by Adam Mitzner
“What about the fact that I already told the FBI I didn’t know where he was? Isn’t lying to them a crime?”
“It won’t be a problem,” Jessica said. “I’m certain that they’ll be more than willing to let that go as part of the immunity deal. In fact, they’ll likely conveniently ‘forget’ that you ever said it. Now, what about that other part? Can you also tell them about any crimes Abaddon committed?”
Will looked at Gwen to once again confirm that this was the road that they should be traveling down. She nodded.
“Yes,” Will said.
“Well, that is good news.” Jessica said this with a smile, as if the fact that her client was actually a criminal, and not just someone wrongfully caught up in someone else’s crimes, was cause for celebration. “Tell me what evidence you have of his criminal activities, so I know what we’re getting into here.”
“For one thing, I’m almost certain that Sam was laundering funds when I bought my apartment. He told me that the purchase price was $9.2 million, but—and I didn’t know it at the time, but I’m near certain now that he was the seller—I think he actually put down the purchase price as a much higher figure. And then there’s all the trades that I did for him. I’m betting that many of them were related-party transactions too, where he was just buying and selling stuff to himself at inflated prices to hide the fact that he was using criminal proceeds.”
“Anything else, Will? I need to hear all of it.”
“Tell her about George Kennefick,” Gwen said, playing her part. “And Robert Wolfe too.”
“I think Sam murdered them. I don’t know the particulars, but he told me that he thought something was going on between his girlfriend and Kennefick, and the next thing I know, Kennefick is dead and I’m going to replace him on the board of some shelf company.”
“How’d this Kennefick guy die?”
“Car crash, Sam said.”
“That does happen sometimes, Will.”
“My old boss, Robert Wolfe . . . I think he was also murdered. The police think it was a road-rage incident. But they don’t know that right before it happened, Wolfe told me that he had concerns about Sam’s trading. He said that he wanted to discuss Sam’s accounts with Sam directly. I had told Sam that Wolfe was threatening to go to the Maeve Grant Compliance people, or maybe even to Legal. That’s why Sam had him killed.”
Will was reasonably sure that Jessica’s practice was white collar only—embezzlement, tax fraud, money laundering, insider trading. But if this was the first time the word murder had been uttered in Jessica’s conference room, she didn’t show it.
To the contrary, she smiled broadly. “This is exactly what the US Attorney’s Office is going to want to hear, and it should be more than enough to get you immunity. Let me propose that we do this: I’ll see if I can get a meeting with them for first thing tomorrow. I’m going to give them an attorney proffer, which means I’m going to tell them everything that you just told me. I’ll also tell them that we’re looking for an immunity deal. If that’s not on the table, then we’d all be wasting our time.”
Will looked again to Gwen, who nodded her confirmation. This was exactly the way they had been hoping this would turn out.
“Okay,” Will said.
“But before I make this call, I need to know that you know exactly what it means to start down this path. Simply put, there’s no turning back. You need to tell them everything they ask about. And you need to answer truthfully. One lie, one omission, even one misleading statement, and the whole deal goes to hell.”
“I understand,” Will said. “I’m not going to lie to them. I promise.”
Will looked at her when he said this, determined not to betray that he was lying to her.
45.
Will was so nervous he had to remind himself to breathe. As if she could sense his unease, Gwen reached for his hand. Jessica sat on his other side in the waiting area of the US Attorney’s Office, her hands in her lap.
Their hosts were running late. Or at least that was the excuse they’d given Jessica when the trio had been told to cool their heels. Will thought it was a power play, to bring about the very heightened sense of anxiety in him that he was now experiencing. When he said as much to Jessica, she replied with a more likely explanation. “Sometimes they run late, Will.”
After fifteen minutes, Will saw a man he recognized, although it took him a moment to register from where. It was Agent Benevacz, who had ambushed him in front of his building months ago. The agent waved for them to come forward.
After they navigated the metal detector, Benevacz introduced himself to Jessica and Gwen. To Will he said, “Good to see you again, Mr. Matthews.”
Will found the meeting anything but good.
The sign on the door on the fifth floor said TERRORISM AND INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS UNIT. Another set of metal detectors guarded the entry. Benevacz walked around it, no doubt because he was armed. He instructed the others to place any metal they had in the plastic bin.
After clearing the checkpoint, they were delivered into an interior conference room that was even more depressing looking than the one at Jessica’s office, which was something Will wouldn’t have previously thought possible. The others were already in place on the other side of the table. They stood, almost in unison, upon their guests’ arrival. The man in the center reached for Jessica’s hand.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
“Always a pleasure, John,” Jessica replied, in a way that might have been sarcastic, although Will wasn’t sure. “This is my client, Will Matthews, and my co-counsel on this, Gwen Lipton.”
“Mr. Matthews, I’m Assistant United States Attorney John Yoo,” the man said.
Yoo wore eyeglasses that were a touch too large for his face, but he was otherwise dressed as if he cared about his appearance—dark suit, crisp white shirt, and solid-blue tie. On his lapel, he wore an American flag pin.
“You have met FBI Special Agent Benevacz,” Yoo said. “The rest of our team includes Assistant US Attorney Lynn Nielson and Howard Goldberg, who is the deputy chief of this unit.”
Of the two other lawyers, the woman was obviously junior to Yoo, probably no older than Will and Gwen. Goldberg, however, was in his forties, a bald man with a swarthy complexion and already exhibiting some five o’clock shadow despite the fact it was still morning.
Jessica said, “I didn’t know you’d be in attendance, Howard.”
“I wanted to hear what your client had to say before we considered whether to give him the golden ticket of immunity.”
Jessica smiled. “Well, the more the merrier, I always say.”
She directed Will to sit to her right. She took the middle seat, which separated Will and Gwen.
When they were all in place, Yoo turned to Will and said, “The understanding we’ve reached with your counsel is that you’re now going to share with us information relating to facts of which you have firsthand knowledge and could competently testify about in a court of law. The representation made by your counsel was that those facts would implicate Mr. Samuel Abaddon in criminal conduct. In addition, you will be able to provide us with information that will lead directly to our being able to bring Mr. Abaddon into custody. Is that your understanding too, Mr. Matthews?”
“It is,” Will said.
With that, Yoo slid a page across the table. Will couldn’t help but remember the same thing happening when he’d first met with Maeve Grant’s lawyers.
“This is the letter immunity agreement you asked for, Jessica,” Yoo said. “It’s our standard agreement, so you’ve seen it before. And I know you know this, but I say it so your client understands, there’s no negotiation on its terms. Take your time to review it if you’d like. We can give you the room, but you need to sign it before we go any further.”
The understanding that had been negotiated between Jessica and the prosecutors was that this meeting would be covered by letter immunity. Jessica had explained that it was a li
mited form of immunity, preventing the government from using any evidence against Will that they obtained from what he said, or that derived from what he said.
“Think of it like a path,” Jessica had explained. “So long as the prosecutors follow the evidence you give them, no matter how many twists and turns that path may take, they can’t use any evidence against you that they acquired along that path. So, if, for example, you lead them to Sam and he gives them evidence of crimes that involved you, they can’t use that evidence against you because it derives from the evidence you gave them. Same thing if Sam gives up someone else, and that person testifies against you. It’s all what’s called ‘fruit of the poisonous tree.’”
This sounded good to Will, but like everything in the law, he’d come to realize, there was a loophole.
“But, and this is a big but,” Jessica continued, “they are still free to prosecute you in two circumstances. First is if you lie to them. In that case, all bets are off, and they can use whatever you say against you. Second is if they later discover evidence of your own criminal conduct that has nothing to do with what you tell them now. Continuing my path metaphor, imagine if they’re following a different path that does not connect with your path, and somewhere along their path they come upon evidence of your criminal conduct. To get out from under that, you would need what’s called full transactional immunity. That’s the get-out-of-jail-free card, but you don’t get that without Department of Justice sign-off, and only then after you give a detailed proffer of everything you have to provide. So, right now, letter immunity is the best we’ll be able to do.”
“No, you can stay,” Jessica now said to the prosecutors on the other side of the table. “I went over the terms with Will already. Just give me a few minutes to read it to make sure that it’s the same agreement he and I discussed.”
They all sat there silently while Jessica read the two-page agreement. When Jessica’s eyes lifted off the page, she signed at the bottom. Then she pushed the pages to Will.
“It’s the same as we discussed,” she said. “You sign below me.”
Will took the pen out of Jessica’s hand. Without saying anything, he signed and handed back the paper and the pen.
“Good,” Yoo said. “To put in colloquial terms what you just signed, Mr. Matthews, this meeting affords you certain protections, but not complete immunity from prosecution. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Will said.
“One more thing,” Goldberg said. “As I’m sure Jessica has explained to you, no agreement will ever protect you from criminal prosecution if you are untruthful to us. Is that also clear?”
“It is,” Will said.
“Good. So now that the rules are agreed upon, the floor is yours, Mr. Matthews,” Goldberg said. “Tell us what we’re all here to learn about Mr. Abaddon.”
The narrative Will delivered had been drafted by Jessica. Will had practiced it numerous times, as if he were an actor about to give a performance. He began with the meeting at the hockey game, discussed the party at Sam’s apartment, the trading accounts that he’d opened, and the money that flowed into those accounts.
Nielson, the young Assistant US Attorney, was scribbling furiously as Will spoke, as was Gwen. The others, however, stared right at Will.
“I received a retention loan from Maeve Grant,” Will said. “Ten million dollars. Sam suggested that I buy an apartment with it, and even offered that he knew of a unit that he thought I’d like. He arranged for me to see it right away and said he’d finance the purchase, so long as I used the proceeds of my Maeve Grant loan to invest in a private equity fund his friend ran. I cleared all of this with Maeve Grant, and they signed off. What I didn’t know at the time, but have since learned, is that the seller of my apartment was a company that was owned by Sam, and that the amount I was paying, which I thought was $9.2 million, was not the actual purchase price that was listed on the sales contract.”
“What was the actual purchase price?” Yoo asked.
“A little under $29 million.”
“And how did you learn that?”
“I later saw that in the actual sale documents.”
“Later?” Goldberg said, obviously in disbelief.
“Right. When I signed, I only saw the signature pages. The price wasn’t included among them.”
“You signed them without checking the price?” Yoo asked.
“Sam told me the price. I trusted him.”
Jessica chimed in. “I recently took the opportunity to pull up the deed of sale from the Department of Buildings.” She reached into her briefcase and pulled out the document. “As you’ll see, the sale price is listed as $28.9 million. Also, you’ll see that the seller is Highline Property, a New York corporation. A little more digging revealed that Highline is wholly owned by a company called Drogo Inc., which is a Cypriot entity. Mr. Abaddon has a penchant for naming his holding companies after Game of Thrones characters and incorporating them in tax havens. We can’t be certain that Drogo is owned by Mr. Abaddon because I don’t have access to Cypriot records, but we assume you could easily ascertain that with a subpoena.”
Will proceeded with the script, telling the prosecutors about the other questionable trades, and then ending with his suspicions about the deaths of George Kennefick and Robert Wolfe. When he finally finished, there was a momentary silence. Out of his peripheral vision, Will saw Jessica nod, her way of saying that he was doing well. He turned more fully to see Gwen smile—that was the confirmation he needed.
The other side of the table was engaged in cupped-ear whispering. First between Yoo and his boss, and then between Yoo and Benevacz.
“Okay,” Yoo said when their secret discussions were completed. “We can definitely work with this. But as you know, it’s meaningless without our being able to find Mr. Abaddon. So . . . where is he?”
Will looked to Jessica, who nodded. She still didn’t know the answer. She’d asked, but on that point Will had made it clear that she didn’t want to know. Although Jessica had said she didn’t like to operate in the dark, she had relented because Gwen assured her that she had advised Will to remain vague.
“He’s dead. You can find his body in the Suffolk County morgue.”
Yoo and Goldberg looked at each other. Then, turning back to Will, Goldberg said, “How’d he get there?”
Will steadied himself. It was all leading up to this.
“I killed him. He wanted me to do something that was illegal. I told him I wouldn’t. That’s when he revealed who he really was and everything he had done. When I told him I was going to call the police, he came at me and tried to throw me off my balcony. Lucky for me, I was armed. Otherwise I’d be the one lying in the morgue now. After he was dead, I buried the body. I wasn’t worried about the police. I knew I’d acted in self-defense. But if word got out that I’d killed Sam, I knew his people would kill me.”
This time Will assiduously avoided looking at Jessica. He could only imagine the daggers she’d be shooting him after he’d kept this explosive detail from her. Instead, he watched another ear-cupping whisper exchange between Yoo and Goldberg. When they broke their huddle, Goldberg was smiling.
“Let’s now talk about the truth, Mr. Matthews,” Goldberg said.
Jessica put her hand across Will’s chest like a mother protecting her child when she has to slam on the brakes. “Are you saying that you believe what Mr. Matthews just said is untrue?”
“No. I don’t think that,” Goldberg said. “I know that what he told us was untrue. You didn’t kill Mr. Abaddon, Mr. Matthews.”
The jig was up, and yet Will had no choice but to play out the string.
In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought.
Given that he’d already lied to them, lying more wasn’t going to make his predicament any worse.
“I did. You might even find evidence of a carpet fiber somewhere on his body. It’ll be from my rug, which is how I transported him from my home. It’s a one-of-a-kind rug.�
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“Is that what Ms. Devereux had over you?” Yoo said. “The rug fiber?”
“Who?” Jessica said, trying to keep up.
“She’s Sam’s girlfriend—or was,” Will said. “They broke up.”
Goldberg chuckled, making an odd sound, as if he rarely laughed and didn’t quite know how to do it. “That’s one way of saying it. They broke up. Another is that she murdered him and disposed of his body, I’m assuming with your help, Mr. Matthews. Still another is that she’s murdered more than half a dozen people, including Mr. Kennefick, as you mentioned. Also, Jian-Ying Qin, who I believe you’re also very well acquainted with. So, now that you know what we know, Mr. Matthews, let’s put an end to story time, shall we?”
Gwen’s carefully constructed plan to get Will out from under Eve’s control had officially gone to hell.
Will hadn’t been playing them; they’d been playing him. They already knew Sam was dead. And they knew Eve had murdered him.
Eve was their target. Not Sam.
The only thing they hadn’t known was where to find Sam’s body. That’s why they’d given Will immunity. And now that he’d lied to them, he’d squandered that.
“Does the name Maximilian Devereux mean anything to you?” Yoo asked.
Will shook his head. From what he could see of Gwen’s and Jessica’s confused expressions, the name didn’t ring a bell with them either.
“He was the head of one of the largest criminal enterprises the antiterrorism task force had ever seen. We were getting close to him, and then . . . three years ago, he vanished. As if he’d never existed. That’s when his only child, his daughter, Evelyn, took up the family business. But she installed Mr. Abaddon as the face of it, a lightning rod, as it were. Until she and Mr. Abaddon had a falling-out, one that involved the aforementioned Mr. Qin. After killing Mr. Abaddon, Ms. Devereux also took it upon herself to murder Mr. Qin, as you well know.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of any of this,” Jessica said, alarm in every word.
“Mr. Matthews, do you care to bring your lawyer up to speed?” Goldberg said.
