for $5 million. judge judy s son, adam levy said sheriff donald smith made false claims, he, levy, interfered with a child rape case against levy s friend and former personal trainer. smith denies the allegations. claims levy had ongoing and improper involvement in the case. earlier this week judge judy herself issued this statement, calling her son, principled, honorable and dedicated. this is a weird case. the county attorney, judge judy s son, suing the sheriff but suing him as an individual. why, fred? well, for a couple of reasons. i love judge judy and i love judge alex. that is where i get most of my legal education from watching both of those two. jon: i doubt that. they made the decision to sue this guy personally so the county wouldn t have to pay. this is defamation suit, jon. this is tough case in defamation case. judge judy s son is public figure, for him to win he has to
happened to her husband is not to call her mama, not to call her daddy. not to call rusty. not to call rusty s daddy. it is to call her sexual a hasser. really? jon: ashley merchant is a criminal defense attorney. fred tecce, a former federal prosecutor. it s an interesting case. basically was charged with lying in this case, with perjury. authorities originally wanted to bring charges against her in the murder case apparently fred, they just didn t have the evidence. no, no. jon: the prosecutor there was trying to make the point that for instance, the day after this guy was picked up for the murder, her former boss, she said, she claimed that she had gone to colorado on a trip alone. it turned out that she had gone with her former boss. that s what he was referring to. oops. jon: talking about her telling the truth. right. look, jon, i tell you what, when
one, but the upgrade now in his condition is certainly the kind of progress they were hoping for. jenna in. jenna: and can we re glad to all hear it. jon: that is amazing. new twists in the trial of reputed boston crime boss james whitty bulger as we get an update on a story that broke during this hour yesterday. authorities are now working to determine the cause of death of 59-year-old steven rakes. he was on the witness list until very recently to testify against bulger. his body was found the day after prosecutors informed him he would not be taking the stand. this comes as tempers flare in the courtroom when bulger comes face to face with a former partner for the first time in decades. let s bring in former federal prosecutor fred tecce and criminal defense be attorney [inaudible] welcome to both of you. thanks for having me. hello. jon: all right. the mysterious death first, fred. at first, the supposition was this had to be some kind of a
to get convicted, so the worst thing that can happen is to go to prison labeled a rat. so they re taking some blows at whitey before he goes down for these crimes to label him a rat when he s in prison. jon: pretty interesting. a 79-year-old witness, steven the rifleman fleming testifying against his 84-year-old former boss, i guess. very interesting. yeah, maybe they ll get him a more cushy cell. jon: of course te yes marijuana mob figures. i mean, this is their world. this is kind of their last hurrah. they re getting to do this again, and the wod is watching. jon: fred and ashley, thank you both. thanks for having me. thank you. jenna: well, a coroner s set to announce the cause of death for a young passenger in the san francisco plane crash. the chinese teenager was ejected from the plane and then accidentally hit by an emergency response vehicle. what exactly caused her death? we ll have that in a live report. also, detroit becomes the largest u.s. city to file for b
mob hit or something, and i guess we can only speculate, and that probably doesn t do anybody any good until the cause of death is officially announced. but the fact is this guy was on the witness list and then was told, no, we don t need your testimony. i was a fellow prosecutor, but i wasn t a doctor. i can tell you people who testify against the mob suffer from lead poisoning and the other was a disease which means they had more holes in them than they were supposeed to. they don t know why they died. so this guy, bulger s, either the most unlucky guy in the world or there are still members of that gang who want to send a message to people to say if you stand against us, you re going to be in trouble. jon: i guess we ll know once we get the autopsy results. there s even speculation that he might have committed suicide in disappointment over not being allowed to testify against the guy who he claims stiffed him of