USFL-NFL Jurors Seek Trial Transcripts : Rozelle and Trump Testimonies Appear to Be Crucial to Verdict

There was no verdict after about seven hours of deliberation Friday in the pro football antitrust trial here, but the jury did seem to suggest that the United States Football League’s $1.69-billion suit against the National Football League would hinge on the conflicting testimony of NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and USFL team owner Donald Trump.

The jury of five women and one man, none of them football fans, had been convened for about five hours in their first full day of deliberation when they requested transcripts of the testimony of Rozelle and Trump, among other things.

They also asked for 13 other transcripts or pieces of evidence, along with the copies of the NFL’s television contracts from 1982.

The Rozelle-Trump discrepancies would seem to be critical, however, in the disposition of this landmark case.

If the jury believes the testimony of New Jersey General owner Trump, in which he claimed that Rozelle dangled an NFL franchise before him to prevent a lawsuit, the USFL would almost surely win its case, proving the NFL of monopolistic behavior.

If the jury, however, believes Rozelle’s contradictory testimony, which was that he never met with Trump, the NFL may survive the suit and send the failing USFL into extinction.

The USFL, which needs the money in damages more than it needs the injunctive relief the verdict might give, has charged that the NFL plotted to destroy the 4-year-old league, conspiring to deprive it of network contracts and to “co-opt” the wealthier USFL owners such as Trump.

The latter charge stems from real estate mogul Trump, who testified that Rozelle “stated that the NFL was going to be around for a long time, that ‘You will have a very good chance for an NFL franchise, whether it be the Generals or some other NFL team,’ and that what he wanted in return was . . . staying in the spring for the United States Football League and not bringing a lawsuit. . . . The thing that Mr. Rozelle specifically did not want was a lawsuit on antitrust grounds.”

Rozelle, when asked if he had met with Trump, said: “Never. Never.”

That the case might revolve around this point of conflicting testimony was not unanticipated. Lawyers for both sides, in their closing arguments Thursday, had repeatedly questioned the character and credibility of Rozelle and Trump.

NFL co-counsel Frank Rothman seemed to personalize the case with an attack on the wealthy Trump, saying that it was Trump’s greed and his motives for merger that led him to convince the league to switch from its original concept of spring football to fall football, in direct competition with the more established league.

Harvey Myerson, USFL counsel, countered in his summation by contemptuously referring to Alvin Peter Rozelle and his conspiracy, by intimidation, to prevent the networks from televising USFL games.

The jury also requested copies of the so-called Porter Presentation, the “smoking gun,” according to the USFL, in which 65 NFL executives attended a Harvard Business School seminar on how to conquer the USFL.

Among other pieces of evidence and testimony, the USFL asked for the testimony of network executive Neil Pilson, who had written a letter to Rozelle concerning the scheduling of “Monday Night Football,” and a letter from CBS-TV to Rozelle on the same subject.

The USFL needs only prove one of nine charges--six under antitrust law and three under common law--to win its case. These charges have been disputed over 11 weeks and in 6,500 pages of testimony. The weight of evidence and complexity of law, however, may well give way to the believability of the principals. That is, who lied? Trump or Rozelle?

A decision is not expected soon. The jury did not get copies of testimony in time to review them Friday--it took nearly three hours before lawyers could assemble the two armfuls of documents and deliver them--and will not get a look at them until today.