Lawyer for 2020 Election Robocallers Opposes Motions to Restrict Trial Testimony

David Schwartz, the lawyer for Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, who face a Dec. 11 jury damages trial for their roles in the robocall campaign to suppress Black citizens' mail-in votes in the 2020 election, opposes the plaintiffs’ two June 22 motions in limine to restrict the evidence the defendants can introduce at trial (see 2306260042), said his separate declarations Friday (docket 1:20-cv-08668) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. Former co-defendants Message Communications and its owner Robert Mahanian settled all claims against them last year before U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero granted summary judgment in the plaintiffs’ favor, and Wohl and Burkman “signaled that they may try to shift blame from themselves to Message and Mahanian in an attempt to limit their damages,” said one of the plaintiffs’ motions. They seek an order prohibiting Wohl and Burkman from introducing any evidence involving Message and Mahanian at trial. But Marrero should deny that motion and grant the defendants’ request for Mahanian to give witness testimony “because of the relevance of the specter of bias,” said one of Schwartz’s declarations. Schwartz also opposes a second motion to restrict the defendants from cross-examining plaintiff Gene Steinberg about the details of a prior conviction for a nonviolent offense, said the other declaration. Steinberg alleges the trauma he experienced after receiving the robocall from Wohl and Burkman can be attributed to that prior conviction because of the robocall’s warning that law enforcement would come after anyone who has a prior arrest and casts a mail-in ballot, said Schwartz. Steinberg’s experiences are “highly relevant towards damages,” and the “probative value far outweighs the prejudicial value,” he said. “Hearing vaguely about an act from the past” won’t allow the court “to achieve the full story,” he said.