Michael Barrett — the man accused of surreptitiously videotaping ESPN reporter Erin Andrews while she was nude in her hotel room and then uploading the footage — was released on $4,500 bond in Chicago on Monday. The 47-year-old insurance executive was released from custody with an ankle monitor and instructions not to use the Internet.
Earlier in the day, in an interview with Diane Sawyer, Marshall Grossman, Andrews’ lawyer, was asked if she would testify should the case go to trial.
"Erin is hellbent to testify," he said.
Which is encouraging, considering Andrew said during an appearance on Oprah last month that it would be the first and last time she would talk about the ordeal. “I didn’t want to do an interview at all, to be honest,” she said. “I just wanted to go back to work.”
Andrews has since returned to work at ESPN as the most famous sideline reporter in college football history, known, better or worse, for her sex appeal.
Yet even in her defense, her attorney couldn’t help play to the cliché.
Grossman said that Andrews was able to identify the "exact room, the exact date and the exact location" where one of the videos was made, “based on her blue jeans visible in the video.”
"I’ve since learned that women know what they wear on each occasion," he said.
If convicted, Barrett faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Previous coverage of the Andrews case:
Erin Andrews: ‘In My House, I Feel Like I’m Being Videotaped’
