February 23, 2022 • 41 mins
Do we really need lawyers involved in the divorce process?
Former collegiate football coach Zach Smith is here to talk about his unnecessary, expensive, and continuing domestic litigation saga.
Zach's legal fiasco may have been exacerbated with the 5 lawyers representing his ex during this 4-year continuing process. But this hasn’t deterred Zach from finding personal success in coaching his 3 kids and with his national podcast, Menace2Sports.
Bret Adams Juris Doctorate and a recovering lawyer, a former 25-year member of the Ohio State Bar Association Professional Ethics and Conduct Committee, founder of Real Judges Don’t Wear Robes, and outspoken critic of a flawed legal system is using his 35 years of real-life legal experience to call out the incompetency and wrongdoing of lawyers, prosecutors, and Judges.
If you are sick of someone’s shit, let us know here.
Copyright 2025 Bret Adams
I need to give a shout out to my client and friend Murphy from American Idol who provides our theme music.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Sat down.
No. So just like you to
Bret Adams: Welcome to lawyers are assholes. (00:15):
undefined
I'm your host, Brad Adams, a lawyer, I should say,
recovering lawyer who found a platform to address a broken
legal system. This is where we call out incompetent and
unscrupulous lawyers, prosecutors and judges.
Anyone that touches the legal system.
We're coming after you if you're an asshole.
Our guest today is Zach Smith.
If you want to talk about somebody abused by the domestic
(00:36):
court system, Zach as your poster child.
Zach is famous for being infamous.
If you're in the sports world, you know Zach for being the
scapegoat for Ohio State University football coach Urban
Meyer. Coach Meyer was accused of protecting Zach as a
spousal abuser, while Zach coached at Ohio State.
You're going to hear Zach story today, the absolute
insanity of a domestic court system run amok.
(00:58):
You're going to hear about how Zach took his firing in the
loss of a $400000 annual salary and turned it into a
successful rebranding with his national podcast, Minnesota
Sports. Welcome.
Welcome, Zach Smith.
Lawyers are assholes.
Really appreciate you coming down in this weather to come
down to this studio downtown.
Really appreciate it.
Especially as I found out today, it's your birthday.
Zach Smith: It is. You see. (01:20):
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Happy birthday. Thank you.
But the problem is, you asked me it was 58 degrees outside.
I was standing on my back patio.
I'm like, Yeah, I'll take a trip down to Columbus and wake
up this morning. It's 26 and snow.
I was like, Damn, why did I do that?
Bret Adams: The wind's out there now. (01:34):
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And Oh yeah, it was brutal, but I really appreciate it.
I appreciated watching your your three kids today singing
Happy Birthday. I thought that was pretty awesome.
It was cool.
Zach Smith: Was their idea. You know, do the morning this morning show (01:43):
undefined
every morning and you know, it's my birthday, but I'm not
going to take the day off. So and they had the day off of
school and they were like, Can we sit in there?
Bret Adams: Well, they did it. Yeah, sure. (01:51):
undefined
They did a great job. They did a great job.
They must be watching you and watching your podcast.
See what's going on. But anyway, I wanted to talk about
your experience with, you know, our podcast about the flaws
in the legal system. And, you know, obviously you had a
rough go of it, but give the listeners a little bit of
background on on, you know, of course, any sports fan in
(02:13):
the country knows who you are, but give everyone a
background on where you came from and how you got here and
what happened cause that domestic situation to to bubble
up.
Zach Smith: Yeah, for sure. Well, I I was born and raised in Columbus, (02:22):
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played football, obviously, and then walked on at Bowling
Green when Urban Meyer was the head football coach.
My grandfather was Earl Bruce, who was the head coach at
Ohio State and was Urban's mentor, and I told him my senior
year in high school like I want to.
I want to become a college football coach.
I want to be like you.
That's that's the path I want to take.
(02:43):
And so he said, All right.
Well, there's only one person that I think you need to go
kind of study under play for its Urban Meyer.
I wasn't a great player. I was probably good enough to play
at Bowling Green. That was by the ceiling, for sure.
I assumed he would. He would think I should go to Ohio
State. Jim Tressel had just been hired, but but he was
like, No, you need to go. You need to go play for urban.
That's the guy you need to go play for.
So I did. And then Urban ended up hiring me at Florida as
(03:05):
an as an intern initially, and I was there for five years,
went to Marshall under Doc Holliday, who worked for Urban,
then went to Temple with Steve and Isaiah, then came to
Ohio State along that journey.
I met a girl from Worthington, Ohio, got married at, I
don't know what, 24 I think I was and maybe 20.
(03:25):
Yeah, 24. And so she moved to Gainesville with me.
We went to Temple.
We went to Huntington, West Virginia, Philadelphia and then
Columbus. And it was it was just, you know, without going
into too many details, it was just a.
But by the time we got to Ohio State, a lot of things
happened right. She had we had had two kids.
Both times she got pregnant.
I left because I got a job at Marshall when she was eight
(03:48):
months pregnant. So I flew to Marshall, started work and
she had to move us from Gainesville to Huntington by
herself eight months pregnant.
And then it happened again at Temple.
She got pregnant with my daughter and I flew to Columbus,
took the job at Ohio State, and she had to pack up in
Philly and move us there.
And then, you know, a lot of things happen.
You come to Ohio State, you're a coach.
There's a lot more celebrity, a lot more attention than
when you're, you know, a jar or working at Marshall.
(04:10):
And on top of that, she had post traumatic post traumatic.
I guess what is it? Postpartum depression?
I have post-traumatic stress and she had postpartum
depression. A lot of things went on, and it just became a
very, very toxic relationship.
And I say that because now if you google me, it is all
about domestic violence, domestic abuser, which none of it
(04:31):
is true. And if anyone does any research into anyone in our
lives, they would know that there's no one that comes out
and says that I ever hit her, ever.
Bret Adams: We're going to talk about that a little bit in a detail (04:43):
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because it's just affected not only the way that you're
perceived, but how some lawyers or judges and looked at you
and your domestic case. But I go back for a second.
I mean, I being in the coach industry and representing a
lot of coaches, I mean, it's it's a tough profession to
have a healthy relationship anyway.
Zach Smith: Oh yeah, I mean, it's really hard. (05:03):
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And it's stuff that I talk about on my show is just the
reality of college football. I mean, the affairs are run
rampant and I had. I had a couple affairs, so I'm not.
I think that's the biggest thing I try to portray like,
listen, I'm not perfect, I'm not, and I'm not saying I was
a great husband or really phenomenal person.
I just didn't do the things that people said.
But yeah, it's a tough industry.
Just because you work so much, I mean, in season, you're
(05:24):
working one hundred and forty hours, right?
There's not even time to see your kids.
See, I spent any time with your wife.
It's just it's a lot.
And on top of that, when you do go home, you're expected to
be on the phone recruiting, calling recruits.
So there's it's a really it's a tough life and I've seen
some really great marriages.
I have some really great husbands and great strong
relationships, but it's very rare.
Bret Adams: Right, right. And the reality is affairs are about (05:42):
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opportunity, right?
Right. And and a coach at Ohio State, you may not have this
same thing at it, Marshall, but it'll have St., an
assistant, coaches a celebrity.
You're getting you're getting invited to golf tournaments,
you're getting the free meals, you're getting the drinks at
the bar. So you're I mean, you're you're somebody here, big
(06:04):
time and the pressure on that and you've been I've heard
you on the podcast, your podcast, Minutes of Sports talking
about how you know what happened.
You were brutally honest on you're in a bad marriage and
you stepped out, and that led to what happened with the
divorce. Yeah, I
Zach Smith: Did. And it created a lot of a lot of vengeful feelings, (06:19):
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right? Like, especially initially, it was like, All right,
we're splitting up. She can't be with me because I was, you
know, I was being unfaithful.
I really didn't want to be with her and we should have got
divorced long before. I just I just knew how that went
right. Coaches that I'd been around that are divorced with
children. You never see your kids because the reality of
(06:41):
coaching is right. You don't stay in one spot for very
long. You don't.
And I stayed at Ohio State for five or six seasons, and
that's like, that's an eternity in college football.
So, you know, you have to.
And I turned down a job from Nick Saban at Alabama the year
before I got fired because of my kids, because I knew if I
moved to Alabama, I would see them maybe two weeks a year
and I just couldn't do that. It wasn't important enough to
(07:02):
me. My kids were more important.
And so that's that's why we that's why we didn't file for
divorce before that. She eventually, you know, was to the
point where where she wasn't going to be with an unfaithful
person. So we got divorced.
Bret Adams: And so she initially filed. (07:15):
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She did the initial, oh yes, she filed for divorce.
So when did it become public?
When did how did that get out there that the whole world
was looking at this and the internet trolls and trash?
Zach Smith: And well, so so she tried. (07:26):
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It was probably about a year after I got divorced where she
couldn't stand. It couldn't stand that I was, you know,
still coaching at Ohio State.
She felt like I was such a bad guy.
I'd get fired and that, you know, I would, you know, be
homeless. I don't know what she thought and because that
didn't happen, because my career started, you know, kind of
taking off. But about a year later, she got really
(07:46):
vengeful, like, really, really jealous of the fact that I
was making all this money, you know, living a great life
single like you
Bret Adams: Showed it public. You making 400 bills? (07:53):
undefined
Yeah, I mean, assistant football, right?
Zach Smith: And what I understood was she's making seventy five a year (07:57):
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off of it, like I'm paying her seventy five thousand
dollars a year. That's a salary. Like, I don't know why
she's upset and jealous that that that's happening.
But she was. And so she she several times told me, like,
I'm going to ruin you, I'm going to ruin Urban Meyer
because she had this like a lot of hate and a lot of spite
for the fact that he didn't fire me because she felt like,
(08:19):
you know, cheating on her was, you know, I don't know,
deserve the death penalty.
I mean, and so it it created that that environment and she
tried. I mean, she tried like crazy.
She had she had a guy.
Bret Adams: Did she take it to the press originally? (08:31):
undefined
Is she the one that she
Zach Smith: Tried for a long time and no one would really bite on it (08:34):
undefined
because I think they'd heard kind of two sides of the
story. They heard rumors about her.
And so one instance I know a guy she was dating reached out
to 11 warriors and all these different reporters.
And eventually one girl who I was.
I was in a romantic relationship at the time, who was in
the media, and she he he brought her all like, Look, Zack
(08:57):
did all this stuff, and the girl called me and was like, Do
you know that your ex-wife has this little boyfriend like
trying to blast you to all this media entities?
And I was like, No, but I don't really care because I know,
I know it's real and I'm actually like, I have good
relationships with the media. Like, I'm talking local media
like Columbus Media. I was like, They're not going to
publish something that isn't true.
Well, kind of.
Fast forward a while. Tom Herman gets involved, and he's
(09:20):
more involved than than people even realize.
I mean, he's feeding her tens of thousands of dollars to
pay for her legal fees, to try to bring me down in court
and get the kids for me. And.
And then he hand-delivered, was
Bret Adams: His motivation for that. (09:29):
undefined
Zach Smith: So it's really it's twofold, right? (09:31):
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One is his his wife couldn't stand me and she couldn't
stand me because when I was having affairs, Tom was having
affairs, right? And Tom kind of showed me the ropes.
Bret Adams: So his wife was probably protecting your ex-wife. (09:42):
undefined
I mean, she was good.
Zach Smith: She was friends with my ex-wife, but it was a lot of (09:46):
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projection, right? She knew her husband was a complete
scumbag and was sleeping with boosters, wives and doing all
this stuff. And she was like projecting his fate on me
because she didn't want to lose the millions of dollars of
being the head coach's wife at Houston or Texas, right?
So it was like this projection onto me like, Well, if I can
ruin him, aren't she? And she believed the story that I
beat up Courtney, right?
(10:06):
And that hit a hit Tom close to home because his dad was.
Alcoholic and an abusive guy, and so he turned on me real
quick, never even talked to me, never asked me if it was
true, just flipped on me and you know, I was fine with not
being friends with him. But then when I found out he was
funneling money and hand-delivered Brett McMurphy to
Courtney, it was.
That was kind of it for me.
(10:28):
That's when that's when he I realized that this was growing
steam because of Tom Herman funneling money and getting and
Brett McMurphy had just been fired from ESPN.
He was kind of going into irrelevancy.
And so he went over
Bret Adams: His you were his career saving story just (10:40):
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Zach Smith: To cut the head off of Urban Meyer's career, right? (10:45):
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I was just the sacrificial lamb.
He didn't care about me.
He felt like there was a huge story that he could.
He could be the guy that brings down Urban and his career
would come back to relevancy.
And I was just kind of the, you know, the the guy that got
a drive by shooting and I was the innocent bystander, not
innocent. But you know what I mean?
I wasn't the target and I got taken out.
Bret Adams: But at the time, Coach Meyer defended you to some extent. (11:05):
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Zach Smith: Yeah, right. When it first, when she first made allegations (11:10):
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Bret Adams: Because he knew her, I mean, he knew he was taking her (11:12):
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Zach Smith: Side. And he knew everyone in the whole athletic department, (11:15):
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knew the situation, knew me, knew her.
And when she first came out with domestic violence
accusations, like she went to the police and tried to get
charges filed and they started investigating it.
So obviously the minute that happens, they call the
university and alert them.
I had meetings with IRB and meeting with Ohio State's
attorney. Meeting with meetings with Gene Smith and very
(11:37):
transparent through it all.
And it was always the same thing.
Like, Listen, if they come back and say you did this or or
charge you right, either way, you're fired.
And I was like. And I told both of them I was like, Which
Bret Adams: Is still unfair. (11:46):
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Zach Smith: Yeah. Until until there's a court case, right? (11:47):
undefined
That, yeah, you're guilty before proven innocent, I guess,
is what it is. But which I understood right then becomes a
PR nightmare. Well, guess what happens?
They investigate it. There's no evidence.
They never. They can't say nothing that it didn't happen
because it could have. They just don't have evidence,
right? But they came out and said there's no evidence that
this ever occurred, so they didn't charge me.
(12:08):
And so Ohio State said, All right, well, he didn't get
charged. We don't think it happened.
We don't know if it happened.
We can't fire the guy just because this one woman said this
happened and there's no proof and no one agrees.
Right? And so they didn't.
I mean, they we got through it and then we're talking a
year and a half later, this happens.
And I could really I mean, it depends on how much time you
want to spend. I can tell you exactly how and why it
(12:29):
happened when she got engaged and her her new soon to be
husband was really jealous of the fact that I was a coach
at Ohio State and had a real problem with me coming around.
And that's when it really took off to new to new heights,
right?
Bret Adams: Let's drill down to Zach the legal nightmare that you went (12:42):
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through and your ex has had five attorneys at this point.
And when I was practicing, if you were the second attorney
and your client came in, you were a little leery.
What happened with five lawyers?
Tell us about that. I mean, what?
Zach Smith: I mean, it's been one thing after another. (13:01):
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So, so here's what happened. I got fired, right?
She was obviously getting a nice check from Ohio State
because from, yeah, directly from Ohio State and child
support and spousal support. So I got fired.
That check goes away like I don't have income coming in
anymore. And she went on the media tour to get me fired.
Let's not forget. But when that happened, it was just she
didn't know what to do, and she started trying to find ways
(13:23):
to get me to pay money.
And the biggest thing was child support needs changed by
the court, right? Just because I get fired doesn't mean it
goes away. So the minute I got fired, my attorney, Dennis,
his name name's Dennis Horvath. He's outstanding.
He went and filed a motion to change support, right?
Bret Adams: And Dennis has been your same lawyer from day one. (13:38):
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Zach Smith: From day one actually tried to get divorced without an (13:40):
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attorney. That was my my plan initially with her.
Yeah, we're
Bret Adams: Going to talk about it and we shouldn't have lawyers (13:45):
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involved in the domestic process, initially, ever.
But but go ahead. I'm sorry.
No, no, you're good.
Zach Smith: So essentially, she stopped getting that Dennis file to (13:52):
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change support. We have a court date in six months.
We're going to go and, you know, per per my attorney, per
the guardian ad litem, which we had.
You know, the moral story was, you don't have that income
anymore. You can't pay her that money.
They're going to completely change child support.
Spousal and spousal support was going to be done anyways
that December. And so it was going to go down to I don't
(14:14):
even know what, maybe zero, maybe a normal amount, like a
small amount because I don't have an income at this point.
Well, what happens is she doesn't want that right.
She wants me to owe her money.
She wants that narrative and she's done it right now.
She she sends these these documents that the Delaware
County Family Services send her on how much I owe her.
She sends it out to these internet trolls so they can blast
it all over Twitter and all over message boards like Zach
(14:36):
Smith owes child support.
It's like, No, I don't. We just haven't went back to court
yet. And and she would always find a reason to postpone
that, and one of them three or four times has been firing.
She fires her attorney, gets a new one, and it's like,
Well, I'm new, I have new counsel.
We need more time to learn about this case.
And so they postpone it six months.
That's that was in July or August.
(14:57):
August 1st of twenty eighteen was when we first filed the
motion. And it is, what, February 18th?
Twenty twenty two. We still have not stood in a courtroom,
so
Bret Adams: That motion for the child supports means it (15:05):
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Zach Smith: Just can't be for four years. (15:07):
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It just keeps racking up.
I or like 180 grand in the paper, says, right?
It's like, no, I don't like I.
I haven't had that income, right?
That's not true, but it's a narrative.
Wow.
Bret Adams: Well, how did the five lawyers treat you in this whole (15:19):
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process?
Zach Smith: So I've only interacted with the first two since then. (15:23):
undefined
Like I said, we haven't even been in a courtroom to be, and
there's been no mediations or anything like that.
So, you know, some have been decent.
What I think is the most mind blowing thing about this
domestic law stuff, right, is most of the charges you incur
and most of the decisions and things that happen, they get
(15:45):
made between the two lawyers, like through emails.
Well, several of her attorneys just don't respond.
They just ghost emails.
I mean, on legitimate things like she has over 30 contempt
of court. She's going to have to face when we do go to
court and every single one, it's like my attorney reaches
out and says, Hey, Courtney didn't bring the kids on your
on their son's birthday, which in the plan it says Zach
(16:06):
gets to take them to dinner on their birthday.
And it's just like, no response, right?
They say, Wait a minute, like, this is a court document,
right? Don't you have to follow that?
And then they don't respond. It's just the integrity of
attorneys. I mean, shouldn't they respond like, well, she
won't get back to me or like, but it's wild.
Bret Adams: Well, ethically, ethically, they're supposed to. (16:22):
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But we have such a poor disciplinary system in right in
Ohio to get these attorneys to respond.
It's it's just ridiculous.
But my question to you and I ask a lot of people in this
situation is do you think that you could have a resolution?
You could have had a resolution four years ago if lawyers
(16:44):
were not involved?
Zach Smith: Yeah, I mean, I don't know what they do. (16:46):
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Honestly, I don't.
I'm fully capable to go into in a courtroom in front of a
judge and explain anything he needs explained.
Show him any documents he needs.
And I'm sure my ex-wife could do the same.
And ultimately, that judge is going to make a decision
anyways, right?
So the attorneys, I don't I don't know the reason.
I don't know the point of it. I mean, I guess you do get
(17:08):
some good, some decent advice on some things that you
should do or documents to put together.
But I don't know common sense.
It's most of it's common sense.
Bret Adams: Well, it is. And lawyers are not necessarily, I mean, ever (17:15):
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truly trained in family counseling.
Right? So unfortunately, Zach, some some of the domestic
flowed over into criminal court.
Zach Smith: I mean, yeah, I mean, what happened to me and what I didn't (17:29):
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know was, you know, after my my criminal stuff happened, I
googled about it and read about it.
And apparently it's like a blueprint for ex-wives.
It literally is what she did and the way she did it.
It is on the internet like, here's what you do if you want
custody of your kids. And she executed it flawlessly.
I didn't know about it or I would have, you know, defended
myself, I guess.
(17:50):
But what happened was, is she got a protection order,
right? A cpo, a temporary protection order against me after
I got fired based on absolute, you know, based on nothing.
I mean, there was no threats. There was no reason.
And she got it and it was temporary.
So they said, All right. Well, when he when he comes into
court, he can fight it right
Bret Adams: On those temporary CPOs. (18:07):
undefined
And I want the listeners to understand the process.
You didn't defend yourself.
She she just she went to a judge and said he did this.
He's stalking me.
He's whatever he's doing. He's sending me bad text
messages. He's calling me a bitch.
And she did that on her own.
Zach Smith: She went there and told them her, like in her mind or (18:23):
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whatever. In her reality, what I was
Bret Adams: Doing, which is incredible, that we have that in our system. (18:27):
undefined
I mean, male or female, because you you could actually go
make the same argument against against her, but without any
cross-examination or any evaluation or any ability for for
that judge, any evidence or that judge to judge
credibility. Because a lot of this is credibility.
I mean, you know, you could be nuts, she could be nuts and
(18:49):
you, but you want a judge to be able to determine who's
telling the truth, all right, to the best of their ability.
So you didn't have that.
So. So now you've got a cpo against you.
Zach Smith: So, so a it's temporary, right? (18:58):
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So I go to hire Brad Cupful.
He's a defense attorney.
He charges a flat fee, right?
$5000 upfront, and he'll he'll represent you for the case,
right? But what I didn't realize was then if that trace, if
that case goes to trial, you have to pay another $5000 to
go to trial, right?
Well, we get to the to the door of trial and he's like,
(19:19):
Listen, this is I mean, this is going to be a slam dunk.
There's literally not one shred of of evidence that you've
done anything like this is going to get thrown out if you
want to go to trial. But they're also offering like,
basically, I could write a permanent protection order like
I could tell him, No, take this. I'm not signing it if this
is in there or, you know, so what I did was I made kind of
a in my mind.
(19:40):
It was a mutual protection order where it protected me as
much as it protected her because I didn't want to deal with
any more legal BS.
Right? Huge mistake.
Huge mistake. Because I signed it, I agreed to it just to
say $5000 because as I told him, I don't care.
I don't ever want to talk to her again.
I'm not worried about, I'm going to like, go talk to her or
text or call her. That'll never happen with or without this
(20:02):
piece of paper.
Bret Adams: So that was resolved at that (20:03):
undefined
Zach Smith: Point that was resolved. (20:04):
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And then what happened? And this is where the intermingling
of the domestic and criminal.
Aside, and the absurdity of the criminal side of law blew
my mind, right?
So we get into it, it's all about custody and weaponizing
the children against me. That's been the last, whatever,
six years of my life.
And so we get to a point where she's decided that I'm an
(20:27):
alcoholic based on nothing, but she just decided that.
And so she goes to her attorney and trying to prove that
I'm alcoholic. They're getting like Kroger plus receipts.
Or, I mean, all kinds of stuff, like what is he buying at
the grocery store? And and she she subpoenaed Kinzel
Country Club, which is, by the way, I live maybe 200 yards
from Kinsale Country Club and on and Kinsale Country Club
(20:49):
had the audacity to send her every receipt of any time I
was in the bar and grill or
Bret Adams: Restaurant on their own or under a subpoena. (20:54):
undefined
Well, under
Zach Smith: Subpoena, OK? But I mean, they could have sent statements. (20:56):
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They didn't have to send receipts.
Yeah, or maybe they did. It doesn't matter.
But on those receipts, right, there's dinner where where I
have a, you know, a sandwich, the kids have a kid's mac and
cheese and I have two beers, right?
Well, immediately it's this huge thing
Bret Adams: And I must be an alcoholic. (21:12):
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That must be it must be because I'll have two beers and
there's a lot of alcohol. Ok, then we're in trouble.
Zach Smith: So, so she gets has this emergency hearing and, you know, (21:19):
undefined
because I'm an alcoholic, that's what it is about.
And so I'm meeting with my attorney in the Guardian and I'm
like, This is ridiculous. Like, I rarely drink when I have
the kids and when I don't have them, I'll drink and I'm I'm
a grown man. I'm allowed to do that and I'm allowed to have
two beers with my kids.
I'm also allowed to do that.
And and so they they they presented me with this thing
called sober link. Like, if you sign up for this, this
(21:41):
device and blow into it.
And my attorney was like, If you do that for the next six
months and you never have a dropout alcohol, it's going to
look so bad on her for making these accusations.
And then six months later, you have like twelve hundred
tests and they're all zeros.
It's going to blow it out of the water.
And I was like, Perfect, sign me up.
I don't need to drink. I don't even like to drink that
much. And so I signed up for it.
Well, she took that as until that device arrives, I can't
(22:03):
have the kids. No judge ever said that that was never the
case. And so for two weeks, she just didn't let me have the
kids at all.
So now I'm looking at all right.
I have to go back to court to get time with my kids when
she's the one that's screwing up right now, right?
She's the one that's violating this, this order, according
to the Guardian, according to the judge, according to my
attorney, everyone. So my attorney, we have joint custody
(22:26):
at the time. My attorney says this.
This is stupid.
You're going to spend X amount of dollars going back to
court. You have joint custody.
Just go pick them up after school on your days, right on
Wednesday. Go pick them up at school.
You have every legal right to pick them up for school for a
doctor's appointment early.
Anything because your joint custody, right, shared custody.
So I call the school.
It's like 2:30.
(22:47):
I call them and say, Hey, I'm just heads up.
I'm going to pick up Cam and Quinn today instead of them
riding the bus. Just want to let you know.
Ok, great. I go up to the school walking to school.
They're like, OK, just hang out over there.
They'll be out soon. All of a sudden, the principal walks
out, she says, I'm not going to.
I'm not allowed to give you your kids.
And I was like, Oh, you're absolutely required to give me
(23:09):
my kids. And she said, Well, we have your parenting plan
and your parenting time doesn't start until 6:00.
And I was like, No, no, no, no. Read the top paragraph
there. It's called joint custody.
If a parent, a guardian comes and pickups their kids from
school, you have to release those children to me.
So she here and I get in this.
It's very civilized
Bret Adams: And this is three o'clock in the afternoon. (23:26):
undefined
So you're arguing, you're arguing over a three hour window,
right?
Zach Smith: Well, here's what I didn't know. (23:30):
undefined
After I called the school, they called my ex-wife, which?
Why would they do that?
Bret Adams: And she called the cops. (23:36):
undefined
Zach Smith: No, no, no. She drove to the school. (23:38):
undefined
The school put her in the assistant principal's office.
I don't know this at the time.
I don't know. She's there. Why would she, the kids ride the
bus to her house? Why would she be there?
So I go in the principal's office to discuss this further
with her. And finally, you know, I've already talked to my
domestic attorney like, I know I have a right to pick these
kids up, so I ask her to call the police.
I said, You know what? Just call the police.
(23:58):
We'll see who leaves this school with those kids.
She calls the police, they're coming up.
At that point, she tells me she was like, I don't know why
you had to make this a scene. I mean, I get Courtney up
here and you're you're up here and just.
And I was looked at, I said, What do you mean, Courtney?
And she said, Well, I called Courtney after you called.
I was like, Why would you call her like, this has nothing
to do with her. So the cop comes in.
(24:20):
He asks me one question, and this is why I got found
guilty. He said, Do you know that Courtney is here right
now? I said, Yeah, she just told me.
And he was like, Stand up, put your hands behind your back.
Like what? My attorney tells me later, Brad tells me later
that because I should have left the minute I knew she was
there, right the minute I was alerted.
Mind you, the cops are on their way.
(24:42):
Like, I don't think this is any reason why I should leave.
The cops are going to be here like she's not in danger,
right? So that happens, and I could really go down the
rabbit hole of the criminal case and how we had.
We had a case. We quote unquote won it seven to one eight
jurors. Seven of them voted not guilty.
The other one, it was a hung jury, right?
(25:02):
Normally that doesn't get retried.
Bret Adams: Yeah, but unless you've got a prosecutor, that's out to well (25:04):
undefined
and plus plus and this is another unfortunate issue, and
this is that people think that celebrities often get the
benefit of that. There are a lot of times it's exactly the
opposite. Let me tell you know who you were.
This was a high profile case.
These everybody knew you.
And and this could have been an absolute feather in cap for
(25:27):
a prosecutor. Couldn't get a real job.
Zach Smith: Well, that's what it was. And that's what happened. (25:29):
undefined
That's what happened now. They they they've never.
The county prosecutor came down to Delaware and prosecuted
the case. And then Brad, as Brad said he's never heard of
that happening. Usually it's the assistant prosecutor,
Bret Adams: You know, he wanted to be. (25:41):
undefined
He want to be on TV. And guess what?
That case was on TV? I guess what
Zach Smith: Happened after I lost? (25:45):
undefined
He became the county prosecutor or in the upper Arlington
prosecutor. Right, right.
And Brad's backyard. But that's neither here nor there.
Bret Adams: That's that's unbelievable. (25:53):
undefined
Zach Smith: Well, and so here's here's where I really got screwed up, (25:55):
undefined
right? So the whole thing was I had to it had to be proven
that I was being reckless, like I recklessly went there and
violated this protection order.
That's what had they had to prove.
This judge, Maryann hekmatyar's her name.
She would not allow.
I mean, she, my attorney, Brad, tried to bring one little
thing up and she went off.
(26:15):
She said, I don't want anything about their domestic case
in my courtroom. It's too messy.
None of it comes in this door and I'm looking around like,
Bret Adams: Well, what wouldn't that be? (26:22):
undefined
The whole thing? The key?
The whole case, right?
Zach Smith: The whole my whole case is the domestic case, right? (26:26):
undefined
So basically, she looked at me and said, You're not allowed
to say anything about why you did what you did.
Ok, so none of the facts of the case were allowed in the
courtroom because this judge who, by the way, when she
sentenced me, which we could get into that she looked at
me. I got 180 days in jail for violating a protection order
(26:46):
only violation I've ever had in my entire life.
Bret Adams: You don't have a criminal record. (26:48):
undefined
I no, no criminal.
Zach Smith: Nothing. (26:51):
undefined
Bret Adams: That's that's unheard of unheard. (26:52):
undefined
No, no. That's unheard of unheard of.
Zach Smith: I spent 20 days in jail. (26:55):
undefined
Bret Adams: That's unbelievable. (26:56):
undefined
It's it's that sentence is on.
I'm telling you.
And do you know why?
Zach Smith: Do you know what she said? And I should get the recording. (27:02):
undefined
She looked at me in sentencing and she said, I guess
because of what you read on Google, because of what I tweet
on Twitter, she looked at me and she said, Here's the
problem with guys like you and President Trump.
You guys think you can say what you want and do what you
want and get away with it.
Wait, the judge said that the judge said that on the
record, on the record, in sentencing that guys like me and
(27:25):
Trump, I'm sitting here like, what does Donald Trump got to
do with this?
Bret Adams: He compared you to Donald Trump. (27:28):
undefined
Yes.
Zach Smith: Wholly threw me in jail, no time to get my affairs in order. (27:31):
undefined
I mean, that moment cuff out the back door of the court.
Wow, wow.
Bret Adams: There's got to be a disciplinary complaint there against (27:40):
undefined
that judge. I mean, that Judge can't compare you comparing
you to Donald Trump.
Zach Smith: I don't know what you can and can't do because I saw some (27:47):
undefined
stuff that was unbelievable.
Bret Adams: Yeah, well, that's incredible. (27:52):
undefined
So Zach, you mentioned this prosecutor.
Your attorney said that the guy doesn't try.
Casey came down and tried this case.
My guess is he he came down because it was you and he knew
that he was going to get his name in the paper.
He knew he was going to get some attention to it.
(28:15):
Tell me about, do you know what he was doing?
Zach Smith: I guess, you know, I'm not a I'm not an expert in that (28:18):
undefined
field, but I do know this.
He walked in and I was shocked.
He had like mud chop pork chop like sideburns.
His pants were four sizes too big, like and I'm sitting
here like, this is the lead prosecuting attorney for
Delaware County, a Harvard grad, and we can't go to a
tailor, spend 20 bucks and get our pants to fit.
Like what? It just the presentation was horrendous.
(28:40):
And then I took the stand in my first trial.
That's the biggest mistake I made. I didn't take the stand
on my second trial because Brad told me not to.
And that was a critical error because I was the I was our
only defense. You could we couldn't talk about our our
domestic situation.
So the only defense was me on stand letting the jurors see,
I'm not a bad guy basically, right.
I wouldn't do this.
So I took I took the stand the first time and and he got up
(29:02):
and it was like his Super Bowl and he got absolutely
destroyed. I I kicked his ass up and down that courtroom.
He sat, he he sat there and he was trying to get me riled
up like, I'm an idiot, like, I'm dumb and I'm going to get
riled up in a domestic case like, you know, like a criminal
case, but about violating a protection order.
So he would try to he would try to get me riled up and
(29:24):
admit to things that didn't happen.
And instead of getting mad at him for doing it, I would
just sit there and think, Whoa, I understand what you're
trying, the picture you're trying to paint, but I'm not
going to lie. I'm not going to lie.
I'm going to tell the truth. And he got so mad and I can't
remember what he said. He said something like he.
He called me a name when I was and I and I stopped.
I said, Whoa, whoa, I'm not going to sit up here and let
(29:45):
you call me names. And I got him even more rattled and it
was awesome.
Bret Adams: What was what was your jury makeup? (29:48):
undefined
What was this in Delaware, Delaware?
That's conservative.
Yeah, county.
Zach Smith: So it was it was pretty, pretty even male to female. (29:55):
undefined
I think it was four and four.
There was, you know, a couple of minorities on there.
And you know what, who got me.
So afterwards, you know, you pull the jury like after a
case, your attorneys go pull the jury to see what happened
in there and when they found out was there was pretty early
on. I mean, it took forever.
The deliberation, which I thought was crazy, it's pretty
(30:15):
simple case. Like, it wasn't a lot to it.
It they started deliberating it like four.
And I think we got the verdict at like nine thirty.
And so what happened
Bret Adams: Was they struggled with it. (30:25):
undefined
Zach Smith: They obviously struggle. One person did. (30:26):
undefined
Yeah, it was an old white lady.
The other seven, I guess, came to a pretty quick agreement
that this is BS.
And I, I didn't recklessly violate a cpo, and the one lady
just couldn't let it in.
The other jurors said. They just couldn't.
She couldn't let go like that.
He was this bad guy that beat his wife.
And I'm like, This is what's wrong with the system.
(30:46):
Like, that's none of that has to do with this case.
Like if I beat her up one hundred times,
Bret Adams: It was five years ago, wasn't relevant or (30:51):
undefined
Zach Smith: Was it relevant to the case? Like, how is she allowed to (30:52):
undefined
hold up this case because she thinks that now
Bret Adams: You and Brad, now you guys made that decision not to take (30:56):
undefined
the stand together the second time?
Zach Smith: Well, kind of. (31:00):
undefined
He he made that decision.
He made that decision beforehand, and I told him I didn't
want to do that. I want it. If I was going to go down, if I
was going to be found guilty, I wanted it to be at my own
sword, right? I wanted to fight for myself, at least.
And he said, OK, I agree.
He was like, You did such a good job the first time.
I agree. Well, in the middle of the court case, right when
(31:23):
they rest, he looked at me.
He said, Hey, I don't think you need to go up there.
We already won and I was like, what?
And in the middle of it, I'm just like, OK, well, whatever
you think, I guess. And then I didn't go up and we lost.
Bret Adams: So, Zack, if you turn back the clock, what would you do (31:32):
undefined
differently? What would you tell people about this process
that you would do differently if you had to do it all over
again?
Zach Smith: So two things I would do differently. (31:41):
undefined
One is what I do now and I have I have video cameras
everywhere. My car has a video camera on it.
My house does because I want to have evidence of what
happened at all times in my life, like I want to be on a
reality TV show.
So if I have to go to court for anything ever, I can bring
videos and say, Look, here's what happened, everyone watch.
That's one thing. The other thing I would do going all the
way back to before I got divorced, it was my original plan
(32:03):
what I presented to my ex-wife.
And she agreed with up until the final hour, when one of
her friends convinced her that I was trying to screw her
over is I wanted and what we did.
We hired one attorney, just one guy, to just mediate the
two of us, so we both hire him.
He represents both of us.
He doesn't represent one side or the other.
Bret Adams: He's a true mediator (32:20):
undefined
Zach Smith: And she's a true mediator. And you sit down and you hash out (32:21):
undefined
every single detail, come up with something you agree on
and just file it and move on.
Right. And that's what. We did and we heard and I sat down,
but without him and initially wrote, I wrote a plan went to
this attorney. This was her first attorney after this
failed and said, Here's what we want to do.
(32:42):
We want to file this. Here's all the all the stipulations
we want and we want to file for divorce.
And he said, OK. And then one of her friends got in her
head that I was screwing her over financially or whatever.
And so then she backed out of it.
We didn't file it. We both had to hire attorneys.
We went through divorce case and she got less in every
category. She got less money, she got less time, she got
less everything. And I'm sitting here like, how dumb could
you be like, this would have cost us a couple, maybe a
(33:05):
thousand two thousand bucks as opposed to the 20 some
thousand I've been in since the beginning.
Easily, maybe
Bret Adams: More. So unfortunately, I found that the winners in most of (33:10):
undefined
these cases, especially yours, are the lawyers.
Oh yes, the lawyers that are that are winning always.
So Zach, I want to talk to you for a second about social
media, how bad social media is because you and I run in the
same circles. I can't find anybody that will badmouth you.
I mean, anybody that knows you says not them a great things
(33:31):
about you. They love you and said, Man, this guy got
railroaded and none of this crap is true.
Every single thing is just been positive.
And what what I've enjoyed watching is the success of your
own podcast. And now you've got like 5000 people watching
you on a video and you've turned you've really turned this
thing around.
(33:51):
And I love how you treat some of these people in social
media because you tell them to go screw themselves.
Absolutely. So tell me how that's affected things.
And well, you
Zach Smith: Know, at first, you know, I learned it from Urban Meyer. (33:59):
undefined
He was like, he was a people that say, I don't care.
I don't care what people think about you.
Those those people are wrong.
Like, you should care about what your image is and what
your reputation is. And so I do.
I cared about that. But after a while, you get tired of
trying to defend the truth that is who you are.
And social media is the absolute worst.
But but what happens is these it's like witch hunts, right?
(34:21):
People form this opinion. They don't they don't spend the
time to find out if those opinions are valid or not, and
then they'll just never change them.
I mean, you look right now, this podcast that I built and I
originally started it just to talk just just as kind of a
hobby. I didn't know what I was going to do next, but I
wanted to talk about sports and so I didn't make any money.
The first year I was out of coaching, but my company made
(34:42):
two hundred and twenty five thousand and twenty twenty one
just on a podcast.
And I'm sitting here like, This should be.
Obviously, people like it like, I'm not.
Bret Adams: You've obviously merchandise that you've got to sell. (34:50):
undefined
You've got a hell of a hat on.
Yeah.
Zach Smith: You know, I found ways to monetize it, just different ways (34:53):
undefined
and give people different experiences with it, like
subscription services and all kinds of stuff.
And but but no one in media will touch it or even
acknowledge it. And and if I if I get,
Bret Adams: You know what, on the trajectory you're going now, they (35:06):
undefined
don't have to. You're going to end up making more money
than them. So why?
Why, why do you need it?
I mean, you know, and listen, I'm not going have a big law
firm chase me like they used to either write with this
podcast, right? So, you know.
But speaking your mind.
To me, this is very therapeutic.
I hear that on your podcast.
Well, now I'm seeing it on your podcast.
Zach Smith: Well, it's it's freedom, right? (35:27):
undefined
Freedom to be genuine, authentic.
And, you know, no holds bar like you could say whatever you
want because you're not answering to anyone.
You're just all you're doing is trying to promote the truth
and reality, right?
Bret Adams: And ignore the trolls the best you can. (35:38):
undefined
I try or get a menace army to go after the trolls, but
that's another philosophy to is is take them down with with
fringe figures because, you know, I mean, people that make
those comments. You know, sometimes I look at their site
and I'm going, Geez, well, why am I caring about this dude?
This guy, this guy is a loser.
Zach Smith: Well, no doubt. And it's this as far as this right, like my (35:58):
undefined
ex-wife has, has sent out the first page of our nuke
because we do have a new custody agreement, right, that
just went into a intact the first of this past year, the
1st January 1st, 2021.
She sent out the first page of it to all these trolls to
post on on Twitter because it says that she is the the sole
(36:18):
custodial parent because someone had to be named that we
couldn't do joint custody anymore.
Bret Adams: And so she's declaring victory, so she's (36:22):
undefined
Zach Smith: I allowed her because she didn't want to go to court. (36:24):
undefined
I wanted to go to court. So I basically told her what I
wanted to stay out of court and and I allowed her to be the
sole custodial parent because the Guardian told me because
I got convicted of violating a protection order, the judge
was probably going to do that anyways, give make her the
sole custodial parent.
But in order to do that, I wanted the kids over half the
(36:47):
time, so I doubled my parenting time with the kid, so I
have them more than her.
And she sends out this page to all these trolls and they
post it all over Twitter.
Like he lost custody of his kids.
He doesn't even see his kids, doesn't pay child support,
support deadbeat dad.
And the only way I respond is like, post the next page.
Well, post the next one.
Bret Adams: You think about them when you're making that bank deposit. (37:04):
undefined
Yeah, that's right. That's it.
To hell with that. To hell with them, no doubt.
Zack, I can't thank you enough for coming down here.
I really appreciate telling the story.
You know, hopefully people will listen to this and and
learn what we're trying to.
Trying to preach here is you don't need a lawyer for
everything that you're trying to accomplish.
And and it sounds like it'd been much simpler if that
(37:26):
mediator could have had some success and got this thing
resolved.
Zach Smith: Would been a lot easier, but I appreciate you having me (37:30):
undefined
down.
Bret Adams: Now, let's go to our Asshole of the Week segment. (37:33):
undefined
The first asshole of the week involves Bob Saget, right?
And everybody knows Bob Saget, the great comedian.
I mean, anything you read about this guy.
I mean, not a negative comment.
Just a great human being.
So this past week, his family had to sue to protect the
release of his autopsy photos.
(37:54):
You tell me what lawyer with an ounce of integrity would
represent a news outlet trying to get these photos?
I mean, is there really a public interest in some weirdoes
looking at autopsy photos?
Where's the sense of morality from these lawyers in
defending a company that would want to just totally invade
this man's dignity, the family's privacy to share gross
(38:16):
photos with the world?
You defense counsel in the Bob Saget litigation are
assholes. Our second asshole of the week is the city
prosecutor in Auburn, Alabama.
There's a guy named Winston Higgins who was arrested, and
his case is actually going to trial because this prosecutor
decided to pursue criminal trespassing charges when this
(38:37):
guy placed a planter box with flowers on his fiancee's
gravesite. The woman was killed in an accident last year.
Apparently, her father didn't approve of this relationship,
and he actually filed charges under an obscure statute
regarding littering.
Littering. Now, listen, the cops that took this criminal
report also fall in the dumb ass category as well because
(38:58):
they had a chance to dissuade the father from filing these
unnecessary criminal charges.
My detective friend told me that they would have spent two
hours talking to this guy out of doing something silly.
But no, the charges were filed have not been dismissed.
In fact, this case is still pending and scheduled for
trial. This makes this prosecutor in Auburn, Alabama, an
(39:19):
asshole. Now we're going to conclude today's show with
Brett's rant. So how do we keep Zach Smith from going
through what he's gone through the last four years of his
life? And it starts with a complete reform of our domestic
relations court, and I've said this since the day I
practiced, which was there's so much emotion in these cases
(39:40):
that you don't start with lawyers, you start with a
mediator, you start with a civil mediator and you keep as
much as you can.
The angst, the anger, the vitriol out of the process.
And unfortunately, there are so many lawyers that practice
in this field that exacerbate the situation by whether they
(40:02):
get into a personal issue with the opposing counsel.
But again, they're motivated by not resolution, but by
continuing to bill.
And if we have a process where a mediator says, here's what
I think is fair, here's what you're probably going to end
up with if you go to war on this thing.
I think you've got a much better chance.
(40:22):
I know we have a much better chance of resolution at this
early stage and not getting lawyers to inflame the entire
situation. So that's the rand of the day.
I'm your host, Bret Adams, and we will be back soon with
another episode of Lawyers are assholes.
Sat down.
No. So just like you to
Bret Adams: Welcome to lawyers are assholes. (00:15):
undefined
I'm your host, Brad Adams, a lawyer, I should say,
recovering lawyer who found a platform to address a broken
legal system. This is where we call out incompetent and
unscrupulous lawyers, prosecutors and judges.
Anyone that touches the legal system.
We're coming after you if you're an asshole.
Our guest today is Zach Smith.
If you want to talk about somebody abused by the domestic
(00:36):
court system, Zach as your poster child.
Zach is famous for being infamous.
If you're in the sports world, you know Zach for being the
scapegoat for Ohio State University football coach Urban
Meyer. Coach Meyer was accused of protecting Zach as a
spousal abuser, while Zach coached at Ohio State.
You're going to hear Zach story today, the absolute
insanity of a domestic court system run amok.
(00:58):
You're going to hear about how Zach took his firing in the
loss of a $400000 annual salary and turned it into a
successful rebranding with his national podcast, Minnesota
Sports. Welcome.
Welcome, Zach Smith.
Lawyers are assholes.
Really appreciate you coming down in this weather to come
down to this studio downtown.
Really appreciate it.
Especially as I found out today, it's your birthday.
Zach Smith: It is. You see. (01:20):
undefined
Happy birthday. Thank you.
But the problem is, you asked me it was 58 degrees outside.
I was standing on my back patio.
I'm like, Yeah, I'll take a trip down to Columbus and wake
up this morning. It's 26 and snow.
I was like, Damn, why did I do that?
Bret Adams: The wind's out there now. (01:34):
undefined
And Oh yeah, it was brutal, but I really appreciate it.
I appreciated watching your your three kids today singing
Happy Birthday. I thought that was pretty awesome.
It was cool.
Zach Smith: Was their idea. You know, do the morning this morning show (01:43):
undefined
every morning and you know, it's my birthday, but I'm not
going to take the day off. So and they had the day off of
school and they were like, Can we sit in there?
Bret Adams: Well, they did it. Yeah, sure. (01:51):
undefined
They did a great job. They did a great job.
They must be watching you and watching your podcast.
See what's going on. But anyway, I wanted to talk about
your experience with, you know, our podcast about the flaws
in the legal system. And, you know, obviously you had a
rough go of it, but give the listeners a little bit of
background on on, you know, of course, any sports fan in
(02:13):
the country knows who you are, but give everyone a
background on where you came from and how you got here and
what happened cause that domestic situation to to bubble
up.
Zach Smith: Yeah, for sure. Well, I I was born and raised in Columbus, (02:22):
undefined
played football, obviously, and then walked on at Bowling
Green when Urban Meyer was the head football coach.
My grandfather was Earl Bruce, who was the head coach at
Ohio State and was Urban's mentor, and I told him my senior
year in high school like I want to.
I want to become a college football coach.
I want to be like you.
That's that's the path I want to take.
(02:43):
And so he said, All right.
Well, there's only one person that I think you need to go
kind of study under play for its Urban Meyer.
I wasn't a great player. I was probably good enough to play
at Bowling Green. That was by the ceiling, for sure.
I assumed he would. He would think I should go to Ohio
State. Jim Tressel had just been hired, but but he was
like, No, you need to go. You need to go play for urban.
That's the guy you need to go play for.
So I did. And then Urban ended up hiring me at Florida as
(03:05):
an as an intern initially, and I was there for five years,
went to Marshall under Doc Holliday, who worked for Urban,
then went to Temple with Steve and Isaiah, then came to
Ohio State along that journey.
I met a girl from Worthington, Ohio, got married at, I
don't know what, 24 I think I was and maybe 20.
(03:25):
Yeah, 24. And so she moved to Gainesville with me.
We went to Temple.
We went to Huntington, West Virginia, Philadelphia and then
Columbus. And it was it was just, you know, without going
into too many details, it was just a.
But by the time we got to Ohio State, a lot of things
happened right. She had we had had two kids.
Both times she got pregnant.
I left because I got a job at Marshall when she was eight
(03:48):
months pregnant. So I flew to Marshall, started work and
she had to move us from Gainesville to Huntington by
herself eight months pregnant.
And then it happened again at Temple.
She got pregnant with my daughter and I flew to Columbus,
took the job at Ohio State, and she had to pack up in
Philly and move us there.
And then, you know, a lot of things happen.
You come to Ohio State, you're a coach.
There's a lot more celebrity, a lot more attention than
when you're, you know, a jar or working at Marshall.
(04:10):
And on top of that, she had post traumatic post traumatic.
I guess what is it? Postpartum depression?
I have post-traumatic stress and she had postpartum
depression. A lot of things went on, and it just became a
very, very toxic relationship.
And I say that because now if you google me, it is all
about domestic violence, domestic abuser, which none of it
(04:31):
is true. And if anyone does any research into anyone in our
lives, they would know that there's no one that comes out
and says that I ever hit her, ever.
Bret Adams: We're going to talk about that a little bit in a detail (04:43):
undefined
because it's just affected not only the way that you're
perceived, but how some lawyers or judges and looked at you
and your domestic case. But I go back for a second.
I mean, I being in the coach industry and representing a
lot of coaches, I mean, it's it's a tough profession to
have a healthy relationship anyway.
Zach Smith: Oh yeah, I mean, it's really hard. (05:03):
undefined
And it's stuff that I talk about on my show is just the
reality of college football. I mean, the affairs are run
rampant and I had. I had a couple affairs, so I'm not.
I think that's the biggest thing I try to portray like,
listen, I'm not perfect, I'm not, and I'm not saying I was
a great husband or really phenomenal person.
I just didn't do the things that people said.
But yeah, it's a tough industry.
Just because you work so much, I mean, in season, you're
(05:24):
working one hundred and forty hours, right?
There's not even time to see your kids.
See, I spent any time with your wife.
It's just it's a lot.
And on top of that, when you do go home, you're expected to
be on the phone recruiting, calling recruits.
So there's it's a really it's a tough life and I've seen
some really great marriages.
I have some really great husbands and great strong
relationships, but it's very rare.
Bret Adams: Right, right. And the reality is affairs are about (05:42):
undefined
opportunity, right?
Right. And and a coach at Ohio State, you may not have this
same thing at it, Marshall, but it'll have St., an
assistant, coaches a celebrity.
You're getting you're getting invited to golf tournaments,
you're getting the free meals, you're getting the drinks at
the bar. So you're I mean, you're you're somebody here, big
(06:04):
time and the pressure on that and you've been I've heard
you on the podcast, your podcast, Minutes of Sports talking
about how you know what happened.
You were brutally honest on you're in a bad marriage and
you stepped out, and that led to what happened with the
divorce. Yeah, I
Zach Smith: Did. And it created a lot of a lot of vengeful feelings, (06:19):
undefined
right? Like, especially initially, it was like, All right,
we're splitting up. She can't be with me because I was, you
know, I was being unfaithful.
I really didn't want to be with her and we should have got
divorced long before. I just I just knew how that went
right. Coaches that I'd been around that are divorced with
children. You never see your kids because the reality of
(06:41):
coaching is right. You don't stay in one spot for very
long. You don't.
And I stayed at Ohio State for five or six seasons, and
that's like, that's an eternity in college football.
So, you know, you have to.
And I turned down a job from Nick Saban at Alabama the year
before I got fired because of my kids, because I knew if I
moved to Alabama, I would see them maybe two weeks a year
and I just couldn't do that. It wasn't important enough to
(07:02):
me. My kids were more important.
And so that's that's why we that's why we didn't file for
divorce before that. She eventually, you know, was to the
point where where she wasn't going to be with an unfaithful
person. So we got divorced.
Bret Adams: And so she initially filed. (07:15):
undefined
She did the initial, oh yes, she filed for divorce.
So when did it become public?
When did how did that get out there that the whole world
was looking at this and the internet trolls and trash?
Zach Smith: And well, so so she tried. (07:26):
undefined
It was probably about a year after I got divorced where she
couldn't stand. It couldn't stand that I was, you know,
still coaching at Ohio State.
She felt like I was such a bad guy.
I'd get fired and that, you know, I would, you know, be
homeless. I don't know what she thought and because that
didn't happen, because my career started, you know, kind of
taking off. But about a year later, she got really
(07:46):
vengeful, like, really, really jealous of the fact that I
was making all this money, you know, living a great life
single like you
Bret Adams: Showed it public. You making 400 bills? (07:53):
undefined
Yeah, I mean, assistant football, right?
Zach Smith: And what I understood was she's making seventy five a year (07:57):
undefined
off of it, like I'm paying her seventy five thousand
dollars a year. That's a salary. Like, I don't know why
she's upset and jealous that that that's happening.
But she was. And so she she several times told me, like,
I'm going to ruin you, I'm going to ruin Urban Meyer
because she had this like a lot of hate and a lot of spite
for the fact that he didn't fire me because she felt like,
(08:19):
you know, cheating on her was, you know, I don't know,
deserve the death penalty.
I mean, and so it it created that that environment and she
tried. I mean, she tried like crazy.
She had she had a guy.
Bret Adams: Did she take it to the press originally? (08:31):
undefined
Is she the one that she
Zach Smith: Tried for a long time and no one would really bite on it (08:34):
undefined
because I think they'd heard kind of two sides of the
story. They heard rumors about her.
And so one instance I know a guy she was dating reached out
to 11 warriors and all these different reporters.
And eventually one girl who I was.
I was in a romantic relationship at the time, who was in
the media, and she he he brought her all like, Look, Zack
(08:57):
did all this stuff, and the girl called me and was like, Do
you know that your ex-wife has this little boyfriend like
trying to blast you to all this media entities?
And I was like, No, but I don't really care because I know,
I know it's real and I'm actually like, I have good
relationships with the media. Like, I'm talking local media
like Columbus Media. I was like, They're not going to
publish something that isn't true.
Well, kind of.
Fast forward a while. Tom Herman gets involved, and he's
(09:20):
more involved than than people even realize.
I mean, he's feeding her tens of thousands of dollars to
pay for her legal fees, to try to bring me down in court
and get the kids for me. And.
And then he hand-delivered, was
Bret Adams: His motivation for that. (09:29):
undefined
Zach Smith: So it's really it's twofold, right? (09:31):
undefined
One is his his wife couldn't stand me and she couldn't
stand me because when I was having affairs, Tom was having
affairs, right? And Tom kind of showed me the ropes.
Bret Adams: So his wife was probably protecting your ex-wife. (09:42):
undefined
I mean, she was good.
Zach Smith: She was friends with my ex-wife, but it was a lot of (09:46):
undefined
projection, right? She knew her husband was a complete
scumbag and was sleeping with boosters, wives and doing all
this stuff. And she was like projecting his fate on me
because she didn't want to lose the millions of dollars of
being the head coach's wife at Houston or Texas, right?
So it was like this projection onto me like, Well, if I can
ruin him, aren't she? And she believed the story that I
beat up Courtney, right?
(10:06):
And that hit a hit Tom close to home because his dad was.
Alcoholic and an abusive guy, and so he turned on me real
quick, never even talked to me, never asked me if it was
true, just flipped on me and you know, I was fine with not
being friends with him. But then when I found out he was
funneling money and hand-delivered Brett McMurphy to
Courtney, it was.
That was kind of it for me.
(10:28):
That's when that's when he I realized that this was growing
steam because of Tom Herman funneling money and getting and
Brett McMurphy had just been fired from ESPN.
He was kind of going into irrelevancy.
And so he went over
Bret Adams: His you were his career saving story just (10:40):
undefined
Zach Smith: To cut the head off of Urban Meyer's career, right? (10:45):
undefined
I was just the sacrificial lamb.
He didn't care about me.
He felt like there was a huge story that he could.
He could be the guy that brings down Urban and his career
would come back to relevancy.
And I was just kind of the, you know, the the guy that got
a drive by shooting and I was the innocent bystander, not
innocent. But you know what I mean?
I wasn't the target and I got taken out.
Bret Adams: But at the time, Coach Meyer defended you to some extent. (11:05):
undefined
Zach Smith: Yeah, right. When it first, when she first made allegations (11:10):
undefined
Bret Adams: Because he knew her, I mean, he knew he was taking her (11:12):
undefined
Zach Smith: Side. And he knew everyone in the whole athletic department, (11:15):
undefined
knew the situation, knew me, knew her.
And when she first came out with domestic violence
accusations, like she went to the police and tried to get
charges filed and they started investigating it.
So obviously the minute that happens, they call the
university and alert them.
I had meetings with IRB and meeting with Ohio State's
attorney. Meeting with meetings with Gene Smith and very
(11:37):
transparent through it all.
And it was always the same thing.
Like, Listen, if they come back and say you did this or or
charge you right, either way, you're fired.
And I was like. And I told both of them I was like, Which
Bret Adams: Is still unfair. (11:46):
undefined
Zach Smith: Yeah. Until until there's a court case, right? (11:47):
undefined
That, yeah, you're guilty before proven innocent, I guess,
is what it is. But which I understood right then becomes a
PR nightmare. Well, guess what happens?
They investigate it. There's no evidence.
They never. They can't say nothing that it didn't happen
because it could have. They just don't have evidence,
right? But they came out and said there's no evidence that
this ever occurred, so they didn't charge me.
(12:08):
And so Ohio State said, All right, well, he didn't get
charged. We don't think it happened.
We don't know if it happened.
We can't fire the guy just because this one woman said this
happened and there's no proof and no one agrees.
Right? And so they didn't.
I mean, they we got through it and then we're talking a
year and a half later, this happens.
And I could really I mean, it depends on how much time you
want to spend. I can tell you exactly how and why it
(12:29):
happened when she got engaged and her her new soon to be
husband was really jealous of the fact that I was a coach
at Ohio State and had a real problem with me coming around.
And that's when it really took off to new to new heights,
right?
Bret Adams: Let's drill down to Zach the legal nightmare that you went (12:42):
undefined
through and your ex has had five attorneys at this point.
And when I was practicing, if you were the second attorney
and your client came in, you were a little leery.
What happened with five lawyers?
Tell us about that. I mean, what?
Zach Smith: I mean, it's been one thing after another. (13:01):
undefined
So, so here's what happened. I got fired, right?
She was obviously getting a nice check from Ohio State
because from, yeah, directly from Ohio State and child
support and spousal support. So I got fired.
That check goes away like I don't have income coming in
anymore. And she went on the media tour to get me fired.
Let's not forget. But when that happened, it was just she
didn't know what to do, and she started trying to find ways
(13:23):
to get me to pay money.
And the biggest thing was child support needs changed by
the court, right? Just because I get fired doesn't mean it
goes away. So the minute I got fired, my attorney, Dennis,
his name name's Dennis Horvath. He's outstanding.
He went and filed a motion to change support, right?
Bret Adams: And Dennis has been your same lawyer from day one. (13:38):
undefined
Zach Smith: From day one actually tried to get divorced without an (13:40):
undefined
attorney. That was my my plan initially with her.
Yeah, we're
Bret Adams: Going to talk about it and we shouldn't have lawyers (13:45):
undefined
involved in the domestic process, initially, ever.
But but go ahead. I'm sorry.
No, no, you're good.
Zach Smith: So essentially, she stopped getting that Dennis file to (13:52):
undefined
change support. We have a court date in six months.
We're going to go and, you know, per per my attorney, per
the guardian ad litem, which we had.
You know, the moral story was, you don't have that income
anymore. You can't pay her that money.
They're going to completely change child support.
Spousal and spousal support was going to be done anyways
that December. And so it was going to go down to I don't
(14:14):
even know what, maybe zero, maybe a normal amount, like a
small amount because I don't have an income at this point.
Well, what happens is she doesn't want that right.
She wants me to owe her money.
She wants that narrative and she's done it right now.
She she sends these these documents that the Delaware
County Family Services send her on how much I owe her.
She sends it out to these internet trolls so they can blast
it all over Twitter and all over message boards like Zach
(14:36):
Smith owes child support.
It's like, No, I don't. We just haven't went back to court
yet. And and she would always find a reason to postpone
that, and one of them three or four times has been firing.
She fires her attorney, gets a new one, and it's like,
Well, I'm new, I have new counsel.
We need more time to learn about this case.
And so they postpone it six months.
That's that was in July or August.
(14:57):
August 1st of twenty eighteen was when we first filed the
motion. And it is, what, February 18th?
Twenty twenty two. We still have not stood in a courtroom,
so
Bret Adams: That motion for the child supports means it (15:05):
undefined
Zach Smith: Just can't be for four years. (15:07):
undefined
It just keeps racking up.
I or like 180 grand in the paper, says, right?
It's like, no, I don't like I.
I haven't had that income, right?
That's not true, but it's a narrative.
Wow.
Bret Adams: Well, how did the five lawyers treat you in this whole (15:19):
undefined
process?
Zach Smith: So I've only interacted with the first two since then. (15:23):
undefined
Like I said, we haven't even been in a courtroom to be, and
there's been no mediations or anything like that.
So, you know, some have been decent.
What I think is the most mind blowing thing about this
domestic law stuff, right, is most of the charges you incur
and most of the decisions and things that happen, they get
(15:45):
made between the two lawyers, like through emails.
Well, several of her attorneys just don't respond.
They just ghost emails.
I mean, on legitimate things like she has over 30 contempt
of court. She's going to have to face when we do go to
court and every single one, it's like my attorney reaches
out and says, Hey, Courtney didn't bring the kids on your
on their son's birthday, which in the plan it says Zach
(16:06):
gets to take them to dinner on their birthday.
And it's just like, no response, right?
They say, Wait a minute, like, this is a court document,
right? Don't you have to follow that?
And then they don't respond. It's just the integrity of
attorneys. I mean, shouldn't they respond like, well, she
won't get back to me or like, but it's wild.
Bret Adams: Well, ethically, ethically, they're supposed to. (16:22):
undefined
But we have such a poor disciplinary system in right in
Ohio to get these attorneys to respond.
It's it's just ridiculous.
But my question to you and I ask a lot of people in this
situation is do you think that you could have a resolution?
You could have had a resolution four years ago if lawyers
(16:44):
were not involved?
Zach Smith: Yeah, I mean, I don't know what they do. (16:46):
undefined
Honestly, I don't.
I'm fully capable to go into in a courtroom in front of a
judge and explain anything he needs explained.
Show him any documents he needs.
And I'm sure my ex-wife could do the same.
And ultimately, that judge is going to make a decision
anyways, right?
So the attorneys, I don't I don't know the reason.
I don't know the point of it. I mean, I guess you do get
(17:08):
some good, some decent advice on some things that you
should do or documents to put together.
But I don't know common sense.
It's most of it's common sense.
Bret Adams: Well, it is. And lawyers are not necessarily, I mean, ever (17:15):
undefined
truly trained in family counseling.
Right? So unfortunately, Zach, some some of the domestic
flowed over into criminal court.
Zach Smith: I mean, yeah, I mean, what happened to me and what I didn't (17:29):
undefined
know was, you know, after my my criminal stuff happened, I
googled about it and read about it.
And apparently it's like a blueprint for ex-wives.
It literally is what she did and the way she did it.
It is on the internet like, here's what you do if you want
custody of your kids. And she executed it flawlessly.
I didn't know about it or I would have, you know, defended
myself, I guess.
(17:50):
But what happened was, is she got a protection order,
right? A cpo, a temporary protection order against me after
I got fired based on absolute, you know, based on nothing.
I mean, there was no threats. There was no reason.
And she got it and it was temporary.
So they said, All right. Well, when he when he comes into
court, he can fight it right
Bret Adams: On those temporary CPOs. (18:07):
undefined
And I want the listeners to understand the process.
You didn't defend yourself.
She she just she went to a judge and said he did this.
He's stalking me.
He's whatever he's doing. He's sending me bad text
messages. He's calling me a bitch.
And she did that on her own.
Zach Smith: She went there and told them her, like in her mind or (18:23):
undefined
whatever. In her reality, what I was
Bret Adams: Doing, which is incredible, that we have that in our system. (18:27):
undefined
I mean, male or female, because you you could actually go
make the same argument against against her, but without any
cross-examination or any evaluation or any ability for for
that judge, any evidence or that judge to judge
credibility. Because a lot of this is credibility.
I mean, you know, you could be nuts, she could be nuts and
(18:49):
you, but you want a judge to be able to determine who's
telling the truth, all right, to the best of their ability.
So you didn't have that.
So. So now you've got a cpo against you.
Zach Smith: So, so a it's temporary, right? (18:58):
undefined
So I go to hire Brad Cupful.
He's a defense attorney.
He charges a flat fee, right?
$5000 upfront, and he'll he'll represent you for the case,
right? But what I didn't realize was then if that trace, if
that case goes to trial, you have to pay another $5000 to
go to trial, right?
Well, we get to the to the door of trial and he's like,
(19:19):
Listen, this is I mean, this is going to be a slam dunk.
There's literally not one shred of of evidence that you've
done anything like this is going to get thrown out if you
want to go to trial. But they're also offering like,
basically, I could write a permanent protection order like
I could tell him, No, take this. I'm not signing it if this
is in there or, you know, so what I did was I made kind of
a in my mind.
(19:40):
It was a mutual protection order where it protected me as
much as it protected her because I didn't want to deal with
any more legal BS.
Right? Huge mistake.
Huge mistake. Because I signed it, I agreed to it just to
say $5000 because as I told him, I don't care.
I don't ever want to talk to her again.
I'm not worried about, I'm going to like, go talk to her or
text or call her. That'll never happen with or without this
(20:02):
piece of paper.
Bret Adams: So that was resolved at that (20:03):
undefined
Zach Smith: Point that was resolved. (20:04):
undefined
And then what happened? And this is where the intermingling
of the domestic and criminal.
Aside, and the absurdity of the criminal side of law blew
my mind, right?
So we get into it, it's all about custody and weaponizing
the children against me. That's been the last, whatever,
six years of my life.
And so we get to a point where she's decided that I'm an
(20:27):
alcoholic based on nothing, but she just decided that.
And so she goes to her attorney and trying to prove that
I'm alcoholic. They're getting like Kroger plus receipts.
Or, I mean, all kinds of stuff, like what is he buying at
the grocery store? And and she she subpoenaed Kinzel
Country Club, which is, by the way, I live maybe 200 yards
from Kinsale Country Club and on and Kinsale Country Club
(20:49):
had the audacity to send her every receipt of any time I
was in the bar and grill or
Bret Adams: Restaurant on their own or under a subpoena. (20:54):
undefined
Well, under
Zach Smith: Subpoena, OK? But I mean, they could have sent statements. (20:56):
undefined
They didn't have to send receipts.
Yeah, or maybe they did. It doesn't matter.
But on those receipts, right, there's dinner where where I
have a, you know, a sandwich, the kids have a kid's mac and
cheese and I have two beers, right?
Well, immediately it's this huge thing
Bret Adams: And I must be an alcoholic. (21:12):
undefined
That must be it must be because I'll have two beers and
there's a lot of alcohol. Ok, then we're in trouble.
Zach Smith: So, so she gets has this emergency hearing and, you know, (21:19):
undefined
because I'm an alcoholic, that's what it is about.
And so I'm meeting with my attorney in the Guardian and I'm
like, This is ridiculous. Like, I rarely drink when I have
the kids and when I don't have them, I'll drink and I'm I'm
a grown man. I'm allowed to do that and I'm allowed to have
two beers with my kids.
I'm also allowed to do that.
And and so they they they presented me with this thing
called sober link. Like, if you sign up for this, this
(21:41):
device and blow into it.
And my attorney was like, If you do that for the next six
months and you never have a dropout alcohol, it's going to
look so bad on her for making these accusations.
And then six months later, you have like twelve hundred
tests and they're all zeros.
It's going to blow it out of the water.
And I was like, Perfect, sign me up.
I don't need to drink. I don't even like to drink that
much. And so I signed up for it.
Well, she took that as until that device arrives, I can't
(22:03):
have the kids. No judge ever said that that was never the
case. And so for two weeks, she just didn't let me have the
kids at all.
So now I'm looking at all right.
I have to go back to court to get time with my kids when
she's the one that's screwing up right now, right?
She's the one that's violating this, this order, according
to the Guardian, according to the judge, according to my
attorney, everyone. So my attorney, we have joint custody
(22:26):
at the time. My attorney says this.
This is stupid.
You're going to spend X amount of dollars going back to
court. You have joint custody.
Just go pick them up after school on your days, right on
Wednesday. Go pick them up at school.
You have every legal right to pick them up for school for a
doctor's appointment early.
Anything because your joint custody, right, shared custody.
So I call the school.
It's like 2:30.
(22:47):
I call them and say, Hey, I'm just heads up.
I'm going to pick up Cam and Quinn today instead of them
riding the bus. Just want to let you know.
Ok, great. I go up to the school walking to school.
They're like, OK, just hang out over there.
They'll be out soon. All of a sudden, the principal walks
out, she says, I'm not going to.
I'm not allowed to give you your kids.
And I was like, Oh, you're absolutely required to give me
(23:09):
my kids. And she said, Well, we have your parenting plan
and your parenting time doesn't start until 6:00.
And I was like, No, no, no, no. Read the top paragraph
there. It's called joint custody.
If a parent, a guardian comes and pickups their kids from
school, you have to release those children to me.
So she here and I get in this.
It's very civilized
Bret Adams: And this is three o'clock in the afternoon. (23:26):
undefined
So you're arguing, you're arguing over a three hour window,
right?
Zach Smith: Well, here's what I didn't know. (23:30):
undefined
After I called the school, they called my ex-wife, which?
Why would they do that?
Bret Adams: And she called the cops. (23:36):
undefined
Zach Smith: No, no, no. She drove to the school. (23:38):
undefined
The school put her in the assistant principal's office.
I don't know this at the time.
I don't know. She's there. Why would she, the kids ride the
bus to her house? Why would she be there?
So I go in the principal's office to discuss this further
with her. And finally, you know, I've already talked to my
domestic attorney like, I know I have a right to pick these
kids up, so I ask her to call the police.
I said, You know what? Just call the police.
(23:58):
We'll see who leaves this school with those kids.
She calls the police, they're coming up.
At that point, she tells me she was like, I don't know why
you had to make this a scene. I mean, I get Courtney up
here and you're you're up here and just.
And I was looked at, I said, What do you mean, Courtney?
And she said, Well, I called Courtney after you called.
I was like, Why would you call her like, this has nothing
to do with her. So the cop comes in.
(24:20):
He asks me one question, and this is why I got found
guilty. He said, Do you know that Courtney is here right
now? I said, Yeah, she just told me.
And he was like, Stand up, put your hands behind your back.
Like what? My attorney tells me later, Brad tells me later
that because I should have left the minute I knew she was
there, right the minute I was alerted.
Mind you, the cops are on their way.
(24:42):
Like, I don't think this is any reason why I should leave.
The cops are going to be here like she's not in danger,
right? So that happens, and I could really go down the
rabbit hole of the criminal case and how we had.
We had a case. We quote unquote won it seven to one eight
jurors. Seven of them voted not guilty.
The other one, it was a hung jury, right?
(25:02):
Normally that doesn't get retried.
Bret Adams: Yeah, but unless you've got a prosecutor, that's out to well (25:04):
undefined
and plus plus and this is another unfortunate issue, and
this is that people think that celebrities often get the
benefit of that. There are a lot of times it's exactly the
opposite. Let me tell you know who you were.
This was a high profile case.
These everybody knew you.
And and this could have been an absolute feather in cap for
(25:27):
a prosecutor. Couldn't get a real job.
Zach Smith: Well, that's what it was. And that's what happened. (25:29):
undefined
That's what happened now. They they they've never.
The county prosecutor came down to Delaware and prosecuted
the case. And then Brad, as Brad said he's never heard of
that happening. Usually it's the assistant prosecutor,
Bret Adams: You know, he wanted to be. (25:41):
undefined
He want to be on TV. And guess what?
That case was on TV? I guess what
Zach Smith: Happened after I lost? (25:45):
undefined
He became the county prosecutor or in the upper Arlington
prosecutor. Right, right.
And Brad's backyard. But that's neither here nor there.
Bret Adams: That's that's unbelievable. (25:53):
undefined
Zach Smith: Well, and so here's here's where I really got screwed up, (25:55):
undefined
right? So the whole thing was I had to it had to be proven
that I was being reckless, like I recklessly went there and
violated this protection order.
That's what had they had to prove.
This judge, Maryann hekmatyar's her name.
She would not allow.
I mean, she, my attorney, Brad, tried to bring one little
thing up and she went off.
(26:15):
She said, I don't want anything about their domestic case
in my courtroom. It's too messy.
None of it comes in this door and I'm looking around like,
Bret Adams: Well, what wouldn't that be? (26:22):
undefined
The whole thing? The key?
The whole case, right?
Zach Smith: The whole my whole case is the domestic case, right? (26:26):
undefined
So basically, she looked at me and said, You're not allowed
to say anything about why you did what you did.
Ok, so none of the facts of the case were allowed in the
courtroom because this judge who, by the way, when she
sentenced me, which we could get into that she looked at
me. I got 180 days in jail for violating a protection order
(26:46):
only violation I've ever had in my entire life.
Bret Adams: You don't have a criminal record. (26:48):
undefined
I no, no criminal.
Zach Smith: Nothing. (26:51):
undefined
Bret Adams: That's that's unheard of unheard. (26:52):
undefined
No, no. That's unheard of unheard of.
Zach Smith: I spent 20 days in jail. (26:55):
undefined
Bret Adams: That's unbelievable. (26:56):
undefined
It's it's that sentence is on.
I'm telling you.
And do you know why?
Zach Smith: Do you know what she said? And I should get the recording. (27:02):
undefined
She looked at me in sentencing and she said, I guess
because of what you read on Google, because of what I tweet
on Twitter, she looked at me and she said, Here's the
problem with guys like you and President Trump.
You guys think you can say what you want and do what you
want and get away with it.
Wait, the judge said that the judge said that on the
record, on the record, in sentencing that guys like me and
(27:25):
Trump, I'm sitting here like, what does Donald Trump got to
do with this?
Bret Adams: He compared you to Donald Trump. (27:28):
undefined
Yes.
Zach Smith: Wholly threw me in jail, no time to get my affairs in order. (27:31):
undefined
I mean, that moment cuff out the back door of the court.
Wow, wow.
Bret Adams: There's got to be a disciplinary complaint there against (27:40):
undefined
that judge. I mean, that Judge can't compare you comparing
you to Donald Trump.
Zach Smith: I don't know what you can and can't do because I saw some (27:47):
undefined
stuff that was unbelievable.
Bret Adams: Yeah, well, that's incredible. (27:52):
undefined
So Zach, you mentioned this prosecutor.
Your attorney said that the guy doesn't try.
Casey came down and tried this case.
My guess is he he came down because it was you and he knew
that he was going to get his name in the paper.
He knew he was going to get some attention to it.
(28:15):
Tell me about, do you know what he was doing?
Zach Smith: I guess, you know, I'm not a I'm not an expert in that (28:18):
undefined
field, but I do know this.
He walked in and I was shocked.
He had like mud chop pork chop like sideburns.
His pants were four sizes too big, like and I'm sitting
here like, this is the lead prosecuting attorney for
Delaware County, a Harvard grad, and we can't go to a
tailor, spend 20 bucks and get our pants to fit.
Like what? It just the presentation was horrendous.
(28:40):
And then I took the stand in my first trial.
That's the biggest mistake I made. I didn't take the stand
on my second trial because Brad told me not to.
And that was a critical error because I was the I was our
only defense. You could we couldn't talk about our our
domestic situation.
So the only defense was me on stand letting the jurors see,
I'm not a bad guy basically, right.
I wouldn't do this.
So I took I took the stand the first time and and he got up
(29:02):
and it was like his Super Bowl and he got absolutely
destroyed. I I kicked his ass up and down that courtroom.
He sat, he he sat there and he was trying to get me riled
up like, I'm an idiot, like, I'm dumb and I'm going to get
riled up in a domestic case like, you know, like a criminal
case, but about violating a protection order.
So he would try to he would try to get me riled up and
(29:24):
admit to things that didn't happen.
And instead of getting mad at him for doing it, I would
just sit there and think, Whoa, I understand what you're
trying, the picture you're trying to paint, but I'm not
going to lie. I'm not going to lie.
I'm going to tell the truth. And he got so mad and I can't
remember what he said. He said something like he.
He called me a name when I was and I and I stopped.
I said, Whoa, whoa, I'm not going to sit up here and let
(29:45):
you call me names. And I got him even more rattled and it
was awesome.
Bret Adams: What was what was your jury makeup? (29:48):
undefined
What was this in Delaware, Delaware?
That's conservative.
Yeah, county.
Zach Smith: So it was it was pretty, pretty even male to female. (29:55):
undefined
I think it was four and four.
There was, you know, a couple of minorities on there.
And you know what, who got me.
So afterwards, you know, you pull the jury like after a
case, your attorneys go pull the jury to see what happened
in there and when they found out was there was pretty early
on. I mean, it took forever.
The deliberation, which I thought was crazy, it's pretty
(30:15):
simple case. Like, it wasn't a lot to it.
It they started deliberating it like four.
And I think we got the verdict at like nine thirty.
And so what happened
Bret Adams: Was they struggled with it. (30:25):
undefined
Zach Smith: They obviously struggle. One person did. (30:26):
undefined
Yeah, it was an old white lady.
The other seven, I guess, came to a pretty quick agreement
that this is BS.
And I, I didn't recklessly violate a cpo, and the one lady
just couldn't let it in.
The other jurors said. They just couldn't.
She couldn't let go like that.
He was this bad guy that beat his wife.
And I'm like, This is what's wrong with the system.
(30:46):
Like, that's none of that has to do with this case.
Like if I beat her up one hundred times,
Bret Adams: It was five years ago, wasn't relevant or (30:51):
undefined
Zach Smith: Was it relevant to the case? Like, how is she allowed to (30:52):
undefined
hold up this case because she thinks that now
Bret Adams: You and Brad, now you guys made that decision not to take (30:56):
undefined
the stand together the second time?
Zach Smith: Well, kind of. (31:00):
undefined
He he made that decision.
He made that decision beforehand, and I told him I didn't
want to do that. I want it. If I was going to go down, if I
was going to be found guilty, I wanted it to be at my own
sword, right? I wanted to fight for myself, at least.
And he said, OK, I agree.
He was like, You did such a good job the first time.
I agree. Well, in the middle of the court case, right when
(31:23):
they rest, he looked at me.
He said, Hey, I don't think you need to go up there.
We already won and I was like, what?
And in the middle of it, I'm just like, OK, well, whatever
you think, I guess. And then I didn't go up and we lost.
Bret Adams: So, Zack, if you turn back the clock, what would you do (31:32):
undefined
differently? What would you tell people about this process
that you would do differently if you had to do it all over
again?
Zach Smith: So two things I would do differently. (31:41):
undefined
One is what I do now and I have I have video cameras
everywhere. My car has a video camera on it.
My house does because I want to have evidence of what
happened at all times in my life, like I want to be on a
reality TV show.
So if I have to go to court for anything ever, I can bring
videos and say, Look, here's what happened, everyone watch.
That's one thing. The other thing I would do going all the
way back to before I got divorced, it was my original plan
(32:03):
what I presented to my ex-wife.
And she agreed with up until the final hour, when one of
her friends convinced her that I was trying to screw her
over is I wanted and what we did.
We hired one attorney, just one guy, to just mediate the
two of us, so we both hire him.
He represents both of us.
He doesn't represent one side or the other.
Bret Adams: He's a true mediator (32:20):
undefined
Zach Smith: And she's a true mediator. And you sit down and you hash out (32:21):
undefined
every single detail, come up with something you agree on
and just file it and move on.
Right. And that's what. We did and we heard and I sat down,
but without him and initially wrote, I wrote a plan went to
this attorney. This was her first attorney after this
failed and said, Here's what we want to do.
(32:42):
We want to file this. Here's all the all the stipulations
we want and we want to file for divorce.
And he said, OK. And then one of her friends got in her
head that I was screwing her over financially or whatever.
And so then she backed out of it.
We didn't file it. We both had to hire attorneys.
We went through divorce case and she got less in every
category. She got less money, she got less time, she got
less everything. And I'm sitting here like, how dumb could
you be like, this would have cost us a couple, maybe a
(33:05):
thousand two thousand bucks as opposed to the 20 some
thousand I've been in since the beginning.
Easily, maybe
Bret Adams: More. So unfortunately, I found that the winners in most of (33:10):
undefined
these cases, especially yours, are the lawyers.
Oh yes, the lawyers that are that are winning always.
So Zach, I want to talk to you for a second about social
media, how bad social media is because you and I run in the
same circles. I can't find anybody that will badmouth you.
I mean, anybody that knows you says not them a great things
(33:31):
about you. They love you and said, Man, this guy got
railroaded and none of this crap is true.
Every single thing is just been positive.
And what what I've enjoyed watching is the success of your
own podcast. And now you've got like 5000 people watching
you on a video and you've turned you've really turned this
thing around.
(33:51):
And I love how you treat some of these people in social
media because you tell them to go screw themselves.
Absolutely. So tell me how that's affected things.
And well, you
Zach Smith: Know, at first, you know, I learned it from Urban Meyer. (33:59):
undefined
He was like, he was a people that say, I don't care.
I don't care what people think about you.
Those those people are wrong.
Like, you should care about what your image is and what
your reputation is. And so I do.
I cared about that. But after a while, you get tired of
trying to defend the truth that is who you are.
And social media is the absolute worst.
But but what happens is these it's like witch hunts, right?
(34:21):
People form this opinion. They don't they don't spend the
time to find out if those opinions are valid or not, and
then they'll just never change them.
I mean, you look right now, this podcast that I built and I
originally started it just to talk just just as kind of a
hobby. I didn't know what I was going to do next, but I
wanted to talk about sports and so I didn't make any money.
The first year I was out of coaching, but my company made
(34:42):
two hundred and twenty five thousand and twenty twenty one
just on a podcast.
And I'm sitting here like, This should be.
Obviously, people like it like, I'm not.
Bret Adams: You've obviously merchandise that you've got to sell. (34:50):
undefined
You've got a hell of a hat on.
Yeah.
Zach Smith: You know, I found ways to monetize it, just different ways (34:53):
undefined
and give people different experiences with it, like
subscription services and all kinds of stuff.
And but but no one in media will touch it or even
acknowledge it. And and if I if I get,
Bret Adams: You know what, on the trajectory you're going now, they (35:06):
undefined
don't have to. You're going to end up making more money
than them. So why?
Why, why do you need it?
I mean, you know, and listen, I'm not going have a big law
firm chase me like they used to either write with this
podcast, right? So, you know.
But speaking your mind.
To me, this is very therapeutic.
I hear that on your podcast.
Well, now I'm seeing it on your podcast.
Zach Smith: Well, it's it's freedom, right? (35:27):
undefined
Freedom to be genuine, authentic.
And, you know, no holds bar like you could say whatever you
want because you're not answering to anyone.
You're just all you're doing is trying to promote the truth
and reality, right?
Bret Adams: And ignore the trolls the best you can. (35:38):
undefined
I try or get a menace army to go after the trolls, but
that's another philosophy to is is take them down with with
fringe figures because, you know, I mean, people that make
those comments. You know, sometimes I look at their site
and I'm going, Geez, well, why am I caring about this dude?
This guy, this guy is a loser.
Zach Smith: Well, no doubt. And it's this as far as this right, like my (35:58):
undefined
ex-wife has, has sent out the first page of our nuke
because we do have a new custody agreement, right, that
just went into a intact the first of this past year, the
1st January 1st, 2021.
She sent out the first page of it to all these trolls to
post on on Twitter because it says that she is the the sole
(36:18):
custodial parent because someone had to be named that we
couldn't do joint custody anymore.
Bret Adams: And so she's declaring victory, so she's (36:22):
undefined
Zach Smith: I allowed her because she didn't want to go to court. (36:24):
undefined
I wanted to go to court. So I basically told her what I
wanted to stay out of court and and I allowed her to be the
sole custodial parent because the Guardian told me because
I got convicted of violating a protection order, the judge
was probably going to do that anyways, give make her the
sole custodial parent.
But in order to do that, I wanted the kids over half the
(36:47):
time, so I doubled my parenting time with the kid, so I
have them more than her.
And she sends out this page to all these trolls and they
post it all over Twitter.
Like he lost custody of his kids.
He doesn't even see his kids, doesn't pay child support,
support deadbeat dad.
And the only way I respond is like, post the next page.
Well, post the next one.
Bret Adams: You think about them when you're making that bank deposit. (37:04):
undefined
Yeah, that's right. That's it.
To hell with that. To hell with them, no doubt.
Zack, I can't thank you enough for coming down here.
I really appreciate telling the story.
You know, hopefully people will listen to this and and
learn what we're trying to.
Trying to preach here is you don't need a lawyer for
everything that you're trying to accomplish.
And and it sounds like it'd been much simpler if that
(37:26):
mediator could have had some success and got this thing
resolved.
Zach Smith: Would been a lot easier, but I appreciate you having me (37:30):
undefined
down.
Bret Adams: Now, let's go to our Asshole of the Week segment. (37:33):
undefined
The first asshole of the week involves Bob Saget, right?
And everybody knows Bob Saget, the great comedian.
I mean, anything you read about this guy.
I mean, not a negative comment.
Just a great human being.
So this past week, his family had to sue to protect the
release of his autopsy photos.
(37:54):
You tell me what lawyer with an ounce of integrity would
represent a news outlet trying to get these photos?
I mean, is there really a public interest in some weirdoes
looking at autopsy photos?
Where's the sense of morality from these lawyers in
defending a company that would want to just totally invade
this man's dignity, the family's privacy to share gross
(38:16):
photos with the world?
You defense counsel in the Bob Saget litigation are
assholes. Our second asshole of the week is the city
prosecutor in Auburn, Alabama.
There's a guy named Winston Higgins who was arrested, and
his case is actually going to trial because this prosecutor
decided to pursue criminal trespassing charges when this
(38:37):
guy placed a planter box with flowers on his fiancee's
gravesite. The woman was killed in an accident last year.
Apparently, her father didn't approve of this relationship,
and he actually filed charges under an obscure statute
regarding littering.
Littering. Now, listen, the cops that took this criminal
report also fall in the dumb ass category as well because
(38:58):
they had a chance to dissuade the father from filing these
unnecessary criminal charges.
My detective friend told me that they would have spent two
hours talking to this guy out of doing something silly.
But no, the charges were filed have not been dismissed.
In fact, this case is still pending and scheduled for
trial. This makes this prosecutor in Auburn, Alabama, an
(39:19):
asshole. Now we're going to conclude today's show with
Brett's rant. So how do we keep Zach Smith from going
through what he's gone through the last four years of his
life? And it starts with a complete reform of our domestic
relations court, and I've said this since the day I
practiced, which was there's so much emotion in these cases
(39:40):
that you don't start with lawyers, you start with a
mediator, you start with a civil mediator and you keep as
much as you can.
The angst, the anger, the vitriol out of the process.
And unfortunately, there are so many lawyers that practice
in this field that exacerbate the situation by whether they
(40:02):
get into a personal issue with the opposing counsel.
But again, they're motivated by not resolution, but by
continuing to bill.
And if we have a process where a mediator says, here's what
I think is fair, here's what you're probably going to end
up with if you go to war on this thing.
I think you've got a much better chance.
(40:22):
I know we have a much better chance of resolution at this
early stage and not getting lawyers to inflame the entire
situation. So that's the rand of the day.
I'm your host, Bret Adams, and we will be back soon with
another episode of Lawyers are assholes.
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