Trap (9781476793177)

by Tanenbaum, Robert K.

  Karp allowed Newbury’s statement to sink in for a moment before continuing. “Was there any record of Mr. Salaam replying?”

  “Only once. Most of the time he only received the transmissions and did not respond. However, on one occasion, the afternoon of the day following the car bombing at Il Buon Pane, he received a message from 184.12.321 and responded almost immediately.”

  “Was this the only evidence that he actually saw these emails?”

  “Well, the fact that he received these messages over a period of two years and did nothing to prevent or block them would indicate that he was reading them,” Newbury said, “but more than that, he seemed to respond in other ways through his actions. For instance, we were able to connect the reception of emails with the appearance within a day or two of a man matching the description of Yusef Salaam at the Seahorse Motel. This man would check in and then be joined by an unidentified white woman.”

  “You said a man matching the description. Did this man register under the name Yusef Salaam or Henry Burns?”

  “No. As you know, the Patriot Act requires that motels and hotels check the identification of guests when they check in,” Newbury said. “According to the owner of the Seahorse Motel, which is something of a dive that rents rooms by the hour, the man who matched the physical description of Yusef Salaam presented a driver’s license claiming he was one Charles Beamon of Cleveland, Ohio. However, we were able to determine that the real Charles Beamon—a forty-five-year-old Caucasian male standing five-foot-eight and weighing two hundred twenty pounds—lost his identification to a Coney Island pickpocket on New Year’s Eve two years ago.”

  “Were you able to obtain photographs of the real Mr. Beamon and Mr. Salaam and subsequently show them to the owner of the Seahorse Motel?”

  “Yes. The owner, a Mr. Islay Kennedy, formerly of County Cork, Ireland, could not identify the real photograph of Mr. Charles Beamon. However, he was able to identify the photograph of Mr. Salaam as the man known to him as Charles Beamon.”

  “Did you also show Mr. Kennedy a photograph of the defendant?”

  “Yes. But he was unable to say for certain she was the woman who would join Mr. Salaam at the motel.”

  “Did he say why he could not identify her?”

  “He said he never saw the woman without sunglasses and a heavy coat,” Newbury said. “He also believed that she was wearing a brunette wig. He did say that she appeared to be in her late thirties to midforties.”

  “And would they arrive at the motel together?”

  “No. Mr. Salaam would show up first on foot,” Newbury said. “The unidentified woman would then arrive in a late-model silver BMW.”

  Karp walked over to the prosecution table and picked up a clear plastic bag that he handed to Newbury. “Mr. Newbury, would you please identify the contents of this bag?”

  “Yes. It’s the New York registration for a 2013 BMW F13, color silver, registered to the defendant, Olivia Stone.”

  “Do you know where the registration was located when taken into evidence by Detective Clay Fulton?”

  “Yes, I believe it was in the glove box of the vehicle.”

  With the eyes of the jurors flitting over to the defense table where the blond defendant sat stone-faced and pale, Karp returned to the forensic examination of the computers. “Before we move on, were you able in your investigation to establish any sort of connection between Yusef Salaam and Lars Forsling?”

  “There was nothing we found to indicate such a connection.”

  “What about between Mr. Salaam and Micah Gallo?”

  “None.”

  “How about Thomas Monroe or the computer confiscated from his office at the Greater New York Teachers Federation?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Two last questions regarding the browsing history of Yusef Salaam. Was there anything that pertained to the events in Brooklyn that claimed the life of Mr. Salaam?”

  “Yes, on that day, a search was conducted on Google maps to locate the Jay Street Bar, and he also searched for the bus routes leading to that location.”

  “And did that coincide with any emails received from the computer associated with the office of the defendant?”

  “Yes. This is the timing for the instance I mentioned in which he received an email from that computer and then responded.”

  As Newbury spoke, Karp looked at the jurors. They were paying attention but also looked as if they’d just been inundated with a lot of material to absorb. He turned to the judge. “Your honor, we’ll probably be using the rest of the afternoon for Mr. Newbury’s testimony and I was thinking that this might be a good time to take a break.”

  Rainsford glanced at the clock and nodded. “We’ll meet back here in twenty minutes.”

  Karp left the courtroom to call Marlene but then returned as quickly as he could to go over his notes for the remainder of his questions for Newbury. He found Irving Mendelbaum sitting in his chair at the defense table, his chin on his chest and lightly snoring. The old man stirred and opened his eyes.

  “Ah, boychick, caught me napping,” Mendelbaum said with a tired smile.

  “How you doing, Irving? You okay? You’re looking a little beat.”

  “Am I? Well, I’m feeling beat . . . and old,” he said. “All of this talk about IP addresses, and browsing histories, and iPhones . . . so much of it is going right over my head. This is the first time since I was a young and not-so-bright Legal Aid attorney fresh out of Columbia Law that I feel I am not adequately representing my client. I am simply not up on all of this computer stuff.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself, not to mention you were never a ‘not-so-bright’ attorney,” Karp said. “You’re the dean of the New York defense bar and you’re still on top of the program. And I have to confess, most of this computer stuff goes over my head, too. I don’t even have a personal computer at home, I’m not sure what social media means, and I don’t use email. I have to ask my boys or Marlene, who’s pretty good at it, to explain any of it to me at home. And I’d be lost without Newbury at work.”

  Mendelbaum chuckled. “I’ve always liked Vincent. A good man and a trial attorney. I’ve battled with him several times in the past, and even won a couple.”

  “I know,” Karp said, “because he takes every loss as a personal reflection on his abilities. But he doesn’t lose many and dinosaurs like us have to rely on guys like him to lead us through the intricacies of the internet. You had your own experts.”

  “Yes, but apparently not as good as Newbury and his ‘Geek Squad,’ and I wasn’t savvy enough to realize that. All I know is that they told me the computer memories had been wiped clean of any questionable material. Now I just feel old and not so smart.”

  Karp patted him on the shoulder. “Sometimes there’s no fighting the truth. But you’ll live to battle another day, and you’d have to think I’m not so smart to believe that the old tiger is going to go down without a fight.”

  Mendelbaum nodded. “I promise to go out scratching and biting, but old, dull teeth and claws aren’t much good when the hunter has a big new gun.”

  As Karp turned to go to his seat, Mendelbaum said, “Hey Butch, catch!”

  Nabbing the Snickers bar out of the air, Karp laughed. “Thanks, Irving, they don’t make ’em like you anymore.”

  “You still have good hands, you big lug,” Mendelbaum shot back with a smile.

  Ten minutes later, Newbury was back on the stand and Karp was pressing forward. “Let’s move on to the computer seized from the office of Thomas Monroe at the Greater New York Teachers Federation building.”

  “Yes, Computer 193.41.523, as we like to call it,” Newbury said with a twinkle, thoroughly enjoying himself. “That’s its IP address.”

  “Would you tell the jurors about your examination of its contents?”

  “Yes, actually we’d received some of that information earlier in the form of a flash drive given to you by Micah Gallo.”

&n
bsp; “What was Mr. Gallo’s relationship to Mr. Monroe?”

  “He was Monroe’s assistant, sort of a second in command.”

  “Was the information on the flash drive identical to some of the information that was also on the computer?”

  “It was the same information,” Newbury said. “It had just been downloaded onto the flash drive.”

  “Was there anything particularly different about this information?”

  “Yes, it had been encrypted, which is saying it was in code, which generally is done to keep the information secret from prying eyes.”

  “What, if anything, did you do to break the code?”

  “Codes are made to be broken. We had to get a little help from a federal security agency, but we were able to break the code and decipher the information.”

  Karp picked up a thick, three-ring binder from the prosecution table. “Do you recognize this binder?”

  “Yes, I created it.”

  “And what does it contain?”

  “It contains printed copies of the information found on the computer after we broke the code.”

  Karp turned toward Rainsford and said, “I move to enter this binder and its material as People’s Exhibit 32.”

  “Any objections?”

  “None,” said Mendelbaum.

  “So moved.”

  “Mr. Newbury, the jury will be able to go through this material during their deliberations, but would you explain in general what they’ll see?”

  “Sure. The material is broken into three subsections, each of which are labeled. The first are records of bank accounts registered to various names and corporations. These banks are located in the United States, as well as the Cayman Islands. The second subsection contains a list of real estate holdings, the listed owners, and transactions, such as transfer of title and payments. The third subsection is the same information from the first two subsections, only now divided according to certain identifying marks found on the documents.”

  “Were you able to establish who the owners of these bank accounts, corporations, and real estate holdings were?”

  “Actually, most of the accounts and corporations are not legitimate, as in, the people listed as the owners are either fictitious or people paid to use their names in order to disguise the identity of the true owners,” Newbury said. “In other words, these were dummy corporations.”

  “Were you able to contact any of these people who were paid for the fraudulent use of their identities?”

  “Some of them, but not all.”

  “Do you recall speaking to Monique DeVeres of Fort Lauderdale, Florida?”

  “Yes, she appears as the ‘owner’ of one of the dummy corporations, as well as some real estate in the Florida Keys.”

  “Was her ownership legitimate?”

  “No, Mrs. DeVeres is an older woman of Cuban descent who lives in a retirement village off her social security income, which she supplemented with several hundred dollars a month from the real owners of the corporation and real estate.”

  “Did Mrs. DeVeres plead guilty to fraud for this in Fort Lauderdale?”

  “Yes,” Newbury said. “A sad situation actually. She was having trouble making ends meet and has no family. She was placed on probation due to her age; she’s eighty-three.”

  “You testified that in the third subsection of People’s Exhibit 32, the information from the first two subsections was divided according to certain identifying marks found on the documents. What were these identifying marks?”

  “They were letters written in pencil next to each of the documents, or next to the list of bank accounts,” Newbury said. “Either a ‘T,’ an ‘M,’ or an ‘O.’ We were able to determine from our investigation that the ‘T’ was for Thomas, the ‘M’ was for Micah, and the ‘O’ for Olivia.”

  “Mr. Newbury, I believe your testimony is that there were no emails to or from IP address 193.41.523, identified as connected to the computer in Mr. Monroe’s office, and IP address 172.16.254, identified as assigned to Mr. Salaam’s laptop?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “What about between the Monroe IP address 193.41.523 and the Stone IP address 184.12.321?”

  “Yes, there were quite a few emails going back and forth over a long period of time, including in the late afternoon prior to Mr. Monroe’s arrest, at which point there were several more from the Stone IP address to the Monroe IP address, which were not returned until they, too, stopped.”

  “Were you able to read the emails from the Stone IP address to the Monroe IP address?”

  “Yes, these were intercepted, and because Mr. Monroe was incarcerated at the time, there was not an opportunity for him to delete them.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Not a whole lot. Just several requests that he call her. The last one sounded quite desperate,” Newbury said looking down at his notepad, “and I quote, ‘Where are you? Call me, goddamn it.’ ”

  “I’d like to turn now to Computer 184.12.321 seized from the office of then District Attorney Stone. First, was there something different about locating information on this computer?”

  “Yes. This computer was linked to others within the Kings County criminal courts system, which included the office of the district attorney. As such it had an ‘external’ IP address associated with it and all of the other computers in the building, as well as an ‘internal’ number assigned solely to hers. Kings County refused to simply tell us the number, and we ended up having to subpoena their tech supervisor to get the number.”

  “I believe that you testified that except on one occasion, Mr. Salaam received messages from IP Number 184.12.321 assigned to the defendant’s computer but did not respond?”

  “That’s correct. Except for the one response, it was all one-way.”

  “Can you tell me how many emails were sent from the Stone IP address to the Salaam IP address in the week, days, and hours prior to the car bombing that resulted in the deaths of Mrs. Lubinsky, Mary Calebras, and Tawanna Mohammad?”

  “There was one about a week prior to the car bombing murder of Rose Lubinsky and the two other deceaseds.”

  “Were you able to note something that would lead you to believe that Mr. Salaam reacted to this email?”

  “Yes, the following day he took a bus to the Seahorse Motel in Atlantic City, where he spent several hours in a room with the unidentified woman who arrived in the late-model BMW.”

  “Okay, let’s proceed. After that, how many messages were there and when were they sent?”

  “There were two more. One the day before the bombing.”

  “Was there any indication that Mr. Salaam reacted, such as another trip to the Seahorse Motel?”

  “Not that we were able to discern.”

  “Okay, what about the third email?”

  “It was sent several hours prior to the bombing.”

  Karp positioned himself against the jury rail. “What about the following day?”

  “That was when he received an email from someone in the afternoon and then responded.”

  “Was there something besides his email response that indicated a reaction to her email?”

  “He appeared outside the Jay Street Bar where Thomas Monroe was arrested.”

  “Is that where he also died?”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe that your testimony was that when you examined Computer 184.12.321, the IP address assigned to Mrs. Stone’s computer, emails and browsing history had been deleted and attempts had been made to erase all evidence of them from the machine’s hard drive.”

  “That’s true.”

  “When was this done?”

  “Approximately one hour before Mrs. Stone’s arrest and the subsequent confiscation of the computer.”

  “Before I turn you over to Mr. Mendelbaum, was there one other computer you were asked to examine?”

  “Yes,” Newbury said, consulting his notepad. “Computer 312.55.435 belonging to Micah Gallo.”r />
  “Do you know the circumstances under which this computer was turned over to the New York District Attorney’s Office?”

  “I believe Mr. Gallo brought it to your office.”

  “Were there any attempts to erase information on this computer prior to turning it over to the DAO?”

  “No, other than the usual sort of housekeeping a computer user does. But nothing we could connect to anything regarding this case.”

  “Were you able to locate bank account information and real estate documents that incriminated Mr. Gallo in a conspiracy with Mr. Monroe and the defendant Stone to steal funds from the Greater New York Teachers Federation for their personal gain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there any attempt to encrypt this information?”

  “No. It was easy to access, and Mr. Gallo cooperated in showing us where to locate the information.”

  “Was there any evidence of contact between Mr. Gallo’s IP address and the IP address assigned to Olivia Stone’s computer?”

  “None that we could find.”

  “What about between Mr. Gallo’s IP address and Mr. Monroe’s?”

  “There were occasional emails between them, but it didn’t appear to be a preferred method of communication, which is understandable considering they worked in the same office.”

  “Were you able to read emails on Mr. Gallo’s computer between him and Mr. Monroe?”

  “Yes, as I said, most were work related. However, there were some that caught our attention as being possibly linked to this case.”

  “Would you elaborate please?”

  “Certainly,” Newbury said, looking at his notepad. “One day prior to the bombing of Mrs. Lubinsky’s car, Mr. Gallo received an email from Mr. Monroe that read: ‘I want you to go with me to meet you know who tonight regarding what to do about the charter school bill. We’re running out of time and options.’ ”

  “Were there any others?”

  “Yes, the afternoon of the bombing, Monroe instructed Gallo to meet him at the Jay Street Bar, and I quote, ‘promptly at eight p.m. Don’t be late,’ unquote.”