Summary: After TMZ released a previously sealed photo of Taylor Swift and her alleged abuser, will the publication hurt her groping case?
Did TMZ sabotage Taylor Swift? The country-turned-pop singer is embroiled in a salacious sexual assault lawsuit against a Denver radio DJ, and the celebrity news site recently published a key photo in the case. However, the photo was supposed to be sealed because it could sway potential jurors, and now a legal expert has weighed in on what impact that publication could have.
In 2013, Taylor Swift appeared at a Denver meet-and-greet; and she said that the host, a local radio DJ named David Mueller, groped her. She reported the sexual assault, and he was promptly terminated. He responded by suing her for slander, but she refused to shake it off. Instead, she fired back by suing him for assault.
The singer provided as evidence a photo of Mueller allegedly grabbing Swift underneath her skirt. She testified, “Right as the moment came for us to pose for the photo, he took his hand and put it up my dress and grabbed onto my ass cheek and no matter how much I scooted over it was still there.”
The photo published by TMZ does not clearly show Mueller reaching up her dress, but his hand does appear to be lower than her waistline. The DJ responded on TMZ that he felt the picture proves he did not grab Swift the way she had described.
Benjamin D. Moore, an attorney in New York, spoke to Revelist about how the photo could hurt Swift’s case.
“A judge is very concerned about evidence coming in the correct way and being presented to the jury in a way the jury can understand within the context of the case, as opposed to just a piece of information like you or I might see,” Moore said.
Moore said that this photo could affect jury selection as jurors could be biased after seeing the photo and reading TMZ’s interpretation of it, which appears to mock Swift’s account that the seemingly tame photo was too racy for the public to see.
Do you think the photograph could sway potential jurors? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Revelist
Photo courtesy of Forever Twenty Somethings, TMZ