Attorney: Hogan lied about lawsuit

The attorney representing John Graziano, the Iraq war veteran grievously injured in a wreck involving the son of Hulk Hogan, accused Hogan in court Wednesday of lying about efforts to settle a lawsuit Graziano's guardian filed against the former famed wrestler and his family.

Attorney George Tragos said Hogan signed a confidentiality agreement in October not to disclose what happened during an effort to settle the lawsuit, then went on to talk about the mediation publicly. In addition, Hogan inaccurately portrayed the money discussed and said what he offered would place Graziano "in a five-star hotel for the rest of his life," Tragos said.

Tragos' remarks came Wednesday afternoon during a hearing to determine to what extent depositions -- which are transcribed, sometimes videotaped testimony taken from witnesses before a trial -- should be made available to the media covering the Graziano lawsuit.

Tragos' concern was that he might be hamstrung from releasing to the media a transcript of a deposition that refutes something someone else says about the case.

If Tragos wanted to release a deposition that refutes what someone says, he would have to go before Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird and ask to do so, Tragos said after the hearing.

That is standard, however. Typically, a deposition in a civil case is only placed in a court file, which is public record, if the deposition touches on a specific issue to be argued over at a future hearing.

Stuart Freeman, an attorney for Hogan's son, Nick Bollea, had asked that the media not be allowed to attend any depositions. No one suggested they had a legal right to do so, and Baird granted that request.

The attorneys for the defendants in the Graziano lawsuit - Hogan, Nick Bollea, Hogan's estranged wife Linda Bollea and Danny Jacobs, who was said to be racing against Bollea before the wreck - all asked that the media be restricted from attending the depositions. They also sought to ensure the media didn't have any access to the transcripts of the depositions that they wouldn't have otherwise, and Baird agreed with this, too.

Rachel E. Fugate, an attorney with Thomas & LoCicero, which was representing News Channel 8 and The Tampa Tribune, noted the Bolleas have generated much publicity on their own, outside the judicial arena, about their various plights. They cannot now turn around and ask for a measure designed to curtail publicity, she said.

Fugate noted that in the time since the defendants in the Graziano lawsuit filed their request touching on the depositions, Hogan has appeared on the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show 10 times and has discussed the Graziano lawsuit, along with his contentious pending divorce from his estranged wife Linda Bollea.

"To go out and generate this publicity and then to use that to restrict access to information'' doesn't pass legal muster if they are trying to argue releasing the depositions would impinge on their right to a fair trial, she said.

At a separate hearing Wednesday afternoon, Tragos asked that he be given access to the audiotaped conversations Nick Bollea had with family members when he was serving an eight-month sentence related to the wreck. Whether the media has a right to those tapes is the subject of a different lawsuit, which is ongoing.

Judge Baird told Tragos the scope of his request was too broad, and the judge himself said he didn't relish the prospect of going through 30 to 40 hours of tapes to decide what's relevant to the civil suit and what isn't.

The judge said a hearing should be set to argue the matter.