By Dorothy Atkins

Law360 (April 16, 2021, 9:37 PM EDT) -- A California federal judge told jurors Friday that a witness who testified recently in an in-person bribery trial against a former Netflix executive has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and was asymptomatic, adding that the witness had been vaccinated a week earlier.

Before a full day of in-person testimony, U.S. District Judge Beth Freeman told jurors sitting in a San Jose courthouse that a witness who was vaccinated a week before had tested positive for the virus after taking the stand, but wasn't showing symptoms.

"I can't tell you what that means, I'm not a medical doctor," the judge said.

The judge didn't specify the name of the witness who contracted COVID-19. She noted that "obviously we all need to pay attention" to try to avoid contracting the virus, and said it's impossible to know who might have COVID-19 and who might expose others.

"You might point your finger at someone you may think infected you, but we just don't know, we are all out and about," the judge said.

Judge Freeman added that the courtroom has been cleaned thoroughly, and "we're all wearing masks and I thank you all."

The judge's comments came at the start of the fifth day of a criminal bribery trial that kicked off last week against Michael Kail, who faces 22 counts for allegedly approving payments to prospective third-party vendors in exchange for kickbacks while he was vice president of internet technology at Netflix from 2012 to 2014. The trial was initially set for March 2020, but was repeatedly delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Jurors heard testimony Friday from multiple witnesses who worked with Kail during his tenure at Netflix, including Vance Loiselle, who was the CEO of the cloud-based machine data analytics startup SumoLogic Inc. from 2012 to 2014.

Loiselle said he first met Kail when he joined the startup in 2012 and learned that Netflix was considering entering a short-term agreement for SumoLogic's cloud-based data services. Eventually, Kail signed a $300,000, three-year contract with SumoLogic on behalf of Netflix, Loiselle said.

Around that time, Kail also began serving as the startup's advisor and received equity in SumoLogic, Loiselle said. During their arrangement, Loiselle said he had one dinner with Kail alone and had multiple dinners with Kail and his colleagues, and that they attended a whiskey tasting together.

During his direct examination, Loiselle testified that SumoLogic eventually started losing money on its contract with Netflix because the streaming giant used more data than SumoLogic anticipated, but he said that Netflix's feedback helped SumoLogic improve its software and that using the Netflix logo was valuable to the small startup.

He said overall Netflix was a valuable customer to SumoLogic and its investors, and he said he would reference Netflix as a customer in his discussions with SumoLogic's potential business prospects and during business development round tables.

Loiselle said that he never reviewed his clients' advisor policies and wasn't aware of any conflicts Kail may have had in advising SumoLogic. He also said, however, that at least one person had declined to become a SumoLogic advisor due to potential conflicts of interest, so he was aware the risks existed.

During his cross examination, Loiselle said that he had recommended Kail's equity share to SumoLogic's board.

The trial will continue Monday.

The government is represented by Daniel Kaleba and Colin Sampson of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California.

Kail is represented by Julia Mezhinsky Jayne of the Jayne Law Group.

The case is U.S. v. Michael Kail, case number 5:18-cr-00172, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

--Editing by Regan Estes.

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