Starting at noon, I would literally count down the hours until I could have a drink. I had trouble remembering the last day I’d gone without one. Stopping or slowing down was never a consideration. In the city, I could pretend it was about fellowship or ritual. Drinking alone at home, or in front of Lisa and the kids, meant hiding refills and being subtle about it.
This afternoon I was amped up, and kept reminding myself on the walk over to have two drinks before I opened my mouth about the conclusion of the Raj case. Two would temper me—would temper us—I thought. At first it went okay. Tired and dispirited, we engaged in strained small talk about weather and the Yanks. But then Nu went for the jugular.
“So, what do you think?” Nu finally popped the $64,000 question after just one drink.
“What do I think?” I feigned ignorance.
“About Raj. Not taking the stand and all.”
“Three days,” I answered, and took a long sip of my cocktail, trying to act casual—as though the subject of our discussion did not chill me to the bone.
“What d’you mean three days?” Nu said.
“In three days, Raj will be remanded to Brooklyn MDC to await sentencing,” I said, taking another large sip to numb myself. “He’s probably looking at fifteen years, which at his age and with his health is a life sentence. So he has three days of freedom left before he steps inside of a prison for the remainder of his life.”
Zvi started laughing, a harsh, forced laugh. Nu smiled along. The rest of Zvi’s drinking-buddy drones laughed too, although I doubt they were sure what they were laughing about.
“Keep dreaming,” Zvi scoffed. “This thing is far from over.”
I hesitated, knowing tensions were only bound to escalate. But I also knew that ignoring Zvi was the only thing worse than disagreeing with him.
When I didn’t instantly respond, Zvi pressed down hard on the accelerator: “What I can’t understand is, why are you going to trial, Michael? If you think we have such a small chance of winning—as you always say—why bother? You’ve got a great deal on the table. Why not take it? They didn’t offer me anything I could take. Five years. If I lose I get six, so there’s no ‘choice’ to make. It’s a no-brainer to go to trial.”
I laughed—I couldn’t help it. This triggered Zvi. He turned red. It also kick-started his jaw muscles into overdrive, like he had just scarfed a gram of cocaine.
“Were we watching the same trial?” I asked. “Dowd and Co. got their asses kicked all over that courtroom. There wasn’t any sleeve ace at the end, either. Just the government scoring point after point. This one’s done. At best, Raj has a 5 percent chance of a hung jury and zero of acquittal. And you know what? The sad thing is … his odds are better than yours.”
This time I was direct, in his face: You’re fucking going to prison, Zvi, and you are dragging me and your brother with you.
Zvi turned claret red, lips snarling. He responded before he checked himself:
“I can’t listen to this nonsense. They’re not going to destroy my life and family without a fight. You may have lost the faith, Mike … and your nerve. But I haven’t. I can’t wait to see the inside of that courtroom. They’re not going to know what hit them. We’re going to blow this bullshit case out of the water and put them on trial. When this is over, the jury is going to laugh the government right out of that courtroom.”
I let Zvi storm off to the other end of the bar. Nu and the crew crept away from me. Silence followed. Whether it was a bathroom break or a time out, Zvi didn’t stroll back for another fifteen minutes.
“You’ve got to keep the faith,” he said, now relatively calm. “You’re giving them way too much credit, Michael. Their whole case is based on a guy who was two for twelve, and one of those stocks, we didn’t even trade! Remember, they’ve got one stock. One! And the Wall Street Journal ran an article right before we bought it saying, in the clearest terms imaginable, that 3Com was in takeover talks with Bain Capital. If that’s not public info I don’t know what is. Their witnesses are absurd! Don’t forget that I lost a total of $50 million or so trading these calls.”
“Raj lost $50. You lost about $7 million.”
“Okay, excuse me! I lost $7 million! And the guy I tipped lost $50 million. Those numbers show what a joke this case is. An insider trading case where the defendant lost millions? That’s a helluva edge!”
These were sentimental arguments. I did not think they would mean much for a jury.
“That stuff counts,” I admitted, “but the law is twisted. And the judges and prosecutors aren’t going to emphasize the losses; they’re going to point out you made $400K in a single day on 3Com. They’re going to play tape after tape of you sounding like you’re conspiring. And they’re going to lie their asses off to make you and your brother sound like complete criminals. It doesn’t even matter anymore. You’ve made your choice. And you know what? I hope you guys break ’em off something. I really do. But I have to live with your choice too. I’m here because of you. I need to do the best I can to present my side, because it’s a lot different than yours and you know that. And six years? That’s your guess, Zvi. I know your lawyers didn’t tell you that. Word on the street is that the real number is eight to ten. And if you go strictly by the guidelines? Then it’s ten to twelve years. There’s a huge difference between five years—home in three—and ten years. Huge for you, your family, and your life. But we’ve had this conversation already. And you’re going forward with the trial, so it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re fuckin’ right I’m going forward,” Zvi said. “If we put the government on trial and highlight the ridiculous errors in this case, we’ll win. There are guys on the government’s side who should be in jail for perjury. There are hundreds of missing wiretap calls the government deleted because they helped our case! There are illegal wiretap calls. The ACLU is going to have a field day when we make this stuff public.”
I shook my head.
“If you were going to get the ACLU involved, the time to do so would have been during the wiretap suppression hearing. You guys didn’t do that. You guys didn’t even flag that the feds accidentally wiretapped an innocent guy in Boston for two months because they had a wrong number! You didn’t do any of that! So it’s irrelevant.”
I for one didn’t have enough money to file my own motion to suppress the taps, and the motion that Zvi’s old lawyer Cynthia had filed was mediocre at best. It had omitted several key points.
“If it was so critical, how come you didn’t weigh in?”
“I’ve got limited funds, and have to pick my battles,” I explained. “The tapes don’t really hurt me. They’re a big problem for you.”
“Yeah, big problem,” Zvi said sarcastically. “Whatever. It will all be fine when I testify.”
“You’re not going to testify,” I scoffed.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I am going to testify. Nobody can explain it better.”
“So what will you say about promising Jenkins $500K in a bag?”
“I was just getting him pumped,” Zvi said. “That’s what I’ll say. It was a figure of speech. Besides, where am I going to get $500K in a bag from?”
“I dunno. Where’d you get $100K from for Shankar?”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s all puffery, see. I was stroking that idiot Jenkins to get him excited and hungry. Five hundred in a bag? Gimme a break.”
Things got quiet for a few seconds while we reloaded drinks. Like fighters on the stool between rounds, we looked away and gathered our thoughts.
“Look,” Zvi said when we began again, “the important thing to remember is that we’re all on the same team. We’re all in the same tent, and we have to make sure we’re pissing out of the tent together. Otherwise, it’s going to be a mess.”
This was the speech his lawyers had given him, both Cynthia and now Barzee. Keep Mike on your side, because for him to defend himself, to proclaim his innocence, he has to contrast himself with you and your br
other and that’s not good for us. Simply put, Zvi understood that my defense could pose a danger to him.
“If you think I’m climbing inside the tent with you and saying we’re one and the same, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
Then, counting off on my fingers, I shouted: “I didn’t have a prepaid phone. I didn’t make any cash payments. I didn’t know Jenkins, Shankar, Cutillo, Santarlas, Drimal, or any of these other fucking lunatic idiots you were speaking to. If you think I’m going to sit quietly and say I did, you need a new lawyer.”
That was it. Zvi had always known, but now he really knew. I was approaching green-eyed, gamma reaction angry, and with the full import of my words now fully dawning on Zvi, his rage began to spike.
“That’s … ” He started stuttering, couldn’t decide how he wanted to finish, and changed gears. “I was the one that lost the most. I put up most of the money for Incremental. The firm still owes me $500K in trading gains. I’m the one that got the least back and is facing the most time!”
“You lost the most money?” I replied in disbelief. “So what? I lost my life and reputation. Everything I’ve worked for since the age of eighteen is gone. Every degree, every dollar. My family is falling apart. And it’s because of you. Had you been a man and walked in and owned up to what you did, I wouldn’t even be here. Your brother might not be here either, and there’s an outside chance Incremental would still be in business. So I don’t want to hear, ‘You lost the most.’”
Zvi took a long breath and then said: “I can’t believe you’re buying into their lies and BS. You let me down, man. I would have done anything for you.”
“Anything but face the music, and tell the truth,” I quietly countered, also trying to tone it down.
This was going to end badly if I stayed. Using the excuse that I needed a refill, I took a timeout and lumbered to an opening at the other end of the bar. My hands were shaking as I ordered a vodka and reached for my phone. I thought, Thank God I convinced him to hire Katten Muchen to oversee the wind-down of Incremental. Granted, they had done little other than drive up a big bill and get our accounts frozen, but eventually they had been able to get us a portion of our capital back in a somewhat equitable fashion. Without a neutral law firm orchestrating the dissolution, Zvi would have transferred all the unfrozen money in the Incremental account right away to his and Nu’s account, leaving me out to twist in the wind.
I got my drink, took a long slug, and walked to the smoker’s ledge overlooking Second Avenue to check my messages. I could see Zvi shouting at his brother, his hand running from cheek to chin over his red face.
Watching Zvi, I experienced powerful new feelings of self-hatred and disgust. Four years of my life dedicated to partnering with a madman … four years, and counting. We had built a massively profitable firm that was supposed to be both my exit from the rat race and a culmination of a lifetime of hard work. Now all of it was washed away. The nausea I felt at that moment wasn’t from drinking on an empty stomach.
I walked the long way around the bar and was soon out the door, unseen, and onto Second Avenue. I headed south to Grand Central. A little bird told me that that was probably the last time Zvi and I would ever speak.
The lunch menus weren’t provided on May 11th, a telltale sign that the Raj jury had reached a verdict.
Surprising everyone, they had deliberated for eleven days. The trial had lasted two months, but each day felt like seventy-two hours. Each day without a verdict crushed me, and created a vacuum in which Zvi could grow bolder and cockier. A lightning-fast guilty verdict might have convinced him to rethink taking a plea. When the best law firm that money could buy … lost, what chance would a broke Brooklyn knucklehead on his fifth lawyer have?
But Zvi was still eyeing a Raj acquittal.
An acquittal would mean, in his mind—and possibly in the minds of the government’s representatives—that these cases truly weren’t triable. A Raj acquittal would have meant that the government, with all the structural advantages and endless resources, had failed. It certainly would have meant a new round of pleas offered, perhaps three years for Zvi, one for Nu, and a big beautiful DP for me.
But the reality was, unless Raj had bought a juror or two (the way Gotti Senior was rumored to have done), there was no chance that was happening. The delay in getting a verdict meant that our own trial was mere days away, and that I had run out of landing strip.
At 10:15 a.m. the jury foreman notified the court that the jury had come to a unanimous decision. Raj, who had lost nearly one hundred pounds since the start of the trial, arrived and took a seat beside his lawyers. The tension was at heart attack levels—with lives, liberty, and careers all on the line.
Then the judge’s deputy, William Donald, announced the counts and rendered the same decision on each.
“Guilty.”
Raj remained mostly stone-faced, but blinked precisely once each time the word “guilty” was spoken aloud. I learned this detail later. I was not in court, but walking up Lexington Ave., when the text from Moe arrived. “Guilty.” One word, but I knew exactly what it meant: an emboldened, triumphant government; no courtroom-steps sweetheart deals for us; and a trial that started the following Monday.
I had an uncontrollable urge to drink, to hunker down and drown my fears in a Rodney Dangerfield “keep ’em coming until someone passes out, and then bring ’em every fifteen minutes” vodka binge. But I knew that would solve nothing. After that final night on the roof at Sutton, I had resolved to stay sober until after the trial. It was Thursday. On Monday morning I would be in the same building that Raj and his $50 million team of lawyers were now walking out of, heads down, having been handed an ass-whupping of epic proportions. In a mere eighty-five hours, those doors would slam shut and it would be me against the mighty, multi-headed leviathan, me against the Goffer brothers, and me against one Judge Richard Sullivan. It was almost game time. In what moments still remained, I needed to stay sharp and focus on prep. There were still things to do.
Nu had transcribed a series of key body-wires recorded at Incremental the morning of Raj’s arrest, which the government had decided to dump on us at the last second. It was yet another dirty trick by the prosecutors, and, in my opinion, it broke the Brady law. (Under that law, they should have included them in the original discovery material shared fifteen months earlier. Brady exists because most cases are resolved by plea, and some defendants would not plea if they knew there was exculpatory evidence out there. Imagine pleading and then finding out after sentencing that there was an eyewitness, tape, or test that cast serious doubt on the prosecution’s case?)
I met Nu on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 44th Street, two blocks north of bustling Grand Central Station. I was hopping a 5:35 p.m. Metro North train home, and Nu was off to Sutton Place to end, or more accurately, begin his night. We exchanged discs. I had a moment of intense panic, scanning the parked cars on the street, imagining an FBI photo surveillance team snapping a series of shots through the tinted window of a navy blue Crown Vic. I had read enough John LeCarre novels to know that a still photo of two people exchanging discs on a street corner always looks like a conspiracy.
“You coming out for one?” Nu asked expectantly.
I told him no.
“Come on, one beer,” Nu implored.
“I don’t think so,” I answered. Nu asked again.
“How about just one? I know Zvi will want to get your opinion on the verdict, and see what you think.”
“I’ve got too much work to do,” I said. “And you know my opinion. You and your brother have known it for months, Nu.”
I looked Nu in the eyes, and we stared at each other for a few seconds.
I had spent many nights with Nu over the last year and genuinely felt for him. He was like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. He was the loyal but decidedly slower younger brother—willfully blind to his much brighter brother’s machinations. But Nu was also likable. He could be hilarious. A doting fath
er with a big heart, a decent person who had trusted his kin. Sometimes the double helix is the toughest dealer of all. Nu didn’t choose to have Zvi Goffer as his older brother. Who knows: had I been in his shoes, I might have done the same things he had.
“Goodbye, Nu, and good luck,” I said, extending my hand.
“You too, bro … and come here,” he said, brushing past my hand to wrap me up in a bear hug. “See you on the other side.”
After a thirty-minute Metro North express train to Larchmont, I was walking home down Palmer Avenue from the station when I received a text message from Nu:
“This is crazy here. There’s like ten FBI agents toasting and celebrating Raj’s verdict on the Rooftop, including Jan Trigg and a few others from our case. Hanging out and eyeballing us right in our f’n backyard!”
It was a warm spring night, and yet I shivered head to toe. The FBI’s choice of Sutton Place for the Raj after-party was too much of a coincidence, and after all the coincidences of the past year, the entire concept of “a coincidence” was becoming hard for me to credit. The feds had to have known that for the last fifteen months, Sutton Place had been the Goffers’ watering hole, their treehouse and temple. Either they had been tailing and observing us on a regular basis, or simply triangulating our phones. We never used a credit card because the drinks were on the house, and we always tipped in cash. Yet the feds clearly knew. Oh yeah, they knew. And here was one final Fuck You from them. One last pre-game psych-out. A giant serving of smack talk right in Zvi’s face. The enemy was dancing on Raj’s grave, right in the house that Zvi built.
I said nothing, shook my head, and called Moe.
“I’m glad I didn’t go.”
“You’re GLAD? You’re fucking lucky as hell, Mike. Had you gone, they would’ve snapped a few pictures of you three retards toasting together and put them up on the whiteboard as the centerpiece of their opening statement.”
“That bad, huh?”
“What’d I tell you about surveillance photos? They do them because people always look guilty in them. We’ve all seen too many TV shows and movies, or read too many spy novels. You can be sitting at Starbucks, reading a paper alone, enjoying a Mocchacino and fantasizing about the hot barista, and in a surveillance photo you look like an double agent awaiting a drop from the KGB. The image of you three clinking beer bottles the day before trial would have been a very bad thing.”
Confessions of a Wall Street Insider Page 26