It’s been a while since we checked in with the Bryan Singer case, mainly because it now seems to be mainly a matter for the lawyers and everything’s on the hush-hush, with only second-hand whispers and rumor leaking out. Case in point, one accuser, Michael Egan, has reportedly been dropped by his attorney. The big question is why.
Here’s what the lawyer, Jeff Herman said:
“We are in the process of withdrawing from representing Mr. Egan in all his cases and have no further comment concerning his matters at this time. We cannot comment on any actual or purported documents that may or may not be or reflect privileged or confidential communications. We decline to speak about any other clients we may or may not have represented,” reads the statement from Herman’s office.
Egan had sued Singer, David Neuman, Garth Ancier, and Gary Goddard, claiming they’d drugged him and coerced him into sex at parties when he was 15. According to a Buzzfeed report, Singer, his lawyer Marty Singer, and Egan’s lawyer Herman had all signed a settlement agreement giving Egan $100,000 to drop the case and binding him to a confidentiality agreement.
But Michael Egan, the man suing Singer, did not sign the document, and told BuzzFeed that he never agreed to the settlement.
“This exact kind of take-it-and-shut-up deal is why I decided to stand up in the first place,” he said. “Being silenced goes completely against what I believe in and offers no protection for other vulnerable children.”
Here’s more from the lawyer:
After this story was first posted, Herman filed motions in Hawaii and California to withdraw as Egan’s counsel in several sex-abuse suits that stemmed from Egan’s original complaint against Singer. In one motion to withdraw, Herman said that the relationship between him and his client had “deteriorated” over the past months. “In this particular case, there is no question but that the attorney-client relationship between Mr. Egan and [Herman] has broken down completely and cannot be repaired.”
Here’s the spin from Singer’s lawyer, Marty Singer, a high-profile celebrity attorney who basically always sounds varying degrees of full of shit:
“As Mr. Egan and his now ex-lawyers know, a legitimate claim in this type of case can run into the millions of dollars, so their willingness to resolve it for such a relatively low figure demonstrates their total lack of confidence in their chances for success. This was their way of trying to save face after an unsuccessful attempted shakedown of Bryan Singer,” Marty Singer said of the settlement agreement in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. [THR]
That’s what Marty Singer said after first claiming that he’d never settle the case, then being shown the settlement documents obtained by Buzzfeed. More:
“Egan is the one who approached us,” he said. Because the sum amounted to significantly less than the millions it would likely have taken to fight the case, Martin Singer said, “from a business perspective we said we would consider” the settlement offer. [Buzzfeed]
So, that’s where we are. It sounds to me like there are three basic possibilities here:
1. Egan doesn’t want to take the deal, either because he doesn’t want to accept the gag order or because he thinks he can get more, and they split because his lawyer thinks this is the only way he (the lawyer) is going to get paid.
2. Egan tried to negotiate a deal on his own and now he and the lawyer are in irreconcilable disagreement about the terms.
3. Herman doesn’t trust Egan not to screw up his chances with the three other alleged Bryan Singer abuse victims.
Either way, we’re definitely no closer to finding any sort of facts in the case. At what point does the Attorney General step in and officially declare this a “fiasco?” I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pret-tay, pret-tay sure this isn’t how the legal system is supposed to work.