Objection!: How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System

by Nancy Grace

  J A I L V S . “ T R E A T M E N T ”

  Not only does the system drag its feet in interviewing celebrity suspects, give them special treatment at arrest and book-in, and bend over backward to accommodate them for court appearances, the hand-holding continues even after the trial. Celebrities have the unique good fortune of getting “treatment” when the rest of us would be sentenced to jail. And even when they are sentenced to jail, there’s no guarantee it will really happen or that they will be treated equally under the law.

  Here’s my evidence:

  Diana Ross was arrested on December 30, 2002, after driving the wrong way on a Tucson, Arizona, street. Her speech was slurred, she reeked of alcohol, and she couldn’t write out the alphabet. Ross was arrested for driving under the influence. The singer pleaded no contest to DUI. The court in Tucson, where the drunk driving occurred, agreed to allow Ross to serve her sentence in Greenwich, Connecticut, where she lives. But during her “jail time,” she left on several occasions, had takeout ordered in, and did her nails in the prison’s conference room.

  Want more? In January 2004, singer James Brown was arrested and charged with criminal domestic violence for allegedly shoving his wife, Tomi Rae Brown, to the ground and threatening her with a chair.

  Police reported that the woman had suffered scratches and bruises to her arms and hip during the altercation and was taken to a hospital in Augusta, Georgia, for treatment. He pleaded no contest and served no jail time. His punishment: He forfeited his $1,087 bond. This wasn’t the singer’s first brush with the law. In 1988, Brown was charged with O B J E C T I O N !

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  assaulting his then-wife, Adrienne, but the charges were dropped when she refused to testify against him. He also has settled several lawsuits filed against him that alleged sexual harassment. No matter. Despite protests, in December 2003 the powers that be at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted to give Brown a lifetime-achievement award at the center’s annual gala.

  While Brown’s recent plea wipes it off the court docket, the scary mug shot of the “hardest-working man in show business” with “hurricane hair” and wearing a scuzzy bathrobe lives on in infamy.

  Actor Gary Busey, star of The Buddy Holly Story, was charged with misdemeanor spousal battery in December 2001 after his wife, Tiani, called the police to their Malibu home. He got no jail time. In November 2003, television producer Ryan Haddon, wife of actor Christian Slater, was arrested in Las Vegas on a charge of misdemeanor battery domestic violence. Haddon reportedly threw a glass at Slater, cutting him on the head. Slater was taken to the hospital, where he received twenty stitches. Haddon was taken to the Clark County jail, where she was held for a twenty-four-hour mandatory detention period before being released. Don’t think that’s special treatment? Hit somebody on the head with a glass and see if you don’t end up with some serious jail time.

  In March 2000, disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding pled not guilty to charges that she hit her boyfriend, Darren Silver, in the face with a hubcap and her fists. Harding could have faced a year in prison and a $5,000 fine. She told officers that she hit Silver in an effort to protect herself, but police say that’s not what the evidence showed. The end result: three days in jail and ten days of community service on a work crew.

  Richard Hatch, the million-dollar winner of the first installment of the TV reality hit Survivor, was found guilty in September 2001 of domestic assault. Hatch was sentenced to just one year’s probation for allegedly shoving his ex-boyfriend, Glenn Boyanowski, down a full flight of stairs at Hatch’s Rhode Island home. Straight probation wasn’t good enough—Hatch wanted to appeal. In February 2002, a judge overturned his conviction.

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  Another judge dismissed twelve of the fourteen charges against Philadelphia 76ers basketball player Allen Iverson during the first day of his trial in July 2002. Iverson pled not guilty to all charges that stemmed from his allegedly breaking into his cousin’s apartment with a loaded gun and making threatening statements while searching for his wife after a domestic dispute. CNN reported that after fighting with his wife, Iverson threw her out of their house while she had little or nothing on. A municipal-court judge decided that Iverson probably did not have a gun during the incident and dropped charges.

  In March 2001, basketball star Jason Kidd, then of the Phoenix Suns, was not prosecuted on domestic-violence assault charges. He had been arrested in January during a domestic dispute with his wife, Joumana. He got “counseling” for at least six months and a $200 fine. The National Basketball Association declined to discipline the point guard.

  In June 1997, spousal-abuse charges against M*A*S*H star Harry Morgan made one year earlier were dropped after he completed six months of “counseling.” Morgan had been charged with abusing his wife after she’d suffered injuries to her eye, foot, and arm.

  Need I go on? Just trust me, if you or I had behaved anywhere near the way this rogues’ gallery of celebrities did, we would be on work duty in the jailhouse laundry room right now. What do they have that we don’t? Celebrity.

  F A M E ’ S D O U B L E - E D G E D

  S W O R D

  It isn’t always a free ride for celebrities. Sometimes—although it’s rare—fame can be a toss-up. The flip side to the coddling of a celebrity defendant is the fact that the public expects police to do something about the accused and wants to see the system shift into gear and act.

  For reasons that aren’t exactly philanthropic, the media stay on such stories 24/7. Most times, celebrity is a plus when it comes to a jury—but it O B J E C T I O N !

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  all depends on that particular celebrity’s persona. In the case of Martha Stewart, a self-made American billionaire who clawed her way to the top of the corporate world by founding the homewares company branded with her name, the interest in and coverage of her case and subsequent trial were relentless. From the length of her hair to the price of her pocketbook, Stewart was attacked every day in the press. It always amazed me that Kobe Bryant could show up wearing $50,000 worth of bling and nobody said a word, but Martha Stewart showed up at court with an Hermès handbag and it made headlines the next day. The woman couldn’t win for losing. The consensus that she was arrogant and above it all carried over into the jury room. Juror Chappell Hartridge couldn’t wait to express his glee over the guilty verdict and likened it to a “blow for the little guy.”

  The perfectionistic image Stewart had built up over the years, be it true or false, worked against her with the jury and in the media. Her case is the only one in recent history where I can recall celebrity’s working against someone.

  From the get-go, Martha Stewart’s supporters screamed loudly that prosecutors had unfairly targeted her because of her position and success. Others argued she had only herself to blame for trying to cover up the original ImClone stock sale, arguing that Stewart was her own worst enemy. I have seen serial killers, child molesters, and bank robbers convicted, but the afternoon this verdict came in, March 5, 2004, will stick in my mind forever. The unadulterated joy that was expressed by scores of onlookers and trial watchers over the news that Stewart had been brought down was unlike anything I had ever seen.

  I remember the day vividly, because I was covering the story live.

  Reporters were positioned inside and outside the courtroom to relay the news, as cameras are not allowed in federal trials. The courthouse doors swung wide open, and throngs of people came pouring down the steps waving sweaters and shirts in the air. They had expressions of such glee, such happiness, I just assumed that it was a not-guilty verdict. But then I found out the truth—the sweaters being waved around were signals to television crews that Stewart had been convicted. What 2 5 2

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  I never understood was the gleeful expressions. Convictions, even rightful ones, are usually not joyous events. They can often elicit a sense of relief or vindication at jus
tice’s having been done, but joy? It simply didn’t make sense to me.

  Any suggestion that Martha Stewart had received special treatment because of her fame and celebrity status disappeared for me after I interviewed Susan McDougal, the Whitewater “witness” who refused to talk and ended up behind bars for nearly two full years because of it.

  We spoke one night on Larry King Live. Take a listen: G R A C E :

  Susan, we’ve all seen Martha Stewart Living on television. Whether we’ve attempted her projects or not, we’ve seen it. We’ve seen Turkey Hill. We’ve seen the beautiful surroundings she has created for herself. What is one day like in the women’s federal penitentiary? What is a day in the life for Martha Stewart?

  M C D O U G A L :

  Well, every visitor she has—if it is her daughter, her minister, every single visitor—she will be taken to a secluded area and strip-searched. She will be asked to bend over and to show her vaginal area, her anal area. It depends on the guard how very rough that search gets or how nice it can be. And some of the guards are very cruel. And I think that was one of the most shocking things. I used to say, “Look, I’ve had three visits. I don’t need any more today.” That is a very cruel thing for a woman to go through.

  When you get to visiting, for instance, they won’t let you leave any time you want. For women, there aren’t enough guards, and so you might need to go to the bathroom. Say that you are having your period. You might sit there and have blood all O B J E C T I O N !

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  over the seat, all over your clothes, and no one to take you back to your cell. It is a very humiliating, daily humiliation that you’re not used to.

  I saw a seventy-year-old lovely woman, hair up in a silver bun, from Florida, who had been convicted with her husband on some charge—I’ve forgotten what it was—beaten with a phone because she had dared to speak, you know, unkindly to someone who had gotten in front of her in a line, beaten unconscious in a secluded area of a federal prison. And I really think—more than anything, I want to say I don’t think that Martha Stewart’s going to learn tennis, because every room you walk into in a federal institution is a fearful place. You don’t know who’s there . . .

  We went to break. I thought of the few times I’d caught Martha Stewart’s show, her cooking or decorating or gardening, seen one of her books, or spotted a recipe, and I tried to reconcile that image with what McDougal had just described on national television.

  I also interviewed a handful of federal prosecutors that same night on the likelihood that Stewart would ever serve the full twenty years behind bars—the maximum sentence possible under the law. We all agreed. There was no way this would happen. Everyone predicted she’d receive a light sentence.

  Then came the afternoon of Stewart’s sentencing, July 16, 2004.

  Sure enough, Judge Miriam Cedarbaum ended up ordering the lightest possible sentence the law allows: five months at a dormitory-style women’s correctional institution, followed by five months’ house arrest.

  Cedarbaum tacked on two years’ probation and a $30,000 fine, the min-imum the judge could impose under federal sentencing guidelines.

  Afterward, Stewart gave a defiant speech outside the courtroom in which she vowed to fight both the verdict and the sentence, and then, to 2 5 4

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  the surprise of stunned onlookers and ever the pitchmeister, she took the opportunity right there on the courthouse steps to plug her business—

  home goods and magazine both! Result? Within minutes, Martha Stewart Omnimedia stock skyrocketed 37 percent. Facing jail time, Martha Stewart was unbowed. In her first postconviction interview, she invoked the name of South Africa’s hero, Nelson Mandela, who was held in prison for twenty-seven years before being freed and assuming leadership of the African National Congress. Stewart was careful not to compare herself to Mandela, but she made the point that good people—she included herself—sometimes end up behind bars. Not surprisingly, Stewart’s comments just added to the frenzy surrounding her sentencing.

  Later that night, I got to do live interviews with members of her new appellate team. I grilled Walter Dellinger and David Chesnoff on everything from whether Stewart was a celebrity target to her hawking her wares from the courthouse steps to the effect of outspoken juror Chappell Hartridge, possible issues on appeal, and whether she should have reported to her sentencing with her toothbrush and gone straight to Danbury and gotten it over with (as I advocated) instead of wrestling with the sentence on appeal for years to come, essentially holding her life and business in limbo.

  The attorneys revealed little regarding appealable issues, except for hinting at an inappropriate charge in count number nine of Stewart’s indictment, which charged her with manipulating her own stock by publicly proclaiming her innocence. The trial judge, Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, ultimately tossed the count, but the jury had already heard plenty about it. In the mind of the defense, that could constitute reversible error. The Chappell Hartridge issue loomed as an appellate possibility as well. Then, of course, there was a formal perjury charge against the government’s ink expert. He told the jury that inked nota-tions to sell Martha’s stock were made separately, a key indicator that Stewart made a trade order based on insider knowledge well after the stocks were purchased. My prediction? They’ll take the kitchen-sink approach on appeal. Instead of homing in on a few isolated but hard-hitting O B J E C T I O N !

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  appellate issues, the defense will throw in everything including the kitchen sink and hope for the best. As to Martha Stewart’s appeal, I feel strongly there will be no reversal, in that the evidence on appeal is always construed most favorably to the state.

  A M A K E O V E R F O R M A R T H A In September 2004, Stewart surprised many court watchers when she asked Judge Cedarbaum to make room for her behind bars and find an empty bed. During the press conference when she made the surprise announcement, Stewart seemed to speak directly to her shareholders, stating she was innocent but wanted to “move on.” The down-but-definitely-not-out domestic diva made it clear she wanted to check into the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution in Connecticut, the closest possible prison to the home of Stewart’s ninety-year-old mother, as soon as possible. Danbury, however, with its dormlike atmosphere, was already overcrowded.

  Stewart went on to say she could no longer bear the “prolonged suffering” and stated, “I will miss all of my pets, my two beloved, fun-loving dogs, my seven lively cats, my canaries, my horses, and even my chick-ens.” She mentioned “love” in relation to one entity in her address to the public—her love of her business, her brainchild, her creation. Stewart also revealed the uncertainty, regret, and sense of foreboding that all criminal defendants suffer. Her lawyers will, of course, continue their appeal. It was a stunning U-turn for the hardworking businesswoman, who transformed a one-woman business into a vast media empire. More important, it was also a clever strategic move.

  In September 2004, Stewart was ordered to report to the federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia, to begin serving her five-month sentence. The feds ignored Inmate 55170-054’s request to serve time at facilities in either Danbury, Connecticut, or Coleman, Florida, for a variety of reasons. Anonymous sources said Danbury was ruled out 2 5 6

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  because it was “too accessible” to the media. The Florida prison wasn’t an option because it was overcrowded due to an influx of prisoners who had been relocated after the state’s devastating series of hurricanes.

  According to an Associated Press report, the decision to send Stewart to Alderson was made to squelch any rumors of preferential treatment.

  I firmly believe Stewart’s decision to go straight to jail ASAP was to preserve the thing she “loves”—Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

  The uncertainty of the sentence, the jail term, and her reemergence into society were taking a huge toll on the value of the stock. Upon her announcement, MSLO stock surged upward more th
an 12 percent.

  Instead of living under a cloud, Stewart smartly decided she should bite the bullet. I agree with her decision. By the time you’re reading this, she will have served her prison sentence and begun her additional five months of house arrest. I say, Martha, write a book and be done with it. Start over. The world loves a comeback kid and if anybody can pull it off, it’s Stewart. New York magazine reported in October 2004

  that Stewart, never one to be idle, was mulling over offers estimated to be worth upwards of $5 million from publishers. And of course, the domestic diva will be the new star of The Apprentice.

  While it’s true that the Stewart case is just one of a number of criminal indictments handed down against corporate executives in recent history, the small dollars at stake in Stewart’s trial compared to the millions and millions in other trials make it stand out. Why Stewart? Why not others like her? And why did Stewart’s case get the fast track to trial and sentencing? The reality is that her case, simply because of who she is, sent a powerful message that white-collar crime will be prosecuted.

  But will it? Or will prosecutors rest easier because they’ve now bagged their trophy defendant? I’m sure thousands of other corporate fat cats across the country are secretly laughing at Stewart, all the while devis-ing methods in order to escape prosecution themselves.

  Reverberations from the Stewart trial go on. In 2004, a sixty-four-year-old woman who was upset with the prosecutor’s treatment of the homemaking icon, was convicted of jury tampering in Shasta County, O B J E C T I O N !

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  California. The unabashed Martha fan was accused of trying to influence a juror in an unrelated murder case thousands of miles away from the Manhattan courtroom where Stewart was tried and convicted. During a quick break during the trial, Alice Thomas reportedly told a woman wearing a juror’s badge, “Just remember, the district attorney lies,” according to California deputy district attorney Josh Lowery. Ms. Thomas just happened to be in the courthouse that day on a completely unrelated matter when she ran into the juror on the elevator. After being charged with jury tampering, Thomas found herself on trial and revealed on cross-examination that she was upset with Stewart’s prosecution.