Nothing But Money (37 page)
Authors: Greg B. Smith
“Shame on me for being a fool. It’s not a question of me making easy money. It was taking advantage of your trust. I wasn’t looking to become a millionaire or such, but I wasn’t expecting outright fraud like that.”
Dr. Leonid Rubinov, New Jersey dentist: “The call was when the market was going up and you got a lot of calls. For some reason he talked me into something, into investing with him. One transaction was successful and then, not only did they overcharge me on commissions and everything else—they put in illegal transactions so I end up losing thousands of dollars. They told me it was just a mistake but then it wasn’t corrected for so long.”
Bill Bernard, retired lawyer from a small town in Minnesota: “I’d been in and out of the stock market for years. I was never a big investor. I was a real estate lawyer in the 1960s. I didn’t have brokerage accounts. Then in the 1990s I thought I was going to retire so I started selling everything. Of course the 1990s were kind of an upside for stocks and I didn’t know what to do with my money, so I put it in stocks. And oh boy! I took a bath . . . One broker, he would belittle you if you didn’t take his recommendation. These guys are so pompous, they say they’re executive vice president of the firm. Others brag about how much money they’re handling for well-known people and they get your confidence . . . [Another broker] promised the moon and this is where I guess personal greed comes in. But he always had a story that I guess wasn’t true. None of it was investment grade . . . I imagine that I lost $1 million and I never had $1 million. I was just a small town lawyer. I bought older buildings downtown, fixed them up and rented them out. Corporate America and the stock market are filled with thieves and the Mafia and everything else. I wish I had never got out of real estate. It didn’t appreciate but at least you can see it . . . These guys would never have contacted me except that the Bank of Minnesota sells lists of customers. I’m out here in small town America. How else are they gonna find me? I’m on somebody’s list. We’ve got a lot of people selling lists and that’s why I won’t fill out anything anymore . . . I don’t take cold calls anymore, and if I get one, I give them holy hell.” Bernard filed a complaint with the NASD in 2000. A year later a settlement was entered: $85,948 in compensatory damages, $17,905 in interest and $69,235 in attorney’s fees. “Nothing’s been paid on that award and nothing ever will.”
Manny Pragana, retired from his job working maintenance at the post office. He put the family’s savings—$45,500—into stocks. “I’m a World War II veteran, Battle of the Bulge, kid. This guy, he said that the people in East Ches ter invest with him, everything would be in good shape. We have nothing to worry about. He said he had people in Westchester investing with him. And I listened to him. I got sick from this. What are you gonna do? You live and learn. You know how it is. They tell you it’s a sure thing . . . What can I do now? They said if we had to go into court, we would have had to pay the lawyer’s fees. I said nothing doing. Before these lawyers took over, if we got anything, they got a third. We went to arbitration way down there in New York. I went there so many times, and we lost out. What are you gonna do?”
Five days after the big takedown Cary Cimino surrendered at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Lower Manhattan with his lawyer. He was held overnight at the Metropolitan Detention Center a block away, a dark and foreboding place where Cary immediately started complaining about the mild case of glaucoma he’d suffered from in recent years. When he showed up in court to request bail the next day, he was shocked to hear a young prosecutor named Patrick Smith request that Cary be detained without bail. By now he knew quite a lot about what he was facing, but all the charges he was facing were white collar. There were no murders, no broken arms. Just money stolen. He was aware that Jeffrey Pokross had been cooperating for years and that he’d recorded hours and hours of tape inside DMN and who knows where else. He knew that the amount the feds considered to be stolen profits was in the millions and that he could be held responsible for some of that. He knew that this was not going to be a repeat of 1996, when he’d seen all the charges against him dismissed within a month. But he figured he could get bail.
Prosecutor Smith stepped forward and asked the magistrate if he could play a tape recording made by an informant. He didn’t name the informant, but Cary knew right away it would have to be Jeffrey. Prosecutor Smith explained in earnest that the tape would show how Cary Cimino was a danger to the community. He plunked in the tape, and soon Cary heard his own voice fill the room.
“Put a gun in his hand, put it in his mouth,” Cary heard himself say. “Pull the trigger and make it look like suicide.”
It was all a big misunderstanding, his lawyer argued. Had anything come of this idle threat made in conversation at Sparks Steakhouse with crowds of people all around? No. Of course not. Cary Cimino wasn’t capable of hurting a fly, never mind a stockbroker who was at one time his best friend. The only individual Cary presented a danger to was himself. Mostly Cary needed the judge to know how his eye problems were getting worse inside the prison where, his lawyer argued, conditions were simply unacceptable.
Back and forth they went, with Prosecutor Smith insisting that Cary really did mean to have Francis Warrington Gillet III murdered by a gangster, and Cary’s lawyer insisting it was just macho hyperbole by an insecure guy. The judge pushed for a compromise, and the prosecutor came up with extreme bail conditions for someone accused of nonviolent criminal activity: a $2 million bail bond backed by three people who would consider Cary to be a responsible person. Plus he’d have to remain confined all the time to his home in the Village, wearing an electronic monitoring device and staying away from securities deals, real or proposed. Cary’s lawyers agreed to the requirements and promised to make the arrangements right away. Cary wondered where he was going to find three people to help him get out of jail.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
November 13, 2002
Francis Warrington Gillet III, great-grandson of the World War I flying ace, son of the Palm Beach playboy, father of Francis Warrington Gillet IV, former owner of a red Ferrari, stood before a judge to receive his due. It was late on a Wednesday afternoon, a miserable day of rain after a miserable week of rain. Warrington had just turned forty-four the month before and now he was about to learn from a stranger—United States District Court Judge John G. Koeltl—whether he’d have to spend any time inside a federal prison. He was beyond nervous. He was nearly insane with fear.
After all this time, it was still difficult for him to see that where you are is mostly a function of who you are. Standing in the federal courtroom in lower Manhattan with the rain pattering at the window, Warrington couldn’t possibly explain why he was there. All he could hope to do was tell the judge it was his fault and hope for the best.
When he’d stood before this same judge and pleaded guilty to securities fraud charges two years earlier, Judge Koeltl had asked him straight out, “Mr. Gillet, are you pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty?” He had answered in the affirmative because you had to. The judge wouldn’t accept the plea otherwise. Even as he said those words, Warrington was still at that point where he wasn’t sure if he had really done anything wrong other than try to make a living in a difficult and greedy world. He’d merely said what he was supposed to say.
Today was different. Today he had to be sincere. He had to let the judge know that what he now felt was not mere regret but true remorse. It would not be easy. As he stood there with the prosecutor and his lawyers and not a single family member present to hear his words, he knew that his ability to convince the judge to keep him out of prison would be the result of two people in his life.
The first was Cary Cimino. The first time he learned of Cary’s repeated discussions about giving him a dirt lunch, he was stunned into silence. He knew Cary liked to spout off, but he couldn’t believe he would go that far. When he actually heard the tape of Cary’s chat with Pokross at Sparks Steakhouse, he was even more upset. There was his former best friend going on and on about putting the gun in his hand and putting the gun in his mouth and so on. His sense of betrayal was profound.
By now Warrington had made several public appearances as a snitch. He’d finally resigned himself to going public with his status as an FBI informant after the U.S. attorneys he was dealing with made it clear that if he didn’t, he would, in fact, go to prison. They would make sure of it. Warrington came to understand that U.S. attorneys really dislike guys who promise to help and then change their minds.
In one of his public appearances, the U.S. attorney had him come to court to testify against Cary Cimino. They were playing the Sparks tape for the judge to make sure that Cary would go away for many years. Warrington had come to court and sat in an anteroom knowing that Cary was sitting next door, learning his fate. The prosecutors were more or less sick and tired of Cary Cimino. Cary himself had briefly offered to be a cooperating witness and testify against anyone he’d ever met. They listened and wrote down everything he said, and he’d promised to plead guilty and even did. But it hadn’t worked out. Ultimately they didn’t need him, and now he and his lawyer were doing everything they could to spread blame and mitigate punishment.
At one point, Cary even tried to use the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center as a means of staying out of jail. He’d been several neighborhoods above the twin towers when the planes struck on September 11, 2001, but claimed he’d been traumatized by the whole event. So traumatized, he whined, that going to jail would likely push him over the edge. The judge listened to this, than heard the prosecutors say they wanted Cary in prison for fourteen years. For a white collar crime, this was a significant amount of time. The prosecutors offered to play the Sparks tape again, but the judge really didn’t need to hear it. He gave Cary a small lecture and sentenced him to ten years in prison while Warrington sat in the room next door.
Now Warrington sat before another judge as his lawyer, Philip Pitzer, talked about the education—in fact, the transformation—of Warrington.
“And I can say to the court that the Warrington Gillet who is before this court today is not the same Warrington Gillet that I started representing five years ago,” Pitzer said.
It was true. The Warrington Gillet busted by the FBI had truly believed for quite a while that anybody but Warrington Gillet was to blame for his troubles. Cary Cimino was to blame for misleading him. Jeffrey Pokross was to blame for involving the gangsters without asking Warrington’s permission first. Jimmy Labate was to blame simply for being Jimmy Labate. Pitzer the lawyer admitted that, even when Warrington had entered his plea and the judge had asked him that question about whether he was really guilty, Warrington wasn’t so sure.
“He was rationalizing his conduct and was unable to accept the fact that he had committed violations of criminal law. He was in such denial that even by the time he was standing before this court entering his plea, I know that word ‘guilty’ was hard for him to speak. I know that articulating for the court exactly what he had done of a criminal nature was difficult for him to do, even though it was true.”
Pitzer went on about Warrington being embarrassed, humiliated and—most important—“willing to accept full responsibility for the conduct that he entered into and accepting the fact that he and he alone is to blame for the consequences of that conduct.”
He described Warrington as “a young man who was born, frankly, of privilege. A young man who was blessed with so many extraordinary, God-given gifts, is now forever branded a felon. That will never change. This experience, without a doubt, has been the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to Warrington Gillet.”
It was certainly true that Warrington had come a long way to arrive at this place. He had absolutely started with more than most. He had the prep school pedigree. He went off to Villanova and could have, if he had chosen to do so, picked up a college degree. Instead he chose to quit college and try acting. He chose to quit acting to pick stocks. He chose to work with the likes of Jeffrey Pokross and Sal Piazza and Jimmy Labate and Cary Cimino and, without even knowing it, Robert from Avenue U. Now look at them. Jeffrey Pokross had become an FBI informant and was in the witness protection program. So was Sal Piazza. Jimmy Labate had pleaded guilty to securities fraud and extortion charges and was off to federal prison. Even Robert Lino—Robert from Avenue U—had pleaded out and taken his punishment—eighty-three months in prison. Cary Cimino got it worse than anybody—ten years.
In a way, Warrington was just like them. They all cut corners and got caught, then had their own explanations for how they ended up in such a mess. Here he was, a wealthy man living in a country that believed it was the guiding light for the entire world. He was born into money and began his journey believing that he could have pretty much anything he wanted because, well, he just could. He had not realized until much later that it was all his to lose.
The lawyer reminded the judge of the hefty packet of letters sent by the many influential and respectable friends and family of Warrington Gillet. There was a letter from his mother and a letter from his uncle, a United States senator, and even his ex-wife.
Jason Sabot, the assistant United States attorney, a young man bearing the standard phlegmatic demeanor required by the United States Justice Department of all its employees, stood and squared his paperwork. He was there to make the case to keep Warrington out of prison. He made it clear that Warrington’s assistance had been crucial to the federal prosecution of the mob on Wall Street case because his testimony had provided a key to a crucial first door that allowed them convince others to cooperate and open all the doors necessary to bring an effective indictment that inspired nearly everyone charged to plead guilty. By the date that Warrington faced his sentence, more than sixty defendants had pleaded guilty to various charges. A handful had gone to trial and been acquitted, but in all those cases it was Jeffrey Pokross who’d been the star witness—not Warrington Gillet. Warrington had offered what Sabot called “substantial assistance”—the key phrase to obtaining leniency from federal judges.
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