Saturday, November 1, 2014

David Franzel, cyber investigator at FTI Consulting, doesn't quite tell the truth, eh, Skadden?


Then, in Egypt, experimenting with a burrito grill business venture.

Middle East Meets Mex

By David Franzel '10
I came to Cairo last year to teach and improve my Arabic. Egyptian food is delicious, but a little monotonous. It needed a kick.
A friend and I came up with the idea for Gringo’s Burrito Grill. We pooled our resources and opened in January 2012, serving customizable burritos bursting with fire-grilled chicken and steak, slow-cooked Machaca beef, and homemade guacamole.
Gringo’s has been the talk of the town in Cairo, and we’re already drawing up plans for expansion into other areas of the city.

But I guess that didn't work out. 
Now, all buttoned down and ready to do Google searches at FTI Consulting 
for a Toyota defense law firm, I suppose this one was Skadden.

Among the declarations submitted to court with Toyota's latest filings attacking Barr was one that attested to a Google search for the Barr Powerpoint.

David Franzel did the search on "powerpoint michael barr toyota."

In his declaration is a clever misstatement, well, OK, a lie, if this document was created with information provided by an attorney, and/or reviewed by an attorney, and I have no basis for any belief that David himself or FTI Consulting could have direct knowledge of the actual provenance of the Barr Powerpoint.

He says, regarding the document for which he searched [redacted, but it must be the Barr Powerpoint]:
"I understand has been produced as discovery in the above-captioned matter."
then, after most of the rest of his declaration is redacted, he says the usual thing,
"I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States and of California that the foregoing is true and correct." and he signs it.

Now just who could have misled him to the understanding that the Barr Powerpoint was "produced as discovery?" Because all of the attorneys involved in preparing these filings sure as hell know that this document was not produced by Toyota in discovery. At best, it was created as an outcome of a discovery process, ..."produced as discovery" is completely misleading. This is not a material lie, perhaps, but it is not true.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, the term "suborning testimony" comes up. Could this be a case of that?
Anyway, David, if you are reading this, just be alert to what your bosses tell you next time. They are tricky.

Here is the declaration:





Machacha beef.