found hemi newman guilty once again and he was sentenced to life without parole plus five years. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalmorales. >> and this is dateline." >> all of a sudden i realize, what's going on? why are they late? something definitely is wrong. he said your family was in an accident. my whole world just dropped out from underneath me. >> the scene told a story. >> what did you find? >> something i don't want to see again. >> a deadly crash on a dark road. two gone, one barely alive. a tragic accident.

but look closer. in all the broke.en glass and twisted metal, was there a clue to a crime? >> the last thing i wanted was to have to take a double fatality and have to now treat it as a homicide. >> murder, an accusation no one saw coming. >> i couldn't deal with it. >> two families in torment. >> we were both just -- >> a small town trial with big emotions. >> you you took it. you did it. >> and the verdict. >> we tell jury -- >> that would shake them all. >> hello and welcome to "dateline." a dangerous highway in big sky country. that was t setting for a deadly crash that would seemo unite two families i shock and heartbreak, except they were about to find out that the truth about what happened on that

fateful night might be darker than anyone knew. sheer keith morrison. >> march 19th, 2009, heavy in montana's plathead valley. something off that night, something wrong. at mary and randy winters house, anxiety spiked. where was she? >> it's hard to explain. >> but a new driver, auto too, just 16, due home at 8:00 from her boyfriend's house. though she wasn't very late, the feeling seeped in. >> i called her starting about 8:05 and no answer. called the house where she was at and they said she had left 15 minutes before that. >> i was thinking she had, you know, went off the road between

their house and us. >> not far away, another family was on the road, too. erin thompson was diving her son, caden, home from a school concert. he played the drums. >> i had always attended all of caden's concerts. this was the first one that i didn't attend. i had car troubles. caden's ste jaden thompson. >> my car was in the shop and getting fixed. >> and soon the poison and anxiety seeped under jason's doors through his windows and on to his nerve endings. >> all of a sudden, i realized, what's going on? why are they late? and it struck me that something definitely was wrong. >> at justine winter's house, they were worried. her father knew somethings was wrong. he got in his truck, drove out

of town to the road he knew she would take coming home from her boyfriend's house. and then he saw it. in a construction zone, on the highway 93 overpass. >> what did you find? >> something i don't want to see again. you could say a fireman's worst nightmare. >> someone tried to hold him back. he kept on. >> and then i saw her over at the side. >> his perfect daughter, his justine, obscenely broke..but amazingly still alive. >> how did she look? >> i didn't really see a lot of her on the gurney there, but i got to see her, you know, at the hospital. >> she was pretty bad. >> you know, swopt to ever see your kid in the hospital. >> every bit of hers was damaged horribly, brokeren bone, brain

damage, ruptured organs. the chance she would survive, slim, said the doctors. but the winters' news could have been worse. and a few miles away where the phone rang at jason thompson's house, the news was much worse. the caller was the county coroner. >> he said, jason, your family has been in an accident. and he said i'm sorry to have to tell you this on the phone, but they were just killed. and my whole world just dropped out from from underneath me. >> jason's wife, 35-year-old erin thompson was four months pregnant. her son, caden, the boy who had just played the drums at his school concert was just 13. and just like that, they were gone. the crash was head on. and his school counselor jason thompson's life, the lights went

out. >> the night of that realization i would never forget that news. >> nor, of course, was erin's mother, diana. >> we were both, of course, just bonkers. >> or her sister, amber, who with david, her had husband, missed erin so much they had made plans to move to montana to be close. not possible now. >> that was the hardest -- the hardest piece of news we could fathom. >> and to lose both of them and the baby, it just didn't even seem like it could be real. >> and here in the little house he shared with the love of his life where he had been waiting with such excitement for their baby to arrive, jason, like job, was overcome by the heaviest sorrow of a whole life of sorer rows. >> it's like i'm 9 years old, you know, and in '79 when my sister dies and then i'm 19

years old and at '89 when my mother do is of cancer. now i'm 39 and in '09 i lose my family. >> missing that concert, you lived. how has that been to wrap your head around? >> i've always been embracing of life, right? but i definitely didn't fear death any more. there's times where i would have welcomed it. >> but the deadful truth of it is that accidents all around america happen every day, every night. still, just as the permanence of loss began to sink in, before anyone had given a thought to a now diminished future, there was another piece of news. this time on this road the fatal accident might not have been an accident at all.

coming up -- >> the last thing i wanted was to have to treat it as a homicide. >> a prosecutor's stunning decision when "dateline" returns. ♪ protect your pets from fleas and ticks with frontline plus for dogs and frontline plus for cats. its two kier ingredients work fast and keep worng all month long preventing new flea infestations on your pet. frontline plus. the number 1 name in flea and tick protection. with advil liqui-gels, what bad shoulder?

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for decades, montanans almost morbidly intoned the words "pray for me." they say it because of nights like march 19th, 2009. except as everybody was about to know, this crash on this night may have been no accident. a revelation which in jason thompson's devastated mind would register later. just now his whole life was a bomb crater, a ruin. >> erin was my heart. she was my soulmate. i've waited all these years, but i was searching and searching for her. >> and she, as she told everybody, had been looking for him. erin was a single mom when jason met her brilliant smile. she was a hairdresser who loved to dance. and she was a seeker in all matters spiritual. her mother with, diane. >>. >> she was single and a young

mother and she was wondering what she was going to do with her own life. she just said, well, as longs as i'm about the business. erin married adjacent in 2006 in the glorious montana sunshine. and young caden seemed as pleased as she was. caden, who shared his had mother and new stepfather's craving for outdoor adventures. >> backpacking on the coast, in the mountains, river rafting. it was all about just sharing that time together. >> yes, and there was that plan erin hatched with her sister, amber. >> we always had a dream of growing up and living right next door to each other and, you know, raising up our families. and soon the plan expanded beautifully when erin announced they were spaekt child of their own. >> every day i would praise my life, my wife and my baby that i was finally going to have. it all made sense.

>> and then came march 19th, 09. but as the news and the grief spread, there was still hope, remember, for one of the victims of the crash. justine winter was alive, though barely with a broken neck and broken legs and major internal injuries. doctors told the family they didn't think she would live through the air list to a hospital in seattle. >> what did they tell you? >> they told us three times that she wouldn't live. >> i said [ bleep ]. she's flying in that airplane and don't give me any grief. >> and she did survive the flight to seattle and the emergency prayings to stitch together the broken pieces of her body. she was unconscious when she arrived. the doctors kept it that way, induced a coma so she could avoid the pain or any desperate recognition of her condition. while her body slowly, slowly began to knit itself back together.

until more than a month later -- >> and her eyes just went boom. that was just like the most in credible feeling of she's there, she's in there and your heart is just beating. >> it was days later before justine could understand what was going on around her. but the news had to be faced eventually. so when she seemed ready, they told her. >> when you told her what happened in the accident and hows those other people had died, how did she react to that? >> et it was very emotional for her and it was very devastating. >> and then what was discovered was, quite frankly, unimaginable. for in the middle of that river of tears, relief on the one side, abject grief on the other, there was an undertoe, a twist nobody saw coming. for while justine spent 45 days in the hospital recuperatinging

and months more here at home in montana healing, it didn't take investigators very long at all, a matter of hours, really, to solve the mystery of who and what caused this crash. in fact, the first month the highway patrol officer who had been in that construction zone believed justine had gone across the line and crashed into erin thompson's car. but the worst of it, the inconceivable part, investigator said this was not an accident at all. >> what was your first thought? >> nuts. this was the last thing i wanted was to have to take a double fatality and have to now treat it as a homicide. >> homicide? yes. right there in justine's car

officers found what amounted to a minute by minute narrative of the events leading up to the collision in text messages. and in those messages, the prosecutor said was the evidence he believed required him to press criminal charges against that girl doctors had quite miraculously saved, justine winter. charges of murder. >> the prosecutor lays out his case while jason gets yet another shock. coming up -- >> suing you. >> for her pain and suffering. >> when dateline continues. oops. oh burnt-on gravy? gotta rinse that. nope. no way. nada. really? dish issues? throw it all in. cascade platinum powers through even burnt-on gravy. nice. cascade.

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investigators are convinced that justin winter intentionally crashed her car into erin thompson's, killing the pregnant mom and her 13-year-old son, caden. their evidence? threatening text messages sent by justine minutes before the fatal collision. here getting is keith morrison. >> the sorrow ran deep in montana's valley, that awful spring and summer of 2009. deep and wide. the whole valley, in fact, the country, heard about the crash that killed caden and erin and her unborn child. and heard a strange and disturbing story that

16-year-old justine winter took deadly aim at erin's oncoming car, crossed the center line and plowed right into them on purpose. shocking? oh, yes. as was the alleged reason. justine said the police was trying to commit suicide. how did they know? they found the evidence on justine's phone, they said, text messages which she wrote herself and when county attorney ed corrigan saw them gave him no choice. he charged her with homicide, montana's give lent of murder. >> justine purposely smashed head on into another car. by doing so, she should have known her actions could have killed somebody. under those circumstances, it was --

>> you decided to charge her as an adult. >> yes. >> why? she was 16. >> the taking of two lives is not, in my opinion, a delinquent herb. it is a crime. it needs to be prosecuted as a crime and if convicted it needs to be on her record the rest of her life. perhaps because of her own massive injuries, her continuing operations, her age, justine after pleading not guilty was allowed to attend classes, was committed to house arrest and her parents who, no matter what those text messages said, the idea that justine would cause that crash on purpose was crazy. >> are you angry at all of the this? >> it builds up inside and it gets to the a point where you can't take it any more. >> it turned out and it was frpgly hardly surprising in a town this size the two families knew each other. justine's mother and erin's mother had worked at the same school. erin's family made it perfectly clear that what they wanted from

justine was a heartfelt apology and some sort of indication she took responsibility for the act for which she was charged. they saw it as a way to work for forgiveness. but from justine and her family, it was just an awkward silence. then early one morning in the fall of 2010, an entirely unexpected knock at the door took emotion toes a whole new level. >> this private investigator just.hands me these papers like he's serving me papers. to say that they're suing erin's estate. >> suing you. >> suing me. for her pain and suffering. >> it was true. in a legal preemptive strike, justine winters' attorneys filed a lawsuit on her behalf of erin's estate as well as three

companies in the area where the lawsuit occurred. the lawsuit claimed erin negligently operated her car resulting in the collision and that the companies failed to adequately maintained the area. >> i can't even begin to imagine what they were thinking about. this wasn't justine's decisions. that was a decision made by her attorneys. >> ahh, yes, the attorneys. their names, maxwell battle and david stuft. and according to the winters, the attorneys told them this would give them a better shot at a insurance company reimbursement later. >> there is no intent of going for the estate, making that family endure more than they've already endured. >> but the optics were awful. >> the timing could have been, who knows, better. >> you would pick up the newspaper, hear the the blogs,

hear the radio, and you got those awful, those disgusting, terrible people, what are they thinking. they're trying to sue the victims of this crime. >> that's what was portrayed, but the actual intent was not that at all. >> all rise. district court is now in session. >> by the time justine's trial started, the tide the of public opinion had turned as bitter as a montana winter. the hearts of erin thompson's family, too, had toughened. and justine, who showed up in an almost child like polka dot hair band certainly didn't look the part of an accused killer facing as many as 200 years behind bar, but there she was. with the two families just a few feet away, she watched investigators testify with certainty that it was justine's pontiac grand am that crossed the center line. >> here you can see all this initial debris. >> slamming into erin's subaru

so hard it was driven backward into the highway barrier and crash reconstructionists agreed. >> justine winter' car encroached into the northbound lane striking mrs. thompson's vehicle. >> but what evidence was there that justine had had done it, as the law says, purposefully? >> investigators pulled the so-called black box out of justine's vehicle and found another sign tt pointed to suicide. she had taken offer seat belt. the black box also recorded speed, acceleration, braking and found -- that justine was accelerating, flooring it, so to speak, in the five seconds before the crash, speeding up from 81 to 86 miles per hour before hitting the brakes at the last second. >> she did not swerve. she drove head on into that had

other vehicle. >> to back it up, prosecution pulled the speedometer from justine's car and there right above the mark indicating 85 miles per hour found an orange marg. it's known as a slap mark made when the needle smashes against the console at high speed. and finally, prosecutors revealed the reason, they said, behind it all. justine, like many 16-year-old girls had a boyfriend. hers was named ryan. it was white hot, this rip. he was her world. but that day in march, there had been a tiff. they had had words. so that night, she drove ryan home, asked him to get out of the car. he said they were through. and justine drove north to clear her head. she was on her way home when detectives testified she began

texting ryan apparently while behind the wheel. then her texted became threatening. >> if i won, i would have you and i wouldn't crash my car. >> and ryan answered, you kill yourself, i kill myself. so come on, don't be selfish. >> that's the only thing i want to live had for. you, ryan, you keep me living. >> stop. you hurt yourself, and i'll know and i'll do the same. >> that's why i'm going to wreck my car because all i can do is [ bleep ] up. it shows you would rather me die because i want to kill myself. good-bye, ryan. i love you. >> then the final message from ryan. >> you killing yourself is just another way for you to run away. >> and just five or six minutes later, prosecutors say justine winter drove her car into erin thompson's vehicle to commit suicide but instead killed mother, child, unborn baby.

the prosecution had made its case for murder. now the question was what could justine winters' attorneys possibly say to make a jury believe otherwise? coming up, taking on the heart of the case. those the texts, when "dateline" continues.

here is what's happening. a fourth nice of peaceful protests in sacramento over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man. meanwhile, an autopsy shows clark was shot eight times, once in the side and the rest in the back. and the widow of pulse nightclub gunman has been cleared of any wrong down. now, back to "dateline."

the prosecution had made their case. now it was the defense's concern. could they convince jurors to see justine winters in a different light? once again, keith morrison. >> every day in this courtroom, the family of justine winters, their faces by their attorney's decree, they say, an intentional black. emotionless. but almost no one knew what was really going on. >> justine's mother, mary, who had been struggling with alcohol caved into the stress. >> tell me how it's changed your life. >> i ran away for a while. i couldn't deal with it.

i just left the house. i didn't come back. >> justine's brother, kyle, dropped out of college to help get justine to her medical appointments. and randy, her father, turned angry and bitter at the continuing prosecution of his little girl. >> i could be sitting in the living room watching tv and all of a sudden i would just lose it and start crying. >> the whole world seems intent on misunderstanding his little girl, yesterday she had always been so kind, thoughtful, and responsible, getting almost straight a's in high school but mostly wouldn't harm a bug, literally, and cared about people, would never, never want to hurt that sweet woman or her

son or her baby. >> always had a smile. always wanted to help. it's who she was. >> what kind of a little girl was she? >> she was just a good girl. >> but it might interest you to know that as the winters spoke to us here, they were doing so against the expressed advice of hr attorneys. >> and when it was time for justine's defseeam to make its se in court, attorneys told they that everything the prosecution told them, everything they knew about the case so far was wrong. >> what happened out there was an accident. >> including where the crash occurred. remember, the prosecution's experts testify there was no doubt justine crossed the center line and veered into erin thompson's lane, causing the crash. but a forensic engineer hired by the defense said his research turned that finding on his head.

he claimed it was erin who turned out of her lane in that construction zone and struck justine and the defense went further claiming that slap mark was planted there by investigators, that the black box that measured speed and braking was plain wrong. that justine always wore her seat belt. and finally, a psychologist said -- actually, a lot of experts say that a spat with a boy wasn't enough to lead to a suicide attempt and those texts, they should not be considered a suicide not at all. >> it was a way of exercising power and control. in the relationship to make that kind of threat, that it was always clear that it was never meant. >> what would justine winters say about what happened here that night, about those texts? the jury would never know. she did not testify the on the advice of attorneys, said her family.

and, of course, that was her perfect right. but there was another reason, too. justine suffered a brain injury in that crash, so her recollection of the last few days leading up to the crash and that night itself, here, she doesn't remember. she is had charged with a crime about which her memory is a complete blank. so then how could the jury know that justine knowingly crossed the center line and decided to commit suicide by hitting the other car? a question we put to the prosecutor. >> in order to draw that conclusion, you have to read her mind, essentially. you've been a prosecutor pore years. you know that car accidents happen in the most bizarre ways, that people do crazy things on the road. but you clearly said this was a situation in which i know what somebody was thinking. when they drove across that lane of traffic and into that other car. >> no. >> i don't know how you can know what she was thinking. >> i can't know what she was

thinking. she doesn't know what she was thinking at the time. >> precisely. >> all i can do is base my decision on what the evidence shows. >> did the evidence clearly show that justine winter had made up her mind to commit suicide by driving into an oncoming car? up to the jury now. coming up -- >> a verdict comes quickly, but the pain and one final question remain when "dateline" continues. flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase.

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as a montana jury prepared to decide the fate of 17-year-old justine winter, the members of erin and caden's family struggled to hang on to the frayed remnants on of their former good will. they had tried so hard not to be angry at justine. that is, until they were served with that lawsuit blaming the crash on erin and then watched defense attorneys battle and stuffed twist what the family believed were the facts of the case. >> you are unusual as victims because of this willingness to forgive justine. >> it's the adults in her life that are steering her in this direction. it's not her decisions. you know, it's these adults. so i've had plenty of anger towards them. >> but for justine's family, too, there was considerable

strain. so much that justine's father, randy, buckled under the pressure and was rushed to the hospital and not present in the courtroom. >> i will ask the clerk to file the verdict and to read it, please. >> when after just four hours of deliberation, the jury came back. >> we tell jury enter the following unanimous verdict to the charge of deliberate homicide for the death of erin thompson, guilty. for the death of caden o'dell, guilty. >> this was a absolutely horrible, numbing experience that put my head between my knees. >> it was like the whole courtroom, i felt like everyone just cried about it. >> how does she look, mary? she's lit up, too. your little girl. >> she looked very stunned. she didn't look back. >> just a week after that

verdict, justine winter marked her 18th birthday in a jail cell. and then came sentencing day. and everyone wondered would justine finally tell erin's husband, her family, what they desperately wanted to hear. >> in your ideal world, what would you like to hear? >> to be sorry. >> but just before sentencing, the family received this, a statement written by justine and it wasn't even close to what they were looking for. in it, she called herself a miracle who was wrongly convicted of a horrific crime. she wrote that she would never, ever in a million years take her own life or anyone else's, that this was an accident that had been blown out of proportions, that she didn't need time behind bars, just a chance to turn a

horrific situation into a positive one. so with this statement in mind, the family of erin and caden took the stand to have their own say. >> i want to make something positive of your life through this, but you still have yet to grasp the truth. >> caden's father, the same message. more anger. >> you took him. you did it. and you need to own it. you killed my boy. you need to own it. >> and nally, caden's stepfather, jason, the elementary school counselor first displaying compassion, then a rare stream of inventorion aimed at stine' defee team. >> i hav chosen not to believe that you, in crashing your car that night, wanted to harm or would ever think about harming them. but it has been very, very,

very, very difficult to hold on to that thought given that you were led by these two men and influenced by them to not do what was most important in all of this in this show and demonstrate to us that you are sorry for having taken them. >> then, finally, the moment justine winter herself took the stand. >> i didn't speak with you for two years now. i've wanted to let you guys know that my heart goes out to you. and as every single one of you came up here today, my hearts was breaking. but i just hope that you guys will be able to forgive that i will never be able to say that i intentionally crossed the center line wanting to take three lives from all of you.

>> but before the judge allowed justine to leave the witness stand, the prosecutors to the podium and asked a question on behalf of the victim's families, a question that froze the courtroom. >> what they've wanted to hear from you for a long, long time from you, also, is i'm sorry. can you tell them that? >> i'm sorry for your loss. but i cannot -- i don't know what you're meaning by you want me to say that i'm sorry. >> so the hammer came down. >> it's the order of the court the defendant is committed for a period of 30 years with 15 years suspended. >> justine was sentenced to 15 years in prison. and her father, back on his feet and in court for sentencing day began his own prison term, the one deep inside his own soul. >> the system betrayed me.

you serve your country and then you feel be dred by it. >> you feel betrayed about by the country you fought for. >> about the judicial part of the system. >> they took her, this once promising college bound honor student to a cell in the montana women's prison where she instantly became the youngest inmate in the place. and two months later, those attorneys stuffed in battle who declined our requests for interviews were off the case. that civil lawsuit was dropped. that's when justine winter decided to tell us her side. of the whole, sad story. cing up -- an exclusi interview with justine. >> probably you caused that accident. are you able to say i take responsibility for that? >> when "dateline" continues. flea and tick protection

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welcome back. teenager justine winter was convicted of deliberate homicide in the car crash death of a mother and son. would the victim's family finally get the apology they've been waiting for? here a keith morrison with the conclusion of our story. >> shortly after justine winter walked out of this courtroom in montana, she landed here. more than 450 miles east across

the state at the women's prison in billings. she sat down with us quite well aware of how all this time she'd been the target of so much curiosity and anger. i'm curious to know what your thought process was as you went about deciding, yeah, i think i'll talk now. >> i don't know. i guess it was probably that i was being shown in a different light than what i wanted to be shown in. >> when you read accounts of your case and when you see the comments people write, what's that like? >> they're really hard to read. i heard one that said that i needed to hang from a noose on a tree. >> what does it feel like inside when you saw that comment, for example? >> i'm really weird and with my brain injury, i feel it in the second. but it's hard to, like, recall it afterwards.

>> that brain injury is the reason she says she sometimes smiles when she doesn't mean to. why everything came out wrong, she says, when she took the stand and spoke at sentencing. and why she says and even the prosecutor says he believes this, that she recalls nothing about the crash. >> i don't remember the night of the accident. but i remember events that i know had to have happened right before the accident happened. >> what events would those be? >> i remember doing stuff to get ready for prom. because prom was supposed to be two days after when the accident happened. but other than that, i don't remember a whole lot about march. >> what do you remember the last time you saw your boyfriend? >> i have no idea. i remember we spent oodles of time together. >> you were inseparable, basically. >> pretty much. >> in love? >> kid love. >> yeah? well, that's pretty strong love, that kid love, isn't it?

>> yeah. i remember if i wasn't with him, i was texting him all the time. >> but as for those texts following the argument with ryan just before the crash, justine says despite what many believe, she would never, ever have tried to commit suicide. knowing as she does that her grandmother, randy's mother killed herself when her dad was just a boy. in fact, she says, the most likely explanation is she was just playing a game of sorts with ryan. >> like, controlling everything having to do with my life. and he'd threaten suicide twice. that's what i would think was happening, was i was playing his own card back at him. >> oh, i'm going to kill myself then. >> yeah. i don't think that they were text messages that were to be taken seriously. >> if you look at them through justine's eyes they don't look like a serious threat.

but the jury didn't look at it through your eyes. >> no. >> and despite her conviction and all that evidence and the fact she has no memory of that night, justine still claims she must have been wearing her seat belt and cannot imagine driving her car at 85 miles an hour. just not the sort of thing she ever did, she says. something happened. you swerved across and hit that other car. does that sound about right? >> yeah. >> it's probably you who caused the accident. that's fair to say? >> uh-huh. >> and if you say it's probably who caused that accident, are you able to say, you know, if i did it and i probably did cause it, i just feel horrible about that. >> uh-huh. >> and i take responsibility for that. >> yeah. >> sit possible for you to say that? >> i mean, if i knew, then i would take responsibility for it. you know, if it was me, i take complete utter responsibility for it. and i do.

>> and now finally having said the words almost that erin and caden's family longed to hear, justine says she is finally through with what she called a pity party for herself. >> all i would change about the accident is that they lived. and if it had to be that they lived and i didn't, i'd be okay with that. because i don't -- i don't like seeing anyone else in pain. i know my family was put in a lot of pain because of the accident. but they've got to see me grow up. >> and the other family can't see that. >> yep. and i don't want to put them in any more pain than they've already had to be put through.

and i want to make everything okay for them. >> after serving a little more than four years of her 15-year sentence in prison, in 2015 justine winter was granted parole. for erin's widower jason, his dream is gone. only an empty chair and empty ache remain as he and so many in the family as if climbing those montana mountains, trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other. >> it's a dance between the grief of their loss to the joy and the blessing of having experienced them. >> it's like seeing a meteor. you wouldn't curse your luck that you saw this meteor. you'd just be thankful that you were blessed to see it. so we just have to cling to that. that wow. how amazing that we got to spend a good part of our life with two

of the most precious people on the planet. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. here's what's happening. bargain bng. under scrutiny for his -- causing tension between officials. stormy's strategy. what is the move behind her legal team's moves this week? >> if they came to you with a settlement in this case, would you accept it? >> well, i think we would consider it. a number that would allow him to continue to hide the truth, is that the question? >> yeah. for you to go away. >> no number.