Houston Nutt’s attorney and Ole Miss battle over release of more Hugh Freeze phone records
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Houston Nutt’s attorney Thomas Mars is accusing Ole Miss of “stonewalling tactics” when it comes to releasing the phone records of Hugh Freeze.
“From the very outset, the University has found all kinds of creative and illegitimate reasons to delay producing documents, redact documents without legal justification,” Mars wrote in a letter shared with USA Today’s Dan Wolken.
The request for Freeze’s January 2016 phone records, in an attempt to find records of a call Freeze made to a sportwriter, revealed the call to the escort agency. Mars is now seeking records for Freeze’s tenure (five years) as the Rebels head coach. While story behind Freeze’s resignation led many to call it “revenge” for Nutt, Mars has publicly stated that they are not seeking to embarrass Freeze and that the information is relevant to Nutt’s lawsuit against Ole Miss. The phone records are expected to also contain the “concerning pattern” of behavior cited by athletic director Ross Bjork at the press conference announcing Freeze’s resignation.
“We know what we’re looking for, it’s very relevant to Coach Nutt’s lawsuit, and we know it’s in the phone logs,” Mars wrote. “And setting up a frivolous roadblock the way you’ve done it here just makes you look like you’re scared to death of what we’re going to find in those phone records.”
The school contends that releasing the records would require outside counsel to comb through 33,000 phone records, which would take 190 hours of legal work at a cost of $25,100 expected to be paid by Nutt or his representation.
“There’s nothing they can do with those records except produce them,” Mars told USA TODAY Sports. “There’s no reason for lawyers to look at them. They’re not allowed to redact them. Phone records aren’t privileged under any circumstances. This is just a bogus exercise they’re manufacturing to try to put a huge price tag on these records and deter me and other people from getting their hands on them. They can’t make me pay for their lawyers to review them. That’s their problem.”
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
