Stick a fork in the long-running Waffle House sex tape litigation. The appeals — for now — are done.

Last Thursday, civil lawyers representing two Marietta attorneys whose client recorded a secret sex tape of the chairman of the Waffle House restaurant chain asked the Georgia Supreme Court to reconsider a Nov. 2 decision that let stand the disqualification of attorneys David Cohen and John Butters.

Criminal defense lawyers representing Cohen, Butters, and their client, Mye Brindle, followed suit, asking the high court to reconsider its decision to reinstate criminal eavesdropping charges against the trio.

In a decision affirmed by the Georgia Court of Appeals, a Cobb County judge in 2013 disqualified the two attorneys as counsel for Brindle, a longtime housekeeper for Waffle House chairman Joe Rogers Jr. Last March, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of the appellate court ruling. On Nov. 2, it changed its mind, dismissing the appeal as “improvidently granted.”

A baker's dozen of lawyers have been involved in the Waffle House appeals.

It took the Supreme Court just three days to rule. On Tuesday, the high court unanimously rejected the motion to reconsider the disqualification of Cohen and Butters. It also refused to reconsider its decision to reinstate criminal eavesdropping charges. Justice Carol Hunstein, the sole dissent in the criminal case, did so without comment.

Jeffrey Daxe, a partner at Marietta's Moore Ingram Johnson & Steele who with lead counsel Robert Ingram represents Rogers, said Tuesday, “We are pleased with the two outcomes, which we expected given the underlying rulings.

“We are also pleased to have this stage behind us, which will now allow us to focus in the key discovery we are entitled to take from Brindle and her lawyers so that we can continue to prosecute Joe Rogers' civil claims against Brindle for invasion of privacy; which have been stayed and delayed for four years, as [Cobb County Superior Court] Judge Rob Leonard's crime-fraud and disqualification orders were appealed, and appealed, and appealed, and appealed.”

Brian Steel, Cohen's criminal defense attorney, could not immediately be reached for comment. The Daily Report also could not reach Marietta attorney Reid Thompson, who is defending Brindle. It also could not reach Atlanta attorney Bruce Morris and Marietta lawyer Jimmy Berry, who are representing Butters in the criminal case. The newspaper has contacted all four lawyers and is awaiting a reply.

The newspaper also could not immediately reach Cohen, Butters or attorneys John Floyd and Michael Terry, who represented Cohen and Butters in the appeal of their disqualification as Brindle's lawyers.