A woman and her two attorneys are facing jail time after claiming that she was raped.
Mye Brindle, 47, of Atlanta, Georgia, and her attorneys, David Cohen and
John Butters, were indicted after police said they hatched an
elaborate plan to extort money from the former Waffle House CEO Joe
Rogers.
The indictment alleges that Rogers, 64, was recorded secretly in his
bedroom having sex with Brindle behind his wife’s back while she was his
housekeeper.
Butters and Cohen are accused of trying to force Rogers to pay millions
of dollars to prevent the videos and recordings from being released.
However, Brian Robinson, Brindle’s attorney, released a statement
saying: “The two attorneys zealously represented their client, a victim
of serial sexual abuse by her employer.
“These indictments re-victimize the woman who dared to tell the truth
about her powerful abuser and smear the attorneys who represented her.”
Brindle filed a sexual harassment claim with police before filing a
lawsuit against Rogers. She accused Rogers of forcing her to perform
sexual acts on him for nearly 10 years, in order for her to keep her job
despite her protests.
However, that backfired when the court found that the secretly recorded
video did not imply that Rogers forced the woman to do anything she
didn’t want to, according to court documents.
Rogers acknowledged having an affair with Brindle, but he said it was consensual.
Superior Court Judge Robert Leonard learned that the woman’s lawyers
sent her to the office of a private investigator, where she was given a
spy camera that was used to record Rogers in his bedroom without his
consent.
The woman also made 15 audio recordings of sexual encounters and she
saved a towel containing DNA from Rogers, in a failed attempt to prove
her case.
Brindle, Butters, and Cohen were all charged with conspiracy to commit
extortion and conspiracy to commit unlawful eavesdropping.
The district attorney’s office said that secretly recording someone in
their own bedroom is eavesdropping, which is a serious crime in Georgia.
It carries a penalty of one to five years in prison.
