I anticipated that he would not enjoy that experience.
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So I did ask for someone to be seated outside the room.
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Luckily, I didn't end up needing it.
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He was cordial throughout the interview.
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But I do think this is a note for investigators to take.
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Your safety is never something to be compromised.
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If you have even an inkling that an interview might get testy, absolutely ask for someone else to be present.
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I just want to ask one question.
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You said public entity.
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Is he related to law enforcement at all?
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Not at all.
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Okay, okay.
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That's an important point.
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No, it was more in the realm of, let's say, a state agency or a county agency or a municipality.
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And that's what I mean by public entity.
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So I appeared for the interview and introduced myself.
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And I began by saying, I am aware that you were arrested two nights ago.
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Why don't we start there?
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Why don't you tell me what the charges are against you?
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And he responded solicitation of prostitution.
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Hmm.
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I thought we were gonna get away from sexual harassment or anything in that realm today, but we're not.
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You know, does anyone ever really get all the way away from sexual harassment in that realm?
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It certainly cremates our work.
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So what I learned is that Edward Lewis solicited Vivian Ward for prostitution.
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Only in this case, Vivian Ward was an undercover policewoman.
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The short version, and we'll unpack this as we go, is that he went into a convenience store, came out, and Vivian Ward was leaning up against his car asking him if he would like to engage in sex.
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According to Edward Lewis, Vivian was very talkative as she touted her sexual prowess.
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And he thought to himself, she's a good talker.
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She would be great in marketing.
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So when Vivian said to Edward, Do you have money?
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Can I do this job for you?
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Edward told me that he was thinking, I can give this woman a job with my public entity.
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So he said, Vivian, I can offer you a job and I can pay you.
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And then they discussed rates, and he realized that she wasn't going to stop, or at least this is what he told me, and he really wanted her to stop leaning on his car so he could leave.
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So he agreed to her rate of$50.
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And Vivian responded to Edward, drive over into that dead end and I'll meet you there.
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So he got in his car, saw his opportunity, and tried to leave the parking lot.
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But at that point, he was pulled over and arrested because again, Vivian Ward was an undercover policewoman.
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In our state, if you are arrested for being a prostitute, it's a class B misdemeanor.
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The penalty at most is 180 days in jail and a$2,000 fine if you don't have any previous convictions.
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But if you were what's called the John, you're the person soliciting the prostitute, they face far stricter penalties than the prostitutes themselves.
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And that's because many states, including Texas, where we are, decided to take steps to combat human trafficking.
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So even if it's your first offense for solicitation, the possible sentence is six months to two years in jail and a fine of up to$10,000.
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And that escalates, by the way, to a second degree felony with two to 20 years in prison if the person you are soliciting is under 18 or you think they are under 18.
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This is no joke, right?
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That he has been arrested for solicitation.
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So I ask him to tell me what happened.
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And he starts talking about driving around the town.
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And this was not a town I knew.
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So I did something that I think was very helpful.
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I asked him to get out the outline of his town, like a circle, like a clock face, which he did.
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And I said, Show me where you went straight from work.
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And he went to 10 o'clock on the clock.
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And he said, This is the restaurant where I went after work.
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They were having a happy hour.
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I go there fairly often.
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I stayed there.
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I watched a sports event on TV, had a couple of beers, ate dinner.
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And I said, Okay.
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And then you left there.
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Where were you headed?
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And he said, I was headed home.
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So then I said, Show me on this map slash clock where you live.
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And he put a dot at three o'clock.
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Now, if you were gonna go from a restaurant at 10 o'clock to your house at three o'clock, you would probably just drive across the clock, right?
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But he didn't.
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He said he went straight down to 5 30.
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And I said, And is that where you were arrested?
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And he said, Yes.
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And so of course the question is, what were you doing there?
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If you weren't going there to get a prostitute, what were you doing there?
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And he said, Well, I didn't want to drive across the city because traffic is terrible.
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Now I said, What time were you arrested?
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And he said, 10 30 p.m.
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Well, traffic is not going to be that bad driving across the city.
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So already I'm thinking this story feels a bit unreliable.
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Now I see on your face that you're finding this somewhat hard to believe.
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This is so hard to believe, but I have a few questions.
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Is this a place prostitutes are known to frequent?
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It absolutely is.
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In fact, that area of the city is somewhat known to attract prostitutes.
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We know already that this is a sting operation, correct?
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It is a sting operation.
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In fact, the woman is an undercover policewoman.
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She immediately tells him he's under arrest and that ends his night.
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They put him in the police car, take him down and book him.
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So was their conversation more explicit than what you've just said?
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I'm assuming that we've got a police officer who would be making sure that this was going to be a slam dunk case.
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So I am assuming that she had some sort of explicit communication with him.
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So there was no question what they were negotiating.
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Is that correct?
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I said, Well, what did she say exactly?
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And he said, She offered me her services for a price.
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She would be a great marketer for our public entity.
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And here I am, the human resources director.
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So I said to her, I can give you a job.
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She then responded with the rate for the job that they were discussing.
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Only her rate was about$50.
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And he said he he agreed because he thought they were talking about this job for the marketing department.
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Yeah, to be arrested for solicitation, there has to be an agreement.
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It's not the actual conducting of sexual services, it's just the agreement that causes someone to be arrested.
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And because he agreed to her price, that was enough for him to be arrested for solicitation.
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Was it just the price or did they agree on a certain service?
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Did they were they explicit about the service?
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I'm just trying to understand.
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So she told him, okay, pull over into the dead end street that you can see right here.
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So apparently she had positioned herself near a dead end street.
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He said, okay, got into his car, drove toward the dead end, and was pulled over and arrested.
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When I asked him, why did you do that?
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He said, with a straight face, here I am trying to give this woman a job with our public entity, and all she can talk about is her sexual prowess.
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I realized I was never going to get through to her, so I said whatever I needed to just to make her stop leaning on my car.
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And then I got in the car and tried to drive away.
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I drove truly in the direction of the dead end, but that's also how you got out of the parking lot.
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None of it really added up.
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Okay.
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So there's no question that the two of them understand what they've just negotiated for, and he is now just finding a Weasley explanation.
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Then he did he give this explanation to the police as well?
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Is this the same explanation that he gave to them and to you?
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Yes.
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I asked him that exact question.
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He seemed very certain that he wasn't going to be convicted.
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And so I said to him, Upon what are you basing the certainty that you're going to beat the rap, as they say?
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And he said, I had no intention of going through with sex with her.
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I just wanted to get out of there.
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And I wasn't driving toward the dead end.
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I was leaving, and they won't be able to prove that I wasn't leaving the scene.
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And Diddy disclose this to the employer.
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Ah, herein lies the rub.
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Let's back up.
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When you are investigating an employee who's been arrested really for anything, you're not trying to prove whether or not this employee broke the law or not, right?
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Because that's outside of most of our expertise.
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What you're trying to do is protect the organization from liability while at the same time ensuring that the employee gets a fair investigation.
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Remember that an arrest is not a conviction.
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An off-duty arrest doesn't automatically mean that person's going to lose their job, right?
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You have to establish if the conduct affects their ability to do their job, harms the company's reputation, or creates some sort of an unsafe environment for other employees.
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It's basically a policy violation issue.
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And I was in luck because this public entity had a policy against conduct unbecoming of the entity.
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We you all may know those as conduct unbecoming policies.
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In other words, if you engage in any behavior that would reflect negatively on the entity, you absolutely must inform the entity immediately so that they can respond appropriately.
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And here, he did not do that.
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He told me that he was so certain that he wasn't going to be convicted that he didn't think it necessary to bother the other public entity employees with this terrible night that he had had.
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Despite being the head of HR and potentially the person that would know the most about the policies.
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Yes.
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As a seasoned HR director, he should have known he needed to tell his supervisor immediately.
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And I thought his response was very disingenuous.
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But of course, I didn't say that to him during the interview, right?
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This is not the time to lecture people.
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This is the time to just get information.
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We go into interviews as a journalist wanting to know who, what, when, where, why, and how, not as a prosecutor trying to prove that someone did something wrong.
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So if you have been handed this case, Kristen, what are some questions that would be top of mind for you?
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So I'm curious because generally in these cases, if law enforcement is involved, then we will not be involved.
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But it seems like you were going ahead with this workplace investigation while there was this criminal case that was pending.
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So can you explain that?
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Okay, this is a good question.
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Kristen is right.
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Typically, when police are involved, say the case involves a sexual assault or theft or violence, something where a police report would be filed.
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The moment the police detectives start investigating, we, as workplace investigators, stand down.
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We never want our workplace investigation to in any way interfere with their criminal investigation.
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But there wasn't going to be any more criminal investigation in this case because they felt like they had caught him red-handed.
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And in this case, the entity wanted to let Edward have an opportunity to tell his side of the story, in case the whole thing really was a big misunderstanding.
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Now they put him on leave as soon as they got word of the arrest, which is fairly typical if the person involved is a high-level executive.
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And again, if the behavior is potentially unbecoming toward the entity.
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And having your human resources director arrested for solicitation, pretty embarrassing stuff.
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So in this investigation, how many people did you end up interviewing?
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Well, this was one of the shortest investigations of my career.
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I literally only talked to the HR director.
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Only Edward.
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Only Edward, because I wasn't gonna get access to the undercover policewoman.
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Vivian wasn't gonna sit for an interview with me.
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And no other witnesses were present to say what had been said.
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There was no one else for me to interview.
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And that was okay because remember, the scope of my investigation wasn't whether or not Edward solicited a prostitute.
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The scope of my investigation was whether or not Edward violated this organization's policies.
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And you didn't even care whether he solicited a prostitute or not.
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The whole issue was he was arrested for doing this.
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That was what he needed to report to his employer, correct?
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That's correct.
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I needed to understand the story so that I could tell whether or not he knowingly violated a policy requiring him to tell his boss.
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And in this case, I found that he very much knowingly violated the policy.
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Here you have the actual human resources director who told me he had helped write the policy that required employees to inform their boss if they engaged in such behavior.
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So again, it was disingenuous at best for him to say, I didn't think this rose to the level of needing to be shared.
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Even if he thought he wasn't going to ever be convicted, the fact that he had been arrested is something that the public entity needed to know.
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And I can prove it because the day after my interview, somehow this got leaked to the media.
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And it was all over the news that the human resources director for this public entity had been arrested.
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It was a really big deal.
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And the public entity was having to backpedal and explain and have their people out talking to the media with knowledge about what went on.
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So it ended up a really good thing that I had his full account of the events and that I could share that with the entity so that they could then share it with the media.
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And what if this had been, let's say, a lower level employee, somebody who is kind of an entry-level employee and had been involved in a bar fight?
00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:30.559
No arrests, but had been in a bar fight in the public, other people had seen it.
00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:38.079
How do you distinguish something like this being conduct unbecoming versus the bar fight?
00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:39.519
Great question.
00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:44.640
I think a lot of it involves the position that the employee is in.
00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:50.960
If you had a security person involved in a bar fight, that might take a second look.
00:19:51.200 --> 00:20:02.400
But if you had an accountant, a lower-level accountant who got involved in a bar fight, maybe there's just such a gap between what he was arrested for and what he actually does.
00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:15.759
But I happen to know that Edward, the human resources director, had led a training class on avoiding sexual harassment for part of his public entity one month prior to his own arrest.
00:20:16.079 --> 00:20:22.240
So there's no doubt that this kind of behavior was reflecting negatively on his role.
00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:27.519
So kind of going back to that standard of a reasonable human resources director.
00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:28.400
What should he know?
00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:29.839
What knowledge is he supposed to have?
00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:33.440
And how does that translate to what his obligations to the company are?
00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:34.559
I love that.
00:20:34.880 --> 00:20:37.839
The reasonably proven HR director.
00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:38.559
Yeah.
00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:56.799
And I did share with the entity that his story about wanting to offer Vivian a job really was suspect that I did not find a single thing about it reliable, other than the fact that he was amazing.
00:20:57.119 --> 00:20:59.599
He said it all with such conviction.
00:20:59.920 --> 00:21:14.960
He said it as if he really expected me to believe that he was trying to offer this prostitute a job in the marketing department for this entity after knowing her for what was probably around 20 seconds.
00:21:15.279 --> 00:21:16.640
I feel like that just made it worse.
00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:22.079
He probably just should have said that she struck up a conversation with him and that he was just being friendly or something like that.
00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:27.599
Don't you think it made it worse that he tried to play it off like, oh, I was gonna hire for an HR job?
00:21:28.799 --> 00:21:29.519
I don't know.
00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:32.160
I mean, you gotta give the guy some credit.
00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:34.319
It was very creative.
00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:45.599
But I think, creative or not, the entity saw this whole thing the same way we did because he was terminated from his position right after this investigation.
00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:46.480
All right.
00:21:46.559 --> 00:21:48.880
Well, I want to know who the real life Edward is.
00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:49.519
Ah.
00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:59.200
Edward Lewis is Richard Gere's character in you know it, Pretty Woman.
00:21:59.440 --> 00:22:02.720
Ah, and Vivian must be the Julia Roberts character.
00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:04.480
That is absolutely right.
00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:06.799
Lots of people's favorite movie.
00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:16.720
The only thing I really remember about that movie is that she had something in her hand behind her back, and he thought she had drugs, but it was actually.
00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:17.680
Do you remember this?
00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:18.559
No, I don't.
00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:19.839
Dental floss.
00:22:20.960 --> 00:22:24.799
She was a prostitute who cared about her dental hygiene.
00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:29.519
There's probably if you had teeth as beautiful as Julie Roberts, you would care about that too.
00:22:29.839 --> 00:22:30.400
No kidding.
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:32.559
Okay, you know what it's time for now?
00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:37.599
It's time for our masterclass moment.
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:48.240
Today's masterclass moment is about when a witness says something to you that is so far-fetched you almost have to pinch your cheek not to laugh.
00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:57.440
I am alone in the room with this very large person who says something to me that I find incredibly unbelievable.
00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:13.440
But instead of scoffing or biting my lip, which is the human reaction to something like that, I relied on my training and remembered that sometimes the best thing you can do when faced with absurdity is nothing at all.
00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:22.799
Just continue to look at the witness quietly and wait to see what the next thing out of their mouth will be.
00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:27.759
In this case, the next thing out of his mouth was more and more of the same.
00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:31.200
He was very, very committed to his story.
00:23:31.359 --> 00:23:34.400
And nothing I did was gonna break that.
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:50.400
But other cases, this has been a successful approach to getting them to explain more or to talk in such a circle that they end up either admitting to the bad behavior or admitting to how ludicrous their story sounds.
00:23:50.720 --> 00:24:03.519
I found myself at times just putting a sticky note on my desk that says, just be silent when I know that something, it's this kind of interview is coming up because it is so incredibly hard to do to just let that silence sit there.
00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:22.559
You know, it feels like that Elizabeth Holmes documentary when the guy's asking her questions and they're just like staring into each other's eyes and there's just silence, but it is always, almost always fruitful because the person then wants to fill the silence and starts talking about exactly what you'd like to hear from them.
00:24:22.960 --> 00:24:23.680
The good stuff.
00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:24.640
The good stuff.
00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:28.480
And that concludes our masterclass moment for today.
00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:31.599
Thanks for listening today.
00:24:31.759 --> 00:24:36.640
Again, please reach out to us if you have any stories you want to share or questions you want to ask.
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:44.079
We've received some stories and we're gonna compile those and do an episode where we just talk about other people's cases, which I think will be really, really fun.
00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:53.200
Reach out to us at workgonewrong.com and please um follow this podcast, like it, and uh, we'll see you on the next episode.
00:24:53.440 --> 00:24:54.880
Have a great day at work.
00:24:55.200 --> 00:24:55.839
Bye.
00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:16.879
Hi, and welcome to episode four of Work Gone Wrong, the podcast that makes you say, They did what at work?
00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:21.120
We want to thank you for listening to our first three episodes.
00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:28.079
We are open to all feedback as we continue to figure out exactly how to share this information with you.
00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:37.679
You can reach us at www.workgonewrong.com, even though I've been told you no longer have to say the WW part.
00:00:38.159 --> 00:00:52.000
As you know, hopefully, we are two employment attorneys who have spent decades investigating office misbehavior, whether it's sexual harassment, gender discrimination, or perhaps a run-in with the law, which we're going to talk about today.
00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:57.759
We have curated the most interesting cases from our past 30 years and we're bringing them to you.
00:00:58.000 --> 00:00:59.280
I'm Dee Dee Church.
00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:01.119
And I'm Kristen Lemke.
00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:06.480
All of the cases that we'll be discussing predate the time that I started working with Dee Dee.
00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:09.680
So I will be hearing about them for the first time along with you.
00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:15.040
And hopefully I'll be asking the questions that you're listening along and asking yourselves.
00:01:15.439 --> 00:01:18.079
And just as a reminder, we are both attorneys.
00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:27.359
So these cases are old and we will change all of the details to protect the privacy of the people and companies involved.
00:01:27.680 --> 00:01:29.439
You might say, Kristen.
00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:31.439
Say what, Dee Dee?
00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:34.560
That these are cold cases.
00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:42.719
As I reach back into the freezer behind the frozen waffles, which I know you like.
00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:44.000
Lego My Ego.
00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:44.879
There you go.
00:01:45.200 --> 00:01:48.640
Um, okay, uh, let me tell you about today's case.
00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:53.280
This one is a little different from everything we've talked about before.
00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:57.920
I think you're gonna find that it is quite remarkable.
00:01:58.159 --> 00:02:02.719
And I bet you're wondering the names of our characters for today.
00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:03.680
I am.
00:02:04.159 --> 00:02:05.200
Please tell me.
00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:06.640
I will tell you.
00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:11.680
Our characters today are gonna be named Edward Lewis and Vivian Ward.
00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.199
And I'll just let that settle over you and our listeners.
00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:20.560
And as always, we'll tell you at the end what movie, book, or TV show these are taken from.
00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:37.599
So Edward Lewis was the HR director, the human resources director for a public entity that reached out to me and said, We have had an arrest amongst our executives.
00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:47.520
And those of you in HR listening will be intrigued to learn that the arrestee was the director of human resources.
00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:48.319
Oof.
00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:49.120
Yeah.
00:02:49.439 --> 00:02:54.479
So I was, as always, interested in being helpful if I could.
00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:56.879
And so I agreed to interview him.
00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:05.120
They suggested that they not give me any more information so I could go in neutral and learn what I needed to from him.
00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:08.960
We set up the interview, and let me just give you the picture.
00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:13.039
He is 6'4 at least.
00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:18.560
He is a large man, a former football player turned HR director.
00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:21.520
And I am not, as you know, very large.
00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:24.080
I'm 5'4 on my best days.
00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:31.039
So I was a little intimidated that I was gonna have to ask this man about being arrested.
00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:46.319
And I decided to ask the public entity if they would position someone right outside the door so that if I did run into any trouble or he did get very angry and I felt uncomfortable, I could raise my voice and ask for help.
00:03:46.639 --> 00:03:50.159
Did they indicate it was something that he had done that had to do with violence?
00:03:50.479 --> 00:04:00.960
They indicated that the reason I was investigating is because they had a very strict policy against conduct, unbecoming their public entity.
00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:06.000
So I knew he had been arrested for something that would be embarrassing to the organization.
00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:13.599
And I knew I was gonna have to ask him these questions, and I anticipated that he would not enjoy that experience.
00:04:13.759 --> 00:04:17.199
So I did ask for someone to be seated outside the room.
00:04:17.439 --> 00:04:19.519
Luckily, I didn't end up needing it.
00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:22.079
He was cordial throughout the interview.
00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:26.800
But I do think this is a note for investigators to take.
00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:30.879
Your safety is never something to be compromised.
00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:37.040
If you have even an inkling that an interview might get testy, absolutely ask for someone else to be present.
00:04:37.279 --> 00:04:38.240
I just want to ask one question.
00:04:38.399 --> 00:04:39.439
You said public entity.
00:04:39.519 --> 00:04:41.600
Is he related to law enforcement at all?
00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:42.319
Not at all.
00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:43.120
Okay, okay.
00:04:43.279 --> 00:04:44.399
That's an important point.
00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:51.360
No, it was more in the realm of, let's say, a state agency or a county agency or a municipality.
00:04:51.439 --> 00:04:53.600
And that's what I mean by public entity.
00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:58.160
So I appeared for the interview and introduced myself.
00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:04.800
And I began by saying, I am aware that you were arrested two nights ago.
00:05:04.959 --> 00:05:06.160
Why don't we start there?
00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:09.279
Why don't you tell me what the charges are against you?
00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:13.839
And he responded solicitation of prostitution.
00:05:14.079 --> 00:05:14.560
Hmm.
00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:20.240
I thought we were gonna get away from sexual harassment or anything in that realm today, but we're not.
00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:26.240
You know, does anyone ever really get all the way away from sexual harassment in that realm?
00:05:26.480 --> 00:05:28.560
It certainly cremates our work.
00:05:29.839 --> 00:05:38.079
So what I learned is that Edward Lewis solicited Vivian Ward for prostitution.
00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:43.360
Only in this case, Vivian Ward was an undercover policewoman.
00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:58.639
The short version, and we'll unpack this as we go, is that he went into a convenience store, came out, and Vivian Ward was leaning up against his car asking him if he would like to engage in sex.
00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:07.040
According to Edward Lewis, Vivian was very talkative as she touted her sexual prowess.
00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:11.199
And he thought to himself, she's a good talker.
00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:13.360
She would be great in marketing.
00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:18.240
So when Vivian said to Edward, Do you have money?
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Can I do this job for you?
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Edward told me that he was thinking, I can give this woman a job with my public entity.
00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:31.120
So he said, Vivian, I can offer you a job and I can pay you.
00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:45.360
And then they discussed rates, and he realized that she wasn't going to stop, or at least this is what he told me, and he really wanted her to stop leaning on his car so he could leave.
00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:48.240
So he agreed to her rate of$50.
00:06:48.959 --> 00:06:54.879
And Vivian responded to Edward, drive over into that dead end and I'll meet you there.
00:06:55.120 --> 00:07:00.639
So he got in his car, saw his opportunity, and tried to leave the parking lot.
00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:08.800
But at that point, he was pulled over and arrested because again, Vivian Ward was an undercover policewoman.
00:07:09.519 --> 00:07:16.560
In our state, if you are arrested for being a prostitute, it's a class B misdemeanor.
00:07:16.800 --> 00:07:24.079
The penalty at most is 180 days in jail and a$2,000 fine if you don't have any previous convictions.
00:07:24.399 --> 00:07:33.360
But if you were what's called the John, you're the person soliciting the prostitute, they face far stricter penalties than the prostitutes themselves.
00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:42.399
And that's because many states, including Texas, where we are, decided to take steps to combat human trafficking.
00:07:42.639 --> 00:07:51.199
So even if it's your first offense for solicitation, the possible sentence is six months to two years in jail and a fine of up to$10,000.
00:07:51.759 --> 00:08:02.079
And that escalates, by the way, to a second degree felony with two to 20 years in prison if the person you are soliciting is under 18 or you think they are under 18.
00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:03.920
This is no joke, right?
00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:06.800
That he has been arrested for solicitation.
00:08:07.120 --> 00:08:10.399
So I ask him to tell me what happened.
00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:14.639
And he starts talking about driving around the town.
00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:16.879
And this was not a town I knew.
00:08:17.120 --> 00:08:20.399
So I did something that I think was very helpful.
00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:26.000
I asked him to get out the outline of his town, like a circle, like a clock face, which he did.
00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:29.279
And I said, Show me where you went straight from work.
00:08:29.439 --> 00:08:31.759
And he went to 10 o'clock on the clock.
00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:35.679
And he said, This is the restaurant where I went after work.
00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:37.519
They were having a happy hour.
00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:39.519
I go there fairly often.
00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:41.360
I stayed there.
00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:46.799
I watched a sports event on TV, had a couple of beers, ate dinner.
00:08:47.039 --> 00:08:48.000
And I said, Okay.
00:08:48.559 --> 00:08:49.840
And then you left there.
00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:50.960
Where were you headed?
00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:53.039
And he said, I was headed home.
00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:57.919
So then I said, Show me on this map slash clock where you live.
00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:00.480
And he put a dot at three o'clock.
00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:07.919
Now, if you were gonna go from a restaurant at 10 o'clock to your house at three o'clock, you would probably just drive across the clock, right?
00:09:08.159 --> 00:09:08.960
But he didn't.
00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:12.960
He said he went straight down to 5 30.
00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:16.480
And I said, And is that where you were arrested?
00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:17.600
And he said, Yes.
00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:21.120
And so of course the question is, what were you doing there?
00:09:21.360 --> 00:09:25.039
If you weren't going there to get a prostitute, what were you doing there?
00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:30.960
And he said, Well, I didn't want to drive across the city because traffic is terrible.
00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:33.440
Now I said, What time were you arrested?
00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:35.840
And he said, 10 30 p.m.
00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:40.159
Well, traffic is not going to be that bad driving across the city.
00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:44.559
So already I'm thinking this story feels a bit unreliable.
00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:48.399
Now I see on your face that you're finding this somewhat hard to believe.
00:09:48.879 --> 00:09:51.440
This is so hard to believe, but I have a few questions.
00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:53.919
Is this a place prostitutes are known to frequent?
00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:55.519
It absolutely is.
00:09:55.759 --> 00:10:01.840
In fact, that area of the city is somewhat known to attract prostitutes.
00:10:02.159 --> 00:10:05.600
We know already that this is a sting operation, correct?
00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:07.440
It is a sting operation.
00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:10.559
In fact, the woman is an undercover policewoman.
00:10:10.799 --> 00:10:16.000
She immediately tells him he's under arrest and that ends his night.
00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:18.480
They put him in the police car, take him down and book him.
00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:22.639
So was their conversation more explicit than what you've just said?
00:10:22.879 --> 00:10:29.440
I'm assuming that we've got a police officer who would be making sure that this was going to be a slam dunk case.
00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:33.360
So I am assuming that she had some sort of explicit communication with him.
00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:36.320
So there was no question what they were negotiating.
00:10:36.480 --> 00:10:37.200
Is that correct?
00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:39.759
I said, Well, what did she say exactly?
00:10:39.919 --> 00:10:43.279
And he said, She offered me her services for a price.
00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:47.279
She would be a great marketer for our public entity.
00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:50.000
And here I am, the human resources director.
00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:53.440
So I said to her, I can give you a job.
00:10:53.679 --> 00:11:00.000
She then responded with the rate for the job that they were discussing.
00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:03.120
Only her rate was about$50.
00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:11.039
And he said he he agreed because he thought they were talking about this job for the marketing department.
00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:15.679
Yeah, to be arrested for solicitation, there has to be an agreement.
00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:23.679
It's not the actual conducting of sexual services, it's just the agreement that causes someone to be arrested.
00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:28.879
And because he agreed to her price, that was enough for him to be arrested for solicitation.
00:11:29.279 --> 00:11:32.480
Was it just the price or did they agree on a certain service?
00:11:32.639 --> 00:11:34.399
Did they were they explicit about the service?
00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:35.679
I'm just trying to understand.
00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:42.879
So she told him, okay, pull over into the dead end street that you can see right here.
00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:46.000
So apparently she had positioned herself near a dead end street.
00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:52.399
He said, okay, got into his car, drove toward the dead end, and was pulled over and arrested.
00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:55.759
When I asked him, why did you do that?
00:11:56.080 --> 00:12:07.039
He said, with a straight face, here I am trying to give this woman a job with our public entity, and all she can talk about is her sexual prowess.
00:12:07.279 --> 00:12:15.039
I realized I was never going to get through to her, so I said whatever I needed to just to make her stop leaning on my car.
00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:18.720
And then I got in the car and tried to drive away.
00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:24.879
I drove truly in the direction of the dead end, but that's also how you got out of the parking lot.
00:12:25.200 --> 00:12:27.440
None of it really added up.
00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:28.320
Okay.
00:12:28.639 --> 00:12:37.360
So there's no question that the two of them understand what they've just negotiated for, and he is now just finding a Weasley explanation.
00:12:37.600 --> 00:12:40.240
Then he did he give this explanation to the police as well?
00:12:40.399 --> 00:12:43.840
Is this the same explanation that he gave to them and to you?
00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:44.559
Yes.
00:12:44.720 --> 00:12:47.120
I asked him that exact question.
00:12:47.440 --> 00:12:51.919
He seemed very certain that he wasn't going to be convicted.
00:12:52.159 --> 00:12:59.120
And so I said to him, Upon what are you basing the certainty that you're going to beat the rap, as they say?
00:12:59.360 --> 00:13:03.039
And he said, I had no intention of going through with sex with her.
00:13:03.279 --> 00:13:05.120
I just wanted to get out of there.
00:13:05.279 --> 00:13:07.679
And I wasn't driving toward the dead end.
00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:12.320
I was leaving, and they won't be able to prove that I wasn't leaving the scene.
00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:15.279
And Diddy disclose this to the employer.
00:13:15.759 --> 00:13:18.159
Ah, herein lies the rub.
00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:19.360
Let's back up.
00:13:19.759 --> 00:13:30.720
When you are investigating an employee who's been arrested really for anything, you're not trying to prove whether or not this employee broke the law or not, right?
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Because that's outside of most of our expertise.
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What you're trying to do is protect the organization from liability while at the same time ensuring that the employee gets a fair investigation.
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Remember that an arrest is not a conviction.
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An off-duty arrest doesn't automatically mean that person's going to lose their job, right?
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You have to establish if the conduct affects their ability to do their job, harms the company's reputation, or creates some sort of an unsafe environment for other employees.
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It's basically a policy violation issue.
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And I was in luck because this public entity had a policy against conduct unbecoming of the entity.
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We you all may know those as conduct unbecoming policies.
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In other words, if you engage in any behavior that would reflect negatively on the entity, you absolutely must inform the entity immediately so that they can respond appropriately.
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And here, he did not do that.
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He told me that he was so certain that he wasn't going to be convicted that he didn't think it necessary to bother the other public entity employees with this terrible night that he had had.
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Despite being the head of HR and potentially the person that would know the most about the policies.
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Yes.
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As a seasoned HR director, he should have known he needed to tell his supervisor immediately.
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And I thought his response was very disingenuous.
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But of course, I didn't say that to him during the interview, right?
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This is not the time to lecture people.
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This is the time to just get information.
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We go into interviews as a journalist wanting to know who, what, when, where, why, and how, not as a prosecutor trying to prove that someone did something wrong.
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So if you have been handed this case, Kristen, what are some questions that would be top of mind for you?
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So I'm curious because generally in these cases, if law enforcement is involved, then we will not be involved.
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But it seems like you were going ahead with this workplace investigation while there was this criminal case that was pending.
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So can you explain that?
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Okay, this is a good question.
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Kristen is right.
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Typically, when police are involved, say the case involves a sexual assault or theft or violence, something where a police report would be filed.
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The moment the police detectives start investigating, we, as workplace investigators, stand down.
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We never want our workplace investigation to in any way interfere with their criminal investigation.
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But there wasn't going to be any more criminal investigation in this case because they felt like they had caught him red-handed.
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And in this case, the entity wanted to let Edward have an opportunity to tell his side of the story, in case the whole thing really was a big misunderstanding.
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Now they put him on leave as soon as they got word of the arrest, which is fairly typical if the person involved is a high-level executive.
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And again, if the behavior is potentially unbecoming toward the entity.
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And having your human resources director arrested for solicitation, pretty embarrassing stuff.
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So in this investigation, how many people did you end up interviewing?
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Well, this was one of the shortest investigations of my career.
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I literally only talked to the HR director.
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Only Edward.
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Only Edward, because I wasn't gonna get access to the undercover policewoman.
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Vivian wasn't gonna sit for an interview with me.
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And no other witnesses were present to say what had been said.
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There was no one else for me to interview.
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And that was okay because remember, the scope of my investigation wasn't whether or not Edward solicited a prostitute.
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The scope of my investigation was whether or not Edward violated this organization's policies.
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And you didn't even care whether he solicited a prostitute or not.
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The whole issue was he was arrested for doing this.
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That was what he needed to report to his employer, correct?
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That's correct.
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I needed to understand the story so that I could tell whether or not he knowingly violated a policy requiring him to tell his boss.
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And in this case, I found that he very much knowingly violated the policy.
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Here you have the actual human resources director who told me he had helped write the policy that required employees to inform their boss if they engaged in such behavior.
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So again, it was disingenuous at best for him to say, I didn't think this rose to the level of needing to be shared.
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Even if he thought he wasn't going to ever be convicted, the fact that he had been arrested is something that the public entity needed to know.
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And I can prove it because the day after my interview, somehow this got leaked to the media.
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And it was all over the news that the human resources director for this public entity had been arrested.
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It was a really big deal.
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And the public entity was having to backpedal and explain and have their people out talking to the media with knowledge about what went on.
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So it ended up a really good thing that I had his full account of the events and that I could share that with the entity so that they could then share it with the media.
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And what if this had been, let's say, a lower level employee, somebody who is kind of an entry-level employee and had been involved in a bar fight?
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No arrests, but had been in a bar fight in the public, other people had seen it.
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How do you distinguish something like this being conduct unbecoming versus the bar fight?
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Great question.
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I think a lot of it involves the position that the employee is in.
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If you had a security person involved in a bar fight, that might take a second look.
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But if you had an accountant, a lower-level accountant who got involved in a bar fight, maybe there's just such a gap between what he was arrested for and what he actually does.
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But I happen to know that Edward, the human resources director, had led a training class on avoiding sexual harassment for part of his public entity one month prior to his own arrest.
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So there's no doubt that this kind of behavior was reflecting negatively on his role.
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So kind of going back to that standard of a reasonable human resources director.
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What should he know?
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What knowledge is he supposed to have?
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And how does that translate to what his obligations to the company are?
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I love that.
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The reasonably proven HR director.
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Yeah.
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And I did share with the entity that his story about wanting to offer Vivian a job really was suspect that I did not find a single thing about it reliable, other than the fact that he was amazing.
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He said it all with such conviction.
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He said it as if he really expected me to believe that he was trying to offer this prostitute a job in the marketing department for this entity after knowing her for what was probably around 20 seconds.
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I feel like that just made it worse.
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He probably just should have said that she struck up a conversation with him and that he was just being friendly or something like that.
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Don't you think it made it worse that he tried to play it off like, oh, I was gonna hire for an HR job?
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I don't know.
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I mean, you gotta give the guy some credit.
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It was very creative.
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But I think, creative or not, the entity saw this whole thing the same way we did because he was terminated from his position right after this investigation.
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All right.
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Well, I want to know who the real life Edward is.
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Ah.
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Edward Lewis is Richard Gere's character in you know it, Pretty Woman.
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Ah, and Vivian must be the Julia Roberts character.
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That is absolutely right.
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Lots of people's favorite movie.
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The only thing I really remember about that movie is that she had something in her hand behind her back, and he thought she had drugs, but it was actually.
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Do you remember this?
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No, I don't.
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Dental floss.
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She was a prostitute who cared about her dental hygiene.
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There's probably if you had teeth as beautiful as Julie Roberts, you would care about that too.
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No kidding.
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Okay, you know what it's time for now?
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It's time for our masterclass moment.
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Today's masterclass moment is about when a witness says something to you that is so far-fetched you almost have to pinch your cheek not to laugh.
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I am alone in the room with this very large person who says something to me that I find incredibly unbelievable.
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But instead of scoffing or biting my lip, which is the human reaction to something like that, I relied on my training and remembered that sometimes the best thing you can do when faced with absurdity is nothing at all.
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Just continue to look at the witness quietly and wait to see what the next thing out of their mouth will be.
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In this case, the next thing out of his mouth was more and more of the same.
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He was very, very committed to his story.
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And nothing I did was gonna break that.
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But other cases, this has been a successful approach to getting them to explain more or to talk in such a circle that they end up either admitting to the bad behavior or admitting to how ludicrous their story sounds.
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I found myself at times just putting a sticky note on my desk that says, just be silent when I know that something, it's this kind of interview is coming up because it is so incredibly hard to do to just let that silence sit there.
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You know, it feels like that Elizabeth Holmes documentary when the guy's asking her questions and they're just like staring into each other's eyes and there's just silence, but it is always, almost always fruitful because the person then wants to fill the silence and starts talking about exactly what you'd like to hear from them.
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The good stuff.
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The good stuff.
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And that concludes our masterclass moment for today.
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Thanks for listening today.
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Again, please reach out to us if you have any stories you want to share or questions you want to ask.
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:44.079
We've received some stories and we're gonna compile those and do an episode where we just talk about other people's cases, which I think will be really, really fun.
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Reach out to us at workgonewrong.com and please um follow this podcast, like it, and uh, we'll see you on the next episode.
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Have a great day at work.
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Bye.
