by Paul Levine
“With a coach or other university employee keeping some of that money, correct?”
“I didn’t know that, and, frankly, once I wrote the check, I wouldn’t have cared.”
“Mr. Kwalick, what did Ringle suggest for your son?”
“At first, the side door at U.S.C. That’s where Craig wanted to go.”
“And how was that to be accomplished?”
“Ringle told us to claim that Craig was an all-conference wing on his prep school water polo team.”
“Was he?”
Kwalick shook his head. “He can barely tread water. Ringle’s staff photoshopped Craig’s headshot on top of a water polo player’s body.”
“Were you concerned about the legality of this plan?”
“Damn right I was. But Ringle said there was no legal difference between paying the university through the back door and what he did through the side door. When I pressed him on it, he said he had an opinion of counsel to that effect.”
“Did he ever show you that opinion?”
“He didn’t. Max was a salesman and a con man, par excellence.” Kwalick scowled. “He told me what I wanted to hear, and I chose to believe it.”
“Did Craig apply to U.S.C.?”
“No. I was afraid he’d spend four years working on his tan. I talked him into applying to Yale, my alma mater. It’s what I always wanted for him.”
“And what ivy-covered door did you knock on at Yale?”
He barked a scornful laugh. “Turned out it was the trap door. Like I said to the prosecutor, I paid Ringle to have the defendant take Craig’s SAT exam. Craig was admitted and doing fine until this whole thing blew up.”
“After Max Ringle was charged in a sealed indictment, he wore a wire and gathered evidence against you, correct?”
“Against me and most of his clients.”
“Ringle will testify later in this trial. Would you believe him under oath?”
“Objection!” Bolden was on her feet. “A witness may not opine on the veracity of another witness.”
“Overruled. The witness may answer as to his impression of Mr. Ringle’s credibility.”
“Would I believe Max Ringle?” Kwalick spit out the words. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Would you believe him once he puts his hand on the Bible and swears to tell the truth?”
“I’m betting the Bible bursts into flames.”
Spectators chuckled, and the jurors tittered.
“Objection!” Bolden called out. “Move to strike as nonresponsive.”
“Granted. The jury shall disregard the witness’s last statement.”
Fine with me. Margaret Bolden had just drawn more attention to Kwalick’s colorful and flammable answer.
“Mr. Kwalick, let’s try again. Would you believe Max Ringle under oath?”
“I wouldn’t believe a word after he states his name. The man is a professional liar.”
I thanked the witness and sat down.
Other parents came and went. A local couple, Manuel and Consuela Diaz, who owned a flower-importing business, had both pled guilty and received supervised release and no jail time. Their daughter, Gloria, whose SAT exam Kip had “corrected” while sitting as a proctor, had been politely asked to leave Georgetown, her credits vacated, her transcript erased.
On direct exam, Consuela talked of the humiliation and personal trauma suffered by her family. She was likeable and sympathetic, and I didn’t see much use in cross-examining, except for a short exchange.
“Ms. Diaz, did your flower business lose money after news of the scandal broke?”
“No, but there are losses greater than money. There is reputación.”
“In fact, didn’t you get a role on a television show precisely because of your notoriety?”
“You’re talking about ‘Las Verdaderas Esposas de Hialeah?’”
“Yes, ‘The Real Housewives of Hialeah’ on Univision. Didn’t I see you in an episode devoted to the scandal where you cried at the injustice of it all?”
She thought a moment before replying. I had the video in case her memory failed her. The episode had a bittersweet moment, a tearful close-up in which she said, “You worked so hard, Gloria, and now my tears of joy are planted with the sugar cane.” Okay, my Spanish is rudimentary, so that might not be exactly what she said.
“The show is part of my therapy,” Consuela Diaz answered, finally.
“So, you don’t get paid?”
“Of course I get paid! It’s hard work.”
Judge Speidel treated me decently throughout the afternoon, especially given my horrendous conduct in chambers. Just before we hung up our saddles for the day, with the jurors already headed for the elevators, Bolden requested a quick conference with the judge.
“Your Honor might have noticed Mr. Lassiter drinking out of an Army canteen during questioning,” Margaret Bolden said.
“I did. So . . .?”
“Yesterday, Your Honor noted a bicycle helmet on the defense table.”
“Yes. Where are you going with this, counsel?”
“Mr. Lassiter also has a book on his table angled so that the jurors can see the title. Pleasure Times Four.”
“What is that, some kind of porn?” The judge sounded suspicious.
“It’s the history of the barbershop quartet in America,” I replied.
“I’m lost. Ms. Bolden, what’s the beef here?”
That made me think of his Stockyard Administration job all over again.
“In voir dire, we learned that juror number two, Mr. Mauti, is an Afghan war veteran,” Bolden said. “Hence, the Army canteen. Mr. Lassiter drank from it while looking directly at Mr. Mauti.”
“But I refrained from saluting him,” I said.
“Number seven, Ms. Zordich, rides her bicycle over a hundred miles a week,” Bolden said. “Hence the helmet. And number eleven, the elderly gentleman, Mr. Prato, sings in a barbershop quartet.”
“Hence the book,” I helped Bolden out.
Judge Speidel sighed his annoyance but didn’t throw his gavel at me.
“Counsel is obviously trying to curry favor with the jury,” Bolden said.
“Obviously,” the judge acknowledged. “Does this work for you in that skid row down by the river, Mr. Lassiter?”
“Sometimes, but it’s challenging finding common ground with every juror. The one that nearly stumped me was a proctologist.”
“Enough.” Judge Speidel glared at me. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Your Honor, please admonish counsel to cease using props in view of the jury.”
“I’ll do that if she’ll agree not to call Max Ringle, who the government’s own witness calls a ‘professional liar.’”
“Pipe down, both of you. Ms. Bolden, there’s nothing in the rules that covers this. Mr. Lassiter is free to put a lace tablecloth and a silver tea set on the defense table if he wants to. But you are also free in closing argument to comment on his shameless conduct. I won’t rein you in on that.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” she said.
“I’m down with that, Your Honor,” I agreed. “Fighting like hell for my client never shames me.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The Parade of the Rich and the Wicked
The next day, I mostly kept quiet as the government drove a little yellow car into the ring, and out tumbled a dozen clowns. Okay, that’s not quite accurate. The government paraded a string of wealthy, well-dressed, totally amoral, and thoroughly unlikeable parents into court. Yes, even more folks who paid Max Ringle to swindle their kids into elite universities. They were part of the case because Kip had either taken their kids’ tests as an imposter or corrected them as a proctor.
There wasn’t a lot of cross examining to do. The parents told the truth. Some expressed remorse, a common theme being, “I loved Dexter too much.” Or, “Some parents say they’d take a bullet for their child. I did prison time for mine.” That
was a dad who served three weeks at a Club Fed and tried to sound like Al Capone in Alcatraz.
But some parents found others to blame, often the ritzy private high schools where their children matriculated or just vegetated. A mother from Los Angeles struck that note, saying, “I paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Princeton-Eastlake, and they breached their contract to get Nikki into Cornell.”
There was the father from Palm Beach who blamed the elite universities for his predicament. “You can’t believe the stress they put on my son. Grade point average, test scores, extracurriculars. It’s too much. It’s too damn much!”
I asked that fellow one question. “Is it safe to assume that you don’t know any families whose kids work after school to earn their lunch money?”
“Of course not. What kind of a question is that, anyway?”
The crippling pressure of the admissions process was a common theme, with the parents whining that it was simply unfair. “We’re required to lay out enormous sums of money,” sniveled a tech mogul from Santa Clara, California. “It’s a poll tax on rich white people.”
A class action lawyer from New York complained that his daughter broke out in hives during conventional SAT exam prep. Naturally, he planned to file—what else?—a class action against the College Board for infliction of mental distress. The owner of an Internet marketing company sounded off because his son’s low score forced him to repeat the ACT, causing the family to cancel a month-long vacation to Bali and forfeit the deposit on a chartered jet.
On cross, I played clips of the government’s recordings, choosing highlights that revealed the parents at their most clueless.
“I just want a level playing field, and this is it,” said a mother from Scottsdale, Arizona. “This is affirmative action for trust funders.”
Whispers of disapproval rippled through the gallery along with the shaking of heads. Even better, several jurors looked appalled.
Many parents complained about a “rigged system” that favored minorities. One mother from San Francisco with her heart set on Berkeley wanted to claim Asian heritage for her daughter because the child’s great-great-grandfather had been a missionary in China. Not an Asian missionary, but rather a Protestant minister from Massachusetts who lived in China. She nixed the plan after learning that one-third of all students at Berkeley were legitimately Asian, and they received no preferential treatment.
I wondered about the effect on the kids when they heard their parents’ voices on the tapes or read the transcripts in the news media. Speaking to Ringle on a tapped line, one father laughed heartily and said, “Tell Stanford that Peter will walk-on at linebacker. Don’t mention that a stiff breeze could blow the kid over!” Then there was the mother who paid an extra $25,000 to have Ringle’s psychologist write a report getting her daughter into the special needs room where Kip would proctor. “I wish Mira really had A.D.H.D., but truth is, she’s just plain stupid.”
Even Judge Speidel raised his bushy eyebrows at that one.
In my Department of Warped Values, the prizewinner was Harman Fisher of Aspen and Star Island, Miami Beach, a guy who considered himself a genius because he’d had an inside track to buying Apple stock with inherited money when the company went public in 1980. He strode briskly to the witness stand with a sneer on his lips, wearing his arrogance like his tailored Italian suit.
The government recorded him saying, “If a father with the financial wherewithal fails to help his kids this way, he’s guilty of child abuse. I did it for both my boys, and I hope they do the same when they’re fathers.”
I decided to ask the thoughtful guy a question or two.
“What about teaching your kids the value of integrity?”
“Seems to me, Mr. Lassiter, you didn’t do such a good job with that yourself.”
Ouch! That stings.
I kept my face placid and my tone soft as I tried to spin the insult into something positive. “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Fisher, and I hope the jury takes my failures into account when deciding my nephew’s fate.”
“Mr. Lassiter!” the judge thundered. “Please confine yourself to asking questions, and the witness shall confine himself to answering them.”
“I’ll try again,” I said. “What about teaching your kids the value of integrity?”
“Better to teach them it’s a dog-eat-dog world. You can always have integrity after you’ve made it.”
“As you’ve done?”
His face reddened and he wagged a finger at me. “My integrity is my balance sheet, and it could buy and sell you a hundred times.”
A soft whoosh swept through the gallery. A couple jurors shook their heads. Unless the witness took a dump on the clerk’s desk, I didn’t think I could make him look or sound any worse, but I decided to try.
“Now, Mr. Fisher, you’re a convicted felon, aren’t you?”
“I pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to get the feds off my back.” He shot a furious look at Bolden. He was angry at her for bringing him into court and at me for questioning his sterling character.
“You pled guilty because you were guilty, correct?”
“I helped my boys, so yeah, call me a felon. I paid a seven-hundred thousand dollar fine out of petty cash, and I served thirty days at Eglin. The food’s lousy, and the tennis courts need resurfacing.”
“Not up to the standards of your homes on Red Mountain and Star Island?”
Again, he shook a finger at me. “I get it. I’m rich, and you’re not, and the jury’s not. So, let’s hate the rich guy and his spoiled kids.”
An amazingly accurate description of my strategy.
“You seem to believe you did nothing wrong,” I said, still trying to provoke him. “But, in fact, you stood in this very courtroom, confessed your guilt, then begged for mercy, correct?”
“I don’t beg!” He turned toward the bench. “Judge, do I have put up with this brain-dead shyster?”
A low murmur rumbled through the packed courtroom. One or two spectators laughed.
Calmly but firmly, Judge Speidel replied, “You shall answer Mr. Lassiter’s questions unless I sustain an objection thereto.”
Fisher cleared his throat and said, “I pled guilty because my lawyers told me to. No one will ever convince me I did anything wrong.”
“Would that belief extend to my client?” I asked, as pleasantly as a brain-dead shyster can. “In helping your boys, is Kip Lassiter also blameless?”
Bolden leapt to her feet. “Objection! Irrelevant what the witness believes about the law.”
“Overruled. The witness may answer.”
Harman Fisher’s short fuse was burning down. He leveled a malevolent glare at me. “I think he’s a punk kid who ought to do thirty years of hard time, and when he’s there, I hope he gets passed around like a candy bar from one gangbanger to the next.”
Several jurors gasped, and a wave of whispers rolled through the gallery. A good lawyer knows when to stop. With a pleasant smile and an amiable tone, I said, “Mr. Fisher, thank you for your time and your illuminating answers.” Then I turned to Bolden and, with malice in my heart, said, “I tender your witness back to you, counselor.”
She wanted nothing more to do with him, and we all went home for the day.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Summa Cum Fraud
I was well-rested and focused the next morning when the government put on its hit list of spoiled, rotten kids. Oh, excuse me, the “young people who are as much victims of Mr. Lassiter’s scheme as the universities themselves.” That was Margaret Bolden’s description.
Unlike their parents, none of the kids in any of the cases nationwide was charged with a crime. They had all been tossed from their universities, their admissions rescinded, and their credits vacated. Their transcripts disappeared like the biographies of out of favor North Korean officials whose last bus ride was to a desolate coal mine. To heal their wounded feelings, many took European jaunts or went into therapy for, of all
things, PTSD. The therapy was mostly at ritzy rehab resorts in Vail and Malibu.
Silly me, I thought that some of these jackasses would be sweating their butts off, pouring hot tar on roofs for AmeriCorps. But I had misjudged just how much the kids enjoyed using their parents’ connections for chauffeured rides down easy street.
The young and the shiftless.
Predictably, some had found ways to profit from their perfidy. Contrary to the government’s position that daddy’s little darlings were victims, I intended to prove that these unindicted coconspirators were making careers out of their academic misadventures.
Craig Kwalick, the young scholar from Yale whose father had testified, turned out to be a pleasant young man with a dark mop of curly hair and an easy smile. He wore black jeans and a burgundy jacket of lightweight leather with a T-shirt underneath. On direct exam, he told Bolden that yes, Kip Lassiter had taken the SAT for him.
On cross, I asked Craig whether he was satisfied with my nephew’s services.
He shot a look at Kip and smiled with admiration. “Dude nailed it.”
“And subsequently, Yale expelled you and erased the credits you’d earned, correct?”
“Yeah, and I was passing all my courses. It’s not like I’m stupid.”
“Before you applied to Yale, you applied to U.S.C. as a champion water polo player, correct?”
“Yeah.”
I asked the judge for permission to approach the witness, then handed him a photo of a muscular young man leaping out of the water, right hand gripping a white ball.
“Is that you, Mr. Kwalick?”
He grinned and said, “Half me. It’s my face superimposed on the body of a water polo player.”
“Kip Lassiter had nothing to do with that, correct?”
“Right. Ringle’s staff photoshopped it.”
“Did you have any qualms about fabricating your qualifications?”