Trap (9781476793177) (35 page)

“Yes, I was.”

“And did you plead guilty to that charge?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Were you offered any sort of deal in exchange for your testimony here today?”

Monroe shook his head sadly. “No. You said if I testified and told the truth, you'd let the judge know that when I get sentenced.”

“And have you told the truth here today?”

“Yeah, I've told the truth.”

“And will you be going to prison for a long time no matter what?”

Monroe took a deep breath and let it out slowly before he nodded. “Yeah, I expect the only way I'll get out will be in a pine box. But maybe God will have mercy, and I'll get a few years at the end, to see my kids without bars between us again someday.”

Karp looked at Rainsford. “No more questions, your honor.”

K
ARP FEIGNED UNINTEREST IN THE
quiet but heated discussion going on at the defense table between Irving Mendelbaum and Olivia Stone. Judge Rainsford had just asked if the defendant would be taking the stand to testify and, as Karp had anticipated, the former district attorney of Kings County was ignoring the advice of counsel.

“This is a mistake,” Mendelbaum whispered as forcefully as he could without the jury hearing.

But Stone hissed right back pushing her legal pad at the old attorney. “It's my only chance. I can handle Karp. Just ask me the questions.”

After Monroe's appearance and Mendelbaum's spirited but ineffectual cross-examination, Karp had concluded the People's case with two last witnesses. One was a security guard working the late shift at the building housing the Kings County District Attorney's Office. He testified that he'd let Monroe and Gallo, whom he identified on the stand through photographs, into the building after hours at the request of Stone a few days before the Lubinsky murder.

Admitting that he occasionally accepted monetary “tips,” from Stone for “looking the other way,” he'd also testified that Stone had another visitor that evening, “some freaky-looking guy in cherry red, old-school basketball shoes.

“He showed up before the other two and left after them,” the guard recalled.

The last witness for the People's case had been Micah Gallo, who'd begun his testimony by telling the jurors that he'd pleaded guilty to grand larceny and had not received any sort of deal from Karp in exchange for his “truthful” testimony. He'd then poured his story out over the next two hours.

In a sense the People's case was over with Newbury's testimony; it was that damning. So Karp had used Monroe's and Gallo's testimony to drive the last few nails, like a fine carpenter putting the finishing touches on a well-built new home. The foundation had been poured; the frame erected; the walls and windows, plumbing, and electricity were all in place; and all that had remained was the trim and paint.

It was no surprise to him that Stone now felt compelled to testify in a desperate attempt to try to explain away or deny the evidence in the hope of finding one juror who might buy into her lies. He expected it because from the moment he sought to indict her for murder, from his trial preparation to the manner and order he'd presented the witnesses and the evidence, he'd planned for this outcome. Like a hunter setting a trap for a wary tiger, his purpose had been to lead her down a path to the witness stand. Even the testimony about her illicit affair with Salaam that had embarrassed and ridiculed her had been for that purpose.

Mendelbaum knew it and, like any good defense lawyer who didn't want his client to expose herself to cross-examination, he'd tried to talk her out of it. But in spite of her own law degree, which along with her experience as a Legal Aid attorney and the counsel of her more experienced peers, Stone's arrogance and humiliation worked against her. As Karp knew it would.

There were actually two reasons Karp had planned for this. The first was to go one step further to prove guilt beyond any and all doubt by letting Stone's own words expose her for what she was: a thief and a murderer. The second reason was more personal and went to his very core about how he felt regarding those entrusted by the public to protect and serve them, but instead would do anything to gain and preserve power and its attendant wealth. More than even the most base criminal who mindlessly stole or killed, someone like Stone, who lacked for nothing and had had every advantage, galled him. Their actions tore at the very fabric of society and everything he believed in. If there was a lesson to be learned in her downfall by others who might be considering a similar road, then he was all for giving it.

“Mr. Mendelbaum, has your client reached a decision on whether to testify?” Rainsford asked.

Mendelbaum looked one last time at his client, who nodded at the legal pad and then sighed. “Yes, your honor, the defense calls Olivia Stone.”

Like a prizefighter answering the bell, Stone pushed away from the defense table and stood up. Walking purposefully toward the aisle between the defense and prosecution tables, she glanced venomously once at Karp and then made her way to the witness stand to be sworn in.

Mendelbaum moved more slowly as he picked up the legal pad. Most of his trial strategy had been to rely on the cross-examination of the People's witnesses, looking for small chinks in their testimony. His approach had been to forward the possibility of there being another, viable suspect, particularly Lars Forsling. Or, as his cross-examinations had suggested, that Monroe and possibly Gallo had arranged the murder and that Olivia Stone was an innocent dupe, guilty only by association.

When Monroe was on the stand, Mendelbaum had pointed out that he had the most to lose if the charter school bill was passed. But it only went so far.

“I guess that's true as far as my position as president of the union,” Monroe replied. “However, Olivia relied on the union for its political support, and she had her hand as far in the till as I did both before and after she became DA. She had as much to lose if the union was audited.”

Questioning Gallo, Mendelbaum noted that he was Monroe's “right-hand man and if anybody had the opportunity to act in concert, it was the two of you, isn't that correct?”

“Except,” Gallo retorted, “I was the one who turned all of us in. If I didn't, no one would have been the wiser. The charter school bill would be dead in the water without Rose, and we'd have had time to cover our tracks.”

After Karp rested the People's case, Mendelbaum had called just two witnesses. One was a forensic computer expert who testified about “possibilities.” The possibility that IP addresses could be manipulated. The possibility that someone had hacked Stone's computer, gaining access without her passwords. The possibility that the computers used by Monroe and Gallo had been more expertly “wiped” of information that might have led to exonerating Stone.

However, Karp had made quick work of the “possibility defense” on cross-examination. “You just testified about a list of what you call possible alternate scenarios to the evidence,” Karp said, “but what about the ‘probability' that these fantasies . . .”

“I object to the counsel's description of this expert's testimony as ‘fantasies',” Mendelbaum had complained.

“Sustained.”

“Let me rephrase: What about the probability that any of these ‘possibilities' occurred, and do you have a single scintilla of evidence to back you up?” Karp demanded.

The witness had hemmed and hawed, had glanced at the defense table. He then conceded that “The probability is questionable given all that would have had to occur and the technical expertise it would have taken. I guess my testimony is more theoretical than proven.”

With that witness going down in flames, Mendelbaum called Marlene to the stand. “You are the one who shot Mr. Forsling, is that correct?”

“Yes. He'd abducted my sons and Goldie Sobelman and was in the act of pointing his gun at one son's head.”

“Then after shooting Mr. Forsling, you were present when he uttered a dying declaration, correct?”

“Yes. I was there.”

“And did you hear him deny that he was involved in the murder of the deceased in this case?”

“No, I did not.”

“However, you did hear him say—as he lay dying—that he was responsible for the bombing that killed the deceased?”

“Yes, that's what he said.”

After Marlene stepped down, it was clear that Mendelbaum wanted to rest his case and rely on Rainsford's instructions to the jury after summations that the defendant declining to testify was not an admission of guilt. The standard wording would have been that it was the People's responsibility to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that the defendant was under no obligation to take the stand to defend herself or do anything else for that matter.

However, as Karp knew she would, Stone thought that she could talk her way out of a murder conviction. Thus the trap was sprung.

“Mrs. Stone, although it is against my advice and any obligation on your part that you do so, you've decided to take the stand to testify in your own defense today, is that correct?” Irving Mendelbaum began.

“Yes, that's true.”

“And would you please explain to the jury why it is you're taking this step?”

Stone nodded and turned to the jurors. “I've been thinking about this for a long time now, and believe I need to set the record straight, as well as come clean.”

The audience in the gallery buzzed with excitement. This was unexpected. However, Karp sat listening impassively.

Mendelbaum held up the legal pad. “And to set the record straight, you wrote down certain questions that you wanted me to include in your direct examination. Is that true?”

“That's right.”

“So let me start with: ‘Did you ever receive money and/or purchase property from funds that rightfully belonged to the Greater New York Teachers Federation?”

Stone took a deep breath then nodded her head. “Yes, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'm guilty of theft.”

The buzz in the gallery grew louder. Several reporters got up and ran from the courtroom to give the newsrooms a heads-up.

“When did this begin, and how did it come about?”

“Soon after I applied for the job with the union,” Stone said. “I knew that Mr. Monroe had an interest in me that went beyond professional boundaries.”

“His attentions were of a personal nature?”

“Yes, he started hitting on me.”

“And yet you accepted the position?”

“Yes. I had huge student loans from law school and I just wasn't making any progress at paying those off, as well as keeping my other bills straight, on the pay they give a young attorney working for Legal Aid. I also thought I could do a good job on behalf of the teachers and students while making a decent wage. I believed I could handle Mr. Monroe's unwanted advances.”

“Were you able to do that?”

“Yes, I was quite clear that I wasn't interested,” Stone said. “But by the time he got the point, I guess I was doing a good enough job that he kept me on and for the most part stopped making advances.”

“Did there come a point where you began accepting payments and gifts that were not part of your salary and were not from legitimate sources?”

Stone paused and wiped at an apparent tear, then nodded. “Yes. It began with extravagant trips that he called ‘fact-finding missions' but were really just junkets, and ‘bonuses.' I'm ashamed to say that I didn't turn them down, even though I knew they had to come from union funds.”

Mendelbaum referred to the legal pad. “At some point did you indicate to Monroe that you were uncomfortable with these trips and monetary bonuses?”

“Yes,” Stone said. “The gifts of money, in particular, were getting to be excessive. I was worried that we'd be caught, and that it would have a detrimental effect on the union. But he said it was too late, there was no backing out now so I might as well, and these were his words, ‘jump in with both feet.' ”

“And did you?”

Stone glanced down and shook her head before looking back at the jurors. “Yes. I jumped in with both feet. The money, the trips, the real estate investments, the whole nine yards.”

“And how did you feel about it?”

Stone shrugged. “Guilty, at first. But then I began to justify it in my mind. I told myself that I worked long, hard hours—more than I'd anticipated when I took the job—and that I did good work. The union was strong and we'd made good investments with the funds on behalf of the union, not just ourselves. I convinced myself that no one was really being hurt; meanwhile, my college loans were paid off and I was enjoying life.”

“Did you have other aspirations that you knew would require a lot of money?”

Stone nodded. “Working as a public defender straight out of law school, I believed in what I was doing,” she said. “Everybody accused of a crime deserves good representation to protect their rights, including making the State prove its case, not just what some district attorney ‘thinks' happened. Just like you're being asked to decide here.”

Pausing to look meaningfully from one juror's face to the next, Stone then continued. “But I also saw the impact that crime has on our society and that sometimes good representation was keeping some truly dangerous individuals out of prison and on the streets. I decided when I took the job as union counsel that I'd work to pay my bills for a few years, but then I wanted to work on the other side of the aisle as a prosecutor and do more to protect my community. I know it was just this one girl's far-fetched dream, but I wanted to be the district attorney of Kings County, Brooklyn. However, I knew that I would be up against the ‘old-boys network' of white males who weren't going to accept a female with fresh ideas. I was going to need a lot of money to bankroll my dream.”