Tragic

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Oh . . . all in black . . . with ski masks and gloves,” Vitteli replied.

  “I see. Go on. . . . One of them had a gun or you would have . . .”

  “Yeah, well, I might have tried something . . . you know, took a swing. They were both pretty big guys, but maybe I could have got lucky,” Vitteli said and looked down at his big hands resting on the witness box ledge as though he blamed them for his failure. “Now I wish I would have . . . and maybe Vince would be here today.”

  False face must hide what false heart doth know. Although he kept his face passive, Karp was nauseated watching Vitteli’s performance on the first full day of the defense case. He’d rested the People’s case the day before following Antonia Carlotta’s gripping testimony that had left many of the jurors in tears and casting hard looks at the defendants. At noon, Judge See had sent the jury to lunch.

  When the trial resumed, Clooney rambled through a one-hour opening statement that was short on substance but long on innuendo. Openings are normally a “road map” of the case for the “finders of fact”—the judge and jury—presented by the attorneys of both sides. Although often dramatic, they are supposed to be limited to the evidence the jurors can expect to see presented, and then usually end with the assertion that the attorney believes that when all the facts are presented, the jury will have no option but to find in favor of their case. Openings are not supposed to be arguments regarding what the evidence does or doesn’t demonstrate—that’s what summations are for—or opportunities to give long-winded speeches having nothing to do with the evidence and everything to do with trying to confuse jurors with smoke and mirrors. But Clooney had done both.

  However, Karp had listened stoically as Clooney used the stage to refute the People’s case while insinuating that the prosecution was trying to frame his clients but without citing what, if any, evidence he’d be providing to back up such theories. Without objection, he let Clooney go on and on about the “curious timing and effect” of Marlene’s involvement in the investigation.

  “Indeed, until the district attorney’s wife serendipitously meets the girlfriend of Gnat Miller, who by outrageous coincidence happens to be involved in the Carlotta murder, there was no mention of any three young men coming to the residence on December second,” the defense attorney noted as he walked slowly along the jury rail, looking at each juror.

  “No license plate number indented into a sticky pad. No cigarette butts. No beer bottle. No convenient witness to turn on his buddies to help the district attorney solve a high-profile case. And for what, you have to ask yourselves, ladies and gentlemen? What does Gnat Miller get out of it? Well, he hasn’t been sentenced. Nor charged with assault on his girlfriend. And note that in his story, he is only the driver, not a participant in the actual murder, and thus subject, perhaps, to a lesser sentence. And I think that when we’re finished laying this out for you, you will see that there is doubt, serious doubt, with the People’s case and you will acquit the defendants.”

  Nor was Clooney satisfied with one defense strategy. He then told the jurors that even if the three young men had gone to the Carlotta home as described in the People’s case, “which is doubtful to say the least, where is the evidence that it was not an attempt to find work in these hard economic times?” He paused and looked over at DiMarzo and Bebnev before shaking his head. “I admit my clients are no angels, maybe they were there to case the Carlotta residence; after all, they have had brushes with the law for burglary and theft. But that doesn’t make them murderers three nights later and thirty miles away.”

  Clooney’s opening was truly a “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” but Karp’s silence throughout wasn’t due to the usual practice of not interrupting the opposition’s opening statements even if they strayed over into objectionable territory. And it wasn’t that his anger over Clooney’s insinuations wasn’t bubbling just beneath the surface of his calm demeanor.

  Moreover, it did rankle that a pompous, overpaid white-shoe Fifth Avenue conceit with political juice and aspirations thought he could manipulate the process Karp believed in to the depths of his soul. And Karp could have objected, and been sustained, at numerous points. But like a chess grand master, he quietly let the defense attorney maneuver himself into a trap, knowing that by letting him blindly rush forward now in defense of the two pawns sitting at the defense table, there was a chance of someday putting Charlie Vitteli in checkmate.

  After his opening, Clooney asked the judge if they could adjourn “a little early so that I can have my witnesses ready in the morning.” Although exasperated with the defense attorney’s delay, Judge See granted him his request.

  The next morning, Clooney showed up at the Criminal Courts Building as if the setbacks he’d experienced during the prosecution’s case were mere bumps in the road. He preened for the news cameras in front of the main entrance, though he declined comment “except to say that I am giving my all to prevent a travesty of justice though the allied forces of government are difficult for any one man to defeat.”

  Back in court, he began his case by calling two “expert” witnesses to the stand. The first, a handwriting analyst from NYU, essentially testified that the note bearing the license plate number “with a high degree of probability” had been written by a woman and that the indentations “appeared to have been caused deliberately, as though someone was trying to leave an impression in the sheet beneath the original by pressing hard and uniformly throughout.”

  Knowing this was coming because he had the expert report, Karp had Guma, Fulton, and Darla Milquetost write the line from Macbeth he’d been thinking about at the beginning of the defense case, False face must hide what false heart doth know, on separate sheets of paper. He then had them sign and date copies of the pages, which he placed into a sealed envelope. He kept the originals in his trial folder.

  Now, during cross-examination, Karp stood and said, “Your Honor, for the purpose of this demonstration, may I hand you this sealed envelope to be opened at the appropriate moment during this cross-examination?”

  “Yes, you may, let the drama proceed.”

  Karp smiled. “Thank you, Your Honor.” Turning to the witness, he asked, “Is it your testimony you can tell the difference between a note written by a man or a woman?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What, if any, scientific justification is there for this ability?”

  “Well, I’m one of the leading proponents of this particular methodology, but it is gaining stature in the graphologist community. As I noted, I’ve written several well-received articles on this subject for various graphology periodicals.”

  “I see. So if I were to hand you several examples of a line of poetry, you would be able to tell which were written by a man and which were written by a woman?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay, in that case with the court’s permission, I’d like to hand the witness these three sheets, People’s Exhibits Twenty-Six A, B, and C,” Karp said.

  “Yes, you may,” Judge See said.

  Karp handed the originals of the three sheets of paper to the witness, who pulled a magnifying glass from her purse and carefully examined the writing. She looked up. “I believe I have reached a conclusion.”

  “Would you tell us what that conclusion is, please?” Karp asked.

  “Yes, two of these, A and C, were definitely written by women,” the witness claimed. “The third, Example B, was written by a man.”

  “Thank you,” Karp said and turned to the judge. “Your Honor, would you now open the envelope and read the signature on the back of Example A, please?”

  Looking amused, Judge See opened the envelope and pulled out the three sheets of paper. He then studied one and raised an eyebrow. “Example A was signed by Detective Clay Fulton.”

  Karp smiled and turned to the gallery. “Detective Fulton, would you stand, please?”

  Fulton, who was sitting in the first row behind the prosecut
ion table, stood up. Karp turned back to the witness, who was blushing and looking again through her magnifying glass at the copies of the writing she had. “It would appear that Detective Fulton is a very large man,” Karp said. “Can you explain the discrepancy between that fact and your assertion?”

  “Well, I . . . there is a certain small percentage of people whose writing is transgender,” she stammered.

  “Are you saying that Detective Fulton writes like a girl?” Karp said with a smile. The courtroom burst into laughter as the detective scowled at those giggling around him.

  “Um, well, yes,” the woman replied to more laughter.

  Smiling, Karp turned back to the judge. “And now, if you would, Your Honor, please read the signature on the back of Example B, identified as a male writer by the witness.”

  “Darla Milquetost.”

  The courtroom erupted into more laughter as the witness turned even more crimson. “I’d like to explain,” the witness said. “I believe in my haste I may have missed several indicators.”

  “Apparently,” Karp replied. “Darla Milquetost is my office manager. Darla, would you stand, please?”

  Blushing herself, Milquetost stood as several people around her applauded. “Obviously, Darla is a lovely woman,” Karp noted to more laughter. He looked over at the defense table where Clooney sat with his forehead in his hand, as Bebnev scowled up at the ceiling and DiMarzo looked at the floor, shaking his head.

  “I would just like to—”

  “Yes, but before you do,” Karp said. “Your Honor, please read the signature on Example C.”

  “Ray Guma.”

  This time Judge See lightly tapped his gavel to cut short the laughter as ADA Guma stood and did a little curtsy. Laughing with the others, Karp said, “I believe that’s strike three.”

  The witness didn’t try speaking anymore but just sat with her head down as Karp spoke to her again. “I have just one more request. Would you please read the line of poetry written on any one of those pages you have?”

  Without looking at her antagonist, the woman cleared her throat. “ ‘False face must hide what false heart doth know.’ ”

  Karp looked over at the defense table. “Thank you, no further questions.”

  Clooney’s last expert witness was a former NYPD detective and “ballistics expert” who testified that, based on the trajectory of the bullet that had struck Carlotta in the head, he’d concluded that the shooter was a much taller man than Bebnev.

  However, Karp nullified him through a series of questions meant to demonstrate that the trajectory was subject to a variety of factors, including the level at which the shooter held the gun, and whether either of the men were standing straight or crouched. The most damaging question to the defense case, however, and one that actually played into the prosecution narrative, was his last. “What if the deceased had been grabbed by his right arm and pulled downward, would that have affected the trajectory?”

  “Yes, that could have affected the height and body posture of the victim,” the witness conceded.

  The defense expert witnesses had done no damage to the prosecution case and, if anything, had worked against the defense. Karp was much more interested in Clooney’s last three witnesses, starting after lunch with Jackie Corcione. Here’s another one who looks like he hasn’t been getting much sleep, Karp thought when the young man settled into the witness chair. The weak link in the next match, perhaps?

  Corcione toed the company line when describing the murder. Two unknown masked men had stepped from the alley and demanded their wallets. “Vince had a gun,” he testified, shaking his head sadly. “I didn’t know he even owned one. But the guy shot him, first in the chest and then in the head. They grabbed our stuff and ran across the street to a car and took off.”

  “Do you recognize any one in this court as either of the men who robbed you and murdered Vince Carlotta?” Clooney asked.

  Corcione looked over at the defense table and shook his head. “No. They were wearing ski masks.”

  “Did the man who demanded your wallets speak with a notable accent?”

  Corcione shook his head. “I don’t remember,” he said, glancing nervously at Bebnev, who smiled. “Everything happened so fast, and to be honest, I’ve blocked some of it out.”

  Joey Barros, who followed Corcione to the stand, was no more forthcoming. Hardly expressing any emotion at all as he recounted what happened, he shrugged when he said he couldn’t remember if the shooter had an accent.

  “Have you ever seen either of those two men sitting on either end of the defense table?” Clooney asked.

  Barros looked over at Bebnev and DiMarzo. His face looked like he’d smelled something distasteful but he shook his head. “Nope. Don’t know ’em.”

  Karp hadn’t expected much from Corcione and particularly Barros. But he did watch with interest when Barros stepped down from the witness stand and stopped a few feet from the defense table. For just a moment, he fixed Bebnev and then DiMarzo with a hard glare.

  Everyone else may think that’s just anger, Karp thought when he saw the look, but I’m betting it’s a warning.

  Clooney had then called Vitteli to the stand. This time when the union boss walked into the courtroom, wearing a gray silk suit with a purple handkerchief in the pocket, looked around and saw Karp, he didn’t smirk. His eyes hardened and he quickly shifted his gaze elsewhere. But he found himself looking at T. J. Martindale and other members of the union who’d supported Vince Carlotta, as well as the attorney Mahlon Gorman.

  If anything, the hatred that passed between Vitteli and the other men was even greater than the union boss reserved for Karp after they’d had a confrontation at the DAO a few weeks after Carlotta’s murder. That’s when Karp took another statement from the union boss about events with Kowalski present and then point-blank accused Vitteli to his face. Vitteli’s face had turned crimson with rage as his lawyer announced that they were “through cooperating” and stormed out of the office.

  If Charlie only knew about a little conversation I had with Martindale and Gorman the other day, Karp thought now, the look would be even uglier.

  “Mr. Vitteli, if you’d come forward to be sworn in,” Judge See said, pointing to the witness stand.

  Vitteli broke off his stare-down with the union men and, avoiding Karp’s eyes, swaggered up to the stand with his chest out and head up. He smiled at the jurors when he was sworn in and took his seat, at which point he focused on Clooney, who began by asking him to describe the events leading to the murder.

  “So given the chance, you might have tried to intervene,” Clooney asked.

  “Yeah, maybe, but it happened so quick, all any of us could do was go along with it,” Vitteli said. “It was like, ‘Hands up, this is a robbery!’ ”

  “So you did what?”

  “I put my hands in the air like this,” Vitteli said, demonstrating.

  “Did you say anything?”

  “Hell no. I just wanted that gun out of my face.”

  “What did Vince Carlotta do?”

  “He reached into his pocket. I guess he had a gun,” Vitteli replied. “That’s when the fucker, excuse my French, shot him. Then he shot him again.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “The guy demanded our wallets and watches. We gave ’em up, and they took off across the street and jumped in the car.”

  “You see the car?”

  “I don’t remember it,” Vitteli said. “Maybe a sedan, but I don’t know. I was too busy trying to help Vince.”

  “How about the men who accosted you?” Clooney asked. “Did you get a good look at them?”

  Vitteli shrugged. “Like I said, they was wearing masks. They were big guys, but all I could see was their eyes.”

  “Do you recognize the two defendants sitting on either end of the table over there?”

  Looking over at the defense table, Vitteli studied each man, then shook his head. “No, I can’t say tha
t I do. But those two ain’t the guys who killed Vince.”

  “Why not?”

  “One thing is they ain’t big enough,” Vitteli said. “And I don’t think either of the assholes had blue eyes like pumpkin-head over there.”

  “And the robber who demanded your wallets and then shot Mr. Carlotta, did he speak with an accent?” Clooney asked.

  “Yeah,” Vitteli said slowly, as if it was the first time he’d considered the question. “He sounded Puerto Rican or Mexican, something like that.”

  “But not Russian?”

  Vitteli furrowed his brow and thought about the question before shaking his head again. “No. I’d say Puerto Rican. You know, singsongy bullshit.”

  “Uh, thank you, Mr. Vitteli, no further questions,” Clooney said. He appeared pleased and confident as he walked back to his seat.

  Judge See looked at the clock on the wall. “We have about thirty minutes, Mr. Karp,” he said. “Will that be enough time for your cross-examination, or would you like to break and come back and start in the morning?”

  “Oh, that should be more than enough time, Your Honor,” Karp replied as he rose from his seat and walked over to stand alongside the jury as he faced the witness.

  Eschewing all pleasantries, Karp moved quickly to take advantage of the opening his opponent had given him. “Mr. Vitteli, you and Vince Carlotta didn’t like each other much, did you?”

  Vitteli frowned. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “We butted heads over union business sometimes, if that’s what you mean. But we sort of grew up together in the union, and we got along pretty good.”

  “You ran against each other for union president a little over a year ago, is that correct?”

  “Yeah, there was an election,” Vitteli said.

  “A pretty heated election, right? Some pretty serious accusations thrown back and forth, am I correct?”

  “It got a little down and dirty, like the last time you ran for DA, right? But no big deal, that’s just politics.”

  “No big deal?” Karp asked, ignoring the dig. “Isn’t it true that Mr. Carlotta and some of his followers accused you of cheating and tampering with the results?”