After Etan

by Lisa R. Cohen

  “He wrote this whole thing about what a bad deal he was forced to take, how he got fucked, and now he’s trying to get an appeal.”

  “Yup. He did. And I await his appeal with pleasure. He’s got nothing,” GraBois told Morgan. “He even wrote to the judge to complain and ended up confessing in the letter.”

  “There’s a problem, and I wanted you to know about it right away,” Morgan said. “Ramos wants to know where you live. He’s asking me to find out.”

  “Why would he be asking you that?” GraBois was surprised, although he enjoyed the notion that Ramos was thinking about him.

  “Well, I might have told him we lived near each other,” Morgan said uneasily.

  “Why the hell would you do something like that?” GraBois was remembering back to the one time he’d met Morgan, when they had, indeed, talked about being neighbors.

  “Look, when I first met the guy, he was fine with you.” Morgan said. “He was all about helping you out.” So Morgan had thought little of his casual mention to Ramos that he and the prosecutor came from the same part of town. It was a status symbol of sorts to have connections with a federal prosecutor. Morgan was just making conversation. Now Ramos seemed to have seized on that connection.

  “He sent this letter to my house. To my home. To my mother, for God’s sake.” Morgan was working himself up. “So my mother is pulled into this too, now. He’s heading for criminal conspiracy, and he’s put me smack in the middle of it. Who the hell does he think he is? I want nothing to do with this, and I want you to know about it, from me, up front.”

  “Okay, Jon,” GraBois said, “I appreciate your bringing it to me, and it may be useful. I think you should come down and talk to me some more about this.”

  “I don’t need this—I’ve got my own problems,” Morgan continued. “This guy is seriously mentally ill, and I think he could be really dangerous. I told my mother not to even open any more of his letters.”

  “That’s exactly what you should have told her,” GraBois assured Morgan. “I’ll go get the letters from your mother. Tell her just to call me when she gets one, and I’ll come pick it up. She shouldn’t even touch it. Have her put it in a plastic bag and set it aside.” If Ramos had anyone on the outside helping him who might have handled the letter, GraBois wanted a shot at getting prints.

  This might just do it, thought GraBois as he hung up. Now that Ramos was looking at his twenty-year stretch, he was reaching out in desperation. Desperation was good. GraBois called Jack Allar at Rockview and told him what was going on. They agreed the prison would put a mail cover on all of Ramos’s correspondence, screening everything going in and coming out of the prison. GraBois also wanted to be alerted to any visitors going down there, and especially if anything was being said about him.

  GraBois went to Jon Morgan’s house a few days later on his way home from work and picked up the letter. Jon’s mom invited the prosecutor in and he took an immediate shine to her, a mother in distress. Mrs. Morgan was a birdlike, fretful little woman, in a panic about one of the problems Jon had mentioned to GraBois—a deadbeat, erratic boarder, who was now threatening her. GraBois felt sorry for the elderly woman, and a bit protective. Her middle-aged boys had taken the hit for their crimes, been shipped off to prison, and they’d left their mother living alone and vulnerable. The prosecutor listened sympathetically, told her he’d have an agent make some calls, even gave her his home number, something he almost never did. She was grateful and promised to call him about any other letters from Ramos. “Don’t even open them,” GraBois cautioned her. “If you see that return address, put it away and call me. And don’t worry about your son either. I’m looking out for him.”

  It was Morgan who called him the next day. He had heard from his mother, and she’d been impressed. “Thanks for treating her so well,” he told GraBois. He agreed to come down to New York for a meeting.

  GraBois didn’t wait. Just five days later, the prosecutor sent up the order to move Ramos from state custody in Pennsylvania to the federal prison in Otisville. Now, at least, Ramos would be in position for whatever came next.

  As best he could with his hands cuffed in front of him, Jon Morgan pulled at the coat some pitying soul had thrown loosely over his head and shoulders to shield him, ineffectually, from the biting February chill. Once the cuffs go on, the coatsleeves can’t get past them, but at least he had an extra layer over his thin prison jumpsuit. In the early morning hours, Morgan had arrived from Ray Brook, caught a few hours’ sleep, then been roused for more paperwork and waiting. He felt seriously sleep-deprived, miserably cold, and pissed off. He blamed Ramos for all of this.

  Now he followed the U.S. marshals as they walked him across the street from the Manhattan Correctional Center into 26 Federal Plaza, where GraBois had been temporarily moved while his offices were under renovation. For the next months, the U.S. Attorney’s Major Crimes Unit would be housed in the same building as the New York FBI. It was there that Morgan was to meet today with AUSA GraBois and agent Mary Galligan. He wasn’t sure exactly what the Feds wanted from him, or whether he was going to be willing to do it, but he was angry enough with Jose Ramos to at least listen. He had little more than a year left on his sentence and had fully expected to serve it quietly, except for the mountain of legal filings he was preparing. When Morgan took on the system, he did it legitimately, not violently. He just wanted to do his time peacefully and go home. He could easily work himself up into a lather every time he thought about Ramos and his bullshit.

  Stuart GraBois ushered Morgan in, and told the marshals it was all right for them to step outside. GraBois felt it was important to act respectful to Morgan, without piling it on. He had looked through Morgan’s files. In person, he wasn’t at all the dramatic character that his international criminal past conjured up. GraBois had always suspected that Morgan’s partner, the law school graduate, was the dynamic half of the duo. With his lank, unkempt hair, doughy frame, and prison pallor, Morgan looked anything but the dangerous criminal. The two men waited for Mary Galligan to arrive and made ineffectual small talk. When Morgan started to talk about the case, GraBois quickly stopped him.

  “Let’s wait for the agent,” he said, and they talked about the neighborhood some more. Nothing of any substance was to be said without a corroborating presence. That was the golden rule in federal law enforcement.

  Galligan arrived soon afterwards. Unlike GraBois, she had never met Morgan and knew virtually nothing about him, other than his white-collar criminal status. That was how she and GraBois always played it. “Don’t tell me anything—I’ll start from scratch,” she would tell the prosecutor. GraBois knew a fair amount about Morgan; he’d checked into his background thoroughly. So Galligan was the one without preconceptions, and GraBois would very consciously let her ask most of the questions today, to let her form her views independently. It would be her show. Plus, it would provide a chance for Morgan to trip himself up if his story today was in any way inconsistent with what he’d told GraBois earlier. If they were going to pull Morgan into this operation, both of them needed to be convinced he was the right guy.

  Galligan hadn’t been impressed with Jeremy Fischer when GraBois had taken her down to meet him at the DA’s Office a few weeks earlier. Fischer had gotten his story straight with her, nothing changed or scrambled from the time he’d met with GraBois. But Galligan had simply pegged Fischer for what he was—a con born and bred, and it remained to convince her he was a reliable source. That made Jon Morgan’s part in this even more critical.

  “Date of birth?” Galligan asked, starting as always at the beginning. GraBois and Galligan had different interviewing styles; their separate lines of questioning drew out added bits and pieces. GraBois’s style was more staccato, and he often liked to cut right to the chase. “What did Ramos tell you?” might be his first question. It was the prosecutorial pounce, and he could throw a subject off guard to effective use right off the bat. Galligan might start slower and work up to
things. One wasn’t better, they were just different.

  Morgan was thirty-nine years old and he looked older. As the man continued to answer her standard questions, Galligan took stock. Working violent crimes, most of her interviews were worst-case scenarios, real bad guys who robbed banks at gunpoint and kidnapped helpless victims. People could fool you, she knew, but this one didn’t have a threatening vibe. Nor did he look desperate. He sat calmly and still, not like the cons she often dealt with, whose knees shook as Galligan nailed them dead to rights on a bank robbery—caught on camera with their hands covered in red dye. The ones who knew if they couldn’t make a deal, they were going away for the rest of their life. This guy looked like he didn’t need to be there.

  Morgan told Galligan the same story he’d related to GraBois over the phone, and more:

  At the law library in Otisville, both men had worked on their cases. Ramos, Morgan explained, had spent all his free time there, because he also helped out a clientele of other inmates, writing briefs and “advising” them.

  Breaking an unwritten law this time—that inmates didn’t discuss their crimes (especially pedophiles)—Ramos had told Morgan how a woman he’d stayed with in Pennsylvania had unjustly accused him of messing with her kids. “Don’t tell the others,” Ramos had said to Morgan. “Even though I didn’t do it, it sounds bad.”

  Morgan learned more from Ramos, in the course of hours spent either over law journals or at Jewish services. “He told me he was from a lost tribe or something,” said Morgan, “that he had discovered a Jewish grandfather when he was in Spain.” They saw each other at services and in a study group, but again, Morgan reiterated how the small cadre of Jewish inmates were suspicious of Ramos’s true roots.

  Then Morgan talked about Ramos’s broad knowledge of the Patz case. He knew, for example, that GraBois was looking for a boy in Ohio, because of some picture the prosecutor had found. Although this boy looked a lot like Etan, Ramos enjoyed watching GraBois on a wild goose chase, because he knew for a fact the kid was not Etan.

  This is important, Galligan thought, making a note. She knew what was in the newspapers and what wasn’t. There was no way Morgan could know about P.J. Fox unless Ramos had really told him. She also noted that Morgan didn’t know the Ohio boy’s name, and didn’t act like he thought he should. When the answers weren’t pat and complete, it was often a sign of the truth.

  “Tell me again about this boy and his picture,” she prodded Morgan, watching to see whether he would embellish. Would he tie together the picture of P.J. Fox taken on Ramos’s bus and the composite “aged” photo of Etan? But Morgan stuck with what he knew. “Just that there was this picture somewhere of a kid in Ohio who GraBois thinks is Etan Patz. That’s all.”

  “How is this conversation going?” Galligan asked Morgan. “Is he just rambling all this at you?”

  “No,” Morgan replied. “Mostly he was answering questions; he would give me info if I would ask him a question. Like I would ask him, ‘Why are you in Otisville?’ And he would answer. It was a conversation.”

  Yes, thought Galligan, a conversation two people had, freely. No government coercion. No possibility of entrapment. This is better than if we had put the two together.

  Ramos, Morgan went on, asked a lot of questions about the statute of limitations. He wanted to know especially about murder, and about kidnapping. “So I looked up that statute for him, and whatever it said, that’s what I showed him,” Morgan said. Galligan also thought this spoke to Morgan’s credibility. It was a particular incident—a story—that would account for why Morgan remembered it specifically. Another good sign—if Morgan were spinning a tale, he would have thought it important to account for the exact law, not say “whatever it said.”

  GraBois sat on the sidelines and listened for inconsistencies. He heard none. It was a welcome break to have Mary in the lead, he thought; Morgan was clearly knowledgeable and seemed to have a savant-like facility to recall obscure details. But following his train of thought could be exhausting.

  “Tell me your impressions of Ramos,” Galligan asked Morgan. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s got a temper, I’ll tell you that,” Morgan replied.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I try to stay out of his way when he’s mad.” Morgan described once again watching Ramos going after an older inmate in the law library, how his hands shook as he grabbed the typewriter and brought it up over his head, how at least three inmates had to restrain him.

  GraBois and Galligan looked at each other, poker-faced. “And how do you feel about Ramos, Jon?” Galligan continued.

  “He’s a real creep. I’m pretty mad at him myself these days, getting me mixed up with all of this. I’ve got next to no time left. It could get me in serious trouble if someone thought I was involved in a plan to take out a federal prosecutor. Plus, if he had something to do with this Patz case, that’s horrendous. When Ramos first told me about his charges, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s pretty convincing. But then I hear he catches this other Pennsylvania case, and I start to think maybe he did molest all these kids. And maybe he did molest Etan Patz too. Makes my stomach turn.”

  GraBois leaned in closer to the man. It was time for him to talk. “He’s a bad guy, Jon. He’s in for a long time because he has hurt a lot of little children.”

  This was the cut-to-the-chase moment. “Let me ask you straight,” the prosecutor said. “Would you be willing to help us with this? You know I can’t promise you anything, but if it comes up, I’d be in a good position to vouch for you. I know you’ve got this other New Jersey case. I’d try to help you with that. And it would get us closer to giving this guy what he deserves. It wouldn’t be fun, I’ll be honest, but he clearly feels like he can tell you things he isn’t telling others. I would put you back in Otisville and you’d see what you could get.”

  “Yeah, I could probably do that,” Morgan responded without waiting more than a beat. “He’s been dancing to the music with those kids—I think he should pay the piper.”

  “He’s in seg right now,” GraBois pushed. He had to know how serious Morgan was. “He may not get into general pop. What if you had to go into seg to get near him?” Seg was administrative segregation. Lockdown twenty-three out of twenty-four hours, very few privileges. You landed there if you acted out, or if you feared for your life and had to be kept away from the others. For some inmates it was hell.

  Now Morgan was silent for a moment. He was either thinking, or gearing up for a speech.

  “Listen, you didn’t put me into this,” the inmate finally answered. “I didn’t ask to be put into this. Ramos put me into this. He made it so that I had to report the letter or I could have gotten stuck with a conspiracy charge. I might be a pain in the ass, suing everyone, but I’m sure as hell not interested in a conspiracy to injure a U.S. attorney. Or attempted murder, or however this could have gone. Once Ramos sent me that letter, and my mother read it, I knew I was stuck. And once Ramos decides to stick me in the middle, if I’m in the middle, I want to be on the good side.”

  Somewhere in there was a yes, thought GraBois. “We’ll have to figure this all out carefully,” he said. “If you can get close enough to him, you would have to maneuver it so that he asked you to be his roommate. If you ask him, he’ll be suspicious. This is tricky.”

  “He asked me before, the last time,” Morgan said. “He’s got no reason to think we’re not still okay. I think it’s doable. He wants me to help him with his legal papers.”

  “You’d have to take a polygraph.” GraBois didn’t ask, he stated.

  “No problem.”

  “The next thing to do is to answer his letter. Mary would work with you to make something that matches your style, written on paper like the kind you would send yourself.”

  “Knock yourselves out,” Morgan said. Another yes.

  “We’ll be in touch. You’ll be around for a few days, at least. I can arrange for you to com
e back up here to visit with your mother if you want, that’ll be more pleasant than her seeing you at MCC.” MCC was a godawful place for a mother to see her son. “Thank you for coming down.” The two men shook hands, Morgan’s clanking as the cuffs knocked against each other. Galligan stood up and walked Morgan down to hand him off to the U.S. marshals. Then she came straight back up to GraBois’s office to compare notes.

  “Well?” she said. “Did you hear anything that didn’t match?”

  “He gave the same thing to you as he did to me.” GraBois was convinced, and waited to hear if Galligan would concur. She did. Their guts were in sync about Morgan. If he passed a polygraph, he’d head up to Otisville within the week. And if they tried Morgan out with Ramos and he got nothing, they would still have Jeremy Fischer waiting in the wings. They would both feel more comfortable with Fischer if Morgan could corroborate. As long as one didn’t know a thing about the other. The best part—Fischer and Morgan could provide a sort of checks and balances. If Fischer reported he was in the library with Ramos at the same time Morgan said he saw Ramos at the gym, someone was lying.

  “Let’s see what Jon’s letter back to Ramos gives us.” GraBois got up to walk Galligan to the elevator. “And Mary, can you do me a favor? Can you put something in the letter that says I’ve moved out of the neighborhood?”

  CHAPTER 22

  Into the Hole

  Jon Morgan: Ramos must have said it ten times—the kid will turn up one of these days…. He will take out a whole building…. He will get plastic explosives…. If he goes down to your office and you uncuff him he’ll try to choke you.

  —phone conversation between Stuart GraBois and Jon Morgan in Otisville segregation, March 20, 1991, 1:50 p.m.

  Did Jon Morgan call you yet today?” Special Agent Mary Galligan knocked at Stuart GraBois’s office and stuck in her head.

  “I can’t help it if he keeps calling me.” GraBois put his hands up. “I tell him to talk to you. But I’m not going to hang up on him.”