In his closing argument, Nicollette Sheridan's lawyer on Wednesday mocked the idea that ABC had decided the fate of her "Desperate Housewives" character and intended to keep it confidential for nine months before killing her off.
Mark Baute told the jury that the idea of ABC keeping a secret for that long was "an insult your collective intelligence.
"Not in Hollywood," he said, "their story doesn't hold water."
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Sheridan is seeking $6 million in damages from ABC for wrongful termination.
The actress says she was fired from the show in February 2009 as retaliation for her complaint that the show's creator Marc Cherry had struck her in the head during a taping on Sept. 24, 2008.
Cherry and former ABC Studios president Mark Pedowitz testified that the decision to kill off Sheridan’s character Edie Britt came on May 22, 2008.
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Citing testimony from Cherry and executive producer Sabrina Wind, Baute said that the defense's version of the timeline that led to her dismissal had been orchestrated for the courtroom.
"When witnesses are singing like rehearsed birdies," Baute said, "you're being lied to."
He chided ABC and Touchstone for their initial response, noting that they "were not particularly interested in a woman getting hit, if the man who hit her is in charge of a billion-dollar show."
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He characterized ABC's internal investigation of the alleged slapping incident –which cleared Cherry of any wrongdoing — as "a quick, casual whitewash" and sought to counter defense allegations that Sheridan was chronically late and forgot her lines on the set.
"They want you to dislike her and think of her as a diva," he told the jury, noting that there was no documentation of any unprofessional behavior on the part of Sheridan.
He cited a note from Pedowitz that said "you was robbed" after she was passed over for an Emmy nomination and another from Howard Davine, executive vice president of business affairs for the ABC Entertainment Group, which referred to Sheridan as a "consummate professional."
Baute also claimed that ABC had failed to refute testimony from expert witness Richard Olshanskly, former exec vice-president of business affairs at NBC, who testified that it was "virtually unprecedented" for a comedy to kill off a major character.
And if the decision to kill off Sheridan's character had been made months earlier, Baute asked, why hadn't the network promoted it as a special event "so they could cash in on the ad dollars?"