A computer scientist who traced views of what have become known to some as Erin Andrews' peephole videos testified Thursday that the videos or still pictures from them were seen by more than 16.8 million people worldwide.
Fourteen additional people — jurors — watched the videos Thursday afternoon on the fourth day of Andrews' civil trial against the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University.
Andrews had tears in her eyes as she left the courtroom before the video was played.
The jurors watched silently in the dimmed courtroom. The only sound was the hum of computers. One woman occasionally turned her head away from the big screen.
They watched two videos: A 4½-minute video in seven segments that was shot in September 2008 at the Nashville Marriott, as well as a six-second clip the same man shot of Andrews when she stayed at a hotel in Ohio. At the time, Andrews was covering college football for ESPN. She now works for Fox and ABC.
Because of the sensitive nature of the videos, court staff implemented precautions to make sure they would not be seen by anyone but the jury and attorneys: No one was allowed to enter or exit the courtroom, the media and public were shifted away from the screen, papers were put up to block windows and curtains were closed, and the courtroom security video was asked to be stopped.
Andrews' team of lawyers, led by Randall Kinnard of Nashville and Bruce Broillet of California, hired Bernard "Jim" Jansen, a computer scientist, to find out how many people had seen the video. Jansen is a professor at Penn State. He said he was paid $300 per hour for about 100 hours of work on the case.
Jansen said he ran 22 queries based on Internet searches and determined 16.8 million people saw the videos between July 2009 and January of this year. In cross-examination with a lawyer for the hotel, Brent Usery, Jansen said that number included people who watched other videos taken by Michael David Barrett, and included people who saw still images from the videos.
Barrett, Andrews' stalker, took at least three videos of Andrews at three hotels. He pleaded guilty to stalking and was sentenced in 2010 to 2½ years in prison.
Trying to put 16.8 million into perspective, Usery asked Jansen if he knew 80 million people viewed ESPN's website per month. Jansen said he did not know specifics for ESPN, but knew some websites draw that audience size. Usery asked Jansen if he knew there were 3.5 trillion Google searches each day. Jansen said he knew it was in the billions or trillions.
Jansen said his research showed Andrews became a top search term after the videos went online. He said based on his research, about 376,000 people watched the videos in the past six months. He noted the videos are still online.
"There's a saying that once it's on the Internet, it's on the Internet," Jansen said, referencing how hard it is to remove things once they are online.
"Right now, someone's watching that video."
Reach Stacey Barchenger at 615-726-8968 or on Twitter @sbarchenger.
