Finally the information emerging from the Court documents. I don't expect it to be consistent. IH are gathering info, attacking Rossi on every possible front. (They say this in the documents). They don't expect every attack to succeed but they will have enough ammunition to get to the bottom of these matters (they expect) through Court processes that force exact information from witnesses under penalty of perjury. They are doing what they must to get to the truth.
In an American court, a witness/defendant can take the 5th - extract of case law below. So automatic charges pf [erjury are not a given.
Defense counsel advises the Court that all individual defendants plan to invoke their FifthAmendment privilege to refrain from self-incrimination.
What happens if you invoke the privilege against self-incrimination in a civil case?
1. You can do it, and you won’t be held in contempt for failing to testify. Though the provision says that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” the Supreme Court has made clear that this extends to compelling a person to testify in a civil case, when that compelled testimony could later be used against him in a criminal case. See, e.g., McCarthy v. Arndstein (1924):
The Government insists, broadly, that the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination does not apply in any civil proceeding. The contrary must be accepted as settled. The privilege is not ordinarily dependent upon the nature of the proceeding in which the testimony is sought or is to be used. It applies alike to civil and criminal proceedings, wherever the answer might tend to subject to criminal responsibility him who gives it.
2. But a decision to take the Fifth may be used against a party in a civil case (if the party is the witness who refuses to testify, or is closely enough connected to the witness). In a criminal case, the judge and the prosecutor may not tell a jury “that it may draw an inference of guilt from a defendant’s failure to testify about facts relevant to his case.” But that’s not so in a civil case, see, e.g., Baxter v. Palmigiano (1976):
[T]he Fifth Amendment does not forbid adverse inferences against parties to civil actions when they refuse to testify in response to probative evidence offered against them.
