*Mark Geragos – the lawyer who was secretly videotaped while accompanying his client Michael Jackson on a flight from Las Vegas to Santa Barbara to surrender to child molestation charges – is suing the jet company for an alleged invasion of privacy.
Jackson, who was acquitted of the charges in 2005 following a high-profile trial, was originally part of the civil suit against XtraJet, but later dropped out of the case.
Geragos testified this week that the secret videotaping was one of the worst experiences of his 24 years in legal work, and he now takes extreme measures to ensure that his private conversations with clients are not secretly recorded. He testified that he has met with some clients under freeway overpasses and in hotel rooms, and twice sent a colleague overseas to discuss a case rather than have them discuss it over the phone or by e-mail.
"I can't think of any act more distressing to me at a professional level than what was done here," Geragos said, adding that he obtained a court order preventing XtraJet's then-owner, Jeffrey Borer, from selling the footage after learning of it through the news media.
Borer and co-defendant Arvel Jett Reeves pleaded guilty in 2005 to installing two digital video recorders to record "a professional entertainer" and his lawyer as the pair traveled by private jet.
Borer was sentenced in October to six months of home detention and three years' probation, and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Reeves was sentenced in July to eight months in prison, six additional months in a halfway house and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.
In videotaped testimony shown in court Monday, Reeves said that no audio was recorded on the flight tapes.
Lawyers in the case waived their right to a jury so that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge could decide the outcome.