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It's not enough in your opinion.
I doubt the defense felt further evidence would have helped their case, given they did not seek it in discovery. In this situation it's likely as another comment already explained to you, they submitted enough that they felt was convincing without having to expose the two parties even further than necessary.
No, you don't get to acknowledge you used the wrong terminology in another comment and then do this game here. I am well aware civil fraud is a thing, but what you said was fraud charges. That is incorrect.
As I explained in the other reply, this was because there was only two options. Either you were mistaken or you were lying. I didn't know which one, just that one of them had to be the case.
You were mistaken and therefore I was right. It was either of the two, and it ended up being one of them. If you do not understand the concept of "either or" and take one of the options as a direct accusation, then that is on you.
I acknowledged that I could be using less precise terminology, because I'm not an asshole. You seem to want to be seen as one instead.
I'm not mistaken, I'm just not pedantic af about syntax. Which apparently you are. Good to know.
If you're not mistaken when saying the civil court was handling fraud charges, then the other option must apply and you would be lying instead because as I established, civil courts would not handle that.
"You are mistaken" is the nice explanation for the false claim you made. We have an known to be incorrect claim and two possible explanations, choose one.
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