The Palpable ProsecutorChapter 17
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Judge Gardner only had two choices. There was no way to keep this quiet from the jury unless they were immediately sequestered. It was either that or declare a mistrial.
What made the difference was that the jury was already in the deliberation room, waiting for the bailiff to call them out when the trial started that day.
The Judge ordered the bailiff to have the door guarded, and then went in to talk to the jury himself. He had already called all the alternate jurors into the room.
“I can’t tell you why I’m doing this, but I’m going to have to sequester you. This isn’t going to be pleasant, because it’s going to be a long sequestration. You’ll be put up in various hotels in town. The clerk will go over all the rules with you, but I wanted to be the one to deliver the bad news and tell you how sorry I am that it has come to this. I want you to know I would not do this if I thought justice could be served in any other way. I need everyone’s phone right now. You may not have contact with the outside world until further notice. It’s important to understand that, if you violate the provisions of sequestration, I will find you in contempt of court ... my court. It’s possible you could be prosecuted, so please don’t try to get around any of the rules. It’s especially important that you received no news from the outside, even, I’m very sorry to say, from your families. At least initially. I don’t know if we’ll be able to soften that later or not. I promise you I’ll try. Thank you for your service and cooperation.”
Once he was convinced all the phones were in the box the bailiff was holding, he left them then to do what he knew he couldn’ t keep them from doing. They would talk, and speculate as to why this was happening to them. They would complain. It was likely a few of them would violate the rules and try to get outside contact. He hoped not, because if they did that intentionally, he would throw the book at them.
Next the well-oiled machinery that found them all places to stay would need to be set into motion. The people who did that knew how to warn the staff in those places not to talk to their new guests about anything other than the need for more towels, or maybe room service.
It was a long day for hundreds of people.
As it turned out, the jury’s sequestration only lasted twelve days. Four were used up in an ironic reversal of roles as Lacey sat by Bob’s hospital bed. He’d been shot four times and, on the operating table, after counting the scars of previous bullet injuries, one doctor quipped, “Based on the number of times this has already happened to him, he’ll do fine. This is all in a day’s work to this guy.”
He had to stay in the hospital, primarily because his leg wound wouldn’t allow him to walk unsupported, and his shoulder wound negated crutches as an option. He didn’t want to leave the hospital in a wheel chair. Lacey was busy, and so were the dozen or so Marshals who were with her twenty-four hours a day. None of them had time to push an invalid soldier around. So he waited until he could hobble around using a cane and then left. His doctors wanted him to stay longer, but he’d never been comfortable in hospitals.
He missed the testimony of the first eight rescued girls Lacey put on the stand. In all cases the medical condition of each girl at the time of rescue was documented and presented in court. That tedious kind of information will be skipped over, though, and only what they said will be reported here.
The third girl to testify didn’t know much about who was responsible for their abduction and confinement. She said their captors spoke Russian. She described their captivity as being horrifying. They were fed only once a day and had to use buckets for the elimination of waste. They were given a case of bottled water and some blankets, but that was all.
Summers told the girl to tell him what her name was and where she was from, in Russian. When she said, “I don’t speak Russian,” he said, “Exactly.” Then he asked the question all lawyers love to ask.
“Is it possible they were speaking some other language?” When the answer was “Yes,” then he suggested it was possible the language she heard was Chinese, or German, or Urdu, and asked her to admit that. Lacey objected, saying that if she wasn’t qualified to say it was one language, then she wasn’t qualified to say it was another.
For all the rest of her witnesses, she asked them what languages they spoke, and if they knew any Russian words. In that way she was able to get testimony into the record of specific Russian words the men who guarded the girls had used. There wasn’t much Summers could do with that.
Finally it was Ilsa’s turn on the stand. She was the first witness on that particular day. Bob had limped into the courtroom with his left arm in a sling and a cane in his right hand. He sat in the back of the gallery, trying to keep a low profile. There wasn’t much he could do to protect his love right now, but he wanted to see how the trial played out anyway.
Lacey’s first question was the same as it had been for the previous eight witnesses.
“Ilsa, what languages do you speak?”
“I speak English, Polish, and Russian.”
There were mutters in the gallery and the judge banged his gavel for silence.
“Where did you learn Russian?”
“From my grandmother. She was born in Russia, and came to America when she was twenty. She still hasn’t learned English and we speak only Russian.”
“Do you know who abducted you?”
“Yes. There were two of them. One’s name was Ivan. The other’s was Piotr. They pulled me into a van as I was walking home from work. Ivan drove it away while Piotr tied me up and gagged me. He also hit me.”
“Were you able to hear these men speaking to each other?”
“Yes.”
“What did they say?”
“Ivan told Piotr to call and report to the boss. He dialed and asked for a man named Vladimir something. The van hit a bump and I couldn’t hear the second name. I could tell by the way he spoke, though, that he was talking to someone important, someone he respected. He said they’d gotten me, and that everything went smoothly. Then he hung up and told Ivan they were to get me to the ship as quickly as possible, because I was the last one. Then they talked about what they were going to do with all the money they were going to get.”
“And what language were they speaking?”
“They spoke only Russian.”
The judge had to bang his gavel again, and he warned that further outbursts would not be tolerated.
Bob could see Summers begin to slump in his chair, and Vladimir was clearly angry.
What brought the house down was when Lacey asked Ilsa if she’d ever seen the accused in person.
“Yes,” she said, her voice level.
“Would you describe for the court when you saw him, and what happened?”
“One of the men who guarded us was named Boris. The night I was caught and locked in with the other girls, Boris came and took a girl named Nikki out. When she came back she was crying. She said he had raped her. Twenty minutes later that man came to the place we were being held.”
She pointed at Boruskiev, and then went on.
“He brought many men with him and we thought we were all going to be raped. But then he took out a gun and shot Boris right here.”
She pointed between her breasts, denting the cloth of the dress she was wearing.
“He turned to his associates and said them ... in Russian ... not to soil the merchandise. He said we were to be delivered to their Arab friends in pristine condition. Then he told them to remember that, or they would suffer what Boris had suffered.”
The judge had to bang his gavel and call for quiet.
“And you saw this yourself?” asked Lacey.
“With my own eyes,” she said.
“Weren’t you locked in the container?”
“They opened the container when he got there,” she said. “He came in and looked at each of us. He called Boris to him as he was leaving the container, and shot him before they got the doors closed again.”
It was clear that Summers had nothing on cross examination. He asked Ilsa if she’d ever spoken Russian to the men who guarded her.
She looked at him with a level stare.
“I am not stupid,” she answered.
The last thing Lacey did was present witnesses who traced the ownership of the Astro Trading company through a series of shell corporations back to the man who ultimately owned it. That man was Vladimir Illyich Boruskiev.
Then she rested the prosecution.
Summers’ defense was tepid, at best. One reason he had been trying to get everything thrown out was because he didn’t really have a defense against the prosecution’s evidence.
He produced a witness who had a Russian name, and who spoke heavily accented English. This witness testified that a man named Boris Antonov was the actual mastermind of this illegal smuggling enterprise, and said that Mr. Antonov did it all without the approval or knowledge of Mr. Boruskiev. Not only that, but he said Vladimir Illyich, once he did find out about it, demanded that it all stop. He said he knew these things from direct knowledge, saying “I heard things ... I saw things.”
On cross examination Lacey asked him where Mr. Antonov could be found.
“He is dead. There was an accident.”
“An accident,” said Lacey, who glanced over at the jury. She turned back to the witness. “You said he was the mastermind. How do you know that?”
“I worked for him, so I was around a lot and saw what was happening.”
“So you worked with him to kidnap all these women and sell them to some Arabs?”
“No, no. That was other men, not me. I just knew about it. Boris ... Mister Antonov was the boss.”
“So you worked for Mister Antonov, but not in the kidnapping part of his operation.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said the man, sounding relieved.
“So what did you do for Mister Antonov?” she asked.
Summers objected, saying the witness’s job description had no relevance. Lacey argued that the jury needed to be able to judge whether the man knew what he was talking about or not. The objection was overruled.
“So,” said Lacey. “What kind of work did you do for Boris?”
The man’s eyes shifted around, nervously.
“Oh ... you know ... this and that.”
“So you got him coffee? Things like that?”
“Yeah! Yeah. I got him coffee.”
“Anything else?”
“No. Just coffee.”
“So what you’re telling us is that while the only thing you ever did for this man was go get him coffee, somehow you were privileged to know he was kidnapping women and selling them overseas. And you also were there when Mr. Boruskiev showed up and told Boris to knock it off?”
“Yeah,” said the man, though with much less conviction. Even he could tell he sounded like an idiot.
“I think you did a lot more for Boris than get him coffee,” said Lacey. “I think the only way you’d know those kind of details was if you were helping him conduct his smuggling business.”
“No, no. I just heard things and saw things.”
“So how many shipments of women did Boris sell?”
“Oh, it was just this one. He never did it before this.”
“And Mr. Boruskiev found out about it before he could actually get the container on a ship?”
“Yeah. It was like that.”
“So can you explain why, after Mr. Boruskiev came to the docks ... you did say he came to the docks and saw the girls, right?”
“Yeah,” said the man, without thinking.
“So when Mr. Boruskiev came to the docks and caught Boris trying to ship these kidnapped girls, why didn’t he set them free?”
“Uh ... he told Boris to take them all back where they came from. Yeah. That’s what happened. But then Boris didn’t do that, and the feds showed up.”
“So if I understand you, you knew that the big boss, Vladimir Boruskiev, had told your boss, Boris, to turn the women free. But Boris didn’t do that. And you didn’t do that either. You knew they had been kidnapped, and you knew the big boss wanted them let loose, yet you did nothing. Is that right?”
The man looked around, owlishly. This wasn’t how the Vladimir Illyich’s lawyer had said it would go. All he was supposed to do was blame it on Boris Antonov and everything would be fine. But now he was getting painted into a corner.
“It was Boris who was supposed to fix it,” he said.
“But by knowing he wasn’t doing that, and by not doing anything yourself, you’re just as guilty of all this as Boris is.”
“Objection! The witness is not on trial!” yelled Summers.
“Well it sure sounds like he should be,” said Lacey. “It sounds to me like he’s guilty of a dozen felonies.”
“The objection is sustained, Miss Cragg. Get on with it,” growled the judge. She turned to face the witness.
“Did you, or did you not, help Mister Antonov abduct these women?”
The witness wasn’t stupid. All he’d been paid to do was spin a lie, not go to prison forever.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said.
“But you saw your boss doing all these things? And then didn’t come forward so that the women could be rescued?”
“I didn’t see anything,” he said, dismally.
“That, I believe,” said Lacey.
Summers called another witness who testified that “Vladimir” was a common name in New York City, and that there could be as many as five or six thousand men with that name.
On cross examination Lacey asked what the man did for a living.
“I’m a tailor,” he said.
“Did you ever work as a census taker?”
“No.”
“So how is it you’re such an expert on how many Vladimirs there are in New York?”
“I just know,” he said.
It was pathetic. It’s quite possible Summers would have been better off putting on no active defense at all.
On the twelfth day after the jury was sequestered, closing arguments were delivered.
Summers talked about the tens of thousands of Russian immigrants in New York City, and how it could have been any of them who committed this tragic crime. But it wasn’t his client, who was a man of peace, a simple man who tried to make a living running an export business. Someone had hijacked his business to use to commit a crime, so that if they were caught the blame would go to Vladimir, a family man with four children and a loving wife. It was all a mistake. Boris Antonovich probably had something to do with it all. Mr. Antonovich couldn’t be found right now, but when he was, he would clear things up.
Grace
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