{"id":8180,"date":"2025-10-16T03:33:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T03:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ovg-ceos-lawyers-ask-to-postpone-trial\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T03:33:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T03:33:14","slug":"ovg-ceos-lawyers-ask-to-postpone-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ovg-ceos-lawyers-ask-to-postpone-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"OVG CEO’s Lawyers Ask to Postpone Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tAttorneys for Tim Leiweke <\/strong>are asking for more time to prepare the defense of the former Oak View Group (OVG) chief executive and arena developer in his federal criminal trial in Austin.<\/p>\n

\n\tCriminal defense attorney David Gerger<\/strong> filed an 11-page motion on Friday (Oct. 10), requesting that presiding Judge Susan Hightower postpone the December 2025 trial date to at least October 2026. Gerger argues that Leiweke\u2019s legal team needs additional time to review roughly seven million pages of evidence produced by the government.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe filing also outlines what could be Leiweke\u2019s early strategy to have the Department of Justice\u2019s case dismissed, claiming prosecutors are misapplying the law in what the defense calls a misguided prosecution of an accomplished arena executive.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn July 9, the DOJ\u2019s Antitrust Division unsealed an indictment accusing Leiweke and the leadership of Legends Hospitality of conspiring to rig a bid to develop the Moody Center in Austin for the University of Texas. Prosecutors allege Leiweke colluded with then-Legends CEO Shervin Mirhashemi<\/strong> to prevent Legends \u2014 partly owned by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones<\/strong> \u2014 from submitting a competing bid for the arena project.<\/p>\n

\n\tOVG agreed to pay a $15 million penalty under a non-prosecution agreement, while Legends agreed to pay $1.5 million. Leiweke faces a single charge of violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe say that is not true; that OVG won the contract by competition, not collusion, and provided a world-class arena at excellent terms for the University,\u201d Gerger writes. He argues that OVG \u201ccould not itself provide all the services needed to build and operate the arena, so it had to put together a team. Legends was not an arena developer but wanted to provide certain services to the arena such as food and beverage concession stands.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tThat distinction is key, Gerger continues, maintaining that Legends was not a competitor to OVG in 2017. \u201cEven Legends has told DOJ that it was not in the arena development business during the relevant time,\u201d he writes, noting that Mirhashemi testified before a grand jury that \u201cLegends would support the development-led bid for this project by OVG in lieu of supporting and providing services for another developer\u2019s bid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAccording to the government, an arena developer may not agree that its \u2018teammates\u2019 or subcontractors will support its team and not join another \u2018team\u2019 to bid against it: that is an unlawful \u2018restraint,\u2019\u201d Gerger writes. \u201cOur research shows that theory is wrong on the law, and courts have rejected such \u2018literal\u2019 readings of the Sherman Act as \u2018overly simplistic.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGerger also points to a 2024 DOJ review of AEG\u2019s sale of ASM Global to Legends, during which a Legends attorney reportedly described the University of Texas deal as \u201clawful\u201d and \u201can appropriate business practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRegarding the requested trial postponement, Gerger said he\u2019s unsurprised the government is \u201cready for trial,\u201d writing, \u201cIt should be \u2014 it investigated this case for over two years and then decided when to bring an indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn sum, discovery is voluminous and ongoing, and the defense needs more time to review it \u2014 and time to follow leads,\u201d Gerger continued. \u201cThere is no way to accomplish this \u2014 and file motions and prepare for trial \u2014 on the schedule proposed by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA DOJ representative did not respond to Billboard<\/em>\u2019s request for comment by press time.<\/p>\n

\"Billboard<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorneys for Tim Leiweke are asking for more time to prepare the defense of the former Oak View Group (OVG) chief executive and arena developer in his federal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6893,7,6447,6894,342],"class_list":["post-8180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-ceos","tag-lawyers","tag-ovg","tag-postpone","tag-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}