M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
"We were in the middle of shooting our movie that we're producing called 'Decoy' and we got a text so we put her in front of the TV and recorded so it was pretty pretty exciting," said her life partner Barrett Blade during a phone interview with Erin Burnett on CNN's "Out Front."
"She's still pretty stoic," he said. "I think she's relieved. It's is a big weight offer her shoulders at this point."
Daniels was called to testify and later it was revealed she wore a bulletproof vest to the courthouse to ward off potential threats to her life.
When she did testify, she described in graphic detail the unprotected sexual romp in the Lake Tahoe hotel room during a celebrity golf tournament that she alleges took place.
At one point Trump’s lawyers asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan declare a mistrial.
"We move for a mistrial based on the testimony this morning," Todd Blanche wrote at the time. "The guardrails were thrown aside. That testimony was so unduly prejudicial to Trump and the charges in this case and the testimony about the incident in 2006 is way different from the stories she was pedaling in 2016."
While Merchan rejected the mistrial request, he did protest to prosecutors to narrow Daniels' testimony.
When she asked Daniels if she wanted Trump to go to jail, the adult actress said: “If he is found guilty, absolutely."
Barrett Blade still fears she and Daniels will have to look over their shoulders now that Trump was found to be a convicted felon by a jury of his peers.
"What happens next," he asked. "For lack of a better word, what crap that's going to happen, you know?"
"So I guess we take it day by day; it's all we currently can do."
