Linda McMahon’s Husband Vince Fought the Law, and the Law Lost (Part 4 – The Defense Lawyer, the ‘Fixer,’ and the Playboy Model)

Monday – Part 1, Dr. George Zahorian

Tuesday – Part 2, 1992 Drug and Sex Scandals

Wednesday – Part 3, 1994 Drug Trial

TODAY – Part 4, The Defense Lawyer, the “Fixer,” and the Playboy Model

Friday – Part 5, Aftermath

Saturday – Part 6, Waxman Committee Interview

Sunday – Part 7, Conclusion

At his 1994 trial on Long Island of federal drug trafficking and  conspiracy charges, Vince McMahon’s defense team included Jerry McDevitt, his long-time trusted lawyer and troubleshooter. Another defense attorney was the prominent trial lawyer Laura Brevetti. In 1992-93, when President Clinton was looking to appoint a female attorney general, Brevetti’s name appeared on several published “short lists” of prospects. (This year she joined the New York office of the law firm K&L Gates, where McDevitt has long been a Pittsburgh-based partner.)

Brevetti’s husband, Martin Bergman, was a freelance television producer. (His brother, Lowell Bergman, was the investigative producer for 60 Minutes who would be portrayed by Al Pacino in The Insider, the movie about tobacco industry corruption.)

An important government witness at McMahon’s trial was his former secretary Emily Feinberg. She was also a former Playboy magazine model. Additionally, her husband was a WWF TV script writer.

During her WWF employment, Vince McMahon and Emily Feinberg were rumored to have had an affair. Vince and Linda McMahon have not talked about this in specifics, but their narrative includes the general acknowledgment that Vince cheated on her more than once while indulging in what he has termed the “party atmosphere” of the 1980s.

A year after McMahon’s trial acquittal, New York’s Village Voice published a long investigative story about Martin Bergman, who was described as a well-known “fixer.” The Voice article said that before Emily Feinberg’s trial testimony, Bergman contacted her under the guise of being a producer for a tabloid TV show. The suggestion was that, through his conversations with Feinberg, Bergman corrupted her direct testimony and aided the discrediting of it during cross-examination.

Irvin Muchnick

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NEXT: Part 5, Aftermath