A nasty rift between some of the most seriously injured survivors of the 2018 Parkland high school shooting and the families of the 17 people killed erupted in court Thursday in a fight over a lawsuit settlement recently reached by both sides with the shooter, with opposing lawyers accusing each other of lying.
The dispute at hand is over the terms of an agreement that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor Anthony Borges and his parents reached in June with shooter Nikolas Cruz, which gave Borges the rights to Cruz's name and likeness, approval of any interviews Cruz gives, and the right to a $400,000 pension left to Cruz by his late mother.
Lawyers for the families of slain students Meadow Pollack, Luke Heuer and Alaina Petty, as well as survivor Maddie Wilford, quickly fought back by offering a $190 million settlement against Cruz.
But as Circuit Judge Carol Lisa Phillips learned Wednesday, the mutual animosity began when, during negotiations over a $25 million settlement reached with Broward County schools in 2021, the victims' families insisted that Borges receive $1 less than he should have received as an acknowledgment that they had suffered a greater loss.
Borges' lawyer, Alex Arreaza, believed his client was entitled to $5 million from the fund because Borges will have to cover medical expenses for the rest of his life.
As a result, his client refused to budge and was kicked out of the group.
The fighting continued as family members and surviving victims negotiated a $127 million settlement with the FBI.
The Borgeses eventually came to their own reconciliation.
Borges, 21, was shot five times in the torso and legs, leaving the once promising soccer star nearly bleeding to death.
“The Borges are tired of being treated like second-class citizens,” Arreaza said after the hearing. “We didn't want to go public with it until now, but the reality is they kicked us out of the group because they wanted to dictate what we should get, and the Borges have a right to demand what they demand.”
But David Brill, lead attorney for the Pollack, Hoyer and Petty families and Wilford, said Arreaza had insulted the family by telling them he was tired of hearing about their dead loved ones and by exaggerating how much Borges' future medical bills would cost.
“In the face of this bad feeling, we have repeatedly done the right thing for the Borges family in this case and elsewhere, and this is the gratitude we have earned,” Brill said after the hearing.
Phillips had to step in multiple times during Thursday's 90-minute session as both teams shouted at each other and accused each other of cheating.
To make matters worse, the judge half-jokingly said that the level of hostility was so high that he was granting the divorce as if he were hearing a contested divorce.
The immediate battle over dueling settlements is in two parts.
First, Brill argued that state law bars Borges from acquiring rights to Cruz's name and likeness, as well as any money he may earn from his articles, because Cruz was stripped of those rights when he was convicted.
In any case, Brill said, no one person should have the right to decide whether Cruz should be allowed to be interviewed.
He argued that the money should go to all the families and survivors so that Cruz will never be heard from again. Cruz, 25, is serving a life sentence in an unnamed prison.
Second, he said, Arreaza breached an oral agreement to cooperate in the lawsuit against Cruz and to split his pension money and donate it to charity if the lawsuit went to trial.
Brill said Arreaza secretly made peace with the killer, not telling anyone until the murders were completed.
Arreaza claims Brill lied about the verbal contract and that Borges needs the money from a potential pension to cover future medical expenses.
He argues that state law doesn't prohibit Cruz from transferring his name and future earnings, but he also said other family members need not worry about that because Borges would never agree to be interviewed by Cruz.
Judge Phillips said he would rule later on whether Borges, the family or anyone else owned publicity rights to Cruz, but urged the two sides to negotiate a settlement over the pension.
Otherwise, she says, she will be forced to schedule a hearing that will be painful for both Borges and his family and will once again give Cruz the attention he craves.
She said she was especially saddened that Thursday's hearing took place the day after four people were killed in a Georgia school shooting, and said she believes both sides' animosity toward each other is causing them to ignore the immense tragedy they all experienced.
“Everyone should really look deep into their own beliefs,” she told the lawyers. “Is this really what everyone wants to focus on?”
