Tragic

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “You said the other guy was Bebnev; how did you know that?” Karp asked. “I thought the killers were wearing ski masks?”

  “They were,” Corcione said. “But Bebnev had these really odd, pale blue eyes and a round head, like a pumpkin sitting on his neck, and he was easy to pick out. He also spoke with an accent.”

  “Do you know what sort of an accent?”

  Corcione shrugged. “I would assume Russian. He was from that community in Brighton Beach and was an associate of Lvov who said he was from Russia. I guess he could have been something else, but that makes the most sense.”

  “So Vitteli has his hands up in the air like this?” Karp said as he demonstrated. “Then you’re saying he saw Carlotta pull a gun, so Vitteli reached and grabbed Carlotta’s arm to stop him?”

  “Yes,” Corcione said, raising his own hands. “I was standing on Vitteli’s right and Vince was on his left. Vitteli is left-handed, so he reached down like this.” The young man simulated dropping his left hand and grabbing someone’s arm.

  “What, if anything, did Vince do when Vitteli grabbed his arm?”

  “He called Vitteli a ‘son of a bitch!’ Those were his words.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Vitteli shouted at Bebnev, ‘Do it!’ ”

  “Did the defendant say anything to Bebnev after he shot the deceased twice?” Karp asked.

  “Yeah, I remember Vitteli told him to take our wallets and watches so that it would look like a robbery,” Corcione replied. “We handed our stuff over and then Bebnev and the other guy ran across the street, got into a car, and raced off.”

  “What did Vitteli do after the killers left?”

  “He made a big show of pretending to help Vince, like trying to give him CPR, though it was pretty clear that Vince was beyond help,” Corcione recalled. “Vitteli’s hands were covered with blood.”

  As Corcione spoke, Karp walked over to the prosecution table and picked up the front page of that day’s Times he’d cut out in his office with the photograph from the night of the murder. “Mr. Corcione, I am handing you the front page of today’s New York Times, marked People’s Exhibit Twenty-Nine for identification,” he said as he walked back up to the witness stand. “Please describe it and tell us if it fairly and accurately depicts the scene as you observed it?”

  “Yes, it does,” Corcione answered after glancing at the page. “It shows Vitteli leaning against a wall of a building next to an alley; Barros and I are on either side of him. Charlie’s got blood on his shirt, and you can see it on his hands and sleeves.”

  “What, if anything, is the defendant holding in his hands?”

  Corcione looked back at the photograph. “I believe that’s a handkerchief he used to try to wipe the blood off his hands.”

  “Have you ever known the defendant to carry a handkerchief?”

  “Pretty much anytime he’s in a suit. He even gets them monogrammed with his initials.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Corcione,” Karp said, holding up his hand to retrieve the front page of the newspaper. “Your Honor, I’m offering People’s Exhibit Twenty-Nine for identification in evidence.”

  As Judge See accepted the new evidence, Karp turned to gauge what was going on over at the defense table. Kowalski looked confused and worried. Vitteli’s eyes registered doubt, fear, and anger. The two of them looked like cornered vermin thinking about fighting their way out of impending disaster, which was just what Karp wanted.

  “Mr. Corcione, do you recall the defendant indicating that he thought he saw other individuals besides the four of you and the two robbers at the scene when Vince Carlotta was shot?”

  “Charlie said he saw some old bag ladies hanging out in the alley. He kind of freaked out. Apparently, he’d had some kind of run-in with them before that night.”

  “Did you see them yourself?”

  “No, Barros and I both looked but we didn’t see anybody. We thought Charlie imagined them.”

  Karp moved closer to Corcione until he was at the front of the jury rail nearest to the witness box so that the jurors would get a good look at his face when he asked the next question. “What if I were to accuse you of working with Joey Barros, but not Charles Vitteli, to steal union money and then murder Vince Carlotta?”

  “That’s not true,” Corcione said angrily. “Vitteli called the shots; we worked for him.”

  “Were you in fact afraid of Joey Barros?”

  “Very.”

  “Did Joey Barros ever threaten you prior to the day you called my office to confess?”

  “Frequently,” Corcione said. “He was very homophobic and liked tormenting me with the crap he’d say. But it was more than just words. I knew that if Vitteli let him, he would have killed me just for the fun of it.”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Kowalski said. “This is highly speculative.”

  Judge See held up his hand to stop Karp from responding. “Gentlemen, please approach the bench and let’s have a sidebar on this.”

  When the attorneys were assembled to the side of his dais away from the jury box, he continued. “Mr. Kowalski, we’ve already had an evidentiary hearing on your pretrial motion regarding the events that happened inside the Corcione apartment that led to the death of Joey Barros and the injuries to Greg Lusk and Jackie Corcione. I granted your motion in limine to prohibit Mr. Karp from bringing up those violent details as matters collateral and highly prejudicial since they were not charged in the indictment. But if you persist in your objection and thereby attempt to mislead this jury, you may very well be opening the door and permit this information to come into evidence and be heard before this jury. Do you really want to do that, Mr. Kowalski?”

  “No, Your Honor, I withdraw my objection.”

  “Very well, return to your places and let’s proceed.”

  31

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING SYD KOWALSKI rose from his chair to cross-examine Jackie Corcione with the expression on his face of a man who’d been given an unpleasant task to perform with someone who couldn’t be trusted to do his part. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his silk suit as he walked out from behind the defense table and shook his head.

  “There’s been a lot of dramatics, alligator tears, and pointing the finger at everyone else here, Mr. Corcione,” he growled, “but I’d like to cut to the chase and get some of this straight in my mind, as well as the minds of these good people on the jury. Let’s start by clarifying exactly who has admitted to stealing money that belonged to the members, and their families, of the North American Brotherhood of Stevedores.”

  “I did.”

  “At the time you started stealing, were you being paid a salary by the union as its chief financial officer and as legal adviser to union chief Charles Vitteli?”

  “I was.”

  “Was it a decent salary?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “But apparently not enough for your lifestyle?”

  “I wanted more than what I could afford, that’s true.”

  “What did this stolen money go toward?”

  Corcione shrugged. “My loft. Clothes. A car. Entertainment.”

  “Entertainment? Theater tickets and extravagant vacations with your homosexual friends?”

  At his seat, Karp noted the disdain in Kowalski’s voice when he said “homosexual.” Such undisguised virulence might not sit well with most of the jurors, but he knew that the defense attorney was fishing for that one juror who didn’t like gays. He’d tried to guard against homophobia during voir dire in jury selection, but it was the sort of aversion a potential juror might not be willing to admit to in a public forum but secretly harbored.

  “Yes, all of those things.”

  “Partying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Illegal drugs?”

  Corcione took a deep breath before letting it out and answering. “In the past, I’ve used cocaine and smoked pot,” he said. “But it’s been a long time.”

  “A l
ong time as in?”

  “More than a year.”

  “A whole year?”

  “Ever since I met Greg.”

  “Greg, your lover.”

  “Yes.”

  Kowalski glanced over at the jury to see how his opening gambit was going. “So you started stealing—what was it you testified, thousands a month?—to support your extravagant lifestyle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, out of the blue, Charlie Vitteli and Joey Barros showed up at your office and said they knew what you’d been up to and now they wanted a piece of the pie . . . only they wanted a much bigger pie?”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “And you decided to go along because you were afraid they’d turn you in and tell your father that you were queer, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you set up this complicated scheme to steal millions of dollars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Charlie Vitteli help you set it up?”

  “No,” Corcione answered. “He wouldn’t have known how.”

  “Right, he’s no financial mastermind, is he?”

  “He’s smart, but no, he didn’t know how offshore banking, dummy corporations, and pass-through accounts worked.”

  “That’s right; according to you he ‘called the shots,’ but only you knew how to actually steal the money and get away with it, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I believe that your testimony is that two board members of this dummy corporation management—supposedly comprised of you, Joey Barros, and the defendant—had to sign in order for this money to be transferred?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But only you and Joey Barros ever signed.”

  “Yes, because—”

  “We’ve heard your explanation—my client was trying to insulate himself—but if he’s being so careful, why have his name on it at all?”

  Corcione shook his head and half smiled as if trying to explain something fairly simple to the village idiot. “If something happened to me or Barros, he’d want to be able to access the accounts.”

  “Or, Mr. Corcione, is it possible that you and Jackie Barros set up these accounts and told my client, Charlie Vitteli, that they were simply union accounts set up for the legitimate investment of union pension funds?”

  Karp’s eyes narrowed. He’d expected the defense to make an attempt to distract the jurors from the facts of the case. So trying to suggest that Vitteli wasn’t involved in the theft of union funds by Corcione and Barros—and therefore had no motive to murder Carlotta—was par for the course.

  Following Corcione’s testimony for the People, Karp had submitted into evidence the paper trail uncovered by ADA V. T. Newbury, the Frauds Bureau chief, under Corcione’s guidance from the Cayman Island banks, to the multiple layers of dummy corporations and investments, right down to the three personal accounts. However, the one missing piece in the trail was that there was no record of Vitteli making any withdrawals on his account; apparently it really was his “retirement account,” waiting for the day he decided he had enough.

  The smoke-and-mirrors ploy was a desperate gamble on the part of the defense. As with the gay-baiting, it was intended to find that one juror more inclined to believe conspiracy theories than facts. But Karp was fine with it; he would expose the ploy for what it was in summations. But for now it played into his goal of backing Vitteli into a corner so that he had no choice but to testify on his own behalf.

  “What? No!” Corcione replied, scowling at the defense attorney’s accusations. “Like I said, Mr. Kowalski, Charlie Vitteli called the shots.”

  “Did Charlie Vitteli make any withdrawals from this supposedly ‘personal’ account?”

  “You know he didn’t,” Corcione countered. “Mr. Karp went over that when he submitted the statements into evidence.”

  Kowalski walked back over to the defense table, where he placed a hand on Vitteli’s shoulder. “Mr. Corcione, you testified that you were VERY afraid of Joey Barros, a man you claim was capable of murder. Were you also VERY afraid of Charlie Vitteli?”

  “I was afraid he might turn me in, or tell my dad I was gay.”

  “I’m not talking about him exposing you as a thief or your homosexuality,” Kowalski sneered. “I mean, were you VERY afraid of Charlie Vitteli in the same way you were VERY afraid of Joey Barros?”

  Corcione looked at Vitteli and shook his head. “No. I thought he probably had enough loyalty to my father that he wouldn’t have wanted to hurt me.”

  Kowalski smiled as if he’d made an important point. “Mr. Corcione, wouldn’t you agree that it makes more sense that the only man you feared in all of this was Joey Barros?”

  “In a physical sense,” Corcione answered. “But Barros only did what Charlie told him to do.”

  “Just a vicious dog doing his master’s bidding, right?”

  “That’s an accurate description, yes.”

  Kowalski patted Vitteli on the shoulder and moved toward the jury with his eyes on their faces. “Mr. Corcione, who met with the triggerman Alexei Bebnev and this alleged Russian gangster, Marat Lvov?”

  “Joey Barros and me.”

  “But not Charlie Vitteli?”

  “No.”

  “Who gave the money to Lvov to pay Bebnev and his cronies?”

  “Barros.”

  “But not Charlie Vitteli.”

  “Charlie told me to give Barros the money.”

  “That’s your story, but there’s no proof of that, is there, Mr. Corcione?”

  “Mr. Kowalski, the proof is what I’ve already told the jurors,” Corcione retorted. “This was no robbery; it was a setup orchestrated by Vitteli. Barros and I worked for him. Why would I have turned myself in and pleaded guilty to manslaughter if this was just a robbery?”

  Kowalski smiled. “Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Corcione, maybe because you heard that Frank DiMarzo was talking and you wanted to get a deal by giving the DA a bigger fish to fry than little ol’ Jackie Corcione.”

  “I didn’t know anything about what Mr. DiMarzo was saying.”

  “No? So it’s just a coincidence that on the same afternoon the district attorney was at Sing Sing penitentiary taking a statement from Frank DiMarzo, you decided to confess as well?”

  “I don’t know if it’s a coincidence,” Corcione said. “I was having trouble dealing with the guilt, and told my boyfriend what I’d done.”

  “Would it surprise you if later, when the defense puts on its case, it’s revealed that a call was placed from Sing Sing to a cell phone registered to Joey Barros while Mr. Karp was at the penitentiary?”

  “No. That makes sense if Charlie had a spy at the penitentiary.”

  Kowalski scoffed. “Wow, Vitteli had more spies than the CIA according to your testimony. The Department of Labor. Sing Sing penitentiary. Is there anywhere the long arm of spymaster Charlie Vitteli didn’t reach?”

  “Apparently not,” Corcione agreed.

  “Then why wouldn’t this spy just call Vitteli? Why only Barros?”

  “Like I said, Charlie likes to insulate himself from any possible repercussions.”

  “Yes, of course. That’s why the only reference to anyone named Charlie in all of the testimony, which you conveniently remembered when the district attorney was questioning your original statement, was some remark this Bebnev supposedly heard as he approached your booth?”

  “I hadn’t remembered that when I gave my statement,” Corcione explained.

  “No, you didn’t,” Kowalski said. “You only ‘remembered’ that—if that’s what you call it—when the district attorney asked you if there was some mention of Charlie Vitteli, and lo and behold, ‘Yeah, Mr. District Attorney, something was said and Bebnev might have heard it.’ ”

  Kowalski angrily pointed his finger at Corcione and said, “The fact of the matter is that when you confessed to the district attorney, more than three hours after Mr. Karp spoke to Frank DiMarzo
at Sing Sing, you didn’t say anything about any conversation regarding Charlie Vitteli’s name coming up when you hired Alexei Bebnev to murder Vince Carlotta, isn’t that right?”

  “I didn’t remember it at first,” Corcione replied quietly.

  “Indeed you didn’t,” Kowalski sneered as he stalked over to the defense table and picked up several pieces of paper, which he held up as he walked back to the witness stand. “I’m referring here to the question-and-answer statement you gave to Mr. Karp AFTER your original confession. This is pages thirty-five through thirty-six, which the jurors will have with them during their deliberations. Question from Mr. Karp: ‘Prior to Mr. Bebnev arriving, did you, Joey Barros, and Marat Lvov have a conversation in which Charlie Vitteli’s name was mentioned?’ Answer: ‘I don’t recall.’ ”

  The defense attorney glared at the witness, who blinked and swallowed hard. “Wasn’t that your answer, Mr. Corcione?”

  “If that’s what it says there,” Corcione replied.

  “That IS what it says here,” Kowalski shot back as he held up the papers. “But then with a little prodding, you suddenly answer: ‘Oh yeah, Lvov asked when the murder was to take place and Joey Barros said something about Mr. Vitteli wanting it done as soon as possible.’ ”

  “But that’s the truth,” Corcione insisted.

  “Is it, Mr. Corcione? Or is it a convenient fabrication by someone hoping to give the district attorney what he wants, the life of Charlie Vitteli?”

  “Objection!” Karp said as he rose to his feet. “Your Honor, if counsel has proof, any evidence at all”—he gestured with his arms akimbo—“that this was a personal vendetta between the defendant and me, let him put it on the record now!”

  “Maybe we should go into your spurious attack at the trial of Alexei Bebnev!” Kowalski shouted back.

  “GENTLEMEN! Not another word!” Judge See demanded. He turned to the stenographer. “Strike that last comment by defense counsel.” Then he scowled at Kowalski. “If the defense has any legitimate, legally admissible evidence regarding these accusations, I’ll allow it. But I will not permit, or tolerate, questionable tactics by either party to be practiced in this courtroom. The jury will disregard the last comment.”