Madison R. Smyser

Madison R. Smyser served on the prosecution team and conducted examinations that established several categories of documentary and physical evidence. On Days 9 through 13, she questioned Yasin Binda about the Park Hyatt search, Gerard Gannon about the 2 Star Island search and recovered items, and Frederic Zemmour about L'Ermitage reservation and guest records. Her examinations used stipulations, search documentation, laboratory results, photographs, and business records to develop the foundation for admitted exhibits.

Smyser conducted Mia's direct examination on Days 16 and 17, developing testimony about her employment, hotel-night duties, alleged violence and control affecting her and Casandra Ventura, alleged sexual assaults, threats, and efforts to leave. On redirect, Smyser addressed defense challenges based on Mia's favorable public posts and later communications, eliciting Mia's explanation that her public presentation did not reflect her private experience. Smyser also objected to substantive admission of scrapbook articles, after which the court barred their use as jury-room evidence while permitting limited demonstrative use, and she challenged a late-produced defense video that the court excluded while limiting related cross-examination.

Smyser participated in the litigation and presentation of surveillance-video evidence, explaining proposed revisions intended to preserve sequence and mark changes between camera views. After the court initially deferred or preserved the compilation dispute, she examined video expert Frank Piazza about authentication, timestamp differences, technical limitations, and the chronological compilation that the court admitted. She also conducted Bryana Bongolan's direct and redirect examinations concerning the alleged balcony incident, injury photographs, uncertainty about its date, and discrepancies in later civil-litigation materials. The court, separately, excluded proposed settlement-call testimony during Bongolan's direct examination on hearsay grounds.

On Day 27, Smyser examined Jonathan Perez about king-night logistics, drug and cash requests, recordings, assistant duties, and communications involving Jane, then used redirect to clarify how those tasks related to his personal-assistant work. She later argued that Mia's account and communications involving assistants supported an alleged obstruction theory; the court admitted some related communications while excluding or narrowing others. During the final charge proceedings, Smyser defended the government's positions concerning the enterprise and substantive counts and identified a placement issue involving the buyer-seller instruction. The court independently resolved those disputes, removed one obstruction predicate, revised several provisions, and finalized the charge and deliberation arrangements.