Attorney Steve Romines discussed various aspects of the Scottie Scheffler case including why he says you should not talk to police, Det. Gillis' claims that he was injured in the incident, the various bodycam recordings, and any future possible litigation on the matter...
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You know what news rightait forty whasTerry Miners here. Steve Romines, the
attorney of record yesterday that I sayowned the day. He of course working
on behalf of Scotty Scheffler, world'snumber one golfer. Steve Romind's name.
Perhaps you can also recall he wastied to a client named Kenneth Walker,
(00:22):
who was with Breonna Taylor when shewas shot by LMPD. And also the
Macatee family because the barbecue man gotinto it with uh. It was LMPD
and the National Guard. And thatwas a few years ago, if you'll
recall. But Steve Romines, welcometo the show. It's good to have
you back. How are you,Jerry, Good to have you on,
(00:45):
brother. I was talking one ofthe owners of Valhalla after all this incident
occurred, and he told me thathis first call was to you. He
knew you would be the right guyto handle the Scotti Scheffler incident. Well,
I mean, I'm glad he didyou know. I was glad to
(01:06):
helping Scott. He's a you know, a great guy, and I was
glad to help him. You saidsome things yesterday in the press conference,
and I think people were kind oftaking amback. We talked about the uh,
the whole issue of never talking tothe police. I wanna play a
little bit of a clip of you. That's why you don't talk to the
(01:27):
police. They are not trying toget to what happened. They are trying
to get you to incriminate yourself.Now, this was in reference to the
bodycam footage that showed Scotty Scheffer inthe backseat of a car and a police
officer kind of leading him through whathis narrative was. And so that's your
(01:49):
advice to everybody is don't talk absolutely, Terry. I mean, I told
you years ago. If you're guilty, asked for a lawyer, and if
you're not guilty, then you damnsure ask for a lawyer. There is
no benefit to talking because, especiallyafter they've got you in the car,
they're not going to unarrest you.All they're trying to do is lead you
(02:14):
to get you to make incriminating studentsand you're you know, and of course
police can lie to you about whatthey have and can lie to you about
what happened and get you to admitto things by lying to you, and
that that happens all the time.I mean, I've been doing this over
thirty years, Terry, and Isee it every day. It's there is
(02:37):
never a benefit to talking to thepolice without a lawyer. President, How
are you so certain right away whenyou said you're either going to dismiss this
or we're going to trial. Howdid you know enough so early on to
be able to make that declaration BecauseI had talked to witnesses eyewitnesses already at
(02:58):
the time, and I talked toeyewitnesses that morning. I talked to Scotti
Scheffer, who, as I said, he is every case is great when
you have a great client. Andthe way you become have a great client
is one it's likable and trustworthy andcredible. And Scotti Scheffer, as I
(03:23):
said, you can't find a personin the world to say a bad word
about it. And you don't getthat reputation by media or anything else.
You earned that over years. Andthat's what he did. And he told
me what happened, and I believedexactly what he told me, And then
I talked to eyewitnesses that were atthe scene who confirmed exactly what he said,
(03:46):
and so I was I was confidentof what it would show and then
when we got the video, youknow, it was all over. I
talked to some of the witnesses thereas well, people who were volunteers who
are going into work, and theyjust happened to be nearby, and they
corroborated everything, just as you weretelling the story too through him. So
(04:09):
I know that you had a lotof stacked witnesses if you needed to go
to trial. I'm curious though,about the police officer's statement that he put
out. He mentioned you in it. I'm quoting. It was unfortunate and
disturbing to hear Steve Roman's commentary todayclaiming a false arrest was made, and
for him to challenge my honesty andintegrity, I'd be surprised and disappointed.
(04:30):
And mister Scheffler had any part inthat. I was drug by the car,
I went to the ground, andI received visible injuries to my knees
and wrists. So I'm going tomake this a compound question. Why did
that one charge changed to assault fourthdegree with no visible injury when that police
officer said he's got visible injuries.Well, now that's really there's nothing to
(04:55):
that, Terry, Because the wayit works is for a case to be
automatically exped they have to be misdemeanorsthat are dismissed, okay, And so
they we wanted an automatic expungement inthis case, and to do that they
had to amend the felony to amisdemeanor before they dismissed it. However,
(05:15):
it had no practical effect the case. The felony was going to be dismissed.
They were all going to be dismissedno matter what got you. But
for expungement wise, it has tobe amended first because if it's not amended,
then there are some legal hoots youhave to go through for automatic expungement
to apply. And we didn't wantto go through that, and there was
(05:35):
no need to have to that justa waste of course time. I got
you, okay, But the wordingis no visible injury. He's making that
claim, but Steve, you saidyesterday there's no way that he was dragged
by the car because they wouldn't dropthis case. Yet he makes that claim
in his last statement, which hemakes, he makes it clear there's no
further litigation, but he wanted toget that shot in. I guess at
(05:59):
you. Well, that's fine,you know, Arry, as you know,
I've been fight with scouts for thirtyyears. I don't that's part of
my job. And if you knowhe doesn't like what I said, well,
here, let's just actually boil itdown to if you wonder why Scottie
Schefferd got arrested by this officer,look at the statement he issued taking umbrage
(06:25):
with me, saying it was afalse arrest. How dare somebody question his
intergrity? The county attorney dismissed thecase and said there wasn't probable cause for
the charges, so that, bydefinition, is a false arrest. You
know, if you want to wonderhow it happened, just look at that
(06:46):
press release and that'll make sense asto why it happened. He also,
how dare somebody question me? I'ma police officer. He also made in
that statement that after the body camtutorial he received or whatever it was,
he said that the bus was stoppedby PGA personnel, which of course clarifies
the statement. Then more than policeofficers were directing traffic absolutely, and that
(07:14):
you know, here's the other thing. Let's just unpack this for a second
about the bodycam video of Scottie Schefflerthat they asked me about that somehow he
made a confession. That bodycam isabout twenty five minutes long. It's from
when he got arrested at Valhalla downto the jail. I've heard it all.
(07:36):
Everything on it is favorwill to Scottie. Now there's a three minute clip
that they pulled out and leaked toWave and you may have got the same
clip, Terry, because as weknow, there are various newspeople in Louisville
that police will provide stuff to andleak stuff too, and people at Wigh
(07:56):
three are part of that. Butthey specifically clipped a three minute portion of
that body cam and released it totry to somehow justify this bad arrest.
But saying that Scotty confessed to it, and I addressed that yesterday about you
know, them trying to get himto go along and asking him leading questions.
(08:18):
But what's more, Yes, it'stwenty five minutes. They clip three
minutes of it and leak it tothe press to try to make them look
good. We need to look aroundat exactly what's going on here. If
you want to release stuff, releaseat all. Let's go through that,
you know, the mayor said intheir press comics and achieved there's no other
(08:39):
body camps well as sure as hell. Seems to be good point, and
it's a huge part. It's ahuge problem that they leaked it to certain
reporters to try to justify this arrestand say, well, Scotty admitted to
something. No, he didn't admitanything. He's trying to pacify the situation.
(09:03):
And again that's why you don't talk. They are not talking to you
to try to get to the bottomof the situation. They are trying to
get you to admit to something.Well, I do have the twenty five
minutes, and here's a little segmentthat I know that there's no way this
would have been used. And thismust be why Michael Connor would think this
(09:24):
tape couldn't be of any value.Because Scott Scheffler references being hit and then
also says he worries he's going tobe hit again. Listen to this.
As he was reaching in the car, he grabbed my shoulder and hit me
like I'm trying to give you tostop right. Yes, okay, it
seems to be a little bit overaggressive because the entrance was open, okay,
and I pulled a little bit becauseI was afraid. I thought he
(09:46):
was going to start hitting me,and I didn't know who he was.
He didn't I didn't know who hewas, and I thought he was going
to start hitting me again, sohe already got hit once. Well,
you know, Terry, that's exactlywhat the eyewitnesses said, yep. And
they didn't know it was Scotty Shefferdwhen they see it. They just see
this cop the hit the car withhis flashlight, start trying to jerk somebody
(10:07):
out reaching in the car, tryingto open the door. And as you
know, Terry from probably what youinterviewed, Scotty said, can you get
a cop over here? And hesaid, I am a cop in effort.
That's exactly right. That's exactly thewords that were used by the witness
I spoke with yesterday. I mean, a part of a couple. They
(10:28):
both saw it and they were speakingas one. But that's exactly the way
they characterized it. To me.Every witness that was there heard exactly that
language. And you know, there'sa reason they don't want that coming out.
It's you know, the whole thingis, Terry, it went away
(10:50):
because they knew it was worse forthem, than with it not going away,
than it going away, and andMichae O'Connell's office. I you know,
I've known Mike for you know,over thirty years. They've got an
obligation to go through the case,and it takes time to do it,
(11:11):
but they went through everything and sawnot only is there not proof beyond a
reasonable doubt, there's not probable costs. And by definition, that's a false
arrest. When you don't have problecause to arrest somebody, that is a
false arrest. And as I said, we had, we had a claim,
(11:31):
We have a claim. We're notpursuing it, nor do we want
to. But you know, everythingI said in that press conference was one
hundred percent true. You know everyeverything about it, and I'll I'll stand
by it, and if anybody wantsto debate it, I'm happy to debate
it with. But the Scheffler familyis not They're not opposed to litigation.
(11:56):
I mean to the father in lawsof high powered attorney and the mom's of
seat of another law firm. Sothey're used to being in that swimming in
that stream. Yeah, I meanthey're obviously not afraid of it. But
I mean here Here's the thing is, litigation isn't distracting for anybody involved.
(12:18):
You've been a litigation terry, youknow it is. It weighs on your
mind and it is a distraction.And anything in golf can distract you.
It's a hard enough sport mentally asit is, and any any sort of
distractions make it more difficult. Scottyshefferd doesn't need that. He doesn't need
(12:41):
the distractions of you know, alawsuit, litigation anything. And let's just
say we do litigate the case,okay, and and it's it's it's a
really good case. Let's say it'sworth two million dollars. Scotty Shepherd wins
a million dollars every week when heputs a tea in the ground. It's
so financially it's not a good decision. And as I said, he we
(13:05):
discussed about who pays if you havea successful case, and I said,
well, the taxpayers do. Andhe said, I don't want that.
I don't want the people of Louisvilleput money in my pocket. He said,
will it do any good? AndI said, you know, we've
been litigating these cases for a whileand they haven't done any good. Till
now, so you know, hedoesn't want to go forward. I understand
(13:31):
completely. Scotty Cheffer wrote a beautifulstatement though, to follow up on everything,
and he talks about his you know, his support for police and you
know, no, you know,no bad feelings toward Officer Gillis. He
just wants to move on and that'sthat. And again, he everything he
(13:52):
said in his press conference afterwards,everything he said in his press release,
everything he said yesterday. That's whohe is and which is why the absurdity
of him being arrested over somehow,you know, trying to assault a cop
with a car or any of thatstuff just rings so incredibly hollow. Steve
(14:15):
Rowminds, I really appreciate your extrainsights on this. We'll talk again down
the road. Thanks, brother,No prom terry all right. Steve Rowminds,
attorney for Scott Schefler A litill followup on all that case. I
see there is a verdict reached informer President Trump's hush money trial in New
York. So we will go toABC when that report is available, should
(14:35):
be shortly here A news radio eightforty whas
You know what news rightait forty whasTerry Miners here. Steve Romines, the
attorney of record yesterday that I sayowned the day. He of course working
on behalf of Scotty Scheffler, world'snumber one golfer. Steve Romind's name.
Perhaps you can also recall he wastied to a client named Kenneth Walker,
(00:22):
who was with Breonna Taylor when shewas shot by LMPD. And also the
Macatee family because the barbecue man gotinto it with uh. It was LMPD
and the National Guard. And thatwas a few years ago, if you'll
recall. But Steve Romines, welcometo the show. It's good to have
you back. How are you,Jerry, Good to have you on,
(00:45):
brother. I was talking one ofthe owners of Valhalla after all this incident
occurred, and he told me thathis first call was to you. He
knew you would be the right guyto handle the Scotti Scheffler incident. Well,
I mean, I'm glad he didyou know. I was glad to
(01:06):
helping Scott. He's a you know, a great guy, and I was
glad to help him. You saidsome things yesterday in the press conference,
and I think people were kind oftaking amback. We talked about the uh,
the whole issue of never talking tothe police. I wanna play a
little bit of a clip of you. That's why you don't talk to the
(01:27):
police. They are not trying toget to what happened. They are trying
to get you to incriminate yourself.Now, this was in reference to the
bodycam footage that showed Scotty Scheffer inthe backseat of a car and a police
officer kind of leading him through whathis narrative was. And so that's your
(01:49):
advice to everybody is don't talk absolutely, Terry. I mean, I told
you years ago. If you're guilty, asked for a lawyer, and if
you're not guilty, then you damnsure ask for a lawyer. There is
no benefit to talking because, especiallyafter they've got you in the car,
they're not going to unarrest you.All they're trying to do is lead you
(02:14):
to get you to make incriminating studentsand you're you know, and of course
police can lie to you about whatthey have and can lie to you about
what happened and get you to admitto things by lying to you, and
that that happens all the time.I mean, I've been doing this over
thirty years, Terry, and Isee it every day. It's there is
(02:37):
never a benefit to talking to thepolice without a lawyer. President, How
are you so certain right away whenyou said you're either going to dismiss this
or we're going to trial. Howdid you know enough so early on to
be able to make that declaration BecauseI had talked to witnesses eyewitnesses already at
(02:58):
the time, and I talked toeyewitnesses that morning. I talked to Scotti
Scheffer, who, as I said, he is every case is great when
you have a great client. Andthe way you become have a great client
is one it's likable and trustworthy andcredible. And Scotti Scheffer, as I
(03:23):
said, you can't find a personin the world to say a bad word
about it. And you don't getthat reputation by media or anything else.
You earned that over years. Andthat's what he did. And he told
me what happened, and I believedexactly what he told me, And then
I talked to eyewitnesses that were atthe scene who confirmed exactly what he said,
(03:46):
and so I was I was confidentof what it would show and then
when we got the video, youknow, it was all over. I
talked to some of the witnesses thereas well, people who were volunteers who
are going into work, and theyjust happened to be nearby, and they
corroborated everything, just as you weretelling the story too through him. So
(04:09):
I know that you had a lotof stacked witnesses if you needed to go
to trial. I'm curious though,about the police officer's statement that he put
out. He mentioned you in it. I'm quoting. It was unfortunate and
disturbing to hear Steve Roman's commentary todayclaiming a false arrest was made, and
for him to challenge my honesty andintegrity, I'd be surprised and disappointed.
(04:30):
And mister Scheffler had any part inthat. I was drug by the car,
I went to the ground, andI received visible injuries to my knees
and wrists. So I'm going tomake this a compound question. Why did
that one charge changed to assault fourthdegree with no visible injury when that police
officer said he's got visible injuries.Well, now that's really there's nothing to
(04:55):
that, Terry, Because the wayit works is for a case to be
automatically exped they have to be misdemeanorsthat are dismissed, okay, And so
they we wanted an automatic expungement inthis case, and to do that they
had to amend the felony to amisdemeanor before they dismissed it. However,
(05:15):
it had no practical effect the case. The felony was going to be dismissed.
They were all going to be dismissedno matter what got you. But
for expungement wise, it has tobe amended first because if it's not amended,
then there are some legal hoots youhave to go through for automatic expungement
to apply. And we didn't wantto go through that, and there was
(05:35):
no need to have to that justa waste of course time. I got
you, okay, But the wordingis no visible injury. He's making that
claim, but Steve, you saidyesterday there's no way that he was dragged
by the car because they wouldn't dropthis case. Yet he makes that claim
in his last statement, which hemakes, he makes it clear there's no
further litigation, but he wanted toget that shot in. I guess at
(05:59):
you. Well, that's fine,you know, Arry, as you know,
I've been fight with scouts for thirtyyears. I don't that's part of
my job. And if you knowhe doesn't like what I said, well,
here, let's just actually boil itdown to if you wonder why Scottie
Schefferd got arrested by this officer,look at the statement he issued taking umbrage
(06:25):
with me, saying it was afalse arrest. How dare somebody question his
intergrity? The county attorney dismissed thecase and said there wasn't probable cause for
the charges, so that, bydefinition, is a false arrest. You
know, if you want to wonderhow it happened, just look at that
(06:46):
press release and that'll make sense asto why it happened. He also,
how dare somebody question me? I'ma police officer. He also made in
that statement that after the body camtutorial he received or whatever it was,
he said that the bus was stoppedby PGA personnel, which of course clarifies
the statement. Then more than policeofficers were directing traffic absolutely, and that
(07:14):
you know, here's the other thing. Let's just unpack this for a second
about the bodycam video of Scottie Schefflerthat they asked me about that somehow he
made a confession. That bodycam isabout twenty five minutes long. It's from
when he got arrested at Valhalla downto the jail. I've heard it all.
(07:36):
Everything on it is favorwill to Scottie. Now there's a three minute clip
that they pulled out and leaked toWave and you may have got the same
clip, Terry, because as weknow, there are various newspeople in Louisville
that police will provide stuff to andleak stuff too, and people at Wigh
(07:56):
three are part of that. Butthey specifically clipped a three minute portion of
that body cam and released it totry to somehow justify this bad arrest.
But saying that Scotty confessed to it, and I addressed that yesterday about you
know, them trying to get himto go along and asking him leading questions.
(08:18):
But what's more, Yes, it'stwenty five minutes. They clip three
minutes of it and leak it tothe press to try to make them look
good. We need to look aroundat exactly what's going on here. If
you want to release stuff, releaseat all. Let's go through that,
you know, the mayor said intheir press comics and achieved there's no other
(08:39):
body camps well as sure as hell. Seems to be good point, and
it's a huge part. It's ahuge problem that they leaked it to certain
reporters to try to justify this arrestand say, well, Scotty admitted to
something. No, he didn't admitanything. He's trying to pacify the situation.
(09:03):
And again that's why you don't talk. They are not talking to you
to try to get to the bottomof the situation. They are trying to
get you to admit to something.Well, I do have the twenty five
minutes, and here's a little segmentthat I know that there's no way this
would have been used. And thismust be why Michael Connor would think this
(09:24):
tape couldn't be of any value.Because Scott Scheffler references being hit and then
also says he worries he's going tobe hit again. Listen to this.
As he was reaching in the car, he grabbed my shoulder and hit me
like I'm trying to give you tostop right. Yes, okay, it
seems to be a little bit overaggressive because the entrance was open, okay,
and I pulled a little bit becauseI was afraid. I thought he
(09:46):
was going to start hitting me,and I didn't know who he was.
He didn't I didn't know who hewas, and I thought he was going
to start hitting me again, sohe already got hit once. Well,
you know, Terry, that's exactlywhat the eyewitnesses said, yep. And
they didn't know it was Scotty Shefferdwhen they see it. They just see
this cop the hit the car withhis flashlight, start trying to jerk somebody
(10:07):
out reaching in the car, tryingto open the door. And as you
know, Terry from probably what youinterviewed, Scotty said, can you get
a cop over here? And hesaid, I am a cop in effort.
That's exactly right. That's exactly thewords that were used by the witness
I spoke with yesterday. I mean, a part of a couple. They
(10:28):
both saw it and they were speakingas one. But that's exactly the way
they characterized it. To me.Every witness that was there heard exactly that
language. And you know, there'sa reason they don't want that coming out.
It's you know, the whole thingis, Terry, it went away
(10:50):
because they knew it was worse forthem, than with it not going away,
than it going away, and andMichae O'Connell's office. I you know,
I've known Mike for you know,over thirty years. They've got an
obligation to go through the case,and it takes time to do it,
(11:11):
but they went through everything and sawnot only is there not proof beyond a
reasonable doubt, there's not probable costs. And by definition, that's a false
arrest. When you don't have problecause to arrest somebody, that is a
false arrest. And as I said, we had, we had a claim,
(11:31):
We have a claim. We're notpursuing it, nor do we want
to. But you know, everythingI said in that press conference was one
hundred percent true. You know everyeverything about it, and I'll I'll stand
by it, and if anybody wantsto debate it, I'm happy to debate
it with. But the Scheffler familyis not They're not opposed to litigation.
(11:56):
I mean to the father in lawsof high powered attorney and the mom's of
seat of another law firm. Sothey're used to being in that swimming in
that stream. Yeah, I meanthey're obviously not afraid of it. But
I mean here Here's the thing is, litigation isn't distracting for anybody involved.
(12:18):
You've been a litigation terry, youknow it is. It weighs on your
mind and it is a distraction.And anything in golf can distract you.
It's a hard enough sport mentally asit is, and any any sort of
distractions make it more difficult. Scottyshefferd doesn't need that. He doesn't need
(12:41):
the distractions of you know, alawsuit, litigation anything. And let's just
say we do litigate the case,okay, and and it's it's it's a
really good case. Let's say it'sworth two million dollars. Scotty Shepherd wins
a million dollars every week when heputs a tea in the ground. It's
so financially it's not a good decision. And as I said, he we
(13:05):
discussed about who pays if you havea successful case, and I said,
well, the taxpayers do. Andhe said, I don't want that.
I don't want the people of Louisvilleput money in my pocket. He said,
will it do any good? AndI said, you know, we've
been litigating these cases for a whileand they haven't done any good. Till
now, so you know, hedoesn't want to go forward. I understand
(13:31):
completely. Scotty Cheffer wrote a beautifulstatement though, to follow up on everything,
and he talks about his you know, his support for police and you
know, no, you know,no bad feelings toward Officer Gillis. He
just wants to move on and that'sthat. And again, he everything he
(13:52):
said in his press conference afterwards,everything he said in his press release,
everything he said yesterday. That's whohe is and which is why the absurdity
of him being arrested over somehow,you know, trying to assault a cop
with a car or any of thatstuff just rings so incredibly hollow. Steve
(14:15):
Rowminds, I really appreciate your extrainsights on this. We'll talk again down
the road. Thanks, brother,No prom terry all right. Steve Rowminds,
attorney for Scott Schefler A litill followup on all that case. I
see there is a verdict reached informer President Trump's hush money trial in New
York. So we will go toABC when that report is available, should
(14:35):
be shortly here A news radio eightforty whas
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