by Pat Muir
“I get very uncomfortable when you use the word believe,” said Brenda. “I take it you can prove the phone calls were made to Bailey?”
“Yes,” I replied. “We are certain about that. There is uncertainty about the time when Flynn was killed and where his body was dumped, likely buried. The more important point is that Flynn was killed and that people involved in money laundering carried out that act.”
Brenda brushed her hair back and thought for half a minute. We sat in silence until she spoke. “I tend to agree with Dorothy McMain of Sonoma County. The evidence isn’t good enough to charge Swift with murder. Conspiracy to commit murder is a better fit for the evidence. I’ll confer with my boss, but I’m leaning toward a penalty of ten years, the same as for involuntary manslaughter.” She stood up. The conversation was over.
Back at my office, I read over the document Swift had provided. The list of his partners and shareholders in his S corporations was extensive. It contained seven criminal owners and nearly fifty law-abiding investors. I recognized many of their names; one of them had been pictured in the morning’s newspaper society photo. I felt sorry for them. They had invested in good faith, and Swift had not cheated them. In fact, he had not even cheated his criminal investors. I could see how a little greed and becoming compromised had gotten him into this situation. He had profited, and now he was being forced to give up all his earned profits and his lifestyle. I wondered how Marge and her daughter, Sally, would react to this chaotic change.
Brenda called me a week later. “Swift refused to accept the plea deal. We will be going to trial. However, my boss has told me to wait until Swift’s trial for money laundering in federal court is completed.”
I did not attend the judicial hearing about the seizure of Swift’s assets that was held three weeks later, but I read about it in the newspaper. Thompson told me that our take in the assets might depend on how sympathetic the judge was to Sweeny’s claim that the seizure was unconstitutional. The federal judge, a conservative appointee of President Bush, followed the law as written. He declared all assets seized were tainted by Swift’s money laundering, and he fully ratified the seizure. He put the sheriff’s department in charge of the sale of Swift’s real estate. That turned out to be complicated because some properties were owned in common with legitimate entities. A real estate broker hired by our department began negotiations with these other owners to buy out the interest owned by Swift or an entity he controlled. The negotiations took over two years.
Swift’s trial for money laundering took place in federal court four months later, the trial of the year in San Diego. I was told he wanted a trial because he wouldn’t agree to the sentence proposed by Daumont. People love to read in the newspaper about the fall of the mighty, and Swift had been one of the mighty. Sweeny argued the warrant to search Swift’s office was flawed. He said it was speculation by law enforcement both that Collins was a money courier and that there was a chute between Collins’s and Swift’s offices. Law enforcement, he claimed, had never actually witnessed Collins picking up drug money. The search of Swift’s office had been a fishing expedition, and any evidence seized there should not be introduced into the trial. It sounded like an outrageous claim, but Sweeny was just doing his job. All of this was stated in the absence of jurors, witnesses, press, and audience. The judge took the claim seriously enough to ask Daumont to rebut it.
I learned about this since Daumont had me come to the courthouse to support the warrant affidavit made by Forbes and Svenson. I made the same case to the judge that I had made to Judge Moretti.
Sweeny challenged me. “You made the claim Mr. Swift was motivated to have Mr. Flynn killed since he had allegedly observed drug money being counted out by a Swift employee. Is it not true you suspected two others of killing Mr. Flynn before that?”
I acknowledged the truth of the question. Sweeny went on. “Is it not possible that you, as an Afro-American, were biased against Mr. Swift, who is white, wealthy, and has stature in the community, and that this led you to prefer stating his possible connection to Mr. Flynn’s murder over the other two suspects?”
“That question is outrageous,” said Daumont quickly and loudly.
“I’ll allow it,” said the judge.
I was annoyed at this challenge to my professionalism, but I wondered if there was a tiny element of truth there. Not that Swift was white, but that he was powerful. I responded calmly, “The other suspects’ only motivation was stealing the ten thousand dollars in cash Flynn had on him. The motivation for Mr. Swift was protecting the one hundred million dollars in assets that he controlled and his upscale lifestyle. That one of the participants believed involved in Flynn’s murder has been assassinated confirms my judgment that Mr. Swift’s office was a hub of criminality.”
Sweeny argued that my mentioning Collins’s killing was improper, being a consequence of the illegally authorized raid on Swift’s office. The judge did not buy that argument and eventually rejected Sweeny’s claim.
Jane Daumont invited me for lunch the next day. “I was worried about that warrant affidavit,” she told me. “I called Judge Moretti to ask about it. He told me you made a very credible case. He was right. You did a great job supporting that warrant affidavit yesterday and didn’t falter when Sweeny tested you. I am very grateful.”
I appreciated the compliment and her graciousness, while regretting my initial prejudice against her. I thanked her and said I looked forward to working with her when we had to give evidence at Swift’s trial.
I followed the news reports daily. Steve, Bolder, and I gave evidence about the marked bills being placed in the package at the vacant house and how we had monitored Collins returning to his studio, where a chute to Swift’s office below was later found. The court was packed with reporters from the media and the local television stations. One of them questioned me when I left the courthouse, asking how the drop house scheme was discovered. I declined to answer.
Sweeny argued strongly to persuade the jury and the judge that Swift had been forced into the money laundering and had operated his businesses legally. He had employees of Swift testify that they’d handled funds only from their respective businesses and that no extra cash had been brought into them. Swift explained how he had been compromised by the drug mafia and had tried to work honestly under their restraints. In the summation, Sweeny compared his client to Allen Glick, a realtor from San Diego who’d invested in a Las Vegas casino in 1967, found it to be controlled by the mob, and had not been allowed to extricate himself. The movie Casino suggested his ordeals.
Brenda asked Daumont not to bring up the murder of Flynn or Collins to avoid tainting any jury pool for the subsequent state trial. Despite Daumont requesting the maximum penalty of twenty years in jail, the judge sentenced Swift to only eight years.
Swift either decided not to appeal this lenient sentence or he had no money to do so. The latter became apparent when his trial for conspiracy to commit murder took place three months later. His defense attorney, a young black lawyer named Shauna Rogers, came from the public defender pool. No Pearson Sweeny came to the courtroom. What a comedown. Rogers tried to get her client’s money laundering conviction from being mentioned in the prosecutor’s opening statement but was refused, since the motivation for the murder was to be offered in evidence. The press showed a picture of Marge Holmes, who had to testify that she had known Flynn had gone to the fishing camp and had told Swift. Steve gave evidence about the phone calls showing Swift had ordered a hit man to murder Flynn. He and Mrs. Shannon testified about the stolen car driven by Bailey, whose criminal record was put into evidence. Mrs. Brown and William Watson testified Bailey had occupied the site opposite Flynn’s. Danny Chu gave very convincing testimony that Flynn was dead and that his body had at one time been in Flynn’s car, which had been found abandoned in Compton. His testimony that Bailey’s fingerprint on the gas connector and on the hammer in the stolen car was convincing. Brenda called me to the stand to state how I’d
identified Andy Collins as Bailey’s partner in the murder of Flynn and how I had deduced his role in money laundering and how he had delivered the money to Swift.
Rogers grilled me on the weak points of the case. “Did you have other suspects for Flynn?”
“Yes, but they had an alibi.”
“Their only alibi came from a close relative, did it not?”
“Yes, but we have not disproved that alibi. Furthermore, the motivation, moneywise, for those suspects was minimal compared to that of Mr. Swift.”
And later on, Rogers asked, “Do you know the exact date when Mr. Flynn’s car arrived in Compton?”
I have learned to not give a simple yes or no when a more complex answer will sway the jury one way or the other. “We checked diligently in the area, but none of the residents there could tell us the exact day.” They couldn’t give us any day, let alone the exact day.
“Witnesses have said that Mr. Flynn’s car was gone by that Monday morning. Evidence has been presented that his dead body was in it. Yet Bailey’s car left a day later. So, where were the car and the body on Monday?”
“We believe Flynn’s Camry was taken to Santa Rosa, where Bailey picked it up after dumping the Avalon he and Collins had used to drive to the fishing camp.”
“You want the jurors to believe your killer might leave a dead body in the trunk of a car in a public area for a day, where the smell of the decaying body might reveal its presence?” Her voice conveyed disdain.
“We do not know when Flynn’s dead body was removed from his car. It could very well have been buried that Sunday night, so there would have been no smell from the Camry trunk. Joseph Bailey and Andy Collins would know what actually happened.”
“How convenient it is for the prosecution that Mr. Collins and Mr. Bailey are not here to testify.”
Brenda Williams objected loudly to that remark, and the judge rebuked Rogers.
Rogers went on. “Isn’t it more likely that Flynn knew an attempt had been made on his life and simply drove his car off by himself?”
Brenda interrupted. “I object. You’re asking for speculation by the witness.”
The judge replied, “The witness is an experienced detective. Her opinion is relevant… You may answer the question.” He waved his hand at me to reply.
“The evidence is clear that a dead body occupied the trunk of Flynn’s car and that its DNA matched Mr. Flynn’s. Where, when, and how the murder was committed is less relevant to the charge of conspiracy to commit murder.”
Brenda smiled at me. I had stolen one of her closing arguments. That ended my testimony. Later on, Rogers brought in a pathologist to give his opinion that Flynn’s body, left for a day in the trunk of a black car, would smell sufficiently to be noticeable as far as thirty yards away. Brenda asked him if he knew what the temperatures were at the fishing camp over the relevant time period. He replied that he had used some kind of weighted temperature in making his calculations. I could see that did not go down too well with the jury. Brenda brought Danny Chu back in as a rebuttal witness. Danny is so professional and so precise when he answers questions. I reckoned his personality carried as much weight as his evidence. He pointed out that trunks are well sealed to keep out moisture and that the seal would be very effective in keeping out smells. There was a little laughter in court as he corrected himself to say, “Keeping the smell in.”
Rogers brought Swift to the stand, and he said he was completely innocent of the charges. Brenda hammered him with his motivation to avoid being discovered as a money launderer and that he had made phone calls to Bailey. He denied making the calls to Bailey. She pointed out he had denied making a phone call to Arzeta, both when his office had been raided and in subsequent questioning. He said he had made the denials due to panic and confusion. She hammered him on the lies, saying it behooved him to lie about the other phone calls. I could see the jury was not impressed by Swift’s denials. I think the jurors were intrigued by two black lawyers battling over charges levied against a white society man. Brenda made sound closing statements, emphasizing Swift’s money laundering guilty verdict and that as much as five hundred million dollars had been involved.
I think it human nature to expect persons of wealth and stature to be more righteous than those who can less afford that virtue. There is a small pleasure in bringing one of them down. Thus, it was not surprising that the jury came back in two days with a verdict of guilty.
I was not in court, so Brenda told me about it later. “Swift looked devastated,” she reported. “Curious thing was that Marge Holmes was not in the courtroom when the verdict was read. I guess she abandoned her sugar daddy.”
Shauna Rogers polled the jurors to find any grounds for an appeal. I heard about it from the attending bailiff. The jurors were satisfied Swift had conspired to murder Swift due to two factors: the phone calls between Swift and Bailey, and the Bailey fingerprint on the gas connector coupled with the fact that Swift’s employee, Collins, had been sent with Bailey to murder Flynn at the fishing camp. The jurors had not been satisfied with our evidence on the timing of Flynn’s murder, but they’d decided it was irrelevant to the charge of conspiracy.
Sentencing took place four weeks later. Brenda told me the sentence for conspiracy to commit murder was the same as murder, which was twenty-five years to life. However, she considered Swift to be under considerable pressure from Arzeta and his criminal associates, so she recommended a prison sentence of fifteen years. The judge, however, noted Swift had been sentenced to eight years on the federal charges and so gave the defendant a term of ten years—to be served consecutively, though, rather than concurrently. Shauna Rogers appealed the sentence, but the appeals court declined to hear it.
Later, Brenda told me that Rogers had approached her before the trial without Swift’s cognizance to see if the charge could be changed to involuntary manslaughter. In that way, if Swift were found guilty, he could not be charged with murder when Flynn’s body was found. Brenda had rejected the proposed change in part because she’d inferred Rogers thought her client had committed the crime.
CHAPTER 28
Steve told me at the end of Swift’s state trial that he had taken the exam to be a sergeant and passed. That meant he would be working once more in all sheriff departments for a few years before he became a unit head. I told him very truthfully that I would miss him since he was such a good partner. I wished him luck and told him to stay in touch. So, Norman Bolder became my partner, and we kept a running joke on his first name, sometimes “No Man” and sometimes “Snowman.” It fluctuated like our office address of Cop St. or Cope St.
One of Swift’s limited partners in the Palomar South Park had been promoted to general partner and taken over the operation of that park. The revised partnership borrowed money and paid to have Swift’s interest released to it. The same procedure happened for two of the car washes, where a revised partnership paid for the share owned by Swift and his tainted partners or shareholders. The jewelry store was a leased location, and the landlord released it. That also applied to the pawnshops and the liquor stores. The check cashing businesses never reopened, in part, I heard, because no bank was prepared to service them. Interpol was notified about outstanding warrants for Arzeta, if that was his real name, and Joseph Bailey. I read about the sale of Swift’s house in San Marcos, which took place about a year after his conviction for money laundering. There was a picture of it in the newspaper with an underlying title: “Five Million Dollars for Money Launderer’s House.” Marge Holmes had apparently managed to live in the house until the sale completion. I wondered where she’d gone afterwards.
I heard Larry Swift had been released from federal prison after five years instead of serving his full sentence of eight years. He had earned time off for good behavior and credits from teaching bookkeeping to fellow inmates. He was promptly transferred to the Richard Donavan Correctional Facility, a state prison that lies in the southeast of San Diego County, to serve his ten-year sentenc
e for conspiracy to commit murder. I had to see a prisoner there one day on an evidential matter, and after I had finished, on impulse, I asked to see Larry Swift. I scarcely recognized him when they brought him into the questioning room. He had lost over fifty pounds, and his face and neck had grown wrinkles; he looked more than his age of fifty-eight.
He looked at me sourly. “What do you want?” he asked.
“As a detective, I always like to know that my investigation and evidence led to a just conviction and sentence,” I replied.
“You must think I’m stupid to ask a question like that,” he answered angrily. “You bastards railroaded me with this conspiracy charge. You wouldn’t have succeeded if I hadn’t been convicted of money laundering.”
