The Tipping Point Revisited: Georgetown Massacre Part 2 AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Revisionist History

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (The Tipping Point Revisited: Georgetown Massacre Part 2) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Go to PodExtra AI's podcast page (Revisionist History) to view the AI-processed content of all episodes of this podcast.

Revisionist History episodes list: view full AI transcripts and summaries of this podcast on the blog

Episode: The Tipping Point Revisited: Georgetown Massacre Part 2

Author: Pushkin Industries
Duration: 00:36:37

Episode Shownotes

What exactly constitutes a bribe? The Georgetown Massacre continues, and the defense calls a surprise witness. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Summary

In this episode of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell revisits the Georgetown Massacre, focusing on the trial of U.S. v. Khoury. He highlights the introduction of a surprise witness that could reshape the narrative surrounding the prosecution's bribery claims. Testimonies, especially from Catherine Currie, reveal the emotional dynamics of family relationships, while the defense challenges the credibility of Georgetown as a victim. Moreover, the complexities of bribery definitions and the impact of personal tragedy overshadow legal arguments, ultimately influencing the jury's decisions in this significant case.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (The Tipping Point Revisited: Georgetown Massacre Part 2) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:06 Speaker_14
Pushkin.

00:00:09 Speaker_08
The holiday season is back, which means it's a time for giving. Subaru and its retailers believe in giving back to those who need it most. For the past 17 years, Subaru has made the act of buying a Subaru during the holiday season an act of love.

00:00:23 Speaker_08
When you purchase or lease a new Subaru during the Subaru Share the Love event, Subaru and its retailers donate a minimum of $300 to charity.

00:00:32 Speaker_08
By the end of this year's event, Subaru and its retailers will have donated nearly $320 million to national and hometown charities. To learn more, go to Subaru.com slash share. Subaru, more than a car company.

00:00:47 Speaker_12
The most innovative companies are going further with T-Mobile for Business. Together with Delta, they're putting 5G into the hands of ground staff so they can better assist on-the-go travelers with real-time information.

00:00:59 Speaker_12
From the Delta Sky Club to the JetBridge, this is elevating customer experience. This is Delta with T-Mobile for Business. Take your business further at t-mobile.com slash now.

00:01:16 Speaker_14
Your pet's unique gut microbiome plays a major role in impacting their digestive health, immunity, and behavior. Give your pet a voice with Petivity's In-Home Microbiome Analysis Kit.

00:01:30 Speaker_14
Backed by science and powered by Purina, this kit unlocks valuable gut health information your dog or cat can't share and delivers tailored nutrition and supplement recommendations.

00:01:43 Speaker_14
Visit Pettivity.com to learn more and get 15% off all Pettivity products, including microbiome analysis kits with promo code GLADWELL15. On the fifth day in the trial of U.S.

00:01:59 Speaker_14
v. Khoury, right after the defense left the fundraiser for the Georgetown University Athletic Department in small pieces on the floor of the courtroom, the attorneys for Eamon Khoury asked the judge for a sidebar.

00:02:12 Speaker_14
They wanted to call a witness, a surprise witness, who the defense team had somehow persuaded to make an appearance. She's in the bathroom." Howard Shrebnick told the judge. I just wanted to let you know. They just whispered to me that she's coming.

00:02:29 Speaker_14
I didn't want you to... His voice trailed off. The prosecutors in the case from the U.S. Attorney's Office were there in the sidebar, too, standing right beside Shrebnick. And it is safe to say this sudden revelation came as a shock to them.

00:02:46 Speaker_14
They weren't expecting this particular witness to show up. They were counting on her not showing up. And now she was here, in the bathroom? Fuck, then Howard says. and we're going to propose to introduce text messages that she wrote back in May of 2015.

00:03:06 Speaker_14
Text messages? My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This is part two of the story of my favorite court case of all time, U.S. v. Currie.

00:03:33 Speaker_14
In part one, which you should listen to first if you have not already, we talked about how Roy Blank and Howard Srebnik were presented with an impossible case.

00:03:43 Speaker_14
A client who openly admitted to giving $180,000 in cash in a brown paper bag to the Georgetown University tennis coach in order to get his daughter admitted to the school.

00:03:56 Speaker_14
Days one, two, three, and four of the trial had been a disaster for the defense. Eamon Curry seemed destined for prison.

00:04:05 Speaker_14
But by the end of the Georgetown massacre on day five, Howard and Roy had managed to introduce an element of doubt into the minds of the jury. What exactly is or isn't a bribe?

00:04:17 Speaker_14
And are the dubious actions of a wealthy man worse than the dubious actions of a wealthy university? This episode is about what happened in the afternoon on day five, the aftermath of the Georgetown massacre. The mystery witness and her text messages.

00:04:39 Speaker_14
What were the, so talk about the, during the trial, what you feel were the most significant turning points.

00:04:47 Speaker_05
Most trials don't have one thing like that, but things just develop. You know, the more the more you worked on it, the more we got into the case, the more facts we learned, the more details, the better it looked.

00:05:01 Speaker_14
I talked with Roy Black when we met at his offices in downtown Miami. Roy is a trial lawyer. He and his partner, Howard, are maybe the greatest defense team of their generation. They construct elaborate narratives out of mountains of complicated facts.

00:05:16 Speaker_14
They are not mystery novelists who tell stories with a clever twist on the last page. Things just develop. But then Roy Black thought about it a little bit and he said, well, actually, I take it back. There was a knockout punch.

00:05:35 Speaker_14
It was the mystery witness.

00:05:37 Speaker_05
I mean, to me, that was like an extraordinary event at the trial.

00:05:44 Speaker_14
From the very beginning, Roy and Howard had a problem. They could show that Georgetown was a corrupt institution, where the lines between admissions and fundraising had been all but obliterated. That was the point of the Georgetown massacre.

00:05:59 Speaker_14
But that didn't resolve their problem.

00:06:02 Speaker_05
If we say, okay, the whole system's corrupt and our client took advantage of the corrupt system by paying money, what are we doing? We're admitting that our own client's corrupt.

00:06:13 Speaker_14
The Georgetown massacre, in other words, didn't win them the case. It simply leveled the playing field. They needed something more, another layer to their argument, proof that Georgetown was worse than Eamon Currie.

00:06:27 Speaker_14
And in the first few difficult days of the trial, when the government was running roughshod over Eamon Currie, Howard and Roy began to drop little breadcrumbs. They were cryptic.

00:06:39 Speaker_14
Chances are the jury missed them, but if you read through the trial transcripts, all 1,200 pages of them, and you pay attention, it's obvious something is afoot.

00:06:50 Speaker_14
The first inkling came during an offhand moment in Roy's cross-examination of a Georgetown admissions officer named Meg Lisey. Once again, we have our wonderful voice actors, Dax Shepard and Britt Marling. Listen.

00:07:06 Speaker_06
Isn't it a fact that at Georgetown you have a software called Salesforce, don't you?

00:07:13 Speaker_10
Not that I remember.

00:07:16 Speaker_06
Isn't it a fact that you have an investigation into the net worth of the parents of potential students?

00:07:23 Speaker_14
The prosecution jumps up immediately. Objection, which in retrospect was weird. What was it about the mention of that word sales force that led the government to stand up abruptly and say stop? No. But the judge won't have it overruled.

00:07:41 Speaker_11
I don't know about that.

00:07:43 Speaker_14
Lacey denies any knowledge. Roy moves on. Then at the end of the Georgetown massacre with Brenda Smith, he tries again. He leads Brenda through a long series of questions about fundraising. She's evasive in her answers. Then Roy asks out of the blue.

00:08:02 Speaker_06
Does Georgetown use a program, Salesforce?

00:08:06 Speaker_11
It is my understanding that they do.

00:08:10 Speaker_06
And what is Salesforce?

00:08:13 Speaker_11
It's a customer relations management tool.

00:08:18 Speaker_14
Roy follows with a few more questions.

00:08:21 Speaker_06
Then he says, all right, well, let me then show you a document marked in you.

00:08:26 Speaker_14
Roy is just about to put a document on the screen, a document that he is desperate to show the jury. His finger is literally on the clicker, but just as he does, the prosecutor jumps up again. Objection. The judge agrees sustained.

00:08:44 Speaker_14
Under the rules of a trial, if you have evidence you want to show to the jury, you have to find a witness to authenticate it. Someone who will say, it's real. That's what Roy is trying to do with Brenda Smith.

00:08:56 Speaker_14
Get her to say, yes, I know all about that, but he shut down. Your Honor, objection. Sustained. You have what you think is a knockout punch, and you can't show it to the jury. Plan A, foiled. So what do you do?

00:09:14 Speaker_14
You go to Plan B, the mystery witness, and the text messages. A little bombshell dropped in the middle of the sidebar.

00:09:26 Speaker_06
Your Honor, we call Katherine Coury.

00:09:32 Speaker_07
For many of us, the holiday season means more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more of your personal information in more places you can't control.

00:09:42 Speaker_07
It only takes one innocent mistake, even if it's not your mistake, to expose you to identity theft.

00:09:50 Speaker_07
Not to worry, LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points every second and alerts you to threats you could miss by yourself, even if you keep an eye on your bank and credit card statements.

00:10:01 Speaker_07
If your identity is stolen, your own U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed. The last thing you want to do this holiday season is face drained accounts, fraudulent loans, or other financial losses from identity theft all alone.

00:10:18 Speaker_07
Gift yourself the peace of mind that comes with LifeLock and spend more time doing more of the holiday things you love. Visit LifeLock.com slash Pushkin and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% off at LifeLock.com slash Pushkin.

00:10:36 Speaker_07
LifeLock, for the threats you can't control.

00:10:39 Speaker_14
If you ask someone to name a genius, Virtually everyone would give you the same answer. Albert Einstein, the genius of all geniuses. He's most famous for his general and special theories of relativity.

00:10:51 Speaker_14
And even children today know his renowned equation, E equals mc squared. And yet there's one thing that even the great Albert Einstein would have trouble understanding today. mattresses. Think about it.

00:11:05 Speaker_14
There are so many styles, so many sizes, so many companies selling them, and so many seemingly good deals this time of year. It's enough to make your brain hurt.

00:11:15 Speaker_14
Fortunately, there's one simple thing you can do to understand everything you need to know about choosing a mattress. Visit the Sattva blog.

00:11:25 Speaker_14
It has entries like how to test a mattress, what makes a luxury mattress, best Cyber Monday deals, and even the best mattress for sex, plus loads of other buying guides.

00:11:37 Speaker_14
Whatever question you have about mattresses, you'll find the answer at the Sotva blog. It is, in a word, genius. Visit the Sotva sleep blog at sotva.com slash blog. That's S-double-A-T-V-A slash blog.

00:11:56 Speaker_12
The most innovative companies are going further with T-Mobile for Business. Tractor Supply trusts 5G solutions from T-Mobile.

00:12:04 Speaker_12
Together, they're connecting over 2,200 stores with 5G business internet, powering AI so team members can match shoppers with the products they need faster.

00:12:14 Speaker_12
Together with Delta, T-Mobile for Business is putting 5G into the hands of ground staff so they can better assist on-the-go travelers with real-time information.

00:12:24 Speaker_12
By leveraging the nation's largest 5G network, Delta aims to improve operations across nearly every part of the journey, from check-in and boarding to departure, arrival, baggage handling, and beyond.

00:12:37 Speaker_12
Tractor Supply, Delta, and T-Mobile for Business are all passionate about connecting people and places, while delivering exceptional customer experiences along the way. These partnerships are paving the way for unprecedented innovation.

00:12:52 Speaker_12
Learn more about taking your business further by visiting T-Mobile.com slash now.

00:13:01 Speaker_14
There had never been any indication during the first few days of US v. Khoury that the person at the heart of the case, the person on whose behalf Eamon Khoury had paid $180,000 in cash to the coach of the Georgetown tennis team would show up.

00:13:20 Speaker_14
The government's lead prosecutor made this clear in his opening statement. He told the jury, we're not here because of the defendant's daughter. You're going to hear about her grades and her test scores, the fact that she wasn't very good at tennis.

00:13:34 Speaker_14
But to be clear, we're not here because of Catherine. We are here talking about Catherine because of the crimes the defendant committed outside of her formal application process.

00:13:46 Speaker_14
So during the trial, we're going to ask you to focus on the defendant's actions and his words, and those of his co-conspirators.

00:13:56 Speaker_14
In other words, the prosecution wanted to make a case about Catherine Currie's shortcomings as a tennis player and student without the awkwardness of actually having Catherine speak for herself.

00:14:09 Speaker_14
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we would prefer if Catherine Currie remains an abstraction.

00:14:15 Speaker_14
But of course, if you are the legal team of Black and Shrebnik, and you sense a certain reluctance on the part of your adversaries to confront the person at the heart of the case, what do you do?

00:14:27 Speaker_14
You convince the person at the heart of the case to make an appearance.

00:14:37 Speaker_05
I would say the one thing that stands out that really made a huge difference was the daughter testifying, introducing the text messages with her father. I mean, to me, that was like an extraordinary event at the trial.

00:14:56 Speaker_05
And I thought it was really a great part of the case.

00:15:01 Speaker_14
Why is that? Explain to me why you think that testimony would have been so powerful for the jury.

00:15:07 Speaker_05
A couple of reasons. Number one, She, in terms of poise and speaking, she had such authenticity about her. I know that authenticity is like a cliche these days, but she came across very well as a witness, number one.

00:15:28 Speaker_05
Number two, the government, amazingly, after her testimony, never changed their theory of the case.

00:15:37 Speaker_14
Ah, yes. the theory of the case, the explanation given for the nature of the crime. The government laid out their plan of attack with their very first witness, Timothy Donovan. Remember him from the boozy dinner at the Capitol Grill?

00:15:53 Speaker_14
He played on the Brown tennis team way back when with Eamon Curry and Gordie Ernst.

00:15:58 Speaker_14
He ran and still runs, by the way, an outfit called Donovan Tennis Strategies, whose goal, according to its website, is to help parents with, quote, successfully navigating the college recruiting process, end quote.

00:16:14 Speaker_14
Donovan helps tennis players avail themselves of the backdoor that elite colleges reserve for tennis players.

00:16:21 Speaker_14
In the Khoury case, that meant he was the bag man who picked up the money from Eamon Khoury, got 20K for himself, and delivered the brown paper bag to Gordie Ernst's wife.

00:16:33 Speaker_14
The government gave immunity to Timothy Donovan, and Donovan in return provided them with their theory of the case. Listen to this excerpt from Donovan's testimony on day two of the trial. He's being questioned by one of the prosecutors.

00:16:50 Speaker_11
Did there come a time when you discussed with the defendant whether Catherine would in fact play on the Georgetown tennis team?

00:16:57 Speaker_06
Yes.

00:16:58 Speaker_11
What did you discuss about that?

00:17:01 Speaker_06
He said that she didn't have any plans to play and that, as a matter of fact, that, you know, her old shoulder injury would kick in and she'd be unable to play for that reason.

00:17:13 Speaker_11
And based on how the defendant described Katherine's old shoulder injury, what was your understanding as to the nature of that injury?

00:17:21 Speaker_06
That it was not legitimate, that it was a story that would allow her to not play.

00:17:27 Speaker_14
The prosecution painted a picture of a conspiracy. Gordy Ernst, Timothy Donovan, and Eamon Currie conspiring to deceive Georgetown into thinking they were getting a real tennis player.

00:17:39 Speaker_14
And what's more, Eamon Currie and his daughter Catherine conspiring to fake an injury so she would never have to reveal how unworthy she actually was of playing tennis at Georgetown University.

00:17:51 Speaker_03
So when the daughter gets to the school as a tennis admission, she then doesn't play tennis.

00:17:59 Speaker_14
This is Jackie Perchak, one of the black Shrevenick partners who worked on the case.

00:18:04 Speaker_03
She doesn't go to practice and never practices with the team and never plays tennis.

00:18:09 Speaker_03
And so the government fed off of that to come up with this theory that she knew all along that this was a paid for admission because otherwise she would have shown up to play tennis.

00:18:22 Speaker_14
This was the theory on which the prosecution based its case. And it came gift wrapped and tied with a bow from Timothy Donovan. Why would they advance a theory about the daughter, having never spoken to the daughter?

00:18:36 Speaker_05
because they had the fact that she never, as Jackie just said, she never went to play tennis, so they just assumed. See, what I think would happen with the case is that, remember, they have a slam dunk all along, 55 or 56 cases, how many?

00:18:52 Speaker_05
They didn't think this was gonna be a problem at all. They thought the client was gonna plead guilty to begin with, and then he didn't, then I guess they got ready for trial. I don't think they took it that serious.

00:19:06 Speaker_14
I don't think they took it that serious. On some unconscious level, I think Howard and Roy were offended by this. It was a slight.

00:19:15 Speaker_14
People from Miami take particular umbrage at the condescension of fancy lawyers from Boston with their highfalutin manner and ivy league pedigrees.

00:19:25 Speaker_14
Thus, the dramatic sidebar, when the stiletto that they had brandished during the Georgetown massacre was inserted a little deeper.

00:19:35 Speaker_14
We have Catherine Coury, the person you didn't think belonged here, and we have her text messages, which you somehow didn't think were going to be an issue. Then, a long pause when the news registers with the prosecution.

00:19:50 Speaker_14
A sharp intake of breath and a silent scream that echoes across the courtroom. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. There are lots of phobias out there.

00:20:16 Speaker_14
Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, claustrophobia, aquaphobia, you name it, someone probably has a phobia of it. And once a year, Halloween lets us have fun with what scares us. But what about those fears that don't involve zombies and ghosts?

00:20:32 Speaker_14
Therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding ways to overcome them, because sometimes the scariest thing is not facing our fears in the first place. Therapy is for everyone.

00:20:43 Speaker_14
It empowers you with the tools you need to deal with whatever life throws at you. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule.

00:20:57 Speaker_14
Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Gladwell today to get 10% off your first month.

00:21:10 Speaker_14
That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Gladwell.

00:21:16 Speaker_08
the most innovative companies are going further with T-Mobile for Business. Tractor Supply trusts 5G solutions from T-Mobile.

00:21:24 Speaker_08
Together, they're connecting over 2,200 stores with 5G business internet, powering AI so team members can match shoppers with the products they need faster.

00:21:33 Speaker_08
Together with Delta, T-Mobile for Business is putting 5G into the hands of ground staff so they can better assist on-the-go travelers with real-time information.

00:21:42 Speaker_08
By leveraging the nation's largest 5G network, Delta aims to improve operations across nearly every part of the journey, from check-in and boarding, to departure, arrival, baggage handling, and beyond.

00:21:54 Speaker_08
Tractor Supply, Delta, and T-Mobile for Business are passionate about connecting people and places, while delivering exceptional customer experiences along the way. These partnerships are pacing the way for unprecedented innovation.

00:22:08 Speaker_08
Learn more about taking your business further by visiting t-mobile dot com slash now.

00:22:13 Speaker_14
Picture this. You're in the garage, your favorite room in the house, and you're tuning up your engine with parts you found on eBay. Every piece is locking perfectly into place.

00:22:23 Speaker_14
You step back to admire your work, hands covered in grease, because you're committed to driving that thing further than the odometer can even handle. You start thinking to yourself, You know what?

00:22:35 Speaker_14
I could probably also use some new brakes, some shocks and struts. This baby deserves a new air filter. So you head right back to eBay. You can find any part you need there. It's unreal.

00:22:49 Speaker_14
From wipers and headlights to cold air intakes, exhaust systems, and even that turbo you've had on your mind. eBay is the stocked garage of your dreams. and you've got eBay guaranteed fit.

00:23:03 Speaker_14
Because eBay knows DIY fixes can be major, and mods are always intense, so you need to know those parts are guaranteed to fit every time. Before you dive in, wrench first. And in the off chance you order a part and it doesn't fit, send it back.

00:23:19 Speaker_14
Simple as that. You know what you love more than your car itself is driving it. You're serious when it comes to engine maintenance and locked in when you're headed into a build. And that's exactly why you start with eBay. Minor fix or complete overhaul.

00:23:33 Speaker_14
You want to get your ride back on the road. And you've got eBay Guaranteed Fit. So eBay created My Garage, where all you have to do is add your ride's info to get the exact parts that fit.

00:23:46 Speaker_14
When you see that green check, you're a click away from that part clicking perfectly into place.

00:23:52 Speaker_14
So now that you know all that, imagine standing at that open garage door looking at that car you love more than anything, knowing that anything is possible.

00:24:01 Speaker_14
Whether it's keeping it on the road forever or turning it into something that's never been on the road before. Because with eBay, your garage just got a whole lot bigger. Get all the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time.

00:24:18 Speaker_14
eBay. Things. People. Love. The direct examination of Katie Coury was conducted by Howard, not by Roy, which makes sense. Roy is, as I've said, an apex legal predator. You don't let the grizzly bear play with your grandkids.

00:24:38 Speaker_14
This one was Howard's responsibility. Howard is not just the intellectual half of Black Shrevenick, he is the warm and fuzzy half. Howard is the one most likely to dress as Santa at the Black Shrevenick Christmas party.

00:24:53 Speaker_14
Howard has a daughter of his own, whom I'm quite sure has Howard wrapped around her little finger. Katie Curry was 25 at the time. Tall, long brown hair, generous smile when she's smiling, but she's nervous when she emerges from the bathroom.

00:25:10 Speaker_14
She clearly does not want to be there. The adults in her life have made a dreadful mess of things.

00:25:16 Speaker_04
The momentum continued to build when the daughter gets on the witness stand. The government having married itself to a theory that the daughter was a fraud, essentially, that her application was a fraud.

00:25:28 Speaker_14
Howard starts quietly and calmly. Tell us how old you are. Easy questions to answer. Where do you work? You went to graduate school. Where? Only when she seems comfortable does he get to the heart of the matter.

00:25:43 Speaker_14
Once again, we've asked our voice actors to read from the transcript.

00:25:49 Speaker_06
Okay. Catherine, growing up, did you play tennis?

00:25:54 Speaker_10
I did. Yes.

00:25:55 Speaker_06
Okay. And who taught you how to play tennis?

00:25:59 Speaker_10
My dad.

00:26:01 Speaker_06
And how old were you when you learned to play tennis?

00:26:05 Speaker_11
Oh, I want to say I was, um, maybe about five, six years old.

00:26:10 Speaker_14
Her voice is soft. At one point, the judge tells her to speak up.

00:26:17 Speaker_06
Okay. And your dad, when you, when you said you would play tennis with your dad, was it just hitting the balls or was there anything more instructive about the relationship, the tennis relationship with your dad?

00:26:30 Speaker_11
Well, so yeah, my dad is an amazing tennis player. He did play at Brown, and so I guess in a way we had not only a father-daughter relationship, but in a lot of ways he was my primary coach.

00:26:43 Speaker_11
I mean, he would help me with drills, techniques, my serve, which was the weakest part of my game. set up cones around the tennis court and try to, you know, boost my tennis skills.

00:26:54 Speaker_11
So it was something he enjoyed and also something he encouraged me to work hard on.

00:27:03 Speaker_06
How passionate was he about playing tennis with you?

00:27:07 Speaker_11
I think it was one of our favorite things we did together.

00:27:12 Speaker_14
Howard pauses and has one of his paralegals put up a photo on the screen. It's Catherine and her father, side by side at the tennis court at their country club.

00:27:22 Speaker_06
OK. Of all the people on the planet Earth, who is the person with whom you played most hours of tennis in your lifetime?

00:27:32 Speaker_11
My dad.

00:27:34 Speaker_14
They talked about high school. She went to a very small private school in Massachusetts, eight players on the tennis team. She was number six, mostly played doubles. Her grades were good, not great. Then they get to the subject of college.

00:27:49 Speaker_14
Where did she want to go? Boston College or Northeastern? Did she think she would play tennis at those schools? No. What about Georgetown? Well, she'd never thought about Georgetown until she ran into Gordy Ernst at a July 4th party.

00:28:06 Speaker_11
I mean, he basically said, you know, I'm Gordy Ernst, a friend of your dad's, and I'm a tennis coach at Georgetown. And, you know, you should, like, have you ever thought about playing tennis at Georgetown? It could be fun.

00:28:19 Speaker_06
And what did you tell him?

00:28:22 Speaker_11
I said, wow, that sounds amazing. I would love that. But I don't think I'm good enough.

00:28:30 Speaker_06
And what did he say?

00:28:31 Speaker_11
He said, well, you know, train hard and maybe you could.

00:28:37 Speaker_14
She began playing more tennis. She began to take her tennis more seriously. She got excited. The idea was that she would practice with the team, but at Redshirt for a year. She got an acceptance letter from Georgetown.

00:28:49 Speaker_14
Howard put it on the screen for all the court to see. She was in. She thought it was all her doing, her talent and hard work. The back and forth between Howard and Catherine is building, slowly.

00:29:03 Speaker_14
Everyone on the jury must know something is about to happen, but they don't know what it is. And Howard is in no hurry to tell them. He's just content to let her talk, and let her credibility Her authenticity sink in.

00:29:19 Speaker_06
And then finally, Catherine, I want to talk to you now about some of your family circumstances that arose in in May of 2015. This after you've been accepted at Georgetown. Do you know what time period I'm talking about? Mm hmm.

00:29:39 Speaker_06
During the months of April and the first week of May, your parents, Melanie and Eamon, did you understand them to be still married and living as a family?

00:29:50 Speaker_11
I did until like the second week of May.

00:29:56 Speaker_06
Tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what you learned in the second week of May.

00:30:02 Speaker_11
So, in the second week of May, I was actually in a tennis match. I believe it was a match and not a practice. My mom had flown from Florida to Middlesex, which wasn't uncommon. She liked to visit us a lot.

00:30:16 Speaker_11
But, you know, I could tell that something was wrong.

00:30:22 Speaker_06
Up until that moment in time, did you have any idea that your parents were divorcing?

00:30:27 Speaker_11
No.

00:30:28 Speaker_06
How did it affect your feelings towards your father?

00:30:31 Speaker_11
I was really very angry with him for that decision to leave the marriage.

00:30:38 Speaker_06
And how did you express yourself to your dad?

00:30:41 Speaker_11
With tears and anger and some mean words. I had lost respect for him at that moment in time and was, yeah, I felt, I felt betrayed.

00:30:54 Speaker_06
How was your mom handling it?

00:30:58 Speaker_11
not handling it well at all. She was, you know, it broke her, for lack of a better word.

00:31:08 Speaker_14
And then Howard puts the text messages Catherine sent to her dad up on a big screen for the whole court to see.

00:31:14 Speaker_06
On May 10th, you described your dad to directly to him that he's pathetic.

00:31:21 Speaker_09
Yes.

00:31:22 Speaker_06
And hoping there will be a day when he'll be strong again.

00:31:26 Speaker_09
Yeah.

00:31:28 Speaker_06
Next page, Keith. This is two days later on May 12th. You write to him. I wasn't the one who traded our family for the feelings of being young again. You're a grown man. Don't equate my actions with yours.

00:31:44 Speaker_06
Just from that statement, it's apparent how selfish you are.

00:31:49 Speaker_09
Yes.

00:31:51 Speaker_06
Is that how you felt at the time?

00:31:53 Speaker_09
Yes.

00:31:55 Speaker_06
Had you ever felt that way about your father before?

00:31:59 Speaker_09
No.

00:32:01 Speaker_06
Keith, go to the next page. Do you recall your dad trying to explain himself and you telling him, you have not done anything wrong, LOL. Laugh out loud. Yeah. Next page. You tell your dad he's clueless and you have no interest in associating with him.

00:32:21 Speaker_06
Is that right?

00:32:23 Speaker_11
That's correct.

00:32:25 Speaker_06
Keith, if we could go to the next page.

00:32:28 Speaker_14
At which point the judge interjects, how many pages is this? And Howard says, 15 more. The judge says, 15 more? Yes, your honor, 15 pages. And when it ends, Catherine Corey explains where her anger left her.

00:32:47 Speaker_11
Well, you know. Tennis was something that my dad and I shared. When I thought of tennis, I thought of my dad. And I wanted nothing to do with him at that point. I was disgusted and hurt. And I was basically like, screw it.

00:33:10 Speaker_11
I feel like you've ruined the sport for me. I think of you when I'm out there. And I'm not going to follow, you know, keep on following your leads and everything when you don't set good examples.

00:33:22 Speaker_11
And to be honest, it was just too painful to be out there with those reminders.

00:33:30 Speaker_14
So when she got to Georgetown, she didn't join the tennis team. She didn't play the sport she loved. And it had nothing to do with her shoulder. It had to do with her heart.

00:33:45 Speaker_06
When was the last time you played competitive tennis?

00:33:47 Speaker_11
May, like right before.

00:33:53 Speaker_06
And did you, have you ever since played tennis?

00:33:59 Speaker_11
Not really. Maybe one day. I want to love the sport again. You know, like I don't want to just... I used to love it.

00:34:08 Speaker_11
And, you know, one day when hopefully we've found peace and a stable, you know, familial unit, I will be able to be at peace with, you know, playing the sport that reminds me of my dad, that does hold so many good memories again.

00:34:32 Speaker_14
The lawyers for the U.S. Attorney's Office called Katie Coury a mediocre tennis player when Georgetown's specialty was mediocre tennis players.

00:34:41 Speaker_14
They said she got into Georgetown because her dad was rich, but recruiting rich kids for the Georgetown tennis team was what Georgetown did as a matter of course. And then they threw her under the bus a third time.

00:34:56 Speaker_14
They said that she had been involved in a conspiracy with her father to fake an injury, and that just wasn't true. Back at the top of episode one, I said that I asked the U.S. Attorney's Office to talk to me about the Khoury case, and they refused.

00:35:16 Speaker_14
Now I know why. Because they went home and tried to wash their hands, and the stink wouldn't come off. Closing arguments in the case of U.S. v. Khoury came the next day. Roy did the honors for the defense.

00:35:35 Speaker_05
I came up with this walking over to the courthouse because I was trying to figure out how to make these text messages as dramatic as possible. And it doesn't come across in the transcript.

00:35:46 Speaker_05
But what I did is I picked up the exhibits and I walked over to the defense table and stood in front of Khoury and read every one of those text messages, looking him in the eye.

00:35:58 Speaker_14
I mean, the text was just from his daughter.

00:36:00 Speaker_05
Yeah, where she's calling him every name in the book, and how I hate you and all this stuff. Tears.

00:36:07 Speaker_13
Amin Khoury, as you did that, was in tears.

00:36:09 Speaker_02
Yes.

00:36:09 Speaker_04
Yeah.

00:36:10 Speaker_02
All of us. Everybody.

00:36:11 Speaker_04
So there's the jury. Yeah. There. This is Roy Black. There's the jury. There's the judge. Khoury is standing, sitting right where you are. By the way, my daughter was sitting right behind Amin Khoury. Sophie was watching the trial.

00:36:22 Speaker_02
And my son.

00:36:23 Speaker_04
OK, and your son. Yeah. And Roy, who's talking to the jury, And it's right there, we have the transcript. And stands, literally the distance, four feet from Eamon Corey. And he's reading to Eamon Corey, and they're right here.

00:36:35 Speaker_04
You can read them out loud into the tape. Each one of those texts. Roy stands up. Well, why don't you read it, Roy? This is the actual closing argument.

00:36:47 Speaker_05
Quote, the night of my graduation is supposed to be a fun celebration. I don't think it will be if you come. Lexi and I are not doing that well.

00:36:57 Speaker_05
I hope that you know that your family won't be able to exist peacefully together and don't spend another holiday together. I will forever blame and resent you and have zero interest in sharing vital parts of my life with you.

00:37:13 Speaker_05
That's what Katie Corey was saying in the summer of 2015, not making up some story about her shoulder injury.

00:37:20 Speaker_14
The courtroom is absolutely still, and Roy just keeps going, right in front of his client, face to face.

00:37:29 Speaker_13
And so what's happening? Well, the jurors were crying. Well, the jurors were crying. You didn't see that, but we did.

00:37:36 Speaker_04
There's a juror crime.

00:37:38 Speaker_14
So explain to me psychologically what's happening with the jurors. Their crime is sort of obvious, but sort of not. What conclusion are they drawing from the emotion in that moment?

00:37:50 Speaker_05
Well, I think that they're all parents. Can you imagine getting messages like that from one of your children about how catastrophic, how tragic, how emotional that would be?

00:38:06 Speaker_05
And the reason why I wanted to do that is to show that there was simply no way that this girl

00:38:13 Speaker_05
was being controlled by her father and would go and say, OK, we're now getting into Georgetown on this fake admission and I'm going to fake a shoulder injury. It's just that it was just such a powerful, tragic thing to get from a child.

00:38:33 Speaker_04
What I thought happened was it now became a contest between this prosecutor and Katie Coury. Who was the jury going to rule for?

00:38:42 Speaker_14
Roy's closing argument didn't last very long. He didn't have to. He just said, you know why the prosecution's case makes no sense? Because they didn't know about the text messages. The jury acquitted Ayman Khoury on all counts.

00:38:58 Speaker_14
They couldn't distinguish between what Eamon Curry did and what Georgetown did.

00:39:03 Speaker_14
I think they must have wondered what they had been dragged into, a full-on trial in a federal courthouse that ended up being about a daughter's broken heart and a father's tears.

00:39:15 Speaker_14
Oh, and all taking place on a tennis court, which is the question that got me interested in U.S. v. Curry in the first place. The other half of the case, the half I write about in Revenge of the Tipping Point.

00:39:28 Speaker_14
Since when do we care so much about games like tennis that prosecutors and elite universities and rich men and their daughters make it the staging ground for their ambitions?

00:39:39 Speaker_04
By the way, one more moment that no one knows about, because we were there and it didn't happen in the courtroom. We walk out of the courtroom with a not guilty verdict. We encounter some of the jurors right outside the courtroom.

00:39:56 Speaker_04
Eamon Currie is standing next to me. The juror is standing five feet away. She looks over to Mr. Currie and she says, take care of your daughter.

00:40:11 Speaker_14
Revisionist History has produced... Wait, we're not done. What about the mysterious Salesforce document? The document Roy kept trying to get Georgetown witnesses to say, yes, it exists, or yes, it's real. What was it?

00:40:26 Speaker_05
Yeah, Salesforce.

00:40:27 Speaker_03
They kept a database of what people are worth. and they had like targets. So if this person is worth this amount of money, my target is to get them to donate this amount.

00:40:42 Speaker_03
And they would keep track of contact with the family and what they're gonna ask for it. And they kept this in a database, internally in a Salesforce database at the school for each parent.

00:40:57 Speaker_14
It uses a sophisticated set of software to analyze thousands of people and figure out who among them is the best target for a fundraising call and what that person's, and this is the term that is used, capacity might be. It looks at patterns.

00:41:15 Speaker_14
Families that have given a lot tend to be those who will continue to give a lot. Then there's a question of the individual's ties to the institution. Do they have a child at school there? That helps a lot.

00:41:27 Speaker_14
Or, if they are an alum, what do they do while on campus? Turns out, a connection to athletics is a top indicator for future giving. Needless to say, this kind of algorithm would really, really like Eamon Currie.

00:41:44 Speaker_14
After Catherine was admitted, before she had even set foot on campus, the admissions officer who handled her application sent an email to someone in the development office. Are you able to give me giving for Eamon Currie?

00:41:58 Speaker_14
Meaning, can we run him through the algorithm? And they do. And put it all in an internal document. Why was Georgetown so reluctant to admit to the existence of the mysterious Salesforce capacity report?

00:42:14 Speaker_14
Because their capacity estimate for the Khoury family was, shall we say, awkward. One to five million dollars.

00:42:28 Speaker_14
When the so-called victim, Georgetown, is lining up the so-called perpetrator for one to five million, the victim doesn't really look like a victim anymore, do they? It looks more like they're in on the grift.

00:42:41 Speaker_05
So, yeah, they were they nobody would agree to it. So we mentioned it to the jury. The jury knew it existed, but never got to see it.

00:42:49 Speaker_13
Yeah. So you you you saw you did you have the document?

00:42:54 Speaker_05
Yes, we have the document.

00:42:55 Speaker_03
Then after the trial.

00:42:58 Speaker_03
There's the not guilty verdict, and that night or the next day, the New York Times or somebody calls Roy for a comment, and Roy comments on the trial, and in part the comment was there was this Salesforce document, and the target for the queries was one to five million.

00:43:15 Speaker_03
And now Georgetown, who during the trial is saying, I don't know what document you're talking about, and no witness will own up to the document, and no witness is prepared to testify about it.

00:43:27 Speaker_03
After Roy makes the comment, the lawyers for Georgetown send an email saying, hey, why are you talking about our Salesforce document? There's a confidentiality order in the case, and you're not supposed to be talking about our documents.

00:43:39 Speaker_03
And Roy writes back. At the trial, nobody's owning the document. After the trial, they're all upset that Roy's talking about their document. Roy writes back. I mentioned it in opening. And can I? And he writes back to the group in capital letters.

00:43:58 Speaker_02
Sore loser. To the lawyer, to the Georgetown lawyer. Oh, my God. When we all got that email, I was like banging the desk. That's hard. It was awesome.

00:44:15 Speaker_14
USV Curry. Best trial ever. or maybe second best trial ever, because there was another federal case that I fell in love with while writing my book, Revenge at Sipping Point. It's the basis for the chapter entitled, The Trouble with Miami.

00:44:35 Speaker_14
USVS forms, involving a shadowy nursing home operator from Miami Beach, who looked like Paul Newman, drove around town in a $1.6 million Ferrari,

00:44:46 Speaker_14
dated supermodels, and, in a weird coincidence, was so obsessed with getting his diminutive son onto the University of Penn basketball team that he gave large amounts of cash in a gym bag to the Penn basketball coach.

00:45:02 Speaker_14
Who represented that shadowy Paul Newman lookalike in a Ferrari handing out bags of cash to Ivy League coaches? 10 guesses. Originous History is produced by Nina Byrd-Lawrence with Ben Dadaf-Haffrey and Lucy Sullivan. Our editor is Karen Shikurji.

00:45:28 Speaker_14
Fact-checking by Sam Rusick. Original scoring by Luis Guerra. Mastering by Echo Mountain. Engineering by Sarah Bruguier and Nina Byrd-Lawrence. Production support from Luke Lamond. Voice acting by Dax Shepard and Britt Marling. Thank you, guys.

00:45:46 Speaker_14
Our executive producer is the incomparable Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Sarah Nix. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.

00:46:08 Speaker_08
For the past 17 years, Subaru has made the act of buying a Subaru during the holiday season an act of love. When you purchase or lease a new Subaru during the Subaru Share the Love event, Subaru and its retailers donate a minimum of $300 to charity.

00:46:22 Speaker_08
By the end of this year's event, Subaru and its retailers will have donated nearly $320 million to national and hometown charities. To learn more, go to Subaru.com slash share. Subaru, more than a car company.

00:46:37 Speaker_14
Has someone been walking around outside your house? Don't rely on revisionist history from your neighbors. Try MyQ Home Monitoring. MyQ is a revolutionary approach to home security that goes beyond monitoring.

00:46:50 Speaker_14
With MyQ, you get safe access control to the most sacred space of all, your home. Take the MyQ Smart Garage Video Keypad. It lets you create unique pin codes for your kids,

00:47:03 Speaker_14
dog walkers, family members, and more, offering a safer and easier alternative to keys. Whether you're home or traveling, myQ keeps your loved ones, belongings, and home safe. Use code GLADWELL for 10% off at myq.com.

00:47:23 Speaker_01
This podcast is supported by BetterHelp, offering licensed therapists you can connect with via video, phone, or chat. Here's BetterHelp Head of Clinical Operations, Hesu Jo, discussing who can benefit from therapy.

00:47:37 Speaker_00
I think a lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day.

00:47:44 Speaker_00
But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships, That could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody.

00:47:57 Speaker_00
There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people.

00:48:07 Speaker_00
So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody.

00:48:12 Speaker_01
Find out if therapy is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com today. That's BetterHelp.com.