On an emotional final day of testimony, the former housekeeper on trial over a sex tape she secretly recorded of Waffle House chairman Joe Rogers Jr. took the stand, accusing her former employer of assaulting her multiple times.
Mye Brindle's sexual encounters with Rogers are at the center of a six-year-long tangle of civil and criminal litigation that went all the way to the state Supreme Court last year. Brindle and co-defendants David Cohen and John Butters — the two lawyers she retained for her 2012 civil lawsuit against Rogers — are charged with unlawful surveillance over accusations that they worked together to covertly record Brindle performing a sexual act on Rogers.
While Rogers’ multi-day testimony last week emphasized his former housekeeper’s consent in their encounters, Brindle’s testimony told a different story. She said Rogers pressured her to perform sexual favors for him, and she complied out of fear of losing her job. On one occasion, she said, he even tried to force himself on her.
“It felt like trying to fight off an octopus,” she said, wiping away tears. “I was just trying to get his hands off of me.”
Brindle testified that she never explicitly told Rogers “no,” saying, “I didn’t need to tell him. He knew.” The alleged abuse, she said, led her into a struggle with depression that made her consider ending her life.
The defense rested its case on Monday without testimony from either Cohen or Butters, the lawyers who are indicted along with Brindle. The three defendants were initially indicted on two additional charges related to the sex tape — conspiracy to commit extortion and conspiracy to commit unlawful surveillance — but those charges have since been dropped.
Brindle maintained in her testimony that she made the recording as evidence to use in a civil lawsuit, not as a way of extorting money from Rogers — a question that arose from a letter Cohen sent to Rogers after the video was recorded. The letter notified the Waffle House chairman of the video’s existence and encouraged him to pay Brindle a large settlement to resolve her sexual harassment allegations against him. Failure to do so, the letter said, could result in media attention and possible criminal charges.
“It wasn’t to harass, it wasn’t to threaten, it wasn’t to embarrass,” she said. “It was to make Mr. Rogers be accountable for his actions for once in his life.”
Brindle and Rogers have competing lawsuits pending against one another in Cobb County.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Henry Newkirk once again denied a motion from the defense to have the case dismissed, the second time the defense has made that request since the state rested its case on Friday. Newkirk dismissed all charges in the indictment last year, only to have two of the charges reinstated by the Georgia Supreme Court.
Brindle said she didn’t believe she was committing a crime when she made the recording, citing Georgia’s “one party consent law,” which has become a key point of contention in the trial.
The law allows individuals to record audio conversations as long as they have the permission of at least one party involved in the conversation — usually, that “one party” is the person doing the recording. This makes it technically legal to record others without their consent.
The defense has claimed the one-party consent law applies because the sex tape Brindle is accused of making contained audio. Brindle said her civil attorneys and the private investigator who gave her the spy camera she used to make the recording all indicated that her actions were legal under the one party consent law.
“I wouldn’t have done it if someone had told me it was illegal,” she said.
Throughout the testimony, Rogers remained stone-faced while his wife, Fran Rogers, sat shaking her head. Fran Rogers told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she believes Brindle and Dawn Tyler, another former housekeeper who last week delivered testimony that closely mirrored Brindle’s, both lied on the stand.
“They said they wouldn’t believe (Rogers) would tell the truth under oath, while they stood up there and lied,” she said.
Closing arguments will begin on Tuesday, and the jury will begin deliberations after that.
