The CBS Murders (23 page)

But the jury was not there to judge Irwin Margolies. Its job was to judge the guilt or innocence of Donald Nash. It took thirteen hours of deliberation to decide that the only sticking point in the minds of some of the jurors was whether or not the police had planted that shell casing in Thomas Dane's attic. Aside from that, there was little disagreement.

At four-thirty on the afternoon of May 24, 1983, the jury was back in the courtroom. In the hush, Nash rose and, emotionless as always, faced his peers. Jury foreman Jean Shaw read the verdict. Guilty of murder in the second degree in the death of Margaret Barbera. Guilty of murder in the second degree in the death of Leo Kuranuki. Guilty of murder in the second degree of the death of Edward Benford. Guilty of murder in the second degree of the death of Robert Schulze. Guilty of conspiracy to commit the murder of Jenny Soo Chin.

Nash listened to the words, reacted not at all. He turned to Hochheiser, shook his hand, and said, “You did the best you could. Don't worry.” He looked toward Waples, nodded, and smiled. He was led from the courtroom.

Thirty days later, on June 23, he was back in that same courtroom. Justice Scott looked down on him from the bench. What he had done, the justice said, “was a senseless waste of human life. I found nothing that mitigated the enormity of this man's crime.” And then he passed sentence. For the murder of Margaret Barbera, twenty-five years to life. For the murder of Leo Kuranuki, twenty-five years to life. For the murder of Edward Benford, twenty-five years to life. For the murder of Robert Schulze, twenty-five years to life. The sentences were to run consecutively. For conspiracy to commit the murder of Jenny Soo Chin, eight and one half years to life, to run concurrently with the other sentences. He would have to serve one hundred years before he would be eligible for parole.

Much later, Richie Chartrand looked back and tried to figure it all out. “Donald,” he said, “did all the things that a person should do for his wife and family. They never wanted for food. The bills were always paid. He found work, legal or illegal. He always found a way to make a buck. He was not abusive. He treated his wife's daughter, who was not his daughter, as if she was his own. Her child made his day and he did everything he could for that child just like any grandfather would do. But he decided to become a killer. Financially, he needed the money. And he figured out, well, hell, if they can do it, why can't I do it? Nowhere did we ever find anything that would indicate that he had ever done it before. But he sure as hell knew how to do it.”

25

The shooter was gone, to the New York State penitentiary at Attica, to spend a hundred years in prison, never to see the outside world again as a free man. The man who had hired him, who had showed him the targets and had, in essence, supplied the bullets and aimed the weapon, remained in the limbo of the Metropolitan Correctional Center. How long he would remain there was a question. True, he had pleaded guilty to fraud and tax evasion. True, he had been sentenced to twenty-eight years. But that was the longest sentence for that kind of white-collar crime New York had ever seen, and there were many who thought that unless Irwin Margolies could be tried and convicted for his part in the murders, unless the evidence could be found to implicate him directly, an appeal would result in a sharp reduction of his sentence and he would soon walk the streets again, soon have in his grasp the millions he had done such deeds to attain.

But where was the evidence, and how was it to be obtained? Donald Nash could supply it, of course. But he and Margolies were wrapped in a kind of unholy embrace. They had made a bargain of death and each would keep his part, for there was no gain to either in breaking it. Margolies had paid Nash for his work, had paid Nash's legal fees, was supporting Nash's family, and that was all that Nash wanted. So Nash would keep to his part and would say nothing. He had nothing to gain by talking. He was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, and the authorities could offer him nothing in exchange for his testimony, could not and would not reduce that sentence, could not and would not send him back to the streets a free man.

If Margolies thought about it in the days following the end of the Nash trial, he must have been filled with growing confidence. He knew Nash would never talk. He was sure, too, of those others who knew what had happened and why. Would Madeleine Margolies turn on him? Unlikely. She was his wife. He had done much for her. He was doing all he could to protect and defend her in her misery. He would continue to do that, and he was sure he could count on her continued and undeviating loyalty. Would his brother-in-law, Scott Malen, talk? Unlikely. They were family, first of all, and families stuck together. Malen had already committed perjury before grand juries and had lied to prosecutors. If he changed his story, he could well be indicted for those lies, and the idea of prison did not sit well with that young man. And Malen was involved, certainly as an accessory after the fact. The implications of that ought to keep him silent.

Would friend and lawyer Henry Oestericher turn on him? Not likely. Oestericher was too deeply involved, had been part of the fraud scheme from its inception to its end, through all its twists and turns, had been part of the murders from the first moment such an idea came to Margolies. And Oestericher had lied repeatedly, to grand juries and authorities. Thus his career as an attorney, his welfare, his very freedom, Margolies was sure, depended on his maintaining his silence, on his maintaining the fictions.

Would Alberto Torres talk? He who had brought Nash and Margolies together, he who had seen Nash moments after the murders and knew about them? Unlikely—for he, too, had lied, and he was caught in those lies, and to tell the truth now would place him in danger, would brand him not only a perjurer but also an accessory after the fact to murder. Such a prospect, with its consequences, would not sit well with Torres, Margolies was convinced.

And there were no others. If Nash and Madeleine and Malen and Oestericher and Torres held to their silence and to their lies, Margolies had nothing to fear.

What Margolies did not count on was the willingness of the Manhattan district attorney to make deals to get him. For Waples and his superiors, for the cops, Margolies was the man they wanted, and they were willing to go to almost any lengths to get him. If that meant that Oestericher and Torres and Malen and anyone else, except Nash, went free, the price was worth paying if the end was Margolies where they thought he belonged.

“On the conclusion of Donald Nash's trial,” Chartrand says, “we now go back and we touch base with everybody that we had spoken to before, everybody that had stonewalled us before. Their attitude has now changed. Alberto Torres now tells us exactly what happened on the night of the murders, what Donald told him he had just done, and now he tells us about the approach by Oestericher and the introduction of Donald Nash to Irwin Margolies at Ike and Mike's. And the only offering that he can give us as to why he had lied to us before was that he was afraid and that he really liked Donald, and in spite of his not telling us all of these things at that time, we still convicted Donald, so it didn't make any difference now. And, he said, he had trouble sleeping and looking at his wife and looking at his grandchildren. So now he bares his soul.

“Now, being aware of the introductions, of Nash and Oestericher and Margolies, we got back to Mr. Oestericher. And we make it quite clear, both through the New York district attorney and the federal prosecutor, that we are prepared to go ahead and include him in future indictments in the conspiracy to murder. We had talked to Mr. Oestericher many times before and he had always stonewalled us every time we brought him in. He's an attorney and he has a very glib tongue and he's a rather abrasive person. He talked to us to pacify us and then he'd say, ‘Am I being charged or can I leave?' And we'd have to say, ‘Good-bye, sir.' On one occasion, Augie Sanchez told him, ‘You can leave, but probably the next time I meet you I will put you in custody.' And later on, Oestericher told us he had nightmares about Sanchez putting handcuffs on him. He was deathly afraid of Sanchez.

“But now that we have heard Torres, the situation has changed, and we explain that to Oestericher. He, the lawyer, now hires a lawyer, and it devastated him that he has to pay a lawyer because he doesn't have much, anyway. The lawyer agrees that it is in the best interest of justice if we can conclude a bargain and arrangements with his client so that Mr. Oestericher can freely tell us everything that he knows. And the arrangements are made and we conduct six consecutive Saturday interviews in his attorney's office and he tells us from the very beginning of the fraud case, and he tells us of his conversations with Alberto Torres, and he tells us of Torres's introduction of Donald to Irwin and the subsequent meetings of Irwin and Donald, and the conversations they held. He tells us many many things and we now have Irwin all wrapped up.”

The bargain that was made with Oestericher was the classic one. He would be granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony. But, of course, there were a few other things that Oestericher had to agree to, as well, and the main one was an agreement to resign from the bar (had he not, he surely would have been disbarred). Similar bargains were struck with Torres and with Scott Malen.

With the decisions by Oestericher, Torres, and Malen that it was time for some truth-telling, and with the additional information provided by the government informants at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Henry Adair and Vincent Calise, Waples went to a grand jury. On July 18, less than two months after Nash's conviction, the jury handed down an indictment of Irwin Margolies on two counts of murder, for the killings of Margaret Barbera and Jenny Soo Chin, and one count of conspiracy to commit murder, that of David Blejwas. He was not indicted for the murders of the three CBS technicians since those were Nash's doing and Margolies had not hired him for that purpose even though he had later paid him a little extra because of that trouble.

Irwin Margolies was a very worried man that summer of 1983. His friends and allies had turned on him, and he could see little hope for his future. That was made increasingly clear to him during regular discussions at the district attorney's office. “The arrangements are made,” Chartrand says, “that he will be brought but on occasions to the district attorney's office to see if he wants to sit there with his attorney and chat. Of course, he does not want to chat, but still we remove him for those little trips. And all of the court orders are made out in my name. And the arrangements are made with the feds that I will be the person that will remove him from time to time. And on each occasion, it's done by court order. And on the second visit there, I go up and I get Irwin one more time and now I bring him down and Richie Bohan is waiting for me and Irwin says, ‘How are you, Mr. Bohan, how are you?' Because Irwin is very familiar with Bohan and very familiar with Augie Sanchez. But apparently he does not know who I am. He has seen me at his home and he has seen me in court, but he does not know who I am. He thinks perhaps I am an FBI agent, but he isn't sure. On this second trip down, Bohan says to me after we deliver him, ‘You'll never believe this. He wants to know who the hell you are. He says he sees you all the time, you're always around, but he don't know who the hell you are.' I say, ‘What the hell does he think? What did you say?' Bohan says, ‘I said you're a detective, you're the guy that's going to arrest him.' Immediately thereafter, he knew who I was and he called me by name, Mr. Chartrand.”

Those trips back and forth to the district attorney's office gave Margolies an idea. If everything looked decidedly grim, then perhaps his one hope was escape. And then he heard rumors that an escape was actually being planned. In a nearby cell was a reputed organized-crime hit man named William Arico. Escape was one of Arico's penchants. He had, some time before, managed to get out of the prison on Rikers Island, get out of the country, and, with a contract from convicted Italian financier-swindler Michele Sindona, head for Italy, where he murdered officials investigating the collapse of the Sindona empire. On his return to the United States, he was recaptured and locked up in the Metropolitan Correctional Center while Italian authorities worked for his extradition on those murder charges. Arico was planning another escape.

When Margolies learned of the plan, he offered his help, financial and otherwise. The condition: When Arico was free, he was to intercept Margolies on one of those journeys between jail and the district attorney's office and set him free. Unfortunately for Arico and Margolies, as Arico was going out the window at the prison with another inmate, the bed sheet they were climbing down didn't hold. Arico fell. The other inmate fell on him. When the guards arrived, Arico was dead.

Word of Margolies's part in that aborted escape, and of his attempts to find somebody to replace Arico in his plans, got to Chartrand and other detectives. “We were extra cautious after that,” Chartrand says. “And I let Irwin know that if there was a problem, he would be the first to hit the street.”

The trial of Irwin Margolies opened in Supreme Court in Manhattan before Justice Eve Preminger on May 4, 1984. This time Gregory Waples did not move slowly to establish the crimes the defendant was charged with. He brought out his heaviest weapons right from the start. Henry Oestericher appeared on a witness stand, a broken man, no longer a lawyer, abandoned and disowned by his family, deeply in debt, a man in disgrace. He had a tale to tell: “I participated in the homicides of the CBS employees and the murders of Margaret Barbera and Jenny Soo Chin.” In exchange for his testimony, “I was given full immunity.”

He went through it all, the inception of the fraud, the talk of murder, the hiring of Nash, the murders themselves. He spared nothing, not even himself, while Margolies glared at him with unconcealed hatred.