The Fifth Witness Part 35

"Well played, Counselor," she said.

"Thanks, I think."

"Who do you think sent you the letter?"

"I wish I knew."

"Have the feds contacted you? My guess is they're going to want to find out who's leaking sensitive and confidential doc.u.ments to the public."

"n.o.body's said jack yet. Maybe it was the feds who leaked it. If I get Opparizio on the stand he's stuck with his testimony. Maybe I'm just an instrument of the federal government here. Ever think of that?"

The suggestion seemed to put a pause in her step. As I pa.s.sed her I smiled.

As we entered the courtroom I saw Herb Dahl in the front row of the gallery behind the defense table. I suppressed the urge to pull him over the rail and pound his face into the stone floor. Freeman and I took our positions at our respective tables and in a whisper I filled my client in on what had happened in chambers. The judge entered and brought the jury in.

The last piece of the picture was filled in when Detective Kurlen returned to the witness stand. I grabbed my files and legal pad and went back to the lectern. It seemed like a week since my cross-examination had been interrupted but it had been less than a day. I acted as though it had been less than a minute.

"Now, Detective Kurlen, when we left off yesterday I had just asked you if you knew what a federal target letter is. Can you answer that question now?"

"My understanding is that when a federal agency is interested in gathering information from an individual or company, they sometimes send out a letter that tells that individual or company that they want to talk. It's sort of a letter that says, 'Come on in and let's talk about this so there's no misunderstanding.' "

"And that's it?"

"I'm not a federal agent."

"Well, do you think it's a serious matter to receive a letter from the federal government telling you that you are the target of an investigation?"

"It could be, I guess. I would a.s.sume that it depends on the crime they're looking into."

I asked the judge for permission to approach the witness with a doc.u.ment. Freeman objected for the record, citing relevance. The judge overruled without comment and told me I could give the doc.u.ment to the witness.

After handing the doc.u.ment to Kurlen I returned to the lectern and asked the judge to mark the doc.u.ment as Defense Exhibit 3. I then told Kurlen to read the letter.

" 'Dear Mr. Opparizio, This letter is to inform-' "

"Wait," I interrupted. "Could you first read and describe what is at the top of the letter? The letterhead?"

"It says 'Office of the United States Attorney, Los Angeles' and it's got a picture of an eagle on one side and the U.S. flag on the other. Should I read the letter part now?"

"Yes, please do."

" 'Dear Mr. Opparizio, This letter is to inform you that A. Louis Opparizio Financial Technologies-known as ALOFT-and you, individually, are among the targets of a multi-agency task force investigating all levels of mortgage fraud in Southern California. Receipt of this letter puts you on notice not to remove or destroy any doc.u.ments or work materials related to the business of your company. Should you wish to discuss this investigation and cooperate with members of the task force, please do not hesitate to call or have your legal counsel make contact with me or Charles Vasquez, of the U.S. Secret Service, who has been a.s.signed to the ALOFT investigation as case agent. We will make every effort to meet with you to discuss this matter. If you do not wish to cooperate, you can be a.s.sured that you will be contacted shortly by agents of the task force. I once again have to remind you not to destroy or remove any doc.u.ments or work product from your offices or a.s.sociated premises. To do so after receiving this notice would be to commit a serious crime against the United States of America. Sincerely, Reginald Lattimore, U.S. Attorney, Los Angeles.' That's it, except it gives everybody's phone numbers at the bottom."

A low murmur went through the courtroom. I was sure most of the general citizenry was unaware of things like federal target letters. It was law enforcement in the new era. I was sure the so-called task force amounted to token contributions of agents from a handful of agencies and no budget. Instead of mounting expensive investigations, it would take a shot at scaring people into coming in and begging for mercy. A design to pick the low-hanging fruit, grab a few headlines and call it a day. Someone like Opparizio probably used the original letter received via certified mail as toilet paper. But that didn't matter to me. My plan was to use the letter to help keep my client out of prison.

"Thank you, Detective Kurlen. Now, can you tell us, is the letter dated?"

Kurlen checked the copy before answering.

"It's dated January eighteenth of this year."

"Now, Detective, had you seen that letter before yesterday?"

"No, why should I have seen it? It's got nothing to do with-"

"Move to strike as unresponsive," I said quickly. "Your Honor, the question was simply whether he had seen the letter before."

The judge instructed Kurlen to answer only the question asked.

"I had not seen this letter before yesterday."

"Thank you, Detective. And now let's go back to the other letter I asked you to read yesterday, from the victim, Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant, to the same Louis Opparizio who is addressed in the federal target letter. Do you have that handy there in your binder?"

"If I could have a moment."

"Please."

Kurlen found the letter in the binder, removed it and held it up.

"Good. Can you tell us the date of that letter, please?"

"January tenth, this year."

"And that letter was delivered to Mr. Opparizio by certified mail, correct?"

"It was sent certified. I cannot tell you if Mr. Opparizio received it or ever saw it. It has someone else's name listed as signing for it."

"But no matter who signed for it, it is a certainty that it was sent on January tenth, correct?"

"I think that's correct."

"And the second letter we've talked about here, the target letter from the Secret Service agent, was sent by certified mail as well, am I right?"

"That's right."

"So the date of January eighteenth is certified as to when it was mailed."

"Correct."

"So let me see if I have this right. Mr. Bondurant sends Louis Opparizio a certified letter that threatens to expose alleged fraudulent practices in his company and then eight days later a federal task force sends Mr. Opparizio another certified letter, this one saying he is the target of an investigation into foreclosure fraud. Do I have this time line right, Detective Kurlen?"

"As far as I know, yes."

"And then less than two weeks later Mr. Bondurant is brutally murdered in the garage at WestLand, right?"

"That's right."

I paused and rubbed my chin like a deep thinker. I really wanted to hold the jury with this. I wanted to look at their faces but knew it would reveal my play. So I went with the deep thinker pose.

"Detective, you have testified about your wealth of experience as a homicide detective, correct?"

"I have a lot of experience, yes."

"Hypothetically speaking, do you wish you knew then what you know now?"

Kurlen squinted like he was confused, even though he knew exactly what I was doing and where I was going.

"I'm not sure I understand," he said.

"Put it this way, would it have been good for you to have those letters in hand on the first day of the murder investigation?"

"Sure, why not? I'd take all evidence and information on the first day anytime. But that never happens."

"Hypothetically speaking, if you knew that your victim, Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant, had sent a letter threatening to expose another man's criminal behavior just eight days before that man learned he was the target of a criminal investigation, wouldn't that be a significant avenue of investigation for you?"

"It is hard to say."

Now I looked at the jury. Kurlen was waffling, refusing to acknowledge what common sense dictated he should own up to. You didn't need to be a detective to understand that.

"Hard to say? Are you saying that if you had this information and these letters on the day of the murder it would be hard to say if you would follow up on them as a significant lead?"

"I'm saying that we don't have all the details so it is hard to say how significant it was or wasn't. But as a general answer, all leads are followed up. It's as simple as that."

"As simple as that, yet you never pursued this angle of investigation, did you?"

"I didn't have this letter. How could I have followed it up?"

"You had the victim's letter and you did nothing with it, did you?"

"Not true at all. I checked it out and determined it had nothing to do with the murder."

"But isn't it true that by that time you already had your supposed murderer and you weren't going to let anything change your mind or make you deviate from that path?"

"No, not true. Not true at all."

I stared at Kurlen for a long time, hoping that my face showed my disgust.

"No further questions at this time," I finally said.

Thirty-three.

Freeman kept Kurlen on the stand for another fifteen minutes of redirect and did her best to resculpt his account of the investigation into a sterling effort of crime fighting. When she was through I pa.s.sed on another crack at him because I was convinced that I was already ahead on Kurlen. My effort had been to sell the investigation as an exercise in tunnel vision and I believed I had succeeded.

Freeman apparently felt that the need to address the federal target letter was urgent. Her next witness was the Secret Service agent, Charles Vasquez. He had not even been known to her twenty-four hours earlier but had now been interjected into her carefully orchestrated lineup of witnesses and evidence. I could have objected to his testimony on the grounds that I had not had the opportunity to question or prepare for Vasquez but I thought that would be pushing it with Judge Perry. I decided to at least see what the agent had to say on direct before I'd go that far.

Vasquez was about forty, with a dark complexion and hair to match. During the preliminaries he said he had formerly been a DEA agent before shifting to the Secret Service. He went from chasing drug dealers to chasing counterfeiters until the opportunity came to join the foreclosure task force. He said the task force had a supervisor and ten agents coming from the Secret Service, FBI, the Postal Service and the IRS. An a.s.sistant U.S. attorney oversaw their work but the agents, a.s.signed to pairs, largely worked autonomously, with freedom to pursue targets of their choice.

"Agent Vasquez, on January eighteenth of this year you auth.o.r.ed a so-called target letter to a man named Louis Opparizio and it was signed by U.S. Attorney Reginald Lattimore. Do you recall that?"

"Yes, I do."

"Before we get into that specific letter, can you tell the jury exactly what a target letter is?"

"It's a tool we use to smoke out suspects and offenders."

"How so?"

"We basically inform them that we are looking into their affairs, their business practices and actions they have taken. A target letter always invites the recipient to come in to discuss the situation with the agents. A high percentage of the time the recipients do just that. Sometimes it leads to cases, sometimes it leads to other investigations. It's become a useful tool because investigations cost a lot. We don't have the budget. If a letter can result in charges being filed or a witness cooperating or a solid investigative lead then it's a good deal for us."

"So in regard to the letter to Louis Opparizio, what made you send him a target letter?"

"Well, my partner and I were very familiar with his name because it came up often in other cases we were working. Not necessarily in a bad way, just that Opparizio's company is what we call a foreclosure mill. It handles all the paperwork and filing on foreclosures for many of the banks operating in Southern California. Thousands of cases. So we kept seeing the company-ALOFT-and sometimes there were complaints about the methods the company was using. My partner and I decided to take a closer look. We sent out the letter to see what sort of response we'd get."

"Does that mean you were fishing for a reaction?"

"It was more than fishing. As I said, there was quite a lot of smoke from this place. We were looking for fire and sometimes the reaction we get from a target letter dictates what our next moves will be."

"At the time you auth.o.r.ed and sent the target letter, had you gathered any evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of Louis Opparizio or his company?"

"Not at that point, no."

"What happened after you sent the letter?"

"Nothing so far."

"Has Louis Opparizio responded to the letter?"

"We got a response from an attorney saying that Mr. Opparizio welcomed the investigation because it would give him the opportunity to show he ran a clean business."

"Have you availed yourself of that welcome and investigated Mr. Opparizio or his company further?"

"No, there hasn't been time. We have several other ongoing investigations that appear to be more fruitful."

Freeman checked her notes before finishing.

"Finally, Agent Vasquez, is Louis Opparizio or ALOFT currently under investigation by your task force?"

"Technically, no. But we plan to follow up on the letter."

"So the answer is no?"