Twisted Triangle

by Caitlin Rother

  When Margo talked to Gene around noon, he told her to go to the bank after cleaning the van, and to withdraw $3,000 by putting a cash advance on her credit card.

  “We might have to leave at any moment to go and get the kids, and we need to have enough cash,” he said.

  They met up again later that day at the Holiday Inn in Manassas, where he had them swap vehicles. He was wearing blue cotton gloves, which, she later figured, was to keep her van free of his fingerprints.

  Gene led her back to the Giant in Alexandria, where he told her to buy some wine, then they went back to the Old Colony Inn.

  When he opened the door to the room, Margo saw the king-size bed and felt an immediate sense of dread.

  “This was the only room they had,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  They left to get some dinner, which consisted of a chicken sandwich at Wendy’s. They both had some wine, then Gene climbed into bed with her around 9:30. So much for the floor.

  “Let’s have sex,” Gene said.

  “No, I don’t want to.”

  “C’mon, it’ll help us both relax.”

  “I’m not on the pill. I don’t want to do this.”

  “C’mon, help me come,” Gene said, pulling her hand under the sheets toward him.

  At that point, Margo was weak and weary, and she felt she had no choice but to do what she was told. She had no idea where her children were, and she didn’t know whether she was going to be dead or alive after she testified at Gene’s trial the next day. So she finished her task as quickly as possible. She felt sick to her stomach and a little lost as she lay there, pretending to be asleep until she finally drifted off.

  On Wednesday, Margo and Gene left the hotel around 9 AM so that he could get to his attorney’s office by 9:30. She took the Metro from National Airport to Brian Gettings’s office.

  Once she got there, Brian told her she wouldn’t be called to testify until after lunch, so she went to the cafeteria. Feeling nervous, she paged Gene from a pay phone. She needed him to calm her down, to tell her she was doing the right thing by lying on the stand.

  “You’re okay because you have a letter of immunity. Be tough. Don’t worry,” he said.

  After lunch, Margo learned she wasn’t going to be called until Thursday, so she went back to the Old Colony Inn to wait for Gene.

  He took her to Wendy’s again for dinner, then drove them to a notary at the airport. Gene said Jerry had told him to draw up some papers that promised Margo full custody of the girls and possession of the Bennetts’ co-owned property as insurance that Gene would indeed persuade Margo to lie on the stand; if he didn’t, she would get everything. As implausible as this promise may sound in hindsight, Margo didn’t question it at the time. She simply signed on the dotted line.

  Next they stopped so that Gene could buy some deodorant, but once they got back to the hotel, Margo was disheartened to see that he’d bought a box of condoms instead.

  She felt the emotional and physical strain of the last few days taking its toll, and started to worry that she would crack during her false testimony.

  “Why do I have to lie on the stand?” she asked. “Why can’t I just tell the attorneys I’m going to change my testimony?”

  “Recanting your story has to be done publicly, so you have to be on the stand,” he said.

  When they got into bed, Gene tried to pull Margo to him, but she resisted.

  “Gene, I don’t want to do this.”

  “It’ll help us relax,” Gene said again. “And I have a rubber tonight.”

  Margo felt even more tired and drained than she had the night before. Feeling like an empty shell of a person, she stopped protesting as he climbed on top of her.

  “Talk to me,” he said. “You know what I like to hear.”

  As beaten down as she felt, this was one small battle Margo was determined to win. She remained silent as Gene did his business. The experience was more unpleasant than it had ever been. Margo felt as if she were outside her body, watching and waiting for him to finish his dirty work.

  He never put on the condom.

  And she never had sex with a man again.

  The next morning was D-Day.

  Margo was finally going to testify.

  After Gene left the hotel at 7:30 AM, Margo didn’t have anything to do before testifying but wait.

  Gene told her to page him at 11:55 AM to make sure her head was clear. She took the Metro into DC and called him before she met up with her attorney.

  “You doing okay?” Gene asked.

  “Yes,” Margo replied. “I don’t really want to do this, but I’m okay.”

  By 12:30, she’d arrived at Brian’s office, riddled with apprehension.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked, glancing over at her as he drove them to the courthouse. She was sitting on her hands, which got cold when she was anxious.

  “You’re going to be just fine,” he said, reassuringly.

  “Do you promise to stand by me no matter what?” she asked.

  Brian, who had no idea how loaded her question was, looked at her and smiled. “Of course,” he said.

  To Margo, the courtroom felt old and on the smallish side. Only six or eight people were sitting in the gallery, including Brian, who was in the front row behind the prosecutors. A couple of people she didn’t recognize, whom she later learned were reporters, were in the back row. Gene was at the defense table with his lawyer Reid Weingarten, a former trial attorney for the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section.

  After lunch, around 1:30 PM, Margo was the first witness to be called to the stand, which was only seven or so feet from the judge.

  She was sworn in while the jury was in the room. But as soon as prosecutor Bruce Reinhart started asking questions, Reid objected, saying her testimony should be precluded by spousal privilege, the legal mechanism to exempt information passed between spouses.

  U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson excused the jury so that he could hear enough of Margo’s testimony to rule on Reid’s objection.

  “Did there come a time in late September of 1986 when you overheard a conversation between your husband and Jerry York?” Bruce asked Margo.

  Gene stared straight at her as she answered. Her mouth was dry and she was trembling.

  “Your honor, let me clarify,” Margo said. “I am under oath still, correct?”

  “Yes, you are,” the judge said.

  “Actually, the time period was in August of 1986. My husband and I entered into a financial agreement to purchase the house from Jerry and Brenda York. Up until this time, up until today, I have misled Mr. Reinhart and Ms. Isaacson, and I would like to explain what’s happened. . . . No one has done anything wrong here, your honor. To my knowledge, the transactions that we entered into with Jerry and Brenda were entirely legitimate.

  “What happened is in September of 1992, September 8th, my husband served me with divorce papers. . . . A lot of terrible things were said to one another. We were both up all night. My husband was threatening to take my children from me. I went into work the next day to try and get away from the hostilities that were going on at the house, and I was exhausted. I was a mental basket case. I was confused.”

  “Let me stop you just at this point,” the judge said.

  Hearing a dramatic reversal in the direction of her testimony, he asked if she’d conferred with her attorney about her statement.

  “No, sir, I have not.”

  “Well, I’m not sure that I want to hear it before you talk to Mr. Gettings,” he said.

  “Well, your honor, I mean, where I’m coming from is that this is the first time I’ve ever been placed under oath and under threat of perjury, and I’m not going to sit up here and perjure myself.”

  The judge reiterated his strong suggestion that she talk to her attorney before saying anything more under oath, then called a recess.

  Brian Gettings took Margo by the arm and led her into the room just outside the c
ourtroom where defendants generally consulted with their attorneys. Margo sat at the table while Brian paced around her.

  “Why are you doing this?” Brian asked.

  “I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important,” Margo said, looking him in the eye, “but I can’t tell you.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said, and left the room.

  When he came back, Brian said he’d told the judge he needed a recess for the rest of the day.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  As they were leaving the courthouse, Margo was met by a Washington Post photographer whom someone, presumably Gene, had tipped off. The photo he took of her that afternoon not only ran with a story in the Post the next day, but with articles in numerous national publications for years to come. Margo’s hair was blown back by the wind, and she looked gaunt and haunted. She’d lost almost a dozen pounds during her harrowing week with Gene Bennett.

  Neither she nor Brian said a word as he drove them back to his office, but Margo could sense that he was quite frustrated with her. He took her to a conference room and rolled his chair right up to her, their knees practically touching.

  “Margo,” he said, “you’ve got to talk to me.”

  “Brian, I can’t,” she said shakily, agonizing over what to do.

  “I know you. You wouldn’t do this. What is going on?”

  But Margo couldn’t jeopardize the lives of her children. She felt frozen. Gene had only prepped her to the point of lying on the stand. Now she was on her own.

  “What’s it going to take for you to talk to me?” he asked.

  Margo felt that one person, and one person only, could help her figure out what to do next: John Hess.

  “I’ve got to talk to John,” she said.

  Brian didn’t much like this idea. He didn’t know John, had never met him.

  “I don’t want you talking to anyone else,” he said.

  But after considering his options, Brian gave in and called John at his home in Fredericksburg.

  “It’s against my advice that Margo speak with you, but she’s insisting,” Brian said. “She says she won’t talk to anybody else.”

  With that, Brian handed Margo the phone and walked a few feet away to give her some space.

  Margo began to babble as she tried to explain what had really happened with Gene so far. It took her about five minutes to tell a story that many of their colleagues would not believe. It was such a crazy tale, some dismissed it out of hand. Many couldn’t believe that an undercover agent for the FBI would ever do such a thing to one of his own, especially his wife. Further, they thought, if Gene had really wanted to kill her, he could easily have done so. Others found it hard to believe that a trained agent like Margo would have bought into a ludicrous story about Colombians ordering the kidnap of her and the girls. For most of them, the coup de grace was that she’d had sex with Gene in the hotel room. Twice. That eliminated any remaining shred of her credibility.

  But not for John.

  John had never liked Gene and thought he was a sociopath. That said, John was amazed and frustrated with Margo for forgetting all her training and falling victim to Gene’s manipulative tactics. However, John cared very much for Margo, so he listened, trying not to interrupt.

  “The kids are gone, and they’re in danger. If I testify, they say they’re going to hurt the kids,” she said.

  That’s when John couldn’t stay silent any longer. “My God, Margo, listen to what Gene is saying to you,” he said, his words clipped. “You know this is not true.”

  “John, I don’t know what to do,” Margo said weakly. “I don’t know where the kids are.”

  “For Christ’s sake, you’ve got to tell the truth,” John said. “Tell them the truth.”

  As Margo felt herself coming out of the surreal fog she’d been in for the past week, she slowly began to accept the possibility that she’d been duped. After they hung up, Margo told Brian the whole story.

  When she was finished, Brian went to get his partner, Frank Dunham, and had her tell the story all over again.

  “My God, Margo, this is crazy,” Frank said.

  Margo put her head down and parted her hair.

  “Give me your hand,” she said, placing Frank’s fingers on the burns and scrape marks on her scalp. “That’s from the taser.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  Brian called prosecutor Marcia Isaacson, gave her a brief recap, paused and then repeated everything he’d just said.

  Afterward, Brian told Margo that he’d run through the story with Marcia, but she’d held the phone out to her partner and said, “I can’t deal with this. Here.” So Brian had to tell it again.

  For the next hour, Margo and Brian waited for two FBI agents to arrive and take her statement.

  “In my entire career, never have I had anything as bizarre as this,” Brian said.

  Margo was still unable to let go of the possibility that Gene was telling some piece of the truth. “I don’t know where my kids are. I need to know my kids are okay.”

  “Margo, can’t you see that Gene’s lying?”

  “I just need to know that my kids are okay,” she repeated.

  After discussing the best way to check on the girls, Frank and Brian suggested that Margo call the Prince William County police. She persuaded the police to go to the Nokesville house, but when they called back fifteen minutes later, they said the house was dark and no one was home. This did little to reassure Margo.

  It turned out that the girls had stayed the weekend with Tracy, the baby-sitter Gene had hired. But it would be two more days before Margo would learn that the kids had never been in harm’s way.

  Agents Charlie Price and John Roberts interviewed Margo at Brian’s office for the better part of three hours, until close to midnight. At one point, John Roberts left the room, and his partner looked at Margo with utter scorn.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” Margo asked.

  “I’ve got to tell you, Margo,” he said. “If I had done to my wife what you say Gene did to you, she would not have had sex with me. She would have taken my gun and blown a hole in my head.”

  Margo didn’t say a word. She could see what was happening.

  Oh, God, she thought, her heart and stomach dropping to the floor. Nobody believes me.

  Margo went out to the lobby and found Brian pacing near the elevators, rubbing the back of his neck and looking as if he wished he could smoke a cigarette.

  “Margo, I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said. “But whatever we do, it will be the right thing.”

  Charlie Price and John Roberts took Margo to buy some makeup and clean underwear before they dropped her at a Holiday Inn in downtown DC. They had offered to take her back to her townhouse, but she said she was too scared to sleep there alone, vulnerable to another of Gene’s attacks. Their offer only reinforced her sense that they didn’t believe her story.

  Gene had said that her testimony was crucial and that if she testified that they really had lived at the house at Lake Capri, the whole case would crumble and he’d be acquitted, but they’d never discussed what might happen after she lied on the stand. Now, as her mind roamed through the possibilities, she pondered whether the judge would order a mistrial and she’d get fired for lying on the stand, not to mention destroying the Feds’ case.

  She had no idea what was going to come next.

  Chapter Eight

  Mitigating Circumstances

  On Friday morning, June 26, the Washington Post hit the stands with a headline that read, “FBI Agent Withdraws Charges Against Spouse: Woman Testifies Husband Not Guilty of Theft.” To Margo, it might as well have said, “Agent Lies on Stand.”

  The story cited statements from court papers filed by Gene’s attorney, Reid Weingarten, saying that “the marriage broke up because Marguerite Bennett was having an affair with another woman. That fact, the papers said, also was central to her having made the accusations against her husband.”

>   Even though Margo disagreed with that statement, she was relieved, at least, that Patsy’s identity had not been revealed.

  Brian Gettings and Frank Dunham took Margo back to the courthouse around 9 AM Friday so that they could advise the judge that Margo had given false testimony under duress.

  As they were riding up the escalator, they saw Gene standing at the top, leaning against the wall with an amused smirk.

  “I wonder what that was all about,” Frank said.

  Afterward, Brian told her to go see her doctor, because none of the federal authorities seemed interested in documenting her injuries, which included multiple bruises on her forehead, back, and knees; the cut on the back of her thigh; her numb thumb; and the scalp burns.

  The doctor told her she was lucky she didn’t have more serious problems from the taser.

  “Those things aren’t meant to be used on someone’s head,” he said.

  Margo got to Quantico around three that afternoon, feeling like a leper. When she walked into a room, everyone stopped talking. In the halls, her colleagues looked down or away, anywhere but her eyes.

  After the other instructors left for the weekend, she sat in her empty office, alone with her thoughts.

  Margo was concerned about drawing Patsy any further into this mess and thought it would be best in the long run if she could say she had no ties to the famous author. Margo could only imagine the next set of headlines. She didn’t feel right, knowing she could expose Patsy—and her own family—to more bad press.

  She’d thought her friendship with Patsy would go on for years and years. But since the attack, she’d realized that Gene was going to try to use Patsy to damage her, that he was willing to do anything to make Margo look like a nut who was unfit to raise their children. Given Patsy’s international celebrity status, she thought it was dangerous and foolish to maintain their friendship.

  “This was Virginia,” she later said. “They would not have tolerated a gay relationship like that, with a woman who had two small children. Had I maintained a relationship with Patsy, it would have been harder for me to say ‘I’m not living a gay lifestyle,’ and there was no way I would have gotten custody of my children. I wouldn’t have even gotten visitation rights. So I was willing to take that part of my life and put it on a shelf, because I had to.”