by Rebecca Kade
“Oh, really?” I said, smiling. “What are my products?”
“Beauty and delight,” he said, giving my ass a squeeze. “Whatever you want. We’ll celebrate later, but right now, let’s go see my friend at the bank.”
We left the very exclusive Beekman and walked to a busier part of the Upper East Side and turned into a corner bank.
Jonas had some sort of relationship with the branch manager; he’d probably brought him all sorts of business. He jumped up at the sight of Jonas and greeted us warmly. After the introductions, we went into his glass office.
“She’s in the nightclub business,” Jonas ventured. “She works the door, and you’d be amazed at how much people will give her to get in. It’s personal gifts, it’s not wages, and I don’t see why we have to raise the attention of the IRS about it.”
Apparently, neither did the branch manager. “How much does she have?” he asked.
“Today, $50,000,” said Jonas.
The bank manager raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, it’s a very exclusive club,” Jonas said. “And she’s a very good saver. She’ll be making more deposits in the future, maybe not as big, but every week. She’s starting a business; here are the documents. She wants to start two commercial accounts for the business to break it up a little.”
The manager took out his reading glasses and looked over the papers. He then turned to his computer and started cautiously typing, looking at me every so often over the glasses. He picked up the phone, and cold fear shot through me—I thought he was calling security—until he said, “Miss Ruiz, could you tell Mr. Vitale that our meeting has to be pushed back thirty minutes? Thank you.
“I’ll handle that myself,” he said to me, indicating the bag of cash, which I handed him. “Do you want to wait while our machines verify the amount?”
“No, no, we trust you, Robert,” said Jonas, who then smiled and put his arm around my waist. “Besides, we have reservations.” We do? I thought. All the cops outside don’t know that. Perhaps Jonas was just showing off to the other fifty-something man.
“I’ll let you know if there’s a discrepancy,” said the banker, looking piercingly into my eyes. He then stood up and extended his hand. “Welcome to our bank, Ms. Kade.”
“Let’s celebrate, starting with lunch,” said Jonas as he put his arm around me and steered me down the block to a restaurant—his friend’s place. This was not part of the plan. When we walked out, I saw a couple of detectives in two different places on the block. One was across the street, while another was at the newsstand by the bank. They never looked up, and I never looked at them, but we were all very much aware of one another and that the plans had changed. They had heard the whole exchange. Jonas and I were not supposed to go to lunch, but I felt that rushing off would look bad, so I decided to go with it and hope that it was the right thing to do. We walked in, and at the sight of Jonas they began clearing the place. Man, you help people avoid paying taxes and you walk on a red carpet everywhere you go.
It was nearly three o’clock, but there were still a few people lingering over their cappuccinos.
“I’m terribly sorry,” I heard one waiter say. “But we must prepare the restaurant for a special party coming in. The owner will be happy to cover your dessert.”
Assuaged, the people left, and Jonas and I had the entire restaurant to ourselves. The owner greeted Jonas heartily and said, “Mademoiselle, what do you desire? Don’t even bother with the menu, the chef can make anything you want.”
I just had a little French onion soup. I was too freaked out to eat.
“I really have to go, Jonas,” I said. “I appreciate everything, but I have an appointment.”
“Are you sure?” he said, looking surprised. He’d obviously expected sexual favors. “I could get us a room.”
I had turned him down on the room each time and I was worried it was going to piss him off and that he would complain to Anna. I promised him next time we would plan for it to be part of our day and he definitely had some special attention coming his way as I reached under the table and teased him. It was enough to make him forget about the possibility of getting angry, and I felt as if I had dodged a bullet.
I looked at my watch. “Oh, no! Is it really four o’clock? I really must run, Jonas! Thanks for everything, and I’ll call you tomorrow!”
I ran out the door and up the block, past the bank.
Now, I don’t know if the bank manager had been standing at the window looking for me, but there he was, peering at me through the glass. And when he spotted me, he threw on his coat, ran out, and caught up with me.
“Miss Kade, I see you’re walking in the same direction I am.”
I had to think on my feet. I was supposed to meet the female detective just half a block up. We were already off schedule thanks to that stop at the restaurant, and I could actually see her up ahead. She took a right, where I was supposed to go. I couldn’t follow her now. If I lost her, I was in trouble: I had no cell phone, no money, no keys, not even a Metro card. I didn’t see the DA’s van anywhere. The transmitter in my bag functioned best when I didn’t have anything in there at all, so I had to reconnect with the detectives, and this bank manager could cause me to lose them. What was he up to?
“Can I get you a taxi?” he asked, narrowing his eyes a bit, and I started to get the feeling he didn’t believe my story back at the bank.
“No, thank you, I feel like walking,” I said.
“In those shoes?” he sneered, indicating my five-inchers. “You don’t walk in those shoes.”
“These little kitten heels?” I quipped. “These are my hiking boots.”
“Ha. In that case, I’ll walk you to where you’re going,” he said.
He’s totally onto me, I thought. Maybe he was having second thoughts about our little business transaction earlier. Perhaps he was hitting on me. My mind raced, and I could not shake him. He was still following me after five, six, seven blocks along Madison Avenue. I hoped that the detectives were still getting transmissions through my purse. I started giving clues as to my location.
“Oh, I just adore how the Ralph Lauren shop decorates for the holidays, don’t you?” I cooed, and then, a couple blocks further, “Mmmm . . . I would love a new Coach bag just like that one in the window, but I can’t decide on a color,” I said. “Did you know that Coach repairs bags free for life?”
I chattered inanely about shopping all the way down to Barney’s while the banker fished around about my cash.
“That certainly is a lot of money for door tips,” he said. “Do people really want to get into your club that badly?”
“Apparently so!” I blurted. “Oh, look, we’re at Barney’s. You know what? I think I might pick up a few things in here—intimate things, if you know what I mean,” I said with a wink.
What was he going to do, follow me around as I purchased lace thongs? Whatever his suspicions were, whatever regrets he may have been having, there was nothing he could do about them now. He hailed a taxi and mournfully got in.
“Sure I can’t give you a lift?” he asked.
“Shopping calls!” I sang out, and the taxi sped off.
Just then a female detective, my contact, emerged from Barney’s. It had been a close call.
“Thank goodness!” I said as I grabbed her. “I thought I would never lose him! I think he is totally onto me. Never again are we doing it like that. You cannot leave me out there with no way of getting out of situations!” I was yelling at this point as she hurried me towards the van. I hopped in, furious and still terrified.
“Could you guys even hear me?” I screeched. “I was trying to talk and tell you where I was!”
“No, we couldn’t hear anything,” said one techie, his headphones resting on his shoulders. “All of a sudden you were gone. We kept looking for you until we found you.”
Fantastic, I thought. I could have been in serious danger in a car on its way out of town and these guys would not know
how to find me.
“We would have found you with your transmitter eventually,” said one cop.
“Eventually?” I yelled. “That’s great. So as long as you can find my body eventually, I’m feeling better about the situation.”
My anger did not subside as we headed back downtown to Corruption headquarters. I had a few choice words for the ADA in the debriefing.
Three days later, I got a bill from Jonas in the mail. He was probably mad that we hadn’t had any sex after he’d done me such a big favor by setting me up at the bank.
Two days after that, on March 21, 2010, Jonas was arrested.
EIGHTEEN
wearing a wire with the madam
I had admitted to prosecutors months before that Anna Gristina had procured me to perform sex acts in exchange for money—a lot of money—from men. I had lured Anna’s moneyman, Jonas Gayer, into a meeting with the Russian money launderers. The DA’s investigators had even taped it. I had gotten Jonas to show me her accounts, and I recorded him explaining how she hid her money, possibly as much as $14 million. Surely they now had enough evidence to arrest and convict Anna Gristina, if they were competent enough. I wanted to get my life back. But the prosecutors only wanted more.
They wanted me to wear a wire with the lawyer who seemed to have a special place in Anna’s life. I’ll call him Donald.
It was he who had advised her on investing in real estate. He introduced her to some of her richest clients.
For the lawyer’s efforts, Anna gave him his choice of her girls. He chose me. I was the payoff. I had about six sessions like this over time.
The investigators in the Corruption Unit got very excited when they heard that this lawyer was my client. Apparently somebody else had tipped them off about him. I’m guessing Jonas was blabbing like Chatty Cathy after his arrest. Known as “John Doe” during the legal proceedings, Jonas was to testify before Judge Juan Merchan more than a dozen times. So investigators had their eye on this attorney. But they were going to have the same problem with him as with Jonas: his hands were going to be all over me if we had a scheduled liaison.
And then something incredible happened. Anna returned from Canada and wanted me to come to the East Seventy-Eighth Street place to meet and then go eat lunch. She said she wanted to discuss the business. Lately we had been discussing on the phone about her starting up new websites for a matchmaking site. It seemed harmless, and the ADA and detectives were thrilled at the opportunity to have me meet her face-to-face while wearing a wire. I was chilled with fright. But then I thought, Maybe this is straight-up: she’s paranoid and probably wants to get back out of town, so this will be a quick lunch. Maybe she wanted me to manage some of the day-to-day tasks of operating the business—for a bigger stake and at increased risk, but I highly doubted this. I agreed to meet her the following week. What choice did I have?
This time the techies wanted me to wear the wire. “The audio from the recorder buried in the purse is simply not as good,” said the lead detective. “We can’t take any chances on this one, with both of them in the room talking.”
On the appointed day, I was picked up and brought to Corruption. The DA’s techies wired me up. The team drove me uptown in the surveillance van to East Seventy-Seventh Street, and I hopped out and walked the rest of the way to the apartment, where I thought only Anna was waiting for me. The detectives were in the van and in a couple of places out on East Seventy-Eighth. They had decided it was too risky to go inside. I don’t know why it only occurred to me just as I was entering the building, but I realized that if things backfired and Anna wanted to hurt me, the cops wouldn’t be able to get to me in time. I was on my own there.
I walked into the building and up the stairs to Anna’s apartment, using my own key to enter. When I opened the door, I was stunned to see Anna sitting side by side with her attorney, Donald. He wasn’t supposed to be there, and he most certainly would not go out in public with us to have lunch. He was rarely seen in public anywhere. I struggled to hold myself together and also listen to her. In my panic, my heart was racing, and I struggled to focus. I was Rebecca, then Ashley—no, wait, I was undercover Rebecca . . . no, I was absolutely confused . . . and then I snapped into place. I had a job to do. This is why the DA’s office had me working for so long. I may have struggled internally, but in a mere moment I could completely pull off the performance of a lifetime and no one in that room had a clue I was scared or nervous. Not even the slightest suspicion.
Anna chatted amiably, but nothing concrete came up at first. I tried to steer the conversation towards the business, but she was having none of it. It soon became clear what she wanted.
“Ashley, darling, Donald has been missing you so much,” she said, practically cooing as he grinned. “He’s been so nice to us, and I would like you to make him feel good today.”
Anna wanted me to have a session with Donald right then! Maybe he had done her a real estate favor last week, maybe he was just horny, but it was payback time, and the reward was to be me. Donald sat there grinning.
Oh, God! I had wires running up to my breasts! I had a device on! I was dead! My mind raced. Should I tell them I was having my period? That I felt the flu coming on?
“Oh, Donald, there’s nothing I’d love to do more,” I said, reaching over and running my hand up his thigh. “But I have to go pick up Isabella early from school for her doctor’s appointment.” Donald was one of the few clients who knew I had a daughter.
“Can’t her nanny do that?” Anna practically spit out.
“I always accompany her to her pediatrician, Anna, as I’m sure you do with your children,” I said as I slowly started to rise and back out towards the door. “Let’s set up a time so I can give you the proper attention you deserve.”
“It doesn’t have to be a long marathon,” Donald pleaded in a last-ditch effort to get me to stay.
I unlocked the door, and they started to rise as Anna said, “Ashley, wait!”
I just yelled, “Gotta go!” from the hallway and I noticed my voice sounded unnaturally high.
All I could think about was getting to that van and getting that wire off, going downtown, being debriefed, and being taken home. I could barely breathe. This time was different. I knew if Anna and Donald had realized what I had been doing—well, I couldn’t think about what would have happened. All I knew was that no one, no matter what they said, could have gotten to me quickly enough inside that apartment.
The investigators offered to drive me home, but I insisted on going alone. I had to get out of there and away from them. I called my sister as soon as I turned the corner.
“Hey. It’s Rebecca.”
“I know. How are you doing? How is Isabella?” she asked.
“She’s fine, but I’m not doing too well. I wish I could come down there.”
Bridget was silent.
“I just want this all to end.”
“Rebecca, what did you think would happen when you got yourself wrapped up in that business?”
“I know, I know. I was just doing it for Isabella . . .”
“Remember the song, ‘It’s a long old road, but I’m gonna find the end.’ ”
“I hope so, Bridget. I . . . I just wanted to hear your voice. I needed to hear it. Tell me I’m going to be OK. I’m so scared.”
“You are going to be OK. You are strong. And Isabella needs you. You told the truth, and that’s all that matters. Be proud of that. OK? Keep me apprised of your situation. I need to know you are safe. Maybe we’ll see you at Christmas?”
“OK. Sounds good. I love you.”
“I love you too. Give Isabella hugs and kisses.”
I couldn’t even speak with my sister about what I was going through. I had to think for myself. And I decided that I was done with this. I didn’t want any part of this any longer. There had been too many close calls. The more I gave the prosecutors, the more they wanted. They did not seem to care about me at all.
One day
the detectives brought me down to Corruption and into the ADA’s conference room, and the ADA started to say, “OK, next we want you to . . .” There was something presumptuous about his tone. He didn’t ask me. He was telling me. I had been doing this for about two years now, and I had had enough.
I said “No” before he had even finished.
“What do you mean, ‘No’?’ ” he asked, startled. The other ADA and the investigators fairly whipped their heads in his direction.
“I think I need an attorney and I need protection,” I said. “I’ve never been charged with anything, and you’ve been putting me into risky situations, including during client sessions, for too long.”
The ADA stared at me, and his face was turning red. His visions of being the golden boy who brought down Manhattan’s biggest madam were evaporating because I was going to lawyer up. Perhaps he should have treated me better.
“You can hire one,” he blurted out.
“No, I have a right to a public defender,” I said, looking him right in the eye. “And you’re going to get me one.”
He stormed out of the room and, for all I know, out of the Manhattan district attorney’s office. I never heard from him again.
I was still working for Anna as if nothing had happened. Unless somebody suddenly wanted to give me an investment banking job, there was no way I could make that kind of money for my fight, which raged on in Family Court. I continued to have supervised visits with my daughter. I could focus on school again, and my grades were improving. I was returning to normal. I felt I had gotten my life back.
And then, eleven months later, I received a call from the new ADA on the case. They had not given up on bringing Anna down. My whole feeling of well-being instantly collapsed. Why? Why were they doing this? Weren’t there terrorists and murderers and Wall Street cheats to go after? What did Anna Gristina do, really? Facilitate paid sex between consenting adults? As they say in Nevada, where prostitution is legal: “If it doesn’t scare the horses, who cares?”