In their efforts to paint Ashley Solis as a money-hungry liar, Watson’s legal team put out some information that doesn’t look very favorable for him.
Rusty Hardin released the email chain between Tony Buzbee and Watson’s team about a settlement. The starting number was $100k which Watson’s team refused to pay, but curiously said this line in response to the $100k offer.
Following on my call last week with Cornelia, wanted to check in on this to see if Ms. Solis wanted to either help us understand the rationale behind the $100k demand or come back with a different figure. As I said to Cornelia last week, we don’t believe that the alleged facts show that Deshaun did anything wrong with regards to Ms. Solis, but we are nevertheless happy to continue the conversation around a reasonable settlement figure because we believe he can learn a lesson about having put himself in this situation.
A couple of things need to noted here.
One it isn’t unusual for athletes and entertainers to pay out settlements even if they are innocent. Believe it or not, that does happen and what it appears to me Watson’s team is saying is that Watson believes he didn’t do anything wrong, BUT by dealing with someone he didn’t really know he put himself in a position to be extorted.
On the flip side of that, you could take this comment to mean that Watson once again didn’t think he did anything wrong, but the claims were 100% baseless to the point they would be willing to pay to make it go away.
In hindsight, I am sure they wished they would have just paid the $100k. Hardin tries to paint it as hush money, but as someone who has reported on civil cases before, the emails are pretty standard. In a civil case the goal is to settle for two reasons.
One it saves everyone some money (lawyers, defendants, and plaintiffs).
The second reason is everything is kept quiet for both the accused and accuser.
Flip the pages for the full email exchanges.