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A huge jury pool filed in. Judge McCartin immediately dismissed those who were due to go off jury duty at the end of April, explaining that the case was expected to extend at least until the middle of June.
Jury selection was full of good-natured banter. Pohlson announced he favored "bald buys—especially pudgy bald guys." Robinson commented that "in Judge McCartin's court, you enter never-never land in some time warp."
McCartin joked about Robinson's "competence," the deputy DA objected, and Pohlson "sustained." The gallery laughed. McCartin said, "We sometimes change places in this courtroom. I may come down and be the defense or the prosecutor."
Robinson pointed out that the defense had two attorneys, and he was all by himself. "We'll allow Mr. Robinson to have his mother sit next to him," McCartin decreed.
"His mother doesn't like him," Pohlson stipulated.
The gallery roared again. People are nervous in courtrooms; humor relaxes them. It did not relax David Brown. He was confused by the laughter and obviously concerned that his attorney was joking with the prosecutor. His "dynamite life-of-the-party" sense of humor had deserted him.
Potential jurors moved into the jury box to be questioned. Jury selection is done on a gut-feeling level or with experience or with time-honored rules of thumb. Selecting a ringer is always possible. Jurors have been known to hold back information or to lie to be selected.
Each time the lineup seemed perfect to the observer, it was as if the defense and prosecution were playing musical chairs. Jurors, often bewildered, were asked to step down. Four hours. Six hours, and most of them were gone. Robinson and Pohlson started again. The voir dire (direct questioning of prospective jurors) was hilarious, and the courtroom erupted with laughter again and again. It took close to three days before twelve jurors and three alternates were seated.
It was 1:47 P.M. on May 2. No one would really know what they were thinking. Not until the end.
There were housewives, an executive secretary, a telephone lineman, an electronics technician, an assistant purchasing agent, a teacher of the developmentally disabled, engineers. Seven women and five men. The three alternates were two women and one man. Almost all of them had children, teenagers or young adults.
They did not know David Brown. If they had heard of him at all, it was long ago in a hastily read newspaper article, and they remembered no details. His notoriety had, to date, come in short media bursts—gone by the next day.
On May 5, 1990, Cinco de Mayo weekend in Santa Ana, California, the weather was clear and hot, and the city full of the sounds of celebration: a parade down Main Street, firecrackers and gunshots far into the night. In two days, David Brown's trial would, at long last, truly begin. The prosecution felt good; the September 22 arrest-interview tape was in, and the Steinhart conspiracy tapes were in. If the jury believed Cinnamon and Patti and Steinhart, there would be no acquittal.
If the defense had no surprises in store . . .
There was, however, a potentially nasty surprise waiting for them in the wings. On May 4, Jay Newell had received an absorbing phone call from someone he had not spoken to for a year, Dan Coston*, an inmate in the Orange County Jail. Intelligent, verbal, and inventive, Coston was a petty crook who took great pride in his two-decade career as a snitch.
In his first meeting with Coston, Newell had found him less than credible. Coston had told a rambling story about David Brown's being "set up" by Irv Cully. But he waffled at most of Newell's questions despite Newell's insistence that "there's something you're not telling me."
At that time Coston stonewalled. He said he "always explored his possibilities." He hinted that he could work for the DA's office, but Newell failed to bite. When he asked Coston outright if he was being paid by one of Brown's attorneys, Coston would not answer. But as soon as Newell left, Coston went scurrying to a private investigator working for David Brown with the news that he thought he could entrap Jay Newell.
A bad judgment call.
Newell figured the meeting was a "fishing trip" for
Coston. He taped it and made notes, but rarely thought of Coston in the period between May of 1989 and May of 1990.
Orange County jails of late had spawned a virtual cottage industry for snitches who specialized in complicated machinations that were designed to win them favor, and in the best of circumstances, financial gain.
Dan Coston had not told Jay Newell even 10 percent of what he knew about David Brown. Coston had observed David Brown for some time. He had watched Cully and Steinhart. In his estimation, Cully was a dummy, and so was Steinhart, who had gotten absolutely nothing for all his dealings with "Thurston."
Around March of 1989, Dan Coston moved into David Brown's life. Disappointed at his betrayal by Steinhart, David had needed another strong man to look out for his interests. And Coston saw his association with Brown as beneficial to himself in many ways. Brown was a millionaire —reportedly many times over—and there was money to be made. Brown was newsworthy, and Coston had always fancied himself a media entrepreneur. And then, once he had bled Brown for all he could get, there was the "double agent" part of the game. Dan Coston would simply go to the DA and snitch David off; that way, he might be able to bargain for a sentence reduction for himself. Beyond that, Coston loved the games. Playing each side against the middle and rarely telling the whole truth to anyone ... As he admitted once to a private investigator, "I do in some way get a kick playing these little mental games and stuff with these people."
David Brown was a real challenge. Both Coston and Brown had manipulated other people for as long as they could remember. It was a balancing act. As far as David knew, Coston was completely loyal to him; he paid him to be.
On June 12, 1989, as David Brown dictated, Dan Coston wrote a letter. He later "released" the letter to Time, Playboy, Penthouse, Esquire, Life, Newsweek, People, U.S. News and World Report, A Current Affair, 60 Minutes, Oprah
Winfrey, Donahue, and Geraldo, along with all major newspapers and television stations in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and to both national and local bar associations. He also sent it to the editors of prison newspapers all over America.
David particularly wanted the Los Angeles Times editors to see the letter. He detested Eric Lichtblau, the young reporter who was always writing unfavorable articles about him. He had given Lichtblau an exclusive interview, and yet he felt the L.A. Times reporter had misconstrued everything he had said, and David was furious. He hoped his letter might cost Lichtblau his job.
David paid for the stamps and the typists needed to get the letter out. It read:
Dear Sirs:
I write this letter today to inform you of an event soon to take place which I believe you and the parties you represent—be it your organizations or simply the readers of your periodical or newspaper—should be very interested in hearing about.
The event of which I speak is the criminal trial of a prominent individual, millionaire enterpreneur Mr. David Brown, who is being tried unjustly on charges of solicitation of murder which witnesses will prove, were in fact, concocted through the combined cooperation of the Orange County District Attorney's Office, the Orange County Sheriffs Department, and agents of theirs—two jailhouse informants.
The prosecution will attempt to prove, through the use of these jailhouse informants, that Mr. Brown conspired to kill the prosecutors involved with his original ongoing trial on charges of murder.
The defense will attempt to prove through rebuttal testimony from witnesses, themselves jailhouse informants of previous experience with knowledge directly relating to the charges against Mr. Brown, that not only is the prosecution witnesses' testimony of a false and peijured nature, but that this testimony is a concoction conceived and executed with the full knowledge and assistance of the District Attorney's Office, under the direction of the Sheriffs Department....
The reason I believe this trial will be newsworthy . . . is due to my knowledge of defense intent to not only show a concerted effort o
f conspiracy to enter false and peijured testimony in this trial, but the defense also intends to show that this is a practice which has been used in a number of high profile criminal trials. . ..
To me, a police informant myself for over 18 years, with my first hand knowledge of the unethical practices used by prosecutors and their agents, the question of whether or not jailhouse informant testimony, and hence reliability should be used and relied upon without collaboration [JI'C] is possibly the single most important legal question due to be raised.
A defense witness myself for Mr. Brown in his upcoming trial, the single and most important question to me must be the possible miscarriage of justice....
Should you care to hear more or become involved in one form or another, be it through caring to relate pertinent information, or perhaps wanting to set up personal interviews with me and/or other witnesses . . . please contact my attorney. . . ."
Evidently, Coston's credentials as an eighteen-year jail-house informant, and David Brown's rhetoric, failed to impress the media; no one courted either of them for an interview.
Next, Dan Coston painstakingly printed "legal" documents through the fall and winter of 1989, saying what David Brown asked him to say—that the entire plot against the DA's men had originated in the mind of Irv Cully, and that he, Dan Coston, would get up in court and say so.
Coston squeezed everything he figured he could get out of David Brown, and when the well was dry, he put on a different face. On May 4, 1990, when Dan Coston called
Newell, he apologized in his most obsequious, buddy-buddy manner for having been so vague in their last meeting. "I didn't want to tell you what was going on because, if you knew, then I would have become an agent for the DA. I had to get close to David and get evidence."
With Robinson listening on an extension, Newell gave his finest performance as a slow-witted detective, asking Coston to repeat his story again and again. The more confused he sounded, the more information Coston offered, all the while trying to establish himself as a great and good friend of the DA, only working for the good of mankind.
"From the beginning," Coston said, "when David first came into our tank—when he got transferred from the IRC to the main jail after he got charged with the conspiracy to kill you and Robinson and Patricia—David asked me to say to his investigator that I knew about the conspiracy all along. He said he'd pay me to say what he wanted, and I'd never have to work for the rest of my life. ... I have a contract here that me and David drew up—he'll pay me a million dollars. ... He says he doesn't have a chance in hell without me. ... I thought, well, okay, beautiful. This will be good—he's continuing to finagle. David says, 'Here's what I need, Dan. You say that Irv Cully approached you.'"
Newell kept up his dumb act. "I'm kind of slow—you'll have to run that by me again. Why would you turn down a million dollars?"
Coston was vague on that one.
Coston said that David figured that if he could make it look as if he had been seduced, enticed, entrapped into the idea of killing his enemies, he would not be guilty of solicitation and conspiracy. Dan Coston had become his new man. "He said it would discredit the prosecution's case," Coston explained. "He also wanted me to say Steinhart approached David and assaulted him and threatened his family if David didn't go through with the hits."
David was apparently grateful for Coston's promises of help. According to Coston, in August of 1989, David gave him $1,800—in money orders, signed by K.M.B. (Krystal
M. Brown). Shortly thereafter, David arranged for five one-thousand-dollar money orders to be paid to a female relative of Coston's "for ten oil paintings." There really were paintings. Manuela and Arthur had ceremoniously loaded them into their car outside the Orange County Jail after giving the money orders to Coston's relative.
"She took a sponge," Coston explained, laughing. "She dipped it in a bunch of oil paint and kind of threw it at the canvas. But there were 'paintings.' And David's parents gave her a receipt for five thousand dollars plus the eighteen hundred dollars already paid to me, and the money David had them pay to Billy Calixo*." (Another inmate David had approached to be a witness.) David's parents never knew the reasons behind his orders to give money to the other prisoners; they followed his instructions to the letter and never asked questions.
David also promised Coston a job in San Diego, an apartment, and a 1989 Mustang, upon his release from jail. "But when I got out, I couldn't locate the car."
Coston said there were, perhaps, a half dozen Orange County Jail inmates who had received the promise of money from David—if they would testify that he had been forced into the murder plot against Robinson and Newell.
Great. Now the trial had begun. Newell was working twelve to eighteen hours a day backing up Robinson, planning strategy. If Coston was telling the truth, fine. If he was playing games again, Newell had no time for him. "You have nothing written from David, nothing in his handwriting?" he asked Coston.
"I have receipts. I have a picture of a diamond ring— David's writing of what he's going to give me in advance— one hundred thousand dollars ... I believe he has a million dollars. He's stashed away a bundle of money." That was not news to Newell. Finally, to prove his claims, Coston burst out with, "I have a forty-nine-thousand-dollar diamond ring—I've had it appraised—an emerald-cut diamond."
"You do? Why?"
"He gave it to me," Coston said excitedly. "He gave it to me as a down payment for when I testify. At the end of my testimony, I get the rest of the million dollars."
Dan Coston was, in fact, scheduled to testify in the trial at hand. Gary Pohlson was counting on him. No, neither Pohlson nor Schwartzberg had any idea that David had bribed him to testify.
Newell smiled slightly to think that David Brown, who had been burned so often, was still frantically devising plots and promising fortunes to cover up his former plots.
And now, with his trial drawing closer, he was prepared to pay much more. "Here's the plan right now," Coston said. "Robinson's going to put on your case. And then Gary Pohlson's going to take a two-week vacation."
"Right. I know about that. We're going to be in recess."
"Then they're going to put me on the stand as the key witness, with purposes of creating an impression of an elaborate plot by you and Robinson and Vazquez and the Sheriffs department. . . that you're incorporating the second case 'cause you don't have anything on the first case— that that's the length the DA's office will go to actually convict somebody. . . . I'm going to discuss conversations with Cully, and that I warned David of a plot that Cully was going to set Brown up. ... I really never did—but I'm supposed to testify to that."
"What's your reason for stopping now?"
"My whole intent was to go to court and answer Mr. Pohlson's question about 'Have you ever been paid for your testimony?' and then I was going to say, 'Yeah—I got about fifty grand.'"
But Dan Coston insisted, "Hey, I've been on your side all along, Jay." He wasn't sure he could trust David Brown, even though David had been paying him $200 a month since August of 1989—and had promised to do so forever.
"Do you feel safe with all your books and receipts there?" Newell asked. "You're not afraid David will have someone take it away from you?"
"Nobody knows."
"It's probably better you don't spook David with this."
"I know. In so many words, he's indicated this is his last chance. If it doesn't work, he doesn't care anymore. He paid me the money and said, 'Don't fuck me.'... But he's fine. He loves me. His whole life depends on me."
"Who started this?" Newell asked.
"David did—when he came up on the tier. He says, 'You'll never have to work the rest of your life.... if you get me those statements.'"
Newell warned Coston that, from this point on, he was not to do any more "investigating." Whatever Coston had planned to do—without Newell's suggestion—was okay. If he testified as he had planned to do, if he told the truth, that was up to Coston.
&
nbsp; And then Dan Coston hinted that he had selfish reasons for his massive betrayal of David Brown. He was coming up for sentencing himself on May 16.
No promises. No deals. Newell would not budge. He had to digest the information that Coston had just spent two hours telling him. "Don't do anything," Newell warned Coston. "Don't actively change your plans. Call me tomorrow at two P.M."
Robinson and Newell had just been handed a most valuable gift. He didn't know it, but Coston had just blown the defense case out of the water, without ever testifying.
Dan Coston had copies of everything. And through discovery, Gary Pohlson had a right to see what evidence the DA's office had against his client, David Brown. Coston turned over the picture of David's familiar emerald-cut diamond ring, and David's note that accompanied it:
Important Facts Color Weight/Size Specifics F? 4.2 Cts. VS2
Emerald Cut PREMIUM
David wrote instructions to Coston's relative about what she was to say when she took the ring to be appraised: "This is her Dad's—she wants to have one made just like it or similar. Please tell me how much it will cost?"
The ring was appraised at $40,500. David Brown's down payment on freedom. The million-dollar contract was dated May 4, 1990, written in David Brown's own hand.
To Dan Willard Coston,
As per your request, here is what I've agreed to provide:
$40,500.—paid on demand to date. $949,500.—to be paid on demand after completion of all current criminal trials. This balance is to be provided directly to Dan Willard Coston or his designated agent on his demand with the understanding that I must be free from jail and charges before the funds can be accessed.
I do hereby promise to provide Coston with the balance of $949,500. due him on his demand in U.S. Currency/Legal Tender. This is a requirement imposed on him and agreed to by me as there is no alternative for services or inconveniences imposed on him by O.C. Judicial practices.
