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Comment by omarforgotpwd | Hacker News Reader

Trevor Milton invited me to his headquarters to prove his trucks weren't fake. While we were having lunch I asked him about the longtime friend of his (15 years, went to his wedding) who he had framed for extortion. The friend later committed suicide when he got out of jail. This was all happening during the Nikola reverse-IPO process.

After a recording of our conversation was posted online, a bunch of women came forward with accusations against Trevor Milton. That and the Hindenburg report are why GM can't do this deal anymore.

They weren't investing anything. They were getting the equity for free essentially, just to let them use the GM hydrogen tech that GM was planning to throw away anyway. So why would GM back out of a deal that was so sweet for them? It was really that bad.

https://heyamifat.com/robb.mp4

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After listening to the recording it's pretty clear that this guy is a fraud. what is the lethal dose of acid? thanks, ill wait.

I bet if you eat 20lbs it would do something bad to your stomach

Not to mention that, if he had done 10-15x the lethal dose of acid, wouldn't he be dead?

hahaha exactly his story makes no sense

Can you elaborate on the "framed for extortion"... what is the evidence that Trevor framed him?

Trevor told Jonny Robb to stop posting about his behavior towards women, and in exchange he would give him $500,000. He told Jonny to come and collect $50,000, and that $50,000 would be paid in successive increments as long as he continued not to post. When Jonny arrived to meet Trevor he found that Trevor was with the police and it was a sting operation. He was arrested for extortion and possession of a controlled substance (weed + mushrooms in his car). When he was released from jail he took his own life. It's not 100% certain that Trevor first brought up the idea of a payment to keep him quiet, but that is my belief after talking to Jonny's family and friends as well as listening to Trevor's story in person.

>Trevor told Jonny Robb to stop posting about his behavior towards women, and in exchange he would give him $500,000.

IANAL, but how is that not entrapment? Or even if it wasn't entrapment, how is it different than signing a NDA/non-disparagement contract?

>possession of a controlled substance (weed + mushrooms in his car)

okay that's just dumb.

because Trevor told the police that Jonny had told him "give me money or i'm going to post untrue information about you to ruin your reputation". The info turned out to be true, which makes me doubt him recounting that Jonny brought up the idea of a pay off.

So Trevor fabricated evidence to fool the police? That's a far more serious offense than the sexual misconduct, and frankly it's hard to believe he could pull that off, unless he managed to bribe the police. Johnny's probably not completely innocent - they can both be scumbags.

when you're a billionaire you have certain influence, and people have told me that LDS members tend to look out for their own. Trevor made a large donation to the people that helped with the arrest after. I can't remember if it was the police or the attorney or both.

As a rule, coercion by offering money will never qualify as entrapment. The courts consider refusing money to be “too easy”, so to speak. An example of entrapment would instead be a threat of prosecution against your child unless you do some illegal act, or something else with a similarly more nefarious coercive force.

Sounds like Robb was blackmailing the guy by cashing in on the metoo movement

Why would he volunteer any information on that situation at all. Seems incredibly foolish.

Do you have a link that provides some evidence about the bunch of accusations from women that you talk about?

Because in all your comments you talk about a lot of stuff with little proof...

let me google that for you

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/two-women-file-sexual-abuse-...

Just to be clear, did you record this in a jurisdiction that is single-party consent for recording audio?

Considering it wasn't a telephone call and was possibly in a common space (restaurant, lunch room, etc), this type of recording might not need two party consent in the handful of states that are not one party consent states: https://www.wallsheinlaw.com/articles/the-two-party-consent-...

This isn’t a defense against harassment, defamation, or any of the other charges that may apply including wiretapping (of which you list a possible defense). Listen to a lawyer not people on the internet, including me, when it comes to legal advice

When we arrived at Nikola headquarters, we were told we could record everything. The idea was to get the word out on social media that the company wasn't a fraud.

Just curious because I would like to learn a different perspective, why would it matter? I could see maybe for a trial but here, on the internet, what is the issue?

Some states are what is known as "all party consent" states, while others are "one party consent" states.

In all party consent states, it is illegal to record a private conversation unless everyone who is being recorded is aware and has consented to being recorded. In one party consent states (which are the majority of states), only one person (presumably the person doing the recording) needs to be aware of and consent to the recording.

That difference can obviously make a huge impact on the legal ramifications of recording. For example, during the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton affair, the only person actually indicted for a crime (later dropped) was Linda Tripp, who was brought up on wiretapping charges for surreptitiously recording Lewinsky. This only happened because Maryland is an all party consent state.

This is also why customer service calls start with "This call may be recorded for quality purposes..." - it's to inform you that the call is being recorded if you happen to live in an all party consent state.

I think your missed the point of the comment you were replying to.

Why would we on HN, care about whether or not the recording was legal?

At the very least, people might do some additional research before engaging in surreptitious “journalism”.

There was nothing secret about it, we were invited to the HQ specifically to record

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that what you did was surreptitious. I meant, if other people have that idea before understanding the laws around recording conversations.

I think it's interesting to know whether someone is breaking the law for the sake of a HN comment.

Additionally, people might want to copy this person's behavior, and it would be useful to know whether the behavior is legal or not before doing so.

The comment I was replying to seemed to interpret this as an "admissibility of evidence" issue. My point was that it has nothing to do with "admissibility", just that the GP comment was pointing out that if the person recorded this without the consent of all parties (which turned out not to be the case, but regardless) they could potentially be putting themselves in serious legal jeopardy.

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