FBI material on Hogan classified as “highly confidential”

Jul 25, 2015 - by Steve Gerweck

In a blog posted on July 10, Gawker CEO Nick Denton wrote how the trial against Hulk Hogan was already supposed to start but the company’s lawyers were pursuing a lead about a suspicious audio track. The start of the court case was delayed and now we know why. “There will be a third act which we believe will center on the real story: the additional recordings held by the FBI, the information in them that is Hulk Hogan’s real secret, and irregularities in the recordings which indicate some sort of cover-up. In the way of so many news stories, the deeper you go, the more interesting it gets,” Denton wrote. The FBI were in possession of materials related to its probe of Hogan’s sex tape. After initially refusing to hand over the material, Gawker filed a lawsuit against the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. Hogan’s attorneys wrote a letter to the judge raising concerns that Gawker might already know the contents of the materials which were designated by the FBI as “Highly Confidential – Attorneys’ Eyes Only.”

In early July, the Justice Department attorney told the court that there is some “re-processed video footage” which is being sent even though one of the DVDs was corrupted and another one had audio synchronization problems. Hogan’s attorney has told the media that if they find out that it was indeed Gawker who leaked the information to the Enquirer, they will “bury” the company once and for all. The information was most likely going to come out anyway during the case but not till October when the first celebrity sex tape trial is scheduled to start.

(thanks to Colin Vassallo)

Leave a Reply