Trap (9781476793177) (22 page)

“This mad-dog killer then sought to eliminate witnesses by gunning down his own comrades at The Storm Trooper saloon. Then, aware that the law was closing in, he took Goldie Sobelman, as well as my esteemed colleague the district attorney's own children, hostage in order to escape his just punishment. He is not sitting in this seat next to me today, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, because he died at the hands of Mr. Karp's wife.”

Mendelbaum had suggested that Karp's prosecution of his client was politically motivated, as well as “a nod to the old boys club, or I should say, ‘the old white boys club' at the male-dominated New York District Attorney's Office who felt threatened by the rising star of Olivia Stone. While I personally have great respect for my esteemed colleague Mr. Karp, I would be remiss in my duty to you good people if I did not point out that he is used to being the big man when it comes to law enforcement in the five boroughs, and his name is often discussed in political circles as having aspirations to a higher office. Might those aspirations not suffer a significant blow if a bright young woman, such as my client, were to seek the same higher office?”

However, he had said, Karp's enmity for Stone didn't end at political aspirations. He had noted that Karp and his family were “close personal friends of Rose and Simon Lubinsky, as well as outspoken proponents of the charter school system with all of its elitist and, dare I say it, racist overtones. His own sons attend elitist private schools. Meanwhile, Olivia Stone has been a champion of the public school system—a system, I might add, that helped make this country great—once serving as its chief counsel because she believed it was the best hope for all of our children, not just the chosen few.”

Mendelbaum, a great courtroom actor, had placed his hand over his heart and shook his head sadly. “It pains me greatly to suggest that my friend Butch Karp would seize the opportunity once the real killer, Lars Forsling, was dead to eliminate someone he considered a political threat and who represented a different view of what is best for New York's schoolchildren. It is a sad day, indeed.”

Karp had listened to the defense opening stone-faced, but internally he'd reacted with a mixture of admiration and humor. The truth was that Irving Mendelbaum was one of his favorite attorneys in the city. Pushing eighty, stooped and rheumy-eyed, Irving looked like somebody's grandfather in his rumpled old suits, but he was no pushover. In fact, he was the unofficial dean emeritus of the New York City defense bar and one of the best trial lawyers in Manhattan.

Wily, prepared, and with the energy of a much younger man, he loved battling prosecutors and did so with zeal and aplomb. But unlike some on his side of the aisle, he also did it ethically and without rancor—a man who truly believed that it was his duty to his client to put the People to the test and make them work to prove their cases beyond a reasonable doubt.

Karp wouldn't have had it any other way. As he often lectured younger assistant district attorneys in his office, the system was tilted in favor of the prosecution “and anybody can win a case against a bad defense attorney.” But someone like Irving Mendelbaum would beat them if they weren't prepared and if they did not have the legally admissible evidence to prove their cases “not just beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any and all doubt.” A great attorney like Mendelbaum would force them to be better prosecutors or they'd lose and be embarrassed in the process.

Mendelbaum was beloved throughout the courthouse, and not just because of his kindly disposition and cheerful attitude toward all who came across his path. He also carried a large Redwell file, which he kept full of candy that he liberally distributed to one and all: court clerks, fellow attorneys, judges, security personnel, and even young ADAs.

It wasn't uncommon to see him surrounded by children, witnesses, the media, and lawyers in the halls of the courthouse, all waiting for a sweet handout. In fact, when Karp arrived in court that morning, he discovered his co-counsel Kenny Katz, a young assistant district attorney, enjoying a Tootsie Pop.

“I see that Mr. Mendelbaum is in the building,” Karp had said to his colleague, with an arched eyebrow.

Katz had turned red and quickly removed the sucker. “Uh, sorry, I couldn't resist.”

Laughing, Karp had told Katz not to worry about it. “You're not the first ADA who has succumbed to Mr. Mendelbaum's bribes. I may have accepted a treat or two myself from time to time.”

Karp didn't mention that one of those times was during the lunch break on the first day of the trial. He'd grabbed a quick hotdog from the vendor across Centre Street, wolfed it down with a can of orange soda chaser, and then, eschewing the lovely early summer day, hurried back to the courtroom to study his notes. But as he'd passed the witness waiting room, he'd looked through the glass and saw with alarm Irving Mendelbaum sprawled on his back on top of the wooden table inside.

Rushing into the room, he shook the old man's arm. “You okay, Irving?” he had asked.

With a snort, Mendelbaum woke and then sat up with a groan. “Why, if it isn't young Mr. Karp, my favorite boychick district attorney,” he said with a grin that had charmed juries since before Karp got out of law school.

Karp smiled and shook his head. “That was some opening, counselor. I was about ready to tar, feather, and ride myself out of town on a rail.”

Mendelbaum's grin grew even wider as he chuckled. “But then where would I find a worthy adversary? These kids coming out of law school nowadays, hardly worth my time,” he said. “Surely you don't expect me to just roll over and play dead. In fact, I intend to kick your heinie on this one.”

“I wouldn't put it past you.”

Mendelbaum looked at him sideways. “Don't try to soften me up either, you
momzer,
” he said. “But I don't suppose you want to level the playing field by telling me your plans?”

“Don't you worry, my friend, you'll find out soon enough.” Karp smiled and turned to go.

“Hey, Butch.”

Looking back at the old man, Karp stopped and laughed. Mendelbaum was holding open his Redwell file with its sugary treasures.

“Can I interest you in something sweet?”

“Got any Snickers or Hershey's with nuts in there?”

“Of course I do,” Mendelbaum replied.

Karp had enjoyed the banter with his old friend. But when court went back in session and for the next three days, the gloves had come off and Mendelbaum had lived up to his reputation for zealously representing his client.

The first day had been dominated by the prosecution witnesses who would lay the groundwork for the rest of the case. One such witness was Gail Manning, an assistant medical examiner, who had described the fatal injuries. However, Karp had refrained from showing the jury any photographs of either of the two women who'd died in the car or of Rose Lubinsky. Another prosecutor in another jurisdiction might have tried to get such gruesome photographs into evidence. But Karp saw that sort of thing as just a low appeal to the jurors' emotions but unnecessary to the case. Manning's description of the two younger women's fiery deaths and Lubinsky's injuries had been enough.

Other witnesses had included crime scene investigators and photographers to help Karp describe for the jurors the physical layout of the scene. He'd set up an easel on which a large map of the crime scene had been laid. Then as photographs taken at the scene were introduced into evidence, he tacked them to the map where they belonged and drew arrows to indicate the direction of the view. He also had the witnesses draw circles and label them for such details as to where the Nazi demonstrators and the counterdemonstrators had been standing, as well as where Forsling had been arrested and then detained in the back of the police car.

As he built this foundation, he'd ask questions that at the time might have seemed innocuous or unimportant to the jurors. Such as asking the arresting police officer if Forsling would have had a clear line of sight of the counterprotesters, as well as Lubinsky's car, and if he'd confiscated Forsling's cell phone when he placed him in the police car.

Meanwhile, Mendelbaum carefully chose when and where to pick his fights during his cross-examinations. For instance, he declined to cross-examine Manning or refute most of the details on the easel. However, when it was his turn to question the police officer who arrested Forsling, he challenged the officer's testimony to Karp that Forsling “was nowhere near the car.”

“If you weren't even aware that the leader of the Nazi protesters had slipped away from your sight,” Mendelbaum said, “how do you know what he was doing before you saw him?”

“I didn't know what he was doing before he was taken into custody,” the officer responded. “I meant he wasn't near the car when he was apprehended.”

“So you don't know if he planted the bomb?” Mendelbaum pursued.

“I only know that Forsling didn't detonate it because he was in the squad car and had no cell phone,” the officer countered.

Although made in bits and pieces, Mendelbaum's points, Karp knew, would be noted by the jurors. However, as he told Katz during a break, “We're not worried about details taken out of context, we're concentrating on the whole that the details create when put together. Our friend Irving doesn't have much to work with so he's trying to plant a seed in some juror's mind that he hopes will sprout into reasonable doubt.”

With Mendelbaum sniping where he could like a guerrilla fighter trying to pick off stragglers, Karp continued to relentlessly build his case brick by brick. Now, on the morning of the second day, he was ready to add to that foundation.

“The People call Sergeant Mike Cordova,” he said.

Short and broad-shouldered, with a thick graying mustache and pewter hair, Sergeant Mike Cordova was the leader of the NYPD bomb squad assigned to the case. After establishing his credentials and the overall impact of the bomb on the car and its inhabitants, Karp asked him about the C-4 plastic explosive used to detonate the gas tank of the car. “Is it possible to determine whether two different pieces of C-4 came from the same batch?” he asked, turning toward the defense table. He was gratified to see Stone's eyes widen for a moment and Mendelbaum frown, though he wouldn't tie this line of questioning in until later.

“Let me put it this way, it's easier to rule out using chemical analysis that they weren't from the same manufacturer or even batch than it is to say a hundred percent that they are,” Cordova said.

“Sergeant, how was the C-4 detonated?” Karp asked.

“It was remote detonated,” the sergeant explained.

“Could you explain to the jury what you mean by ‘remote detonated' in this particular case?”

“Sure. The bomb consisted of a component from a cellular telephone. Someone then called that number from another cellular phone, which then closed a circuit that caused the bomb to explode.”

Karp asked Sergeant Cordova to explain how the process worked. “There's a vibrating mechanism in a cell phone speaker. When the phone is called, it activates the mechanism, which vibrates and completes the connection and detonates the explosives.”

“Were you able to locate the cell phone used to detonate the bomb?”

“Most of it was destroyed. So we know the make but very little else.”

“What sort of make was it?”

“An NY-Mobile . . . one of those cheap prepaid cell phones you can buy at various stores. You use up the minutes and then toss it.”

“So if the phone was destroyed, were you able to determine where the call came from?”

“Yeah, another NY-Mobile.”

“How do you know that?”

“It was located in a Dumpster in an alley between 28th and 29th Streets off of Third Avenue, just a block or so away from the scene.”

“And you were able to determine that it was the phone from which the call was made that detonated the bomb?”

“Yeah, we know precisely what time the bomb went off because it was recorded on one of the squad car's dash cams,” Sergeant Cordova said. “A call was placed from the phone found in the Dumpster to a number associated with another NY-Mobile phone.”

Karp had walked over to the diagram and pointed to the alley between 28th and 29th Streets off of Third Avenue. “Would this be the location of that Dumpster?”

“Yes.”

“And is that location closer to the circle marked on the diagram as ‘counterdemonstrators' or ‘Nazis?' ”

“The counterdemonstrators.”

Karp looked over at the defense table where Stone sat with her brow furrowed as if confused by his questioning. But Mendelbaum had a slight smile on his face.

“Sergeant Cordova, would you say that this bomb was a fairly sophisticated device? I mean, it's not like someone lit a fuse and tossed a stick of dynamite,” Karp inquired.

“No, though they might both have the same effect. But I'd say this was a fairly sophisticated bomb.”

“And Sergeant Cordova, approximately a week after this incident, were you called out on another car bombing?”

“Yes, I was.”

“And there was the death of another individual associated with this bombing?”

“Yes, a young male died as a result of the blast.”

“Were the circumstances of this bombing similar, and by that I mean, was a similar mechanism used to detonate the bomb?”

“Pretty much exactly the same,” Cordova replied. “Two NY-Mobile phones, one of them attached to C-4 explosive; the other to make the call.”

“Did you do a chemical analysis of the C-4 used in this second bomb?”

“Yes.”

“And were you able to compare it to the C-4 used in the first bomb, the one used to murder the deceased in this case?”

“Yes.”

“If so, could you explain to the jury the results of that comparison?”