See also: Peters' Personal Spending Spurs Axanar Accounting

After signaling her intent to exclude defendant Alec Peters’ damning financial records from evidence in his copyright infringement lawsuit, his attorney was expected on December 16, 2016, to challenge admitting significant documents for eventual view by a jury or the public.

DEADLINE Attorneys for both sides face deadline to ask the court to exclude evidence.

That day was designated by federal Judge R. Gary Klausner as the deadline for attorneys for both Axanar and the studios suing Peters to submit motions to exclude evidence from the upcoming trial.

Both sides gathered a great deal of potential evidence as part of the discovery process in the case, some of which has already been submitted to the court as part of both sides’ request from the judge to issue a summary judgment in their favor to avoid or limit the scope of the trial scheduled to begin January 31, 2017.

Under terms of a protective order, both sides designated certain sensitive information as confidential, keeping it from public view in court filings to date. But with the January trial date looming attorneys were expected seek to exclude potentially damaging evidence they would argue was irrelevant to the case.

In its motion for partial summary judgment, plaintiffs CBS and Paramount Pictures asserted Peters and his colleagues collected and spent more than $1.4 million raised from Star Trek fans to pay themselves, actors, and crew members, while renting out a studio (which Peters is operating as a commercial enterprise), to pay “tens of thousands of dollars of restaurant bills, to pay their phone bills, gas, insurance, and to travel around the country as the ‘producers’ of Star Trek: Axanar.”¹⁾

The studios’ claims were based on financial records Peters himself had furnished. Most references in pleadings so far filed with the court were redacted based on objections by Axanar’s pro bono attorney, Erin Ranahan of Winston & Strawn. The studios’ attorneys argued Ranahan designated the records confidential to avoid embarrassing Peters rather than out of a legitimate need to avoid public disclosure of trade secrets or proprietary information, particularly given the defense claim Axanar was merely a fan film rather than a professional enterprise.

Ranahan denied the two different sets of financial records Peters turned over were embarrassing, but rather, simply irrelevant:

AXANAR’S BROKE A report by Axanar’s own expert witness confirms producer Alec Peters had spent all the production’s money. His supposed $150,000 reimbursement didn’t appear as income in the report.Click image to view full size.

Despite Defendants’ position that these documents lack any relevance to this case, Defendants produced the financial information they had available at the time in an effort to be cooperative and avoid wasting the Court’s time on discovery disputes. Defendants fully intend to seek to exclude these expenditures before trial.²⁾

Notwithstanding Ranahan’s protestations, Peters’ public relations team sought to downplay what had so far been made public about his alleged mismanagement of the funds that were intended to produce the Axanar film. According to the defense’s own expert financial witness all that money is gone;³⁾ the promised film was never produced.

See also: Axanar's Money is Gone and Peters' Personal Spending Spurs Axanar Accounting

Following those public revelations, Peters’ public relations machine went into high gear to deflect the attendant calls for where the $1.4 million he raised to produce Axanar had gone by focusing on $150,000 Peters supposedly paid back to the production, allegedly offsetting the personal expenses and salary he paid himself.

However, Peters continued to avoid producing records substantiating the $150,000 claim; indeed, his expert witnesses financial statement failed to show income coming from Peters himself.

Downloadable trial schedule.

See also: Timeline of the Case

The December 16 motions to exclude evidence begin a new round of pleadings, with attorneys expected to file their objections to opposing counsel’s motion by January 5. By January 21, each side would get an opportunity to reply to the other’s objections.

The judge was expected to rule on the admissibility of evidence sometime before the trial was slated to begin January 31.

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