Stakeout (2013) (26 page)

The judge eyed him skeptically. “Separate counts?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Stemming from three separate incidents.” The prosecutor continued, “Filing a false police report, two counts; conspiracy to file a false police report, one count; and Sergeant William MacAullif, filing a false police report and conspiracy to file a false police report, one count each.”

“Your Honor,” Richard said. “These charges are totally without foundation. I ask that they be dismissed.”

“That is not the question, Mr. Rosenberg. How do the defendants plead?”

“Well, they certainly
intend
to plead not guilty, Your Honor, but I would like to know what they are pleading to. Just what specific crimes are they charged with?”

“Your Honor, the defendant, Stanley Hastings, has twice accused Mr. Tony Gallo, present here in court, of a crime. Once acting on his own accord, and once in concert with the defendant, Sergeant William MacAullif. In the former, he called nine-one-one to report that Tony Gallo was in the process of committing a murder. That charge not only proved to be false, but the defendant later admitted that it was false. We have the 911 operator here in court prepared to testify to that effect. In the second instance, the defendant conspired with Sergeant William MacAullif, of the New York police department, to accuse Mr. Tony Gallo of having murdered one Philip Marston because he was involved with Julie Marston, the decedent’s wife. He named the widow, Julie Marston, as a co-conspirator and reported that the two were having a clandestine rendezvous at a New Jersey motel. The police responded to the scene and found Julie Marston occupying the motel unit alone. Nonetheless, they took her into custody for questioning. According to Julie Marston, the defendant had been pestering her at her apartment by phone calls and visits, and she had checked into a motel to get away from his harassment. However, this tactic did not work. The defendant followed her to the motel and conspired to file a false police report resulting in Julie Marston’s arrest.”

The prosecutor took a breath. “I realize this is just a simple arraignment, but despite his exploits, the defendant has managed to stay released on bail. On the basis of this overwhelming offer of proof, I would ask that Your Honor rescind bail and bind the defendant over. In the case of Sergeant William MacAullif, who is a police officer, I have no objection to his being released on his own recognizance.”

“Well, that’s mighty nice of you,” Richard said. “Do I understand correctly that if I don’t object to you jailing one defendant, you will let the other defendant out?”

The judge banged the gavel. “That will do. We will have no such sparring between counsel. Mr. Rosenberg, personal sarcastic remarks aside, do you have anything to say to the prosecutor’s charges?”

“I have plenty to say, Your Honor. As Your Honor no doubt knows, there are two defenses to a charge of filing a false report. Naturally, the charge can be defended should the report turn out to be true. If I can prove Tony Gallo guilty of the murder, you can’t find my client guilty for saying so. But in the second case, in order to be guilty of filing a false police report, the defendant must have made the report
knowing it to be false
. Each report that my client filed he believed to be true. Since he believed it to be true, even if it turned out to be false, he is not to blame.”

“He
admitted
it was false. I have the 911 operator.”

“Which proves nothing. After the fact, he admitted he’d made a mistake. When he made the report he believed it to be true. That’s all that matters. As soon as he realized he was in error, he said so.”

“And has he admitted his error in accusing Tony Gallo of the murder of Philip Cranston?”

“In that instance, it is yet to be shown that he has made a mistake.”

Tony Gallo’s attorney, a beefy, well-fed individual, pulled himself to his feet. Compared to Richard Rosenberg, whose demeanor befitted a negligence lawyer, the man was a criminal lawyer, and showed it. “Your Honor, my client’s not gonna sit here and be smeared. If the defendant keeps on slandering his good name, I’m gonna take legal action.”

“That is certainly the thing to do. Settle the matter in civil court, not criminal. If we could proceed.” The judge punctuated the remark with a harrumph. Then stopped as he noticed MacAullif’s posture. “You there. The other defendant. Sergeant William MacAullif. You are a police officer. I would expect you to be familiar with proper courtroom decorum. Would you mind facing the bench, rather than favoring the court with your profile?”

MacAullif turned grudgingly, fighting for every inch.

There was an audible gasp from the other side of the courtroom.

The motel manager lunged to his feet, pointed his finger straight at MacAullif. “That’s him! That’s the man who came around asking questions!”

61

M
AC
A
ULLIF WAS LIVID
.

“If I lose my pension, I’m going to kill you.”

“You’re not going to lose your pension. Richard, tell him he’s not going to lose his pension.”

“I certainly hope not. He’ll need it to pay my fee.”

“I thought you were doing this pro bono,” MacAullif protested.

Richard shrugged. “Filing a false report, sure. Impersonating an officer is something else.”

“He’s joking. Richard, tell him you’re joking.”

“He better be joking,” MacAullif said. “If he’s not, he’s fired.”

After the motel manager’s surprise identification, court had taken a brief recess to sort everything out. MacAullif, Richard, and I were in a small conference room just outside the courtroom. There we no guards in the room, but two were stationed at the door, just in case anyone decided to take a hike.

“Your case is pro bono,” Richard said. “How could I resist? It isn’t every day you get to defend a police officer from a charge of impersonating a police officer.”

“I’m thrilled for you,” MacAullif said, dryly. “Can you make this charge go away?”

“Of course I can. For starters, I can probably ridicule the prosecutor so much he drops it. In any case, it’s a piece of cake. The real problem is the false police report. Not that I can’t beat it, but it’s against Tony Gallo. It’s not healthy to accuse Tony Gallo. I don ’t like accusing Tony Gallo, even on your behalf, and look at the position you put me in. To refute the charge, I have to show either that it’s true, or that you had reason to believe it was true. In either case, I’ll be saying things about Tony Gallo seldom said by anyone not subsequently found in the Hudson River tied to some concrete.”

“But that’s the charge you agreed to represent me on. Before this asshole ID’d me in court.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I said it’s a problem. You filed the police report based on something Stanley told you. Considering his record, that can hardly be considered prudent. At the very least, you would be guilty of reckless disregard.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said.

“So simply saying he told you so won’t fly. You need some basis for thinking Tony Gallo was in that room.”

“I still think he was in that room,” I said.

“With a connecting door?” MacAullif said, sarcastically.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Two motels with connecting doors? I mean, once I can buy it. But you pull it a second time and my eyes glaze over. It’s just an asshole theory. Even if it were true, he can’t prove it.”

“He doesn’t have to prove it,” I said. “He just has to raise an inference. Isn’t that right, Richard? You just have to raise an inference?”

“Not against Tony Gallo!
” MacAullif thundered. “You raise inferences against Tony Gallo, you are not long for this world.”

“I quite agree,” Richard said. “Nobody’s going to prove Tony Gallo guilty. What we’ll be trying to do is prove that there were reasonable grounds for you to suspect him, and that you did so with no malice of forethought. Continuing to hound him makes that difficult.”

I snapped my fingers. “What if I could prove he was in that room?”

“What do you mean?”

I fished out my notebook, tore off the page on which I’d written the license number of the black sedan parked outside the motel, and handed it to MacAullif. “Here. Trace this plate.”

MacAullif gave me a look as if I’d asked him to sacrifice his firstborn child. “A favor? Now you want a favor?”

“Don’t be a schmuck. We’re on the same side. This car was parked in the motel lot from the time I got there until the time the police arrived. If it’s Tony Gallo’s car, he was there.”

“And it just happened to vanish into thin air?”

“You don’t like the connecting door? Come on, we got nothing else. Just run the damn plate.”

62

W
HEN COURT RECONVENED, THE PROSECUTOR
rose to his feet. “Your Honor, in view of recent developments, I need to augment the charges against Sergeant William MacAullif. It now appears that he too is guilty of impersonating a police officer.”

“Nonsense,” Richard said. “He
is
a police officer.”

“He isn’t a New Jersey police officer.”

“I’m not familiar with that charge. Impersonating a
New Jersey
police officer. That seems rather elitist. I thought that in the eyes of the law all police officers were created equal.”

“You know what I mean. He pretended he was an officer involved in the case in order to glean information.”

“An officer involved in the case. This gets better and better. Please, enlighten me. Which officer involved in the case did he impersonate?”

“Your Honor, this is not a laughing matter. It appears that Sergeant MacAullif, who has no jurisdiction in New Jersey, showed up at the motel and interrogated the manager.”

“If Sergeant MacAullif, who has as much right to go to New Jersey as anybody else, chose to ask the motel manager about a crime that happened there, he was entirely within his rights to do so.”

“But he represented himself as a police officer.”

“He
is
a police officer.”

“Don’t start that again,” the prosecutor snapped. “You know what I mean. He identified himself as a police officer and requested and obtained evidence in the case.”

“What evidence?” the judge said.

“A photocopy of the credit card receipt of the man who rented the motel room.”

“A photocopy of the victim’s credit card?”

“Not the victim, Your Honor, but the man who rented the room next door.”

“How is that possibly relevant?”

The prosecutor raised his voice. “Because the credit card belonged to Vinnie Carbone, who was himself subsequently killed by a .38-caliber revolver fired by the gun the defendant, Stanley Hastings, has just surrendered in court.”

That announcement produced a huge reaction in the courtroom. The judge banged the gavel.

“Your Honor,” Richard said, “I must object to the prosecutor’s sneering innuendos.”

“Do you dispute what he just said?”

“I dispute his interpretation of it.”

“We’re not arguing the case here. I’m asking if this statement of fact is substantially correct.”

“I fail to see how it is relevant.”

“You think it’s irrelevant that the defendant’s alleged co-conspirator investigated and uncovered the name of the murder victim
prior to
the murder?” the prosecutor said. “Particularly in light of the fact that the defendant wound up with the murder weapon?”

Richard smiled. “He can’t have it both ways, Your Honor. The prosecutor has already charged the defendant with impersonating an officer in order to obtain the gun in question from the witness, Anglea Russo, after the body had been discovered. In light of which, the insinuation that he used it to kill Vinnie Carbone is absurd.”

The court officer came through the gate, handed a folded piece of paper to MacAullif. He unfolded it. His face fell.

“A moment to confer with my client,” Richard said. He sat down, whispered to MacAullif, “What’s that?”

MacAullif shook his head. “It’s no go.”

He held up the paper.

I looked.

The car was registered to Sergeant Sam Fuller.

MacAullif jerked his thumb. “The ace detective here wrote down the license plate number of one of the cops.”

“No, I didn’t. This was before the cops got there.”

“This was before you
saw
the cops get there. When you were following the widow, the cop was following you. The point is, it’s not Tony Gallo, and we’re screwed.”

“Mr. Rosenberg,” the judge prompted.

“Yes, Your Honor.” Richard turned back to whisper again. “I think I’m going to have to consent to having you bound over.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I have no choice.”

Richard stood up, faced the judge.

My mouth fell open. “Oh, my God,” I murmured.

Before Richard could make his motion, I grabbed him by the coattails, tugged him back down. Taken by surprise, Richard slipped, missed the chair, and fell to the floor, banging his head on the defense table on the way down.

63

C
ONSIDERING THE INDECOROUS NATURE OF
the interruption of the proceedings, Richard managed to maintain an air of formal dignity when court reconvened at the end of the five minute recess the judge allowed.

“Your Honor, I apologize for the unorthodox nature of the proceedings, but it has come to my attention that the defense has conclusive proof that Sergeant William MacAullif did not falsely accuse Tony Gallo of the crime of murder. Since the sergeant is a respected member of the New York City police force, I ask to be allowed to present such proof so that the charges against him may be dismissed. I will only need to call one witness present here in court. If that witness does not establish Sergeant MacAullif’s innocence, I will withdraw my objection and consent to his being bound over.”

“Does that go for the other defendant as well?” the prosecutor asked.

“It does,” Richard said. “If I cannot establish Sergeant MacAulif’s innocence, you may rescind the defendant’s bail and bind them both over.”

“No objection, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said.

“What witness do you wish to call?”

“Sergeant Samuel Fuller.”