By Richard Verrier, The Orlando Sentinel
July 12, 2000 -- Six jurors were picked Tuesday for what could be a high-stakes trial over who conceived Disney's
Wide World of Sports complex.
Even as jurors were being selected, however, attorneys for Walt Disney Co. and All Pro Sports Camps Inc. were holding
eleventh-hour talks to settle the case. Negotiations began Tuesday afternoon and were set to continue this morning.
If they fail, opening arguments in what could be a four-week trial will begin this afternoon.
Buffalo, N.Y., businessman Nicholas Stracick, president of All Pro Sports Camps Inc. of Tampa, contends that Disney
used his "trade secrets" to develop the sports complex after he and a business partner invested more
than $100,000 and three years in the late 1980s designing the project.
He and business partner Edward Russell are seeking more than $1 billion in damages and have hired defense attorney
Johnnie Cochran to fight Disney.
Disney says Stracick's idea is not unique and that it relied on its own team of architects and sports experts to
design the multi-sport facility, which opened in 1997.
The case could become one of the more high-profile copyright disputes Disney has faced because of Cochran's involvement
in the trial.
Cochran, who was O.J. Simpson's lawyer, was in Orlando Tuesday and is expected to participate in opening arguments
today.
Even before he appeared in court, his role in the case became an issue. Disney attorney David Evans asked jurors
whether their opinions of Cochran would make them incapable of rendering an impartial verdict in the case. About
a dozen of the prospective jurors said yes. None of those potential jurors are on the six-member panel that was
chosen.
Evans, an Orlando attorney, added that he had nothing against Cochran.
"I welcome Johnnie Cochran in the courtroom," he said. "I don't want to influence you plus or minus.
I'm not a famous lawyer."
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